Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

In this paper we propose a modeling and design approach for building physical hypermedia applications, i.e. those mobile applications in which physical and digital objects are related and explored using the hypermedia paradigm. We show that by separating the geographical and domain concerns we gain in modularity, and evolution ease. We first review the state of the art of this kind of software systems, arguing about the need of a systematic modeling approach; we next present a light extension to the OOHDM design approach, incorporating physical objects and ”walkable” links; next we generalize our approach and show how to improve concern separation and integration in hypermedia design models. We compare our approach with others in the field of physical and ubiquitous hypermedia and in the more generic software engineering field. Some concluding remarks and further work are finally presented.

Semi-structured data sources, such as XML, HTML or CSV files, present special problems when performing data integration. In addition to the hierarchical structure of the semistructured data, the data integration must deal with the redundancy in semi-structured data, where the same fact may be repeated in a data source, but should map into a single fact in a global integrated schema. We term semi-structured data containing such redundancy as being an unnormalised data source, and we define a normal form for semi-structured data that may be used when defining global schemas. We introduce special functions to relate object identifiers used in the global data model to object identifiers in unnormalised data sources, and demonstrate how to use these functions in query processing, update processing and integration of these data sources.

Over the last few years, Web-based systems became commonplace. Despite the complexity and the economic significance of such applications, current practice does not always apply robust and well-understood principles. Model driven architecture (MDA) separates the application logic from the underlying platform technology and represents them with precise semantic models. Web application development therefore has potentially the most to gain from adopting such techniques that can offer a greater return on development time and quality factors than traditional approaches. In particular, the paper presents model-driven transformations between platform-independent (conceptual descriptions of Web applications) and platform-specific (Model-View-Controller conformant) models. The design of such transformations is documented (and possibly animated) through mathematically rigorous specifications given by means of Abstract State Machines.

Software Product Line (SPL) Engineering has proved to be an effective method for software production. However, in the SPL community it is well recognized that variability in SPLs is increasing by the thousands. Hence, an automatic support is needed to deal with variability in SPL. Most of the current proposals for automatic reasoning on SPL are not devised to cope with extra–functional features. In this paper we introduce a proposal to model and reason on an SPL using constraint programming. We take into account functional and extra–functional features, improve current proposals and present a running, yet feasible implementation.

This paper presents MODEST, a M eth OD to h E lp S ystem T esting. MODEST can reduce the overall effort required during software construction, using an extended design specification produced in a UP-like software process. This specification is used to automate test generation and execution, decreasing the effort required during test activities. The method deals with Information Systems that follow an architecture composed of a user interface layer, a business rule layer and a storage mechanism abstracted by a persistence layer.

In software product family engineering reusable artifacts are produced during domain engineering and applications are built from these artifacts during application engineering. Modeling variability of current and future applications is the key for enabling reuse. The proactive reuse leads to a reduction in development costs and a shorter time to market. Up to now, these benefits have been realized for the constructive development phases, but not for testing. This paper presents the ScenTED technique ( Scen ario based TE st case D erivation), which aims at reducing effort in product family testing. ScenTED is a model-based, reuse-oriented technique for test case derivation in the system test of software product families. Reuse of test cases is ensured by preserving variability during test case derivation. Thus, concepts known from model-based testing in single system engineering, e.g., coverage metrics, must be adapted. Experiences with our technique gained from an industrial case study are discussed and prototypical tool support is illustrated.

Work in software reuse focuses on reusing artifacts. In this context, finding a reusable artifact is driven by a desired functionality. This paper proposes a change to this common view. We argue that it is possible and necessary to also look at reuse from a non-functional (quality) perspective. Combining ideas from reuse, from goal-oriented requirements, from aspect-oriented programming and quality management, we obtain a goal-driven process to enable the quality-based reusability.

Software package selection can be seen as a process of matching the products available in the marketplace with the requirements stated by an organization. This process may involve hundreds of requirements and products and therefore we need a framework abstract enough to focus on the most important factors that influence the selection. Due to their strategic nature, goal-oriented models are good candidates to be used as a basis of such a framework. They have demonstrated their usefulness in contexts like early requirements engineering, organizational analysis and business process reengineering. In this paper, we identify three different types of goal-oriented models useful in the context of package selection when some assumptions hold. Market segment models provide a shared view to all the packages of the segment; software package models are derived from them. The selection can be seen as a process of matching among the organizational model and the other models; in our proposal this matching is lightweight, since no model checking is performed. We define our approach rigorously by means of a UML conceptual data model.

Our objective is to design a metric that can be used to measure the size of projects that install and configure COTS stand-alone software, firmware and hardware components. We call these IT infrastructure, as these components often form the foundation of the information system that is built on top of it. At the moment no accepted size metric exists for the installation and configuration of stand-alone software, firmware and hardware components. The proposed metric promises to be a viable instrument to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of IT infrastructure projects.