Our SE Seminar takes place each week to present the work of SE group members and invited speakers. Attendance is open to everybody. Feel free to propose new seminars. Contact Golnaz to arrange a talk.
Tuesday November 8, 2011, 11 am, debugging room (BA3234)
Living IT-Landscape Models - Automation Techniques for Enterprise Architecture Model Maintenance
Abstract: Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) is the practice of modeling the business and IT artifacts in an enterprise and relating them with each other. By documenting these interdependencies between business and the supporting IT, strategic decisions can be made towards a planned and consolidated enterprise architecture that matches the business needs. However, enterprise architecture models can grow very large, thus making the manual creation and maintenance of these models a difficult and time consuming task. This talk introduces the research project "Living IT-Landscape Models" that has the aim of automating the maintenance of EA models by collecting information from both runtime information sources as well as manual input and integrating the consolidated data into the EA model.
Short Bio: Matthias Farwick has received his MSc in Computer Science at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, in 2010. He has worked in several research projects in the area of model-driven security configuration and access control in the US, Canada and China. Currently, he pursues his PhD studies at the University of Innsbruck in the area of automated Enterprise Architecture model maintenance and works as a consultant in the field of IT-Landscape management for QE-LaB Business Services.
Thursday March 17th, 1 pm, debugging room (3234)
Analyzing Goal Models – Different Approaches and How to Choose Among Them Jennifer Horkoff & Eric Yu
SAC'11 RE Track
ABSTRACT:
A great variety of techniques for analyzing goal models in requirements
engineering have been proposed in recent years. Approaches include
propagating goal satisfaction values, computing metrics over models,
finding acceptable models using planning algorithms, simulating model
behavior, and checking formal properties over a model. From a practical
viewpoint, this diversity creates a barrier for widespread adoption of
such techniques. Recognizing the lack of guidance to the literature and
how to choose among these techniques, this paper offers a first attempt
to organize this body of knowledge and suggest initial guidelines on
choice of techniques to meet users' analysis objectives.
Thursday March 17th, 2 pm, debugging room (3234)
Requirements Trade-offs Analysis in the Absence of Quantitative Measures: A Heuristic Method Golnaz Elahi & Eric Yu
SAC'11 RE Track
ABSTRACT:
Simultaneously satisfying multiple interacting and possibly conflicting
software requirements is challenging. Quantitative cost-benefit analysis
of alternative solutions is often hard or biased, and early decisions
based on numerical estimates of requirements satisfaction are thus
unreliable. We propose a trade-off analysis method that assists decision
making in the absence of numerical data. We structure the requirements
trade-off problem in terms of a goal model containing alternative design
solutions and decision criteria. We propose a trade-off analysis
algorithm that takes pairwise comparisons of alternatives and determines
the best solution among alternatives.
The optimum alternative is decided by using a heuristic method, which
may need to consult with domain experts. We take advantage of the Even
Swaps method to incorporate stakeholders' preferences into the decision
analysis.
The algorithm is implemented in a prototype tool and evaluated in an
industrial case study.
Friday Feb 4th, 2 pm, debugging room (3234)
Agent Oriented Software Engineering Applications Vera Maria B. Werneck
Abstract: The Agent Oriented Software Engineering Project has been developed in Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) in cooperation with York University. This research aims at studying and comparing agent-oriented software development methods and techniques evaluate some methodologies and language methods (Gaia, MESSAGE, Tropos, Adelfe, MAS-CommonKADS, MaSE, Prometheus, Ingenius, KAOS, AUML) based on attributes and norms and by the models construction based on an exemplar. These experiments enabled the development and construction of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) applying this technology in practical and real applications in Health and Education Domains. The Glycemic Monitor System based on the Guardian Angel for aiding the diabetes treatment, the Educ-MAS (Education Multi-Agent System), a learning education environment with multi-agents helping the teaching process on a specific topic, and the VR-Agent, a serious game to improve cognitive functions in patients with neuropsychiatric disorders are three examples of MAS that have been developed. This project also interacts with the Requirements Engineering group of Professor Julio Leite at PUC-Rio in the study of modelling Non-Functional Requirements using Agent and Goal oriented paradigms. .
Vera Werneck is a Professor in Computer Science at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Her research focuses on software engineering, software quality, expert systems, medical systems, and goal-oriented and agent-oriented methodologies. She has done comparative evaluations of various agent-oriented methodologies including i*/Tropos and MASE, and has applied them to diverse application domains, including intelligent agents in 3D virtual environments.
Professor Werneck was a graduate in Mathematics (Informatics emphasis) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1982). She obtained her Master's (1990) and Ph.D. (1995) in Computer Science from the same university. In 2003-2004, she was a post-doctoral fellow at York University, Toronto, Canada.
Monday, Feb 14th, 2pm, debugging room (3234)
Feature Modeling the Belgian way
Arnaud Hubaux, FUNDP
Abstract. This talk is about evaluating and improving existing FBC techniques to ease their uptake by practitioners, possibly beyond the SPL domain. The FD is considered here as a generic constraint language that is used to (1) capture the variability in the configuration domain, and (2) structure, control and analyse the configuration activity, i.e. supervise the configuration activity. Our contribution is a set of flexible and dependable FBC techniques. In essence, we provide support for the specification of the configuration process, the identification of heterogeneous viewpoints, and the decomposition of the configuration space into dedicated configuration views. For each of these mechanisms, we provide a formal semantics and define mathematical properties that can serve as indicators, validity or satisfiability checks. We also intend to translate these properties into algorithms that will then be integrated into the tool chain developed by our lab.
Thursday, October 28th, 1pm, debugging room (3234)
Interactive Goal Model Analysis Applied - Systematic Procedures versus Ad hoc Analysis, Jennifer Horkoff
Abstract. Intentional modeling, capturing the goals of stakeholders, has
been proposed as a means of early system elicitation and design for an
enterprise, focusing on social and strategic requirements. It is often
assumed that more utility can be gained from goal models by applying
explicit analysis over models, but little work has been devoted to
understand how or why this occurs. In this work we test existing
hypotheses concerning interactive goal model analysis via multiple case
studies. Previous results have indicated that such analysis increases
model iteration, prompts further elicitation, and improves domain
knowledge. Results of the new studies do not provide strong evidence to
support these claims, showing that such benefits, when they occur, can
occur both with systematic and ad-hoc model analysis. However, the
results reveal other benefits of systematic analysis, such as a more
consistent interpretation of the model, more complete analysis, and the
importance of training.
Wed, November 10th, 2pm, debugging room (3234)
Ivan Jureta, FNDP/Université de Namur
Techne: Towards a New Generation of Requirements Modeling Languages with Goals, Preferences, and Inconsistency Handling
Techne is an abstract requirements modeling language that lays formal foundations for new modeling languages applicable during early phases of the requirements engineering process. During these phases, the requirements problem for the system-to-be is being structured, its candidate solutions described and compared in terms of how desirable they are to stakeholders. We motivate the need for Techne, introduce it through examples, and sketch its formalization.