This thesis presents research to build and evaluate embedding of a textual form of state machines into high-level programming languages. The work entailed adding state machine syntax and code generation to the Umple model-oriented programming technology. The added concepts include states, transitions, actions, and composite states as found in the Unified Modeling Language (UML). This approach allows software developers to take advantage of the modeling abstractions in their textual environments, without sacrificing the value added of visual modeling. Our efforts in developing state machines in Umple followed a test-driven approach to ensure high quality and usability of the technology. We have also developed a syntax-directed editor for Umple, similar to those available to other high-level programming languages. We conducted a grounded theory study of Umple users and used the findings iteratively to guide our experimental development. Finally, we conducted a controlled experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach. By enhancing the code to be almost as expressive as the model, we further support model-code duality; the notion that both model and code are two faces for the same coin. Systems can be and should be equally-well specified textually and diagrammatically. Such duality will benefit both modelers and coders alike. Our work suggests that code enhanced with state machine modeling abstractions is semantically equivalent to visual state machine models. The flow of the thesis is as follows; the research hypothesis and questions are presented in “Chapter 1: Introduction”. The background is explored in “Chapter 2: Background”. “Chapter 3: Syntax and semantics of simple state machines” and “Chapter 4: Syntax and semantics of composite state machines” investigate simple and composite state machines in Umple, respectively. “Chapter 5: Implementation of composite state machines” presents the approach we adopt for the implementation of composite state machines that avoids explosion of the amount of generated code. From this point on, the thesis presents empirical work. A grounded theory study is presented in “Chapter 6: A Grounded theory study of Umple”, followed by a controlled experiment in “Chapter 7: Experimentation”. These two chapters constitute our validation and evaluation of Umple research. Related and future work is presented in “Chapter 8: Related work”.

[pt] Composição de modelos desempenha um papel fundamental em muitas atividades de engenharia de software como, por exemplo, evolução e reconciliação de modelos conflitantes desenvolvido em paralelo por diferentes times de desenvolvimento. Porém, os desenvolvedores têm dificuldades de realizar análises de custos e benefícios, bem como entender o real esforço de composição. Sendo assim, eles são deixados sem qualquer conhecimento prático sobre quanto é investido; além das estimativas de evangelistas que frequentemente divergem. Se o esforço de composição é alto, então os potenciais benefícios tais como aumento de produtividade podem ser comprometidos. Esta incapacidade de avaliar esforço de composição é motivada por três problemas: (i) as abordagens de avaliação atuais são inadequadas para mensurar os conceitos encontrados em composição, por exemplo, esforço e conflito; (ii) pesquisadores não sabem quais fatores podem influenciar o esforço de composição na prática. Exemplos de tais fatores seriam linguagem de modelagem e técnicas de composição que são responsáveis para manipular os modelos; (iii) a falta de conhecimento sobre como tais fatores desconhecidos afetam o esforço de composição. Esta tese, portanto, apresenta uma abordagem de avaliação de esforço de composição de modelos derivada de um conjunto de estudos experimentais. As principais contribuições são: (i) um modelo de qualidade para auxiliar a avaliação de esforço em composição de modelos; (ii) conhecimento prático sobre o esforço de composição e o impacto de fatores que afetam tal esforço; e (iii) diretivas sobre como avaliar esforço de composição, minimizar a propensão a erros, e reduzir os efeitos negativos dos fatores na prática de composição de modelos. / [en] Model composition plays a central role in many software engineering activities such as evolving models to add new features and reconciling conflicting design models developed in parallel by different development teams. As model composition is usually an error-prone and effort-consuming task, its potential benefits, such as gains in productivity can be compromised. However, there is no empirical knowledge nowadays about the effort required to compose design models. Only feedbacks of model composition evangelists are available, and they often diverge. Consequently, developers are unable to conduct any cost-effectiveness analysis as well as identify, predict, or reduce composition effort. The inability of evaluating composition effort is due to three key problems. First, the current evaluation frameworks do not consider fundamental concepts in model composition such as conflicts and inconsistencies. Second, researchers and developers do not know what factors can influence the composition effort in practice. Third, practical knowledge about how such influential factors may affect the developers effort is severely lacking. In this context, the contributions of this thesis are threefold: (i) a quality model for supporting the evaluation of model composition effort, (ii) practical knowledge, derived from a family of quantitative and qualitative empirical studies, about model composition effort and its influential factors, and (iii) insight about how to evaluate model composition efforts and tame the side effects of such influential factors.

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Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-12T16:00:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 arquivo7075_1.pdf: 5003439 bytes, checksum: 070d65264679c7bfd03fc912be7cc61f (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / A indústria de software tem sido cada vez mais desafiada a melhorar suas praticas de engenharia com o objetivo de oferecer produtos de forma mais rápida e confiável. Assim, as práticas de desenvolvimento de software sofreram significativas mudanças nos últimos anos, uma vez que novas e acessíveis estratégias tem sido aplicadas de forma a alcançar tal desafio. Neste contexto, Engenharia de Linhas de Produto de Software surgiu como uma estratégia de engenharia de software destinada a fornecer à indústria oportunidades para alcançar os objetivos de negócio acima mencionados. No entanto, para garantir o retorno do investimento com uma abordagem de Linhas de Produto de Software, um processo de derivação de produtos bem definido é muito importante. Sem esse processo, os produtos podem ser instanciados de maneira não sistemática, aumentando o tempo e o custo de produção. Por outro lado, mesmo com esta relevância, quando comparado com a grande quantidade de pesquisas em desenvolvimento sobre linhas de produtos, relativamente poucos trabalhos tem sido dedicados ao processo de Derivação de Produtos. Alêm disso, ainda existem poucos relatórios disponíveis sobre como as organizações de desenvolvimento de software derivam seus produtos a partir de uma linha de produtos, e, em geral, os existentes têm sido realizados como estudos informais, sem rigor científico suficiente, tornando difícil a sua repetição e validação. Assim, esta dissertação tem como objetivo obter uma melhor compreensão sobre como derivação do produto é realizada e quais práticas são utilizadas na indústria. Reunimos descobertas através de dois estudos de caso realizados na indústria. Alem disso, as evidências obtidas a partir dos estudos de caso, foram comparados entre os casos através da análise Cross-case, com o objetivo de identificar padrões entre eles. A definição do estudo e relatório foram estruturados com base nas diretrizes consolidadas para estudos empíricos de acordo com orientações bem definidas, o que permite a replicação dos estudos e extensão

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-11T14:03:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luis Jorge Enrique Rivero Cabrejos.pdf: 6587426 bytes, checksum: 089733fd8799984279076721cca2ad48 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-03-20 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Despite the increasing number of usability inspection methods for Web applications, most of these methods are being applied in later stages of the development process, which increases the cost of correcting the identified problems. This master degree thesis presents the Web Design Usability Evaluation (Web DUE) technique, a technique that was specifically crafted for the usability inspection of paper based prototypes (or mockups). The Web DUE technique aims at aiding inspectors in the identification of usability problems in earlier stages of the development process, thus reducing the cost of correcting them. To achieve this goal, the Web DUE technique suggests to divide mockups into Web page zones and, using a set of usability verification items, to check if the interface is usable or presents usability problems. To simulate interaction between the mockups and the user, and to support usability problems detection, we created the Mockup DUE tool. Both, the creation of the Web DUE technique and Mockup DUE tool, were supported by empirical validation. In this dissertation we present: (a) how we created the Web DUE technique based on the analysis of the results of a systematic mapping extension; (b) the feasibility study of the technique; (c) how the results from the empirical study helped in the creation of the Mockup DUE tool; (d) the feasibility study of the Mockup DUE tool; and (e) the evolution of the proposed technologies for the inspection of Web mockups. / Apesar do aumento do número de métodos de inspeção de usabilidade de aplicações Web, a maioria destes métodos só é aplicada nas últimas etapas do processo de desenvolvimento, aumentando o custo de correção dos problemas encontrados. Esta dissertação de mestrado apresenta a técnica Web Design Usability Evaluation (Web DUE), uma técnica específica para inspeções de usabilidade de protótipos em papel (ou mockups). A técnica Web DUE tem por finalidade apoiar os inspetores na identificação de problemas de usabilidade durante as primeiras etapas do processo de desenvolvimento, visando assim à redução dos custos de correção dos mesmos. Para atingir esse objetivo, a técnica Web DUE sugere a divisão dos mockups em zonas de páginas Web e a avaliação de usabilidade dos mesmos com base em um conjunto de itens de verificação. Para simular a interação entre os mockups e o usuário e apoiar a detecção de defeitos de usabilidade, foi criada a ferramenta Mockup DUE. Tanto a técnica Web DUE quanto a ferramenta Mockup DUE tiveram sua construção e avaliação apoiada por experimentação. Esta dissertação apresenta: (a) como a técnica Web DUE foi elaborada com base na análise da extensão de um mapeamento sistemático; (b) o estudo de viabilidade da técnica Web DUE; (c) a criação da ferramenta Mockup DUE com base nos resultados do primeiro estudo de viabilidade da técnica; (d) o estudo de viabilidade da ferramenta Mockup DUE; e (e) a evolução das tecnologias propostas para a inspeção de mockups de aplicações Web.

The emerging industrial trend towards agile software development processes brings forth new concerns, challenges as well as opportunities. One of the main concerns is with respect to the achievable quality levels of the final product, for which testing is the well-known assurance mechanism. However, it is not well defined for the community on how to perform testing using existing expertise in an agile environment. This uncertainty may create confusion and contra productivity that can lead to testing teams and their practices considered as an obstacle for full implementation of agile processes within an organisation.   This thesis outlines our current research activities towards identifying and addressing important organisational and technical challenges in the agile environment.  In this context, we propose a new role for traditional testers which will enable them to integrate into the agile team as well as to fully exploit their knowledge in the new context. We have conducted an elaborate industrial survey on the preferences and practices with respect to the contemporary aspects of software testing and identified test-driven development as an important technical area for improvement.  A systematic review on empirical evidences related to test-driven development was performed subsequently, which revealed a list of factors limiting its widespread industrial acceptance. Knowledge of testing was identified as one of those factors and was further investigated in a controlled experiment performed with undergraduate students.   Our future works aim to confirm these research findings in wider as well as industrial settings and investigate other limiting factors in detail, with the aim of providing guidelines for achieving better utilisation of testers and testing practices.

Large software organizations handle many customer support issues every day in the form of bug reports, feature requests, and general misunderstandings as submitted by customers. Strategies to gather, analyze, and negotiate requirements are comple- mented by efforts to manage customer input after products have been deployed. For the latter, support tickets are key in allowing customers to submit their issues, bug re- ports, and feature requests. Whenever insufficient attention is given to support issues, there is a chance customers will escalate their issues, and escalation to management is time-consuming and expensive, especially for large organizations managing hundreds of customers and thousands of support tickets. This thesis provides a step towards simplifying the job for support analysts and managers, particularly in predicting the risk of escalating support tickets. In a field study at our large industrial partner, IBM, a design science methodology was employed to characterize the support process and data available to IBM analysts in managing escalations. Through iterative cycles of design and evaluation, support analysts’ expert knowledge about their customers was translated into features of a support ticket model to be implemented into a Ma- chine Learning model to predict support ticket escalations. The Machine Learning model was trained and evaluated on over 2.5 million support tickets and 10,000 escalations, obtaining a recall of 79.9% and an 80.8% reduction in the workload for support analysts looking to identify support tickets at risk of escalation. Further on- site evaluations were conducted through a tool developed to implement the Machine Learning techniques in industry, deployed during weekly support-ticket-management meetings. The features developed in the Support Ticket Model are designed to serve as a starting place for organizations interested in implementing the model to predict support ticket escalations, and for future researchers to build on to advance research in Escalation Prediction. / Graduate

This thesis presents research to build and evaluate embedding of a textual form of state machines into high-level programming languages. The work entailed adding state machine syntax and code generation to the Umple model-oriented programming technology. The added concepts include states, transitions, actions, and composite states as found in the Unified Modeling Language (UML). This approach allows software developers to take advantage of the modeling abstractions in their textual environments, without sacrificing the value added of visual modeling. Our efforts in developing state machines in Umple followed a test-driven approach to ensure high quality and usability of the technology. We have also developed a syntax-directed editor for Umple, similar to those available to other high-level programming languages. We conducted a grounded theory study of Umple users and used the findings iteratively to guide our experimental development. Finally, we conducted a controlled experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach. By enhancing the code to be almost as expressive as the model, we further support model-code duality; the notion that both model and code are two faces for the same coin. Systems can be and should be equally-well specified textually and diagrammatically. Such duality will benefit both modelers and coders alike. Our work suggests that code enhanced with state machine modeling abstractions is semantically equivalent to visual state machine models. The flow of the thesis is as follows; the research hypothesis and questions are presented in “Chapter 1: Introduction”. The background is explored in “Chapter 2: Background”. “Chapter 3: Syntax and semantics of simple state machines” and “Chapter 4: Syntax and semantics of composite state machines” investigate simple and composite state machines in Umple, respectively. “Chapter 5: Implementation of composite state machines” presents the approach we adopt for the implementation of composite state machines that avoids explosion of the amount of generated code. From this point on, the thesis presents empirical work. A grounded theory study is presented in “Chapter 6: A Grounded theory study of Umple”, followed by a controlled experiment in “Chapter 7: Experimentation”. These two chapters constitute our validation and evaluation of Umple research. Related and future work is presented in “Chapter 8: Related work”.

The basis of this research project stems from reflections upon the process of composition for electroacoustic audio-visual music. These are fixed media works in which sound and image materials are accessed, generated, explored and configured in creation of a musically informed audio-visual expression. Within the process of composition, the composer must decide how to effectively draw relationships between these time based media and their various abstract and mimetic materials. This process usually has no codified laws or structures and results in relationships that are singular to the individual artworks. The composer uses their own experience and intuition in assessing how best to associate sounds and images and they will use their own interpretation of the materials to evaluate the how successful they are in realising their intentions. But what is there to say that the interpretation made by the composer bares any resemblance to interpretations made by audiences? The current research sought to assess any trends or commonalities in how people interpret such works. Utilising a combination of empirical research, composition and scholarly study, the project investigated various theoretical approaches to interpretation and the occurrence of correlation between compositional intention and audience interpretation. Models from different theoretical disciplines were combined in order to build up a picture of the processes involved in making interpretations, and to aid in the rationalisation of empirical data. The application of three methodological approaches allowed for the topic to be considered from a diversity of perspectives, and for triangulation to take place in confirmation of the research outcomes. The way in which individuals build up interpretations from non-codified abstract and mimetic materials also provided a suitable case study for the critique and assessment of various theoretical approaches to interpretation. The project challenges structuralist approaches to interpretation, drawing together theoretical materials and empirical research findings in support of a post-structrualist model of interpretation that demonstrates the absolutely vital role played by context - the framing of the artwork in the consciousness of the individual audience member.

The full enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that began on May 25, 2018 forced any organization that collects and/or processes personal data from European Union citizens to comply with a series of stringent and comprehensive privacy regulations. Many software organizations struggled to comply with the entirety of the GDPR's regulations both leading up and even after the GDPR deadline. Previous studies on the subject of the GDPR have primarily focused on finding implications for users and organizations using surveys or interviews. However, there is a dearth of in-depth studies that investigate compliance practices and compliance challenges in software organizations. In particular, small and medium enterprises are often neglected in these previous studies, despite small and medium enterprises representing the majority of organizations in the EU. Furthermore, organizations that practice continuous integration have largely been ignored in studies on GDPR compliance. Using design science methodology, we conducted an in-depth study over the span of 20 months regarding GDPR compliance practices and challenges in collaboration with a small, startup organization. Our first step helped identify our collaborator's business problems. Subsequently, we iteratively developed two artifacts to address those business problems: a set of privacy requirements operationalized from GDPR principles, and an automated GDPR tool that tests these GDPR-derived privacy requirements. This design science approach resulted in five implications for research and for practice about ongoing challenges to compliance. For instance, our research reveals that GDPR regulations can be partially operationalized and tested through automated means, which is advantageous for achieving long term compliance. In contrast, more research is needed to create more efficient and effective means to disseminate and manage GDPR knowledge among software developers. / Graduate