This thesis presents an approach to rapid prototyping called behavioral demonstration that allows a system to be demonstrated at any point during its development. This approach is based on the operational specification approach to software design and uses a new, automation based life-cycle paradigm. This work describes a tool that supports behavioral demonstration called the behavioral demonstrator that collects and manages information typically lost during software system design but critically needed during maintenance. The tool also supports project-personnel management and software complexity and cost estimation. The research takes place in the context of a dialogue management system and software design methodology that features the logical and physical separation of the input, processing, and output components of interactive systems. / M.S.

No description available.

The success of a software project is strongly related with architectural design. However, designing the right Software Architecture is a very subjective task and takes a long time, being much influenced by architect's experience and the quality of requirements engineering. This architectural knowledge, usually, is not documented, since it is considered tacit knowledge of architects or other stakeholders, and eventually dissipates. It is also essentially important to ensure the consistency between software architecture and implementation. However, this mapping is usually made manually, based only on the developer's understanding over the software architecture, which requires high discipline. Thus, errors can arise during this phase, compromising the consistency amongst architectural decisions and source code. The objective of this work is to present a tool-based solution that supports young architects by recommending a suitable architectural style, based on the system's requirements, particularly the quality attributes of the system. The tool encompasses both trade-o resolution over quality attributes and recommendation of architectural styles based on quality attributes. Finally, based on the recommended architecture, the tool will generate the system structural source-code, using a component implementation model called COSMOS*, providing traceability between architectural design and implementation. The proposed solution has been evaluated in the context of a specific domain of Learning Management System (LMS), in order to illustrate the tool support in the execution of an architectural design process. / O sucesso de um projeto de software está fortemente relacionado com o projeto arquitetural. No entanto, projetar a arquitetura de software correta é uma tarefa muito subjetiva e leva muito tempo, sendo muito influenciada pela experiência do arquiteto e a qualidade da engenharia de requisitos. Este conhecimento arquitetural, geralmente, não está documentado, uma vez que é considerado o conhecimento tácito dos arquitetos ou dos interessados, e, eventualmente, se dissipa. Também é essencialmente importante assegurar a consistência entre a arquitetura de software e a implementação. No entanto, esse mapeamento é feito manualmente na maioria das vezes, baseado apenas no entendimento do desenvolvedor sobre a arquitetura, exigindo disciplina por parte dele. Assim, erros podem surgir durante esta fase, comprometendo a consistência entre as decisões arquiteturais e o código fonte. Em face destas dificuldades, foi desenvolvido este trabalho, cujo o objetivo é apresentar uma ferramenta que apoie jovens arquitetos com a recomendação de um estilo arquitetural adequado, baseado nos requisitos do sistema, particularmente os atributos de qualidade do sistema. A ferramenta compreende tanto resolução trade-off sobre os atributos de qualidade e recomendação de estilos arquiteturais com base em atributos de qualidade. Por fim, com base na arquitetura recomendada, a ferramenta irá gerar o código estrutural do sistema, utilizando um modelo de implementação de componente chamado COSMOS*, proporcionando rastreabilidade entre projeto arquitetural e a implementação. A solução proposta foi avaliada no contexto de um domínio específico dos Ambientes Virtuais e Aprendizagem (AVA), a m de ilustrar o suporte da ferramenta na execução de um processo de projeto arquitetural.

Nombre d'applications ont pour comportement principal l'attente d'un événement venant d'un environnement extérieur, la préparation d'un résultat et l'exécution d'actions sur cet environnement. Les interfaces graphiques et les systèmes avioniques en sont des exemples. Le paradigme SCC, pour sense-compute-control, est particulièrement adapté à la description de ces applications. Le développement d'applications suivant ce paradigme est complexe à cause du manque de cadre conceptuel et d'outils de support.Cette thèse propose un cadre conceptuel dédié au paradigme SCC et se concrétise par un langage de description d'architectures. À partir d'une description dans ce langage, un framework de programmation peut être généré. Il guide l'implémentation d'une application grâce à un support dédié et vérifie que cette implémentation est conforme à l'architecture décrite. Les contributions de cette thèse sont évaluées suivant des critères d'expressivité, d'utilisabilité et de productivité. / Numerous applications have, as their main behavior, to wait for information coming from a foreign environment, to prepare a result, and to execute actions on this environment. Graphical user interfaces and avionic systems are two examples. The SCC paradigm, for Sense–Compute–Control, is dedicated to the description of such applications. Developing applications with this paradigm is made difficult by the lack of conceptual framework and tool support.This thesis proposes a conceptual framework dedicated to the SCC paradigm which is materialized by an architecture description language named DiaSpec. This language provides a framework to support the development of an SCC application, assigning roles to the stakeholders and providing separation of concerns. This thesis also proposes dedicated programming support. Indeed, from DiaSpec descriptions a dedicated programming framework is generated in a target language. This programming framework guides the implementation of an SCC application and raises the level of abstraction of this implementation with both high-level and dedicated mechanisms. This programming framework is designed to ensure conformance of the implementation to its architecture described in DiaSpec by leveraging the target language type system. Contributions of this thesis are evaluated through three criteria: expressiveness, usability and productivity.

The subject of the thesis is the design and implementation of a modular control system environment, which could be used in robotics. Both autonomous and guided robots are supported. The higher-level software com- ponents like localization, steering, decision making, etc. are effectively sepa- rated from the underlying hardware devices and their communication protocols in the environment. Based on the layered design, hardware-independent algo- rithms can be implemented. These can run on different hardware platforms just by exchanging specific device drivers. Written in C++ using standard libraries, the final software is highly portable and extensible. Support for new platforms and hardware modules can be implemented easily. The whole sys- tem was tested on two robots and the particular instances of the systems built using this development environment are included in the solution and partially described in the thesis.

Malgré des progrès récents, développer une application d'informatique ubiquitaire reste un défi à cause d'un manque de canevas conceptuels et d'outils aidant au développement. Ce défi implique de prendre en charge des objets communicants hétérogènes, de surmonter la complexité des technologies de systèmes distribués, de définir l'architecture d'une application, et d'encoder cela dans un programme. De plus, tester des applications d'informatique ubiquitaire est problématique car cela implique d'acquérir, de tester et d'interfacer une variété d'entités logicielles et matérielles. Ce procédé peut rapidement devenir coûteux en argent et en temps lorsque l'environment ciblé implique de nombreuses entités.Cette thèse propose une méthodologie outillée pour développer et tester des applications d'informatique ubiquitaire. Notre méthodologie fournit tout d'abord le langage de conception DiaSpec. Ce langage permet de définir une taxonomie d'entités spécifiques à un domaine applicatif, s'abstrayant ainsi de leur hétérogénéité. Ce langage inclut également une couche permettant de définir l'architecture d'une application. Notre suite outillée fournit un compilateur qui, à partir de descriptions DiaSpec, génère un canevas de programmation guidant les phases d'implémentation et de test. Afin d'aider à la phase de test, nous proposons une approche de simulation et un outil intégré dans notre méthodologie outillée : l'outil DiaSim. Notre approche utilise le support de test généré par DiaSpec pour tester les applications de manière transparente dans un environnement physique simulé. La simulation d'une application est rendue graphiquement dans un outil de visualisation 2D.Nous avons combiné DiaSim avec un langage dédié permettant de décrire les phénomènes physiques en tant qu'équations différentielles. Cette combinaison nous permet une simulation réaliste des applications d'informatique ubiquitaire. DiaSim a été utilisé pour simuler des applications dans des domaines applicatifs variés. Notre approche de simulation a également été appliquée à un système avionique, démontrant la généralité de notre approche de simulation. / Despite much progress, developing a pervasive computing application remains a challenge because of a lack of conceptual frameworks and supporting tools. This challenge involves coping with heterogeneous devices, overcoming the intricacies of distributed systems technologies, working out an architecture for the application, and encoding it into a program. Moreover, testing pervasive computing applications is problematic because it requires acquiring, testing and interfacing a variety of software and hardware entities. This process can rapidly become costly and time-consuming when the target environment involves many entities.This thesis proposes a tool-based methodology for developing and testing pervasive computing applications. Our methodology first provides the DiaSpec design language that allows to define a taxonomy of area-specific building-blocks, abstracting over their heterogeneity. This language also includes a layer to define the architecture of an application. Our tool suite includes a compiler that takes DiaSpec design artifacts as input and generates a programming framework that supports the implementation and testing stages.To address the testing phase, we propose an approach and a tool integrated in our tool-based methodology, namely DiaSim. Our approach uses the testing support generated by DiaSpec to transparently test applications in a simulated physical environment. The simulation of an application is rendered graphically in a 2D visualization tool.We combined DiaSim with a domain-specific language for describing physical environment phenomena as differential equations, allowing a physically-accurate testing. DiaSim has been used to simulate various pervasive computing systems in different application areas. Our simulation approach has also been applied to an avionics system, which demonstrates the generality of our parameterized simulation approach.

[pt] Anomalias de código podem sinalizar a degradação da arquitetura de software. No entanto, a identificação de anomalias de código arquiteturalmente relevantes (ou seja, aquelas que implicam em deficiências arquiteturais) é particularmente difícil devido: (i) a falta de compreensão sobre a relação existente entre anomalias de código e degradação arquitetural, (ii) ao fato do processo de detecção de anomalias ter como foco somente o código fonte, sem considerar como ele se relaciona com sua arquitetura, e (iii) a falta de conhecimento sobre a confiabilidade das técnicas de detecção em revelar anomalias de código que são arquiteturalmente relevantes. Esta tese apresenta técnicas para identificar anomalias de código que são arquiteturalmente relevantes. Métricas sensíveis à arquitetura e estratégias de detecção foram definidas para superar as limitações das técnicas de detecção convencionais. Estas métricas e estratégias aproveitam rastros que podem ser estabelecidos entre as visões arquiteturais e a implementação dos sistemas. A tese também documenta padrões de anomalias de código (ou seja, relações recorrentes de anomalias) que estão relacionados com problemas arquiteturais. Uma ferramenta, chamada de SCOOP, foi desenvolvida para coletar as métricas sensíveis à arquitetura, aplicar as novas estratégias de detecção, e identificar os padrões de anomalias de código. Usando esta ferramenta, a técnica proposta foi avaliada em uma série de estudos empíricos, comparando sua acurácia com técnicas convencionais de detecção durante o processo de identificação de anomalias de código que são arquiteturalmente relevantes. / [en] Code anomalies can signal software architecture degradation. However, the identification of architecturally-relevant code anomalies (i.e. code anomalies that strongly imply architectural deficiencies) is particularly challenging due to: (i) lack of understanding about the relationship between code anomalies and architectural degradation, (ii) the focus on source code anomaly detection without considering how it relates to the software architecture, and (iii) lack of knowledge about how reliable these detection techniques are when revealing architecturally-relevant code anomalies. This thesis presents techniques for identifying architecturally-relevant code anomalies. Architecture-sensitive metrics and detection strategies were defined to overcome the limitations of conventional detection strategies. These metrics and strategies leverage traces that can be established between architectural views and system implementation. The thesis also documents code anomaly patterns (i.e. recurring anomaly relationships) that are strongly related to architectural problems. A tool, called SCOOP, was developed to collect the architecture-sensitive metrics, apply the new detection strategies, and identify the documented code anomaly patterns. Using this tool, we evaluated our technique in a series of empirical studies, comparing its accuracy with that of conventional detection techniques when identifying architecturally-relevant code anomalies.

[pt] Groupware é difícil de construir e de manter, pois envolve aspectos multidisciplinares. Além das dificuldades associadas ao desenvolvimento de aplicações colaborativas, usualmente o desenvolvedor de groupware deve se preocupar com outros aspectos de infra-estrutura. Nesta dissertação é proposta uma arquitetura multicamadas baseada em componentes para groupware, utilizando frameworks de infra-estrutura. Na camada de negócio são utilizados os frameworks Hibernate, responsável pela persistência dos dados da aplicação, e o framework Spring, que dentre outras coisas é responsável pelo controle de transações e pela exposição de serviços remotamente. Na camada de apresentação o framework JaveServer Faces provê meios para criar e reusar componentes de interface. Nesta dissertação também é apresentada uma forma de comparar frameworks de infra-estrutura, levando em consideração tanto aspectos técnicos, que definem se o framework atende aos requisitos da aplicação, quanto nãotécnicos, relacionados a aspectos como documentação disponível e aceitação no mercado. A arquitetura definida nesta dissertação é aplicada no AulaNet, groupware voltado para a aprendizagem desenvolvido no Laboratório de Engenharia de Software da PUC-Rio. / [en] Groupware is difficult to develop and maintain because it involves multidisciplinary aspects in its construction. Besides the difficulties related to the development of collaborative applications, usually the developer must handle with other infrastructure aspects. In this dissertation, it is proposed a multilayer component based architecture with system infrastructure frameworks to deal with them. In the business layer, the Hibernate framework is responsible for the persistence of application data, and the Spring framework is responsible for, amongst others, transactions control and remote exposition of services. In the presentation layer the JaveServer Faces framework provides ways to create and to reuse user-interface components. This dissertation also presents a way to compare system infrastructure frameworks, considering both technical aspects, related to the application requirements fulfillment, and non- technical, related to aspects such as documentation availability and market acceptance. The architecture defined in this dissertation is applied to the AulaNet, which is a groupware for learning developed in the Software Engineering Laboratory of PUC-Rio.

Este trabalho discorre sobre o estudo da utilização do método de avaliação ATAM como referência para um roteiro para evolução arquitetural. O estudo apresentado está dividido em duas partes: a elaboração de um roteiro para evolução de software e a aplicação do roteiro em um ambiente real de um sistema para automação de linhas aéreas. O objetivo é avaliar o uso do método de avaliação de arquitetura para direcionar a evolução do software. As diretrizes geradas neste trabalho orientam as ações a serem tomadas com base em evidências obtidas pela avaliação, possibilitando ao software que exiba os atributos de qualidade desejados. / This paper discusses the study of the use of ATAM evaluation method as a reference to a roadmap for architectural evolution. The present study is divided into two parts: the preparation of a roadmap for software development and implementation of the roadmap in a real environment of a system for automation of airlines. The goal is to evaluate the use of architecture evaluation method to direct the evolution of software. The guidelines generated in this work have guided the actions to be taken based on evidence obtained by the evaluation, enabling the software that displays the desired quality attributes.

Real-Time Optimization (RTO) is a family of techniques that pursue to improve the performance of chemical processes. As general scheme, the method reevaluates the process conditions in a frequent basis and tries to adjust some selected variables, taking into account the plant state, actual operational constraints and optimization objectives. Several RTO approaches have born from the academy research and industrial practices, at the same time that more applications have been implemented in real facilities. Between the main motivations to apply RTO are the dynamic of markets, the seek for quality in the process results and environmental sustainability. That is why the interest on deeply understand the phases and steps involved in an RTO application has increased in recent years. Nevertheless, the fact that most of the existing RTO systems have been developed by commercial organizations makes it difficult to meet that understanding. This work studies the nature of RTO systems from a software point of view. Software requirements for a generic system are identied. Based on that, a software architecture is proposed that could be adapted for specfic cases. Benefits of the designed architecture are listed. At the same time, the work proposes a new approach to implement that architecture as a Multi-Agent System (MAS). Two RTO system prototypes were developed then, one for a well-know academic case study and the other oriented to be used in a real unit. The benefits of the MAS approach and the architecture, for researching on the RTO field and implementation on real plants, are analyzed in the text. A sub-product of the development, a software framework covering main concepts from the RTO ontology, is proposed as well. As the framework was designed to be generic, it can be used in new applications development and extended to very specific scenarios. / Otimização em Tempo Real (OTR) é uma família de técnicas que buscam melhorar o desempenho dos processos químicos. Como esquema geral, o método reavalia frequentemente as condições do processo e tenta ajustar algumas variáveis selecionadas, levando em considera ção o estado da planta, restrições operacionais e os objetivos da otimização. Várias abordagens para OTR t^em surgido da pesquisa acadêmica e das práticas industriais, ao mesmo tempo em que mais aplicações têm sido implementadas em plantas reais. As principais motivações para aplicar OTR são: a dinâmica dos mercados, a busca de qualidade nos resultados dos processos e a sustentabilidade ambiental. É por isso que o interesse em entender as fases e etapas envolvidas em uma aplicação OTR cresceu nos últimos anos. No entanto, o fato de que a maioria dos sistemas OTR em operação foram desenvolvidos por organizações comerciais dificulta o caminho para chegar nesse entendimento. Este trabalho analisa a natureza dos sistemas OTR desde o ponto de vista do software. Os requerimentos para um sistema genérico são levantados. Baseado nisso, é proposta uma arquitetura de software que pode ser adaptada para casos específicos. Os benefícios da arquitetura projetada foram listados. Ao mesmo tempo, o trabalho propõe uma nova abordagem para implementar essa arquitetura: Sistema Multi-Agentes (SMA). Dois protótipos de sistema OTR foram desenvolvidos. O primeiro aplicado num estudo de caso bem conhecido na literatura acadêmica. O segundo voltado para ser usado em uma unidade industrial. Os benefícios da abordagem SMA e da arquitetura, tanto na pesquisa relacionada com OTR, quanto na implementação em plantas reais, são analisados no texto. Um arcabouço de software que abrange os principais conceitos da ontologia OTR é proposto como resultado derivado do desenvolvimento. O arcabouço foi projetado para ser genérico, possibilitando seu uso no desenvolvimento de novas aplicações OTR e sua extensão a cenários muito específicos.