Context: Organizations strive to improve their business processes, and adaptive business processes have recently attracted much attention in that context. However, much research in that area has a narrow focus and does not consider a comprehensive view of the organization and its goals. In addition, Business Intelligence-based monitoring methods are useful for business process improvement but they often present information in a format that is not entirely suited for decision making. Objectives: The main objectives of this thesis are to provide: • A framework to model goals, processes, performance, situations, and improvement patterns using one modeling notation, in an iterative and incremental manner; • A method for the modeling and analysis of cause-effect relationships between indicators used to measure goal satisfaction; and • A technique allowing the detection of undesirable, sub-optimal conditions and the application of improvement patterns to the context Method: We develop an iterative framework based on the User Requirements Notation (URN) for modeling, monitoring and improving business organizations and their business processes. In addition, we introduce a formula-based evaluation algorithm allowing better analysis of the relationships between the business performance model elements (namely indicators). Furthermore, we use a profiled version of the Aspect-oriented URN (AoURN) with extensions (Business Process Pattern profile), for detecting undesirable conditions and for business process adaptation. We validate the novelty and feasibility of our approach by performing a systematic literature review, by assessing it against Zellner’ mandatory elements of a method, by developing tool support, by performing a pilot experiment and by using real-life examples from different sectors (healthcare and retail). Results: The two examples show that through the framework’s iterative approach, organizations at different levels of maturity in their business improvement journey can benefit from the framework. Furthermore, our systematic literature review shows that although there are existing works that enable our vision, most of them have a narrow focus and do not cover the three organization views that are of interest in this research. AoURN allows analysts to find repeated patterns in a context and bundle goal, performance and process models as a self-contained unit. AoURN hence enables the modeling of complex circumstances together with analysis techniques for what-if analysis and process adaptation, all using a unified and integrated modeling language. Finally, the pilot experiment suggests that, with some level of documentation and training, users who are already familiar with URN can use the profiled AoURN provided in this thesis as well as the discussed improvement patterns.

隨著網路應用的發達與普及，應用系統的安全防護非常重要，但是要將安全方防護方面的設計與製作做好，卻不容易。因為與安全相關的程式碼必須嵌入到應用系統的各個模組中去執行，具有橫跨（cross-cutting）的特性。在設計時，若不加以區分，仍然以一般的物件或是函式模組來將其模組化的話，往往造成系統中反覆出現類似的程式碼以及不同需求的程式碼夾雜不清的現象，當系統愈趨複雜時，這些問題就愈顯嚴重，結果導致系統不易維護且錯誤頻仍。 最近興起的剖面導向程式設計（Aspect-Oriented Programming）基於關注分離的原則（Separation of Concerns），針對像安全這類橫跨性的需求，倡議在原有的物件或函式模組外，另以剖面（aspect）作為這些橫跨性需求的模組單位，以大幅改善應用系統的模組性。近兩三年來，這方面的發展迅速，各種支援方面導向的程式語言與相關工具相繼推出，美國全錄公司柏拉圖實驗室發展的AspectJ語言就是一個具代表性的成果。本論文以剖面導向的原則，以AspectJ及JBossAOP為主要工具，針對Web應用程式在認證與存取控管方面的安全需求，設計與製作一套具重用性且可處理資料內容相關、細緻層級的存取控管框架。 / Access control is a system-wide concern that has both a generic nature and an application dependent characteristic. It is generic as many functions must be protected with restricted access, yet the rule to grant a request is highly dependent on the application state. Hence it is common to see the code for implementing access control scattered over the system and tangled with the functional code, making the system difficult to maintain. This thesis addresses this issue for Web applications by presenting a practical access control framework based on aspect-oriented programming (AOP). Our approach accommodates a wide range of access control requirements of different granularity. AOP supports the modular implementation of access control while still enables the code to get a hold of the application state. Moreover, framework technology offers a balanced view between reuse and customization. As a result, our framework is able to enforce fine-grained access control for Web applications in a highly adaptable manner.

The success of Web services comes from the benefits that it brings in reducing the cost and the time needed to develop data and applications by reusing them, and simplifying their integrations through standardization. However, standardization in Web services does not remove the need for adapters due to possible heterogeneity among service interface and protocol definitions. Moreover, the current service APIs are targeted toward professional programmers, but not accessible to a wider class of users without programming expertise, but would never the less like to build their own integrated applications. In this dissertation, we propose methods and tools to support both service developers and non-expert users in their data and application integration tasks. To support service developers, we propose a framework that enables rapid development of Web service adapters. We investigate particularly the problem of service adaptation focusing on business interface and protocol layers. Our study shows that many differences between business interfaces and protocols are recurring. We introduce mismatch patterns to capture these recurring differences and provide solutions to resolve them. We present the notion of adaptation aspects, which is based on the aspect-oriented programming paradigm, to enable rapid development and deployment of service adapters. We also present a comparative study between standalone and aspect-oriented adapters development. The study shows that the aspect-oriented approach is preferable in many cases, especially when adapters need to access internal states of services. The proposed approach is implemented in a prototype tool, which is used to illustrate how it simplifies adapters development through a case study. To support users without programming expertise, we propose a spreadsheet-based Web mashups development framework, which enables users to develop mashups in the popular spreadsheet environment. First, we provide a mechanism that makes structured data first class values of spreadsheet cells. Second, we propose a new component model that can be used to develop fairly sophisticated mashups, involving joining data sources and keeping spreadsheet data up to date. Third, to simplify mashup development, we provide a collection of spreadsheet-based mashup patterns that captures common Web data access and spreadsheet presentation functionalities. Users can reuse and customize these patterns to build spreadsheet-based Web mashups instead of developing them from scratch. Fourth, we enable users to manipulate structured data presented on spreadsheet in a drag-and-drop fashion. Finally, we have developed and tested a prototype tool to demonstrate the utility of the proposed framework.

The success of Web services comes from the benefits that it brings in reducing the cost and the time needed to develop data and applications by reusing them, and simplifying their integrations through standardization. However, standardization in Web services does not remove the need for adapters due to possible heterogeneity among service interface and protocol definitions. Moreover, the current service APIs are targeted toward professional programmers, but not accessible to a wider class of users without programming expertise, but would never the less like to build their own integrated applications. In this dissertation, we propose methods and tools to support both service developers and non-expert users in their data and application integration tasks. To support service developers, we propose a framework that enables rapid development of Web service adapters. We investigate particularly the problem of service adaptation focusing on business interface and protocol layers. Our study shows that many differences between business interfaces and protocols are recurring. We introduce mismatch patterns to capture these recurring differences and provide solutions to resolve them. We present the notion of adaptation aspects, which is based on the aspect-oriented programming paradigm, to enable rapid development and deployment of service adapters. We also present a comparative study between standalone and aspect-oriented adapters development. The study shows that the aspect-oriented approach is preferable in many cases, especially when adapters need to access internal states of services. The proposed approach is implemented in a prototype tool, which is used to illustrate how it simplifies adapters development through a case study. To support users without programming expertise, we propose a spreadsheet-based Web mashups development framework, which enables users to develop mashups in the popular spreadsheet environment. First, we provide a mechanism that makes structured data first class values of spreadsheet cells. Second, we propose a new component model that can be used to develop fairly sophisticated mashups, involving joining data sources and keeping spreadsheet data up to date. Third, to simplify mashup development, we provide a collection of spreadsheet-based mashup patterns that captures common Web data access and spreadsheet presentation functionalities. Users can reuse and customize these patterns to build spreadsheet-based Web mashups instead of developing them from scratch. Fourth, we enable users to manipulate structured data presented on spreadsheet in a drag-and-drop fashion. Finally, we have developed and tested a prototype tool to demonstrate the utility of the proposed framework.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2007. / Additional advisors: Jeff Gray, Marjan Mernik, Alan Sprague, Murat Tanik. Description based on contents viewed June 25, 2007; title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 132-138).

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:47:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 JoseDSS.pdf: 1294518 bytes, checksum: aa9617f35bc3b6c43b4ee10931265d07 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-02-26 / Middleware platforms have been widely used as an underlying infrastructure to the development of distributed applications. They provide distribution and heterogeneity transparency and a set of services that ease the construction of distributed applications. Nowadays, the middlewares accommodate an increasing variety of requirements to satisfy distinct application domains. This broad range of application requirements increases the complexity of the middleware, due to the introduction of many cross-cutting concerns in the architecture, which are not properly modularized by traditional programming techniques, resulting in a tangling and spread of theses concerns in the middleware code. The presence of these cross-cutting concerns limits the middleware scalability and aspect-oriented paradigm has been used successfully to improve the modularity, extensibility and customization capabilities of middleware. This work presents AO-OiL, an aspect-oriented (AO) middleware architecture, based on the AO middleware reference architecture. This middleware follows the philosophy that the middleware functionalities must be driven by the application requirements. AO-OiL consists in an AO refactoring of the OiL (Orb in Lua) middleware in order to separate basic and crosscutting concerns. The proposed architecture was implemented in Lua and RE-AspectLua. To evaluate the refactoring impact in the middleware architecture, this paper presents a comparative analysis of performance between AO-OiL and OiL / As plataformas de middlewares t?m sido amplamente utilizadas como infra-estrutura subjacente para o desenvolvimento de sistemas distribu?dos. Elas fornecem transpar?ncia de localiza??o e de heterogeneidade e um conjunto de servi?os que facilitam a constru??o de aplica??es distribu?das. Atualmente, os middlewares acomodam uma variedade crescente de requisitos a fim de atender aos mais variados dom?nios de aplica??o. Essa ampla variedade de requisitos procovou um aumento na complexidade dos middleware, devido a introdu??o de v?rios conceitos transversais na arquitetura. Tais conceitos n?o s?o modularizados adequadamente pelas t?cnicas de programa??o tradicionais, resultando no espalhamento e entrela?amento desses conceitos no c?digo do middleware. A presen?a de conceitos transversais limitam a escalabilidade do middleware. O paradigma orientado a aspectos tem sido utilizado com sucesso para melhorar a extensibilidade, a modularidade e a capacidade de personaliza??o das plataformas de middleware atrav?s da separa??o dos conceitos transversais do c?digo base da middleware. Este trabalho apresenta o AO-OiL, uma arquitetura de um middleware orientado a aspectos (OA) dinamicamente adapt?vel, baseado na arquitetura de refer?ncia para middlewares OA. O AO-OiL consiste em uma refatora??o orientada a aspectos do middleware OiL (Orb in Lua) para separa??o de conceitos b?sicos e conceitos transversais e segue a filosofia de que as funcionalidades do middleware devem ser ditadas pelos requisitos da aplica??o. A arquitetura proposta foi implementada em Lua e RE-AspectLua. Para avaliar o impacto da refatora??o na arquitetura, esse trabalho apresenta uma an?lise comparativa de desempenho entre o AO-OiL e o OiL

Les environnements confinés, tels que les blocs chirurgicaux ou les salles blanches, hébergent des processus complexes auxquels sont associés de nombreux risques. Leur conception, leur réalisation et leur exploitation sont complexes, de par les très nombreuses normes les encadrant.La qualification de ces « environnements normés », afin d’en garantir la qualité de conception, requiert une expertise fine du métier et souffre du manque d’outil en permettant l’automatisation. Partant de ce constat, nous proposons une approche unifiée visant à faciliter la qualification des environnements normés. Celle-ci s’appuie sur une représentation du contexte normatif sous la forme d’un graphe unique, ainsi que sur une modélisation de l’environnement et son objet final par étapes successives permettant une vérification incrémentale de même que la production d’informations nécessaires à la traçabilité lors de l’exploitation. Cette démarche, illustrée au travers du domaine des environnements confinés médicaux, est générique et peut s’appliquer à l’ensemble des environnements normés. / Industrial clean rooms or operating rooms are critical places often hosting dangerous or complex processes. Their design, building and use are thus difficult and constrained by a large amount of standards and rules. Qualifying these environments, in order to ensure their quality, consequently requires a high level of expertise and lacks assisting tools.This leads us to propose a unified approach aiming at easing the qualification process of standardized environments. It relies on a graph-based representation of the set of standards and rules that apply to a specific case, as well as on step-by-step modelling of the whole target environment. The verification process is then eased as it becomes incremental. During each stage, relevant information can also be gathered in order to ensure environment traceability during its use.This approach, applied to medical environments for validation purposes, remains generic and can be applied to any kind of standardized environment.

Sistemas de tempo-real embarcados distribuídos se caracterizam pela complexidade e especificidade de seus projetos. Tanto a complexidade quanto a especificidade apresentam forte influência dos diversos requisitos ligados às restrições advindas das três características que distinguem tais sistemas, i.e. presença de fortes restrições temporais, restrições de sistemas embarcados e distribuição de processamento. Estes requisitos, chamados de requisitos não-funcionais, afetam diversas partes do sistema de maneira não uniforme, tornando-se por esta razão difícil o seu gerenciamento. Metodologias orientadas a objetos não apresentam mecanismos específicos para tratar tais requisitos, o que implica na aplicação de um significativo esforço ao se realizar o reuso ou a manutenção de componentes afetados por requisitos de natureza nãofuncional. Novas tecnologias têm surgido com o objetivo de contornar este problema, notadamente a orientação a aspectos. Este paradigma propõe a separação no tratamento dos requisitos não-funcionais contribuindo com a modularização do sistema. Esta dissertação propõe a aplicação de orientação a aspectos para a especificação de sistemas tempo-real embarcados distribuídos. Para isto realizou-se a adaptação de uma metodologia de desenvolvimento de sistemas orientada a aspectos, a FRIDA (From RequIrements to Design using Aspects), contextualizando-a para o domínio de interesse. A utilização desta metodologia provê suporte ao mapeamento de requisitos em elementos de projeto de modo a promover a rastreabilidade entre as fases de análise e projeto. Na fase de projeto é proposta a utilização de aspectos em conjunto com elementos do perfil RT-UML para o tratamento dos requisitos identificados e especificados na fase de análise. / Distributed real-time embedded systems generally have complex and very specific projects. Those characteristics are influenced by several requirements that have relation with constraints about the time, embedded and distribution restrictions. Those requirements, called non-functional requirements, can affect the whole system in a nonuniform way, what makes it difficult to handle with this kind of requirement. Objectoriented methodologies do not present specific mechanisms to handle those requirements, what imply in a significant effort to perform reuse and maintainability tasks in those components affected by non-functional requirements. New technologies are emerging to fulfill this gap, noteworthy the aspect orientation. This paradigm proposes the separation in handling functional and non-functional requirements, giving a contribution to the system modularity. This dissertation proposes the use of aspect orientation to specify distributed realtime embedded systems. To support this proposal, it was performed an adaptation of an aspect-oriented method called FRIDA (From RequIrements to Design using Aspects). The use of this method supports the mapping of requirements in design model elements, in order to promote traceability between analysis and design phases. The presented approach proposes the use of RT-UML together with aspect oriented elements in design phase aiming to improve the handling of those requirements specified in the analysis phase.

Esse trabalho define K-Aspects (Knowledge Aspects), uma abordagem para a implementação de Sistemas de Conhecimento (SC) em linguagens orientadas a objetos usando o paradigma orientado a aspectos (OA) e anotações de metadados. Essa abordagem define uma forte correspondência entre o Modelo de Conhecimento (MC) e sua implementação no paradigma da orientação a objetos (OO). K-Aspects fornece um conjunto de anotações documentacionais para facilitar a leitura da associação entre o modelo de implementação e o modelo conceitual do conhecimento; um conjunto de anotações para facilitar a separação de interesses na implementação do SC usando OA; um conjunto de bibliotecas para realizar a interpretação das anotações e sua execução em aspectos; e uma ferramenta para geração de documentação do MC a partir das anotações no código. A abordagem busca atender tanto os engenheiros de conhecimento quanto os engenheiros de desenvolvimento em projetos de SC. Os engenheiros de conhecimento tem ao seu alcance um modo adequado para elaborar a especificação do MC que resulta em uma especificação em uma linguagem orientada a objetos, permitindo aos engenheiros de desenvolvimento implementarem o sistema preservando a estrutura do modelo conceitual e mantendo clara distinção entre os requisitos associados ao MC dos demais requisitos. K-Annotations adicionam recursos de OA ao modelo conceitual do conhecimento OO, oferecendo facilidades de tratamento separado de diversas funcionalidades transversais de um SC, através do particionamento do sistema em aspectos que implementam funcionalidades específicas, ativadas através das anotações inseridas no componente do modelo conceitual. Anotações distinguem, clara e visualmente, no código, os elementos do MC em relação ao restante do código do programa, facilitando a leitura do código pelos engenheiros de conhecimento. A função principal das anotações é prover as informações necessárias para a interpretação dos elementos de conhecimento durante a execução do programa. Anotações identificam as funcionalidades transversais relativas aos construtos do modelo e são gerenciadas pela biblioteca de aspectos. A abordagem foi validada re-escrevendo com o uso de K-Annotations um sistema de conhecimento no domínio da análise da qualidade de reservatórios de petróleo. O modelo desse sistema representa uma ontologia de domínio sobre o qual métodos de solução de problemas para interpretação e classificação de rochas são aplicados. A análise dos resultados identificou um conjunto de vantagens no uso de K-Aspects, como distinção clara entre a implementação do MC e a implementação dos demais requisitos, suporte nativo aos construtos providos no modelo de conhecimento e alto grau de rastreabilidade entre o modelo e sua implementação. Além disso, provê redução de tarefas repetitivas de implementação e redução da dispersão de código a partir da geração automática de código. As bibliotecas de aspectos garantem o encapsulamento de inferências e tarefas. As bibliotecas tratam os construtos do modelo para garantir a reutilização em diferentes projetos de SCs. / This work defines K-Aspects (Knowledge Aspects), an approach for implementing Knowledge Systems (KS) with object-oriented languages using the aspect-oriented paradigm (AO) and metadata annotations. This approach defines a strong link between the knowledge model (KM) and its implementation in the object-oriented paradigm (OO). K-Aspects provides a set of documentational annotations to make the association between the implementation model and the knowledge conceptual model easier to read; a set of annotations to enable the separation of concerns, using aspect orientation, of the implementation of the different requirements of the knowledge system; a set of libraries to perform the interpretation and execution as aspects of annotations; and a tool for documentation generation of the KM extracted from the annotations on the code. The approach aims to support both knowledge engineers and development engineers in KS projects, by providing to the knowledge engineers a well-defined way to elaborate the KS specification, which results in a specification presented in an object oriented language, making it easily understandable and extensible by development engineers that can thus implement the knowledge system preserving its conceptual knowledge structure and keeping a clear distinction of the requirements associated to the KM from the other requirements. K-Annotations add aspect oriented resources to the OO conceptual knowledge model, providing features to manage separately the multiple crosscutting concerns of a KS, partitioning the system in aspects that implement specific features, activated by annotations inserted in the knowledge conceptual model. Annotations distinguish, clearly and visually, within the code, KM elements from the rest of the code, making easier the code reading by the knowledge engineers. The most important function of the annotations is to provide information necessary for interpreting knowledge elements during runtime. Annotations identify several crosscutting concerns related to the model constructs. Annotations are managed and executed by the aspect libraries. This approach was validated by re-coding, using K-Annotations, a complex commercial KS on the domain of oil reservoir quality analysis. The model of this system represents a domain ontology on which problem-resolving methods for rock interpretation and classification are performed. The analysis of the results identified several advantages of using K-Aspects as: a clear distinction of the KM implementation among other requirements; native support for knowledge model constructs; and high traceability between the knowledge conceptual model and its implementation. Moreover, the use of K-Aspects reduces repetitive implementation tasks and code dispersion because of the automatic code generation. The provided aspect libraries enable the encapsulation of inferences and the execution of several tasks. The libraries manage the constructs of the model thus providing reusability among multiple KS projects.

Atualmente, o projeto de sistemas tempo-real embarcados e distribuídos está crescendo em complexidade devido à sua natureza heterogênea e ao crescente número e diversidade de funções que um único sistema desempenha. Sistemas de automação industrial, sistemas eletrônicos em automóveis e veículos aéreos, equipamentos médicos, entre outros, são exemplos de tais sistemas. Tais sistemas são compostos por componentes distintos (blocos de hardware e software), os quais geralmente são projetados concorrentemente utilizando modelos, ferramentas e linguagens de especificação e implementação diferentes. Além disso, estes sistemas tem requisitos específicos e importantes, os quais não representam (por si só) as funcionalidades esperadas do sistema, mas podem afetar a forma como o sistema executa suas funcionalidades e são muito importantes para a realização do projeto com sucesso. Os chamados requisitos não-funcionais são difíceis de tratar durante todo o ciclo de projeto porque normalmente um único requisito não-funcional afeta vários componentes diferentes. A presente tese de doutorado propõe a integração automatizada das fases de projeto de sistemas tempo-real embarcados e distribuídos focando em aplicações na área da automação. A abordagem proposta usa técnicas de engenharia guiada por modelos (do inglês Model Driven Engineering ou MDE) e projeto orientado a aspectos (do inglês Aspect-Oriented Design ou AOD) juntamente com o uso de plataformas previamente desenvolvidas (ou desenvolvida por terceiros) para projetar os componentes de sistemas tempo-real embarcados e distribuídos. Adicionalmente, os conceitos de AOD permitem a separação no tratamento dos requisitos de naturezas diferentes (i.e. requisitos funcionais e não-funcionais), melhorando a modularização dos artefatos produzidos (e.g. modelos de especificação, código fonte, etc.). Além disso, esta tese propõe uma ferramenta de geração de código, que suporta a transição automática das fases iniciais de especificação para as fases seguintes de implementação. Esta ferramenta usa um conjunto de regras de mapeamento, que descrevem como elementos nos níveis mais altos de abstração são mapeados (ou transformados) em elementos dos níveis mais baixos de abstração. Em outras palavras, tais regras de mapeamento permitem a transformação automática da especificação inicial, as quais estão mais próximo do domínio da aplicação, em código fonte para os componentes de hardware e software, os quais podem ser compilados e sintetizados por outras ferramentas para se obter a realização/implementação do sistema tempo-real embarcado e distribuído. / Currently, the design of distributed embedded real-time systems is growing in complexity due to the increasing amount of distinct functionalities that a single system must perform, and also to concerns related to designing different kinds of components. Industrial automation systems, embedded electronics systems in automobiles or aerial vehicles, medical equipments and others are examples of such systems, which includes distinct components (e.g. hardware and software ones) that are usually designed concurrently using distinct models, tools, specification, and implementation languages. Moreover, these systems have domain specific and important requirements, which do not represent by themselves the expected functionalities, but can affect both the way that the system performs its functionalities as well as the overall design success. The so-called nonfunctional requirements are difficult to deal with during the whole design because usually a single non-functional requirement affects several distinct components. This thesis proposes an automated integration of distributed embedded real-time systems design phases focusing on automation systems. The proposed approach uses Model- Driven Engineering (MDE) techniques together with Aspect-Oriented Design (AOD) and previously developed (or third party) hardware and software platforms to design the components of distributed embedded real-time systems. Additionally, AOD concepts allow a separate handling of requirement with distinct natures (i.e. functional and non-functional requirements), improving the produced artifacts modularization (e.g. specification model, source code, etc.). In addition, this thesis proposes a code generation tool, which supports an automatic transition from the initial specification phases to the following implementation phases. This tool uses a set of mapping rules, describing how elements at higher abstraction levels are mapped (or transformed) into lower abstraction level elements. In other words, suchmapping rules allow an automatic transformation of the initial specification, which is closer to the application domain, in source code for software and hardware components that can be compiled or synthesized by other tools, obtaining the realization/ implementation of the distributed embedded real-time system.