Software Engineering Commons^™

The Round Table Model: A Web-Oriented, Agent-Based Approach To Decision-Support Applications, Kym J. Pohl, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Not unlike King Arthur relying on the infamous Round Table as the setting for consultation with his most trusted experts, agent-based, decision-support systems provide human decision makers with a means of solving complex problems through collaboration with collections of both human and computer-based expert agents. The Round Table Framework provides a formalized architecture together with a set of development and execution tools which can be utilized to design, develop, and execute agent-based, decision-support applications. Based on a three-tier architecture, Round Table incorporates forefront technologies including distributed-object servers, inference engines, and web-based presentation to provide a framework for collaborative, agent-based decision …

Multiple Streams Synchronization In Collaborative Multimedia Systems, Emilia Stoica

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

With the recent increase of the communication bandwidth and processor power, new types of applications have emerged. Among them, there are multimedia application, in which users are able to control, combine, and manipulate different types of media, such as text, sound, video, computer graphics, and animation. A key requirement in any multimedia application is to synchronize the delivery of various media streams to the user. To achieve this, the sender has to provide the temporal relations between the streams as they are captured. Since the receiver uses this information in streams presentation, its accuracy is very important.

Our main contribution …

Trends. An Encryption Paradox: Cracking The Groupe Speciale Mobile Standard (Gsm), Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author discusses the vulnerability of encryption methods used with today's modern technology.

Parametric Software Project Estimating: An Analysis Of Current Practice, Stuart Hope

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

As society and the world economy moves into the second millennium. the service industries involving knowledge workers will continue to increase. Software is the enabling technology that is driving the knowledge industry. As the development of software is mostly a design process, where new artefacts are conceived and built, the prediction of outcomes in the process is fraught with difficulties. Software project estimating is one of the essential Software Engineering techniques that will enable the rationalisation of decision-making regarding software development. Estimates that are more accurate will increase the probability of success and lower the risk. This thesis analyses the …

Pathfinding In Vrml, Jason Richard Pearce

Theses : Honours

Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) is a scene description language which describes three dimensional (3D) space to a computer. Thus the three axis of space that is inherent in our dimension X Y and Z is represented inside a computer. To many people VRML represents a new beginning for the World Wide Web (WWW) because it behaves more like the real world. VRML is experimental, interactive, continuous and of course, three dimensional. Algorithms in computing have been designed for 2D problem solving and this does not necessarily translate to problem solving on a 3D level. The aim of this project …

Software Flexibility In A Web Environment, Michael Layng

Theses : Honours

Flexible software systems are designed to be able to adapt to changes in their environment without the need for programmer intervention. This allows companies and institutions to avoid the cost of hiring a programmer every time a business rule changes or a data structure is modified. The techniques of designing and implementing flexible 3GL software systems have been proven as a means of reducing the high cost of software maintenance caused by the changing of systems requirements. Such systems have been in operation in the European finance sector since the early 1980's. Edith Cowan University is participating in current research …

Good Software Development Processes Lead To Harmonious Project Teams Which In Turn Lead To Effective Project Performance, Rweyunga Kazaura

Theses : Honours

The modem world relies on computers in almost every facet of life. With the explosion of Information Technology, software development has become an important process. However, from the beginning, this process has suffered and continues to suffer from a number of problems. If these problems are not rectified, they can jeopardise projects and lead to project failure. Project failure results in a project being delivered: • without satisfying the functional and non-functional requirements requested by the user or customer • beyond the agreed schedule and/or • over budget. Research indicates that practising good software development processes (SDPs) can override these …

Adaptive Prefetching For Device-Independent File I/O, Dan Revel, Dylan Mcnamee, David Steere, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Device independent I/O has been a holy grail to operating system designers since the early days of UNIX. Unfortunately, existing operating systems fall short of this goal for multimedia applications. Techniques such as caching and sequential read-ahead can help mask I/O latency in some cases, but in others they increase latency and add substantial jitter. Multimedia applications, such as video players, are sensitive to vagaries in performance since I/O latency and jitter affect the quality of presentation. Our solution uses adaptive prefetching to reduce both latency and jitter. Applications submit file access plans to the prefetcher, which then generates I/O …

An Investigation Into The Use Of Software Product Metrics For Cobol Systems, Richard E. Boone

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigated several hypotheses that specific product measures could be used to predict later software lifecycle process or product measures. It collected software product and process measures from four consecutive major releases of a large Cobol legacy system (400K LOC). The types of product measures used were size and specific complexity measures. A statistical software package was used to calculate sample correlation coefficients between the measures. A 95% confidence interval was computed for each sample correlation coefficient that showed a strong or moderate linear correlation. The maintenance process measures provided were manhours used for each program changed or added, …

Extracting Functionally Equivalent Object-Oriented Designs From Legacy Imperative Code, Ricky E. Sward

Theses and Dissertations

This research defines a methodology for automatically extracting functionally equivalent object-oriented designs from legacy imperative programs. The Parameter-Based Object Identification (PBOI) methodology is based on fundamental ideas that relate programs written in imperative languages such as C or COBOL to objects and classes written in object-oriented languages such as Ada 95 or C ++. Transformations have been developed that formalize the PBOI methodology and a formal proof is provided showing the extracted object-oriented design is functionally equivalent to the legacy imperative system. To focus the task of re-engineering, generic models of imperative programming languages and object-oriented programming languages have been …

Human-Computer Partnership In Decision-Support Systems: Some Design Guidelines, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

The design of useful human-computer collaborative decision-support systems requires some understanding of the behavioral and organizational characteristics of human problem solving practices. This paper identifies the principal areas in which computer-based decision making assistance is particularly attractive and critically examines several human problem solving traits that may not be appropriate for direct emulation in the computer-assisted environment. In particular, the author examines the manner in which emotions and hierarchical leadership structures could unnecessarily inhibit the realization of the full potential of a human-computer partnership. Finally, a number of guiding principles are proposed for the design of computer-based decision-support systems.

Multiple Representation For Understanding Data Structures, Biffah Hancies, Venky Shankararaman, Jose Munoz

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper an approach to enhance the learning of abstract computing concepts by novice students is presented. This approach is based on effective use of multiple visual representations, and it was applied within the domain of linear data structures: array, stack, queue and linked list. A prototype computer-based instructional system called MRUDS (Multiple Representation for Understanding Data Structures) was developed and evaluated. It was found from the evaluation that the three presentation modules namely, analogy, representation and algorithm contributed to the students' learning process, each contributing to and reinforcing the effect of the others.

Report On The 5th Ifip International Workshop On Quality Of Service, Oguz Angin, Andrew T. Campbell, Lai Tee Cheok, Raymond Liao, Koon-Seng Lim, Klara Nahrstedt

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper presents a summary of the fifth International Workshop on Quality of Service (IWQOS) which was held at Columbia University in May 1997. The goal of this three-day meeting was to foster interaction between researchers active in the area of Quality of Service(QOS) research, to reflect on past experiences and lessons learnt, and to discuss future QOS challenges. To reflect this goal, this year's workshop included a hot program made up of (i) a keynote address on "Programming Telecommunications Networks"; (ii) panels addressing "QOS for Distributed Object Computing Middleware --- Fact or Fiction?" and "Reservations about Reservations"; (iii) a …

A Global Computing Environment For Networked Resources, Haluk Topcuoglu, Salim Hariri

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - All Scholarship

Current advances in high-speed networks and WWW technologies have made network computing a cost-effective, high-performance computing alternative. New software tools are being developed to utilize efficiently the network computing environment. Our project, called Virtual Distributed Computing Environment (VDCE), is a high-performance computing environment that allows users to write and evaluate networked applications for different hardware and software configurations using a web interface. In this paper we present the software architecture of VDCE by emphasizing application development and specification, scheduling, and execution/runtime aspects.

The Recursive Multi-Threaded Software Life-Cycle, Scott James Simon

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.

Antiplane Shear Of A Strip Containing A Staggered Array Of Rigid Line Inclusions, G. Kerr, G. Melrose, J. Tweed

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

Motivated by the increased use of fibre-reinforced materials, we illustrate how the effective elastic modulus of an isotropic and homogeneous material can be increased by the insertion of rigid inclusions. Specifically we consider the two-dimensional antiplane shear problem for a strip of material. The strip is reinforced by introducing two sets of ribbon-like, rigid inclusions perpendicular to the faces of the strip. The strip is then subjected to a prescribed uniform displacement difference between its faces, see Figure 1. it should be noted that the problem posed is equivalent to that of the uniform antiplane shear problem for an infinite …

The Toysim Project, Anthony Rodriguez

Theses : Honours

No abstract provided.

Webassess, Justin Anthony Brown

Theses : Honours

This project and research has resulted in the development of a World Wide Web (WWW) based testing system. WEBassess can be accessed and used from any point in the world that has a connection to the WWW. The WEBassess system allows for the creation and completion of tests through the WWW interface. Scoring and feedback of submitted tests is completely automated, allowing students to see their test result immediately, including visual indicators for correct and incorrect answers. These test results may then be viewed by academic staff, showing complete test details, such as unit code, test title, score, percentage, date …

Does Good Project Management Ensure Successful Software Development?, Julie Lisa Eldridge

Theses : Honours

For many years the development of computer software has been plagued by poor customer satisfaction caused by missed schedules, underestimated budgets and the development of products which do not meet requirements. The ever increasing reliance on computers, as reported by Sommerville ''the result of the proliferation of computer systems into all aspects of life and business is that personal, corporate, national and international economies are [becoming] increasingly dependant on computers and software systems" ( 1992, p.2), calls for more stable software which can be developed within time and budget constraints. To achieve this, software development activities must be analysed and …

Analysis And Design Of Standard Telerobotic Control Software, Matthew L. June

Theses and Dissertations

The Robotics and Automation Center for Excellence (RACE) has defined an open telerobotics control architecture. This architecture, called the Unified Telerobotic Architecture Project (UTAP), is a proposed standard for all Air Force telerobotic systems. Implementation of UTAP will reduce the cost of robotic applications by increasing software modularity, portability, and reusability. This thesis continued the effort to prove the feasibility of UTAP. In December, 1995, 1st Lt Anchor implemented a portion of the UTAP specification on a PUMA robot. The UTAP-compliant controller exhibited some degradation in the system performance. However, the performance degradation was not fully measured. This thesis extended …

Elicitation Of Formal Software Specifications From An Object-Oriented Domain Model, Timothy Karagias

Theses and Dissertations

The ability to provide automated support for the generation of formal software specifications would lead to decreased software development time. By eliciting the needed information from a software developer and harvesting the proper parts of a domain model, a software specifications document could be created. This research establishes the feasibility of producing customized software specifications based on an object-oriented domain model. The research was conducted in three phases. The first phase was to define the requirements for the Elicitor Harvester. Those requirements were balanced between the capabilities of the existing Knowledge Based Software Engineering (KBSE) software used at AFIT and …

Integrating The Capability Maturity Model For Software And The Quality Air Force Criteria, Marshall B. Messamore

Theses and Dissertations

As defense budgets decrease and it is required to do more with less, the Air Force has chosen to use the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) as the basis for implementing quality principles. The Air Force program is known as Quality Air Force (QAF), and the criteria are referred to as the QAF criteria DEPA95b. At about the same time the Department of the Air Force implemented QAF, the software leaders in the Air Force adopted the Capability Maturity Model for Software (CMM) as the internal standard for Air Force software organizations MOSE9l. Software organizations strapped with both sets …

An Approach To Evaluate Software Effectiveness, Timothy J. Schalick

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center (AFOTEC) is tasked with the evaluation of operational effectiveness of new systems for the Air Force. Currently, the software analysis team within AFOTEC has no methodology to directly address the effectiveness of the software portion of these new systems. This research develops a working definition for software effectiveness, then outlines an approach to evaluate software effectiveness-- the Software Effectiveness Traceability Approach (SETA). Effectiveness is defined as the degree to which the software requirements are satisfied and is therefore application-independent. With SETA, requirements satisfaction is measured by the "degree of traceability" throughout the …

Analysis And Simulation Of A New Code Tracking Loop For Gps Multipath Mitigation, Mark C. Laxton

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis proposes a new direct sequence spread spectrum (DS/SS) code phase tracking loop which mitigates the effects of multipath interference on code phase tracking error; such errors can translate to significant range measurement errors in DS/SS ranging systems such as Global Positioning System (GPS). The new code tracking loop, called the modified RAKE delay lock loop (MRDLL), uses maximum likelihood (ML) signal parameter estimation to determine the amplitude, carrier phase, and relative propagation delay of both a direct path and a reflected signal; a multiple correlator code phase tracking loop then exploits these ML signal estimates to remove the …

Calibration Of The Checkpoint Model To The Space And Missile Systems Center (Smc) Software Database (Swdb), Karen R. Mertes

Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzed the effect of calibration on the performance of the CHECKPOINT Version 2.3.1 software cost estimating model. Data used for input into the model were drawn from the FY 95 USAF SMC Software Database (SWDB) Version 2.1. A comparison was made between the model's accuracy before and after calibration. This was done using records which were not used in calibration, referred to as validation points. A comparison of calibration points, both before and after, was done in order to assess whether calibration results in more consistency within the data set used. Six measures such as magnitude of relative …

Calibration Of The Softcost-R Software Cost Model To The Space And Missile Systems Center (Smc) Software Database (Swdb), Steven V. Southwell

Theses and Dissertations

The rising number and importance of Department of Defense software developments, when combined with declining defense budgets, has resulted in a critical need to accurately plan and manage software development costs and schedules. Unfortunately, the increasing size, complexity, and diversity of these software developments has made accurate estimating problematic. Uncalibrated software cost models have not generally produced reliable results due to generic default parameters and improper usage. The default parameters cannot hope to accurately represent and predict the wide variability of software efforts to which the models are being applied. However, some of the models have achieved improved accuracy by …

Koala: An Object-Agent Design System, Kym J. Pohl, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This paper describes KOALA, a design system with primary focus on the predesign stage of architectural design. KOALA combines object-agent technology with high level representation to form a partnership between the human designer and the computer-based design environment. A diverse taxonomy of agents including Domain agents. Space agents, and Monitor agents work in a collaborative fashion to provide the human designer with expert evaluation and assistance in developing a design solution. Spaces, in their roles as agents attempt to formulate various design solutions based on individual perspectives through negotiation with other agents. The result is a highly interactive design environment …

An Investigation Of Software Reliability Models, Pamela Elaine Bowman

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Many software reliability models have been promoted in the literature in an attempt to provide a meaningful response to the growing need to know the reliability of software during and after the development process. However, there are well-founded concerns as to the accuracy of the individual model, as well as to the choice of which model to use for a particular program. A recent experiment based on the debugging history of a partially debugged program used a gold version to label a debugging graph from replicated data. This experiment concluded that presenting the replicated data to the models in a …

Formal Transformations From Graphically-Based Object-Oriented Representations To Theory-Based Specifications, Scott A. Deloach

Theses and Dissertations

Formal software specification has long been touted as a way to increase the quality and reliability of software; however, it remains an intricate, manually intensive activity. An alternative to using formal specifications is to use graphically-based, semi-formal specifications such as those used in many object-oriented specification methodologies. While semi-formal specifications are generally easier to develop and understand, they lack the rigor and precision of formal specification techniques. The basic premise of this investigation is that formal software specifications can be constructed using correctness preserving transformations from graphically-based object-oriented representations. In this investigation, object-oriented specifications defined using Rumbaugh's Object Modeling Technique …

Software Engineering And Hypermedia Application Design: The Classic Life Cycle Vs. Relationship Management Methodology, Stacy Lukins

Honors Capstone Projects and Theses

No abstract provided.