Hrvoje Belani

Improving Virtual Team Communication

The foundation of successful software product development today is establishing an effective and efficient teamwork. In order to manage large software development projects it is needed to manage and coordinate virtual teams of programmers, engineers, business analysts and other project stakeholders. Trust is required for effective team communication. Presented software tool enhances cooperative work support by improving virtual team communication. Implemented software architecture is modular and easily upgradable, offering multithreaded client-server communication with multiple servers. Secure communication eminent for maintaining message integrity and confidentiality among team members is implemented using SSL protocol on connections between all servers and clients

Early Forest Fire Detection with Sensor Networks: Sliding Window Skylines Approach

Wireless sensor networks are widely used in environmental applications, like forest fire detection. Although forest fires occur relatively rarely, their number is increasing in Europe in the last years, so their manifestation must be early detected in order to prevent higher damages. To minimize needless communication between the sensor nodes for this usage, new data suppression technique using sliding window skylines is described in this paper. We experimentally evaluate our algorithm for continuous sliding windows skylines computation, and show its usability in practice.

AAC services development: from usability requirements to the reusable components

Intensive development of information and communication technologies can contribute greatly to enhance alternative and augmentative communication for individuals who experience difficulty communicating in an understandable manner. Availability of internet infrastructure and affordability of mobile computer devices provide a sound starting point for planning and building AAC services. In order to make the services more familiar and understandable to users, it is justifiable to build them on top of common service platforms in an adaptive and configurable manner. In this paper we present a component-based AAC service development model that enables building such services by using mandatory AAC components on top of the component framework, and selecting visual or non-visual components from the available component pool. The AAC component selection criteria are based on matching the data and metadata of usability requirements specified with the metadata of available components from the component pool. Registering new components into the reusable component pool extends the pool and helps building the component-based AAC services development platform.

RUP-based process model for security requirements engineering in value-added service development

Due to the spreading of SMS services and appearing of new business models, value-added SMS services have been introduced. According to the research results about wide distribution of security incidents on ICT systems worldwide, in spite of known security solutions, there is a necessity for organizational approach to implement security. This paper presents research and development efforts in building process model SecuRUP for security requirements engineering conformed to RUP framework. The model consists of processes, artifacts, activities and according roles for successful elicitation, analysis and specification of recognized security requirements and is validated on presented case study. The model validation results have shown significant process improvement, especially on roles and activities identification in SecuRUP elaboration process, but only further case studies in industry can be best indicators for usefulness of such models.

A Conceptual Framework for Business Process Engineering: A Case Study

this paper discusses a conceptual framework for the requirements engineering process for e-school applications offering a service to the information society. The e-school application is considered a fusion of the electronic business and mobile business contexts, containing three dynamic Webinterfaces and an SMS-interface. Implementation of this service requires changes in the school business process it supports. This paper presents a requirements engineering framework which aims at resolving the feedback loop between the application and the business process. The presented framework has been defined in order to help simultaneously develop an application which provides the service and ensures the necessary identification of school business process changes and their models. The framework also provides a mechanism for efficient service deployment and its future evolution without adverse effects on the underlying business process. Presented is a case study for an e-school notification service implemented within this framework.

Augmentative Requirements Engineering for Trustworthy and Usable ICT-Based Services

For people who face certain difficulties to communicate in a conventional manner and participate actively in everyday life, from work engagement to personal settings, a clinical practice called augmentative and alternative communication has been established to improve effectiveness of their communication by using symbols. By enforcing the usage of ICT to help solve these issues, users’ needs and wants have to be analyzed carefully, by learning from educational, psychological and rehabilitation methods from other fields already deeply involved with life-care for these people. This paper proposes new paradigm of so-called augmentative requirements engineering that would allow holistic view on ICT service requirements engineering to help these user groups.

Sending and Retrieving e-Prescriptions across Europe: Lessons Learned

European e-health initiatives tend to improve patient safety by reducing the frequency of medical errors and by providing quick access to medical documentation. In situations of unplanned care or emergency these may even represent lifesaving information and reduce the repetition of diagnostic procedures. Providing this kind of services in the cross-border settings poses an even greater challenge. This paper presents an experience report on Croatia’s implementation, interoperability testing and preparations of the e-Prescription pilot service for sending and retrieving electronic prescriptions between Croatia and different European countries. Already implemented national e-health projects and strategic decisions put in action have made this innovative project’s efforts valuable, along with the international support of developing the open source solution for establishing the National Contact Point for these e-health services.

Augmentative Requirements Engineering

The widening digital divide in today’s interconnected world is more than an access issue in terms of technology availability and affordability. Concerns like media accessibility, information mobilization and consciousness need to be approached comprehensively, especially when dealing with sensitive user groups. Discovering, understanding and efficiently implementing proper requirements for augmentative and alternative communication is essential for supporting the users with complex communication needs in their everyday life, from work engagement to personal settings. By enforcing the usage of information and communication technologies to help solve these issues, users’ needs and desires have to be analyzed carefully, by learning from educational, psychological and rehabilitation methods from other fields already deeply involved with life-care for these people. Augmentative requirements engineering is a requirements engineering framework that provides a holistic view on requirements for augmentative and alternative communication services, concerning sensitive users’ abilities and needs, service domain and associated intermediary users. The new paradigm is experience-driven from a series of concluded projects and implemented applications for various user groups in Croatia.