Jayashree Ramanathan

A Deterministic Attribute Grammar Evaluator Based on Dynamic Scheduling

The problem of semantic evaluation in a compiler-generating system can be addressed by specifying language semantics in an attribute grammar [19], a context-free grammar augmented with “attributes” for the nonterminals and “semantic functions” to compute the attributes. A deterministic method for evaluating all attributes in a “semantic” parse tree is derived and shown to have time and space complexities which are essentially linear in the size of the tree. In a prepass through the parse tree, the method determines an evaluation sequence for the attributes; thus it is somewhat analogous to dynamic programming. The constructor-evaluator system described should be suitable for inclusion in a general translator-writing system. for inclusion in a general translator-writing system.

Connecting reality with theory — An approach for creating integrative industry case studies in the software engineering curriculum

Case studies have been successfully integrated into a wide variety of educational contexts and disciplines. Today, case studies are increasingly accepted as valuable teaching tools in science and engineering curriculums to complement the underlying theory of the field. Well-articulated cases can reinforce abstract concepts, demonstrate the nature of real client interactions, and showcase the relevance of soft skills to students that lack significant practical experience. However, assembling and delivering quality case studies to students requires a great deal of practical disciplinary knowledge, and a careful alignment of the case content and delivery style with curricular objectives, course learning outcomes, and the overarching institutional format. In this paper, we summarize our experience with an approach for constructing case study teaching materials that are integrative and deep in content, but also carefully aligned to the core principles and format of a senior-level software engineering course. Our approach ensures that the cases are complex enough to retain their realism and intrinsic appeal, while mirroring the format and objectives of the course such that the cases reinforce key points in a familiar and consistent fashion to the students.

Process modelling in software environments

A tension connector, and offshore platform mooring system embodying the connector, characterized in that the connector can be made up remotely and released remotely. The connector comprises a male connector member, typically attached to a string of pipe which serves as a mooring element, and a female connector member, typically secured to an anchoring base at the bottom of a body of water. The connector is made up simply by inserting the male member downwardly into the female member by manipulating the pipe string. Advantageously, two remote release means are provided, one operating hydraulically, the other by manipulation of the pipe string.

Collaborative workflow assistant for organizational effectiveness

Knowledge intensive process vary widely due to the variation in the specifics of the incoming request and uncertainty in handling and processing that request. Traditional management systems with pre-defined workflows are less effective for enabling these kinds of organizational workflows. Consequently, less structured tools for ad-hoc collaboration, such as Email or activity management systems [8, 16] are used instead because of the flexibility they permit at execution time. However, these ad-hoc collaborative tools are not as capable of capturing best practice knowledge in a manner that is suitable for reuse in similar contexts and future executions of the workflow. We propose to mine knowledge-intensive workflow executions in order to capture and codify best practice knowledge that can be reused to assist and enhance decision making during future executions. We present a model of a dynamic system and a method for knowledge-intensive workflow enactment that captures ad-hoc applications of tacit knowledge as the work is carried out. Our framework is illustrated using a critical and commonly occurring process in industry called the Architecture Life-Cycle (ALC) management process. This process reviews technological changes made to the installed Information Technology (IT) architectures to meet the evolving requirements of the business. We illustrate how our framework allows participants to locally enhance the ALC, by enabling each individual to perform their work in the best way and recording their intentions explicitly using framework mechanisms that relate activities, work products, transitions, and constraints. We illustrate the axioms that filter out best practices that have been observed during executions and feed them back to the collaborators to guide and improve future executions.

Modeling of problem domains for driving program development systems

Though programming is essentially a creative process, it has been realized by various researchers and practitioners (see for example, [CHEA79, DOD80, FLOY72, ROMA77, ROSS77, TEIC77]) that many aspects of program development can be automated to aid in developing programs that are reliable and maintainable. Such semi-automatic tools may be generally termed as program ~evelopment ~ystem(s) (or pals) and are expected to bridge the gap between ‘manual’ programming, where the programmer applies a methodology to develop a program in the absence of computer aids, and completely automated programming, which is an area of active research in Artificial Intelligence. It is also now generally accepted that the programmer should be provided with a variety of programming tools, both general purpose and application oriented, within a ~rogramming ~nvironment (or pe) [DOD80] which should provide flexible access to these tools . We view the pd. as a set of tools to be provided within such a pe and we shall, henceforth, refer to such a set of tools as pals/ pe or just pals.

Implementation Considerations in Enabling Visually Impaired Musicians to Read Sheet Music Using a Tablet

In this paper, we present the issues to be addressed and the practical solutions to these issues in a mobile application framework for reading and displaying musical scores enhanced to assist the visually impaired in reading and perform the pieces. This framework, currently operating on MusicXML input files, provides the structures and methods for developers to adapt for other music encoding file formats. It also provides the flexible user-settable colors and enlargement parameters to meet the needs of users with various visual impairments. The development challenges fall into three categories: Variable visual impairment driven requirements, Musical notation complexity, and screen real-estate limitations of a 10-inch tablet. The frameworks practical solutions to each of these challenges are presented and contrasted with traditional solutions and competing solutions.

Achieving ‘handoff’ traceability of complex system improvement

This paper presents an ontology for performance that is also the basis for an enterprise modeling and measurement framework for managing complex systems through improved traceability. The treaceability is achieved in the context of hand-offs that are typical of discovery in service-oriented environments. Examples in the health care industry illustrate the value of traceability in highly dynamic information technology services.

Use of annotated schemes for developing prototype programs

Reusable components or patterns of programming are used here as a means of generating prototypes. The challenge in identifying existing patterns was in striking a balance between a few patterns that are too flexible to really save programmer effort, and numerous patterns that are too narrowly applicable. A further challenge was to find a way of tuning a pattern to reflect the details of a specific application.A pattern is defined to have a) an I/O specification, b) control structure, c) and a generic problem/solution description. The domain dependent generic problem/solution description serves to communicate general semantic information to the prototype developer familiar with the domain. The patterns presented here were culled from case studies involving over 200 programs in the file processing domain. These patterns have been demonstrated to be useful.

Motivating dynamic features for resolution time estimation within IT operations management

Cloud-based services today depend on many layers of virtual technology and application services. Incidents and problems that arise in such complex operational environments are logged as a ticket, worked on by experts and finally resolved. To assist these experts, any machine recommendation method must meet the following critical business requirements: 1) the ticket must be resolved, meeting specific time constraints or Service Level Targets (SLTs), and 2) any predictive assistance must be trustworthy. Existing research uses probabilistic models to recommend transfers between experts based on limited features intrinsic to the ticket content, and does not demonstrate how to meet SLTs. To address this lack of research and ensure SLT-compliance for an incoming ticket given its recommended sequence of experts, there needs to be an accurate time-to-resolve (TTR) estimation. This research aims to identify important features for modeling time-to-resolve estimation given the routing recommendation sequences. This work particularly makes the following contributions: 1) constructs a framework for assessing TTR estimations and their SLT-compliance, 2) applies the assessment to a baseline estimation model to identify the need for better TTR modeling, and 3) uses language modeling to study the impact of anomalous content on the estimation error, and 4) introduces a set of dynamic features, and a methodology to rigorously model the TTR estimation.

Teaching students software engineering practices for micro-teams

Standard methodologies, which have been developed for large software development teams, and Agile practices, developed for small teams, make up the software engineering practices taught in the Computer Science classroom. However, we have found that there is a significant prevalence of “micro” teams doing business-critical software development in the field. Thus, software development best practices for micro teams must be incorporated into the software curriculum. Towards this end, we created a multiple-case case study (comprising five micro team projects) showing how micro teams handle the software development process. Through each of these projects, we seek to showcase what practices from existing software development methodologies are undertaken by the developers of the projects, to achieve similar ends as developers in larger teams. Specifically, the case study highlights how existing software development methodologies need to be modified, adapted or extended for micro teams. The case study and micro team guidelines were presented to students in a software engineering class within the Computer Science department at a large R1 university. The teaching was assessed using a mix of surveys and structured interviews. Initial evaluations showed promise. Students were positively inclined to accept the lessons, and showed good recall of the concepts taught in tests.