Karina Villela

Software diversity: state of the art and perspectives

Diversity is prevalent in modern software systems to facilitate adapting the software to customer requirements or the execution environment. Diversity has an impact on all phases of the software development process. Appropriate means and organizational structures are required to deal with the additional complexity introduced by software variability. This introductory article to the special section “Software Diversity—Modeling, Analysis and Evolution” provides an overview of the current state of the art in diverse systems development and discusses challenges and potential solutions. The article covers requirements analysis, design, implementation, verification and validation, maintenance and evolution as well as organizational aspects. It also provides an overview of the articles which are part of this special section and addresses particular issues of diverse systems development.

Relevance and perspectives of AAL in Brazil

Population aging has been taking place in many countries across the globe and more recently in emerging countries. In this context, Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) has become one focus of attention, including methods, products, services, and AAL software systems that support the everyday lives of elderly people, promoting mainly their independence and dignity. From the perspective of computer science, efforts are already being dedicated to adequately developing AAL systems. However, in spite of its relevance, AAL has not been properly investigated in emerging countries, including Brazil. Thus, the contribution of this paper is to present the main perspectives of research in AAL, in particular in the area of software engineering, considering that the Brazilian population is also subject to the aging process. The main intention of this paper is to raise the interest of Brazilian researchers, as well as government and industry, for this important area.

Evaluation of a Method for Proactively Managing the Evolving Scope of a Software Product Line

[Context and motivation]PLEvo-Scoping is a method intended to help Product Line (PL) scoping teams anticipate emergent features and distinguish unstable from stable features, with the aim of preparing their PL for likely future adaptation needs. [Question/problem]This paper describes a quasi-experiment performed to characterize PLEvo-Scoping in terms of adequacy and feasibility. [Principal ideas/results] This quasi-experiment was performed by two scoping teams in charge of scoping the same PL, where one scoping team applied first an existing PL scoping approach and then PLEvo-Scoping, while the other scoping team interweaved activities from both. The two approaches achieved similar results: The method could be applied in just one day, and it was considered adequate and feasible. [Contribution] Ideas on how to improve the method and its tool support have been obtained, and similar results are expected from other professionals facing the problem of evolution-centered PL scoping. However, further empirical studies should be performed.

Reliable and Smart Decision Support System for Emergency Management Based on Crowdsourcing Information

Command and control centres face the challenge of quickly obtaining accurate information about emergencies they should response to. Conversely, crowdsourcing information and mobile technologies offer great potential for better engaging eyewitnesses in emergency and crisis management processes. This paper describes the vision and the realisation of the RESCUER system, a smart and interoperable decision support system for emergency and crisis management based on mobile crowdsourcing information. Eight evaluation exercises with end users were performed during the project duration, in addition to technical verifications of the individual system components. The results of the evaluation exercises were quite positive and helped to continuously improve and extend the system.

Interaction Modes for Emergency Mobile Apps

While seemingly irrational behaviors such as panicking or displaying antisocial behavior are the responses to emergency situations the media and movies lead us to believe, several studies show that people rather react based on decision-making such as acting altruistically and protectively. However, what can we really expect from people in a crowd in terms of participation in an emergency response system? In this paper, we present a mobile application called the RESCUER App, which allows civilians to participate in the emergency response process by providing information about the emergency to a command center and to receive instructions from this command center. We developed a human reaction model for emergencies to better understand the human–computer interaction capabilities of people in an emergency situation. Based on this model, we defined three different interaction modes: one-click interaction, guided interaction, and chat interaction. These interaction modes were implemented in an interactive prototype and evaluated in an experiment in which high cognitive load was induced to simulate a stress situation, similar to the stress experienced in an emergency. The experiment results showed that the three predefined interaction modes enabled people to interact with the RESCUER App even though they were in a stress situation.

Quality Attributes Analysis in a Crowdsourcing-based Emergency Management System.

In an emergency situation where the physical integrity of people is at risk, a mobile solution should be easy to use and trustworthy. In order to offer a good user experience and to improve the quality of the app, we should evaluate characteristics of usability, satisfaction, and freedom from risk. This paper presents an experiment whose objective is to evaluate quality attributes in a crowdsourcing-based emergency management system. The quality attributes evaluated are: appropriateness recognisability, user interface aesthetics, usefulness, trust, and health and safety risk mitigation. The experiment was designed following the Goal/Question/Metric approach. We could evaluate the app with experts from the area of emergency. The results showed that the participants thought the app was well designed, easy to understand, easy to learn, and easy to use. This evaluation ensured the application improvement, and also the evaluation process adopted.

SCArVeS: services, clouds, and alternative design strategies for variant-rich software systems

Summary of Scarves workshop

Evolutionary product line scoping

Product Line Engineering has a widespread use in industry now. Therefore there is a high need for customizable, adaptable, and also for mature methods. Scoping is an integral part of Product Line Engineering. In this phase we determine where to reuse and what to reuse, establishing the basis for all technical, managerial, and investment decisions in the product line to come. In this tutorial we will give an introduction on how to analyze an environment with the purpose of planning a product line and its future evolution.