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Definition and use of Computation Independent Models in an MDA-based groupware development process

Groupware systems allow users to be part of a shared environment in order to carry out groupwork. Members of a group belong to organizations in which each one fulfils general and specific enterprise objectives. This paper presents a proposal, from the perspective of the CSCW (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work) systems, for modelling enterprise organization and developing groupware applications. This research work focuses on two specific models for the proposal: a conceptual domain model formalized through a domain ontology, and a system model built using a UML-based notation. The second stems from the first and each provides a Computation Independent View (CIV) with different objectives. Respectively, they allow a common vocabulary for knowledge sharing to be established, and organization functional requirements to be specified, particularly those concerning communication, coordination and collaboration. Furthermore, these models are part of a concrete MDA-based development process of groupware applications that is also introduced.

Ontology-driven analysis of UML-based collaborative processes using OWL-DL and CPN

A key ingredient in system and organization modeling is modeling business processes that involve the collaborative participation of different teams within and outside the organization. Recently, the use of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) for collaborative business modeling has been increasing, thanks to its human-friendly visual representation of a rich set of structural and behavioral views, albeit its unclear semantics. In the meantime, the use of the Web Ontology Language (OWL) has also been emerging, thanks to its clearly-defined semantics, hence being amenable to automatic analysis and reasoning, although it is less human friendly than, and also perhaps not as rich as, the UML notation - especially concerning processes, or activities. In this paper, we view the UML and the OWL as being complementary to each other, and exploit their relative strengths. We provide a mapping between the two, through a set of mapping rules, which allow for the capture of UML activity diagrams in an OWL-ontology. This mapping, which results in a formalization of collaborative processes, also sets a basis for subsequent construction of executable models using the Colored Petri Nets (CPN) formalism. For this purpose, we also provide appropriate mappings from OWL-based ontological elements into CPN elements. A case study of a mortgage granting system is described, along with the potential benefits and limitations of our proposal.

Enabling correct design and formal analysis of Ambient Assisted Living systems

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) systems intend to provide services that enable people with specific needs to live an independent and safe life. Emergency treatment services are critical, time-constrained, and require compliance to numerous non-functional (or quality) requirements. In conventional approaches, often, non-functional requirements are kept outside the modeling scope and as such, their verification is also overlooked. For this reason, the specification and verification of Non-functional requirements (NFR) in this kind of services is a key issue. This paper presents a verification approach based on timed traces semantics and a methodology based on UML-RT models (MEDISTAM-RT) to check the fulfillment of non-functional requirements, such as timeliness and safety (deadlock freeness), and to assure the correct functioning of the AAL systems. We validate this approach by its application to an Emergency Assistance System for monitoring people suffering from cardiac alteration with syncope.

Analyzing a firm's international portfolio of technological knowledge: A declarative ontology-based OWL approach for patent documents

Patent databases contain large amounts of information about the inventions and metadata of corporate patents (such as the technological domain they belong to, their applicants, and inventors). These databases are available online but since they do not provide explicit information about the relationships between different patent metadata, it is not possible for computers to automatically process such relationships. Several patent ontologies have been proposed so far in order to provide patent knowledge bases with semantics by merging information from different databases and establishing a common vocabulary. However, previous ontology literature has paid limited attention to the representation of specific relationships among metadata and the design of reasoning procedures that would allow some information not explicitly specified in the databases or ontologies to be inferred. This article proposes a methodological approach for the definition of relationships and reasoning tasks for patent analysis by using patent ontologies, and provides a real illustration of its potential in the context of international flows of research knowledge. This declarative method is based on the formal definition of key patent analysis indicators (KPAIs). The case study analysis is relevant because global competition and the importance of multinational firms in the patent process have resulted in firms not only patenting on their domestic markets but also transferring their patents to other markets and developing patents in different countries. In this context, it is important to analyze the connections between the patenting processes and the international knowledge flows of research and development. More specifically, the paper illustrates the applicability of the proposed methodology by classifying patents into the five patterns of internationalization identified by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Using a CBR Approach Based on Ontologies for Recommendation and Reuse of Knowledge Sharing in Decision Making

One of the possibilities for improving decision processes, and the knowledge management across interacting organizations is to explore successful past experiences. Case-based reasoning (CBR) is a problem solving strategy which is based on the reuse of past solutions (cases) to address new problems. Ontologies are a means to facilitate sharing and reuse of bodies of knowledge across organizations and applications on the basis of a well-defined and precise semantics for concepts and terms. This work presents a proposal aimed at knowledge reuse, during the decision activities by means of interwoven concepts from the knowledge management, CBR and ontologies research. This blended approach presents an ontological case construction for CBR systems as theoretical and empirical support for knowledge sharing. We obtain a formal characterization of a case by means of an ontological description of particular cases, and their interrelationships with cases stored in different case-repositories. An architecture for a distributed CBR system is proposed on the basis of a multiagent setting for semantic-based access to knowledge.

Goal-Oriented Software Architecting

Designing software architectures to meet both functional and non-functional requirements (FRs and NFRs) is difficult as it oftentimes relies on the skill and experience of the architect, and the resulting architectures are rarely derived directly from the requirements models. As a result, the relationships between the two artifacts are not explicitly captured, making it difficult to reason more precisely whether an architecture indeed meets its requirements, and if yes, why. This chapter presents a goal-oriented software architecting approach, where FRs and NFRs are treated as goals to be achieved, which are refined and used to explore achievement alternatives. The chosen alternatives and the goal model are then used to derive, using the provided mapping rules, a logical architecture, which is further mapped to a final concrete architecture by applying an architectural style and architectural patterns chosen based on the NFRs. The approach has been applied in an empirical study based on the 1992 London ambulance dispatch system.

Nutrition for Elder Care: a nutritional semantic recommender system for the elderly

The awareness and familiarity of elderly people with the use of new technologies have increased considerably in the last few years, which consequently cause a higher willingness to the use of these technologies in their daily lives. This allows the elderly to benefit from technology through active and conscious participation in activities related to health, leisure and promotion of social relationships, fostering active ageing. Three large dimensions cover almost a major part of health care within the framework of early and intermediate stages of active ageing: physical exercise, healthy nutrition and cognitive stimulation. In this paper, we present a nutritional recommender system, Nutrition for Elder Care, intended to help elderly users to draw up their own healthy diet plans following the nutritional experts guidelines. The system has been developed with the intensive use of Semantic Web technologies pursuing knowledge sharing and reuse between different applications and agents and the discovering of implicit new knowledge.

Challenges in software applications for the cognitive evaluation and stimulation of the elderly

BackgroundComputer-based cognitive stimulation applications can help the elderly maintain and improve their cognitive skills. In this research paper, our objectives are to verify the usability of PESCO (an open-software application for cognitive evaluation and stimulation) and to determine the concurrent validity of cognitive assessment tests and the effectiveness of PESCO’s cognitive stimulation exercises.MethodsTwo studies were conducted in various community computer centers in the province of Granada. The first study tested tool usability by observing 43 elderly people and considering their responses to a questionnaire. In the second study, 36 elderly people completed pen-and-paper and PESCO tests followed by nine cognitive stimulation sessions. Meanwhile, a control group with 34 participants used computers for nine non-structured sessions.ResultsAnalysis of the first study revealed that although PESCO had been developed by taking usability guidelines into account, there was room for improvement. Results from the second study indicated moderate concurrent validity between PESCO and standardized tests (Pearson’s r from .501 to .702) and highlighted the effectiveness of training exercises for improving attention (F = -4.111, p < .001) and planning (F = 5.791, p < .001) functions.ConclusionsPESCO can be used by the elderly. The PESCO cognitive test module demonstrated its concurrent validity with traditional cognitive evaluation tests. The stimulation module is effective for improving attention and planning skills.

Leveraging the linda coordination model for a groupware architecture implementation

Functional and non-functional requirements must be taken into account early in the development process of groupware applications in order to make appropriate design decisions, e.g. spatial distribution of group members and group awareness, which are related to the main characteristics exhibited by CSCW systems (communication, coordination and collaboration). This research work presents a proposal intended to facilitate the development of groupware applications considering non-functional requirements such as reusability, scalability, etc. In order to achieve these objectives, the proposal focuses on the architectural design and its implementation, with emphasis on the use of a realization of the technological Linda coordination model as the basis for this implementation. The outcome is a distributed architecture where application components are replicated and event control is separated. This work is part of a conceptual and methodological framework (AMENITIES) specially devised to study and develop these systems.

HEDES: A System Theory Based Tool to Support Evolutionary Software Systems

Software systems evolve over time. Traditional software development methods and tools support partial aspects of this evolving process. Over the last few years we have researched into theoretical evolution search models which might be applied to the development of software systems. The Theory of Systems and biology have interesting views on the evolution process, very different from genetic algorithms, which may aid in the development of software systems and CASE tools. Our aim in this paper is to present a first version of a tool (HEDES) which includes these models and implements them in an object-oriented language (VisualWorks 3.0), using first-order temporal logic as support. In addition, some lessons learnt in the development of these complex and changing tools will be outlined, especially the importance of an iterative lifecycle in object-oriented development, a high degree of cohesion of the develop- ment team and the need for flexible and rapid ways of communicating new ideas using discussion meetings, Internet facilities and development support tools.