Rodolfo F. Resende

Semantic locking in object-oriented database systems

Object-oriented databases are being increasingly used to model non-standard applications that emphasize modularity, composition, and rapid prototyping. A semantic locking protocol is presented for transaction management for such object-oriented databases. In particular, the protocol incorporates the semantics of complex objects, nested executions and dynamic conflicts resulting from referentially shared objects.

Semiotic inspection method in the context of educational simulation games

Software process simulation is increasingly being used as an approach for analyzing complex business, for supporting management planning, for helping with software process training and learning and for supporting the software process improvement. In addition to providing to users a simulation tool that supports all these aspects, it is also important to consider some other requirements during the tools design, such as efficient and effective communication of the designers message to the user. In this way, we show how semiotic concepts can be used in the analysis and generation of knowledge through the application of the Semiotic Inspection Method (SIM), a semiotic engineering evaluation method. In this paper we present a scientific application of SIM to a Software Engineering simulation game focusing the analysis on feedback aspects and issues. The results go beyond the system analyzed and point to considerations regarding simulation games used in educational contexts.

Requirements for information systems model-based testing

In order to develop systems with a high level of quality and low costs it is necessary to have adequate testing tools and methods. We believe that the definition of a requirements catalog is one of the steps in such direction. This work presents a requirements catalog for information systems model-based testing that can be used as a basis for improving methods as well as a guide for the development of new methods and tools. The catalog was prepared based on the literature of the area and on the experience of several information systems developers.

A method for information systems testing automation

This paper presents MODEST, a MethOD to hElp System Testing. MODEST can reduce the overall effort required during software construction, using an extended design specification produced in a UP-like software process. This specification is used to automate test generation and execution, decreasing the effort required during test activities. The method deals with Information Systems that follow an architecture composed of a user interface layer, a business rule layer and a storage mechanism abstracted by a persistence layer.

Using quantitative information for efficient association rule generation

The problem of mining association rules in categorical data presented in customer transactions was introduced by Agrawal, Imielinski and Swami [2]. This seminal work gave birth to several investigation efforts [4, 13] resulting in descriptions of how to extend the original concepts and how to increase the performance of the related algorithms.The original problem of mining association rules was formulated as how to find rules of the form set1 → set2. This rule is supposed to denote affinity or correlation among the two sets containing nominal or ordinal data items. More specifically, such an association rule should translate the following meaning: customers that buy the products in set1 also buy the products in set2. Statistical basis is represented in the form of minimum support and confidence measures of these rules with respect to the set of customer transactions.The original problem as proposed by Agrawal et al. [2] was extended in several directions such as adding or replacing the confidence and support by other measures, or filtering the rules during or after generation, or including quantitative attributes. Srikant e Agrawal [16] describe an new approach where quantitative data can be treated as categorical. This is very important since otherwise part of the customer transaction information is discarded. Whenever an extension is proposed it must be checked in terms of its performance. The algorithm efficiency is linked to the size of the database that is amenable to be treated. Therefore it is crucial to have efficient algorithms that enable us to examine and extract valuable decision-making information in the ever larger databases.In this paper we present an algorithm that can be used in the context of several of the extensions provided in the literature but at the same time preserves its performance, as demonstrated in a case study. The approach in our algorithm is to explore multidimensional properties of the data (provided such properties are present), allowing us to combine this additional information in a very efficient pruning phase. This results in a very flexible and efficient algorithm that was used with success in several experiments using categorical and quantitative databases.The paper is organized as follows. In the next section we describe the quantitative association rules and we present an algorithm to generate it. Section 3 presents an optimization of the pruning phase of the Apriori [4] algorithm based on quantitative information associated with the items. Section 4 presents our experimental results for mining four synthetic workloads, followed by some related work in Section 5. Finally we present some conclusions and future work in Section 6.

FASENG: A framework for development of Software Engineering simulation games

Simulation games can help teaching and learning in several areas of Software Engineering. One important research issue is providing support for simulation games development, making the results of their adoption successful in Software Engineering courses. In this work, we identify a set of requirements focusing on some of the Constructivist learning theories. These requirements were used to evaluate Software Engineering simulation games. Based on these requirements, we created FASENG, a framework for development of Software Engineering simulation games. FASENG has three main components: simulation model, simulator, and simulation engine. Since there is a clear structural and conceptual separation among them, they can be reused in other development environments. In order to check the framework flexibility, we developed two distinct Software Engineering simulation games. The two main results of this research are a better understanding of Software Engineering simulation games requirements and the development of FASENG.

CAPPLES - A Capacity Planning and Performance Analysis Method for the Migration of Legacy Systems

Many organizations have a number of mission-critical systems that are out-of-date, but that are essential to their activities and cannot be discontinued. This problem is known as the Legacy System Dilemma, and it is usually solved by the migration of the existing systems to a completely new environment. Although there are many strategies and tools to perform this migration, no methods are available for evaluating the performance of the new system before its migration has been completed. This paper presents CAPPLES, a capacity planning and performance analysis method for the migration of legacy systems. A real case study is presented where CAPPLES was successfully applied to predict the behaviour of a new version of a mission-critical legacy system. Details of how to use CAPPLES, such as the characterisation of the synthetic workload and the simulation of the new system, are also provided.

On the serializability theorem for nested transactions

Abstract The fundamental theorem of the classical serializability theory states the necessary and sufficient conditions for the conflict serializability of an execution. In this paper, we extend the correctness Ucriteria of the classical theory by presenting a definition of conflict serializability for concurrency control of nested transactions. We define a serialization graph for nested transactions and we prove that its acyclicity is a sufficient and necessary condition for conflict serializability.

Evaluating software engineering simulation games: The UGALCO framework

The increasing interest in Software Engineering simulation games leads to the problem of how to assess these games in order to measure their real benefits. Until the current days, few attempts were proposed in order to support practitioners evaluating simulation games. This paper introduces UGALCO, a five-dimension framework for simulation games evaluation. Besides a detailed assessment of players learning, usability, motivation, and user experience, we also included a communicability evaluation from the Human Computer Interaction field. Since our framework is not prescriptive, there are no restrictions regarding its attributes, evaluation perspectives or techniques. Instead, we present how a set of tools and attributes can be used together, bringing more effective results for assessing the game as a whole. We applied this framework for the evaluation of a specific simulation game. Results indicate that this framework can be used to gain better and more understanding of simulation games aspects.

The Issues of Solving Staffing and Scheduling Problems in Software Development Projects

Search-Based Software Engineering (SBSE) applies search-based optimization techniques in order to solve complex Software Engineering problems. In the recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of SBSE applications in areas such as Software Test, Requirements Engineering, and Project Planning. Our focus is on the analysis of the literature in Project Planning, specifically the researches conducted in software project scheduling and resource allocation. SBSE project scheduling and resource allocation solutions basically use optimization algorithms. Considering the results of a previous Systematic Literature Review, in this work, we analyze the issues of adopting these optimization algorithms in what is considered typical settings found in software development organizations. We found few evidence signaling that the expectations of software development organizations are being attended.