Sergio F. Ochoa

An indoor navigation system for the visually impaired.

Navigation in indoor environments is highly challenging for the severely visually impaired, particularly in spaces visited for the first time. Several solutions have been proposed to deal with this challenge. Although some of them have shown to be useful in real scenarios, they involve an important deployment effort or use artifacts that are not natural for blind users. This paper presents an indoor navigation system that was designed taking into consideration usability as the quality requirement to be maximized. This solution enables one to identify the position of a person and calculates the velocity and direction of his movements. Using this information, the system determines the users trajectory, locates possible obstacles in that route, and offers navigation information to the user. The solution has been evaluated using two experimental scenarios. Although the results are still not enough to provide strong conclusions, they indicate that the system is suitable to guide visually impaired people through an unknown built environment.

Structuring dimensions for collaborative systems evaluation

Collaborative systems evaluation is always necessary to determine the impact a solution will have on the individuals, groups, and the organization. Several methods of evaluation have been proposed. These methods comprise a variety of approaches with various goals. Thus, the need for a strategy to select the most appropriate method for a specific case is clear. This research work presents a detailed framework to evaluate collaborative systems according to given variables and performance levels. The proposal assumes that evaluation is an evolving process during the system lifecycle. Therefore, the framework, illustrated with two examples, is complemented with a collection of guidelines to evaluate collaborative systems according to product development status.

Evaluating Collaborative Learning Processes

Understanding and analyzing collaborative learning processes require a fine-grained sequential analysis of the group interaction in the context of learning goals. Several researchers in the area of cooperative work take as a success criterion the quality of the group outcome. Nevertheless, recent findings are giving importance to the quality of the cooperation process itself. This paper presents a set of indicators which main objective is to evaluate the collaborative learning process. We have defined an experiment with a tool instrumented to gather data from groups working in a simple task. This data is then useful to build the cooperation indicators, which in turn allow us to estimate the quality of the work process.

An MDE approach to software process tailoring

Defining organizational processes is essential for enhancing maturity. However the best process depends on the particularities of each project. Typically a process engineer defines a specific process for each project in an ad-hoc fashion, which is expensive, unrepeatable and error prone. Trying to deal with this challenge we propose a model-based approach to software process tailoring that generates project specific processes based on the organizational process and the project context. The approach is systematic, repeatable and it does not depend on the people using it. The proposal has been applied for tailoring the Requirements Engineering process of a medium size company. The obtained results were validated by process engineers of the company. Processes obtained using the proposed approach matched the ones used in the company for planned contexts and also they were reasonable for non-expected situations.

Evaluation methods for groupware systems

Evaluation of collaborative systems is necessary in several situations. However, evaluation is frequently done in an ad-hoc manner or not at all. This paper presents a survey of evaluation methods for groupware systems. The analysis, comparison and classification of these methods will help developers choose the appropriate methods for their situation. Furthermore, the survey allows identification of strengths and weaknesses of existing methods, opening opportunities for research in this area. The proposed comparison criteria represent a framework to evaluate and classify new evaluation methods.

Supporting group decision making and coordination in urban disasters relief efforts

When extreme events affect urban areas the response process should be fast and effective because the population and civil infrastructure densities potentially increase the impact of such events. These situations have shown the need to improve the group decisionmaking process and the coordination of relief activities carried out by relief organizations. This paper proposes to include first responders as decision makers and describes a technological platform to support decision making and coordination activities among these all actors involved. The supporting platform provides digital communication and information recording, representation and dissemination capabilities among the mobile workers participating in the relief efforts. The platform could also be used to support activities in scenarios similar to this one (e.g. police and military operations, massive social events).

EDIPS: an Easy to Deploy Indoor Positioning System to support loosely coupled mobile work

Loosely coupled mobile work is characterized by nomadic workers collaborating in sporadically and on-demand ways. Supporting nomadic workers’ interactions requires knowing the location of the potential collaborator; therefore, indoor/outdoor positioning systems play a key role. Locating persons in outdoor environments is well addressed by Global Positioning Systems (GPS); however, for the indoor scenario, the solution is not so clear. Although several proposals for indoor positioning have been reported in the literature, most of them demand important setup efforts. This article presents the Easy to Deploy Indoor Positioning System (EDIPS), a WiFi-based system able to support the typical location requirements involved in loosely coupled mobile work. EDIPS is aimed for fast deployment and real-time operations rather than for location accuracy. The system was preliminary evaluated as a support for locating medical interns’ in a simulated hospital. The results obtained indicate the solution is able to locate nomadic workers in an indoor scenario, with enough accuracy to support loosely coupled mobile work, while requiring minimal setup effort.

Integrated notation for software architecture specifications

Currently, there are many notations to specify software architectures, which address a wide range of formality and completeness. Completely formal notations produce accurate and analyzable software architecture specifications, but the most formal and complete notations are also the most difficult to use and understand. Conversely, informal notations are easier to use and understand, but several design aspects may remain underspecified. This paper presents an integrated notation for specifying software architecture that reduces the complexity to use completely formal notations without resigning the formality required by software architecture specifications. The integrated notation proposes an architectural specification in three levels of abstraction: a graphical box-and-line diagram to specify the structure, a behavioral specification using input/output automata, and a basis of Larch traits describing the domain specific abstract data types. The proposed integrated notation has been used to specify the architecture of a complex mesh management tool and part of the specification is presented. Although more experimentation is required, the obtained results are encouraging.

A communication infrastructure to ease the development of mobile collaborative applications

Mobile workers doing loosely coupled activities typically perform on demand collaboration in the physical workplace. Communication services available in such work scenarios are uncertain, therefore mobile collaborative applications supporting those activities must provide ad hoc communication mechanisms in order to use each cooperation opportunity. Typically, the complexity of implementing such mobile ad hoc communication mechanisms becomes a challenge that jeopardizes the development of mobile collaborative solutions. This article presents a communication infrastructure named HLMP API dealing with that challenge. HLMP API intends to ease the development of such applications through the reuse of communication services. The infrastructure is an application programming interface that implements the HLMP routing protocol and also some awareness mechanisms that are required for mobile loosely coupled work. Developers using this infrastructure do not have to perform low-level programming.

Requirements Engineering Practices in Very Small Software Enterprises: A Diagnostic Study

Requirements engineering practices have been identified as a key issue that affects the success rate of projects in most software organizations. The software engineering community has studied the requirements engineering practices of medium and large-sized organizations extensively, and has produced interesting and suitable solutions. However, several software engineering researchers have shown that most current requirements engineering practices are unsuitable for small and very small software companies. They have also highlighted that there is a lack of knowledge about the requirements engineering practices in these types of companies. This article presents the results of a diagnostic study the authors are performing in very small software companies in Chile. The study tries to identify the state of the practice in this niche and also the potential limitations to adopt appropriate requirements engineering practices in Chilean very small software enterprises.