Toward Quality Attribute Driven Approach to Software Architectural Design

Monitoring and evaluation systems are used by organizations or governments to measure, track progress, and evaluate the outcomes of projects. Organizations can improve their performance, effectiveness, and achieved results in project success by strengthening their monitoring and evaluation systems. Moreover, various studies reveal the need for information and communication technology systems in monitoring and evaluation activities. Despite the advantage of the tools, most organizations do not employ computerized monitoring and evaluation systems due to their cost and limited expertise whereas those having these systems lack a systematic alert mechanism of the projects' progress. Currently, the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly, and Children of Tanzania monitors and evaluates its projects manually facing the risks and consequences of delayed project completeness. In this study, the evolutionary prototyping approach was used to develop the proposed system. This study describes the development of a web-based monitoring and evaluation system that aims to solve the monitoring and evaluation challenges, simplify works, generate quality data, and provide timely successful project implementation. The developed system was tested and evaluated against the user’s requirements and was positively accepted to be deployed at the Ministry of Health.

Software architecture forms the cornerstone for achieving and ensuring various software quality attributes. It encompasses the collected requirements of the product, serving as a blueprint that delineates quality features for all project stakeholders, along with methods for measurement and control. Despite the significant increase in IoT-based agricultural systems, there is a dearth of studies on the quality elements of their software architecture. To address this need, this study offers an overview of components and services tailored to address specific quality attributes pertinent to agriculture systems. It identifies, investigates, and presents quality attributes influencing the design of software architecture for IoT-based agriculture systems. This paper identified and discussed several quality attributes, including performance, scalability, flexibility, interoperability, productivity, extensibility, and security, and mapped them to corresponding components of the IoT-based agriculture software architecture. Also, several issues were identified and discussed for the software architecture quality of IoT-based agriculture systems, such as real-time processing and interoperability due to the various devices and protocols utilized in these systems. The findings of this study offer valuable insights for developing, executing, and refining IoT-based agricultural systems to fulfill the changing requirements of the agriculture industry.

The quality attributes of a system are determined, to a large extend, by the decisions taken early on in the development process, noticeably affecting the specification of its software architecture. This is especially true for attributes such as security, usability, context awareness, etc., that have strong functional implications -- i.e. they require the incorporation of Specific functionality to the application architecture in order to satisfy them. Our approach models functional quality attributes considering that: (1) they are complex enough so as to be modeled by a large set of related concerns and the compositions among them. For instance, security includes authentication, access control, privacy, encryption, auditing, etc; (2) the same quality attributes are required by several applications, and thus should be modeled as separate, ready-to-use (re)usable architectural solutions that final applications can incorporate without being previously prepared for it; and (3) not all the concerns that are part of a quality attribute need to be instantiated for a particular application (e.g. only the authentication and access control concerns of security are required). In order to consider all the above requirements, in this paper we present a software product line approach that permits modeling the variability of quality attributes using feature models, and generating different configurations of their software architecture depending on the particular concerns required by each application.

The application of AI technology in architectural software has brought various innovations and changes to the industry. By introducing convolutional neural networks and deep neural networks, architectural design software is expected to automatically identify and generate complex architectural images, optimize the design process, and provide intelligent design assistance. Through literature research, this paper aims to discuss the specific application of CNN and DNN in parametric design and the innovation brought by them, and analyzes the application of these technologies in architectural image recognition, generation, design optimization and other aspects. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive reference for researchers in related fields and promote the innovative application of AI technology in architectural design. The application of AI technology in architectural software has brought numerous innovations and changes to the industry. By introducing convolutional neural networks and deep neural networks, architectural design software is expected to automatically identify and generate complex architectural images, optimize the design process, and provide intelligent design assistance. Through literature research, this paper aims to discuss the specific application of CNN and DNN in parametric design and the innovation brought by them; it also analyzes the application of these technologies in architectural image recognition, generation, design optimization, and other aspects. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive reference for researchers in related fields and promote the innovative application of AI technology in architectural design.

Reusing design experiences to materialize software architectures into object-oriented designs

Over the past 10 years software architecture has been perceived as the result of a set of architecture design decisions rather than the elements that form part of the software design. As quality attributes are considered major drivers of the design process to achieve high quality systems, the design decisions that drive the selection and use of specific quality properties and vice versa are closely related. Consequently, quality attributes must play a role for decision making processes and be documented alongside the decisions captured. Consequently, we conduct a systematic literature review to study the importance and impact of the relationships between quality attributes and architecture design decisions and to what extent existing architecture knowledge management methods and tools deal with the decisions that affect the quality of a system. We also report on the challenges and future research paths for architectural knowledge management methods and tools. Our results reveal important explicit relationships between both software artifacts, the role of uncertainty in decision making and empirical studies reporting the use of quality attributes in architecture knowledge management activities.

Software Architecture provides views and structure of the system at a high-level of abstraction. The selection of software architecture and user interface design has a great influence upon the quality of software. Our research is going in two directions; one to find the impact of layered architectural style upon maintainability of software and secondly to find the impact of user interface design with three-dimensional (3D) modeling upon usability of software. We need to choose architectural solutions based on the proven facts in order to find the desired quality attributes. The literature for the impact of architecture patterns on quality attributes shows a lack in achieving usability, that’s why we have chosen to assess a software architectural pattern along with interface design in order to achieve usability along with other quality attributes. We implemented a system “Electronic Communication Surveillance Analytic tool with 3D Modeling” based on the layered architectural style, then we evaluated this system for maintainability and usability.

In 2002, Grieves defined the concept of the digital twin as a virtual instance of physical assets capable of continuously mirroring them. Ever since then, driven by remarkable industrial attention, digital twins flourished and ripened in several sectors. The notable industrial adoption has been sided by a growing interest from the software engineering community in general and the software architecture community in particular as demonstrated by the growing number of published peer-reviewed publications and proposed software architectural solutions for digital twins. In this paper, we report on the planning, execution, and results of a systematic mapping study on architecting digital twins. The study captures crucial aspects of software architectures for digital twins as types of architectural solutions, quality attributes, and architectural patterns. It supports practitioners in creating digital twins tailored to their specific needs and researchers in identifying trends and open challenges. Starting from an initial set of potentially relevant 1630 peer-reviewed publications, we selected 140 primary studies. We analysed the set of primary studies using thorough data extraction, analysis, and synthesis process. To compensate for single method limitations and reduce possible threats to conclusion validity, we discussed the results of our study with experts in the software architecture community. Based on our results, the field of software architecture for digital twins is lively and an increasing number of architectural solutions are being proposed. Although there is a lack of widely accepted reference architectural solutions for digital twins, most of them are built using a combination of the layered and service-oriented patterns and address maintainability, performance efficiency, and compatibility quality attributes.

Quality attribute workshops (QAWs) provide a method for analyzing a systems architecture against a number of critical quality attributes, such as availability, performance, security, interoperability, and modifiability, that are derived from mission or business goals. The QAW does not assume the existence of a software architecture. It was developed to complement the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM) in response to customer requests for a method to identify important quality attributes and clarify system requirements before there is a software architecture to which the ATAM could be applied. The analysis is based on applying a set of test cases to a system architecture. These test cases include questions and concerns elicited from stakeholders associated with the system. The process of building the test cases allows stakeholders to communicate among themselves, thereby exposing assumptions that may not have surfaced during requirements elicitation. Our experience to date includes multiple QAWs that were held with four different U.S. government acquisition programs. This is the second edition of a technical report describing QAWs. This report clarifies the context in which a QAW is applicable, provides a rationale for developing the process and describes it in detail, and concludes with a list of lessons learned and a discussion of how these lessons have helped evolve the process to its current state.

The benefits offered by software architectures include providing an improved understanding of high-level relationships amongst systems components and facilitating in making principled decisions between alternatives. A vast majority of architectural decisions are focused on realising functional requirements and often ignore the nonfunctional requirements (quality attributes) altogether or include them as an afterthought. This has a negative impact on the overall acceptance of the software system by its intended users. Moreover, these architectures are specified using diagrammatic notations such as boxes and lines as connectors between them. As a result, such semiformal representations lack precision in their definitions and may lead to misinterpretations of the architecture resulting in errors being introduced at later stages of development. Although several Architectural Description Languages (ADLs) exist for the formalisation of systems architectures, few are designed for formalising nonfunctional requirements. Since ADLs concentrate on component-level representations and not on the system as a whole, their support of non-functional requirements is limited. Additionally, as each ADL normally supports one quality attribute, multiple ADLs are required to cater for various quality attributes. This articles aims to address the challenges of inadequacies of specifying quality attributes in software systems in a manner that is both formal and applicable to a wider range of quality attributes. To achieve this goal, this paper present a process model that assists in formalising the non-functional requirements of a service-based software system and eliminates the need for multiple ADLs. It demonstrates the practicability of the proposed model by applying it to one quality attribute, namely “availability”, using the general purpose Z specification language.

Aim To explore and apply a comprehensive evaluation method for web-based prosthodontics course learning. Methods A set of evaluation index system of prosthodontics web-based course learning process was preliminarily constructed through analyzing the influencing factors of web-based course learning effect. Expert consulting method and analytic hierarchy process were applied for the determination of the quality model of web-based course and the weights of each indicator. Delphi technique was used for the evaluation of the rationality of every index weight. A standard evaluation system was finally formed. The evaluation system combined with topsis method was applied in the evaluation of the web-based course learning effect of the five-year system dental students. Results Through multiple screening and weighting, a multistage model of web-based courses’ evaluation was established, including 4 primary indexes, 7 secondary ones and 19 third ones. The general scores and ranks of the students were obtained from the comprehensive evaluation method and combined with topsis method. Conclusion This evaluation method includes the learning process and outcome, integrates the qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, which assures the evaluation results to be objective and just.

The purpose of this research is to develop an evaluation system for performing the initial evaluation, operational evaluation, and post evaluation of the collaborative information system that will support new product development of mould companies in KOREA. For these, we derived the CSFs and KPIs for evaluating the collaborative information system. And, the derived KPIs were applied to the design collaborative information system, which is the outcome of the e-Manufacturing project, and pre evaluation and post evaluation were conducted. Quantitative indexes were evaluated through the web-based evaluation system, whereas qualitative indexes can be evaluated through surveys.KeywordsCSCWCollaborative DesignCSFKPI

Evaluate the learning that will be given or given to diagnose success and failure in understanding teaching materials. Failure to provide learning can be caused by the use of inappropriate teaching or media methods, and difficult language to convey. By applying information technology in evaluating learning materials, a web-based evaluation system can be developed to conduct assessments and as a way to improve the quality of learning materials with certain criteria. So that the problem of failure in the learning process can be known based on the learning material used. This study integrates the DEMATEL and ANP methods that support decision making by evaluating lecturer learning material to students. Based on the problems and explanations described earlier, the use of the DEMATEL and ANP methods is expected to assist in evaluating learning materials with the aim of always trying to provide good learning materials based on the right factors or criteria. The results of making an evaluation system aim to assess the suitability of learning materials with the criteria used as further improvement efforts and to find out where the lack of success in learning. Thus it can be sustainable between the objectives and the final results of teaching.

Architecture evaluations offer many benefits, including the early detection of problems and a better understanding of the possibilities of a system. Although many methods are available to evaluate an architecture, studies have shown that the adoption of architecture evaluations in industry is low. A reason for this lack of adoption is that there is limited out-of-the-box process and tool support available to start performing architecture reviews. In this article we introduce LiSCIA, a Light-weight Sanity Check for Implemented Architectures. It can be used out-of-the-box to perform a first architectural evaluation of a system. The check is based on years of experience in evaluating the maintainability of software systems. By periodically performing this check, the erosion of the implemented architecture as the system (and its requirements) evolves over time can be controlled. Preprint accepted for publication in IEEE Software, Special Issue on Software Evolution: Maintaining Stakeholders Satisfaction in a Changing World, July/August 2010, IEEE Computer Society

: This paper presents some of the steps in an emerging architecture tradeoff analysis method (ATAM). The objective of the method is to provide a principled way to understand a software architecture's fitness with respect to multiple competing quality attributes: (1) modifiability, (2) security, (3) performance, availability, and (4) so forth. These attributes can interact or conflict-improving one often comes at the price of worsening one or more of the others, thus it is necessary to trade off among multiple software quality attributes at the time the software architecture of a system is specified, and before the system is developed. This report illustrates typical quality attribute models, analyses, and tradeoffs using a small real-time industrial application.