Towards the selection of modeling techniques for dynamic software product lines

In Dynamic Software Product Lines (DSPLs) product configuration occurs at runtime. Modelling variability and configuring the product in DSPLs should consider the context and non-functional requirements (NFRs) satisfaction. ConG4DaS (Contextual Goal models For Dynamic Software product lines) is a Requirements Engineering (RE) approach for DSPL which supports (i) modelling of variability with goals, NFRs, contexts and the relationship between them; and (ii) offers a product configuration based on contexts, NFRs and their priority and interactions. In this paper, we present a survey evaluation of ConG4DaS with RE and DSPL researchers in regard to the perceived usefulness. In the survey, both RE and DSPL researchers perceived ConG4DaS as useful for modelling and configuring DSPLs. However, the RE group gave more positive answers than the his study presents the report about a case study on the application of REACT-M (Requirements Evolution in Agile ContexT - Management), an agile method to support software requirements management, in a real software development environment. This case study assessed the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to the assets that make up REACT-M, namely: work products, life cycle, roles, and ceremonies. About the results, it was observed that REACT-M was effective, simple to use, strongly collaborative, suitable, user centered and goal oriented. Thus, achieved its main purpose to evolve the requirements of a software product in iteratively, efficiently and under of the agile mindset. The results contribute to the software industry by providing empirical data about the use of a agile method to software requirements management, which can serve as a reference for organizations seeking the adoption of agile methods related to the requirements area, as well as to provide the scientific community with a better empirical understanding of the relationship between requirements and agile methodDSPL group.

Real world engineering problems often involve selecting between alternatives. As cyber-physical systems (CPS) become more prevalent in society, including smart cities, intelligent transportation networks, smart homes, etc., these alternatives will increasingly not only include variations in hardware but also in software. Stakeholders will have to decide between competing designs consisting of varying sensor sets and varying machine learning models. Ensuring that these selections are well guided and include multiple objectives such as performance, cost, and sensitivity is paramount. Many of these CPS will include machine learning classification models. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis is useful for selecting between alternative classification models based on performance and sensitivity, however, this analysis fails to treat classification models as a system of hardware and software, a CPS. Therefore, the ROC analysis ignores additional stakeholder objectives such cost and reliability. This thesis presents methods to extend the ROC analysis to include an additional objective of system cost. The methodology is demonstrated on three real world data sets that include additional cost information. The presented methodology is shown to drastically reduce the stakeholder decision space and guide stakeholder decisions using performance, cost, and sensitivity objectives.

Dynamic Software Product Line (DSPL) Engineering has gained interest through its promise of being able to unify software adaptation whereby software adaptation can be realised at compile time and runtime. While previous work has enabled program logic adaptation by the use of language extensions and platform support, little attention has been placed on Graphical User Interface (GUI) variability. Different design patterns including the Model View Controller are commonly used in GUI implementation, with GUI documents being used for declaring the GUI. To handle dynamic GUI variability currently, the developer needs to implement GUI refinements using multiple techniques. This paper proposes a solution for dealing with GUI document variability, statically and dynamically, in a unified way. In our approach, we currently use a compile time method for producing GUI variants, and code transformations to handle these variants within the application at runtime. To avoid GUI duplicates, only GUI variants that are unique, and related to a valid product configuration, are produced. To validate our approach, we implemented tool support to enable this for Android based applications.

To tame the complexity of engineering customizable software, systems are built as families of products that share a common core. As customers desire the automatic and smart adjusting of their software to various contexts of operation, runtime reconfiguration capabilities need to be added. In this extended abstract, we sketch reengineering challenges to be tackled when evolving classic software product lines into such dynamic software product lines.

Due to the very large number of configurations that can typically be derived from a Dynamic Software Product Line (DSPL), efficient and effective testing of such systems have become a major challenge for software developers. In particular, when a configuration needs to be deployed quickly due to rapid contextual changes (e.g., in an unfolding crisis), time constraints hinder the proper testing of such a configuration. In this paper, we propose to reduce the testing required of such DSPLs to a relevant subset of configurations. Whenever a need to adapt to an untested configuration is encountered, our approach determines the most similar tested configuration and reuses its test results to either obtain a coverage measure or infer a confidence degree for the new, untested configuration. We focus on providing these techniques for inference of structural testing results for DSPLs, which is supported by an early prototype implementation.

Nowadays, more than one billion people are in need of one or more assistive technologies, and this number is expected to increase beyond two billion by 2050. The majority of assistive technologies are supported by battery-operated devices like smartphones and wearables. This means that battery weight is an important concern in such assistive devices because it may affect negatively its ergonomics. Saving power in these assistive devices is of utmost importance for its potential twofold benefits: extend the device life and reduce the global warming aggravated by billion of these devices. Dynamic Software Product Lines (DSPLs) are a suitable technology that supports system adaptation, in this case, to reduce energy consumption at runtime, considering contextual information and the current state of the device. However, a reduction in battery consumption could negatively affect other quality of service parameters, like response time. Therefore, it is important to trade-off battery saving and these other concerns. This work illustrates how to approach the self-adaptation of smart assistive devices by means of a DSPL-based strategy that optimizes battery consumption taking into account other QoS parameters at the same time. We illustrate our proposal with a real case study: a Smart Cane that is integrated with a DSPL platform, Tanit. Experimentation shows that it is possible to make a trade-off between different quality concerns (energy consumption and relative error). The results of the experiments allow us to conclude that the Tanit approach elongates battery duration of the Smart Cane in one day (an increase of a 6% with a relative error of 1%), so we improve the user quality of experience and reduce the energy footprint with a reasonable relative error.

Cloud-based technologies play an increasing role in software engineering because of their scalability, availability, and cost efficiency. However, due to privacy issues, developers and organizations still hesitate to host applications that handle sensitive data on servers of external cloud providers. Modern hardware extensions, such as Intel's Software Guard Extensions (SGX), are an attempt to provide confidentiality and integrity for applications running on external hardware. Still, enabling SGX in cloud systems poses new challenges considering scalability and flexibility. In this paper, we propose an approach to address these issues by employing concepts from the domain of Dynamic Software Product Lines (DSPLs). We aim to enable applications running on SGX-based cloud systems to be securely reconfigurable and extendable during runtime. In particular, we describe properties that such an approach should fulfill and discuss corresponding challenges.

Utilising a sequential mixed-method design to investigate the relationship between planning and smart city development; this thesis aims to work toward an integrated response to these challenges through the provision of an evaluative framework for planning smart cities. Such a framework would act as a medium in recommending a future role and direction for the sector of planning and would aim to build upon the opportunities of technology found in smart cities. Such opportunities include improving the weaknesses of traditional-delivery-methods of development in what the thesis broadly views as an analogue approach to the future of cities challenge in a digital world. The thesis employs a grounded-theory approach to data analysis in phase one, before quantitatively analysing planning policy in phase two and comparing these measurements to questionnaire data in phase three to produce an evaluative framework for the role of planning in smart cities. This linkage via sequential steps for data collection and analysis is reflective of the holistic approach of planning as a profession, whereby a consultative process for expertise in the fields of transport, the environment, heritage and infrastructure combine to form a cohesive system of the built environment; leading this thesis to advocate for an introduction of a digital peer if cities are to be smart about their transformation. In being knowledgeable about this transformation the study’s main findings break down the cycle of data in smart cities to data capture, data communication, data processing and data production; before relating these to smart city development principles that combine with the project phases of planning developments to form quadrants, or areas of opportunity, for planning smart cities – building upon the strengths of planning to improve the capacity of cities in operating throughout the new environment of the digital world.

With the flourishing and advancing part of IoT and Cloud Computing, smart cities are becoming an emerging standard, having ubiquitous sensing, high level wireless network infrastructure, consisting of intelligent information processing and control systems. Smart city systems can monitor the real world and real time, and are able to provide smart services and solutions to local residents and travellers in terms of entertainment, healthcare, energy and transportation. But security and privacy concerns are still there as Smart city systems collect a wide range of sensitive data which is directly proportional to the privacy of people. Here in this paper, we have firstly introduced about the key ideas for upcoming enhancements for smart cities and their data management strategies. After that we have discussed many security and privacy challenges while applying for these applications in real world. Mainly, here in we have pointed out some technologies and key ideas which can be researched and implemented in the coming future.

Combining the background of digital economy and digital China, based on the idea of basic method of BIM and information physics system CPS, a reference frame model of intelligent architecture based on BIM is put forward, from which the modern economic system of smart city is further constructed. 75% of the cost of the building life cycle occurs during the operation phase, while the cost of the construction phase accounts for only 25% of the project life cycle cost. Based on the importance of the operational stage and the inadequacy of the current industrial development, a software framework for intelligent architecture and intelligent city operation based on BIM + Multi-Agent Enhancing Learningis proposed, and the software development and implementation method of using the industrial general OPC standard as the integrated interface for MAS system modules is discussed. The realization of intelligent building energy management system is presented. This article can provide the method and idea for the enterprise to develop intelligent building software, and also can provide reference for the government to formulate intelligent construction and smart city strategy.

To meet the demands of multiple communication between control terminal and home appliances in the Smart Home environment, a designed proposal of common use communication node(CN) is presented, especially a high-power and wide-angle infrared communication system. The main function of the system, design methods of hardware structure and software are proposed. The software development process of the remote program download is also discussed in detail. In order to reduce the error rate of communication, a method of cyclic codes programming is applied in this design. Experiment results show that the communication node has great value for practical applications, and meets the requirements of high-performance Smart Home system.

Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes are responsible for the transmission of diseases such as dengue fever, yellow fever, chikungunya fever, zika virus fever, some of which can cause irreversible central nervous system problems and death. This study investigates what technologies are being used for combatting and monitoring the Aedes mosquitoes and to propose joining these technologies into a single and complete solution using the Smart Cities concept. A search for newscasts on Google and mobile apps in app stores were performed to identify technological solutions for combat to Aedes mosquitoes. Also, a model for joint technology was proposed. Results identified the following technologies: 170 software, two sensors, two drones, one electronic device, ten mosquito traps/lures, seven biological tools, six biotechnologies, and eight chemical formulations. Technological resources and adoption of preventive measures by the population could be a useful method for the mosquito control. Examples include a georeferenced model for identification and examination of larvae, application of chemical/biological products, real-time mapping, sending of educational materials via email or social media for the population, and alerts to health professionals in the zones of combat/risk. In combination, these technologies may indicate a better solution to the current problem.

Cities are the most preferable dwelling places,having with better employment opportunities,educational hubs,medical services,recreational facilities,theme parks,and shopping malls etc.Cities are the driving forces for any national economy too.Unfortunately now a days,these cities are producing circa 70%of pollutants,even though they only occupy 2%of surface of the Earth.Public utility services cannot meet the demands of unexpected growth.The filthiness in cities causing decreasing of Quality of Life.In this light our research paper is giving more concentration on necessity of "Smart Cities ",which are the basis for civic centric services.This article is throwing light on Smart Cities and its important roles.The beauty of this manuscript is scribbling Smart Cities " concepts in pictorially.Moreover this explains on " Barcelona Smart City " using Internet of Things Technologies ".It is a good example in urban paradigm shift.Bracelona is like the heaven on the earth with by providing Quality of Life to all urban citizens.The GOD is Interenet of Things.

Variability management is crucial for companies that need to offer multiple product variants quickly. However, the increasing complexity of software-intensive systems has made variability management increasingly challenging. This challenge is compounded by the need for such systems to run continuously and adapt to changes in the environment and user needs at runtime. To address this challenge, Dynamic Software Product Line (DSPL) Engineering has emerged as a strategy for managing variability in complex and dynamic environments. The key challenge in DSPL engineering is to manage product configurations at runtime by detecting changes in the context and adapting accordingly. In this paper, we propose an adaptation mechanism for DSPL feature models that supports dynamic variability and is based on the MAPE-K model. The mechanism transforms feature model constraints into rules that enable the activation of each feature and annotates contexts in the corresponding features to be activated when changes occur. We have implemented the mechanism in the DyMMer 2.0 modeling tool and evaluated its performance using various DSPL feature models. Additionally, we performed a preliminary evaluation with a proof-of-concept study with an expert to assess its practical usage. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed mechanism in managing variability in complex and dynamic environments.

We envision an Autonomic Software Product Line (ASPL). The ASPL is a dynamic software product line that supports self adaptable products. We plan to use reflective architecture to model and develop ASPL. To evaluate the approach, we have implemented three autonomic product lines which show promising results. The ASPL approach is at initial stages, and require additional work. We plan to exploit online learning to realize more dynamic software product lines to cope with the problem of product line evolution. We propose on-line knowledge sharing among products in a product line to achieve continuous improvement of quality in product line products.