基于模型法应对企业信息系统工程中不确定性需求

在软件工程或具体的需求工程中,用户需求通常具有不确定性.这成为了企业信息化实践中的主要问题之一;在企业信息系统工程中这尤其是一关键问题.通过扩展模型的概念、分析企业领域中可用模型的情况,提出了一种基于模型来应对用户需求之不确定性的方法.描述了应用基于模型的方法确定企业信息系统需求的基本逻辑与主要活动过程,并给出了一个应用ARIS(集成信息系统结构)参考模型库解决需求问题的实例.研究表明,基于模型的方法可用于有效地应对企业信息系统工程中的不确定性需求.     

Stakeholder-oriented systematic design methodology for prognostic and health management system: Stakeholder expectation definition

Prognostic and health management (PHM) describes a set of capabilities that enable to detect anomalies, diagnose faults and predict remaining useful lifetime (RUL), leading to the effective and efficient maintenance and operation of assets such as aircraft. Prior research has considered the methodological factors of PHM system design, but typically, only one or a few aspects are addressed. For example, several studies address system engineering (SE) principles for application towards PHM design methodology, and a concept of requirements from a theoretical standpoint, while other papers present requirement specification and flow-down approaches for PHM systems. However, the state of the art lacks a systematic methodology that formulates all aspects of designing and comprehensively engineering a PHM system. Meanwhile, the process and specific implementation of capturing stakeholders’ expectations and requirements are usually lacking details. To overcome these drawbacks, this paper proposes a stakeholder-oriented design methodology for developing a PHM system from a systems engineering perspective, contributing to a consistent and reusable representation of the design. Further, it emphasizes the process and deployment of stakeholder expectations definition in detail, involving the steps of identifying stakeholders, capture their expectations/requirements, and stakeholder and requirement analysis. Two case studies illustrate the applicability of the proposed methodology. The proposed stakeholder-oriented design methodology enables the integration of the bespoke main tasks to design a PHM system, in which sufficient stakeholder involvement and consideration of their interests can lead to more precise and better design information. Moreover, the methodology comprehensively covers the aspects of traceability, consistency, and reusability to capture and define stakeholders and their expectations for a successful design.     

Evolutionary design of user interfaces for workflow information systems

In this paper we argue that user interface design should evolve from iterative to evolutionary in order to support the user interface development life cycle in a more flexible way. Evolutionary design consists of taking any input that informs to the lifecycle at any level of abstraction and its propagation through inferior and superior levels (vertical engineering) as well as the same level (horizontal engineering). This lifecycle is particularly appropriate when requirements are incomplete, partially unknown or to be discovered progressively. We exemplify this lifecycle by a methodology for developing user interfaces of workflow information systems. The methodology involves several models (i.e., task, process, workflow, domain, context of use) and steps. The methodology applies model-driven engineering to derive concrete user interfaces from a workflow model imported into a workflow management system in order to run the workflow. Instead of completing each model step by step, any model element is either derived from early requirements or collected in the appropriate model before being propagated in the subsequent steps. When more requirements are elicited, any new element is added at the appropriate level, consolidated with the already existing elements, and propagated to the subsequent levels. A workflow editor has been developed to support the methodology.     

领域本体在区域医疗信息共享系统中的应用

随着医疗领域信息化建设不断推进,为了提高医疗质量,合理有效利用医疗资源,医疗信息共享的要求日益强烈.语义异构是医疗信息资源共享面临的一个主要问题,提出利用领域本体整合分布式异构数据库资源,介绍了医疗本体的构建和应用系统的设计,为实现区域医疗信息共享提供了一种有效途径.     

Developing a quantitative intelligent system for implementing concurrent engineering design

This research focuses on the development of a quantitative intelligent system for implementing concurrent engineering design. The paper first discusses the task of concurrent engineering design and the basic requirements for conducting integrated concurrent engineering design. The proposed quantitative intelligent system approach combines qualitative reasoning, based upon design and manufacturing knowledge, and quantitative evaluation and optimization, conducted using design information and manufacturing data generated in the knowledge-based reasoning. The method allows considerations on non-operating principle aspects of a product to be incorporated into the design phase, such as manufacturing, maintenance, service, recycle, etc., with an emphasis on production costs. The proposed method serves as a convenient software tool for gathering information required in the concurrent engineering design process and integrates tasks from different parts of the product development life cycle, particularly function design, manufacturability analysis and production cost estimation. A prototype software system is developed based upon this method using Smalltalk-80. In the prototype system, concurrent engineering design is carried out by: (1) describing and representing design requirements; (2) generating feasible design candidates and evaluating their design functions; (3) representing design geometry; (4) finding the associated production processes and predicting the production costs of each feasible design; and (5) identifying the costeffective design that satisfies given design requirements and requires minimum production costs.     

Telehealth acquires meanings: information and communication technologies within health policy

Over the last decade, British health policy has increasingly considered the role of information and information technologies in the provision of health care. Recently, there is a growing interest in new health applications, often referred to as telemedicine and telehealth, and incorporating a diverse range of services that can be provided in electronic form over various telecommunications networks. This paper discusses how such use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in health acquires meanings through a policy process, and what implications it has for telehealth in particular. This is done through a hermeneutic exploration of four principal UK health policy papers published between 1989 and 1998.     

Requirements engineering in health care: the example of chemotherapy planning in paediatric oncology

Health care is characterized by highly complex processes of patient care that require unusual amount of communication between different health care professionals of different institutions. Sub-optimal processes can significantly impact on the patient’s health, increase the consumption of services and resources and in severe cases can lead to the patient death. For these reasons, requirements engineering for the development of information technology in health care is a complex process as well: without constant and rigorous evaluation, the impact of new systems on the quality of care is unknown and it is possible that badly designed systems significantly harm patients. To overcome these limitations, we present and discuss an approach to requirements engineering that we applied for the development of applications for chemotherapy planning in paediatric oncology. Chemotherapy planning in paediatric oncology is complex and time-consuming and errors must be avoided by all means. In the multi-hospital/multi-trial-centre environment of paediatric oncology, it is especially difficult and time-consuming to analyse requirements. Our approach combines a grounded theory approach with evolutionary prototyping based on the constant development and refinement of a generic domain model, in this case a domain model for chemotherapy planning in paediatric oncology. The prototypes were introduced in medical centres and final results show that the developed generic domain model is adequate.     

Designing assistive technologies for medication regimes in care settings

This paper presents some early design work of the Care in the Digital Community research project begun under the EPSRC IRC Network project Equator. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of user requirements in care settings poses interesting methodological challenges. This paper details some methodological options for working in the domestic domain and documents the translation of research into design recommendations. We report on the importance of medication issues in a hostel for former psychiatric patients and present an early prototype of a medication manager designed to be sensitive to the particular requirements of the setting.     

Contributions from cognitive engineering to requirements specifications for complex sociotechnical systems: A case study in the context of healthcare in Brazil

This paper aims at presenting a case study on the use of human factors and ergonomics to enhance requirement specifications for complex sociotechnical system support tools through enhancing the understanding of human performance within the business domain and the indication of high‐value requirements candidates to information technology support. This work uses methods based on cognitive engineering to build representations of the business domain, highlighting workers’ needs, and contributing to the improvement of software requirements specifications, used in the healthcare domain. As the human factors discipline fits between human sciences and technology design, we believe that its concepts can be combined with software engineering to improve understanding of how people work, enabling the design of better information technology.     

ICT4D research: reflections on history and future agenda

Research on the use of ICTs for international development, or information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) research, has a history going back some 30 years. The purpose of this paper is to take stock of the ICT4D research field at this important juncture in time, when ICTs are increasingly pervasive and when many different disciplines are involved in researching the area. The paper first provides some reflections on the history of the field broken down into three phases from the mid-1980s to the present day. This is followed by a detailed discussion of future research agenda, including topic selection, the role of theory, methodological issues and multidisciplinarity, and research impact. ICT4D research started largely in the academic field of information systems but it is concluded that the future lies in a multidisciplinary interaction between researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers.     

Towards an Ontological Approach to Information System Security and Safety Requirement Modeling and Reuse

ABSTRACT

Misuse cases are currently used to identify safety and security threats and subsequently capture safety and security requirements. There is limited consensus to the precise meaning of the basic terminology used for use/misuse case concepts. This paper delves into the use of ontology for the formal representation of the use-misuse case domain knowledge for eliciting safety and security requirements. We classify misuse cases into different category to reflect different type of misusers. This will allow participants during the requirement engineering stage to have a common understanding of the problem domain. We enhanced the misuse case domain to include abusive misuse case and vulnerable use case in order to boost the elicitation of safety requirements. The proposed ontological approach will allow developer to share and reuse the knowledge represented in the ontology thereby avoiding ambiguity and inconsistency in capturing safety and security requirements. OWL protégé 3.3.1 editor was used for the ontology coding. An illustration of the use of the ontology is given with examples from the health care information system.     

基于领域工程的卫生监督信息系统研究与实现

在领域工程理论的指导下,通过分析研究卫生监督领域各业务领域的特点,采用面向特征的领域分析方法,结合面向对象的软件工程思想,得出了该领域的可继承的业务通用构件及系统体系结构,并阐述了卫生监督信息系统的领域分析、领域设计和领域实现的详细建模过程。     

CORAMOD: a checklist-oriented model-based requirements analysis approach

Requirement development activities such as requirements analysis and modelling are well defined in software engineering. A model-based requirement development may result in significant improvements in engineering design. In current product development activities in this domain, not all requirements are consciously identified and modelled. This paper presents the checklist-oriented requirements analysis modelling (CORAMOD) approach. CORAMOD is a methodology for the use of model-based systems engineering for requirements analysis of complex products utilizing checklists, the simplest kind of rational design method. The model-based focuses the requirements analysis process on requirement modelling, whereas the checklist encourages a conscious and systematic approach to identify requirements. We illustrate the utility of CORAMOD artefacts by a comprehensive case study example and modelling with system modelling language (SysML). We suggest that visual accessibility of the SysML views facilitates the full participation of all stakeholders and enables the necessary dialogue and negotiation. The approach promotes tracing derived requirements to the customer need statement and enhances validation by model execution and simulation.     

FoxBASE^＋模拟三角函数功能在工程设计中的应用

ＦｏｘＢＡＳＥ＋数据库管理系统在信息管理中已得到了广泛的应用．由于该系统不具备三角函数运算功能,因此在工程设计中不能得到广泛的应用．本文就其模拟三角函数运算功能的实现方法及其使用进行了讨论,并用该方法实现了露天矿山倾斜深孔爆破实际最小抵抗线的检验计算,为工程设计中应用ＦｏｘＢＡＳＥ＋拓展了一条新的途径．     

Extending Ecological Interface Design principles: A manufacturing case study

Identifying information requirements is a well-understood activity, but the practice of converting data into visual form based on these requirements is less defined. The Ecological Interface Design (EID) framework attempts to bridge this design gap by offering a set of visual design principles. While these principles supply high-level goals to be achieved by the display, they do not describe the design process per se. EID case studies tend to report the work domain analysis, the design solution and the relationship between these two artefacts. Unfortunately, the presentation of a final solution does not reveal the rationale for decisions made during the design process. This, coupled with the complexity of the systems involved, can make it difficult to transfer design knowledge to other work domains. Here a methodology is proposed to guide the design of visual interface components that make up an ecological display. A structured approach for matching requirements to visual form based on work domain analysis, task analysis, scale matching, and data transformations is presented. A case study reveals the rationale behind the redesign of a process control health reporting system using this methodology.     

An instrument for measuring the success of the requirements engineering process in information systems development

There exists a strong motivation for evaluating, understanding, and improving requirements engineering practices given that a successful requirements engineering process is necessary for a successful software system. Measuring requirements engineering success is central to evaluation, understanding, and improving these practices. In this paper, a research study whose objective was to develop an instrument to measure the success of the requirements engineering process is described. The domain of this study is developing customer-specific business information systems. The main result is a subjective instrument for measuring requirements engineering success. The instrument consists of 32 indicators that cover the two most important dimensions of requirements engineering success. These two dimensions were identified during the study to be: quality of requirements engineering products and quality of requirements engineering service. Evidence is presented demonstrating that the instrument has desirable psychometric properties, such as high reliability and good validity.This paper is a longer and more detailed version of the study reported in El Emam and Madhavji (1995).This work was supported in part by the IT Macroscope Project and NSERC Canada.     

Systems for the year 2000: the case for an integrated database

Analysis of the requirements for information management in the various segments of the health care delivery system indicates that the needs of the various user groups overlap, arguing that an integrated information system should be shared between groups. Trends in health care policy suggest that the health care database should be global in scope, not limited to one health care facility. The design of an integrated health care information system that permits local autonomy requires a new approach to systems architecture.     

Experience with user-centred requirements engineering

This paper describes the application of human–computer interaction (HCI) principles and methods to requirements engineering in a case study development of a visualisation tool, ADVISES, to support epidemiological research. The development approach consisted of scenario-based design and analysis of the users’ tasks and mental model of the domain. Prototyping and storyboarding techniques were used to explore design options with users as well as specifying functionality for two versions of the software to meet the needs of novice and expert users. Application of HCI functional allocation heuristics to guide system requirements decisions is explained. An evaluation of the prototype was carried out to assess the extent to which the expert model would support public health professionals in their analysis activities. The results of the design exploration requirements analysis study are reported. The implications of scenario-based design exploration, functional allocation and software architecture are discussed.     

Design and demonstration of an engineering method for service support systems

An integrated and simultaneous design that considers products, services, and information systems is essential due to the mutual influences among each of the three components. This is particularly important in technical customer services (TCS), as the engineering process combines complex high-tech products with diverse types of services. However, to-date no explicit guidance on the integration of information systems into the product service systems engineering process exists. Thus, we propose a method to design service support systems simultaneously. For designing the method, a design science research approach was applied. We demonstrated the applicability of our method by designing and implementing a two-tier service system in a real-world scenario in the domain of TCS: A Virtual Reality-based Training System for training purposes along with a Smart Glasses-based Support System that guides the service technician at the point of service. By proposing and demonstrating our method, we enhance the body of knowledge in service systems engineering and design of IS. The practical contribution is given in additional guidance for designers of new products, services, and IS to master complexity and foster information support of technicians.     

Understanding digital transformation in advanced manufacturing and engineering: A bibliometric analysis,topic modeling and research trend discovery

Digital transformation (DT) is the process of combining digital technologies with sound business models to generate great value for enterprises. DT intertwines with customer requirements, domain knowledge, and theoretical and empirical insights for value propagations. Studies of DT are growing rapidly and heterogeneously, covering the aspects of product design, engineering, production, and life-cycle management due to the fast and market-driven industrial development under Industry 4.0. Our work addresses the challenge of understanding DT trends by presenting a machine learning (ML) approach for topic modeling to review and analyze advanced DT technology research and development. A systematic review process is developed based on the comprehensive DT in manufacturing systems and engineering literature (i.e., 99 articles). Six dominant topics are identified, namely smart factory, sustainability and product-service systems, construction digital transformation, public infrastructure-centric digital transformation, techno-centric digital transformation, and business model-centric digital transformation. The study also contributes to adopting and demonstrating the ML-based topic modeling for intelligent and systematic bibliometric analysis, particularly for unveiling advanced engineering research trends through domain literature.