Modellqualität als Indikator für Softwarequalität: eine Taxonomie

Zusammenfassung  Komplexit?t, Anforderungsmanagement und Variantenvielfalt sind zentrale Herausforderungen bei der Entwicklung und Evolution heutiger softwaregesteuerter Systeme. Diesen wird zunehmend durch den Einsatz modellbasierter Entwicklungsmethoden begegnet. Dadurch wird das Modell zum zentralen Artefakt und die Erstellung und Nutzung von Modellen zu einer zentralen T?tigkeit in der Softwareentwicklung. Mit der Bedeutung der Modelle steigen auch die Ansprüche an ihre Qualit?t. Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Implikationen, die daraus entstehen, insbesondere werden sinnvolle Qualit?tsmerkmale für softwarebeschreibende Modelle identifiziert und diskutiert.     

Softwarekartographie

Zusammenfassung  Anwendungslandschaften in Unternehmen sind langlebige hoch-komplexe Strukturen bestehend aus hunderten bis tausenden von miteinander vernetzten betrieblichen Informationssystemen, die von Personen mit sehr unterschiedlichen Interessen und Erfahrungshintergrund konzipiert, erstellt, modifiziert, betrieben, genutzt und finanziert werden. Die Softwarekartographie zielt darauf ab, die Kommunikation zwischen diesen Personen durch zielgruppenspezifische verst?ndliche graphische Visualisierungen zu unterstützen, die Gesch?fts- und Informatik-Aspekte gleicherma?en berücksichtigen, und die speziell für langfristige und strategische Management-Betrachtungen geeignet sind. In diesem Beitrag fassen wir zun?chst die in der betrieblichen Praxis wohlbekannten Probleme beim Management von Anwendungslandschaften zusammen und diagnostizieren erhebliche Kommunikationsdefizite. Da Anwendungslandschaften als Systeme von Systemen mit Menschen als integrale Systembestandteile zu verstehen sind, werden Karten als attraktiver L?sungsansatz identifiziert und die wesentlichen Konzepte der Softwarekartographie anhand von Beispielen vorgestellt. Dabei werden Querbezüge zu anderen Fachgebieten der Informatik und Wirtschaftsinformatik hergestellt, und die bisherige Nutzung der Forschungsergebnisse in der Praxis gezeigt.     

Composing RESTful Services and Collaborative Workflows: A Lightweight Approach

The use of RESTful Web services has gained momentum in the development of distributed applications based on traditional Web standards such as HTTP. In particular, these services can integrate easily into various applications, such as mashups. Composing RESTful services into Web-scale workflows requires a lightweight composition language that's capable of describing both the control and data flow that constitute a workflow. The authors address these issues with Bite, a lightweight and extensible composition language that enables the creation of Web-scale workflows and uses RESTful services as its main composable entities.     

Applications of the discrete element method in mechanical engineering

Compared to other fields of engineering, in mechanical engineering, the Discrete Element Method (DEM) is not yet a well known method. Nevertheless, there is a variety of simulation problems where the method has obvious advantages due to its meshless nature. For problems where several free bodies can collide and break after having been largely deformed, the DEM is the method of choice. Neighborhood search and collision detection between bodies as well as the separation of large solids into smaller particles are naturally incorporated in the method. The main DEM algorithm consists of a relatively simple loop that basically contains the three substeps contact detection, force computation and integration. However, there exists a large variety of different algorithms to choose the substeps to compose the optimal method for a given problem. In this contribution, we describe the dynamics of particle systems together with appropriate numerical integration schemes and give an overview over different types of particle interactions that can be composed to adapt the method to fit to a given simulation problem. Surface triangulations are used to model complicated, non-convex bodies in contact with particle systems. The capabilities of the method are finally demonstrated by means of application examples. Commemorative Contribution.     

An efficient sampling scheme: Updated Latin Hypercube Sampling

An efficient sampling scheme called Updated Latin Hypercube Sampling is presented. The proposed method is an improved variant of Latin Hypercube Sampling. It uses specially modified tables of independent random permutations of rank numbers which form the strategy of generating input samples for a simulation procedure. The method is presented in order to obtain these specially modified tables. The aim of this paper is to compare estimates of certain widely used statistical parameters obtained by Updated Latin Hypercube Sampling, Latin Hypercube Sampling and Simple Random Sampling. It is shown that Updated Latin Hypercube Sampling usually results in a substantial decrease of the variance in the estimates of commonly used statistical parameters and that the bias is quite small for a moderate number of simulations. This sampling technique seems to be generally very useful, efficient and superior to other methods especially in the case of statistical, sensitivity and probability analyses of complex analytical models with random input variables.     

Uncertainty Matters: Computer Models at the Science–Policy Interface

The use of computer models offers a general and flexible framework that can help to deal with some of the complexities and difficulties associated with the development of water management plans as prescribed by the Water Framework Directive. However, despite the advantages modelling presents, the integration of information derived from models into policy is far away from being trivial or the norm. Part of the difficulties of this integration is rooted in the lack of confidence policy makers have on the incorporation of modelling information into policy formulation. In this paper we examine the reasons for this apparent lack of confidence and explore how some tools, presently in use, address this problem. We conclude that public confidence in models is highly dependent on the way uncertainties are addressed and suggest possible directions of action to improve the current situation. Four real case studies illustrate how computer models have been used in The Netherlands for carrying out management plans at regional and national scale. We suggest that the solution to integrate modelling information into policy formulation lies on both the modelling and the policy-making communities.     

Burnout, job setting, and self-evaluation among rehabilitation counselors.

Surveyed 38 rehabilitation counselors to investigate the relationship of experienced burnout to self-concept and job setting. Ss completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory and a questionnaire about their work. The emotional exhaustion component of burnout emerged as the key factor in the results. Emotional exhaustion was related to work overload and a perceived lack of control. It was also linked to dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the job. Findings are consistent with previous theorizing and research on burnout by J. Gaines and J. M. Jermier (see record 1984-10923-001) and C. Maslach and S. E. Jackson (see record 1985-24012-001) and underscore the relevance of this phenomenon for the rehabilitation profession. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integrated model-driven dashboard development

Business performance modeling and model-driven business transformation are two research directions that are attracting much attention lately. In this study, we propose an approach for dashboard development that is model-driven and can be integrated with the business performance models. We adopt the business performance modeling framework, and we extend it in order to capture the reporting aspect of the business operation. We describe models that can effectively represent all the elements necessary for the business performance reporting process, and the interactions among them. We demonstrate how all these models can be combined and automatically generate the final solution. We further extend the proposed framework with mechanisms that can detect changes in the models and incrementally update the deployed solutions. Finally, we discuss our experience from the application of our technique in a real-world scenario. This case study shows that our technique can be efficiently applied to and handle changes in the underlying business models, delivering significant benefits in terms of both development time and flexibility.