Supporting software evolution through model-driven program transformation
Model-Driven Software Development (MDSD) techniques are being adopted with more frequency in the engineering of computer based systems, especially in the area of distributed real-time embedded (DRE) systems. This brief summary presents two research objectives for supporting software evolution in MDSD. First, the concept of model-driven program transformation is introduced to support evolution of large legacy software systems. The second research objective that is presented involves the application of a mature program transformation engine to automate model interpreter evolution in the presence of meta-model schema changes.

title: Aspect mining from a modelling perspective
abstract: Aspect mining aims at identifying, analysing, and refactoring crosscutting concerns throughout a legacy system for the purpose of improving software modularisation. This paper presents our investigation into raising the benefits of aspect mining to high level domain-specific models. A key contribution is the capability to identify crosscutting concerns early in development, which will assist in the modularisation of a design through aspects, before proceeding to the implementation level. Furthermore, our experience has led us to believe that aspects are easier to identify at the modelling level, because much of the accidental complexities of implementation concerns are not present in the corresponding modelling abstractions.

title: Model replication: transformations to address model scalability
abstract: 2 SUMMARY In Model-Driven Engineering, it is often desirable to evaluate different design alternatives as they relate to scalability issues of the modeled system. A typical approach to address scalability is model replication, which starts by creating base models that capture the key entities as model elements and their relationships as model connections. A collection of base models can be adorned with necessary information to characterize a specific scalability concern as it relates to how the base modeling elements are replicated and connected together. In current modeling practice, such model replication is usually accomplished by scaling the base model manually. This is a time-consuming process that represents a source of error, especially when there are deep interactions between model components. As an alternative to the manual process, this paper presents the idea of automated model replication through a model transformation process that expands the number of elements from the base model and makes the correct connections among the generated modeling elements. The paper motivates the need for model replication through case studies taken from models supporting different domains.

title: A Composition-Oriented Approach for Business Process Formal Design
abstract: Traditional approaches to designing business processes are often inadequate for complicated, distributed, and collaborated settings. However since network technologies have become widespread, an increasing number of business processes exhibit these properties. Therefore a new approach is needed. To this end, we describe the motivation, conceptualization, and analysis of a composition-oriented business process design method. The key advance of our method is that it uses process algebra pi-calculus as its formal basis and builds a complex process by composing simple structured process control modules to reduce the complexity of business process design as well as let several designers collaborate the design of a complex process. To make business process more clear, we also provide way of separating exception processing logic from normal process control logic and provide scooping mechanisms to minimize the detrimental effects of unplanned contingencies by ways of composition

title: Automating change evolution in model-driven engineering
abstract: The escalating complexity of software and system models is making it difficult to rapidly explore the effects of a design decision. Automating such exploration with model transformation and aspect-oriented techniques can improve both productivity and model quality. The combination of model transformation and aspect weaving provides a powerful technology for rapidly transforming legacy systems from the high-level properties that models describe. Further, by applying aspect-oriented techniques and program transformation, small changes at the modeling level can trigger very large transformations at the source code level. Thus, model engineers can explore alternative configurations using an aspect weaver targeted for modeling tools and then use the models to generate program transformation rules for adapting legacy source code on a wide scale.

title: Business Process-Oriented Software Architecture for Supporting Business Process Change
abstract: As a business process is essential in running an enterprise, this paper aims toward improving software architecture by extracting business-relevant semantics from business logic and transforming them as important elements that need to be molded and represented in software architecture. This allows for the development of a business process-oriented software architecture (BPOSA) that can support smoother business process change. The paper introduces the structure of BPOSA and its work mode. Then it describes the steps involved in designing a process-oriented software system, and provides analysis and design methods of extending process-relevant attributes for application in business operations.

title: Adaptive Noise Reduction for Engineering Drawings Based on Primitives and Noise Assessment
abstract: In this paper, a novel adaptive noise reduction method for engineering drawings is proposed based on the assessment of both primitives and noise. Unlike the current approaches, our method takes into account the special features of engineering drawings and assesses the characteristics of primitives and noise such that adaptive procedures and parameters are applied for noise reduction. For this purpose, we first analyze and categorize various types of noise in engineering drawings. The algorithms for average linewidth assessment, noise distribution assessment and noise level assessment are then proposed. These three assessments are combined to describe the features of the noise of each individual engineering drawing. Finally, median filters and morphological filters, which can adjust their template size and structural element adaptively according to different noise level and type, are used for adaptive noise reduction. Preliminary experimental results show that our approach is effective for noise reduction of engineering drawings.

title: A component-oriented software toolkit for patient-specific finite element model generation
abstract: A component-oriented software system, i.BioMech (image-based biomechanical modeling) is proposed for generation of patient-specific finite element model. It applies a systematic software engineering approach to patient/subject-specific meshing and assignment of material properties. The prototype program is based on the component object model (COM), which enables ease of combination of existing mesh generation algorithms and material property assignment schemes, and incorporation of new ones. It also facilitates utilization by other programming languages or platforms. Data input comprises a series of medical images captured from the patient. The output is a patient-specific finite element model for computational analysis using commercially available finite element software. The prototype software system provides a framework to compare the different finite element mesh generation methods as well as schemes for material property assignment. Our focus is on patient/subject-specific modeling of the human vertebrae.

title: Dynamic provisioning with availability guarantee for differentiated services in survivable mesh networks
abstract: Survivability is a key concern in modern network design in order to achieve fast service restorability against network failures. This paper investigates the problem of survivable dynamic connection provisioning in general telecom backbone networks, which are mesh structured. These networks employ optical fibers, which may fail due to network outages such as fiber cuts, etc. Our study applies to survivability of optical wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) as well as multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) networks. For survivability study, we assume differentiated services where connections may have different availability requirements, so they may be provisioned differently with protection (if needed) based on their availability requirements and current network state. Therefore, it may be possible that connections with the same source, destination, and availability requirement are provisioned differently (unprotected, shared-path protected, or dedicated-path protected) at different times based on current network state. Such differentiated provisioning can provide diverse levels of service performance and achieve network resource optimization flexibly. Our main contributions are as follows. First, we develop an analytical model to quantify the availabilities of connections with various protection modes, i.e., unprotected, dedicated-path protected, and shared-path protected. Particular emphasis is placed on computing a connection's availability with shared-path protection by employing the link-vector technique, because this technique can maximally explore the sharing potential among backup paths and achieve bandwidth-assignment flexibility. Based on the mathematical model, we then present a novel provisioning strategy for dynamic connection requests in which multiple levels of services are provided and different protection schemes may be applied to different connections. The strategy jointly considers both connection availability satisfaction and resource optimization. Numerical results show very good accuracy of our model and high effectiveness of our provisioning strategy

title: Transforming Natural Arguments in Araucaria to Formal Arguments in LMA
abstract: Over the last few years, argumentation has been gaining increasing importance in multi-agent systems research. LMA is a Logic of multiple-valued argumentation built on top of EALP (extended annotated logic programming). Araucaria is a software tool for analyzing and diagramming arguments written in natural language. We integrate these two systems involved in argumentation to an easy to use and more user-friendly argumentation system, in which natural arguments can be transformed into formal arguments, in order to lighten users' knowledge burden forced by formal argumentation frameworks, and attain extensive usability of formal argumentation systems. We illustrate the transformation process by translating natural arguments in English to formal arguments in EALP step-by-step, and then how the status of those formal arguments can be determined in LMA, resulting in the status determination of original natural arguments.

title: Research and Practice in Undergraduate Embedded System Course
abstract: Embedded systems are becoming very common and meantime create a high demand for hardware and software engineer to support the development of IT. The higher education institutions are facing the need to update their embedded system syllabus. In this paper, we will share our experiences in the development of an undergraduate embedded systems course. This paper describes the design, implementation and teaching style of Application & Principle of Embedded System course in Department of Electrical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology. The paper also presents the challenges encountered due to broad knowledge background and how to achieve the right balance between theory and practice. We also introduce how co-operation between BIT and INTEL in Embedded System Joint Lab.