An Integrated Process for Aspect Mining and Refactoring

Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD) aims at solving the problem of encapsulating crosscutting concerns, which orthogonally crosscut the components of a system, in units called aspects. This encapsulation improves the modularization of a system and in consequence its maintenance and evolution. In this work, the authors propose a systematic process for the migration of object-oriented systems to aspect-oriented ones. This migration is achieved in two main phases: crosscutting concern identification (aspect mining) and code transformation (aspect refactoring). The aspect mining phase is based on dynamic analysis and association rules to identify potential crosscutting concerns. The aspect refactoring phase, on the other hand, uses inference rules to identify the refactoring that can be applied. The whole process is described and its application on a real system is assessed.

Changing The Rules

The increasing availability of information and communication technology makes it possible to explore new concepts and strategies in teaching and learning processes. The reduction of cost and the amelioration of processing power of computers allow bringing to the classroom software of greater complexity. This way, the use of simple computer presentations is gradually replaced by hypermedia systems capable of combining different kinds of information. Interactive simulators represent a next step, allowing students to participate in an active process of experimentation. These tools make use of numeric models to represent the dynamics of systems with high accuracy. Video games can blend the numeric and media capabilities of computers with a presentation format that provides a pleasant experience and promotes a deep engagement in activities. These characteristics have a positive impact on learning results, explaining the interest on such software. The construction of educational games requires knowledge from very diverse fields, like pedagogy, cognitive psychology, computer graphics, simulation and software engineering. Each area of expertise has its own view from the issues involved; bringing together different professionals in a coherent manner can be a challenging task. This work describes tools to help organize the design and decisions during the implementation of an educational game. They facilitate the communication between project members, by documenting design options in different stages.

How to Develop Intelligent Agents in an Easy Way with FAIA

In Artificial Intelligence courses, the development of intelligent agents is a common practical work. However, it is a programming extensive and consumed time practice that much of the time the student cannot solve in full and in time. In this work the authors present FAIA, a framework to develop intelligent agents giving a partially design solution. With FAIA the teacher and student will have benefits. On the one hand, it helps to guide in the correct design and learning process. On the other hand, it helps in the teaching and evaluation process.

A Diacritical Study in Web Design

In the current chapter the authors present a heuristic and diacritical analysis of the communicability in Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 carried out in the contents of the websites of Southern Europe, especially between Italy and Spain. The real examples that will be presented are related to the loss of the veracity of on-line information and the decay of credibility of the traditional information sources, such as digital newspapers, university context and the industrial or commercial sector. These results are directly related to the statistical aspect and the new phenomenon of the star enunciator and the use of statistics in the Internet, especially in websites such as university websites, social networks, digital newpapers and magazines, portals, etc., whose consequence in the short and middle term may be the total destruction of transparency in the communication process among the users of the interactive systems and the freedom of access to true online information.

E-Governance Survey on Municipalities Web Sites

E-Governance aims to provide high quality of government for citizens. It covers services, information delivery and interactive community / government communication. This goal can be achieved by adopting the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) tools in the government web site´s design and contents. This communication channel allows a redefinition of the traditional role played by each one of the actors of the relation. The government as provider of: services, information, transparency and interactive communication. The citizens acting as active subjects with their government, using services, receiving information, controlling the government´s decisions and returning feedback to them. This feedback includes opinions, complaints and suggestions delivered by the web sites’ interactive tools. This research surveyed if the implementation of ICT tools regarding national and international norms and regulations for web sites development and content, increases the fulfillment of the key concepts of e-governance: e-democracy, e-services, e-transparency and active and passive communication. 30 local government web sites of Argentine were analyzed by checking if they implemented the ICT tools expressed by the seven basic concepts of design and contents: Navigability, Veracity, Friendliness, Functionality, Accessibility, Usability and Information through 152 weighed aspects that fulfill these seven concepts. The analysis of the score obtained by the web sites showed their e-governance development level and what aspects they have to implement to improve e-governance quality.

Communicability Era

In the current chapter are analyzed the main reasons for which it is necessary to count with a new profile in design, realization and assessment of the interactive systems. The whole of the observations and proposals is the result of theoretical research, experiences in projects of interactive multimedia systems in the public and private Spanish and Italian university context in the last two decades. Through all this time it has been seen how the lack of training among the professionals in the interactive systems, especially in some university environments, not only has increased the production costs but the detection of a low quality of design and communicability has discouraged the interaction of the novel users with these systems. One of the goals that we set ourselves is to determine the set of necessary knowledge and/or experiences that these professionals must possess to carry out satisfactorily the interactive systems of the present and the future, in the least possible production time, with reduced costs and a high final quality. Obviously, the key factor of these shortcomings lies in the university educational systems and in the organization of the contents in the study plans, leaving behind the business factor of university teaching. Therefore, we have structured the current work in the following way: study of the evolution of the multimedia systems, anchoring of the notions related to communication, determination of the main areas of knowledge of the future professional, analysis of the software quality, signalling of the business-oriented factors in the structuring of the university study plans, especially related to degrees, engineering titles and masters.

Venture to the Interior –Virtual Object Lessons

The question of how to design and implement efficient remote learning environments gains a new quality in the light of extensive digital education projects such as the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative. At the core of this consideration is not only the task of developing content for very different cultural settings but also the necessity to reflect the effects of learning processes that operate exclusively with digitally mediated content. This chapter outlines the design strategies of the project Venture to the Interior, an interactive experience that presents selected objects from the collections of the Museum of Natural History in Berlin, Germany, and displays them in a context reflecting the museum as an institution and the practices of collecting as knowledge constitution. The project investigates the role of objects as knowledge devices and the possibilities for a translation of the didactic effects of experiential learning into virtual environments.

Communicability in Educational Simulations

Simulation and game-based learning are powerful modes of learning that are used in many fields including subjects as diverse as medicine and aviation. While institutes of further and higher education are making increasing use of VLEs to deliver teaching and learning, there are currently few examples of simulated environments for learning. The SIMPLE (Simulated Professional Learning Environment) and Cyberdam environments are two of the few dedicated simulation environments. This chapter will look at both of these environments and the results of user evaluations to determine what makes a simulation environment successful and what aspects of a simulation environment would have to be evaluated in order to establish its communicability.

The Imaginary 20th Century

To understand historic developments of the past the authors normally turn to facts: Archival records, testimonies or remains from the past – they are looking for tangible evidence to reconstruct the past. In particular in respect to the technological development that originated at the turn from the 19th to the 20th century the role of deterministic interpretations has been very strong. The focus is on technologies and how they improved along an inevitable time line towards technical perfection (Marvin, 1988). Another historic perspective that takes the social aspects into account mainly traces how people negotiated the old and the new and how technologies changed the social fabric. What stays out of the focus of most research is what people in the past felt and thought and how their imagination of what is possible and desirable influenced the development of technologies and the society. The following will use the example of the interactive media art piece The Imaginary 20th Century to discuss an approach to turn the attention to the re-construction of historical imagination with a particular focus on the imaginative processes and their communication to a current audience.

Accessibility and Usability of Web Content and Applications

Accessibility is essential for every system or product in order to guarantee equal opportunity for access and use to all, including the differently-abled. Thus it is crucial to remove any technological barriers for special needs users, who explore the Internet by assistive technologies. However, ensuring efficient and satisfactory (in other words, usable) interaction with user interfaces (UIs) of products or services must occur in the design phase, in order to produce UIs that are universally simple to understand, rapid and easy to use. Applying accessibility and usability criteria from the very beginning of the design phase is much less costly than introducing it later, so specific guidelines should be followed from the earliest stages of the design process. In the long run, creating accessible and usable Web UIs will improve overall efficiency and effectiveness of interaction for any individual and organization.