Luigi Benedicenti

University of Regina

In recent times, due to an increase of open source software working models, the behaviour and emotional affective state of developers are becoming increasingly relevant as a subject of research in the software engineering community. One important aspect of such research is emotional contagion: the phenomenon by which the affective state of an indiv...

The advancement of materials science during the last few decades has led to the development of many hard-to-machine materials, such as titanium, stainless steel, high-strength temperature-resistant alloys, ceramics, refractories, fibre-reinforced composites, and superalloys. Titanium is a prominent material and widely used for several industrial ap...

Emotional contagion is a mechanism by which affect experienced by one person in a group is transmitted to others in the same group. When this happens, the group dynamic is influenced. This paper provides a method to analyze an Open Software project to determine the connection between emotional contagion and software production in such an environmen...

Numerous topics in software engineering can be formulated as optimization problems. Due to the large scale of modern software systems, the methods of mathematical optimization have high computational complexity, and their application in many cases is not possible. To overcome this problem, search-based software engineering (SBSE) develops and appli...

This position paper describes an approach to create a framework for modeling emotion role and its contagion influence between agile teams at various activities for producing defense software, and a procedure to test the model by introducing Multi Criteria Decision Methods to the defense sector. Emotions influence and its contagions between develope...

This chapter describes an evolved noninvasive measurement system that enhances measures with precise location information and intelligent activity monitoring. The system is in the experimental phase at present. The additional information is collected via a dedicated application running on the developers' smartphones. The application acquires locati...

This chapter describes our experience of adopting agile project management in a software development project in the defense context. Adopting an agile approach for both software development and the management of the consequent project is becoming increasingly more relevant in many domains, and the defense domain is no exception. However, this relev...

Extreme Programming (XP) has been called one of the most successful methods in software development. XP comprises a set of practices designed to work together to provide value to the customer. During the XP lifecycle, developers and customers regularly encounter situations in which they need to make decisions or evaluate factors. This affects the d...

Agile methods are now a mainstream production process and their proponents are no longer considered hackers or cowboy coders. Still, in embedded and safety critical domains there is somehow the expectation that the approach be "more" plan-based; at least, many of the current normatives seem to lean toward such approach. A definite change in attitud...

This paper brings together the disciplines of media and creative technologies studies and software systems engineering; it focuses on the challenge of finding methodologies to measure, test and decode meaning in digital cultural objects. Just as rough set theory is a mathematical tool to deal with vagueness and uncertainty in artificial intelligenc...

The literature shows that under certain conditions, traditional software development processes benefit from the adoption of structured decision support methods. Agile methods usually eschew this approach in favor of a collaborative decision-making structure. In the domain of defense software, however, a hierarchical structure is inherently present....

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been applied in many fields and especially to complex engineering problems and applications. The AHP is capable of structuring decision problems and finding mathematically determined judgments built on knowledge and experience. This suggests that the AHP should prove useful in agile software development, whe...

This paper presents a distributed software mobile a gent framework for media access. The access and delivery of media is enhanced by an agen t architecture framework that utilizesmobile agent characteristics to provide acc ess and delivery of media. Migrating agents to the media source and destination devices enables the framework to discover th...

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been applied in many fields and especially to complex engineering problems and applications. The AHP is capable of structuring decision problems and finding mathematically determined judgments built on knowledge and experience. This suggests that AHP should prove useful in agile software development where co...

An agent-based wellness indicator is an information visualization system designed to present wellness and decision-support information to individuals and their caregivers by elaborating the data provided by measuring devices utilizing the unique characteristics of software agents. The wellness indicator is constructed from an operational wellness m...

A new mathematical algorithm is proposed to address the essential details of vertical distributions of horizontal velocity for one-dimensional steady open-channel flow. This new algorithm comprises a system of weighted averaged equations developed from corresponding Reynolds equations by performing weighted average operations instead of conventiona...

This paper summarizes the discussions at a panel on Multidisciplinary Approaches to Computing at CCECE 2013, showcasing multidisciplinary research at the University of Regina. The panellist were invited from Fine Arts, Arts, Science, and Engineering. They elaborated on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary views of computing, covering various top...

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been applied in many fields and especially to complex engineering problems and applications. The AHP is capable of structuring decision problems and finding mathematically determined judgments built on knowledge and experience. This suggests that AHP should prove useful in agile software development where co...

Software development investments are always seeking low risk software development processes. Extreme programming (XP) is one of the most popular agile methodologies. Currently, increasing numbers of software companies depend on XP. This research is an attempt to build two mathematical modeling approaches in order to present and describe XP. It comp...

A personal wellness indicator is a software system that can give people a better understanding of their wellness conditions and can help them improve their wellness levels. The personal wellness indicator is a decision-support system for healthcare professionals. An agent-based wellness visualization system was developed as the proof concept. The a...

There is an urgent need to examine the ways in which screen-centred interfaces present images and encode and decode meaning, identity, and culture. This project is an interdisciplinary collaboration by four researchers at the University of Regina and builds on our work on screen-centred interfaces in our respective disciplines of cognitive psycholo...

The trend in increased storage capacity of personal media devices has paralleled the increase in network capable and digital media capable devices such as televisions, computers, cell phones and other personal media devices. This implies that media will continue to be stored across a variety of personal network enabled devices despite available clo...

This paper brings together the disciplines of media studies and software systems engineering; it focuses on the challenge of finding methodologies to measure, test and decode meaning in digital cultural objects. The authors draw on a variety of examples: interactive online digital art projects; an interactive, immersive screen-based art installatio...

An agent-based wellness indicator is an information visualization system designed to present wellness and decision-support information to individuals and their caregivers by elaborating the data provided by measuring devices utilizing the unique characteristics of software agents. The wellness indicator is constructed from an operational wellness m...

Ubiquitous applications should be able to reformat their interface depending on the screen real estate they are granted. This is now attained through fixed real estate renderings. We propose an expert system that can support dynamic interface adaptation.

At the union of the humanities and technology, computer interfaces are often studied technically and from a psychological point of view, but more rarely do such studies include a broader perspective connecting cultural theories and cognitive processes to the transformation of user interfaces as the screen real estate changes. This paper introduces...

This paper brings together the disciplines of media studies and software systems engineering and focuses on the challenge of finding methodologies to measure and test certain effects of ubiquitous computing. We draw on two examples: an interactive screen-based art installation and an interface for ubiquitous videogaming. We find that the second exa...

A Bayesian Network based mathematical model has been used for modelling Extreme Programmingsoftware development process. The model is capable of predicting the expected finish time and theexpected defect rate for each XP release. Therefore, it can be used to determine the success/failure of anyXP Project. The model takes into account the effect of...

This paper introduces an operational wellness model that forms the basis of a wellness visualization system. The operational wellness model is needed to determine a common reference enabling the evaluation of the visualization system. Existing definitions of wellness and wellness evaluation models have limitations and cannot be realized in software...

This research paper brings together the fields of systems engineering and media studies to investigate the cinema/television/computer/mobile device screen as a dynamic interface through which points of engagement or how the aesthetics and narrative structures presented on the screen engage the user and create meaning. The co-authors work towards th...

This paper presents the LISA (location independent service agents) prototype framework for location independent media service access and delivery. Location independent media services imply that a user can be nomadic and be delivered media services at any location via the network. The delivery of media using mobile agent technology enhances the acce...

This chapter introduces an agent-based wellness visualization system. The visualization system integrates and analyzes health information collected from existing portable health monitoring devices, users, and other existing health information resources (e.g. hospital's databases). It can be used as a single wellness indicator for an individual and...

This paper describes the architecture of an agent-based music service that generates dynamic playlists based on suggestions from multiple users. The system employs a number of agents capable of autonomy, mobility, scalability, collaboration and platform independence. In the system, agents are classified into two groups: requesters and music service...

This paper proposes a hybrid mixed-integer two-stage interval stochastic (MITIS) programming Model for regional air quality management planning. This proposed model is a combination of the existing two-stage stochastic programming, mixed integer programming and interval programming methods. The parameters in the MITIS model can be expressed as prob...

A mobile multi-agent system is proposed to create solutions for the university course timetabling problem. It is composed of four kinds of agents: (mobile) Course Agents, and (stationary) Signboard, Publisher and Interface Agents. The key strength of this new approach is to use a fundamental attribute of Agents that of autonomy. This autonomy is ma...

This paper experimentally examines the behaviour of mo-bile software agents (MAs) as they use various contribu-tion strategies towards the provision of a threshold public good. By combining the e-commerce and economics ele-ments of the contribution game together with MA technol-ogy we present an effective tool for analysis of these ele-ments. Throu...

This paper proposes a general solution model using agent technology in order to solve two critical open issues in the course timetabling problem: application-specific issues and dynamic-constraint issues. In our solution model, each agent in the system represents a constraint in the course timetabling problem. Compared to existing course timetablin...

Constraint Programming research is currently aimed at solving problems in a dynamically changing environment. This paper addresses the problem of solving a Dynamic Distributed Constraint Satisfaction Problem (Dynamic DCSP). The solution proposed is an algorithm implemented in a multi- agent system. A Dynamic DCSP is a problem in which variables, va...

A number of electric utilities lack of a system-level overview of their electric grid. This was exemplified in the Aug. 14, 2003 blackout - one of the biggest in North Amercia. The aim of this project is to demonstrate a process to develop a electric grid overview, that is straightforward to implement and easy to understand. To that end, a geograph...

System behavior, in a multi-agent system, can be difficult to predict and often, unexpected system behaviors will occur which lead to poor system performance. These unexpected system behaviors result from unforeseen group actions of agent groups, and agent-group behavior that is not directly coded by the agent designers. This paper presents a mathe...

A current challenge in research is to deal with dynamically changing environments. This paper presents an algorithm to solve a dynamic distributed constraint satisfaction problem (dynamic DCSP) using a multi-agent system. The dynamic DCSP is a distributed CSP in which variables, values, and constraints are distributed among various agents, and thos...

A mobile multi-agent system is proposed to create solutions for the university course timetabling problem. It is composed of four kinds of agents: (mobile) Course Agents, and (stationary) Signboard, Publisher and Interface Agents. The key strength of this new approach is to use a fundamental attribute of Agents that of autonomy. This autonomy is ma...

Modeling the process of a software company is difficult. The level of industrialization is usually low; even when the process is defined several hidden activities exist. However, a reliable model is a prerequisite of any process improvement. This paper presents Pescarenico, a tool kit to model the development process of a software firm. A methodolo...

A shopping assistant agent system is presented, and its advantages and disadvantages are discussed. The system is based on a lightweight agent implementation called TEEMA (TRLabs Execution Environment for Mobile Agents). The TEEMA platform has been built adopting the concept of a microkernel, providing agents with a small number of basic services f...

This paper examines the evolution of a mobile agent system as a mechanism for solving the course-scheduling problem. In our agent model, each mobile agent represents a course (named course agent). Course agents negotiate with each other through a mechanism we define as a signboard agent. There is a signboard agent for each day of the week. Each pla...

This paper illustrates an architectural interface linking mobile systems based on the Symbian OS with conventional Java-based applications in the context of mobile agents. The interface is needed because mobile agents have the ability to move between supporting computers in a network, but this is not possible within the restrictions of a Java-enabl...

In this paper, we present a Java-based software architecture for real-time visualization that utilizes a cluster of conventional PCs to generate high-quality interactive graphics. Normally, a large multiprocessor computer would be needed for interactive visualization tasks requiring more processing power than a single PC can provide. By using clust...

This paper is a research study to analyze the potential use of extreme programming paradigm for real-time programming. The analysis begins by presenting a common reference model for real-time programming and coupling with existing formalisms. The paper highlights the parts of the extreme programming approach that can contribute to the real-time dev...

In this paper, we will describe the evolution of our software development techniques, and analyze actual methodologies in-depth. These are internally developed and do not refers to any standard, but they are more related to agile methodologies than standard ones. Our development techniques are strictly related to our development process. This proce...

Quality measures are extremely difficult to quantify because they depend on many parameters and factors, some of which cannot be identified or measured readily. Java is the language of choice for interoperable code segments that constitute an effective interface layer between Web servers and the user. Realizing those code segments, however, is a ch...

This paper reports on the development of an economic market simulator using mobile agents. Agents are specialized software programs that can move autonomously between supporting platforms. Agents can be used to model the preferences of users wishing to buy or sell items on a global marketplace. Users can select a number of options that will guide t...

Software architectures based on mobile agents are gaining popularity but are often restricted to specific environments. This limitation can be overcome by using such techniques as HTTP messaging. In nature, HTTP messaging makes agent-based services a seamless extension to the Web service, and needs to interact with the Web service, this brings a pe...

This paper contains a description of the enhancement of TEEMA, an extensible, general-purpose mobile agent execution environment, to support secure communications. Software agents are proactive, autonomous programs that are given the option to migrate among supporting platforms. Agents can mimic the behavior of a number of systems, from simple cell...

This paper illustrates the results of a research effort to apply mobile agent technology in network management for the frame relay network The paper implemented a Java based mobile agent network management approach in the frame relay network by using Teema, a unique agent execution platform. The agent network management performance is simulated in...

This second article of our series looks at the process of designing a survey. The design process begins with reviewing the objectives, examining the target population identified by the objectives, and deciding how best to obtain the information needed ...

Mobile-agent systems show significant promise as the most effective way to harness the power of the Internet and the massive collection of information and opportunity that the Internet holds. However the efficient organization and control of these systems remains one of a number of unsolved problems with this approach to network computing. This pap...

This paper illustrates the results of a research effort to measure the quality of software agents written in Java using extreme programming. A factoring of quality has been chosen in accordance with the properties and limitations of the type of products and development method considered. The use of the representational theory of measurement gave qu...

This paper presents the application of eXtreme Programming to the software agents research and development group at TRLabs Regina. The group had difficulties maintaining its identity due to a very rapid turnover and lack of strategic polarization. The application of eXtreme Programming resulted in a complete reorientation of the development culture...

We present an experience report on the adoption of a modeling toolkit, Pescarenico, in an Italian firm: Engineering ingegneria Informatica, the largest software developer component of the Engineering group. The modeling toolkit comprises a process modeling methodology, a metric set, and a graphic computer tool. The process modeling methodology is t...

This paper describes how Software Agents technology can be used to increase the reliability of a control system. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are established as means to exercise supervisory control over an industrial process. Software Agent technology can improve SCADA systems as it allows distribution, which inherently...

This paper reports on empirical research based on two software products. The research goal is to ascertain the impact of the adoption of a reuse policy on customer satisfaction. The results show that when a systematic reuse policy is implemented, such as the adoption of a domain specific library: reuse is significantly positively correlated with cu...

A mobile multi-agent image retrieval system with application in mammography is presented. The image retrieval strategy suggested uses the inherent strengths of mobile agents to return the best possible matches from a distributed set of images in digital medical image libraries available on the Internet. The approach proposed is to perform a simulat...

This paper examines the effectiveness electroencephalogram (EEG) as a biometric identification of individual subjects in a pool of 40 normal subjects. The EEG's second order statistics are computed using autoregressive models of various order. The coefficients in these models are then evaluated for their biometric potential. Discriminant functions...

Java support the development of software tools that can be downloaded on-demand by users, software tools on-demand. These tools cannot be purchased like products, because they do not reside on the user's machine. Rather, they can be used as "services." In this paper, we propose a new paying mechanism for Electronic Commerce of software tools-on-dem...

Throughout the software industry there is an increasingly critical need to reduce the costs of producing software, while at the same time providing higher quality and coping with an increasing demand for sophisticated, ultra-complex systems. Software development with and for reuse promises to address this situation. This paper considers a case stud...

Since "design-oriented" life-cycles came to their maturity, dramatic changes have been introduced as far as programming tools and computer hardware are concerned. Such changes made it possible to develop applications focusing on refactoring rather than ...

The paper considers how process modeling can help you control or assess the impact of changes to a software process. It discusses business modeling for control, change management, object oriented business modeling and an industry case study

Evolution of a framework forces a change in the design of an application, which is based on the framework. The same is the case when the Java event model changed from the Inheritance model to the Event Delegation model. We summarize our experiences when ...

As component oriented programming becomes more popular, the need emerges for the definition of a suitable set of metrics to describe the internal attributes of components. This paper presents a set of component metrics based on the Chidamber and Kemerer metrics suite (1994). The metrics is validated with the properties based approach by (Briand et...

The authors present a reasoned synopsis of the state of the art of compiler techniques. A classification scheme is employed that divides compilers according to two layers. The first layer is the input layer, dealing with the kind of language that the compiler will find. The second layer is the architectural layer, that will define the compiler's in...

The authors present a reasoned synopsis of the state of the art of compiler techniques. A classification scheme is employed that divides compilers according to two layers. The first layer is the input layer, dealing with the kind of language that the compiler will find. The second layer is the architectural layer, that will define the compiler's in...

this paper. Here we focus on "process reuse as is." It is difficult to capture the real processes in place; there is often a discrepancy between what people think reality is and what it actually is. Our model uses two powerful means to address this issue: object orientation and activity-based costing. Object orientation is a paradigm for analysis,...

Each year since 1991 there has been a workshop for PhD students at the ECOOP conference. It is every every year conducted by the network of PhD Students in Object-Oriented Systems (PhDOOS), hence it is an event for PhD students by PhD students. The purpose of the PhDOOS network is to help leveraging the collective resources of young researchers in...

Fuzzy Logic has traditionally found an application in control theory, systems analysis, and artificial intelligence (9) (7). However, it is very difficult to apply it to traditional software engineering. There is evidence that fuzzy logic can help in avoiding early assignment errors in SW engineering methods (1). The authors have developed a techni...