Luis Eduardo Mendoza Morales

Simon Bolívar University · Departamento de Procesos y Sistemas

Agile methodologies have been increasingly used in software development projects worldwide. However, there is little information about the adoption of these methodologies in Latin America. In this paper, we present a study conducted in Ecuador about the use, usefulness and causes of stop using agile methodologies in medium and large organizations....

The complexity of modern safety-critical systems together with the absence of appropriate software verification tools is one reason for the large number of errors in the design and implementation of these systems. A methodological approach named formal compositional verification approach that uses model checking techniques to verify safety-critical...

Formal specifications and modeling languages can be used to provide support for Business Process (BP) analysts and designers to verify the behavior of BPs with respect to business performance indicators (i.e., service time, waiting time or queue size). This article presents the application of the Timed Automata (TA) formal language to check BPs mod...

Business Process Modeling (BPM) is a conceptual activity for embodying the functioning and complex structure of any enterprise’s business processes, so that these can be then analyzed and improved. A BP can be understood as a set of related, structured, interacting services driven by a choreography that is capable of giving complex functionality to...

The most important result to standardize the notation for graphical representation of Business Processes (BPs) is the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). Despite the BPs modeled with BPMN being able to support business designers, BPMN models are not appropriate to support the analysis phase. BPMN models have no formal seman-tics to conduct...

Business Process Modeling (BPM) is a conceptual activity for embody-ing the functioning and complex structure of any enterprise's business processes, so that these can be then analyzed and improved. A BP can be understood as a set of related, structured, interacting services driven by a choreography that is capable of giving complex functionality t...

The Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) has come to be the most important result to standardize the notation for graphical representation of Business Processes (BPs). Nevertheless, BPMN models are not appropriate to support the analysis phase; do not have formal semantics to conduct qualitative analysis (validation and verification). In this...

This chapter presents a Model to Estimate the Human Factor Quality in Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) Development, or EHFQ-FLOSS. The model consists of three dimensions: Levels (individual, community, and foundation), Aspects (internal or contextual), and Forms of Evaluation (self-evaluation, co-evaluation, and hetero-evaluation). Furthermo...

Several firms are defining their Business Processes (BPs) using the standard Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). BPs modelled with BPMN are maintained and used by different workers within a company, thus the correctness of critical BPs should be validated and verified. In this work we present how Model Checking verification technique for so...

Currently, complex Business Processes (BP) are implemented by Enterprise Information Systems (EIS). However, the development of EIS is complicated if there is no guarantee the reliability of the Task Model (TM) of the PN. This article describes the Formal Compositional Verification Approach (FCVA), an infrastructure for the formal specification and...

The complexity of modern Business Process Modelling (BPM) together with the absence of the appropriate validation tools is the main reason for the costly and non-evolutionary characteristics of these models. Temporal constructs of Extended Business Process Model and Notation (EBPMN) semantics are disambiguated here by using Communicating Sequential...

ContextTo guarantee the success of Business Process Modelling (BPM) it is necessary to check whether the activities and tasks described by Business Processes (BPs) are sound and well coordinated.Objective This article describes and validates a Formal Compositional Verification Approach (FCVA) that uses a Model-Checking (MC) technique to specify and...

The complexity of modern Safety-Critical Systems (SCS) together with the absence of appropriate software verification tools is one reason for the large number of errors in the design and implementation of these systems. Moreover, exhaustive testing is hard and highly complex because of the combinatorial explosion in the great number of states that...

The technology adoption by the chemical industry requires an adequate analysis of the variables involved in the technology policy of the industry. Some of these variables are: the characteristics of the technology in adoption, the acquisition conditions, the technology adjustment or the influence of the chemical industry context. A supporting tool...

In any organisation, properties such as scope, structure, deployment, capability, structural consistency and concurrency, supporting the critical factors for success in Business Process (BP) modelling, need to be verified. And thus, relevant parts of a BP must be formally specified in an appropriate way. Process Calculi (PC) such as CSP, ACP, CCS,...

There are four elements that are relevant when test are defined, Reliability, Cost, Time, and Quality.Development time and product cost increases when you want reliable tests and quality software.But, what can you do to make that stakeholders understand that the tests must be viewed as a security net?If the quality is not considered before starting...

Software Project Management (PM) relies on software tools. These tools must be selected according to the needs and characteristics of each company, especially when resources are limited, which is rather common for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this paper is to propose a selection model aimed at supporting software-developing S...

The Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) is currently being used by companies as the Business Process (BP) standard modeling language. In this work, we define a timed semantics of BPMN in terms of the Communicating Sequential Processes + Time (CSP+T) process calculus in order to detail the behaviour of processes within a fixed time span. By a...

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) make important contributions to the software industry. SMEs particular characteristics imply challenges for the selection of technologies, such as Software Engineering Tools (SETs). SMEs use SETs to support software development; thus, they have to decide which SET to invest in, under limited resources and pressur...

A specific check that is required to be performed as part of the Business Process Modelling (BPM) is on whether the activities and tasks described by Business Processes (BPs) are sound and well-coordinated. In this work we present how the Model-Checking verification technique for software can be integrated within a Formal Compositional Verification...

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) make important contributions to the software industry. SMEs particular characteristics imply challenges for the selection of technologies, such as Software Engineering Tools (SETs). SMEs use SETs to support software development; thus, they have to decide which SET to invest in, under limited resources and pressur...

The satisfaction of implicit or explicit user requirements constitutes a software quality indicator. Requirements Engineering (RE) focuses on mitigating software failure factors through the Elicitation, Analysis, Specification, Validation and Management activities, identifying the system purpose, the use context, and available technology capabiliti...

Nowadays the Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) has become a standard to provide a notation readily understandable by all business process (BP) stakeholders when it comes to carrying out the Business Process Modelling (BPM) activity. In this paper, we present a new Formal Compositional Verification Approach (FCVA), based on the Model-Checki...

In this paper, which is part of a research in progress, we analyze the conceptual elements behind Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE) and propose a model that will support its quality evaluation. The conceptual model proposed integrates the product perspective, a view that includes components and Component-Based Software (CBS), as well as t...

In this article it is presented how a Stage-Gate® process was adapted to support CbC: An additional activity was added at the beginning. Corporate templates as well as interviews were used for the analysis. Developers received training in the configuration activity. Validation and technical tests were conducted for the System Testing and finally at...

Software-developing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) usually make investments with little resources and under severe pressures imposed by competiveness and productivity needs. From the analysis of the characteristics of software-developing SMEs and changes affecting software engineering tools (SETs), we have suggested criteria to support the eva...

Ensuring the correctness of Critical Systems (CS) becomes more complex if we consider that their behaviour is the result of the concurrent execution of many components. Furthermore, any automaton–based representation of concurrent components yields an explosion in the number of states, thus limiting the use of Model–Checking (MC) verification techn...

The selection of Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) tools for Analysis and Design (A&D) is a hard task due to their complexity, their wide variety within the market, and their functionality level. This article aims at introducing a group of quality features to evaluate FLOSS tools for A&D. Such features are presented based on the perspective o...

An interesting difference between tests and other disciplines of the software development process is that they constitute a task that essentially identifies and evidences the weaknesses of the software product. Four relevant elements are considered when defining tests namely, reliability, cost, time and quality. Time and cost shall increase to the...

When we build complex business and communication systems, the question worth to be answered: How can we guarantee that the target system meets its specification? Ensuring the correctness of large systems becomes more complex when we consider that their behaviour is the result of the concurrent execution of many components. This article presents a c...

Nowadays, the Latin American software industry, as it is mostly represented by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), should focus on improving its service capacity towards high quality, low costs, and timely delivery. Within this context, SMEs providing Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) services require information that allows to assess and m...

Software engineering tools have regained interests in recent years due to different changes affecting software developing organizations. These organizations carry out activities that might be undertaken in a plan driven and agile manner with the support of such tools. A proper balance between both approaches and the effective tool adoption will hel...

Nowadays, a large number of companies delegate their tasks to third parties in order to reduce costs, increase profitability, expand their horizon, and increase their competitive capacity. The level of success of such contracting and related agreements is influenced by a set of critical factors that may vary depending on the type of project address...

The complexity of the issue tracking systems (ITS) which meet the requirements of the Infrastructure Technology Information Library (ITIL) encumbers their selection. In addition, we have to consider some other variables, such as the wide range of tools, their functionality level and their costs. Regarding the cost of the ITS, nowadays the use of IT...

Software engineering methods have shown to be useful in Business Process Modelling (BPM) for improving business-modelling techniques. In this paper, we describe how a Model-Checking (MC) verification technique for software can be integrated with a formal-oriented software design method named MEDISTAM-RT. This is currently used in the development of...

The selection of FLOSS tools supporting business modeling discipline is a complicated task; besides verifying the proper use of language and notations such as BPMN (1), UML (2) and SPEM, we must validate that such tools meet the features of this type of software. Consequently, the quality of these tools should be assessed through a quality model th...

Software development should be considered in environmental impact studies. The software developers work environment, can both affect them, as being affected by them. In this paper we identify and assess the environmental impact of the process and the software product, through a environmental audit to the Systemic quality software model. It includes...

Product quality is determined by the internal factors of the artifacts generated during the analysis, design and implementation stages. Assessing quality based on existing models is not a trivial process. Several development approaches exist (i.e., structured, object- oriented, component-based, and web-based) which involve different kinds of artifa...

Despite the advances in software engineering, the development of information systems (IS) is still a difficult task; even more difficult is to develop the needed skills in an academic environment (a classroom). This is partly because it is not always possible to simulate real situations in the classroom. This article presents the lessons learned fr...

There are some barriers that prevent effective and systematic reuse. These barriers are produced by the need of introducing new methods for reuse development and especially by the distrust of developers in the components to be reused. One form of promoting reuse and reducing risks is guaranteeing the quality of these components. This can be achieve...

Most organizations have perceived the customer relationship management (CRM) concept as a technological solution for problems in individual areas, accompanied by a great deal of uncoordinated initiatives. Nevertheless, CRM must be conceived as a strategy, due to its human, technological, and processes implications, at the time an organization decid...

Process quality improvement using INFOCAS: a case study. To specify or evaluate software quality, some models focus only on the process, while others focus only on the product. Nevertheless, both qualities are closely related, as shown by the systemic global quality concept, which suggests a balance between both (process and product). The Informati...

To specify or evaluate software quality, some models focus only on the process, while others focus only on the product. Nevertheless, both qualities are closely related, as shown by the systemic global quality concept, which suggests a balance between both (process and product). The Information Systems Research Laboratory - LISI, at Universidad Sim...

By following a methodological approach, introduced in a previous work, a correct system specification in terms of CSP+T process algebra is systematically obtained from the UML-RT model of a real-time software system. Among other contributions, this article aims at integrating collaboration diagrams into our approach to facilitate the specification...

Software quality characteristics, such as reliability, maintainability, usability, portability, among others, are directly determined by software architecture and, in consequence, it constitutes a very important artifact to be evaluated as soon as a general design is obtained. This article proposes a method to estimate software reliability by evalu...

Having an objective of achieving a formal characterisation of Sequence Diagrams (UML-SD) as a means for Embedded Real-Time software systems C ERTS ) development and validation, this paper introduces a CSP-Tbased timed trace semantics for most concepts of SD. A trace is sequence of events, which gives the necessary expressiveness to capture the stan...

The quality of reusable elements must be rigorously monitored and guaranteed before they can be reused, this is known as Certification. High levels of certification of these elements generate trust and stimulate reuse. In this paper we describe the development of a tool based on quality oriented reuse strategies. To this end, we take as starting po...

Software quality should be evaluated from different perspectives; we highlight the internal and external ones (ISO/IEC, 2002). Specially, internal quality evaluation depends on the software architecture (or design) and programming aspects rather than on the product behaviour. On the other hand, architectural evaluation methods tend to apply scenari...

Starting from a methodological approach intended to obtain a correct system specification in CSP+T from a UML-RT model of an RTS, we develop now a systematic procedure to check whether the obtained design is consistent with other views of the same system, such as the ones given by class, composite structure and state machines diagrams. To achieve t...

Quality and productivity improvement are some advantages of reuse in the software development process. Although the reuse concept is not new, there is not a rigorous representation of related reuse concepts and quality. In this paper, we present a historical review of the reuse concepts, and ontology based on reuse definitions and its relation with...

Learning Management System (LMS) development has become a high priority project for educational institutions and organizations, as it provides the virtual environment for online education. Acquiring and deploying a LMS is a difficult task that involves r isks related with costs and time. The goal of this research in progress is to introduce an exte...

Currently the concept of Software Factories (SF), where reuse plays a leading role, is being adopted. Due to the different approaches in this area, and although SF concept is not new in Software Engineering, it is still not mature enough to clearly identify the treatment of certain variables within the process. One of these variables is Quality. Th...

Given the complexity of today's software systems, Software Architecture is a topic that has recently increased in significance. It is consider as a key element in the design and development of systems and has the ability to promote/punish some quality characteristics. Quality is related mainly to the non-functional requirements expected of the syst...

System integration is a complex technological task, and an infrastructure decision that seems right today might well be obsolete tomorrow. This article proposes a framework of critical success factors (CSFs) that can be used to manage IS integration projects, according to a firm's current stage of IT integration maturity and other IS infrastructure...

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is one of the current approaches organizations take to address global market pressures. BPR allows firms to analyze their internal processes with the view to developing customized goal-oriented solutions. On the other hand, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) can be used: 1) as a tool for new processes defined by...

As far as international standards for promoting Software Process Quality are concerned, one of the most popular and accepted is ISO 15504 (or SPICE model). On the other hand, since a development methodology must guide the main activities in software development, it is necessary that this one fulfils some Quality Base Practices to guarantee a high-l...