M. Esperanza Manso

• PhD in Computer Science
• PTUN at University of Valladolid

italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Contribution: A successful activity based on the scavenger hunt (SH) game is presented here. Although “serious game” in education now seems synonymous with videogame, the effectiveness of hands-on traditional games to increase student performance that,...

Context: Design smell Prioritization is a significant activity that tunes the process of software quality enhancement and raises its life cycle. Objective: A multi-criteria merge strategy for Design Smell prioritization is described. The strategy is exemplified with the case of God Class Design Smell. Method: An empirical adjustment of the strategy...

The automatic detection of Design Smells has evolved in parallel to the evolution of automatic refactoring tools. There was a huge rise in research activity regarding Design Smell detection from 2010 to the present. However, it should be noted that the adoption of Design Smell detection in real software development practice is not comparabl...

Abstract One of the ever present goals in biometrics research is to improve system performance. Herein, an alternative method is proposed that is independent of the biometric characteristic and the system, as this proposal, Score Ratio, is applied to the output (comparison score) of the classifier. The Likelihood Ratio is widely used with probabili...

Design Smells are indicators of situations that negatively affect software quality attributes such as understandability, testability, extensibility, reusability, and maintainability in general. Improving maintainability is one of the cornerstones of making software evolution easier. Hence, Design Smell Detection is important in helping developers w...

The binary classification problem where an input is classified as belonging or not to a certain class, the so-called Target Class (TC), is approached here. This problem can be stated as a basic hypothesis test: X is from the TC (H0) vs. X is not from the TC (H1), where X is the classifier input. When probabilistic models are used (e.g., Hidden Mark...

La detección de Design Smells ha ido experimentado un auge en resultados de investigación publicados. La primera definición de Design Smells data del año 2000. La primera herramienta se reporta en 2002. A partir de 2004 comienza un crecimiento continuado, proliferando la aparición de nuevas herramientas para la detección automática de Design Smells...

Biometric person authentication has become an important area of fieldwork both for research and commercial purposes in the last few years. The development of the technology, now ready for practical applications, has encouraged the scientific community to focus on practical issues. In this sense, a key question is the decision threshold estimation....

Biometric user verification or authentication is a pattern recognition problem that can be stated as a basic hypothesis test: X is from client C (\(H_0\)) vs. X is not from client C (\(H_1\)), where X is the biometric input sample (face, fingerprint, etc.). When probabilistic classifiers are used (e.g., Hidden Markov Models), the decision is typica...

Score Normalization is a usual technique in pattern recognition to standardize the classifier output ranges so as to, for example, fuse these outputs. The use of score normalization in biometric recognition is a very important part of the system, specially in those based on behavioral traits, such as written signature or voice, conditioning the fin...

This paper presents a novel approach to estimate (predict) the a priori client decision threshold for biometric recognition systems based on multiple linear regression. Biometric recognition is a complex classification problem where the goal is to classify a pattern (biometric sample) as belonging or not to a certain class (client). As in other pat...

The aim of this paper is to present the definition of the measures for the import-coupling of OCL expressions, along with the empirical validation of these as early indicators of the maintainability of OCL expressions. This empirical validation has been carried out by means of an experiment and its replica, conducted with undergraduate students of...

The main goal of this work is to present a family of empirical studies that we have carried out to investigate whether the use of composite states may improve the understandability of UML statechart diagrams derived from class diagrams. Our hypotheses derive from conventional wisdom, which says that hierarchical modeling mechanisms are helpful in m...

The main goal of this paper is to show the findings obtained through a meta-analysis study carried out with the data obtained from a family of five controlled experiments performed in academic environments. This family of experiments was carried out to validate empirically two hypotheses applied to UML class diagrams, which investigate 1) The depen...

This paper is part of a project we have been developing for the past three years, related to the maintainability of expressions written with the Object Constraint language (OCL). Our objective is to find which elements of OCL influence on the comprehensibility and modifiability of OCL expressions. Coupling is recognized as a key characteristic of s...

Resumen. El objetivo principal de este artículo es presentar diferentes técnicas estadísticas, en especial el meta-análisis, que permiten integrar los resultados obtenidos en familias de experimentos y realizar revisiones de estudios con hipótesis comunes de una forma objetiva y sistemática. Aunque estas técnicas son mejores que las revisiones subj...

The usefulness of measures for the analysis and design of object oriented (OO) software is increasingly being recognized in the field of software engineering research. In particular, recognition of the need for early indicators of external quality attributes is increasing. We investigate through experimentation whether a collection of UML class dia...

Coupling is considered one of the most complex software quality attributes in object oriented (OO) systems. We belief that OCL expressions provide essential coupling information at early phases of software development. For that reason, we started to study if object coupling information obtained from OCL expressions affects the quality of the model...

Not all the model constraints can be defined using only UML graphical features due to the limited expressiveness of diagram-based UML notation. To solve this problem, the OCL language was defined as a textual add-on to the UML diagrams, allowing the specification of a wide range of constraints of objects. Aware of the lack of metrics to capture the...

Early and precise models started to play an increasingly relevant role since models themselves become the primary focus in recent initiatives of Model-Driven Engineering (such as Model-Driven Development and Model-Driven Architecture). However, a precise model cannot be obtained through the use of Unified Modeling Language (UML), due to the limited...

This chapter presents a study on the relation of refactoring, bad smells, and metrics. The notions of refactoring and bad smells are revised as well as metrics that can be used as guides in the refactoring process. Connection among those metrics, the usual flaws that could be suggested by them, and the required corrective actions to reduce or erase...

This chapter presents a study on the relation of refactoring, bad smells, and metrics. The notions of refactoring and bad smells are revised as well as metrics that can be used as guides in the refactoring process. Connection among those metrics, the usual flaws that could be suggested by them, and the required corrective actions to reduce or erase...

UML statechart diagrams have become an important technique for describing the dynamic behavior of a software system. They are also a signifi- cant element of OO design, especially in code generation frameworks such as Model Driven Architecture (MDA). In previous works we have defined a set of metrics for evaluating structural properties of UML stat...

Diagram-based UML notation is limited in its expressiveness thus producing a model that would be severely underspecified. The flaws in the limitation of the UML diagrams are solved by specifying UML/OCL combined models, OCL being an essential add-on to the UML diagrams. Aware of the importance of building precise models, the main goal of this paper...

One of the current trends in refactoring is when and where we should refactor. Until now, most of the proposals establish that the refactoring process starts from the programmer intuition and experience. From the bad smell concept, and using metrics, it is possible to discover refactoring opportunities, not only from a subjective point of view but...

Given the relevant role that models obtained in the early stages play in the development of OO systems, in the recent years special attention has been paid to the quality of such models. Adhering to this fact, the main objective of this work is to obtain "early" indicators of UML class diagrams understandability and modifiability. These indicators...

In software engineering it is widely acknowledged that the usage of metrics at the initial phases of the object oriented software life cycle can help designers to make better decisions and to predict external quality attributes, such as maintainability. Following this idea we have carried out three controlled experiments to ascertain if any correla...

The fact that the usage of metrics in the analysis and design of object oriented (OO) software can help designers make better decisions is gaining relevance in software measurement arena. Moreover, the necessity of having early indicators of external quality attributes, such as maintainability, based on early metrics is growing. In addition to this...

The quality of an object oriented information systems (OOIS) depends greatly on the decisions taken at the initial phases of their development. In a typical object oriented information systems development a class diagram is first built. Class diagrams lay the foundation for all later design work. So, their quality heavily affects on the product tha...

RESUMEN La reutilización del software es uno de los medios que permiten mejorar la pro-ductividad y la calidad de los productos. Esta premisa se ve confirmada en numerosas referencias de la bibliografía especializada. Esto supone plantear modelos que permi-tan medir cuánto se ha reutilizado, cómo se ha reutilizado, y cómo se han modificado los cost...

Anomalous measurements are identified in the software measurement process using valid metrics intervals. In the particular case of code measurements, the same intervals are used independently of the nature of the problem solved by the entity being measured. Our proposal is to condition the measurement intervals according to the nature of the proble...

To detect flaws, bad smells, etc, we often use quantitative methods: metrics or measures. It is common in practice to use thresholds setting the correctness of the measures. Most of the current tools use absolute values. Nevertheless, there is a certain concern about threshold applications on obtained values. Current work tries to accomplish case s...

Proyecto realizado en la E.T.S.I Informática de la Universidad de Valladolid por los profesores que imparten docencia de Ingeniería de Software en las titulaciones Técnicas de Informática. Objetivo: Introducir una herramienta gráfica (también desarrollada en el proyecto) para la captura y análisis de los requisitos de los nuevos sistemas de informa...