'Crowdsourcing' is a relatively recent concept that encompasses many practices. This diversity leads to the blurring of the limits of crowdsourcing that may be identified virtually with any type of internet-based collaborative activity, such as co-creation or user innovation. Varying definitions of crowdsourcing exist, and therefore some authors present certain specific examples of crowdsourcing as paradigmatic, while others present the same examples as the opposite. In this article, existing definitions of crowdsourcing are analysed to extract common elements and to establish the basic characteristics of any crowdsourcing initiative. Based on these existing definitions, an exhaustive and consistent definition for crowdsourcing is presented and contrasted in 11 cases.

/pdf/towards-an-integrated-crowdsourcing-definition-3qoy6yinnl.pdf

Towards an integrated crowdsourcing definition

Simulation and the monte carlo method

我的台灣, 看見心靈的故鄉 =2009林磐聳藝術與設計展

In this paper, we review current requirements engineering (RE) research and identify future research directions suggested by emerging software needs. First, we overview the state of the art in RE research. The research is considered with respect to technologies developed to address specific requirements tasks, such as elicitation, modeling, and analysis. Such a review enables us to identify mature areas of research, as well as areas that warrant further investigation. Next, we review several strategies for performing and extending RE research results, to help delineate the scope of future research directions. Finally, we highlight what we consider to be the "hot" current and future research topics, which aim to address RE needs for emerging systems of the future.

/pdf/research-directions-in-requirements-engineering-2kckbdavsh.pdf

Research Directions in Requirements Engineering

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fjors.1996.159.pdf

Modeling and Analysis of Stochastic Systems

/pdf/leveraging-applications-of-formal-methods-verification-and-2jz05aj0gt.pdf

Leveraging Applications of Formal Methods, Verification and Validation

The Use Case formalism is an effective way of capturing both business process and functional system requirements in a very simple and easy-to-learn way Use Cases may be modeled in a graphical way (eg using the UML notation), mainly serving as a table of content for Use Cases System behavior can more effectively be specified by structured natural language (NL) sentences The use of NL as a way to specify the behavior of a system is however a critical point, due to the inherent ambiguity originating from different interpretations of natural language descriptions We discuss the use of methods, based on a linguistic approach, to analyze functional requirements expressed by means of textual (NL) Use Cases The aim is to collect quality metrics and detect defects related to such inherent ambiguity In a series of preliminary experiments, we applied a number of tools for quality evaluation of NL text (and, in particular, of NL requirements documents) to an industrial Use Cases document The result of the analysis is a set of metrics that aim to measure the quality of the NL textual description of Use Cases We also discuss the application of selected linguistic analysis techniques that are provided by some of the tools to semantic analysis of NL expressed Use Case

Application of linguistic techniques for Use Case analysis

The development and validation of fault-tolerant computers for critical real-time applications are currently both costly and time consuming. Often, the underlying technology is out-of-date by the time the computers are ready for deployment. Obsolescence can become a chronic problem when the systems in which they are embedded have lifetimes of several decades. This paper gives an overview of the work carried out in a project that is tackling the issues of cost and rapid obsolescence by defining a generic fault-tolerant computer architecture based essentially on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components (both processor hardware boards and real-time operating systems). The architecture uses a limited number of specific, but generic, hardware and software components to implement an architecture that can be configured along three dimensions: redundant channels, redundant lanes, and integrity levels. The two dimensions of physical redundancy allow the definition of a wide variety of instances with different fault tolerance strategies. The integrity level dimension allows application components of different levels of criticality to coexist in the same instance. The paper describes the main concepts of the architecture, the supporting environments for development and validation, and the prototypes currently being implemented.

https://homepages.laas.fr/arlat/documents/98259/98259.pdf

GUARDS: a generic upgradable architecture for real-time dependable systems

A system is described which supports proving both behavioural and logical properties of concurrent systems, these are specified by means of a process algebra and its associated logic. The logic is an action based version of the branching time logic CTL, which we call ACTL. It is interpreted over transition labelled structured while CTL is interpreted over state labelled ones. The core of the system are two existing tools, AUTO and EMC. The first builds the labelled transition system corresponding to a term of a process algebra and permits proof of equivalence and simplification of terms, while the second checks the validity of CTL logical formulae. The integration is realized by means of two translation functions from the action based branching time logic ACTL to CTL and from transition-labelled to state-labelled structures. The correctness of the integration is guaranteed by the proof that the two translation functions when coupled preserve satisfiability of logical formulae.

An action-based framework for verifying logical and behavioural properties of concurrent systems

A prototype assistant, NL2ACTL, is presented for the formalization of behavioural requirements for the design of reactive systems. NL2ACTL is a tool for the automatic translation of Natural Language sentences, into formulae of the action-based temporal logic ACTL. The Natural Language sentences are used to express informal requirements of reactive systems. ACTL is suitable for expressing properties of reactive systems, specified by means of process algebra terms. NL2ACTL was realized using a general development environment for Natural Language Processing and it has been interfaced with a verification environment which allows behavioural and logical properties of reactive systems to be checked.

Alessandro Fantechi

Papers

Leveraging Applications of Formal Methods, Verification and Validation

Application of linguistic techniques for Use Case analysis

GUARDS: a generic upgradable architecture for real-time dependable systems

An action-based framework for verifying logical and behavioural properties of concurrent systems

Assisting requirement formalization by means of natural language translation