Managing conflicts in requirements engineering with argumentation frameworks. This project proposes to employ argumentation theory and frameworks to tackle the problem of conflict management and resolution in requirements engineering. Australia has a strong competitive advantage in the areas of belief change and conflict management. The outcomes of this project will provide an improved infrastructure for several areas of software engineering, including requirements engineering and software evol ....Managing conflicts in requirements engineering with argumentation frameworks. This project proposes to employ argumentation theory and frameworks to tackle the problem of conflict management and resolution in requirements engineering. Australia has a strong competitive advantage in the areas of belief change and conflict management. The outcomes of this project will provide an improved infrastructure for several areas of software engineering, including requirements engineering and software evolution management. More broadly, the work proposed here will enable the IT industry to adopt and utilise the techniques developed in a number of research fields of Artificial Intelligence in developing the robust and reliable software systems for the rapidly changing knowledge economy of the 21st century.Read moreRead less
Agent-Oriented Concept Management. This project will develop innovative agent-oriented approaches to managing information. An understanding of the concepts used by a system will enhance its ability to share information. Knowledge and concept management are key components of an information economy, and it is widely accepted that the success of the next generation of information systems will be their agent-oriented capability and their ability to interact with each other. In response, internation ....Agent-Oriented Concept Management. This project will develop innovative agent-oriented approaches to managing information. An understanding of the concepts used by a system will enhance its ability to share information. Knowledge and concept management are key components of an information economy, and it is widely accepted that the success of the next generation of information systems will be their agent-oriented capability and their ability to interact with each other. In response, international funding agencies have targeted agent-oriented technologies as essential ingredients for prosperity in the 21st century. This project will help to ensure that Australia shares in that prosperity.Read moreRead less
Topological Approaches for Three Dimensional Graph Drawing. Human analysis of huge quantities of relational data in biotechnology, web engineering, social networks, and computer networks requires visualization. In recent years, three-dimensional visualisation has promised to give new insights into such abstract data. However the past ten years of visualization research has had very little impact on the industry; visualization software providers have not adopted visualization methods developed b ....Topological Approaches for Three Dimensional Graph Drawing. Human analysis of huge quantities of relational data in biotechnology, web engineering, social networks, and computer networks requires visualization. In recent years, three-dimensional visualisation has promised to give new insights into such abstract data. However the past ten years of visualization research has had very little impact on the industry; visualization software providers have not adopted visualization methods developed by academics. We hypothesise that current 3D relational visualization methods fail because they do not pay attention to the human perception of topology. In this project we will leverage mathematical topology to construct new methods for the 3D visualization of relational data.
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New Methods for Interactive Visualization of Large Microarray Data Sets. This project will investigate methods for visualising graphs produced by AI-based analysis of real-world biological data. These new visualisation methods will assist biologists to develop new DNA Microarray experiments, the source of raw data for visualisation. Data from new enhanced experiments, plus background knowledge from integrated public databases will produce richer data for visualisation, thus creating a positive f ....New Methods for Interactive Visualization of Large Microarray Data Sets. This project will investigate methods for visualising graphs produced by AI-based analysis of real-world biological data. These new visualisation methods will assist biologists to develop new DNA Microarray experiments, the source of raw data for visualisation. Data from new enhanced experiments, plus background knowledge from integrated public databases will produce richer data for visualisation, thus creating a positive feedback loop in the course of research into both topics.Read moreRead less
Fault-Based Test Case Generation for Software. This research explores ways to generate fault based test cases from specifications to verify software applications. This will help to enhance knowledge and skills on frontier software technologies for building and transforming Australian IT industries. The results provide knowledge, methodologies and technologies to software industry in Australia on building better quality software faster. In addition, it will help to reveal faults earlier in the de ....Fault-Based Test Case Generation for Software. This research explores ways to generate fault based test cases from specifications to verify software applications. This will help to enhance knowledge and skills on frontier software technologies for building and transforming Australian IT industries. The results provide knowledge, methodologies and technologies to software industry in Australia on building better quality software faster. In addition, it will help to reveal faults earlier in the development phase. Software companies in Australia can apply these techniques to improve their software development process and, hence, enhance the quality of their product. They can also adapt the knowledge to manage and enhance the quality of their outsourcing projects.Read moreRead less
Data-driven Approach to Resilient Online Service Systems. This project aims to develop a data-driven approach to improving the resilience of online service systems. Many software systems are now provided as online services via the Internet on a 24/7 basis. Although a lot of effort has been devoted to service quality assurance, in reality, online service systems still encounter many incidents and fail to satisfy user requests. This project expects to develop innovative data-driven methods for eff ....Data-driven Approach to Resilient Online Service Systems. This project aims to develop a data-driven approach to improving the resilience of online service systems. Many software systems are now provided as online services via the Internet on a 24/7 basis. Although a lot of effort has been devoted to service quality assurance, in reality, online service systems still encounter many incidents and fail to satisfy user requests. This project expects to develop innovative data-driven methods for effective fault identification, fault localization, and failure prediction. Expected outcomes of this project include novel techniques and tools for maintaining online service systems. This project will provide significant benefits, such as improving the resilience and reliability of our cyber infrastructure.Read moreRead less
Virtual Environments for Improved Enterprise Software Deployment. This project aims to improve quality assurance for enterprise IT. Enterprise IT systems are highly interconnected and interdependent — a failure in one system can cause a cascade of failures across multiple systems, bringing business to a standstill. The project aims to create new technologies to automate the provisioning of virtual deployment environments to test the enterprise systems. In particular, it aims to develop new metho ....Virtual Environments for Improved Enterprise Software Deployment. This project aims to improve quality assurance for enterprise IT. Enterprise IT systems are highly interconnected and interdependent — a failure in one system can cause a cascade of failures across multiple systems, bringing business to a standstill. The project aims to create new technologies to automate the provisioning of virtual deployment environments to test the enterprise systems. In particular, it aims to develop new methods for the automatic analysis of service interaction traces and the generation of accurate executable service models, without requiring explicit knowledge of them. The automatic analysis and generation should reduce development cost for enterprise IT systems and increase system quality and reliability. The new software deployment technologies from this project aim to significantly reduce the time, effort and cost of system quality assurance activities in software development organisations, and yet produce higher-quality software leading to uninterrupted business operation in end-user organisations across all sectors.Read moreRead less
Agent-based coordination and negotiation technologies for decentralised service workflow management. This project will enhance the nation's expertise in ICT in general and smart information use in particular. In the real world, process management is a key issue in any workplace organisation which needs to be supported by workflow systems, particularly in this Internet and Web services era. This project will develop an innovative framework and the corresponding technologies for service workflow m ....Agent-based coordination and negotiation technologies for decentralised service workflow management. This project will enhance the nation's expertise in ICT in general and smart information use in particular. In the real world, process management is a key issue in any workplace organisation which needs to be supported by workflow systems, particularly in this Internet and Web services era. This project will develop an innovative framework and the corresponding technologies for service workflow management. The research will assist many organisations to effectively develop and deliver more efficient, reliable, flexible and adaptive business applications. Consequently, this will enhance the ability of many Australian organisations to run more productively and more competitively.Read moreRead less
e-Hermes: Context-rich mobile agent technologies to support information needs of financial institutions. How do we achieve flexibility and efficiency of financial services in electronic commerce environment using mobile software agents? To address this question the project will extend a system architecture based on mobile agents, which retrieve, pre-process and deliver relevant information to potentially mobile users. Two major components - information processor and agent mission processor - wil ....e-Hermes: Context-rich mobile agent technologies to support information needs of financial institutions. How do we achieve flexibility and efficiency of financial services in electronic commerce environment using mobile software agents? To address this question the project will extend a system architecture based on mobile agents, which retrieve, pre-process and deliver relevant information to potentially mobile users. Two major components - information processor and agent mission processor - will be researched and developed by two PhD scholars to be supported by this application. The project results could be commercialised by the industry partner. The project is innovative in that it considers the emerging agent paradigm as an integrated distributed system in the e-commerce environment.Read moreRead less
Achieving Tailored Industrial Software Process Improvement with Experience Repositories and Electronic Process Guides. There is a well-recognised need for organisations to improve their software development processes in order to achieve higher software quality and greater efficiencies in development. The use of electronic process guides and experience repositories have been two technologies independently proposed to achieve these aims. This research will develop a framework, methods and tools ....Achieving Tailored Industrial Software Process Improvement with Experience Repositories and Electronic Process Guides. There is a well-recognised need for organisations to improve their software development processes in order to achieve higher software quality and greater efficiencies in development. The use of electronic process guides and experience repositories have been two technologies independently proposed to achieve these aims. This research will develop a framework, methods and tools to allow integration of experience repositories and electronic process guides to facilitate process tailoring, process improvement, and project management. The result will be significant improvements in software development productivity and quality.Read moreRead less