kevin ryan - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by kevin ryan
Winter Simulation Conference, Dec 3, 1979
A tutorial survey is made of some techniques in Software Engineering and their relevance to simul... more A tutorial survey is made of some techniques in Software Engineering and their relevance to simulation modelling. Various topics are discussed with examples. In the area of Systems Design the topics are concurrency, deadlock and input verification; in the area of Program Design they are modular programmlng, stepwlse refinement and the Jackson method; in the area of Program Verification, structured coding and program tracing and in the area of System Optimization, determining storage needs and monitoring CPU usage.
[1993] Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering
It is argued that the potential role of natural language processing in the requirements engineeri... more It is argued that the potential role of natural language processing in the requirements engineering process has been overstated in the past, possibly due to fundamental misunderstandings of the requirements engineering process itself. Since more realistic ambitions are likely to lead to less disappointment in the future, an effort is made to identify some phases and tasks where natural language processing may usefully be applied. It is suggested that the validation of requirements must remain an informal, social process.
Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Software Specification and Design
Abstract The choice of candidate requirements for implementa-tion is a primary determinant of cus... more Abstract The choice of candidate requirements for implementa-tion is a primary determinant of customer satisfaction. It is argued that a set of requirements should be chosen which reflects both the importance and the estimated cost of each candidate requirements. A ...
[1993] Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering
The types of knowledge used during requirements acquisition are identified and a tool to aid in t... more The types of knowledge used during requirements acquisition are identified and a tool to aid in this process, the ReqColl (requirements collector), is introduced. The tool uses conceptual graphs to represent domain concepts, and attempts to recognize new concepts through the use of a matching facility. The overall approach to requirements capture is described and the approach to matching is
Proceedings of the third international conference on Industrial and engineering applications of artificial intelligence and expert systems - IEA/AIE '90, 1990
This paper describes the theory, methodology and implementation of a knowledge based system for t... more This paper describes the theory, methodology and implementation of a knowledge based system for the preliminary design of multi-storey buildings. The system is intended to act as an intelligent assistant and embodies some of the design expertise and working principles of ...
Workshops in Computing, 1993
ABSTRACT this paper has two phases - a pre-parsing phase and a parsing phase. A less developed se... more ABSTRACT this paper has two phases - a pre-parsing phase and a parsing phase. A less developed semantic processing phase is beyond the scope of this paper, as are TUIG's mechanisms for 'learning' new words to add to its database. The first phase, pre-parsing, ensures that all words are rendered in their basic form as found in the lexicon and takes note of any deviations where they might be relevant to understanding. The second phase, parsing, identifies the phrases which make up the sentences and matches the sentence structure to one of over one hundred potential structures. This paper first explains how the structure of the parsed sentence is represented, and then describes in detail the various stages of TUIG's processing. This is followed by examples of TUIG's work, and a number of conclusions drawn from the work. TUIG was implemented in Edinburgh Prolog and runs on an Apple Macintosh. AICS'91 3
2010 IEEE Transforming Engineering Education: Creating Interdisciplinary Skills for Complex Global Environments, 2010
Professional Issues in Software Engineering (PISE) has been taught as part of the computer system... more Professional Issues in Software Engineering (PISE) has been taught as part of the computer systems undergraduate degree programme at the University of Limerick using a multiinstitutional collaborative pedagogy. PISE considers the ethical, legal and social consequences of the design, implementation and use of computer and information systems. Students from UL collaborated with students from other universities in USA, England and Malta, working together in geographically distributed virtual learning groups to consider ethical issues in software engineering. This paper reflects the longitudinal evaluation of teaching and assessment methods that have been developed over 20 years.
2010 18th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, 2010
For the first time at an RE conference we propose a formal debate on a topic of critical importan... more For the first time at an RE conference we propose a formal debate on a topic of critical importance to the RE community. The debate format is based on that of the Economist newspaper, in turn derived from the long-standing Oxford Union practices.
Proceedings of the 19th international conference on Software engineering - ICSE '97, 1997
The planning of additional features and releases is a major concern for commercial software compa... more The planning of additional features and releases is a major concern for commercial software companies. We describe how, in collaboration with Ericsson Radio Systems, we developed and tested an industrially useful approach to software requirements prioritization.
13th IEEE International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems (iceccs 2008), 2008
The Republic of Ireland has been a surprising success story in the global software market for rea... more The Republic of Ireland has been a surprising success story in the global software market for reasons which are neither agreed nor obvious. However outsourcing towards lower cost countries is a threat to this success. One potential counter move is to invest heavily in software engineering research so as to stay ahead of the curve. To meet the national strategic
Requirements Engineering, 1997
An efficient, accurate and practical process for prioritising. requirements is of great importanc... more An efficient, accurate and practical process for prioritising. requirements is of great importance in commercial software developments. This article improves an existing cost-vahte approach in which stakeholders compare all unique pairs of candidate requirements according to their value and their cost of implementation. Techniques for reducing the required number of comparisons are suggested, thus making the process more efficient. An initial approach for managing requirements interdependencies is proposed. A support tool for the improved process has been developed to make the process more practical in commercial developments. The improved process and its support tool have been applied and evaluated in an industrial project at Ericsson Radio Systems AB. The results indicate a pressing need for mature processes for prioritising requirements, and the work presented here is an important step in that direction.
Requirements Engineering, 2010
Computer Assisted Language Learning, 1994
Third International Workshop on Computer-Aided …, 1989
Page 1. Characterising Domains for Constructive Expert Systems Kevin Ryan, Dept. of Computer Scie... more Page 1. Characterising Domains for Constructive Expert Systems Kevin Ryan, Dept. of Computer Science & Information Systems University of Limerick Limerick IRELAND Phone : +353-61-333644 Fax : +353-61-330316 e-mail : ryank@ul.ie Niamh Harty, Dept. ...
Winter Simulation Conference, Dec 3, 1979
A tutorial survey is made of some techniques in Software Engineering and their relevance to simul... more A tutorial survey is made of some techniques in Software Engineering and their relevance to simulation modelling. Various topics are discussed with examples. In the area of Systems Design the topics are concurrency, deadlock and input verification; in the area of Program Design they are modular programmlng, stepwlse refinement and the Jackson method; in the area of Program Verification, structured coding and program tracing and in the area of System Optimization, determining storage needs and monitoring CPU usage.
[1993] Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering
It is argued that the potential role of natural language processing in the requirements engineeri... more It is argued that the potential role of natural language processing in the requirements engineering process has been overstated in the past, possibly due to fundamental misunderstandings of the requirements engineering process itself. Since more realistic ambitions are likely to lead to less disappointment in the future, an effort is made to identify some phases and tasks where natural language processing may usefully be applied. It is suggested that the validation of requirements must remain an informal, social process.
Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Software Specification and Design
Abstract The choice of candidate requirements for implementa-tion is a primary determinant of cus... more Abstract The choice of candidate requirements for implementa-tion is a primary determinant of customer satisfaction. It is argued that a set of requirements should be chosen which reflects both the importance and the estimated cost of each candidate requirements. A ...
[1993] Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering
The types of knowledge used during requirements acquisition are identified and a tool to aid in t... more The types of knowledge used during requirements acquisition are identified and a tool to aid in this process, the ReqColl (requirements collector), is introduced. The tool uses conceptual graphs to represent domain concepts, and attempts to recognize new concepts through the use of a matching facility. The overall approach to requirements capture is described and the approach to matching is
Proceedings of the third international conference on Industrial and engineering applications of artificial intelligence and expert systems - IEA/AIE '90, 1990
This paper describes the theory, methodology and implementation of a knowledge based system for t... more This paper describes the theory, methodology and implementation of a knowledge based system for the preliminary design of multi-storey buildings. The system is intended to act as an intelligent assistant and embodies some of the design expertise and working principles of ...
Workshops in Computing, 1993
ABSTRACT this paper has two phases - a pre-parsing phase and a parsing phase. A less developed se... more ABSTRACT this paper has two phases - a pre-parsing phase and a parsing phase. A less developed semantic processing phase is beyond the scope of this paper, as are TUIG's mechanisms for 'learning' new words to add to its database. The first phase, pre-parsing, ensures that all words are rendered in their basic form as found in the lexicon and takes note of any deviations where they might be relevant to understanding. The second phase, parsing, identifies the phrases which make up the sentences and matches the sentence structure to one of over one hundred potential structures. This paper first explains how the structure of the parsed sentence is represented, and then describes in detail the various stages of TUIG's processing. This is followed by examples of TUIG's work, and a number of conclusions drawn from the work. TUIG was implemented in Edinburgh Prolog and runs on an Apple Macintosh. AICS'91 3
2010 IEEE Transforming Engineering Education: Creating Interdisciplinary Skills for Complex Global Environments, 2010
Professional Issues in Software Engineering (PISE) has been taught as part of the computer system... more Professional Issues in Software Engineering (PISE) has been taught as part of the computer systems undergraduate degree programme at the University of Limerick using a multiinstitutional collaborative pedagogy. PISE considers the ethical, legal and social consequences of the design, implementation and use of computer and information systems. Students from UL collaborated with students from other universities in USA, England and Malta, working together in geographically distributed virtual learning groups to consider ethical issues in software engineering. This paper reflects the longitudinal evaluation of teaching and assessment methods that have been developed over 20 years.
2010 18th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, 2010
For the first time at an RE conference we propose a formal debate on a topic of critical importan... more For the first time at an RE conference we propose a formal debate on a topic of critical importance to the RE community. The debate format is based on that of the Economist newspaper, in turn derived from the long-standing Oxford Union practices.
Proceedings of the 19th international conference on Software engineering - ICSE '97, 1997
The planning of additional features and releases is a major concern for commercial software compa... more The planning of additional features and releases is a major concern for commercial software companies. We describe how, in collaboration with Ericsson Radio Systems, we developed and tested an industrially useful approach to software requirements prioritization.
13th IEEE International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems (iceccs 2008), 2008
The Republic of Ireland has been a surprising success story in the global software market for rea... more The Republic of Ireland has been a surprising success story in the global software market for reasons which are neither agreed nor obvious. However outsourcing towards lower cost countries is a threat to this success. One potential counter move is to invest heavily in software engineering research so as to stay ahead of the curve. To meet the national strategic
Requirements Engineering, 1997
An efficient, accurate and practical process for prioritising. requirements is of great importanc... more An efficient, accurate and practical process for prioritising. requirements is of great importance in commercial software developments. This article improves an existing cost-vahte approach in which stakeholders compare all unique pairs of candidate requirements according to their value and their cost of implementation. Techniques for reducing the required number of comparisons are suggested, thus making the process more efficient. An initial approach for managing requirements interdependencies is proposed. A support tool for the improved process has been developed to make the process more practical in commercial developments. The improved process and its support tool have been applied and evaluated in an industrial project at Ericsson Radio Systems AB. The results indicate a pressing need for mature processes for prioritising requirements, and the work presented here is an important step in that direction.
Requirements Engineering, 2010
Computer Assisted Language Learning, 1994
Third International Workshop on Computer-Aided …, 1989
Page 1. Characterising Domains for Constructive Expert Systems Kevin Ryan, Dept. of Computer Scie... more Page 1. Characterising Domains for Constructive Expert Systems Kevin Ryan, Dept. of Computer Science & Information Systems University of Limerick Limerick IRELAND Phone : +353-61-333644 Fax : +353-61-330316 e-mail : ryank@ul.ie Niamh Harty, Dept. ...