MARIELA CORTÉS | Universidade Estadual do Ceara (original) (raw)

Papers by MARIELA CORTÉS

Proceedings of the XXXI Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering

Empirical evaluations developed in the software engineering area have been widely applied as a fo... more Empirical evaluations developed in the software engineering area have been widely applied as a formalism to validate and ensure the credibility of the works proposed by the researchers. Even though the adoption of empirical evaluation techniques has gained popularity in recent years, its application has been questioned both qualitatively and quantitatively. This study aims at analyzing how empirical software engineering research has evolved in the Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering (SBES) community. We performed a controlled quasi-experiment, using published papers over the last 10 years in SBES. Our experiment was divided into two phases: classification by type and quality assessment of the main empirical types. In the first phase, the sample was 201 papers; in the second one, the sample decreased to 126 papers. The results have shown failures and gaps in the application of empirical methods when assessing the quality of the Software Engineering works. We believe that we can contribute to improve how the studies were conducted and consequently help to produce more reliable results, reducing or eliminating biases: an important qualitative factor in scientific work. In addition, due to the lack of assessment supporting tools, we developed a theoretical protocol to support the assessment process and proposed improvements for papers that obtained below-expected rates.

Proceedings of the IV Brazilian Symposium on Systematic and Automated Software Testing, 2019

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a paradigm based on the interaction between intelligent devices (... more The Internet of Things (IoT) is a paradigm based on the interaction between intelligent devices (things) and physical and/or virtual resources through the Internet. Thus, applications in this domain may become more prone to failures. In this scenario, evaluating the quality of applications through software testing can be considered critical and challenging. The focus of this work is to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the adoption of Software Testing in the context of IoT, identifying gaps in existing approaches, and providing new directions for research in the area. To achieve this goal, a systematic mapping covering research papers published in journals and conferences was carried out, accessing four relevant electronic databases. As a result, a total of 79 studies were selected and analyzed in order to evaluate quantitatively and qualitatively, the effective adoption of software testing in the projects.

Proceedings of the 14th Brazilian Symposium on Software Components, Architectures, and Reuse, 2020

Context. The large-scale use of microservices and their increasing adoption in the industry in re... more Context. The large-scale use of microservices and their increasing adoption in the industry in recent years has motivated researches on the most diverse aspects related to microservice-based development. However, as it is a relatively new topic, there is still no consolidated body of knowledge in the area. Objective. The present work intends to investigate the current state of research on microservices based on the formulation of six research questions covering fundamental aspects, such as: main interest topics and adopted standards, techniques and tools have been used and application areas. Method. From four digital libraries, 22 secondary studies were selected as a data source, which were analyzed and synthesized in the present study following the proposed research protocol. Results. Among the main topics of interest addressed, we highlight researches related to the applicability of microservice architecture, both by industry and academia. Results indicated that standards focus on challenges related to communication have been the most commonly considered by researchers of the area. Finally, the predominance in the use of the Docker container and the presence of DevOps practices in the automation of operations are noteworthy. Conclusions. The present mapping study points to some directions of research based on the identified gaps, such as modeling and testing of microservice applications, and addressing security aspects. Another promising point to be explored involves the combined use of microservice architecture with other related concepts such as IoT, smart cities, FOG computing and reactive systems, in order to reinforce the use of microservices, as well as creating new solutions and challenges to be researched.

Journal on Interactive Systems, 2021

Context: Empirical studies (ES) and systematic reviews (SR) play an essential role in the Human-C... more Context: Empirical studies (ES) and systematic reviews (SR) play an essential role in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field as its focus is on evaluating the end-user and usability of software solutions and synthesizing the evidence found by the HCI community. Even though the adoption of empirical evaluation techniques and SR has gained popularity in recent years, the consistent use of a methodology is still maturing. Goal: This study aims to provide a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the current status of ES and SR presented in the research papers published at the proceedings of the Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems (IHC Symposium). Method: We conduct an empirical study on the papers over the 18 editions in the IHC Symposium to answer four research questions. Our study proposes a protocol to identify and assess ES and SR reported in the papers published at the IHC Symposium. Results: From the sample of 259 studies, we find 131 ES and SR (~51%)...

In the theoretical references available to guide the design of rational agents, there are few tes... more In the theoretical references available to guide the design of rational agents, there are few test techniques to validate them. It is known that this validation depends on the selected test cases, which should arrange for information concerning the components of the agent tested that are underperforming. This paper proposes an approach that aims to contribute to the process of testing these programs through of the Thestes agent which solves the problem of selecting test case and the ProMon agent which does the diagnostic of the issues on the tested agent. The first experiments aimed to evaluate the approach by selecting test cases for simple and with internal state reactive agent in partially observable environment.

Some changes may occur during the life cycle of a project, impacting mainly in the time, scope an... more Some changes may occur during the life cycle of a project, impacting mainly in the time, scope and cost parameters. To reduce the possible negative effects and avoid the commitment of the project success, it is necessary a continuous management of change requests, ensuring that only properly analyzed and also formally approved changes are incorporated in the project baseline. This work has a goal to present an approach based on intelligent agent technology for the automation of change management in projects, assisting project managers in the decision making process of choosing the most appropriate changes to be approved. Resumo. Mudanças podem ocorrer ao longo do ciclo de vida de um projeto, causando impacto principalmente nos parâmetros de tempo, escopo e custo. Para minimizar os possíveis efeitos negativos e evitar o comprometimento do sucesso do projeto, faz-se necessário um gerenciamento contínuo das solicitações de mudanças, garantindo que somente mudanças devidamente analisadas e formalmente aprovadas sejam incorporadas na linha de base do projeto. Este trabalho objetiva apresentar uma abordagem baseada na tecnologia de agentes inteligentes para a automatização do gerenciamento de mudanças em projetos, auxiliando os gerentes de projetos no processo decisório de escolha das mudanças mais adequadas para serem aprovadas.

This is the replication package for the paper "Using Stack Overflow to Assess Technical Debt... more This is the replication package for the paper "Using Stack Overflow to Assess Technical Debt Identification on Software Projects". The paper was published on the Technical Research Track of the Bralizian Symposium on Software Engineering. The replication package is composed of 3 files: 1) data.zip, 2) tables.zip, and 3) clarifications.zip In data.zip, we provide the outputs of our methodological procedure to select the discussions from StackOverflow to include in our empirical analysis. In tables.zip, we provide additional and detailed data regarding all tables included in the paper/ In clarifications.zip, we provide additional clarification regarding concepts we did not fully discuss in the manuscript. For future references in this paper, please contact the main author Eliakim Gama, or one of the co-authors.

Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, 2018

Software project management is a complex and demanding task full of threats or negative risks tha... more Software project management is a complex and demanding task full of threats or negative risks that lead to the delay or the failure of the project. Risks stem from many different internal sources as well as external ones in the company and the project. In addition, these events can originate in any phase of the project life cycle, and thereby increase the complexity of the decisions for the project manager. Aiming to reduce the negative consequences caused by these events, we propose an approach that extends a multi-agent system to provide support for risk management in software projects by using metrics and contingency reserves. The approach is evaluated with a feasibility study demonstrating that agent-oriented approaches are promising solutions that support risk management processes.

Anais do X Simpósio Brasileiro de Sistemas de Informação (SBSI 2014), 2014

A Educação à Distância vem crescendo nos últimos anos com o apoio de ferramentas computacion... more A Educação à Distância vem crescendo nos últimos anos com o apoio de ferramentas computacionais. Os ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem (AVAs) merecem destaque neste cenário, por permitirem que os cursos nesta modalidade se desenvolvam de modo mais interativo e dinâmico. No entanto, o acompanhamento dos alunos e demais envolvidos através dos AVAs ainda é realizado por agentes humanos, tornando esta atividade propensa a falhas. Neste contexto, há a necessidade de um software autônomo para apoiar tal tarefa. Este artigo apresenta o desenvolvimento de um Sistema Multiagente para MOODLE utilizando técnicas de Engenharia de Software baseada em Agentes para guiar o desenvolvimento.

Proceedings of the XXXII Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering, 2018

Public and private organizations have their focus on achieving business value from their project ... more Public and private organizations have their focus on achieving business value from their project investments. However, the characterization of what business value means still remains open and its not mapped in the electronic government (e-Gov) scope. E-Gov is receiving increasingly significant investments. In 2017, only the Federal Revenue Service of Brazil has invested 1.2 billion reais in computerized systems. This paper aims to characterize business value in electronic government software projects in the Brazilian Federal Government scope, mapping the main characteristics of business value and barriers to its generation. Through the use of a mixed methodology, which comprises a qualitative phase undertaken in semi-structured interviews, combined with a quantitative phase, performed through a survey, we discovered that the main characteristics of business value in software projects for government are: guarantee of the provision of service to the citizen, provision of better service to the citizen, efficient operation of the business and enforce the law. The main barriers to value creation are: political decisions, lack of commitment of the people involved, lack of direct access to the client that defines and lack of communication between the software development involved areas. The knowledge about this characteristics can help government agencies, development teams and other actors involved in the production of software, in the execution of better projects, that generate greater business value and justify the investment. The identified barriers can contribute to the process of managing risks and opportunities in projects since their appropriate treatment can induce risk reduction / prevention in value generation for the organization.

Anais do Computer on the Beach, 2018

The management of software projects is a critical activity and susceptible to unplanned situation... more The management of software projects is a critical activity and susceptible to unplanned situations, commonly known as risks. Risks stem from a variety of sources, both external and internal to the project or organization; moreover, they can occur at any stage of the project life cycle. In this paper, we will present an approach that provides support for identification, analysis, response planning and risk control in software projects. For this purpose, an agent was developed and its behavior is based on metrics, change requests in the project, as well as the use of contingency reserves. The risk agent, ARis, was inserted into an existing multi-agent system (MAS) and in conjunction with all the agents, assists the prediction and mitigation of risks in software projects.

Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) emerged as a promising approach for developing complex and distributed ... more Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) emerged as a promising approach for developing complex and distributed systems. However, tools that support development of MASs are essential for this approach is effectively exploited in industrial context. Therefore, there is a need for tools for the modeling of MAS, because create and manipulate models without support of an appropriate environment are tedious and error-prone tasks that demands time. This paper aims to satisfy this need by built a modeling environment domain specific to MAS, implemented as a plugin for Eclipse platform. The environment is based on MAS-ML, a modeling language for MAS. This work focuses the implementation of tool to MAS-ML static diagrams, according version 2.0 of the language.

O desenvolvimento de software e uma atividade dinamica e distribuida. Os processos que envolvem e... more O desenvolvimento de software e uma atividade dinamica e distribuida. Os processos que envolvem essa atividade estao ligados a diversas areas do conhecimento, com destaque para o gerenciamento de integracao do projeto. Este artigo busca auxiliar gerentes de projeto no monitoramento e controle desses processos. Para que isso seja possivel, a abordagem proposta integra a tecnologia de agentes, a tecnica do valor agregado e o metodo do caminho critico com o objetivo de gerar alternativas para acoes preventivas e corretivas a fim de minimizar o impacto negativo dos desvios e gerando novas estimativas.

Anais do XIV Encontro Unificado de Computação do Piauí (ENUCOMPI 2021), 2021

The aim of this work is to carry out a tertiary study on the use of Augmented Reality (AR) in edu... more The aim of this work is to carry out a tertiary study on the use of Augmented Reality (AR) in education, based on a set of five research questions. This review will greatly benefit researchers who wish to conduct research on the topic for the first time. In addition, this study extends to new researchers due to the compilation of important information that was collected through Systematic Literature Reviews RSL. It was concluded that the research questions were answered based on the findings and it is also possible to observe the expansion of technologies, AR research fields and target audience by each author.

Anais do XIV Encontro Unificado de Computação do Piauí (ENUCOMPI 2021), 2021

Considering the context of Computer Science, chatbots are computer programs that use Artificial I... more Considering the context of Computer Science, chatbots are computer programs that use Artificial Intelligence techniques to simulate human behavior in dialogues. The use of chatbots applied to the health area has been growing, especially in scenarios for dealing with pandemics, such as COVID-19, as they help to avoid the burden of face-to-face care. Thus, this article proposes a systematic review of the work carried out in this line of research. After the review, it was found which technologies, strategies and frameworks are most used in recent times, as well as which specific areas of health are having more focus on the use of chatbots.

Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering, 2021

Context. In the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education was one of the most affected in adapting the ... more Context. In the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education was one of the most affected in adapting the teaching-learning process to comply with social distance measures. In this context, this research reports how we combined two active methodologies in Software Engineering Emergency Remote Teaching. Objective. Therefore, this study aims to report the experiences obtained from the application of gamified study guides in Software Engineering (SE) between November 2020 and April 2021. Method. We combined flipped classroom, an active methodology already known by them, with Gamification to improve students’ acceptance and engagement. We created six gamified study guides for the SE flipped classes. 51 students participated in the classes, 12 students from the Computer Technician course and 39 students from the Computer Science Bachelor course. Each study guide had a group of checkpoints to organize the content in levels. Results. At the end of the application, we observed 83.6% of the participating students maintained their engagement. According to self-declaration, 85% felt motivated by the approach adopted, with 75.9% considering that the class format presented enhanced their learning. We also observed a positive impact on learning gain in an average of 18.3% in their grades. Final Considerations. We concluded that using Gamification and Flipped Classroom has positive impacts on learning and acceptance, although the COVID-19 pandemic and the ERT negatively affect students’ motivation.

Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering, 2021

Context: Technical debt (TD) can compromise the quality of software systems in the long term. How... more Context: Technical debt (TD) can compromise the quality of software systems in the long term. However, depending on the needs and properties of the specific product, different quality characteristics may be considered in the assessment with different levels of relevance. In this way, quality characteristics can guide teams in managing the TD, from identifying to paying for the TD items relevant to each situation. Although a set of TD item indicators has been identified in the literature, there is no clear guidance on how these indicators can be efficiently used to identify TD items. Aims: To investigate, from the point of view of software professionals using the SO platform, the relationship between the TD item indicators and the quality characteristics of the system, in order to guide the use of indicators for greater efficiency and effectiveness in identifying and managing DT items from a quality perspective. Method: We extracted empirical evidence using data mining from discussions related to TD on the SO. From the execution of an analysis process, the quality characteristics related to the occurrence of DT items identified in the discussions, the respective indicators and types of debt were identified. Results: The main results reveal that maintainability is the characteristic most related to TD through its sub-characteristics: modifiability, testability and modularity. Code debt items can be related to all quality characteristics, while Infrastructure debt can resonate up to 6 characteristics. All quality characteristics have at least one associated indicator, with an emphasis on Maintainability with 13 high-level and 28 low-level indicators. The indicator related to version problems is the one with the highest number of quality features. Conclusion: The relationship between indicators, TD types and quality characteristics was organized in a conceptual diagram in order to assist software teams in identifying which TD items are related to the quality characteristics that are critical to the project context, contributing to decision making regarding the best strategy for debt management.

Proceedings of the XVIII Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality, 2019

Context: Previous work have investigated the industry's state of practice on technical debt (... more Context: Previous work have investigated the industry's state of practice on technical debt (TD) by surveying invited practitioners. However, these studies have included only practitioners with a sound understanding of TD, which might incur biases in their findings. One way to reduce this bias is to consider Q&A platforms, such as Stack Overflow (SO), because of containing practitioners with different roles and levels of TD knowledge. Therefore, the discussions on SO can broaden the perception of the state of practice on TD in the industry. Goal: To investigate how TD concepts have been discussed by SO's practitioners. Method: First, we employed data mining techniques to identify TD-related discussions on SO. Next, based on significance and popularity metrics, we considered 195 discussions to be further investigated. For each discussion, we analyzed its contents to identify types of TD followed by activities, strategies, and tools used in its management. Results: We found that code, infrastructure, and architecture debt are the most discussed types of TD on SO. Similarly, TD identification and payment are the most discussed activities. Regarding tools and strategies for TD management, SonarQube and refactoring have been mostly mentioned by practitioners. Conclusion: Our findings may indicate new research directions, as well as expanding the empirical knowledge on how the industry has handled TD.

Proceedings of the XXXIV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering, 2020

Context. The accumulation of technical debt (TD) items can lead to risks in software projects, su... more Context. The accumulation of technical debt (TD) items can lead to risks in software projects, such a gradual decrease in product quality, difficulties in their maintenance, and ultimately the cancellation of the project. To mitigate these risks, developers need means to identify TD items, which enable better documentation and improvements in TD management. Recent literature has proposed different indicator-based strategies for TD identification. However, there is limited empirical evidence to support that developers use these indicators to identify TD in practice. In this context, data from Q&A websites, such as Stack Overflow (SO), have been extensively leveraged in recent studies to investigate software engineering practices from a developers' point of view. Goal. This paper seeks to investigate, from the point of view of practitioners, how developers commonly identify TD items in their projects. Method. We mined, curated, and selected a total of 140 TD-related discussions on SO, from which we performed both quantitative and qualitative analyses. Results. We found that SO's practitioners commonly discuss TD identification, revealing 29 different low-level indicators for recognizing TD items on code, infrastructure, architecture, and tests. We grouped low-level indicators based on their themes, producing an aggregated set of 13 distinct high-level indicators. We then classified all low- and high-level indicators into three different categories according to which type of debt each of them is meant to identify. Conclusions. We organize the empirical evidence on the low- and high-level indicators and their relationship to types of TD in a conceptual framework, which may assist developers and serve as guidance for future research, shedding new light on TD identification state-of-practice.

Anais do VIII Simpósio Brasileiro de Sistemas de Informação (SBSI 2012), 2012

Nos Sistemas Multi-Agentes (SMAs), o comportamento de agentes é governado por normas, cujos eleme... more Nos Sistemas Multi-Agentes (SMAs), o comportamento de agentes é governado por normas, cujos elementos estáticos precisam ser modelados adequadamente em tempo de design. Neste contexto, a linguagem MAS-ML (Multi-Agent System Modeling Language) fornece diversos mecanismos para a modelagem das propriedades das entidades que compõem um SMA, porém o suporte aos conceitos das normas é limitado. Este artigo tem como objetivo estender as sintaxes abstrata e concreta de MAS-ML juntamente com a definição de um novo diagrama estático para dar suporte à modelagem de SMA considerando os elementos estáticos das normas. Com isso, será possível ter uma visão mais completa do sistema através de uma única linguagem de odelagem.

Proceedings of the XXXI Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering

Proceedings of the IV Brazilian Symposium on Systematic and Automated Software Testing, 2019

Proceedings of the 14th Brazilian Symposium on Software Components, Architectures, and Reuse, 2020

Journal on Interactive Systems, 2021

Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, 2018

Anais do X Simpósio Brasileiro de Sistemas de Informação (SBSI 2014), 2014

Proceedings of the XXXII Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering, 2018

Anais do Computer on the Beach, 2018

Anais do XIV Encontro Unificado de Computação do Piauí (ENUCOMPI 2021), 2021

Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering, 2021

Proceedings of the XVIII Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality, 2019

Proceedings of the XXXIV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering, 2020

Anais do VIII Simpósio Brasileiro de Sistemas de Informação (SBSI 2012), 2012