Advanced Software Engineering Support for Intelligent Agent Systems. Software Agents are an important technology for developing the complex software systems that are increasingly required to meet the needs of society. A crucial obstacle to the widespread adoption of agent technology is the lack of an appropriate software engineering methodology. This project proposes to explore support for design processes addressing advanced issues in agent systems, such as goal-based requirements, debugging ....Advanced Software Engineering Support for Intelligent Agent Systems. Software Agents are an important technology for developing the complex software systems that are increasingly required to meet the needs of society. A crucial obstacle to the widespread adoption of agent technology is the lack of an appropriate software engineering methodology. This project proposes to explore support for design processes addressing advanced issues in agent systems, such as goal-based requirements, debugging using design artefacts, component-based design, and reuse. We will also extend the methodology to support teamwork and open systems. We will be building on successful work we have already done in establishing a basic agent oriented software design methodology.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
Towards Invisibly Intelligent Appliances via Experience-based Computing. As computers become more pervasive, people will inevitably interact with a wide range of networked appliances. This proposal aims to develop prototype enabling technology to allow appliances to operate cooperatively and seamlessly with minimum human input - 'invisible intelligence'. Experience-based computing is the key concept underlying the technology. A prototype 'operating experience' will be developed to sit on top of ....Towards Invisibly Intelligent Appliances via Experience-based Computing. As computers become more pervasive, people will inevitably interact with a wide range of networked appliances. This proposal aims to develop prototype enabling technology to allow appliances to operate cooperatively and seamlessly with minimum human input - 'invisible intelligence'. Experience-based computing is the key concept underlying the technology. A prototype 'operating experience' will be developed to sit on top of existing operating systems that will allow appliances to join and leave networks, and interact with other appliances. Also to be developed are a modeling framework, language and methodology for specifying appliance behaviour, and allow learning from experience.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
Large-Scale Emulation for Enterprise Software Systems. This project will deliver a key future software technology for scalable quality assurance of highly interconnected enterprise IT systems, significantly contributing to more reliable and effective business operations in all industry sectors. It will fill a market gap and give Australian businesses a world competitive advantage. The project will generate world-leading research outcomes and further cement Australia’s leading research position i ....Large-Scale Emulation for Enterprise Software Systems. This project will deliver a key future software technology for scalable quality assurance of highly interconnected enterprise IT systems, significantly contributing to more reliable and effective business operations in all industry sectors. It will fill a market gap and give Australian businesses a world competitive advantage. The project will generate world-leading research outcomes and further cement Australia’s leading research position in enterprise software systems engineering. In particular, it will make major contributions to research into complex large-scale system interaction, system performance and scalability, and system behaviour modelling. The project also provides an excellent training environment for young researchers. Read moreRead less
Domain-specific visual languages for big data analytics applications. This project aims to invent domain-specific visual languages and support model-driven engineering based infrastructure so domain experts can specify, generate and apply complex data analytics and visualisation techniques. Many domains, including intelligent transport, business intelligence, and population health, need more effective “big data” analytics and visualisation. A challenge is to combine detailed domain knowledge – w ....Domain-specific visual languages for big data analytics applications. This project aims to invent domain-specific visual languages and support model-driven engineering based infrastructure so domain experts can specify, generate and apply complex data analytics and visualisation techniques. Many domains, including intelligent transport, business intelligence, and population health, need more effective “big data” analytics and visualisation. A challenge is to combine detailed domain knowledge – what the data means and what it can be used for – with sophisticated, scalable computational techniques to mine and present information from the huge volumes of raw data. This project is expected to improve productivity and quality of big data analytics and visualisation in critical domains.Read moreRead less
Metamorphic slices and their applications in fault localization. The main purpose of this project is to enhance the quality of software. The expected outcomes include the delivery of new cost-effective methods to debug software, and the extension of current debugging methods to be applicable in wider contexts.
Integration of Metamorphic Testing and Model Checking. This project proposes an innovative approach of integrating metamorphic testing and model checking. Its main outcome will be to deliver a comprehensive testing method that will help to reduce errors and costs in software development and consequently to improve the quality of software systems. Since software is pervasive and ubiquitous, our results will improve the nation's software productivity and quality. Thus, our results will help in ra ....Integration of Metamorphic Testing and Model Checking. This project proposes an innovative approach of integrating metamorphic testing and model checking. Its main outcome will be to deliver a comprehensive testing method that will help to reduce errors and costs in software development and consequently to improve the quality of software systems. Since software is pervasive and ubiquitous, our results will improve the nation's software productivity and quality. Thus, our results will help in raising our nation's competitive advantage towards the goal of becoming a leading nation in the software industry among Asia-Pacific countries. Furthermore, this collaboration will help young Australian researchers to link to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a leading-edge international research institute.Read moreRead less
A scalable debugging framework for petascale computers. Supercomputing underpins a wide range of areas of importance to the Australian economy; mining, agriculture, engineering, medical research and pharmaceutical development to name a few. It is of critical importance that software solutions in these areas behave correctly and do not generate erroneous results. This project will develop software tools and techniques that make it possible to detect and locate errors as software is converted to r ....A scalable debugging framework for petascale computers. Supercomputing underpins a wide range of areas of importance to the Australian economy; mining, agriculture, engineering, medical research and pharmaceutical development to name a few. It is of critical importance that software solutions in these areas behave correctly and do not generate erroneous results. This project will develop software tools and techniques that make it possible to detect and locate errors as software is converted to run on the next generation of 'petascale' supercomputers. We will deploy the tools both commercially through our industry partner, and also on national high performance computing facilities.Read moreRead less
Mapping the Effectiveness of Automated Software Testing. This project aims to help software engineers build complex software systems in far more reliable and cost-effective ways. It takes an interdisciplinary approach by applying machine learning techniques to automatically test complex software systems. Expected outcomes include a novel methodology for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of test suites generated by automated software testing techniques and the approaches required for generat ....Mapping the Effectiveness of Automated Software Testing. This project aims to help software engineers build complex software systems in far more reliable and cost-effective ways. It takes an interdisciplinary approach by applying machine learning techniques to automatically test complex software systems. Expected outcomes include a novel methodology for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of test suites generated by automated software testing techniques and the approaches required for generating high-quality test cases. Such advances are urgently needed to avoid disasters when deploying software systems in the real world.Read moreRead less