Top

Current research projects

3D virtual space for information retrieval

Project funded by an industrial grant

This project is aimed at developping a 3D virtual space for the efficient retrieval of information from a large multidimentional information repository. The key challenge rests on the design of visual representations of the information items as well as their relationships in a 3D space for quick exploration and retrieval.

This project started in August 2010 and is expected to be completed by August 2011.

Retro-specification de systèmes d’information

(Reverse Specification of information systems)

Project funded by the UAS strategic fund
Project N° 24245

In a previous project, we developed a legacy system reverse engineering method which rests on the re-documentation of the system’s use-case obtained by observing the actual users of the system. But these use-cases are never complete and accurate. In particular, the many alternative flows are often overlooked by the users.

This project is aimed at recovering the use-cases of a legacy information system, and in particular their alternative flows, starting from the mere source code with the guidance of its users. The technique will rest on dynamic (i.e. exection trace) as well as static (i.e. source code) analysis. Besides, the suitability of these techniques to the identification of SOA components from the legacy code will also be investigated.

This project started in January 2010 and is expected to be completed by October 2011.

Compréhension de Système d'Information basé sur la Modélisation Métier CSIM2

(Information Systems Understanding based on Business Modeling)

Project sponsored by the KTI/CTI fund of the Swiss Confederation

N° 10448.1 PFES-ES

This project aims at developing a methodology and the associated tools to help in the understanding of legacy information systems, which is a fundamental step in legacy systems reengineering. Generally, very few (if any) reliable sources of information exist on legacy information systems. But the understanding the working of these system is a required step before maintaining or reengineering them.

However the business model that the legacy system supports, which expresses in business terms the way the business tasks are structured and organized, is an important source of information on the supporting legacy information system. In fact it can help to answer the "why" question about the working of the latter.

This project will then try to bridge the gap between the business model of a system and the actual legacy Information System that supports it. This will largely be based on dynamic analysis techniques (i.e. execution trace analysis) and code to model heuristic mapping.

This project started in September 2009 and is expected to be completed by August 2011.