@article {149, title = {A BPMN extension to support discrete-event simulation for healthcare applications: an explicit representation of queues, attributes and data-driven decision points}, journal = {Journal of the Operational Research Society}, year = {2017}, pages = {1-15}, abstract = {

Stakeholder engagement in simulation projects is important, especially in healthcare where there is a plurality of stakeholder opinions, objectives and power. One promising approach for increasing engagement is facilitated modelling. Currently, the complexity of producing a simulation model means that the {\textquoteleft}model coding{\textquoteright} stage is performed without the involvement of stakeholders, interrupting the possibility of a fully facilitated project. Early work demonstrated that with currently available software tools we can represent a simple healthcare process using Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) and generate a simulation model automatically. However, for more complex processes, BPMN currently has a number of limitations, namely the ability to represent queues and data-driven decision points. To address these limitations, we propose a conceptual design for an extension to BPMN (BPMN4SIM) using model-driven architecture. Application to an elderly emergency care pathway in a UK hospital shows that BPMN4SIM is able to represent a more complex business process. {\textcopyright} 2017 The Operational Research Society

}, keywords = {BPMN, Business process model and notation (BPMN), Computer aided software engineering, Computer software, Conceptual design, Data driven decision, Discrete event simulation, Explicit representation, Health care, Health care application, Model driven architectures, Simulation projects, Software architecture, Software design, Stakeholder engagement}, issn = {01605682}, doi = {10.1057/s41274-017-0267-7}, url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85021790477\&doi=10.1057\%2fs41274-017-0267-7\&partnerID=40\&md5=f0f30c77b3cccc771c50d7b8b6c878d4}, author = {Onggo, B.S.S. and Proudlove, N.C. and D{\textquoteright}Ambrogio, A. and Calabrese, A. and Bisogno, S. and Levialdi Ghiron, N.} } @conference {150, title = {A PAAS-Based framework for automated performance analysis of service-oriented systems}, booktitle = {Proceedings - Winter Simulation Conference}, year = {2017}, publisher = {Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.}, organization = {Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.}, abstract = {

Service-oriented systems are often at the core of mission- or business-critical systems, and thus advanced quantitative analysis techniques are needed to assess, from the early development stages, whether or not the system accomplishes the stakeholder requirements and constraints. In this respect, in order to take advantage of the distributed nature of the considered systems, the use of distributed simulation (DS) appears the most natural and effective simulation approach. Nevertheless, the integration of traditional system development processes with DS approaches can be cost-And time-demanding. This paper presents SOAsim, a highly automated framework that allows system designers to generate the executable DS code from the model-based specification of the system under study, by use of automated model transformations. Moreover, in order to reduce the costs of setting-up dedicated DS platforms, SOAsim also automates the DS deployment and execution over a cloud-based infrastructure, according to a Platform-As-A-Service (PaaS) paradigm. {\textcopyright} 2016 IEEE.

}, keywords = {Automated model transformations, Automated performance analysis, Automation, Computer aided software engineering, Development stages, Distributed simulations, Model-based specifications, Platform as a Service (PaaS), Service Oriented Systems, Simulation approach, Traditional systems}, isbn = {9781509044863}, doi = {10.1109/WSC.2016.7822154}, url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85014155535\&doi=10.1109\%2fWSC.2016.7822154\&partnerID=40\&md5=588d85610cba0fbef476d22e0f4a006f}, author = {D{\textquoteright}Ambrogio, A. and Bocciarelli, P. and Mastromattei, A.}, editor = {Roeder T.M., Szechtman R., Frazier P.I., Zhou E.} } @article {D{\textquoteright}Ambrogio2005127, title = {Metadata-driven design of integrated environments for software performance validation}, journal = {Journal of Systems and Software}, volume = {76}, number = {2}, year = {2005}, note = {cited By 5}, pages = {127-146}, abstract = {Lifecycle validation of the performance of software products (i.e., the prediction of the product ability to satisfy the user performance requirements) encompasses the production of performance models from CASE documents. The model production activity is a critical, time-consuming and error-prone activity so that lifecycle validation is still not widely accepted and applied. The reason is twofold: the lack of methods for the automatic derivation of software performance models from CASE documents and the lack of environments that implement and integrate such methods. A number of methods for the automatic derivation of software performance models from CASE documents has been already proposed in literature, without however solving the automation problem. This paper instead faces up to such problem, by introducing an integrated and standards-based environment for the automatic derivation and evaluation of queueing-based performance models. The environment is based on the use of standards for metadata exchange (MOF, XMI), to ease the integration of the most common UML-based CASE tools, thus enabling software designers to smoothly introduce performance validation activities into their best development practices. {\textcopyright} 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.}, keywords = {Codes (standards), Computer aided software engineering, Computer simulation, Lifecycle validation, Metadata, Metamodeling, Performance, Quality control, Software environments, Software performance, XML}, issn = {01641212}, doi = {10.1016/j.jss.2004.04.014}, url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-11144271040\&partnerID=40\&md5=36f844fc57fc3cf9ba5a51344b5472d2}, author = {Andrea D{\textquoteright}Ambrogio and Iazeolla, G.} } @article {D{\textquoteright}Ambrogio200329, title = {Steps towards the automatic production of performance models of web applications}, journal = {Computer Networks}, volume = {41}, number = {1}, year = {2003}, note = {cited By 14}, pages = {29-39}, abstract = {

The automatic production of performance models of software products can encourage software designers to include performance validation in their best practices. The incorporation of methods for automatic production can also be of interest of CASE tool vendors to improve the capabilities of their commercial software development environments. This paper deals with a method that introduces a systematic approach towards the automatic production of performance models of web applications (i.e. software applications run on web platforms). The method takes in input two sets of data, the description of the platform architecture (a general view of the system platform and a detailed view of the packet flow in the platform itself) and a set of data that describes the workload imposed on the platform by the application. The produced model is an extended queueing network ready to be used by conventional evaluation tools to derive predictions on the performance of the software applications. An example is given of the method application, in which predictions of the performance of the application are obtained versus various combinations of the processing powers of the interacting hosts. {\textcopyright} 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

}, keywords = {Computer aided software engineering, Computer software, Packet networks, Performance, Performance prediction, Queueing networks, World Wide Web}, issn = {13891286}, doi = {10.1016/S1389-1286(02)00324-9}, url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-0037437673\&partnerID=40\&md5=03d6a60f12ce2896f634526eeeb2605e}, author = {Andrea D{\textquoteright}Ambrogio and Iazeolla, G.} } @article {Cortellessa200181, title = {Automatic derivation of software performance models from CASE documents}, journal = {Performance Evaluation}, volume = {45}, number = {2-3}, year = {2001}, note = {cited By 27}, pages = {81-105}, abstract = {Lifecycle validation of software performance (or prediction of the product ability to satisfy the user performance-requirements) is based on the automatic derivation of software performance models from CASE documents or rapid prototypes. This paper deals with the CASE document alternative. After a brief overview of existing automatic derivation methods, it introduces a method that unifies existing techniques that use CASE documents. The method is step-wise clear, can be used from the early phases of the software lifecycle, is distributed-software oriented, and can be easily incorporated into modern (e.g., UML-based) CASE tools. The method enables the software designer with no specific knowledge of performance theory to predict at design time the performance of various final product alternatives. The designer does only need to feed the CASE documents into the performance model generator. The paper carries on an application case study that deals with the development of distributed software, where the method is used to predict the performance of different distributed architectures the designer could select at preliminary design time to obtain the best performing final product. The method can be easily incorporated into modern object-oriented software development environments to encourage software designers to introduce lifecycle performance validation into their development best practices. {\textcopyright} 2001 Elsevier Science B.V.}, keywords = {Computer aided software engineering, Computer architecture, Distributed computer systems, Distributed software, Systems analysis, User interfaces}, issn = {01665316}, doi = {10.1016/S0166-5316(01)00036-0}, url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-0035400344\&partnerID=40\&md5=c4fbe1a264e5fde474ce1c0eabbaedcb}, author = {Cortellessa, V. and Andrea D{\textquoteright}Ambrogio and Iazeolla, G.} }