Proyecto sombrilla

Estado: 
Finalizado
Número de proyecto: 
834-00-000
Vigencia:
De 01/Mar/2017 hasta 02/Mar/2017

Descripción:

Proyecto sombrilla que reúne todas aquellas publicaciones de los investigadores, que no se encuentran asociadas a un proyecto de investigación del CITIC.

Investigador principal
Dr. Marcelo Jenkins Coronas

Colaboradores
Ramón Bonilla Lizano
Dr. Marcelo Jenkins Coronas

Unidad académica base
Centro de Investigaciones en Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación (CITIC)

Publicaciones asociadas

Creating a Protocol for Collaborative Mobile Applications for Kids Between 4 and 6 Years Old

Oct
2015

Descripción:

One of the basic requirements in education is to prepare students for participation in an information society in which knowledge will be the most important resource for development. ComputerSupported Collaborative Learning is one of the most promising approaches to enhance the learning process with the help of information and communication technology. At the same time, advances in technology and mobile devices in the last decade have increased the number of educational institutions adopting mobile tools in the learning process. This paper describes the design and implementation of a protocol for a collaborative mobile application. TITIBOTS Colab is a programming environment for kids between 4 and 6 years old. During the implementation of TITIBOTS Colab, while creating a working version of the protocol, our team found that all messages defined in the design worked properly in order to provide the communication rules for the client and server applications.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality

Identifying implied security requirements from functional requirements

Jul
2019

Descripción:

The elicitation of software security requirements in early stages of software development life cycle is an essential task. Using security requirements templates could help practitioners to identify implied software security requirements from functional requirements in the context of a software system. In this paper, we replicated a previous study that analyzed the effectiveness of security requirements templates to support the identification of security requirements. Our objective was to evaluate this approach and compare the applicability of the previous findings. We conducted the first replication of the controlled experiment in 2015, and subsequently conducted two differentiated replications in 2018. We evaluated the responses of 33 participants in terms of quality, coverage, relevance and efficiency and discussed insights regarding the impact of context factors. Participants were divided into treatment (security requirements templates) and control groups (no templates). Our findings support some previous results: treatment group performed significantly better than the control group in terms of the coverage of the identified security requirements. Besides, the requirements elicitation process performed significantly better in relevance and efficiency metrics in two of the three replications. Security requirements templates supported participants to identify a core set of the security requirements and participants were favorable towards the use of templates in identifying security requirements.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: 14th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI)

Typifying Data Required for the Development of Smart Agriculture Systems

Ago
2019

Descripción:

Smart agriculture is an active research field. Currently, many researchers are working on the construction of platforms directed to improve efficiency, crop processes, and data awareness. However, it is common that developers focus on data monitoring instead of the data relevance for decision making or the costs associated with the creation of monitoring platforms. In this paper, we present a classification of the data required by researchers on the construction of decision-support systems applied to smart agriculture processes. By using this classification, the user can define which data are relevant according to the characteristics of the problem that needs to be solved.We have applied the classification to data recollected in a study case conducted by the end of last year. Besides, we identify a list of agronomic and climatic variables commonly used in the construction of decision support systems. We apply the classification to this list of variables as an example for researchers. As a conclusion, this typification permits the researcher to identify data that has to be monitored and controlled, and data that does not have to be measured, the later based on the data characteristics and utility for the farmer.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: 2019 IV Jornadas Costarricenses de Investigación en Computación e Informática (JoCICI)

Decision support systems that use artificial intelligence for precision agriculture: a systematic literature mapping

Abr
2020

Descripción:

Decision support systems for agriculture allow to optimize crop processes by using the least amount of resources (land, water and fertilizers). In this study, we characterized decision support systems that use artificial intelligence (AI) techniques for precision agriculture processes. A total of 12 artificial intelligence techniques and 73 input variables were identified, with climate variables being the most used. Keywords: decision support systems; artificial intelligence; precision agriculture; greenhouses.

Tipo de publicación: Journal Article

Publicado en: Revista Ibérica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação

Use of data mining and machine learning techniques for fraud detection in financial statements: A systematic mapping study

Abr
2020

Descripción:

Fraud detection in financial statements is a constant and laborious task in the audit area. Traditionally, this task has been performed by experts, limiting its scope due to restrictions in manual processing capacity. In recent years, there has been an increase in the use of data mining and machine learning techniques to review in a comprehensive and automated way the organizations’ financial statements. The objective of this study was to analyze data mining and machine learning techniques used in financial fraud detection, in order to characterize the reported algorithms and the metrics used to evaluate their effectiveness. For this, a systematic mapping study of 67 studies was carried out. Our results show that since 2015 there was an upturn in the amount of studies that use these techniques for fraud detection in financial statements, where vector support machines are the most used technique, with 19 studies, followed by artificial neural networks, with 15 studies, and decision trees, with 11 studies. Effectiveness was assessed by the degree of precision with which the implemented techniques detected real fraud cases, obtaining values between 70% and 99.9%.

Tipo de publicación: Journal Article

Publicado en: Revista Ibérica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação

An empirical analysis of IFPUG FPA and cosmic FFP measurement methods

Ene
2020

Descripción:

The accuracy of functional size measuring is critical in software project management, because it is one of the key inputs for effort and cost estimation models. The functional size measurement (FSM) process is performed based on standardized methods; however, the accuracy of the FSM results is still based mostly on the knowledge of the measurers. In this paper, an empirical study was conducted to analyze the accuracy, reproducibility, and acceptance properties of the IFPUG FPA and COSMIC FFP functional size measurement methods. Results show that the performance of participants in measuring the requirement specifications using IFPUG FPA and COSMIC FFP did not differ significantly in terms of accuracy and reproducibility. Likewise, acceptance properties such as perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and intention to use did not present significant differences. Our results suggest that novice measurers could apply both methods with similar results.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing

Characterization of software testing practices: A replicated survey in Costa Rica

Dic
2019

Descripción:

Software testing is an essential activity in software development projects for delivering high quality products. In a previous study, we reported the results of a survey of software engineering practices in the Costa Rican industry. To make a more in depth analysis of the specific software testing practices among practitioners, we replicated a previous survey conducted in South America. Our objective was to characterize the state of the practice based on practitioners use and perceived importance of those practices. This survey evaluated 42 testing practices grouped in three categories: processes, activities and tools. A total of 92 practitioners responded to the survey. The participants indicated that: (1) tasks for recording of the results of tests, documentation of test procedures and cases, and re-execution of tests when the software is modified are useful and important for software testing practitioners. (2) Acceptance and system testing are the two most useful and important testing types. (3) Tools for recording defects and the effort to fix them (bug tracking) and the availability of a test database for reuse are useful and important. Regarding use and implementation of practices, the participants stated that (4) Planning and designing of software testing before coding and evaluating the quality of test artifacts are not a regular practice. (5) There is a lack of measurement of defect density and test coverage in the industry; and (6) tools for automatic generation of test cases and for estimating testing effort are rarely used. This study gave us a first glance at the state of the practice in software testing in a thriving and very dynamic industry that currently employs most of our computer science professionals. The benefits are twofold: for academia, it provides us with a road map to revise our academic offer, and for practitioners it provides them with a first set of data to benchmark their practices.

Tipo de publicación: Journal Article

Publicado en: Journal of Software Engineering Research and Development

Implementation of Project Based Learning: Lessons Learned

Oct
2019

Descripción:

Project Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching and learning methodology where students develop projects under real conditions to acquire the knowledge and develop the skills required for their profession. In this article we discuss the lessons learned from two teachers who implemented different PBL approaches in three courses from the Bachelor in Computer and Informatics at the University of Costa Rica, during three semesters. We discuss the main considerations and decisions associated to project design elements and teaching practices. Among the main benefits identified by teachers when using PBL are the high motivation of students and the natural development of soft skills. Among the greatest challenges are (1) the design of learning assessment, considering technical aspects, soft skills, self- and peer- evaluations; (2) continuous feedback to students on their progress in the project and in team dynamics (and its consequent time investment); and (3) the necessary balance between designing a challenging and realistic project that enables the achievement of the course's learning objectives. We recommend the use of agile methodologies such as Scrum, which align very well with PBL principles, as well as the use of hybrid PBL methodologies, which include complementary didactic strategies to achieve the learning objectives of the course.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: 2019 XLV Latin American Computing Conference (CLEI)

Tools for the evaluation of web accessibility: A systematic literature mapping

Ago
2019

Descripción:

In recent years, different tools have been proposed to automate the evaluation of the web contents accessibility criteria proposed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These tools can verify that a website complies with web accessibility standards such as WCAG, but the results of the evaluation may depend on the tool used. This study identifies and characterizes web accessibility assessment tools through a systematic literature mapping. A total of 50 articles were analyzed. We report the accessibility criteria evaluated by each tool as well as the main challenges related to the evaluations.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: 2019 IV Jornadas Costarricenses de Investigación en Computación e Informática (JoCICI)

Current Use and Perceived Usefulness of Mobile Technologies in the Practice of Dietetics in Costa Rica

Ago
2019

Descripción:

Over the past 15 years, there has been an increase in the use of information and communication technologies in the field of health (eHealth), in particular regarding mobile technologies (mHealth). However, little is known about how nutritionists have adopted such technologies in their practice in Costa Rica. The objective of this study was to identify how nutritionists use mobile technologies, as well as the perceived usefulness of different services that could be incorporated in their practice. We conducted an online survey, and the responses of 185 nutritionists were analyzed. Of the sample, 69.7% perceived that the use of mobile devices in nutrition is "very important" and "very useful" (77.3%) as a support to the nutrition care process. Although 79.5% showed their willingness to offer personalized mobile services, the use of such services in practice is scarce. According to our results, there are opportunities for the implementation of mobile technology services in areas such as the electronic health file, the self-monitoring of goal progress by the patient, as well as notifications and reminders by the nutritionist.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: 2019 IV Jornadas Costarricenses de Investigación en Computación e Informática (JoCICI)

Cambios antropométricos y satisfacción personal con una intervención educativa que incluyó el uso de una aplicación móvil, para personas con sobrepeso u obesidad

Dic
2019

Descripción:

Antecedentes: las tecnologías móviles pueden coadyuvar en el cambio de comportamientos alimentarios en personas con exceso de peso. Sin embargo, la evidencia con aplicaciones móviles adaptadas en el contexto latinoamericano es limitada. Objetivo: evaluar cambios antropométricos y satisfacción personal en una intervención educativa para personas con exceso de peso, la cual incluyó el uso de una aplicación móvil (NutriMetas). Materiales y métodos: estudio experimental clásico con diseño de pre-post prueba en personas con exceso de peso (IMC >25,0 y ≤34,9 kg/m2). Los participantes asistieron a sesiones de educación nutricional y registraron sus metas en la aplicación NutriMetas (grupo experimental, n=26) o en papel (grupo control, n=26). Se utilizaron modelos de regresión mixto multinivel para evaluar diferencias antropométricas (peso, IMC, circunferencia de cintura y porcentaje de grasa) entre los grupos. Resultados: el grupo experimental obtuvo una pérdida de peso promedio de 2,1±2,6 kg, en comparación con 0,7±1,6 kg para el grupo control (p=0,08). La interacción entre grupo y tiempo mostró una tendencia a la significancia en el IMC (p=0,064) y en la pérdida de peso (p=0,082), que podría ser de importancia desde el punto de vista clínico. Los atributos de apariencia, efectividad, eficiencia y facilidad de aprendizaje de NutriMetas fueron valorados favorablemente por la mayoría de los participantes. Conclusiones: el uso de NutriMetas como parte de una intervención educativa resultó ser una herramienta efectiva para los pacientes.

Tipo de publicación: Journal Article

Publicado en: Perspectivas en Nutrición Humana

A Case Study on Teaching a Software Estimation Course

Dic
2019

Descripción:

This paper describes a case study in designing and implementing a graduate-level course on software project estimation. The course’s objective was to introduce modern project estimation theory and practice through the process of learning through experience and reflection. We describe the goals and purpose that guided the course’s design and summarize our experience from teaching it for the first time in the 2018 spring semester. Our case study shows that a graduate-level course on software estimation can introduce several size and effort estimation methods, and that there are some affordable tools that can be used in academia. At the end students rated well our course and all of them would recommend it to a friend.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: Learning and Analytics in Intelligent Systems

Scheduling of events through notifications in mobile devices

Ago
2019

Descripción:

It is very common to interact with notifications every day with our mobile devices. Notifications have advantages and disadvantages. They bring information for the user, but they are also interruptions. In this study, the authors provide a solution for scheduling events through notifications. They created an application using the Google Calendar platform and the Swift programming language to respond to events through notifications. Then, the participants evaluated the application through the usability scale of the system (SUS), and the results were positive. The authors received excellent comments and feedback from the participants in the evaluation.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: 2019 IV Jornadas Costarricenses de Investigación en Computación e Informática (JoCICI)

Characterization of DevOps practices in software development organizations: A systematic mapping

Abr
2020

Descripción:

DevOps is a set of software engineering practices that combine efforts from development and operations areas, with the aim of improving delivery time and software quality. The goal of this study is to characterize DevOps practices used by organizations that develop software. For this, we performed a systematic literature mapping covering the period 2015-2019. In total, 42 primary articles were included and analyzed. We identified and classified a total of 20 DevOps practices, 18 criteria to evaluate DevOps practices, 16 benefits and 19 challenges related to DevOps’ adoption. Our results show the need for more empirical studies in organizations, which directly address issues like evaluation criteria to assess the operation of DevOps practices.

Tipo de publicación: Journal Article

Publicado en: Revista Ibérica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação

Framework for Creating Audio Games for Intelligent Personal Assistants

Jun
2017

Descripción:

Intelligent Personal Assistant (IPA) has experienced an important market growth, therefore, an increase in its development by having more people interested in devices that use this software. This opens possibilities for develop new games that people can be interested in. This article presents a framework proposal to create audio games using IPA enabled devices. In order to evaluate the framework, a prototype was designed and presented to 30 participants. The results obtained indicated that a 97.6% of the interviewees were attracted to the idea of playing a game using and IPA.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: Advances in Human Factors in Wearable Technologies and Game Design

A Model Proposal for Augmented Reality Game Creation to Incentivize Physical Activity

Feb
2017

Descripción:

Obesity and a sedentary lifestyle are relevant issues in today’s society. Even though different resources can be used to approach this problem, technology provides endless possibilities to fight against this problem. This article presents the results of a model to create augmented reality games where goals are achieved by doing physical activity (moving between different places). In order to evaluate the model, a prototype was built and presented to 50 participants. The results obtained indicated that an important percentage of the interviewees were attracted to the idea of playing a game to increase their physical activity.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: Proceedings of the 10th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 5: HEALTHINF, (BIOSTEC 2017)

Una Combinación de Estrategias para una Mejora de Procesos de Software: Reporte de Experiencia en una Institución del Sector Público

Oct
2018

Descripción:

Software processes improvement is the sequence of tasks and techniques that are carried out for the planning and application of the activities necessary for the effective process definition in a technology unit. Models such as the CMMI and standards such as ISO/IEC 15504 establish the quality requirements quality models that serve as guidelines for performing process improvement. However, the implementation of a process improvement initiative in a public sector institution, with limited resources, a rigid structure, and legislation to comply with, must be carried out according to the specific characteristics of the technology unit as to be accepted by the development teams. This article presents a report on the experience of applying a combination of strategies to carry out a process improvement project focused on quality management in a technology unit of a public educational. Our objective is to provide evidence and discuss the lessons learned related to the combination of strategies and models in the planning and implementation of process improvement. Our study shows how the IDEAL model and the GQM, NTCGR, COBIT, SQA, BPMN and TAM strategies were combined to define and implement a program for achieving continuous process improvement in the institution.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: 2018 7th International Conference On Software Process Improvement (CIMPS)

MBT4J: Automating the Model-Based Testing Process for Java Applications

Oct
2018

Descripción:

Model-based testing is a process that can reduce the cost of software testing by automating the design and generation of test cases but it usually involves some time-consuming manual steps. Current model-based testing tools automate the generation of test cases, but offer limited support for the model creation and test execution stages. In this paper we present MBT4J, a platform that automates most of the model-based testing process for Java applications, by integrating several existing tools and techniques. It automates the model building, test case generation, and test execution stages of the process. First, a model is extracted from the source code, then an adapter—between this model and the software under test—is generated and finally, test cases are generated and executed. We performed an evaluation of our platform with 12 configurations using an existing Java application from a public repository. Empirical results show that MBT4J is able to generate up to 2,438 test cases, detect up to 289 defects, and achieve a code coverage ranging between 72% and 84%. In the future, we plan to expand our evaluation to include more software applications and perform error seeding in order to be able to analyze the false positive and negative rates of our platform. Improving the automation of oracles is another vein for future research.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing

Effects of oral metaphors and allegories on programming problem solving

Mar
2018

Descripción:

Metaphors of ordinary concepts are intensively used in computer science for naming abstract concepts and for designing users interfaces. Metaphors are mappings from a source domain (e.g., a stream) to a target domain (e.g., a sequence of bytes). Typically computing phenomena are explained using incoherent discourses at the source domain, formed by metaphors taken from a diversity of origins. Nonetheless, versatility of metaphors allows for the creation of coherent discourses in the origin domain that map the target computing discourse, and we call them allegories. The limited number of existing studies about this topic has compared only textual allegories, visual allegories, and the traditional unconnected metaphors. Although their findings are heterogeneous, equal effectiveness is the most frequent empirical result between these three types of metaphors. Furthermore, we have not found any study about oral allegories, in spite of oral being the most used modality for metaphors in computer science education. This article experimentally compares the effects of oral allegories and oral metaphors on a complex problem‐solving task. As in previous studies, our results did not find any significant differences on support or detriment of oral allegories. Our results support new metaphor theories posing that the context significantly influences the metaphors’ efficacy, and encourages future research about the interaction between context and allegories.

Tipo de publicación: Journal Article

Publicado en: Computer Applications in Engineering Education

A Precise Layout Manager for Vector Graphics

Ago
2019

Descripción:

Automated layout is the use of software to determine the positions and sizes of visual elements that are part of an information presentation. As the amount of data that computers are able to process increases, automatic layout becomes more necessary. During the process of creating a program visualization, the authors needed a precise layout manager for scalable vector graphics that supported layers and animations. A literature review revealed the lack of a layout manager that satisfies these requirements. This paper reports the creation of a layout manager that uses floating-point arithmetic for precise and imperative arrangement of visual elements, that may be useful for other visual applications facing similar requirements.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: 2019 IV Jornadas Costarricenses de Investigación en Computación e Informática (JoCICI)

Characterizing Extracurricular Effort on Concurrent and Distributed Programming Learning

Ago
2019

Descripción:

The importance of concurrent and distributed programming is increasing on Computer Science curricula. This exploratory research identifies additional notions required by the official topics of "Parallel and Concurrent Programming" course, taught at the University of Costa Rica. This paper characterizes previous knowledge that students had about these notions and the extracurricular effort that they made to overcome the lack of notions. Findings show that students were able to overcome the lack of notions at expense of more extracurricular effort. Exploratory evidence indicates that students' election of professors in previous courses influenced their performance and extracurricular effort in the parallel programming course.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: 2019 IV Jornadas Costarricenses de Investigación en Computación e Informática (JoCICI)

Operationalizing Intentionality to Play Hanabi with Human Players

Jul
2020

Descripción:

The cooperative card game Hanabi has become of increasing interest in the community, since it combines partially hidden information with information exchange using restricted communication channels. In this paper, we describe AI agents that are designed to play the game with human players. Our agents make use of the fact that human players expect other players to act intentionally by formulating goals of their own and planning how to achieve them. They then use the available actions available to communicate their plan to the human player. On the flip side, our agents also interpret the actions performed by the human player as containing information about their plans. We present two different variants of our agent that perform this interpretation in different ways. Additionally, since part of human communication happens in subtle, indirect ways, we also demonstrate that our agent can use the timing of the human player's actions as additional information. In order to validate our agents, we have performed two separate experiments. One was done to validate the intentional component of the agents, while the other focused on the interpretation of received information. In this article, we also present the results obtained from these two experiments.

Tipo de publicación: Journal Article

Publicado en: IEEE Transactions on Games

Wait a second: playing Hanabi without giving hints

Ago
2019

Descripción:

Hanabi is a cooperative card game in which communication plays a key role. The game provides an interesting challenge for AI agents, because the game state is only partially observable, and the game limits what players can tell each other. This limit on communication channels is similar to a common scenario in system security research, and has been researched extensively in that context, for example by bypassing a system's isolation by establishing a covert communication channel. Such channels can be established through anything that the sending party can influence and the receiving party can observe, such as photonic emission, resource contention, or latency. In this paper, we present Hanabi agents that utilize timing as a covert channel so effectively that they can eschew the communicative actions provided by the game entirely. In addition to a thorough evaluation of the effectiveness of our approach, and a comparison to other Hanabi agents, we provide its context in the area of security, and an outlook on how it could be related to human behavior in future work.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

A Study of AI Agent Commitment in One Night Ultimate Werewolf with Human Players

Oct
2019

Descripción:

Social deduction games are a genre of board games in which a group of players is secretly assigned roles and each player tries to determine the other players’ roles. However, some roles have an incentive to not be found, and the games typically allow players to lie freely. Playing such games is a challenging task for AI agents, because they need to not only determine the probability that each statement made by the other players is truthful, but also come up with convincing lies themselves. In this paper, we present AI agents designed to play one particular such game, One Night Ultimate Werewolf, with human players. We discuss the different deliberation strategies our agents use to determine what they should say, and when they should change their plan. To determine how these different deliberation strategies are perceived by human players, we performed an experiment in which participants played a Unity implementation of the game with each of the three deliberation strategies. We present the results of this experiment, which show that commitment to plans has a measurable effect on player perception and provide a trade-off between consistency and potential for high performance of the agent.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Proceedings

Publicado en: Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment

Pandemic as a Challenge for Human-AI Cooperation

Jun
2020

Descripción:

Cooperation between human players and AI agents in games is a subject of great interest in the research community. In this paper we propose a new domain as a challenge for future AI research: the cooperative game Pandemic. This game represents a challenge because it requires cooperation between players in an environment with incomplete information. Additionally, we propose a first approach for a cooperative agent for the game, that uses planning in conjunction with plan recognition. We also propose an experiment to test the mentioned approach. In this paper we argue why Pandemic makes a compelling domain for AI research, the status of our project, as well as which challenges remain to be addressed.

Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper

Publicado en: Sixteenth Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference

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