Technology transfer does not happen spontaneously after research results and prototypes have been demonstrated. Researchers need to get more actively involved in "pushing technology out of the door." This paper describes an experiment that we conducted in 1993 to facilitate technology transfer. There are two aspects of this experiment: the integration of a re-engineering process into an existing software development and maintenance organization; and the evaluation of a research prototype in a "real world" situation. The experiment resulted in recommendations on adaptation of the tool functionality and on a configuration for use by different teams within the target organization.>

The automated recognition of abstract high-level conceptual information or concepts, which can greatly aid the understanding of programs and therefore support many software maintenance and reengineering activities, is considered. An approach to automated concept recognition and its application to maintenance-related program transformations are described. A unique characteristic of this approach is that transformations of code can be expressed as transformations of abstract concepts. This significantly elevates the level of transformation specifications.>

An approach is described that applies a transformation paradigm to automate software maintenance activities. The approach to code-to-code (horizontal) transformation is based on a high-level understanding of the programming and application domain concepts represented by the code. A very unique characteristic of this approach is its use of concept recognition, the understanding and abstraction of high-level programming and application domain entities in programs, as the basis for transformations. A program transformation tool has been developed to support the migration of a large manufacturing control system written in COBOL.>