In software development projects, software engineers play different functional roles, requiring a variety of technical and personality profiles. Disregarding such profiles during the selection and allocation of people to roles implies a serious risk of project failure, since members of the development team can perform unsatisfactorily their activities due to the lack of technical skills or inadequate personality traits. In such a scenario, the process of selecting and allocating people to functional roles is complex, tiring and error prone, especially when performed on an ad-hoc basis and only supported by the experience of the project manager, since there may be numerous candidate solutions that should be identified and evaluated. In such a direction, based on technical and personality profiles, this paper proposes a systematic and automatic approach for selecting and allocating people to functional roles in software development projects, recommending technically qualified and psychologically adequate people for each functional role of the software project, providing the project manager with an effective tool to support the decision-making process. Experimental results based on a real case study reveal the potential practical applicability of the proposed approach.

An Infrastructure Wireless Mesh Network (IWMN) is a multi-hop network that consists of stationary mesh routers, strategically positioned to provide a distributed wireless infrastructure for stationary or mobile mesh clients over a mesh topology. In this paper, we evaluate a network topology discovery protocol, called MLSD, which has been specifically designed considering IWMNs features. MLSD adopts a proactive, reliable, incremental, controlled and event-based delivery strategy, which avoids periodic messages and coordinates how information is propagated for enhancing efficiency and reducing network resource consumption. The performance evaluation is conducted based on simulation results. Performance is evaluated with respect to the total number of signaling messages and the signaling overhead. By contrasting MLSD and OSLR, it is observed that MLSD has the potential to become a better choice than the current project IEEE 802.11s, which adopts the OLSR approach as a basis for disseminating link state updates.

Component sotware reuse contributes to reduce software development time. These components are stored in repositories and search systems are needed to peform the selection of components. This paper proposes a method to reduce space storage in indexes of software assets repositories, based on applying Hill Climbing to identify similar components. The aproach is validated by using a synthetic repository of a thousand of assets and the results seems promising

An Infrastructure Wireless Mesh Network (IWMN) is a multi-hop network that consists of stationary mesh routers, strategically positioned to provide a distributed wireless infrastructure for stationary or mobile mesh clients over a mesh topology. In this paper, we evaluate a scalable neighborhood discovery protocol, called SNDP, which has been specifically designed to detect the presence and status of neighbor nodes in IWMNs. SNDP adopts a hybrid, collaborative signaling strategy, in which mesh routers and clients adopt distinct signaling approaches and work together to detect neighbor nodes. The performance evaluation is conducted based on simulation results. Performance is evaluated with respect to signaling load, power consumption and neighborhood discovery time. By contrasting SNDP and OSLR, it is observed that SNDP has the potential to become a better choice than the current work in progress proposed by the IETF MANET working group.

Multimedia systems should deal with critical issues such as real-time requirements of audio and video. Such requirements can become more complex when applications are executed in different platforms including different technologies, such as Internet and Interactive Digital Television Systems. In such a context, this paper proposes a QoS management and specification model to support adaptation in middleware for distributed multimedia systems.

Distributed multimedia systems should deal with critical issues such as temporal requirements of audio and video. Such requirements can become more complex when applications are executed in interactive digital television systems, since there is a diversity of hardware devices, operating systems and communication technologies. In order to fulfil the requirements of such applications, their constituting components need to interact with each other, as well to consider QoS issues related to devices and transmission media. This paper presents a generic interconnection model that allows communication between components in heterogeneous and distributed multimedia environments. Besides, the model supports adaptation in the middleware layer, triggered by QoS and user requirements changes.

A middleware for interactive digital television systems should harmonize and abstract discrepancies related to hardware and operating systems issues. In such a context, this paper describes an XML-based model for specifying components of an adaptive middleware for interactive digital television systems, in which component specifications play a fundamental role during negotiation, configuration and management of middleware components and resources.

Distributed multimedia systems should deal with a diversity of hardware devices and operating systems issues. In such a context, we present a component-based framework for configuration and management of resources of open, distributed multimedia systems. In order to provide a generic and reusable approach, the framework explores the concept of properties to establish configuration agreements among component requirements and platform features.

The author introduces the concept of spontaneous software, a Web based object computing paradigm for supporting on-demand, dynamic distribution and integration of distributed reusable software artifacts on user environments during execution time. The model is supported by a framework, Software Operating System (SOS), which provides execution and distribution models combining the power of both hypertext based Web technologies and mobile code paradigms. Like the Web, which moves distributed resources to clients, SOS allows software systems to locate, retrieve, install and execute remotely available software artifacts on user desktops. In such a scenario, cataloging, publishing, retrieving and executing distributed components is easily and efficiently achieved by adherent platforms, which allow users to acquire software licenses and have them automatically installed and running. Hardware devices, if designed over a compliant platform, could have drivers automatically installed and running after connection. Therefore, spontaneous software is a true way for manufacturers to provide genuine plug-and-play software and hardware.