Web Engineering

Web applications are usually built starting from incomplete design documents and proceeding directly to implementation for some specific software platform. The resulting application is usually difficult to change or extend. Although several methodologies have been proposed in the last few years, most of them use a concrete approach that leverages the features of a specific software platform or concrete Web elements. Model-driven development proposals, on the other hand, are difficult to adopt. This paper discusses a successful intermediate approach that allows the designer to work with abstract artifacts that can be readily mapped into any MVC-based (application) framework, independently of which software platform is used. This methodology is simple and easy to learn, even by those who are not platform experts. We present it in terms of a real-life running application for use by local governments in Chile.

During the past decade we have been witnesses of the rise of the Web Application with a browser based client. This brought us ubiquitous access and centralized administration and deployment, but the inherent limitations of the approach however, and the availability of new technologies like XML and Web Services has made people start building rich clients as business applications front ends. But very often these applications are tied to the development tools and very hard to extend. We propose a clean and elegant architecture which considers a plugin based approach as a general solution to the extensibility problem. The approach is demonstrated by refactoring a simple application taken from a public forum into the proposed architecture including two new extensions that are implemented as plugins.

In learning analytics and educational data mining, a prominent challenge is posed by the lack of portability and transferability of predictive models across different courses. A novel ontology-based decision tree model is introduced in this study, which significantly enhances portability by incorporating semantic features. Unlike conventional decision tree models that are static and course-specific, the approach allows for the dynamic generation and adaptation of decision tree rules using ontologies, thus enabling seamless application across multiple courses without compromising accuracy. The core innovation of the method lies in the use of the Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) to integrate decision tree rules into an ontological framework, allowing reasoning and adaptation based on domain-specific semantics. By embedding decision tree rules that differentiate between pass and fail outcomes within an ontology, superior portability, and adaptability are achieved across courses with similar usage patterns. Applied to the Open University Learning Design (OULD) science courses dataset, advanced machine learning techniques were utilized to derive predictive rules, achieving an exceptional prediction accuracy of 97%. This demonstrates not only the effectiveness of the model but also its potential for robust transferability across various educational contexts, marking a significant advancement over existing methods.

This article examines the structurally interdependent yet inherently conflictual relationship between journalists and public relations professionals. It contends that both groups engage with the same informational environment, but do so according to distinct professional logics: journalists prioritize independent scrutiny in the public interest, whereas public relations practitioners represent institutional perspectives and seek to influence interpretation. The resulting tensions stem less from bad faith than from divergent mandates, expectations, and communicative objectives. The text concludes that a constructive relationship depends on professional integrity, reciprocal understanding, sustained dialogue, and the cultivation of trust, all of which contribute to a more effective public sphere.

Los sistemas informáticos basados en la web han ido creciendo a pasos muy grandes. La web a través del tiempo se ha convertido en un lugar para localizar los documentos importantes de las instituciones, así como llevar a grandes volúmenes de información a nivel mercado bancario y educativo de la organización. Los sistemas basados en la web desde su creación envolvió toda esa sistematización para resolver problemas de negocios que tenían, pero sin utilizar ninguna metodologia para la construcción de los mismos. Por lo tanto, este artículo se presenta una breve introducción a las aplicaciones Web, metodologías de construcción de este tipo de aplicaciones, ingeniería de requerimientos en aplicaciones web, las técnicas utilizadas para la recolección de datos y los graves problemas que han pasado varias aplicaciones web, centrándose en la ingeniería de requisitos como el eje primordial en el desarrollo de proyectos de software.  Computer systems based on the web have grown to very large ...

JavaScript has two different types of data values—primitive and reference values. As is the case in any programming language, JavaScript has types to represent different kinds of data, such as integers, decimals and alphanumeric characters.

Primitive values may be declared in variables, on their own, or as constituent properties of objects. What distinguishes them from reference values is that they have no properties or methods. By contrast to primitive values, reference values are pointers to memory addresses containing a primitive value. These occur all the time in objects.

When an object is declared and initialized, a pointer is created that references all properties and/or methods that are members of that object. The properties and methods that are members of an object are examples of reference values. They are accessed by referencing the memory address to which they are assigned.

Significant efforts are currently invested in application integration, to enable business processes of different companies to interact and compose complex multi-party processes. Web service standards, based on WSDL, have been adopted as process-to-process communication paradigms. However, the conceptual modeling of applications using Web services has not yet been addressed. Interaction with Web services is often specified at the level of the source code; thus, Web service interfaces are buried within a programmatic specification. In this paper, we argue that Web services should be considered as first-class citizens in the specification of Web applications. Thus, service-enabled Web applications should benefit from the high-level modeling and automatic code generation techniques that have been long advocated for Web application design and implementation. To this purpose, we extend a declarative model for specifying data-intensive Web applications in two directions: (i) high-level modeling of Web services and their interactions with the Web application using them; (ii) modeling and specification of Web applications implementing new, complex Web services. Our approach is fully implemented within a CASE tool allowing the high-level modeling and automatic deployment of service-enabled Web applications. In this paper, we discuss how WebML is extended to support Web services. We adopt the WSDL standard for describing message exchanges, and show the new units required to support WSDL within WebML. We also introduce some new WebML operation units, required to convert and materialise XML content, and describe how to simplify the required translation efforts by introducing a standard XML representation for local and global data resources. The proposed specification language supports the exchange of messages with Web services in both a synchronous and asynchronous way, considered from the perspective of the end-user: the former way is currently the most used, but the latter one constitutes the forefront and most promising development of service-enabled Web applications. The specification language also supports "duality", i.e., the ability of representing not only the application calls to Web services, but also the deployment of applicative functions in the form of Web services. Indeed, with the growth of asynchronous communications, we expect that service-enabled applications will progressively adopt peer-to-peer models, as they will at the same time invoke services and be exposed as services. Finally, we describe how WebRatio, a commercial CASE tool supporting the WebML design process, is extended to specify and automatically implement service-enabled Web applications running in top of a standard SOAP-based communication layer. The WebRatio design environment is equipped with a code generator that produces the code of the specified application and of the Web services in the J2EE or Microsoft .NET platforms, including data extraction queries, Web service calls, data marshalling and un-marshalling logics, page templates, and WSDL service descriptors. We stress that our approach focuses and fits best in Web service composition scenarios that involve human interaction on the Web. That is, we provide a declarative framework for specifying hypertext-based platforms where humans may provide input, make decisions, interact with existing business processes; in short, enact a well-defined role in an inter-organizational business process. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses related work. Section 3 introduces a minimal WebML background required to make the paper self-contained. Section 4 progressively presents the WebML units specifically designed to model Web services; Section 5 describes how Web service calls can be composed

This document is a tutorial for the RDF Query Language (RQL). RQL is a typed language, following a functional approach, that is defined by a set of basic queries and iterators. This tutorial presents examples of basic meta-schema, schema and data queries, as well as select-from-where filters (iterators) containing generalized path expressions and shows how such queries can be nested to form more complex queries.

ccelerometers have been used for field measurements of wind-induced response of buildings. However, wind-induced response consists of a static component, i.e. a mean value, and a dynamic fluctuating component. The static component is difficult to measure by accelerometers. An RTK-GPS (Leica MC1000) has a nominal accuracy of +/-1 cm +1 ppm for horizontal displacements and +/-2cm +2ppm for vertical displacements with a sampling rate of 10 Hz. This study aims to demonstrate the feasibility of RTK-GPS for wind-induced response measurements and its efficiency in measuring the displacement of a full-scale tower. As the first experiment, the accuracy of Real-Time Kinematic-Global Positioning System (RTK-GPS) in measuring sinusoidal displacements was examined, using an electronic exciter. When the vibration frequency was lower than 2Hz and the vibration amplitude was larger than 2 cm, RTK-GPS results seemed to closely follow the actual displacement. The efficiency of RTK-GPS was then demons...

The aim of this study was to develop a hybrid vibration experiment system that can evaluate the performance of complicated vibration dampers, e.g. sloshing dampers, which show high nonlinearity. To this end, a system consisting of a computer and an actuator was developed, and applied to an experiment on a building with a tuned mass damper under wind load. The system's accuracy and effectiveness was thus confirmed.

Model-Driven Web Engineering (MDWE) approaches aim to improve the Web applications development process by focusing on modeling instead of coding, and deriving the running application by transformations from conceptual models to code. The emergence of the Interaction Flow Modeling Language (IFML) has been an important milestone in the evolution of Web modeling languages, indicating not only the maturity of the field but also a final convergence of languages. In this paper we explain the evolution of modeling and design approaches since the early years (in the 90’s) detailing the forces which drove that evolution and discussing the strengths and weaknesses of some of those approaches. A brief presentation of the IFML is accompanied with a thorough analysis of the most important achievements of the MDWE community as well as the problems and obstacles that hinder the dissemination of model-driven techniques in the Web engineering field.

As a new approach for an understanding of wind-resistance characteristics about a bridge girder section, three-dimensional analyses around the section with attack angles are car-ried out by means of the IBTD/FS (Improved Balancing Tensor Diffusivity/Fractional Step) fi-nite element technique with LES (Large Eddy Simulation) turbulence model. The designed sec-tion has the ability in high flutter onset velocity over 80m/s through counter measures. The section is the slotted one-box girder with various counter measures, moreover the permeable fence is added to the top of guardrail as the windshield barrier. As the results of the analysis, we have succeeded in the good reproduction of the results of the wind tunnel test refer to the three components of the static aerodynamic wind force and verified the mechanism between aerody-namics and attack angles by the computational visualizations. KEYWORDS: CFD, LES, wind-resistance, slotted one-box girder, permeable fence. 1 INTRODUCTION After t...

Purpose -The paper seeks to provide a better understanding of how industrial (B2B) organizations use their web sites as a marketing communication tool to create value through their supply (value) chain relationships. Design/methodology/approach -A review of previous studies on B2B web sites results in the development of the "I-E-I (internet-extranet-intranet) framework", with three research questions focusing on how each of the three levels of the I-E-I framework can be described. Via these research questions the framework is tested empirically over a ten-month period in an industrial (B2B) web site setting. A qualitative, case study approach is used utilizing multiple sources of evidence. Findings -It was found that in order to make online (communication) efforts more effective throughout the value chain, an inside-out communication strategy is needed by the organization. Each level seems to have primary versus secondary stakeholders in terms of the access to and interaction with the web site level in which they are interacting. Overall, it was found that the deeper one went into the I-E-I framework, the more value that was created and that such value was both provided to and received from both the organization and the stakeholder. Originality/value -The I-E-I framework developed in this study introduces a framework that can be tested empirically, discussed and debated in other settings and provide a springboard for more in-depth studies on value creation in B2B web sites for both scholars and practitioners.

As Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms transitioned from simple CRUD applications to complex, multi-tenant workflow engines in the early 2010s, traditional imperative MVC frameworks encountered a "Relational-to-Hierarchical Impedance Mismatch." This mismatch often led to brittle, hard-to-maintain presentation layers when handling deeply nested data structures like benefits enrollment or onboarding records. This paper introduces the XML-Driven UI Orchestration Pattern (X-UIOP), a novel architecture that employs end-toend XML processing to decouple presentation logic from business rules. By integrating W3C XForms for state management, XML Pipeline Language (XPL) for service orchestration, and native XML databases for persistence, X-UIOP enables a metadata-driven approach to multi-tenancy. We provide a comprehensive analysis of its implementation in the Benefits Enrollment platform, demonstrating significant reductions in cyclomatic complexity and a marked increase in development velocity for enterprise-grade web applications.

In this paper, we propose a method to automatically rank documents returned by a search engine in the WWW with respect to a query. The process consists in three steps, the first translates the query and document descriptions into description logic terminologies. The second computes a mapping between related elements in the query and each document. This mapping matches concepts in the terminologies based on their names and their definitions. The last step computes the difference between the query (represented as a terminology) and each document (also represented as a terminology) and ranks the documents according this difference. To deal with linguistic information when comparing description logic concepts, we propose a definition of subsumption that takes into account names similarity between concepts occurring in the descriptions being compared. We describe each step of the method and show the intended results on a running example.

This paper presents both quasi-steady and transient wind load effects on a cubic building in a microburst and a tornado. Large Eddy Simulation (LES) was used to simulate the loading effects of a translating microburst with a 0.203 m-diameter jet at four different translating velocities on a 25.4 mm cube. The results of the numerical simulation were compared with data from a model laboratory microburst simulator. The transient loading effects on a 228.6 mm cubic building from a translating tornado were also simulated for two different vortex core diameters and two translating speeds and the peak loads were studied.

Framework? To answer this question 18 interviews were conducted. The interviews have been held with organizations that do use BiSL and with organizations that do not use BiSL. Among the interviews were three interviews with experts in the field of BiSL. The conclusion of our research is that organizational readiness is the deciding factor to use BiSL. To apply BiSL successfully there is a need of support, knowledge and a certain level of organizational maturity in business information management.

Business Information Services Library (BiSL) is a framework from Dutch origin that helps organizations shape Business Information Management. BiSL is not used by every organization in the Netherlands. The question is what moves organizations to start using BiSL or what motives do they have to reject the use of BiSL. The research question in this study is: What motivates the adoption (or non-adoption) of the BiSL Framework? To answer this question 18 interviews were conducted. The interviews have been held with organizations that do use BiSL and with organizations that do not use BiSL. Among the interviews were three interviews with experts in the field of BiSL. The conclusion of our research is that organizational readiness is the deciding factor to

The web continues to grow and attacks against the web continue to increase. This paper focuses on the literature review on scanning web vulnerabilities and solutions to mitigate web attacks. Vulnerability scanning methods will be reviewed as well as frameworks for improving web security. This research is the basis for future work that will end with the elaboration of web scanning and security with the aim of proposing better innovations.

Abstract: This deliverable reports the technical and research development performed until M36 (January 2009) within tasks T5. 2 and T5. 4 of WP5 in the KP-Lab project, per the latest Description of Work (DoW) 3.2 [DoW3. 2]. The described components are included in the KP-Lab Semantic Web Knowledge Middleware (SWKM) Prototype Release 3.0 software that takes place in M36. This release builds on the Prototype Release 2.0 that was presented in [D5. 4]. The present deliverable includes both the specification, as well as the ...

The purpose of our present research was to diminish the users ‘dissatisfaction related to navigational limitations of on-line stores. The outcome may well be used also by the firms which implement transactions and commercial web applications. Our case study was carried out on the platform of a virtual store, for whose navigation model we used a class diagram, via UWE (UML-based Web Engineering), which needed be modified for the navigation sustainability. There were two main sequences in the model development. In the first instance, we chose the classes which could be accessed directly and, in this fashion, we would acquire the class navigation diagram. The second instance consisted in diagram's extension with access structures and system menu, thus resulting a navigation structure diagram used for easily gaining each point of the application. At this point, we utilized refactoring in an attempt to offer a quality model for both developers and users.

Due to hardware developments, strong application needs and the overwhelming influence of the net in almost all areas, distributed and mobile systems, especially software systems, have become one of the most important topics for nowadays software industry. Unfortunately, distribution adds its share to the problems of developing complex software systems. Heterogeneity in both, hardware and software, concurrency, distribution of components and the need for interoperability between different systems complicate matters. Moreover, new technical aspects like resource management, load balancing and deadlock handling put an additional burden onto the developer. Although subject to permanent changes, distributed systems have high requirements w.r.t. dependability, robustness and performance. The long-term common goal of our research efforts is the development, implementation and evaluation of methods helpful for the development of robust and easy-to-use software for complex systems in general while putting a focus on the problems and issues regarding the software development for distributed as well as mobile systems on all levels. Our current research activities are focussed on different aspects centered around that theme: • Robust and adaptive Service-oriented Architectures: Development of design methods, languages and middleware to ease the development of SOAs with an emphasis on provable correct systems that allow for early design-evaluation due to rigorous development methods and tools. Additionally, we work on approaches to autonomic components and container-support for such components in order to ensure robustness also at runtime. • Agent and Multi-Agent (MAS) Technology: Development of new approaches to use Multi-Agent-Systems and negotiation techniques, for designing, organizing and optimizing complex distributed systems, esp. service-based architectures. • Context-Models and Context-Support for small mobile devices: Investigation of techniques for providing, representing and exchanging context information in networks of small mobile devices like, e.g. PDAs or smart phones. The focus is on the development of a truly distributed context model taking care of information reliability as well as privacy issues. • Peer-to-Peer Systems: Development of algorithms, techniques and middleware suitable for building applications based on unstructured as well as structured P2P systems. A specific focus is put on privacy as well as anonymity issues. • Visual Programming-and Design-Languages: The goal of this long-term effort is the utilitization of visual metaphores and languages as well as visualization techniques to make design-and programming languages more understandable and, hence, easy-to-use. More information about our work, i.e., projects, papers and software, is available at our homepage. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding this report or our work in general, don't hesitate to contact me at

Web sites are dynamic in nature with content and structure changing overtime. Many pages on the Web are produced by content management systems (CMSs) such as WordPress, vBulletin, or phpBB. Tools currently used by Web archivists to preserve the content of the Web blindly crawl and store Web pages, disregarding the CMS the site is based on (leading to suboptimal crawling strategies) and whatever structured content is contained in Web pages (resulting in page-level archives whose content is hard to exploit). We present in this paper an application-aware helper (AAH) that fits into an archiving crawl processing chain to perform intelligent and adaptive crawling of Web applications (e.g., the pages served by a CMS). Because the AAH is aware of the Web application currently crawled, it is able to refine the list of URLs to process and to extend the archive with semantic information about extracted content. To deal with possible changes in structure of Web applications, our AAH includes an adaptation module that makes crawling resilient to small changes in the structure of Web site. We show the value of our approach by comparing the output and efficiency of the AAH with respect to regular Web crawlers, also in the presence of structure change.

In a rapid web development, create a new challenge in the capacity of the complex process of setting and service users and many organizations, by linking the software provided by different organizations. Integrated web application basically allows a dialogue with the user system is mediated by the web service, which facilitates interaction between the process control systems that allows the implementation of the required business coverage. In this paper gives the description of a web engineering method of high-level specification of the display business application processes. Processes and services facilitated by the web application to facilitate the high-level modeling, code generation techniques in full automation has been applied in a conventional webapplication, again widening the benefits of software engineering force, which was implemented with the CASE tool. Keywords: modelling, web, development, application.

Designing for the web can feel overwhelming at first. There are layouts to choose from, colors to balance, fonts to pair, and users to think about all before a single line of code is written. Yet, good design is not about complexity. It's about clarity, purpose, and creating an experience that feels intuitive to the visitor. When beginners understand the foundations, every design decision becomes easier and more confident. A well-built website is more than a digital brochure. It is a communication tool that introduces your brand, guides visitors, and encourages action. Whether you are designing for a business, a portfolio, or a personal project, mastering the basics will help you avoid common mistakes and create designs that feel professional from the start. Understanding the Purpose of Your Design: Before choosing colors or layouts, you must understand why you are designing. Every digital project has a goal: selling a product, sharing information, generating leads, or building credibility. Beginners often jump straight into visuals without defining this purpose, which leads to confusing and ineffective results. Ask yourself: Who is the target audience? What action should visitors take? What information matters most? Clear answers to these questions shape every design choice, from navigation structure to button placement. The Importance of Clean Layouts: Layout is the backbone of good design. A clean, organized structure helps users scan content quickly and understand what matters most. Beginners should focus on simplicity rather than trying to display everything at once. Key layout principles include: Using grids to align elements consistently. Leaving enough white space to reduce visual clutter. Grouping related content together. A balanced layout creates rhythm and flow, guiding the eye naturally from top to bottom. Visual Hierarchy: Guiding the User's Attention: Visual hierarchy determines what people notice first, second, and third. This is achieved through size, color, spacing, and contrast. Headlines should stand out more than body text, and important actions should be visually distinct. Effective hierarchy helps users: Understand content quickly.Navigate without confusion.Focus on key messages.Without a clear hierarchy, even attractive designs can feel chaotic.

Knowledge spillovers are central in modern theories of innovation and growth. There is a large gap, however, between the recognition of the role of spillovers in several theories and the empirical appreciation. In this paper we explore a new approach to the measurement of spillovers. This is based on the exploitation of a recently developed family of techniques in nonparametric efficiency analysis, which allow the estimation of the impact of external factors on the technical efficiency of productive units. We advocate the use of these tools and give a demonstration of their potential, using data at territorial level for Italy.

Se presenta un estudio sobre los sitios Web de las universidades españolas, y el diseño de una medida cuantitativa para medir su nivel de accesibilidad, con objeto de establecer un ranking que permita evaluarlas y compararlas entre sí. En este estudio se han considerado 79 universidades españolas, cuyos sitios web institucionales se han analizado en profundidad midiendo diversos indicadores relacionados con la accesibilidad web, tales como la satisfacción de estándares y directrices de accesibilidad, la compatibilidad con distintos navegadores, errores de usabilidad, etc. A partir de los resultados obtenidos y con la métrica propuesta, se ha elaborado un ranking de universidades que pretende medir la calidad de sus sitios institucionales en cuanto a accesibilidad web. El objetivo del presente trabajo es presentar los resultados obtenidos a partir de dicho estudio.

In the modern world and fast development of the internet, the connection among people is being very significant than ever, people are looking for new methods to do advance communication between them without any issue, real-time communication is one of this ways. Currently video conference system usually needs to install application software. Therefore software need to be developed for different operating systems (android, windows, and mac) and user data goes through servers. However, web-based video conference system is OS independent so it saves development cost. We propose web based peer to peer real time communication system using WebRTC which will allow users to communicate with high-speed data transmission over the communication channel using WebRTC technology, HTML5 and Node.js server. WebRTC (web real-time communication) is a technology which allows real time audio, video and data transmission through web browser using JavaScript APIs without any plugins. Additionally media s...

By nature, web applications involve a myriad of different concerns, which many times crosscut each other. The result is that these crosscutting concerns are scattered throughout different software artifacts provoking information tangling in those concerns. This paper presents an approach for using the problem domain language captured by LEL (Language Extended Lexicon) to improve the modeling of those concerns which affect navigation, i.e. the navigational concerns. It shows how to build partial navigation scenarios with user interaction diagrams, to analyze how they crosscut and, from there, how to obtain information for improving design models. Finally, it discusses how the interleaving of requirements elicitation with language specification allows improving the description of scenarios and the discovering of crosscutting relationships.

Extraction of web information has, so far, relied mostly on the human user's dexterity and patience. Lately, these practices have slowly but steadily changed direction, turning towards offering various automated solutions for processing web data. The main objective was to relieve the effort of the user. Automated solutions rely on the standards used to publish information on the web. Microformats and RDFa are amongst these standards. They are simple and easy to use methods for adding structure and meaning to the content. This paper presents several methods for republishing user contact information inside the well-known Moodle LCMS, leading thus to the increase of its usability. The chosen approach was that of a block, used to integrate hCard, vCard and QR codes into Moodle. The premises were that correct information extraction (contact information, calendar events, and locations) was equally, if not even more important in eLearning environments. The present model allows future extensions, so as to improve the publishing process for data regarding events (vCalendar, hCalendar, iCal) and locations.

Extraction of web information has, so far, relied mostly on the human user's dexterity and patience. Lately, these practices have slowly but steadily changed direction, turning towards offering various automated solutions for processing web data. The main objective was to relieve the effort of the user. Automated solutions rely on the standards used to publish information on the web. Microformats and RDFa are amongst these standards. They are simple and easy to use methods for adding structure and meaning to the content. This paper presents several methods for republishing user contact information inside the well-known Moodle LCMS, leading thus to the increase of its usability. The chosen approach was that of a block, used to integrate hCard, vCard and QR codes into Moodle. The premises were that correct information extraction (contact information, calendar events, and locations) was equally, if not even more important in eLearning environments. The present model allows future extensions, so as to improve the publishing process for data regarding events (vCalendar, hCalendar, iCal) and locations.