DOST-ASTI, Quezon City -- The Computer Software Division (CSD) of the Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST-ASTI), welcomed the domain experts from the DOST’s Advanced Device and Materials Testing Laboratory (DOST-ADMATEL) in the first round of a series of requirements elicitation activities held last July 23 and 24 2019 for an ongoing contract research project between the two offices.

The contract research project, to be implemented this year, is funded through DOST’s Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD). The two-day requirements elicitation activity was precluded by a brief meeting by the project management team members of the two offices to set the course of the project implementation for the year 2019. This contract research project is the first collaborative partnership between the DOST-ASTI and DOST-ADMATEL.

Project management team members from DOST-ASTI, led by Ms. Joanna G. Syjuco, and members from ADMATEL, led by Dr. Araceli Monsada during requirements elicitation activity.

First Round of a Series of Requirements Elicitation Activities

Mr. Jeffrey A. Aborot of DOST-ASTI, senior researcher and technical lead for the project, opened the discussion by allowing both groups to introduce their members, their background of expertise and corresponding roles in the project implementation. Participants from DOST-ASTI were composed of researchers, software programmers, software testers, business process analysts, and project management officers, while participants from DOST-ADMATEL were composed of chemists, chemical engineers, and also project management officers. Proceeding with the requirements elicitation activity during the first day, the two groups exchanged ideas about the functional requirements for a software system to be developed for the project. The core functionalities of the software will include the multivariate analysis of spectrum data generated by DOST-ADMATEL using their testing facilities.

Dr. Monsada (ADMATEL) and Mr. Aborot (DOST-ASTI) leading the introduction of the members of the group.

Continuation of the group discussion during the second day of the first round of the requirements elicitation activity

The experts from DOST-ADMATEL shared their domain knowledge in chemometrics to the group in relation to their software requirements to be developed for the system. This partnership sparks the interest of each member of the group since it will be a first for the DOST-ASTI’s software development team to implement a software for chemometrics and for the laboratory analysts of DOST-ADMATEL to engage in a software development project.

All members composing the project team from DOST-ASTI and ADMATEL

The first round of requirements elicitation conducted by the group gave the DOST-ASTI and DOST-ADMATEL a deeper understanding of each other’s domain and a high-level understanding of the software requirements for the system to be developed for DOST-ADMATEL. Succeeding rounds of requirements elicitation activities for the project are scheduled within the third quarter of this year. 

Second Round of Requirements Elicitation

For the second round of the requirements elicitation process, the DOST-ASTI’s Computer Software Division (CSD), let by its chief Ms. Joanna G. Syjuco, paid a  visit to DOST-ADMATEL at DOST’s main compound in Taguig City last September 2, 2019.

Confirmatory Meeting

Mr. Tabal of DOST-ADMATEL discusses the types of analytical services that their laboratory offers.

The discussion for the 1-day requirements elicitation activity aimed for deeper understanding of the relevant concepts in chemometrics by the DOST-ASTI's software development team. These concepts include spectrum of data, spectrometry, Time-of-Flight Single Ion Mass Spectrometry (ToF-SIMS), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS), and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). Mr. Tabal of DOST-ADMATEL facilitated the discussion of the group about these concepts.

Mr. Tabal of DOST-ADMATEL discusses the analytical techniques that they use in their analysis of spectrum data

In relation to DOST-ADMATEL’s requirement for the application of multivariate methods to the analysis of their data, Mr. Aborot of DOST-ASTI discussed the general process flow for the automatic reduction of the number of dimensions of data to the automatic clustering of the input data for visual inspection.

Mr. Aborot of DOST-ASTI discusses the general workflow for dimension reduction to clustering analysis and some of the methods that can be used for each step of the process.

Facility Tour

After the conclusion of the requirements elicitation activity, Dr. Monsada of DOST-ADMATEL and her team personally gave the DOST-ASTI team a tour of their laboratories that house the ToF-SIMS, FTIR, GC-MS, and 3D Tomography equipment. This tour provided the researchers and software development team of DOST-ASTI the context in which the software-based to be developed will be used.

Dr. Monsada of  DOST-ADMATEL welcomes the participants from DOST-ASTI to a tour of their facility and laboratories.

The whole project team and DOST-ADMATEL’s ToF-SIMS equipment.