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In this paper, we address modelling program development by multiple different programmers (or programming teams) who work in different settings (programming languages or reasoning frameworks) but follow a common specification. After consideration of some philosophical issues regarding program development, including its similarities and dissimilarities with scientific theorizing, we extend a logical framework built to describe scientific theorizing in relativist settings: our extensions add the ability of reasoning about programs, the iterative process of their generation and their specifications. We are thus able to use the framework in order to make a first step towards examining at an abstract level the problem of translatability between the programs produced by program generators, by defining a notion of translation between the outputs of program generators and proving that there is such a (trivial) translation when two program generators follow the same specification reliably (in a specific sense of reliability). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mashups are web applications that expedite software development by reusing existing resources through integrating multiple application programming interfaces (APIs). Recommending the appropriate APIs plays a critical role in assisting developers in building such web applications easily and efficiently. The proliferation of publicly available APIs on the Internet has inspired the community to adopt various models to accomplish the recommendation task. Until present, considerable efforts have been made to recommend the optimal set of APIs, delivering fruitful results and achieving varying recommendation performance. This paper presents a timely review on the topic of API recommendations for mashup creation. Specifically, we investigate and compare not only traditional data mining approaches and recommendation techniques but also more recent approaches based on network representation learning and deep learning techniques. By analyzing the merits and pitfalls of existing approaches, we pinpoint a few promising directions to address the remaining challenges in the current research. This survey provides a timely comprehensive review of the API recommendation research and could be a useful reference for relevant researchers and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software size estimation is a vital activity of software project planning and management. Early software size estimation is a challenging task due to the limited information available during the early phases of software development. The goal of this paper is to construct and validate early software size estimation models based on four analysis-to-design adjustment factor (ADAF)-adjusted analysis class diagram metrics (i.e. ADAF-adjusted number of classes, ADAF-adjusted number of attributes, ADAF-adjusted number of methods and ADAF-adjusted number of relationships) using stepwise multiple linear regression and leave-one-out cross-validation. Furthermore, the prediction accuracy of the best-performing proposed model is also compared with the model based on objective class points. The results of this comparison reveal that our proposed method reduces errors significantly (i.e. on average, 16% reduction in mean absolute residual and 24% reduction in mean squared error). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last two decades have seen a rapid increase in the number and type of commodified software tools and packages offered by suppliers. The main thrust of commodification has centered on systems and utilities software. The paper considers to what extent commodification will expand to include those industry-specific applications which have characterized the bulk of in-house or customized software development during the 1980s. The conditions under which particular types of software have already become commodified are examined, and a model of product life cycles is utilized to conceptualize the opportunities for a market to emerge for industry-specific commodified software. Case study material on the genesis and implementation of packaged solutions in financial services is used to reveal the problems in the development of generic commodified industry-specific applications software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ViewDEX (Viewer for Digital Evaluation of X-ray Images) is an image viewer compatible with Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) that has been especially designed to facilitate image perception and observer performance studies within medical imaging. The software was first released in 2004 and since then a continuous development has been ongoing. One of the major drawbacks of previous versions of ViewDEX has been that they have lacked functionality enabling the possibility to evaluate multiple images and/or image stacks simultaneously. This functionality is especially requested by researchers working with modalities, where an image acquisition can result in multiple image stacks (e.g. axial, coronal and sagittal reformations in computed tomography). In ViewDEX 3.0 this functionality has been added and it is now possible to perform image evaluations of multiple images and/or image stacks simultaneously, by using multiple monitors and/or multiple image canvases in monitors. Additionally, some of the previously available functionality has been updated and improved. This paper describes the recent developments of ViewDEX 3.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software development requires adequate methods for requirements engineering, design, development, testing and maintenance. The more complex the system is, the more sophisticated methods should be applied. A significant part of software projects is short on appropriate requirements engineering, communication, development and testing method, furthermore, verification and validation processes; i.e., not the right method is applied, and the project turns into ad hoc design and development decisions. This paper introduces our quality assured model-driven requirements engineering and software development method. The method is based on the modeling of the software requirements in a way that these models can be used to automatically generate several artifacts during the engineering process. This method is continuously developed during the last 12 years driven by our software projects. In the last two years, we have developed new tool support and also reworked the method. In this paper, as an experience report, we introduce the method: a framework to specify software requirements with four domain-specific languages and automated solutions to process the models. We focus on the requirements engineering method of the whole development cycle. We also report the lessons learned and share our best practices on the field of model-driven requirements engineering and software development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correctness of the designed system is one of the most important issues in the software development process. Therefore, various tests have been defined and designed to help software teams develop software with little or no problem. Finding a proper link between test class and the class under the test is an important but difficult task. Finding this relation helps the developers to conduct regression tests more efficiently. In this paper, we seek to propose a model for recovering traceable links between test classes and the classes under the test. The proposed method encompasses three parts: (1) method for extracting keywords and the measure of similarity of a specific part of code, (2) backward chain method based on a rule-based system, (3) using hybrid model to find traceable links between test classes and the code under test. This study uses three open-source and one industrial source projects to conduct experiments. The results are satisfactory compared to previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present CALSAGOS : Clustering ALgorithmS Applied to Galaxies in Overdense Systems which is a PYTHON package developed to select cluster members and to search, find, and identify substructures. CALSAGOS is based on clustering algorithms, and was developed to be used in spectroscopic and photometric samples. To test the performance of CALSAGOS , we use the S-PLUS's mock catalogues, and we found an error of 1–6 per cent on member selection depending on the function that is used. Besides, CALSAGOS has a F 1-score of 0.8, a precision of 85 per cent and a completeness of 100 per cent in the identification of substructures in the outer regions of galaxy clusters (r > r 200). The F 1-score, precision, and completeness of CALSAGOS fall to 0.5, 75, and 40 per cent when we consider all substructure identifications (inner and outer) due to the function that searches, finds, and identifies the substructures works in 2D, and cannot resolve the substructures projected over others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feature models (FMs) are widely used to describe software product lines (SPL). They specify common and variation points in the domain of the SPL. Because of their wide domain coverage, FM development requires extensive domain analysis and important domain expertise that is often hard to acquire. These development requirements motivated us to propose, in this paper, a top-down method that extracts automatically an FM from functional requirements of product variants. Besides its automation, its novelty stems from the use of semantic information mined through natural language processing techniques to extract potential features from each product variant. To account for name variations, our method harmonizes the names of the features extracted from the product variants by using a classification technique to group similar features. In addition, to determine the feature type, it uses the formal concept analysis technique to distinguish mandatory from optional features. Furthermore, to structure the FM, it uses a set of semantic criteria to determine the constraints among the features. The paper reports on a quantitative and a comparative evaluation of the method on existing FMs, and it examines the conformity of the generated FMs to the input functional requirements, based on experts' feedbacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern computing platforms have progressed to deploying more secure software with various defensive techniques such as code signing and application whitelisting. However, the adversary, on the other hand, has been developing offensive techniques including using legitimate digital certificates in their attacks. In this paper (extended version of a paper published in the conference DSN 2015), we propose a new security mechanism for software systems that extends the Windows integrity mechanism and code signing technique. Our security mechanism gives rise to three major benefits. First, it prevents a wide range of attacks such as DLL hijacking and DLL injection, and mitigates the impact of shellcode that is executed by successful software vulnerability exploitation. It also prevents the use of untrusted plugins such as web browser add-ons. Second, it achieves developer-enforced security at the software component level so that components cannot be abused by malware. Third, it ensures a flexible environment where untrusted applications and software components are allowed to be loaded/executed at a low integrity level with restricted access permissions to system resources. We have implemented a prototype and carried out a thorough evaluation, showing the advantages of our proposed mechanism in mitigating real world malware attacks and preventing unauthorised software use as well as demonstrating the ease of adoption for software developers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the increasing scale and complexity of software products, software maintenance especially on bug resolution has become a challenging task. Generally in large-scale software programs, developers depend on software artifacts (e.g., bug report, source code and change history) in bug repositories to complete the bug resolution task. However, a mountain of submitted bug reports every day increase the developers' workload. Therefore, 'How to effectively resolve software defects by utilizing software artifacts?' becomes a research hotspot in software maintenance. Considerable studies have been done on bug resolution by using multi-techniques, which cover data mining, machine learning and natural language processing. In this paper, we present a literature survey on tasks, challenges and future directions of bug resolution in software maintenance process. Our investigation concerns the most important phases in bug resolution, including bug understanding, bug triage and bug fixing. Moreover, we present the advantages and disadvantages of each study. Finally, based on the investigation and comparison results, we propose the future research directions of bug resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonly believed that human-centred design (HCD) approach is very beneficial to interactive systems development. However, not much is known about the state of HCD practice in developing countries, especially the sub-Saharan Africa. This paper explores the state of HCD practice in three Nigerian software companies. We used the interview technique to explore two key issues. First, the perception of humans as a component of sociotechnical systems, and second, how HCD process is being approached in software companies. A cross-case analysis of the three companies was performed and the usability maturity model-human-centredness scale was used to determine the state of maturity of the three companies. The outcomes of this study reveal that HCD practice is currently at the least stage of maturity in the three companies and user involvement is not practiced in the right manner. The outcomes of the study suggest the need for reflective HCD practice and localizing human–computer interaction approaches to contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation Metabolomics is a data analysis and interpretation field aiming to study functions of small molecules within the organism. Consequently Metabolomics requires researchers in life sciences to be comfortable in downloading, installing and scripting of software that are mostly not user friendly and lack basic GUIs. As the researchers struggle with these skills, there is a dire need to develop software packages that can automatically install software pipelines truly speeding up the learning curve to build software workstations. Therefore, this paper aims to provide MetumpX, a software package that eases in the installation of 103 software by automatically resolving their individual dependencies and also allowing the users to choose which software works best for them. Results MetumpX is a Ubuntu-based software package that facilitate easy download and installation of 103 tools spread across the standard metabolomics pipeline. As far as the authors know MetumpX is the only solution of its kind where the focus lies on automating development of software workstations. Availability and implementation https://github.com/hasaniqbal777/MetumpX-bin. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has two main aims. Firstly to conceptualize the production networks of the video games industry through an examination of its evolution into a multi-million dollar industry. Secondly, to use the video games industry to demonstrate the utility of Global Production Network approaches to understanding the geographically uneven impacts of globalization processes. In particular, three key notions of value, power and embeddedness are used to reveal the most powerful actors in the production network, how they maintain and exercise their power, and how the organization of production is manipulated as a result. It is argued that while hardware production is organized by console manufacturers using truly global sourcing strategies, the production of software is far more complex. In fact, software production networks are bounded within three major economic regions: Western Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. This paper seeks to ex plain how and why this has occurred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses papers presented at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Society of Occupational Medicine in Durham, England, from July 1 to 4, 2002. The first paper featured a project to develop software to predict the hazard of occupational asthma (OA). The second paper examined the health effects of the ocean dumping of chemical weapons on a fishing community in Italy. Another paper focused on the vaccination of health care workers against influenza.

In this paper, we present the logic ATCTL, which is intended to be used for model checking models that have been specified in a lightweight version of the Unified Modelling Language (UML). Elsewhere, we have defined a formal semantics for LUML to describe the models. This paper's goal is to give a specification language for properties that fits LUML; LUML includes states, actions and real time. ATCTL extends CTL with concurrent actions and real time. It is based on earlier extensions of CTL by De Nicola and Vaandrager (ACTL) and Alur et al. (TCTL). This makes it easier to adapt existing model checkers to ATCTL. To show that we can check properties specified in ATCTL in models specified in LUML, we give a small example using the Kronos model checker. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Agent-oriented technology is arguably one of the most substantial advances in software development. Several platforms and architectures have been developed to deal with its conception and the advantages that it entails. Of these architectures, the belief-desire-intention architecture is amongst the most prominent. This architecture utilizes a series of beliefs known to the agent in order to fulfil its desires given its intentions. Regardless of the agent platform or architecture, however, they all share the common trait of complexity. In sight of this, an increasing amount of research has been done in relation to model-driven approaches to their development. One such model-driven approach is the dynamic non-functional requirements-based approach. This approach utilizes a series of non-functional requirements to control the agents decision-making process, using the extended non-functional requirements framework as its underlying model. This paper presents the inclusion of a unique change management system through out this model-driven approach. This system is capable of categorizing changes, assigning them priorities based on various dynamics and determining their optimal incorporation time. To our knowledge, this is the first time that a change management model has been used in relation to model-driven agent creation. This approach is verified using a randomized empirical-based evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been long-standing interest in automatically generating test sequences from a finite state machine (FSM) and more recently this has been extended to the case where there are multiple physically distributed testers and so we are testing from a multi-port FSM. This paper explores the problem of generating a controllable preset distinguishing sequence (PDS) from a multi-port FSM, motivated by the fact that many FSM-based test generation algorithms use PDSs. We prove that it is generally undecidable whether a multi-port FSM has a controllable PDS but provide a class of multi-port FSMs for which the problem is decidable. We also consider the important case where there is an upper bound ℓ on the length of PDSs of interest, proving that controllable PDS existence is PSPACE-hard and in EXPSPACE. In practice the upper bound ℓ is likely to be a polynomial in terms of the size of the multi-port FSM and in this case controllable PDS existence is NP-Complete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In software product lines development, it is sometimes important to provide a flexible binding time for features such that developers can choose between static or dynamic feature activation. For example, software products designed for devices with constrained resources may use a static binding time to avoid the performance overhead introduced by dynamic binding time activation. However, other devices can exploit binding time flexibility to support products with a dynamic binding time for some of their features. To implement this kind of flexibility in a modular way, we can define AspectJ-based idioms. Researchers have proposed Edicts, an idiom based on AspectJ and design patterns. In this article, we argue that this idiom leads to an increase in code duplication, scattering, tangling and size, which can hamper code reuse, maintenance and understanding. To mitigate such issues, this paper proposes three idioms based on aspect-oriented programming to implement flexible feature binding. We apply our three idioms, along with Edicts, to implement a flexible binding time for features in four different applications. By doing so, we were able to assess the resulting implementations by using software metrics that judge code-quality factors. Our evaluation suggests that our idioms reduce the above-mentioned problems when implementing flexible feature binding for the selected features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Triggered by our occasionally tense field experiences relating to the implementation and institutionalization of usability in design engineering organizations that are characterized by traditional engineering education and thinking, we have earlier suspected that the activities associated with human-centered design were orthogonal to the design engineering practices otherwise in place. While noting that other human factors professionals have had comparable challenges relating to multidisciplinary design, we have, however, reached a point where we rather are suggesting that the ontological, epistemological and methodological grounding of classic design engineering, under some circumstances, could be the direct cause for friction between that discipline and that of human factors. In a way taking our own medicine, we have thus arrived at a place where we are realizing the need for an ethnographical exploration and improved understanding of classic design engineering fundamentals, appreciating that a more successful and fruitful interaction and cooperation with that essential discipline very well could spring from a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the mindset of the classic design engineer. The main part of the present paper pivots around developing such an insight, hoping to contribute to the effective, efficient and satisfactory outcome of multidisciplinary cooperation for those who find themselves being tasked with human-centric work in traditional engineering organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Composing large enterprise applications from reusable software components has become a major software development technique. Components are considered as black boxes and are composed together by their provided and required services. In comparison to other software development approaches, this allows for rapid development, clean and explicit architectures, and easy component reuse. Currently, there are several systems that support development and composition of components: service component architecture and Fractal are two well-known ones. At first sight, both have the same goals and provide very similar means to developers. In this paper, we briefly present both systems and then we focus on an in-depth comparison and evaluation of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of a study of two commercially available LiF(Mg,Cu,P) TL materials, a GR200 detector and a MCP-Ns thin detector, are described in order to use these phosphors for individual monitoring for the extremities. After a dosimetry system has been type tested, the implementation routine is not straightforward. Additional tests and software modification are needed to make the routine system work comply with the type test results. Not often can literature be found on the steps required to implement the results in a routine study. This paper reports the results of the individual calibration of about 15 000 extremity dosemeters, 12000 containing a CR200 detector and 3000 an MCP-Ns thin detector. It describes the experimental procedure followed in order to assure reproducibility and stability of the results with proper accuracy and reliability. In particular, this is the first time that results on homogeneity of such a large batch of MCP-Ns detectors are reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe our work on the formulation of a document-oriented paradigm for improving the construction and maintenance of content-intensive applications (i.e. applications that make intensive use of the information provided by the experts in a given domain: the contents). According to this paradigm, the development of a content-intensive application must be the result of close collaboration between two kinds of actors: domain experts and developers. The goal of this collaboration is the authoring of (i) a set of documents describing the most relevant aspects of the application (i.e. the contents and other relevant customizable features); (ii) a grammar describing a domain-specific markup language that will be used to make the structure and the data in these documents explicit and (iii) a suitable processor for this language. The final running application will be automatically produced by processing the marked documents with this processor. The use of this paradigm in the development of content-intensive applications can increase the initial cost of application production, but in the long run it can substantially improve maintenance and portability, and promote information and software reuse as well. We have successfully applied this paradigm to the development of educational and hypermedia applications, and knowledge-based systems. From these experiences, we have found that the feasibility of the paradigm depends to a great extent on having mechanisms that enable the incremental definition of the markup languages and the incremental construction of their processors. This has led us to the formulation of a document-oriented approach for the development of content-intensive applications tightly coupled with these principles of incremental formulation and operationalization of domain-specific markup languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: It is widely accepted that users should be involved in the development of interactive systems. However, involving users in interactive systems development is challenging, especially in product development. The organizational culture is a key factor affecting the successes and failures of organizational change and development efforts. This paper shows how user involvement is intertwined with the organizational cultures in a case study of five software development organizations. User involvement is indirect in the case organizations, and labeled as usability work. Using cross case analysis, four ‘cultures of usability work’ are identified. The cultures have distinct cultural characteristics, employ different approaches to usability work, and have different preferences and strategies for the prospective facilitation of usability work. Sensitivity to the cultural context is identified as an important consideration in the facilitation of usability work, and culturally compatible strategies for usability work in different cultural settings are identified. The paper concludes that there might not be one ‘best, universally valid, context free way’ of introducing and carrying out usability work in software product development organizations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

MCBEND 10 is the latest release of the general radiation transport Monte Carlo code from the ANSWERS Software Service of Serco Assurance. MCBEND is developed within a Nuclear Code Development (NCD) partnership between Serco Assurance and BNFL. The ANSWERS vision is `to provide easy-to-use software that meets the current and emerging needs of the user community'. In the case of MCBEND, this vision focuses on the key areas of accuracy, understanding of uncertainties, efficiency and user-friendliness. MCBEND 10 is a major launch of the code with many new and enhanced features. New developments in MCBEND 10 include automatic splitting mesh generation, point energy adjoint for neutrons, calculation of uncertainty in the results due to material cross section uncertainties and a unified source facility. Enhanced features include improved temperature treatment, extended scoring of sensitivity to geometry perturbations, geometry improvements, extensions to formulae and improved user guide image. The user-friendliness of the MCBEND code has been further enhanced by recent developments to the visualisation tools, VISAGE and VISTA-RAY. Developments have been made to the three-dimensional visualisation tool, VISTA-RAY, to simplify the detailed checking of a model, with the option to use a mouse-pointer to select regions of interest for further detail and to visually highlight incorrectly defined areas. A further development to VISTA-RAY is the inclusion of the capability to overlay a representation of a user-designated set of results from a MCBEND analysis on the model. Improvements have also been made to the graphical user interface LaunchPad for submitting and controlling calculation submission, with a common user-image across all the systems. Recent enhancements to LaunchPad include a job-scheduler to simplify processing multiple tasks. A selection of the new developments in MCBEND 10, VISTA-RAY and LaunchPad will be described in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To counteract the factors that negatively affect the programming learning process and the teaching of programming, different supporting software tools are used nowadays. This paper presents a classification of these state-of-the-art tools, and describes and compares them. The rationale behind the different approaches is presented. Some challenges that the approaches and tools described could face are also pointed out. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Component-based software development (CBSD) has gained recognition as one of the key technologies for the construction of high-quality, evolvable, large complex systems in a timely and affordable manner. In CBSD, the development effort becomes one of gradual discovery about the components, their capabilities and the incompatibilities that arise when they are used in concert. Thus, trading becomes one of the cornerstones of CBSD. However, most of the existing methods for CBSD do not make effective use of traders. In this paper, we analyze the required features for commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components traders, and introduce COTStrader, an Internet-based trader for COTS components. In addition, we discuss how the COTStrader can be integrated into a spiral methodology for CBSD, providing partially automated support for building COTS-based systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work aimed to develop and validate software that calculates the shielding thickness required for a radiotherapy room with a linear accelerator utilising geometric and dosimetric data. The software "Radiotherapy Infrastructure Shielding Calculations" (RISC) was developed using MATLAB programming. It does not require the installation of the MATLAB platform, and the user only needs to download and install the application, which displays a graphical user interface (GUI). The GUI includes empty cells to insert numerical values for several parameters to calculate the proper shielding thickness. The GUI comprises two main interfaces, one for the primary and one for the secondary barrier calculation. The interface of the primary barrier is divided into four tabs: (a) primary radiation, (b) patient scattered and leakage radiation, (c) IMRT techniques and (d) the shielding cost calculations. The interface of the secondary barrier includes three tabs: (a) patient scattered and leakage radiation, (b) IMRT techniques and (c) the shielding cost calculations. Each tab consists of two sections: one for input and one for output of the necessary data. The RISC is based on the methods and formulae of the NCRP 151 and calculates the primary and secondary barrier thickness for ordinary concrete with a density of 2.35 g/cm3 and the cost for a radiotherapy room with a linear accelerator that performs conventional or IMRT techniques. Calculations can be performed for photon energies of 4, 6, 10, 15, 18, 20, 25 and 30 MV of a dual-energy linear accelerator, while instantaneous dose rate (IDR) calculations are also performed. The RISC has been validated using all comparative examples of NCRP 151 and the calculations from shielding reports of the Varian IX linear accelerator at Methodist Hospital of Willowbrook and Elekta Infinity at the University Hospital of Patras. The RISC is accompanied by two text files: (a) "Terminology," extensively describing all parameters, and (b) "User's Manual," providing useful instructions to the user. The RISC is user-friendly, simple, fast and precise, providing accurate shielding calculations and quickly and easily reproducing different shielding scenarios for a radiotherapy room with a linear accelerator. Additionally, it could be used during the educational process of shielding calculations by graduate students or trainee medical physicists. As a future work, the RISC will be updated with new features such as skyshine radiation, door shielding, and other types of machines and shielding materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Group awareness is critical to improving the collaboration efficiency of a group, especially when teammates are geographically separated while working on the web. Previous studies have focused mainly on enhancing the awareness of the current working status of teammates, such as web pages being viewed, or other web activities, and they seldom take into account past working/browsing information, such as web pages visited or past web activities. However, the awareness of this kind of historical information can be useful for group collaboration. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to sharing web page visitation information among teammates. We present the design and implementation of our prototype, named Shared Browsing History. We then describe two user studies in which three groups with eight participants each used the prototype. The results of these studies show that our approach was effective in enhancing participants’ group awareness and improved group collaborative efficiency in programming and software development tasks. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

During component-based and object-oriented software development, software classes exhibit relationships that complicate integration, including method calls, inheritance and aggregation. Classes are integrated and tested in specific orders, where each class is added and tested one by one to see if it integrates successfully. A difficulty arises when cyclic dependencies exist—the functionality that is used by the first class to be tested must be mimicked by creating ‘stubs’ (sometimes called ‘mock objects’), an expensive and error-prone operation. This problem is generally called the class integration and test order (CITO) problem, and solutions must fully be automated for integration and testing to proceed smoothly and efficiently. This paper describes new techniques and algorithms to solve the CITO problem. New results include improved edge weights to more precisely model the cost of stubbing, and the use of node weights, which allows more information to be used. These weights are derived from quantitative measures of couplings between the integrated and the stubbed classes. Also, a new algorithm for computing the integration and test orders is presented. The technique is compared with an existing approach and found to be cheaper, get the same results when using edge weights exclusively, and yield better results when using node weights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluation of phenotype-driven gene prioritization approaches for Mendelian diseases could facilitate the software development and method selection for the workflow configuration and clinical practice. In our original article, the performance of 10 well-recognized causal-gene prioritization methods was benchmarked using 305 cases from the deciphering developmental disorders (DDD) project and 209 in-house cases via a relatively unbiased methodology. The evaluation results showed that LIRICAL and AMELIE were two of the best methods in our benchmark experiments, and the possible integrative approach of these two methods may enhance the diagnostic efficiency. However, some methodological critiques were raised by the authors of Exomiser and PhenIX, so we revisited our benchmarking studies to answer their comments in this letter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: When we develop an input device for users to communicate with computers, we have to take into account that end-users must consider the utilization of the device to be effective, efficient and satisfactory. Users whose expectations are unmet by the interface will tend to abandon it. In this paper we present a vision-based interface for motor-impaired users; a multidisciplinary group developed this interface. The user’s preferences are a critical issue when selecting an access device; therefore, user requirements should be included in the design. Usability evaluation should be integrated into relevant phases of software development. In order to evaluate the design, we present a process with multiple user studies at different development stages. We describe the combination of a development project and its implementation, with user experience considerations embedded in the process. Finally, we studied the performance of the interface through several tests, paying special attention to satisfaction and fatigue. From our results we observed that although several users found the interface tiring, their satisfaction level was encouraging, suggesting the interface is usable. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Agile software development promotes feedback, discipline and close collaboration between all members of the development team, and de-emphasises documentation, ‘big design up front’ and hierarchical processes. Agile teams tend to be co-located and multi-disciplinary, and rely heavily on face-to-face communication and seemingly simple physical artefacts to support interaction. In this paper we focus on the functionality of two key physical artefacts – the story card and the Wall – which, individually and in combination, underpin the team’s activity. These artefacts have two main roles – one which enables a shared understanding of requirements and one which facilitates the development process itself. We consider these roles from two perspectives: a notational perspective and a social perspective. This discussion shows how the two perspectives – the notational and the social – intertwine and are mutually supportive. Any attempt to replace these physical artefacts with alternative support for an agile team needs to take account of both perspectives, and the complex relationships between them. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between software development methodologies and usability. The point of departure is the assumption that two important disciplines in software development, one of software development methods (SDMs) and one of usability work, are not integrated in industrial software projects. Building on previous research we investigate two questions; (1) Will software companies generally acknowledge the importance of usability, but not prioritise it in industrial projects? and (2) To what degree are software development methods and usability perceived by practitioners as being integrated? To this end a survey in the Norwegian IT industry was conducted. From a sample of 259 companies we received responses from 78 companies. In response to our first research question, our findings show that although there is a positive bias towards usability, the importance of usability testing is perceived to be much less than that of usability requirements. Given the strong time and cost pressures associated with the software industry, we believe that these results highlight that there is a gap between intention and reality. Regarding our second research question our survey revealed that companies perceive usability and software development methods to be integrated. This is in contrast to earlier research, which, somewhat pessimistically, has argued for the existence of two different cultures, one of software development and one of usability. The findings give hope for the future, in particular because the general use of system development methods are pragmatic and adaptable. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Recently, research in individual differences and in particular, learning and cognitive style, has been used as a basis to consider learner preferences in a web-based educational context. Modelling style in a web-based learning environment demands that developers build a specific framework describing how to design a variety of options for learners with different approaches to learning. In this paper two representative examples of educational systems, Flexi-OLM and INSPIRE, that provide learners a variety of options designed according to specific style categorisations, are presented. Experimental results from two empirical studies performed on the systems to investigate learners'' learning and cognitive style, and preferences during interaction, are described. It was found that learners do have a preference regarding their interaction, but no obvious link between style and approaches offered, was detected. Derived from an examination of this experimental data, we suggest that while style information can be used to inform the design of learning environments that accommodate learners'' individual differences, it would be wise to recommend interactions based on learners'' behaviour. Learning environments should allow learners or learners'' interaction behaviour to select or trigger the appropriate approach for the particular learner in the specific context. Alternative approaches towards these directions are also discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Although trivial in principle, direct comparison of galaxy clusters X-ray observations to numerical hydro– N-body simulations is not always simple, because of many possible artefacts introduced by the instrument response, sky background and instrumental noise. To address these problems, we constructed the software package x-mas (X-ray Map Simulator), a tool devoted to simulate X-ray observations of galaxy clusters obtained from hydro– N-body simulations. One of the main features of x-mas is the ability to generate event files following the same standards used for real observations. This implies that its simulated observations can be analysed in the same way as – and with the same tools of – real observations. In this paper we present how the x-mas package works, and discuss its application to the simulation of Chandra ACIS-S3 observations. Using the results of high-resolution hydro– N-body simulations, we generate fake Chandra observations of a number of simulated clusters. We then compare some of the main physical properties of the input data to those derived from the simulated observations after performing a standard imaging and spectral analysis. We find that, because of the sky background, the lower surface brightness spatial substructures, which can be easily identified in the simulations, are no longer detected in the simulated observations. We also show that, when a cluster has a complex (i.e. not isothermal) thermal structure along the line of sight, then the projected spectroscopic temperature obtained from the observation is significantly lower than the emission-weighed value inferred directly from hydrodynamical simulation. This implies that much attention should be paid in the theoretical interpretation of observed temperatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a process model for developing usable cross-cultural websites. Compatible with ISO 13407, the process model documents an abstraction of the design process focusing on cultural issues in development. It provides a framework in which a variety of user-based and expert-based techniques for analysis and design are placed within the life-cycle of website development. In developing the model, we relate practical approaches to design with theories and models of culture and discuss the relevance of such theories to the practical design process. In particular we focus on four key concerns: how an audit of local website attractors can inform the design process; the concept of a cultural fingerprint to contrast websites with the cultural needs of local users; the problems associated with user evaluation; and cross-cultural team development. We then show their relation to our process model. We conclude by summarising our contribution to date within the field. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Brain–body interfaces (BBIs) have been shown through a number of studies to be useful assistive technology devices for recreation and communication. However, severely motor impaired persons with no other means of interacting with their environment have had difficulties using the standard communication software for the Cyberlink, the commercially available BBI device which we used in our studies. We have therefore developed a simple Yes/No program, drawing on a range of design and evaluation approaches from Human–Computer Interaction research. This paper presents the first extensive evaluation of this program. Its evaluation combines formal assessments with observations from users, carers and technology and mental health professionals who are involved in the research. Our conclusions are that the performance of severely impaired individuals cannot be readily separated from that of novice unimpaired users, that worthwhile results can be achieved with the Yes/No program, but at the moment the cost of using a Cyberlink is too high for most assistive technology contexts. However, for severely impaired individuals, Cyberlink use may be the only form of recreation and communication available to them, and thus the current limitations of the technology are acceptable for this user population. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We present Genozip, a universal and fully featured compression software for genomic data. Genozip is designed to be a general-purpose software and a development framework for genomic compression by providing five core capabilities—universality (support for all common genomic file formats), high compression ratios, speed, feature-richness and extensibility. Genozip delivers high-performance compression for widelyused genomic data formats in genomics research, namely FASTQ, SAM/BAM/CRAM, VCF, GVF, FASTA, PHYLIP and 23andMe formats. Our test results show that Genozip is fast and achieves greatly improved compression ratios, even when the files are already compressed. Further, Genozip is architected with a separation of the Genozip Framework from file-format-specific Segmenters and data-type-specific Codecs. With this, we intend for Genozip to be a general-purpose compression platform where researchers can implement compression for additional file formats, as well as new codecs for data types or fields within files, in the future. We anticipate that this will ultimately increase the visibility and adoption of these algorithms by the user community, thereby accelerating further innovation in this space. Availability and implementation Genozip is written in C. The code is open-source and available on http://www.genozip.com. The package is free for non-commercial use. It is distributed through the Conda package manager, github, and as a Docker container on DockerHub. Genozip is tested on Linux, Mac and Windows. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the emergence of Automated Vehicles (AVs) in Australia. It will investigate the legal and regulatory terrain. International and domestic approaches are examined to determine potential responses. The regulatory issues emerge partly due to the varied nature of artificial intelligence systems and processes that enable AVs to function. The variations may be due to the chosen domain model, software development processes, or the development of biases that may occur during code development for the underlying artificial intelligence system. Such variations can create difficulties in the application of road rules, safety requirements, and the legal and regulatory requirements. They may give rise to significant issues relating to driver classification and licensing for AVs, due to the varied levels of control and involvement in the driving process. For this reason, legislative reform at specific jurisdictional levels is suggested together with clearer international standards as a pathway to ensure the safe and effective integration of autonomous vehicles into society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern geopolitics includes measures short of armed conflict designed to control decision-making in, and action by, target states. One increasingly significant category of these measures involves attacks by foreign states against civil society institutions in target states. Liberal states that seek to protect their civil societies from this interference seek to bolster civil society defences, to determine the origin of and respond to attacks and to deny relevant tools to potential attackers. With the rise of cyberspace, target states using purely territorial measures are increasingly impotent to protect their civil societies from foreign governmental hacking. Denying access to advanced hacking software by antagonist foreign states may assist in protecting target state civil societies. This article explores the possibility of denying hacking tools to potential attackers, identifies some of the problems and proposes a refinement of export controls that will permit greater protection with less disruption of desirable software development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this work is propose and describe ImagIngDev, a new approach for developing automatic cross-platform mobile applications using image processing techniques. As proof of concept, we presented ImagIng Tool and compared its performance with respect to similar cross-platform application development tools. Our main contribution to software development is ImagingDev, a new, intuitive and agile approach aimed at novice developers for automatically developing cross-platform mobile applications. Our proof of concept, ImagIng Tool, can generate mobile applications on four different software platforms: Android™, Windows Phone™, iOS™ and FirefoxOS™. Also, it relies on image processing techniques to recognize user interface design patterns (UIDPs) inside user interfaces, and generates the source code for cross-platform and multi-device applications. As proof of concept, we developed ImagIng Tool for automatic generation of cross-platform mobile applications by using image processing techniques. Results from the evaluation demonstrated that ImagIng Tool has attractive benefits if compared to similar cross-platform application development tools. Such benefits include higher learnability and usability. ImagIngDev and ImagIng Tool can effectively solve current problems in mobile applications development, such as automatic code generation for cross-platform mobile applications, since they allow users to generate cross-platform and multi-device mobile applications in an easy and intuitive way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do human–computer interaction (HCI) researchers agree about which HCI approaches should be used in the development of an interactive system? To address this question, we performed a study based on the engineering process areas (requirements development, technical solution, product integration, verification and validation) of the CMMI-DEV (Capability Maturity Model Integration for Development), a software engineering model commonly used in the industry. To carry out this study, a literature review was performed, a specific instrument was designed based on CMMI-DEV and interviews with 20 researchers from the HCI domain were conducted. Analyzing the interview data with monovariate and multivariate statistical approach (Multiple Correspondence Analysis - MCA), we find the greatest agreement occurred among researchers for HCI approaches that support verification and validation phases and the use of functional prototypes in some activities of the last phases of software development (technical solution and product integration). However, we identified lack of agreement among researchers regarding requirements development activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between firms engaging in open source software (OSS) development and the OSS community is established by individual developers. This linkage might entail a principal-agent issue due to the developer's double allegiance to firm and OSS community, and expose the firm to the risk of losing intellectual property. Using both interviews and a large-scale survey, I substantiate the importance of the developer's role. However, neither interview data nor regression analysis show indications of commercially harmful revealing behavior induced by "Free Software ideology:" Management, on the other hand, sometimes seems to be overly concerned about openness. I conclude that a more positive stance towards openness will allow firms to better share in the benefits of open innovation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A systems analysis perspective is adopted to examine the critical properties of the Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) mode of innovation, as reflected on the SourceForge platform (SF.net). This approach re-scales March's (1991) framework and applies it to characterize the "innovation system" of a "distributed organization" of interacting agents in a virtual collaboration environment, rather than to innovation within a firm. March (1991) views the process of innovation at the organizational level as the coupling of sub-processes of exploration and exploitation. Correspondingly, the innovation system of the virtual collaboration environment represented by SF.net is an emergent property of two "coupled" processes: one involves the interactions among agents searching the locale for information and knowledge resources to use in designing novel software products (i.e., exploration), and the other involves the mobilization of individuals' capabilities for application in the software development projects that become established on the platform (i.e., exploitation). The micro-dynamics of this system are studied empirically by constructing transition probability matrices representing the movements of 222,835 SF.net users among seven different activity states, which range from "lurking" (not contributing or contributing to projects without becoming a member) to "laboring" (joining one or more projects as members), and to "launching" (founding one or more projects) within each successive 6-month interval. The estimated probabilities are found to form first- order Markov chains describing ergodic processes. This makes it possible the computation of the equilibrium distribution of agents among the states, thereby suppressing transient effects and revealing persisting patterns of project joining and project launching. The latter show the FLOSS innovation process on SF.net to be highly dissipative: a very large proportion of the registered "developers" fail to become even minimally active on the platform. There is nevertheless an active core of mobile project joiners, and a (still smaller) core of project founders who persist in creating new projects. The structure of these groups' interactions (as displayed within the 3-year period examined) is investigated in detail, and it is shown that it would be sufficient to sustain both the exploration and exploitation phases of the platform's global dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we will present a design technique for user and database interaction based on UML. User interaction will be modeled by means of UML state diagrams, and database interaction by means of UML sequence diagrams. The proposed design technique establishes how to integrate both diagrams in order to describe the user interface and database interaction of a business software system. A case study of an Internet Book Shopping system will be shown to illustrate the proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software systems grow each day in size and complexity. In an effort to manage increasing complexity and to maximize the reuse of code, the software engineering community has, in recent years, put considerable effort into the design and development of component-based software methodologies and tools. Inspired by the notion of connector (Allen and Garlan (1994) Formal connectors. Technical report CMU-CS-94-115, Carnegie Mellon University, PA, USA) in software architecture and the ‘Design by Contract’ metaphor proposed by Meyer ((2000) Object-Oriented Software Construction. Prentice Hall, USA), this paper presents a methodology for component composition, coordination and dynamic adaptation. Our proposal is based on connectors enriched with contracts, making software architecture more explicit at the implementation level. Those connectors will be components in our system. Therefore, we can use subtyping techniques for connectors development and we could offer a set of generic connectors implementing standard behavior patterns. In addition, the connectors will use semantic web techniques and a Prolog machine to solve functional adaptation problems, such us name or parameters mismatching of a service, at run-time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Normally, software documentations are produced, informally. They are written in the unnatural and non-structural form of the language, such as user manuals, user requirements, design documentation, tutorials, support documentation, and so on. Recent studies show that 61% of software projects are subject to failure or challenges due to an increase in the costs and production time. Various factors may lead to this issue, and one of the major contributing factors is the lack of links between the software's source code and its related documents. The significance of software development and the possibility of making prospective changes by the development team necessitate an understanding of the links between various sections of codes and documentations. Therefore, it is crucial to design a system to link the software codes to their corresponding textual documentation. This article proposes a model for recovering the latent, but traceable links between software source codes and existing documents based on word extraction and function name separation. The contributions in this article include: (1) a model based on word extraction from document and source codes; (2) the proposal of an algorithm for splitting compound words and words that are connected to one another and completing abbreviations used in the names of functions, variables, and output commands; and (3) a new algorithm that is proposed for retrieving traceable latent links between the source code and documents. Two data sets are used in this research and the achieved results will be reported in terms of recall, precision, and F -measure. The experimental results are promising and indicate that the proposed approach significantly outperforms its counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investing in documenting your bioinformatics software well can increase its impact and save your time. To maximize the effectiveness of your documentation, we suggest following a few guidelines we propose here. We recommend providing multiple avenues for users to use your research software, including a navigable HTML interface with a quick start, useful help messages with detailed explanation and thorough examples for each feature of your software. By following these guidelines, you can assure that your hard work maximally benefits yourself and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A crucial part of the design of mobile user interfaces is their evaluation with users. Although user studies are widely used for measuring the usability of a software system, they are time-consuming and expensive. In this study, we propose a novel approach which is based on the computational analysis of an app's visual appearance. By calculating metrics which measure the complexity of the user interface, it should be possible to draw conclusions about the perceived usability. Automating this practice would be beneficial to developers and designers, as it would help to find usability issues early and reliably in the software development life cycle. However, there is no tool available yet which allows to automatically quantify the complexity of a mobile application's user interface with metrics. We analyze the complexity based on screenshots of the user interface as well as on interaction data, without the need to access the source code of the application. We introduce a set of complexity metrics, which are partially based on existing metrics for the visual appearance of a user interface. In order to evaluate the quality of our metrics, we conducted a user study with several mobile apps. The results show that there are significant correlations between some of the proposed metrics and the perceived usability and workload. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]