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Developing countries should take immediate steps to avoid some of the serious problems that are now facing the United States in regard to the pool of trained computer professionals. Problem areas which should be reconciled involve a diverse range of topics from general national policy to salary structures and conversions efforts. By using the hypothesis that the relative magnitude of most computing problems facing a country is a function of the degree of computerization (as measured by the number of computers per billion dollars of gross national product) the various stages of computer development can be detected. The evolution of computerization problems, particularly as they pertain to personnel, in advanced countries can be analyzed and suggestions can be made on the policies that developing countries should attempt or avoid. For example, policies concentrating on developing narrowly oriented computer specialists are likely to satisfy near-term needs, but will tend to backfire later as computer applications become a more pervasive part of national society. (MC)

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2021.3080666 Estimating the cost and schedule of agile software projects is critical at an early phase to establish baseline budgets and schedules for the selection of competitive bidders. The challenge is that common agile sizing measures such as story points and user stories are not practical for early estimation as these are often reported after contract award in DoD. This study provides a set of effort and schedule estimation models for agile projects using a sizing measure that is available before proposal evaluation based on data from 36 DoD agile projects. The results suggest that initial software requirements, defined as the sum of functions and external interfaces, is an effective sizing measure for early estimation of effort and schedule of agile projects. The models’ accuracy improves when application domain groups and peak staff are added as inputs.

Massive social changes are bound to occur with the extension of mass information utilities: the fundamental question is how shall this massive reconstruction of social information power be designed for the best interest of people. This book grew out of an American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS) conference, and is organized around three basic areas corresponding to the principal components of a prototypic plan to develop economically feasible and humanistically designed information utilities. Each part--information services, system design, and system management--consists of essays about such topics as municipal services, education and library services, telepurchasing and personal services, industrial and vocational services, entertainment and news services, computer communications for the community information utility, hardware, software, economic design, the municipal framework, the regulatory problem, consumer safegards, and public involvement and acceptance. (Author/SH)