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Surface metrology deals with inspecting surfaces and profiles by using contact or non-contact profilometers. In this field, the characterization of the dimensional, morphological, and texture parameters of samples as well as the assessment of metrological characteristics of measuring instruments are key issues. Manufacturers of instruments provide commercial software tools to analyze topography data. There are also freely available tools, including open-source options, that provide a variety of algorithms and methods. The rapid growth of investigations aimed at better understanding the effects of the microscale phenomena requires the improved traceable calibration of samples, the development of new methodologies and measuring techniques, and the specification of new mathematical models and processing techniques. In this work, we present SurfILE, the launch of an open-source Python project that provides various procedures and algorithms for topography analysis. The open-source software presented in this article is intended to be modular, expandable, and customizable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface metrology deals with inspecting surfaces and profiles by using contact or non-contact profilometers. In this field, the characterization of the dimensional, morphological, and texture parameters of samples as well as the assessment of metrological characteristics of measuring instruments are key issues. Manufacturers of instruments provide commercial software tools to analyze topography data. There are also freely available tools, including open-source options, that provide a variety of algorithms and methods. The rapid growth of investigations aimed at better understanding the effects of the microscale phenomena requires the improved traceable calibration of samples, the development of new methodologies and measuring techniques, and the specification of new mathematical models and processing techniques. In this work, we present SurfILE, the launch of an open-source Python project that provides various procedures and algorithms for topography analysis. The open-source software presented in this article is intended to be modular, expandable, and customizable.

Multi-objective optimization digital human models permit users to predict postures that follow performance criteria, such as minimizing torques. Currently, it is unknown how to weight different objective functions to best predict postures. Objective one was to describe a response surface method to determine optimal objective function weightings to predict lift postures. Objective two was to evaluate the sensitivity of different error calculation methods. Our response surface approach has utility for determining optimal objective function weightings when using a digital human model to evaluate human-system interactions in early design stages. The approach was not dependent on variations in error calculation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Non‐functional requirements define qualities of the software system that ensure effectiveness while embedding any constraints and restrictions on the design. A challenge rises with agile implementation in handling non‐function requirements in regulated environments. Thus, a practitioner's perceptions of agile method tailoring are described in relation to inter‐team boundaries and non‐functional requirements. The research comprises 18 practitioner interviews from two multinational agile software development companies. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using an approach informed by grounded theory and information flow models were used to compare and contrast interactions of processes. It was discovered that one of the case study companies managed non‐functional requirements as artefacts in their agile methodology, while the other company reverts to conventional plan‐based software development practices of documentation, timeline estimations, and safety critical requirements. This research creates a detailed comparison of these contrasting approaches. The main contribution of this study is a set of proposed recommendations to deal with non‐functional requirements in a regulated environment using agile techniques. The introduction of two new artefacts, Documentation Work Item and Safety Critical Work Item, is recommended and it is accompanied with an illustrative example, to transform the handling of documentation and safety critical requirements in a more agile way.

Abstract The maturity of organisations is measured using process assessment models like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/IEC 33001. Product quality is refined with internal and external product quality characteristics based on models like the ISO/IEC 25010. With the shift from the Tailorism‐driven process orientation to a more people‐centric organization, the process and product quality dimensions have to be extended by the teamwork quality (TWQ) dimension. For the sake of systematic organization development, this new third quality dimension needs to be integrated into existing quality frameworks to achieve a holistic quality approach. This article introduces agile TWQ as the method of choice. It explains its design, implementation and evaluation in the large enterprise context of the Volkswagen AG. It provides insights into the effectivity of this approach in heterogeneous multi‐team settings, as well as into its strengths, weaknesses, and limitations.

Abstract Social loafing is a common issue encountered by many software development teams. In practice, agile software development teams often use team expectations agreements (TEAs), which contain rules to prevent social loafing behaviour. However, few studies in the software engineering literature examine how these rules are specified in TEAs and whether they serve the purpose. The authors intend to provide a better understanding on how to specify rules in TEAs to prevent social loafing behaviour in agile software development teams. A mixed‐method approach using both qualitative and quantitative data was employed. The results of our study show that agile software development teams specify the expectations of the whole team on meeting attendance and contribution, respect of tasks, roles and teammates, and collaboration with each other. These rules have the potential to prevent social loafing behaviours. However, specifying the rules in TEAs alone is not sufficient to make them effective. It needs to be complemented with team commitment to TEA rules. The work of the authors contributes to a better understanding of how to use TEAs to prevent social loafing in agile software development teams, and provides a conceptual basis for future research to investigate social loafing prevention using TEAs.

Abstract Considerable resources are wasted on software projects delivering less than the planned benefits. Herein, the objective is to synthesize empirical evidence of the adoption and impact of benefits management (BM) in software development, and to suggest directions for future research. A systematic review of the literature is performed and identified 4836 scientific papers of which the authors found 47 to include relevant research. While most organizations identify and structure benefits at the outset of a project, fewer organizations report implementing BM as a continuous process throughout the project lifecycle. Empirical evidence gives support for positive impact on project outcome from the following BM practices: identifying and structuring benefits, planning benefits realization, BM during project execution, benefits evaluation and the practice of having people responsible for benefits realization. The authors suggest four research directions to understand (1) why BM practices sometimes not are adopted, (2) BM in relation to other management practices, (3) BM in agile software development and (4) BM in the context of organizations' value creation logics.

Abstract Background OCaml is a functional programming language with strong static types, Hindley–Milner type inference and garbage collection. In this article, we share our experience in prototyping chemoinformatics and structural bioinformatics software in OCaml. Results First, we introduce the language, list entry points for chemoinformaticians who would be interested in OCaml and give code examples. Then, we list some scientific open source software written in OCaml. We also present recent open source libraries useful in chemoinformatics. The parallelization of OCaml programs and their performance is also shown. Finally, tools and methods useful when prototyping scientific software in OCaml are given. Conclusions In our experience, OCaml is a programming language of choice for method development in chemoinformatics and structural bioinformatics.

Through I-Corps™ customer discovery interviews (NSF Award 1925391), the authors determined that early and mid-career data analysts would be positively benefitted by the development and commercialization of an interactive software tool designed to assist in the selection of statistical tests for their real-world applications. The primary advantage addressed with this innovation is the concomitant reduction in time spent by data analysts in training and/or researching which statistical method to employ for a specific application. This paper details the development of the Stat Tree™ software prototype to accomplish those goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

User stories play an important role in agile development systems. In this study, a method of summarising user stories is proposed to reuse them in the future. To enhance the results, quality improvement should be made on user stories. It would help developers build better results, and it may also lead to omitting some essential information. To avoid such issues, user stories are duplicated in two exact similar groups, and quality improvement is made on one set while the other set remains unattained. With the help of a modified bag of words and a verb parser, a collection of keywords and key verbs are extracted for both groups. Afterwards, automatic user stories are made, and then an expert improves them. Next, some experts choose between the results and select the better ones. The result is evaluated by applying different experiments on the framework and prototype implementation on 14 data sets of a user story from industry and a fake data set from Duke University. The result showed 97% of micro F ‐measure and 93% of macro F ‐measure, which are promising. These new user stories can be used as the base user stories in future similar projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well‐documented that many software projects deliver fewer benefits than planned. However prior research has had a stronger focus on the ability to deliver within budget, on time and with the specified functionality, than on what to do to successfully deliver client benefits. The authors have conducted a survey collecting information about benefits management practices, agile practices, use of contracts, and the perceived success in delivery of client benefits. The authors received responses from 83 software professionals with information about 73 recent and 74 older software projects. There was no statistically significant improvement of the delivered client benefits from the older to the recent projects. Statistically significant findings, applying a general linear model‐based analysis, include that the degree of success in delivering client benefits is connected to a project having: (i) a plan for how to realise the benefits, (ii) implemented practices for benefits management during project execution, (iii) frequent deliveries to production during the project execution, and (iv) a process for the evaluation of realised benefits after project completion. The authors argue that greater use of these practices represents a potential for organisations to increase their success in delivering benefits from software projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing trend of emerging new technologies in distribution networks, such as wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, and distributed generations, the passive distribution systems may become 'active' which requires more study in the area of integrated transmission and distribution systems (ITDSs) and corresponding bilateral interactions. To solve this problem, most of the studies connect distinct simulators to create a novel co‐simulation framework for ITDS. In this study, the authors present a literature survey of existing ITDS co‐simulation frameworks along co‐optimisation in ITDS. These frameworks are categorised on multiple characteristics, such as simulation tools, synchronisation methods, and research topics. Furthermore, they propose a software platform that is focused on the integrated generation, transmission, distribution, and customer systems (IGTDCSs). The proposed framework also comprises several technological dimensions such as stochastic optimisation, high‐performance computing, and high‐level design software architecture for planning integrated and flexible power networks and optimising their technological trajectories and operational functioning considering uncertainties. By developing a prototype informed with software engineering and complex system design approaches, they will demonstrate the relevance of a unified vision of IGTDCS simulation in a minute‐by‐minute horizon, a vision that may later benefit electromagnetic transient simulation or stability co‐simulation tools, in horizons from the microsecond to the second. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global software development (GSD) organisations are currently adopting agile frameworks in order to efficiently develop a software product. The main objective of this study is to identify the success factors (SFs), which could possibly have a positive impact on scaling agile practices in a GSD environment and develop their taxonomy based on their prioritisation using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach. This study is conducted in four stages: problem identification and goal of the study (1), identification of SFs and their categorisations (2), validation of the SFs using questionnaire survey (3), and application of AHP to prioritise the SFs and develop the taxonomy of the SFs and their respective categories (4). The results of this study indicated that 'technology' is the most significant category as compared to the other categories of the SFs. Similarly, rich technological infrastructure is identified as a most important factor. Based on the findings of this study, authors can conclude that the contribution of this study is not only limited to development of the taxonomy of the SFs, but also their proper prioritisation by introducing AHP approach, which assists software organisations to scale agile methods effectively in the GSD environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software Development is a complex process, in which every software product is a knowledge representation of all the involved people. In agile software development, knowledge is prone to vaporise, because documentation is not a priority as indicated in the agile manifesto. This condition generates problems such as poor understanding of the requirements, knowledge transfer deficiency among developers, time wasted by developers while searching for knowledge. The objective of this work is to reduce architectural knowledge vaporisation by means of knowledge condensation to support expertise location (high‐level knowledge at a given time). This through an ontology that will condensate the knowledge in the code phase. This study presents the description of an ontology development process following the Methontology Framework. Results show that the proposed ontology does not present incongruence or inconsistency and answers the competency questions correctly. The main contribution of this study is the ontology which brings several benefits such as a shared concept of the knowledge in the code phase and a way to link the artefacts (resources used by developers in the project) and the experts (artefacts provider). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work is devoted to the problems of Digital Twin development of industrial enterprises in the field of mining. The main goal of this article is to formulate the principles of designing platform solutions for the integration of the most important functional elements that ensure the implementation of technological processes of a full production cycle. Various classification schemes for heterogeneous, poorly structured information spaces that form the distributed digital environment of a mining enterprise are proposed. Based on the results of structural and functional modeling, a number of principles and requirements are formulated for the implementation of the Digital Twin technology of the transport and technological process in quarry. A conceptual diagram of the functional structure of the Digital Twin platform is proposed, taking into account the need to include Industry 4.0 technologies such as Industrial Internet of Things, Big Data (including Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning), Autonomous Haulage Systems and Dynamics 3D Optimization Modeling. Some aspects of the implementation and functioning of the prototype version of the Digital Twin platform are considered in terms of the use of instrumental solutions based on the Unity visual modeling environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very small entities (VSEs) of software development have had a significant demand and economic impact in recent years, because most of them are the software producers for medium and big companies in order to satisfy the growing demand of software. In this context, it is important to ensure that they produce quality software to successfully meet the market needs. This task relies on having the knowledge and the experience to implement proven practices, which are contained in quality models and standards, to be able to develop quality software, while increasing their productivity and keeping or reducing their costs. A description of the implementation of ISO/IEC 29110 in Mexico, specifically at Zacatecas State is presented. This implementation was done as a strategy to increase the competitiveness of them. The study includes both, the strategy established to deploy the knowledge and the method followed to implement the ISO/IEC 29110 in four VSEs that uses scrum methodology as agile approach. The results show that the implementation of ISO/IEC 29110 was easy and with a high acceptance due to the benefits detected in the reinforcement of the VSEs' processes without changing the way they work and solving their problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Requirements communication is essential in software development projects since customer needs must be communicated to the development team clearly and effectively. Although the use case (UC) specifications are used to communicate requirements in detail, developers do not always follow them. This study presents an empirical study carried out to understand the reasons why developers do not follow UC specifications and their difficulties using UC specifications in generating prototypes. Results show that the four reasons why developers fail to follow UC specifications are the existence of specification errors, ambiguous information, lack of detailed specification, or incomplete information, and due to improvement suggestions. Also, the specification defects types that impacted prototypes creation the most were an omission, ambiguity, and incorrect fact. The authors noted that 6 out of 25 (24%) defects in the UC specifications caused discrepancies in prototypes, 12 (48%) were corrected during the prototypes creation, and 7 (28%) were not propagated to the prototypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software start‐ups are aiming to develop cutting‐edge software products under highly uncertain conditions, overcoming fast‐growing markets under multiple influences. This study aims to identify and analyse the existing scientific literature regarding software development methodologies and practices in software start‐ups published between January 2006 and December 2017 using the systematic mapping study. The results identified 37 relevant primary studies out of 1982 papers. To validate the results from the mapping study, an empirical study was based on the research data collected from 14 real‐life software start‐ups located in Finland, Italy and Norway. The result shows that Agile and Lean start‐up methodologies are the most commonly used in software start‐ups due to the flexible nature and easy tailoring. A total of 144 software development work practices are extracted from the primary studies. This study contributes to the research in several ways: (i) provides state of the art regarding software development methods and practices in software start‐up contexts, (ii) reports commonly used methods along with its benefits identified in primary studies and (iii) identifies opportunities for future software start‐up research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software modification often requires consistent program changes, a group of similar, related changes, at multiple locations in a program. Developers are typically uneasy to (i) detect potential change anomalies such as omission errors or incorrect edits and (ii) determine related locations to apply consistent changes, which is a tedious and error‐prone process. To address this problem, this study presents a technique for managing consistent program changes, checking and applying repetitive program transformation (CARP). Given program differencing results between original and edited program versions, CARP (i) infers change patterns to detect change anomalies, (ii) identifies required edit locations, and (iii) automatically applies adequate edits. It has been implemented in the context of the integrated development environment as an Eclipse plug‐in. The authors evaluated CARP on three open‐source projects and found that CARP detects seeded anomalies with 99.1% accuracy on average. Furthermore, it identifies change locations and transforms them with 98% accuracy. Their results show that CARP should help developers detect potential change anomalies in repetitive program changes and perform consistent changes automatically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colored Petri Nets (CPNs) can be used as a cornerstoneevolutionary approach for software prototyping. In thiswork, CPNs are not only a resource for design, but also fordeveloping high-level software. The coding process is completelyintegrated with the modeling, analyzing and tests phases. Theuse of prototypes, generated automatically with the CPN design,can avoid error propagation to the subsequent steps of softwaredevelopment, increasing quality and improving productivity. Themain contributions of this work are: (i) the game-Aided byModelling (GAM) method, which not only serves to model, butto create simple games from CPNs; and (ii) the Classes-Aidedby Modelling (CAM) method generalizes GAM method to theobject-oriented classes implementation. Two applications weredeveloped to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach andare also discussed here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industry in all sectors is experiencing a profound digital transformation that puts software at the core of their businesses. To react to continuously changing user requirements and dynamic markets, companies need to build robust workflows that allow them to increase their agility in order to remain competitive. This increasingly rapid transformation, especially in domains such as Internet of things or cloud computing, poses significant challenges to guarantee high‐quality software, since dynamism and agile short‐term planning reduce the ability to detect and manage risks. In this study, the authors describe the main challenges related to managing risk in agile software development, building on the experience of more than 20 agile coaches operating continuously for 15 years with hundreds of teams in industries in all sectors. They also propose a framework to manage risks that consider those challenges and supports collaboration, agility, and continuous development. An implementation of that framework is then described in a tool that handles risks and mitigation actions associated with the development of multi‐cloud applications. The methodology and the tool have been validated by a team of evaluators that were asked to consider its use in developing an urban smart mobility service and an airline flight scheduling system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software development organisations are interested in adopting new agile methods and techniques. However, they often do not have the time and resources to explore available approaches or to customise them to the current situation at the project or organisational levels. As software companies are usually dealing with significant pressure and have to demonstrate productivity, time for software process improvement (SPI) is very limited. Using serious collaborative games can be helpful for the deployment of certain best practices recommended by agile methods. With the objective of facilitating SPI in organisations, the authors propose a ready‐to‐use collaborative game toolbox that is oriented for practical use in project team meetings. The set of collaborative games included in the toolbox have been designed for agile teams, regardless of the maturity level, to innovate and improve communication and cohesion, and to bring business value out of agile ceremonies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article pursues the idea that within interdisciplinary teams in which researchers might find themselves participating, there are very different notions of research outcomes, as well as languages in which they are expressed. We explore the notion of the software prototype within the discussion of making and building in digital humanities. The backdrop for our discussion is a collaboration between project team members from computer science and literature that resulted in a tool named TopoText that was built to geocode locations within an unstructured text and to perform some basic Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks about the context of those locations. In the interest of collaborating more effectively with increasingly larger and more multidisciplinary research communities, we move outward from that specific collaboration to explore one of the ways that such research is characterized in the domain of software engineering—the ISO/IEC 25010:2011 standard. Although not a perfect fit with discourses of value in the humanities, it provides a possible starting point for forging shared vocabularies within the research collaboratory. In particular, we focus on a subset of characteristics outlined by the standard and attempt to translate them into terms generative of further discussion in the digital humanities community.

This work presents a comprehensive cost-aware comparison of isolated bidirectional Si and SiC dual-active-bridge (DAB) concepts for a 5-kW 100–700-V input voltage range dc microgrid application. A conventional three-level DAB (3LDAB) is compared to an advanced five-level DAB (5LDAB) topology, where the latter enables reduced rms currents within the given voltage range. Both concepts employ a loss-optimized modulation scheme enabling zero-voltage switching. A multiobjective optimization routine is proposed to systematically assess the concepts with respect to the efficiency, power density, and the costs. A novel waveform model and advanced component models are considered, which are verified using a hardware prototype. The calculated Pareto fronts show that SiC MOSFETs enable significantly higher efficiencies and power densities than Si IGBTs, while similar costs can be achieved. The performance comparison between the SiC MOSFET-based 3LDAB and 5LDAB reveals a fundamental superiority of the 3LDAB, which is mainly due to the higher chip area utilization and the lower component count of this concept. Finally, the calculations and the hardware prototype prove that despite the galvanic isolation and wide voltage range, efficiencies above 98 % in a wide operating range are possible, which was previously not seen in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, Agile and Global Software Development (AGSD) has brought benefits and new challenges to the software industry. Among the main challenges is Architecture Knowledge Management (AKM), due to the following reasons: (i) in Agile Software Development team members prefer to convey knowledge in a face‐to‐face manner, over transmitting it through formal documents; and (ii) an efficient AKM in Global Software Development involves managing explicit knowledge. These opposite paradigms turn AKM into an unsolved issue in AGSD. In this study, the authors present a systematic mapping review about AKM in AGSD. From this review, they identified nine approaches that AGSD companies use to overcome the AKM challenge, which are grouped in three areas: (i) documentation artefact‐based, (ii) communication‐based, and (iii) methodological‐based. Also, they found that the selected papers evenly support the three phases of the integrated knowledge management cycle (creation/capture, sharing/dissemination and acquisition/application), although only 7% of them support the capture of architectural knowledge in a formalised way. Finally, they conclude proposing critical points to consider in the implementation of AKM solutions in AGSD, and presenting their directions of future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel virtual prototyping routine for power electronic converter systems. The approach facilitates a comprehensive and systematic benchmarking of different converter concepts based on a multiobjective optimization regarding the efficiency, power density, and costs. The underlying modeling framework is based on detailed and experimentally verified models. In particular, novel cost data as well as unpublished switching loss and core loss measurements are incorporated. The proposed virtual prototyping routine is employed to carry out a comparative study of the potential of Si and SiC semiconductors in a 10-kW residential three-phase photovoltaic inverter application. For this purpose, a state-of-the-art hard-switched three-level Si insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) system is compared to a hard-switched and to a soft-switched two-level SiC MOSFET system. The candidate systems for each concept are selected among the \boldsymbol \eta-\boldsymbol \rho -\boldsymbol \sigma Pareto-optimized designs based on the life cycle costs. The hard-switched two-level SiC candidate system is found to be the most attractive solution featuring the lowest life cycle costs. When compared to the Si-based candidate system, not only a better power density and efficiency result. At the same time, besides the lower life cycle costs ( $-$22%), lower component costs ( $-$5%) can also be attained. The attractiveness of the found SiC solution is underlined by the simple control and the lowest component count among all concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the modelling of whole process of software (SW) development is performed using extended waterfall and agile models. The further advancement of extended waterfall and agile models in the main phases like communication, planning, modelling, construction and deployment can improve the overall quality of the product. Accordingly, in this study, artificial intelligence (AI) activities are integrated into SW development processes. The important AI activities like intelligent agents, machine learning (ML), knowledge representation, statistical model, probabilistic methods, and fuzzy are integrated into the extended waterfall model. Again, AI activities like intelligent decision making, ML, Turing test, search and optimisation are integrated into the agile model. Two metrics such as, Usability Goals Achievement Metric and Index of Integration are evaluated in five independent SW projects. Once SW projects are developed using these models, feedback queries have been collected formally and the collected data are extensively analysed to identify the individual characteristics of products, identifying correlation behaviour of products with respect to model and metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of new materials as Power Point presentations are the most convenient way of teaching a course or to display a scientific paper. In order to support this function, most schools, universities, institutions, are equipped with projectors and computers. For controlling the presentation of the materials, the persons that are in charge with the presentation use, in most cases, both the keyboard of the computer as well as the mouse for the slides, thing that burdens, in a way, the direct communication (face to face) with the audience. Of course, the invention of the wireless mouse allowed a sort of freedom in controlling from the distance the digital materials. Although there seems to appear a certain impediment: in order to be used, the mouse requires to be placed on a flat surface. This article aims at creating a new application prototype that will manipulate, only through the means of a light-beam instrument (laser fascicle), both the actions of the mouse as well as some of the elements offered by the keyboard on a certain application or presentation. The light fascicle will be „connected” to a calculus system only through the images that were captured by a simple webcam.