WESTT (Workload, Error, Situational Awareness, Time and Teamwork): An analytical prototyping system for command and control

Modern developments in the use of information technology within command and control allow unprecedented scope for flexibility in the way teams deal with tasks. These developments, together with the increased recognition of the importance of knowledge management within teams present difficulties for the analyst in terms of evaluating the impacts of changes to task composition or team membership. In this paper an approach to this problem is presented that represents team behaviour in terms of three linked networks (representing task, social network structure and knowledge) within the integrative WESTT software tool. In addition, by automating analyses of workload and error based on the same data that generate the networks, WESTT allows the user to engage in the process of rapid and iterative “analytical prototyping”. For purposes of illustration an example of the use of this technique with regard to a simple tactical vignette is presented

Planning for scanning in construction : optimizing 3D laser scanning operations using building information modelling and a novel specification on surface scanning completeness.

Application of Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) technology in the Architectural Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry is gaining popularity because the technology uniquely offers the means to create as-built three-dimensional (3D) models of existing facilities, and conduct construction project progress and dimensional quality measurements. An open challenge with regard to the use TLS for such applications is to efficiently generate effective scanning plans that satisfy pre-defined point cloud quality specifications. Two such specifications are currently commonly used: Level of Accuracy (LOA) that focuses on individual point precision, and Level of Detail (LOD) that focuses on point density. Given such specifications, current practice sees professionals manually prepare scanning plans using existing 2D CAD drawings, some ad-hoc rules (of thumb), and their experience. Yet, it is difficult to manually generate and analyse laser scanning plans to ensure they satisfy scanning quality specifications such as those above. Manually-defined plans may easily lead to over-scanning, or worse under-scanning with incomplete data (which may require the team to go back on site to acquire complementary data). To minimize the risk of producing inadequate scanning plans, some semi-automated and automated methods have been proposed by researchers that use the 3D (BIM) model generated during the design stage. These methods take consideration for LOA and LOD. However, these are point-based specifications that do not guarantee that a sufficient amount of the surface of each object is covered by the acquired data, despite this aspect being important to many of the applications for which TLS is employed (e.g. modelling existing facilities). Therefore, this research uniquely proposes a novel planning for scanning quality specification, called Level of Surface Completeness (LOC) that assesses point cloud quality in terms of surface completeness. In addition, an approach is proposed for automatic planning for scanning in the AEC industry that takes both LOA and LOC specifications into account. The approach is ‘generic’ in the sense that it can be employed for any type of project. It is designed to generate automatic laser scanning plans using as input: (1) the facility’s 3D BIM model; (2) the scanner’s characteristics; and (3) the LOA and LOC specifications. The output is the smallest set of scanning locations necessary to achieve those requirements. The optimal solution is found by formulating the problem as a binary integer programming optimization problem, which is easily solved using a branch-and-cut algorithm. To assess the performance of the approach, experiments are conducted using a simple concrete structural model, a more complex structural model, and a section of the latter extended with Mechanical Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) components. The overall performance of the proposed approach for automatic planning for scanning is encouraging, showing that it is possible to take surface-based specifications into account in automated planning-for-scanning algorithms. However, the experimental results also highlight a significant weakness of the approach presented here which is that it does not take into account the overlapping of surfaces covered from different scanning locations and thus may inaccurately assess covered surfaces

Report on the Second Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE2)

This technical report records and discusses the Second Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE2). The report includes a description of the alternative, experimental submission and review process, two workshop keynote presentations, a series of lightning talks, a discussion on sustainability, and five discussions from the topic areas of exploring sustainability; software development experiences; credit & incentives; reproducibility & reuse & sharing; and code testing & code review. For each topic, the report includes a list of tangible actions that were proposed and that would lead to potential change. The workshop recognized that reliance on scientific software is pervasive in all areas of world-leading research today. The workshop participants then proceeded to explore different perspectives on the concept of sustainability. Key enablers and barriers of sustainable scientific software were identified from their experiences. In addition, recommendations with new requirements such as software credit files and software prize frameworks were outlined for improving practices in sustainable software engineering. There was also broad consensus that formal training in software development or engineering was rare among the practitioners. Significant strides need to be made in building a sense of community via training in software and technical practices, on increasing their size and scope, and on better integrating them directly into graduate education programs. Finally, journals can define and publish policies to improve reproducibility, whereas reviewers can insist that authors provide sufficient information and access to data and software to allow them reproduce the results in the paper. Hence a list of criteria is compiled for journals to provide to reviewers so as to make it easier to review software submitted for publication as a “Software Paper.

Utilizing static and dynamic software analysis to aid cost estimation, software visualization, and test quality management

The main results presented in the thesis are related to the semi- or fully-automated analysis of the software and its development processes. My overall research goal is to provide meaningful insights, methods, and practical tools to help the work of stakeholders during various phases of software development. The thesis statements have been grouped into three major thesis points, namely "Measuring, predicting, and comparing the productivity of developer teams"; "Providing immersive methods for software and unit test visualization"; and "Spotting the structures in the package hierarchy that required attention using test coverage data"

Usability Evaluation in Virtual Environments: Classification and Comparison of Methods

Virtual environments (VEs) are a relatively new type of human-computer interface in which users perceive and act in a three-dimensional world. The designers of such systems cannot rely solely on design guidelines for traditional two-dimensional interfaces, so usability evaluation is crucial for VEs. We present an overview of VE usability evaluation. First, we discuss some of the issues that differentiate VE usability evaluation from evaluation of traditional user interfaces such as GUIs. We also present a review of VE evaluation methods currently in use, and discuss a simple classification space for VE usability evaluation methods. This classification space provides a structured means for comparing evaluation methods according to three key characteristics: involvement of representative users, context of evaluation, and types of results produced. To illustrate these concepts, we compare two existing evaluation approaches: testbed evaluation [Bowman, Johnson, & Hodges, 1999], and sequential evaluation [Gabbard, Hix, & Swan, 1999]. We conclude by presenting novel ways to effectively link these two approaches to VE usability evaluation

Closing the Certification Gaps in Adaptive Flight Control Software

Over the last five decades, extensive research has been performed to design and develop adaptive control systems for aerospace systems and other applications where the capability to change controller behavior at different operating conditions is highly desirable. Although adaptive flight control has been partially implemented through the use of gain-scheduled control, truly adaptive control systems using learning algorithms and on-line system identification methods have not seen commercial deployment. The reason is that the certification process for adaptive flight control software for use in national air space has not yet been decided. The purpose of this paper is to examine the gaps between the state-of-the-art methodologies used to certify conventional (i.e., non-adaptive) flight control system software and what will likely to be needed to satisfy FAA airworthiness requirements. These gaps include the lack of a certification plan or process guide, the need to develop verification and validation tools and methodologies to analyze adaptive controller stability and convergence, as well as the development of metrics to evaluate adaptive controller performance at off-nominal flight conditions. This paper presents the major certification gap areas, a description of the current state of the verification methodologies, and what further research efforts will likely be needed to close the gaps remaining in current certification practices. It is envisioned that closing the gap will require certain advances in simulation methods, comprehensive methods to determine learning algorithm stability and convergence rates, the development of performance metrics for adaptive controllers, the application of formal software assurance methods, the application of on-line software monitoring tools for adaptive controller health assessment, and the development of a certification case for adaptive system safety of flight

Report on the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3)

This report records and discusses the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3). The report includes a description of the keynote presentation of the workshop, which served as an overview of sustainable scientific software. It also summarizes a set of lightning talks in which speakers highlighted to-the-point lessons and challenges pertaining to sustaining scientific software. The final and main contribution of the report is a summary of the discussions, future steps, and future organization for a set of self-organized working groups on topics including developing pathways to funding scientific software; constructing useful common metrics for crediting software stakeholders; identifying principles for sustainable software engineering design; reaching out to research software organizations around the world; and building communities for software sustainability. For each group, we include a point of contact and a landing page that can be used by those who want to join that group's future activities. The main challenge left by the workshop is to see if the groups will execute these activities that they have scheduled, and how the WSSSPE community can encourage this to happen