290,929 research outputs found
Trustworthy Refactoring via Decomposition and Schemes: A Complex Case Study
Widely used complex code refactoring tools lack a solid reasoning about the
correctness of the transformations they implement, whilst interest in proven
correct refactoring is ever increasing as only formal verification can provide
true confidence in applying tool-automated refactoring to industrial-scale
code. By using our strategic rewriting based refactoring specification
language, we present the decomposition of a complex transformation into smaller
steps that can be expressed as instances of refactoring schemes, then we
demonstrate the semi-automatic formal verification of the components based on a
theoretical understanding of the semantics of the programming language. The
extensible and verifiable refactoring definitions can be executed in our
interpreter built on top of a static analyser framework.Comment: In Proceedings VPT 2017, arXiv:1708.0688
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Project Testbed: Argument Mapping and Deliberation Analytics
One key goal of the Catalyst project was to design metrics that could capture and represent aspects of the conversationâs structural quality, to assist harvesters and moderators. Many such metrics, alerts and visualizations were developed in the course of the project, but initial user testing has shown that users find it difficult to interpret abstract signals. Following that, we have both introduced new analytics that we felt could be more directly useful, and improved the representation of existing ones. We evaluated their usefulness in a smaller conversation and in experimental settings
Programmers' performance on structured versus nonstructured function definitions
A control-flow model for functional programs is used in an experimental comparison of the performance of programmers on structured versus nonstructured Miranda function definitions. The performance is taken as a measure of the comprehensibility of functional programs. The experimental set-up is similar to the Scanlan study (1989). However, in the present study, a two-factor repeated measures design is used in the statistical analysis. The control-flow model appears to be useful in the shaping of the experiment. A significantly better performance has been found for structured function definitions on both dependent variables: the time needed to answer questions about the function definitions and the proportion correct answers. Moreover, for structured function definitions, a counter-intuitive result has been obtained: there are significantly fewer errors in larger definitions than in smaller ones
Brain-inspired conscious computing architecture
What type of artificial systems will claim to be conscious and will claim to experience qualia? The ability to comment upon physical states of a brain-like dynamical system coupled with its environment seems to be sufficient to make claims. The flow of internal states in such system, guided and limited by associative memory, is similar to the stream of consciousness. Minimal requirements for an artificial system that will claim to be conscious were given in form of specific architecture named articon. Nonverbal discrimination of the working memory states of the articon gives it the ability to experience different qualities of internal states. Analysis of the inner state flows of such a system during typical behavioral process shows that qualia are inseparable from perception and action. The role of consciousness in learning of skills, when conscious information processing is replaced by subconscious, is elucidated. Arguments confirming that phenomenal experience is a result of cognitive processes are presented. Possible philosophical objections based on the Chinese room and other arguments are discussed, but they are insufficient to refute claims articonâs claims. Conditions for genuine understanding that go beyond the Turing test are presented. Articons may fulfill such conditions and in principle the structure of their experiences may be arbitrarily close to human
The merits of using citations to measure research output in economics departments: The New Zealand case
In this paper we explore the merits of utilizing citation counts to measure research output in economics in the context of a nation-wide research evaluation scheme. We selected one such system for study: the New Zealand governmentâs Programme-Based Research Fund (PBRF). Citations were collected for all refereed papers produced by New Zealandâs academic economists over the period 2000 to 2008 using the databases of the ISI/Web of Science and, to a limited extent, Google Scholar. These data allowed us to estimate the time lags in economics between publication of an article and the flow of citations; to demonstrate the impact of alternative definitions of âeconomics-relevantâ journals on citation counts; and to assess the impact of direct citation measures and alternative schemes on departmental and individual performance. Our findings suggest that the time-lags between publication and citing are such that it would be difficult to rely on citations counts to produce a meaningful measure of output in a PBRF-like research evaluation framework, especially one based explicitly on individual assessment
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