A Conceptual Model of Client-driven Agile Requirements Prioritization: Results of a Case Study

ABSTRACT Requirements (re)prioritization is an essential mechanism of agile development approaches to maximize the value for the clients and to accommodate changing requirements. Yet, in the agile Requirements Engineering (RE) literature, very little is known about how agile (re)prioritization happens in practice. Conceptual models about this process are missing, which, in turn, makes it difficult for both practitioners and researchers to reason about requirements decision-making at inter-iteration time. We did a multiple case study on agile requirements prioritization methods to yield a conceptual model for understanding the inter-iteration prioritization process. The model is derived by using interview data from practitioners in 8 development organizations. Such a model makes explicit the concepts that are used tacitly in the agile requirements prioritization practice and can be used for structuring future empirical investigations about this topic, and for analyzing, supporting, and improving the process in real-life projects

Fall prevention intervention technologies: A conceptual framework and survey of the state of the art

In recent years, an ever increasing range of technology-based applications have been developed with the goal of assisting in the delivery of more effective and efficient fall prevention interventions. Whilst there have been a number of studies that have surveyed technologies for a particular sub-domain of fall prevention, there is no existing research which surveys the full spectrum of falls prevention interventions and characterises the range of technologies that have augmented this landscape. This study presents a conceptual framework and survey of the state of the art of technology-based fall prevention systems which is derived from a systematic template analysis of studies presented in contemporary research literature. The framework proposes four broad categories of fall prevention intervention system: Pre-fall prevention; Post-fall prevention; Fall injury prevention; Cross-fall prevention. Other categories include, Application type, Technology deployment platform, Information sources, Deployment environment, User interface type, and Collaborative function. After presenting the conceptual framework, a detailed survey of the state of the art is presented as a function of the proposed framework. A number of research challenges emerge as a result of surveying the research literature, which include a need for: new systems that focus on overcoming extrinsic falls risk factors; systems that support the environmental risk assessment process; systems that enable patients and practitioners to develop more collaborative relationships and engage in shared decision making during falls risk assessment and prevention activities. In response to these challenges, recommendations and future research directions are proposed to overcome each respective challenge.The Royal Society, grant Ref: RG13082

Comparison of different classification algorithms for fault detection and fault isolation in complex systems

Due to the lack of sufficient results seen in literature, feature extraction and classification methods of hydraulic systems appears to be somewhat challenging. This paper compares the performance of three classifiers (namely linear support vector machine (SVM), distance-weighted k-nearest neighbor (WKNN), and decision tree (DT) using data from optimized and non-optimized sensor set solutions. The algorithms are trained with known data and then tested with unknown data for different scenarios characterizing faults with different degrees of severity. This investigation is based solely on a data-driven approach and relies on data sets that are taken from experiments on the fuel system. The system that is used throughout this study is a typical fuel delivery system consisting of standard components such as a filter, pump, valve, nozzle, pipes, and two tanks. Running representative tests on a fuel system are problematic because of the time, cost, and reproduction constraints involved in capturing any significant degradation. Simulating significant degradation requires running over a considerable period; this cannot be reproduced quickly and is costly

The Real World Software Process

The industry-wide demand for rapid development in concert with greater process maturity has seen many software development firms adopt tightly structured iterative processes. While a number of commercial vendors offer suitable process infrastructure and tool support, the cost of licensing, configuration and staff training may be prohibitive for the small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) which dominate the Asia-Pacific software industry. This work addresses these problems through the introduction of the Real World Software Process (RWSP), a freely available, Web-based iterative scheme designed specifically for small teams and organisations. RWSP provides a detailed process description, high quality document templates - including code review and inspection guidelines - and the integrated tutorial support necessary for successful usage by inexperienced developers and teams. In particular it is intended that the process be readily usable by software houses which at present do not follow a formal process, and that the free RWSP process infrastructure should be a vehicle for improving industry standards

Acoustic, psychophysical, and neuroimaging measurements of the effectiveness of active cancellation during auditory functional magnetic resonance imaging

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is one of the principal neuroimaging techniques for studying human audition, but it generates an intense background sound which hinders listening performance and confounds measures of the auditory response. This paper reports the perceptual effects of an active noise control (ANC) system that operates in the electromagnetically hostile and physically compact neuroimaging environment to provide significant noise reduction, without interfering with image quality. Cancellation was first evaluated at 600 Hz, corresponding to the dominant peak in the power spectrum of the background sound and at which cancellation is maximally effective. Microphone measurements at the ear demonstrated 35 dB of acoustic attenuation [from 93 to 58 dB sound pressure level (SPL)], while masked detection thresholds improved by 20 dB (from 74 to 54 dB SPL). Considerable perceptual benefits were also obtained across other frequencies, including those corresponding to dips in the spectrum of the background sound. Cancellation also improved the statistical detection of sound-related cortical activation, especially for sounds presented at low intensities. These results confirm that ANC offers substantial benefits for fMRI research

The application of knowledge based systems to the abstraction of design and costing rules in bespoke pipe jointing systems

This thesis presents the work undertaken in the creation of a knowledge based system aimed at facilitating the design and cost estimation of bespoke pipe jointing systems. An overview of the problem domain is provided and the findings from a literature review on knowledge based systems and applications in manufacturing were used to provide initial guidance to the research. The overall investigation and development process involved the abstraction of design and costing rules from domain experts using a sub-set of the techniques reviewed and the development and implementation of the knowledge based system using an expert system approach, the soft systems methodology (SSM) and the system development lifecycle methodology. Based on the abstracted design and costing rules, the developed system automates the design of pipe jointing systems, and facilitates cost estimation process within third party configuration software. The developed system was validated using two case studies and was shown to provide the required outputs