An Exploratory Study of Field Failures

Field failures, that is, failures caused by faults that escape the testing phase leading to failures in the field, are unavoidable. Improving verification and validation activities before deployment can identify and timely remove many but not all faults, and users may still experience a number of annoying problems while using their software systems. This paper investigates the nature of field failures, to understand to what extent further improving in-house verification and validation activities can reduce the number of failures in the field, and frames the need of new approaches that operate in the field. We report the results of the analysis of the bug reports of five applications belonging to three different ecosystems, propose a taxonomy of field failures, and discuss the reasons why failures belonging to the identified classes cannot be detected at design time but shall be addressed at runtime. We observe that many faults (70%) are intrinsically hard to detect at design-time

An Exploratory Study of Field Failures

Field failures, that is, failures caused by faults that escape the testing phase leading to failures in the field, are unavoidable. Improving verification and validation activities before deployment can identify and timely remove many but not all faults, and users may still experience a number of annoying problems while using their software systems. This paper investigates the nature of field failures, to understand to what extent further improving in-house verification and validation activities can reduce the number of failures in the field, and frames the need of new approaches that operate in the field. We report the results of the analysis of the bug reports of five applications belonging to three different ecosystems, propose a taxonomy of field failures, and discuss the reasons why failures belonging to the identified classes cannot be detected at design time but shall be addressed at runtime. We observe that many faults (70%) are intrinsically hard to detect at design-time

Practitioner Perspectives Of Information Technology Industry Intrapreneurship: An Exploratory Study

Scholars have shown that maintaining an intrapreneurial culture contributes to superior firm performance (Parboteeah, 2000) and attracting better qualified job applicants (Olmsted, 2005). Yet, there remains a need for more research “regarding the successes or failures of large companies that systematically instill corporate entrepreneurship” (Thornberry, 2003 p. 332).  While an increasing number of scholars have examined the benefits and challenges of creating and maintaining an intrapreneurial culture, there remains a need to examine intrapreneurship from an intrapreneur’s perspective. This article is an exploratory study which qualitatively, through the use of informational interviews, explores how experienced intrapreneurs within the Information Technology (IT) field view intrapreneurial opportunities and how management practices explicitly and/or implicitly effect intrapreneurial perceptions

Scientific progress despite irreproducibility: A seeming paradox

It appears paradoxical that science is producing outstanding new results and theories at a rapid rate at the same time that researchers are identifying serious problems in the practice of science that cause many reports to be irreproducible and invalid. Certainly the practice of science needs to be improved and scientists are now pursuing this goal. However, in this perspective we argue that this seeming paradox is not new, has always been part of the way science works, and likely will remain so. We first introduce the paradox. We then review a wide range of challenges that appear to make scientific success difficult. Next, we describe the factors that make science work-in the past, present, and presumably also in the future. We then suggest that remedies for the present practice of science need to be applied selectively so as not to slow progress, and illustrate with a few examples. We conclude with arguments that communication of science needs to emphasize not just problems but the enormous successes and benefits that science has brought and is now bringing to all elements of modern society.Comment: 3 figure

Revisiting the Far Right Violent Extremist Threat: Violent Extremist Plot Success From 1948 Through 2017

Far Right violent extremists have successfully executed over 150 violent plots in the United States in just the past decade. This exploratory study analyzed Far Right violent extremist plot success with the plot success of Islamist violent extremists, Far Left violent extremists, and Single Issue violent extremists based on publicly available data from the Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS) for the period of 1948 through 2017. By evaluating existing literature on Far Right violent extremism and analyzing the available PIRUS data, it was discovered that while Far Right violent extremists executed more successful violent plots than the other violent ideological extremist groups, Far Left violent extremists proportionally had more successful violent plots. A sample from the PIRUS database was explored, and the analysis demonstrates that the variables of Far Left radicalization, violence against persons and property, and plot preparation are significantly correlated with violent plot success

Multiple Vulnerabilities Locking Rural Communities in the South Eastern Low-Veld of Zimbabwe

The study analyses the multiple vulnerabilities of the rural communities. This is an exploratory qualitative case study. One hundred households from ward 20 and 22 participated in this study through questionnaires, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and semi-structured interviews. The average household size was 8 with 30% of the households having a member who was chronically ill while orphans were reported to be present in 54% of the households. The livelihood base was largely agriculturally based where over 53% of them lacked the lacked requisite productive assets for communal faming.   Ninety nine percent had experienced crop failures in the 3 years preceding the study, attributed mainly to insufficient rainfall. Production levels for both field crops and gardening activities were exceptionally low and the markets were poor. The boreholes for the majority of the households and the two irrigations schemes in the two wards were under breakdown. The communities were vulnerable to more frequent floods, droughts, dangerous wild animal and diseases. The  value  of  the  research  is  that  no  known  study  has invoked a holistic approach to study multiple vulnerabilities in rural areas of Zimbabwe. This exploratory study attempt to unravel some of the subtle complexities underlying the vulnerabilities of rural communities in Zimbabwe in a view to recommend empirically based solutions to unlock their potential. Keywords: Vulnerability, livelihoods, sustainabl

Beyond knowledge brokerage: an exploratory study of innovation intermediaries in an evolving smallholder agricultural system in Kenya

The recognition that innovation occurs in networks of heterogeneous actors and requires broad systemic support beyond knowledge brokering has resulted in a changing landscape of the intermediary domain in an increasingly market-driven agricultural sector in developing countries. This paper presents findings of an explorative case study that looked at 22 organisations identified as fulfilling an intermediary role in the Kenyan agricultural sector. The results show that these organisations fulfill functions that are not limited to distribution of knowledge and putting it into use. The functions also include fostering integration and interaction among the diverse actors engaged in innovation networks and working on technological, organisational and institutional innovation. Further, the study identified various organisational arrangements of innovation intermediaries with some organisations fulfilling a specialised innovation brokering role, even as other intermediaries take on brokering as a side activity, while still substantively contributing to the innovation process. Based on these findings we identify a typology of 4 innovation intermediation arrangements, including technology brokers, systemic brokers, enterprise development support and input access support. The results indicate that innovation brokering is a pervasive task in supporting innovation and will require policy support to embed it in innovation support arrangements. The paper is not normative about these arrangements

Dysfunctional vs. functional difficulties: a new perspective on learning disabilities

This study was developed as part of an exploratory work on concepts and common sense beliefs about learning difficulties in the Portuguese educational community. Lay conceptions of college students were analyzed in a qualitative study in order to identify different ways of understanding learning difficulties. Students from different courses and levels of training, without specific information in this field of educational psychology, responded by writing to four open questions about learning and learning disabilities. Data were analyzed to identify the range of personal conceptions. Written responses were subjected to content analysis. Multiple categories emerged and were grouped into four main perspectives, incorporating nine different lay conceptions of learning difficulties. These common sense conceptions corresponded in a very precise way to the scientific conceptions of “learning disabilities” which were successively developed in recent decades (Poplin, 1988). Besides, more than distinguish between two types of students, with and without LD, results suggest a new distinction between two kinds of difficulties, dysfunctional versus functional difficulties. Functional difficulties are needed and should be promoted to enhance the quality of learning