160 research outputs found

    Using Crowd-Based Software Repositories to Better Understand Developer-User Interactions

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    Software development is a complex process. To serve the final software product to the end user, developers need to rely on a variety of software artifacts throughout the development process. The term software repository used to denote only containers of source code such as version control systems; more recent usage has generalized the concept to include a plethora of software development artifact kinds and their related meta-data. Broadly speaking, software repositories include version control systems, technical documentation, issue trackers, question and answer sites, distribution information, etc. The software repositories can be based on a specific project (e.g., bug tracker for Firefox), or be crowd-sourced (e.g., questions and answers on technical Q&A websites). Crowd-based software artifacts are created as by-products of developer-user interactions which are sometimes referred to as communication channels. In this thesis, we investigate three distinct crowd-based software repositories that follow different models of developer-user interactions. We believe through a better understanding of the crowd-based software repositories, we can identify challenges in software development and provide insights to improve the software development process. In our first study, we investigate Stack Overflow. It is the largest collection of programming related questions and answers. On Stack Overflow, developers interact with other developers to create crowd-sourced knowledge in the form of questions and answers. The results of the interactions (i.e., the question threads) become valuable information to the entire developer community. Prior research on Stack Overflow tacitly assume that questions receives answers directly on the platform and no need of interaction is required during the process. Meanwhile, the platform allows attaching comments to questions which forms discussions of the question. Our study found that question discussions occur for 59.2% of questions on Stack Overflow. For discussed and solved questions on Stack Overflow, 80.6% of the questions have the discussion begin before the accepted answer is submitted. The results of our study show the importance and nuances of interactions in technical Q&A. We then study dotfiles, a set of publicly shared user-specific configuration files for software tools. There is a culture of sharing dotfiles within the developer community, where the idea is to learn from other developers’ dotfiles and share your variants. The interaction of dotfiles sharing can be viewed as developers sources information from other developers, adapt the information to their own needs, and share their adaptations back to the community. Our study on dotfiles suggests that is a common practice among developers to share dotfiles where 25.8% of the most stared users on GitHub have a dotfiles repository. We provide a taxonomy of the commonly tracked dotfiles and a qualitative study on the commits in dotfiles repositories. We also leveraged the state-of-the-art time-series clustering technique (K-shape) to identify code churn pattern for dotfile edits. This study is the first step towards understanding the practices of maintaining and sharing dotfiles. Finally, we study app stores, the platforms that distribute software products and contain many non-technical attributes (e.g., ratings and reviews) of software products. Three major stakeholders interacts with each other in app stores: the app store owner who governs the operation of the app store; developers who publish applications on the app store; and users who browse and download applications in the app store. App stores often provide means of interaction between all three actors (e.g., app reviews, store policy) and sometimes interactions with in the same actor (e.g., developer forum). We surveyed existing app stores to extract key features from app store operation. We then labeled a representative set of app store collected by web queries. K-means is applied to the labeled app stores to detect natural groupings of app stores. We observed a diverse set of app stores through the process. Instead of a single model that describes all app stores, fundamentally, our observations show that app stores operates differently. This study provide insights in understanding how app stores can affect software development. In summary, we investigated software repositories containing software artifacts created from different developer-user interactions. These software repositories are essential for software development in providing referencing information (i.e., Stack Overflow), improving development productivity (i.e., dotfiles), and help distributing the software products to end users (i.e., app stores)

    Focusing Events in Environmental Policy: Exide Technologies, Aliso Canyon, and Industrial Health Crises in Southern California

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    Focusing events are sudden, rare events that become known to policymakers and the public simultaneously, highlighting issues with existing public policy. Two case studies, the gas leak from the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility near Porter Ranch, and the publication of the Health Risk Assessment and discovery of lead contamination from Exide Technologies’ battery recycling facility in Vernon, are used to deepen theoretical insights into the development and functionality of industrial health crises as focusing events. The case studies suggest four key areas relevant to understanding focusing events. The first is the unique characteristics of industrial health crises, which often involve anthropogenic risks and a degree of contestation unusual in other focusing event literature. The second is the scale of analysis, balancing geospatial realities with local histories, broad social dynamics and power structures, and the multiscalar nature of policy change. Third, community activism plays multiple vital roles in pushing a potential focusing event towards lasting policy change. Finally, the incorporation of ideas from environmental justice into the focusing event framework results in a better understanding of power and privilege in the creation of, and response to, industrial health crises. All four aspects have been written about in other bodies of literature, but have not yet been brought to bear on the concept of focusing events. These four domains thus add nuance to the scholarly understanding of one aspect of the policy change process, and provide a starting point for further research into the processes governing our public policy systems

    Measuring metadata quality

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    From personal experience to design : externalizing the homeowner's needs assessment process

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    Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-215).This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Advances in building and computational technologies, coupled with a reorganized and integrated system of residential design, may make custom homes a possibility for a larger segment of the population in the years to come. While tools and materials that embody building and design expertise are necessary for making such a system workable, how the homeowner is supported and represented will determine whether the resulting houses are not just custom, but personally meaningful. The particular focus of this work is on how to externalize the layperson's task of establishing needs and setting goals as an essential stage within a sophisticated design process. The work is informed by interviews with homeowners and a participant study of constructive and interpretative exercises. One such exercise asked participants to serve as investigators into their own practices through use of simple sensors placed in the home environment. The work concludes with a proposal for tools and approaches to collect rich requirement data and prime users for design decisions by helping them to identify their perspective, needs, and goals. KEYWORDS: home design, mass customization, participatory design, constructionism, reflective practice, adult learning, architectural program, HCI.by Jennifer Suzanne Beaudin.S.M

    An Investigative Study on How Developers Filter and Prioritize Code Smells

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    Columbia Chronicle (11/15/2010)

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    Student newspaper from November 15, 2010 entitled The Columbia Chronicle. This issue is 44 pages and is listed as Volume 46, Number 11. Cover story: City takes up trauma center crisis Editor-in-Chief: Spencer Roushhttps://digitalcommons.colum.edu/cadc_chronicle/1800/thumbnail.jp

    Red Mining: Mining and the Right to Water in Porgera, Papua New Guinea

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    The Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) gold mine in the highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG) has been one of the world’s highest producing gold mines over the course of its quarter-century history, and has accounted for a considerable percentage of PNG’s economic income. Yet many Porgeran residents live in deplorable conditions and feel trapped by the mine. Where they once farmed vegetables and collected fresh water from natural streams, they now see ever-expanding waste dumps. For years, security guards at the mine physically abused many residents, including sexually assaulting and gang-raping Porgeran women. 3 Residents feel the earth shake with recurring explosions from the mine operations, and worry about landslides threatening their homes and gardens. They see the rivers change color with the addition of mine waste and chemicals, smell the strong odor of industrial chemicals permeating their environment, and worry about the impact of these chemicals on their environment and health. Porgerans watch the white vapor from the mill join the clouds and have concerns about its impact on the rain that they collect to drink and water their gardens. They also hear the noise and feel the dust from trucks moving massive quantities of rock and waste at all hours of the day. The expectations of socio-economic development originally associated with the establishment of the mine have not been met for much of the Porgeran population, fostering feelings of injustice and disillusionment. With limited jobs available for Porgerans from the mine itself, and few other employment opportunities present, many residents struggle to earn enough money to survive. Many try to make a living by searching in the mine’s waste for scraps of gold left over from mine processes, or entering the open pit and risking serious injury. This report seeks to support Porgeran communities in their efforts to secure their human rights, and the PNG government in its commitment to advancing the human right to water and its efforts to sustainably improve the quality of life in PNG through improved access to water. This report also seeks to support the mining companies to fulfil their responsibilities to respect the right to water and in meeting their goals as sustainable development partners in PNG. This report is the product of an interdisciplinary and mixed-methods investigation of the right to water and interrelated rights in the residential areas adjacent to the PJV gold mine. The study was carried out in response to serious concerns expressed by residents over many years about the adequacy and safety of water in their area, and about the mine’s impacts on their environment

    Bit Bang 9: Entrepreneurship

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    This book is the 9th in the Bit Bang series of books produced as multidisciplinary teamwork exercises by doctoral students participating in the course Bit Bang 9: Entrepreneurship at Aalto University during the academic year 2016–2017. Working in teams, the students set out to answer questions related to entrepreneurship and to brainstorm radical scenarios of what the future could hold. This joint publication contains articles produced as teamwork assignments for the course

    The Proceedings of the 23rd Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (DGO2022) Intelligent Technologies, Governments and Citizens June 15-17, 2022

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    The 23rd Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research theme is “Intelligent Technologies, Governments and Citizens”. Data and computational algorithms make systems smarter, but should result in smarter government and citizens. Intelligence and smartness affect all kinds of public values - such as fairness, inclusion, equity, transparency, privacy, security, trust, etc., and is not well-understood. These technologies provide immense opportunities and should be used in the light of public values. Society and technology co-evolve and we are looking for new ways to balance between them. Specifically, the conference aims to advance research and practice in this field. The keynotes, presentations, posters and workshops show that the conference theme is very well-chosen and more actual than ever. The challenges posed by new technology have underscored the need to grasp the potential. Digital government brings into focus the realization of public values to improve our society at all levels of government. The conference again shows the importance of the digital government society, which brings together scholars in this field. Dg.o 2022 is fully online and enables to connect to scholars and practitioners around the globe and facilitate global conversations and exchanges via the use of digital technologies. This conference is primarily a live conference for full engagement, keynotes, presentations of research papers, workshops, panels and posters and provides engaging exchange throughout the entire duration of the conference

    Social work with airports passengers

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    Social work at the airport is in to offer to passengers social services. The main methodological position is that people are under stress, which characterized by a particular set of characteristics in appearance and behavior. In such circumstances passenger attracts in his actions some attention. Only person whom he trusts can help him with the documents or psychologically
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