Application of mutual information-based sequential feature selection to ISBSG mixed data

[EN] There is still little research work focused on feature selection (FS) techniques including both categorical and continuous features in Software Development Effort Estimation (SDEE) literature. This paper addresses the problem of selecting the most relevant features from ISBSG (International Software Benchmarking Standards Group) dataset to be used in SDEE. The aim is to show the usefulness of splitting the ranked list of features provided by a mutual information-based sequential FS approach in two, regarding categorical and continuous features. These lists are later recombined according to the accuracy of a case-based reasoning model. Thus, four FS algorithms are compared using a complete dataset with 621 projects and 12 features from ISBSG. On the one hand, two algorithms just consider the relevance, while the remaining two follow the criterion of maximizing relevance and also minimizing redundancy between any independent feature and the already selected features. On the other hand, the algorithms that do not discriminate between continuous and categorical features consider just one list, whereas those that differentiate them use two lists that are later combined. As a result, the algorithms that use two lists present better performance than those algorithms that use one list. Thus, it is meaningful to consider two different lists of features so that the categorical features may be selected more frequently. We also suggest promoting the usage of Application Group, Project Elapsed Time, and First Data Base System features with preference over the more frequently used Development Type, Language Type, and Development Platform.Fernández-Diego, M.; González-Ladrón-De-Guevara, F. (2018). Application of mutual information-based sequential feature selection to ISBSG mixed data. Software Quality Journal. 26(4):1299-1325. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-017-9391-5S12991325264Angelis, L., & Stamelos, I. (2000). A simulation tool for efficient analogy based cost estimation. Empirical Software Engineering, 5(1), 35–68. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009897800559 .Auer, M., Trendowicz, A., Graser, B., Haunschmid, E., & Biffl, S. (2006). Optimal project feature weights in analogy-based cost estimation: improvement and limitations. Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on, 32(2), 83–92.Awada, W., Khoshgoftaar, T. M., Dittman, D., Wald, R., Napolitano, A. (2012). A review of the stability of feature selection techniques for bioinformatics data. In 2012 I.E. 13th International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration (IRI) (pp. 356–363). Presented at the 2012 I.E. 13th International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration (IRI). https://doi.org/10.1109/IRI.2012.6303031 .Battiti, R. (1994). Using mutual information for selecting features in supervised neural net learning. Neural Networks, IEEE Transactions, 5(4), 537–550.Bennasar, M., Hicks, Y., & Setchi, R. (2015). Feature selection using joint mutual information maximisation. Expert Systems with Applications, 42(22), 8520–8532. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2015.07.007 .Bibi, S., Tsoumakas, G., Stamelos, I., & Vlahavas, I. (2008). Regression via classification applied on software defect estimation. Expert Systems with Applications, 34(3), 2091–2101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2007.02.012 .Chandrashekar, G., & Sahin, F. (2014). A survey on feature selection methods. Computers & Electrical Engineering, 40(1), 16–28.Chatzipetrou, P., Papatheocharous, E., Angelis, L., Andreou, A. S. (2012). An investigation of software effort phase distribution using compositional data analysis. In 2012 38th EUROMICRO Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA) (pp. 367–375). Presented at the 2012 38th EUROMICRO Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA). https://doi.org/10.1109/SEAA.2012.50 .Chen, Z., Menzies, T., Port, D., & Boehm, B. (2005). Feature subset selection can improve software cost estimation accuracy. In Proceedings of the 2005 workshop on predictor models in software engineering (pp. 1–6). New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/1082983.1083171 .Chiu, N.-H., & Huang, S.-J. (2007). The adjusted analogy-based software effort estimation based on similarity distances. Journal of Systems and Software, 80(4), 628–640.Dash, M., & Liu, H. (2003). Consistency-based search in feature selection. Artificial Intelligence, 151(1), 155–176.Dejaeger, K., Verbeke, W., Martens, D., & Baesens, B. (2012). Data mining techniques for software effort estimation: a comparative study. Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on, 38(2), 375–397. https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2011.55 .Deng, K., & MacDonell, S. G. (2008). Maximising data retention from the ISBSG repository. In Proceedings of the 12th international conference on evaluation and assessment in software engineering (pp. 21–30). Swinton: British Computer Society http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2227115.2227118 . Accessed 21 Jan 2014.Doquire, G., & Verleysen, M. (2011). An hybrid approach to feature selection for mixed categorical and continuous data. In International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Information Retrieval. http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/90765 . Accessed 2 Nov 2015.Dudani, S. A. (1976). The distance-weighted k-nearest-neighbor rule. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, SMC, 6(4), 325–327. https://doi.org/10.1109/TSMC.1976.5408784 .Estévez, P. A., Tesmer, M., Perez, C. A., & Zurada, J. M. (2009). Normalized mutual information feature selection. IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, 20(2), 189–201. https://doi.org/10.1109/TNN.2008.2005601 .Fayyad, U.M., & Irani, K.B. (1993). Multi-Interval Discretization of Continuous-Valued Attributes for Classification Learning. In Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Uncertainty in AI (pp. 1022–1027). Presented at the International Joint Conference on Uncertainty in AI. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220815890_Multi-Interval_Discretization_of_Continuous-Valued_Attributes_for_Classification_Learning . Accessed 22 June 2016.Fernández-Diego, M., & González-Ladrón-de-Guevara, F. (2014). Potential and limitations of the ISBSG dataset in enhancing software engineering research: a mapping review. Information and Software Technology, 56(6), 527–544. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2014.01.003 .Ferreira, A., & Figueiredo, M. (2011). Unsupervised joint feature discretization and selection. In J. Vitrià, J. M. Sanches, & M. Hernández (Eds.), Pattern recognition and image analysis (Vol. 6669, pp. 200–207). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-642-21257-4_25 . Accessed 4 Mar 2016.Fleuret, F. (2004). Fast binary feature selection with conditional mutual information. Journal of Machine Learning Research, 5, 1531–1555.González-Ladrón-de-Guevara, F., Fernández-Diego, M., & Lokan, C. (2016). The usage of ISBSG data fields in software effort estimation: a systematic mapping study. Journal of Systems and Software, 113, 188–215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2015.11.040 .Gupta, P., Jain, S., & Jain, A. (2014). A review of fast clustering-based feature subset selection algorithm. International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, 3(11), 86–91.Guyon, I., & Elisseeff, A. (2003). An introduction to variable and feature selection. The Journal of Machine Learning Research, 3, 1157–1182.Hall, M. A., & Holmes, G. (2003). Benchmarking attribute selection techniques for discrete class data mining. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 15(6), 1437–1447. https://doi.org/10.1109/TKDE.2003.1245283 .Hausser, J., & Strimmer, K. (2009). Entropy inference and the James-Stein estimator, with application to nonlinear gene association networks. Journal of Machine Learning Research, 10(Jul), 1469–1484.Hill, P. (2010). Practical software project estimation: a toolkit for estimating software development effort & duration. McGraw Hill Professional.Hsu, H.-H., Hsieh, C.-W., & Lu, M.-D. (2011). Hybrid feature selection by combining filters and wrappers. Expert Systems with Applications, 38(7), 8144–8150.Huang, S.-J., & Chiu, N.-H. (2006). Optimization of analogy weights by genetic algorithm for software effort estimation. Information and Software Technology, 48(11), 1034–1045. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2005.12.020 .Huang, S.-J., Chiu, N.-H., & Liu, Y.-J. (2008). A comparative evaluation on the accuracies of software effort estimates from clustered data. Information and Software Technology, 50(9–10), 879–888. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2008.02.005 .Huang, J., Li, Y.-F., & Xie, M. (2015). An empirical analysis of data preprocessing for machine learning-based software cost estimation. Information and Software Technology, 67, 108–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2015.07.004 .ISBSG. (2013a). ISBSG Dataset Release 12. ISBSG. http://isbsg.org/ . Accessed 1 Mar 2016.ISBSG. (2013b). ISBSG Guidelines Release 12.ISBSG. (2013c). ISBSG Data Demographics Release 12.Jeffery, R., Ruhe, M., Wieczorek, I. (2001). Using public domain metrics to estimate software development effort. In Software Metrics Symposium, 2001. METRICS 2001. Proceedings. Seventh International (pp. 16–27). https://doi.org/10.1109/METRIC.2001.915512 .Jiang, Z., & Comstock, C. (2007). The factors significant to software development productivity. In C. Ardil (Ed.), Proceedings of World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, Vol 19 (Vol. 19, pp. 160–164). Presented at the Conference of the World-Academy-of-Science-Engineering-and-Technology, Bangkok: World Acad Sci, Eng & Tech-Waset.Jørgensen, M., Indahl, U., & Sjøberg, D. (2003). Software effort estimation by analogy and ‘regression toward the mean’. Journal of Systems and Software, 68(3), 253–262. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0164-1212(03)00066-9 .Kabir, M. M., Shahjahan, M., & Murase, K. (2011). A new local search based hybrid genetic algorithm for feature selection. Neurocomputing, 74(17), 2914–2928.Kadoda, G., Cartwright, M., Chen, L., Shepperd, M. (2000). Experiences using case-based reasoning to predict software project effort. In EASE 2000 (pp. 2–3). Presented at the EASE 2000, Staffordshire, UK.Keung, J., Kocaguneli, E., & Menzies, T. (2012). Finding conclusion stability for selecting the best effort predictor in software effort estimation. Automated Software Engineering, 20(4), 543–567. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10515-012-0108-5 .Kirsopp, C., Shepperd, M. J., Hart, J. (2002). Search heuristics, case-based reasoning and software project effort prediction. In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (pp. 9–13). New York, USA. http://v-scheiner.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/1554 . Accessed 27 Jan 2016.Kohavi, R., & John, G. H. (1997). Wrappers for feature subset selection. Artificial Intelligence, 97(1–2), 273–324. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0004-3702(97)00043-X .Kwak, N., & Choi, C.-H. (2002). Input feature selection for classification problems. IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, 13(1), 143–159. https://doi.org/10.1109/72.977291 .Langdon, W. B., Dolado, J., Sarro, F., & Harman, M. (2016). Exact mean absolute error of baseline predictor, MARP0. Information and Software Technology, 73, 16–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2016.01.003 .Li, Y. F., Xie, M., & Goh, T. N. (2009). A study of mutual information based feature selection for case based reasoning in software cost estimation. Expert Systems with Applications, 36(3), 5921–5931.Liu, H., & Motoda, H. (2012). Feature selection for knowledge discovery and data mining (Vol. 454). Springer Science & Business Media. https://books.google.es/books?hl=en&lr=&id=aaDbBwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP10&dq=Feature+selection+for+knowledge+discovery+and+data+mining&ots=iuMhcWZGcf&sig=KlmNEIcsBdDVs-m1HUuICfpYZiM . Accessed 25 Jan 2016.Liu, H., & Yu, L. (2005). Toward integrating feature selection algorithms for classification and clustering. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 17(4), 491–502. https://doi.org/10.1109/TKDE.2005.66 .Liu, H., Wei, R., & Jiang, G. (2013). A hybrid feature selection scheme for mixed attributes data. Computational and Applied Mathematics, 32(1), 145–161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40314-013-0019-5 .Liu, Q., Wang, J., Xiao, J., Zhu, H. (2014). Mutual information based feature selection for symbolic interval data. In International Conference on Software Intelligence Technologies and Applications International Conference on Frontiers of Internet of Things 2014 (pp. 62–69). Presented at the International Conference on Software Intelligence Technologies and Applications International Conference on Frontiers of Internet of Things 2014. https://doi.org/10.1049/cp.2014.1537 .Lokan, C. (2005). What should you optimize when building an estimation model? In Software Metrics, 2005. 11th IEEE International Symposium (pp. 1–10). https://doi.org/10.1109/METRICS.2005.55 .Lokan, C., & Mendes, E. (2009a). Investigating the use of chronological split for software effort estimation. Software, IET, 3(5), 422–434. https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-sen.2008.0107 .Lokan, C., & Mendes, E. (2009b). Applying moving windows to software effort estimation. In Proceedings of the 2009 3rd international symposium on empirical software engineering and measurement (pp. 111–122). Washington, DC: IEEE Computer Society. https://doi.org/10.1109/ESEM.2009.5316019 .Lokan, C., & Mendes, E. (2012). Investigating the use of duration-based moving windows to improve software effort prediction. In Software Engineering Conference (APSEC), 2012 19th Asia-Pacific (Vol. 1, pp. 818–827). Presented at the Software Engineering Conference (APSEC), 2012 19th Asia-Pacific. https://doi.org/10.1109/APSEC.2012.74 .Lustgarten, J.L., Visweswaran, S., Grover, H., Gopalakrishnan, V. (2008). An evaluation of discretization methods for learning rules from biomedical datasets. In BIOCOMP (pp. 527–532).Mandal, M., & Mukhopadhyay, A. (2013). An improved minimum redundancy maximum relevance approach for feature selection in gene expression data. Procedia Technology, 10, 20–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.protcy.2013.12.332 .Mendes, E., Watson, I., Triggs, C., Mosley, N., & Counsell, S. (2003). A comparative study of cost estimation models for web hypermedia applications. Empirical Software Engineering, 8(2), 163–196.Mendes, E., Lokan, C., Harrison, R., Triggs, C. (2005). A replicated comparison of cross-company and within-company effort estimation models using the ISBSG database. In Software Metrics, 2005. 11th IEEE International Symposium (pp. 1–10). https://doi.org/10.1109/METRICS.2005.4 .Moses, J., Farrow, M., Parrington, N., & Smith, P. (2006). A productivity benchmarking case study using Bayesian credible intervals. Software Quality Journal, 14(1), 37–52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-006-6000-4 .Núñez, H., Sànchez-Marrè, M., Cortés, U., Comas, J., Martínez, M., Rodríguez-Roda, I., & Poch, M. (2004). A comparative study on the use of similarity measures in case-based reasoning to improve the classification of environmental system situations. Environmental Modelling & Software, 19(9), 809–819. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2003.03.003 .Oh, I.-S., Lee, J.-S., & Moon, B.-R. (2004). Hybrid genetic algorithms for feature selection. Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, IEEE Transactions on, 26(11), 1424–1437.Peng, H., Long, F., & Ding, C. (2005). Feature selection based on mutual information criteria of max-dependency, max-relevance, and min-redundancy. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 27(8), 1226–1238. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPAMI.2005.159 .R Core Team. (2015). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing https://www.R-project.org/ .Romanski, P., & Kotthoff, L. (2014). FSelector: Selecting attributes. R package version 0.20. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=FSelector .Shannon, C. E. (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Shepperd, M., & MacDonell, S. (2012). Evaluating prediction systems in software project estimation. Information and Software Technology, 54(8), 820–827.Shepperd, M., & Schofield, C. (1997). Estimating software project effort using analogies. Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on, 23(11), 736–743.Somol, P., Pudil, P., & Kittler, J. (2004). Fast branch & bound algorithms for optimal feature selection. Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, IEEE Transactions on, 26(7), 900–912.Song, Q., & Shepperd, M. (2007). A new imputation method for small software project data sets. Journal of Systems and Software, 80(1), 51–62.Top, O. O., Ozkan, B., Nabi, M., Demirors, O. (2011). Internal and External Software Benchmark Repository Utilization for Effort Estimation. In Software Measurement, 2011 Joint Conference of the 21st Int’l Workshop on and 6th Int’l Conference on Software Process and Product Measurement (IWSM-MENSURA) (pp. 302–307). https://doi.org/10.1109/IWSM-MENSURA.2011.41 .Vinh, L.T., Thang, N.D., Lee, Y.-K. (2010). An improved maximum relevance and minimum redundancy feature selection algorithm based on normalized mutual information. In 2010 10th IEEE/IPSJ International Symposium on Applications and the Internet (SAINT) (pp. 395–398). Presented at the 2010 10th IEEE/IPSJ International Symposium on Applications and the Internet (SAINT). https://doi.org/10.1109/SAINT.2010.50 .Witten, I.H., Frank, E., Hall, M.A., Pal, C.J. (2011). Data mining: Practical machine learning tools and techniques. Morgan Kaufmann

Algoritmos de Feature Selection utilizados en estimación de esfuerzo de proyectos de desarrollo software

[ES] Hoy en día hay poco trabajo de investigación centrado en las técnicas de Feature Selection (FS), incluidas las características categóricas y continuas en la literatura de Estimación del esfuerzo de desarrollo de software. Este documento aborda el problema de seleccionar las características más relevantes del conjunto de datos de ISBSG (International Software Benchmarking Standards Group) para su uso en la estimación de esfuerzo de desarrollo software. El objetivo es mostrar la utilidad de dividir en dos la lista clasificada de características proporcionadas por un enfoque secuencial de FS basado en información mutua, con respecto a características categóricas y continuas. Estas listas se recombinan posteriormente de acuerdo con la precisión de un modelo de razonamiento basado en casos. Por lo tanto, se comparan cuatro algoritmos de FS utilizando un conjunto de datos completo con 621 proyectos y 12 características de ISBSG. Por un lado, dos algoritmos solo consideran la relevancia, mientras que los dos restantes siguen el criterio de maximizar la relevancia y también minimizar la redundancia entre cualquier característica independiente y las características ya seleccionadas. Por otro lado, los algoritmos que no discriminan entre características continuas y categóricas consideran solo una lista, mientras que los que las diferencian utilizan dos listas que luego se combinan. Como resultado, los algoritmos que utilizan dos listas presentan un mejor rendimiento que los algoritmos que utilizan una sola lista. Por lo tanto, es significativo considerar dos listas diferentes de características para que las características categóricas se puedan seleccionar con mayor frecuencia.[EN] There is still little research work focused on feature selection (FS) techniques including both categorical and continuous features in Software Development Effort Estimation (SDEE) literature. This paper addresses the problem of selecting the most relevant features from ISBSG (International Software Benchmarking Standards Group) dataset to be used in SDEE. The aim is to show the usefulness of splitting the ranked list of features provided by a mutual information-based sequential FS approach in two, regarding categorical and continuous features. These lists are later recombined according to the accuracy of a case-based reasoning model. Thus, four FS algorithms are compared using a complete dataset with 621 projects and 12 features from ISBSG. On the one hand, two algorithms just consider the relevance, while the remaining two follow the criterion of maximizing relevance and also minimizing redundancy between any independent feature and the already selected features. On the other hand, the algorithms that do not discriminate between continuous and categorical features consider just one list, whereas those that differentiate them use two lists that are later combined. As a result, the algorithms that use two lists present better performance than those algorithms that use one list. Thus, it is meaningful to consider two different lists of features so that the categorical features may be selected more frequently.Ajenjo Vicente, II. (2020). Algoritmos de Feature Selection utilizados en estimación de esfuerzo de proyectos de desarrollo software. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/151255TFG

Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering

Get the most out of this foundational reference and improve the productivity of your software teams. This open access book collects the wisdom of the 2017 "Dagstuhl" seminar on productivity in software engineering, a meeting of community leaders, who came together with the goal of rethinking traditional definitions and measures of productivity. The results of their work, Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering, includes chapters covering definitions and core concepts related to productivity, guidelines for measuring productivity in specific contexts, best practices and pitfalls, and theories and open questions on productivity. You'll benefit from the many short chapters, each offering a focused discussion on one aspect of productivity in software engineering. Readers in many fields and industries will benefit from their collected work. Developers wanting to improve their personal productivity, will learn effective strategies for overcoming common issues that interfere with progress. Organizations thinking about building internal programs for measuring productivity of programmers and teams will learn best practices from industry and researchers in measuring productivity. And researchers can leverage the conceptual frameworks and rich body of literature in the book to effectively pursue new research directions. What You'll Learn Review the definitions and dimensions of software productivity See how time management is having the opposite of the intended effect Develop valuable dashboards Understand the impact of sensors on productivity Avoid software development waste Work with human-centered methods to measure productivity Look at the intersection of neuroscience and productivity Manage interruptions and context-switching Who Book Is For Industry developers and those responsible for seminar-style courses that include a segment on software developer productivity. Chapters are written for a generalist audience, without excessive use of technical terminology. ; Collects the wisdom of software engineering thought leaders in a form digestible for any developer Shares hard-won best practices and pitfalls to avoid An up to date look at current practices in software engineering productivit

Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering

Get the most out of this foundational reference and improve the productivity of your software teams. This open access book collects the wisdom of the 2017 "Dagstuhl" seminar on productivity in software engineering, a meeting of community leaders, who came together with the goal of rethinking traditional definitions and measures of productivity. The results of their work, Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering, includes chapters covering definitions and core concepts related to productivity, guidelines for measuring productivity in specific contexts, best practices and pitfalls, and theories and open questions on productivity. You'll benefit from the many short chapters, each offering a focused discussion on one aspect of productivity in software engineering. Readers in many fields and industries will benefit from their collected work. Developers wanting to improve their personal productivity, will learn effective strategies for overcoming common issues that interfere with progress. Organizations thinking about building internal programs for measuring productivity of programmers and teams will learn best practices from industry and researchers in measuring productivity. And researchers can leverage the conceptual frameworks and rich body of literature in the book to effectively pursue new research directions. What You'll Learn Review the definitions and dimensions of software productivity See how time management is having the opposite of the intended effect Develop valuable dashboards Understand the impact of sensors on productivity Avoid software development waste Work with human-centered methods to measure productivity Look at the intersection of neuroscience and productivity Manage interruptions and context-switching Who Book Is For Industry developers and those responsible for seminar-style courses that include a segment on software developer productivity. Chapters are written for a generalist audience, without excessive use of technical terminology. ; Collects the wisdom of software engineering thought leaders in a form digestible for any developer Shares hard-won best practices and pitfalls to avoid An up to date look at current practices in software engineering productivit

Leadership competencies in the requirements phase of IS/IT development projects

Doutoramento em GestãoWhile the successful implementation of an Information Systems/Information Technology (IS/IT) project is widely recognised as being a key research topic, yet recent surveys continue to show significant failure rates. Inadequate requirements management together with inadequate project management have frequently been identified as the principal causes of failure. As a result, the requirements phase has been considered to be one of the most critical phases of the IS/IT project life cycle, especially in relation to software development projects, where new systems must be defined. Moreover, a review of the literature suggests that management leadership is considered to be one of the most important factors in team, project and organisational effectiveness. Management leadership is regarded as being a vital factor in achieving project success, namely in the field of IS/IT. Further research acknowledges that leadership effectiveness may depend on contingency factors, such as the project type, or the project life cycle phase. However, few studies have focussed on the impact of leadership along the software project life cycle, and the literature review found no study that focusses on any particular phase. This is surprising, as the literature suggests that each phase has specific characteristics which are distinguishable by the activities that must be performed. Thus, this research study aims to integrate all these elements within a framework, through a multiple case study using exploratory research. Therefore, this framework will identify which leadership competencies are considered to be relevant to the requirements phase of software development projects’ life cycle. Contingency factors are also be identified and discussed, as well as their impact on the set of identified competencies. Finally, the practical and theoretical contribution of the results are presented, as well as new insights into the requirements and leadership research streams.O estudo da gestão de projetos de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação (SI/TIs) é largamente reconhecido como um tópico de investigação atual e relevante. No entanto, estudos empíricos recentes continuam a demonstrar um elevado nível de falhas no processo. Algumas das principais causas mais frequentemente identificadas envolvem a gestão inadequada de requisitos, bem como práticas inadequadas ao nível da gestão global do projeto. Assim, não é surpreendente que a fase que envolve as atividades dos requisitos seja considerada como uma das mais criticas fases de todo o ciclo de vida dos projetos de SI/TI, nomeadamente dos projetos de desenvolvimento de software onde se define um novo sistema a implementar. Para além disso, a revisão da literatura sugere que a liderança é considerada como um dos fatores mais importantes para a obtenção de eficácia das equipas, dos projetos e ainda das organizações. A liderança da gestão é considerada como um fator vital na obtenção do sucesso do projeto, nomeadamente na área dos SI/TIs. Adicionalmente, a literatura reconhece que a eficácia da liderança depende de fatores contingenciais, tais como o tipo de projeto ou a fase do ciclo de vida a que se aplica. No entanto, apenas uma pequena parte desses estudos focam o impacto da liderança ao longo do ciclo de vida do projeto. Surpreendentemente, não foi encontrado nenhum estudo que foque alguma fase em particular, mesmo considerando que a literatura sugere que diferentes fases têm características e atividades que as distingue das demais. Assim, este projeto de investigação pretende explorar a integração de todos estes elementos num quadro de análise comum, através da execução de múltiplos casos de estudos. Este quadro de análise pretende identificar quais as competências de liderança relevantes para a execução da fase de requisitos do ciclo de vida de projetos de desenvolvimento de software. Também se pretende explorar os fatores contingenciais que influenciam o conjunto de competências encontradas, bem como compreender a forma como isso se processa. Finalmente, são apresentadas as contribuições teóricas e práticas, e ainda enumerados os tópicos de investigação futura decorrentes dos resultados obtidos

Data Quality Challenges in Net-Work Automation Systems Case Study of a Multinational Financial Services Corporation

With the emerging trends of IPv6 rollout, Bring Your Own Device, virtualization, cloud computing and the Internet of Things, corporations are continuously facing challenges regarding data collection and analysis processes for multiple purposes. These challenges can also be applied to network monitoring practices: available data is used not only to assess network capacity and latency, but to identify possible security breaches and bottlenecks in network performance. This study will focus on assessing the collected network data from a multinational financial services corporation on its quality and attempts to link the concept of network data quality with process automation of network management and monitoring. Information Technology (IT) can be perceived as the lifeblood within the financial services industry, yet within the discussed case study the corporation strives to cut down operational expenditures on IT by 2,5 to 5 percent. This study combines both theoretical and practical approaches by conducting a literature review followed by a case study of abovementioned financial organization. The literature review focuses on (a) the importance of data quality, (b) IP Address Management (IPAM), and (c) network monitoring practices. The case study discusses the implementation of a network automation solution powered by Infoblox hardware and software, which should be capable of scanning all devices in the network along with DHCP lease history while having the convenience of easy IP address management mapping. Their own defined monitoring maturity levels are also taken into consideration. Twelve data quality issues have been identified using the network data management platform during the timeline of the research which potentially hinder the network management lifecycle of monitoring, configuration, and deployment. While network management systems are not designed to identify, document, and repair data quality issues, representing the network’s performance in terms of capability, latency and behavior is dependent on data quality on the dimensions of completeness, timeliness and accuracy. The conclusion of the research is that the newly implemented network automation system has potential to achieve better decision-making for relevant stakeholders, and to eliminate business silos by centralizing network data to one platform, supporting business strategy on an operational, tactical, and strategic level; however, data quality is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome to achieve process automation and ultimately to achieve a passive network appliance monitoring system.siirretty Doriast

Intercultural doctoral supervision: Barriers and enablers in international PhD students' cultural adaptation and academic identity formation in an Australian university

International higher education is an expanding sector of the Australian economy and a record number of international doctoral students were enrolled in Australian universities in 2018, mostly in the Group of Eight universities. Yet, there has been limited investigation into the role student educational and socio-cultural background plays in their successful adaptation, or the effects of cultural value differences on student-supervisor interaction and thesis completion. Drawing on the work of Kim (2012) on intercultural adaptation and Manathunga (2011; 2014) on transcultural learning, this study investigates how intercultural supervision affects international PhD students' cultural adaptation and academic identity formation in an Australian university. A qualitative dominant mixed methods case study research design was conducted within an Australian Group of Eight university. Qualitative and quantitative data was collected concurrently, and the data analysis and synthesis occurred over three years. The study included an online survey with 107 student responses and in-depth face to face interviews with 42 international students, 20 supervisors and four learning advisers. The study found that language proficiency is the main barrier to international students' academic adaptation and intercultural adjustment. Students' academic writing is a common problem for students, supervisors, learning advisers and department heads. Students' and supervisors' unexamined cultural assumptions often lead to unmet expectations. Also, students without a clear advanced understanding of the unstructured nature of the Australian PhD system, the critical role of the supervisor and the requirements for student independence and critical thinking take longer to be productive learners. For students, acquiring study and time management skills, having self-efficacy, a positive outlook and resilience act as buffers against the stresses of language, role and study shock. Supervisors who train and support their students in the behaviours, attitudes and values of becoming independent researchers, model cultural reflexivity, but lack opportunities to share their transcultural learning with others. The study concludes that intercultural supervision is more effective when cultural divides are crossed. By sharing their respective educational and cultural belief systems, mutual transcultural learning occurs, trust in the supervisor-student relationship is strengthened and student adaptation is expedited

Aeronautical engineering: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 140

This bibliography lists 386 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in September 1981

Sharing understandings of information systems development methodologies : a critical reflexive issue for practice and curriculum

Most contemporary organizations make use of computer-based information systems to support their management activities. There is considerable evidence that many of these systems experience problems during the development phases and a large proportion of these systems may, using specific criteria, be classed as failures. The reported high level of such failure in the development of computer-based information systems is not a new phenomenon for business, having been present almost from the inception of these systems. The frameworks that guide developers through the process can be labelled as information systems development methodologies, or ISDMs.For an educator involved with the teaching of some or all aspects of the development process this perceived high level of failure of systems development and implementation in practice raises some significant concerns. If there is a 'silver bullet' approach that students need to be equipped with to become successful systems developers we need to identify it and ensure that they are proficient with it. If there is no silver bullet we need to acknowledge this in our teaching and equip the students with the critical thinking skills to help them appreciate this in their later practice.This thesis takes as its central theme the view that there is currently no 'silver bullet' and one may never be found to fit all development projects and environments. Under such a constraint our students, as would-be practitioners, need to be helped to approach practice unfettered by a naïve belief that there is a single approach that offers guaranteed success in the development of information systems. Flexible, contingent and possibly creative approaches need to be fostered so that students can both work in the field and can contribute to both the overall understanding of that field and to their own personal development. The thesis considers the role of multiple perspectives, constructivism, language, communication and reflection as vehicles to allow the building and sharing of accessible understanding of information systems development methodologies in a tertiary education setting. The issues are explored through the design and development of a Masters course titled 'Information Systems Development Methodologies' that was designed and implemented at the University of South Australia in the period 1999 to 2008. The course was initially designed within an interpretivist paradigm and rather than following a traditional systems analysis and design path could be viewed more as a liberal arts course. However, as the course moved towards the end of its life it began to take on a more positivistic flavour.The story of the course emerged from a series of action learning cycles and is told from the perspective of the author who was both the researcher and the subject of the research.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo