A heuristic-based approach to code-smell detection

Encapsulation and data hiding are central tenets of the object oriented paradigm. Deciding what data and behaviour to form into a class and where to draw the line between its public and private details can make the difference between a class that is an understandable, flexible and reusable abstraction and one which is not. This decision is a difficult one and may easily result in poor encapsulation which can then have serious implications for a number of system qualities. It is often hard to identify such encapsulation problems within large software systems until they cause a maintenance problem (which is usually too late) and attempting to perform such analysis manually can also be tedious and error prone. Two of the common encapsulation problems that can arise as a consequence of this decomposition process are data classes and god classes. Typically, these two problems occur together – data classes are lacking in functionality that has typically been sucked into an over-complicated and domineering god class. This paper describes the architecture of a tool which automatically detects data and god classes that has been developed as a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE. The technique has been evaluated in a controlled study on two large open source systems which compare the tool results to similar work by Marinescu, who employs a metrics-based approach to detecting such features. The study provides some valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the two approache

Work Teams

Work teams are composed of two or more individuals; who exist to perform organizationally relevant tasks; share one or more common goals; interact socially; exhibit interdependencies in task workflows, goals, and/or outcomes; maintain and manage boundaries; and are embedded in a broader organizational context that sets boundaries, constrains the team, and influences exchanges with other units in the organization. Work team effectiveness is enabled by team processes that combine individual efforts into a collective product

Consciosusness in Cognitive Architectures. A Principled Analysis of RCS, Soar and ACT-R

This report analyses the aplicability of the principles of consciousness developed in the ASys project to three of the most relevant cognitive architectures. This is done in relation to their aplicability to build integrated control systems and studying their support for general mechanisms of real-time consciousness.\ud To analyse these architectures the ASys Framework is employed. This is a conceptual framework based on an extension for cognitive autonomous systems of the General Systems Theory (GST).\ud A general qualitative evaluation criteria for cognitive architectures is established based upon: a) requirements for a cognitive architecture, b) the theoretical framework based on the GST and c) core design principles for integrated cognitive conscious control systems

Hierarchical Economic Agents and their Interactions

We present a new type of spin market model, populated by hierarchical agents, represented as configurations of sites and arcs in an evolving network. We describe two analytic techniques for investigating the asymptotic behavior of this model: one based on the spectral theory of Markov chains and another exploiting contingent submartingales to construct a deterministic cellular automaton that approximates the stochastic dynamics. Our study of this system documents a phase transition between a sub-critical and a super-critical regime based on the values of a coupling constant that modulates the tradeoff between local majority and global minority forces. In conclusion, we offer a speculative socioeconomic interpretation of the resulting distributional properties of the system.Comment: 38 pages, 13 figures, presented at the 2013 WEHIA conference; to appear in Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, to appear in Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordinatio

"Team chemistry" through chemistry lenses: Interdisciplinary science or a metaphorical conundrum?

A Google search on “team chemistry” returns over 443,000 entries (October 2014) usually denoting some sort of team process, such as cohesion, shared mental models, and collective efficacy. Practitioners (e.g., athletic coaches and business managers) often emphasize the importance of team chemistry for optimal performance. For instance, former NFL quarterback and current business executive Roger Staubach noted that “In any team sport, the best teams have consistency and chemistry.” Researchers in performance psychology also allude to the notion of “team chemistry” when discussing exceptional teams (Levine, 1994; Gershgoren et al., 2013)

Extent of Fock-exchange mixing for a hybrid van der Waals density functional?

The vdW-DF-cx0 exchange-correlation hybrid design has a truly nonlocal correlation component and aims to facilitate concurrent descriptions of both covalent and non-covalent molecular interactions. The vdW-DF-cx0 design mixes a fixed ratio, $a$, of Fock exchange into the consistent-exchange van der Waals density functional, vdW-DF-cx. The mixing value $a$ is sometimes taken as a semi-empirical parameter in hybrid formulations. Here, instead, we assert a plausible optimum average $a$ value for the vdW-DF-cx0 design from a formal analysis; A new, independent determination of the mixing $a$ is necessary since the Becke fit, yielding $a'=0.2$, is restricted to semilocal correlation and does not reflect non-covalent interactions. To proceed, we adapt the so-called two-legged hybrid construction to a starting point in the vdW-DF-cx functional. For our approach, termed vdW-DF-tlh, we estimate the properties of the adiabatic-connection specification of the exact exchange-correlation functional, by combining calculations of the Fock exchange and of the coupling-constant variation in vdW-DF-cx. We find that such vdW-DF-tlh hybrid constructions yield accurate characterizations of molecular. The accuracy motivates trust in the vdW-DF-tlh determination of system-specific values of the Fock-exchange mixing. We find that an average value $a'=0.2$ best characterizes the vdW-DF-tlh description of covalent and non-covalent interactions, although there exists some scatter. This finding suggests that the original Becke value, $a'=0.2$, also represents an optimal average Fock-exchange mixing for the new, truly nonlocal-correlation hybrids. To enable self-consistent calculations, we furthermore define and test a zero-parameter hybrid functional vdW-DF-cx0p (having fixed mixing $a'=0.2$) and document that this truly nonlocal correlation hybrid works for general molecular interactions.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures, accepted by J. Chem. Phy

Principles for Consciousness in Integrated Cognitive Control

In this article we will argue that given certain conditions for the evolution of bi- \ud ological controllers, these will necessarily evolve in the direction of incorporating \ud consciousness capabilities. We will also see what are the necessary mechanics for \ud the provision of these capabilities and extrapolate this vision to the world of artifi- \ud cial systems postulating seven design principles for conscious systems. This article \ud was published in the journal Neural Networks special issue on brain and conscious- \ud ness