System and Software Requirements in Relation to Observability and Explainability

Software maintenance and evolution are crucial aspects of software development. In today's world, observability and explainability are becoming essential requirements for software systems. This research paper investigates the relationship between software maintenance and evolution with observability and explainability. The paper explores the importance of observability and explainability in software systems and how they impact the maintenance and evolution of software systems. The research paper presents various techniques and tools for achieving observability and explainability in software systems. The paper also highlights the challenges and future research directions in the field of software maintenance and evolution in relation to observability and explainability

SOFTWARE REUSE: ISSUES AND RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

Software reuse has been considered as a means to help solve the software development crisis. This paper surveys recent work based on the broad framework of software reusability research, and suggests directions for future research. We address general, technical, and non-technical issues of software reuse, and conclude that reuse needs to be viewed in the context of a total systems approach. We also envision a software system or reuse support system(RSS) that helps document and elucidate existing application systems so that the ideas and design decisions involved in their creation can be reused either in the context of maintenance or when building new systems.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

A Survey and Comparison of Industrial and Academic Research on the Evolution of Software Product Lines

Past research on software product lines has focused on the initial development of reusable assets and related challenges, such as cost estimation and implementation issues. Naturally, as software product lines are increasingly adopted throughout industry, their ongoing maintenance and evolution are getting more attention as well. However, it is not clear to what degree research is following this trend, and where the interests and demands of the industry lie. In this technical report, we provide a survey and comparison of selected publications on software product line maintenance and evolution at SPLC. In particular, we analyze and discuss similarities and differences of these papers with regard to their affiliation with industry and academia. From this, we infer directions for future research that pave the way for systematic and organized evolution of software product lines, from which industry may benefit as well.Comment: 8 page

FACTORS AFFECTING SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE PRODUCTIVITY: AN EXPLORATORY STUDYl

Systems developers and researchers have long been interested in the factors that affect software development productivity. Identification of factors as either aiding or hindering productivity enables management to take steps to encourage the positive influences and to eliminate the negative ones. This research has explored the possibility of developing an estimable model of software development productivity using a frontier estimation method. The approach taken is based upon output metrics for the entire project life-cycle, and includes project quality metrics. A large number of factors potentially affecting software maintenance productivity were included in this initial investigation. The empirical analysis of a pilot data set indicated that high project quality did not necessarily reduce project productivity. Significant factors in explaining positive variations in productivity included project team capability and good system response (turnaround) time. Factors significantly associated with negative variations in productivity included lack of team application experience and high project staff loading, The use of a new structured analysis and design methodology also resulted in lower short term productivity. These preliminary results have suggested a number of new research directions and have prompted the data-site to begin a full scale data collection effort in order to validate a model of software maintenance productivity

Computer-Aided Warehouse Engineering (CAWE): Leveraging MDA and ADM for the Development of Data Warehouses

During the last decade, data warehousing has reached a high maturity and is a well-accepted technology in decision support systems. Nevertheless, development and maintenance are still tedious tasks since the systems grow over time and complex architectures have been established. The paper at hand adopts the concepts of Model Driven Architecture (MDA) and Architecture Driven Modernization (ADM) taken from the software engineering discipline to the data warehousing discipline. We show the works already available, outline further research directions and give hints for implementation of Computer-Aided Warehouse Engineering systems

owards Mature Measurement Programs

Many organizations are using measurement as a means to improve their software development and maintenance processes. A reasonable consensus has been reached about the main success factors for measurement programs. However, no comprehensive approach has so far been published for the processes that need to be in place to ensure effective and efficient measurement. We propose a capability maturity model for measurement that can be used to both assess the measurement capability of software organizations and to identify directions for improvement of their measurement capability. This `Measurement-CMM' originates from our efforts to establish measurement programs in a variety of settings. These efforts had mixed results, and our analysis thereof showed widely different measurement capabilities amongst the organizations involved. A measurement maturity scale similar to that of the Software-CMM allowed us to explain many of the differences observed. At the same time, it suggests ways to impro..

Using skip lists in the implementation of a hypertext tool for maintenance programmers

This thesis presents a hypertext browser tool mainly for maintenance phase of software development. As the maintenance phase is the most costly and time-consuming phase in the whole process of software development and system evolution, our tool is aimed at providing support to maintenance programmers for better understanding of existing code and maintaining of large applications. With this tool, programmers can setup link between identifiers and their definitions, browse through source code, have easy access to definitions of any user defined identifiers and routines through hypertext, and inspect each occurrences of an identifier, which can be highlighted in browser window, of any file. But our tool is not limited to the maintenance phase activities. It can be used in any phases with text documentation, such as the important phases like the design and implementation phases. Our tool can also provide assistance to designers and developers by supporting documentation inspection. In this thesis, we surveyed software development environments and supporting tools. From our survey, we understand the development history and future directions in this area. This helps the design and implementation decisions of our tool. Some future applications of this tool are also discussed. Our tool will be more completed and helpful to maintenance programmers with these future enhancement. We believe this will brighten the future of our tool

Design and implementation of a low-power low-cost smart embedded system for remote animal monitoring

This Master’s thesis serves as the foundation for an innovative wildlife monitoring system, encompassing hardware design, firmware and software development, and offering insights into future directions. Leveraging the research group’s extensive experience in research, development, and field deployment of wildlife technology solutions, the thesis has culminated in a device with versatile capabilities suitable for a wide range of applications. A central focus of this work is on energy efficiency, prioritizing low-power operation to facilitate extended field deployments and reduce maintenance requirements. The integration of AI capabilities is a core component, enabling real-time data analysis within the embedded system. The system’s architecture is thoughtfully designed to seamlessly integrate data from diverse sources, including visual, acoustic, and environmental inputs, providing comprehensive insights into the natural world. Modularity in communication networks empowers the system to adapt to varying project requirements and network environments. The successful integration of hardware and software components enhances system performance, ensuring seamless data flow and efficient communication between different modules. The thesis underscores the importance of comprehensive testing, performance characterization, and real-world field testing for future research. In summary, this work represents a crucial step in the development of a versatile, energy-efficient, and AI-enhanced wildlife monitoring system with the potential to make substantial contributions to the field of conservation technology.Universidad de Sevilla. Máster Universitario en Microelectrónica: Diseño y Aplicaciones de Sistemas Micro/Nanométrico

Recent Trends in Software Engineering Research As Seen Through Its Publications

This study provides some insight into the field of software engineering through analysis of its recent research publications. Data for this study are taken from the ACM\u27s Guide to Computing Literature (GUIDE) They include both the professionally assigned Computing Classification System (CCS) descriptors and the title text of each software engineering publication reviewed by the GUIDE from 1998 through 2001. The first part of this study provides a snapshot of software engineering by applying co-word analysis techniques to the data. This snapshot indicates recent themes or areas of interest, which, when compared with the results from earlier studies, reveal current trends in software engineering. Software engineering continues to have no central focus. Concepts like software development, process improvement, applications, parallelism, and user interfaces are persistent and, thus, help define the field, but they provide little guidance for researchers or developers of academic curricula. Of more interest and use are the specific themes illuminated by this study, which provide a clearer indication of the current interests of the field. Two prominent themes are the related issues of programming-in-the-large and best practices. Programming-in-the-large is the term often applied to large-scale and long-term software development, where project and people management, code reusability, performance measures, documentation, and software maintenance issues take on special importance. These issues began emerging in earlier periods, but seem to have risen to prominence during the current period. Another important discovery is the trend in software development toward using networking and the Internet. Many network- and Internet-related descriptors were added to the CCS in 1998. The prominent appearance and immediate use of these descriptors during this period indicate that this is a real trend and not just an aberration caused by their recent addition. The titles of the period reflect the prominent themes and trends. In addition to corroborating the keyword analysis, the title text confirms the relevance of the CCS and its most recent revision. By revealing current themes and trends in software engineering, this study provides some guidance to the developers of academic curricula and indicates directions for further research and study