A Software Engineering Schema for Data Intensive Applications

The features developed by a software engineer (system specification) for a software system may significantly differ from the features required by a user (user requirements) for their envisioned system. These discrepancies are generally resulted from the complexity of the system, the vagueness of the user requirements, or the lack of knowledge and experience of the software engineer. The principles of software engineering and the recommendations of the ACM's Software Engineering Education Knowledge (SEEK) document can provide solutions to minimize these discrepancies; in turn, improve the quality of a software system and increase user satisfaction. In this paper, a software development framework, called SETh, is presented. The SETh framework consists of a set of visual models that support software engineering education and practices in a systematic manner. It also enables backward tracking/tracing and forward tracking/tracing capabilities - two important concepts that can facilitate the greenfield and evolutionary type software engineering projects. The SETh framework connects every step of the development of a software system tightly; hence, the learners and the experienced software engineers can study, understand, and build efficient software systems for emerging data science applications

A Systematic Literature Review on Blockchain Technology in Software Engineering

Blockchain technology is gaining increasing interest among software developers as a distributed and decentralized ledger for tracking the origin of digital assets. However, the application of blockchain in software engineering requires further attention. In this study, we aim to address the current challenges and explore the need for specialized blockchain practices in software engineering. Through a systematic literature review, we identify the various applications of blockchain technology in software engineering. Additionally, we conduct a thorough analysis of existing obstacles and propose potential solutions. Gathering and evaluating requirements using blockchain-based requirements engineering approaches will enhance the quality and reliability of data in software development projects. This, in turn, will improve the overall quality and dependability of software, as well as increase user interest and productivity

A robust digital image watermarking using repetition codes against common attacks

Digital watermarking is hiding the information inside a digital media to protect for such documents against malicious intentions to change such documents or even claim the rights of such documents. Currently the capability of repetition codes on various attacks in not sufficiently studied. In this project, a robust frequency domain watermarking scheme has been implemented using Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT). The idea of this scheme is to embed an encoded watermark using repetition code (3, 1) inside the cover image pixels based on Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) embedding technique. The proposed methods have undergone several simulation attacks tests in order to check up and compare their robustness against various attacks, like salt and pepper, speckle, compress, Gaussian, image contrast, resizing and cropping attack. The robustness of the watermarking scheme has been calculated using Peak Signal-To-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Mean Squared Error (MSE) and Normalized Correlations (NC). In our experiments, the results show that the robustness of a watermark with repetition codes is much better than without repetition code

Monitoring Climate Finance in Developing Countries: Challenges and Next Steps

At the 18th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the parties agreed to a standard format for developed countries to follow when reporting on the climate finance they provide to developing countries. Developed countries will use these formats for the first time when they submit their Biennial Reports to the UNFCCC in early 2014. Later in 2014, developing countries are expected to submit Biennial Update Reports showing the financial support that they have received. From initial attempts to measure and report climate finance by developed and developing countries, it is already apparent that information on finance provided is unlikely to match information on finance received.Aside from the reporting requirements of the UNFCCC, better financial data can help decision makers in developing countries identify gaps, improve coordination and management, and raise funds to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Better climate finance information can also enable countries to draw lessons from the use of different financial instruments and develop strategies and policies that aim to expand finance for climate change. Improved data will allow the information reported by developed countries to be cross-checked, thus promoting transparency, completeness, and accuracy. Finally, it can contribute to a more comprehensive picture of climate financial flows in relation to development assistance at the national and international levels. This working paper reports on three workshops in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, in which participants discussed some of the steps that developing countries and their international partners can take toward monitoring and tracking climate finance more effectively. More than 40 representatives from 20 developing countries, regional development banks, and national organizations attended the three workshops. Participants shared information on the limits of existing legislation and mandates, national planning and approval processes, financial management systems, efforts to coordinate among ministries and development partners, and many other unique challenges faced by the participating countries. WRI obtained additional information via a questionnaire, follow-up correspondence, and interviews with representatives of the countries

Process capability assessments in small development firms

[Abstract}: Assessment-based Software Process Improvement (SPI) programs such as the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), Bootstrap, and SPICE (ISO/IEC 15504) are based on formal frameworks and promote the use of systematic processes and management practices for software development. These approaches identify best practices for the management of software development and when applied, enable organizations to understand, control and improve development processes. The purpose of a SPI assessment is to compare the current processes used in an organization with a list of recommended or ‘best’ practices. This research investigates the adoption of SPI initiatives by four small software development firms. These four firms participated in a process improvement program which was sponsored by Software Engineering Australia (SEA) (Queensland). The assessment method was based on SPICE (ISO/IEC 15504) and included an initial assessment, recommendations, and a follow-up meeting. For each firm, before and after snapshots are provided of the capability as assessed on eight processes. The discussion which follows summarizes the improvements realized and considers the critical success factors relating to SPI adoption for small firms