An empirical study into COBOL type inferencing

AbstractIn a typical COBOL program, the data division consists of 50% of the lines of code. Automatic type inference can help to understand the large collections of variable declarations contained therein, showing how variables are related based on their actual usage. The most problematic aspect of type inference is pollution, the phenomenon that types become too large, and contain variables that intuitively should not belong to the same type. The aim of the paper is to provide empirical evidence for the hypothesis that the use of subtyping is an effective way for dealing with pollution. The main results include a tool set to carry out type inference experiments, a suite of metrics characterizing type inference outcomes, and the experimental observation that only one instance of pollution occurs in the case study conducted

The Sixth Annual Workshop on Space Operations Applications and Research (SOAR 1992)

This document contains papers presented at the Space Operations, Applications, and Research Symposium (SOAR) hosted by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) on 4-6 Aug. 1992 and held at the JSC Gilruth Recreation Center. The symposium was cosponsored by the Air Force Material Command and by NASA/JSC. Key technical areas covered during the symposium were robotic and telepresence, automation and intelligent systems, human factors, life sciences, and space maintenance and servicing. The SOAR differed from most other conferences in that it was concerned with Government-sponsored research and development relevant to aerospace operations. The symposium's proceedings include papers covering various disciplines presented by experts from NASA, the USAF, universities, and industry

An overview of decision table literature 1982-1995.

This report gives an overview of the literature on decision tables over the past 15 years. As much as possible, for each reference, an author supplied abstract, a number of keywords and a classification are provided. In some cases own comments are added. The purpose of these comments is to show where, how and why decision tables are used. The literature is classified according to application area, theoretical versus practical character, year of publication, country or origin (not necessarily country of publication) and the language of the document. After a description of the scope of the interview, classification results and the classification by topic are presented. The main body of the paper is the ordered list of publications with abstract, classification and comments.

A program transformation step prediction based reengineering approach

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Technology 2003: The Fourth National Technology Transfer Conference and Exposition, volume 2

Proceedings from symposia of the Technology 2003 Conference and Exposition, Dec. 7-9, 1993, Anaheim, CA, are presented. Volume 2 features papers on artificial intelligence, CAD&E, computer hardware, computer software, information management, photonics, robotics, test and measurement, video and imaging, and virtual reality/simulation

Institutionalization and de-institutionalization processes in the UK healthcare system : the role of emerging technologies

This thesis is a result of a research project that examines the Information Systems strategy of the National Health Service (NHS). The researcher followed the process of implementing a Primary Service Provision (PSP). PSP is an initiative by the NHS Information Authority (NHSIA) to develop and establish a National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT)—a means of providing a useable electronic health record nationally to the UK. Five case studies are presented in the thesis, containing: 1. Two primary care facilities; 2. Three secondary care facilities; These cases were developed as a result of studying the internal processes, decision and support paths applied individually in the NHS. The research approach adopts qualitative and interpretative analysis that includes longitudinal case studies. This multiple case study approach has an embedded design incorporating the components of work business processes as subunits to enhance insight. Data was collected predominantly from interviews supported by archive material, documents, and direct observation. Overlapping cross case, and within case analysis was undertaken, using Activity Records, Strategic Choice Analysis, and concepts supported by various researchers in the past (Avgerou & Cornford, 1993; Davenport, 1993; Eisenhardt, 1989; Galliers, 1991). While it might be possible for similar processes to result in different solution when adopted in another research context, in these seven cases quite different approaches were taken. The Thesis concludes that while the core processes were the same across the cases, the following issues combined together to lead to quite different approaches in each case: 1. The detail of the IS strategic processes; 2. The variation in the contexts; 3. The logic of the decision process as they evolved; and 4. The view of the actors involved. The researcher is of a strong belief that as time progresses and experience is gained and the situation with NPfIT evolves, the various actors would change their views towards IS strategy. This could result in changes in the overall NHS IS business model and healthcare delivery process support. This assumption, however, could be affected by the appearance of very little transfer of knowledge—across different parts of the NHS—regarding past experience with IS implementation. The author argues that NPfIT mainly serves to diffuse information and communication technologies in the NHS. As a result the NPfIT is changing the way by which the NHS competes and meets the needs of it patients, the business model and the value-creating processes. New opportunities are also taking place introducing new healthcare delivery processes and modifying the existing processes

Patterns of Change: Can modifiable software have high coupling?

There are few aspects of modern life that remain unaffected by software, and as our day-to-day challenges change, so too must our software. Software systems are complex, and as they grow larger and more interconnected, they become more difficult to modify due to excessive change propagation. This is known as the ripple effect. The primary strategies to mitigate it are modular design, and minimization of coupling, or between-module interaction. However, analysis of complex networks has shown that many are scale-free, which means that they contain some components that are highly connected. The presence of scale-free structure implies high coupling, which suggests that software systems may be hard to modify because they suffer from the ripple effect. In this thesis, a large corpus of open-source software systems is analysed to determine whether software systems are scale-free, whether scale-free structure results in high coupling, and whether high coupling results in ripple effects that propagate change to a large proportion of classes. The results show that all systems in the corpus are scale-free and that that property results in high coupling. However, analysis of system evolution reveals that existing code is modified infrequently and that there is rarely sufficient evidence to be confident that ripple effects involving a high proportion of classes have actually occurred. This thesis concludes first that while it is desirable to avoid excessive interconnectivity, it is difficult to completely eliminate high coupling; and second, that the presence of high coupling does not necessarily imply poor system design

Migration d'interfaces utilisateurs textuelles de systèmes patrimoniaux vers le Web

Les interfaces utilisateurs détiennent une importance non négligeable dans tout logiciel applicatif, car elles constituent le premier contact entre les utilisateurs et le logiciel. La migration d'interfaces utilisateurs textuelles de systèmes patrimoniaux vers le Web vise à remédier les problèmes liés à l'accès limité de tels systèmes tout en améliorant l'aspect et la convivialité de ces interfaces. Fréquemment, cela implique à la fois le changement de la plate-forme d'exécution - d'une plate-forme textuelle vers une architecture Web - et la refonte complète des interfaces vers une technologie de présentation Web. Ce mémoire est une synthèse des méthodes et des techniques de migration d'interfaces utilisateurs textuelles vers le Web. Nous y abordons, dans un premier temps, les notions reliées aux systèmes patrimoniaux et au Web. Cela permet d'établir le contexte de notre étude à savoir l'environnement de départ et l'environnement cible dans une migration d'interfaces utilisateurs vers le Web. Dans un deuxième temps, nous exposons différentes techniques et approches de migration d'interfaces utilisateurs. Finalement, nous terminons notre présentation avec trois exemples de plates-formes de migration d'interfaces utilisateurs