Investigating Automatic Static Analysis Results to Identify Quality Problems: an Inductive Study

Background: Automatic static analysis (ASA) tools examine source code to discover "issues", i.e. code patterns that are symptoms of bad programming practices and that can lead to defective behavior. Studies in the literature have shown that these tools find defects earlier than other verification activities, but they produce a substantial number of false positive warnings. For this reason, an alternative approach is to use the set of ASA issues to identify defect prone files and components rather than focusing on the individual issues. Aim: We conducted an exploratory study to investigate whether ASA issues can be used as early indicators of faulty files and components and, for the first time, whether they point to a decay of specific software quality attributes, such as maintainability or functionality. Our aim is to understand the critical parameters and feasibility of such an approach to feed into future research on more specific quality and defect prediction models. Method: We analyzed an industrial C# web application using the Resharper ASA tool and explored if significant correlations exist in such a data set. Results: We found promising results when predicting defect-prone files. A set of specific Resharper categories are better indicators of faulty files than common software metrics or the collection of issues of all issue categories, and these categories correlate to different software quality attributes. Conclusions: Our advice for future research is to perform analysis on file rather component level and to evaluate the generalizability of categories. We also recommend using larger datasets as we learned that data sparseness can lead to challenges in the proposed analysis proces

Measuring the level of lean readiness of the Hong Kong's manufacturing industry

Increasingly competitive business environments have forced manufacturing organisations to continuously seek improvements in their production processes as an alternative to achieve operational excellence. Lean manufacturing principles and techniques based on the elimination waste have been widely used by manufacturing organisations around the world to drive such improvements. The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical study that evaluates the readiness level of the Hong Kong’s manufacturing industry to provide a foundation for the successful implementation and/or sustainment of lean practices. To conduct this study, the paper adapts an assessment framework developed by Al-Najem et al. [16]. Thus, the lean readiness assessment is based on six quality practices (i.e. planning & control; processes; human resources; customer relations; supplier relations; and top management & leadership) related to lean manufacturing. One research question and three hypotheses were formulated and tested using a combination of inferential statics (i.e. Levene’s test and t-test) and descriptive statistics. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire responded by 9 manufacturing organisations with operations in Hong Kong. The findings suggest that the Hong Kong’s manufacturing organisations surveyed do not currently have a well-developed foundation to implement or sustain lean manufacturing. In particular, these organisations present important opportunities to further develop some quality practices such as processes, planning & control, customer relations, supplier relations, human resources, and top management & leadership. The improvement of these quality practices will ensure, according to Al-Najem et al.’s [16] framework, a more effective implementation and sustainment of lean manufacturing in their operations

Performance Improvements through Implementation of Lean Practices: A Study of the U.K. Red Meat Industry

'Lean' is an established industrial paradigm with proven track record in various sectors of the industry (Womack & Jones, 1996). World-class Companies such as Toyota (second biggest global car manufacturer), Porsche (most profitable global OEM), Boeing (largest global aerospace business) and Tesco (third largest global retailer) have adopted Lean at the corporate level. This paper reports on the introduction of 'Lean Thinking' to a new sector - the 'Red Meat Industry' (Food Chain Centre, 2004). This contribution highlights the benefits of lean production techniques in different stages of the red meat value chain and reports 2- 3% potential cost savings at each stage of the chain.Lean process, red meat industry, Takt-time, work standardization, Livestock Production/Industries,

Deconstructing Clusters: Chaotic Concept or Policy Panacea

Recently there has been growing interest in local industrial agglomeration and specialisation, by economic geographers, economists and policy-makers. Michael Porter's work on 'clusters' has proved by far the most influential to have emerged. His 'cluster theory' has become the standard concept in the field, and policy-makers worldwide have seized upon it as a tool for promoting national, regional and local competitiveness, innovation and growth. However, seductive though the cluster concept is, there is much about it that is problematic, and the rush to employ 'cluster ideas' has run ahead of many fundamental conceptual, theoretical and empirical questions. Our aim is to deconstruct the cluster concept in order to reveal and highlight our concerns relating to the definition of the cluster concept, its theorisation, its empirics, the claims made for its benefits and advantages, and its use in policy-making.business location, clusters, chaotic concept, cluster theory, cluster policy

Improving the efficacy of the lean index through the quantification of qualitative lean metrics

Multiple lean metrics representing performance for various aspects of lean can be consolidated into one holistic measure for lean, called the lean index, of which there are two types. In this article it was established that the qualitative based lean index are subjective while the quantitative types lack scope. Subsequently, an appraisal is done on techniques for quantifying qualitative lean metrics so that the lean index is a hybrid of both, increasing the confidence in the information derived using the lean index. This ensures every detail of lean within a system is quantified, allowing daily tracking of lean. The techniques are demonstrated in a print packaging manufacturing case

Moving on - beyond lean thinking

Lean Thinking is currently often positioned as the underlying theory of lean production among practitioners and academics, although its originators, Womack and Jones, seem not to have presented it as a theory. This paper endeavors to analyze whether Lean Thinking can be viewed as a theory of lean production. For this purpose, a critical assessment of Lean Thinking is carried out. Lean Thinking is argued to lack an adequate conceptualization of production, which has led to imprecise concepts, such as the term “value”. The five principles of Lean Thinking do not orderly cover value generation, and they do not always encapsulate the core topics in their respective areas. The failure to trace the origin of lean concepts and principles reduces the opportunity to justify and explain them. Despite claims for generality, the application area of the five lean principles is limited to the transformation of mass production, with, for instance, one-of-a-kind production and construction being largely out of scope. It is concluded that it is opportune to move on beyond Lean Thinking, towards a generic theory of production, for acquiring a solid foundation for designing, operating and improving production systems

Computation of Steady Incompressible Flows in Unbounded Domains

In this study we revisit the problem of computing steady Navier-Stokes flows in two-dimensional unbounded domains. Precise quantitative characterization of such flows in the high-Reynolds number limit remains an open problem of theoretical fluid dynamics. Following a review of key mathematical properties of such solutions related to the slow decay of the velocity field at large distances from the obstacle, we develop and carefully validate a spectrally-accurate computational approach which ensures the correct behavior of the solution at infinity. In the proposed method the numerical solution is defined on the entire unbounded domain without the need to truncate this domain to a finite box with some artificial boundary conditions prescribed at its boundaries. Since our approach relies on the streamfunction-vorticity formulation, the main complication is the presence of a discontinuity in the streamfunction field at infinity which is related to the slow decay of this field. We demonstrate how this difficulty can be overcome by reformulating the problem using a suitable background "skeleton" field expressed in terms of the corresponding Oseen flow combined with spectral filtering. The method is thoroughly validated for Reynolds numbers spanning two orders of magnitude with the results comparing favourably against known theoretical predictions and the data available in the literature.Comment: 39 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in "Computers and Fluids

Significance of floods in metal dynamics and export in a small agricultural catchment

High-resolution monitoring of water discharge and water sampling were performed between early October 2006 and late September 2007 in the Montoussé River, a permanent stream draining an experimental agricultural catchment in Gascogne region (SW France). Dissolved and particulate concentrations of major elements and trace metals (i.e. Al, Fe, Mn, As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Sc and Zn) were examined. Our results showed that contamination levels were deficient to moderate, as a result of sustainable agricultural practices. Regarding dynamics, metal partitioning between particulate and dissolved phases was altered during flood conditions: the particulate phase was diluted by coarser and less contaminated particles from river bottom and banks, whereas the liquid phase was rapidly enriched owing to desorption mechanisms. Soluble/reactive elements were washed-off from soils at the beginning of the rain episode. The contribution of the flood event of May 2007 (by far the most significant episode over the study period) to the annual metal export was considerable for particulate forms (72–82%) and moderate for dissolved elements (0–20%). The hydrological functioning of the Montoussé stream poses dual threat on ecosystems, the consequences of which differ from both temporal and spatial scales: (i) desorption processes at the beginning of floods induce locally a rapid enrichment (up to 3.4-fold the pre-flood signatures on average for the event of May 2007) of waters in bioavailable metals, and (ii) labile metals – enriched by anthropogenic sources – associated to particles (mainly via carbonates and Fe/Mn oxides), were predominantly transferred during floods into downstream-connected rivers

Protecting Shoreland and Riparian Buffers Workshop (2007)

The New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP) organized and implemented a workshop on protecting shoreland and riparian buffers. A number of other organizations, including three regional planning commissions, NH Fish and Game Department, NH Department of Environmental Services, Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, and UNH Cooperative Extension, were involved in the planning and execution of the workshop. The workshop was designed to provide information and tools to encourage greater municipal regulatory protections for buffers. The workshop was held three times in October and November 2007 and attended by 75 people, primarily planning board and conservation commission members