Analysis of Software Process Improvement Activities in SMEs: A Systematic Literature Review

This Software industry is a very significant cog in today’s economic landscape. The majority of these organizations mainly comprise small and medium enterprises (SMEs). These enterprises aim to benefit from Software Process Improvement (SPI) activities in producing high-quality products and services in competitive business environments. For this purpose, SPI models have been developed for specific SME characteristics. In this study, we performed a systematic literature review to analyze the characteristics of these SPI models, the challenges of performing SPI activities in SMEs, and the critical success factors for SPI activities. In this context, 61 articles published from 2007 to 2020 were examined, as a result, 28 SPI models used in SMEs were found out. In addition, ten different situations that make SPI implementations challenging in SMEs and seven factors that affect the success of SPI studies in SMEs were reported

Assessment of factors affecting the software process improvement in small organizations

Software process improvement implies a set of complex and systematic activities of software engineering. It requires theory and models established in management, technical and social sciences. The improvement is based on the assumption that the organization if it owns mature and capable processes, would be able to deliver quality software on time and in line with predicted costs. The maturity models are initially aimed for implementation in enterprise software organizations, government organizations and within the military industry. Their complexity and the size make them difficult to use in small software organizations and companies. In such organizations the interest for use and the efforts to make an efficient and effective organization is always presented, though. In this paper, the basic and derived capability maturity models are described and cases from their implementation are analyzed, along with assessment of results of such projects in business practices. The problem of the software process improvement in small organizations is described, extracting the risks and recommendations for its enhancement. These recommendations are provided in order to set up a foundation for implementation of these models in a specific managerial and organizational environment characterized by small organizations

Following the donor-designed path to Mozambique’s US<i></i>$2.2 billion secret debt deal

Strenuous efforts by donors and lenders over four decades turned Mozambique from a socialist success story into a neoliberal capitalist one. The private sector dominates; a domestic elite dependent on foreign companies has been created. But a secret US$2 billion arms and fishing boat deal involving Swiss and Russian banks and Mozambican purchases from France, Germany, and Israel, with large profits on all sides, was a step too far down the donor’s capitalist road. The International Monetary Fund cut off its programme and western donors ended budget support

Expanding software process improvement models beyond the software process itself

Bibliography: pages 182-188.The problems besetting software development and maintenance are well recorded and numerous strategies have been adopted over the years to overcome the so-called "software crisis". One increasingly popular strategy focuses on managing the processes by which software is built, maintained and managed. As such, many software organisations see software process improvement initiatives as an important strategy to help them improve their software development and maintenance performance. Two of the more popular software process improvement (SPI) models used by the software industry to help them in this endeavour are the Capability Maturity Model for Software (SW-CMM) from the Software Engineering Institute and the Software Process Improvement and Capability determination (SPICE) model from the International Standards Organisation. This research begins with the supposition that, although these SPI models have added significant value to many organisations, they have a potential shortcoming in that they tend to focus almost exclusively on the software process itself and seem to neglect other organisational aspects that could contribute to improved software development and maintenance performance. This research is concerned with exploring this potential shortcoming and identifying complementary improvement areas that the SW -CMM and SPICE models fail to address adequately. A theoretical framework for extending the SW-CMM and SPICE models is proposed. Thereafter complementary improvement areas are identified and integrated with the SW-CMM and SPICE models to develop an Extended SPI Model. This Extended SPI Model adopts a systemic view of software process and IS organisational improvement by addressing a wide range of complementary improvement considerations. A case study of an SPI project is described, with the specific objective of testing and refining the Extended SPI Model. The results seem to indicate that the framework and Extended SPI Model are largely valid, although a few changes were made in light of the findings of the case study. Finally, the implications of the research for both theory and practice are discussed

Current and Novel Inhibitors of HIV Protease

The design, development and clinical success of HIV protease inhibitors represent one of the most remarkable achievements of molecular medicine. This review describes all nine currently available FDA-approved protease inhibitors, discusses their pharmacokinetic properties, off-target activities, side-effects, and resistance profiles. The compounds in the various stages of clinical development are also introduced, as well as alternative approaches, aiming at other functional domains of HIV PR. The potential of these novel compounds to open new way to the rational drug design of human viruses is critically assessed

A rapid change in virulence gene expression during the transition from the intestinal lumen into tissue promotes systemic dissemination of Salmonella.

Bacterial pathogens causing systemic disease commonly evolve from organisms associated with localized infections but differ from their close relatives in their ability to overcome mucosal barriers by mechanisms that remain incompletely understood. Here we investigated whether acquisition of a regulatory gene, tviA, contributed to the ability of Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi to disseminate from the intestine to systemic sites of infection during typhoid fever. To study the consequences of acquiring a new regulator by horizontal gene transfer, tviA was introduced into the chromosome of S. enterica serotype Typhimurium, a closely related pathogen causing a localized gastrointestinal infection in immunocompetent individuals. TviA repressed expression of flagellin, a pathogen associated molecular pattern (PAMP), when bacteria were grown at osmotic conditions encountered in tissue, but not at higher osmolarity present in the intestinal lumen. TviA-mediated flagellin repression enabled bacteria to evade sentinel functions of human model epithelia and resulted in increased bacterial dissemination to the spleen in a chicken model. Collectively, our data point to PAMP repression as a novel pathogenic mechanism to overcome the mucosal barrier through innate immune evasion

Rethinking the Concept of Commitment in Software Process Improvement

Literature and practice has agreed that commitment plays an important role in software process improvement (SPI)[1] initiatives. However, the concept of commitment has not been seriously researched in the SPI community. This paper seeks to provide a synthesis of contemporary commitment literature – giving SPI research and practice a new perspective on the phenomenon. It is shown that current thinking relies on models of commitment that are flawed in both academic and practical sense. Namely, four misconceptions [2] are identified in current thinking: 1) the assumption of causality in the human cognitive processes, i.e., commitment in this case), 2) the controllability of this process, 3) the notion of a singular commitment construct, and 4) the idea that commitment is an all-positive phenomenon. Implications of these findings for SPI research and practice are discussed

Integration of RFID and Industrial WSNs to Create A Smart Industrial Environment

A smart environment is a physical space that is seamlessly embedded with sensors, actuators, displays, and computing devices, connected through communication networks for data collection, to enable various pervasive applications. Radio frequency identification (RFID) and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) can be used to create such smart environments, performing sensing, data acquisition, and communication functions, and thus connecting physical devices together to form a smart environment. This thesis first examines the features and requirements a smart industrial environment. It then focuses on the realization of such an environment by integrating RFID and industrial WSNs. ISA100.11a protocol is considered in particular for WSNs, while High Frequency RFID is considered for this thesis. This thesis describes designs and implementation of the hardware and software architecture necessary for proper integration of RFID and WSN systems. The hardware architecture focuses on communication interface and AI/AO interface circuit design; while the driver of the interface is implemented through embedded software. Through Web-based Human Machine Interface (HMI), the industrial users can monitor the process parameters, as well as send any necessary alarm information. In addition, a standard Mongo database is designed, allowing access to historical and current data to gain a more in-depth understanding of the environment being created. The information can therefore be uploaded to an IoT Cloud platform for easy access and storage. Four scenarios for smart industrial environments are mimicked and tested in a laboratory to demonstrate the proposed integrated system. The experimental results have showed that the communication from RFID reader to WSN node and the real-time wireless transmission of the integrated system meet design requirements. In addition, compared to a traditional wired PLC system where measurement error of the integrated system is less than 1%. The experimental results are thus satisfactory, and the design specifications have been achieved