Reconciling Synthesis and Decomposition: A Composite Approach to Capability Identification

Stakeholders' expectations and technology constantly evolve during the lengthy development cycles of a large-scale computer based system. Consequently, the traditional approach of baselining requirements results in an unsatisfactory system because it is ill-equipped to accommodate such change. In contrast, systems constructed on the basis of Capabilities are more change-tolerant; Capabilities are functional abstractions that are neither as amorphous as user needs nor as rigid as system requirements. Alternatively, Capabilities are aggregates that capture desired functionality from the users' needs, and are designed to exhibit desirable software engineering characteristics of high cohesion, low coupling and optimum abstraction levels. To formulate these functional abstractions we develop and investigate two algorithms for Capability identification: Synthesis and Decomposition. The synthesis algorithm aggregates detailed rudimentary elements of the system to form Capabilities. In contrast, the decomposition algorithm determines Capabilities by recursively partitioning the overall mission of the system into more detailed entities. Empirical analysis on a small computer based library system reveals that neither approach is sufficient by itself. However, a composite algorithm based on a complementary approach reconciling the two polar perspectives results in a more feasible set of Capabilities. In particular, the composite algorithm formulates Capabilities using the cohesion and coupling measures as defined by the decomposition algorithm and the abstraction level as determined by the synthesis algorithm.Comment: This paper appears in the 14th Annual IEEE International Conference and Workshop on the Engineering of Computer Based Systems (ECBS); 10 pages, 9 figure

New Resources and Perspectives for Biomedical Event Extraction

Event extraction is a major focus of recent work in biomedical information extraction. Despite substantial advances, many challenges still remain for reliable automatic extraction of events from text. We introduce a new biomedical event extraction resource consisting of analyses automatically created by systems participating in the recent BioNLP Shared Task (ST) 2011. In providing for the first time the outputs of a broad set of state-ofthe-art event extraction systems, this resource opens many new opportunities for studying aspects of event extraction, from the identification of common errors to the study of effective approaches to combining the strengths of systems. We demonstrate these opportunities through a multi-system analysis on three BioNLP ST 2011 main tasks, focusing on events that none of the systems can successfully extract. We further argue for new perspectives to the performance evaluation of domain event extraction systems, considering a document-level, “off-the-page ” representation and evaluation to complement the mentionlevel evaluations pursued in most recent work.

The criminal justice system and people on the autism spectrum: perspectives on awareness and identification

Individuals with a diagnosis of autism are seven times more likely to be represented in criminal justice statistics compared to people without this diagnosis (Debbaunt, 2004). This signals the need for further investigation into the practices of professionals working in these areas; in particular, the extent of their awareness and understanding of autism. This paper reports on a qualitative study undertaken with 30 people working in probation, a community rehabilitation company, police, and liaison and diversion services in a county in the North of England. Interviews were conducted between July and September 2017. While a number of criminal justice professionals possessed some experience of autism in their personal or professional practice, several professionals struggled to accurately identify what autism is, and how it could impact on an individual’s communication style; which could represent a barrier to effective communication between providers and service users. These results add to the body of literature on the subject of criminal justice services and alleged offenders who are on the autism spectrum and aims to raise awareness and promote discussion on this important subject

Architectural technical debt identification:The research landscape

Architectural Technical Debt (ATD) regards sub-optimal design decisions that bring short-term benefits to the cost of long-term gradual deterioration of the quality of the architecture of a software system. The identification of ATD strongly influences the technical and economic sustainability of software systems and is attracting growing interest in the scientific community. During the years several approaches for ATD identification have been conceived, each of them addressing ATD from different perspectives and with heterogeneous characteristics. In this paper we apply the systematic mapping study methodology for identifying, classifying, and evaluating the state of the art on ATD identification from the following three perspectives: publication trends, characteristics, and potential for industrial adoption. Specifically, starting from a set of 509 potentially relevant studies, we systematically selected 47 primary studies and analyzed them according to a rigorously-defined classification framework. The analysis of the obtained results supports both researchers and practitioners by providing (i) an assessment of current research trends and gaps in ATD identification, (ii) a solid foundation for understanding existing (and future) research on ATD identification, and (iii) a rigorous evaluation of its potential for industrial adoption

K-theoretic boson-fermion correspondence and melting crystals

We study non-Hermitian integrable fermion and boson systems from the perspectives of Grothendieck polynomials. The models considered in this article are the five-vertex model as a fermion system and the non-Hermitian phase model as a boson system. Both of the models are characterized by the different solutions satisfying the same Yang-Baxter relation. From our previous works on the identification between the wavefunctions of the five-vertex model and Grothendieck polynomials, we introduce skew Grothendieck polynomials, and derive the addition theorem among them. Using these relations, we derive the wavefunctions of the non-Hermitian phase model as a determinant form which can also be expressed as the Grothendieck polynomials. Namely, we establish a K-theoretic boson-fermion correspondence at the level of wavefunctions. As a by-product, the partition function of the statistical mechanical model of a 3D melting crystal is exactly calculated by use of the scalar products of the wavefunctions of the phase model. The resultant expression can be regarded as a K-theoretic generalization of the MacMahon function describing the generating function of the plane partitions, which interpolates the generating functions of two-dimensional and three-dimensional Young diagrams.Comment: v4, 31 pages, 14 figure

Hybrid system modeling and identification of cell biology systems: perspectives and challenges

Abstract: Some perspectives and challenges in research on the crossing of system biology, hybrid system formulations and system identification are outlined. Emphasis is given on the hybrid, gray box modeling of interactions between the different abstract levels of organization typically recognized in (micro-)organisms, its associated identification problem and optimal experimental (input) design