A Critical Review of "Automatic Patch Generation Learned from Human-Written Patches": Essay on the Problem Statement and the Evaluation of Automatic Software Repair

At ICSE'2013, there was the first session ever dedicated to automatic program repair. In this session, Kim et al. presented PAR, a novel template-based approach for fixing Java bugs. We strongly disagree with key points of this paper. Our critical review has two goals. First, we aim at explaining why we disagree with Kim and colleagues and why the reasons behind this disagreement are important for research on automatic software repair in general. Second, we aim at contributing to the field with a clarification of the essential ideas behind automatic software repair. In particular we discuss the main evaluation criteria of automatic software repair: understandability, correctness and completeness. We show that depending on how one sets up the repair scenario, the evaluation goals may be contradictory. Eventually, we discuss the nature of fix acceptability and its relation to the notion of software correctness.Comment: ICSE 2014, India (2014

GAMESPECT: A Composition Framework and Meta-Level Domain Specific Aspect Language for Unreal Engine 4

Game engine programming involves a great number of software components, many of which perform similar tasks; for example, memory allocation must take place in the renderer as well as in the creation routines while other tasks such as error logging must take place everywhere. One area of all games which is critical to the success of the game is that of game balance and tuning. These balancing initiatives cut across all areas of code from the player and AI to the mission manager. In computer science, we’ve come to call these types of concerns “cross cutting”. Aspect oriented programming was developed, in part, to solve the problems of cross cutting: employing “advice” which can be incorporated across different pieces of functionality. Yet, despite the prevalence of a solution, very little work has been done to bring cross cutting to game engine programming. Additionally, the discipline involves a heavy amount of code rewriting and reuse while simultaneously relying on many common design patterns that are copied from one project to another. In the case of game balance, the code may be wildly different across two different games despite the fact that similar tasks are being done. These two problems are exacerbated by the fact that almost every game engine has its own custom DSL (domain specific language) unique to that situation. If a DSL could showcase the areas of cross cutting concerns while highlighting the ability to capture design patterns that can be used across games, significant productivity savings could be achieved while simultaneously creating a common thread for discussion of shared problems within the domain. This dissertation sought to do exactly that- create a metalanguage called GAMESPECT which supports multiple styles of DSLs while bringing aspect-oriented programming into the DSL’s to make them DSAL (domain specific aspect languages). The example cross cutting concern was game balance and tuning since it’s so pervasive and important to gaming. We have created GAMESPECT as a language and a composition framework which can assist engine developers and game designers in balancing their games, forming one central place for game balancing concerns even while these concerns may cross different languages and locations inside the source code. Generality was measured by showcasing the composition specifications in multiple contexts and languages. In addition to evaluating generality and performance metrics, effectiveness was be measured. Specifically, comparisons were made between a balancing initiative when performed with GAMESPECT vs a traditional methodology. In doing so, this work shows a clear advantage to using a Metalanguage such as GAMESPECT for this task. In general, a line of code reduction of 9-40% per task was achieved with negligible effects to performance. The use of a metalanguage in Unreal Engine 4 is a starting point to further discussions concerning other game engines. In addition, this work has implications beyond video game programming. The work described highlights benefits which might be achieved in other disciplines where design pattern implementations and cross-cutting concern usage is high; the real time simulation field and the field of Windows GUI programming are two examples of future domains

The Ticker, September 5, 2017

The Ticker is the student newspaper of Baruch College. It has been published continuously since 1932, when the Baruch College campus was the School of Business and Civic Administration of the City College of New York

Foundations of Trusted Autonomy

Trusted Autonomy; Automation Technology; Autonomous Systems; Self-Governance; Trusted Autonomous Systems; Design of Algorithms and Methodologie

The cult of Criterion : the Criterion Collection as a commercial canon

The rise of home video gave to the rise of the home video collector. For the last forty plus years, consumers have purchased their own copies of films, and amassed libraries. Within this group, The Criterion Collection has stood as the advance guard for the possibilities of what home video could offer its audience. Tracing the company’s history, back to its inception in 1983, consistency in quality has been a trademark for Criterion. Constantly innovating what home video could offer its audience -- through the creation of supplemental features, providing uncut films, and having personal relationships with directors -- Criterion has been able to continue its quality through differentiation. Looking at the distinct historical periods within this company has operated, a history can be formed that answers questions to how the company deals with questions of canon formation, authorship, film history, etc. As the technology continues to radically change the market, Criterion remains adamant about providing the best quality product for its customer, and expanding its idea of what home video should be to a larger market.Radio-Television-Fil

Queer Slashers

Queer Slashers argues that slasher films invite queer engagements by staging collisions between a sexually deviant outsider, the slasher figure, and icons of American normativity: heterosexual teenage couples, suburbia, the prom, and summer camp, among others. To do so, Queer Slashers draws on horror and slasher scholarship along with queer theory and LGBT history. Slasher scholarship has already considered the ways in which gender plays an important role in the construction of the slasher formula. Much of this work has focused on the representation of women, especially patterns of violence against women. Queer Slashers seeks to make additional observations about the ways in which femininity more broadly, especially the characterization of killers as femme, sissy, trans or non-binary, has been a crucial component in the history of the genre. It argues that the killer and the survivors of the slasher can be read as queer, or non-normative, whereas the primary victims of the slasher often abide normative conventions of culture, including gender and sexuality. Queer Slashers interweaves close readings of slasher media with theoretical conceptions by scholars such as Michael Warner, Eve Sedgwick, and Cathy J. Cohen, which posit queerness as an intersectional political resistance to normativity, including but not limited to LGBT identities. Using LGBT history, Queer Slashers seeks to recognize important historical developments in the social awareness of LGBT identities, including political advocacy such as the homophile movement of the 1950s and gay liberation movement of the 1960s and 70s, as a meaningful context in which the slasher evolves

The Whitworthian 2008-2009

The Whitworthian student newspaper, September 2008-May 2009.https://digitalcommons.whitworth.edu/whitworthian/1093/thumbnail.jp

Understanding 'success' and 'failure' in two case studies of collaborative technology : contexts, narrative and lenses

After first setting the scene for the development of IMS Learning Design (LD), this thesis details the creation of a LD test environment, along with interviews carried out with some of those involved in the development, implementation and research use of the specification. The creation of SPONGE (the Simplest Possible ONline Grouping Environment), a new software platform developed in response to the LD interview findings, is then documented. The rejection of SPONGE by teachers in a school environment provides the catalyst for an in-depth exploration of that school and the (largely non-technological) reasons for SPONGE's apparent failure. MegaTech and MiniTech, two explanatory lenses based on the work of van Langenhove and Harré, Heidegger, and Popper, are then created and used to revisit the rejection of LD and SPONGE (as two examples of functionally sound educational technologies) by practitioners. This research uses a multi-methodology (Mingers) approach, informed by Case Study (Yin), Realistic Evaluation (Pawson and Tilley) and Narratives (Clough). In addition, reflective elements are embedded at key moments in the thesis to facilitate a personal discussion of the challenges faced by this author and which prompted a significant change in research direction. This research makes the following contributions to knowledge. C1 A new analysis of why LD has not been widely adopted beyond the research community. [Chapters 5, 7, 8 and 9] C2 The initial validation of the analysis in C1 through its application in a contrasting educational and technical context (Hazelmere School). [Chapters 7, 8 and 9] C3 The in-depth picture of the use of educational technology in an extremely demanding environment (Hazelmere School). [Chapters 7 and 9] C4 The creation of MegaTech and MiniTech as explanatory lenses. [Chapter 8] C5 The application of MegaTech and MiniTech to more clearly explain the fate of LD and SPONGE. [Chapters 8 and 9] C6 The creation of SPONGE as a homogenous and open-standards compliant toolbox that focuses on immediacy and facilitates the spontaneous use of collaborative tools. [Chapter 6] C7 The creation of a self-contained and easily deployed LD test environment. [Chapter 4