Case Survey Studies in Software Engineering Research

Background: Given the social aspects of Software Engineering (SE), in the last twenty years, researchers from the field started using research methods common in social sciences such as case study, ethnography, and grounded theory. More recently, case survey, another imported research method, has seen its increasing use in SE studies. It is based on existing case studies reported in the literature and intends to harness the generalizability of survey and the depth of case study. However, little is known on how case survey has been applied in SE research, let alone guidelines on how to employ it properly. Aims: This article aims to provide a better understanding of how case survey has been applied in Software Engineering research. Method: To address this knowledge gap, we performed a systematic mapping study and analyzed 12 Software Engineering studies that used the case survey method. Results: Our findings show that these studies presented a heterogeneous understanding of the approach ranging from secondary studies to primary inquiries focused on a large number of instances of a research phenomenon. They have not applied the case survey method consistently as defined in the seminal methodological papers. Conclusions: We conclude that a set of clearly defined guidelines are needed on how to use case survey in SE research, to ensure the quality of the studies employing this approach and to provide a set of clearly defined criteria to evaluate such work.Comment: Accepted for presentation at ACM / IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM) (ESEM '20

Compendium of Current Proton-Induced Radiation Effect Results on Power Regulators

This paper presents the latest test results of power regulator devices under proton irradiation. Single event effects (SEE) and accumulated total ionizing dose (TID) effects are investigated, analyzed and discussed

Transforming ideas and developing entrepreneurship skills in computing sciences and informatics engineering courses

This paper presents an approach on entrepreneurship education which helps to turn ideas into Minimum Viable Products (MVP) and to capacitate students to become entrepreneurs. In this approach, we integrate development and management project to different business models. Students acquire, in addition to technical competencies, skills on market knowledge and business modeling. This approach has been applied for several years in an informatics engineering course and suggests a set of activities on 18 weeks. Teachers’ perceptions and students’ opinions were collected through direct observations and using a questionnaire in order to evaluate the process behind this pedagogical project which goes beyond the walls of the university. Most of the students are satisfied with the process since they develop projects that have a good fit with the market needs and opportunities and some of them are close to creating a startup.(undefined

Using the case survey methodology for finding high-quality grey literature in software engineering

Background: Mining online accounts of practitioner experience can provide new evidence for software engineering researchers. However, we need methods for assessing quality at vast scale. Objectives: We investigate the challenge of finding high-quality grey literature, defining high-quality in terms of a document's relevance to the consumer and its credibility. Method: Building on previous research, we use a version of the case survey methodology for automating the identification and assessment of high-quality grey literature. Results: We develop a model of credibility assessment within software engineering research and demonstrate our case survey methodology and credibility assessment model in practice. We use it to conduct a grey literature review of High Performing Teams (HPT). Conclusions: The paper provides a foundation for future research on automated quality and credibility assessment. Adoption of the tools and methodology presented can help researchers effectively search for and select higher-quality blog-like content

Embracing Technical Debt, from a Startup Company Perspective

Software\ua0 startups\ua0 are\ua0 typically\ua0 under\ua0 extreme pressure to get to market quickly with limited resources and high uncertainty.\ua0 This\ua0 pressure\ua0 and\ua0 uncertainty\ua0 is\ua0 likely\ua0 to\ua0 cause startups to accumulate technical debt as they make decisions that are more focused on the short-term than the long-term health of the codebase. However, most research on technical debt has been focused\ua0 on\ua0 more\ua0 mature\ua0 software\ua0 teams,\ua0 who\ua0 may\ua0 have\ua0 less pressure\ua0 and,\ua0 therefore,\ua0 reason\ua0 about\ua0 technical\ua0 debt\ua0 very differently\ua0 than\ua0 software\ua0 startups.\ua0 In\ua0 this\ua0 study,\ua0 we\ua0 seek\ua0 to understand\ua0 the\ua0 organizational\ua0 factors\ua0 that\ua0 lead\ua0 to\ua0 and\ua0 the benefits\ua0 and\ua0 challenges\ua0 associated\ua0 with\ua0 the\ua0 intentional accumulation\ua0 of\ua0 technical\ua0 debt\ua0 in\ua0 software\ua0 startups.\ua0 We interviewed 16 professionals involved in seven different software startups.\ua0 We\ua0 find\ua0 that\ua0 the\ua0 startup\ua0 phase,\ua0 the\ua0 experience\ua0 of\ua0 the developers,\ua0 software\ua0 knowledge\ua0 of\ua0 the\ua0 founders,\ua0 and\ua0 level\ua0 of employee\ua0 growth\ua0 are\ua0 some\ua0 of\ua0 the\ua0 organizational\ua0 factors\ua0 that influence\ua0 the\ua0 intentional\ua0 accumulation\ua0 of\ua0 technical\ua0 debt.\ua0 In addition,\ua0 we\ua0 find\ua0 the\ua0 software\ua0 startups\ua0 are\ua0 typically\ua0 driven\ua0 to achieve\ua0 a\ua0 “good\ua0 enough\ua0 level,”\ua0 and\ua0 this\ua0 guides\ua0 the\ua0 amount\ua0 of technical debt that they intentionally accumulate to balance the benefits\ua0 of\ua0 speed\ua0 to\ua0 market\ua0 and\ua0 reduced\ua0 resources\ua0 with\ua0 the challenges of later addressing technical debt

Emerging Security Threats in Modern Digital Computing Systems: A Power Management Perspective

Design of computing systems — from pocket-sized smart phones to massive cloud based data-centers — have one common daunting challenge : minimizing the power consumption. In this effort, power management sector is undergoing a rapid and profound transformation to promote clean and energy proportional computing. At the hardware end of system design, there is proliferation of specialized, feature rich and complex power management hardware components. Similarly, in the software design layer complex power management suites are growing rapidly. Concurrent to this development, there has been an upsurge in the integration of third-party components to counter the pressures of shorter time-to-market. These trends collectively raise serious concerns about trust and security of power management solutions. In recent times, problems such as overheating, performance degradation and poor battery life, have dogged the mobile devices market, including the infamous recall of Samsung Note 7. Power outage in the data-center of a major airline left innumerable passengers stranded, with thousands of canceled flights costing over 100 million dollars. This research examines whether such events of unintentional reliability failure, can be replicated using targeted attacks by exploiting the security loopholes in the complex power management infrastructure of a computing system. At its core, this research answers an imminent research question: How can system designers ensure secure and reliable operation of third-party power management units? Specifically, this work investigates possible attack vectors, and novel non-invasive detection and defense mechanisms to safeguard system against malicious power attacks. By a joint exploration of the threat model and techniques to seamlessly detect and protect against power attacks, this project can have a lasting impact, by enabling the design of secure and cost-effective next generation hardware platforms

Making change against the odds:Entrepreneurial pursuits among young professionals in South Africa

Global middle classes appear to be on the rise: more and more people live or aspire to the associated consumptive or professional lifestyles. At the same time, entrepreneurialism has become mainstream in international development discourse and -practices, yet income security and financial stability have diminished for most people. Together these trends present a complex historical situation for current generations trying to build their lives. In this study I analyze how pressures for middle-class ways of living, the proliferation of entrepreneurialism, and pervasive insecurity intertwine in the lives of young professionals in South Africa, and how they grapple with the inherent tensions. I present an ethnographic case study of participants in business incubators, startup hubs and entrepreneurial events, based on eleven months of fieldwork in Johannesburg and Cape Town between 2015 and 2019. How to understand their entrepreneurial aspirations and continued engagement despite volatile and uncertain outcomes? I argue that young professionals’ uptake of entrepreneurship is a situated, cultural practice through which they renegotiate the aspirational legacies of apartheid and the promises of the transition amidst deepening inequalities, rather than the effect of hegemonic neoliberalism. Foregrounding entrepreneurship’s positive potential and the incompleteness of reality, I argue that it offers a practical mode of becoming, of realizing social changes and of changing in itself. In short, this dissertation shows how the appeal of entrepreneurship in the case of Johannesburg’s young professionals makes sense as a way to realize the possibilities for success and the conditions of respectability in post-transition times

Using structural correlations to inform the development of longer lasting dental restorations

Photo-initiated dimethacrylate polymers are of great biomedical importance, in orthopaedics and particularly in dentistry where they are used as a matrix to form resin-based-composite (RBC) filling materials. However, the physiochemical properties of these materials are highly sensitive to photo-polymerisation variables, particularly the polymerisation rate, and as a consequence clinical performance is not ideal. Despite extensive mechanical and Infra-red spectroscopic characterisation of the cross-linked polymer resin matrix, the impact of polymerisation rate on the resultant structure is unknown. Using novel synchrotron FTIR, X-ray and neutron scattering techniques, this study aimed to investigate the effect that polymerisation rate has on the polymer structure, at atomic to micron length scales, of experimental RBCs based on common dimethacrylate resins. Kinetic X-ray scattering measurements demonstrated that polymerisation generates chain segment extension and changes in short range order within the structures of the constituent resin monomers. Accelerating polymerisation confers greater chain extension and reduced short range order, which at extremely fast polymerisation rates may store residual strains within the system. Neutron scattering confirmed that this relationship between polymerisation rate and structure occurs at longer length scales within the polymer, specifically at cross-linking distances. Synchrotron FTIR micro-spectroscopy showed that the introduction of filler particles into a resin matrix produced local heterogeneity with respect to the degree of monomer-polymer conversion and chemical aromatic bond strain. At nearest neighbour distances, heterogeneity is believed to originate from a lower converted and reduced bond strain boundary layer surrounding each filler particle, whilst light attenuation and likely, relative monomer mobility effects dominate at longer length scales within the resin matrix This study demonstrates that advanced synchrotron and neutron based characterisation techniques, seldom used in the field of dental materials research, can provide new insight into how the polymerisation rate may impact on the structure of the polymer matrix components of dental RBCs

Technical Debt: An empirical investigation of its harmfulness and on management strategies in industry

Background: In order to survive in today\u27s fast-growing and ever fast-changing business environment, software companies need to continuously deliver customer value, both from a short- and long-term perspective. However, the consequences of potential long-term and far-reaching negative effects of shortcuts and quick fixes made during the software development lifecycle, described as Technical Debt (TD), can impede the software development process.Objective: The overarching goal of this Ph.D. thesis is twofold. The first goal is to empirically study and understand in what way and to what extent, TD influences today’s software development work, specifically with the intention to provide more quantitative insight into the field. Second, to understand which different initiatives can reduce the negative effects of TD and also which factors are important to consider when implementing such initiatives.Method: To achieve the objectives, a combination of both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies are used, including interviews, surveys, a systematic literature review, a longitudinal study, analysis of documents, correlation analysis, and statistical tests. In seven of the eleven studies included in this Ph.D. thesis, a combination of multiple research methods are used to achieve high validity.Results: We present results showing that software suffering from TD will cause various negative effects on both the software and the developing process. These negative effects are illustrated from a technical, financial, and a developer’s working situational perspective. These studies also identify several initiatives that can be undertaken in order to reduce the negative effects of TD.Conclusion: The results show that software developers report that they waste 23% of their working time due to experiencing TD and that TD required them to perform additional time-consuming work activities. This study also shows that, compared to all types of TD, architectural TD has the greatest negative impact on daily software development work and that TD has negative effects on several different software quality attributes. Further, the results show that TD reduces developer morale. Moreover, the findings show that intentionally introducing TD in startup companies can allow the startups to cut development time, enabling faster feedback and increased revenue, preserve resources, and decrease risk and thereby contribute to beneficial\ua0effects. This study also identifies several initiatives that can be undertaken in order to reduce the negative effects of TD, such as the introduction of a tracking process where the TD items are introduced in an official backlog. The finding also indicates that there is an unfulfilled potential regarding how managers can influence the manner in which software practitioners address TD

An examination of debt financing of growth oriented SMEs in Nigeria

This thesis examines the relationship between Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SMEs) financing and business growth in Nigeria. Specifically, the research examines the external debt financing needs and debt financing gaps experienced by growth oriented SMEs, the role of finance in SMEs growth and the factors that affect SME financing. In so doing, the study focuses on the supply and demand side perspectives of SME financing including public policy support for growth oriented SMEs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data on the main financing needs of SMEs and to determine whether they were experiencing debt financing gaps and the nature of such gaps. The research provided empirical evidence which shows that growth oriented SMEs are experiencing debt financing gaps in Nigeria, with the demand side gap being more prominent than the supply side gap. It also established the existence of an association between access to bank finance and SME growth, which determines the important role that external finance plays in SMEs growth in a developing country context. This study makes both theoretical and practical contributions to knowledge. Theoretically, it has contributed by developing an analytical model which improves our understanding of SME debt financing and its impact on the growth oriented SMEs in Nigeria and the African context. In terms of contribution to practice, the research yields useful knowledge which could be used to inform the work of policy-makers and business practitioners in developing and advancing SME financing initiatives in Nigeria and improving the overall relationship between SME owner-managers and providers of debt finance