Results of the German Software Industry Survey 2013

This is the second year that we execute the Software Industry Survey in Germany and publish a report with the main results. As formulated in 2012, our goal is to investigate the current state of the German software industry on a yearly basis. Conclusions are made based on grounded data and empirical findings. We hope that this type of research will contribute to the work of both, practitioners and researchers

iDriver - Human Machine Interface for Autonomous Cars

Modern cars are equipped with a variety of sensors, advanced driver assistance systems and user interfaces nowadays. To benefit from these systems and to optimally support the driver in his monitoring and decision making process, efficient human-machine interfaces play an important part. This paper describes the second release of iDriver, an iPad software solution which was developed to navigate and remote control autonomous cars, to give access to live sensor data and useful data about the car state, as there are, e.g., current speed, engine and gear state. The software was used and evaluated in our two fully autonomous research cars “Spirit of Berlin” and “Made in Germany”

SERVICE-BASED AUTOMATION OF SOFTWARE CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITIES

The reuse of software units, such as classes, components and services require professional knowledge to be performed. Today a multiplicity of different software unit technologies, supporting tools, and related activities used in reuse processes exist. Each of these relevant reuse elements may also include a high number of variations and may differ in the level and quality of necessary reuse knowledge. In such an environment of increasing variations and, therefore, an increasing need for knowledge, software engineers must obtain such knowledge to be able to perform software unit reuse activities. Today many different reuse activities exist for a software unit. Some typical knowledge intensive activities are: transformation, integration, and deployment. In addition to the problem of the amount of knowledge required for such activities, other difficulties also exist. The global industrial environment makes it challenging to identify sources of, and access to, knowledge. Typically, such sources (e.g., repositories) are made to search and retrieve information about software unitsand not about the required reuse activity knowledge for a special unit. Additionally, the knowledge has to be learned by inexperienced software engineers and, therefore, to be interpreted. This interpretation may lead to variations in the reuse result and can differ from the estimated result of the knowledge creator. This makes it difficult to exchange knowledge between software engineers or global teams. Additionally, the reuse results of reuse activities have to be repeatable and sustainable. In such a scenario, the knowledge about software reuse activities has to be exchanged without the above mentioned problems by an inexperienced software engineer. The literature shows a lack of techniques to store and subsequently distribute relevant reuse activity knowledge among software engineers. The central aim of this thesis is to enable inexperienced software engineers to use knowledge required to perform reuse activities without experiencing the aforementioned problems. The reuse activities: transformation, integration, and deployment, have been selected as the foundation for the research. Based on the construction level of handling a software unit, these activities are called Software Construction Activities (SCAcs) throughout the research. To achieve the aim, specialised software construction activity models have been created and combined with an abstract software unit model. As a result, different SCAc knowledge is described and combined with different software unit artefacts needed by the SCAcs. Additionally, the management (e.g., the execution of an SCAc) will be provided in a service-oriented environment. Because of the focus on reuse activities, an approach which avoids changing the knowledge level of software engineers and the abstraction view on software units and activities, the object of the investigation differs from other approaches which aim to solve the insufficient reuse activity knowledge problem. The research devised novel abstraction models to describe SCAcs as knowledge models related to the relevant information of software units. The models and the focused environment have been created using standard technologies. As a result, these were realised easily in a real world environment. Softwareengineers were able to perform single SCAcs without having previously acquired the necessary knowledge. The risk of failing reuse decreases because single activities can be performed. The analysis of the research results is based on a case study. An example of a reuse environmenthas been created and tested in a case study to prove the operational capability of the approach. The main result of the research is a proven concept enabling inexperienced software engineers to reuse software units by reusing SCAcs. The research shows the reduction in time for reuse and a decrease of learning effort is significant

Flow-Sensitive Type-Based Heap Cloning (Artifact)

This artifact contains our implementation of a new flow-sensitive type-based points-to analysis, described in "Flow-Sensitive Type-Based Heap Cloning" by Mohamad Barbar, Yulei Sui, and Shiping Chen (ECOOP 2020). This analysis performs heap cloning based on C and C++ types rather than calling contexts. Packaged as a Docker image, the artifact allows users to reproduce the claims made in the "Evaluation" section of the associated paper (Section 5.2) and to build and analyse arbitrary software

Geometric tree kernels: Classification of COPD from airway tree geometry

Methodological contributions: This paper introduces a family of kernels for analyzing (anatomical) trees endowed with vector valued measurements made along the tree. While state-of-the-art graph and tree kernels use combinatorial tree/graph structure with discrete node and edge labels, the kernels presented in this paper can include geometric information such as branch shape, branch radius or other vector valued properties. In addition to being flexible in their ability to model different types of attributes, the presented kernels are computationally efficient and some of them can easily be computed for large datasets (N of the order 10.000) of trees with 30-600 branches. Combining the kernels with standard machine learning tools enables us to analyze the relation between disease and anatomical tree structure and geometry. Experimental results: The kernels are used to compare airway trees segmented from low-dose CT, endowed with branch shape descriptors and airway wall area percentage measurements made along the tree. Using kernelized hypothesis testing we show that the geometric airway trees are significantly differently distributed in patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) than in healthy individuals. The geometric tree kernels also give a significant increase in the classification accuracy of COPD from geometric tree structure endowed with airway wall thickness measurements in comparison with state-of-the-art methods, giving further insight into the relationship between airway wall thickness and COPD. Software: Software for computing kernels and statistical tests is available at http://image.diku.dk/aasa/software.php.Comment: 12 page

Discussion of stern-first-method in ship handling for ship operation, education & training using fast time simulation

Some port approaches require challenging manoeuvring strategies for arrival and departure, specifically under heavy wind and current conditions. In recent papers a discussion of the “Stern-First-Method” SFM was started suggesting that it would be beneficial to go astern into the harbour instead of the conventional bow first method. In this paper the SAMMON software for “Simulation Augmented Manoeuvring Design, Monitoring & Conning” will be used to analyse this SFM for challenging scenarios to provide insights into the potential benefits of this methods. This software is based on the innovative “Rapid Advanced Prediction & Interface Technology” (RAPIT) to simulate the ships motion with complex dynamic math models and to display the ships’ future track immediately based on Fast Time Simulation in an Electronic Navigational Chart for any rudder, thruster or engine manoeuvre planned by the navigator. The SAMMON system has been developed and matured over years, and promising experiences were made at the Maritime Simulation Centre Warnemuende MSCW and other centres. Currently, specifically the use of the SAMMON Manoeuvring Planning tool will be an element of the transfer of knowledge within the current ERASMUS+ project EURO-ZA between the partners from Europe South Africa. The benefits for increasing the effectiveness of lecturing and simulator training have been proven in previous publications and will be made visible in this paper by using simulator ships both twin screw and azimuth propulsion for discussion of the SFM manoeuvring strategies.Peer Reviewe

Monte Carlo simulations for the Pierre Auger Observatory using the VO auger grid resources

The Pierre Auger Observatory, located near Malargüe, Argentina, is the world’s largest cosmic-ray detector. It comprises a 3000 km2 surface detector and 27 fluorescence telescopes, which measure the lateral and longitudinal distributions of the many millions of air-shower particles produced in the interactions initiated by a cosmic ray in the Earth’s atmosphere. The determination of the nature of cosmic rays and studies of the detector performances rely on extensive Monte Carlo simulations describing the physics processes occurring in extensive air showers and the detector responses. The aim of the Monte Carlo simulations task is to produce and provide the Auger Collaboration with reference libraries used in a wide variety of analyses. All multipurpose detector simulations are currently produced in local clusters using Slurm and HTCondor. The bulk of the shower simulations are produced on the grid, via the Virtual Organization auger, using the DIRAC middleware. The job submission is made via python scripts using the DIRAC-API. The Auger site is undergoing a major upgrade, which includes the installation of new types of detectors, demanding increased simulation resources. The novel detection of the radio component of extensive air showers is the most challenging endeavor, requiring dedicated shower simulations with very long computation times, not optimized for the grid production. For data redundancy, the simulations are stored on the Lyon server and the grid Disk Pool Manager and are accessible to the Auger members via iRODS and DIRAC, respectively. The CERN VM-File System is used for software distribution where, soon, the Auger Offline software will also be made available

Recent developments in GEANT 4

Fil: Depaola, Gerardo Osvaldo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía, Física y Computación; Argentina.GEANT4 is a software toolkit for the simulation of the passage of particles through matter. It is used by a large number of experiments and projects in a variety of application domains, including high energy physics, astrophysics and space science, medical physics and radiation protection. Over the past several years, major changes have been made to the toolkit in order to accommodate the needs of these user communities, and to efficiently exploit the growth of computing power made available by advances in technology. The adaptation of GEANT4 to multithreading, advances in physics, detector modeling and visualization, extensions to the toolkit, including biasing and reverse Monte Carlo, and tools for physics and release validation are discussed here.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionFil: Depaola, Gerardo Osvaldo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía, Física y Computación; Argentina.Física de Partículas y Campo