Software Product Line Engineering: Future Research Directions

The recent trend of switching from single software product development tolines of software products in the software industry has made the software product line concept viable and widely accepted methodology in the future. Some of the potential benefits of this approach include cost reduction, improvement in quality and a decrease in product development time. Many organizations that deal in wide areas of operation, from consumer electronics, telecommunications, and avionics to information technology, are using software product lines practice because it deals with effective utilization ofsoftware assets and provides numerous benefits. Software product line engineering is an inter-disciplinary concept. It spans over the dimensions of business, architecture, process and organization. The business dimension of software product lines deals with managing a strong coordination between product line engineering and the business aspects of product line. Software product line architecture is regarded as one of the crucial piece of entity in software product lines. All the resulting products share thiscommon architecture. The organizational theories, behavior and management play critical role in the process of institutionalization of software product line engineering in an organization. The objective of this chapter is to discuss the state of the art of software product line engineering from the perspectives of business, architecture, organizational management and software engineering process. This work also highlights and discusses the future research directions in this area thus providing an opportunity to researchers and practitioners to better understand the future trends and requirements

Genetic Improvement of Software (Dagstuhl Seminar 18052)

We document the program and the immediate outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 18052 “Genetic Improvement of Software”. The seminar brought together researchers in Genetic Improvement (GI) and related areas of software engineering to investigate what is achievable with current technology and the current impediments to progress and how GI can affect the software development process. Several talks covered the state-of-the-art and work in progress. Seven emergent topics have been identified ranging from the nature of the GI search space through benchmarking and practical applications. The seminar has already resulted in multiple research paper publications. Four by participants of the seminar will be presented at the GI workshop co-located with the top conference in software engineering - ICSE. Several researchers started new collaborations, results of which we hope to see in the near future

Software process improvement : A systematic mapping study on the state of the art

Software process improvement (SPI) has been around for decades: frameworks are proposed, success factors are studied, and experiences have been reported. However, the sheer mass of concepts, approaches, and standards published over the years overwhelms practitioners as well as researchers. What is out there? Are there new trends and emerging approaches? What are open issues? Still, we struggle to answer these questions about the current state of SPI and related research. In this article, we present results from an updated systematic mapping study to shed light on the field of SPI, to develop a big picture of the state of the art, and to draw conclusions for future research directions. An analysis of 769 publications draws a big picture of SPI-related research of the past quarter-century. Our study shows a high number of solution proposals, experience reports, and secondary studies, but only few theories and models on SPI in general. In particular, standard SPI models likeCMMIand ISO/IEC 15,504 are analyzed, enhanced, and evaluated for applicability in practice, but these standards are also critically discussed, e.g., from the perspective of SPI in small-to-medium-sized companies, which leads to new specialized frameworks. New and specialized frameworks account for the majority of the contributions found (approx. 38%). Furthermore, we find a growing interest in success factors (approx. 16%) to aid companies in conducting SPI and in adapting agile principles and practices for SPI (approx. 10%). Beyond these specific topics, the study results also show an increasing interest into secondary studies with the purpose of aggregating and structuring SPI-related knowledge. Finally, the present study helps directing future research by identifying under-researched topics awaiting further investigation. © 2016 Kuhrmann et al.Peer reviewe

Prediction of heat transfer for a film cooled flat plate using a computational fluid dynamics analysis

It has become common practice within the gas turbine industry to simulate the flow of the primary air stream and cooling gas by using the numerical method associated with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). A variety of CFD programs exist in the commercial market today and within the proprietary industry environment. While most can predict the aerodynamics inside engine turbines, the ability to predict heat transfer for a film-cooled turbine stage remains elusive. The purpose of this project was to benchmark the current state of heat transfer prediction for commonly used CFD software. The commercially available code FINE/Turbo, developed by Numeca International, was tested in this research effort. FINE/Turbo was used because of its ability to provide time-accurate solutions, which will be utilized in future research efforts. The computational model utilized a conjugate heat-transfer model for solid-fluid interactions, as well as 113 individual cooling holes spaced consistent with the turbine blade hardware. Current heat-transfer solutions are in the expected range of theoretical values, although the measurement program is still in process. The addition of cooling flow to the mainstream flow associated with a high-pressure turbine stage is difficult to model, especially when one is attempting to predict the surface heat-transfer rate. Boundary layer conditions and solid-fluid interactions dominate the region, making accurate computational predictions very difficult. Results of this project have identified areas for which improvement in the current state-of-the-art are required, and have provided a benchmark for computational solutions. Lessons learned from the flat-plate measurement program will be applied to a full-scale rotating turbine stage in the near future, so understanding how to predict the local heat transfer using the CFD code is of significant interest.No embarg

Assessment of three dimensional model generated using digital close-range photogrammetric method for heritage documentation applications / Ismail Ma’arof

Lately, there were a number of photogrammetric techniques developed and utilized in documenting heritage and historical monuments. Reality image based modelling technique has been frequently used to obtain an accurate measurement of the heritage building, monuments and archaeological site studies. This is in line with the current rapid changes in the development of technology. The subject, which is the heritage and historical monument, is chosen to improve the documentation process. Perhaps with this research, it will give a new drive or tools of improvement for heritage monument documentation projects in Malaysia. It is hoped that the preservation and conservation activities would be developed for the benefit of our future generation. With the enhancement and advancement of instrument being utilized and used during the historical monument documentation, it has been shown that a great number of research and studies have been done by previous researchers. This research aims to assess the 3D reconstruction model obtained from a low-cost, low-specification digital camera, in order to resolve current limitations and gaps for developing 3D models of heritage monument remains using monoscopic close-range photogrammetry image based data. Lower specification for this research is defined as having a resolution of less the state-of-the art digital camera (10-24 Megapixels). The main objective of this research is to carry out a wider investigation into current approaches used in digital documentation of heritage monuments remains. Secondly, to provide a solution for the state-of-the-art image modeling by using low cost, low specification image sensor when collecting data for 3D heritage building remains. The development of a suitable semi-automatic approach to process the data obtained from the low cost, low specification image sensor by adapting current methods and combining them with novel methods. Finally, to analyse the concept by means of empirical evaluation that leads to the justification of the 3D constructed Malaysian heritage monuments. There are various applications of photogrammetry techniques being used in documenting the heritage monument. Each of it has its own strength and weaknesses. So as the photogrammetrist, one could choose any of the techniques and at the same time improve the ability of the techniques. This approach has successfully reconstructed the structure of facade of the monuments. The time taken to produce the resulting model is almost economical with ease of use, compared to existing techniques to generate the reconstruction for documentation purposes. The produced model is also acceptable in term of measurement accuracy requirement from a regular 3D CAD drawing and can be used to assist professionals and experts in related fields. This research makes significant contributions, which includes a literature review as well as several contributions made by the hardware and the well-known commercial software itself. The review developed here consists of existing techniques in producing 3D models of building facade or structures using image based, as well as applications that could benefit from this research's model, with advances technology on the current practice

Construction informatics in Turkey: strategic role of ICT and future research directions

Construction Informatics deals with subjects ranging from strategic management of ICTs to interoperability and information integration in the construction industry. Studies on defining research directions for Construction Informatics have a history over 20 years. The recent studies in the area highlight the priority themes for Construction Informatics research as interoperability, collaboration support, intelligent sites and knowledge sharing. In parallel, today it is widely accepted in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry that ICT is becoming a strategic asset for any organisation to deliver business improvement and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. However, traditionally the AEC industry has approached investing in ICT with a lack of strategic focus and low level of priority to the business. This paper presents a recent study from Turkey that is focused on two themes. The first theme investigates the strategic role of ICT implementations from an industrial perspective, and explores if organisations within the AEC industry view ICT as a strategic resource for their business practice. The second theme investigates the ‘perspective of academia’ in terms of future research directions of Construction Informatics. The results of the industrial study indicates that ICT is seen as a value-adding resource, but a shift towards the recognition of the importance of ICT in terms of value adding in winning work and achieving strategic competitive advantage is observed. On the other hand, ICT Training is found to be the theme of highest priority from the academia point of view

Construction informatics in Turkey: strategic role of ICT and future research directions

Construction Informatics deals with subjects ranging from strategic management of ICTs to interoperability and information integration in the construction industry. Studies on defining research directions for Construction Informatics have a history over 20 years. The recent studies in the area highlight the priority themes for Construction Informatics research as interoperability, collaboration support, intelligent sites and knowledge sharing. In parallel, today it is widely accepted in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry that ICT is becoming a strategic asset for any organisation to deliver business improvement and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. However, traditionally the AEC industry has approached investing in ICT with a lack of strategic focus and low level of priority to the business. This paper presents a recent study from Turkey that is focused on two themes. The first theme investigates the strategic role of ICT implementations from an industrial perspective, and explores if organisations within the AEC industry view ICT as a strategic resource for their business practice. The second theme investigates the ‘perspective of academia’ in terms of future research directions of Construction Informatics. The results of the industrial study indicates that ICT is seen as a value-adding resource, but a shift towards the recognition of the importance of ICT in terms of value adding in winning work and achieving strategic competitive advantage is observed. On the other hand, ICT Training is found to be the theme of highest priority from the academia point of view

Quality measurement of semantic standards

Quality of semantic standards is unadressed in current research while there is an explicit need from standard developers. The business importance is evident since quality of standards will have impact on its diffusion and achieved interoperability in practice. An instrument to measure the quality of semantic standards is designed to contribute to the knowledge domain, standards developers and might ultimo lead to improved interoperability. This instrument is iteratively designed with multiple case studies. This paper describes the rationale and research design, just as current status and future plans

Rationale Management Challenges in Requirements Engineering

Rationale and rationale management have been playing an increasingly prominent role in software system development mainly due to the knowledge demand during system evaluation, maintenance, and evolution, especially for large and complex systems. The rationale management for requirements engineering, as a commencing and critical phase in software development life cycle, is still under-exploited. In this paper, we first survey briefly the state-of-the-art on rationale employment and applications in requirements engineering. Secondly, we identify the challenges in integrating rationale management in requirements engineering activities in order to promote further investigations and define a research agenda on rationale management in requirements engineering.