The changing role of the software engineer

In this paper we will discuss the changing role of a software engineer. We will examine this from four major standpoints, the software development life cycle, the influence of open source software, testing and deployment and the emergence of new technologies. We will first analyze what the role of a software engineer was in the past. We will examine limitations associated with software development life cycle models, and software failures that catalyzed increased importance for quality assurance. We then outline the current role of a software engineer. We discuss the impact of agile software development and automation on the software development cycle, the influence of open source software and how new technologies such as Function-as-a-Service and machine learning may impacted the role. Based on our research, we analyze why the software engineer role has changed and postulate prospective changes to the role of software engineer, and in particular how new responsibilities may affect the day to day work of future software engineers. We ultimately find that the role of a “software engineer” is nowadays widely varied and very broad, and it only generally indicates the type of work that the software engineer may undertake

A Continuous Topography Approach for Agent Based Traffic Simulation, Lane Changing Model

Traffic simulation has been being an interesting research subject for transport engineer and scientist, mathematicians and informatics scientist for different point of view. Transport scientists study the traffic complexity and behaviour of traffic participants by using statistical experiment or simulation. The earlier approach was based on macroscopic model deducted from hydrodynamics kinematic wave analogy. Later on the microscopic model was introduced first by invoking cellular automata and then agent based model takes important role in the traffic simulation world. Most of microscopic model are based on a multi-grid element topography model which is a natural environment of cellular automata. Just recently a software engineer started an ambitious work to develop a multipurpose framework for complex traffic simulation. The ingenious idea is to replace the traditional grid based element topography with a continuous two dimensional one from which a region of traffic road or street is built up. Traffic participant is modelled as agent whose physical properties such as its coordinate position, speed, and direction are governed by the kinematic Newtonian law. This article will present this new concept and show how the simple movement of lane changing model that is very well known from the beginning era of traffic simulation become a quite complex movement in the new continuous topograph

Narrative music: towards an understanding of musical narrative functions in multimedia

As the computer screen is replacing the book as the dominant medium for communication (Kress, 2003), questions about how meaning is constituted by the multimodal interaction of different media (including music) is becoming increasingly important in contemporary research of pedagogy, sociology and media studies. The overall aim with this licentiate thesis is to explore musical narrative functions as they appear in multimedia such as film and computer games. The thesis is based on three publications. Publication 1 proposes a classification of musical narrative functions, with 6 narrative classes(the Emotive, Informative, Descriptive, Guiding, Temporal and Rhetorical classes) and 11 categories. The relational interplay of music with contextual factors is emphasized. Publication 2 describes the design of a software tool, REMUPP (Relations Between Musical Parameters and Perceived Properties), to be used for experimental studies of musical expression. REMUPP is used for real time alteration of musical expression, by the manipulation of musical parameters such as tempo, harmony, rhythm, articulation, etc. Publication 3 describes a quasi-experiment using REMUPP, where a group of young participants (12-13 years old) were given the task of adapting musical expression – by manipulating 7 parameters – to make it fit 3 visual scenes shown on a computer screen. They also answered a questionnaire asking about their musical backgrounds and habits of listening to music, watching movies and playing computer games. Numerical data from the manipulations were analyzed statistically with regards to the preferred values of the musical parameters in relation to the different visual scenes. The results indicated awareness and knowledge about codes and conventions of musical narrative functions, and were to some degree affected by the participants’ gender, musical backgrounds and media habits

Picking battles: The impact of trust assumptions on the elaboration of security requirements

This position paper describes work on trust assumptions in the con-text of security requirements. We show how trust assumptions can affect the scope of the analysis, derivation of security requirements, and in some cases how functionality is realized. An example shows how trust assumptions are used by a requirements engineer to help define and limit the scope of analysis and to document the decisions made during the process

A dashboard-based approach for efficient requirements change management

Requirements gathering and documentation are important first steps for a successful software engineering project. The documented requirements act as a guideline for design and development of software products. Requirements also represent customer expectations for the end product. Since these documented requirements serve important purposes for many stakeholders, managing requirement changes effectively plays a major role in the overall success of any project. Changes in requirements are very common in software engineering and can occur during any phase of software development lifecycle (SDLC). Though the impact of requirement changes differs depending on the SDLC phase in which it occurred, there is almost always a setback that happens in terms of the project timeline. This scenario is common in projects that follow both Agile/Scrum methodology and ones that follow the more traditional Waterfall model. In this report, I will first present two case studies of how requirement changes impacted the timelines of two projects (one following Agile/Scrum methodology and another following Waterfall methodology). In the second part of this report, I will propose and design a user-friendly dashboard, which could be used to speed up the delays caused by changing requirements.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Traditional vocations and modern professions among Tamil Brahmans in colonial and post-colonial south India

Since the nineteenth century, Tamil Brahmans have been very well represented in the educated professions, especially law and administration, medicine, engineering and nowadays, information technology. This is partly a continuation of the Brahmans’ role as literate service people, owing to their traditions of education, learning and literacy, but the range of professions shows that any direct continuity is more apparent than real. Genealogical data are particularly used as evidence about changing patterns of employment, education and migration. Caste traditionalism was not a determining constraint, for Tamil Brahmans were predominant in medicine and engineering as well as law and administration in the colonial period, even though medicine is ritually polluting and engineering resembles low-status artisans’ work. Crucially though, as modern, English-language, credential-based professions that are wellpaid and prestigious, law, medicine and engineering were and are all deemed eminently suitable for Tamil Brahmans, who typically regard their professional success as a sign of their caste superiority in the modern world. In reality, though, it is mainly a product of how their old social and cultural capital and their economic capital in land were transformed as they seized new educational and employment opportunities by flexibly deploying their traditional, inherited skills and advantages

Change Impact Analysis for SysML Requirements Models based on Semantics of Trace Relations

Change impact analysis is one of the applications of requirements traceability in software engineering community. In this paper, we focus on requirements and requirements relations from traceability perspective. We provide formal definitions of the requirements relations in SysML for change impact analysis. Our approach aims at keeping the model synchronized with what stakeholders want to be modeled, and possibly implemented as well, which we called as the domain. The differences between the domain and model are defined as external inconsistencies. The inconsistencies are propagated for the whole model by using the formalization of relations, and mapped to proposed model changes. We provide tool support which is a plug-in of the commercial visual software modeler BluePrint

Functionality and history of electronics in regards to the performance practice of the following works: Temazcal (1984), Javier Álvarez, and Memory Palace (2012), Christopher Cerrone

Master's Project (M.Mu.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2016The Electroacoustic pieces; Temazcal (1984), by Javier Alvarez (b.1956), and Memory Palace (2012) by Christopher Cerrone (b.1984), each employ different types of electronic technologies in their realization through performance. This paper will discuss the origin and history of the technology applied respectively in the works. I will examine the role of percussion within the works, specifically in regards to learning and problem solving through technological challenges in order to effectively perform the compositions. By looking at Temazcal and Memory Palace through the context of their historical significance as electroacoustic works, the inherent functionality of the technology employed in each, and the resultant performance practices that have subsequently developed, a greater musical appreciation and understanding of electroacoustic works, in general, is possible