Non-functional requirements: size measurement and testing with COSMIC-FFP

The non-functional requirements (NFRs) of software systems are well known to add a degree of uncertainty to process of estimating the cost of any project. This paper contributes to the achievement of more precise project size measurement through incorporating NFRs into the functional size quantification process. We report on an initial solution proposed to deal with the problem of quantitatively assessing the NFR modeling process early in the project, and of generating test cases for NFR verification purposes. The NFR framework has been chosen for the integration of NFRs into the requirements modeling process and for their quantitative assessment. Our proposal is based on the functional size measurement method, COSMIC-FFP, adopted in 2003 as the ISO/IEC 19761 standard. Also in this paper, we extend the use of COSMIC-FFP for NFR testing purposes. This is an essential step for improving NFR development and testing effort estimates, and consequently for managing the scope of NFRs. We discuss the merits of the proposed approach and the open questions related to its design

Early Quantitative Assessment of Non-Functional Requirements

Non-functional requirements (NFRs) of software systems are a well known source of uncertainty in effort estimation. Yet, quantitatively approaching NFR early in a project is hard. This paper makes a step towards reducing the impact of uncertainty due to NRF. It offers a solution that incorporates NFRs into the functional size quantification process. The merits of our solution are twofold: first, it lets us quantitatively assess the NFR modeling process early in the project, and second, it lets us generate test cases for NFR verification purposes. We chose the NFR framework as a vehicle to integrate NFRs into the requirements modeling process and to apply quantitative assessment procedures. Our solution proposal also rests on the functional size measurement method, COSMIC-FFP, adopted in 2003 as the ISO/IEC 19761 standard. We extend its use for NFR testing purposes, which is an essential step for improving NFR development and testing effort estimates, and consequently for managing the scope of NFRs. We discuss the advantages of our approach and the open questions related to its design as well

The Role of Receptive Reasoning in the Development of Intellectual Humility

Intellectual humility (IH) develops throughout childhood and adolescence and is critically important for effective learning, particularly with regard to science; however, the research examining the development of IH in children is quite limited. As such, this study utilized an exploratory, mixed methods, community-engaged research design with children ages three to 10 (n = 60; Mage = 5.98; 69.6% female) and their parents/guardians recruited from a public children’s museum.. As the construct of IH is intended to describe adult cognition, I operationalized the set of components that may lead to the development of IH in preschool children as Receptive Reasoning (RR), including exploration, explanation, and revision of beliefs. Results indicate that the three components of RR are interrelated, particularly explanation and revision of beliefs, and these components differ by age, with exploration and explanation improving and belief revision decreasing. Further, these constructs are distinct from those of ego resiliency, approaches to learning, and emotion regulation. Findings indicate the complexity in measuring the components of RR in young children and highlight the importance of age in the development of RR

Committee chair selection under high informational and organizational constraints

This article draws on major theories of committee organization to explain committee chair selection in contexts with high informational and organizational constraints. We test our theoretical expectations through a series of fixed effects conditional logit models ran on an original data set which includes all legislators who have served in the Romanian Chamber of Deputies from 1992 to 2012. The findings indicate that sector knowledge matters more for committee chair selection in the first post-communist terms, while chair seniority and party credentials acquire relevance later on. The effect of sector knowledge is stronger than that of chair seniority for the committees that the members of parliament perceive to be the most important, while party leaders have privileged access to the chair position irrespective of how salient the committee is

Aligning Perspectives and Methods for Value-Driven Design

Recent years have seen a push to use explicit consideration of “value” in order to drive design. This paper conveys the need to explicitly align perspectives on “value” with the method used to quantify “value.” Various concepts of value are introduced in the context of its evolution within economics in order to propose a holistic definition of value. Operationalization of value is discussed, including possible assumption violations in the aerospace domain. A series of prominent Value-Centric Design Methodologies for valuation are introduced, including Net Present Value, Multi-Attribute Utility Theory, and Cost-Benefit Analysis. These methods are compared in terms of the assumptions they make with regard to operationalizing value. It is shown that no method is fully complete in capturing the definition of value, but selecting the most appropriate one involves matching the particular system application being valued with acceptable assumptions for valuation. Two case studies, a telecommunications mission and a deep-space observation mission, are used to illustrate application of the three prior mentioned valuation methods. The results of the studies show that depending on method used for valuation, very different conclusions and insights will be derived, therefore an explicit consideration of the appropriate definition of value is necessary in order to align a chosen method with desired valuation insights.Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Systems Engineering Advancement Research Initiativ

A comparative survey of integrated learning systems

This paper presents the duction framework for unifying the three basic forms of inference - deduction, abduction, and induction - by specifying the possible relationships and influences among them in the context of integrated learning. Special assumptive forms of inference are defined that extend the use of these inference methods, and the properties of these forms are explored. A comparison to a related inference-based learning frame work is made. Finally several existing integrated learning programs are examined in the perspective of the duction framework