A Study on Architectural Smells Prediction

Architectural smells can be detrimental to the system maintainability, evolvability and represent a source of architectural debt. Thus, it is very important to be able to understand how they evolved in the past and to predict their future evolution. In this paper, we evaluate if the existence of architectural smells in the past versions of a project can be used to predict their presence in the future. We analyzed four Java projects in 295 Github releases and we applied for the prediction four different supervised learning models in a repeated cross-validation setting. We found that historical architectural smell information can be used to predict the presence of architectural smells in the future. Hence, practitioners should carefully monitor the evolution of architectural smells and take preventative actions to avoid introducing them and stave off their progressive growth.</p

Qualitative analysis of the relationship between design smells and software engineering challenges

Software design debt aims to elucidate the rectification attempts of the present design flaws and studies the influence of those to the cost and time of the software. Design smells are a key cause of incurring design debt. Although the impact of design smells on design debt have been predominantly considered in current literature, how design smells are caused due to not following software engineering best practices require more exploration. This research provides a tool which is used for design smell detection in Java software by analyzing large volume of source codes. More specifically, 409,539 Lines of Code (LoC) and 17,760 class files of open source Java software are analyzed here. Obtained results show desirable precision values ranging from 81.01\% to 93.43\%. Based on the output of the tool, a study is conducted to relate the cause of the detected design smells to two software engineering challenges namely "irregular team meetings" and "scope creep". As a result, the gained information will provide insight to the software engineers to take necessary steps of design remediation actions.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1910.0542

Evidence Based Design: A scientific review for architectural applications

For centuries architectural cues have been subjectively created and designed on intuition, some are well-done and others fail. Occupants interpret the space about them giving the context meaning and defining a program. While those interpretations will vary due to varying cultures, personalities, and experiences the common denominator for perception is the neuroscience behind the hundreds of stimuli receiving information from the confounding space. Designers should think out those stimuli and carefully design for the best impressionable impact. The proposal herein is to encourage designers to strive for the best sensory environment beyond subjective methodologies and into objective studies. A growing field that encourages architects to acquire data and test hypotheses is evidencebased design that seeks to enhance the possibilities of spatial impact on human perception and behavior. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the possibilities within science, particularly neuroscience, to discover how to create enhanced sensory impressions. The methodology undertaken follows the three research typologies typical of evidence-based development. The first is a literature review of the emergence of architectural design from an historical subjective application to an amalgamation with objective practice. An anatomy of the body, senses, and neurology is unveiled as a basis to understand the realm through which architectural stimuli must pass to elicit any type of response. To test the application of physiological evidence for design an experiment is conducted in which blood pressure, heart rate, and written survey measures are taken to discover impacts of color on a participants review of space. In response to both experimental data and research findings, the final step has been to create a prototypical design that applies evidence to architectural applications followed by analyses of participants’ interpretations. Throughout this dissertation research studies are intertwined to help bridge the connection between science and architecture to enlighten the reader of the possibilities instilled in this art for humanity

Mining Architectural Information: A Systematic Mapping Study

Context: Mining Software Repositories (MSR) has become an essential activity in software development. Mining architectural information to support architecting activities, such as architecture understanding and recovery, has received a significant attention in recent years. However, there is an absence of a comprehensive understanding of the state of research on mining architectural information. Objective: This work aims to identify, analyze, and synthesize the literature on mining architectural information in software repositories in terms of architectural information and sources mined, architecting activities supported, approaches and tools used, and challenges faced. Method: A Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) has been conducted on the literature published between January 2006 and November 2021. Results: Of the 79 primary studies finally selected, 8 categories of architectural information have been mined, among which architectural description is the most mined architectural information; 12 architecting activities can be supported by the mined architectural information, among which architecture understanding is the most supported activity; 81 approaches and 52 tools were proposed and employed in mining architectural information; and 4 types of challenges in mining architectural information were identified. Conclusions: This SMS provides researchers with promising future directions and help practitioners be aware of what approaches and tools can be used to mine what architectural information from what sources to support various architecting activities.Comment: 68 pages, 5 images, 15 tables, Manuscript submitted to a Journal (2022

Space networks: towards hodological space design for urban man, starting with a cognitive / perceptual notation

The main purpose of this thesis on Space Networks is to make a contribution to urban design0A iming at the level of the urban designer's or architect's prestructure (after the site has been seen,and before any plan/section/elevation drawings are done),it is meant for those designers involved in res earth themselves,and who accept the idea that they are,in a way, the first users of what they design.The additional purpose is to provide a sociological, psychological,and spatial scale context for dynamic design. Space is looked upon as a network.Where the space-of-possible- movement (taking the shortest/most agreable/most energy demanding/etc way, depending whether you are in a hurry/strolling/exercising yourself/etc respectively) is called Hodological Space.Movement --through-space-with-intention is used as a generator for design.We start with a proposed cognitive/perceptual notation of four spatial conceptual components: First with Section-Perspective (by which we do away with the facades,and considering the building not in isolation ---in the form of an endless isometric). Then the Tube (employing the anticipation,cognitively,of the projecting brain of man for his path of action),and also the Sequential (progressive sequences) and Binary (visual contrasts of 'wholes')- -these perceived as man moves through his Hodological space.There are six Chapters and an Appendix.Chapter I is introductory,and its three parts are extended in the Chapters that follow: Movement Through Space in Chapters 3 and 4,Space- Movement Notation in Chapters 5 and 6,and the Intended Fieldwork And Pilot Questionnaires in the Appendix.In Chapter 2 the clarifying distinction is made between space for activity and space for profit.Which issue,far from a refinement,shifts the problem back to where it belongs: the society values --of which the designer himself partakes. ln Chapter 3 man is not seen from the stimulus -response,but the cognitive psychology side: not passive,but projecting his intentions into his environment --and if it goes a bit too far in that direction it is in compensation for the opposite view.ln Chapter 4 a comprehensive classification of space,into Hodological,Ambient,and Personal,is made for the designer's understanding and use.All three spaces are more fundamental to him than Euclidean space which is significant only in relation to them.ln Chapter 5 the four-component Notation is a rticulated into the cognitive /perceptual anthropological model of cognitive anticipation (see Tube),and perceptual experience (see Sequential and Binary),together with a comparative discussion of the other notatorst work,ranging between the scales of landscape design (Halprin) and microspace behaviour (Hall),In Chapter 6 the proposition of using the present anthropological model of a cognitive /perceptual notation of design-for-movement has been taken up as a process employed in experimental design.The program of designing for Hodological space --as well as for Ambient space which accompanies progress through Hodological space --links psychological research to design for the pedestrian

Closing the gap between guidance and practice, an investigation of the relevance of design guidance to practitioners using object-oriented technologies

This thesis investigates if object oriented guidance is relevant in practice, and how this affects software that is produced. This is achieved by surveying practitioners and studying how constructs such as interfaces and inheritance are used in open-source systems. Surveyed practitioners framed 'good design' in terms of impact on development and maintenance. Recognition of quality requires practitioner judgement (individually and as a group), and principles are valued over rules. Time constraints heighten sensitivity to the rework cost of poor design decisions. Examination of open source systems highlights the use of interface and inheritance. There is some evidence of 'textbook' use of these structures, and much use is simple. Outliers are widespread indicating a pragmatic approach. Design is found to reflect the pressures of practice - high-level decisions justify 'designed' structures and architecture, while uncertainty leads to deferred design decisions - simpler structures, repetition, and unconsolidated design. Sub-populations of structures can be identified which may represent common trade-offs. Useful insights are gained into practitioner attitude to design guidance. Patterns of use and structure are identified which may aid in assessment and comprehension of object oriented systems.This thesis investigates if object oriented guidance is relevant in practice, and how this affects software that is produced. This is achieved by surveying practitioners and studying how constructs such as interfaces and inheritance are used in open-source systems. Surveyed practitioners framed 'good design' in terms of impact on development and maintenance. Recognition of quality requires practitioner judgement (individually and as a group), and principles are valued over rules. Time constraints heighten sensitivity to the rework cost of poor design decisions. Examination of open source systems highlights the use of interface and inheritance. There is some evidence of 'textbook' use of these structures, and much use is simple. Outliers are widespread indicating a pragmatic approach. Design is found to reflect the pressures of practice - high-level decisions justify 'designed' structures and architecture, while uncertainty leads to deferred design decisions - simpler structures, repetition, and unconsolidated design. Sub-populations of structures can be identified which may represent common trade-offs. Useful insights are gained into practitioner attitude to design guidance. Patterns of use and structure are identified which may aid in assessment and comprehension of object oriented systems

Unlocking the Pragmatics of Emoji: Evaluation of the Integration of Pragmatic Markers for Sarcasm Detection

Emojis have become an integral element of online communications, serving as a powerful, under-utilised resource for enhancing pragmatic understanding in NLP. Previous works have highlighted their potential for improvement of more complex tasks such as the identification of figurative literary devices including sarcasm due to their role in conveying tone within text. However present state-of-the-art does not include the consideration of emoji or adequately address sarcastic markers such as sentiment incongruence. This work aims to integrate these concepts to generate more robust solutions for sarcasm detection leveraging enhanced pragmatic features from both emoji and text tokens. This was achieved by establishing methodologies for sentiment feature extraction from emojis and a depth statistical evaluation of the features which characterise sarcastic text on Twitter. Current convention for generation of training data which implements weak-labelling using hashtags or keywords was evaluated against a human-annotated baseline; postulated validity concerns were verified where statistical evaluation found the content features deviated significantly from the baseline, highlighting potential validity concerns for many prominent works on the topic to date. Organic labelled sarcastic tweets containing emojis were crowd sourced by means of a survey to ensure valid outcomes for the sarcasm detection model. Given an established importance of both semantic and sentiment information, a novel sentiment-aware attention mechanism was constructed to enhance pattern recognition, balancing core features of sarcastic text: sentiment incongruence and context. This work establishes a framework for emoji feature extraction; a key roadblock cited in literature for their use in NLP tasks. The proposed sarcasm detection pipeline successfully facilitates the task using a GRU neural network with sentiment-aware attention, at an accuracy of 73% and promising indications regarding model robustness as part of a framework which is easily scalable for the inclusion of any future emojis released. Both enhanced sentiment information to supplement context in addition to consideration of the emoji were found to improve outcomes for the task