60 research outputs found
A Review of Software Inspections
For two decades, software inspections have proven effective for
detecting defects in software. We have reviewed the different ways
software inspections are done, created a taxonomy of inspection methods,
and examined claims about the cost-effectiveness of different methods.
We detect a disturbing pattern in the evaluation of inspection
methods. Although there is universal agreement on the effectiveness of
software inspection, their economics are uncertain. Our examination of
several empirical studies leads us to conclude that the benefits of
inspections are often overstated and the costs (especially for large
software developments) are understated. Furthermore, some of the most
influential studies establishing these costs and benefits are 20 years old
now, which leads us to question their relevance to today's software
development processes.
Extensive work is needed to determine exactly how, why, and when
software inspections work, and whether some defect detection techniques
might be more cost-effective than others. In this article we ask some
questions about measuring effectiveness of software inspections and
determining how much they really cost when their effect on the rest of the
development process is considered. Finding answers to these questions will
enable us to improve the efficiency of software development.
(Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-95-104
Identification of the Emergent Leaders within a CSE Professional Development Program
The need for high quality, sustainable Computer Science Education (CSE) professional development (PD) at the grades K-12 level is essential to the success of the global CSE initiatives. This study investigates the use of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to identify emergent teacher leaders within a high quality CSE PD program. The CSE PD program was designed and implemented through collaboration between the computer science and teacher education units at a Midwestern metropolitan university in North America. A unique feature of this specific program is in the intentional development of a social network. This study discusses the importance of social networks, the development of social capital, and its impact on the sustainability of the goals of the CSE PD program. The role of emergent teacher leaders in the development of the social capital of the CSE PD cohort is investigated using SNA techniques. The cohort consisted of 16 in-service teachers in grades 6-12 representing seven districts and four distinct content areas. The instruments used involved a questionnaire and the results of a CSE PD program online course. The findings suggest a correlation between the emergent teacher leaders, the online course results, and the overall cohort social capital. Future uses of SNA within professional development programs are also discussed
An Experiment to Assess the Cost-Benefits of Code Inspections in Large Scale Software Development
We are conducting a long-term experiment (in progress) to compare
the costs and benefits of several different software inspection methods.
These methods are being applied by professional developers to a
commercial software product they are currently writing.
Because the laboratory for this experiment is a live development
effort, we took special care to minimize cost and risk to the project,
while maximizing our ability to gather useful data.
This article has several goals: (1) to describe the experiment's
design and show how we used simulation techniques to optimize it, (2) to
present our preliminary results and discuss their implications for both
software practitioners and researchers, and (3) to discuss how we expect
to modify the experiment in order to reduce potential risks to the project.
For each inspection we randomly assign 3 independent variables:
(1) the number of reviewers on each inspection team (1, 2 or 4), (2) the
number of teams inspecting the code unit (1 or 2), and (3) the
requirement that defects be repaired between the first and second team's
inspections. The reviewers for each inspection are randomly selected
without replacement from a pool of 11 experienced software developers.
The dependent variables for each inspection include inspection interval
(elapsed time), total effort, and the defect detection rate.
To date we have completed 34 of the planned 64 inspections. Our
preliminary results challenge certain long-held beliefs about the most
cost-effective ways to conduct inspections and raise some questions about
the feasibility of recently proposed methods.
(Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-95-14
Understanding the Sources of Variation in Software Inspections
In a previous experiment, we determined how various changes in three
structural elements of the software inspection process (team size, and
number and sequencing of session), altered effectiveness and interval.
our results showed that such changes did not significantly influence the
defect detection reate, but that certain combinations of changes
dramatically increased the inspection interval.
We also observed a large amount of unexplained variance in the data,
indicating that other factors much be affecting inspection performance. The
nature and extent of these other factos now have to be determined to ensure
that they had not biased our earlier results. Also, identifying these
other factors might suggest additional ways to improve the efficiency of
inspection.
Acting on the hypothesis that the "inputs" into the inspection process
(reviewers, authors, and code units) were significant sources of variation,
we modeled their effects on inspection performance. We found that they
were responsible for much more variation in defect detection than was
process structure. This leads us to conclude that better defect detection
techniques, not better process structures, at the key to improving
inspection effectiveness.
The combined effects of process inputs and process structure on the
inspection interval accounted for only a small percentage of the variance
in inspection interval. Therefore, there still remain other factors which
need to be identified.
(Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-97-22
The Perceptions of Incoming College Students from One of the Universities of the South on the Use of Biomimicry as a Method in the Field of Engineering
Biomimicry is a growing concept in science. Technologies that are developed nowadays are influenced by thorough studies on the structure and function of plants and animals. To bring innovative ideas that came from nature\u27s own adaptation and apply this to the principles of engineering, the study aimed to gauge and understand the level of perception of incoming Engineering students towards the process and engineering of biomimetics technologies. It determined the level of knowledge of the respondents with regards to the utilization of biomimicry in the modern setting. The researchers used a descriptive quantitative survey research design to measure the awareness or perception of the respondents. The researchers also made use of a researcher-made questionnaire for the collection of data and applied the 4-point Likert scale. The respondents of this study are the Grade 12 STEM students of the University of Perpetual Help System DALTA. The study utilized the statistical tools of frequency, percentage, and weighted mean in interpreting the perception of the respondents. The results of the study showed that majority of the respondents are aware to more famous inventions/concepts inspired by biomimicry such as the Bullet Train and photosynthetic ability of plants. After analyzing the results, the researchers conclude that the respondents are aware of the modern the designs and concepts of biomimicry making way for professionals to apply biomimicry in the future. In addition, the results of this study provided the researchers insights for future reference and engineering designs
Encounters with the moral economy of water: convergent evolution in Valencia
[EN] This article presents the results of comparative fieldwork on the huerta of Valencia in Spain, a successful community-managed irrigation system of medium scale, one governed collectively by thousands of small farmers organized into 10 autonomous but highly interdependent irrigator groups. The study tested a model identified previously in research on successful systems of much smaller scale in Peru, a set of principles of operation that, when affirmed by farmers and obeyed as collective-choice rules, interact to create equity among water rights and transparency in water use in an unusual way. The authors show that a nearly identical set are at work in all 10 communities of Valencia, revealing the unique manner in which these work together to promote successful and sustainable cooperation, both within and between the user groups, and arguing that their presence in Spain and the Andes is indicative, not of diffusion from one continent to another, but of independent invention. These principles together laid the foundations for separate Andean and Islamic hydraulic traditions, which were often manifested locally in robust and equitable systems of the same general type, here called the moral economy of water. This kind of communal system appears to have emerged repeatedly, and often independently, in a great many other locales and settings throughout the world; its adaptive dynamics are shown to be of great relevance to small farmers today as they face the growing scarcity of water being induced by population growth and by climate change.Trawick, P.; Ortega Reig, MV.; Palau-Salvador, G. (2014). Encounters with the moral economy of water: convergent evolution in Valencia. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water. 1(1):87-110. doi:10.1002/wat2.1008S871101
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The FIELDS Instrument Suite for Solar Probe Plus: Measuring the Coronal Plasma and Magnetic Field, Plasma Waves and Turbulence, and Radio Signatures of Solar Transients.
NASA's Solar Probe Plus (SPP) mission will make the first in situ measurements of the solar corona and the birthplace of the solar wind. The FIELDS instrument suite on SPP will make direct measurements of electric and magnetic fields, the properties of in situ plasma waves, electron density and temperature profiles, and interplanetary radio emissions, amongst other things. Here, we describe the scientific objectives targeted by the SPP/FIELDS instrument, the instrument design itself, and the instrument concept of operations and planned data products
Role of Caustic Addition in Bitumen-Clay Interactions
Coating of bitumen by clays, known as slime coating, is detrimental to bitumen recovery from oil sands using the warm slurry extn. process. Sodium hydroxide (caustic) is added to the extn. process to balance many competing processing challenges, which include undesirable slime coating. The current research aims at understanding the role of caustic addn. in controlling interactions of bitumen with various types of model clays. The interaction potential was studied by quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D). After confirming the slime coating potential of montmorillonite clays on bitumen in the presence of calcium ions, the interaction of kaolinite and illite with bitumen was studied. To represent more closely the industrial applications, tailings water from bitumen extn. tests at different caustic dosage was used. At caustic dosage up to 0.5 wt % oil sands ore, a negligible coating of kaolinite on the bitumen was detd. However, at a lower level of caustic addn., illite was shown to attach to the bitumen, with the interaction potential decreasing with increasing caustic dosage. Increasing concn. of humic acids as a result of increasing caustic dosage was identified to limit the interaction potential of illite with bitumen. This fundamental study clearly shows that the crit. role of caustics in modulating interactions of clays with bitumen depends upon the type of clays. Thus, clay type was identified as a key operational variable
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