A Feature Ranking Algorithm in Pragmatic Quality Factor Model for Software Quality Assessment

Software quality is an important research area and has gain considerable attention from software engineering community in identification of priority quality attributes in software development process. This thesis describes original research in the field of software quality model by presenting a Feature Ranking Algorithm (FRA) for Pragmatic Quality Factor (PQF) model. The proposed algorithm is able to improve the weaknesses in PQF model in updating and learning the important attributes for software quality assessment. The existing assessment techniques lack of the capability to rank the quality attributes and data learning which can enhance the quality assessment process. The aim of the study is to identify and propose the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technique for improving quality assessment technique in PQF model. Therefore, FRA using FRT was constructed and the performance of the FRA was evaluated. The methodology used consists of theoretical study, design of formal framework on intelligent software quality, identification of Feature Ranking Technique (FRT), construction and evaluation of FRA algorithm. The assessment of quality attributes has been improved using FRA algorithm enriched with a formula to calculate the priority of attributes and followed by learning adaptation through Java Library for Multi Label Learning (MULAN) application. The result shows that the performance of FRA correlates strongly to PQF model with 98% correlation compared to the Kolmogorov-Smirnov Correlation Based Filter (KSCBF) algorithm with 83% correlation. Statistical significance test was also performed with score of 0.052 compared to the KSCBF algorithm with score of 0.048. The result shows that the FRA was more significant than KSCBF algorithm. The main contribution of this research is on the implementation of FRT with proposed Most Priority of Features (MPF) calculation in FRA for attributes assessment. Overall, the findings and contributions can be regarded as a novel effort in software quality for attributes selection

GOSSEC: Goal Oriented Software Sustainability Evaluation Criteria

The concepts of sustainability is now aware among the software engineering researchers.  It has direct and indirect impacts on three dimensions which are environment, economic and social that results from the development and implementation of the software. Although there are studies on software sustainability evaluation that defines the software sustainability criteria unfortunately, most of the studies are focusing on single criterion rather than come out with holistic criteria of software sustainability. Additionally, the studies also focused on what need to be measured instead of how to perform the evaluation systematically. This limitation was occurred due to lack of defining the measurement goal of each criteria of software sustainability dimensions. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a Goal Oriented Software Sustainability Evaluation Criteria and organize the sustainability criteria using Quality Function Deployment. On top of that, the Goal Oriented Software Sustainability Evaluation Criteria has been constructed using Goal Oriented Measurement approach by adapting the Goal Question Metric method to assist in defining the goal that clearly defined the purposes, perspectives, and point of views of measurement of software sustainability. Hence, the Goal Oriented Software Sustainability Evaluation Criteria provides nine (9) goals and thirty four (34) sub goals for measuring the software sustainability criteria and sub criteria. The findings from the study present a set of criteria and measurement goals which can be used for evaluating software sustainability. The criteria were organized into three dimensions which are environment, economic and social.   &nbsp

Filter-wrapper based feature ranking technique for dynamic software quality attributes

This article presents a filter-wrapper based feature ranking technique that is able to learn and rank quality attributes according to new cases of software quality assessment data.The proposed feature ranking technique consists of a scoring method named Most Priority of Feature (MPF) and a learning algorithm to learn the software quality attribute weights. The existing ranking techniques do not address the issue of redundancy in ranking the software quality attributes. Our proposed technique resolves the redundancy issue by using classifiers to choose attributes that shows high classification accuracy. Experimental result indicates that our technique outperforms other similar technique and correlates better with human experts

Intelligent software quality model: The theoretical framework

Globally, software quality issues has increasingly been seen as a common strategic response for achieving competitiveness in business.It has been seen very important as the usage of software become very demanding.Software quality includes quality control tests, quality assurance and quality management.Currently, software quality models available were built based on static measurements of attributes and measures.Previous study has indicated that to ensure the quality of software meets the future requirements and needs, the new dynamic and intelligent software quality model has to be developed.This paper discusses the development of intelligent software quality model based on behavioral and human perspectives approach which enhances from Pragmatic Quality Factor (PQF) model as a benchmark of the quality assessment

CHALLENGE-STRESS AND HINDRANCE-STRESS IN THE SOUTHEAST ASIAN HOTEL SECTOR

The hospitality industry is an entity that is continuously determined by varying new demands and the needs of its customers. This ever-changing and complex working environment has caused and become a source of stress for the hospitality industries’ workforce. Workplace stress is increasing from year to year and has become a focus of research interest in recent years.Responding to the demands of management who require a more precise understanding of the issues of workplace stress, researchers have conducted studies on a total of 115 respondents from a 3 star-hotel and a 4 star-hotel. The personnel involved came from the food and beverage departments, room services and the front offices, whose daily routines involved direct face toface serving activities and fulfilling their customers’ demands. Using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 19.0 and AMOS version 18.0, the results of Exploratory Data Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Data Analysis (CFA) have confirmed that there are two stress factors, namely challenge stress and hindrance stress. Both of these stress factors have asignificantly negative relation to one another. Understanding these dimensions in detail can help the hospitality organizations to be well prepared for the task of motivating their employees.Keywords: challenge-stress, hindrance-stress, service, Southeast Asia, hote

Public acceptance and preference towards rainwater harvesting in Klang Valley, Malaysia / Shahariah Asmuni … [et al.]

This study explored the public acceptance and preference towards rainwater harvesting (RWH) in the area of Klang Valley. Self-administered questionnaires were used to obtain data from 109 respondents. An interview was also conducted on an individual representing a household with a RWH system. Respondents generally accepted that rainwater could be collected and reused for non-potable uses such as washing the porch and vehicles and watering the garden. While suggested WTP values of non-owners of the system fall below RM500, actual interview showed a homeowner spending a much higher amount for the system’s installation. Among the attributes of a RWH system preferred by respondents were affordability, safety and convenience. Added feature of a system preferred would be having a unit subsidized by the government. These findings may assist policymakers in finding ways to promote the development and use of RWH systems in the country

Integrated-Software Sustainability Evaluation Model (i-SSEM) development

An integrated-Software Sustainability Evaluation Model (i-SSEM) presents the holistic evaluation criteria of software sustainability with performed the systematic measurement by using Goal Question Metric (GQM) approach. The required of the holistic evaluation in software sustainability is to address the limitations of the previous studies in which the needs to integrate all evaluation criterion into sustainability dimension such as environment, economic and social. The evaluation criteria are supported by references standards such as standard organization of product quality, sustainability development principal introduced by Bruntland Commission Report and the best practices from individual and organization in software sustainability evaluation (SSE). In order to provide the holistic SSE with integrated all sustainability dimensions, the proposed characteristic and sub-characteristic is evaluated based on “what, who, when, why, where” and “how” to measure the criteria. The proposed evaluation criteria consist nine (9) characteristics and thirty-two (32) sub-characteristics with nineteen (19) metrics. Embedded of GQM contributes in defining the measurement goals by determining the purposes, perspectives, point of views in the following context of environment with respect to achieve software sustainability

Embedding the concept of service oriented architecture into software sustainability evaluation model

Software sustainability evaluation is a measurement mechanism which involved several criteria of software development through the characteristic and sub-characteristic with requirement to meet the needs at the present until to the future generation. The measurement mechanism can support to achieve developing software towards sustainability perspective such as environment, economic and social. This paper embedded the concept of Service-Oriented Architecture into sustainability evaluation model to support the measurement criteria in the way to build software flexibility, reusability and agility. The objective is to propose several characteristic of software development with utilizing the concept of sustainability and embedded with SOA concept. The mapping criteria of SOA and software development characteristic significantly improve the measurement criteria that can be addressed in the measurement model

Discharge and pre-rehabilitation under bankruptcy law and Islamic law: a boon or a bane?

Repeated calls for a reform of the bankruptcy laws in Malaysia resulted in the renaming of the Bankruptcy Act 1967 (BA 1967) to the Insolvency Act 1967 (IA 1967), which came into force on 6th October 2017. Among the changes made by the IA 1967 are provisions relating to an automatic discharge of bankruptcy and a pre-rehabilitation scheme. Islam prohibits the cancellation of debt since it denies the rightful party from making a claim – however, it does encourage a creditor to be lenient to a debtor. In considering the changes made to the bankruptcy law, this paper examines the provisions on bankruptcy discharge and pre-rehabilitation including the new provisions of automatic discharge and voluntary arrangement (VA). Data for this study comprises primary and secondary data from statutes, case reports, textbooks, and articles from both law and non-legal journals. This paper also analyses the Islamic law’s view of debt, discharge of debt and the concept of pre-rehabilitation. The data for the Islamic component consists of verses from the Holy Quran, Islamic traditions and teachings of Prophet Muhammad PBUH as well as articles from Islamic journals. The paper concludes by showing that VA is the only form of bankruptcy pre-rehabilitation, statutorily granted and available for debtors in Malaysia to avoid bankruptcy, and the introduction of automatic discharge facilitates a quick way out of debt for a bankrupt and enables him to start afresh. The findings also show that the principle of discharge under Islamic bankruptcy law is applicable to debtors who genuinely face hardship to pay their debts. Islam encourages creditors and debtors to enter into negotiation for the settlement of debt instead of the debtors being declared bankrupt due to the inability to pay their debts

Integrated-Software Sustainability Evaluation Model (i-SSEM) Development

An integrated-Software Sustainability Evaluation Model (i-SSEM) presents the holistic evaluation criteria of software sustainability with performed the systematic measurement by using Goal Question Metric (GQM) approach. The required of the holistic evaluation in software sustainability is to address the limitations of the previous studies in which the needs to integrate all evaluation criterion into sustainability dimension such as environment, economic and social. The evaluation criteria are supported by references standards such as standard organization of product quality, sustainability development principal introduced by Bruntland Commission Report and the best practices from individual and organization in software sustainability evaluation (SSE). In order to provide the holistic SSE with integrated all sustainability dimensions, the proposed characteristic and sub-characteristic is evaluated based on “what, who, when, why, where” and “how” to measure the criteria. The proposed evaluation criteria consist nine (9) characteristics and thirty-two (32) sub-characteristics with nineteen (19) metrics. Embedded of GQM contributes in defining the measurement goals by determining the purposes, perspectives, point of views in the following context of environment with respect to achieve software sustainability