185 research outputs found
Architecture Information Communication in Two OSS Projects: the Why, Who, When, and What
Architecture information is vital for Open Source Software (OSS) development,
and mailing list is one of the widely used channels for developers to share and
communicate architecture information. This work investigates the nature of
architecture information communication (i.e., why, who, when, and what) by OSS
developers via developer mailing lists. We employed a multiple case study
approach to extract and analyze the architecture information communication from
the developer mailing lists of two OSS projects, ArgoUML and Hibernate, during
their development life-cycle of over 18 years. Our main findings are: (a)
architecture negotiation and interpretation are the two main reasons (i.e.,
why) of architecture communication; (b) the amount of architecture information
communicated in developer mailing lists decreases after the first stable
release (i.e., when); (c) architecture communications centered around a few
core developers (i.e., who); (d) and the most frequently communicated
architecture elements (i.e., what) are Architecture Rationale and Architecture
Model. There are a few similarities of architecture communication between the
two OSS projects. Such similarities point to how OSS developers naturally
gravitate towards the four aspects of architecture communication in OSS
development.Comment: Preprint accepted for publication in Journal of Systems and Software,
202
Leveraging Architectural Approaches in Web3 Applications -- A DAO Perspective Focused
Architectural design contexts contain a set of factors that influence
software application development. Among them, \textit{\textbf{organizational}}
design contexts consist of high-level company concerns and how it is
structured, for example, stakeholders and development schedule, heavily
impacting design considerations. Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO),
as a vital concept in the Web3 space, is an organization constructed by
automatically executed rules such as via smart contracts, holding features of
the permissionless committee, transparent proposals, and fair contribution by
stakeholders. In this work, we conduct a systematic literature review to
summarize how DAO is structured as well as explore its benefits\&challenges in
Web3 applications
On the Way to SBOMs: Investigating Design Issues and Solutions in Practice
Software Bill of Materials (SBOM), offers improved transparency and supply
chain security by providing a machine-readable inventory of software components
used. With the rise in software supply chain attacks, the SBOM has attracted
attention from both academia and industry. This paper presents a study on the
practice of SBOM, based on the analysis of 4,786 GitHub discussions from 510
SBOM-related projects. Our study identifies key topics, challenges, and
solutions associated with effective SBOM usage. We also highlight commonly used
tools and frameworks for generating SBOMs, along with their respective
strengths and limitations. Our research underscores the importance of SBOMs in
software development and the need for their widespread adoption to enhance
supply chain security. Additionally, the insights gained from our study can
inform future research and development in this field
The Privacy Pillar -- A Conceptual Framework for Foundation Model-based Systems
AI and its relevant technologies, including machine learning, deep learning,
chatbots, virtual assistants, and others, are currently undergoing a profound
transformation of development and organizational processes within companies.
Foundation models present both significant challenges and incredible
opportunities. In this context, ensuring the quality attributes of foundation
model-based systems is of paramount importance, and with a particular focus on
the challenging issue of privacy due to the sensitive nature of the data and
information involved. However, there is currently a lack of consensus regarding
the comprehensive scope of both technical and non-technical issues that the
privacy evaluation process should encompass. Additionally, there is uncertainty
about which existing methods are best suited to effectively address these
privacy concerns. In response to this challenge, this paper introduces a novel
conceptual framework that integrates various responsible AI patterns from
multiple perspectives, with the specific aim of safeguarding privacy.Comment: 10 page
Functional importance of different patterns of correlation between adjacent cassette exons in human and mouse
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Alternative splicing expands transcriptome diversity and plays an important role in regulation of gene expression. Previous studies focus on the regulation of a single cassette exon, but recent experiments indicate that multiple cassette exons within a gene may interact with each other. This interaction can increase the potential to generate various transcripts and adds an extra layer of complexity to gene regulation. Several cases of exon interaction have been discovered. However, the extent to which the cassette exons coordinate with each other remains unknown.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Based on EST data, we employed a metric of correlation coefficients to describe the interaction between two adjacent cassette exons and then categorized these exon pairs into three different groups by their interaction (correlation) patterns. Sequence analysis demonstrates that strongly-correlated groups are more conserved and contain a higher proportion of pairs with reading frame preservation in a combinatorial manner. Multiple genome comparison further indicates that different groups of correlated pairs have different evolutionary courses: (1) The vast majority of positively-correlated pairs are old, (2) most of the weakly-correlated pairs are relatively young, and (3) negatively-correlated pairs are a mixture of old and young events.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We performed a large-scale analysis of interactions between adjacent cassette exons. Compared with weakly-correlated pairs, the strongly-correlated pairs, including both the positively and negatively correlated ones, show more evidence that they are under delicate splicing control and tend to be functionally important. Additionally, the positively-correlated pairs bear strong resemblance to constitutive exons, which suggests that they may evolve from ancient constitutive exons, while negatively and weakly correlated pairs are more likely to contain newly emerging exons.</p
When ChatGPT Meets Smart Contract Vulnerability Detection: How Far Are We?
With the development of blockchain technology, smart contracts have become an
important component of blockchain applications. Despite their crucial role, the
development of smart contracts may introduce vulnerabilities and potentially
lead to severe consequences, such as financial losses. Meanwhile, large
language models, represented by ChatGPT, have gained great attentions,
showcasing great capabilities in code analysis tasks. In this paper, we
presented an empirical study to investigate the performance of ChatGPT in
identifying smart contract vulnerabilities. Initially, we evaluated ChatGPT's
effectiveness using a publicly available smart contract dataset. Our findings
discover that while ChatGPT achieves a high recall rate, its precision in
pinpointing smart contract vulnerabilities is limited. Furthermore, ChatGPT's
performance varies when detecting different vulnerability types. We delved into
the root causes for the false positives generated by ChatGPT, and categorized
them into four groups. Second, by comparing ChatGPT with other state-of-the-art
smart contract vulnerability detection tools, we found that ChatGPT's F-score
is lower than others for 3 out of the 7 vulnerabilities. In the case of the
remaining 4 vulnerabilities, ChatGPT exhibits a slight advantage over these
tools. Finally, we analyzed the limitation of ChatGPT in smart contract
vulnerability detection, revealing that the robustness of ChatGPT in this field
needs to be improved from two aspects: its uncertainty in answering questions;
and the limited length of the detected code. In general, our research provides
insights into the strengths and weaknesses of employing large language models,
specifically ChatGPT, for the detection of smart contract vulnerabilities
Quantum Software Analytics: Opportunities and Challenges
Quantum computing systems depend on the principles of quantum mechanics to
perform multiple challenging tasks more efficiently than their classical
counterparts. In classical software engineering, the software life cycle is
used to document and structure the processes of design, implementation, and
maintenance of software applications. It helps stakeholders understand how to
build an application. In this paper, we summarize a set of software analytics
topics and techniques in the development life cycle that can be leveraged and
integrated into quantum software application development. The results of this
work can assist researchers and practitioners in better understanding the
quantum-specific emerging development activities, challenges, and opportunities
in the next generation of quantum software
A Water-Soluble Polysaccharide from the Fruit Bodies of Bulgaria inquinans (Fries) and Its Anti-Malarial Activity
A water-soluble polysaccharide (BIWS-4b) was purified from the fruit bodies of Bulgaria inquinans (Fries). It is composed of mannose (27.2%), glucose (15.5%) and galactose (57.3%). Its molecular weight was estimated to be 7.4 kDa (polydispersity index, Mw/Mn: 1.35). Structural analyses indicated that BIWS-4b mainly contains (1 → 6)-linked, (1 → 5)-linked and (1 → 5,6)-linked β-Galf units; (1 → 4)-linked and non-reducing terminal β-Glcp units; and (1 → 2)-linked, (1 → 6)-linked, (1 → 2,6)-linked and non-reducing terminal α-Manp units. When examined by the 4-day method and in a prophylactic assay in mice, BIWS-4b exhibited markedly suppressive activity against malaria while enhancing the activity of artesunate. Immunological tests indicated that BIWS-4b significantly enhanced macrophage phagocytosis and splenic lymphocyte proliferation in malaria-bearing mice and normal mice. The anti-malarial activity of BIWS-4b might be intermediated by enhancing immune competence and restoring artesunate-suppressed immune function. Thus, BIWS-4b is a potential adjuvant of anti-malaria drugs
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