On Using UML Diagrams to Identify and Assess Software Design Smells

Deficiencies in software design or architecture can severely impede and slow down the software development and maintenance progress. Bad smells and anti-patterns can be an indicator for poor software design and suggest for refactoring the affected source code fragment. In recent years, multiple techniques and tools have been proposed to assist software engineers in identifying smells and guiding them through corresponding refactoring steps. However, these detection tools only cover a modest amount of smells so far and also tend to produce false positives which represent conscious constructs with symptoms similar or identical to actual bad smells (e.g., design patterns). These and other issues in the detection process demand for a code or design review in order to identify (missed) design smells and/or re-assess detected smell candidates. UML diagrams are the quasi-standard for documenting software design and are often available in software projects. In this position paper, we investigate whether (and to what extent) UML diagrams can be used for identifying and assessing design smells. Based on a description of difficulties in the smell detection process, we discuss the importance of design reviews. We then investigate to what extent design documentation in terms of UML2 diagrams allows for representing and identifying software design smells. In particular, 14 kinds of design smells and their representability in UML class and sequence diagrams are analyzed. In addition, we discuss further challenges for UML-based identification and assessment of bad smells

Women-Related Images as Metaphorical Source Domain in Tannaitic Corpora

This dissertation is on gendered metaphorical language in tannaitic sources. It focuses on images that have women as source domains for matters which are relevant to the rabbinic project, like the Divine, the rabbinic movement itself, the Oral Torah, mitsvot and the calendar. It argues that these metaphors are used to make a claim – about rabbinic identity, values, innovations or peculiar ideas. These are situated within and relate to the frame of Late Antiquity discourses, such as Roman imperial rhetoric and the debates with competing Jewish and non-Jewish groups, that also make use of gendered metaphors. However, the rabbinic usage is particular and modulated on the rabbinic system of law, life, ritual and religion. Through methodologies from conceptual metaphor theory, gender studies and literary analysis, this study maintains and discusses the importance of the female gender in this cognitive mapping. Women’s experiences are connected to rabbinic ideas about religion as embodied practice and law, the role of Israel and the risks it is exposed to, its relationship with the Divine, the importance of externalization and ritual in piety. Figurative language and gender in metaphors are not just a rhetorical move, but a cognitive process that constructs meaning and adherence to a certain way of life and ideology. Female imagery is used for thinking about communal identity, whereby the woman-image is the subject of the figurative construction. Source domains that refer directly to the experience of the audience achieve the cultivation of intimacy, whereby metaphors rely on the audience’s reception and capability to understand the implied reference. The images collected in this dissertation often show a conscious attempt to create an odd image, through the unsettling of conventional metaphorical associative structures and gendered expectations. This points to an attempt to construct a rabbinic own sense of self and a peculiar role. This analysis tracks down how these metaphors interact with the legal reasoning they are embedded into, and how they are used to construct rabbinic law. They stand at the core of tannaitic approaches to gender and rabbinic ways of law, whereby figurative language allows experimental, unexplored and less conventional ways in the construction of meaning. This dissertation offers tools for the discussion and study of gendered metaphors in tannaitic and rabbinic texts

Serious Games for Software Refactoring

Software design issues can severely impede software development and maintenance. Thus, it is important for the success of software projects that developers are aware of bad smells in code artifacts and improve their skills to reduce these issues via refactoring. However, software refactoring is a complex activity and involves multiple tasks and aspects. Therefore, imparting competences for identifying bad smells and refactoring code efficiently is challenging for software engineering education and training. The approaches proposed for teaching software refactoring in recent years mostly concentrate on small and artificial tasks and fall short in terms of higher level competences, such as analysis and evaluation. In this paper, we investigate the possibilities and challenges of designing serious games for software refactoring on real-world code artifacts. In particular, we propose a game design, where students can compete either against a predefined benchmark (technical debt) or against each other. In addition, we describe a lightweight architecture as the technical foundation for the game design that integrates pre-existing analysis tools such as test frameworks and software-quality analyzers. Finally, we provide an exemplary game scenario to illustrate the application of serious games in a learning setting

Serious Refactoring Games

Software design issues can severely impede software development and maintenance. Thus, it is important for the success of software projects that developers are aware of bad smells in code artifacts and improve their skills to reduce these issues via refactoring. However, software refactoring is a complex activity and involves multiple tasks and aspects. Therefore, imparting competences for identifying bad smells and refactoring code efficiently is challenging for software engineering education and training. The approaches proposed for teaching software refactoring in recent years mostly concentrate on small and artificial tasks and fall short in terms of higher level competences, such as analysis and evaluation. In this paper, we investigate the possibilities and challenges of designing serious games for software refactoring on real-world code artifacts. In particular, we propose a game design, where students can compete either against a predefined benchmark (technical debt) or against each other. In addition, we describe a lightweight architecture as the technical foundation for the game design that integrates pre-existing analysis tools such as test frameworks and software-quality analyzers. Finally, we provide an exemplary game scenario to illustrate the application of serious games in a learning setting

Ordinary least squares as a method of measurement

The "classical" method of ordinary least squares which estimate two parameters of a linear (e.g. the demand) function is structuralistically reconstructed and is discussed from the point of theory of theories. The question is whether this statistical method can be subsumed under the notion of methods of measurement. The example used here is of course paradigmatic. The question in general is, whether a statistical procedure can be used in the right circumstances as a measurement procedure. We find arguments for the latter option

IAALD: Forty Years of Progress

The International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD) began as the dream of a German agricultural professor, Walther Gleisberg and an Austrian agricultural professor, Sigmund von Frauendorfer. In September 1955 a foundation meeting was held in Ghent, Belgium. Sixty delegates from thirteen countries attended the meeting and IAALD was born. A constitution was formulated by Walther Gleisberg and was approved unanimously with some slight modifications. F.E. Mohrhard (USA) was elected president, S. von Frauendorfer (Austria) was elected vice president; Th.P. Loosjes (The Netherlands) was elected treasurer; and H. Jenssen was elected secretary. In January 1956 the first issue of the Quarterly Bulletin of IAALD was published with D.H. Boalch as editor and 1000 copies were distributed worldwide. Over the past 40 years many people have served the organization and much has been accomplished. Nine World Congresses have been held with various themes, the Quarterly Bulletin is now in its 40th volume, two editions of a world directory have been published and a third is in press, A Primer for Agricultural Libraries was issued in two editions, and Current Agricultural Serials is a standard in many agricultural libraries. Today IAALD is still active and now focuses on training and the dissemination of agricultural information. IAALD continues to strive to meet the needs of its members as it moves toward the 21st century

The determination and occurrence of aluminum in sea water

The presence of aluminum ions in sea water has long been an accepted fact, but there are few figures available on the concentrations in which the element exists and in particular under varying conditions…