Looking Over the Research Literature on Software Engineering from 2016 to 2018

This paper carries out a bibliometric analysis to detect (i) what is the most influential research on software engineering at the moment, (ii) where is being published that relevant research, (iii) what are the most commonly researched topics, (iv) and where is being undertaken that research (i.e., in which countries and institutions). For that, 6,365 software engineering articles, published from 2016 to 2018 on a variety of conferences and journals, are examined.This work has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities under Project DPI2016-77677-P, the Community of Madrid under Grant RoboCity2030-DIH-CM P2018/NMT-4331, and grant TIN2016-75850-R from the FEDER funds

A Monte Carlo tree search conceptual framework for feature model analyses

Este trabajo es el resultado principal de una nueva línea de investigación titulada "Simulation-based analysis for variability in SPLs" que fue un éxito y cuyas contribuciones recibieron dos premios al mejor artículo en las conferencias internacionales SPLC'2021 y ConfWS'2021. En este artículo se formaliza y desarrolla un framework para el análisis automático de modelos de variabilidad basado en las técnicas de Monte-Carlo. Se proporciona un conjunto de métodos de Monte-Carlo y se formalizan una serie de problemas de líneas de producto software (SPLs) que se pueden resolver mediante estas técnicas. Además, se identifican y discuten una lista de lecciones aprendidas y retos abiertos en el uso de las técnicas de Monte-Carlo en el ámbito de las SPLs, para que esta nueva línea de investigación pueda seguir expandiéndose en el futuro. El artículo cuenta también con la colaboración de la Universidad de Educación a Distancia (UNED) de Madrid que aportó su experiencia en temas estadísticos aplicados a SPLs.Challenging domains of the future such as Smart Cities, Cloud Computing, or Industry 4.0 expose highly variable systems with colossal configuration spaces. The automated analysis of those systems’ variability has often relied on SAT solving and constraint programming. However, many of the analyses have to deal with the uncertainty introduced by the fact that undertaking an exhaustive exploration of the whole configuration space is usually intractable. In addition, not all analyses need to deal with the configuration space of the feature models, but with different search spaces where analyses are performed over the structure of the feature models, the constraints, or the implementation artifacts, instead of configurations. This paper proposes a conceptual framework that tackles various of those analyses using Monte Carlo tree search methods, which have proven to succeed in vast search spaces (e.g., game theory, scheduling tasks, security, program synthesis, etc.). Our general framework is formally described, and its flexibility to cope with a diversity of analysis problems is discussed. We provide a Python implementation of the framework that shows the feasibility of our proposal, identifying up to 11 lessons learned, and open challenges about the usage of the Monte Carlo methods in the software product line context. With this contribution, we envision that different problems can be addressed using Monte Carlo simulations and that our framework can be used to advance the state-of-the-art one step forward

The photoelectric effect and study of the diffraction of light: Two new experiments in UNILabs virtual and remote laboratories network

This work describes two experiments: “study of the diffraction of light: Fraunhofer approximation” and “the photoelectric effect”. Both of them count with a virtual, simulated, version of the experiment as well as with a real one which can be operated remotely. The two previous virtual and remote labs (built using Easy Java(script) Simulations) are integrated in UNILabs, a network of online interactive laboratories based on the free Learning Management System Moodle. In this web environment, students can find not only the virtual and remote labs but also manuals with related theory, the user interface description for each application, and so on

Providing Collaborative Support to Virtual and Remote Laboratories

Virtual and remote laboratories (VRLs) are e-learning resources that enhance the accessibility of experimental setups providing a distance teaching framework which meets the student's hands-on learning needs. In addition, online collaborative communication represents a practical and a constructivist method to transmit the knowledge and experience from the teacher to students, overcoming physical distance and isolation. This paper describes the extension of two open source tools: (1) the learning management system Moodle, and (2) the tool to create VRLs Easy Java Simulations (EJS). Our extension provides: (1) synchronous collaborative support to any VRL developed with EJS (i.e., any existing VRL written in EJS can be automatically converted into a collaborative lab with no cost), and (2) support to deploy synchronous collaborative VRLs into Moodle. Using our approach students and/or teachers can invite other users enrolled in a Moodle course to a real-time collaborative experimental session, sharing and/or supervising experiences at the same time they practice and explore experiments using VRLs.This work was supported by the Spanish Government under the CICYT Project DPI2007-61068 and the GITE grant of the Technology and Educational Innovation Vice-President Office of the University of Alicante

A Selection Process Based on Additive Consistency to Deal with Incomplete Fuzzy Linguistic Information

Abstract: In group decision making situations, there may be cases in which experts do not have an in-depth knowledge of the problem to be solved and, as a result, they may present incomplete information. In this paper, we present a new selection process to deal with incomplete fuzzy linguistic information. As part of it, we use an iterative procedure to estimate the missing information. This procedure is guided by the additive consistency property and only uses the preference values provided by the experts. In addition, the additive consistency property is also used to measure the level of consistency of the information provided by the experts. The main novelties of this selection process are both the possibility to manage decision situations under incomplete fuzzy linguistic information and the importance of the experts ’ preferences in the aggregation processes is modeled by means of the experts ’ consistency. Key Words: group decision making, incomplete information, fuzzy linguistic information, consistency, aggregatio

A bibliometric analysis of 10 years of research on symptom networks in psychopathology and mental health

Psychopathology networks consist of aspects (e.g., symptoms) of mental disorders (nodes) and the connections between those aspects (edges). This article aims to analyze the research literature on network analysis in psychopathology and mental health for the last ten years. Statistical descriptive analysis was complemented with two bibliometric techniques: performance analysis and co-word analysis. There is an increase in publications that has passed from 1 article published in 2010 to 172 papers published in 2020. The 398 articles in the sample have 1,910 authors in total, being most of them occasional contributors. The Journal of Affective Disorders is the one with the highest number of publications on network analysis in psychopathology and mental health, followed by the Journal of Abnormal Psychology and Psychological Medicine stand out. The present study shows that this perspective in psychopathology and mental health is a recent field of study, but with solid advances in recent years from a wide variety of researchers, mainly from USA and Europe, who have extensively studied symptom networks in depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorders. However, gaps are identified in other psychological behaviors such as suicide, populations such as the elderly, and gender studies.Depto. de Personalidad, Evaluación y Psicología ClínicaFac. de PsicologíaTRUEpu

Managing RFID Sensors Networks with a General Purpose RFID Middleware

RFID middleware is anticipated to one of the main research areas in the field of RFID applications in the near future. The Data EPC Acquisition System (DEPCAS) is an original proposal designed by our group to transfer and apply fundamental ideas from System and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems into the areas of RFID acquisition, processing and distribution systems. In this paper we focus on how to organize and manage generic RFID sensors (edge readers, readers, PLCs, etc…) inside the DEPCAS middleware. We denote by RFID Sensors Networks Management (RSNM) this part of DEPCAS, which is built on top of two new concepts introduced and developed in this work: MARC (Minimum Access Reader Command) and RRTL (RFID Reader Topology Language). MARC is an abstraction layer used to hide heterogeneous devices inside a homogeneous acquisition network. RRTL is a language to define RFID Reader networks and to describe the relationship between them (concentrator, peer to peer, master/submaster)