A Formal Approach to High Quality Software Design and Development

Software design and development coexist and co-evolve with quality provision, assessment and enforcement. However, most and also modern research ``provides only bread and butter lists of useful properties without giving a systematic structure for evaluating them''. Software engineers have been putting forward several three-score quantities of metrics for software products, processes and resources whereas a theoretical foundation is still missing. This preprint proposes a framework to quality property specification, to quality control, the quality utilisation and quality establishment. Our framework has a theoretical basis that is adaptable to all stages of software development

How to manage cultural differences?

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Anti-Patterns for an Industrial PhD in the Field of ICT

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Using Games to Understand and Create Randomness

Massive growth of data and communication encryption has created growing need for non-predictable, random data, needed for encryption keys creation. Need for randomness grows (nearly) linearly with growth of encryption, but randomness is very important ingredient also e.g. in quickly growing industry of game programming. Computers are deterministic devices and cannot create random results, computer procedures can generate only pseudo-random (looking random) data. For true randomness is needed some outside information - time and placement of user's keystrokes, fluctuations of current, interrupt requests in computer processor etc. But even those sources can often not comply with requests from our increasingly randomness-hunger environment of ciphered communications and data. Growing need for randomness has created a market of randomness sources; new sources are proposed constantly. These sources differ in their properties (ease of access, size of required software etc.) and in ease of estimating their quality. However, there is an easily available good source for comparing quality of randomness and also creating new randomness - computer games. The growing affectionateness of users to play digital games makes this activity very attractive for comparing quality of randomness sources and using as a source of new randomness. In the following are analyzed possibilities for investigating and extracting randomness from digital gameplay and demonstrated some experiments with simple stateless games which allow to compare existing sources of (pseudo) randomness and generate new randomness, which can be used e.g. to create cyphering keys in mobile and Internet of Things devices

INTERKULTURALNI SOFTVERSKI INŽENJERING

One of the leading trends in software development is globalization. This trend can be seen from two different viewpoints: the software development in distributed cross-cultural organizations and the products distributed in the global market. The latter aspect means that developers must recognize the cultural differences of the users and produce adaptable, culturally sensitive products. This aspect will be left outside the scope of this paper. Instead, we will concentrate on analyzing the complexity caused by the globalization of software engineering work. Globalization is mostly motivated by economic reasons – a cheaper workforce is expected to reduce the costs of the work. However, in practice, it is not only a question of economics. Globalization has consequences in management culture, in distribution of the work, in ways of communication, and in many other aspects. In our paper we will open the discussion on the problems of the globalization of software development work. In spite of the importance of the topic only a few public studies on it are available. The paper analyzes the different organizational aspects of globalization and reviews experiences based on practical studies of the topic. The goal is to recognize the right kind of globalization path and also to point out the key issues worth recognizing when making the decision whether to globalize.Jedan od vodećih trendova u razvoju softvera je globalizacija. Na ovaj trend možemo gledati s dva stajališta: razvoja softvera u distribuiranim interkulturalnim organizacijama i proizvoda distribuiranih na globalnom tržištu. Potonje gledište znači da sudionici u razvoju istih moraju prepoznati kulturološke razlike korisnika i razvititi kulturno prilagodljive proizvode. To gledište, međutim, neće biti područjem ovog rada. Umjesto toga, usredotočit ćemo se na analizu složenosti uzrokovanu globalizacijom razvoja softvera. Globalozaciju uglavnom motivira ekonomizacija – očekuje se da jeftinija radna snaga snizi cijenu proizvodnje. Međutim, u praksi ovo nije samo pitanje ekonomiziranja. Globalizacija ima svoje posljedice u kulturi upravljanja, u raspodjeli rada, načinu komuniciranja i mnogim drugim aspektima. U svom uradku otvorit ćemo raspravu o problemima globalizacije razvoja softvera. Unatoč njenoj važnosti, postoji samo nekoliko dostupnih studija objavljenih o toj temi. Uradak analizira različite organizacijske aspekte globalizacije i osvrće se na iskustva temeljena na prektičnom proučavanju teme. Cilj je prepoznati pravu vrstu puta u globalizaciju kao i ukazati na važne probleme koje valja prepoznati pri donošenju odluke o globalizaciji

Comparative genomic hybridization analysis of Yersinia enterocolitica and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis identifies genetic traits to elucidate their different ecologies

Enteropathogenic Yersinia enterocolitica and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis are both etiological agents for intestinal infection known as yersiniosis, but their epidemiology and ecology bearmany differences. Swine are the only known reservoir for Y. enterocolitica 4/O:3 strains, which are the most common cause of human disease, while Y. pseudotuberculosis has been isolated from a variety of sources, including vegetables and wild animals. Infections caused by Y. enterocolitica mainly originate froms wine, but fresh produce has been the source for widespread Y. pseudotuberculosis outbreaks within recent decades. A comparative genomic hybridization analysis with a DNA microarray based on three Yersinia enterocolitica and four Yersinia pseudotuberculosis genomes was conducted to shed light on the genomic differences between enteropathogenic Yersinia. The hybridization results identified Y. pseudotuberculosis strains to carry operons linked with the uptake and utilization of substances not found in living animal tissues but present in soil, plants, and rotting flesh. Y. pseudotuberculosis also harbors a selection of type VI secretion systems targeting other bacteria and eukaryotic cells. These genetic traits are not found in Y. enterocolitica, and it appears that while Y. pseudotuberculosis has many tools beneficial for survival in varied environments, the Y. enterocolitica genome is more streamlined and adapted to their preferred animal reservoir.Peer reviewe

Handling Software Icebergs

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Changes in Transcriptome of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis IP32953 Grown at 3 and 28 degrees C Detected by RNA Sequencing Shed Light on Cold Adaptation

Yersinia pseudotuberculosis is a bacterium that not only survives, but also thrives, proliferates, and remains infective at cold-storage temperatures, making it an adept foodborne pathogen. We analyzed the differences in gene expression between Y. pseudotuberculosis IP32953 grown at 3 and 28°C to investigate which genes were significantly more expressed at low temperature at different phases of growth. We isolated and sequenced the RNA from six distinct corresponding growth points at both temperatures to also outline the expression patterns of the differentially expressed genes. Genes involved in motility, chemotaxis, phosphotransferase systems (PTS), and ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters of different nutrients such as fructose and mannose showed higher levels of transcripts at 3°C. At the beginning of growth, especially genes involved in securing nutrients, glycolysis, transcription, and translation were upregulated at 3°C. To thrive as well as it does at low temperature, Y. pseudotuberculosis seems to require certain cold shock proteins, especially those encoded by yptb3585, yptb3586, yptb2414, yptb2950, and yptb1423, and transcription factors, like Rho, IF-1, and RbfA, to maintain its protein synthesis. We also found that genes encoding RNA-helicases CsdA (yptb0468), RhlE (yptb1214), and DbpA (yptb1652), which unwind frozen secondary structures of nucleic acids with cold shock proteins, were significantly more expressed at 3°C, indicating that these RNA-helicases are important or even necessary during cold. Genes involved in excreting poisonous spermidine and acquiring compatible solute glycine betaine, by either uptake or biosynthesis, showed higher levels of transcripts at low temperatures. This is the first finding of a strong connection between the aforementioned genes and the cold adaptation of Y. pseudotuberculosis. Understanding the mechanisms behind the cold adaptation of Y. pseudotuberculosis is crucial for controlling its growth during cold storage of food, and will also shed light on microbial cold adaptation in general.Peer reviewe

Practices for Supervising Master's Theses in Company Context : An Anti-Pattern Approach

Software Engineering (SE) university students often work part-time during their studies. In this setup the students can reform the practices of companies by transferring what they have learned to companies and correspondingly utilize what they have experienced at work in their studies. This symbiosis often continues as the students begin to work towards their thesis. The topic of the thesis relates to the problems in the company. These topics often solve a practical problem, which are not always in a perfect match with academic expectations. On the one hand the employer has certain expectations in terms of working for the company, whereas the supervising professor needs to follow the university guidelines. In this paper, we study this tension by focusing on the problems appearing in MSc thesis process in company context. We propose ways to act so that the different stakeholders - the student, the professor, and the company - reach the best possible results. We have analyzed the problems and their root causes. We have also taken the first steps toward anti-patterns for analysis and salvaging of the problems. The study is based on the authors' collective supervision experience, which covers over 1000 MSc theses, with the combined supervision experience of over 100 years.acceptedVersionPeer reviewe