5,771 research outputs found
A Case Study on Artefact-based RE Improvement in Practice
Most requirements engineering (RE) process improvement approaches are
solution-driven and activity-based. They focus on the assessment of the RE of a
company against an external norm of best practices. A consequence is that
practitioners often have to rely on an improvement approach that skips a
profound problem analysis and that results in an RE approach that might be
alien to the organisational needs. In recent years, we have developed an RE
improvement approach (called \emph{ArtREPI}) that guides a holistic RE
improvement against individual goals of a company putting primary attention to
the quality of the artefacts. In this paper, we aim at exploring ArtREPI's
benefits and limitations. We contribute an industrial evaluation of ArtREPI by
relying on a case study research. Our results suggest that ArtREPI is
well-suited for the establishment of an RE that reflects a specific
organisational culture but to some extent at the cost of efficiency resulting
from intensive discussions on a terminology that suits all involved
stakeholders. Our results reveal first benefits and limitations, but we can
also conclude the need of longitudinal and independent investigations for which
we herewith lay the foundation
Case Studies in Industry: What We Have Learnt
Case study research has become an important research methodology for
exploring phenomena in their natural contexts. Case studies have earned a
distinct role in the empirical analysis of software engineering phenomena which
are difficult to capture in isolation. Such phenomena often appear in the
context of methods and development processes for which it is difficult to run
large, controlled experiments as they usually have to reduce the scale in
several respects and, hence, are detached from the reality of industrial
software development. The other side of the medal is that the realistic
socio-economic environments where we conduct case studies -- with real-life
cases and realistic conditions -- also pose a plethora of practical challenges
to planning and conducting case studies. In this experience report, we discuss
such practical challenges and the lessons we learnt in conducting case studies
in industry. Our goal is to help especially inexperienced researchers facing
their first case studies in industry by increasing their awareness for typical
obstacles they might face and practical ways to deal with those obstacles.Comment: Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Conducting Empirical
Studies in Industry, co-located with ICSE, 201
Naming the Pain in Requirements Engineering: A Design for a Global Family of Surveys and First Results from Germany
For many years, we have observed industry struggling in defining a high
quality requirements engineering (RE) and researchers trying to understand
industrial expectations and problems. Although we are investigating the
discipline with a plethora of empirical studies, they still do not allow for
empirical generalisations. To lay an empirical and externally valid foundation
about the state of the practice in RE, we aim at a series of open and
reproducible surveys that allow us to steer future research in a problem-driven
manner. We designed a globally distributed family of surveys in joint
collaborations with different researchers and completed the first run in
Germany. The instrument is based on a theory in the form of a set of hypotheses
inferred from our experiences and available studies. We test each hypothesis in
our theory and identify further candidates to extend the theory by correlation
and Grounded Theory analysis. In this article, we report on the design of the
family of surveys, its underlying theory, and the full results obtained from
Germany with participants from 58 companies. The results reveal, for example, a
tendency to improve RE via internally defined qualitative methods rather than
relying on normative approaches like CMMI. We also discovered various RE
problems that are statistically significant in practice. For instance, we could
corroborate communication flaws or moving targets as problems in practice. Our
results are not yet fully representative but already give first insights into
current practices and problems in RE, and they allow us to draw lessons learnt
for future replications. Our results obtained from this first run in Germany
make us confident that the survey design and instrument are well-suited to be
replicated and, thereby, to create a generalisable empirical basis of RE in
practice
On Evidence-based Risk Management in Requirements Engineering
Background: The sensitivity of Requirements Engineering (RE) to the context
makes it difficult to efficiently control problems therein, thus, hampering an
effective risk management devoted to allow for early corrective or even
preventive measures. Problem: There is still little empirical knowledge about
context-specific RE phenomena which would be necessary for an effective
context- sensitive risk management in RE. Goal: We propose and validate an
evidence-based approach to assess risks in RE using cross-company data about
problems, causes and effects. Research Method: We use survey data from 228
companies and build a probabilistic network that supports the forecast of
context-specific RE phenomena. We implement this approach using spreadsheets to
support a light-weight risk assessment. Results: Our results from an initial
validation in 6 companies strengthen our confidence that the approach increases
the awareness for individual risk factors in RE, and the feedback further
allows for disseminating our approach into practice.Comment: 20 pages, submitted to 10th Software Quality Days conference, 201
Optimal search strategies of space-time coupled random walkers with finite lifetimes
We present a simple paradigm for detection of an immobile target by a
space-time coupled random walker with a finite lifetime. The motion of the
walker is characterized by linear displacements at a fixed speed and
exponentially distributed duration, interrupted by random changes in the
direction of motion and resumption of motion in the new direction with the same
speed. We call these walkers "mortal creepers". A mortal creeper may die at any
time during its motion according to an exponential decay law characterized by a
finite mean death rate . While still alive, the creeper has a finite
mean frequency of change of the direction of motion. In particular, we
consider the efficiency of the target search process, characterized by the
probability that the creeper will eventually detect the target. Analytic
results confirmed by numerical results show that there is an
-dependent optimal frequency that maximizes the
probability of eventual target detection. We work primarily in one-dimensional
() domains and examine the role of initial conditions and of finite domain
sizes. Numerical results in domains confirm the existence of an optimal
frequency of change of direction, thereby suggesting that the observed effects
are robust to changes in dimensionality. In the case, explicit
expressions for the probability of target detection in the long time limit are
given. In the case of an infinite domain, we compute the detection probability
for arbitrary times and study its early- and late-time behavior. We further
consider the survival probability of the target in the presence of many
independent creepers beginning their motion at the same location and at the
same time. We also consider a version of the standard "target problem" in which
many creepers start at random locations at the same time.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures. The title has been changed with respect to the
one in the previous versio
Towards Guidelines for Preventing Critical Requirements Engineering Problems
Context] Problems in Requirements Engineering (RE) can lead to serious
consequences during the software development lifecycle. [Goal] The goal of this
paper is to propose empirically-based guidelines that can be used by different
types of organisations according to their size (small, medium or large) and
process model (agile or plan-driven) to help them in preventing such problems.
[Method] We analysed data from a survey on RE problems answered by 228
organisations in 10 different countries. [Results] We identified the most
critical RE problems, their causes and mitigation actions, organizing this
information by clusters of size and process model. Finally, we analysed the
causes and mitigation actions of the critical problems of each cluster to get
further insights into how to prevent them. [Conclusions] Based on our results,
we suggest preliminary guidelines for preventing critical RE problems in
response to context characteristics of the companies.Comment: Proceedings of the 42th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering
and Advanced Applications, 201
Apuntes sobre las fuentes del Sermón estoico de censura moral de Quevedo y la fusión barroca de las tradiciones grecolatina y hebraico-cristiana
El Sermón estoico de Quevedo es un poema pletórico de referencias y alusiones a tópicos y pasajes especÃficos de textos grecolatinos y hebraico- cristianos. Este artÃculo intenta enriquecer las anotaciones realizadas por su primer editor y los crÃticos modernos. Asimismo, estudia la mezcla de la tradición clásica y el gran corpus doctrinal del cristianismo, práctica constante en la obra de Quevedo como una manifestación del Humanismo cristiano. Igualmente, hace énfasis en la profusa utilización de fuentes, no como un mero acto de ostentación del poeta doctus, sino como una fundamental clave compositiva y hermenéutica del conceptismo del siglo XVII. Quevedo’s Sermón estoico is a poem full of references and allusions to topics and particular passages of Graeco-Latin and Hebrew-Christian texts. This article tries to enrich the annotations made by its first editor and modern scholars. Besides, it studies the intermixture of classical tradition and the great doctrinal corpus of Christendom, a constant practice in quevedian work as a manifestation of Christian Humanism. Equally, it emphasises the profuse utilization of sources, not as a simple act of ostentation of the poeta doctus, but as a main compositive and hermeneutic key to poetic conceptism of the XVIIth Century
Time delay of light signals in an energy-dependent spacetime metric
In this note we review the problem of time delay of photons propagating in a
spacetime with a metric that explicitly depends on the energy of the particles
(Gravity-Rainbow approach). We show that corrections due to this approach --
which is closely related to DSR proposal -- produce for small redshifts
() smaller time delays than in the generic Lorentz Invariance Violating
case.Comment: 5 pages. This version contains two new references with respect to the
published versio
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