487 research outputs found
Ethical and Social Aspects of Self-Driving Cars
As an envisaged future of transportation, self-driving cars are being
discussed from various perspectives, including social, economical, engineering,
computer science, design, and ethics. On the one hand, self-driving cars
present new engineering problems that are being gradually successfully solved.
On the other hand, social and ethical problems are typically being presented in
the form of an idealized unsolvable decision-making problem, the so-called
trolley problem, which is grossly misleading. We argue that an applied
engineering ethical approach for the development of new technology is what is
needed; the approach should be applied, meaning that it should focus on the
analysis of complex real-world engineering problems. Software plays a crucial
role for the control of self-driving cars; therefore, software engineering
solutions should seriously handle ethical and social considerations. In this
paper we take a closer look at the regulative instruments, standards, design,
and implementations of components, systems, and services and we present
practical social and ethical challenges that have to be met, as well as novel
expectations for software engineering.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, 2 table
Implementing Innovative Technology: Towards the Transformation of a University
Growing pressure is being placed upon educational institutions as students, employers and governments look at the economic, demographic and technological environments of the present, expecting them to have the answers for the future. Many institutions are turning to information and communication technology (ICT) for some of these answers. The focus of this study is two fold - the use of ICT in teaching and learning by teaching staff within an Australian tertiary institution (Curtin University of Technology) and the mechanisms the University has established in order to realign themselves with the information age. At certain stages these two coincide to provide an insight into the organisational culture and teaching environment of one Australian University. The key research questions that guided this study are as follows: How are Curtin University teaching staff utilising ICT in their teaching and learning?; What is the relationship between the ICT behaviour of a University's teaching staff and the strategies used to implement the University's ICT strategic planning initiatives?; What is an appropriate model for future implementation of ICT into teaching and learning at an Australian university? A combination of qualitative (interview and case study techniques) and quantitative (survey and Likert-type instruments) methods was employed. Overall, this study can be described as longitudinal in nature, relying upon such tools as observation, interviews and survey instruments, to collect data at appropriate points in time from the various samples. Since it has already been acknowledged that such change takes time, the study focused specifically on those changes which occurred during the two academic years (1999-2000) at Curtin University of Technology.It appears that the critical mass stage for integrating ICT into teaching and learning has been reached by the teaching staff involved in the Curtin survey sample. The most common teaching mode adopted by the survey sample is the traditional lecture and tutorial (workshop or laboratory) mode. However, the data revealed that over the 16 month period of the study there was a large increase in the use of Web-based material for teaching and learning. The data revealed that a number of factors emerged which affected the adoption of ICT. These factors included: leadership across the university, attitude toward the use of ICT; the perceived benefits of adopting ICT in teaching and learning; incentives, modeling mechanisms, the provision of adequate support structures; the time factor; training; facilities and resources. The reflective monitoring system utilised in this study (the TracIT reports) revealed the changes in ICT behaviour and the changes in the ICT environment, as well as the source of initiation of the change. It appears that most of the 'real changes' which occurred in the teaching practice of the case study sample were individually driven, with some others being influenced by their own Department/School or by student pressure. The study also found that the adoption of ICT into the working environment of a university teacher significantly increases the workload of individual staff. The existence of transformational leadership across all levels of the University was identified as a major factor in the promotion and adoption of ICT and ultimately the development of a truly professional learning community.From the extensive data collected in this longitudinal study an empirical model or framework, the "Curtin University Professional Learning Community Model", was introduced. Many of the teaching staff at Curtin University involved in this particular study have clearly demonstrated their commitment to the adoption of ICT for teaching and learning. The detailed case study data has also revealed that many of the teaching staff possess professional attributes which would be admired and valued in any university. Universities are facing the challenge of identifying what role ICT will play in the future of higher education and how to implement the appropriate strategies which will meet these needs. This study has found that the key to meeting the challenge seems to be to harness strategies that lead to the development of a professional learning community. The Curtin University Professional Learning Community Model has identified the key elements which need to be in place if the use of ICT for teaching and learning is to be not only adopted, but sustained and more importantly, effective in the teaching and learning process. This study has clearly revealed that it is only through the synergy of university commitment and individual commitment that real change can actually take place, the change in this case being the adoption of ICT in teaching and learning practices. The strategies suggested by the empirically derived model can begin this journey to a truly professional learning community
Towards maintainer script modernization in FOSS distributions
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) distributions are complex software
systems, made of thousands packages that evolve rapidly, independently, and
without centralized coordination. During packages upgrades, corner case
failures can be encountered and are hard to deal with, especially when they are
due to misbehaving maintainer scripts: executable code snippets used to
finalize package configuration. In this paper we report a software
modernization experience, the process of representing existing legacy systems
in terms of models, applied to FOSS distributions. We present a process to
define meta-models that enable dealing with upgrade failures and help rolling
back from them, taking into account maintainer scripts. The process has been
applied to widely used FOSS distributions and we report about such experiences
Boundary Objects and their Use in Agile Systems Engineering
Agile methods are increasingly introduced in automotive companies in the
attempt to become more efficient and flexible in the system development. The
adoption of agile practices influences communication between stakeholders, but
also makes companies rethink the management of artifacts and documentation like
requirements, safety compliance documents, and architecture models.
Practitioners aim to reduce irrelevant documentation, but face a lack of
guidance to determine what artifacts are needed and how they should be managed.
This paper presents artifacts, challenges, guidelines, and practices for the
continuous management of systems engineering artifacts in automotive based on a
theoretical and empirical understanding of the topic. In collaboration with 53
practitioners from six automotive companies, we conducted a design-science
study involving interviews, a questionnaire, focus groups, and practical data
analysis of a systems engineering tool. The guidelines suggest the distinction
between artifacts that are shared among different actors in a company (boundary
objects) and those that are used within a team (locally relevant artifacts). We
propose an analysis approach to identify boundary objects and three practices
to manage systems engineering artifacts in industry
Why and How Your Traceability Should Evolve: Insights from an Automotive Supplier
Traceability is a key enabler of various activities in automotive software
and systems engineering and required by several standards. However, most
existing traceability management approaches do not consider that traceability
is situated in constantly changing development contexts involving multiple
stakeholders. Together with an automotive supplier, we analyzed how technology,
business, and organizational factors raise the need for flexible traceability.
We present how traceability can be evolved in the development lifecycle, from
early elicitation of traceability needs to the implementation of mature
traceability strategies. Moreover, we shed light on how traceability can be
managed flexibly within an agile team and more formally when crossing team
borders and organizational borders. Based on these insights, we present
requirements for flexible tool solutions, supporting varying levels of data
quality, change propagation, versioning, and organizational traceability.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, accepted in IEEE Softwar
Specification Patterns for Robotic Missions
Mobile and general-purpose robots increasingly support our everyday life, requiring dependable robotics control software. Creating such software mainly amounts to implementing their complex behaviors known as missions. Recognizing this need, a large number of domain-specific specification languages has been proposed. These, in addition to traditional logical languages, allow the use of formally specified missions for synthesis, verification, simulation or guiding implementation. For instance, the logical language LTL is commonly used by experts to specify missions as an input for planners, which synthesize the behavior a robot should have. Unfortunately, domain-specific languages are usually tied to specific robot models, while logical languages such as LTL are difficult to use by non-experts. We present a catalog of 22 mission specification patterns for mobile robots, together with tooling for instantiating, composing, and compiling the patterns to create mission specifications. The patterns provide solutions for recurrent specification problems, each of which detailing the usage intent, known uses, relationships to other patterns, and-most importantly-a template mission specification in temporal logic. Our tooling produces specifications expressed in the temporal logics LTL and CTL to be used by planners, simulators or model checkers. The patterns originate from 245 realistic textual mission requirements extracted from the robotics literature, and they are evaluated upon a total of 441 real-world mission requirements and 1251 mission specifications. Five of these reflect scenarios we defined with two well-known industrial partners developing human-size robots. We validated our patterns' correctness with simulators and two different types of real robots
A Preliminary Feasibility Study for the Development of a Mixed-Use Project at the Pendleton Oil Mill Site
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