Assisted Specification of Code Using Search

We describe an intelligent assistant based on mining existing software repositories to help the developer interactively create checkable specifications of code. To be most useful we apply this at the subsystem level, that is chunks of code of 1000-10000 lines that can be standalone or integrated into an existing application to provide additional functionality or capabilities. The resultant specifications include both a syntactic description of what should be written and a semantic specification of what it should do, initially in the form of test cases. The generated specification is designed to be used for automatic code generation using various technologies that have been proposed including machine learning, code search, and program synthesis. Our research goal is to enable these technologies to be used effectively for creating subsystems without requiring the developer to write detailed specifications from scratch

Stakeholder perceptions of primary school education about food sustainability and farm animal welfare in England

BackgroundThere is growing consensus on the negative impacts of food production on the natural environment and planetary viability. UK society is also increasingly concerned about the impact of intensive farming systems on the billions of sentient farmed animals within them. In liberal democracies and capitalist economies, enlightened citizens and informed consumers are key to the solution to environmental crises, such as anthropogenic climate change. Despite this, there is minimal provision for food sustainability and farm animal welfare in England’s National Curriculum.PurposeTo investigate the views of stakeholders on the provision of food sustainability and farm animal welfare education in English primary schools.SampleTen stakeholders selected for their knowledge or interest in food sustainability and farm animal welfare education.Design and methodsIn-depth, semi-structured interviews, analysed naturalistically within an interpretivist framework.ResultsBarriers to teaching food sustainability and farm animal welfare reported by stakeholders were restraints caused by the curriculum, the need and lack of funding, a lack of teacher knowledge about the topic, and concerns about its controversy. Best methods identified for teaching were teaching from an early age and throughout all of schooling, adopting a cross-curricular approach, facilitating learning in a hands-on way, and not waiting for change from government reform.ConclusionThis research informs the debate on the provision of food sustainability and farm animal welfare education in English primary schools. Given that the environmental crisis is a global one, and that sentient animals are farmed across the world, the research may also inform discussion on inclusion of food sustainability and farm animal welfare outside of the English education context

Bovine Tuberculosis and Badger Culling in England: An Animal Rights-Based Analysis of Policy Options

Bovine tuberculosis (bovine TB) is an important and controversial animal health policy issue in England, which impacts humans, cattle and badgers. The government policy of badger culling has led to widespread opposition, in part due to the conclusions of a large field trial recommending against culling, and in part because badgers are a cherished wildlife species. Animal rights (AR) theorists argue that sentient nonhumans should be accorded fundamental rights against killing and suffering. In bovine TB policy, however, pro-culling actors claim that badgers must be culled to avoid the slaughter of cattle. The first part of the paper compares AR theories of Regan, Francione, Cochrane, Garner and Donaldson and Kymlicka in the context of wildlife species. The second part of the paper applies these AR theories to bovine TB and badger control. AR theories are applied to badger control policy options of (1) do nothing, (2) badger culling, and (3) badger vaccination. We conclude that AR theories are strongly opposed to badger culling. In general, culling is prohibited due to a badger’s right to life and its rights against suffering. The AR theories support a do-nothing, i.e. non-culling, non-vaccination approach to badger control. In the case of the AR theories of Regan and Francione, this is based on abolitionist positions with respect to farming. For Cochrane, Garner, and Donaldson and Kymlicka, the do-nothing policy option is preferred because badger vaccination causes a degree of suffering which generally is not for the individual’s benefit

Developing and Evaluating Intermodal E-Sharing Services – A Multi-method Approach

Different studies assume that travel behavior and mobility patterns of people may change within the next years: multimodal and intermodal usage of transport modes are getting more and more important. We expect a great potential for sharing services especially on intermodal trips. We aim at developing and evaluating intermodal electric mobility management concepts from the customer perspective. Since conventional approaches and singular methods are not appropriate, we adopted a multi-method approach consisting of five parts: (1) supply concepts are developed, (2) vehicle requirements for intermodal sharing are identified, (3) intermodal trip information is collected, (4) an agent based model and a macroscopic demand model are developed further in order to represent intermodal trips and e-vehicles and to evaluate several supply concepts, and (5) the impact and acceptance of modern and flexible mobility services like carsharing, bikesharing or new electric vehicle concepts (e.g. segways or light cars) is assessed and evaluated. The proposed methodology can be used for the development of customer oriented and attractive intermodal sharing services. Hence, the model results are essential for the evaluation and economic appraisal of e-sharing services from the supplier perspective. The proposed methodology can be applied to other cities and regions