Software engineering standards and guides for very small entities: implementation in two start-ups

Very small entities, enterprises, organizations, projects or departments with up to 25 people, are very important to the worldwide economy. However it has ben established that such entities often do not utilize existing standards and frameworks. To address the needs of Very Small Entities (VSEs), a set of international standards and guides known as ISO/IEC 29110 has been developed. In this paper we present the results of early trials of this standard in two IT start-ups VSEs. A Peruvian VSE was recently audited and issued an ISO/IEC 29110 certificate of conformity

18P. CMMI (SW, DEV, SVC) Compliance of SDLCs:

In this paper a high-level strategic conceptual assessment on the extent of compliance of the three main Software Development Lifecycles (SDLCs) - STD, RUP, and MSF-CMMI, with three of the main CMMI schemes (SW, DEV, and SVC) is reported. While that the SDLCs theme is a permanent and shared topic in information systems and software engineering research, however, the compliance of SDLCs with IT standards has been few explored. Our research goal is to establish an initial high-level strategic assessment on how the most usual SDLCs satisfy three of the main CMMI schemes. Compliance analysis is based on: (i) previous results reported in literature, (ii) a comparison of the CMMI specific goals of each process area versus the generic SDLCs core workflows descriptions, and (iii) joint academic and research expertise in SW standards from authors. This paper contributes an initial assessment which should be considered from a strategic view due to the coarse unit of analysis. A finer grain analysis in the level of SLDCs’ workflows and activities versus CMMI’s specific practices and typical work products is suggested

Blending process assessment and employees competencies assessment in very small entities

The ISO/IEC 29110 series aims to provide Very Small Entities (VSEs) with a set of standards based on subsets of existing standards. Process capability determination does not seem suitable for a VSE in terms of return on investment. Our approach proposes to move the viewpoint away from process and to the human resources. We propose a blended assessment model using the ISO/IEC 15504 for the level 1, but based on competency assessment for higher capability levels

Protecting an ecosystem service: approaches to understanding and mitigating threats to wild insect pollinators

Insect pollination constitutes an ecosystem service of global importance, providing significant economic and aesthetic benefits as well as cultural value to human society, alongside vital ecological processes in terrestrial ecosystems. It is therefore important to understand how insect pollinator populations and communities respond to rapidly changing environments if we are to maintain healthy and effective pollinator services. This paper considers the importance of conserving pollinator diversity to maintain a suite of functional traits to provide a diverse set of pollinator services. We explore how we can better understand and mitigate the factors that threaten insect pollinator richness, placing our discussion within the context of populations in predominantly agricultural landscapes in addition to urban environments. We highlight a selection of important evidence gaps, with a number of complementary research steps that can be taken to better understand: i) the stability of pollinator communities in different landscapes in order to provide diverse pollinator services; ii) how we can study the drivers of population change to mitigate the effects and support stable sources of pollinator services; and, iii) how we can manage habitats in complex landscapes to support insect pollinators and provide sustainable pollinator services for the future. We advocate a collaborative effort to gain higher quality abundance data to understand the stability of pollinator populations and predict future trends. In addition, for effective mitigation strategies to be adopted, researchers need to conduct rigorous field-testing of outcomes under different landscape settings, acknowledge the needs of end-users when developing research proposals and consider effective methods of knowledge transfer to ensure effective uptake of actions

IGNORING "BEST PRACTICE": WHY IRISH SOFTWARE SMES ARE REJECTING CMMI AND ISO 9000

Software Process Improvement (SPI) "best practice " models such as ISO 9000 and the Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI) have been developed to assist software development organisations by harnessing their experience and providing them with support so that they can produce software products on time, within budget and to a high level of quality. However there is increasing evidence that these models are not being adopted by Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) and primarily remain the remit of large organisations. This paper presents the results of a Grounded Theory study into why Irish SME software product companies are not using these SPI models. The key inhibiting factor found was the issue of cost. We discuss the findings in relation to cost of process and the factors affecting it, including bureaucracy, documentation, communication, tacit knowledge and organisational creativity and flexibility, and the associated impact on the adoption of SPI best practice models

Cross-Cutting Approach to Integrate Functional and Material Design in a System Architectural Design – Example of an Electric Powertrain

The automotive industry is currently undergoing tremendous changes. Vehicles get connected and autonomous, the powertrain gets electrified. Intelligent service architectures for future e-mobility services are created. The production is more and more automated, decentralized and controlled by robots. The CO2 emissions have to be reduced as a contribution to stop the global warming. To meet the requirements of an electric car in the future, it is essential to combine different approaches with each other. In this integrated system the consideration of system, software and material improvements is required. Up to now, there are software functions which are part of system functions which in turn are connected to the vehicle level functions. For the future, the connection of material functions of a vehicle with system and software functions seems to be a promising approach to develop a tailor-made electric car to meet the upcoming requirements. This paper uses the example of a car with an electronic powertrain to explain how material design (tire design, weight of materials, etc.), software, and electronic design need to be combined to come up with optimised functions on vehicle level (e.g. achieving longer distance drive with electric vehicles combined with reduced CO2 emissions)

Gamified Strategy Oriented to Decrease SPI Change Resistance: A Case Study

Software development companies seek to improve their processes implementing best practices through SPI initiatives. Such initiatives look for modifying the conditions and behavior of the process stakeholders. For this reason, change resistance increases the complexity of the SPI initiatives implementation; and exist a permanent search of strategies for facing with change resistance. Gamification is an alternative for influencing employee behavior, allowing them to improve the SPI initiatives. With this motivation, this paper shows a case study of the application of a gamified strategy oriented to decrease change resistance. The methodology for the strategy definition includes a sequence of steps for selecting and associating change resistance causes, change management models, and gamification principles. The study case evidences a positive impact on causes like lack of commitment management and a general improvement in the change resistance in SPI initiatives when the gamification is the central element of the strategy. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Sex differences in oncogenic mutational processes

Funder: Canadian Network for Research and Innovation in Machining Technology, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC Canadian Network for Research and Innovation in Machining Technology); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100002790Funder: Genome Canada (Génome Canada); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/100008762Funder: Canada Foundation for Innovation (Fondation canadienne pour l'innovation); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000196Funder: Terry Fox Research Institute (Institut de Recherche Terry Fox); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100004376Abstract: Sex differences have been observed in multiple facets of cancer epidemiology, treatment and biology, and in most cancers outside the sex organs. Efforts to link these clinical differences to specific molecular features have focused on somatic mutations within the coding regions of the genome. Here we report a pan-cancer analysis of sex differences in whole genomes of 1983 tumours of 28 subtypes as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium. We both confirm the results of exome studies, and also uncover previously undescribed sex differences. These include sex-biases in coding and non-coding cancer drivers, mutation prevalence and strikingly, in mutational signatures related to underlying mutational processes. These results underline the pervasiveness of molecular sex differences and strengthen the call for increased consideration of sex in molecular cancer research