An Empirical Study of Bots in Software Development -- Characteristics and Challenges from a Practitioner's Perspective

Software engineering bots - automated tools that handle tedious tasks - are increasingly used by industrial and open source projects to improve developer productivity. Current research in this area is held back by a lack of consensus of what software engineering bots (DevBots) actually are, what characteristics distinguish them from other tools, and what benefits and challenges are associated with DevBot usage. In this paper we report on a mixed-method empirical study of DevBot usage in industrial practice. We report on findings from interviewing 21 and surveying a total of 111 developers. We identify three different personas among DevBot users (focusing on autonomy, chat interfaces, and "smartness"), each with different definitions of what a DevBot is, why developers use them, and what they struggle with. We conclude that future DevBot research should situate their work within our framework, to clearly identify what type of bot the work targets, and what advantages practitioners can expect. Further, we find that there currently is a lack of general purpose "smart" bots that go beyond simple automation tools or chat interfaces. This is problematic, as we have seen that such bots, if available, can have a transformative effect on the projects that use them.Comment: To be published at the ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE

Biogeographic distributions of neotropical trees reflect their directly measured drought tolerances

High levels of species diversity hamper current understanding of how tropical forests may respond to environmental change. In the tropics, water availability is a leading driver of the diversity and distribution of tree species, suggesting that many tropical taxa may be physiologically incapable of tolerating dry conditions, and that their distributions along moisture gradients can be used to predict their drought tolerance. While this hypothesis has been explored at local and regional scales, large continental-scale tests are lacking. We investigate whether the relationship between drought-induced mortality and distributions holds continentally by relating experimental and observational data of drought-induced mortality across the Neotropics to the large-scale bioclimatic distributions of 115 tree genera. Across the different experiments, genera affiliated to wetter climatic regimes show higher drought-induced mortality than dry-affiliated ones, even after controlling for phylogenetic relationships. This pattern is stronger for adult trees than for saplings or seedlings, suggesting that the environmental filters exerted by drought impact adult tree survival most strongly. Overall, our analysis of experimental, observational, and bioclimatic data across neotropical forests suggests that increasing moisture-stress is indeed likely to drive significant changes in floristic composition

A922 Sequential measurement of 1 hour creatinine clearance (1-CRCL) in critically ill patients at risk of acute kidney injury (AKI)

Meeting abstrac

Association of kidney disease measures with risk of renal function worsening in patients with type 1 diabetes

Background: Albuminuria has been classically considered a marker of kidney damage progression in diabetic patients and it is routinely assessed to monitor kidney function. However, the role of a mild GFR reduction on the development of stage 653 CKD has been less explored in type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) patients. Aim of the present study was to evaluate the prognostic role of kidney disease measures, namely albuminuria and reduced GFR, on the development of stage 653 CKD in a large cohort of patients affected by T1DM. Methods: A total of 4284 patients affected by T1DM followed-up at 76 diabetes centers participating to the Italian Association of Clinical Diabetologists (Associazione Medici Diabetologi, AMD) initiative constitutes the study population. Urinary albumin excretion (ACR) and estimated GFR (eGFR) were retrieved and analyzed. The incidence of stage 653 CKD (eGFR < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2) or eGFR reduction > 30% from baseline was evaluated. Results: The mean estimated GFR was 98 \ub1 17 mL/min/1.73m2 and the proportion of patients with albuminuria was 15.3% (n = 654) at baseline. About 8% (n = 337) of patients developed one of the two renal endpoints during the 4-year follow-up period. Age, albuminuria (micro or macro) and baseline eGFR < 90 ml/min/m2 were independent risk factors for stage 653 CKD and renal function worsening. When compared to patients with eGFR > 90 ml/min/1.73m2 and normoalbuminuria, those with albuminuria at baseline had a 1.69 greater risk of reaching stage 3 CKD, while patients with mild eGFR reduction (i.e. eGFR between 90 and 60 mL/min/1.73 m2) show a 3.81 greater risk that rose to 8.24 for those patients with albuminuria and mild eGFR reduction at baseline. Conclusions: Albuminuria and eGFR reduction represent independent risk factors for incident stage 653 CKD in T1DM patients. The simultaneous occurrence of reduced eGFR and albuminuria have a synergistic effect on renal function worsening

Use of benzodiazepines during pregnancy. A survey in a cohort of pregnant women in northern Italy

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