Assessing the effect of source code characteristics on changeability

Maintenance is the phase of the software lifecycle that comprises any modification after the delivery of an application. Modifications during this phase include correcting faults, improving internal attributes, as well as adapting the application to different environments. As application knowledge and architectural integrity degrade over time, so does the facility with which changes to the application are introduced. Thus, eliminating source code that presents characteristics that hamper maintenance becomes necessary if the application is to evolve. We group these characteristics under the term Source Code Issues. Even though there is support for detecting Source Code Issues, the extent of their harmfulness for maintenance remains unknown. One of the most studied Source Code Issue is cloning. Clones are duplicated code, usually created as programmers copy, paste, and customize existing source code. However, there is no agreement on the harmfulness of clones. This thesis proposes and follows a novel methodology to assess the effect of clones on the changeability of methods. Changeability is the ease with which a source code entity is modified. It is assessed through metrics calculated from the history of changes of the methods. The impact of clones on the changeability of methods is measured by comparing the metrics of methods that contain clones to those that do not. Source code characteristics are then tested to establish whether they are endemic of methods whose changeability decay increase when cloned. In addition to findings on the harmfulness of cloning, this thesis contributes a methodology that can be applied to assess the harmfulness of other Source Code Issues. The contributions of this thesis are twofold. First, the findings answer the question about the harmfulness of clones on changeability by showing that cloned methods are more likely to change, and that some cloned methods have significantly higher changeability decay when cloned. Furthermore, it offers a characterization of such harmful clones. Second, the methodology provides a guide to analyze the effect of Source Code Characteristics in changeability; and therefore, can be adapted for other Source Code Issues

Попередній розгляд кримінальної справи як етап здійснення оціночної діяльності судді

Здійснено науково­теоретичне дослідження питання оціночного аспекту діяль­ності судді при попередньому розгляді кримінальної справи, що виражається через оцінку матеріалів кримінальної справи та доказів в тому числі. Зроблено висновок, що попередній розгляд кримінальної справи є етапом оціночної діяльності судді, який роз­починається із з’ясування ним обов’язкових питань, передбачених законодавцем при попередньому розгляді справи, та завершується прийняттям конкретного рішення у справі, що відображає елементи оцінки в такій діяльності.Осуществлено научно­-теоретическое исследование вопроса оценочного аспекта деятельности судьи при предварительном рассмотрении уголовного дела, который выражается в оценке материалов уголовного дела и доказательств в том числе. Сде­лано заключение о том, что предварительное рассмотрение уголовного дела является этапом оценочной деятельности судьи по уголовному делу, который начинается с рас­смотрения им обязательных вопросов, предусмотренных законодателем при предвари­тельном рассмотрении дела, и заканчивается принятием конкретного решения по делу, которое указывает на элементы оценки в такой деятельности.The theoretical research of issue of appraisal aspect of judge's activity within preliminary criminal case consideration, that is expressed through appraisal of criminal case materials (including proofs) is conducted in the research article. As a result of research the conclusion is made, that preliminary consideration of a criminal case is the stage of court's appraisal activity within a criminal case, beginning from investigation of questions, determined by leg­islation as obligatory to investigate at the preliminary case consideration and concluding by passing of concrete judgment in a case, which expresses the elements of appraisal in such activity

Diagnóstico de la movilidad de pasajeros entre la Virginia y Pereira

En el presente trabajo se encuentra plasmado un diagnóstico de los problemas que afrontan los usuarios de la ruta 27 en especial los que corresponden a habitantes de La Virginia. Dichos problemas fueron evidenciados al analizar los diferentes requerimientos que tienen los usuarios de la ruta, puesto que se encontraron falencias y no cumplimientos de los mismos, producto de la falta de planificación de la operación de la ruta. Con los problemas definidos, se hizo una revisión de algunos modelos matemáticos asociados a los problemas detectados, identificando los datos de entrada de los modelos y los datos de salida que estos generan al ser solucionados. Adicional se revisaron algunos métodos de solución en especial metaheurísticas aplicadas a los modelos analizados, las cuales son muy utilizadas por los tiempos cortos de ejecución y buena calidad de los resultados. Al tener claros los datos de entrada y salida fue posible encontrar una relación entre los problemas definidos, para así determinar el orden en que deben ser abordados. Por último se proponen dos formatos de recolección de información de la demanda que permite recopilar no solo información correspondiente al número de pasajeros por tramo y por franjas horarias, sino también información para caracterizar la demanda de acuerdo a atributos de motivo de viaje, frecuencia de viaje, etc.The present work present a diagnostic of the problems that faced the route 27 users, in special the users of La Virginia. These problems were evidenced by analyzing the different requirements that have the users of the route, inasmuch as were found faults and noncompliance, product of the lack of planning for the operation of the route. With the problems identified, was done a review of some mathematical models associated to detected problems, identifying the input data of the models and the output data that they generate to be solved. Additional some solution methods were reviewed especially metaheuristics applied to the analyzed models, which are widely used for his short runtimes and quality of results. Having clear the input and output data was possible to find a relationship between the problems identified, to determine the order in which they should be solved. Finally, are proposed two data collection formats demand that allows to collect information not only for the number of passengers for stretch and for the time of de day, but also information to characterize the demand according to attributes as the trip purpose, the trip frequency, etc

Assessing the effect of clones on changeability

To prioritize software maintenance activities, it is important to identify which programming flaws impact most on an application's evolution. Recent empirical studies on such a flaw, code clones, have focused on one of the arguments to consider clones harmful, namely, that related clones are not updated consistently. We believe that a wider notion is needed to assess the effect of cloning on evolution. This paper compares measures of the maintenance effort on methods with clones against those without. Statistical and graphical analysis suggests that having a clone may increase the maintenance effort of changing a method. The effort seems to increase depending on the percentage of the system affected whenever the methods that share the clone are modified. We also found that some methods seem to increase significantly their maintenance effort when a clone was present. However, the characteristics analyzed in these methods did not reveal any systematic relation between cloning and such maintenance effort increase

Tracking clones' imprint

Cloning imprint is the lasting effect of cloning on applications. This paper aims to analyze the clone imprint over time, in terms of the extension of cloning, the persistence of clones in methods, and the stability of cloned methods. Such level of detail requires an improvement in the clone tracking algorithms previously proposed, which is also presented. We found that cloned methods are cloned most of their lifetime, cloned methods have a higher density of changes, and that changes in cloned methods tend to be customizations to the clone environment

Evaluating the relation between changeability decay and the characteristics of clones and methods

In this paper we propose a methodology to evaluate if there is a relation between two code characteristics. The methodology is based on relative risk, an epidemiology formula used to analyze the effect of toxic agents in developing diseases. We present a metaphor in which the disease is changeability decay, measured at method level, and the toxic agent is a source code characteristic considered harmful. However, the formula assesses the strength of the relation between any toxic agent and any disease. We apply the methodology to explore cloning as a toxic agent that increases the risk of changeability decay. Cloning is a good agent to analyze given that although there is some evidence of maintainability issues caused by clones, we do not know which clones are harmful, or to what extent. We compare cloning with other possible 'toxic agents', like having high complexity or having high fan-in. We also use the technique to evaluate which clone characteristics (like clone size) may indicate harmful clones, by testing such characteristics as toxic agents. We found that cloning is one of the method characteristics that affects the least changeability decay, and that none of the clone characteristics analyzed are related with changeability decay

Clones and Macro co-changes

Ideally, any change that modifies the similar parts of a cloned code snippet should be propagated to all its duplicates. In practice however, consistent propagation of changes in clones does not always happen. Current evidence indicates that clone families have a 50% chance of having consistent changes. This paper measures cloning and co-changes at file level as a proxy to assess the frequency of consistent changes. Given that changes to a clone group are not necessarily propagated in the same commit transaction (i.e., late propagations), our analysis uses macro co-changes instead of the traditional definition of co-changes. Macro changes group bursts of changes that are closer among themselves than to other changes, regardless of author or message. Then, macro co-changes are sets of files that change in the same macro changes. Each cloned file is tagged depending on whether any of the files with which it macro co-changes is cloned with it (during the macro change) or not. Contrary to previous results, we discovered that most of the cloned files macro co-change only with files with which they share clones. Thus providing evidence that macro changes are appropriate to study the conjecture of clones requiring co-changes, and indicating that consistent changes might be the norm in cloned code

Plan de negocio para la creación de una empresa de consultoría de sistemas de gestión e intermediación de riesgos laborales: Aliados Nacionales en Seguridad, Ambiente y Calidad “ANSAC”.

Realizar un plan de negocios, obteniendo información detallada del mercado potencial para la creación de una empresa de consultoría de sistemas de gestión e intermediación de riesgos laborales en el municipio de Soacha y sus alrededores.Este documento tiene como propósito presentar el diseño de un plan de negocios para la creación de una empresa que se dedique a prestar servicios de consultoría en el diseño, implementación y seguimiento de sistemas de gestión, intermediación de riesgos laborales, asesorías, capacitación, entre otros, dirigidos a Mipymes en el municipio de Soacha y sus alrededores. Contiene un estudio detallado de mercadeo, técnico, estratégico y financiero, que se realizó tomando como mercado objetivo las comunas 2 y 4 de Soacha, donde se diseñó y aplicó una encuesta para la recolección de información primaria para conocer las necesidades del mercado objetivo y en la que se pudo evidenciar que existen múltiples organizaciones que aún no cumplen con los requisitos legales en materia de seguridad y salud en el trabajo, lo que representa una oportunidad de negocio para Aliados Nacionales en Seguridad, Ambiente y Calidad (ANSAC); adicionalmente se pretende concientizar a los empleadores de la importancia del diseño e implementación de los sistemas de gestión, la buena gestión de los recursos, la capacitación oportuna, entre otros, que coadyuvan a la mejora del ambiente de trabajo, el bienestar y la calidad de vida laboral, la disminución de las tasas de ausentismo por enfermedad, la reducción de las tasas de accidentalidad y mortalidad por accidentes de trabajo, el aumento de la productividad, el posicionamiento y credibilidad en el mercado, entre muchas otras ventajas, además de cumplir con las normas, requisitos y procedimientos de obligatorio cumplimiento por parte de las empresas y contratantes en materia de riesgos laborales. Este proyecto de emprendimiento pertenece a la sub-línea de promoción, prevención, cultura, educación, innovación y emprendimiento en Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo del programa de Administración en Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo, en el que basados en la información recopilada y los diferentes puntos del estudio de pre factibilidad, se pueden obtener varias conclusiones, entre ellas están: la importancia que tiene el reconocimiento a fondo del mercado objetivo al cual se quiere dirigir el proyecto, pues de ello depende en gran medida que se pueda poner en marcha o no la creación de la empresa; es importante saber el nivel de conocimiento y conciencia que tienen las empresas frente a los requisitos legales para así poder satisfacer sus necesidades brindando apoyo y acompañamiento continuo a las empresas, con el fin de que estas cumplan con la normatividad legal vigente y sean reconocidas a nivel nacional, por el cumplimiento de estándares y de alta calidad en sus procesos y/o servicios.The purpose of this document is to present the design of a business plan for the creation of a company that is dedicated to providing consulting services in the design, implementation and monitoring of management systems, intermediation of occupational risks, consultancies, training, among others, aimed at MSMEs in the municipality of Soacha and its surroundings. It contains a detailed marketing, technical, strategic and financial study, which was carried out taking as a target market the communes 2 and 4 of Soacha, where a survey was designed and applied for the collection of primary information to know the needs of the target market and in which it could be evidenced that there are multiple organizations that still do not comply with the legal requirements in terms of safety and health at work, which represents a business opportunity for National Allies in Safety, Environment and Quality (ANSAC); additionally, it is intended to raise awareness among employers of the importance of the design and implementation of management systems, good management of resources, timely training, among others, which contribute to the improvement of the work environment, well-being and quality of working life, the reduction of absenteeism rates due to illness, the reduction of accident and mortality rates due to occupational accidents, the increase in productivity, positioning and credibility in the market, among many other advantages, in addition to complying with the standards, requirements and procedures of mandatory compliance by companies and contractors in terms of occupational risks. This entrepreneurship project belongs to the sub-line of promotion, prevention, culture, education, innovation and entrepreneurship in Safety and Health at Work of the Administration in Safety and Health at Work program, in which based on the information collected and the different points of the pre-feasibility study, several conclusions can be obtained, among them are: the importance of the in-depth recognition of the target market to which the project is to be directed, since it depends to a large extent on whether or not the creation of the company can be launched; it is important to know the level of knowledge and awareness that companies have in the face of legal requirements in order to meet their needs by providing support and continuous accompaniment to companies, so that they comply with current legal regulations and are recognized nationally, for compliance with standards and high quality in their processes and / or services