Punctuated Equilibrium in Software Evolution

The approach based on paradigm of self-organized criticality proposed for experimental investigation and theoretical modelling of software evolution. The dynamics of modifications studied for three free, open source programs Mozilla, Free-BSD and Emacs using the data from version control systems. Scaling laws typical for the self-organization criticality found. The model of software evolution presenting the natural selection principle is proposed. The results of numerical and analytical investigation of the model are presented. They are in a good agreement with the data collected for the real-world software.Comment: 4 pages, LaTeX, 2 Postscript figure

Acceptance Criteria for Critical Software Based on Testability Estimates and Test Results

Testability is defined as the probability that a program will fail a test, conditional on the program containing some fault. In this paper, we show that statements about the testability of a program can be more simply described in terms of assumptions on the probability distribution of the failure intensity of the program. We can thus state general acceptance conditions in clear mathematical terms using Bayesian inference. We develop two scenarios, one for software for which the reliability requirements are that the software must be completely fault-free, and another for requirements stated as an upper bound on the acceptable failure probability

Chatbot Theory: A naïve and elementary theory for dialogue management

Due to the increasing interested and use of chatbot, its properties and operation possibilities shall be proper realized matching both safety and security issues as well as present the several uses and compositions that this technology supports. This paper focus is on dialogue management since it is considered the core of a chatbot. The dialogue manager is responsible to, more than to transform an input sentence into an output one, hold the illusion of a human conversation. In this sense, it is presented an inceptive theoretical framework through a formal way for chatbots that can be used as a reference to explore, compose, build and discuss chatbots. The discussion is performed mostly on ELIZA since, due to its historical records, it can be considered an important reference chatbot, nevertheless, the proposed theory is compatible with the most recent technologies such those using machine and deep learning. The paper then presents some sketchy instances in order to explore the support provided by the theory.This paper has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-0070 43 and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - Project UID/CEC/ 00319/2013

Separating Agent-Functioning and Inter-Agent Coordination by Activated Modules: The DECOMAS Architecture

The embedding of self-organizing inter-agent processes in distributed software applications enables the decentralized coordination system elements, solely based on concerted, localized interactions. The separation and encapsulation of the activities that are conceptually related to the coordination, is a crucial concern for systematic development practices in order to prepare the reuse and systematic integration of coordination processes in software systems. Here, we discuss a programming model that is based on the externalization of processes prescriptions and their embedding in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). One fundamental design concern for a corresponding execution middleware is the minimal-invasive augmentation of the activities that affect coordination. This design challenge is approached by the activation of agent modules. Modules are converted to software elements that reason about and modify their host agent. We discuss and formalize this extension within the context of a generic coordination architecture and exemplify the proposed programming model with the decentralized management of (web) service infrastructures

Their Day in Court: Assessing Guilty Plea Rates Among Terrorists

Individuals who are charged for traditional crimes are substantially more likely to plead guilty than individuals who are charged under the same statutes but who are officially involved in terrorism (Smith & Damphousse, 1998). Relying on a structural–contextual theory framework, a quantitative analysis not only confirmed that terrorists plead guilty more often than traditional offenders but that the defendant’s age and number of counts in the indictment are important predictors. Directions for future research are suggested.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Assessing architectural evolution: A case study

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2011 SpringerThis paper proposes to use a historical perspective on generic laws, principles, and guidelines, like Lehman’s software evolution laws and Martin’s design principles, in order to achieve a multi-faceted process and structural assessment of a system’s architectural evolution. We present a simple structural model with associated historical metrics and visualizations that could form part of an architect’s dashboard. We perform such an assessment for the Eclipse SDK, as a case study of a large, complex, and long-lived system for which sustained effective architectural evolution is paramount. The twofold aim of checking generic principles on a well-know system is, on the one hand, to see whether there are certain lessons that could be learned for best practice of architectural evolution, and on the other hand to get more insights about the applicability of such principles. We find that while the Eclipse SDK does follow several of the laws and principles, there are some deviations, and we discuss areas of architectural improvement and limitations of the assessment approach

The effect of Ku on telomere replication time is mediated by telomere length but is independent of histone tail acetylation

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A Standard Platform for Testing and Comparison of MDAO Architectures

The Multidisciplinary Design Analysis and Optimization (MDAO) community has developed a multitude of algorithms and techniques, called architectures, for performing optimizations on complex engineering systems which involve coupling between multiple discipline analyses. These architectures seek to efficiently handle optimizations with computationally expensive analyses including multiple disciplines. We propose a new testing procedure that can provide a quantitative and qualitative means of comparison among architectures. The proposed test procedure is implemented within the open source framework, OpenMDAO, and comparative results are presented for five well-known architectures: MDF, IDF, CO, BLISS, and BLISS-2000. We also demonstrate how using open source soft- ware development methods can allow the MDAO community to submit new problems and architectures to keep the test suite relevant