Measuring Qualities for OSGi Component-Based Applications

International audienceComponent-based software engineering (CBSE) begins to reach a certain level of maturity. Indeed, for the development of complex applications the use of component paradigm has become common. Therefore, the evaluation of the quality of these applications becomes necessary. In this context, the use of metrics is considered very important. Several metrics specific to component-based applications have been proposed. However, any of these metrics gained the consensus of the CBSE community and mainly there is no proposed tool to support them. As a large part of frameworks for component-based application development is based on object-oriented technology, we propose to use some object-oriented (OO) metrics to evaluate component-based applications produced with this kind of framework. Indeed, these metrics became a standard in OO community. So, they are well-defined, well-known and empirically validated. To identify which object-oriented metrics are useful for the evaluation of component-based applications, we have conducted an experimental study on 10 OSGi applications. This study also gives us the opportunity to discuss on the respect by OSGi developers of some properties pointed out by the literatur

Une approche pragmatique pour mesurer la qualité des applications à base de composants logiciels

Over the past decade, many companies proceeded with the introduction of component-oriented software technology in their development environments. The component paradigm that promotes the assembly of autonomous and reusable software bricks is indeed an interesting proposal to reduce development costs and maintenance while improving application quality. In this paradigm, as in all others, architects and developers need to evaluate as soon as possible the quality of what they produce, especially along the process of designing and coding. The code metrics are indispensable tools to do this. They provide, to a certain extent, the prediction of the quality of « external » component or architecture being encoded. Several proposals for metrics have been made in the literature especially for the component world. Unfortunately, none of the proposed metrics have been a serious study regarding their completeness, cohesion and especially for their ability to predict the external quality of developed artifacts. Even worse, the lack of support for these metrics with the code analysis tools in the market makes it impossible to be used in the industry. In this state, the prediction in a quantitative way and « a priori » the quality of their developments is impossible. The risk is therefore high for obtaining higher costs as a consequence of the late discovery of defects. In the context of this thesis, I propose a pragmatic solution to the problem. Based on the premise that much of the industrial frameworks are based on object-oriented technology, I have studied the possibility of using some « conventional » code metrics unpopular to component world, to evaluate component-based applications. Indeed, these metrics have the advantage of being well defined, known, equipped and especially to have been the subject of numerous empirical validations analyzing the predictive power for imperatives or objects codes. Among the existing metrics, I identified a subset of them which, by interpreting and applying to specific levels of granularity, can potentially provide guidance on the compliance of developers and architects of large principles of software engineering, particularly on the coupling and cohesion. These two principles are in fact the very source of the component paradigm. This subset has the ability to represent all aspects of a component-oriented application : internal view of a component, its interface and compositional view through architecture. This suite of metrics, identified by hand, was then applied to 10 open-source OSGi applications, in order to ensure, by studying of their distribution, that it effectively conveyed relevant information to the component world. I then built predictive models of external quality properties based on these internal metrics : reusability, failure, etc. The development of such models and the analysis of their power are only able to empirically validate the interest of the proposed metrics. It is also possible to compare the « power » of these models with other models from the literature specific to imperative and/or object world. I decided to build models that predict the existence and frequency of defects and bugs. To do this, I relied on external data from the history of changes and fixes a panel of 6 large mature OSGi projects (with a maintenance period of several years). Several statistical tools were used to build models, including principal component analysis and multivariate logistic regression. This study showed that it is possible to predict with these models 80% to 92% of frequently buggy components with reminders ranging from 89% to 98%, according to the evaluated projects. Models for predicting the existence of a defect are less reliable than the first type of model. This thesis confirms thus the interesting « practice » of using common and well equipped metrics to measure at the earliest application quality in the component world.Ces dernières années, de nombreuses entreprises ont introduit la technologie orientée composant dans leurs développements logiciels. Le paradigme composant, qui prône l’assemblage de briques logiciels autonomes et réutilisables, est en effet une proposition intéressante pour diminuer les coûts de développement et de maintenance tout en augmentant la qualité des applications. Dans ce paradigme, comme dans tous les autres, les architectes et les développeurs doivent pouvoir évaluer au plus tôt la qualité de ce qu’ils produisent, en particulier tout au long du processus de conception et de codage. Les métriques sur le code sont des outils indispensables pour ce faire. Elles permettent, dans une certaine mesure, de prédire la qualité « externe » d’un composant ou d’une architecture en cours de codage. Diverses propositions de métriques ont été faites dans la littérature spécifiquement pour le monde composant. Malheureusement, aucune des métriques proposées n’a fait l’objet d’une étude sérieuse quant à leur complétude, leur cohésion et surtout quant à leur aptitude à prédire la qualité externe des artefacts développés. Pire encore, l’absence de prise en charge de ces métriques par les outils d’analyse de code du marché rend impossible leur usage industriel. En l’état, la prédiction de manière quantitative et « a priori » de la qualité de leurs développements est impossible. Le risque est donc important d’une augmentation des coûts consécutive à la découverte tardive de défauts. Dans le cadre de cette thèse, je propose une réponse pragmatique à ce problème. Partant du constat qu’une grande partie des frameworks industriels reposent sur la technologie orientée objet, j’ai étudié la possibilité d’utiliser certaines des métriques de codes "classiques", non propres au monde composant, pour évaluer les applications à base de composants. Parmi les métriques existantes, j’ai identifié un sous-ensemble d’entre elles qui, en s’interprétant et en s’appliquant à certains niveaux de granularité, peuvent potentiellement donner des indications sur le respect par les développeurs et les architectes des grands principes de l’ingénierie logicielle, en particulier sur le couplage et la cohésion. Ces deux principes sont en effet à l’origine même du paradigme composant. Ce sous-ensemble devait être également susceptible de représenter toutes les facettes d’une application orientée composant : vue interne d’un composant, son interface et vue compositionnelle au travers l’architecture. Cette suite de métrique, identifiée à la main, a été ensuite appliquée sur 10 applications OSGi open- source afin de s’assurer, par une étude de leur distribution, qu’elle véhiculait effectivement pour le monde composant une information pertinente. J’ai ensuite construit des modèles prédictifs de propriétés qualité externes partant de ces métriques internes : réutilisation, défaillance, etc. J’ai décidé de construire des modèles qui permettent de prédire l’existence et la fréquence des défauts et les bugs. Pour ce faire, je me suis basée sur des données externes provenant de l’historique des modifications et des bugs d’un panel de 6 gros projets OSGi matures (avec une période de maintenance de plusieurs années). Plusieurs outils statistiques ont été mis en œuvre pour la construction des modèles, notamment l’analyse en composantes principales et la régression logistique multivariée. Cette étude a montré qu’il est possible de prévoir avec ces modèles 80% à 92% de composants fréquemment buggés avec des rappels allant de 89% à 98%, selon le projet évalué. Les modèles destinés à prévoir l’existence d’un défaut sont moins fiables que le premier type de modèle. Ce travail de thèse confirme ainsi l’intérêt « pratique » d’user de métriques communes et bien outillées pour mesurer au plus tôt la qualité des applications dans le monde composant

The Impact of the Hockey-Stick Phenomenon on the Retail Industry in India: Pre and During COVID-19

The hockey-stick sales phenomenon has been less examined in the earlier studies and doesn’t receive much attention due to the cumbersome process involved in the change of sales policies in the companies and the overall restructuring of the supply chain management. The process is costly and mostly the hockey-stick sales phenomenon has an adverse impact on the profitability of companies. However, this was not observed in the case of the companies belonging to the retail industry in India. Our study shows that hockey-stick sales have a positive impact on the profitability of the companies measured by Profit After Tax (PAT) while on the other hand during the COVID-19 period, the hockey-stick sales phenomenon appears to impact negatively the profitability of the companies specifically. The results could not be generalized as the results are industry specific, but the methodology could be applied to a different industrial sector in order to study the relationship between hockey-stick sales and profitability and its impact on the performance of the companies.   CITE THIS PAPER: Ahmed, Tooba; Ahmed, Salma; Naim, Hamza (2022). "The impact of the hockey-stick phenomenon on the retail industry in India: Pre and During COVID-19" Journal of World Economy: Transformations & Transitions (JOWETT) 2(04):17. DOI: https://doi.org/10.52459/jowett2417092

Slips Of The Tongue Produced By Television News Presenters Of Kompas Tv

Slips of the tongue are mistakes in speaking which involve the sounds or words of the language. Slips of the tongue have been intensively studied for years and considered as a rich source of data for models of speech planning and production. The present study aims at exam ining the types of slips of the tongue that occurred in the utterances produced by television news presenters of Kompas TV. This study also focuses on calculating the most common slips of the tongue that occurred in news presenters’ utterances. The data were collected from live news programs of one of private television stations in Indonesia, namely Kompas TV. Slips of the tongue proposed by Fromkin (1973) and Harley (1995) became the primary tool in analyzing and classifying the slips of the tongue occurred in the news presenters’ utterances. The analysis of the data yielded a total of 62 slips of the tongue. The analysis of the data showed that nine types of slips of the tongue (misderivation, phoneme anticipation, phoneme perseveration, phoneme exchange, affix deletion, phoneme deletion, word blend, word exchange, and word substitution) were found in the utterances that were produced by the news presenters of Kompas TV. Moreover, word substitution is the most common slip with a total of 15 slips of the tongue or 35,72% of the data

Transplantation of adult Argan trees (Argania spinosa L. Skeels)

Transplantation of adult Argan trees is an important option for the conservation of this Moroccan ecological heritage plant species, especially when the land has to be cleared for development purposes. Given that adult Argan trees’ transplanting has not been investigated, this work was initiated to assess the success rate of this operation. The trees were removed from a rocky open cast cement quarry and planted in a deep soil located inside the premises of the cement plant. Two seasons were investigated, summer and winter of the year 2020. Tree preparation consisted of different canopy pruning, ranging from complete cut back to light trimming for global shaping; and proper root pruning. Regular watering was applied to the transplanted trees and gravel mulch placed on the surface of the watering pans to conserve soil moisture. The results show that Argan trees transplanted in summer resulted in 62.5% recovery, whereas those transplanted in winter reached 50%. Total branches removal (trees cut back) resulted in the highest rates of recovery independently of the season. Keywords: Adult Argan trees, Pruning, Bare roots, Transplantation, Summer, Winte

Measuring Qualities for OSGi Component-Based Applications

International audienceComponent-based software engineering (CBSE) begins to reach a certain level of maturity. Indeed, for the development of complex applications the use of component paradigm has become common. Therefore, the evaluation of the quality of these applications becomes necessary. In this context, the use of metrics is considered very important. Several metrics specific to component-based applications have been proposed. However, any of these metrics gained the consensus of the CBSE community and mainly there is no proposed tool to support them. As a large part of frameworks for component-based application development is based on object-oriented technology, we propose to use some object-oriented (OO) metrics to evaluate component-based applications produced with this kind of framework. Indeed, these metrics became a standard in OO community. So, they are well-defined, well-known and empirically validated. To identify which object-oriented metrics are useful for the evaluation of component-based applications, we have conducted an experimental study on 10 OSGi applications. This study also gives us the opportunity to discuss on the respect by OSGi developers of some properties pointed out by the literatur

STUDIJE ISTRAŽIVANJA PODZEMNIH VODA I PRODORA SLANOSTI S POMOĆU ISTRAŽIVANJA ELEKTRIČNOGA OTPORA (ERS), SLUČAJ PODRUČJA WINDER, BELUDŽISTAN, PAKISTAN

The groundwater resources have always been explored for its utilization in domestic and agriculture purposes. In this study, Winder area in Balochistan which is along the coast of Offshore Indus Basin has been explored using electrical resistivity method for deeper understanding of hydrogeological and hydrogeophysical conditions. Schlumberger electrode arrays have been used to acquire vertical electrical sounding data for 23 different sites in this area. The field data were calibrated with theoretical curves during processing using software with graphical interface. The true resistivities, depths, thicknesses, aquifer attributes, soil type and groundwater quality has been extracted from the processed data. Pseudo-sections and geo-electrical lithology sections have been generated for lateral distribution of hydrogeological settings. Furthermore, Dar-zarrouk parameters calculations have been made and 3D surfaces generated at 30m and 60 m depth for transverse resistance (T), longitudinal conductance (S) and anisotropy (λ) plotted for resistivity distribution and coastal salinity intrusion analysis. The soundings results depict five layers mainly composed of silty sand, sandy clay, sand, and sandy gravel and the depth ranges from 0-110m. The interpretation illustrates that freshwater unconfined aquifer are present in the quaternary sand and sandy gravel deposits. The water table is at shallow depth along the river and deeper in northeast and away from Winder river. The resistivity ranges 29-1091 Ωm in layer-3 interpreted as saturated zone. The approximate range of water table is 19-30 m. The higher value of T greater than 10000 shows fresh water and low value 8200 for salinity intrusion in southwest toward sea.Izvori podzemne vode uvijek su se istraživali radi njihove upotrebe u kućne i poljoprivredne svrhe. U ovoj je studiji područje Windera u Beludžistanu, uz obalu priobalnoga bazena Inda, istraženo korištenjem metode električnoga otpora radi dubljega razumijevanja hidrogeoloških i hidrogeofizičkih uvjeta. Nizovi elektroda Schlumberger korišteni su za prikupljanje podataka o vertikalnome električnom sondiranju za 23 različita mjesta u ovome području. Podatci na terenu kalibrirani su teoretskim krivuljama tijekom obrade s pomoću softvera s grafičkim sučeljem. Iz obrađenih podataka izdvojena je stvarna otpornost, dubine, debljine, svojstva vodonosnika, vrsta tla i kvaliteta podzemne vode. Za bočnu raspodjelu hidrogeoloških postavki stvoreni su pseudopresjeci i geoelektrični litološki odsjeci. Nadalje, izrađeni su proračuni Dar-zarroukovih parametara i generirane su 3D površine na dubini od 30 m i 60 m za poprečni otpor (T), uzdužnu vodljivost (S) i anizotropiju (λ). Ti su parametri ucrtani za raspodjelu otpora i analizu upada slane obale. Rezultati sondiranja prikazuju četiri sloja uglavnom sastavljena od muljevitoga pijeska, pjeskovite gline, pijeska i pješčanoga šljunka, a dubina se kreće od 0 do 110 m. Tumačenje ilustrira da su slatkovodni vodonosnici prisutni u kvartarnim pjeskovitim i pjeskovitim naslagama šljunka. Vodeni je sloj na maloj dubini uz rijeku, a dublje na sjeveroistoku i dalje od rijeke Winder. Otpornost se kreće od 29 do 1091 Ωm u sloju 3, što se tumači kao zasićena zona. Približni je domet vodostaja 19 – 30 m. Viša vrijednost T veća od 10000 pokazuje slatku vodu i nisku vrijednost 8200 za prodiranje slanosti na jugozapadu prema moru

Les concepts durables et technologiques menant à l’attractivité des investissements étrangers au Maroc : cas du secteur touristiques

The topic of attractiveness of foreign investments in the tourism sector in Morocco and its sustainable development is of great importance for several reasons. Firstly, the Moroccan tourism sector represents a significant source of revenue for the country, thus making a substantial contribution to its economy. It is therefore important to identify sustainable concepts that can contribute to the attractiveness of foreign investments in the Moroccan tourism sector, while ensuring that the industry's development is carried out responsibly.To address this issue, we have developed a questionnaire dedicated to the managers of various tourism businesses in the Agadir region. This questionnaire has yielded 267 responses. Indeed, according to the results of the principal component analysis (PCA), all the explanatory variables are significantly correlated. This indicates that sector policies, tourist perceptions, advanced technological infrastructure, and technological tools are all important factors contributing to the attractiveness of foreign investments in the Moroccan tourism sector, and therefore, to the overall performance of the sector.r. The article presents a literature review on Morocco's attractiveness as an investment destination. A research methodology is then described, with a focus on the Agadir region. The results of the principal component analysis highlight the sustainable and technological concepts that foster the attractiveness of foreign investments. In conclusion, explanatory variables such as sector policies, tourist perceptions, infrastructure, and technological tools have an impact on the performance of the Moroccan tourism sector, but more advanced statistical analyses are needed.   Keywords: Foreign investment, Sustainable attractiveness, Tourism sector, Strategy, Sustainable development JEL Classification : Z3, Z32, L83 Paper type : Empirical researchLe sujet de l'attractivité des investissements étrangers dans le secteur touristique au Maroc et de son développement durable est d'une grande importance pour plusieurs raisons. Tout d'abord, le secteur touristique marocain représente une source importante de revenus pour le pays, contribuant ainsi de manière significative à son économie. Il est donc important d'identifier les concepts durables qui peuvent contribuer à l'attractivité des investissements étrangers dans le secteur touristique marocain, tout en veillant à ce que le développement de l'industrie soit réalisé de manière responsable. Afin de répondre à ce constat, nous avons élaboré un questionnaire dédié aux patrons des différentes entreprises touristiques de la région d’Agadir. Ce questionnaire a permis de dégager 267 réponses. En effet, d'après les résultats de l'analyse des composantes principales (ACP), toutes les variables explicatives sont significativement corrélées. Cela signifie que les politiques sectorielles, la perception des touristes, les infrastructures technologiques de pointe et les outils technologiques sont tous des facteurs importants qui contribuent à l'attractivité des investissements étrangers dans le secteur touristique marocain et, par conséquent, à la performance globale du secteur.. L'article présente une revue de littérature sur l'attractivité du Maroc en tant que destination d'investissement. Une méthodologie de recherche est ensuite décrite, avec un focus sur la région d'Agadir. Les résultats de l'analyse des composantes principales mettent en évidence les concepts durables et technologiques qui favorisent l'attractivité des investissements étrangers. En conclusion, les variables explicatives telles que les politiques sectorielles, la perception des touristes, les infrastructures et les outils technologiques ont un impact sur la performance du secteur touristique marocain, mais des analyses statistiques plus avancées sont nécessaires.   Mots-clés : Investissements étrangers, attractivité durable, secteur touristique, stratégie, développement durable Classification JEL : Z3, Z32, L83 Type de l'article : Recherche appliqué

Vocational Interests of Middle and High School Students in the UAE

This paper investigated the vocational interests of students in the UAE and determined its relationship to gender and grade level. The Emirates Scale for Vocational Interests- Revised (ESVI-R) was used to attain the goal of the investigation. The ESVE-R was administered to 1920 students in the different emirates who were in the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. Accordingly, the sample was comprised of 866 (45.1%) male and 1054 (54.9%) female students. The data were analyzed using the appropriate descriptive and inferential statistical protocols. The results showed that there are significant gender differences in most of the subscales of ESVI-R whereas there are significant differences in some of the subscales according to students' grade level. The study concluded that the vocational interests of the students demonstrated stability along grade levels and that there was a notable shift in the vocational interests of female students in the trajectory of seeking an equal opportunity with their male counterparts. Keywords: Vocational interests, gender differences, grade level, UAE school students