Energy-efficient MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks: a survey

MAC Protocols enables sensor nodes of the same WSN to access a common shared communication channel. Many researchers have proposed different solutions explaining how to design and implement these protocols. The main goal of most MACs protocols is how to prolong lifetime of the WSN as long as possible by reducing energy consumption since it is often impossible to change or to recharge sensors’ batteries. The majority of these protocols designed for WSN are based on “duty-cycle” technique. Every node of the WSN operates on two periods: active period and sleep period to save energy. Until now (to our knowledge) there is no ideal protocol for this purpose. The main reason relies on the lack of standardization at lower layers (physical layer) and (physical) sensor hardware.  Therefore, the MAC protocol choice remains application-dependent. A useful MAC protocol should be able to adapt to network changes (topology, nodes density and network size). This paper surveys MAC protocols for WSNs and discusses the main characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of currently popular protocols

Data stream mining techniques: a review

A plethora of infinite data is generated from the Internet and other information sources. Analyzing this massive data in real-time and extracting valuable knowledge using different mining applications platforms have been an area for research and industry as well. However, data stream mining has different challenges making it different from traditional data mining. Recently, many studies have addressed the concerns on massive data mining problems and proposed several techniques that produce impressive results. In this paper, we review real time clustering and classification mining techniques for data stream. We analyze the characteristics of data stream mining and discuss the challenges and research issues of data steam mining. Finally, we present some of the platforms for data stream mining

What UAE Software Students Think about Software Testing: A Replicated Study

Software testing is vital to improve software quality. However, software tester role is stigmatized, partly due to misperception and partly due to the treatment of the testing process within the software industry. The present study analyses this situation aiming to explore what might inhibit an individual from taking up a software testing career. In order to investigate this issue, we surveyed 132 senior students pursuing degrees in information systems, information and communication technology, computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, and other closely-related disciplines at three universities in the United Arab Emirates: two publicly funded and one top-notch private university. The students were asked to describe the PROs and CONs of taking up a career in software testing and to ponder the likelihood that they would take up the career themselves. The study identified 7 main PROs and 9 main CONSs for pursuing a testing career, and indicated that the role of software tester is perceived as a social role, which may require as many soft skills as technical prowess. The results also show that UAE software-related students have a stronger negative attitude towards software testing compared to their counterparts in other countries where similar investigations have been carried out in the past three years

What UAE Software Students Think about Software Testing: A Replicated Study

Software testing is vital to improve software quality. However, software tester role is stigmatized, partly due to misperception and partly due to the treatment of the testing process within the software industry. The present study analyses this situation aiming to explore what might inhibit an individual from taking up a software testing career. In order to investigate this issue, we surveyed 132 senior students pursuing degrees in information systems, information and communication technology, computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, and other closely-related disciplines at three universities in the United Arab Emirates: two publicly funded and one top-notch private university. The students were asked to describe the PROs and CONs of taking up a career in software testing and to ponder the likelihood that they would take up the career themselves. The study identified 7 main PROs and 9 main CONSs for pursuing a testing career, and indicated that the role of software tester is perceived as a social role, which may require as many soft skills as technical prowess. The results also show that UAE software-related students have a stronger negative attitude towards software testing compared to their counterparts in other countries where similar investigations have been carried out in the past three years.Comment: 9 pagges. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2205.07781, arXiv:2007.1263

Survey of Personalized Learning Software Systems: A Taxonomy of Environments, Learning Content, and User Models

This paper presents a comprehensive systematic review of personalized learning software systems. All the systems under review are designed to aid educational stakeholders by personalizing one or more facets of the learning process. This is achieved by exploring and analyzing the common architectural attributes among personalized learning software systems. A literature-driven taxonomy is recognized and built to categorize and analyze the reviewed literature. Relevant papers are filtered to produce a final set of full systems to be reviewed and analyzed. In this meta-review, a set of 72 selected personalized learning software systems have been reviewed and categorized based on the proposed personalized learning taxonomy. The proposed taxonomy outlines the three main architectural components of any personalized learning software system: learning environment, learner model, and content. It further defines the different realizations and attributions of each component. Surveyed systems have been analyzed under the proposed taxonomy according to their architectural components, usage, strengths, and weaknesses. Then, the role of these systems in the development of the field of personalized learning systems is discussed. This review sheds light on the field’s current challenges that need to be resolved in the upcoming years

Distributed Simulation of Open Cyclic Queuing Networks

In this paper we present the results of an experimental performance study of distributed simulation of open cyclic queuing networks using a minor variation of the deadlock detection and recovery based algorithm of Chandy and Misra. One major part of this study is to determine the effect of overhead on distributed simulation. Moreover, we measure certain refined notions of ideal speedup ratio." These ratios are more refined than just the number of processors in the sense that they capture the potentially achievable speedups of distributed simulation more closely

Modelling and verification of parameterized architectures: A functional approach

Abstract The merit of higher order functions for hardware description and transformation is widely acknowledged by hardware designers. However, the use of higher order types makes their correctness proof very difficult. Herein, a new proof approach based on the principle of partial application is proposed which transforms higher order functions into partially applied first‐order ones. Therefore, parameterised architectures modelled by higher order functions could be easily redefined only over first‐order types. The proof could be performed by induction within the same specification framework that avoids translating the higher order properties between different semantics, which remains extremely difficult. Using the notion of parameterisation where verified components are used as parameters to build more complex ones, the approach fits elegantly in the incremental bottom‐up design where both the design and its proof could be developed in a systematic way. The potential features of the proposed methodological proof approach are demonstrated over a detailed example of a circuit design and verification within a functional framework

A Computer Aided Learning Tool for Readers

A bilingual piece of software has been developed to cultivate student speed and critical reading abilities by expanding their visual span, improving their eye movement, reducing their visual regression, developing their stock of vocabulary, and by honing their skimming, scanning, and critical understanding skills. This paper overviews the software, explains its educational value for language teaching, and experimentally demonstrates its utility