The Influence of Green Strategies Design onto Quality Requirements Prioritization

[Context and Motivation] Modern society is facing important challenges that are critical to improve its environmental performance. The literature reports on many green strategies aimed at reducing energy consumption. However, little research has been carried out so far on including green strategies in software design. [Question/problem] In this paper, we investigate how green software strategies can contribute to, and influence, quality requirements prioritization performed iteratively throughout a service-oriented software design process. [Methodology] In collaboration with a Dutch industry partner, an empirical study was carried out with 19 student teams playing the role of software designers, who completed the design of a real-life project through 7 weekly deliverables. [Principle ideas/results] We identified a list of quality requirements (QRs) that were considered by the teams as part of their architectural decisions when green strategies were introduced. By analyzing relations between QRs and green strategies, our study confirms usability as the most used QR for addressing green strategies that allow to create people awareness. Qualities like reliability, performance, interoperability, scalability and availability emerged as the most relevant for addressing service-awareness green strategies. [Contribution] If used at the beginning of a green software project, our results help including the most relevant QRs for addressing those green software strategies that are e.g. the most domain-generic (like increase carbon footprint awareness, paperless service provisioning, virtualization)

Characterizing the contribution of quality requirements to software sustainability

Most respondents considered modifiability as relevant for addressing both technical and environmental sustainability. Functional correctness, availability, modifiability, interoperability and recoverability favor positively the endurability of software systems. This study has also identified security, satisfaction, and freedom from risk as very good contributors to social sustainability. Satisfaction was also considered by the respondents as a good contributor to economic sustainability. Background Since sustainability became a challenge in software engineering, researchers mainly from requirements engineering and software architecture communities have contributed to defining the basis of the notion of sustainability-aware software. Problem Despite these valuable efforts, the assessment and design based on the notion of sustainability as a software quality is still poorly understood. There is no consensus on which sustainability requirements should be considered. Aim and Method To fill this gap, a survey was designed with a double objective: i) determine to which extent quality requirements contribute to the sustainability of software-intensive systems; and ii) identify direct dependencies among the sustainability dimensions. The survey involved different target audiences (e.g. software architects, ICT practitioners with expertise in Sustainability). We evaluated the perceived importance/relevance of each sustainability dimension, and the perceived usefulness of exploiting a sustainability model in different software engineering activities. Result

Primary familial congenital erythrocytosis: two novel EPOR mutations found in Spain

Two-carbon ring expansions of vinyl β-lactones, were carried out by Lewis acids (BF3-Et2O or Et2AlCl) via an ionization/cation rearrangement. β,γ-unsaturated δ-lactones were produced as efficient protocols for the synthesis of bioactive substances. Vinyl β-lactones were prepared via ring closure of corresponding unsaturated β-hydroxy acids. Differently structured substrates were examined to study the influence of the substituents on the rearrangement. Other factors, such as temperature, solvent and catalyst were also studied in search of suitable reaction conditions. This method is moderately successful in providing fused-ring δ-lactones, but higher yields (so far total yield of 24.8%) and a better method for the separation of β- and δ-lactones are required for useful synthetic applications. The successful implementation of this conceptually novel strategy will provide a versatile and expedient route for the synthesis of δ-lactones bearing a wide range of substitution patterns

Cluster validation by measurement of clustering characteristics relevant to the user

There are many cluster analysis methods that can produce quite different clusterings on the same dataset. Cluster validation is about the evaluation of the quality of a clustering; "relative cluster validation" is about using such criteria to compare clusterings. This can be used to select one of a set of clusterings from different methods, or from the same method ran with different parameters such as different numbers of clusters. There are many cluster validation indexes in the literature. Most of them attempt to measure the overall quality of a clustering by a single number, but this can be inappropriate. There are various different characteristics of a clustering that can be relevant in practice, depending on the aim of clustering, such as low within-cluster distances and high between-cluster separation. In this paper, a number of validation criteria will be introduced that refer to different desirable characteristics of a clustering, and that characterise a clustering in a multidimensional way. In specific applications the user may be interested in some of these criteria rather than others. A focus of the paper is on methodology to standardise the different characteristics so that users can aggregate them in a suitable way specifying weights for the various criteria that are relevant in the clustering application at hand.Comment: 20 pages 2 figure

Does fiscal consolidation hurt economic growth? Empirical evidence from Spanish regions

This article brings empirical evidence on the effect of fiscal consolidation in decentralized countries. The focus on Spain is justified by three reasons. First, it is one of the OECD countries most affected by the Great recession in terms of both GDP and public deficit. Second, Spain is one of the most decentralized countries in the world. Third, compliance with fiscal consolidation targets has been very diverse across regions. Using both time series econometrics and the Synthetic Control Method approach (SCM), we show that compliance with fiscal targets at the regional level has not involved lower GDP growth rates in the short-run. Openness and economic integration of regional economies involve that fiscal multipliers tend to fade. Hence, while a fiscal stimulus would not work on this scale, the opposite is also true: the potentially negative demand effects of a stronger regional fiscal consolidation strategy would be exported to other regions.Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. CSO2017-85024-C2-2-

Assessing the impact of the awareness level on a co-operative game

Context: When playing a co-operative game, being aware of your collaborators (where they are playing, what they are doing, the abilities they have, etc.) is essential for achieving the game's goals. This led to the definition of Gamespace Awareness in order to guide in the identification of the awareness needs in the form of a compilation of the awareness elements that a co-operative game should feature. Objective: Gamespace Awareness does not establish how much awareness information players must be provided with. This constitutes the main motivation for this work: to assess the impact of different levels of Gamespace Awareness elements on a co-operative game. Method: A multiplayer action game was developed that supports three different awareness configurations, each one featuring different awareness levels (high, medium and low). The impact of these awareness levels was measured as regards game score, time, players’ happiness while playing, enjoyment and perceived usefulness. Several techniques such as subjective surveys and facial expression analysis were used to measure these factors. Results: The analysis of the results shows that the higher the awareness, the better the game score. However, the highest level of player happiness was not achieved with the most awareness-enabled configuration; we found that the players’ enjoyment depends not only on their awareness level but also on their expertise level. Finally, the awareness elements related to the present and the future were the most useful, as could be expected in a multiplayer action game. Conclusions: The results showed that the medium level awareness obtained the best results. We therefore concluded that a certain level of awareness is necessary, but that excessive awareness could negatively affect the game experience

A chiral molecular cage comprising diethynylallenes and N‐heterotriangulenes for enantioselective recognition

Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade de Vigo/CISUGChirality, a characteristic tool of molecular recognition in nature, is often a complement of redox active systems. Scientists, in their eagerness to mimic such sophistication, have designed numerous chiral systems based on molecular entities with cavities, such as macrocycles and cages. In an attempt to combine chirality and redox-active species, in this contribution we report the synthesis and detailed characterization of a chiral shape-persistent molecular cage based on the combination of enantiopure diethynylallenes and electron-rich bridged triarylamines, also known as N-heterotriangulenes. Its ability for chiral recognition in solution was revealed through UV/vis titrations with enantiopure helicenes.Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. CTQ2017-85919-RDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft | Ref. 182849149Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft | Ref. 281029004-SFB1249FP7 People: Marie-Curie Actions | Ref. PIRSES-GA-2012-318930-InTechSEXunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431C 2017/7