Towards a case-based learning approach to support software architecture education

Software architecture education remains challenging for instructors, students, and software industry professionals. Several initiatives have been proposed to mitigate the inherent challenges, including games, supporting tools, collaborative courses, and hands-on projects. Case-based learning has been introduced in software architecture, and its benefits are recognized. However, choosing the right cases that cover the stated learning objectives and developing learning activities to achieve high-order learning are also challenging. The main goal of this paper is to present a case-based learning approach that guides the development of learning objectives, the finding and selection of real-world software architecture cases, and the design of instructional activities. We applied our approach in software architecture related courses during the past few years. The results show that it can leverage the ways to adequately explore cases for educational purposes while also motivating instructors and students to the software architecture education

Systems Interoperability Types: A Tertiary Study

Interoperability has been a focus of attention over at least four decades, with the emergence of several interoperability types (or levels), diverse models, frameworks, and solutions, also as a result of a continuous effort from different domains. The current heterogeneity in technologies such as blockchain, IoT and new application domains such as Industry 4.0 brings not only new interaction possibilities but also challenges for interoperability. Moreover, confusion and ambiguity in the current understanding of interoperability types exist, hampering stakeholders' communication and decision making. This work presents an updated panorama of software-intensive systems interoperability with particular attention to its types. For this, we conducted a tertiary study that scrutinized 37 secondary studies published from 2012 to 2023, from which we found 36 interoperability types associated with 117 different definitions, besides 13 interoperability models and six frameworks in various domains. This panorama reveals that the concern with interoperability has migrated from technical to social-technical issues going beyond the software systems' boundary and still requiring solving many open issues. We also address the urgent actions and also potential research opportunities to leverage interoperability as a multidisciplinary research field to achieve low-coupled, cost-effective, and interoperable systems.Comment: 33 page

VMTools-RA: a Reference Architecture for Software Variability Tools

Currently, software systems must be appropriately developed to support an amount of variability for accommodating different requirements. To support such development, a diversity of tools has already been designed for variability management (i.e., identification, modeling, evaluation, and realization). However, due to this diversity, there is a lack of consensus on what in fact software variability tools are and even what functionalities they should provide. Besides that, the building of new tools is still an effort- and time-consuming task. To support their building, we present VMTools-RA, a reference architecture that encompasses knowledge and practice for developing and evolving variability tools. Designed in a systematic way, VMTools-RA was evaluated throughout: a controlled experiment with software developer practitioners; and an instantiation of the VMTools-RA architecture to implement a software variability tool, named SMartyModeling. As a result, VMTools-RA is evidenced to be feasible and it can be considered an important contribution to the software variability and developers of variability-intensive software systems community, which require specific tools developed in a faster manner with less risk, what a reference architecture could provide

Infográficos versus Materiais de Aprendizagem Tradicionais: uma Investigação Empírica

Infográfico é um tipo popular de visualização de informação que utiliza deapelo visual para tornar a transmissão de informação rápida e efetiva. No entanto, ainda existem poucos trabalhos empíricos que investiguem sua interferência no processo de aprendizagem e interação com as características estilos de aprendizagem e satisfação. Nesse contexto, este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar a eficácia dos infográficos em comparação com os materiais de aprendizagem tradicionais (gráfico e texto). Para isso, foi executado um experimento com 54 alunos de graduação. Os alunos foram distribuídos entre os três tipos de materiais e avaliados em relação ao aprendizado, retenção de conhecimento e satisfação pessoal. Os resultados mostraram que os infográficos foram tão bons para a aprendizagem e retenção de conhecimento quanto os materiais tradicionais

The Quiescent Intracluster Medium in the Core of the Perseus Cluster

Clusters of galaxies are the most massive gravitationally-bound objects in the Universe and are still forming. They are thus important probes of cosmological parameters and a host of astrophysical processes. Knowledge of the dynamics of the pervasive hot gas, which dominates in mass over stars in a cluster, is a crucial missing ingredient. It can enable new insights into mechanical energy injection by the central supermassive black hole and the use of hydrostatic equilibrium for the determination of cluster masses. X-rays from the core of the Perseus cluster are emitted by the 50 million K diffuse hot plasma filling its gravitational potential well. The Active Galactic Nucleus of the central galaxy NGC1275 is pumping jetted energy into the surrounding intracluster medium, creating buoyant bubbles filled with relativistic plasma. These likely induce motions in the intracluster medium and heat the inner gas preventing runaway radiative cooling; a process known as Active Galactic Nucleus Feedback. Here we report on Hitomi X-ray observations of the Perseus cluster core, which reveal a remarkably quiescent atmosphere where the gas has a line-of-sight velocity dispersion of 164+/-10 km/s in a region 30-60 kpc from the central nucleus. A gradient in the line-of-sight velocity of 150+/-70 km/s is found across the 60 kpc image of the cluster core. Turbulent pressure support in the gas is 4% or less of the thermodynamic pressure, with large scale shear at most doubling that estimate. We infer that total cluster masses determined from hydrostatic equilibrium in the central regions need little correction for turbulent pressure.Comment: 31 pages, 11 Figs, published in Nature July

Hitomi (ASTRO-H) X-ray Astronomy Satellite

The Hitomi (ASTRO-H) mission is the sixth Japanese x-ray astronomy satellite developed by a large international collaboration, including Japan, USA, Canada, and Europe. The mission aimed to provide the highest energy resolution ever achieved at E  >  2  keV, using a microcalorimeter instrument, and to cover a wide energy range spanning four decades in energy from soft x-rays to gamma rays. After a successful launch on February 17, 2016, the spacecraft lost its function on March 26, 2016, but the commissioning phase for about a month provided valuable information on the onboard instruments and the spacecraft system, including astrophysical results obtained from first light observations. The paper describes the Hitomi (ASTRO-H) mission, its capabilities, the initial operation, and the instruments/spacecraft performances confirmed during the commissioning operations for about a month

Architectural support for context - aware mobile learning applications

Context-aware mobile learning applications provide learning materials to suit the needs of individual learners. Despite several applications developed, there is a lack of architectural support for developing these applications. This has resulted in a number of challenges; lack of standardization, poor quality of developed applications, and reliability. Motivated by this shortcoming, a reference architecture was designed using requirements gathered from twenty-four context-aware mobile learning applications. The reference architecture provides architectural support for context capturing and processing. Evaluation of the reference architecture was conducted, and the results indicate that it solves the motivated problem and also consolidates necessary requirements