Sustainability in Software Engineering

The intersection between software engineering re- search and the problems related to sustainability and green IT has been the subject of increasing attention. In spite of that, we observe that sustainability is still not clearly defined, or understood, in the field of software engineering. This lack of clarity leads to confusion about e.g. what is relevant to measure or the research implications over time or space. This paper provides an overview of how the research so far has defined sustainability, and how this definition has been used to guide which research areas. To this end, we carried out a systematic mapping study for selecting, classifying and analyzing relevant publications. In this study, we investigate which knowledge areas and which time scope of sustainability effects are mostly targeted in scientific research. Our analysis shows research trends and discusses gaps to be filled

Experiences from Applying the Karlskrona Manifesto Principles for Sustainability in Software System Design

Sustainability in software design is an evolving area that requires more practical guide on how software designers, developers and requirement engineers can elicit software sustain- ability requirements. The Karlskrona Manifesto for Sustainabil- ity Design (KMSD) principles serve as a common ground to guide and support sustainability in software design.However, there is little research as of now showing how these KMSD principles are applied in software requirements elicitation and software design in general. This paper presents some of our evaluation of how these KMSD principles, the software sustaina- bility requirement template and software sustainability require- ment best practice template were applied in two case studies by stakeholders (requirement engineers, CTO and software develop- ers)

Requirements: The Key to Sustainability

Software's critical role in society demands a paradigm shift in the software engineering mind-set. This shift's focus begins in requirements engineering. This article is part of a special issue on the Future of Software Engineering

Raising awareness for potential sustainability effects in Uganda: A survey-based empirical study

Copyright © 2019 for this paper by its authors. In July 2019, we ran the 3rd International BRIGHT summer school for Software Engineering and Information Systems at the Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. The participants developed a group project over the course of the week, which included the application of the Sustainability Awareness Framework. The framework promotes discussion on the impact of software systems on sustainability based on a set of questions. In this paper, we present the educational evaluation of the Sustainability Awareness Framework in a country in Sub-Saharan Africa. The results indicate that the framework can provide supportive guidance of the societal and environmental challenges in the given context

Mind the Gap: Bridging the Sustainable Software Systems Research Divide

Sustainability is a major concern to humanity as a result of the consequences of the rapid consumption of the planets finite natural resources, combined with exponential economic and population growth. Principally associated with the field of ecology, sustainability has emerged as an important area of research in a number of sub-fields within the domain of computing including human-computer interaction. While these communities have attempted to address the challenges of sustainability from their different perspectives, there is a severe lack of common understanding of the fundamental concepts of sustainability and how they relate to software systems. As a result, there is a need for a common ground and consistent terminology to reduce the replication of effort. This paper presents the Karlskrona Manifesto for Sustainabilty Design as a mechanism for initiating a conversation between the different communities in addressing the challenges of developing sustainable software systems

Sustainability Design and Software: The Karlskrona Manifesto

Sustainability has emerged as a broad concern for society. Many engineering disciplines have been grappling with challenges in how we sustain technical, social and ecological systems. In the software engineering community, for example, maintainability has been a concern for a long time. But too often, these issues are treated in isolation from one another. Misperceptions among practitioners and research communities persist, rooted in a lack of coherent understanding of sustainability, and how it relates to software systems research and practice. This article presents a cross-disciplinary initiative to create a common ground and a point of reference for the global community of research and practice in software and sustainability, to be used for effectively communicating key issues, goals, values and principles of sustainability design for software-intensive systems. The centrepiece of this effort is the Karlskrona Manifesto for Sustainability Design, a vehicle for a much needed conversation about sustainability within and beyond the software community, and an articulation of the fundamental principles underpinning design choices that affect sustainability. We describe the motivation for developing this manifesto, including some considerations of the genre of the manifesto as well as the dynamics of its creation. We illustrate the collaborative reflective writing process and present the current edition of the manifesto itself. We assess immediate implications and applications of the articulated principles, compare these to current practice, and suggest future steps

Sustainability Debt: A Metaphor to Support Sustainability Design Decisions

Sustainability, the capacity to endure, is fundamental for the societies on our planet. Despite its increasing recognition in software engineering, it remains difficult to assess the delayed systemic effects of decisions taken in requirements engineering and systems design. To support this difficult task, this paper introduces the concept of sustainability debt. The metaphor helps in the discovery, documentation, and communication of sustainability issues in requirements engineering. We build on the existing metaphor of technical debt and extend it to four other dimensions of sustainability to help think about sustainability-aware software systems engineering. We highlight the meaning of debt in each dimension and the relationships between those dimensions. Finally, we discuss the use of the metaphor and explore how it can help us to design sustainability-aware software intensive systems

Effects of substance use disorder on treatment process and outcome in a ten-session psychiatric treatment for borderline personality disorder.

Dual diagnosis is common in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), one of the most common being Substance Use Disorder (SUD). Previous studies have shown that general psychiatric management (GPM) was effective in reducing borderline symptoms. In the present study, we tested whether the short GPM was as effective in the BPD + SUD as in the BPD group. We analysed a group of 99 patients presenting a BPD. 51 of these patients presented a SUD. The BPD group and the BPD + SUD group received a manual-based short variant of the GPM treatment. Previous studies have shown that a 10-session version of GPM was effective in reducing borderline symptoms at the end of the treatment (Psychother Psychosom 83:176-86, 2014). We found no significant difference in the reduction of general symptoms, which diminished in both groups. The specific borderline symptoms were also reduced in both groups, but there was a slightly higher reduction of the borderline symptoms in the SUD group. The therapeutic alliance progressed positively in all groups. Moreover, the alliance increased more over time in the SUD group. The short variant of GPM seems to be effective in BPD treatment independently from the presence of SUD. Therefore, this treatment could be an effective entry-level treatment for patients with dual diagnosis as well as patients with BPD only. Further studies are needed to confirm efficacy and long-term outcome. The trial was registered at ClinicalTrial.gov (identifier NCT01896024 )