Commercial Software Companies Research Articles

An Overview on the Landscape of R Packages for Open Source Scorecard Modelling

The credit scoring industry has a long tradition of using statistical models for loan default probability prediction. Since this time methodology has strongly evolved, and most of the current research is dedicated to modern machine learning algorithms which contrasts with common practice in the finance industry where traditional regression models still denote the gold standard. In addition, strong emphasis is put on a preliminary binning of variables. Reasons for this may be not only the regulatory requirement of model comprehensiveness but also the possibility to integrate analysts’ expert knowledge in the modelling process. Although several commercial software companies offer specific solutions for modelling credit scorecards, open-source frameworks for this purpose have been missing for a long time. In recent years, this has changed, and today several R packages for credit scorecard modelling are available. This brings the potential to bridge the gap between academic research and industrial practice. The aim of this paper is to give a structured overview of these packages. It may guide users to select the appropriate functions for the desired purpose. Furthermore, this paper will hopefully contribute to future development activities.

Abstract TP101: Defining Ischemic Core In Acute Ischemic Stroke Using CT Perfusion: A Multi-center Validation Study

Background: Estimation of infarction based on computed tomographic perfusion (CTP) remains challenging, mainly due to noise associated with CTP data and variability in reported thresholds ischemic core esstimation. Commercial software companies have attempted to establish CTP thresholds; for example, a relative cerebral blood flow (rCBF) of <30% for RAPID™ (iSchemaView). In this retrospective multi-center study, we sought to establish and validate CTP threshold values for estimation of ischemic core using Olea Sphere® software (Olea Medical Solutions). Methods: Under an approved multi-institutional protocol, patients with acute ischemic stroke of the anterior circulation from three comprehensive stroke centers were included if they met the following criteria: baseline CTP, recanalization achieved (Thrombolysis in cerebral infarction scale ≥ IIb), and follow up MRI (DWI) performed. Perfusion maps were generated from the CTP data by the Bayesian probabilistic model and oscillation singular value decomposition (oSVD). CTP parameters, including time to peak (TTP), rCBF, time to max (Tmax), and Delay (equivalent of Tmax in Bayesian model) were generated. Brain was extracted from CTP and coregistered with the follow up MRI. An infarction mask and non-infarcted masks were drawn on MRI. We used a robust logistic regression to assess the binary outcome of our voxel-based analysis (infarcted vs non-infarcted) by adjusting for intra-subject correlations. Results: Eighty-one patients (42 Male; mean age 67.4 ±17.3) were included. All CTP parameters for the Bayesian and oSVD methods showed significant differences between infarcted and non-infarcted areas (p < 0.001). In the Bayesian model, a combination of rCBF at threshold of <45% and delay at threshold of 0.82 sec provided the highest diagnostic accuracy; AUC/sensitivity/specificity (0.79/0.69/0.79). In the oSVD method, a combination of rCBF at threshold of <16% and Tmax at threshold of 4.00 sec provided the highest diagnostic accuracy; AUC/sensitivity/specificity (0.71/0.64/0.73). Conclusion: Using heterogenous CTP data from three stroke centers, we established thresholds for estimation of ischemic core for Olea software that can be used for both Bayesian and oSVD postprocessing models.

How Software Quality Mediates the Impact of Intellectual Capital on Commercial Open-Source Software Company Success

The recent surge in the number of commercial open-source software (COSS) companies shows the growing importance of COSS companies in the software industry. As knowledge-based firms, COSS companies’ success depends heavily on the interplay among intangible resources such as human capital, relational capital, structural capital, and software quality. To observe these relationships, we conducted a hypothesis-testing questionnaire-type survey involving 200 software development experts and users working at 60 multinational COSS companies. Accordingly, the study unearthed two different but conjoint ways (i.e., direct and indirect) in which intellectual capital impacts COSS company’s success. On the one hand, relational capital one of the intellectual capital components directly affects COSS company success. One the other hand, relational and structural capital indirectly affect COSS company success through human capital, which, in turn, is itself mediated by software quality in a sequential mediation model. Therefore, COSS companies may need to prioritize software quality as it is the most critical variable impacting the success of COSS companies.

Review: Gaming Utopia: Ludic Worlds in Art, Design, and Media, by Claudia Costa Pederson

Review: <i>Gaming Utopia: Ludic Worlds in Art, Design, and Media</i>, by Claudia Costa Pederson

ISAC's Gating-ML 2.0 data exchange standard for gating description.

The lack of software interoperability with respect to gating has traditionally been a bottleneck preventing the use of multiple analytical tools and reproducibility of flow cytometry data analysis by independent parties. To address this issue, ISAC developed Gating-ML, a computer file format to encode and interchange gates. Gating-ML 1.5 was adopted and published as an ISAC Candidate Recommendation in 2008. Feedback during the probationary period from implementors, including major commercial software companies, instrument vendors, and the wider community, has led to a streamlined Gating-ML 2.0. Gating-ML has been significantly simplified and therefore easier to support by software tools. To aid developers, free, open source reference implementations, compliance tests, and detailed examples are provided to stimulate further commercial adoption. ISAC has approved Gating-ML as a standard ready for deployment in the public domain and encourages its support within the community as it is at a mature stage of development having undergone extensive review and testing, under both theoretical and practical conditions.

Anisotropy is Everywhere, to See, to Measure, and to Model

Anisotropy is everywhere. Isotropy is rare. Round stones are collectors’ items, and any almost cubic blocks are photographed, as they are the exception. The reasons for rock masses to frequently exhibit impressive degrees of anisotropy, with properties varying with direction of observation and measurement, are clearly their varied geological origins. Origins may provide distinctive bedding cycles in sedimentary rocks, distinctive flows and flow-tops in basalts, foliation in gneisses, schistosity in schists and cleavage in slates, and faults through all the above. We can add igneous dykes, sills, weathered horizons, and dominant joint sets. Each of the above are rich potential or inevitable sources of velocity, modulus, strength and permeability anisotropy—and inhomogeneity. The historic and present-day stress anisotropy provides a wealth of effects concerning the preferentially oriented jointing, with its reduced roughness and greater continuity. High stress may also have induced oriented micro-cracks. All the above reinforce disbelief in the elastic-isotropic-continuum or intact-medium-based assumptions promoted by commercial software companies and used by so many for modelling rock masses. RQD and Q are frequently anisotropic as well, and Q is anisotropic not just because of RQD. The authors, therefore, question whether the a priori assumption of homogeneous-isotropic-elastic behaviour has any significant place in the scientific practice of realistic rock mechanics.

Using bug report as a software quality measure: an empirical study

Bug reporting systems, such as Bugzilla are online tools used in software development and maintenance to store and track the status of a bug report. They are widely used by both open-source software projects and commercial software companies and have become a major source to study software evolution, software project management, and software quality control. In some research studies, the number of bug reports has been used as an indicator of software quality. This paper examines this representation. We investigate whether the number of bug reports of a specific version of a software product is correlated with its quality. Our study is performed on six branches of three open-source software systems. Our results do not support using the number of bug reports as a quality indicator of a specific version of an evolving software product. Instead, the study reveals that the number of bug reports is in some ways correlated with the time duration between product releases. Finally, the paper suggests a future research to study whether accumulated bug reports can be used as a means to represent the quality of a software branch.

Guest editors' introduction: Software Assurance for the Masses

The guest editors of this special theme issue describe how they selected articles from a wide variety of static analysis experts from research teams, academia, government, and commercial software companies. The broad spectrum of ideas covered range from the practicality of building and making static analysis tools usable in a major software company to ways of cataloging the problem space of vulnerabilities in software.

Foreword by the Editor [EM Programmer's Notebook

After a number of recent columns on accelerating computations, especially using GPGPUs - work which by its nature has to focus on very-low-level machine-specific issues (see, for instance, the December 2010 column) - it is interest ing to again feature a submission considering coding issues at a high level. Whilst much numerical-simulation work is of a one-off nature, for which tools such as MATLAB (which is regularly featured in the column) are ideal, large-scale soft ware brings new issues, not often addressed in our community outside commercial software companies, the software-design strategies of which are often proprietary. In this month's contribution, the author presents ideas from the field of software engineering and object-oriented design, applied to electromagnetic field simulators.

The critical factors of success for information service industry in developing international market: Using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach

In the past few years, due to changes in industry structure, market and the saturation of the domestic market, information service firms have started to develop the international market. Hence, to continue running their operations and maintain profitability, they should effectively control the related factors in the development of targeting a market. The purpose of this paper is to find the critical operational factors of the information service industry in developing the market and to provide a referential framework for operations in the information service industry. This research is firstly base on the business model discussed in relevant literature, using cross-case study to observe different domains for the operational strategies and critical factors of those top information service companies combined with thorough interviews with their top management executives, experts, and consultants. Finally, we concludes by proposing six elements of business model and 20 critical factors for using AHP method, and also calculates the quantitative weight of those elements and factors. We also take typical commercial software companies for examples to analyze their strategies of entering the international market.

Back-propagation of user innovations: The open source compatibility edge

Open source software (OSS) is a dramatically disruptive force in the software industry. While businesses see OSS succeeding, many of them have trouble gleaning the lessons that can be learned from the OSS phenomenon, since OSS development appears to be far removed from traditional business practices and principles. A major observation resulting from our research on OSS products is that OSS product development is not only enabling innovations by its users, but also providing a structure for them to back-propagate into OSS products, a process that enhances compatibility in OSS products and presents a low-cost solution to the more general problem of servicing highly segmented markets. We argue that this innovation management process carries important insights for both commercial software vendors and companies outside the software industry.

Verification, validation, and predictive capability in computational engineering and physics

Developers of computer codes, analysts who use the codes, and decision makers who rely on the results of the analyses face a critical question: How should confidence in modeling and simulation be critically assessed? Verification and validation (V&amp;V) of computational simulations are the primary methods for building and quantifying this confidence. Briefly, verification is the assessment of the accuracy of the solution to a computational model. Validation is the assessment of the accuracy of a computational simulation by comparison with experimental data. In verification, the relationship of the simulation to the real world is not an issue. In validation, the relationship between computation and the real world, ie, experimental data, is the issue. This paper presents our viewpoint of the state of the art in V&amp;V in computational physics. (In this paper we refer to all fields of computational engineering and physics, eg, computational fluid dynamics, computational solid mechanics, structural dynamics, shock wave physics, computational chemistry, etc, as computational physics.) We describe our view of the framework in which predictive capability relies on V&amp;V, as well as other factors that affect predictive capability. Our opinions about the research needs and management issues in V&amp;V are very practical: What methods and techniques need to be developed and what changes in the views of management need to occur to increase the usefulness, reliability, and impact of computational physics for decision making about engineering systems? We review the state of the art in V&amp;V over a wide range of topics, for example, prioritization of V&amp;V activities using the Phenomena Identification and Ranking Table (PIRT), code verification, software quality assurance (SQA), numerical error estimation, hierarchical experiments for validation, characteristics of validation experiments, the need to perform nondeterministic computational simulations in comparisons with experimental data, and validation metrics. We then provide an extensive discussion of V&amp;V research and implementation issues that we believe must be addressed for V&amp;V to be more effective in improving confidence in computational predictive capability. Some of the research topics addressed are development of improved procedures for the use of the PIRT for prioritizing V&amp;V activities, the method of manufactured solutions for code verification, development and use of hierarchical validation diagrams, and the construction and use of validation metrics incorporating statistical measures. Some of the implementation topics addressed are the needed management initiatives to better align and team computationalists and experimentalists in conducting validation activities, the perspective of commercial software companies, the key role of analysts and decision makers as code customers, obstacles to the improved effectiveness of V&amp;V, effects of cost and schedule constraints on practical applications in industrial settings, and the role of engineering standards committees in documenting best practices for V&amp;V. There are 207 references cited in this review article.

CALL, commercialism and culture: inherent software design conflicts and their results

This article investigates commercial software design practices as they specifically relate to foreign language education. Commercial educational software companies currently produce the majority of language learning software available on the market. Commercial ventures producing CALL software share many design practices that call into question their educational validity. The design practices of commercial CALL software companies are incongruent with the goals of foreign language education. The problems associated with commercial CALL ventures can be seen in the cultural aspects of the programs, particularly when dealing with issues of cultural authenticity and representation. Practices that create these cultural problems are investigated and outlined in this article. The results of these problems are also highlighted to allow for better identification of problematic design practices. The identification of these problems is associated with educational software evaluation theory. A brief outline of educational software evaluation theory is given, as well as a proposal for a new framework for CALL software evaluation that incorporates issues of representation to better address the inaccuracies found in many commercial CALL software products.

Linux and the Chemist

Linux is a freely available computer operating system. Instead of buying multiple copies of the same operating system for use on each computer, Linux may be freely copied onto every computer. Linux distributions come with hundreds of applications, such as compilers, browsers, various servers, graphics software, text editors, and spreadsheets, just to mention a few. Many commercial software companies have ported their applications over to Linux. Numerous programs for chemists, such as statistical treatment, molecular modeling, NMR spectral processing, DNA sequence evaluation, crystal structure solving, and molucular dynamics are available online, many at no cost.

The Comprehensive Evaluation of Professional Development Software: A Critique of Methodology

Training for pre-service and in-service teachers that is delivered through distance education methods solves various problems of traditional professional development. These problems include issues such as providing a consistent message, training large numbers of personnel, and overcoming scheduling and funding problems. As with other forms of instruction, professional development training materials should be subjected to a level of evaluation that increases the likelihood of successful implementation. However, it is unclear how this need for evaluation of professional development software is being met. Commercial software companies have been found to eschew evaluation of their products and classroom teachers can be expected to conduct only limited software evaluations of the software. This article contends that educational researchers are well positioned to conduct comprehensive evaluations of the professional development software they create. This purpose of this review of the literature is to (a) consolidate the database of literature with regard to professional development software, (b) examine the degree to which the software described in the literature has been comprehensively evaluated, and (c) provide suggestions for future research.

Medical Physics Committee

The Medical Physics Committee is a core resource to the RTOG that provides medical physics and dosimetry quality management services, as well as intellectual input into clinical trial design and analysis from the medical physics leadership. The RTOG seeks to determine the appropriate role for the many new technologies currently available in radiation oncology. The Medical Physics Committee has been especially active in the quality assurance aspects of protocols that use state-of-the-art treatment planning and treatment delivery techniques, including stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), three-dimensional (3D) conformal radiotherapy (CRT), prostate brachytherapy, and now intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). The successful testing of these technologies within the cooperative group setting requires a common vocabulary, a set of minimal technical capabilities demonstrated through a credentialing process, appropriate dosimetric specifications that focus on the critical clinical question, and a comprehensive central review. The RTOG has been successful in establishing mechanisms that address each of these requirements. 1.The RTOG Medical Physics Committee, either acting alone or in coordination with the Radiologic Physics Center and/or the 3D Quality Assurance (QA) Center, has adopted and popularized a common vocabulary so that concepts such as clinical target volume and planning target volume (PTV) are now commonly integrated into protocols.2.The Medical Physics Committee has credentialed >90 institutions to participate in RTOG SRS protocols. The 3D QA Center has credentialed 41 institutions to participate in RTOG 94-06, the 3D prostate cancer protocol; 19 institutions to participate in RTOG 93-11, the 3D lung cancer protocol; and 15 institutions to participate in RTOG 98-03, the 3D brain tumor protocol. The Radiologic Physics Center (RPC) has credentialed 41 institutions to participate in RTOG 98-05, the first permanent prostate implant protocol, and subsequent prostate implant protocols. The importance of these substantial credentialing efforts is to ensure that patients who are entered in these protocols are treated in a manner specified in the protocols, so that high-quality data are available for analysis.3.The Medical Physics Committee, together with the 3D QA Center in St. Louis, has successfully defined an RTOG external beam communications protocol, which has been implemented by five different commercial software companies. These standards have resulted in the central review of the dosimetry of patients entered into RTOG 3D-CRT protocols.4.IMRT is an exciting new treatment approach. The Medical Physics Committee is in the initial phase of establishing a credentialing process that will include both a treatment verification component and a data transfer central review component. Substantial efforts have been expended to ensure that the dosimetric specifications are complete, consistent, and obtainable with the current technology. In addition, the Medical Physics Committee is performing initial data exchange, dosimetry evaluation, and educational activities. During the next grant period, the Medical Physics Committee will increase its efforts on IMRT protocols, prostate brachytherapy protocols, and 3D-CRT protocols. It can be expected that all commercial planning systems will incorporate Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) RT, so that an even larger number of institutions can participate in the 3D-CRT protocols. The dosimetry associated with prostate brachytherapy protocols will be reviewed using a digital approach, as opposed to the nondigital approach used in RTOG 98-05. The IMRT dose specifications and treatment delivery approaches will be refined.

The big software chill

If a technology (or idea) does not achieve mainstream status quickly enough, it dies. Video on demand (interactive TV), the information superhighway (ISDN), and massively parallel supercomputing may be examples. These ideas are okay, but they could die for lack of legs. At present, consumers are simply shunning them, illustrating the power of Information Age mainstreaming. A corollary to this law is that a technology (or idea) thrives, even if it is a bad technology or idea, as long as it quickly achieves mainstream status. Microsoft Windows, Java, C++ and others illustrate the overwhelming power of mainstreaming. It's positive feedback. Simply put, the rich get richer, especially when they hold a monopoly. In the Information Age, the definition of wealth includes domination of standards as well as having cash in the bank. The problem with software is that software companies don't get paid unless they reap a profit within the time limit set by the mainstreaming law. Commercial software companies have to hit the big time, or else.

Personal Computer Based Food Engineering Education.

The availability, speed and affordability of personal computers (PCs) enable new possibilities in the education and training of Food Engineers. The use of PCs enables students to grasp complex concepts without getting tangled in computational details, use simulations and ask what-if questions to better understand and visualize phenomena or processes, and eliminate or minimize simplifying assumptions. Internet and World Wide Web make distributed learning possible. Available software are classified into three categories: generalized commercial software such as spreadsheets, semi-specialized but expensive software such as Aspen or MATLAB, and specialized software written by faculty/students in Food Engineering. There is a need to develop educational software by the latter group, since software for small audiences is not economical for commercial software companies. Examples of educational programs are given. A world-wide clearing house for software developed by faculty/students is suggested. The possible mechanisms of such an effort is discussed.

Status of Library Automation in Iranian Academic Libraries

This article is an attempt to illustrate the present state of automation in Iranian academic libraries. The findings of a survey conducted in 1991 form the basis of the discussions. The backdrop of library automation in Iran is described, and the survey conducted is explained in terms of methodology and findings. Computerisation of library services in Iranian academic libraries started in the late 1970s and after an apparent gap resumed in the late 1980s. Although still at its preliminary stages, the trend is rapid. At the present time the Unesco software, CDS/ISIS, is playing a major role in computerised library services in Iran. However, a number of local commercial software companies have emerged in the last few years who have developed library software based on other available commercial software, as well as locally developed ones. Some libraries have also been involved in development of library software. However, library automation in Iran is encountering some serious problems. Lack of networked bibliographic databases, unadjusted status of library education programs in regard to dealing with modern technologies and lack of structured strategic plans for library automation are the main problems that the Iranian academic libraries have to cope with.