Modern Software Engineering Research Articles

The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Modern Software Engineering

Abstract. The rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has significantly influenced various industries, including software engineering. This paper explores the integration of AI into software engineering, focusing on its applications across different stages of the software development life cycle, including design, development, testing, project management, and maintenance. AI's ability to automate tasks, enhance efficiency, and improve code quality is revolutionizing how software is built and maintained. The paper also addresses the challenges and risks associated with AI-driven software engineering, such as dependency on AI tools, ethical concerns, and security vulnerabilities. Finally, the paper highlights future trends in AI-powered software engineering, including adaptive and self-healing systems, AI-enhanced collaboration, and full software automation. The role of AI in shaping the future of software engineering is both profound and transformative, making it a critical area of study.

Determining the Reliability of Software Electronic Engineering Tools in the Control of Vestibular Disorders in Inclusive Physical Education of Students

Background. Due to the increase in the proportion of mine-blast injuries sustained during the Russian-Ukrainian war, the number of students in higher education institutions after blast TBI has risen. Objectives. The study aimed to determine the reliability of the tool for test control of gait parameters, created based on software electronic engineering for students after blast TBI in inclusive physical education. Materials and methods. The theoretical stage of the research was realized by analyzing the literature on the studied problem, evaluating and synthesizing information from scientific sources. For the empirical part of the experiment, the Dynamic Gait Index test was used to assess gait parameters, dynamic balance, and fall risk. The test results were processed using the methods of statistical mathematical analysis. The experiment involved 30 students (men) after sustaining an explosive traumatic brain injury. Results. The study presents the developed tool for testing gait parameters using the Dynamic Gait Index, which is based on the integration of various types of software electronic engineering services. The development uses motion, speed, pressure, and touch sensors. The information about the test exercise, recorded by the sensors, is sequentially transmitted by wireless communication means to the controller (Arduino Leonardo based on the ATmega32u4 microcontroller platform) and then to a PC, where the results are displayed on the monitor in digital and graphical form. The development uses a neural network and the Microsoft OneDrive cloud service to process information, which provides processing and storage of large amounts of test control data. The results of the empirical establishment of the Dynamic Gait Index quality measure, the characteristics of reliability and validity that were recorded by the teacher, are significantly inferior in numerical values to the correlation coefficient obtained by the results of the Dynamic Gait Index when the outcomes were recorded using the developed tool. Conclusions. The introduction of modern software engineering services into inclusive physical education of students represents a significant step forward in implementing an impartial control mechanisms for restoring damaged gait and balance functions, which have been recognized as a leading factor in disability caused by blast TBI, and contributes to ensuring the effectiveness of this process.

METHODS OF ENHANCING UNIT TEST QUALITY FOR RELIABLE CODE

In modern software engineering, unit testing plays a central role in maintaining the reliability and quality of the code. In light of this, the article "Methods for Improving Unit Tests to Improve Code Reliability" highlights various strategies and practices aimed at optimizing the unit testing process. Based on extensive research and many years of experience, methods such as improving the independence of tests, increasing their determinism and readability, as well as the introduction of test automation techniques are presented. Important aspects are discussed, including test-driven development (TDD), test coverage analysis, and component isolation. The purpose of the article is to provide readers with a comprehensive set of recommendations for creating faster, clearer and more reliable tests, which ultimately contributes to the development of better software.

Software compliance in various industries using CI/CD, dynamic microservices, and containers

Abstract The microservices architecture is widely used in modern businesses due to its ability to offer speed, efficiency, adaptability, autonomy, and usability. On the other hand, this architectural paradigm demands a well-designed infrastructure for optimal container and cluster utilization. Establishing version control and a solid continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) infrastructure becomes critical for accelerating software delivery to production and ensuring code alignment with best practices. This scientific investigation investigates the development of customized, specialized CI/CD procedures for software compliance, expanding its scope beyond traditional software delivery to include the complexities of design, testing, and server deployment. By integrating real-world examples from industry and reviewing crucial tools, the goal is to provide organizations with empirical information to navigate the difficulties of modern software development. The upcoming research seamlessly fits into the larger discussion, providing a deep understanding of sophisticated structures and their design. This interdisciplinary research combines the scientific principles governing microservices with the practical specifics of CI/CD methodologies, giving businesses a thorough understanding and practical insight into the tools needed to navigate the diverse landscape of modern software engineering. Among the main findings of this research is a suggestion for a new approach known as General repository compliance operations.

Integrated workflows and interfaces for data-driven semi-empirical electronic structure calculations.

Modern software engineering of electronic structure codes has seen a paradigm shift from monolithic workflows toward object-based modularity. Software objectivity allows for greater flexibility in the application of electronic structure calculations, with particular benefits when integrated with approaches for data-driven analysis. Here, we discuss different approaches to create deep modular interfaces that connect big-data workflows and electronic structure codes and explore the diversity of use cases that they can enable. We present two such interface approaches for the semi-empirical electronic structure package, DFTB+. In one case, DFTB+ is applied as a library and provides data to an external workflow; in another, DFTB+receives data via external bindings and processes the information subsequently within an internal workflow. We provide a general framework to enable data exchange workflows for embedding new machine-learning-based Hamiltonians within DFTB+ or enabling deep integration of DFTB+ in multiscale embedding workflows. These modular interfaces demonstrate opportunities in emergent software and workflows to accelerate scientific discovery by harnessing existing software capabilities.

Empowering DevOps with Infrastructure as Code :Trends, Tools and Techniques

DevOps has arisen as a pillar of modern software engineering, emphasising the integration of development and operations to ensure effective product delivery. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is an important DevOps technique that involves defining and managing infrastructure requirements using code, enabling for automated provisioning and maintenance. This technique enhances traceability, reuse, and consistency across development and production environments. The introduction of microservices architectures has increased project teams’ infras- tructure responsibilities, making IaC essential for delivering reliable and efficient deployments. IaC enables developers to describe infrastructure in code, simplifying the deployment process. In both large and small businesses, IaC is essen- tial for supporting efficient DevOps processes.The most recent breakthroughs, tools, and techniques in IaC demonstrate a revolutionary impact on software development and deployment workflows. As more businesses adopt cloud-native designs and containerisation technologies, the requirement for automated infrastructure provisioning grows, leading in the growth of IaC tools and methodologies. Organisations that combine IaC with continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines can re- duce time-to-market and improve operational efficiency. IaC not only automates infrastructure management, but it also includes software engineering principles like version control and testing into infrastructure provisioning, which improves consistency and reliability. This democratisation of infrastructure management encourages increased collaboration across cross-functional teams, hence improving accountability and innovation. Implementing IaC is therefore crucial for achieving agility, scalability, and resilience in the digital age. Index Terms—Iac, DevOps, CI/CD, Automation, Cloud-native, Infrastructure Provisioning ,Terraform, Ansible, AWS CloudFor- mation

The Advanced Computing Hub at BSC: improving fusion codes following modern software engineering standards

Several dedicated High-Performance Computing (HPC) centers provide essential expertise and support in developing a suitable portfolio of EUROfusion standard codes. Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) is one of these HPC hubs involved in this complex task. Several fusion codes were selected, installed and analyzed to meet the developers’ requirements, ranging from portability to GPU, improving the performance, getting better data management, extending the capacity of coupling with other codes, etc. In this paper, we will describe the work developed by BSC and some of the tasks carried out in this project. We will explain briefly how the project is faced and the work required to create good quality codes, i.e. robust and trustable software capable of running efficiently in modern HPC systems.

Data Structure Profiler Using MERN Technology

Profiler introduces a cutting-edge approach to efficiently manage and track Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) in software development projects. In the realm of modern software engineering, where complexity is ubiquitous and scalability is critical, effective management of DSAs is essential for ensuring the robustness, maintainability, and performance of software systems. DSA Profiler seamlessly integrates into the development lifecycle, offering developers a centralized platform to meticulously document, organize, and monitor the implementation of various data structures and algorithms within their codebase. Its intuitive interfaces and powerful functionalities facilitate the process of incorporating, modifying, and optimizing DSAs. By providing detailed insights and analytics, DSA Profiler empowers developers to make informed decisions about the most appropriate data structures and algorithms for their specific needs, ultimately streamlining the development process and significantly enhancing code quality. One of the standout features of DSA Profiler is its ability to benchmark data structures and algorithms, allowing developers to evaluate their performance under different conditions. This benchmarking capability ensures that developers can identify and address performance bottlenecks early in the development cycle. Furthermore, This collaborative environment helps maintain consistency and adherence to standards across projects, which is particularly beneficial in large-scale and distributed development environments. Keywords - data structure benchmarking, data structure optimization, algorithm performance tracking, software scalability, development lifecycle integration, codebase management, performance analytics, collaborative development tools, real-time optimization recommendations.

Auto Tix: Automated Bus Ticket Solution

This paper presents AutoTix, an automated bus ticketing and exit control system aimed at transforming public transportation. By leveraging modern software technologies like Python, PyQt, NLP, pyqrcode, and speech recognition, AutoTix addresses issues such as long queues, fare calculation errors, and security vulnerabilities inherent in traditional systems. Through streamlined operations and enhanced security measures, AutoTix sets a new benchmark for convenience, security, and accessibility in bus travel. With its potential to reshape urban mobility amidst rapid urbanization and growing demand for efficiency, AutoTix offers passengers a seamless journey experience.

Thriving in the era of hybrid work: Raising cybersecurity awareness using serious games in industry trainings

The important missions of modern software engineering education are to prepare software engineers to work in a hybrid mode and to address the need to enable them to write secure code and deliver secure products and services to the customer. Providing training akin to an authentic experience poses several challenges, such as hybrid infrastructures, lack of engagement, and interactions. Cybersecurity and cybersecurity awareness have also gained importance due to the shift towards work-from-home (WFH) or work-from-anywhere (WFA): The work environment is forced to be distributed across large heterogeneous networks with different security levels. We perceive hybrid work as a work mode where the team members follow WFH or WFA and work from the office. Therefore various security levels at the workplace and restrictions on informal team communications need to be taken into account.We report on experiences from an industrial company producing software and cyber–physical systems. Initially set to update the existing secure code guidelines, the study lead to the discovery that it is crucial to go beyond an up-to-date set of security guidelines: it is mandatory to raise the cybersecurity awareness of those who are to follow the guidelines. We present a novel approach, via serious games, to train software engineers working in the industry, which is delivered in a hybrid mode and equips practitioners to face the challenges of hybrid work. Serious games have more than just entertainment purposes. They have proven effective ways to maintain engagement and boost training, particularly in cybersecurity. We developed and used two innovative serious games to raise cybersecurity awareness: (1) CyberSecurity Challenges (CSC), about how to develop secure software; and (2) Cloud of Assets and Threats (CATS), about cloud security, including its shared responsibility model. It is decisive for the industry that the software is written, developed, and deployed securely. The cloud service has replaced many on-premises deployments. It is essential to enable hybrid work, turning knowledge and practice about cloud security into essential capacities for professional hybrid work.We provide the theoretical foundations for the two serious games and the overall approach. We also report and analyze more than 300 industry practitioners’ training experiences from 2017 to 2023 and use this to evaluate the games. By applying serious games in the industry, among practitioners, we gain valuable experience in combining the advantage of different training modes and mitigating the disadvantage of online training. We observe the impact of serious games through a scientifically-sound approach based on the data and feedback we collected systematically from the trainers’, trainees’, and organization’s perspectives. We show through empirical evidence that serious games are a successful approach for training conducted in hybrid work mode while providing authentic and immersed experiences that empower and raise cybersecurity awareness of current and future software professionals.

ПРОБЛЕМИ ОЦІНКИ ФІНАНСОВОГО СТАНУ ПІДПРИЄМСТВА В УМОВАХ КРИЗИ

The article examines topical issues related to determining the financial condition of enterprises in periods of economic instability and crisis situations. In connection with the change of market conditions and economic difficulties, the assessment of the financial condition becomes an important component of the strategic management of the enterprise. The article will analyze the main problems that arise in the process of assessing the financial condition of an enterprise during crisis conditions. Among them, special attention will be paid to changes in financial indicators, insufficient availability of information, as well as shortcomings in methods of financial reporting analysis. Next, the article will consider the tools and methods of assessing the financial condition that can be used by enterprises in crisis conditions. Among them, various approaches to financial analysis will be covered, including vertical, horizontal and dynamic analysis of financial statements. In addition, the article will explore the possibilities of using financial modeling and risk analysis to assess the financial condition of the enterprise in crisis conditions. Modern software tools and technologies that can help enterprises solve these tasks will be considered. The final part of the article will provide recommendations for improving the process of assessing the financial condition of an enterprise in crisis conditions. The author will emphasize the importance of constant monitoring and analysis of financial indicators, as well as the implementation of modern tools and methods to ensure effective management of financial resources in conditions of instability and crisis. The general result of this article is an understanding of the complexities and challenges that arise in the process of assessing the financial condition of an enterprise in crisis conditions, as well as providing practical recommendations for overcoming these problems. This article can be useful for professionals in the field of finance and management, as well as for business leaders who face the challenges of managing financial activities in conditions of economic instability

The ALICE Grid Workflow for LHC Run 3

In preparation for LHC Run 3 and 4 the ALICE Collaboration has moved to a new Grid middleware, JAliEn, and workflow management system. The migration was dictated by the substantially higher requirements on the Grid infrastructure in terms of payload complexity, increased number of jobs and managed data volume, all of which required a complete rewrite of the middleware using modern software languages and technologies. Through containerisation, self-contained binaries, managed by the JAliEn middleware, we provide a uniform execution environment across sites and various architectures, including accelerators. The model and implementation have proven their scalability and can be easily deployed across sites with minimal intervention.This contribution outlines the architecture of the new Grid workflow as deployed in production and the workflow process. Specifically shown is how core components are moved and bootstrapped through CVMFS, enabling the middleware to run anywhere fully independent of the host system. Furthermore, we examine how new middleware releases, containers and their runtimes are centrally maintained and easily deployed across the Grid, also by the means of a common build system.

The Potential of AI-Driven Assistants in Scaled Agile Software Development

Scaled agile development approaches are now used widely in modern software engineering, allowing businesses to improve teamwork, productivity, and product quality. The incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) into scaled agile development methods (SADMs) has emerged as a potential strategy in response to the ongoing demand for simplified procedures and the increasing complexity of software projects. This paper explores the intersection of AI-driven assistants within the context of the scaled agile framework (SAFe) for large-scale software development, as it stands out as the most widely adopted framework. Our paper pursues three principal objectives: (1) an evaluation of the challenges and impediments encountered by organizations during the implementation of SADMs, (2) an assessment of the potential advantages stemming from the incorporation of AI in large-scale contexts, and (3) the compilation of aspects of SADMs that AI-driven assistants enhance. Through a comprehensive systematic literature review, we identified and described 18 distinct challenges that organizations confront. In the course of our research, we pinpointed seven benefits and five challenges associated with the implementation of AI in SADMs. These findings were systematically categorized based on their occurrence either within the development phase or the phases encompassing planning and control. Furthermore, we compiled a list of 15 different AI-driven assistants and tools, subjecting them to a more detailed examination, and employing them to address the challenges we uncovered during our research. One of the key takeaways from this paper is the exceptional versatility and effectiveness of AI-driven assistants, demonstrating their capability to tackle a broader spectrum of problems. In conclusion, this paper not only sheds light on the transformative potential of AI, but also provides invaluable insights for organizations aiming to enhance their agility and management capabilities.

Software Tools for Digitalizing the Basic Processes and Services in the Higher Schools of the Republic of Bulgaria

The article examines the issues of the application of modern software tools and technologies for digitization of the main processes and services in the higher education institutions of the Republic of Bulgaria. The topic is complex and debatable, both from the point of view of the applied methods and technologies, and in terms of reporting the effectiveness of these services. The acceleration of the digitization processes necessitates and requires the taking of specific measures to ensure the level of cyber security of the organization. One of the measures in this direction is for the developed web applications to be based on the latest technologies, as well as to carry out specific vulnerability tests before launching the services. As a result of the analyzed theoretical statements, as well as on the basis of the specific software implementation, some of the positive moments in expanding students’ access to modern digital services have been outlined.

DValidator: An approach for validating dependencies in build configurations

Reusing components is a well-established practice in modern software engineering and brings many advantages, such as a reduction of development costs and time. However, there are still several problems when reusing software components, such as the management of the dependencies of a project. Modern build systems provide dependency managers to support developers when dealing with dependencies. But even with this tool support, dependency management is an error-prone task which can lead to dependency hell if it gets out of control.In this paper, we propose DValidator, an approach that considers dependencies on project level and method call level for validating dependencies in build configurations. First, DValidator encodes a project’s dependency graph as specified in a build configuration and its call graph into a representation using Answer Set Programming (ASP). Then it uses Clingo as a solver to detect problems with the dependencies in that build configuration. In a preliminary evaluation with four open source Maven projects we show that our approach can detect selected dependency smells in less than eight seconds. Next steps concern the investigation of our approach for automatically improving dependency configurations, such as automatically repairing dependency smells and conflicts.Editor’s note: Open Science material was validated by the Journal of Systems and Software Open Science Board.

Pengembangan Sistem Informasi Penjualan Di Toko Karunia Dengan Framework Spring MVC

The aim of this research is to create a sales information system for Toko Karunia, which is a general store, by utilizing the Spring MVC framework. The research applied an agile approach with a scrum methodology for software development, using JavaScript as the programming language. The system development consists of features such as inventory management, sales tracking, customer management, and reporting. The implementation of this system provides a significant improvement in the store's operational efficiency and accuracy in sales processes. The outcome of this study can be beneficial for retail businesses with similar needs to enhance their sales processes using modern software technology.

Sentiment overflow in the testing stack: Analyzing software testing posts on Stack Overflow

Software testing is an integral part of modern software engineering practice. Past research has not only underlined its significance, but also revealed its multi-faceted nature. The practice of software testing and its adoption is influenced by many factors that go beyond tools or technology. This paper sets out to investigate the context of software testing from the practitioners’ point of view by mining and analyzing sentimental posts on the widely used question and answer website Stack Overflow. By qualitatively analyzing sentimental expressions of practitioners, which we extract from the Stack Overflow dataset using sentiment analysis tools, we discern factors that help us to better understand the lived experience of software engineers with regards to software testing. Grounded in the data that we have analyzed, we argue that sentiments like insecurity, despair and aspiration, have an impact on practitioners’ attitude towards testing. We suggest that they are connected to concrete factors like the level of complexity of projects in which software testing is practiced.Editor’s note: Open Science material was validated by the Journal of Systems and Software Open Science Board.

A Bibliometric Study on E-Learning Software Engineering Education

Due to the substantial development of information and communications technology, the use of E-learning in higher education has become essential to boost teaching methods and enhance students' learning skills and competencies. E-learning in Software Engineering turns out to be increasingly interesting for scholars. In fact, researchers have worked to enhance modern Software Engineering education techniques to meet the required educational objectives. The aim of this article is to analyse the scientific production on E-learning Software Engineering education by conducting a bibliometric analysis of 10,603 publications, dating from 1954 to 2020 and available in the Scopus database. The results reveal some scientific production information, such as the temporal evolution of the publications, the most prolific authors, institutions and countries, as well as the languages used. Besides, the paper evaluates additional bibliometric parameters, including the authors' production, journal productivity, and scientific cooperation, among other bibliometric parameters. The subject of the current study has not been treated by any previous bibliometric studies. Our research is deeper and more specific; it covers a long period of 66 years and a large number of publications, thanks to the chosen search string containing the different spellings of the used terms. In addition, the literature is analysed using several tools such as Microsoft Excel, VOSviewer, and Python. The research findings can be used to identify the current state of E-learning Software Engineering Education, as well as to identify various research trends and the general direction of E-learning research. 

HybridCISave : A Combined Build and Test Selection Approach in Continuous Integration

Continuous Integration (CI) is a popular practice in modern software engineering. Unfortunately, it is also a high-cost practice—Google and Mozilla estimate their CI systems in millions of dollars. To reduce the computational cost in CI, researchers developed approaches to selectively execute builds or tests that are likely to fail (and skip those likely to pass). In this article, we present a novel hybrid technique ( HybridCISave ) to improve on the limitations of existing techniques: to provide higher cost savings and higher safety. To provide higher cost savings, HybridCISave combines techniques to predict and skip executions of both full builds that are predicted to pass and partial ones (only the tests in them predicted to pass). To provide higher safety, HybridCISave combines the predictions of multiple techniques to obtain stronger certainty before it decides to skip a build or test. We evaluated HybridCISave by comparing its effectiveness with the existing build selection techniques over 100 projects and found that it provided higher cost savings at the highest safety. We also evaluated each design decision in HybridCISave and found that skipping both full and partial builds increased its cost savings and that combining multiple test selection techniques made it safer.

On the relation of method popularity to breaking changes in the Maven ecosystem

Software reuse is a common practice in modern software engineering to save time and energy while accelerating software delivery. Dependency managers like MAVEN offer a large ecosystem of reusable libraries that build the backbone of software reuse. Breaking changes, i.e., when an update to a library introduces incompatible changes that break existing client programs, are troublesome barriers to this library reuse. Semantic Versioning has been proposed as a practice to make it easier for the users to find safe updates by encoding the change impact in the version number. While this practice is widely studied from the framework perspective, no detailed insights exist yet into the ecosystem perspective. In this work, we study violations of semantic versioning in the MAVEN ecosystem for 13,876 versions of 384 artifacts to better understand the impact these violations have on the 7,190 dependent versioned packages. We found that 67% of the artifacts introduce at least one type of semantic versioning violation, either a breaking change or an illegal API extension in their history. An impact analysis on breaking methods that (direct or transitive) dependents reference, revealed strong centralization: 87% of publicly accessible methods are never used by dependents and among methods with at least one usage, half of the unique calls from dependents concentrate on only 35% of the defined methods. We also studied method popularity and could not find an indication that popularity affects stability: even popular methods break frequently. Overall, we confirm the previous result that Semantic Versioning is violated repeatedly in practice. Our results suggest that the frequency of breaking changes might be a sign of insufficient change-impact awareness on the ecosystem and we believe that developers require more adequate information, like method popularity, to improve their update strategies.