Programming Practices Research Articles

Testing the Clinical Programming Software of Cochlear Implant System

Computer based bio-electronic systems are used for replacement of damaged human parts such as Bionic-ear for deafness, Bionic-eye for blindness, Deep Brain Stimulator for diseases of the brain, and Bionic-arm for arm prostheses. Algorithms for controlling bionic system are based on the specific bionic devices like bionic ear with sound processing software and bionic eye with image processing software. A lot of research is going on to improve the performance of bionic systems in respect of achieving near 100% functionality, low cost and smaller sizes with higher reliability and safety. The aim of the paper is to design, development and testing for different bugs in clinical programming software (CPS) of a Cochlear Implant system that is also called as Bionic Ear. The focus of this paper is identification of different types of bugs like some of the common programming errors for CPS with suitable examples, Requirements, and Coding bugs. Testing must show that hazards have been eliminated or controlled to an acceptable level of risk. This collection is to create programmer aware of these errors of CPS of cochlear implant, so they avoid them and also develop the VB.NET based Clinical Programming for data monitoring of patient with profoundly deaf. In this some inadequate programming practices that are often the cause of many kinds of bugs in CPS

DNA and 普通話 (Mandarin): Bringing introductory programming to the Life Sciences and Digital Humanities

The ability to write software (to script, to program, to code) is a vital skill for students and their future data-centric, multidisciplinary careers. We present a ten-year effort to teach introductory programming skills in domain-focused courses to students across divisions in our liberal arts college. By creatively working with colleagues in Biology, Statistics, and now English, we have designed, modified, and offered six iterations of two courses: “DNA” and “Computing for Poets”. Larger percentages of women have consistently enrolled in these two courses vs. the traditional first course in the major. We share our open source course materials and present here our use of a blended learning classroom that leverages the increasing quality of online video lectures and programming practice sites in an attempt to maximize faculty-student interactions in class.

Coding & Best Practice in Programming: Why it matters so much in the NGS era

Next generation sequencing has democratised large scale sequencing projects. No longer is generating a large sequencing dataset limited to genome centres. Neither is the analysis of large sequencing datasets limited to dedicated bioinformatics teams at genome centres or large institutions. Many more researchers now regularly obtain substantial NGS data for their projects. Wet lab biologists at all levels find themselves in need of acquiring computational skills to interpret their data. Coupled with a fast growing list of computational tools developed for the analysis of NGS data, this poses several challenges. Researchers inexperienced in judging computational tools need to choose the best/optimal one for the analysis of their data. Self-taught bioinformaticians are not familiar with best practices in computational science, leading to them make beginner's mistakes when they perform their computational analyses. Ultimately, this threatens correctness, reproducibility and reusability of the results obtained. Luckily, all is not lost. There is an increasing awareness about the above issues, with reproducibility in computational science a topic receiving increased attention. Papers on best practices are published regularly. The non-profit organisation 'Software Carpentry' is helping out by organising two-day bootcamps where volunteers teach computational best practices to researchers. In this talk, I will discuss what best practices in computational science are important, and why adhering to them, and teaching them, is crucial for our trust in the results obtained through NGS.

INVESTIGATION OF STUDENT’S PERSONALITY ON PAIR PROGRAMMING TO ENHANCE THE LEARNING ACTIVITY IN THE ACADEMIA

Agile Software development is now a global phenomenon and is rapidly becoming organizations' most preferred IT process. Extreme Programming (XP) is one of the Agile Methods and Collaborative Pair Programming (CPP) is one of the very important practices of eXtreme Programming. Agile focuses team work which is very important in the field of software development. The software industry has practiced CPP, where two programmers working side by side on one computer on the same problem with great success. Similar experiments have been conducted in academia and pair programming has been shown to be beneficial for both students and teaching staff in university courses. In this study, we conducted some set of experiments about the "human" aspect of the CPP; in particular the effects that personality attributes may have on pair programmer's effectiveness as a pedagogical tool. A formal experiment has been conducted during 2012-13 odd semester at the PSG College of Technology, India to investigate the influence of personality differences among paired students using the five-factor model as a personality measurement framework. The aim of this research is to improve the implementation of CPP as a pedagogical tool to the academic setup through understanding the impact of the variation in the personality profile of paired students towards their academic performance.

Film4, Freeview and Public Service Broadcasting: Screening Films on British Television in the Multi-channel Era

This article analyses the shift in programming policy that took place when Channel 4's specialist subscription channel FilmFour was relaunched as Film4 on the Freeview digital terrestrial television platform in 2006. Adopting a similar survey approach to Hannah Andrews (2012), this article examines new data sources tracking patterns in programming and scheduling practices in order to interrogate the nationality, age and genre of films screened on both channels between 1998 and 2011. The changing character of film programming during this period is shown to relate, in part, to increased commercial pressures brought about by the rapidly evolving multi-channel landscape. But while commercial imperatives were indeed a key factor in this evolution, Film4's scheduling strategies are also shown to be a product of the broadcaster's desire to reassert its public service identity in the Freeview era. Bibliographical addition: Andrews, H. (2012), ‘Public Service Broadcasters and British Cinema, 1990–2010’. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Warwick.

On the Domain-Specificity of Mindsets: The Relationship Between Aptitude Beliefs and Programming Practice

<?Pub Dtl=""?> Deliberate practice is important in many areas of learning, including that of learning to program computers. However, beliefs about the nature of personal traits, known as mindsets, can have a profound impact on such practice. Previous research has shown that those with a fixed mindset believe their traits cannot change; they tend to reduce their level of practice when they encounter difficulty. In contrast, those with the growth mindset believe their traits are flexible; they tend to maintain regular practice despite the level of difficulty. However, focusing on mindset as a single construct focused on intelligence may not be appropriate in the field of computer programming. Exploring this notion, a self-belief survey was distributed to undergraduate software engineering students. It revealed that beliefs about intelligence and programming aptitude formed two distinct constructs. Furthermore, the mindset for programming aptitude had greater utility in predicting software development practice, and a follow-up survey showed that it became more fixed throughout instruction. Thus, educators should consider the role of programming-specific beliefs in the design and evaluation of introductory courses in software engineering. In particular, they need to situate and contextualize the growth messages that motivate students who experience early setbacks.

Reconstructing ‘Traditional’ Justice from the outside in: Transitional Justice in Aceh and East Timor

Transitional justice programmes in post-conflict Aceh, Indonesia, and East Timor are often described as acts of bottom-up reconciliation, highlighting both the community focus of the programmes and the inclusion of indigenous justice practices (adat). Traditionally resonant forms of transitional justice are lauded over internationally orchestrated programmes for their presumed legitimacy and efficacy in promoting peacebuilding and reconciliation. This framing ignores the substantial and largely unrecognised role played by external actors in the revitalisation, reconstruction, and in some cases implementation of traditional practices in the transitional justice and peacebuilding programmes in Aceh and East Timor. Moreover, although the use of traditional practices was supposed to improve the effectiveness of the programmes, the reconstruction of ‘tradition’ by external actors created some new legitimacy and implementation problems. The cases highlight how the instrumentalisation of traditional practices in transitional justice programmes may solve some post-conflict dilemmas but create others.

Virtual Environment to Aid in the Teaching of Multiplication Tables to Elementary and Middle School Students with ADHD

Learning the multiplication tables is extremely important to the elementary and middle school students, it is one of the pillars to understand mathematics, but sometimes learning this content becomes something mechanical and exhausting, making it difficult for the students to understand, especially those with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Therefore a virtual environment was developed to teach the multiplication tables to the elementary and middle school students with ADHD. All good programming practices were followed. The validation was performed by educators and computer specialists with excellent results. For the next stage of the research a validation with the students will be performed.

A good learning opportunity, but is it for me? A study of Swedish students’ attitudes towards exchange studies in higher education

This article describes students’ involvement and interest in exchange programmes in Swedish higher education. Law and Engineering bachelor’s programmes were chosen to exemplify an over-represented and under-represented group respectively in terms of international mobility in this context. The study combines interview and survey data. The author argues that the different institutional practices in educational programmes impact on students’ experienced involvement in exchange studies.

Introduction to the 30th International Conference on Logic Programming Special Issue

The 30th edition of the International Conference of Logic Programming took place in Vienna in July 2014 at the Vienna Summer of Logic - the largest scientific conference in the history of logic. Following the initiative in 2010 taken by the Association for Logic Programming and Cambridge University Press, the full papers accepted for the International Conference on Logic Programming again appear as a special issue of Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP) - the 30th International Conference on Logic Programming Special Issue. Papers describing original, previously unpublished research and not simultaneously submitted for publication elsewhere were solicited in all areas of logic programming including but not restricted to: Theory: Semantic Foundations, Formalisms, Non- monotonic Reasoning, Knowledge Representation; Implementation: Compilation, Memory Management, Virtual Machines, Parallelism; Environments: Program Analysis, Transformation, Validation, Verification, Debugging, Profiling, Testing; Language Issues: Concurrency, Objects, Coordination, Mobility, Higher Order, Types, Modes, Assertions, Programming Techniques; Related Paradigms: Abductive Logic Programming, Inductive Logic Programming, Constraint Logic Programming, Answer-Set Programming; Applications: Databases, Data Integration and Federation, Software Engineering, Natural Language Processing, Web and Semantic Web, Agents, Artificial Intelligence, Bioinformatics.

Evidence-based Practices for young children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Guidelines and recommendations from the National Resource Council and National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorders

The National Research Council has identified goals, areas of need, and basic recommendations for educational programs serving children with autism spectrum disorders. The National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorders has identified evidence-based practices for early childhood and elementary programming. Highlighting the work produced by these two organizations, this article provides professionals with guidance in setting up educational programs that use effective, research-based interventions for young children with autism spectrum disorders in early childhood special education.

Programming distributed computing systems: a foundational approach

Starting from the premise that understanding the foundations of concurrent programming is key to developing distributed computing systems, this book first presents the fundamental theories of concurrent computing and then introduces the programming languages that help develop distributed computing systems at a high level of abstraction. The major theories of concurrent computation -- including the p-calculus, the actor model, the join calculus, and mobile ambients -- are explained with a focus on how they help design and reason about distributed and mobile computing systems. The book then presents programming languages that follow the theoretical models already described, including Pict, SALSA, and JoCaml. The parallel structure of the chapters in both part one (theory) and part two (practice) enable the reader not only to compare the different theories but also to see clearly how a programming language supports a theoretical model. The book is unique in bridging the gap between the theory and the practice of programming distributed computing systems. It can be used as a textbook for graduate and advanced undergraduate students in computer science or as a reference for researchers in the area of programming technology for distributed computing. By presenting theory first, the book allows readers to focus on the essential components of concurrency, distribution, and mobility without getting bogged down in syntactic details of specific programming languages. Once the theory is understood, the practical part of implementing a system in an actual programming language becomes much easier.

ENHANCEMENTS IN SCUM FRAMEWORK USING EXTREME PROGRAMMING PRACTICES

This paper is concerned with providing an enhanced Scrum framework that combines some practices of eXtreme Programming (XP) approach in Scrum framework to produce quality software on time. XP and Scrum are two agile software development methods. While Scrum is focused on project management, XP is focused on Software development; nevertheless, they both can be used to participate in the development of any software project independently or together. This paper presents the main concepts, features, phases, artifacts, and roles of Scrum as well as a brief introduction to XP and its practices. In this paper, the researcher presents how to combine some XP practices into Scrum activities. The researcher exploits the features and best practices of the two methods to propose an enhanced Scrum framework that includes an elaborated set of guidelines for achieving each Scrum activity. Therefore, the enhanced Scrum framework is more applicable than many previous attempts in this domain. The enhanced Scrum framework has been validated by a group of 17 experts and specialists in software projects.

Risk-Based Two-Step Optimization Model for Highway Transportation Investment Decision-Making

A new methodology is introduced for project selection that explicitly addresses issues of achieving maximized overall project benefits by selecting a subcollection of candidate projects for possible implementation at a given budget level while controlling the total risk of the expected project benefits within an acceptable lower bound. The covariance value is utilized to denote the risk of the expected benefits of jointly implementing two projects, in which each project maintains a range of possible benefits and a probability distribution. The summation of all covariance values corresponding to all possible project implementation combinations represents the total risk of the expected benefits. The methodology contains two-step optimizations. First, the Markowitz mean-variance model is employed to establish the lower-bound risk of project benefits for a given budget level. Second, the conventionally accepted zero/one knapsack model for project selection is augmented to incorporate the lower-bound risk established from the first-step optimization as one additional chance constraint. In this way, the overall benefits of projects selected for implementation are maximized while controlling the total risk of the expected project benefits within a lower bound for a certain percentage of time. The proposed model is applied for a 6-year statewide interstate highway project selection and programming. Cross comparisons are made in the consistencies of project selection results generated from the basic knapsack model, proposed two-step enhanced knapsack model, and current state highway programming practice.

Extended iterative maintenance life cycle using eXtreme programming

Software maintenance is the continuous process of enhancing the operational life of software. The existing approaches to software maintenance, derived from the traditional approaches to development, are unable to resolve the problems of unstructured code, team morale, poor visibility of the project, lack of communication, and lack of proper test suites. Alternatively, extreme programming practices such as test driven development, refactoring, pair programming, continuous integration, small releases, and collective ownership help to resolve the aforesaid problems. In this paper, a process model is proposed for software maintenance using extreme programming practices to resolve maintenance issues in an improved manner. The proposed approach speeds up the maintenance process and produces more maintainable code with less effort for future maintenance and evolution. The proposed model is validated by applying it on several maintenance projects in an academic environment. It has been observed that the approach provides higher quality code. The proposed model based on extreme programming enhances both learning and productivity of the team by improving the morale, courage, and confidence of the team, which supports higher motivation during maintenance.

Why teach robotics using ROS

This paper focuses on the key role played by the adoption of a framework in teaching robotics with a computer science approach in the master in Computer Engineering. The framework adopted is the Robot Operating System (ROS), which is becoming a standard de facto inside the robotics community. The educational activities proposed in this paper are based on a constructionist approach. The Mindstorms NXT robot kit is adopted to trigger the learning challenge. The ROS framework is exploited to drive the students programming methodology during the laboratory activities and to allow students to exercise with the major computer programming paradigms and the best programming practices. The major robotics topics students are involved with are: acquiring data from sensors, connecting sensors to the robot, and navigate the robot to reach the final goal. The positive effects given by this approach are highlighted in this paper by comparing the work recently produced by students with the work produced in the previous years in which ROS was not yet adopted and many different software tools and languages were used. The results of a questionnaire are reported showing that we achieved the didactical objectives we expected as instructors.

Cooperation, collaboration and pair-programming: Field studies on backup behavior

Considering that pair programming has been extensively studied for more than a decade, it can seem quite surprising that there is such a lack of consensus on both its best use and its benefits. We argue that pair programming is not a replacement of usual developer interactions, but rather a formalization and enhancement of naturally occurring interactions. Consequently, we study and classify a broader range of developer interactions, evaluating them for type, purpose and patterns of occurrence, with the aim to identify situations in which pair programming is likely to be truly needed and thus most beneficial. We study the concrete pair programming practices in both academic and industrial settings. All interactions between teammates were recorded as backup behavior activities. In each of these two projects, developers were free to interact when needed. All team interactions were self-recorded by the teammates. The analysis of the interaction tokens shows two salient features: solo work is an important component of teamwork and team interactions have two main purposes, namely cooperation and collaboration. Cooperative backup behavior occurs when a developer provides help to a teammate. Collaborative backup behavior occurs when the teammates are sharing the same goal toward solving an issue. We found that collaborative backup behavior, which occurred much less often, is close to the formal definition of pair programming. This study suggests that mandatory pair programming may be less efficient in organizations where solo work could be done and when some interactions are for cooperative activities. Based on these results, we discussed the potential implications concerning the best use of pair programming in practice, a more effective evaluation of its use, its potential benefits and emerging directions of future research.

No Blacks Allowed: Segregated Gifted Education in the Context of &lt;em&gt;Brown v. Board of Education&lt;/em&gt;

When submitting for this special issue on the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), these authors were guided by the unwavering belief that discrimination has no place in educational settings and segregation and integration are ideals that have yet to be realized in U.S. schools and gifted programs in particular. Consequently, at the forefront of this submission is the seminal case of Brown v. Board of Education in which segregated schools, classrooms, and programs based on race were declared illegal and unconstitutional. The Supreme Court avowed the ending of separate and unequal education in America; and desegregation was to occur with all deliberate speed. That was six decades ago, and this law and associated legal mandates have yet to be fulfilled, particularly in gifted education, Advanced Placement (AP) classes, and other courses for advanced learners (e.g., honors and International Baccalaureate classes).It is unprofessional and unethical to promote and permit the inequitable distribution of resources and opportunities to students based on race, which frequently occurs with Black students. Inequitable or unjust resources and opportunities contribute to and promote educational disparities, and create a vicious cycle in which Black students are denied access to school programs that are essential to reaching their academic, intellectual, socio-cultural, and fiscal potential and that can help close achievement gaps. Gifted education has promoted such racial inequities. For decades, educators, policymakers, and legal personnel have failed to recruit and retain an equitable percentage of Black students in gifted education and courses for advanced learners (e.g., Advanced Placement classes). This lack of accountability has resulted in de facto segregation and is witnessed in McFadden v. Board of Education for Illinois School District U-46, settled in 2013. In this unprecedented gifted education case, the court affirmed that, in creating a separate gifted education program for Hispanic students only, this school district violated the United States and Illinois constitutions' equal protection clauses. Rather than developing one gifted education program for elementary school students that provided language support when needed, this district created a separate gifted program for Hispanic students who had exited English Language Learner (ELL) programs. Judge Gettlemen (who presided over McFadderi) noted that establishing a separate gifted education program based on race perpetuates the problems that our nation's civil rights laws were created and authorized to prevent.This court case revives issues of disparate impact, which will be discussed later. This case is a notice to states and other districts to eliminate discrimination (intentional and unintentional) in gifted education practices for identification, programming, and services. With discrimination and under-representation in mind, these authors present trends (2009-2011) regarding the representation of Black students in gifted education using data from the Office for Civil Rights Data Collection (U. S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, 2011; CRDC: These files are state and national estimations. The 2009-10 estimations are based on a rolling stratified sample of approximately 7,000 districts and 72,000 schools and on reported data from those districts that responded to the survey). Under-representation is clearly persistent and nationally pervasive. Next, these data are positioned within the context of Brown where it is argued that gifted education must become desegregated and integrated. De facto and de jure segregation in gifted education must end, with all deliberate speed before another 60 years passes.BRIEF OVERVIEW OF GIFTED EDUCATION DEFINITIONS WITH CULTURAL IMPLICATIONSSimilarly to many terms, 'gifted' eludes consensus. Traditional definitions of giftedness (almost exclusively normed on and conceptualized on middle-class Whites) have been primarily operationalized in two ways: (a) by high scores on IQ tests (130 and higher) and (b) by high scores on achievement tests (often at or above 92nd percentile). …

Approaches to Enhanced Political Will for Achieving Nutrition-Related Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria

Background: The year 2015 was set as the target to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),including those that are directly linked with nutrition in Nigeria. However, the chances of meeting this target appear very slim as 2015 is here. Efforts geared towards meeting these targets have recorded little success due to myriads of challenges of which weak political ownership takes a vantage position; coupled with lack of specificity in coordination of nutrition programmes. This has contributed to low level of nutrition development because all the government ministries/agencies where nutrition programmes have been domiciled have their specific goals and nutrition is usually considered as add-on Programme. Objective: To examine tested approaches to achieving nutrition-related MDGs in Nigeria. Method: Review of literature and relevant national documents using a desk-review guide, which was developed in line with the goal of this presentation. Results: International agencies including the World Bank are becoming more involved in nutrition programmes and are passionate of the pivotal role of nutrition in the scheme of national development. However, learning from the success story of nutrition programmes in some sub-Sahara African countries, it is certain that proper coordination of nutrition programmes by an agency solely created by the national government is the missing link in the equation for enhanced nutrition development. Conclusion: Establishment of a full-fledged National Nutrition Council under the Office of the President will be an impetus required to kick-start effective coordination and mainstreaming of nutrition into all developmental agenda. This is in line with the global practice of scaling-up nutrition programmes at the national level.

Gate keeping practices’ of dailies and content preferences of readers: a comparative study

No matter how well editors try to provide a news fare suiting to readers information needs, the reader-editor gap continues to exist. A primary reason for the reader-editor gap is the high selectivity that readers’ exercise while reading. Therefore the editors consciously try to improve their news presentation styles to ensure a greater readership of the content. Nonetheless, the reader-editor gap exists reminding of the need for a better understanding of the readers’ content preferences while gate keeping the content by the editors. It is in this context that this study is envisaged to examine the news programming practices and readers’ content preferences with specific reference to Malayalam dailies. The findings of the study highlight the fact that readers do not read everything that is printed by the newspapers. Newspaper readers are far more selective than the editors are.