SW Development Research Articles

Early Bug Detection through Shift Left Testing

Shift-Left Testing is a preventive approach in the SW development process of identifying and handling defects where testing is performed before the flow proceeds to the subsequent phases of SDLC. In most situations, testing is done after development, and this means that any defects get discovered later contributing to high costs and more time to complete the project. Essentially, Shift-Left Testing implies that testing should be conducted during the design or the coding stage and is beneficial due to the fact that in those stages of development, it is considerably less expensive to rectify problems that are detected. It uses integrated strategies including continuous integration, static code analysis and automated testing, in which the development and the test team work together from the start. Consequently, the approach results in enhanced quality of the software, their development time, and minimization of the post-release faults. Although Shift-Left Testing is changing many ways in software development for the better, it has some problems, for instance, changing organizational culture and has high demands to test automation frameworks.

Development of Learner Worksheets Based on PjBL Model to Increase Creativity on Material Changes in the Form of Objects

Objective: Creativity is the ability of individuals to express themselves so that they will produce new ideas and works. Creativity can be enhanced by creating innovative learning activities that encourage students to express themselves and provide creative ideas so that students' creativity continues to increase. This study aims to determine the development of PjBL-based SW, its attractiveness, and increased student creativity. Method: This research (R&D) uses the ADDIE model (Analyze, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation). Results: The results of this study indicate that 1) the product developed with the ADDIE model is declared "very valid." 2) PjBL-based SW obtained interesting results, and 3) PjBL-based SW has been proven to increase student creativity in a very creative category. Novelty: The novelty of this research is that the results of the independent thinking indicator are low when compared to other indicators, so these findings can be used as a basis for making research instruments on independent thinking for students' creativity.

초등학생을 위한 교육용 로봇 활용 SWㆍAI 캠프 프로그램의 개발 및 효과 분석

초등학생을 위한 교육용 로봇 활용 SWㆍAI 캠프 프로그램의 개발 및 효과 분석

Does SoC Hardware Development Become Agile by Saying So: A Literature Review and Mapping Study

The success of agile development methods in software development has raised interest in System-on-Chip (SoC) design, which involves high architectural and development process complexity under time and project management pressure. This article discovers the current state of agile hardware development with the questions (1) how well literature covers the SoC development process, (2) what agile methods and practices are applied or (3) what proposals are made to increase the agility, and (4) what is the impact for the SoC community. To answer the questions, a mapping study and literature review were performed. Seven hundred thirty papers were first studied, and eventually, after a rigorous filtering process, 25 papers were thoroughly analyzed. The results show that the popular agile SW development methods are applied in 5 cases, ideas adapted from the agile Hardware manifesto in 9 cases, and 11 cases do not define the Agile HW development method. Most of the papers address shorter development time by better methodologies and tools that indirectly shape the SoC development toward agility. The focus of agile hardware development is mostly on the SoC artifacts and methodological improvements have not been quantified. However, the literature indicates a significant impact on many academic chip prototypes. The challenges are better understood and the interest in agile methods is clearly increasing. The methodological gaps in the prevalent situation encourage further research and more accurate reporting of the development in addition to the SoC artifacts.

단계적 SW 역량 모델과 활용에 관한 연구: IT 기업 사례를 중심으로

Existing SW competency models and development platforms are fragmented, and researched and implemented mainly by suppliers such as elementary, middle and high schools and universities. This results in competency mismatches including weak connection with companies, which generate the biggest demand for SW workforce. From the perspective of companies which are desperate about proactive response to rapid technological changes in the era of the fourth industrial revolution, existing models and platforms failed to present appropriate alternatives for fostering SW talent and genuine competency. Backed by the cases of domestic IT companies (home appliances / information and communication/semiconductor fields), this paper presented the directions of cultivating SW workforce envisioned by companies. The proposed directions have been integrated into a corporate SW competency model to ensure the organic relationship in the process of talent development taken place in universities and companies. By applying the leadership pipeline, which was mainly used for succession planning, to a technology field of SW, this study also derived a differentiated SW competency model that blurs the boundary between technology and business management. In particular, it was possible to secure the practicality of the step-wise SW competency model by mapping out the necessary competencies based on the roles of SW workforce by growth stage and the ideal characteristics of talent required by the private sector. In addition, it was possible to verify its effectiveness by creating and applying a SW programming test based on the derived SW competency model.

Threat Modeling in Machine Learning

Because of the increasing globalization, the technological progress and the degree of networking, the number of threats is constantly increasing. Security requirements often only play a minor role. With the new version of the IT Security Act, its scope has been extended and affected companies need to take actions to increase IT security. Threat modeling is a structured process that is already used in secure hardware and software development. Both the nature of the attacks and the life cycle time differ from traditional SW development. Starting from the machine learning structure, this article offers a top-down approach to the system-oriented perspective of threat modeling.

Practitioner Perspectives on Child Feeding in Uganda: Community Engagement through the Global Agenda

This collaborative research study arose in response to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2 and 3, which have amongst their targets an aim to eradicate preventable deaths in children under five years old. The research is founded on the aims of the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development which aims at strengthening the social work profession through linkages between global challenges and local responses. To address these issues through nutritious child feeding, it was essential to understand the views and experiences of SW and social development practitioners involved with child feeding practices. Through an online qualitative survey and reflexive thematic analysis, we explored the views and experiences of practitioners working with the Uganda Red Cross Society. Three themes were developed from analysis of the data: Lifestyle Choices & Restrictions; Limited Resources & Facilities; and Knowledge & Education. A reflection on the challenges encountered and advancing international social work through engagement with the Global Agenda are also presented.

ABOUT CREATING OPEN-SOURCE 3D MODULAR VIEWER IN PYTHON

During the development of the ShipExplorer suit of the programs, great attention was given to building the application, modularization, and code organization. During that period, successful cooperation with UNIZAG FSB was established, resulting in a new requirement that students with no real experience in SW development create new modules that will solve some specific problems. After the ShipExplorer project was put on hold, it was decided to start a new project with similar objectives, that will fulfil UNIZAG FSB requirements from the start, and help save and use the huge knowledge base gained during the development of ShipExplorer. As a result, project, “3D Modular Viewer” was created. In this paper, experience designing and implementing 3DM viewer will be presented, as well as problems that had to be solved. The choice of the programming language will be discussed, together with additional constraints resulting from that decision. Design decisions and implementation details will be reviewed, and the results will be compared with the original program, ShipExplorer.

A Brief Review of Deep Neural Network Implementations for ARM Cortex-M Processor

Deep neural networks have recently become increasingly used for a wide range of applications, (e.g., image and video processing). The demand for edge inference is growing, especially in the areas of relevance to the Internet-of-Things. Low-cost microcontrollers as edge devices are a promising solution for optimal application systems from several points of view such as: cost, power consumption, latency, or real-time execution. The implementation of these systems has become feasible due to the advanced development of hardware architectures and DSP capabilities, while the cost and power consumption have been maintained at a low level. The aim of the paper is to provide a literature review on the implementation of deep neural networks using ARM Cortex-M core-based low-cost microcontrollers. As an emerging research direction, there are a limited number of publications that address this topic at the moment. Therefore, the research papers that stand out have been analyzed in greater detail, to promote further interest of researchers to bring AI techniques to low power standard ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers. The article addresses a niche research domain. Despite the increasing interest manifested toward both (1) edge AI applications and (2) theoretical contributions in DNN optimization and compression, the number of existing publications dedicated to the current topic is rather limited. Therefore, a comprehensive literature survey using systematic mapping is not possible. The presentation focuses on systems that have shown increased efficiency in resource-constrained applications, as well as the predominant impediments that still hinder their implementation. The reader will take away the following concepts from this paper: (1) an overview of applications, DNN architectures, and results obtained using ARM Cortex-M core-based microcontrollers, (2) an overview of low-cost hardware devices and SW development solutions, and (3) understanding recent trends and opportunities.

Knowledge tools to organise software engineering Data: Development and validation of an ontology based on ECSS standard

This paper describes an OWL-based ontology to manage the data and artifacts created as part of software development projects based on the ECSS-E-ST-40C standard for SW development. ECSS standards are the main reference in aerospace projects. ECSS-E-ST-40C establishes the process, activities, requirements, and work products that must be generated. As part of its requirements, ECSS-E-ST-40C implicitly refers to specific data that must be generated, collected, and managed. The ontology identifies these data and the relationships that are inferred from the requirements in the standard, intending to set up the basis for building advanced information systems where data coming from different projects can be integrated and connected into a coherent set. The definition of this ontology provides the conceptual framework to develop data exchange processes and interfaces between the different tools and information systems used by the different players in the aerospace industry.

디지털변전소 중앙집중식 보호시스템에서의 불량데이터 검출에 관한 연구

In this paper, a weighted least square (WLS)-based state estimation algorithm is proposed to improve the reliability of measurement data used in centralized protection systems for substation automation research. In this paper, the theory of state estimation based on WLS is explained, and the SW development process based on algorithm is explained. The IEC-61850-based centralized protection system was developed using the MMS-Ease Lite library tool and uses a database for storing measured data. In addition, Python-based state estimation and bad data detection programs were designed to verify the suitability of WLS-based state estimation algorithms in centralized protection systems after linking three environments. The verification simulation system uses Real Time Digital Simulator to generate voltage and current data.

Towards Effective Mitigation of the Digital Transformation and COVID-19 Risk on Unemployment in Mobile Operators in Egypt

The new era of Digital transformation will Destroy many tasks and will create new owns, only certain tasks will depend on human skills which was defined by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, 2013 in which they called it, the “Engineering-Bottlenecks. Other tasks also defined by Katharina Dengler, Britta Matthes and Wiebke Paulus, 2014 in which they use the assignment of activities explained by Alexandra Spitz-Oener for non-automatable tasks and categorize them as: analytical non-routine tasks, interactive non-routine tasks. To mitigate the Risk of Automation and AI, there is a need for Upskilling and Reskilling the current workforce to perform the un-automatable tasks, created from the development of new products and services as well as performing new complementary tasks created to support the new automated systems. 
 
 The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the current Reskilling and Upskilling activities are organized in the right track to fill in the new created jobs, and whether they are making use of COVID-19, which gave a surplus of time by WFH and cutting the transportation time.
 
 The conclusion of this research is 38% of the existing tasks, is under the risk of automation and 51% of the employees more than 40% of their current tasks are subject to automation. COVID-19 through WFH can provide more time for learning and development.  Reskilling and Upskilling of the current workforce will not be effective unless it is correlated with the new created jobs from introducing new products and services or complementary jobs for newly introduced automated systems as the new created jobs are mainly SW developers.
 
 The quantitative method used in this research is based on survey through questionnaires to a probability sample for 100 Engineers working in a technical department in Mobile Operator, and the Qualitative method is based on Structured interviews with a non-probability sample of Technology Managers, as Judgmental Sampling.

Improving Performance-Power-Programmability in Space Avionics with Edge Devices: VBN on Myriad2 SoC

The advent of powerful edge devices and AI algorithms has already revolutionized many terrestrial applications; however, for both technical and historical reasons, the space industry is still striving to adopt these key enabling technologies in new mission concepts. In this context, the current work evaluates an heterogeneous multi-core system-on-chip processor for use on-board future spacecraft to support novel, computationally demanding digital signal processors and AI functionalities. Given the importance of low power consumption in satellites, we consider the Intel Movidius Myriad2 system-on-chip and focus on SW development and performance aspects. We design a methodology and framework to accommodate efficient partitioning, mapping, parallelization, code optimization, and tuning of complex algorithms. Furthermore, we propose an avionics architecture combining this commercial off-the-shelf chip with a field programmable gate array device to facilitate, among others, interfacing with traditional space instruments via SpaceWire transcoding. We prototype our architecture in the lab targeting vision-based navigation tasks. We implement a representative computer vision pipeline to track the 6D pose of ENVISAT using megapixel images during hypothetical spacecraft proximity operations. Overall, we achieve 2.6 to 4.9 FPS with only 0.8 to 1.1 W on Myriad2 , i.e., 10-fold acceleration versus modern rad-hard processors. Based on the results, we assess various benefits of utilizing Myriad2 instead of conventional field programmable gate arrays and CPUs.

SW Development for Easy Integration of Robot System Composed of Heterogeneous Control Platforms into ROS-based System

SW Development for Easy Integration of Robot System Composed of Heterogeneous Control Platforms into ROS-based System

RISC-V based virtual prototype: An extensible and configurable platform for the system-level

Abstract Internet-of-Things (IoT) opens a new world of possibilities for both personal and industrial applications. At the heart of an IoT device, the processor is the core component. Hence, as an open and free instruction set architecture RISC-V is gaining huge popularity for IoT. A large ecosystem is available around RISC-V, including various RTL implementations at one end and high-speed instruction set simulators (ISSs) at the other end. These ISSs facilitate functional verification of RTL implementations as well as early SW development to some extent. However, being designed predominantly for speed, they can hardly be extended to support further system-level use cases such as design space exploration, power/timing/performance validation or analysis of complex HW/SW interactions. In this paper, we propose and implement a RISC-V based Virtual Prototype (VP) with the goal of filling this gap. We provide a 32 and 64 bit RISC-V core supporting the IMAC instruction set with different privilege levels, the RISC-V CLINT and PLIC interrupt controllers and an essential set of peripherals. We support simulation of (mixed 32 and 64 bit) multi-core platforms, provide SW debug and coverage measurement capabilities and support the FreeRTOS and Zephyr operating systems. The VP is designed as extensible and configurable platform with a generic bus system and implemented in standard-compliant SystemC and TLM-2.0. The latter point is very important, since it allows to leverage cutting-edge SystemC-based modeling techniques needed for the mentioned use cases. Our VP allows a significantly faster simulation compared to RTL, while being more accurate than existing ISSs. Finally, our RISC-V VP is fully open source (MIT licence) to help expanding the RISC-V ecosystem and stimulating further research and development.

머신러닝 기반 고온 부품 열화 평가 프로그램 개발

표면 조직 복제법은 고온 부품의 손상 정도 및 열화 등급을 평가하기 위해 산업 현장에서 가장 많이 사용되는 방법이다. 그러나 평가자의 주관에 따른 불확실도가 높기 때문에 등급 간 명확한 구별이 불가하다. 따라서 보다 정량적이며 정확한 객관적인 열화 평가 방법이 필요하다. 본 논문에서는 오픈소스 이미지 처리 라이브러리와 머신러닝 기법 중 분류 문제에서 탁월한 효과를 보이는 SVM(Support Vector Machine)을 이용하여 고온 부품의 열화 등급을 평가하는 머신러닝 기반 고온 부품 열화 평가 프로그램을 소개한다. 열화 등급을 알고 있는 이미지 데이터를 활용한 열화 평가를 통해 개발된 프로그램의 유효성을 검증하였다. 머신러닝 기반 열화 평가 프로그램을 통해 기존 전문가의 판단보다 객관적이고 빠르면서 정확한 열화 평가가 가능할 것이다.

Development of a Physical Computing SW based on Computational Thinking

Development of a Physical Computing SW based on Computational Thinking

New Approach on the Agile Cycles Containment Effectiveness Metrics in Automotive SW Development

<p class="Abstract"><span lang="EN-US">In an ideal Agile Development Team, defects should not exist. But in reality and especially in Automotive Agile Software Development, we need to have a mechanism for defects handling and tracking to closure. In this paper we describe the benefits and principles for measuring the defects handling metrics in automotive programs and organizations which adopted Agile SW Development. We are presenting the Iteration Containment Effectiveness, Program Increment Containment Effectiveness and Defect Debt Trend metrics. The acquired advantages are demonstrated by a detailed example of real application on how to measure the classical Phase Containment Effectiveness metric on Iteration (Sprint) and Program Increment (Scum of Scrums / Scaled Agile) Level. This paper is an extended version of the original contribution to the IMEKO TC 4 2017 symposium in Iasi, Romania.</span></p>

New approach of the Customer Defects per Lines of Code metric in Automotive SW Development applications

As the market of the SW based electronic components in the automotive industry is increasing with high speed, both Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and suppliers need to find solutions for delivering quality products which fulfil customer requirements and safety regulations. One measure of quality is represented by the number of Customer Defects. But how to normalize the Number of Customer Defects metric in order to measure and compare the results of this metric for any kind of automotive SW development project, independent of the complexity and code size? We experienced one possible solution by measuring the metric Customer Defects per Lines of Code on several projects. We analysed if and how code size and implicitly complexity influence the quality of the Automotive SW Development applications. Are complex systems more prone to errors? Should we invest in quality for low complexity systems? These are the main questions we tried to answer.

Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation for experience grounded tacit knowledge sharing in Chinese software organisations

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify and explain the role of individuals’ awareness and motivation in facilitating knowledge sharing (KS) in the real world of practice, as well as to establish areas of convergence between theory and practice that can be of use to both academics and practitioners involved in knowledge intensive organisations.Design/methodology/approachThis study used Grounded Theory (GT) as an inductive methodology to collect, analyse and interpret data from multiple case-studies. 44 participants from Chinese software organisations were selected on the basis of their role in SW design and development and were interviewed using a semi-structured interview script. The data analysis followed a Straussian approach to coding, which consists of open coding, axial coding and selective coding. The analysis focused on the impact of individuals’ awareness and motivation to share knowledge.FindingsThe findings of this research show that the motivation for KS – a time consuming and demanding activity – is indeed related to awareness by managers and developers of the benefits of KS in their professional practice. Practitioners shared their experiences and tacit knowledge with others, partly because it was required by their companies, but also because they have a sound awareness of the need to share knowledge both inside and outside their organisations.Research limitations/implicationsAs a typical social science inductive study, this research is bounded by the context in which the theory proposed emerged from. Further research should be conducted into a richer variety of organisational and national contexts, as suggested by good theoretical sampling practice, which could provide further insights or contrasts.Originality/valueDespite a number of theoretical propositions found in the literature, there is a clear lack of implementation strategies and models that explain the role of awareness and motivation in facilitating KS in the world of practice. This issue of applicability of theoretical propositions is now recognised as one of the fundamental key issues in KS. This study provides new and practice grounded insights in this area and is of interest to both practitioners and theoreticians as it explains and bridges the individuals’ awareness and motivation for tacit KS.