Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-12T15:49:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Em mercados competitivos como, por exemplo, o de celulares, empresas de software que liberam produtos com baixa qualidade podem rapidamente perder os seus clientes. A fim de evitar esse problema, essas empresas devem garantir que a qualidade dos produtos atenda a expectativa de seus clientes. Nesse contexto, testes é uma das atividades mais utilizadas para se tentar melhorar a qualidade de um software. Além disso, o resultado da atividade de teste está sendo considerado tão importante que em muitos casos é preferível alocar equipes exclusivamente para exercer atividades de teste. Essas equipes de teste devem ser capazes de estimar o esforço exigido para exercer as suas atividades dentro do prazo ou para solicitar mais recursos ou negociar prazos quando necessário. Na prática, as consequências de se ter estimativas ruins são onerosas para a organização: redução de escopo, atraso nas entregas ou horas extras de trabalho. O impacto dessas consequências é ainda maior em se tratando de execução manual de testes. Visando uma melhor forma de estimar esforço de execução manual de casos de teste funcionais, esta pesquisa propõe e valida uma medida de tamanho de teste e de complexidade de execução baseada nas próprias especificações dos testes, bem como um método de medição para a métrica proposta. Além disso, diversos estudos de caso, survey e experimentos foram realizados para avaliar o impacto desse trabalho. Durante esses estudos, verificamos uma melhoria significativa proporcionada por nossa abordagem na precisão das estimativas de esforço de execução de testes manuais. Também identificamos fatores de custo relacionados a atividades de execução manual de testes utilizando julgamento de especialistas. O efeito desses fatores foram investigados através da execução de experimentos controlados, onde pudemos constatar que apenas alguns dos fatores identificados tiveram efeito significativo. Por fim, diversas ferramentas de suporte foram desenvolvidas durante essa pesquisa, incluindo a automação das estimativas de esforço de execução de testes a partir de especificações de testes escritas em linguagem natural

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2016-07-12T12:30:10Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) DISSERTAÇÃO (2015-08-17) - RAFAEL BRANDAO LOBO.pdf: 1015468 bytes, checksum: d543b6f16adc4ce4d3aa4d59c8d546ff (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-12T12:30:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) DISSERTAÇÃO (2015-08-17) - RAFAEL BRANDAO LOBO.pdf: 1015468 bytes, checksum: d543b6f16adc4ce4d3aa4d59c8d546ff (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-07-17 / CAPEs / Deadlocks are a common type of concurrency bug. When a deadlock occurs, it is difficult to clearly determine whether there is an actual deadlock or if the application is slow or hanging due to a different reason. It is also difficult to establish the cause of the deadlock. In general, developers deal with deadlocks by using analysis tools, introducing application-specific deadlock detection mechanisms, or simply by using techniques to avoid the occurrence of deadlocks by construction. In this paper we propose a different approach. We believe that if deadlocks manifest at runtime, as exceptions, programmers will be able to identify these deadlocks in an accurate and timely manner. We leverage two insights to make this practical: (i) most deadlocks occurring in real systems involve only two threads acquiring two locks (TTTL deadlocks); and (ii) it’s possible to detect TTTL deadlocks efficiently enough for most practical systems. We conducted a study on bug reports and found that more than 90% of identified deadlocks were indeed TTTL.We extended Java’s ReentrantLock class to detect TTTL deadlocks and measured the performance overhead of this approach with a conservative benchmark. For applications whose execution time is not dominated by locking, the overhead is estimated as below 6%. Empirical usability evaluation in two experiments showed that students finished tasks 16.87% to 30.7% faster on the average using our approach with the lock being the most significant factor behind it, and, in one of the experiments they were able to identify the defects more accurately with a signficant 81.25% increase in the number of correct answers when deadlock exceptions where present. / Deadlocks são um tipo comum de bug de concorrência. Quando um deadlock acontece, é difícil determinar claramente se houve um deadlock de verdade ou se a aplicação está lenta ou travada por qualquer outro motivo. Também é difícil estabelecer a causa do deadlock. Em geral, desenvolvedores lidam com deadlocks de várias maneiras: utilizando ferramentas analíticas; utilizando mecanismos especificos da aplicação para detectar deadlocks; ou simplesmente usando técnicas para evitar a ocorrência de deadlocks no momento da construção do código. Neste trabalho, propomos uma abordagem diferente. Acreditamos que se deadlocks se manifestarem durante a execução na forma de exceções, programadores serão capazes de identificar esses deadlocks de forma mais precisa e mais rápida. Levamos em consideração alguns aspectos para tornar esta abordagem prática: (i) a maioria dos deadlocks que ocorrem em sistemas reais envolvem apenas duas threads adquirindo dois locks ou two-thread, two-lock (TTTL) deadlock; e (ii) é possível detectar TTTL deadlocks de forma suficientemente eficiente para uso prático na maioria dos sistemas. Conduzimos um estudo com bugs reportados em sistemas de software de larga escala e descobrimos que mais de 90% dos bugs identificados como deadlocks eram de fato TTTL. Extendemos a classe ReentrantLock de Java para detectar TTTL deadlocks e medimos seu overhead na performance com um benchmark bastante conservador onde medimos o overhead das operações de trava quando deadlocks não são possíveis. Para aplicações cujo tempo de execução não é dominado por travas, o impacto médio no tempo de execução é na ordem de 6%. Realizamos uma avaliação empírica para testar usabilidade através de dois experimentos. Nesta avaliação, mostramos que, em média, estudantes terminam tarefas de 16.87% a 30.7% mais rapidamente usando nossa abordagem, sendo o tipo de abordagem o fator de maior significância e, em um dos experimentos, estudantes foram capazes de identificar mais corretamente a causa dos bugs, mostrando que o número de respostas corretas aumentou significativamente em 81.25% quando as exceções propostas estavam presentes.

The objective of this research is to show the utility of roles and personality characteristics to the evaluation and formation of software development teams. The goals of this research include demonstrating empirically that Belbin's team roles can be used to form and evaluate software teams, providing a partial validation of the analyses by using the Belbin roles to analyze teams from the software industry, and comparing the personality data collected for this research to data from two previous studies and to the general population. In the highly competitive software industry, improving the software development process can be critical to a company's success. More specifically, improving a team's productivity can save employers significant time and money. This investigation addresses the productivity of software development teams in a series of studies. First, controlled studies empirically show that Belbin's roles can be used in team formation to improve team performance. Second, additional studies, both qualitative and quantitative, demonstrate that Belbin's roles can be used as criteria in team evaluation and formation. Finally, teams from the software development industry are evaluated, providing a partial validation of the usefulness of Belbin's roles to software teams. The cumulative effect of the results of the studies in this investigation demonstrate that Belbin's roles can be used effectively in team formation and evaluation. Specifically, Belbin's roles for leadership and innovation are shown in empirical studies to be important in the formation of software teams, and all of the Belbin roles are used in the evaluation of teams in academia as well as in industry. The results of this investigation should be used in team formation and evaluation, in an academic setting as well as in the software development industry. For team evaluation, deficiencies uncovered in the Belbin roles should be remedied, and positive aspects should be encouraged. In team formation, teams should contain the complement of Belbin roles and should specifically contain the leadership and innovation roles focused on as part of this investigation. It is clear from this investigation that Belbin's roles can be used effectively to improve software development teams. / Ph. D.

States that owing to foresight and planning by Portuguese business executives, most firms in Portugal survived the difficult 1970s and 1980s and, as a consequence, are stronger in today's competitive internal and external challenges. Sets out the methodology used and gives data analysis and results in a descriptive way, with the use of explanatory tables. Closes by stating that time-based differentiation may offer new ways for firms competing in highly differentiated markets.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(経済学) / 甲第20785号 / 経博第557号 / 新制||経||282(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院経済学研究科経済学専攻 / (主査)教授 諸富 徹, 教授 劉 徳強, 教授 依田 高典 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Economics / Kyoto University / DFAM

In today's digital age, social media platforms have become powerful tools for communication, enabling users to express their opinions while also exposing them to various forms of hateful speech and content. While prior research has often focused on the efficacy of online counterspeech, little is known about peoples' motivations for engaging in it. Based on a survey of 458 U.S. participants, we develop and validate a multi-item scale for understanding counterspeech motivations, revealing that differing motivations impact counterspeech engagement between those that do and not find counterspeech to be an effective mechanism for counteracting online hate. Additionally, our analysis explores peoples' perceived effectiveness of their self-written counterspeech to hateful posts, influenced by individual motivations to engage in counterspeech and demographic factors. Finally, we examine peoples' willingness to employ AI assistance, such as ChatGPT, in their counterspeech writing efforts. Our research provides insight into the factors that influence peoples' online counterspeech activity and perceptions, including the potential role of AI assistance in countering online hate. / Master of Science / In today's digital age, social media platforms have become powerful tools for communication, enabling users to express their opinions while also exposing them to various forms of hateful speech and content. In addition to content moderation, counterspeech, or direct responses aimed at undermining hateful speech, is a tool that is being explored by organizations to counteract online hate, as it has been shown to prevent "platform hopping" while also promoting free speech. While prior research has primarily focused on the effectiveness of various types of counterspeech, little is known about what motivates people to engage in it. Based on a survey of 458 U.S. participants, we develop and validate a multi-item scale for understanding counterspeech motivations, revealing that differing motivations impact counterspeech engagement between those that do and not find counterspeech to be an effective mechanism for counteracting online hate. Additionally, our analysis explores peoples' perceived effectiveness of their counterspeech, influenced by individual motivations to engage in counterspeech and demographic factors. Finally, we examine peoples' willingness to employ AI assistance, such as ChatGPT, in their counterspeech writing efforts. Our research provides insight into the factors that influence peoples' online counterspeech activity and perceptions, including the potential role of AI assistance in countering online hate.

Social media mechanisms, such as wikis, blogs, tags and feeds, have transformed the way we communicate, work and play online. Many of these technologies have made their way into collaborative software engineering processes and modern software development platforms, either as an adjunct or integrated into a wide range of tools ranging from code editors and issue trackers to IDEs and web-based portals. Based on the results of several large scale empirical studies, this thesis presents findings on how social media artifacts, such as tags, feeds and dashboards, bridge lightweight and heavyweight task management in software development. Furthermore, this work shows how blogs, developer wikis and Q&A websites are changing the way software is documented. Based on these findings, the thesis describes a model that characterizes social media artifacts along several dimensions, such as content type, intended audience, and review mechanisms. The role of social media artifacts in collaborative software development lies in the timely dissemination of scenarios and concerns to a diverse audience through a process of implicit and informal collaboration, triggered by questions from users or articulation work. These findings lead to tool and process recommendations as well as the implementation of tools that leverage social media artifacts, and they indicate that tool support inspired by social media may play an important role in improving collaborative software development practices. / Graduate

Software development has become a cognitive and collaborative knowledge-based endeavor where developers and organizations, faced with a variety of challenges and an increased demand for extensive knowledge support, push the boundaries of existing tools and work practices. Researchers and industry professionals have spent years studying collaborative work and communication media, however, the landscape of social media is rapidly changing. Thus, instead of trying to model the use of specific technologies and communication media, I seek to model the knowledge-building process itself. Doing so will not only allow us to understand specific tool and communication media use, but whole ecosystems of technologies and their impact on software development and knowledge work, revealing aspects not only unique to specific tools, but also aspects about the combination of technologies. In this dissertation, I describe the empirical studies I conducted aimed to understand social and communication media use in software development and knowledge curation within developer communities. An important part of the thesis is an additional qualitative meta-synthesis of these studies. My meta-analysis has led to a model of software development as a knowledge building process, and a theoretical framework: I describe this newly formed framework and how it is grounded in empirical work, and demonstrate how my primary studies led to its creation. My conceptualization of knowledge building withing software development and the proposed framework provide the research community with the means to pursue a deeper understanding of software development and contemporary knowledge work. I believe that this framework can serve as a basis for a theory of knowledge building in software development, shedding light on knowledge flow, knowledge productivity, and knowledge management. / Graduate

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T13:17:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodrigo Rodrigues Costa Boavista.pdf: 1392154 bytes, checksum: 07f3bfa1630aa7feecb15343ca51e287 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-21 / Relational Frame Theory (RFT) was proposed by Steven Hayes and Aaron Brownstein in 1985. Only in 2001 the first book whose content was exclusively dedicated to present RFT proposal and application fields was released. Inspired by research on stimulus equivalence and operant understanding of language RFT proponents argue that verbal behavior is closely related to a high order operant strengthened since early childhood via multiple exemplars training. This operant - arbitrarily applicable relational responding is defined by the properties of mutual implication, combinatorial implication, and transformation of stimuli function. RFT has received criticism directed to iits philosophical foundations, theoretical assumptions and regarding methodological research practices that guarantee its empirical support. This study aimed to review the empirical literature produced in the light of the RFT analyzing bibliometric aspects (year of publication, authors, affiliation of authors, journals, journals´ relevancy rates), methodological aspects (participants´ age, diagnosis and education, type and site of application, material and equipment used, relational frame employed, experimental task and measurement used) and trials to comprehend phenomena traditionally explore by other areas of knowledge/research lines/theories. 85 articles published between 1991 and May 2013 were reviewed. The Psychological Record led publications (42 articles). Studies majority employed participants from 18 years old onwards. Only 8% considered participants with psychiatric diagnosis. Just one publication was conducted in a group setting. Great part of the studies used computerized tasks. In terms of relational frames 68 studies investigated coordinated relations. 53 publications employed simultaneous matching-to-sample procedure. Between 1991 and 2001 there were nine studies that combined at least two measures but between 2006 and May 2013 there were 35. We found articles in which phenomena traditionally explored by areas such as philosophy, heuristic, clinics, theory of mind, neuroscience, among others, were discussed. Results show that RFT researchers produced empirical data through a variety of methodological conditions. However, we didn´t find evidence on non-human subjects or studies which assessed results in terms of sociodemographic variables or number of training and testing trials / A Teoria das Molduras Relacionais (Relational Frame Theory RFT) foi proposta por Steven Hayes e Aaron Brownstein em 1985. Apenas em 2001 foi lançado o primeiro livro cujo conteúdo era exclusivamente dedicado a apresentar sua proposta e indicar campos para aplicação. Inspirados nas pesquisas em equivalência de estímulos e na compreensão operante da linguagem os proponentes da RFT argumentam que o comportamento verbal está relacionado a um operante de ordem superior fortalecido desde a infância via treino de múltiplos exemplares. Este operante responder relacional arbitrariamente aplicável define-se pelas propriedades de implicação mútua, implicação combinatória e transformação de função de estímulos. A RFT vem recebendo críticas de cunho filosófico, teórico e metodológico. O presente trabalho teve como objetivo revisar a literatura empírica produzida à luz da RFT analisando aspectos bibliométricos (ano de publicação, autores, filiação dos autores, periódico, índices de relevância dos periódicos), metodológicos (faixa etária, diagnóstico e escolaridade dos participantes, tipo e local de aplicação, material e equipamentos utilizados, moldura relacional empregada, tarefa experimental e medida utilizadas) e tentativas de compreender fenômenos tradicionalmente estudados por outras linhas de pesquisa/teorias/áreas do conhecimento. Foram revistos 85 artigos publicados entre 1991 e maio de 2013. Identificou-se que o The Psychological Record liderou o número de publicações (42 artigos). A maioria das pesquisas tinha como participantes indivíduos de 18 anos em diante. Apenas 8% publicações consideraram participantes com diagnóstico psiquiátrico. Apenas uma publicação foi conduzida em contexto de grupo. A maior parte dos estudos utilizou tarefas computadorizadas. No que tange às molduras relacionais 68 estudos investigaram relações de coordenação. 53 publicações empregaram procedimentos de matching-to-sample simultâneo. Entre 1991 e 2001 foram identificadas nove pesquisas que combinavam ao menos duas medidas, já entre 2006 e maio de 2013 havia 35. Foram observados estudos nos quais fenômenos tipicamente abordados pela filosofia, heurística, clínica comportamental, teoria da mente, neurociências, entre outras, foram discutidos. Os resultados mostram que os pesquisadores que trabalham sob a perspectiva da RFT produziram dados empíricos a partir de uma diversidade de configurações metodológicas. Contudo, não foram identificadas evidências empíricas com sujeitos não humanos, estudos que avaliassem os resultados obtidos em termos de variáveis sóciodemográficas e pesquisas em que fossem correlacionados resultados à número de tentativas de treino/teste

Zur Unterstützung der inhaltlichen Aussage von Zeitungs- oder Zeitschriftenartikeln wird mitunter auf die Abbildung von thematischem Kartenmaterial gesetzt. Diese Karten stammen zum Teil aus wissenschaftlichen Einrichtungen. In der Arbeit wird die Nachnutzung von Karten des Leibniz-Instituts für Länderkunde untersucht. Bei der Verwendung der kartographischen Darstellungen kommt es teilweise zu inhaltlichen oder gestalterischen Änderungen der zur Verfügung gestellten Materialien. In diesem Zusammenhang wird gezielt auf kartographische Infografiken eingegangen, bei denen eine veränderte kartographische Gestaltung der ursprünglichen Karten stattfand. Den Schwerpunkt der Arbeit bilden empirische Untersuchungen, welche feststellen sollen, ob sich die vorgenommenen Veränderungen beeinflussend auf die Wahrnehmung der dargestellten Inhalte auswirken. Zusätzlich werden das typische Nutzungsszenario für thematisch-kartographische Infografiken vorgestellt und Hinweise zur Nachnutzung herausgearbeitet. / Thematic maps are sometimes used to support statements in newspaper or magazine articles. Some of these maps were created in scientific institutions. This diploma thesis examines the reuse of maps of the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography. When used, the provided materials are changed at times in their content or design. In this context, cartographic information graphics, whose design was changed compared to the original map, are discussed. The main focus lies on empirical studies that are to determine whether these changes influence the perception of the presented content. In addition, the typical usage scenario for thematiccartographic information graphics is presented and instructions for future use are worked out.