ABSTRACT Context: Requirements triage is a crucial activity in requirements engineering process for market-driven products. Triage deals with selection of appropriate requirements from large number of requirements for particular release plan. If triage is not performed initially, selection and management of a large number of requirements would be difficult in requirements engineering process. In market-driven product development triage is followed by estimation and prioritization of requirements to be selected for a particular release plan, also termed as requirements selection. Product development is done based on the set of requirements selected in requirements selection process. Objectives: The objective of the thesis is to find whether there is a need to improve existing requirements triage process or not, identify the challenges and shortcomings of the existing requirements triage and selection solutions and suggest improvements to address identified challenges and shortcomings. Methods: In order to identify existing requirements triage and selection solutions (method, model, tool, technique, process, and others), challenges addressed by existing requirements triage and selection solutions, and the shortcomings faced while implementing them, a systematic literature review has been done. A list of challenges and shortcomings, identified through the analysis of systematic literature review results, was used as an input to industrial survey to confirm most applicable (relevant) challenges and shortcomings and to identify possibilities to address those challenges and shortcomings. Results: A process framework for requirements triage has been proposed to address the challenges faced by practitioners during triage. The steps and solutions proposed within the framework also enable to alleviate the shortcomings of the existing requirements triage solutions. Conclusions: The results of the survey have been analyzed from different perspectives: size of organization, number of requirements handled per month and experience of professional doing triage. Therefore, the proposed process framework is usable and useful for both small-scale and large-scale organizations. The initial effort required to put framework process steps in place would be high, however, later the effort will reduce not only for requirements triage but also for later phases in requirements engineering. As a spin off effect the quality of triage decision is increased.

Context: Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a universal and standard modeling language that has been extensively used in software development process. Due to overlap and synchronous nature among different modeling artefacts in UML, several consistency issues have been identified in many software development projects that may lead to project failure. To reduce the level of such threat, over the past decade, a substantial research addressing those problems has been done both in academic and industry. This study is intended to investigate the reported research and to provide a systematic picture on different researched aspects of UML model inconsistencies, using the systematic mapping method. Objectives: The overall goal was to be achieved by fulfilling the following two main objectives: elaborating a proper and justified tool for performing the mapping and later used the tool in order to obtain a systematic and multidimensional picture of the approaches and the performed research in the area relating to different issues considering inconsistencies when using UML in software development. Research Methods: In order to ensure quality of the final foreseen systematic picture of the conducted research, a considerable effort was put first on a preparation of the tool that was used to obtain the mapping. The tool was a rigorous process based on classification methods and mapping guidelines obtained from a systematic literature review on the systematic mapping in software engineering. Then the tool was applied in a systematic way to obtain a number of mappings, followed by the analysis of the obtained results. Results: The systematic literature review resulted in identifying 5 mapping guidelines, 21 classifications, and 2 categorization methods. After analysis of them, a justified mapping process was developed by selecting standard guidelines, appropriate classifications and categorization methods. The mapping process applied for the period of 1999-2012 revealed 198 relevant studies developed by 321 researchers. On the basis this evidences, a number of mappings illustrating the conducted research on UML model inconsistencies ware obtained. The mapping reviled that the published research is mostly focused on rather formal issues such as semantic, syntactic, intramodel, inter-model and evolution problems, while a less attention is placed on more practical on time, and security problems. When the quality of research is concerned, 38% of papers proposed solutions as well as validated them through academic, industry or both, 35% of papers proposed only solutions. When the usage of empirical methods is considered, case studies are most frequently used (in almost half of the relevant papers) and followed by experiments (reported in 15% of papers), while 25% carried works do on report a systematic method used. Conclusions: The findings of systematic mapping study revealed that there are some aspect related to consistency such as time and security that are not given big attention. Identification and in-depth studying of inconsistencies in UML designs along with their dependencies are also missing. Most of the investigations are also academic with no evidence whether these reports produce interest for industry or not. State-of-the-art followed by state-of-the-practice studies related to consistency checking techniques and validating them in real industrial setting could be recommended. / Context: Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a universal and standard modeling language that has been extensively used in software development process. Due to overlap and synchronous nature among different modeling artefacts in UML, several consistency issues have been identified in many software development projects that may lead to project failure. To reduce the level of such threat, over the past decade, a substantial research addressing those problems has been done both in academic and industry. This study is intended to investigate the reported research and to provide a systematic picture on different researched aspects of UML model inconsistencies, using the systematic mapping method. Objectives: The overall goal was to be achieved by fulfilling the following two main objectives: elaborating a proper and justified tool for performing the mapping and later used the tool in order to obtain a systematic and multidimensional picture of the approaches and the performed research in the area relating to different issues considering inconsistencies when using UML in software development. Research Methods: In order to ensure quality of the final foreseen systematic picture of the conducted research, a considerable effort was put first on a preparation of the tool that was used to obtain the mapping. The tool was a rigorous process based on classification methods and mapping guidelines obtained from a systematic literature review on the systematic mapping in software engineering. Then the tool was applied in a systematic way to obtain a number of mappings, followed by the analysis of the obtained results. Results: The systematic literature review resulted in identifying 5 mapping guidelines, 21 classifications, and 2 categorization methods. After analysis of them, a justified mapping process was developed by selecting standard guidelines, appropriate classifications and categorization methods. The mapping process applied for the period of 1999-2012 revealed 198 relevant studies developed by 321 researchers. On the basis this evidences, a number of mappings illustrating the conducted research on UML model inconsistencies ware obtained. The mapping reviled that the published research is mostly focused on rather formal issues such as semantic, syntactic, intramodel, inter-model and evolution problems, while a less attention is placed on more practical on time, and security problems. When the quality of research is concerned, 38% of papers proposed solutions as well as validated them through academic, industry or both, 35% of papers proposed only solutions. When the usage of empirical methods is considered, case studies are most frequently used (in almost half of the relevant papers) and followed by experiments (reported in 15% of papers), while 25% carried works do on report a systematic method used. Conclusions: The findings of systematic mapping study revealed that there are some aspect related to consistency such as time and security that are not given big attention. Identification and in-depth studying of inconsistencies in UML designs along with their dependencies are also missing. Most of the investigations are also academic with no evidence whether these reports produce interest for industry or not. State-of-the-art followed by state-of-the-practice studies related to consistency checking techniques and validating them in real industrial setting could be recommended.

Context: Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a universal and standard modeling language that has been extensively used in software development process. Due to overlap and synchronous nature among different modeling artefacts in UML, several consistency issues have been identified in many software development projects that may lead to project failure. To reduce the level of such threat, over the past decade, a substantial research addressing those problems has been done both in academic and industry. This study is intended to investigate the reported research and to provide a systematic picture on different researched aspects of UML model inconsistencies, using the systematic mapping method. Objectives: The overall goal was to be achieved by fulfilling the following two main objectives: elaborating a proper and justified tool for performing the mapping and later used the tool in order to obtain a systematic and multidimensional picture of the approaches and the performed research in the area relating to different issues considering inconsistencies when using UML in software development. Research Methods: In order to ensure quality of the final foreseen systematic picture of the conducted research, a considerable effort was put first on a preparation of the tool that was used to obtain the mapping. The tool was a rigorous process based on classification methods and mapping guidelines obtained from a systematic literature review on the systematic mapping in software engineering. Then the tool was applied in a systematic way to obtain a number of mappings, followed by the analysis of the obtained results. Results: The systematic literature review resulted in identifying 5 mapping guidelines, 21 classifications, and 2 categorization methods. After analysis of them, a justified mapping process was developed by selecting standard guidelines, appropriate classifications and categorization methods. The mapping process applied for the period of 1999-2012 revealed 198 relevant studies developed by 321 researchers. On the basis this evidences, a number of mappings illustrating the conducted research on UML model inconsistencies ware obtained. The mapping reviled that the published research is mostly focused on rather formal issues such as semantic, syntactic, intramodel, inter-model and evolution problems, while a less attention is placed on more practical on time, and security problems. When the quality of research is concerned, 38% of papers proposed solutions as well as validated them through academic, industry or both, 35% of papers proposed only solutions. When the usage of empirical methods is considered, case studies are most frequently used (in almost half of the relevant papers) and followed by experiments (reported in 15% of papers), while 25% carried works do on report a systematic method used. Conclusions: The findings of systematic mapping study revealed that there are some aspect related to consistency such as time and security that are not given big attention. Identification and in-depth studying of inconsistencies in UML designs along with their dependencies are also missing. Most of the investigations are also academic with no evidence whether these reports produce interest for industry or not. State-of-the-art followed by state-of-the-practice studies related to consistency checking techniques and validating them in real industrial setting could be recommended. / Context: Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a universal and standard modeling language that has been extensively used in software development process. Due to overlap and synchronous nature among different modeling artefacts in UML, several consistency issues have been identified in many software development projects that may lead to project failure. To reduce the level of such threat, over the past decade, a substantial research addressing those problems has been done both in academic and industry. This study is intended to investigate the reported research and to provide a systematic picture on different researched aspects of UML model inconsistencies, using the systematic mapping method. Objectives: The overall goal was to be achieved by fulfilling the following two main objectives: elaborating a proper and justified tool for performing the mapping and later used the tool in order to obtain a systematic and multidimensional picture of the approaches and the performed research in the area relating to different issues considering inconsistencies when using UML in software development. Research Methods: In order to ensure quality of the final foreseen systematic picture of the conducted research, a considerable effort was put first on a preparation of the tool that was used to obtain the mapping. The tool was a rigorous process based on classification methods and mapping guidelines obtained from a systematic literature review on the systematic mapping in software engineering. Then the tool was applied in a systematic way to obtain a number of mappings, followed by the analysis of the obtained results. Results: The systematic literature review resulted in identifying 5 mapping guidelines, 21 classifications, and 2 categorization methods. After analysis of them, a justified mapping process was developed by selecting standard guidelines, appropriate classifications and categorization methods. The mapping process applied for the period of 1999-2012 revealed 198 relevant studies developed by 321 researchers. On the basis this evidences, a number of mappings illustrating the conducted research on UML model inconsistencies ware obtained. The mapping reviled that the published research is mostly focused on rather formal issues such as semantic, syntactic, intramodel, inter-model and evolution problems, while a less attention is placed on more practical on time, and security problems. When the quality of research is concerned, 38% of papers proposed solutions as well as validated them through academic, industry or both, 35% of papers proposed only solutions. When the usage of empirical methods is considered, case studies are most frequently used (in almost half of the relevant papers) and followed by experiments (reported in 15% of papers), while 25% carried works do on report a systematic method used. Conclusions: The findings of systematic mapping study revealed that there are some aspect related to consistency such as time and security that are not given big attention. Identification and in-depth studying of inconsistencies in UML designs along with their dependencies are also missing. Most of the investigations are also academic with no evidence whether these reports produce interest for industry or not. State-of-the-art followed by state-of-the-practice studies related to consistency checking techniques and validating them in real industrial setting could be recommended. / C/o Thalanki Anjaneyulu, H.No.76/119-D5-43, Mahaveer Colony, B.G.Road, Kurnool -518003, Andhra Pradesh, India

Unit testing is defined as a test activity usually performed by a developer for the purpose of demonstrating program functionality and meeting the requirements specification of module. Nowadays, unit testing is considered as an integral part in the software development cycle. However, performing unit testing by developers is still considered as a major concern because of the time and cost involved in it. Automation support for unit testing, in the form of various automation tools, could significantly lower the cost of performing unit testing phase as well as decrease the time developer involved in the actual testing. The problem is how to choose the most appropriate tool that will suit developer requirements consisting of cost involved, effort needed, level of automation provided, language support, etc. This research work presents results from a systematic literature review with the aim of finding all unit testing tools with an automation support. In the systematic literature review, we initially identified 1957 studies. After performing several removal stages, 112 primary studies were listed and 24 tools identified in total. Along with the list of tools, we also provide the categorization of all the tools found based on the programming language support, availability (License, Open source, Free), testing technique, level of effort required by developer to use tool, target domain, that we consider as good properties for a developer to make a decision on which tool to use. Additionally, we categorized type of error(s) found by some tools, which could be beneficial for a developer when looking at the tool’s effectiveness. The main intent of this report is to aid developers in the process of choosing an appropriate unit testing tool from categorization table of available tools with automation unit testing support that ease this process significantly. This work could be beneficial for researchers considering to evaluate efficiency and effectiveness of each tool and use this information to eventually build a new tool with the same properties as several others.

In recent years, food waste has received growing interest from local, national and European policymakers, international organisations, NGOs as well as academics from various disciplinary fields. Increasing concerns about food security and environmental impacts, such as resource depletion and greenhouse gas emissions attributed to food waste, have intensified attention to the topic. While food waste occurs in all stages of the food supply chain, private households have been identified as key actors in food waste generation. However, the evidence on why food waste occurs remains scattered. This paper maps the still small but expanding academic territory of consumer food waste by systematically reviewing empirical studies on food waste practices as well as distilling factors that foster and impede the generation of food waste on the household level. Moreover, we briefly discuss the contributions of different social ontologies, more particularly psychology-related approaches and social practice theory. The analysis reveals food waste as a complex and multi-faceted issue that cannot be attributed to single variables; this also calls for a stronger integration of different disciplinary perspectives. Mapping the determinants of waste generation deepens the understanding of household practices and helps design food waste prevention strategies. Finally, we link the identified factors with a set of policy, business, and retailer options.

Context: Static code analysis is a software verification technique that refers to the process of examining code without executing it in order to capture defects in the code early, avoiding later costly fixations. The lack of realistic empirical evaluations in software engineering has been identified as a major issue limiting the ability of research to impact industry and in turn preventing feedback from industry that can improve, guide and orient research. Studies emphasized rigor and relevance as important criteria to assess the quality and realism of research. The rigor defines how adequately a study has been carried out and reported, while relevance defines the potential impact of the study on industry. Despite the importance of static code analysis techniques and its existence for more than three decades, the number of empirical evaluations in this field are less in number and do not take into account the rigor and relevance into consideration. Objectives: The aim of this study is to contribute toward bridging the gap between static code analysis research and industry by improving the ability of research to impact industry and vice versa. This study has two main objectives. First, developing guidelines for researchers, which will explore the existing research work in static code analysis research to identify the current status, shortcomings, rigor and industrial relevance of the research, reported benefits/limitations of different static code analysis techniques, and finally, give recommendations to researchers to help improve the future research to make it more industrial oriented. Second, developing guidelines for practitioners, which will investigate the adoption of different static code analysis techniques in industry and identify benefits/limitations of these techniques as perceived by industrial professionals. Then cross-analyze the findings of the SLR and the surbvey to draw final conclusions, and finally, give recommendations to professionals to help them decide which techniques to adopt. Methods: A sequential exploratory strategy characterized by the collection and analysis of qualitative data (systematic literature review) followed by the collection and analysis of quantitative data (survey), has been used to conduct this research. In order to achieve the first objective, a thorough systematic literature review has been conducted using Kitchenham guidelines. To achieve the second study objective, a questionnaire-based online survey was conducted, targeting professionals from software industry in order to collect their responses regarding the usage of different static code analysis techniques, as well as their benefits and limitations. The quantitative data obtained was subjected to statistical analysis for the further interpretation of the data and draw results based on it. Results: In static code analysis research, inspection and static analysis tools received significantly more attention than the other techniques. The benefits and limitations of static code analysis techniques were extracted and seven recurrent variables were used to report them. The existing research work in static code analysis field significantly lacks rigor and relevance and the reason behind it has been identified. Somre recommendations are developed outlining how to improve static code analysis research and make it more industrial oriented. From the industrial point of view, static analysis tools are widely used followed by informal reviews, while inspections and walkthroughs are rarely used. The benefits and limitations of different static code analysis techniques, as perceived by industrial professionals, have been identified along with the influential factors. Conclusions: The SLR concluded that the techniques having a formal, well-defined process and process elements have receive more attention in research, however, this doesn’t necessarily mean that technique is better than the other techniques. The experiments have been used widely as a research method in static code analysis research, but the outcome variables in the majority of the experiments are inconsistent. The use of experiments in academic context contributed nothing to improve the relevance, while the inadequate reporting of validity threats and their mitigation strategies contributed significantly to poor rigor of research. The benefits and limitations of different static code analysis techniques identified by the SLR could not complement the survey findings, because the rigor and relevance of most of the studies reporting them was weak. The survey concluded that the adoption of static code analysis techniques in the industry is more influenced by the software life-cycle models in practice in organizations, while software product type and company size do not have much influence. The amount of attention a static code analysis technique has received in research doesn’t necessarily influence its adoption in industry which indicates a wide gap between research and industry. However, the company size, product type, and software life-cycle model do influence professionals perception on benefits and limitations of different static code analysis techniques.

Exit is an inevitable part of any business relationship. However, despite its importance, exit in buyer–supplier relationships is still a poorly understood phenomenon. Building on previous studies, this thesis addressed these concerns by empirically: a) identifying the economic and social antecedents that influence the exit decision; and b) validating how the antecedents of exit are related with the choice of exit strategies. To achieve these objectives, first, a systematic literature review was conducted to identify 82 studies that documented existing research on exit in buyer–supplier relationships. Second, informed by Transaction Cost Economics and Social Exchange Theory, a set of 88 testable hypotheses was developed and a survey captured data from 505 recently terminated relationships involving UK based firms. Finally, for data analysis, statistical techniques were employed including: a) analysis of variance; b) independent sample t–tests; c) multiple logistic regression; and d) multi–nomial logistic regression. The empirical findings of this thesis validated that: a) there are 8 economic and 14 social antecedents that influence the exit decision; b) lending support to extant research on exit, 57 hypotheses were accepted; c) 12 multiple logit models confirmed the relationship between a set of antecedents and exit strategies; and d) 6 multinomial logit models validated the relationship between a set of antecedents and a choice of one exit strategy over another. The results suggest that the influence of antecedents on the choice of exit strategies was subject to how the antecedents were analysed. The contributions of this research to Supply Chain Management literature are that we know now: a) which economic and social antecedents influence the exit decision; b) how individual antecedents affect exit strategies; c) how antecedents combine to affect exit strategies; and d) how antecedents combine to affect the choice of one exit strategy over another. This work provides an exit management tool box comprising a combination of data collection instrument, empirically derived framework and models that enables the managers to timely review the strength and weaknesses of their business relationships and their management processes.

In primary school classrooms, teacher-student relations, student’s school engagement, achievement, and the frequency of teachers’ academic interactions are related to higher levels of student engagement. Since different strategies teachers use to initiate classroom interactions have different impacts on students’ engagement, the aim of this thesis is to explore how teacher-student classroom interactions in primary school influence their classroom engagement. A systematic literature review was conducted by using three databases. Eight studies that fit inclusion criteria were exerted and identified. The results show that teachers’ positive strategies (eg. emotional support, help, give instruction) in classroom interaction can significantly increase students’ behavior engagement, improve students’ social engagement and some of the strategies can also hinder students’ emotional engagement in classroom This thesis identifies actions teachers use to conduct classroom interaction and shows how these actions influence students’ behavioral, social, and emotional engagement in primary schools, which gives teachers an overview of the positive consequences of these interaction strategies in primary school classrooms. The suggestions for future research are, further studies can also include studies that perceived classroom interaction from teachers’ perspective and measured the influence of teachers’ negative interaction strategies (eg. criticism, punishment).

Challenges like adversity and traumatic experiences can be especially stressful for children since they may not have fully developed certain skills and are often dependent on the support and guidance of adults. The medium of play is a powerful tool and can be used to enhance children to meet challenges better. It is mostly their preferred medium of interaction and allows them to process experiences playfully.The aim of this systematic literature review was to examine existing play therapy interventions that promote intrinsic characteristics of resilience in children. A search for scholarly articles has been carried out in 7 databases, resulting in ten articles included in the analysis. Play therapy interventions explicitly targeting resilience could not be found, as well as play therapy interventions targeting problem-solving abilities and adaptability of children. Interventions that targeted intrinsic characteristics of resilience were Child-Centered-Play-Therapy, Sandplay therapy, and Theraplay. The play therapy interventions were mostly effective but varied in their effect sizes. Results indicate that children with disabilities need a more directed form of play therapy. The field of play therapy interventions supporting explicitly intrinsic characteristics of resilience is a multi-factorial, dynamic, and complex construct that stands in its beginnings of research. Limitations of the study and further research are discussed.

Background: Building software systems is an iterative and collaborative project, requiring developers not only to write code, but to maintain, expand, fix and enhance code already written. In order to do so, reading code is a central activity, and therefore it is important that code is written in a manner that makes it readable. Objectives: To map the state-of-the-art of software source code readability and find the definitions and methods to measure it, and provide an overview of the kinds of factors considered to impact software source code readability, and to compare this to practitioners' experiences of software source code readability. Methods: A systematic literature review of 76 studies in 72 papers from the last 40 years, explicitly concerning software source code readability, is compared with the results of five interviews with practitioners, of which three are case studies of commits explicitly targeting readability. Results: While individual factors' contribution towards readability is studied with some success, more general modelling studies often suffer from methodological problems, making them difficult to apply in practice or in studies of the correlation between software source code readability and other metrics. Conclusions: Key elements of the state-of-the-art have been implemented in practice, however, readability models are not used by the practitioners in this study. Several factors mentioned by practitioners are not considered by the studies included, and further qualitative study of software development practitioners may be needed.