arXiv subjects

Luiz Fernando Capretz

Publications and source records attributed to Luiz Fernando Capretz.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

A Hybrid Intelligent Model for Software Cost Estimation

Accurate software development effort estimation is critical to the success of software projects. Although many techniques and algorithmic models have been developed and implemented by practitioners, accurate software development effort prediction is still a challenging endeavor in the field of software engineering, especially in handling uncertain and imprecise inputs and collinear characteristics. In this paper, a hybrid in-telligent model combining a neural network model integrated with fuzzy model (neuro-fuzzy model) has been used to improve the accuracy of estimating software cost. The performance of the proposed model is assessed by designing and conducting evaluation with published project and industrial data. Results have shown that the proposed model demonstrates the ability of improving the estimation accuracy by 18% based on the Mean Magnitude of Relative Error (MMRE) criterion.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2015

Cloud-based DDoS Attacks and Defenses

Safety and reliability are important in the cloud computing environment. This is especially true today as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks constitute one of the largest threats faced by Internet users and cloud computing services. DDoS attacks target the resources of these services, lowering their ability to provide optimum usage of the network infrastructure. Due to the nature of cloud computing, the methodologies for preventing or stopping DDoS attacks are quite different compared to those used in traditional networks. In this paper, we investigate the effect of DDoS attacks on cloud resources and recommend practical defense mechanisms against different types of DDoS attacks in the cloud environment.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2015

Applying CMM Towards an m-Learning Context

In the era of m-Learning, it is found that educational institutions have onus of incorporating the latest technological innovations that can be accepted and understood widely. While investigating the important theme of fast-paced development of emerging technologies in mobile communications, it is important to recognize the extent influence of these innovations using which society can communicate, learn, access information, and, additionally, interact. In addition, the usage of mobile technology in higher education needs not only the pervasive nature of the technology but also its disruptive nature that offers several challenges while incorporation in the area of teaching and learning. Therefore, recently, higher education institutions are looking at various ways of implementing m-Learning strategies, in order to offer solutions, which, in turn, can standardize the process of education and, additionally, replace those traditional didactic courses, focusing on m-Learning endless benefits. Some of the benefits are: the process of learning itself could be self-paced, whereas information could be easier accessed, adding to independent, discovery-oriented learning that becomes more engaging. Applying CMM successfully to design effective incorporation strategies of m-Learning, this research targets formulation of such a maturity model by which the process of m-Learning can be more effective and efficient.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2015

Psychological Types of Brazilian Software Engineering Students

The aim of this investigation was to establish the personality profile of Brazilian software engineering students according to the MBTI. This study also shows that the software engineering field attracts students of some types more than other types, for instance: Is, Ps, IPs, TPs, and INs are significantly represented in that group as opposed to E, Js, EJs, TJs, ENs.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2015

Maintenance Support in Open Source Software Projects

Easy and mostly free access to the internet has resulted in the growing use of open source software (OSS). However, it is a common perception that closed proprietary software is still superior in areas such as software maintenance and management. The research model of this study establishes a relationship between maintenance issues (such as user requests and error handling) and support provided by open source software through project forums, mailing lists and trackers. To conduct this research, we have used a dataset consisting of 120 open source software projects, covering a wide range of categories. The results of the study show that project forums and mailing lists play a significant role in addressing user requests in open source software. However according to the empirical investigation, it has been explored that trackers are used as an effective medium for error reporting as well as user requests.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2015

An Empirical Study of Open Source Software Usability: The Industrial Perspective

Recent years have seen a sharp increase in the use of open source projects by common novice users; Open Source Software (OSS) is thus no longer a reserved arena for software developers and computer gurus. Although user-centered designs are gaining popularity in OSS, usability is still not considered as one of the prime objectives in many design scenarios. In this paper, we analyze industry users perception of usability factors, including understandability, learnability, operability and attractiveness, on OSS usability. The research model of this empirical study establishes the relationship between the key usability factors and OSS usability from industrial perspective. In order to conduct the study, a data set of 105 industry users is included. The results of the empirical investigation indicate the significance of the key factors for OSS usability.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2015

Influence of Personality Types in Software Tasks Choices

According to psychology, not everybody can excel at all kinds of tasks. Thus, chances of a successful outcome of software development increase if people with particular personality types are assigned to their preferred tasks in the project. Likewise, software development depends significantly on how software practitioners perform their tasks. This empirical study surveys 100 Cuban software developers, who also teach or study at the University of Informatics Sciences in Havana, Cuba. This work aims to find possible patterns that link personality types to role preferences in a software life cycle. Among the various roles, system analyst, software designer, and programmer are found to be the most preferred among the participants. In contrast, software tester and software maintainer happen to be the least popular roles among software engineers.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2015

Empirical Investigation of Key Business Factors for Digital Game Performance

Game development is an interdisciplinary concept that embraces software engineering, business, management, and artistic disciplines. This research facilitates a better understanding of the business dimension of digital games. The main objective of this research is to investigate empirically the effect of business factors on the performance of digital games in the market and to answer the research questions asked in this study. Game development organizations are facing high pressure and competition in the digital game industry. Business has become a crucial dimension, especially for game development organizations. The main contribution of this paper is to investigate empirically the influence of key business factors on the business performance of games. This is the first study in the domain of game development that demonstrates the interrelationship between key business factors and game performance in the market. The results of the study provide evidence that game development organizations must deal with multiple business key factors to remain competitive and handle the high pressure in the digital game industry. Furthermore, the results of the study support the theoretical assertion that key business factors play an important role in game business performance.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2015

A Systematic Literature Review of the Critical Factors for Success of Mobile Learning in Higher Education (University Students' Perspective)

The phenomenon of the use of a mobile learning (m-Learning) platform in educational institutions is slowly gaining momentum. While this can be taken as an encouraging sign, the perplexing part is that the fervor with which mobile phones have been welcomed into every aspect of our lives does not seem to be evident in the educational sector. In order to understand the reason, it is important to understand user expectations of the system. This paper documents a systematic review of various research studies seeking to find the success factors for effective m-Learning. A total of 30 studies were included in the research, which combined would give a true picture of user perceptions of the factors they consider important for effective m-Learning implementation. Our systematic review collates results from 30 studies conducted in 17 countries, where 13 critical success factors (CSFs) were found to strongly impact m-Learning.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2015

Personality Profiles of Software Engineers and Their Software Quality Preferences

Studies related to human aspects in software engineering (SE) have been performed from different perspectives. These perspectives include the study of human factors in different phases of software life cycle, effect of team performance in software development, how can a personality trait suit a particular task, and about some other miscellaneous issues. This research work aims to establish personality profiles of Pakistani software engineers using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) instrument. In this survey, we have collected personality profiles of 110 software engineers. Moreover, their preferences of software quality attributes have also been collected. Analysis of the study shows that the most prominent personality type is a combination of introversion, sensing, thinking and judging. Investigative results indicate that most of the software engineers consider usability and functionality as the most important software quality attributes.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2015

Software Analytics to Software Domains: A Systematic Literature Review

Software Analytics (SA) is a new branch of big data analytics that has recently emerged (2011). What distinguishes SA from direct software analysis is that it links data mined from many different software artifacts to obtain valuable insights. These insights are useful for the decision-making process throughout the different phases of the software lifecycle. Since SA is currently a hot and promising topic, we have conducted a systematic literature review, presented in this paper, to identify gaps in knowledge and open research areas in SA. Because many researchers are still confused about the true potential of SA, we had to filter out available research papers to obtain the most SA-relevant work for our review. This filtration yielded 19 studies out of 135. We have based our systematic review on four main factors: which software practitioners SA targets, which domains are covered by SA, which artifacts are extracted by SA, and whether these artifacts are linked or not. The results of our review have shown that much of the available SA research only serves the needs of developers. Also, much of the available research uses only one artifact which, in turn, means fewer links between artifacts and fewer insights. This shows that the available SA research work is still embryonic leaving plenty of room for future research in the SA field.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2015

What Soft Skills Software Architect Should Have? A Reflection from Software Industry

The job of software architect is considered very crucial in the life cycle of the software development because software architecture has a pivotal role in the success and failure of the software project in terms of cost and quality. People have different personality traits, and the way they perceive, plan and execute any assigned task is influenced by it. These personality traits are characterized by soft skills. Most of the time, software development is a team work involving several people executing different tasks. The success and failure stories of software projects revealed the human factor as one of the critical importance. In this work we are presenting an exploratory study about the soft skills requirements for a software architects job. We analyzed 124 advertised jobs in the title of software architect and explore the soft skills requirements. The results of this investigation help in understanding software skills requirement set for a job of software architect and presents the current status of their use in job advertisements.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2015

A Comparison Between Decision Trees and Decision Tree Forest Models for Software Development Effort Estimation

Accurate software effort estimation has been a challenge for many software practitioners and project managers. Underestimation leads to disruption in the projects estimated cost and delivery. On the other hand, overestimation causes outbidding and financial losses in business. Many software estimation models exist; however, none have been proven to be the best in all situations. In this paper, a decision tree forest (DTF) model is compared to a traditional decision tree (DT) model, as well as a multiple linear regression model (MLR). The evaluation was conducted using ISBSG and Desharnais industrial datasets. Results show that the DTF model is competitive and can be used as an alternative in software effort prediction.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2015

A Neuro-Fuzzy Method to Improving Backfiring Conversion Ratios

Software project estimation is crucial aspect in delivering software on time and on budget. Software size is an important metric in determining the effort, cost, and productivity. Today, source lines of code and function point are the most used sizing metrics. Backfiring is a well-known technique for converting between function points and source lines of code. However when backfiring is used, there is a high margin of error. This study introduces a method to improve the accuracy of backfiring. Intelligent systems have been used in software prediction models to improve performance over traditional techniques. For this reason, a hybrid Neuro-Fuzzy is used because it takes advantages of the neural networks learning and fuzzy logic human-like reasoning. This paper describes an improved backfiring technique which uses Neuro-Fuzzy and compares the new method against the default conversion ratios currently used by software practitioners.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2015

F2- Rules for Qualification of Developing and Managing Software Product Line

Software product line has emerged as a valuable concept of developing software based on reusable software assets. The concept aims on effective utilization of software assets, reduced time to delivery, improved quality and better benefits to cost ratio of products. In this paper we have defined certain rules for the qualification of developing and managing a software product line. An organization must follow these rules in order to establish and manage software product line effectively.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2015

Usability as a Dominant Quality Attribute

Whenever an architect or a team of architects begins an architectural design, there are certain goals set to achieve. There are many factors involved in setting up goals for the architecture design such as type of the project, end user perspective, functional and non-functional requirements and so on. This paper reviews and further elaborates strategy for the usability characteristics of software architecture. Although user centered designs are tremendously gaining popularity, still in many design scenarios, usability is barely even considered as one of the primary goals. This work provides an opportunity to compare different strategies and evaluate their pros and cons.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2015

Integrating Schedulability Analysis with UML-RT

The use of object oriented techniques and methodologies for the design of real-time control systems appear to be necessary in order to deal with the increasing complexity of such systems. Recently many object-oriented methods have been used for the modeling and design of real-time control systems. We believe that an approach that integrates the advancements in both object modeling and design methods, and real-time scheduling theory is the key to successful use of object oriented technology for real-time software. However, past approaches to integrate the two either restrict the object models, or do not allow sophisticated schedulability analysis techniques. In this paper we show how schedulability analysis can be integrated with object-oriented design; we develop the schedulability and feasibility analysis method for the external messages that may suffer release jitter due to being dispatched by a tick driven scheduler in real-time control system, and we also develop the scheduliability method for sporadic activities, where message arrive sporadically then execute periodically for some bounded time. This method can be used to cope with timing constraints in complex real-time control systems.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2015

CBSE CASE Environment

With the need to produce ever larger and more complex software systems, the use of reusable components has become increasingly imperative. Of the many existing and proposed techniques for software development, it seems clear that components-based software engineering (CBSE) will be at the forefront of new approaches to the production of software systems, and holds the promise of substantially enhancing the software development and maintenance process. The required features of a CASE environment suitable for component reuse will be put forward in this paper.

cs.SE↗