arXiv subjects

Mohamad Kassab

Publications and source records attributed to Mohamad Kassab.

14 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

On the Use of a Large Language Model to Support the Conduction of a Systematic Mapping Study: A Brief Report from a Practitioner's View

The use of Large Language Models (LLMs) has drawn growing interest within the scientific community. LLMs can handle large volumes of textual data and support methods for evidence synthesis. Although recent studies highlight the potential of LLMs to accelerate screening and data extraction steps in systematic reviews, detailed reports of their practical application throughout the entire process remain scarce. This paper presents an experience report on the conduction of a systematic mapping study with the support of LLMs, describing the steps followed, the necessary adjustments, and the main challenges faced. Positive aspects are discussed, such as (i) the significant reduction of time in repetitive tasks and (ii) greater standardization in data extraction, as well as negative aspects, including (i) considerable effort to build reliable well-structured prompts, especially for less experienced users, since achieving effective prompts may require several iterations and testing, which can partially offset the expected time savings, (ii) the occurrence of hallucinations, and (iii) the need for constant manual verification. As a contribution, this work offers lessons learned and practical recommendations for researchers interested in adopting LLMs in systematic mappings and reviews, highlighting both efficiency gains and methodological risks and limitations to be considered.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2025

M&SCheck: Towards a Checklist to Support Software Engineering Newcomers to the Modeling and Simulation Area

The advent of increasingly complex and dynamic ecosystems, such as digital twins (DT), smart cities and Industry 4.0 and 5.0, has made evident the need to include modeling and simulation (M&S) in the software development life cycle. Such disruptive systems include simulation models in their own architecture (such as DT) or require the use of simulation models to represent the high degree of movement and the multiplicity of interactions that occur between the involved systems. However, when software engineers (particularly the newcomers) need to use M&S in their projects, they often pose themselves an important question: which formalism should I use? In this direction, the main contribution of this paper is the establishment of a preliminary checklist with questions to assist beginners in M&S in choosing the most appropriate paradigm to solve their problems. The checklist is based on three main formalisms: DEVS, System Dynamics and Agent-Based Simulation. A pilot study was carried out and an expert was consulted. The preliminary results show (i) conformance between the suggestion given by the checklist and the formalism selected in the original studies used as input for evaluating the checklist, and (ii) a positive feedback from the expert.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2025

The Presence and the State-of-Practice of Software Architects in the Brazilian Industry -- A Survey

Context: Software architecture intensely impacts the software quality. Therefore, the professional assigned to carry out the design, maintenance and evolution of architectures needs to have certain knowledge and skills in order not to compromise the resulting application. Objective: The aim of this work is to understand the characteristics of the companies regarding the presence or absence of software architects in Brazil. Method: This work uses the Survey research as a means to collect evidence from professionals with the software architect profile, besides descriptive statistics and thematic analysis to analyze the results. Results: The study collected data from 105 professionals distributed in 24 Brazilian states. Results reveal that (i) not all companies have a software architect, (ii) in some cases, other professionals perform the activities of a software architect and (iii) there are companies that, even having a software architecture professional, have other roles also performing the duties of such a professional. Conclusions: Professionals hired as software architects have higher salaries than those hired in other roles that carry out such activity, although many of those other professionals still have duties that are typical of software architects.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2025

Large Language Model for Qualitative Research -- A Systematic Mapping Study

The exponential growth of text-based data in domains such as healthcare, education, and social sciences has outpaced the capacity of traditional qualitative analysis methods, which are time-intensive and prone to subjectivity. Large Language Models (LLMs), powered by advanced generative AI, have emerged as transformative tools capable of automating and enhancing qualitative analysis. This study systematically maps the literature on the use of LLMs for qualitative research, exploring their application contexts, configurations, methodologies, and evaluation metrics. Findings reveal that LLMs are utilized across diverse fields, demonstrating the potential to automate processes traditionally requiring extensive human input. However, challenges such as reliance on prompt engineering, occasional inaccuracies, and contextual limitations remain significant barriers. This research highlights opportunities for integrating LLMs with human expertise, improving model robustness, and refining evaluation methodologies. By synthesizing trends and identifying research gaps, this study aims to guide future innovations in the application of LLMs for qualitative analysis.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2025

J-Invariant Volume Shuffle for Self-Supervised Cryo-Electron Tomogram Denoising on Single Noisy Volume

Cryo-Electron Tomography (Cryo-ET) enables detailed 3D visualization of cellular structures in near-native states but suffers from low signal-to-noise ratio due to imaging constraints. Traditional denoising methods and supervised learning approaches often struggle with complex noise patterns and the lack of paired datasets. Self-supervised methods, which utilize noisy input itself as a target, have been studied; however, existing Cryo-ET self-supervised denoising methods face significant challenges due to losing information during training and the learned incomplete noise patterns. In this paper, we propose a novel self-supervised learning model that denoises Cryo-ET volumetric images using a single noisy volume. Our method features a U-shape J-invariant blind spot network with sparse centrally masked convolutions, dilated channel attention blocks, and volume unshuffle/shuffle technique. The volume-unshuffle/shuffle technique expands receptive fields and utilizes multi-scale representations, significantly improving noise reduction and structural preservation. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach achieves superior performance compared to existing methods, advancing Cryo-ET data processing for structural biology research

eess.IV↗

arXiv2025

Towards the Internet of Robotic Things: Analysis, Architecture, Components and Challenges

Internet of Things (IoT) and robotics cannot be considered two separate domains these days. Internet of Robotics Things (IoRT) is a concept that has been recently introduced to describe the integration of robotics technologies in IoT scenarios. As a consequence, these two research fields have started interacting, and thus linking research communities. In this paper we intend to make further steps in joining the two communities and broaden the discussion on the development of this interdisciplinary field. The paper provides an overview, analysis and challenges of possible solutions for the Internet of Robotic Things, discussing the issues of the IoRT architecture, the integration of smart spaces and robotic applications.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

The Perceptions of Software Engineers Concerning the Utilization of Bots in the OSS Development Process: An Exploratory Survey

Software bots, extensively adopted by Open Source Software (OSS) projects, support developers across several activities, from automating predefined tasks to generating code that aids software engineers. However, with the growing prominence of bots, questions have emerged regarding the extension to which they truly assist or hinder software engineers in their routine tasks. To address this, an exploratory survey was conducted with 37 software engineers to gather insights into their views on the use of bots within the software development process. The findings suggest that bots are present across multiple phases of the software development lifecycle, providing daily support to professionals by enhancing productivity and facilitating task automation. Respondents stated that current bots are not sufficiently intelligent and raised new challenges and enhancements to aid bot designers in developing additional functionalities and integrations.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2024

Establishment of a Blockchain-based Architecture for Fake News Detection

Fake News are a contemporary phenomenon with potential devastating effects. For inquiry and auditability purposes, it is essential that the news, once classified as false, can be persisted in an immutable means so that interested parties can query it. Although Blockchain clearly satisfies the main requirements for Fake News Management Software Systems, the prescriptive architectural solutions for that domain that cohabit Blockchain with other technologies in a single proposal still need to be made available. This paper's main contribution is presenting a prescriptive architectural solution for blockchain-based fake news management software systems. The Hoffmeister process for software architecture design is systematically followed to culminate in a software solution for that domain. The implementation of two candidate architectures and a brief simulation-based evaluation show the feasibility of the solution to satisfy the functional and quality requirements.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2023

Anachronic Tertiary Studies in Software Engineering: An Exploratory Quaternary Study

Systematic literature reviews tentativelydescribe the state of the art in a given research area. However, the continuous publication of new primary and secondary studies following the release of a tertiary study can make the communication of results not integrally representative in regards to the advances achieved by that time. Consequently, using such a study as a reference within specific bodies of knowledge may introduce imprecision, both in terms of its subareas and with respect to new methodologies, languages, and tools. Thus, a review of tertiary studies (what could be understood as a quaternary study) could contribute to show the representativeness of the reported findings in comparison to the state of the art and also to compile a set of perceptions that could not be previously achieved. In that direction, the main contribution of this paper is presenting the findings from an analysis of 34 software engineering tertiary studies published between 2009 and 2021. The results indicate that over 60% of the studies demonstrate varying degrees of anachronism due to the publication of primary and secondary studies following the publication of the tertiary study or even due to a time elapse between its conduction and its publication.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2023

Safeguarding Physical Sneaker Sale Through a Decentralized Medium

Sneakers were designated as the most counterfeited fashion item online, with three times more risk in a trade than any other fashion purchase. As the market expands, the current sneaker scene displays several vulnerabilities and trust flaws, mostly related to the legitimacy of assets or actors. In this paper, we investigate various blockchain-based mechanisms to address these large-scale trust issues. We argue that (i) pre-certified and tracked assets through the use of non-fungible tokens can ensure the genuine nature of an asset and authenticate its owner more effectively during peer-to-peer trading across a marketplace; (ii) a game-theoretic-based system with economic incentives for participating users can greatly reduce the rate of online fraud and address missed delivery deadlines; (iii) a decentralized dispute resolution system biased in favour of an honest party can solve potential conflicts more reliably.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2022

An Efficient and Decentralized Blockchain-based Commercial Alternative (Full Version)

While online interactions and exchanges have grown exponentially over the past decade, most commercial infrastructures still operate through centralized protocols, and their success essentially depends on trust between different economic actors. Digital advances such as blockchain technology has led to a massive wave of \textit{Decentralized Ledger Technology} (\textit{DLT}) initiatives, protocols and solutions. This advance makes it possible to implement trustless systems in the real world, which, combined with appropriate economic and participatory incentives, would foster the proper functioning and drive the adoption of a decentralized platform among different actors. This paper describes an alternative to current commercial structures and networks by introducing \textit{Lyzis Labs}, which is is an incentive-driven and democratic protocol designed to support a decentralized online marketplace, based on blockchain technology. The proposal, \textit{Lyzis Marketplace}, allows to connect two or more people in a decentralized and secure way without having to rely on a \textit{Trusted Third Party} (\textit{TTP}) in order to perform physical asset exchanges while mainly providing transparent and fully protected data storage. This approach can potentially lead to the creation of a permissionless, efficient, secure and transparent business environment where each user can gain purchasing and decision-making power by supporting the collective welfare while following their personal interests during their various interactions on the network.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2021

Expanding Frontiers: Settling an Understanding of Systems-of-Information Systems

System-of-Systems (SoS) has consolidated itself as a special type of software-intensive systems. As such, subtypes of SoS have also emerged, such as Cyber-Physical SoS (CPSoS) that are formed essentially of cyber-physical constituent systems and Systems-of-Information Systems (SoIS) that contain information systems as their constituents. In contrast to CPSoS that have been investigated and covered in the specialized literature, SoIS still lack critical discussion about their fundamentals. The main contribution of this paper is to present those fundamentals to set an understanding of SoIS. By offering a discussion and examining literature cases, we draw an essential settlement on SoIS definition, basics, and practical implications. The discussion herein presented results from research conducted on SoIS over the past years in interinstitutional and multinational research collaborations. The knowledge gathered in this paper arises from several scientific discussion meetings among the authors. As a result, we aim to contribute to the state of the art of SoIS besides paving the research avenues for the forthcoming years.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2017

Software Quality - Traditional vs. Agile: an Empirical Investigation

It is well known that the software process impacts the quality of the resulting product. There are also anecdotal claims that agile processes result in higher level of quality than traditional methodologies. However, still solid evidence of this is missing. This work reports in an empirical analysis of the correlation between software process and software quality with specific reference to agile and traditional processes. More than 100 software developers and engineers from 21 countries have been surveyed with an online questionnaire. We have used the percentage of satisfied customers estimated by the software developers and engineers as the main dependent variable. The results evidence some interesting patterns: architectural styles may not have a significant influence on quality, agile methodologies might result in happier customers, larger companies and shorter projects seems to produce better products.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2009

Managing Requirement Volatility in an Ontology-Driven Clinical LIMS Using Category Theory. International Journal of Telemedicine and Applications

Requirement volatility is an issue in software engineering in general, and in Web-based clinical applications in particular, which often originates from an incomplete knowledge of the domain of interest. With advances in the health science, many features and functionalities need to be added to, or removed from, existing software applications in the biomedical domain. At the same time, the increasing complexity of biomedical systems makes them more difficult to understand, and consequently it is more difficult to define their requirements, which contributes considerably to their volatility. In this paper, we present a novel agent-based approach for analyzing and managing volatile and dynamic requirements in an ontology-driven laboratory information management system (LIMS) designed for Web-based case reporting in medical mycology. The proposed framework is empowered with ontologies and formalized using category theory to provide a deep and common understanding of the functional and nonfunctional requirement hierarchies and their interrelations, and to trace the effects of a change on the conceptual framework.

cs.AI↗