A Hybrid Model for Improving Software Cost Estimation in Global Software Development

Accurate software cost estimation in Global Software Development(GSD)remains challenging due to reliance on historical data and expert judgments.Traditional models,such as the Constructive Cost Model(COCOMO II),rely heavily on historical and accurate data.In addition,expert judgment is required to set many input parameters,which can introduce subjectivity and variability in the estimation process.Consequently,there is a need to improve the current GSD models to mitigate reliance on historical data,subjectivity in expert judgment,inadequate consideration of GSD-based cost drivers and limited integration of modern technologies with cost overruns.This study introduces a novel hybrid model that synergizes the COCOMO II with Artificial Neural Networks(ANN)to address these challenges.The proposed hybrid model integrates additional GSD-based cost drivers identified through a systematic literature review and further vetted by industry experts.This article compares the effectiveness of the proposedmodelwith state-of-the-artmachine learning-basedmodels for software cost estimation.Evaluating the NASA 93 dataset by adopting twenty-six GSD-based cost drivers reveals that our hybrid model achieves superior accuracy,outperforming existing state-of-the-artmodels.The findings indicate the potential of combining COCOMO II,ANN,and additional GSD-based cost drivers to transform cost estimation in GSD.

HV Process Model of Software Development

Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is one of the major ingredients for the development of efficient software systems within a time frame and low-cost involvement. From the literature, it is evident that there are various kinds of process models that are used by the software industries for the development of small, medium and long-term software projects, but many of them do not cover risk management. It is quite obvious that the improper selection of the software development process model leads to failure of the software products as it is time bound activity. In the present work, a new software development process model is proposed which covers the risks at any stage of the development of the software product. The model is named a Hemant-Vipin (HV) process model and may be helpful for the software industries for development of the efficient software products and timely delivery at the end of the client. The efficiency of the HV process model is observed by considering various kinds of factors like requirement clarity, user feedback, change agility, predictability, risk identification, practical implementation, customer satisfaction, incremental development, use of ready-made components, quick design, resource organization and many more and found through a case study that the presented approach covers many of parameters in comparison of the existing process models. .

Agile Development Methods in Software Engineering and Their Efficiency Analysis

This paper delves into Agile Development Methods in Software Engineering,contrasting them with the traditional Waterfall model and analyzing their efficiency.Agile methods,known for their adaptability and customer-centric approach,have gained prominence in the fast-paced software development industry.These methods,including Scrum,Kanban,and Extreme Programming(XP),are characterized by iterative cycles,collaborative efforts,and a focus on rapid delivery and quality improvement.The paper compares these agile methodologies to the sequential and rigid Waterfall model,highlighting agile’s superior flexibility,adaptability,and responsiveness to changing requirements.It emphasizes the importance of customer involvement in agile processes,which leads to higher satisfaction and better alignment with user expectations.The analysis reveals that agile methods not only enhance the speed of delivery but also improve the overall quality of the software product.The paper concludes that agile methodologies are more effective in today's dynamic software development environment,providing a robust framework for managing complex projects and ensuring the delivery of high-quality,relevant software solutions.

Development of a software platform for bridge modal and damage identification based on ambient excitation

Modal and damage identification based on ambient excitation can greatly improve the efficiency of high-speed railway bridge vibration detection.This paper first describes the basic principles of stochastic subspace identification,peak-picking,and frequency domain decomposition method in modal analysis based on ambient excitation,and the effectiveness of these three methods is verified through finite element calculation and numerical simulation,Then the damage element is added to the finite element model to simulate the crack,and the curvature mode difference and the curvature mode area difference square ratio are calculated by using the stochastic subspace identification results to verify their ability of damage identification and location.Finally,the above modal and damage identification techniques are integrated to develop a bridge modal and damage identification software platform.The final results show that all three modal identification methods can accurately identify the vibration frequency and mode shape,both damage identification methods can accurately identify and locate the damage,and the developed software platform is simple and efficient.

Implications of Onshore Development on Global Software Engineering

Recently software industry has paid significant attention to customizing software products across distributed boundaries.Communicating the requirements of multiple clients across distributed borders is a crucial challenge for the software customization process.Local decision-making and local development at the client site are considered methods for reducing difficulties in communicating the requirements of multiple clients across distributed boundaries.This paper introduces a new model called the onshore development model(ODM)for accomplishing the customization requests in the distributed development process of software.This model presents a scenario for enhancing the onsite development of specific requirements to reduce delays andmisunderstandings between the clients and the team involved.This model depends on moving the development process to the client’s location.Three empirical studies were conducted to evaluate the proposed model to measure its productivity,time performance,and cost reduction.The proposed model has been compared with two other models:the basic model(BM),which allocates the decision-making process and the development process for teams at the vendor’s location,and the local decision-making model(LDec),which assigns the decision-making process for team at the client’s location.The results of the empirical studies showed significant outperforming of the proposed model over the basic model and local decision-making model in productivity,time performance,and cost reduction.The productivity of the proposed model improved by 39%and 10%more than the basic model and the local decision-making model,respectively.In addition,the time performance of the proposed model became faster by 49%and 20.8%than the basic model and the local decision-making model,respectively.Also,it reduced the total cost of the development process by 31%in terms of the salaries of all persons involved in requirements collecting,decision-making,and development.

Construction and Implementation of OBE-based Practical Course for Software System Development with Solid Foundation and Continuous Improvement

Software engineering is a highly practical major,and students need a lot of hands-on practice to transform the theoretical contents learned in class into the practical ability to solve practical problems,so practical courses are an essential and important part in the process of training talents in software engineering.From the point of view of cultivating talents in software engineering,this paper expounds the important position of practical courses in software engineering in the process of cultivating talents,analyzes the problems in the existing practical courses,and puts forward the construction ideas and characteristics of practical courses in software engineering which strengthen the foundation,advance steadily,and face the output.Taking the practical course for software system development as an example,this paper introduces in detail the concrete implementation process,achievements,existing problems and countermeasures of the course.

Integrating Project Management, Software Development, and Knowledge Management Models: A Case Study in a Public ICT Services Organization

In project-based organizations knowledge is a critical resource used to develop and deliver products and services with a high level of quality. Therefore, a systematic and sustainable process is necessary to coordinate knowledge management, project management and product lifecycle. This scenario predominates in companies focused on the creation and maintenance of information systems. This article presents an exploratory study based on a framework that integrates cognitive, managerial, and operational processes in a public Brazilian organization that provides services in the area of information and communications technology, focusing on the construction and maintenance of information systems. Those processes are operationalized by three management models considering knowledge, project, and software development processes. Our proposal aims to understand the relationships between those three management models and their influence on the software development process in the organization under study. Our premise is based on the principle that cognitive management, project management, and software development management must be integrated to fulfill the demands of product development and service provision. The research data was composed of registers of working hours spent on software development and maintenance projects involving 244 people allocated to 5064 projects in the period from 2007 to 2013. The study resulted in the identification of the relationships among the three management models adopted by the organization, with emphasis on knowledge management activities, which were not directly identified, making it difficult to account for and measure them. We established a set of activities connected to each one of the knowledge management model phases. Since those activities were not visible before, our approach contributed to build a systematic process to register and relate activities linked to the dimensions of cognitive processes, project management, and software construction.

On Software Application Database Constraint-driven Design and Development

This paper presents a methodology driven by database constraints for designing and developing(database)software applications.Much needed and with excellent results,this paradigm guarantees the highest possible quality of the managed data.The proposed methodology is illustrated with an easy to understand,yet complex medium-sized genealogy software application driven by more than 200 database constraints,which fully meets such expectations.

Adaptive Sparse Grid Discontinuous Galerkin Method:Review and Software Implementation

This paper reviews the adaptive sparse grid discontinuous Galerkin(aSG-DG)method for computing high dimensional partial differential equations(PDEs)and its software implementation.The C++software package called AdaM-DG,implementing the aSG-DG method,is available on GitHub at https://github.com/JuntaoHuang/adaptive-multiresolution-DG.The package is capable of treating a large class of high dimensional linear and nonlinear PDEs.We review the essential components of the algorithm and the functionality of the software,including the multiwavelets used,assembling of bilinear operators,fast matrix-vector product for data with hierarchical structures.We further demonstrate the performance of the package by reporting the numerical error and the CPU cost for several benchmark tests,including linear transport equations,wave equations,and Hamilton-Jacobi(HJ)equations.

An Approach to Detect Structural Development Defects in Object-Oriented Programs

Structural development defects essentially refer to code structure that violates object-oriented design principles. They make program maintenance challenging and deteriorate software quality over time. Various detection approaches, ranging from traditional heuristic algorithms to machine learning methods, are used to identify these defects. Ensemble learning methods have strengthened the detection of these defects. However, existing approaches do not simultaneously exploit the capabilities of extracting relevant features from pre-trained models and the performance of neural networks for the classification task. Therefore, our goal has been to design a model that combines a pre-trained model to extract relevant features from code excerpts through transfer learning and a bagging method with a base estimator, a dense neural network, for defect classification. To achieve this, we composed multiple samples of the same size with replacements from the imbalanced dataset MLCQ1. For all the samples, we used the CodeT5-small variant to extract features and trained a bagging method with the neural network Roberta Classification Head to classify defects based on these features. We then compared this model to RandomForest, one of the ensemble methods that yields good results. Our experiments showed that the number of base estimators to use for bagging depends on the defect to be detected. Next, we observed that it was not necessary to use a data balancing technique with our model when the imbalance rate was 23%. Finally, for blob detection, RandomForest had a median MCC value of 0.36 compared to 0.12 for our method. However, our method was predominant in Long Method detection with a median MCC value of 0.53 compared to 0.42 for RandomForest. These results suggest that the performance of ensemble methods in detecting structural development defects is dependent on specific defects.

Development Methodologies for Network Softwarization: A Comparison of DevOps, NetOps, and Verification

This white paper explores three popular development methodologies for network softwarization: DevOps, NetOps, and Verification. The paper compares and contrasts the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and provides recommendations for organizations looking to adopt network softwarization.

Modeling and Software Development of the Interfacial Transition Zone of Ellipsoidal Aggregate in Cement-Based Composites

The interfacial transition zone (ITZ) between the aggregates and the bulk paste is the weakest zone of ordinary concrete, which largely determines its mechanical and transporting properties. However, a complete understanding and a quantitative modeling of ITZ are still lacking. Consequently, an integrated modeling and experimental study were conducted. First, the theoretical calculation model of the ITZ volume fraction about the rotary ellipsoidal aggregate particles was established based on the nearest surface function formula. Its calculation programs were written based on Visual Basic 6.0 language and achieved visualization and functionalization. Then, the influencing factors of ITZ volume fraction of the ellipsoidal aggregate particles and the overlapping degree between the ITZ were systematically analyzed. Finally, the calculation models of ITZ volume fraction on actual ellipsoidal aggregate were given, based on cobblestones or pebbles particles with naturally ellipsoidal shape. The results indicate that the calculation model proposed is highly reliable.

Security Threat and Vulnerability Assessment and Measurement in Secure Software Development

Security is critical to the success of software,particularly in today’s fast-paced,technology-driven environment.It ensures that data,code,and services maintain their CIA(Confidentiality,Integrity,and Availability).This is only possible if security is taken into account at all stages of the SDLC(Software Development Life Cycle).Various approaches to software quality have been developed,such as CMMI(Capabilitymaturitymodel integration).However,there exists no explicit solution for incorporating security into all phases of SDLC.One of the major causes of pervasive vulnerabilities is a failure to prioritize security.Even the most proactive companies use the“patch and penetrate”strategy,inwhich security is accessed once the job is completed.Increased cost,time overrun,not integrating testing and input in SDLC,usage of third-party tools and components,and lack of knowledge are all reasons for not paying attention to the security angle during the SDLC,despite the fact that secure software development is essential for business continuity and survival in today’s ICT world.There is a need to implement best practices in SDLC to address security at all levels.To fill this gap,we have provided a detailed overview of secure software development practices while taking care of project costs and deadlines.We proposed a secure SDLC framework based on the identified practices,which integrates the best security practices in various SDLC phases.A mathematical model is used to validate the proposed framework.A case study and findings show that the proposed system aids in the integration of security best practices into the overall SDLC,resulting in more secure applications.

Software development of modeling assistant for continuous suspension bridges with multi-pylon

Building a reasonable and accurate finite element model is the first and critical step for structural analysis of complicated bridge. In this article, modeling assistant for continuous suspension with multi-pylon is developed based on .Net platform, with VB.Net, C# language and OpenGL graphic technique. With parameterized modeling method, finite element model of this kind of bridge can be built quickly and accurately, and multi-type element modeling with uniform parameters is realized. With advanced graphic technique, three-dimensional model graph can be real-timely previewed for intuitive data check. With an example of practice project, the accuracy and feasibility of this modeling method and practicality of this software are verified.

（Dis）Economies of Scale in Business Software Systems Development and Enhancement Projects

In the software engineering literature, it is commonly believed that economies of scale do not occur in case of software Development and Enhancement Projects （D＆EP）. Their per-unit cost does not decrease but increase with the growth of such projects product size. Thus this is diseconomies of scale that occur in them. The significance of this phenomenon results from the fact that it is commonly considered to be one of the fundamental objective causes of their low effectiveness. This is of particular significance with regard to Business Software Systems （BSS） D＆EP characterized by exceptionally low effectiveness comparing to other software D＆EP. Thus the paper aims at answering the following two questions： （1） Do economies of scale really not occur in BSS D＆EP？ （2） If economies of scale may occur in BSS D＆EP, what factors are then promoting them？ These issues classify into economics problems of software engineering research and practice.

Open Source Software Movement: A Challenging Opportunity for the Development of China's Software Industry

The software industries in developing countries are facing enormous challenges in order to grow amid fierce competition of import from the software makers in developed countries. Open source software (OSS) movement, which is a particular phenomenon in the software industries, seems to be a challenging opportunity for the developing countries that wants to move their own software industries up the value chain. This paper, using China as an example, identifies the issues that need to be addressed for the software industry, as well as the special characteristics of software products that need to be dealt with carefully. It proposes promoting OSS as a strategy the Chinese government should adopt to grow the software industry and the specific actions that should be taken.

Software Development for Digital Control of WDW Series Testing Machine and Measurement of K_(IC)

Software has been developed for digital control of WDW series testing machine and the measurement of fracture toughness by modularized design. Development of the software makes use of multi-thread and serial communication techniques, which can accurately control the testing machine and measure the fracture toughness in real-time. Three-point bending specimens were used in the measurement. The software operates stably and reliably, expanding the function of WDW series testing machine.

Agile Software Development趣事

Robert C.Martin的经典著作《Agile SoftwareDevelopment》中文版即将由清华大学出版社出版,这是计算机技术出版领域的一件大喜事。即使在今天技术图书市场非常繁荣的局面下,这本书的问世也仍然是值得广大开发者格外留意和关注的事件。这不仅是因为它刚刚荣获2003年度Jolt震撼大奖,更因为这本书本身的价值和独特魅力。

Optimal Sprint Length Determination for Agile-Based Software Development

A carefully planned software development process helps in maintaining the quality of the software.In today’s scenario the primitive software development models have been replaced by the Agile based models like SCRUM,KANBAN,LEAN,etc.Although,every framework has its own boon,the reason for widespread acceptance of the agile-based approach is its evolutionary nature that permits change in the path of software development.The development process occurs in iterative and incremental cycles called sprints.In SCRUM,which is one of the most widely used agile-based software development modeling framework;the sprint length is fixed throughout the process wherein;it is usually taken to be 1–4 weeks.But in practical application,the sprint length should be altered intuitively as per the requirement.To overcome this limitation,in this paper,a methodical work has been presented that determines the optimal sprint length based on two varied and yet connected attributes;the cost incurred and the work intensity required.The approach defines the number of tasks performed in each sprint along with the corresponding cost incurred in performing those tasks.Multi-attribute utility theory(MAUT),a multi-criterion decision making approach,has been utilized to find the required trade-off between two attributes under consideration.The proposed modeling framework has been validated using real life data set.With the use of the model,the optimal sprint for each sprint could be evaluated which was much shorter than the original length.Thus,the results obtained validate the proposal of a dynamic sprint length that can be determined before the start of each sprint.The structure would help in cost as well as time savings for a firm.

DPOI: Distributed Software System Development Platform for Ocean Information Service

Ocean information management is of great importance as it has been employed in many areas of ocean science and technology. However, the developments of Ocean Information Systems(OISs) often suffer from low efficiency because of repetitive work and continuous modifications caused by dynamic requirements. In this paper, the basic requirements of OISs are analyzed first, and then a novel platform DPOI is proposed to improve development efficiency and enhance software quality of OISs by providing off-the-shelf resources. In the platform, the OIS is decomposed hierarchically into a set of modules, which can be reused in different system developments. These modules include the acquisition middleware and data loader that collect data from instruments and files respectively, the database that stores data consistently, the components that support fast application generation, the web services that make the data from distributed sources syntactical by use of predefined schemas and the configuration toolkit that enables software customization. With the assistance of the development platform, the software development needs no programming and the development procedure is thus accelerated greatly. We have applied the development platform in practical developments and evaluated its efficiency in several development practices and different development approaches. The results show that DPOI significantly improves development efficiency and software quality.