29982810
A proposal for object oriented Modula-2
3050709
Quality assurance in a student-based agile software engineering process
Agile methodologies have proven to be a popular addition to the software engineering toolbox, promising significant advances in quality for small teams, with developers no longer weighed under by the documentation said to characterise traditional approaches. Yet, in spite of these claims, quality assurance remains a question to which agile methodologies have given only a partially satisfactory answer. This work examines quality assurance practices among student developers working within a lightweight iterative development process. Our focus is upon the linkages between their reported practices and the quality levels observed in the systems delivered. The study has identified a range of approaches to improving quality for small, inexperienced teams, with applications to both the educational and SME environments.
12699179
Developing the Software Engineering Team
Teamwork is often considered one of the most important "generic skills" that we can provide to graduates entering the information technology profession. Often though, through the rush of covering important content, we short change our students by giving them limited opportunities to learn how to work effectively in teams. Students also often complain that although they are expected to work in teams on projects, they are never given any advice or guidance on how to work in a team (Hart and Stone, 2002). Or, if they are given guidance, it is often from a business perspective that students find difficult to integrate into their software development practice.In this paper we discuss a course-spanning initiative to help students learn teamwork skills. This initiative starts in first year by emphasising a core set of skills directly related to working in teams. These skills are applied in small software development teams, with close tutor supervision focusing students on teamwork rather than upon individual software development. The theme then continues into second and third year where the growing sophistication of the students' teamwork skills is complemented by increasing their independence and requiring students to apply a professional software engineering process as a development team. By the end of their course students are then in a position to work together effectively solving complex problems for a real industry client.
6336074
Developing Case Studies to Enhance Student Learning
In this paper we describe the cases developed in response to the multifaceted challenges we faced in educating IT professionals in intermediate-level programming. The challenges included: the practical nature of the subject, the level of skill attained, preparing students for the workplace and class size. We implemented Problem-Based Learning (PBL) as the teaching and learning method to meet these challenges by helping first-year university students learn programming while simultaneously developing graduate capabilities. This necessitated redevelopment of the curriculum and the way it was taught. We combined software engineering and information systems approaches in real-world scenarios. The cases were designed to help students come to terms with the human side of information technology through the context and method of teaching and learning as they worked through the cases.
51685
An improved linear edge bound for graph linkages
A graph is said to be k-linked if it has at least 2k vertices and for every sequence S1,...,Sk, t1,...,tk of distinct vertices there exist disjoint paths P1,...,Pk such that the ends of Pi are si and ti. Bollobas and Thomason showed that if a simple graph G on n vertices is 2k-connected and G has at least 11kn edges, then G is k-linked. We give a relatively simple inductive proof of the stronger statement that 8kn edges and 2k-connectivity suffice, and then with more effort improve the edge bound to 5kn.
1883056
An Investigation into Keystroke Latency Metrics as an Indicator of Programming Performance
Typing has long been studied in psychology and HCI, and strong cognitive models for transcription typing exist. The goal of the present research was to test if there is any correlation between students' keystroking speed and performance while they are programming. We present the results from two studies with computer science students conducted in different contexts. Keystroke timings were recorded while they worked on Java and Ada source code. Quality of their programming work was measured mainly in terms of completeness. In the controlled experiment that lasted six hours, 39 students undertook three change tasks on a 6000 LOC Java application. In the field study, data was collected over 6 weeks from 141 students while they worked unsupervised on Ada programming in first year laboratories. In both cases there were highly significant (P=0.001), moderately strong, negative correlations between speed and coding performance. With additional development, these techniques may have promise for user modelling and assessment as well as in educational diagnostics.
31462634
Kuratowski Chains
6798576
Locational pricing and scheduling for an integrated energy-reserve market
It is well known that given a network that can become constrained on voltage or real power flows, reserves must also be spatially located in order to handle all credible contingencies. However, to date, there is no credible science-based method for assigning and pricing reserves in this way. Presented in this paper is a new scheduling algorithm incorporating constraints imposed by grid security considerations, which include one base case (intact system) and a list of possible contingencies (line-out, unit-lost, and load-growth) of the system. By following a cost-minimizing co-optimization procedure, both power and reserve are allocated spatially for the combined energy and reserve markets. With the Lagrange multipliers (dual variables) obtained, the scheduling algorithm also reveals the locational shadow prices for the reserve and energy requirements. Unlike other pricing and scheduling methods in use, which are usually ad-hoc and are based on engineering judgment and experience, this proposed formulation is likely to perform better in restructured markets when market power is a potential problem. An illustrative example of a modified IEEE 30-bus system is used to introduce concepts and present results.
17884360
Experimental results for single period auctions
The objective of the paper is to present experimental results for testing the performance of different auction mechanisms related to the introduction of competitive markets for the generation of electricity. The research is based on the concept of smart markets introduced by Vernon Smith (K.A. McCabe et al., 1991) and a simulation model (PowerWeb) of a realistic bulk power system. There are unique physical aspects associated with the supply of electricity (e.g. required instantaneous matching of supply and demand, unintended congestion of parallel transmission routes and maintenance of system stability in response to disturbances). As a result, traditional theories of efficient markets and auction structures developed for other commodities may not be efficient if applied without alteration to markets for electricity. Conversely, current utility rules of operation developed for a centrally planned regime may not be appropriate in a competitive environment. The research does not address the issues of multiperiod operations (unit commitment) and multidimensional markets (ancillary services), and considers only real power in a single time period. The main objective is to test three alternative auction mechanisms when market power is a potential problem. This situation occurs when limits on transmission lines are binding to form a load pocket in which demand is met by a few (in this case two) generators.