scholarly journals Commonalities and differences between requirements engineering tools: A quantitative approach

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 257-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
de Carrillo ◽  
Joaquín Nicolás ◽  
Alemán Fernández ◽  
Ambrosio Toval ◽  
Christof Ebert ◽  
...  

System and software developers are concerned to gain insight into how current requirements engineering (RE) tools support processes. There is an important number of RE tools currently available on the market but, unfortunately, existing RE tool lists do not usually provide detailed and precise information about the tools they catalogue. In this paper, we study and compare current RE tools in the quest to answer the following research question: What level of variation, in terms of functionality, is observable in state-of-practice RE tools? A 188-item survey was designed, aimed at major tool vendors worldwide and based principally on the features covered by the ISO/IEC TR 24766:2009. Extensive data obtained from 29 participants was used to classify and group the RE tools, based on their capabilities. First of all, an inter-rater reliability analysis was performed to ensure the trustworthiness of the data. Descriptive statistics, hierarchical cluster analysis and statistical hypothesis testing were then applied. The tool scores for each candidate were calculated. A total of three clusters were identified. Statistically significant differences in coverage of features among these groups came to light. Our findings can help practitioners to decide which tool is the most suitable among several alternatives, according to their particular needs.

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-27
Author(s):  
BIRGIT C. AQUILONIUS ◽  
MARY E. BRENNER

Results from a study of 16 community college students are presented. The research question concerned how students reasoned about p-values. Students' approach to p-values in hypothesis testing was procedural. Students viewed p-values as something that one compares to alpha values in order to arrive at an answer and did not attach much meaning to p-values as an independent concept. Therefore it is not surprising that students often were puzzled over how to translate their statistical answer to an answer of the question asked in the problem. Some reflections on how instruction in statistical hypothesis testing can be improved are given. First published November 2015 at Statistics Education Research Journal Archives


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 4878
Author(s):  
Sandra Ricart ◽  
Rubén A. Villar-Navascués ◽  
Salvador Gil-Guirado ◽  
María Hernández-Hernández ◽  
Antonio M. Rico-Amorós ◽  
...  

Research interest in massive online and open courses (MOOCs) is rapidly growing, questioning who enrolls, why and how to conceive engagement, and success rates. This study is focused on MOOC-takers behavior obtained from a seven-week MOOC experience on natural risks. Data scraping principles have been used to collect data. Demographics, success-dropout rates, engagement periods, achievement and scoring, and behavior were analyzed through descriptive statistics, non-parametric correlation analysis, and statistical hypothesis testing. The results show that students who start earlier and those who finish earlier the course obtain better grades in some of the modules (motivation and background on natural risks could be the explanation). However, for ‘last moment students’, speed in passing the modules is either related to greater motivation, although in this case it is not related to better grades. Furthermore, students who complete tasks during the weekend take less time to complete the modules and obtain a better grade. In addition, a learning strategy is promoted by reconsidering who is learning: players (those who complete the course and earning a certificate), auditors (those who have completed a thematic unit or the whole module, earning partial knowledge), and spectators (those enrolled until the end of the course, who intend earning experience in e-learning).


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukas Vlcek ◽  
Shize Yang ◽  
Yongji Gong ◽  
Pulickel Ajayan ◽  
Wu Zhou ◽  
...  

AbstractExploration of structure-property relationships as a function of dopant concentration is commonly based on mean field theories for solid solutions. However, such theories that work well for semiconductors tend to fail in materials with strong correlations, either in electronic behavior or chemical segregation. In these cases, the details of atomic arrangements are generally not explored and analyzed. The knowledge of the generative physics and chemistry of the material can obviate this problem, since defect configuration libraries as stochastic representation of atomic level structures can be generated, or parameters of mesoscopic thermodynamic models can be derived. To obtain such information for improved predictions, we use data from atomically resolved microscopic images that visualize complex structural correlations within the system and translate them into statistical mechanical models of structure formation. Given the significant uncertainties about the microscopic aspects of the material’s processing history along with the limited number of available images, we combine model optimization techniques with the principles of statistical hypothesis testing. We demonstrate the approach on data from a series of atomically-resolved scanning transmission electron microscopy images of MoxRe1-xS2 at varying ratios of Mo/Re stoichiometries, for which we propose an effective interaction model that is then used to generate atomic configurations and make testable predictions at a range of concentrations and formation temperatures.


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 1153
Author(s):  
Elysia Racanelli ◽  
Abdulhadi Jfri ◽  
Amnah Gefri ◽  
Elizabeth O’Brien ◽  
Ivan Litvinov ◽  
...  

Background: Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) is a rare complication of hidradenitis suppurativa (HS). Objectives: To conduct a systematic review and an individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis to describe the clinical characteristics of HS patients developing cSCC and determine predictors of poor outcome. Methods: Medline/PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science were searched for studies reporting cSCC arising in patients with HS from inception to December 2019. A routine descriptive analysis, statistical hypothesis testing, and Kaplan–Meier survival curves/Cox proportional hazards regression models were performed. Results: A total of 34 case reports and series including 138 patients were included in the study. The majority of patients were males (81.6%), White (83.3%), and smokers (n = 22/27 reported) with a mean age of 53.5 years. Most patients had gluteal (87.8%), Hurley stage 3 HS (88.6%). The mean time from the diagnosis of HS to the development of cSCC was 24.7 years. Human papillomavirus was identified in 12/38 patients tested. Almost 50% of individuals had nodal metastasis and 31.3% had distant metastases. Half of the patients succumbed to their disease. Conclusions: cSCC is a rare but life-threatening complication seen in HS patients, mainly occurring in White males who are smokers with severe, long-standing gluteal HS. Regular clinical examination and biopsy of any suspicious lesions in high-risk patients should be considered. The use of HPV vaccination as a preventive and possibly curative method needs to be explored.


Author(s):  
Alma Andersson ◽  
Joakim Lundeberg

Abstract Motivation Collection of spatial signals in large numbers has become a routine task in multiple omics-fields, but parsing of these rich datasets still pose certain challenges. In whole or near-full transcriptome spatial techniques, spurious expression profiles are intermixed with those exhibiting an organized structure. To distinguish profiles with spatial patterns from the background noise, a metric that enables quantification of spatial structure is desirable. Current methods designed for similar purposes tend to be built around a framework of statistical hypothesis testing, hence we were compelled to explore a fundamentally different strategy. Results We propose an unexplored approach to analyze spatial transcriptomics data, simulating diffusion of individual transcripts to extract genes with spatial patterns. The method performed as expected when presented with synthetic data. When applied to real data, it identified genes with distinct spatial profiles, involved in key biological processes or characteristic for certain cell types. Compared to existing methods, ours seemed to be less informed by the genes’ expression levels and showed better time performance when run with multiple cores. Availabilityand implementation Open-source Python package with a command line interface (CLI), freely available at https://github.com/almaan/sepal under an MIT licence. A mirror of the GitHub repository can be found at Zenodo, doi: 10.5281/zenodo.4573237. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7086
Author(s):  
Martina Maněnová ◽  
Janet Wolf ◽  
Martin Skutil ◽  
Jitka Vítová

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of distance education in primary schools has become a much-discussed topic. It is therefore no surprise that the issues related to it have come to the forefront of many researchers. There is, however, at least one group that has stayed relatively unnoticed, and it is so-called small schools. Thus, we conducted a qualitative study based on the phenomenological approach, searching for answers to our research question: What has been the experience of the directors of small schools with distance education during the pandemic? Our findings offer an in-depth insight into the life of six schools through the eyes of their directors. Semi-structural interviews with school directors helped us reveal three key factors that, in our opinion, had the greatest influence on the form of distance education. These are (1) the factor of ICT competence of all actors, (2) the factor of organization of educational settings, and (3) the factor of the teaching methods and forms used in education. Furthermore, we conclude the result section with a subchapter that captures the positive aspects of distance education as perceived by the addressed school directors.


2021 ◽  
pp. 088626052198985
Author(s):  
Sally Marsden ◽  
Cathy Humphreys ◽  
Kelsey Hegarty

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a complex and multifaceted problem gaining increasing attention within mental health research and practice. IPV explanations focus on both individual and systemic levels; however, it is increasingly acknowledged that a single level explanation may not be sufficient. The practices of clinical disciplines may, however, still privilege an explanation at one level over another, which will influence how they work with clients. It is likely that one such clinical group, psychologists, may play a critical role in helping victim-survivors to understand and explain their experiences of IPV. However, we were unable to find any studies focusing on women’s perceptions of psychologists’ role in this. Additionally, we know little about women victim-survivors’ perceptions of why their partners use IPV. To address these gaps, the research question for this study was: What explanations resonate during counseling for women in understanding their partner’s abuse? To explore this question, 20 women who had seen psychologists after experiencing IPV participated in semi-structured interviews. The interviews were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis and three themes constructed from the data. The first two themes, narcissist description was helpful and not all bad all the time, showed that the women found it powerful in their healing processes when psychologists offered the opportunity to discuss their partners individual characteristics as explanations for their use of IPV. The third theme, structural explanations, showed that some of the women also reflected on wider structural contexts. Implications for clinical practice include the potential healing effect when practitioners can move along a continuum of explanation levels, covering both the inner and outer worlds. Implications for research into IPV perpetration are that women hold expertise and insight into individual perpetrators and could make valuable contributions to this field.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document