Free software as a democratic principle

Software forms an important part of the interface between citizens and their government. An increasing amount of government functions are being performed, controlled, or delivered electronically. This software, like all language, is never value-neutral, but must, to some extent, reflect the values of the coder and proprietor. The move that many governments are making towards e-governance, and the increasing reliance that is being placed upon software in government, necessitates a rethinking of the relationships of power and control that are embodied in software.

Experience design and interactive software in music education research

This paper examines the integration of computing technologies into music education research in a way informed by constructivism. In particular, this paper focuses on an approach established by Jeanne Bamberger, which the author also employs, that integrates software design, pedagogical exploration, and the building of music education theory. In this tradition, researchers design software and associated activities to facilitate the interactive manipulation of musical structures and ideas. In short, this approach focuses on designing experiences and tools that support musical thinking and doing. In comparing the work of Jean Bamberger with that of the author, this paper highlights and discusses issues of significance and identifies lessons for future research.

Extensible software for research data capture

Projects funded by the Australian National Data Service(ANDS). The specific projects that were funded included: a) Greenhouse Gas Emissions Project (N2O) with Prof. Peter Grace from QUT’s Institute of Sustainable Resources. b) Q150 Project for the management of multimedia data collected at Festival events with Prof. Phil Graham from QUT’s Institute of Creative Industries. c) Bio-diversity environmental sensing with Prof. Paul Roe from the QUT Microsoft eResearch Centre. For the purposes of these projects the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (Eclipse RCP) was chosen as an appropriate software development framework within which to develop the respective software. This poster will present a brief overview of the requirements of the projects, an overview of the experiences of the project team in using Eclipse RCP, report on the advantages and disadvantages of using Eclipse and it’s perspective on Eclipse as an integrated tool for supporting future data management requirements.

Improving Usability of Software Refactoring Tools

Post-deployment maintenance and evolution can account for up to 75% of the cost of developing a software system. Software refactoring can reduce the costs associated with evolution by improving system quality. Although refactoring can yield benefits, the process includes potentially complex, error-prone, tedious and time-consuming tasks. It is these tasks that automated refactoring tools seek to address. However, although the refactoring process is well-defined, current refactoring tools do not support the full process. To develop better automated refactoring support, we have completed a usability study of software refactoring tools. In the study, we analysed the task of software refactoring using the ISO 9241-11 usability standard and Fitts' List of task allocation. Expanding on this analysis, we reviewed 11 collections of usability guidelines and combined these into a single list of 38 guidelines. From this list, we developed 81 usability requirements for refactoring tools. Using these requirements, the software refactoring tools Eclipse 3.2, Condenser 1.05, RefactorIT 2.5.1, and Eclipse 3.2 with the Simian UI 2.2.12 plugin were studied. Based on the analysis, we have selected a subset of the requirements that can be incorporated into a prototype refactoring tool intended to address the full refactoring process.

A software framework for risk-aware business process management

With the large diffusion of Business Process Managemen (BPM) automation suites, the possibility of managing process-related risks arises. This paper introduces an innovative framework for process-related risk management and describes a working implementation realized by extending the YAWL system. The framework covers three aspects of risk management: risk monitoring, risk prevention, and risk mitigation. Risk monitoring functionality is provided using a sensor-based architecture, where sensors are defined at design time and used at run-time for monitoring purposes. Risk prevention functionality is provided in the form of suggestions about what should be executed, by who, and how, through the use of decision trees. Finally, risk mitigation functionality is provided as a sequence of remedial actions (e.g. reallocating, skipping, rolling back of a work item) that should be executed to restore the process to a normal situation.

Machine vision toolbox for MATLAB, release 3 [Software]

The Toolbox, combined with MATLAB ® and a modern workstation computer, is a useful and convenient environment for investigation of machine vision algorithms. For modest image sizes the processing rate can be sufficiently ``real-time'' to allow for closed-loop control. Focus of attention methods such as dynamic windowing (not provided) can be used to increase the processing rate. With input from a firewire or web camera (support provided) and output to a robot (not provided) it would be possible to implement a visual servo system entirely in MATLAB. Provides many functions that are useful in machine vision and vision-based control. Useful for photometry, photogrammetry, colorimetry. It includes over 100 functions spanning operations such as image file reading and writing, acquisition, display, filtering, blob, point and line feature extraction, mathematical morphology, homographies, visual Jacobians, camera calibration and color space conversion.

Robotics toolbox for MATLAB, release 9 [Software]

The ninth release of the Toolbox, represents over fifteen years of development and a substantial level of maturity. This version captures a large number of changes and extensions generated over the last two years which support my new book “Robotics, Vision & Control”. The Toolbox has always provided many functions that are useful for the study and simulation of classical arm-type robotics, for example such things as kinematics, dynamics, and trajectory generation. The Toolbox is based on a very general method of representing the kinematics and dynamics of serial-link manipulators. These parameters are encapsulated in MATLAB ® objects - robot objects can be created by the user for any serial-link manipulator and a number of examples are provided for well know robots such as the Puma 560 and the Stanford arm amongst others. The Toolbox also provides functions for manipulating and converting between datatypes such as vectors, homogeneous transformations and unit-quaternions which are necessary to represent 3-dimensional position and orientation. This ninth release of the Toolbox has been significantly extended to support mobile robots. For ground robots the Toolbox includes standard path planning algorithms (bug, distance transform, D*, PRM), kinodynamic planning (RRT), localization (EKF, particle filter), map building (EKF) and simultaneous localization and mapping (EKF), and a Simulink model a of non-holonomic vehicle. The Toolbox also including a detailed Simulink model for a quadcopter flying robot.

Group dynamics and software engineering

This paper reports on an experiment that was conducted to determine the extent to which group dynamics impacts on the effectiveness of software development teams. The experiment was conducted on software engineering project students at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

Small and medium enterprises sourcing software as a service – a dynamic perspective on IS capabilities

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a promising approach for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) firms, in particular those that are focused on growing fast and leveraging new technology, due to the potential benefits arising from its inherent scalability, reduced total cost of ownership and the ease of access to global innovations. This paper proposes a dynamic perspective on IS capabilities to understand and explain SMEs sourcing and levering SaaS. The model is derived from combining the IS capabilities of Feeny and Willcocks (1998) and the dynamic capabilities of Teece (2007) and contextualizing it for SMEs and SaaS. We conclude that SMEs sourcing and leveraging SaaS require leadership, business systems thinking and informed buying for sensing and seizing SaaS opportunities and require leadership and vendor development for transforming in terms of aligning and realigning specific tangible and intangible assets.

Integrity, attribution, and exploitation : contractual and normative moral rights protection in open licensing

Over the last twenty years, the use of open content licenses has become increasingly and surprisingly popular. The use of such licences challenges the traditional incentive-based model of exclusive rights under copyright. Instead of providing a means to charge for the use of particular works, what seems important is mitigating against potential personal harm to the author and, in some cases, preventing non-consensual commercial exploitation. It is interesting in this context to observe the primacy of what are essentially moral rights over the exclusionary economic rights. The core elements of common open content licences map somewhat closely to continental conceptions of the moral rights of authorship. Most obviously, almost all free software and free culture licences require attribution of authorship. More interestingly, there is a tension between social norms developed in free software communities and those that have emerged in the creative arts over integrity and commercial exploitation. For programmers interested in free software, licence terms that prohibit commercial use or modification are almost completely inconsistent with the ideological and utilitarian values that underpin the movement. For those in the creative industries, on the other hand, non-commercial terms and, to a lesser extent, terms that prohibit all but verbatim distribution continue to play an extremely important role in the sharing of copyright material. While prohibitions on commercial use often serve an economic imperative, there is also a certain personal interest for many creators in avoiding harmful exploitation of their expression – an interest that has sometimes been recognised as forming a component of the moral right of integrity. One particular continental moral right – the right of withdrawal – is present neither in Australian law or in any of the common open content licences. Despite some marked differences, both free software and free culture participants are using contractual methods to articulate the norms of permissible sharing. Legal enforcement is rare and often prohibitively expensive, and the various communities accordingly rely upon shared understandings of acceptable behaviour. The licences that are commonly used represent a formalised expression of these community norms and provide the theoretically enforceable legal baseline that lends them legitimacy. The core terms of these licences are designed primarily to alleviate risk in sharing and minimise transaction costs in sharing and using copyright expression. Importantly, however, the range of available licences reflect different optional balances in the norms of creating and sharing material. Generally, it is possible to see that, stemming particularly from the US, open content licences are fundamentally important in providing a set of normatively accepted copyright balances that reflect the interests sought to be protected through moral rights regimes. As the cost of creation, distribution, storage, and processing of expression continues to fall towards zero, there are increasing incentives to adopt open content licences to facilitate wide distribution and reuse of creative expression. Thinking of these protocols not only as reducing transaction costs but of setting normative principles of participation assists in conceptualising the role of open content licences and the continuing tensions that permeate modern copyright law.

Iterative development of MobileMums : a physical activity intervention for women with young children.

Background To describe the iterative development process and final version of ‘MobileMums’: a physical activity intervention for women with young children (<5 years) delivered primarily via mobile telephone (mHealth) short messaging service (SMS). Methods MobileMums development followed the five steps outlined in the mHealth development and evaluation framework: 1) conceptualization (critique of literature and theory); 2) formative research (focus groups, n= 48); 3) pre-testing (qualitative pilot of intervention components, n= 12); 4) pilot testing (pilot RCT, n= 88); and, 5) qualitative evaluation of the refined intervention (n= 6). Results Key findings identified throughout the development process that shaped the MobileMums program were the need for: behaviour change techniques to be grounded in Social Cognitive Theory; tailored SMS content; two-way SMS interaction; rapport between SMS sender and recipient; an automated software platform to generate and send SMS; and, flexibility in location of a face-to-face delivered component. Conclusions The final version of MobileMums is flexible and adaptive to individual participant’s physical activity goals, expectations and environment. MobileMums is being evaluated in a community-based randomised controlled efficacy trial (ACTRN12611000481976).

miRDeep*: an integrated application tool for miRNA identification from RNA sequencing data

miRDeep and its varieties are widely used to quantify known and novel micro RNA (miRNA) from small RNA sequencing (RNAseq). This article describes miRDeep*, our integrated miRNA identification tool, which is modeled off miRDeep, but the precision of detecting novel miRNAs is improved by introducing new strategies to identify precursor miRNAs. miRDeep* has a user-friendly graphic interface and accepts raw data in FastQ and Sequence Alignment Map (SAM) or the binary equivalent (BAM) format. Known and novel miRNA expression levels, as measured by the number of reads, are displayed in an interface, which shows each RNAseq read relative to the pre-miRNA hairpin. The secondary pre-miRNA structure and read locations for each predicted miRNA are shown and kept in a separate figure file. Moreover, the target genes of known and novel miRNAs are predicted using the TargetScan algorithm, and the targets are ranked according to the confidence score. miRDeep* is an integrated standalone application where sequence alignment, pre-miRNA secondary structure calculation and graphical display are purely Java coded. This application tool can be executed using a normal personal computer with 1.5 GB of memory. Further, we show that miRDeep* outperformed existing miRNA prediction tools using our LNCaP and other small RNAseq datasets. miRDeep* is freely available online at http://www.australianprostatecentre.org/research/software/mirdeep-star

Self-determination theory as applied to the design of a software learning system using whole-body controls

Whole-body computer control interfaces present new opportunities to engage children with games for learning. Stomp is a suite of educational games that use such a technology, allowing young children to use their whole body to interact with a digital environment projected on the floor. To maximise the effectiveness of this technology, tenets of self-determination theory (SDT) are applied to the design of Stomp experiences. By meeting user needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness our aim is to increase children's engagement with the Stomp learning platform. Analysis of Stomp's design suggests that these tenets are met. Observations from a case study of Stomp being used by young children show that they were highly engaged and motivated by Stomp. This analysis demonstrates that continued application of SDT to Stomp will further enhance user engagement. It also is suggested that SDT, when applied more widely to other whole-body multi-user interfaces, could instil similar positive effects.