Replications of software engineering experiments

There are many open issues that must be addressed before the replication process can be successfully formalized in empirical software engineering research. We define replication as the deliberate repetition of the same empirical study for the purpose of determining whether the results of the first experiment can be reproduced. This definition would appear at first glance to be good. However, it needs several clarifications that have not yet been forthcoming in software engineering: – What is the exact meaning of the same empirical study? Namely how similar should an experiment be to the baseline study for it to be considered a replication? What is the exact meaning of a result being reproduced? Namely how similar does a result have to be to the result of the baseline study for it to be considered reproduced? These and other methodological questions need to be researched and tailored for empirical software engineering.

Emotions and the Engineering of Adaptiveness in Complex Systems

A major challenge in the engineering of complex and critical systems is the management of change, both in the system and in its operational environment. Due to the growing of complexity in systems, new approaches on autonomy must be able to detect critical changes and avoid their progress towards undesirable states. We are searching for methods to build systems that can tune the adaptability protocols. New mechanisms that use system-wellness requirements to reduce the influence of the outer domain and transfer the control of uncertainly to the inner one. Under the view of cognitive systems, biological emotions suggests a strategy to configure value-based systems to use semantic self-representations of the state. A method inspired by emotion theories to causally connect to the inner domain of the system and its objectives of wellness, focusing on dynamically adapting the system to avoid the progress of critical states. This method shall endow the system with a transversal mechanism to monitor its inner processes, detecting critical states and managing its adaptivity in order to maintain the wellness goals. The paper describes the current vision produced by this work-in-progress.

An annotated bibliography of CERC coastal ecology research /

Includes indexes.

An annotated bibliography of patents related to coastal engineering /

"November 1979."

Instrumentation at CERC's Field Research Facility, Duck, North Carolina /

"October 1980."

A user's guide to CERC's Field Research Facility /

"October 1981."

Beach fauna study of the CERC Field Research Facility, Duck, North Carolina /

Issued April 1977.

An annotated bibliography of CERC coastal ecology research /

Includes indexes.

Pollution prevention research programs /

Mode of access: Internet.

Interagency Conference on Continental Shelf Research.

"January 1966."

Handheld calculator algorithms for coastal engineering.

Report 1 of this report is issued as Coastal Engineering Research Center, Coastal engineering technical aid no. 82-1; Report 2 is issued as Coastal engineering technical aid no. 82-4.

Vegetative study at the Duck Field Research Facility, Duck, North Carolina /

"April 1976."

CERC Field Research Facility environmental data summary, 1977-79 /

"December 1982."

Reevaluation of vegetational characteristics at the CERC Field Research Facility, Duck, North Carolina /

"March 1983."

Advancing human ecology through progress in safety research.

Mode of access: Internet.