Does Service Discovery Enhance Requirements Specification? A Preliminary Empirical Investigation

A well-known side-effect of applying requirements specification languages is that the formalization of informal requirements leads to the detection of defects such as omissions, conflicts, and ambiguities. However, there is little quantitative data available on this effect. This chapter presents an empirical study of requirements specification languages, in which two research questions are addressed: Which types of defects are detected by a requirements engineer during formalization? Which types of defects go undetected and what happens to those types in a formal specification? The results suggest looking explicitly for ambiguities during formalization, because they are less frequently detected than other types of defects. If they are detected, they require immediate clarification by the requirements author. The majority of ambiguities tend to become disambiguated unconsciously, that is, the correct interpretation was chosen, but without recurring to the requirements author. This is a serious problem, because implicit assumptions are known to be dangerous.

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Exploiting Codified User Task Knowledge to Discover Services at Design-Time

International Journal of Systems and Service-Oriented Engineering ◽

10.4018/jssoe.2012040103 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 30-66

Author(s):

Konstantinos Zachos ◽

Angela Kounkou ◽

Neil A. M. Maiden

Keyword(s):

Service Discovery ◽

Empirical Investigation ◽

Specific Knowledge ◽

Codified Knowledge ◽

Task Knowledge ◽

Design Time ◽

User Tasks ◽

Context Specific

Most techniques for engineering service-based applications do not explicitly exploit knowledge about users and their tasks. In this paper the authors hypothesize that codified knowledge about user tasks can improve service discovery at design-time. It reports the extension of an existing service discovery algorithm to match service queries to user task models then reformulate the service queries with task-specific knowledge in order to improve discovery precision and recall scores. An empirical investigation of the extended algorithm revealed that, in order to deliver significant benefits, user task models need to describe more context-specific knowledge with which to extend service queries.

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Self-Esteem and the SCII: Empirical Investigation of a Clinical Observation

Measurement and Evaluation in Guidance ◽

10.1080/00256307.1979.12022188 ◽

1979 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 82-86

Author(s):

Karen Friedel ◽

Jo-Ida Hansen ◽

Thomas J. Hummel ◽

Warren F. Shaffer

Keyword(s):

Empirical Investigation ◽

Clinical Observation ◽

Self Esteem

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Self-Injurious Behavior vs. Nonsuicidal Self-Injury

Crisis ◽

10.1027/0227-5910/a000127 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 106-112 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Christopher M. Bloom ◽

Shareen Holly ◽

Adam M. P. Miller

Keyword(s):

Positive Reinforcement ◽

Empirical Investigation ◽

High Stress ◽

Animal Research ◽

Stress Conditions ◽

Human Populations ◽

Pharmacological Interventions ◽

Self Injury ◽

Cns Stimulant ◽

Nonsuicidal Self Injury

Background: Historically, the field of self-injury has distinguished between the behaviors exhibited among individuals with a developmental disability (self-injurious behaviors; SIB) and those present within a normative population (nonsuicidal self-injury; NSSI),which typically result as a response to perceived stress. More recently, however, conclusions about NSSI have been drawn from lines of animal research aimed at examining the neurobiological mechanisms of SIB. Despite some functional similarity between SIB and NSSI, no empirical investigation has provided precedent for the application of SIB-targeted animal research as justification for pharmacological interventions in populations demonstrating NSSI. Aims: The present study examined this question directly, by simulating an animal model of SIB in rodents injected with pemoline and systematically manipulating stress conditions in order to monitor rates of self-injury. Methods: Sham controls and experimental animals injected with pemoline (200 mg/kg) were assigned to either a low stress (discriminated positive reinforcement) or high stress (discriminated avoidance) group and compared on the dependent measures of self-inflicted injury prevalence and severity. Results: The manipulation of stress conditions did not impact the rate of self-injury demonstrated by the rats. The results do not support a model of stress-induced SIB in rodents. Conclusions: Current findings provide evidence for caution in the development of pharmacotherapies of NSSI in human populations based on CNS stimulant models. Theoretical implications are discussed with respect to antecedent factors such as preinjury arousal level and environmental stress.

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