Safety-critical systems manufacturers have the duty of care, i.e., they should take correct steps while performing acts that could foreseeably harm others. Commonly, industry standards prescribe reasonable steps in their process requirements, which regulatory bodies trust. Manufacturers perform careful documentation of compliance with each requirement to show that they act under acceptable criteria. To facilitate this task, a safety-centered planning-time framework, called ACCEPT, has been proposed. Based on compliance-by-design, ACCEPT capabilities permit to design Compliance-aware Engineering Process Plans, (...) which are able to show the planning-time allocation of standard demands, i.e., if the elements set down by the standard requirements are present at given points in the engineering process plan. In this paper, we perform a case study to understand if the ACCEPT produced models could support the planning of space software engineering processes. Space software is safety and mission-critical, and it is often the result of industrial cooperation. Such cooperation is coordinated through compliance with relevant standards. In the European context, ECSS-E-ST-40C is the de-facto standard for space software production. The planning of processes in compliance with project-specific ECSS-E-ST-40C applicable requirements is mandatory during contractual agreements. Our analysis is based on qualitative criteria targeting the effort dictated by task demands required to create a CaEPP for software development with ACCEPT. Initial observations show that the effort required to model compliance and processes artifacts is significant. However, such an effort pays off in the long term since models are, to some extend, reusable and flexible. The coverage level of the models is also analyzed based on design decisions. In our opinion, such a level is adequate since it responds to the information needs required by the ECSS-E-ST-40C framework. (shrink)

Unlike in most professions, a license is not required to work as a software engineer. This essay argues software engineers, because they now render an essential service to society, should be licensed in a process that resembles licensing for doctors, lawyers and teachers.

The purpose of this article is to propose an ethical framework for software engineers that connects software developers’ ethical responsibilities directly to their professional standards. The implementation of such an ethical framework can overcome the traditional dichotomy between professional skills and ethical skills, which plagues the engineering professions, by proposing an approach to the fundamental tasks of the practitioner, i.e., software development, in which the professional standards are intrinsically connected to the ethical responsibilities. In so doing, (...) the ethical framework improves the practitioner’s professionalism and ethics. We call this approach Ethical-Driven Software Development, as an approach to software development. EDSD manifests the advantages of an ethical framework as an alternative to the all too familiar approach in professional ethics that advocates “stand-alone codes of ethics”. We believe that one outcome of this synergy between professional and ethical skills is simply better engineers. Moreover, since there are often different software solutions, which the engineer can provide to an issue at stake, the ethical framework provides a guiding principle, within the process of software development, that helps the engineer evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of different software solutions. It does not and cannot affect the end-product in and of-itself. However, it can and should, make the software engineer more conscious and aware of the ethical ramifications of certain engineering decisions within the process. (shrink)

Software systems play an ever more important role in our lives and software engineers and their companies find themselves in a position where they are held responsible for ethical issues that may arise. In this paper, we try to disentangle ethical considerations that can be performed at the level of the software engineer from those that belong in the wider domain of business ethics. The handling of ethical problems that fall into the responsibility of the engineer has (...) traditionally been addressed by the publication of Codes of Ethics and Conduct. We argue that these Codes are barely able to provide normative orientation in software development. The main contribution of this paper is, thus, to analyze the normative features of Codes of Ethics in software engineering and to explicate how their value-based approach might prevent their usefulness from a normative perspective. Codes of Conduct cannot replace ethical deliberation because they do not and cannot offer guidance because of their underdetermined nature. This lack of orientation, we argue, triggers reactive behavior such as “cherry-picking,” “risk of indifference,” “ex-post orientation,” and the “desire to rely on gut feeling.” In the light of this, we propose to implement ethical deliberation within software development teams as a way out. (shrink)

Over the past four decades, software engineering has emerged as a discipline in its own right, though it has roots both in computer science and in classical engineering. Its philosophical foundations and premises are not yet well understood. In recent times, members of the software engineering community have started to search for such foundations. In particular, the philosophies of Kuhn and Popper have been used by philosophically-minded software engineers in search of a deeper understanding (...) of their discipline. It seems, however, that professional philosophers of science are not yet aware of this new discourse within the field of software engineering. Therefore, this article aims to reflect critically upon recent software engineers’ attempts towards a philosophy of software engineering and to introduce our own philosophical thoughts in this context. Finally, we invite the professional philosophers of science to participate in this interesting new discourse. (shrink)

Experiments in computing share many characteristics with the traditional experimental method, but also present significant differences from a practical perspective, due to their aim at producing software artifacts and the central role played by human actors and organizations involved in the software development process. By analyzing some of the most significant experiments in the subfield of software engineering, we aim at showing how the conceptual framework that supports experimental methodology in this context needs an extension (...) in a socio-technical perspective. (shrink)

Program comprehension is an essential part of software engineering. The paper describes the constructivist theory of comprehension, a process based on assimilation and accommodation of knowledge. Assimilation means that the new facts are either added to the existing knowledge or rejected. Accommodation means that the existing knowledge is reorganized in order to absorb new facts. These processes are illustrated by case studies of knowledge-level reengineering of a legacy program and of incremental change. In both cases, we constructed (...) preliminary knowledge from the program documentation, and then adjusted it by comprehending the actual code. The case studies supported constructivism as a suitable theory of program comprehension. (shrink)

Modern software is infested with flaws having information security aspects. Pervasive computing has made us and our society vulnerable. However, software developers do not fully comprehend what is at stake when faulty software is produced and flaws causing security vulnerabilites are discovered. To address this problem, the main actors involved with software vulnerability processes and the relevant roles inside these groups are identified. This categorisation is illustrated through a fictional case study, which is scrutinised in the (...) light of ethical codes of professional software engineers and common principles of responsibility attribution. The focus of our analysis is on the acute handling of discovered vulnerabilities in software, including reporting, correcting and disclosing these vulnerabilities. We recognise a need for guidelines and mechanisms to facilitate further improvement in resolving processes leading to and in handling software vulnerabilities. In the spirit of disclosive ethics we call for further studies of the complex issues involved. (shrink)

It has been argued that the Internet and social media increase the number of available viewpoints, perspectives, ideas and opinions available, leading to a very diverse pool of information. However, critics have argued that algorithms used by search engines, social networking platforms and other large online intermediaries actually decrease information diversity by forming so-called “filter bubbles”. This may form a serious threat to our democracies. In response to this threat others have developed algorithms and digital tools to combat filter bubbles. (...) This paper first provides examples of different software designs that try to break filter bubbles. Secondly, we show how norms required by two democracy models dominate the tools that are developed to fight the filter bubbles, while norms of other models are completely missing in the tools. The paper in conclusion argues that democracy itself is a contested concept and points to a variety of norms. Designers of diversity enhancing tools must thus be exposed to diverse conceptions of democracy. (shrink)

Online information intermediaries such as Facebook and Google are slowly replacing traditional media channels thereby partly becoming the gatekeepers of our society. To deal with the growing amount of information on the social web and the burden it brings on the average user, these gatekeepers recently started to introduce personalization features, algorithms that filter information per individual. In this paper we show that these online services that filter information are not merely algorithms. Humans not only affect the design of the (...) algorithms, but they also can manually influence the filtering process even when the algorithm is operational. We further analyze filtering processes in detail, show how personalization connects to other filtering techniques, and show that both human and technical biases are present in today’s emergent gatekeepers. We use the existing literature on gatekeeping and search engine bias and provide a model of algorithmic gatekeeping. (shrink)

Increasingly complex working environments of school principals inevitably led them to face moral dilemmas in daily life. The aim of this research is to reveal which kinds of moral dilemmas principals fall into mostly, how principals follow the road to making decisions in the moral dilemmas, and if the nature of management affects the decision-making process of their moral dilemmas or not. For data collection process snowball sampling was used. Semi-structured interviews and vignettes which were designed by researchers (...) were used for data collection. According to results, principals in Turkey have experienced moral dilemmas based on self-interests instead of ethic of critique which is experienced by Canadian principals. Moreover, taking into consideration the decision-making process, although principals in Canada follow the same procedure as the Turkish principals, they have two extra steps: “considering the students’ benefit” and “considering teachers’ and parents’ needs.” Lastly, it is seen that the Turkish and Canadian principals’ natures which affect the moral dilemma decision-making process are totally different. The possible reasons for these differences and suggestions were discussed within this context. (shrink)

The distinction between the modeling of information and the modeling of data in the creation of automated systems has historically been important because the development tools available to programmers have been wedded to machine oriented data types and processes. However, advances in software engineering, particularly the move toward data abstraction in software design, allow activities reasonably described as information modeling to be performed in the software creation process. An examination of the evolution of programming languages (...) and development of general programming paradigms, including object-oriented design and implementation, suggests that while data modeling will necessarily continue to be a programmer's concern, more and more of the programming process itself is coming to be characterized by information modeling activities. (shrink)

Some of the fundamental activities of the software development process are related to the discipline of Requirements Engineering. Their objectives are to discover, analyze, document, and verify the system’s requirements. The requirements are the conditions or capabilities that software needs to have or fulfill to meet its users’ needs, and problems in its identification can mean the failure of a software project. This study is part of the research that is being developed to propose a (...) model based on Know­ledge Organization Systems to be used in the Requirements engineering process. This article aims to present the results of an analysis on a set of Know­ledge Organization Systems to identify whether they are likely to be applied in the Requirements engineering process and identify at which stage of this process each one of them can be implemented. The Know­ledge Organization Systems analyzed were the authority files, gazetteers, glossaries, subject headings, classification systems, thesauri, semantic networks, and ontologies. Based on the results obtained, it was possible to conclude that the Know­ledge Organization Systems analyzed can be used in the Requirements engineering process and, consequently, contribute to increasing the software requirements’ quality. (shrink)

This paper presents an experience in developing professional ethics by an approach that integrates knowledge, teaching methodologies and assessment coherently. It has been implemented for students in both the Software Engineering and Computer Engineering degree programs of the Technical University of Madrid, in which professional ethics is studied as a part of a required course. Our contribution of this paper is a model for formative assessment that clarifies the learning goals, enhances the results, simplifies the scoring and (...) can be replicated in other contexts. A quasi-experimental study that involves many of the students of the required course has been developed. To test the effectiveness of the teaching process, the analysis of ethical dilemmas and the use of deontological codes have been integrated, and a scoring rubric has been designed. Currently, this model is also being used to develop skills related to social responsibility and sustainability for undergraduate and postgraduate students of diverse academic context. (shrink)

In the context of technology development and systems engineering, knowledge is typically treated as a complex information structure. In this view, knowledge can be stored in highly sophisticated data systems and processed by explicitly intelligent, software-based technologies. This paper argues that the current emphasis upon knowledge as information (or even data) is based upon a form of rationalism which is inappropriate for any comprehensive treatment of knowledge in the context of human-centred systems thinking. A human-centred perspective requires us (...) to treat knowledge in human terms. The paper sets out the particular importance of tacit knowledge in this regard. It sets out two case studies which reveal the critical importance of a careful treatment of tacit knowledge for success in two complex, technology-driven projects. (shrink)

Automated software engineering has attracted a large amount of research efforts. The use of object-oriented methods for software systems development has made it necessary to develop approaches that automate the construction of different Unified Modeling Language models in a semiautomated approach from textual user requirements. UML use case models represent an essential artifact that provides a perspective of the system under analysis or development. The development of such use case models is very crucial in an object-oriented development (...) method. The main principles used in obtaining these models are described. A natural language processing tool is used to parse different statements of the user requirements written in Arabic to obtain lists of nouns, noun phrases, verbs, verb phrases, etc., that aid in finding potential actors and use cases. A set of steps that represent our approach for constructing a use case model are presented. Finally, the proposed approach is validated using an experiment involving a group of graduate students who are familiar with use case modeling. (shrink)

While the issue of standards has received attention from analysts in science and technology studies, this attention has tended to focus on either units of measurement or compatibility standards. Much less attention has been devoted to equally important standards of practice. These are the procedural or process standards which govern how technologists go about designing and constructing artifacts. Such standards have a substantial documented history in the form of engineering codes of practice. As the embodiment of judgments rendered (...) by a particular community of technological practi tioners, these standards both reflect and shape the exercise of practitioner judgment. This article explores both these functions through examples drawn from structural and software engineering. These examples yield insights regarding both the role of formal procedural standards in technological practice and the unusual nature of software technology. (shrink)

Design is a conceptive activity which is usually presented as a sensible, sequential process and action. This book claims that design cannot be reduced to the rational, effective planning and organization that most models (such as design thinking) present. The author suggests another type of rationality which is based on what the humanities call aesthetics, writing, composition, and style: a rationality based in imaginary elaboration and coherence. The chapters, therefore, demonstrate that design practice is about creating not only functional (...) tools, but planes of reflections that challenge norms. To support this claim, this book analyzes research programs, art works, and design projects that produced new information and communication technologies (ICT). This is detailed using examples in each chapter. From these examples, two types of conclusions are derived: a first level considers the lessons that we can draw from these examples in terms of design practice while the second level starts a theoretical discussion based on these analyses of use cases. The goal is to develop an understanding of conception in its different forms. This book brings the use of these neglected methods to the foreground as a way to explicate the design process. Taking into consideration the humanities within design contributes to the discussion on pluridisciplinarity. The book posits that design as a historical and situated activity is a truly multidisciplinary endeavor that bridges the gap between engineering sciences and the humanities. (shrink)

Simulation software used for modeling has become as ubiquitous as computers themselves. Despite growing reliance on simulation in educational and workplace settings, users encounter frustration in using simulation software programs. The authors conducted a study with 26 engineering students and interviewed them about their experience learning the simulation software Arena for optimization modeling. These students experienced frustration with the process of learning to “think” like the simulation software. Students explained their difficulty with learning the (...) software in a way that implied human dialogue with a machine and negotiation with Arena in an attempt to overcome this frustration. Rather than being gender specific, frustrations were experienced by most male and female students equally, specifically those who held a perception of difference between human and machine “thinking.” The authors contend that communication difficulty with the embedded assumptions of the software is the source of frustration rather than deficiencies of users. (shrink)

Sabdabrahma Siddhanta, popularized by Patanjali and Bhartruhari will be scientifically analyzed. Sphota Vada, proposed and nurtured by the Sanskrit grammarians will be interpreted from modern physics and communication engineering points of view. Insight about the theory of language and modes of language acquisition and communication available in the Brahma Kanda of Vakyapadeeyam will be translated into modern computational terms. A flowchart of language processing in humans will be given. A gross model of human language acquisition, comprehension and communication (...) class='Hi'>process forming the basis to develop software for relevant mind-machine modeling will be presented. The implications of such a model to artificial intelligence and cognitive sciences will be discussed. The essentiality and necessity of a physics, communication engineering , biophysical and biochemical insight as both complementary and supplementary to using mathematical and computational methods in delineating the theory of Sanskrit language is put forward. Natural language comprehension as distinct and different from natural language processing is pointed out. (shrink)

The Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice, intended as a standard for teaching and practicing software engineering, documents the ethical and professional obligations of software engineers. The code should instruct practitioners about the standards society expects them to meet, about what their peers strive for, and about what to expect of one another. In addition, the code should also inform the public about the responsibilities that are important to the profession. Adopted in 2000 (...) by the IEEE Computer Society and the ACM--two leading international computing societies--the code of ethics is intended as a guide for members of the evolving software engineering profession. The code was developed by a multinational task force with additional input from other professionals from industry, government posts, military installations, and educational professions. (shrink)

What we have learnt in the last six or seven decades about virtual machinery, as a result of a great deal of science and technology, enables us to offer Darwin a new defence against critics who argued that only physical form, not mental capabilities and consciousness could be products of evolution by natural selection. The defence compares the mental phenomena mentioned by Darwin’s opponents with contents of virtual machinery in computing systems. Objects, states, events, and processes in virtual machinery which (...) we have only recently learnt how to design and build, and could not even have been thought about in Darwin’s time, can interact with the physical machinery in which they are implemented, without being identical with their physical implementation, nor mere aggregates of physical structures and processes. The existence of various kinds of virtual machinery (including both “platform” virtual machines that can host other virtual machines, e.g. operating systems, and “application” virtual machines, e.g. spelling checkers, and computer games) depends on complex webs of causal connections involving hardware and software structures, events and processes, where the specification of such causal webs requires concepts that cannot be defined in terms of concepts of the physical sciences. That indefinability, plus the possibility of various kinds of self-monitoring within virtual machinery, seems to explain some of the allegedly mysterious and irreducible features of consciousness that motivated Darwin’s critics and also more recent philosophers criticising AI. There are consequences for philosophy, psychology, neuroscience and robotics. (shrink)

Over the past 30 years, computer engineering has developed a lot. Currently, computer and software applications have a central role in business, medicine, security, communications, industry, education, and everyday life. Software developers, peoples who manage computer networks, data security analysts can do well, but they also have the potential to cause suffering and harm to the clients or ordinary peoples, willingly or not. For this reason, IT activities must be regulated by specific laws. From the beginning, we (...) argue that the law is not the same thing as ethics, even if both promote the good. Certain ethical principles can be strengthened by law. In the field of computer science and technology, can exists theft, privacy violations, violence and harassment. To combat and punish such actions and behaviors, law is needed. But is software engineering a profession? If so, are there codes of professional ethics whereby specialists in the field can regulate their professional activity, as is the case, for example, in areas such as justice or medicine? In relation with that, Gibbs and Ford have identified 8 components of a professional infrastructure. Some of that is: initial vocational training, professional accreditation, licensing, continuous vocational training, the existence of code of ethics.. With the fact that software engineering is a profession, in this article we present the main principles of behavior. The principles are not legally binding. This are grouped by interest categories depending on who or what is involved in the interaction with software engineering. (shrink)

There are many tangled normative and technical questions involved in evaluating the quality of software used in epidemiological simulations. In this paper we answer some of these questions and offer practical guidance to practitioners, funders, scientific journals, and consumers of epidemiological research. The heart of our paper is a case study of the Imperial College London covid-19 simulator, set in the context of recent work in epistemology of simulation and philosophy of epidemiology.

This letter contains suggestions for editors and software providers to help avoid affiliation bias in the initial and concluding stages of the peer review process. Submission management systems have a responsibility to ensure protection against affiliation bias. This can be achieved by automatically withholding the author’s identity and affiliation information from all editors, including the Editor-in-Chief, until a decision about publication has been made. Journals relying on email-based submissions are in a more difficult situation. Not having external support (...) in confirming the submitting author’s identity, this dilemma can be resolved through the implementation of strict instructions and guidelines concerning manuscript submission and handling. In this case the “human factor” cannot be fully eliminated, while automated processes can only be changed intentionally and with a certain delay. Therefore, with the suggested steps, submission management systems could become a strong guard against unconscious bias while also making conscious bias more difficult to impact the peer review process. (shrink)

Among the various contemporary schools of moral thinking, consequence-based ethics, as opposed to rule-based, seems to have a good acceptance among professionals such as software engineers. But naïve consequentialism is intellectually too weak to serve as a practical guide in the profession. Besides, the complexity of software systems makes it very hard to know in advance the consequences that will derive from professional activities in the production of software. Therefore, following the spirit of well-known codes of ethics (...) such as the ACM/IEEE’s, we advocate for a more solid position in the ethical education of software engineers, which we call ‘moderate deontologism’, that takes into account both rules and consequences to assess the goodness of actions, and at the same time pays an adequate consideration to the absolute values of human dignity. In order to educate responsible professionals, however, this position should be complemented with a pedagogical approach to virtue ethics. (shrink)

Software-intensive systems are ubiquitous in the industrialized world. The reliability of software has implications for how we understand scientific knowledge produced using software-intensive systems and for our understanding of the ethical and political status of technology. The reliability of a software system is largely determined by the distribution of errors and by the consequences of those errors in the usage of that system. We select a taxonomy of software error types from the literature on empirically (...) observed software errors and compare that taxonomy to Giuseppe Primiero’s Minds and Machines 24: 249–273, (2014) taxonomy of error in information systems. Because Primiero’s taxonomy is articulated in terms of a coherent, explicit model of computation and is more fine-grained than the empirical taxonomy we select, we might expect Primiero’s taxonomy to provide insights into how to reduce the frequency of software error better than the empirical taxonomy. Whether using one software error taxonomy can help to reduce the frequency of software errors better than another taxonomy is ultimately an empirical question. (shrink)

This article analyses the forms of dividuation workers undergo when they are linked to technologies, such as algorithms or artificial intelligence. It examines functionalities and operations deployed by certain types of Talent Management software and apps—UKG, Tribepad, Afiniti, RetailNext and Textio. Specifically, it analyses how talented workers materialise in relation to the profiles and the statistical models generated by such artificial intelligence machines. It argues that these operate as a nooscope that allows the transindividual plane to be quantified through (...) a process known as dividuation. Finally, by way of conclusion, the notion of the dividual is presented as the logic that characterises the human–machine relationship in the case of artificial intelligence and as the horizon of what Felix Guattari called “machinic capitalism”. (shrink)

This article compares two cultures of engineering design, one flexible and interactive, the other rigid and hierarchical. It examines the practices of design engineers who use a mixture of paper documents and computer graphics systems and contrasts these with the practices of workers reengineering their own work process and its technological support system, using predesigned software. Based on the idea from actor network theory that objects participate in the shaping of new technologies and the networks that build (...) them, the study reveals that design cultures are intrinsically tied to the way in which their representations are constructed because such representations—sketches, drawings, prototypes—are the heart of design work; such design tools can engage or restrict participation in the design process; politics in the form of management prerogatives can be built into a design tool, influencing the range of creativity allowed and innovation accomplished in a given sociotechnological setting. (shrink)

This paper asserts that the software engineering (SE) research literature describes open source software development (OSSD) as a homogenous phenomenon. Through a discourse analysis of the SE research literature on OSSD, it is argued that the view of OSSD as a homogenous phenomenon is not grounded in empirical evidence. Rather, it emerges from key assumptions held within the SE research discipline about its identity and how to do SE research. As such, it is argued that the view (...) of OSSD as a homogenous phenomenon may constitute a systematic bias in the SE research literature. Implications of this are. (shrink)

This article reveals that explanatory practice in software engineering is in accordance with pragmatic explanatory pluralism, which states that explanations should at least partially be evaluated by their practical use. More specifically, I offer a defense of the idea that several explanation-types are legitimate in software engineering, and that the appropriateness of an explanation-type depends on (a) the engineer’s interests, and (b) the format of the explanation-seeking question he asks, with this format depending on his interests. (...) This idea is defended by considering examples that are representative for explanatory practice in software engineering. Different kinds of technological explanation are spelled out, and the dependence of their appropriateness on interests and question-formats is extensively illustrated. (shrink)

On the basis of an earlier contribution to the philosophy of computer science by Amnon Eden, this essay discusses to what extent Eden’s ‘paradigms’ of computer science can be transferred or applied to software engineering. This discussion implies an analysis of how software engineering and computer science are related to each other. The essay concludes that software engineering can neither be fully subsumed by computer science, nor vice versa. Consequently, also the philosophies of computer (...) science and software engineering—though related to each other—are not identical branches of a general philosophy of science. This also implies that not all of Eden’s earlier arguments can be directly mapped from the domain of computer science into the domain of software science. After the discussion of this main topic, the essay also points to some further problems and open issues for future studies in the philosophy of software science and engineering. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to describe how expansive learning in organisations can become a resource for learning in a wider community of practice (CoP). The “developmental work research” approach (DWR) based on cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) is beneficial for analysing and interpreting the requirements in a field of action. Engeström’s specific form of “action research” focuses on expansive learning in activity systems. However, complex socio-technical change processes cannot be initiated and managed by the local community of practise (...) alone. In order to establish the use of new tools, new methodologies or organisational solutions in a field of work, a double path of expansive learning is needed: Findings from the participative analysis and interpretation of contradictions in the local activity system have to be transferred to wider communities of practice. This paper illustrates a double path of expansive learning by presenting the experiences of research and development in machine and plant engineering companies in Germany. In the AQUIMO project, a project team has developed an adaptable software tool for multidisciplinary mechatronical engineering and created a related qualification program. The support from external social researchers has helped to initiate, disseminate and establish new ways to organise the division of labour in teams of engineers. (shrink)

It has been argued that it is in the best interests of IT professionals, to adopt and enforce professional codes in the work place. But there is no code for usability engineers, unless one accepts that it is a branch of software engineering. The new joint ACM/IEEE‐CS Software Engineering Code of Ethics is applied to actual usability cases. This enables usability engineers to interpret this code in their profession. This is achieved by utilizing four case studies (...) both directly in terms of the ethical issues involved and in the light of the code. Also examined are the short‐comings of the code for the domain of usability engineering, and suggestions are made for enhancements for future revisions of the code. (shrink)

A major, but too-little-considered problem for Software Engineering is a lack of consensus concerning Computer Science and how this relates to developing unpredictable computing technology. We consider some implications for SE of computer systems differing scientific basis, exemplified with the International Standard Organisations Open Systems Interconnection layered architectural model. An architectural view allows comparison of computing technology components facilitating a view of computing as a continuum. For example, at one layer of computer architecture, components written in Turing-complete machine (...) language can be seen as deterministic and consistent with a theoretical paradigm of CS. At another layer, components closer to the human sphere have been seen as non-deterministic and inconsistent with theoretical CS. We compare unpredictable development of computing technology against the cyclic legacy of technological advance and scientific discovery, and suggest that SE indicates an enabling cycle, discernible in previous scientific revolution, is stalled or possibly hidden. The CS consequence of divorcing technological advance from scientific consensus is particularly concerning. For example human/computing events could be seen as unpredictable virtual phenomena that somehow extend the ontology of CS. Our approach challenges practical and philosophical boundaries by investigating if applying scientific method resolves any SE/Science dichotomy. (shrink)

Knowledge must forever govern ignorance, and a people who would be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. Popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy—or perhaps both.—James Madison, 1815.

With the technological evolutionary advent, a vision-based approach presents the remote measuring approach for the analysis of vibration. The structure vibration test and model parameter identification in the detection of the structure of the bridge evaluation occupies the important position. The bridge structure to operate safely and reliably is ensured, according to the geological data of qixiashan lead-zinc mine and engineering actual situation, with the aid of international mining software Surpac. To build the 3D visualization model of the (...) application of visualization in mine production are discussed. The results show that the final solid model of -425 stope can accurately display the spatial form of each layer of stope through rotation, amplification and movement. The proposed system is effectually able to perform cutting, volume calculation and roaming in any direction, which has certain guiding significance for mine production management. An accuracy value of 98.75%, the sensitivity of 99%, specificity of 99.64% and PPV of 99.89% are achieved using the proposed 3D modelling and visualization algorithm for vibration signal processing and management. (shrink)

This article reveals that explanatory practice in software engineering is in accordance with pragmatic explanatory pluralism, which states that explanations should at least partially be evaluated by their practical use. More specifically, I offer a defense of the idea that several explanation-types are legitimate in software engineering, and that the appropriateness of an explanation-type depends on (a) the engineer’s interests, and (b) the format of the explanation-seeking question he asks, with this format depending on his interests. (...) This idea is defended by considering examples that are representative for explanatory practice in software engineering. Different kinds of technological explanation are spelled out, and the dependence of their appropriateness on interests and question-formats is extensively illustrated. (shrink)

The public interest should be a central ethical concern of members of the computer profession, and this would also result in the social status and power of software engineers being augmented. One attractive means to encourage and enforce ethical standards on the part of engineers and employers would be a system of licensing by internationally recognised professional bodies whose legitimacy stems from their capacity to act in the public interest. The author is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer (...) Science, School of Applied Sciences, Anglia Polytechnic University, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, England; email [email protected] or [email protected]. (shrink)