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Nasir Minhas

Blekinge Institute of Technology, Software Engineering Research Lab, PhD Scholar

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Working on the EASE project in collaboration with Sony Mobiles and Axis Communications. EASE is a joint research venture of BTH, Lund University, Sony Mobiles, Axis Communications, and SoftHouse. My job is to find the optimized Solutions for the Embedded Systems' Regression Testing. Currently, I am working on the Regression Test Evaluation. Besides the research, I am also involved in the teaching of Software Engineering courses to the students of Masters in Software Engineering. The courses I am involved at BTH areSoftware DesignResearch MethodologySeminars in Software Engineering.Master Thesis in Software Engineering

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Haza Nuzly Abdull Hamed

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia - UTM

University of the West of England

Chalmers University of Technology

ravish choudhary

Manchester Metropolitan University

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Papers by Nasir Minhas

Lessons learned from replicating a study on information-retrieval based test case prioritization

Cornell University - arXiv, Apr 13, 2022

Objective: In this study, we aim to replicate an artefact-based study on software testing to addr... more Objective: In this study, we aim to replicate an artefact-based study on software testing to address the gap. We focus on (a) providing a step by step guide of the replication, reflecting on challenges when replicating artefact-based testing research, (b) Evaluating the replicated study concerning its validity and robustness of the findings. Method: We replicate a test case prioritization technique by Kwon et al. We replicated the original study using four programs, two from the original study and two new programs. The replication study was implemented using Python to support future replications. Results: Various general factors facilitating replications are identified, such as: (1) the importance of documentation; (2) the need of assistance from the original authors; (3) issues in the maintenance of open source repositories (e.g., concerning needed software dependencies); (4) availability of scripts. We also raised several observations specific to the study and its context, such as insights from using different mutation tools and strategies for mutant generation. Conclusion: We conclude that the study by Kwon et al. is replicable for small and medium programs and could be automated to facilitate software practitioners, given the availability of required information.

Classification of Social Media Users Based on Disagreement and Stance Analysis

Analyzing conversational behavior is a primary task in the field of sentiment analysis. Different... more Analyzing conversational behavior is a primary task in the field of sentiment analysis. Different researchers have proposed their models to perform the sentiment analysis of social media discussions. Existing approaches mainly studying the conversational behavior based on the text in the conversation. In any discussion, the users could have different viewpoints about the topic of conversation. A user can agree or disagree on the topic of discussion. Agreement of a user to the topic is called a stance, and if the user disagrees to the topic, we refer it as disagreement. The classification of the users based on stance and disagreement is not a well-researched area, and need to be explored further. In this work, we have proposed a computational model to classify the members according to stance or disagreement. The proposed model uses the novel approach, and it is a hybrid of topic modeling and VADER (Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner). To evaluate the proposed model, we h...

Teaching students critical appraisal of scientific literature using checklists

Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference of Software Engineering Education, 2018

Background: Teaching students to critically appraise scientific literature is an important goal f... more Background: Teaching students to critically appraise scientific literature is an important goal for a postgraduate research methods course. Objective: To investigate the application of checklists for assessing the scientific rigor of empirical studies support students in reviewing case study research and experiments. Methods: We employed an experimental design where 76 students (in pairs) used two checklists to evaluate two papers (reporting a case study and an experiment) each. We compared the students' assessments against ratings from more senior researchers. We also collected data on students' perception of using the checklists. Results: The consistency of students' ratings and the accuracy when compared to ratings from seniors varied. A factor seemed to be that the clearer the reporting, the easier it is for students to judge the quality of studies. Students perceived checklist items related to data analysis as difficult to assess. Conclusion: As expected, this study reinforces the needs for clear reporting, as it is important that authors write to enable synthesis and quality assessment. With clearer reporting, the novices performed well in assessing the quality of the empirical work, which supports its continued use in the course as means for introducing scientific reviews.

Regression Testing Challenges and Solutions : An Industry-Academia Perspective

Background: Software quality assurance (QA) is an essential activity in the software development ... more

Information Retrieval based requirement traceability recovery approaches- A systematic literature review

University of Sindh Journal of Information and Communication Technology, 2018

Abstract: The term traceability is an important concept regarding software development. It enable... more Abstract: The term traceability is an important concept regarding software development. It enables software engineers to trace requirements from their origin to fulfillment. Maintaining traceability manually is a time consuming and expensive job. Information retrieval methods provide a mean of automation for requirement traceability. A visible number of IR based traceability techniques have been proposed in the literature, but the adoption of these techniques in the industry is limited. In this paper, we examine the information retrieval-based traceability recovery approaches through systematic literature review. We presented a synthesis of these techniques. We also identified challenges that are potentially limiting the adoption of IR based traceability recovery approaches. We conclude that term mismatch is a major barrier faced by IR based approaches. We also did classify the approaches that are attempting to solve the term mismatch problem.

An Improved Framework for Requirement Change Management in Global Software Development

In this research, an improved framework for requirement change management in global software deve... more In this research, an improved framework for requirement change management in global software development (RCM_GSD) has been presented. The objective is to manage the change in require-ment specifically in global software development in an appropriate manner. The proposed frame-work RCM_GSD follows the required processes of RCM and reduces the concerns of GSD. Systemat-ic Literature Review (SLR) was conducted for exploration of relevant research. During literature study, it is analyzed that the existing techniques of change management were not suitable for global software development (GSD). The change in requirements becomes more complicated in distributed environment due to the lack of communication and collaboration among globally dis-persed stakeholders. The proposed model is compared with other models proposed in recent li-terature and analysis is made between them; feedback was obtained from the domain experts as well. The feedback and comparison results show that the proposed m...

Integrating Formal Methods in XP—A Conceptual Solution

Formal methods can be used at any stage of product development process to improve the software qu... more Formal methods can be used at any stage of product development process to improve the software quality and efficiency using mathematical models for analysis and verification. From last decade, researchers and practitioners are trying to establish successful transfer of practices of formal methods into industrial process development. In the last couple of years, numerous analysis ap-proaches and formal methods have been applied in different settings to improve software quality. In today’s highly competitive software development industry, companies are striving to deliver fast with low cost and improve quality solutions and agile methodologies have proved their effi-ciency in acquiring these. Here, we will present an integration of formal methods, specifications and verification practices in the most renowned process development methodology of agile i.e. extreme programming with a conceptual solution. That leads towards the development of a com-plete formalized XP process in future. T...

Impact of Polyethylene Glycol on Proline and Membrane Stability Index for Water Stress Regime in Tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum)

Drought is one of the most important constraints worldwide for crop growth including tomato. It a... more Drought is one of the most important constraints worldwide for crop growth including tomato. It adversely affects germination and seedling that ultimately reduces crop development and economic yield. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) gives an indication to abiotic stresses and has been used throughout world in various crops for successful screening and breeding against stresses. Contrarily proline protects plant tissues against stress through preventing molecular denaturation, scavenges reactive oxygen species and interacts with phospholipids. Present paper presents the results on PEG and proline estimation in tomato. The PEG screening reduced the experimental material and finally 20 genotypes (6232, 6233, 6234, 10584, 10587, 17889, 17902, 17904, 19288, 19289, 19290, 19291, 19893, Avinash-2, Feston, Nagina, Punjab Chohara, Ratan and T-4) from diverse origin were investigated for proline estimation, chlorophyll contents and membrane stability index that gave a clear reference for drought tol...

Regression testing goals -View of practitioners and researchers

Context: Regression testing is a well-researched area. However, there is a lack of industrial app... more Context: Regression testing is a well-researched area. However, there is a lack of industrial application of regression testing techniques , proposed in the research. The disparity in goals and communication gaps is part of the reason. Close collaboration between industry and academia can help in bridging the gaps and resolving the disparities. Objective: The study aims at exploring the views of academics and practitioners about the regression testing goals. The purpose is to investigate the commonalities and differences in the viewpoints of the software industry practitioners and the academic researchers in this regard, and finally defining some common goals for the success of regression testing. Method: We used focus group method to elicit the regression testing goals from practitioners and researchers. 7 testing experts participated in the study. 4 participants were representing the testing practitioners, while 3 were representatives of the research community. We followed GQM (go...

A quasi-experiment to evaluate the impact of mental fatigue on study selection process

Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering, 2017

Context: Existing empirical evidence indicates that loss of alertness associated with mental fati... more Context: Existing empirical evidence indicates that loss of alertness associated with mental fatigue is highly correlated with fluctuations in the performance of people carrying out auditory tasks. In software engineering research, mental fatigue may affect the results of study selection (an auditory task) when conducting secondary studies such as systematic literature reviews or systematic mapping studies. However, to date there is no empirical study that reports an in-depth investigation about the relationship between mental fatigue and researchers' selection decisions during study selection process. Objective: The main objective of this paper is to report the design and preliminary results of an investigation about the impact of mental fatigue on the study selection process of secondary studies. Method: We designed and piloted a quasi-experiment. Results: The preliminary results do not indicate that mental fatigue negatively impacts the correctness of selection decision and c...

Authorship ethics: an overview of research on the state of practice

2021 IEEE/ACM 2nd International Workshop on Ethics in Software Engineering Research and Practice (SEthics), 2021

Authorship ethics is a central topic of discussion in research ethics fora. There are various gui... more Authorship ethics is a central topic of discussion in research ethics fora. There are various guidelines for authorship (i.e., naming and order). It is not easy to decide the authorship in the presence of varying authorship guidelines. This paper gives an overview of research on authorship practices and issues. It presents a review of 16 empirical research papers published between 2014 - 2020. The objective is to learn how various research disciplines handle authorship. What are the authorship practices in various research disciplines, and what are the issues associated with these practices?

Use of Personality Tests in Empirical Software Engineering Studies A Review of Ethical Issues

Proceedings of the Evaluation and Assessment on Software Engineering, 2019

There has been a lot of research on personality and its impact on software engineering practice. ... more There has been a lot of research on personality and its impact on software engineering practice. These studies use different psychological tests to identify personality types of software practitioners. The administration of these tests requires expertise. As the humans are involved, other ethical issues, such as consent, also become important. In this study, we evaluated a small sample of 15 studies that used a psychological test Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) in a software engineering context with respect to different ethical issues related to informed consent, qualification of the test administrators and the use of appropriate tests. The results show that most of the studies in our sample seriously lack with respect to various ethical issues.

Implementing Value Stream Mapping in a Scrum-based project - An Experience Report

The value stream mapping is one of the lean practices, that helps to visualize the whole process ... more The value stream mapping is one of the lean practices, that helps to visualize the whole process and identifies any bottlenecks affecting the flow. Proper management of the value stream can significantly contribute towards waste elimination by categorizing process activities to be either value adding or non value-adding. Lean development focuses on the value through the elimination of waste. Adding value through embracing change and customer satisfaction are also the benefits of Scrum. This study reports our experience regarding the implementation of VSM with Scrum. We followed the action research method, with an objective to see if VSM can contribute to the identification and reduction of wastes in a Scrum-based project. We identified a noticeable amount of waste even with strict compliance to the Scrum practices. On the basis of identified waste, their root causes, and possible mitigation strategy we have proposed a future state map, that could help improve the productivity of the...

Information Retrieval based requirement traceability recovery approaches- A systematic literature review

Abstract: The term traceability is an important concept regarding software development. It enable... more Abstract: The term traceability is an important concept regarding software development. It enables software engineers to trace requirements from their origin to fulfillment. Maintaining traceability manually is a time consuming and expensive job. Information retrieval methods provide a mean of automation for requirement traceability. A visible number of IR based traceability techniques have been proposed in the literature, but the adoption of these techniques in the industry is limited. In this paper, we examine the information retrieval-based traceability recovery approaches through systematic literature review. We presented a synthesis of these techniques. We also identified challenges that are potentially limiting the adoption of IR based traceability recovery approaches. We conclude that term mismatch is a major barrier faced by IR based approaches. We also did classify the approaches that are attempting to solve the term mismatch problem.

A systematic mapping of test case generation techniques using UML interaction diagrams

Journal of Software: Evolution and Process

Model-based test case generation techniques provide a mechanism to derive tests systematically. T... more Model-based test case generation techniques provide a mechanism to derive tests systematically. This study provides a systematic mapping of test case generation techniques based on UML interaction diagrams. The study compares the test case generation techniques regarding their capabilities and limitations, and it also assesses the reporting quality of the primary studies. We can conclude that the studies presenting test case generation techniques using UML interaction diagrams were not following guidelines for research methods (e.g., case studies or experiments). Solutions were not empirically evaluated in industrial contexts. Our study revealed that better tool support is needed to introduce the UML interaction diagram based test case generation techniques in the industry.

Regression testing for large-scale embedded software development – Exploring the state of practice

Information and Software Technology

Context. A majority of the regression testing techniques proposed by the research have not been a... more Context. A majority of the regression testing techniques proposed by the research have not been adopted in industry. To increase adoption rates, we need to better understand the practitioners' perspectives on regression testing. Objective. This study aims at exploring the regression testing state of practice in the large-scale embedded software development. The study has two objectives, 1) to highlight the potential challenges in practice, and 2) to identify the industry-relevant research areas regarding regression testing. Method. We conducted a qualitative study in two large-scale embedded software development companies, where we carried out semi-structured interviews with representatives from five software testing teams. We did conduct the detailed review of the process documentation of the companies to complement/validate the findings of the interviews. Results. Mostly, the practitioners run regression testing with a selected scope, the selection of scope depends upon the size, complexity, and location of the change. Test cases are prioritized on the basis of risk and critical functionality. The practitioners rely on their knowledge and experience for the decision making regarding selection and prioritization of test cases. The companies are using both automated and manual regression testing, and mainly they rely on inhouse developed tools for test automation. The challenges identified in the companies are: time to test, information management, test suite maintenance, lack of communication, test selection/prioritization, lack of assessment, etc. The proposed improvements are in line with the identified challenges. Regression testing goals identified in this study are customer satisfaction, critical defect detection, confidence, effectiveness, efficiency, and controlled slip through of faults. Conclusions. Considering the current state of practice and identified challenges we conclude that there is a need to reconsider the regression test strategy in the Preprint submitted to Information and Software Technology November 29, 2018 companies. Researchers need to analyze the industry perspective while proposing new regression testing techniques. The industry-academia collaboration projects would be a good platform in this regard.

Are project managers informally following capability maturity model integration practices for project management?

Global Journal of Information Technology: Emerging Technologies

Project planning is crucial for fruitful completion of a software development project. In case of... more Project planning is crucial for fruitful completion of a software development project. In case of a certified software development organisation, one can guess whether the software development projects are planned properly or not. But, what to do for a non-certified organisation? The objective of this study is to address this problem. For this purpose, a questionnaire survey has been conducted by involving experienced practitioners. The results show that several software development organisations follow Capability Maturity Model Integration) Project Planning-Process Area practices unofficially. Such organisations are potential candidate organisations for software process improvement initiatives, and would be cheap and safe for successful completion of a project. Keywords: CMMI, software project management, software process improvement, specific goals, specific practices, subpractices.

Regression Testing Goals - View of Practitioners and Researchers

2017 24th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference Workshops (APSECW)

Context: Regression testing is a well-researched area. However, the majority regression testing t... more Context: Regression testing is a well-researched area. However, the majority regression testing techniques proposed by the researchers are not getting the attention of the practitioners. Communication gaps between industry and academia, and disparity in the regression testing goals are the main reasons. Close collaboration can help in bridging the communication gaps and resolving the disparities. The study aims at exploring the views of academics and practitioners about the goals of regression testing. The purpose is to investigate the commonalities and differences in their viewpoints and defining some common goals for the success of regression testing. We conducted a focus group study, with 7 testing experts from industry and academia. 4 testing practitioners from 2 companies and 3 researchers from 2 universities participated in the study. We followed GQM approach, to elicit the regression testing goals, information needs, and measures. Results: 43 regression testing goals were identified by the participants, which were reduced to 10 on the basis of similarity among the identified goals. Later during the priority assignment process, 5 goals were discarded, because the priority assigned to these goals was very low. Participants identified 47 information needs/questions required to evaluate the success of regression testing with reference to goal G5 (confidence). Which were then reduced to 10 on the basis of similarity. Finally, we identified measures to gauge those information needs/questions, which were corresponding to the goal (G5). We observed that participation level of practitioners and researchers during the elicitation of goals and questions was same. We found a certain level of agreement between the participants regarding the regression testing definitions and goals. But there was some level of disagreement regarding the priorities of the goals. We also identified the need to implement a regression testing evaluation framework in the participating companies.

Impact of Stress on Software Engineers Knowledge Sharing and Creativity [A Pakistani Perspective]

International Journal of Business Intelligents

Software development involves technology as well as human efforts. Software engineering is suppor... more Software development involves technology as well as human efforts. Software engineering is supportive to create a quality of product by adopting the process of sharing knowledge. A lot of research was conducted on the technical side but human side of software development disregarded. Knowledge and creativity considered major factors for improving the software quality. Currently professionals working in the field of software engineering are under impressive pressure which cause stress for the Software engineers. It is highly desirable to conduct an empirical study on “impact of stress on software engineers knowledge sharing &amp; creativity”. The major motivation for this study is to investigate the impact of job stress factors which can affect the software engineering knowledge sharing capabilities and creativity. The research is based on industrial assessment. For conducting this study we developed a questionnaire based on Stress Factors. Statistical analyses are performed through SPSS tool. On the basis of the results from the survey, we proposed some strategies for those factors that have high impact on software engineers and try to mitigate their affect. These results highlight stress factors and their impact on software engineers knowledge sharing and creativity, working in Pakistani software industry.

On the search for industry-relevant regression testing research

Empirical Software Engineering

Regression testing is a means to assure that a change in the software, or its execution environme... more Regression testing is a means to assure that a change in the software, or its execution environment, does not introduce new defects. It involves the expensive undertaking of rerunning test cases. Several techniques have been proposed to reduce the number of test cases to execute in regression testing, however, there is no research on how to assess industrial relevance and applicability of such techniques. We conducted a systematic literature review with the following two goals: firstly, to enable researchers to design and present regression testing research with a focus on industrial relevance and applicability and secondly, to facilitate the industrial adoption of such research by addressing the attributes of concern from the practitioners' perspective. Using a reference-based search approach, we identified 1068 papers on regression testing. We then reduced the scope to only include papers with explicit discussions about relevance and applicability (i.e. mainly studies involving industrial stakeholders). Uniquely in this literature review, practitioners were consulted at several steps to increase the likelihood of achieving our aim of identifying factors important for relevance and applicability. We have summarised the results of these consultations and an analysis of the literature in three taxonomies, which capture aspects of industrial-relevance regarding the regression testing techniques. Based on these taxonomies, we mapped 38 papers reporting the evaluation of 26 regression testing techniques in industrial settings.

Lessons learned from replicating a study on information-retrieval based test case prioritization

Cornell University - arXiv, Apr 13, 2022

Objective: In this study, we aim to replicate an artefact-based study on software testing to addr... more Objective: In this study, we aim to replicate an artefact-based study on software testing to address the gap. We focus on (a) providing a step by step guide of the replication, reflecting on challenges when replicating artefact-based testing research, (b) Evaluating the replicated study concerning its validity and robustness of the findings. Method: We replicate a test case prioritization technique by Kwon et al. We replicated the original study using four programs, two from the original study and two new programs. The replication study was implemented using Python to support future replications. Results: Various general factors facilitating replications are identified, such as: (1) the importance of documentation; (2) the need of assistance from the original authors; (3) issues in the maintenance of open source repositories (e.g., concerning needed software dependencies); (4) availability of scripts. We also raised several observations specific to the study and its context, such as insights from using different mutation tools and strategies for mutant generation. Conclusion: We conclude that the study by Kwon et al. is replicable for small and medium programs and could be automated to facilitate software practitioners, given the availability of required information.

Classification of Social Media Users Based on Disagreement and Stance Analysis

Analyzing conversational behavior is a primary task in the field of sentiment analysis. Different... more Analyzing conversational behavior is a primary task in the field of sentiment analysis. Different researchers have proposed their models to perform the sentiment analysis of social media discussions. Existing approaches mainly studying the conversational behavior based on the text in the conversation. In any discussion, the users could have different viewpoints about the topic of conversation. A user can agree or disagree on the topic of discussion. Agreement of a user to the topic is called a stance, and if the user disagrees to the topic, we refer it as disagreement. The classification of the users based on stance and disagreement is not a well-researched area, and need to be explored further. In this work, we have proposed a computational model to classify the members according to stance or disagreement. The proposed model uses the novel approach, and it is a hybrid of topic modeling and VADER (Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner). To evaluate the proposed model, we h...

Teaching students critical appraisal of scientific literature using checklists

Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference of Software Engineering Education, 2018

Background: Teaching students to critically appraise scientific literature is an important goal f... more Background: Teaching students to critically appraise scientific literature is an important goal for a postgraduate research methods course. Objective: To investigate the application of checklists for assessing the scientific rigor of empirical studies support students in reviewing case study research and experiments. Methods: We employed an experimental design where 76 students (in pairs) used two checklists to evaluate two papers (reporting a case study and an experiment) each. We compared the students' assessments against ratings from more senior researchers. We also collected data on students' perception of using the checklists. Results: The consistency of students' ratings and the accuracy when compared to ratings from seniors varied. A factor seemed to be that the clearer the reporting, the easier it is for students to judge the quality of studies. Students perceived checklist items related to data analysis as difficult to assess. Conclusion: As expected, this study reinforces the needs for clear reporting, as it is important that authors write to enable synthesis and quality assessment. With clearer reporting, the novices performed well in assessing the quality of the empirical work, which supports its continued use in the course as means for introducing scientific reviews.

Regression Testing Challenges and Solutions : An Industry-Academia Perspective

Background: Software quality assurance (QA) is an essential activity in the software development ... more

Information Retrieval based requirement traceability recovery approaches- A systematic literature review

University of Sindh Journal of Information and Communication Technology, 2018

Abstract: The term traceability is an important concept regarding software development. It enable... more Abstract: The term traceability is an important concept regarding software development. It enables software engineers to trace requirements from their origin to fulfillment. Maintaining traceability manually is a time consuming and expensive job. Information retrieval methods provide a mean of automation for requirement traceability. A visible number of IR based traceability techniques have been proposed in the literature, but the adoption of these techniques in the industry is limited. In this paper, we examine the information retrieval-based traceability recovery approaches through systematic literature review. We presented a synthesis of these techniques. We also identified challenges that are potentially limiting the adoption of IR based traceability recovery approaches. We conclude that term mismatch is a major barrier faced by IR based approaches. We also did classify the approaches that are attempting to solve the term mismatch problem.

An Improved Framework for Requirement Change Management in Global Software Development

In this research, an improved framework for requirement change management in global software deve... more In this research, an improved framework for requirement change management in global software development (RCM_GSD) has been presented. The objective is to manage the change in require-ment specifically in global software development in an appropriate manner. The proposed frame-work RCM_GSD follows the required processes of RCM and reduces the concerns of GSD. Systemat-ic Literature Review (SLR) was conducted for exploration of relevant research. During literature study, it is analyzed that the existing techniques of change management were not suitable for global software development (GSD). The change in requirements becomes more complicated in distributed environment due to the lack of communication and collaboration among globally dis-persed stakeholders. The proposed model is compared with other models proposed in recent li-terature and analysis is made between them; feedback was obtained from the domain experts as well. The feedback and comparison results show that the proposed m...

Integrating Formal Methods in XP—A Conceptual Solution

Formal methods can be used at any stage of product development process to improve the software qu... more Formal methods can be used at any stage of product development process to improve the software quality and efficiency using mathematical models for analysis and verification. From last decade, researchers and practitioners are trying to establish successful transfer of practices of formal methods into industrial process development. In the last couple of years, numerous analysis ap-proaches and formal methods have been applied in different settings to improve software quality. In today’s highly competitive software development industry, companies are striving to deliver fast with low cost and improve quality solutions and agile methodologies have proved their effi-ciency in acquiring these. Here, we will present an integration of formal methods, specifications and verification practices in the most renowned process development methodology of agile i.e. extreme programming with a conceptual solution. That leads towards the development of a com-plete formalized XP process in future. T...

Impact of Polyethylene Glycol on Proline and Membrane Stability Index for Water Stress Regime in Tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum)

Drought is one of the most important constraints worldwide for crop growth including tomato. It a... more Drought is one of the most important constraints worldwide for crop growth including tomato. It adversely affects germination and seedling that ultimately reduces crop development and economic yield. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) gives an indication to abiotic stresses and has been used throughout world in various crops for successful screening and breeding against stresses. Contrarily proline protects plant tissues against stress through preventing molecular denaturation, scavenges reactive oxygen species and interacts with phospholipids. Present paper presents the results on PEG and proline estimation in tomato. The PEG screening reduced the experimental material and finally 20 genotypes (6232, 6233, 6234, 10584, 10587, 17889, 17902, 17904, 19288, 19289, 19290, 19291, 19893, Avinash-2, Feston, Nagina, Punjab Chohara, Ratan and T-4) from diverse origin were investigated for proline estimation, chlorophyll contents and membrane stability index that gave a clear reference for drought tol...

Regression testing goals -View of practitioners and researchers

Context: Regression testing is a well-researched area. However, there is a lack of industrial app... more Context: Regression testing is a well-researched area. However, there is a lack of industrial application of regression testing techniques , proposed in the research. The disparity in goals and communication gaps is part of the reason. Close collaboration between industry and academia can help in bridging the gaps and resolving the disparities. Objective: The study aims at exploring the views of academics and practitioners about the regression testing goals. The purpose is to investigate the commonalities and differences in the viewpoints of the software industry practitioners and the academic researchers in this regard, and finally defining some common goals for the success of regression testing. Method: We used focus group method to elicit the regression testing goals from practitioners and researchers. 7 testing experts participated in the study. 4 participants were representing the testing practitioners, while 3 were representatives of the research community. We followed GQM (go...

A quasi-experiment to evaluate the impact of mental fatigue on study selection process

Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering, 2017

Context: Existing empirical evidence indicates that loss of alertness associated with mental fati... more Context: Existing empirical evidence indicates that loss of alertness associated with mental fatigue is highly correlated with fluctuations in the performance of people carrying out auditory tasks. In software engineering research, mental fatigue may affect the results of study selection (an auditory task) when conducting secondary studies such as systematic literature reviews or systematic mapping studies. However, to date there is no empirical study that reports an in-depth investigation about the relationship between mental fatigue and researchers' selection decisions during study selection process. Objective: The main objective of this paper is to report the design and preliminary results of an investigation about the impact of mental fatigue on the study selection process of secondary studies. Method: We designed and piloted a quasi-experiment. Results: The preliminary results do not indicate that mental fatigue negatively impacts the correctness of selection decision and c...

Authorship ethics: an overview of research on the state of practice

2021 IEEE/ACM 2nd International Workshop on Ethics in Software Engineering Research and Practice (SEthics), 2021

Authorship ethics is a central topic of discussion in research ethics fora. There are various gui... more Authorship ethics is a central topic of discussion in research ethics fora. There are various guidelines for authorship (i.e., naming and order). It is not easy to decide the authorship in the presence of varying authorship guidelines. This paper gives an overview of research on authorship practices and issues. It presents a review of 16 empirical research papers published between 2014 - 2020. The objective is to learn how various research disciplines handle authorship. What are the authorship practices in various research disciplines, and what are the issues associated with these practices?

Use of Personality Tests in Empirical Software Engineering Studies A Review of Ethical Issues

Proceedings of the Evaluation and Assessment on Software Engineering, 2019

There has been a lot of research on personality and its impact on software engineering practice. ... more There has been a lot of research on personality and its impact on software engineering practice. These studies use different psychological tests to identify personality types of software practitioners. The administration of these tests requires expertise. As the humans are involved, other ethical issues, such as consent, also become important. In this study, we evaluated a small sample of 15 studies that used a psychological test Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) in a software engineering context with respect to different ethical issues related to informed consent, qualification of the test administrators and the use of appropriate tests. The results show that most of the studies in our sample seriously lack with respect to various ethical issues.

Implementing Value Stream Mapping in a Scrum-based project - An Experience Report

The value stream mapping is one of the lean practices, that helps to visualize the whole process ... more The value stream mapping is one of the lean practices, that helps to visualize the whole process and identifies any bottlenecks affecting the flow. Proper management of the value stream can significantly contribute towards waste elimination by categorizing process activities to be either value adding or non value-adding. Lean development focuses on the value through the elimination of waste. Adding value through embracing change and customer satisfaction are also the benefits of Scrum. This study reports our experience regarding the implementation of VSM with Scrum. We followed the action research method, with an objective to see if VSM can contribute to the identification and reduction of wastes in a Scrum-based project. We identified a noticeable amount of waste even with strict compliance to the Scrum practices. On the basis of identified waste, their root causes, and possible mitigation strategy we have proposed a future state map, that could help improve the productivity of the...

Information Retrieval based requirement traceability recovery approaches- A systematic literature review

Abstract: The term traceability is an important concept regarding software development. It enable... more Abstract: The term traceability is an important concept regarding software development. It enables software engineers to trace requirements from their origin to fulfillment. Maintaining traceability manually is a time consuming and expensive job. Information retrieval methods provide a mean of automation for requirement traceability. A visible number of IR based traceability techniques have been proposed in the literature, but the adoption of these techniques in the industry is limited. In this paper, we examine the information retrieval-based traceability recovery approaches through systematic literature review. We presented a synthesis of these techniques. We also identified challenges that are potentially limiting the adoption of IR based traceability recovery approaches. We conclude that term mismatch is a major barrier faced by IR based approaches. We also did classify the approaches that are attempting to solve the term mismatch problem.

A systematic mapping of test case generation techniques using UML interaction diagrams

Journal of Software: Evolution and Process

Model-based test case generation techniques provide a mechanism to derive tests systematically. T... more Model-based test case generation techniques provide a mechanism to derive tests systematically. This study provides a systematic mapping of test case generation techniques based on UML interaction diagrams. The study compares the test case generation techniques regarding their capabilities and limitations, and it also assesses the reporting quality of the primary studies. We can conclude that the studies presenting test case generation techniques using UML interaction diagrams were not following guidelines for research methods (e.g., case studies or experiments). Solutions were not empirically evaluated in industrial contexts. Our study revealed that better tool support is needed to introduce the UML interaction diagram based test case generation techniques in the industry.

Regression testing for large-scale embedded software development – Exploring the state of practice

Information and Software Technology

Context. A majority of the regression testing techniques proposed by the research have not been a... more Context. A majority of the regression testing techniques proposed by the research have not been adopted in industry. To increase adoption rates, we need to better understand the practitioners' perspectives on regression testing. Objective. This study aims at exploring the regression testing state of practice in the large-scale embedded software development. The study has two objectives, 1) to highlight the potential challenges in practice, and 2) to identify the industry-relevant research areas regarding regression testing. Method. We conducted a qualitative study in two large-scale embedded software development companies, where we carried out semi-structured interviews with representatives from five software testing teams. We did conduct the detailed review of the process documentation of the companies to complement/validate the findings of the interviews. Results. Mostly, the practitioners run regression testing with a selected scope, the selection of scope depends upon the size, complexity, and location of the change. Test cases are prioritized on the basis of risk and critical functionality. The practitioners rely on their knowledge and experience for the decision making regarding selection and prioritization of test cases. The companies are using both automated and manual regression testing, and mainly they rely on inhouse developed tools for test automation. The challenges identified in the companies are: time to test, information management, test suite maintenance, lack of communication, test selection/prioritization, lack of assessment, etc. The proposed improvements are in line with the identified challenges. Regression testing goals identified in this study are customer satisfaction, critical defect detection, confidence, effectiveness, efficiency, and controlled slip through of faults. Conclusions. Considering the current state of practice and identified challenges we conclude that there is a need to reconsider the regression test strategy in the Preprint submitted to Information and Software Technology November 29, 2018 companies. Researchers need to analyze the industry perspective while proposing new regression testing techniques. The industry-academia collaboration projects would be a good platform in this regard.

Are project managers informally following capability maturity model integration practices for project management?

Global Journal of Information Technology: Emerging Technologies

Project planning is crucial for fruitful completion of a software development project. In case of... more Project planning is crucial for fruitful completion of a software development project. In case of a certified software development organisation, one can guess whether the software development projects are planned properly or not. But, what to do for a non-certified organisation? The objective of this study is to address this problem. For this purpose, a questionnaire survey has been conducted by involving experienced practitioners. The results show that several software development organisations follow Capability Maturity Model Integration) Project Planning-Process Area practices unofficially. Such organisations are potential candidate organisations for software process improvement initiatives, and would be cheap and safe for successful completion of a project. Keywords: CMMI, software project management, software process improvement, specific goals, specific practices, subpractices.

Regression Testing Goals - View of Practitioners and Researchers

2017 24th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference Workshops (APSECW)

Context: Regression testing is a well-researched area. However, the majority regression testing t... more Context: Regression testing is a well-researched area. However, the majority regression testing techniques proposed by the researchers are not getting the attention of the practitioners. Communication gaps between industry and academia, and disparity in the regression testing goals are the main reasons. Close collaboration can help in bridging the communication gaps and resolving the disparities. The study aims at exploring the views of academics and practitioners about the goals of regression testing. The purpose is to investigate the commonalities and differences in their viewpoints and defining some common goals for the success of regression testing. We conducted a focus group study, with 7 testing experts from industry and academia. 4 testing practitioners from 2 companies and 3 researchers from 2 universities participated in the study. We followed GQM approach, to elicit the regression testing goals, information needs, and measures. Results: 43 regression testing goals were identified by the participants, which were reduced to 10 on the basis of similarity among the identified goals. Later during the priority assignment process, 5 goals were discarded, because the priority assigned to these goals was very low. Participants identified 47 information needs/questions required to evaluate the success of regression testing with reference to goal G5 (confidence). Which were then reduced to 10 on the basis of similarity. Finally, we identified measures to gauge those information needs/questions, which were corresponding to the goal (G5). We observed that participation level of practitioners and researchers during the elicitation of goals and questions was same. We found a certain level of agreement between the participants regarding the regression testing definitions and goals. But there was some level of disagreement regarding the priorities of the goals. We also identified the need to implement a regression testing evaluation framework in the participating companies.

Impact of Stress on Software Engineers Knowledge Sharing and Creativity [A Pakistani Perspective]

International Journal of Business Intelligents

Software development involves technology as well as human efforts. Software engineering is suppor... more Software development involves technology as well as human efforts. Software engineering is supportive to create a quality of product by adopting the process of sharing knowledge. A lot of research was conducted on the technical side but human side of software development disregarded. Knowledge and creativity considered major factors for improving the software quality. Currently professionals working in the field of software engineering are under impressive pressure which cause stress for the Software engineers. It is highly desirable to conduct an empirical study on “impact of stress on software engineers knowledge sharing &amp; creativity”. The major motivation for this study is to investigate the impact of job stress factors which can affect the software engineering knowledge sharing capabilities and creativity. The research is based on industrial assessment. For conducting this study we developed a questionnaire based on Stress Factors. Statistical analyses are performed through SPSS tool. On the basis of the results from the survey, we proposed some strategies for those factors that have high impact on software engineers and try to mitigate their affect. These results highlight stress factors and their impact on software engineers knowledge sharing and creativity, working in Pakistani software industry.

On the search for industry-relevant regression testing research

Empirical Software Engineering

Regression testing is a means to assure that a change in the software, or its execution environme... more Regression testing is a means to assure that a change in the software, or its execution environment, does not introduce new defects. It involves the expensive undertaking of rerunning test cases. Several techniques have been proposed to reduce the number of test cases to execute in regression testing, however, there is no research on how to assess industrial relevance and applicability of such techniques. We conducted a systematic literature review with the following two goals: firstly, to enable researchers to design and present regression testing research with a focus on industrial relevance and applicability and secondly, to facilitate the industrial adoption of such research by addressing the attributes of concern from the practitioners' perspective. Using a reference-based search approach, we identified 1068 papers on regression testing. We then reduced the scope to only include papers with explicit discussions about relevance and applicability (i.e. mainly studies involving industrial stakeholders). Uniquely in this literature review, practitioners were consulted at several steps to increase the likelihood of achieving our aim of identifying factors important for relevance and applicability. We have summarised the results of these consultations and an analysis of the literature in three taxonomies, which capture aspects of industrial-relevance regarding the regression testing techniques. Based on these taxonomies, we mapped 38 papers reporting the evaluation of 26 regression testing techniques in industrial settings.