Past and future of software architectural decisions – A systematic mapping study

ContextThe software architecture of a system is the result of a set of architectural decisions. The topic of architectural decisions in software engineering has received significant attention in recent years. However, no systematic overview exists on the state of research on architectural decisions.ObjectiveThe goal of this study is to provide a systematic overview of the state of research on architectural decisions. Such an overview helps researchers reflect on previous research and plan future research. Furthermore, such an overview helps practitioners understand the state of research, and how research results can help practitioners in their architectural decision-making.MethodWe conducted a systematic mapping study, covering studies published between January 2002 and January 2012. We defined six research questions. We queried six reference databases and obtained an initial result set of 28,895 papers. We followed a search and filtering process that resulted in 144 relevant papers.ResultsAfter classifying the 144 relevant papers for each research question, we found that current research focuses on documenting architectural decisions. We found that only several studies describe architectural decisions from the industry. We identified potential future research topics: domain-specific architectural decisions (such as mobile), achieving specific quality attributes (such as reliability or scalability), uncertainty in decision-making, and group architectural decisions. Regarding empirical evaluations of the papers, around half of the papers use systematic empirical evaluation approaches (such as surveys, or case studies). Still, few papers on architectural decisions use experiments.ConclusionOur study confirms the increasing interest in the topic of architectural decisions. This study helps the community reflect on the past ten years of research on architectural decisions. Researchers are offered a number of promising future research directions, while practitioners learn what existing papers offer.     

Visualising a knowledge mapping of information systems investment evaluation

Information systems (IS) facilitate organisations to increase responsiveness and reduce the costs of their supply chain. This paper seeks to make a contribution through exploring and visualising knowledge mapping from the perspective of IS investment evaluation. The evaluation of IS is regarded as a challenging and complex process, which becomes even more difficult with the increased complexity of IS. The intricacy of IS evaluation, however, is due to numerous interrelated factors (e.g. costs, benefits and risks) that have human or organisational dimensions. With this in mind, there appears to be an increasing need to assess investment decision-making processes, to better understand the often far-reaching implications associated with technology adoption and interrelated knowledge components (KC). Through the identification and extrapolation of key learning issues from the literature and empirical findings, organisations can better improve their business processes and thereby their effectiveness and efficiency, while preventing others from making costly oversights that may not necessarily be only financial. In seeking to enlighten the often obscure evaluation of IS investments, this paper attempts to inductively emphasise the dissemination of knowledge and learning through the application of a fuzzy Expert System (ES) based knowledge mapping technique (i.e. Fuzzy Cognitive Map [FCM]). The rationale for exploring knowledge and IS investment evaluation is that a knowledge map will materialise for others to exploit during their specific technology evaluation. This is realised through conceptualising the explicit and tacit investment drivers. Among the several findings drawn from this research, the key resulting knowledge mapping through FCM demonstrated the complex, multifaceted and emergent behaviour of causal relationships within the knowledge area. The principal relationships and knowledge within IS investment evaluation are illustrated as being determined by a blend of managerial and user perspectives.     

Dynamic thread mapping of shared memory applications by exploiting cache coherence protocols

In current computer architectures, the communication performance between threads varies depending on the memory hierarchy. This performance difference must be considered when mapping parallel applications to processor cores. In parallel applications based on the shared memory paradigm, the communication is difficult to detect because it is implicit. Furthermore, dynamic mapping introduces several challenges, since it needs to find a suitable mapping and migrate the threads with a low overhead during the execution of the application. We propose a mechanism to detect the communication pattern of shared memory applications by monitoring cache coherence protocols. We also propose heuristics that, combined with our communication detection mechanism, allow the mapping to be performed dynamically by the operating system. Experiments with the NAS Parallel Benchmarks showed a reduction of up to 13.9% of the execution time, 30.5% of the cache misses and 39.4% of the number of invalidation messages.     

豇豆荚螟对阿维菌素的敏感性分析

采用浸渍法和分光光度法进行了豇豆荚螟对阿维菌素的敏感性分析。结果表明,不同种群豇豆荚螟对阿维菌素的敏感性存在明显差异。从两院豇豆荚螟种群对阿维菌素的LC50抗性比值可以看出,定安和东方豇豆荚螟种群对阿维菌素的抗药性分别提高3.5701倍和2.8650倍;羧酸酯酶活性测定结果表明,用阿维菌素18、9、4.5、3、0.225mg/kg处理豇豆荚螟后,各处理豇豆荚螟的羧酸酯酶活性均明显增强。上述结果表明,豇豆荚螟种群对阿维菌素的敏感性降低主要是由于羧酸酯酶活性显著增强所致。     

高速以太网中实时相似性匹配算法的研究

在高速以太网中, 针对用户行为的特殊性及数据流五元组的特点, 提出了一种自适应相似性匹配算法(ASMA-HN)。该算法充分考虑了数据流五元组的随机性分布特点, 通过一种改进的XOR-SHIFT算法将数据流分类索引, 并提出了同类数据库(SD)及异类数据库(HD)的概念, 基于距离测度分别设计了加权相似性比较函数, 使得特征值能更精准地匹配到符合要求的数据文件, 提高了整体的匹配效率。通过对校园网实际流量的现场测试, 证明该算法具有较高的精准性及可适用性, 且匹配时间较低, 能很好地满足高速网络中相似性匹配业务的需求。     

无线传感网动态可认证群组密钥交换协议

无线传感器网络中节点电池电量有限、节点计算能力及存储能力受限,使得现有的大部分群组密钥交换技术不适用于无线传感器网络。针对该问题,提出一种动态的可认证群组密钥交换协议。采用双线性映射技术实现无线传感器网络中节点之间的群组密钥交换。该协议具有可认证性,避免群组密钥交换过程中遭到欺骗攻击及中间人攻击;具有动态性,适用于无线传感器网络节点动态部署;在双线性计算Diffie-Hellman(bilinear computation Diffie-Hellman,BCDH)困难性假设下是可证安全的。分析结果表明,该协议具有较高的安全性和较好的性能。     

基于知识库分割的多知识库整合方法

知识库是集团企业云制造平台中知识服务的重要基础,知识库的质量直接决定着知识服务的质量。目前单一分散的知识库不能提供统一的知识资源全局视图,不利于知识资源的共享。多知识库整合技术已经成为该领域的研究热点之一。提出一种基于知识库分割的多知识库整合方法,采用基于蚁群聚类的分割策略,将知识库有效划分为知识块集。在知识块间利用语义概念映射生成知识块间映射图,从而实现多知识库整合。通过对算法的时间复杂度进行分析,表明该方法在时间复杂度方面要优于基于最小概念集的多知识库整合方法;实验结果也表明该方法在运行性能方面明显优于已有的方法。     

一种带局部搜索功能的入侵杂草优化算法

为了改善入侵杂草优化算法解的质量,提出一种带局部搜索功能的入侵杂草优化算法。该算法按照一定概率对每代产生的最优个体执行球体局部搜索算子或Logistic映射搜索算子,在最优个体周围进行精细搜索,并用搜索到的较优个体代替最优个体,提高了算法的局部搜索能力和优化精度。并对7个测试函数进行了仿真实验,结果表明:该算法具有较高的优化性能。     

基于核Fisher判别和加权码书映射的音频信号削波修复方法

本文基于核Fisher判别（Kernel Fisher Discriminant, KFD）和加权码书映射（Weighted Codebook Mapping, WCBM）,提出了一种MDCT（Modified Discrete Cosine Transform）域的音频信号削波修复方法。首先根据音频信号的MDCT系数提取子带包络等四种削波特征参数;其次,利用这些特征参数训练检测音频信号出现削波的核Fisher分类器;最后,利用子带包络的WCBM来修复音频信号的削波。测试结果表明,本文所提方法能有效修复音频信号的削波,其性能优于现有的几种削波修复方法。     

超快平面显微成像技术

快速成像技术在很多领域都有着重要的应用,本文基于超短光脉冲的时-空-频映射原理,提出并实现了一种超快平面显微成像技术。利用色散傅里叶变换及空间色散器件把光脉冲的宽带频谱信息分别映射到时域和空域,利用高速光电探测器进行串行单像素成像,最终获得了帧速率为20.9 MHz,空间分辨率为22 μm和55 μm的一维及二维平面成像系统。在实验中用标准的分辨率目标板验证了成像效果。该技术为超快成像提供了一种有效手段,并将应用于高速平面检测等多个领域。