Journal of Software

Editor-in-Chief LI Ming-Shu(李明树) Institute of Software, The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China Associate Editors-in-Chief LU Ru-Qian(陆汝钤) Institute of Mathematics, AMSS, The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China Yao, Andrew C. Tsinghua Univ     

A Study on Automatic Classification of Users’ Desktop Interactions

Knowledge workers frequently change activities, either by choice or through interruptions. With an increasing number of activities and activity switches, it is becoming more and more difficult for knowledge workers to keep track of their desktop activities. This article presents our efforts to achieve activity awareness through automatic classification of user's everyday desktop activities. For getting a deeper understanding, we investigate performance of various classifiers with respect to discriminative power of time-, interaction-, and content-based feature sets for different work scenarios and users. Specifically, by viewing an activity as a sequence of desktop interactions we present (1) a methodology for translating a user's desktop interactions into activities, (2) evaluation of the discriminative power of different activity features and feature types, and (3) analysis of supervised classification models for classifying desktop activity under two different scenarios, i.e., an activity-centric scenario and a user-centric scenario. The experiments are carried out on a real-world dataset, and the results show satisfactory accuracy using relatively few and simple types of features.     

Estimation of unknown speaker’s height from speech

In the present study, we propose a regression-based scheme for the direct estimation of the height of unknown speakers from their speech. In this scheme every speech input is decomposed via the openSMILE audio parameterization to a single feature vector that is fed to a regression model, which provides a direct estimation of the persons’ height. The focus in this study is on the evaluation of the appropriateness of several linear and non-linear regression algorithms on the task of automatic height estimation from speech. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated on the TIMIT database, and the experimental results show an accuracy of 0.053 meters, in terms of mean absolute error, for the best performing Bagging regression algorithm. This accuracy corresponds to an averaged relative error of approximately 3%. We deem that the direct estimation of the height of unknown people from speech provides an important additional feature for improving the performance of various surveillance, profiling and access authorization applications.     

Does Test-Driven Development Really Improve Software Design Quality?

Support for test-driven development [TDD] is growing in many development contexts beyond its common association with extreme programming. By focusing on how TDD influences design characteristics, we hope to raise awareness of TDD as a design approach and assist others in decisions on whether and how to adopt TDD. Our results indicate that test-first programmers are more likely to write software in more and smaller units that are less complex and more highly tested. We weren't able to confirm claims that TDD improves cohesion while lowering coupling, but we anticipate ways to clarify the questions these design characteristics raised. In particular, we're working to eliminate the confounding factor of accessor usage in the cohesion metrics.     

How Practical is a Code of Ethics for Software Engineers Interested in Quality?

Software Quality Journal -     

The Evolution Path for Industrial Software Quality Evaluation Methods Applying ISO/IEC 9126:2001 Quality Model: Example of MITRE’s SQAE Method

This paper examines how the industrial applicability of both ISO/IEC 9126:2001 and MITRE Corporations Software Quality Assessment Exercise (SQAE) can be bolstered by migrating SQAEs quality model to ISO/IEC 9126:2001. The migration of the quality model is accomplished through the definition of an abstraction layer. The consolidated quality model is examined and further improvements to enrich the assessment of quality are enumerated.     

The Effects of Hover Interface on Users’ Behavioral Multitasking Intention

As the number of features with smartphones is increasing, user interfaces have been advanced considerably with innovative ways for providing useful, multitasking interfaces. In particular, the z-axis of the user interface has been considered to help multitaskers control their smartphone more easily. However, relatively little research has been conducted on the significance of the z-axis on task switching. The main research goal of this study is to explain how a z-axis can affect the experience of multitasking on a mobile device. In particular, the authors focused on a hover interface because of its high functional relevance to multitasking as a form of task switching. Theoretically, the authors provide a conceptual model based on the concept of spatial presence. Systemically, they suggest the important system factors for implementing z-axis interface technology: controllability and naturalness. With regards to users, the authors assume that if the experience with the z-axis interface is increased, users’ intention to multitask is also increased, even when the task complexity is high. The influence of controllability on perceived spatial presence by the hover interface was negatively validated, and the influence of naturalness was positively validated. In addition, the influence of perceived spatial presence on users’ behavioral multitasking intention was positively validated. Finally, the influence from perceived spatial presence to users’ behavioral multitasking intention in the high level of task complexity was significantly stronger than in the low level. Implications and limitations of the study results are discussed in the final section of the article.     

Cloud Computing: An Examination of Factors Impacting Users’ Adoption

With a rapid growth in technology, cloud computing has become increasingly popular among individual users and businesses around the world. This computing technology continues to attract attention in both academic and business settings. The popularity of cloud computing is due to its ability to provide faster on-demand infrastructure, self-service, and independent ability to contribute to, and access, resources. Despite many potential benefits of cloud computing usage, there are certain aspects that have prohibited some consumers to accept this technology and remain reserved toward its adoption. There are some crucial factors to consider before cloud computing can be accepted entirely by the individual, larger business, or academic groups. This study thus aims at investigating how cloud computing is perceived by potential users and which factors have a tendency to encourage or discourage them to adopt cloud computing.     

Users’ perception of open source usability: an empirical study

The number of open source software (OSS) users has increased in recent years. No longer are they limited to technically adept software developers. Many believe that the OSS market share could increase tremendously provided OSS had systems that were easier to use. Although examples of good usable open source software exist, it is agreed that OSS can be made more usable. This study presents an empirical investigation into the impact of some key factors on OSS usability from the end users’ point of view. The research model studies and establishes the relationship between the key usability factors from the users’ perspective and OSS usability. A data set of 102 OSS users from 13 open source projects of various sizes was used to study the research model. The results of this study provide empirical evidence by indicating that the highlighted key factors play a significant role in improving OSS usability.     

Perception of Order and Ambiguity in Leonardo’s Design Concepts

Leonardo da Vinci used geometry to give his design concepts both structural and visual balance. The paper examines aesthetic order in Leonardo’s structural design, and reflects on his belief in analogy between structure and anatomy. Leonardo’s drawings of grids and roof systems are generated from processes best known from ornamentation and can be developed into spatial structures assembled from loose elements with no need for binding elements. His architectural plans are patterns based on principles of tessellation, tiling and recursion, also characteristic of the reversible, ambiguous structures which led to Leonardo’s further inventions in structural and mechanical design as well as dynamic representations of space in his painting. In recent times, the ambiguous structures in the art of Joseph Albers, the reversible and impossible structures of M. C. Escher, the recurring patterns and spherical geometry of Buckminster Fuller and the reciprocal grids in structural design of Cecil Balmond display a similar interest. Computer models and animations have been used to simulate processes of perceiving and creating ambiguity in structures.     

Users’ perceptions about mobile security breaches

Apart from the technological perspective of security in mobile devices and applications, the economic perspective has been increasingly attracting the academic and business interest. This paper aims to investigate the perceptions of mobile users about the economic importance of security breaches. Instead of considering mobile users as a whole, they were examined as distinct user types based on Brandtzæg’s mobile user typology. These types are: (1) sporadic users, (2) socializers, (3) entertainment type users, (4) instrumental users, and (5) advanced users. In the context of the research part of this study, a survey was conducted in a sample of smartphone and tablet owners. The five user types were identified in our sample by setting specific classification rules, based on the frequency and the variety of mobile services used. Mobile users’ perceptions were assessed in terms of ten different kinds of security breaches. The findings indicated that the user types perceive differently the economic importance of security breaches, implying that the design of security policies and/or the development of tools totally for the community of users are not the appropriate practices. Our research could contribute to the knowledge considering mobile users and their perceptions about security breaches. Mobile content providers and developers could use the findings of this study to evaluate and redesign, if needed, their current strategies so as to meet users’ needs regarding security.     

A Human-Cognitive Perspective of Users’ Password Choices in Recognition-Based Graphical Authentication

ABSTRACT

Graphical password composition is an important part of graphical user authentication which affects the strength of the chosen password. Considering that graphical authentication is associated with visual search, perception, and information retrieval, in this paper we report on an eye-tracking study (N = 109) that aimed to investigate the effects of users’ cognitive styles toward the strength of the created passwords and shed light into whether and how the visual strategy of the users during graphical password composition is associated with the passwords’ strength. For doing so, we adopted Witkin’s Field Dependence-Independence theory, which underpins individual differences in visual information and cognitive processing, as graphical password composition tasks are associated with visual search. The analysis revealed that users with different cognitive processing characteristics followed different patterns of visual behavior during password composition which affected the strength of the created passwords. The findings underpin the need of considering human-cognitive characteristics as a design factor in graphical password schemes. The paper concludes by discussing implications for improving recognition-based graphical passwords through adaptation and personalization techniques based on individual cognitive characteristics.     

HilAnchor: Location Privacy Protection in the Presence of Users’ Preferences

Location privacy receives considerable attentions in emerging location based services.Most current practices however either ignore users’ preferences or incompletely fulfill privacy preferences.In this paper,we propose a privacy protection solution to allow users’ preferences in the fundamental query of k nearest neighbors (kNN).Particularly,users are permitted to choose privacy preferences by specifying minimum inferred region.Via Hilbert curve based transformation,the additional workload from users’ preferences is alleviated.Furthermore,this transformation reduces time-expensive region queries in 2-D space to range the ones in 1-D space.Therefore,the time efficiency,as well as communication efficiency,is greatly improved due to clustering properties of Hilbert curve.Further,details of choosing anchor points are theoretically elaborated.The empirical studies demonstrate that our implementation delivers both flexibility for users’ preferences and scalability for time and communication costs.