Cognitive control by brain-injured car drivers: an exploratory study

Cognitive control is a key tool for adaptation in dynamic situations. The aim of the study is to assess the relevance of a theoretical framework for cognitive control in dynamic situations, in order to understand brain-injured (BI) car drivers' cognitive impairment. The framework supports a cognitive control multimodality based on the crossing of two orthogonal dimensions: symbolic/subsymbolic; anticipative/reactive control. BI car drivers' behaviour was compared with that of a control group (CTRL) during driving simulator scenarios. Eye movement analysis, among other variables, revealed that BI car drivers made use of a more symbolic and reactive control than did CTRL drivers. CTRL drivers showed a more stable cognitive compromise than BI drivers. The latter became less symbolic and more reactive in the case of difficult scenarios. In addition, BI drivers focused on the main task of trajectory management, with fewer resources devoted to traffic interaction management.

Statement of Relevance:An explanation of differences between BI and CTRL drivers in terms of cognitive control requirements, attention and processing speed is put forward. From this, it is possible to derive some implications in terms of driver assistance (e.g. lane keeping or a warning assistance device) and rehabilitation.     

Cognitive control by brain-injured car drivers: an exploratory study

Cognitive control is a key tool for adaptation in dynamic situations. The aim of the study is to assess the relevance of a theoretical framework for cognitive control in dynamic situations, in order to understand brain-injured (BI) car drivers' cognitive impairment. The framework supports a cognitive control multimodality based on the crossing of two orthogonal dimensions: symbolic/subsymbolic; anticipative/reactive control. BI car drivers' behaviour was compared with that of a control group (CTRL) during driving simulator scenarios. Eye movement analysis, among other variables, revealed that BI car drivers made use of a more symbolic and reactive control than did CTRL drivers. CTRL drivers showed a more stable cognitive compromise than BI drivers. The latter became less symbolic and more reactive in the case of difficult scenarios. In addition, BI drivers focused on the main task of trajectory management, with fewer resources devoted to traffic interaction management. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: An explanation of differences between BI and CTRL drivers in terms of cognitive control requirements, attention and processing speed is put forward. From this, it is possible to derive some implications in terms of driver assistance (e.g. lane keeping or a warning assistance device) and rehabilitation.     

Improving design-pattern identification: a new approach and an exploratory study

The identification of occurrences of design patterns in programs can help maintainers to understand the program design and implementation. It can also help them to make informed changes. Current identification approaches are limited to complete occurrences, are time- and resource-consuming, and lead to many false positives. We propose to combine a structural and a numerical approach to improve the identification of complete and incomplete occurrences of design patterns. We develop a structural approach using explanation-based constraint programming and we enhance this approach using experimentally built numerical signatures. We show that the use of numerical signatures improves the identification of complete and incomplete occurrences in terms of performance and precision.     

Classifying generated white-box tests: an exploratory study

White-box test generation analyzes the code of the system under test, selects relevant test inputs, and captures the observed behavior of the system as expected values in the tests. However, if there is a fault in the implementation, this fault could get encoded in the assertions (expectations) of the tests. The fault is only recognized if the developer, who is using test generation, is also aware of the real expected behavior. Otherwise, the fault remains silent both in the test and in the implementation. A common assumption is that developers using white-box test generation techniques need to inspect the generated tests and their assertions, and to validate whether the tests encode any fault or represent the real expected behavior. Our goal is to provide insights about how well developers perform in this classification task. We designed an exploratory study to investigate the performance of developers. We also conducted an internal replication to increase the validity of the results. The two studies were carried out in a laboratory setting with 106 graduate students altogether. The tests were generated in four open-source projects. The results were analyzed quantitatively (binary classification metrics and timing measurements) and qualitatively (by observing and coding the activities of participants from screen captures and detailed logs). The results showed that participants tend to incorrectly classify tests encoding both expected and faulty behavior (with median misclassification rate 20%). The time required to classify one test varied broadly with an average of 2 min. This classification task is an essential step in white-box test generation that notably affects the real fault detection capability of such tools. We recommended a conceptual framework to describe the classification task and suggested taking this problem into account when using or evaluating white-box test generators.

     

The development of a mobile money service: an exploratory actor-network study

Mobile money has received ample academic and practitioner attention as a means to improve access to financial services in developing countries. However, there is a paucity of empirical studies examining mobile money development from a socio-technical stance. Based on an exploratory cross-sectional field study conducted at three sites in the Upper East region of Ghana, this paper attempts to understand the dynamics of the development and diffusion of a mobile money service from an actor-network theory (ANT) perspective. Data from semi-structured interviews with the principal stakeholders (supplemented by documentary evidence) were analyzed using grounded theory coding techniques and the emergent themes interpreted through the lens of the “moments of translation” (Callon, M. (1999). Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. In M. Biagioli (Ed.), The science studies reader (pp. 67–83). London: Routledge) framework of ANT. The study found that a mobile network operator has built a nascent network of composite social and material stakeholders to offer mobile money services despite significant challenges. Although the actor-network is still evolving and mobile money has yet to reach critical mass, there is evidence of growing uptake. This paper highlights the value of ANT as a lens for exploring the diffusion of innovations in information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) research.     

Building a successful relationship in business process outsourcing: an exploratory study

In the past decade, business process outsourcing (BPO) has emerged as an important economic and business issue. Successful offshoring and outsourcing of business processes to low-cost destinations has made BPO a strategic decision. Inconsistencies at the client and service provider levels globally are requiring clients to build competencies in outsourcing management. Clients are further pushing service providers to build capabilities such as business process management and information technology management competencies. A research survey is carried out with European clients to identify the critical competencies of the service provider and clients for building a successful relationship. The survey indicates that the clients’ focus is on BPO outcome delivery for building successful relationship and not so much on the service provider's competencies.     

Collaborative technologies in knowledge telework: an exploratory study

Abstract.  Knowledge workers in distributed work environments require substantial communication with colleagues and supervisors to perform their work activities, and collaborative technologies, like groupware, continue to improve the potential for such communication. This study investigates how an improvement in collaborative technology among a group of knowledge teleworkers impacts their communication patterns. The study focuses on one communication-based work process: knowledge sharing. The research involves a 6-month exploratory longitudinal case study of a group of teleworkers where a new groupware technology was implemented. The results indicate that while there are fewer instances of communication among group members after the technology is implemented, communication becomes more centralized around the district manager. These results suggest that increased collaborative technologies result in an adjustment between explicit and tacit knowledge sharing, as the availability of a centralized and updateable database reduces workgroup communications. However, consistent with structuration theory, telework group members do use communication technologies to address their most apparent needs and concerns. Other potential explanations and implications of these findings are discussed.     

The bug report duplication problem: an exploratory study

Duplicate bug report entries in bug trackers have a negative impact on software maintenance and evolution. This is due, among other factors, to the increased time spent on report analysis and validation, which in some cases takes over 20 min. Therefore, a considerable amount of time is lost in duplicate bug report analysis. In order to understand the possible factors that cause bug report duplication and its impact on software development, this paper presents an exploratory study in which bug tracking data from private and open source projects were analyzed. The results show, for example, that all projects we investigated had duplicate bug reports and a considerable amount of time was wasted by this duplication. Furthermore, features such as project lifetime, staff size, and the number of bug reports do not seem to be significant factors for duplication, while others, such as the submitters’ profile and the number of submitters, do seem to influence the bug report duplication.     

Mobile service consumption values: an exploratory mixed-method study

We propose mobile service consumption values based on a multi-dimensional value perspective by conducting an exploratory mixed-method design, including focus group interviews and face-to-face intercept surveys. We explored six dimensions of mobile service consumption values: convenience, effectiveness, enjoyment, reassurance, information, and epistemic values. The proposed value dimensions expand the scope of existing value studies by proposing additional or modified value dimensions. These dimensions reflect unique characteristics of mobile service values. In addition, the effects of mobile service consumption values on mobile service uses were examined. The results show that users’ value perceptions significantly influence their intention to use mobile services and that relative importance of value dimensions is different depending on types of mobile services. The exploration and verification of mobile service consumption values contributes theoretically to developing an expanded framework of consumption values in the mobile service field and to further understanding needs and motivations of mobile service users.     

How effective developers investigate source code: an exploratory study

Prior to performing a software change task, developers must discover and understand the subset of the system relevant to the task. Since the behavior exhibited by individual developers when investigating a software system is influenced by intuition, experience, and skill, there is often significant variability in developer effectiveness. To understand the factors that contribute to effective program investigation behavior, we conducted a study of five developers performing a change task on a medium-size open source system. We isolated the factors related to effective program investigation behavior by performing a detailed qualitative analysis of the program investigation behavior of successful and unsuccessful developers. We report on these factors as a set of detailed observations, such as evidence of the phenomenon of inattention blindness by developers skimming source code. In general, our results support the intuitive notion that a methodical and structured approach to program investigation is the most effective.     

How do humans inspect BPMN models: an exploratory study

Even though considerable progress regarding the technical perspective on modeling and supporting business processes has been achieved, it appears that the human perspective is still often left aside. In particular, we do not have an in-depth understanding of how process models are inspected by humans, what strategies are taken, what challenges arise, and what cognitive processes are involved. This paper contributes toward such an understanding and reports an exploratory study investigating how humans identify and classify quality issues in BPMN process models. Providing preliminary answers to initial research questions, we also indicate other research questions that can be investigated using this approach. Our qualitative analysis shows that humans adapt different strategies on how to identify quality issues. In addition, we observed several challenges appearing when humans inspect process models. Finally, we present different manners in which classification of quality issues was addressed.     

Inter‐university cooperative learning: an exploratory study

This paper presents some preliminary findings from continuing action research involving university students of Education and examines the creation of a community of learners through the use of electronic media for remote collaboration. The main goal of this community was the design and implementation of a Web site about the curricula content of two parallel courses. The research focussed on the evaluation of the impact of technologies on communication processes among local peers and remote peers, and on the role of experts in the learning process. Qualitative analyses were conducted on information gathered from videorecordings of local interactions, personal portfolios, and cognitive maps. Students also completed rating scales on their perceptions of desired and actual function fulfilment (direct instruction, cognitive scaffolding, and affective scaffolding) by local and remote peers and tutors in the accomplishment of goals.     

Automatic personality identification using writing behaviours: an exploratory study

The ability of automatically identifying users’ personality is an important part of building adaptive systems and providing personalised services. However, there is still a lack of evaluation methods which can not only unobtrusively gather user data without supplement equipment, but also provide accurate and real-time prediction of users’ personality. This paper presents a new approach to identifying personality by combining writing features and machine learning techniques. We conducted an exploratory study where we collected participants’ handwriting information and personality information via questionnaire. From these data, we extracted writing features and created classifiers for seven personality dimensions. Our top results include a unique set of writing features which could be predictive of personality and binary classifiers for the seven personality dimensions, with accuracies ranging from 62.5% to 83.9%. These results show that writing features are useful for personality identification when suitable classifiers are adopted.     

Shared mobile displays: an exploratory study of their use in a museum setting

We conducted an exploratory study that examines the use of shared mobile displays such as mobile projectors and tablets to support group activities. We compare how a small group of visitors use either a shared display or personal individual devices in a museum visit context, in both a navigation task and a media viewing task. Group proximity, decision making, leadership patterns, and interaction between group members as well as attitudes are analyzed. We report on various usage patterns observed with group use of shared displays and discuss user preferences in comparison with the non-shared handheld alternative. Results show how mobile shared displays can support and enhance the group experience, by providing a shared mobile environment. Mobile shared displays increase group cohesiveness as was shown by increased proximity and amount of discussion by participants. Users perceive the use of shared displays as both useful and enjoyable, with the caveat that many users still want to retain individual control. We discuss this trade-off between groupness and individual control, as well as provide an analysis of the relative advantages of each shared display option.     

Can software risk management improve system development: an exploratory study

Software risk management can be defined as an attempt to formalise risk oriented correlates of development success into a readily applicable set of principles and practices. Earlier research suggests that it can reduce the likelihood of a system failure. Using a survey instrument we investigate this claim further. The investigation addresses the following questions: (1) which characteristics of risk management practices; and (2) which other environmental and process factors (such as development methods, manager's experience) relate to improved performance in managing software risks? Our findings support in general the claim that the use of risk management methods improves system development performance. Yet, little support was found for the claim that specific risk management methods are instrumental in attacking specific software risks. Overall, risks are better managed with combined measures of having experienced project managers, selecting a correct project size, and investing in and obtaining experience in risk management deliberations.     

Speech recognition in the secondary school classroom: an exploratory study

Voice recognition software has improved dramatically over the past two or three years in terms of accuracy and usability and, at the same time, the costs of the software have been reduced significantly. While dictation software has so far been used predominantly in the medical and legal professions, it has been suggested that the software may benefit schoolchildren who have difficulties with spelling and writing. This paper reports on an exploratory study in which a group of second year secondary school pupils with reading ages ranging from 8.3 to 12.9 performed a set of tasks using the IBM VoiceType dictation package. The tasks involved normal classroom dictation by a teacher, the use of the keyboard to input the same text, the use of the dictation software to dictate the text to the computer, and the use of the dictation software to write a story based on a set of pictures. The results showed that the children could input text more quickly using voice dictation compared with keyboard entry, and that accuracy was acceptable and improving with practice. The implications of these findings for the use of dictation software in the classroom are discussed alongwith some directions for further research.     

Assessing participative systems design: Some conclusions from an exploratory study

Participative systems design has been proposed by many as the best approach for information system/technology implementation. A study was undertaken to see if this supposition could be supported. The results suggest that participative design: (a) is a much more complicated phenomenon than the literature contends, (b) is not normally formally evaluated, (c) is almost universally praised by the participants, and (d) is, however, not normally used a second time.     

Assessing software product line potential: an exploratory industrial case study

Corporate organizations sometimes offer similar software products in certain domains due to former company mergers or due to the complexity of the organization. The functional overlap of such products is an opportunity for future systematic reuse to reduce software development and maintenance costs. Therefore, we have tailored existing domain analysis methods to our organization to identify commonalities and variabilities among such products and to assess the potential for software product line (SPL) approaches. As an exploratory case study, we report on our experiences and lessons learned from conducting the domain analysis in four application cases with large-scale software products. We learned that the outcome of a domain analysis was often a smaller integration scenario instead of an SPL and that business case calculations were less relevant for the stakeholders and managers from the business units during this phase. We also learned that architecture reconstruction using a simple block diagram notation aids domain analysis and that large parts of our approach were reusable across application cases.