Browsing by Subject "Metrics"

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An empirical study on software quality : developer perception of quality, metrics, and visualizations
(2013-05) Wilson, Gary Lynn; Kim, Miryung
Software tends to decline in quality over time, causing development and maintenance costs to rise. However, by measuring, tracking, and controlling quality during the lifetime of a software product, its technical debt can be held in check, reducing total cost of ownership. The measurement of quality faces challenges due to disagreement in the meaning of software quality, the inability to directly measure quality factors, and the lack of measurement practice in the software industry. This report addresses these challenges through both a literature survey, a metrics derivation process, and a survey of professional software developers. Definitions of software quality from the literature are presented and evaluated with responses from software professionals. A goal, question, metric process is used to derive quality-targeted metrics tracing back to a set of seven code-quality subgoals, while a survey to software professionals shows that despite agreement that metrics and metric visualizations would be useful for improving software quality, the techniques are underutilized in practice.
The metrics of spacecraft design reusability and cost analysis as applied to CubeSats
(2012-05) Brumbaugh, Katharine Mary; Lightsey, E. Glenn; Guerra, Lisa
The University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) Satellite Design Lab (SDL) is currently designing two 3U CubeSat spacecraft – Bevo-2 and ARMADILLO – which serve as the foundation for the design reusability and cost analysis of this thesis. The thesis explores the reasons why a small satellite would want to incorporate a reusable design and the processes needed in order for this reusable design to be implemented for future projects. Design and process reusability reduces the total cost of the spacecraft, as future projects need only alter the components or documents necessary in order to create a new mission. The thesis also details a grassroots approach to determining the total cost of a 3U CubeSat satellite development project and highlights the costs which may be considered non-recurring and recurring in order to show the financial benefit of reusability. The thesis then compares these results to typical models used for cost analysis in industry applications. The cost analysis determines that there is a crucial gap in the cost estimating of nanosatellites which may be seen by comparing two widely-used cost models, the Small Satellite Cost Model (SSCM <100 kg) and the NASA/Air Force Cost Model (NAFCOM), as they apply to a 3U CubeSat project. While each of these models provides a basic understanding of the elements which go into cost estimating, the Cost Estimating Relationships (CERs) do not have enough historical data of picosatellites and nanosatellites (<50 kg) to accurately reflect mission costs. Thus, the thesis documents a discrepancy between widely used industry spacecraft cost models and the needs of the picosatellite and nanosatellite community, specifically universities, to accurately predict their mission costs. It is recommended to develop a nanosatellite/CubeSat cost model with which university and industry developers alike can determine their mission costs during the designing, building and operational stages. Because cost models require the use of many missions to form a database, it is important to start this process now at the beginning of the nanosatellite/CubeSat boom.
Poetic organization and poetic license in the lyrics of Hank Williams, Sr. and Snoop Dogg
(2010-12) Horn, Elizabeth Alena; Crowhurst, Megan Jane; Hancock, Ian F.; Epps, Patience L.; Mooney, Kevin E.; Fitzgerald, Colleen M.
This dissertation addresses the way a linguistic grammar can yield to poetic organization in a poetic text. To this end, two corpora are studied: the sung lyrics of country music singer Hank Williams, Sr. and the rapped lyrics of gansgta rap artist Snoop Dogg. Following a review of relevant literature, an account of the poetic grammar for each corpus is provided, including the manifestation of musical meter and grouping in the linguistic text, the reflection of metrical grouping in systematic rhyme, and rhyme fellow correspondence. In the Williams corpus, final cadences pattern much as in the English folk verse studied in Hayes and MacEachern (1998), but differ in that there are more, and therefore more degrees of saliency. Rhyme patterns reflect grouping structure and correlate to patterns in final cadences, and imperfect rhyme is limited to phonologically similar codas. In the Snoop Dogg corpus syllables do not always align with the metrical grid, metrical mapping and rhyme patterning often challenge grouping structure, and imperfect rhyme is more diverse, as has been shown to be the case for contemporary rap generally (Krims 2000, Katz 2008). Following Rice (1997), Golston (1998), Reindl and Franks (2001), Michael (2003), and Fitzgerald (2003, 2007), meter, grouping and rhyme are modeled as driving phonological, morphological and syntactic deviation in Optimality Theoretic terms. In the Hank Williams corpus, metrical mapping and grouping constraints are shown to drive a number of linguistically deviatory phenomena including stress shift, syllabic variation and allomorphy, while rhyme patterning constraints govern syntactic inversion. In the Snoop Dogg corpus, rhyme fellow correspondence and rhyme patterning constraints play a more significant role, driving enjambment, syllabic variation, and allomorphy. Some linguistically deviatory phenomena derive from ordinary language variation, e.g. (flawr)~(flaw.[schwa]r), and some do not, e.g. syllable insertion in insista. The latter is more common in the Snoop Dogg corpus.
The Role of leadership in high performance software development teams
(2011-12) Ward, John Mason; Nichols, Steven Parks, 1950-; McCann, Robert Bruce, 1948-
The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of leadership in creating high performance software development teams. Of specific interest were the challenges faced by the Project Manager without a software engineering background. These challenges included management of a non-visible process, planning projects with significant uncertainty, and working with teams that don’t trust their leadership. Conclusions were drawn from the author’s experience as a software development manager facing these problems and a broad literature review of experts from the software and knowledge worker management fields. The primary conclusion was that, until the next big breakthrough, gains in software development productivity resulting from technology are limited. The only way for a group to distinguish itself as performing at the highest levels is teamwork enabled by good leadership.
Validation of a reduced-complexity numerical model for resolving deltaic dynamics : internal consistency and morphodynamics
(2015-05) Van Dyk, Corey John; Passalacqua, Paola; Mohrig, David
River deltas are fragile ecosystems that have immense ecological, economic, and social importance. The ability to understand them is facilitated by numerical models that can resolve the complex hydrodynamics and morphodynamics of deltas. DeltaRCM is one such model, and to validate its behavior, internal consistency is tested with variable input parameters; results indicate realistic growth with predictable patterns. The morphodynamics are tested against experimental and real deltas with the use of metrics: specifically, delta growth metrics like shoreline-to-area ratio and relative shoreline roughness, channel overlap, and avulsion behavior. DeltaRCM performs very well when compared to real systems with growth rate and relative shoreline roughness, and fairly well for shoreline-to-area ratio. The channel overlap metric suggests DeltaRCM displays a slightly higher degree of channel stability than an experimental delta, though the general trend of memory decay remains the same. A similar link exists between DeltaRCM and reality for the wetted fraction, in that general trends are similar but comparison breaks down at finer scales. Furthermore, based on DeltaRCM results, wetted fraction is an imperfect tool for determining avulsion timescale. A new metric, the sedimentograph, is introduced as a way of describing delta growth at the subsurface level; DeltaRCM gives reasonable results for this metric, though comparison to real systems is difficult.