65 research outputs found
Questions for Data Scientists in Software Engineering: A Replication
No full textIn 2014, a Microsoft study investigated the sort of questions that data science applied to software engineering should answer. This resulted in 145 questions that developers considered relevant for data scientists to answer, thus providing a research agenda to the community. Fast forward to five years, no further studies investigated whether the questions from the software engineers at Microsoft hold for other software companies, including software-intensive companies with different primary focus (to which we refer as software-defined enterprises). Furthermore, it is not evident that the problems identified five years ago are still applicable, given the technological advances in software engineering. This paper presents a study at ING, a software-defined enterprise in banking in which over 15,000 IT staff provides in-house software solutions. This paper presents a comprehensive guide of questions for data scientists selected from the previous study at Microsoft along with our current work at ING. We replicated the original Microsoft study at ING, looking for questions that impact both software companies and software-defined enterprises and continue to impact software engineering. We also add new questions that emerged from differences in the context of the two companies and the five years gap in between. Our results show that software engineering questions for data scientists in the software-defined enterprise are largely similar to the software company, albeit with exceptions. We hope that the software engineering research community builds on the new list of questions to create a useful body of knowledge.Software EngineeringElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer ScienceSoftware Technolog
TypeWriter: Neural Type Prediction with Search-Based Validation
No full textMaintaining large code bases written in dynamically typed languages, such as JavaScript or Python, can be challenging due to the absence of type annotations: simple data compatibility errors proliferate, IDE support is limited, and APIs are hard to comprehend. Recent work attempts to address those issues through either static type inference or probabilistic type prediction. Unfortunately, static type inference for dynamic languages is inherently limited, while probabilistic approaches suffer from imprecision. This paper presents TypeWriter, the first combination of probabilistic type prediction with search-based refinement of predicted types. TypeWriter’s predictor learns to infer the return and argument types for functions from partially annotated code bases by combining the natural language properties of code with programming language-level information. To validate predicted types, TypeWriter invokes a gradual type checker with different combinations of the predicted types, while navigating the space of possible type combinations in a feedback-directed manner. We implement the TypeWriter approach for Python and evaluate it on two code corpora: a multi-million line code base at Facebook and a collection of 1,137 popular open-source projects. We show that TypeWriter’s type predictor achieves an F1 score of 0.64 (0.79) in the top-1 (top-5) predictions for return types, and 0.57 (0.80) for argument types, which clearly outperforms prior type prediction models. By combining predictions with search-based validation, TypeWriter can fully annotate between 14% to 44% of the files in a randomly selected corpus, while ensuring type correctness. A comparison with a static type inference tool shows that TypeWriter adds many more non-trivial types. TypeWriter currently suggests types to developers at Facebook and several thousands of types have already been accepted with minimal changes.Software Engineerin
Implementing carbon tariffs : a fool's errand ?
No full textSome governments are considering taxes on imports based on carbon content from countries that have not introduced climate change policies. Such carbon border taxes appeal to domestic industries facing higher charges for their own carbon emissions. This research demonstrates that there are enormous practical difficulties surrounding such plans. Various policies are evaluated according to World Trade Organization compliance, administrative plausibility, help in meeting environmental goals, and ability to deal with domestic pressures. The steel industry is used as a case study in this analysis. All considered policies arguably fail to meet at least one of these constraints, bringing into question the plausibility that a carbon border tax can be practical policy.Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases,Climate Change Economics,Carbon Policy and Trading,Environment and Energy Efficiency,Energy and Environment
Implementing Carbon Tariffs: A Fool's Errand?
No full textSome governments are considering taxes on imports based on carbon content from countries that have not introduced climate change policies. Such carbon border taxes appeal to domestic industries facing higher charges for their own carbon emissions. This research demonstrates that there are enormous practical difficulties surrounding such plans. Various policies are evaluated according to World Trade Organization compliance, administrative plausibility, help in meeting environmental goals, and ability to deal with domestic pressures. The steel industry is used as a case study in this analysis. All considered policies arguably fail to meet at least one of these constraints, bringing into question the plausibility that a carbon border tax can be practical policy.carbon tariffs, climate change, environmental policy
Half a century of development economics : a review based on the"Handbook of Development Economics"
No full textDevelopment economics has made remarkable progress in 50 years, says the author, summarizing changes in the field since Nehru's first proposals for an independent India. Synthesizing insights about changes in the field from the many contributors to the"Handbook of Development Economics,"the author observes (among other things): 1) Different schools of thought may dominate, but the range of research has broadened. Economics has"hardened"as its practitioners have learned to use data more carefully and to reason more rigorously. 2) The policy message has been turned upside down. Gone is the idea that development is industrialization and that the main policy problem is to manage the interface between country and city. Today urbanization and industrialization are viewed as mere components of an integrated transformation, in which the expansion of foreign trade is central. Traditional institutions are viewed with far more understanding, because overhasty modernization has often proved counterproductive. 3) More than ever, development is seen as a"whole replacement"process, the key to which is mastery of Northern technology--now understood to be both simpler and more complex than previously thought. Simpler, because much technology is uncomplicated, and complex because even simple technology requires ingenuity and a costly investment in adaptations. 4) There has been a radical change in economists'view of market agents and policymakers. Gone are the days when economists thought their advice should be aimed mainly at planners. Policymakers are utility maximizers, too. Employees of state enterprises coalesce into powerful interest groups that block efforts to raise productivity. The new thinking is sometimes modified by evoking the vague concept of"governance,"under which the economist's view is to help design a system of interacting state and private institutions that, led by the state, cooperate in achieving social goals. Whether something useful will come from this line of thinking remains to be seen. The author detects major gaps in economists'undrstanding of development, suggesting a particular need for further study of collective action (a far more pervasive component of human action than is realized) and the selection of roles by individuals and the costly investment this entails (a concept that may shed light on Schumpeter's well-known but little-studied entrepreneur).Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Health Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Decentralization,Health Economics&Finance,Poverty Assessment,Achieving Shared Growth,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies
Relations between Britain and Kuwait, 1957-1963
No full textThis thesis examines Anglo-Kuwaiti patron-client relations between 1957-1963
using substantial archival material from Britain and the United States. The thesis has
contributed to the literature of Anglo-Kuwaiti relations and to the theory of
international clientelism. The theoretical model was applied to both primary and
secondary source material linked to Anglo-Kuwaiti relations. This combined with a
traditional diplomatic historical approach to the thesis, produced a number of
conclusions and highlighted a number of themes that dominated Anglo-Kuwaiti
relations.
The themes that dominated the actors in this period included the increased
internationalisation of the Gulf, the importance of Kuwaiti oil and sterling deposits to
Britain, Arab nationalism and the influence of Nasser, the problem of over-flying
rights, strategic concerns, Cold War tensions, the decline in British power and the
Arab-Israeli conflict. Another important theme explored throughout the thesis is
Kuwait's emerging statehood, implemented by the al-Sabah by the joining of Kuwait to
various international organisations.
Insecurity often evoked foreseeable policy responses from the client, and many
actions of other states produced likely, if not always predictable, reactions of both
patron and client. The model of clientelism gave substance to these decisions. In the
case of the client, Kuwait, goals of internal autonomy with external security were both
expected and observed. The c1ientelist model depicted clearly Anglo-Kuwaiti relations.
The principle argument of the thesis developed from the contention that
patrons facing a decline in power in the international system use clientelism to bolster
their economic position. But a reduction in asymmetry of power with the client ensures
that the relationship declines. In the case of Britain and Kuwait, as British power
declined, its interests in Kuwait became more economic and financial than political and
strategic. In a broader context a transformation of this s011 is generally to be looked
for as a great power declines
Reforming institutions for service delivery : a framework for development assistance with an application to the health, nutrition, and population portfolio
No full textWorld Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World (report no. 17300) argued that institutions-the rules of the game that govern production and exchange-shape a country's prospects for sustained market-led growth. The author provides an institutional framework for service delivery, an essential component of state capability. He applies this framework to an evaluation of Bank support for service delivery in the health, nutrition, and population sector. He argues for greater institutional pluralism in the ways the World Bank does business in infrastructure, rural, and social sectors, but cautions against making efficient service delivery an issue of"state versus market."The Bank and its clients face the challenge of fitting menus of"better practice"delivery options to maps of institutional reality. In the health, nutrition, and population sector, the Bank should (1) unbundle and categorize essential health and clinical services according to goods characteristics and (2) integrate country knowledge into operations through upstream assessments of state, political, and social institutions. Overall, the Bank has made progress toward a"goods characteristics"approach, particularly in infrastructure and some rural services-but it has lagged in the social sectors, where support remains largely technocratic. Cross-sector comparisons reveal four generations of support for service delivery. First-generation support focused mainly on physical implementation of projects. Second-generation interventions, which characterized most social service interventions, focused on improving the financial and organizational viability of implementing agencies through technical assistance. Third-generation support was marked by significant unbundling of service delivery activities and clearer links to goods characteristics. In irrigation (1982-94), telecommunications (1980s-present), and transport (1990s), the one-size-fits-all monopoly model gave way to a range of options based on greater private sector and citizen participation in delivery. These included leases, concessions, outsourcing, and contracting as well as building, operating, transfer, and turnover schemes. Fourth-generation interventions are works-in-progress and represent efforts to develop new governance arrangements that systematically combine competition, voice, and hierarchy in the design, delivery, and monitoring of Bank projects. The Bank has a poor track record building country knowledge of institutional endowments that affect service delivery. The author identifies concepts and tools valuable for sector specialists'operations.Enterprise Development&Reform,Public Health Promotion,Health Economics&Finance,Decentralization,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Governance Indicators,Poverty Assessment,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance
The origins and history of the special adviser, with particular reference to the 1964-70 Wilson Administrations.
No full textPhDSpecial advisers are temporary civil servants, of party political alignment,
appointed on a basis of individual ministerial patronage. Particularly since 1997,
there has been much interest in their activities. This work sets out to provide a
historical perspective on the subject, which is currently lacking. The long-term
background to the instigation of the special adviser and the circumstances in
which this innovation took place will be discussed. The central focus of this work
is upon the period 1964-70, during which, it will be argued, special advisers, as
they are now conceived, were first used. Full consideration is given to the
subjects of who special advisers were, what they did and why, as well as how they
functioned. Their official positions, in terms of matters such as job titles, pay,
access to information and rules governing their conduct, will be investigated.
Also of importance will be an understanding of their relations with each other,
career civil servants and ministers. All of these themes will be extrapolated
beyond the period in which special advisers were first used, through to the present
day. Most importantly, an explanation of the collective significance of special
advisers will be attempted. A core thesis, that they are best understood in terms of
their relations with their employing ministers, will be proposed, along with a
number of possible alternative interpretations. Primary material, including
memoirs, diaries, personal and institutional papers, Public Record Office files and
interviews, will form the most important basis for this work. Much of this will be
examined for the first time in the context of the special adviser. Secondary sources will also be drawn upon. It is concluded that special advisers were a
complex phenomenon and no single interpretation fits them entirely.
Nevertheless, the relationship with the employing minister was, at times,
extremely important
Health Insurance Competition in Germany - The Role of Advertising
No full textIn the 1990s, competition among health insurance funds (‘sickness funds’) was introduced in Germany. As one means of competition, free choice of initial health funds and subsequent switching between them was made available to all insured. Since then, the number of funds has decreased substantially, and funds have had to engage in competitive strategies to remain in the market. In this paper, we want to analyse the funds’ advertising activities in the face of the changed competitive environment. This has not been possible to date due to a lack of data. We use two new datasets to get a first insight into the potential effects of competition on funds’ advertising strategies; one of the volume and cost of advertisements and one of their contents. Our results suggest that competition has been associated with an increase in the amount of advertising. As to the adverts themselves, we find that there was a decrease in the share of advertisements of a ‘general’ content in favour of advertisements of a more ‘fund-specific’ content. The data therefore indicate that once the market was open to switching of funds by the insured, funds’ advertising efforts changed to differentiating their own perceived strengths from those of competitor funds. These observations allow us to draw some tentative conclusions about the relevance of (attempts of) risk selection by health funds via advertisements and about the general success of the pro-competitive legislation.Regulated competition; health insurance market; risk selection; advertising; Germany
Selecting third-party libraries: The practitioners' perspective
No full textThe selection of third-party libraries is an essential element of virtually any software development project. However, deciding which libraries to choose is a challenging practical problem. Selecting the wrong library can severely impact a software project in terms of cost, time, and development effort, with the severity of the impact depending on the role of the library in the software architecture, among others. Despite the importance of following a careful library selection process, in practice, the selection of third-party libraries is still conducted in an ad-hoc manner, where dozens of factors play an influential role in the decision. In this paper, we study the factors that influence the selection process of libraries, as perceived by industry developers. To that aim, we perform a cross-sectional interview study with 16 developers from 11 different businesses and survey 115 developers that are involved in the selection of libraries. We systematically devised a comprehensive set of 26 technical, human, and economic factors that developers take into consideration when selecting a software library. Eight of these factors are new to the literature. We explain each of these factors and how they play a role in the decision. Finally, we discuss the implications of our work to library maintainers, potential library users, package manager developers, and empirical software engineering researchers.Software Engineerin
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