Adriana Peña

Gamification in software engineering teamworks: A systematic literature review

Nowadays, software development is done by teams where there are several factors involved in their performance. One of the most important factors is the collaborative work, fundamental skill that every professional should have, especially in the area of software engineering. Based on the above mentioned, the adequate integration of a teamwork influences its performance. Therefore, the skills, knowledge and interactive styles for each member it should be complemented, in order to get a high effective teams. In this context, one of the techniques currently being used for achieving activities related to collaborative work is the gamification, which aims to guide the improvement of the collaborative work. This study presents a comparison among the different gamification elements that can be applied to create a teamwork, reducing its integration time, and therefore, improve its performance.

A computational model of perceptual saliency for 3D objects in virtual environments

When giving directions to the location of an object, people typically use other attractive objects as reference, that is, reference objects. With the aim to select proper reference objects, useful for locating a target object within a virtual environment (VE), a computational model to identify perceptual saliency is presented. Based on the object’s features with the major stimulus for the human visual system, three basic features of a 3D object (i.e., color, size, and shape) are individually evaluated and then combined to get a degree of saliency for each 3D object in a virtual scenario. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the extent to which the proposed measure of saliency matches with the people’s subjective perception of saliency; the results showed a good performance of this computational model.

A Computational Measure of Saliency of the Shape of 3D Objects

The shape of an object is a basic characteristic that when attracts the viewers’ attention represents a salient feature. In this paper we propose a computational measure of saliency of the shape of 3D objects in virtual reality, based on the proportion of empty and full space within its bounding box. This measure of saliency is part of a computational model aimed to the selection of appropriate reference objects to facilitate the location of objects within a 3D virtual environment. An experiment was conducted to understand to which extent the proposed measure of saliency matches with the people’s subjective perception of saliency; results showed a good performance of the metric.

Establishing Effective Software Development Teams: An Exploratory Model

Nowadays software represents an important piece to support a wide diversity of industrial needs in different domains. However, software development is not always a successful task, mainly for human related reasons. A problem that deeply affects small and medium enterprises (SMEs), particularly when they invest in software process improvement or to get high performance technology. The development of software is teamwork; unfortunately, not all teams manage themselves to achieve an effective performance. This paper aims to show a proposal of a model to integrate highly effective teams for software development. The proposed model focuses on three factors: skills, interactive styles and knowledge; with an innovative way to integrate teams by avoiding the use of traditional questionnaires. The paper includes both the background for this research and a global view of the model fundamentals. A discussion of the components of the model is also included.

3D objects’ shape relevance for saliency measure

The shape of an object is one of the features that attracts viewers’ attention, making it salient from other objects in a scenario. However, the shape of an object might be linked to the viewer’s personal experiences. In order to verify if the shape of an object is a feature not linked to the meaning that the object has for the viewer, in this paper we replicate an empirical study, using abstract object. 23 male and 17 female ordered objects according to the most attractive shapes. Using a computational measurement of saliency of the shape of 3D objects in Virtual Reality, based on the proportion of empty and full space within its bounding box, we found that our metric matches, when abstract or non-abstract objects are evaluated.

Computerized spatial language generation for object location

Spatial language is the syntax used for object or place locations. Because an object location is inherently relative, it implies a frame of reference, which in turn may be aided by a reference object, other than the one to be located. This reference object is commonly selected based on its perceptual salience, that is, its more prominent features. Computer systems linked to various research areas have been developed to facilitate the communication and/or interpretation of spatial language for localization tasks. In this paper is presented a literature review of computer systems that adopt spatial language and perceptual salience for object location.

Proposal of Content and Security Controls for a CSIRT Website

A CSIRT is a group of experts in information security which provides services such as alerts and warnings, incident handling, observatory technology, security audits, forensic computing, among others. Therefore, they have constant communication with the target audience via email, telephone or in a website. A website works as the main contact with the target audience, for this reason, when creating a website for the CSIRT, special care must be taken with technologies when using and applying security controls in order to avoid computer attacks that may jeopardize the reputation of the CSIRT. This paper describes a proposal related to content and security controls of the CSIRT website that must be considered.

Towards an Automated Model to Evaluate Collaboration through Non-Verbal Interaction in Collaborative Virtual Environments

Virtual environments represent a helpful resource for learning and training. In their multiuser modality, Collaborative Virtual Environments CVE support geographical distant people to experience collaborative learning and team training; a context in which the automatic monitor of collaboration can provide valuable and in time information, either for human instructors or intelligent tutor systems, about individual and group performance. CVE enable people to share a virtual space where they interact through a graphical representation, generating nonverbal behavior such as gaze-direction or deictic gestures, a potential means to understand collaboration. This paper presents an automated model and its inference mechanisms to evaluate collaboration in CVE based on the nonverbal activity of the participants. The model is a multi-layer analysis that includes: data filtering, fuzzy classification, and rule-based inference producing high-level assessment for group collaboration.

Coverage of the university curricula for the Software Engineering industry in Mexico

Making to match the software industry requirements with the academy is a significant challenge that must be accomplished for the benefit of both sectors. In Mexico, the small and medium size companies (SMEs) are key for the software development, in such a way that having highly capable personal in the development of high quality software products is a fundamental piece to warranty their permanency in the market. In this context, the Mexican organizations for the accreditation to ensure quality in Software Engineering are: for the SMEs software industry, the Moprosoft norm; and for the undergraduate education institutions in Computer Science and Informatics, the CONAIC. In this document a comparative analysis is made to understand the coverage of the academic curricula in higher education, regarding the software industry requirements; based on what these government norms establish for their accreditation.

A Computational Measure of Saliency of the Texture Based a Saliency Map by Color

Understanding what attracts the human eye has always interested scientists; this represents the saliency concept. In this context, texture is a visual feature of the external surfaces of objects that can influence the senses, creating a force of attraction or rejection. When the texture of an object attracts the viewers’ attention it represents a salient feature. However, measuring how salient is an object texture is not trivial. In this paper we propose a computational measure of saliency of the visual texture, using a salience map by color. This measure of saliency is part of a computational model aimed to the selection of an appropriate reference objects to facilitate the location of objects within a 3D virtual environment. In order to verify this computational measurement, an experiment was conducted with 40 people, 30 male and 10 female, to understand to which extent the proposed measure of saliency matches with the people’s subjective perception of saliency. Results show a good metric performance.