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(1) Background: A strategic approach to managing and evolving the bus fleet is essential for optimizing public transportation, improving service efficiency, meeting future demands, and incorporating environmentally friendly technologies. However, country-specific data on fleet composition and evolution are often lacking despite their importance in evaluating technological impacts on the environment, passenger comfort, and driver working conditions. This report describes the creation of the inventory of the Swiss bus fleet and analyzes technological developments in bus vehicles from 1940 to 2022. (2) Methods: We collected the data through a comprehensive mapping study and validated it with Swiss bus companies and experts from the Federal Office of Transport. Vehicle approval forms were used to extract technical data. Buses were sorted by brand and model. For each bus model, 58 technical characteristics were documented in a database. A latent class analysis (LCA) was conducted to classify the buses according to their technological characteristics. (3) Results: The inventory comprises 891 bus models, classified into four groups representing different generations. The predominance of thermal buses and the emergence of hybrid and electric buses since 2010 were noticed. (4) Conclusion: This inventory tracks bus technology evolution and highlights potential implications for driver occupational exposure and environmental impact assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Software architecture assists developers in addressing non‐functional requirements and in maintaining, debugging, and upgrading their software systems. Consequently, consistency between the designed architecture and the implemented software system itself is important; without this consistency the non‐functional requirements targeted may not be addressed and architectural documentation may mis‐direct maintenance efforts that target the associated code‐base. But often, when software is initially implemented or subsequently evolved, the designed architecture and software architecture become inconsistent, with the implemented structure degraded due to issues like developer time‐pressures, or ambiguous communication of the designed architecture. In such cases, Software Architecture Recovery (SAR) or consistency approaches can be applied to reconstruct the architecture of the software system and possibly to compare it to/re‐align it with the designed architecture. Many SAR approaches have been proposed in the research. However, choosing an appropriate architecture recovery approach for software systems is still an open issue. Consequently, this research aims to conduct a tertiary‐mapping study based on available secondary studies of architecture recovery approaches, to uncover important characteristics, towards the selection of appropriate SAR approaches. This research has aggregated 13 secondary studies and 10 primary studies beyond 2020 from 5 databases and, in doing so, identified 111 architecture recovery approaches. Based on these approaches, a taxonomy, containing nine main SAR‐selection categories is proposed and a framework (in the form of a supporting tool to help developers select an appropriate SAR approach) has been developed. Finally, this research identifies six potential open research gaps related to the underlying research that could be helpful for guiding research in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Web services (WS) are the preferred approach in realizing the service-oriented computing paradigm. However, this comes with challenges such as complexity and uncertainty that hinder their practical application. Bayesian networks (BNs) are one of the techniques used to address these challenges. The objective of this mapping study was to determine what is known about the use of Bayesian networks in web services research. To do this, we identified and selected rigorously 69 articles (out of the 532 identified) published on the subject in 2001–2021. We then classified and analyzed these articles by Web service themes (Service Composition, Service Management, Service Engineering), Objectives (Description, Prediction, Prescription), Types of BN (Basic, Combined, Extended), and Evaluation methods (Proof of concept, Experiment, No evaluation). In doing so, we hope to provide a clear understanding of the subject. We also identify and suggest avenues for future research. Thus, the review results can help researchers and practitioners interested by the application of BNs in WS research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 outbreak has affected numerous facets of human life. It is still an ongoing epidemic with multiple variants emerged since its first outbreak. To detect COVID-19 machine learning and the Internet of Things are the most widely proposed methods in the literature showing favorable performance. This paper presents a complete mapping and assessment of recent research efforts on COVID-19 detection using both machine learning techniques and the Internet of Things devices. The objective of this research work is to identify machine learning techniques and IoT devices that are used in combination to effectively detect COVID-19 and its variants. The synthesis of the mapping study is provided as the analysis of the IoT devices, and the effectiveness of machine learning techniques in disease detection. This study will help the researchers and health practitioners in deploying an effective method for detecting COVID-19, and its variants using machine learning techniques and IoT devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: There is limited evidence for mapping clinical tools to preferencebased generic tools in the Chinese thyroid cancer patient population. The current study aims to map the FACT-H&N (Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Head and Neck Cancer) to the SF-6D (Short Form Six-Dimension), which will inform future cost-utility analyses related to thyroid cancer treatment. Methods: A total of 1050 participants who completed the FACT-H&N and SF-6D questionnaires were included in the analysis. Four methods of direct and indirect mapping were estimated: OLS regression, Tobit regression, ordered probit regression, and beta mixture regression. We evaluated the predictive performance in terms of root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), concordance correlation coefficient (CCC), Akaike information criterion (AIC) and Bayesian information criterion (BIC) and the correlation between the observed and predicted SF-6D scores. Results: The mean value of SF-6D was 0.690 (SD = 0.128). The RMSE values for the fivefold cross-validation as well as the 30% random sample validation for multiple models in this study were 0.0833-0.0909, MAE values were 0.0676- 0.0782, and CCC values were 0.6940-0.7161. SF-6D utility scores were best predicted by a regression model consisting of the total score of each dimension of the FACT-H&N, the square of the total score of each dimension, and covariates including age and gender. We proposed to use direct mapping (OLS regression) and indirect mapping (ordered probit regression) to establish a mapping model of FACT-H&N to SF-6D. The mean SF-6D and cumulative distribution functions simulated from the recommended mapping algorithm generally matched the observed ones. Conclusions: In the absence of preference-based quality of life tools, obtaining the health status utility of thyroid cancer patients from directly mapped OLS regression and indirectly mapped ordered probit regression is an effective alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile apps with tested Graphical User Interface (GUI) tend to have higher downloads in the apps store. In recent years, few efforts were made to analyse the research community and research status of the literature for GUI testing on mobile apps, which brings an obstacle to characterise and understand this field. In this study, the authors propose a systematic mapping study to gain insights into the field. First, the authors conduct an extensive search of relevant literature over seven popular digital libraries. From 4427 candidate studies, 114 primary studies published between January 2011 and September 2022 were selected. Next, the authors analyse these primary studies from the perspectives of bibliometric and qualitative analysis. For the bibliometric analysis, first, the authors analyse the popular research topics and their relationships. Second, the authors study the authors' community. For the qualitative analysis, the authors analyse the objectives, approaches and evaluation metrics employed in these primary studies. Their investigation reports several major findings: (1) there are relatively more studies on two topics, that is, test case generation and the automated test; (2) the most productive authors tend to collaborate and often have relatively broad research interests; (3) the functionality is the main objective of GUI testing; the model‐based approach is the most widely used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industry 4.0 refers to the digital transformation in the manufacturing domain through new technology. Currently, it expands well beyond manufacturing, affecting many areas of life and posing implications for all types of business. This paper focuses on the relationships between Industry 4.0 and Healthcare which transitions to increased interconnectivity, automation and smart decision making. The integration context of Industry 4.0 into Healthcare is only partly understood. Little was done until now to consolidate what is known on the integration benefits and the challenges. This article reports results of a systematic mapping study that analysed 69 papers to extract knowledge about the concepts of Industry 4.0 and the emerging Healthcare 4.0., and the relationships between them. We found 10 different perspectives of Healthcare 4.0, ranging from strategic to tactical and operational levels. Next, our results show: (i) nine applications of Industry 4.0 in the Healthcare domain: Augmented Reality and Simulation, Autonomous Robotics, Cybersecurity, Big Data Analytics, Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, Additive Manufacturing and Systems Integration; and (ii) 10 benefits and nine challenges in Healthcare 4.0. The most frequently mentioned benefits are patients' diagnosis, monitoring, treatment, and financial benefits. The most researched challenges are data fragmentation, heterogeneity, complexity, and privacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of agile development methods in software development has raised interest in System-on-Chip (SoC) design, which involves high architectural and development process complexity under time and project management pressure. This article discovers the current state of agile hardware development with the questions (1) how well literature covers the SoC development process, (2) what agile methods and practices are applied or (3) what proposals are made to increase the agility, and (4) what is the impact for the SoC community. To answer the questions, a mapping study and literature review were performed. Seven hundred thirty papers were first studied, and eventually, after a rigorous filtering process, 25 papers were thoroughly analyzed. The results show that the popular agile SW development methods are applied in 5 cases, ideas adapted from the agile Hardware manifesto in 9 cases, and 11 cases do not define the Agile HW development method. Most of the papers address shorter development time by better methodologies and tools that indirectly shape the SoC development toward agility. The focus of agile hardware development is mostly on the SoC artifacts and methodological improvements have not been quantified. However, the literature indicates a significant impact on many academic chip prototypes. The challenges are better understood and the interest in agile methods is clearly increasing. The methodological gaps in the prevalent situation encourage further research and more accurate reporting of the development in addition to the SoC artifacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ubiquitous healthcare is an emerging area that employs ubiquitous technologies to enable technology oriented environment for healthcare professionals for provision of efficient and effective healthcare services. In past years, research community has proposed various technological solutions in different healthcare areas such as chronic disease monitoring, gait analysis, mood and fall detection, neuropathic monitoring, physiological and vital signs monitoring, pulmonogical monitoring, etc. However, in-depth analysis of these proposed solutions is required to analyze the form of proposed ubiquitous healthcare solutions; the extent ubiquitous technologies are integrated in these solutions; the type of real problem addressed; and how far these solutions are evaluated in real world settings? The addressal of these questions is critical to understand and evaluate the progress made in the area of ubiquitous healthcare and identify the challenges that are hindering the progress in this area. Therefore, in this research, a systematic research technique in the form of mapping study (also known as scoping study) is employed for in-depth analysis of evidences available on ubiquitous healthcare. The mapping study adopts a systematic approach to construct chain of evidences related to a particular topic and is a well-defined research technique in evidence based software engineering. This study identified a total of 103 primary studies, published between 2007 and 2018, for analysis of area under investigation. The study findings reveal that research trend in ubiquitous healthcare is horizontally spread by involving broad range of healthcare areas. The proposed solutions largely fall under the category of validation studies where experiments are conducted in laboratory settings rather real world environment. Another interesting finding is the lack of involvement of relevant healthcare community in proposed solution design. The challenges such as context awareness, data ownership, privacy and security, usability and trust are limiting the adoption of proposed solutions. Therefore, more extensive studies are required to first evaluate the applicability of proposed solutions in their respective environment, second, engagement and ownership of relevant community in solution design need to be considered. Third, the broad coverage of healthcare areas does not provide significant clusters of similar research in any particular area therefore future research should focus on strengthening these areas by conducting evaluation based longitudinal studies. In this way, the effects of proposed solutions can only be measured objectively and can be added to the body of knowledge. Finally, this research provides a thorough insight into the research on ubiquitous healthcare and offers an opportunity to conduct further research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies in different science fields have examined the various aspects of educational interventions designed to facilitate learning outcomes in students with dyslexia. The aim of this study was to present an overview of empirical research related to interventions aimed at primary school students with dyslexia. Mapping was conducted to identify studies on this topic published from 2015 to 2019 and included in the Scopus database. The descriptive data from 57 studies were analyzed to present a classification scheme of research design, type of educational intervention, implementation of technology in educational interventions, and aim of the intervention. The results indicated an increasing trend in the last 5 years in the publication of papers in researched areas related to educational interventions for students with dyslexia, with uneven representation among countries. The analyzed empirical studies were mostly analytic, using different designs, with a slightly higher prevalence of (quasi) experimental versus descriptive designs. As expected, the goal of most educational interventions was directed toward the development of (pre)reading skills, with a wider prevalence of structured language-based programs, followed by software specialized to support learning, whereas adaptations of instructional materials and innovative information and communication technology (ICT) were less used. Mapping indicated the frequent use of ICT in all educational interventions, and more evidence is needed for complex rigorous experimental designs and interventions related to teaching in the classroom, as well as interventions aimed at facilitating the self-regulation of students with dyslexia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additive manufacturing has been gaining ground both in the industry and in the academic world due to its flexibility, easy operation, and the possibility of making products in the most varied formats. Also, it can be observed that magnets are largely produced using a sintering process, although it results in high (BH)max, this process is very limited in relation to the shapes of the magnets, thus, additive manufacturing can be used to produce complex shaped magnets. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the state of the art regarding the applied methods to produce permanent magnets and materials for magnet production. Considering this, a literature review was conducted using the methodology called mapping study to select the articles to be used, thus, demonstrating that the main compound used as the magnetic particle is NdFeB alloy powder. Finally, it can be concluded that the magnets produced by additive manufacturing have lower (BH)max than those produced by sintering processes, which despite having high filling capacity of magnetic particles increases the magnet's magnetic capacity, limits their shape, those by manufacturing magnets can be produced with complex shapes, the heating temperature may reduce the maximum energy, and the coercive force improves it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing interactive systems is a challenging task. It involves concerns related to human-computer interaction (HCI), such as usability and user experience. Therefore, HCI design must be addressed when developing such systems. HCI design often involves people with different backgrounds, which makes communication and knowledge transfer a challenging issue. In this scenario, knowledge management can support understanding concepts from different knowledge areas and help learn from previous experiences. Aiming at investigating how knowledge management has supported HCI design and contributed to the development of interactive systems, we performed a mapping study in the literature and analyzed 15 publications reporting the use of knowledge management in HCI design. Following that, we conducted a survey with 39 HCI design professionals to find out how knowledge has been managed in their HCI design practice. In this paper, we present the studies and discuss their main findings. In summary, the results indicate that knowledge management has been used in HCI design mainly to improve product quality and reduce the effort and time spent on design activities. However, there is a need for simpler and more practical knowledge-based solutions to support HCI design. Such approaches would be capable of reaching more HCI design practitioners that could benefit from them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Using student subjects in empirical studies has been discussed extensively from a methodological perspective in Software Engineering (SE), but there is a lack of similar discussion surrounding ethical aspects of doing so. As students are in a subordinate relationship to their instructors, such a discussion is needed. Objective: We aim to increase the understanding of practices and perceptions SE researchers have of ethical issues with student participation in empirical studies. Method: We conducted a systematic mapping study of 372 empirical SE studies involving students, following up with a survey answered by 100 SE researchers regarding their current practices and opinions regarding student participation. Results: The mapping study shows that the majority of studies does not report conditions regarding recruitment, voluntariness, compensation, and ethics approval. In contrast, the majority of survey participants supports reporting these conditions. The survey further reveals that less than half of the participants require ethics approval. Additionally, the majority of participants recruit their own students on a voluntary basis, and use informed consent with withdrawal options. There is disagreement among the participants whether course instructors should be involved in research studies and if they should know who participates in a study. Conclusions: It is a positive sign that mandatory participation is rare, and that informed consent and withdrawal options are standard. However, we see immediate need for action, as study conditions are under-reported, and as opinions on ethical practices differ widely. In particular, there is little regard in SE on the power relationship between instructors and students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile computing has fast emerged as a pervasive technology to replace the old computing paradigms with portable computation and context-aware communication. Existing software systems can be migrated (while preserving their data and logic) to mobile computing platforms that support portability, context-sensitivity, and enhanced usability. In recent years, some research and development efforts have focused on a systematic migration of existing software systems to mobile computing platforms. To investigate the research state-of-the-art on the migration of existing software systems to mobile computing platforms. We aim to analyze the progression and impacts of existing research, highlight challenges and solutions that reflect dimensions of emerging and futuristic research. We followed evidence-based software engineering (EBSE) method to conduct a systematic mapping study (SMS) of the existing research that has progressed over more than a decade (25 studies published from 1996–2017). We have derived a taxonomical classification and a holistic mapping of the existing research to investigate its progress, impacts, and potential areas of futuristic research and development. The SMS has identified three types of migration namely Static, Dynamic, and State-based Migration of existing software systems to mobile computing platforms. Migration to mobile computing platforms enables existing software systems to achieve portability, context-sensitivity,and high connectivity. However, mobile systems may face some challenges such as resource poverty, data security, and privacy. The emerging and futuristic research aims to support patterns and tool support to automate the migration process. The results of this SMS can benefit researchers and practitioners-by highlighting challenges, solutions, and tools, etc., -to conceptualize the state-of-the-art and futuristic trends that support migration of existing software to mobile computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing interactive systems is a challenging task. It involves concerns related to human-computer interaction (HCI), such as usability and user experience. Therefore, HCI design must be addressed when developing such systems. HCI design often involves people with different backgrounds, which makes communication and knowledge transfer a challenging issue. In this scenario, knowledge management can support understanding concepts from different knowledge areas and help learn from previous experiences. Aiming at investigating how knowledge management has supported HCI design and contributed to the development of interactive systems, we performed a mapping study in the literature and analyzed 15 publications reporting the use of knowledge management in HCI design. Following that, we conducted a survey with 39 HCI design professionals to find out how knowledge has been managed in their HCI design practice. In this paper, we present the studies and discuss their main findings. In summary, the results indicate that knowledge management has been used in HCI design mainly to improve product quality and reduce the effort and time spent on design activities. However, there is a need for simpler and more practical knowledge-based solutions to support HCI design. Such approaches would be capable of reaching more HCI design practitioners that could benefit from them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reviews prevailing trends in “for-profit” business-related gamification. It examines the current literature, focusing on gamification elements, industries and variables that is of interest to researchers in different business environments. A systematic mapping approach was applied to this study. Articles were selected from different databases in a two-step screening process, subject to sets of inclusion and exclusion criteria. A total of 25 articles were further for: (1) represented industries, (2) orientation of the gamified system, (3) types of implementation, (4) gamification elements analysed, (5) impact on companies, and (6) company variables analysed. Results confirmed that the number of empirical studies on gamification in for-profit organisations is growing. Researchers have placed greater emphasis on analysing customer-related gamification environments than on employee-oriented gamification. This finding is consistent with the prevailing trend of increasing demand from practitioners to gamify customer-related processes. This is likely due to the potential for higher positive impact on the performance of companies. Most frequently deployed gamification elements are badges, rewards, and leader boards. The literature suggests that over all, gamification has a positive effect on various company variables, such as motivation, engagement of employees, brand loyalty, and customer experience. This paper highlights the particular areas of business-related gamification that have already been examined and possible future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This mapping study is the first bibliometric analysis of literature on Guillain–Barre Syndrome (GBS). By identifying core journals, analyzing cited references, categorizing journals into Zones, and estimating database coverage, the results of this study inform neurology specialists of the most relevant journals related to GBS to assist in current awareness efforts; it also assists librarians who make collection development decisions in the field of neurology. This study examined references during a three-year period (2016–2018) from a sample core of neurology journals using the mapping protocol from the Nursing and Allied Health Resources Section (NAHRS) of the Medical Library Association (MLA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data mining provides the methodology and technology to transform huge amount of data into useful information for decision making. It is a powerful process to extract knowledge and discover new patterns embedded in large data sets. Data mining has been increasingly used in medicine, particularly in cardiology. In fact, data mining applications can greatly benefits all parts involved in cardiology such as patients, cardiologists and nurses. This article aims to perform a systematic mapping study so as to analyze and synthesize empirical studies on the application of data mining techniques in cardiology. A total of 142 articles published between 2000 and 2015 were therefore selected, studied and analyzed according to the four following criteria: year and channel of publication, research type, medical task and empirical type. The results of this mapping study are discussed and a list of recommendations for researchers and cardiologists is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Measurement is essential to reach predictable performance and high capability processes. It provides support for better understanding, evaluation, management, and control of the development process and project, as well as the resulting product. It also enables organizations to improve and predict its process's performance, which places organizations in better positions to make appropriate decisions. Objective: This study aims to understand the measurement of the software development process, to identify studies, create a classification scheme based on the identified studies, and then to map such studies into the scheme to answer the research questions. Method: Systematic mapping is the selected research methodology for this study. Results: A total of 462 studies are included and classified into four topics with respect to their focus and into three groups based on the publishing date. Five abstractions and 64 attributes were identified, 25 methods/models and 17 contexts were distinguished. Conclusion: capability and performance were the most measured process attributes, while effort and performance were the most measured project attributes. Goal Question Metric and Capability Maturity Model Integration were the main methods and models used in the studies, whereas agile/lean development and small/medium-size enterprise were the most frequently identified research contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been considerable interest in Building Information Modeling (BIM) research and development during the last decade. BIM has established itself as a field of research in (and beyond) scientific communities interested in information technologies in construction. Interestingly, the contours of BIM as a scientific field are still not clearly identified. Several studies have recently tried to analyze different aspects of this issue, without providing a systematic and comprehensive methodological approach to accurately define the major themes and clusters of the BIM domain. This paper uses a systematic literature review approach to map the BIM research themes and clusters over ten years of scientific publications. 1244 articles published in peerreviewed journals between 2007 and 2016 were selected and the associated metadata analyzed in order to highlight co-occurrences in author's keywords. It appears that a few "big players" dominate the keywords, while most of the keywords used by authors are much less cited. Seven core clusters are identified using modularity optimization techniques: industry foundation classes, information technology, facility management, building, collaboration, computer aided design, and laser scanning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The terms “Oracle Problem” and “Non-testable system” interchangeably refer to programs in which the application of test oracles is infeasible. Test oracles are an integral part of conventional testing techniques; thus, such techniques are inoperable in these programs. The prevalence of the oracle problem has inspired the research community to develop several automated testing techniques that can detect functional software faults in such programs. These techniques include N-Version testing, Metamorphic Testing, Assertions, Machine Learning Oracles, and Statistical Hypothesis Testing. This paper presents a Mapping Study that covers these techniques. The Mapping Study presents a series of discussions about each technique, from different perspectives, e.g. effectiveness, efficiency, and usability. It also presents a comparative analysis of these techniques in terms of these perspectives. Finally, potential research opportunities within the non-testable systems problem domain are highlighted within the Mapping Study. We believe that the aforementioned discussions and comparative analysis will be invaluable for new researchers that are attempting to familiarise themselves with the field, and be a useful resource for practitioners that are in the process of selecting an appropriate technique for their context, or deciding how to apply their selected technique. We also believe that our own insights, which are embedded throughout these discussions and the comparative analysis, will be useful for researchers that are already accustomed to the field. It is our hope that the potential research opportunities that have been highlighted by the Mapping Study will steer the direction of future research endeavours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this mapping study has been performed to identify, critically analyze and synthesize research performed in the area of software engineering teams. Teams, in a general sense, have been studied extensively. But the distinctive processes that need to be executed effectively and efficiently in software engineering require a better understanding of current software engineering team research.Design/methodology/approach In this work, software engineering team publications were analyzed and the key findings of each paper that met our search inclusion criteria were synthesized. In addition, a keyword content analysis was performed to create a taxonomy to categorize each paper and evaluate the state of software engineering team research.Findings In software engineering team research, the resulting areas that are the most active are teamwork/collaboration, process/design and coordination. Clear themes of analysis have been determined to help understand how team members collaborate, factors affecting their success and interactions among all project stakeholders. In addition, themes related to tools to support team collaboration, improve the effectiveness of software engineering processes and support team coordination have been found. However, the research gaps determined from the content analysis point toward a need for more research in the area of communication and tools.Originality/value The goal of this work is to define the span of previous research in this area, create a taxonomy to categorize such research and identify open research areas to provide a clear road map for future research in the area of software engineering teams. These results, along with the key finding themes presented, will help guide future research in an area that touches all parts of the software engineering and development processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Requirements engineering (RE) being a foundation of software development has gained a great recognition in the recent era of prevailing software industry. A number of journals and conferences have published a great amount of RE research in terms of various tools, techniques, methods, and frameworks, with a variety of processes applicable in different software development domains. The plethora of empirical RE research needs to be synthesized to identify trends and future research directions. To represent a state-of-the-art of requirements engineering, along with various trends and opportunities of empirical RE research, we conducted a systematic mapping study to synthesize the empirical work done in RE. We used four major databases IEEE, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink and ACM and Identified 270 primary studies till the year 2012. An analysis of the data extracted from primary studies shows that the empirical research work in RE is on the increase since the year 2000. The requirements elicitation with 22 % of the total studies, requirements analysis with 19 % and RE process with 17 % are the major focus areas of empirical RE research. Non-functional requirements were found to be the most researched emerging area. The empirical work in the sub-area of requirements validation and verification is little and has a decreasing trend. The majority of the studies (50 %) used a case study research method followed by experiments (28 %), whereas the experience reports are few (6 %). A common trend in almost all RE sub-areas is about proposing new interventions. The leading intervention types are guidelines, techniques and processes. The interest in RE empirical research is on the rise as whole. However, requirements validation and verification area, despite its recognized importance, lacks empirical research at present. Furthermore, requirements evolution and privacy requirements also have little empirical research. These RE sub-areas need the attention of researchers for more empirical research. At present, the focus of empirical RE research is more about proposing new interventions. In future, there is a need to replicate existing studies as well to evaluate the RE interventions in more real contexts and scenarios. The practitioners’ involvement in RE empirical research needs to be increased so that they share their experiences of using different RE interventions and also inform us about the current requirements-related challenges and issues that they face in their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the context of graphic representation technologies and digital design on Architectural teaching in Latin America. From categories proposed by Oxman and Kotnik and through a mapping study framed by a systematic review in CumInCAD database, it is presented a panorama of the state-of-art of the digital design on Architectural teaching in the region, between 2006 and 2015. The results suggest a context of coexistence of representational interaction and parametric interaction, as well as a transition from one to another and the emergence of the first experiments in algorithmic interaction. As this mapping shows an ongoing movement toward Digital Architectural Design in Latin America in the last decade, and points out its dynamics in space in time, it could contribute to strengthen a crowdthinking network on this issue in the region and with other continents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of the qualitative research methods discussed in papers that study software engineering teams showed most of those papers did not follow a systematic process during the qualitative analysis. This finding is concerning as this deficiency in research analysis procedure may reduce the validity and/or completeness of the qualitative results. Such a lack of rigor may be a result of qualitative research not being as firmly established in software engineering as quantitative research methodologies. In engineering research, quantitative methods are typically more prevalent and qualitative analysis is part of a mixed-method analysis process. However, when researching teams, where human activity is abundant, qualitative analysis may need to take precedence. In this paper, we focus on the qualitative analysis method called content analysis with the goal of presenting a rigorous process for content analysis in the context of software engineering. We then present and demonstrate the use of that content analysis process for software engineering researchers using two examples. An analysis of 215 articles that were a result of a mapping study on software engineering team research is presented. Those papers were analyzed to determine which utilized a qualitative data analysis method in their research in addition to the rigor and type of qualitative analysis performed. We ultimately included 23 papers in this study. We present a mapping study and a content analysis process that include a straightforward way to select, code, and present data in both inductive and deductive studies. We demonstrated the process using the keywords from the papers included in this study as well as on a second data set that utilized responses from structured interview transcripts from practicing software engineers. The first dataset also resulted in a taxonomy to categorize software engineering team research. We presented and demonstrated a content analysis process in terms of software engineering in order to improve future qualitative software engineering research that would benefit from systematic content analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary sums the findings of a series of papers on a study that mapped the global research agenda for maternal health. The mapping reviewed published interventional research across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from 2000 to 2012, specifically focusing on investigating the topics covered by this research, the methodologies applied, the funding landscape and trends in authorship attribution.The overarching aim underpinning the mapping activities was to evaluate whether research and funding align with causes of maternal mortality, and thereby highlight gaps in research priorities and governance. Fifteen reviewers from 8 countries screened 35,078 titles and abstracts, and extracted data from 2292 full-text articles.Over the period reviewed, the volume of publications rose several-fold, especially from 2004 to 2007. The methodologies broadened, increasingly encompassing qualitative research and systematic review. Malaria and HIV research dominated over other topics, while sexually-transmitted infection research progressively diminished. Health systems and health promotion research increased rapidly, but were less frequently evaluated in trials or published in high-impact journals. Relative to disease burden, hypertension had double the publications of haemorrhage. Many Latin American countries, China and Russia had relatively few papers per billion US dollars Gross Domestic Product. Total LMIC lead authorships rose substantially, but only a quarter of countries had a local first author lead on >75% of their research, with levels lowest in sub-Saharan Africa. The median Impact Factor of high-income country led papers was 3.1 and LMIC-led 1.8. The NIH, USAID and Gates Foundation constituted 40% of funder acknowledgements, and addressed similar topics and countries.The commentary notes that increases in outputs and broadening of methodologies suggest research capacity has expanded considerably, allowing for more nuanced, systems-based and context-specific studies. However, funders seemingly duplicate efforts, with topics and countries either receiving excessive or little attention. Better coordinated funding might reduce duplication and allow researchers to develop highly-specialised expertise. Repeated scrutiny of research agendas and funding may foment shifts in priorities. Building leadership capacity in LMICs and reconsidering authorship guidelines is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Model comparison plays a central role in many software engineering activities. However, a comprehensive understanding about the state-of-the-art is still required. Goal: This paper aims at classifying and performing a thematic analysis of the current literature. Method: For this, we have followed well-established empirical guidelines to define and perform a systematic mapping study. Results: Some studies (14 out of 40) provide generic model comparison techniques, rather than specific ones for UML diagrams. Conclusion: Fine-grained techniques are still required to support ever-present and complex model comparison tasks during the evolution of design models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the analysis of recent research on mobile learning and usability areas, applying a systematic mapping study. It also presents the main focus adopted by each publication, the types of mobile device and operative systems. The aim is also to understand the tendencies and needs in the fields of design and evaluation of the m-learning systems. Results demonstrate that research in the area has grown significantly since the 2012, and due to the recent boom of mobile devices in education, we believe that the number of studies will continue to grow in the following years. Also we identify a necessity when we see that not all the m-learning applications have used usability tests, we did not find guidelines or frameworks to evaluate them either. With this results and tendencies, we propose the creation of a model for evaluating the development phases in m-learning applications, considering pedagogical usability, student´s experience and user interface usability, to improve the quality of m-learning applications. Within this proposal we have also created a framework that supports different stages of our model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A number of cloud applications are currently widely used. However, one of the main reasons for the slowing down in the growth of cloud computing is that of security. Even though some research has been done in the security field, it is necessary to assess the current state of research and practice. This paper aims for the study of the existing research about security in cloud computing to analyze the state of art and to identify future directions. The method selected to investigate the security in cloud computing is a systematic mapping study. A total of 344 papers were selected and classified by security goal, research type and contribution type. The main security specific issues extracted are data protection (30.29%), access management (20.14%), software isolation (16.70%), availability (16.00%), trust (13.60%) and governance (3.27%). Our results demonstrate that cloud computing seems to be a promising area for security research and evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Software processes have become inherently complex to cope with the various situations we face in project environments. In response, the research area of method engineering arose in the 1990s aiming at the systematization of process construction and application. Although the research area has gained much attention and offered a plethora of contributions so far, we still have little knowledge about which basic concepts are finally established and what their feasibility is. To overcome this shortcoming, we need a systematic investigation of the publication flora in method engineering. To reach this aim, we contribute a systematic mapping study and investigate, inter alia, which contributions were published over time and which research type facet they address to distill a common understanding about available method engineering concepts and their maturity. On the basis of the review of 83 publications, our results show that even if a high number of contributions is available, most of those contributions only repeat and discuss formerly introduced concepts, whereas reports on empirically sound evidence on the feasibility are still missing. Although the research area constitutes a many contributions, yet missing are a common understanding of method engineering and empirically sound investigations that would allow for practical application and experience extraction. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we present a systematic mapping study of replications in software engineering. The goal is to plot the landscape of current published replications of empirical studies in software engineering research. We applied the systematic review method to search and select published articles, and to extract and synthesize data from the selected articles that reported replications. Our search retrieved more than 16,000 articles, from which we selected 96 articles, reporting 133 replications performed between 1994 and 2010, of 72 original studies. Nearly 70 % of the replications were published after 2004 and 70 % of these studies were internal replications. The topics of software requirements, software construction, and software quality concentrated over 55 % of the replications, while software design, configuration management, and software tools and methods were the topics with the smallest number of replications. We conclude that the number of replications has grown in the last few years, but the absolute number of replications is still small, in particular considering the breadth of topics in software engineering. We still need incentives to perform external replications, better standards to report empirical studies and their replications, and collaborative research agendas that could speed up development and publication of replications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software Product Line (SPL) Engineering focuses on systematic software reuse, which has benefits such as reductions in time-to-market and effort, and improvements in the quality of products. However, establishing a SPL is not a simple matter, and can affect all aspects of the organization, since the approach is complex and involves major investment and considerable risk. These risks can have a negative impact on the expected ROI for an organization, if SPL is not sufficiently managed. This paper presents a mapping study of Risk Management (RM) in SPL Engineering. We analyzed a set of thirty studies in the field. The results points out the need for risk management practices in SPL, due to the little research on RM practices in SPL and the importance of identifying insight on RM in SPL. Most studies simply mention the importance of RM, however the steps for managing risk are not clearly specified. Our findings suggest that greater attention should be given, through the use of industrial case studies and experiments, to improve SPL productivity and ensure its success. This research is a first attempt within the SPL community to identify, classify, and manage risks, and establish mitigation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maturity models are widely used in process improvement. The users of a maturity model should be confident that the weak points of the assessed processes can be found, and that the most valuable changes are introduced. Therefore, the evaluation of maturity models is an important activity. In this paper, a mapping study of the literature on the evaluation of maturity models is presented. Two databases are searched resulting in a set of relevant papers. The identified papers can be classified according to six categories, namely the maturity model under evaluation, type of evaluation, relation of the evaluators/authors to the maturity model, level of objectivity, main purpose of the paper, and size of study. Further, a framework of different evaluations of maturity models is developed, and the relevant papers are mapped to the framework. Finally, the relevant research on the evaluation of the maturity models in the Capability Maturity Model family is discussed in more detail. The result of this mapping study is a clear overview of how the evaluation of maturity models has been done, and some discussions are provided for further research on the evaluation of commonly used or newly developed maturity models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bladder tumors were induced by N-butyl- N-(4-hydroxybutyl)nitrosamine (BBN) in five Beagles and four mongrel dogs. The tumors were observed for long periods and the tumor progression was traced using histopathological mapping. The results indicated (1) that low-dose BBN over a long period induced multiple low-grade (G1-2) and low-stage (pTa-1) papillary tumors, resembling superficial bladder cancer in humans; (2) that high-dose BBN over a short period induced high-grade (G2-3) and high-stage (pT3b) nonpapillary tumors and carcinoma in situ (CIS) resembling invasive cancer and CIS in humans; (3) that beagle dogs required longer periods and higher total doses of BBN as compared with mongrel dogs; (4) that the tumors induced by low-dose BBN in beagles were observed without BBN as long as the animals lived, and neither increasing numbers of tumors nor malignant features such as deep infiltration and metastasis was observed; and (5) that low-dose BBN seems to induce mild dysplasia, which is followed by Brunn's nest-like proliferation in the lamina propria and nodular change, eventually leading to the development of papillary noninvasive transitional cell carcinoma (TCC); and that high-dose BBN seems to induce severe dysplasia which leads to CIS and nonpapillary invasive TCC. These results may contribute to clarifying the natural history of human bladder cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain is currently one of the most important topics in both the academia and industry world, mainly due to the possible effects that the continuing application of this new technology could have. The adoption of this technology by FinTech companies constitutes the next step towards the expansion of blockchain and its sustainability. The paper conducts a mapping study on the research topics, limitations, gaps and future trends of blockchain in FinTech companies. A total of 49 papers from a scientific database (Web of Science Core Collection) have been analyzed. The results show a deep focus in challenges such as security, scalability, legal and regulatory, privacy or latency, with proposed solutions still to be far from being effective. A vast majority of the research is focused into finance and banking sector, obviating other industries that could play a crucial role in the further expansion of blockchain. This study can contribute to researchers as a starting point for their investigation, as well as a source for recommendations on future investigation directions regarding blockchain in the FinTech sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variety of maturity models have been developed and evolved as a tool for assessments/benchmarking and continuous improvements for the past two decades. The rapidly increasing number of maturity models led to problems in locating proper maturity models and identifying model validities. To identify maturity models and their validities as well as a classification of models across industrial sectors, a mapping study was applied to initially retrieved 2381 articles on maturity models published in peer‐reviewed journals between 1993 and June 2015. We identified 194 maturity models from 285 articles using a set of quality assessment steps. Among those maturity models, besides the five partially validated ones, this study also identified 26 maturity models that were empirically tested on the basis of tested hypotheses and associated validity types, such as predictive validity and unidimensionality. Additionally, despite the wide presence of maturity models in most application sectors, validated models were observed only in five sectors, eg, IT, industrials, and general. Practitioners and researchers as well as standard organizations can utilize our results to find out maturity models meeting their needs, to identify their validities, and/or to seek research opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customer loyalty is a topic of great interest for marketing scholars due to its importance in gaining sustainable competitive advantages and financial outcomes. Literature is prolific of works regarding customer loyalty and brand management. In order to improve the quantity and quality of research publications, research themes mapping of published studies is required. The aim of this paper is to provide scholars with a systematization and mapping of the contributions on this topic to develop an effective research road map for future research. A bibliometric analysis and a mapping study have been conducted on 337 publications on customer loyalty and brand management from 2000 to 2018. The results present the most cited works on the topic, an evaluation map showing the most frequent and cited words and six clusters of words based on their co-occurrence. From the analysis of the clusters, the most relevant research findings, trends, and issues emerge, suggesting interesting theoretical and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]