Muhammad Akbar - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Muhammad Akbar

Automated Software Engineering

Quantum computing systems harness the power of quantum mechanics to execute computationally deman... more Quantum computing systems harness the power of quantum mechanics to execute computationally demanding tasks more effectively than their classical counterparts. This has led to the emergence of Quantum Software Engineering (QSE), which focuses on unlocking the full potential of quantum computing systems. As QSE gains prominence, it seeks to address the evolving challenges of quantum software development by offering comprehensive concepts, principles, and guidelines. This paper aims to identify, prioritize, and develop a systematic decision-making framework of the challenging factors associated with QSE process execution. We conducted a literature survey to identify the challenging factors associated with QSE process and mapped them into 7 core categories. Additionally, we used a questionnaire survey to collect insights from practitioners regarding these challenges. To examine the relationships between core categories of challenging factors, we applied Interpretive Structure Modeling ...

Soft Computing

In today’s world, suspicious or unusual activities express threats and danger to others. For the ... more In today’s world, suspicious or unusual activities express threats and danger to others. For the prevention of various security issues, an automatic video detection system is very important. It is difficult to consecutively monitor camera videos recorded in public places to detect any abnormal event, so an automated video detection system is needed. The study objective is to create an intelligent and trustworthy system that will take a video stream as input and detect what kind of suspicious activity is happening in that video to reduce the time that consumes watching the video. In this work, we use three models Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), GRU, and ConvLSTM model. These models are trained on the same dataset of 6 suspicious activities of humans that are: Running, Punching, Falling, Snatching, Kicking, and Shooting. The dataset consists of various videos related to each activity. Different deep learning techniques are applied in the proposed work: preprocessing, data annotati...

International Journal of Intelligent Systems

CT vertebral segmentation plays an essential role in various clinical applications, such as compu... more CT vertebral segmentation plays an essential role in various clinical applications, such as computer-assisted surgical interventions, assessment of spinal abnormalities, and vertebral compression fractures. Automatic CT vertebral segmentation is challenging due to the overlapping shadows of thoracoabdominal structures such as the lungs, bony structures such as the ribs, and other issues such as ambiguous object borders, complicated spine architecture, patient variability, and fluctuations in image contrast. Deep learning is an emerging technique for disease diagnosis in the medical field. This study proposes a patch-based deep learning approach to extract the discriminative features from unlabeled data using a stacked sparse autoencoder (SSAE). 2D slices from a CT volume are divided into overlapping patches fed into the model for training. A random under sampling (RUS)-module is applied to balance the training data by selecting a subset of the majority class. SSAE uses pixel intensi...

Axioms

The main objective of this unmanned ground vehicle is to deal with the security issues like terro... more The main objective of this unmanned ground vehicle is to deal with the security issues like terrorist activities across the border and in various remote combat missions by reducing the involvement of soldiers. This unmanned ground robot comprises a wireless high-definition camera that can transfer live streams from the robot to headquarters using Wi-Fi. The robot’s movement can be controlled with two modes; one of them is a radio controller working on 2.4 GHz frequency with seven independent channels. Secondly, its movement can also be controlled using a Python-based GUI application. Nowadays, different techniques have been used for face recognition; in our remotely piloted robot, we have used Haar-cascade classifiers in combination with the LBPH algorithm to implement real-time facial recognition. The robot uses a rack and pinion driving mechanism and an ATMEL Cortex-M3 CPU as a controller with 32-bit/s processing speed. In addition, a laser is installed on the turret to shoot the ...

IEEE Access

DevOps (development and operations) is a set of collaborative practices that automate delivery of... more DevOps (development and operations) is a set of collaborative practices that automate delivery of new software updates with the aim to reduce the development life cycle and produce quality software products. Software organizations face several barriers while adopting DevOps practices as the integration of development and operation teams requires merger of different processes, tools, and skill sets. This study aims to develop a prioritization-based framework of the DevOps best practices based on evidence collected from industry experts. To attain the study aims, firstly, a systematic literature review was conducted to identify DevOps best practices reported in the literature. Next, a questionnaire survey study was conducted to receive insight from industry practitioners for the identified best practice. Finally, the fuzzy-AHP technique was applied to prioritize the best practices concerning to the significance for DevOps process. We believe that the identified best practices, their categorization and fuzzy-AHP based framework will help industry experts to revise and improve their strategies to make the DevOps process sustainable. INDEX TERMS DevOps, best practices, fuzzy AHP analysis.

Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 2022

Due to multitudes factors like rapid change in technology, customer needs, and business trends, t... more Due to multitudes factors like rapid change in technology, customer needs, and business trends, the software organizations are facing pressure to deliver quality software on time. To address this concern, the software industry is continually looking the solution to improve processing timeline. Thus, the Development and Operations (DevOps) has gained a wide popularity in recent era, and several organizations are adopting it, to leverage its perceived benefits. However, companies are facing several problems while executing the DevOps practices. The objective of this work is to identify the DevOps success factors that will help in DevOps process improvement. To accomplish this research firstly, a systematic literature review is conducted to identify the factors having positive influence on DevOps. Secondly, success factors were mapped with DevOps principles, i.e., culture, automation, measurement, and sharing. Thirdly, the identified success factors and their mapping were further verif...

Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, 2022

Rehabilitation engineering is playing a more vital role in the field of healthcare for humanity. ... more Rehabilitation engineering is playing a more vital role in the field of healthcare for humanity. It is providing many assistive devices to diplegia patients (The patients whose conditions are weak in terms of muscle mobility on both sides of the body and their paralyzing effects are high either in the arms or in the legs). Therefore, in order to rehabilitate such types of patients, an intelligent healthcare system is proposed in this research. The electric sticks and chairs are also a type of this system which was used previously to facilitate the diplegia patients. It is worth noting that a voice recognition system along with wireless control feature has been integrated intelligently in the proposed healthcare system in order to replace the common and conventional assistive tools for diplegia patients. These features will make the proposed system more user friendly, convenient and comfortable. The voice recognition system has been used for movements of system in any desired directi...

IEEE Access, 2020

The cloud based global software development (CGSD) is the most widely adopted development paradig... more The cloud based global software development (CGSD) is the most widely adopted development paradigm in software industry. The CGSD offers significant economic and strategic benefits; besides, various complexities are faced by the practitioners while deploying CGSD. Hence, this study aims to identify and prioritize the best practices that are important for the success and progression of CGSD paradigm. Using the systematic literature review a total of 30 best practices were identified and were further verified with industry experts using questionnaire survey study. The identified best practices were further prioritize using fuzzy-AHP approach. The fuzzy-AHP is novel in this domain as it successfully applied in other engineering domain to address the multicriteria decision making problems. The findings of this study will provide a prioritization-based taxonomy of the investigated best practices which assists the academic researchers and industry experts to develop and revise the strategies of CGSD. INDEX TERMS Cloud based global software development (CGSD), best practices, fuzzy-AHP.

IEEE Access, 2020

The software organizations rapidly adopting global software development (GSD) to gain the economi... more The software organizations rapidly adopting global software development (GSD) to gain the economic and strategic benefits. Besides, GSD faces many challenges that mainly concerned with the requirements change management (RCM). This study aims to identify and empirically validate the factors that can negatively influence the RCM process in GSD. To this end, literature review and questionnaire survey were conducted for the investigation and validation of RCM challenges. A total of 31 RCM challenges were identified. We have further classified the identified challenges in organization types, organization size and based on experts' opinions with the aim to provide a clear understanding of the RCM process and its challenges to the practitioners. Based on these identified challenges, we believe that this study can provide a framework for tackling problems associated with RCM activities in GSD environment, which is significant to success and progression of GSD organizations. INDEX TERMS Requirements change management, challenges, empirical investigations.

IET Software, 2021

Software industry is adopting global software development (GSD) due to its potential to produce q... more Software industry is adopting global software development (GSD) due to its potential to produce quality products at a lower cost. However, the GSD firms face many challenges that make development activities more complicated, especially related to the requirements engineering (RE) process. The objectives of this article are to investigate and prioritize the barriers faced by the GSD organizations during the RE process. First, we identified 17 barriers related to the RE process in the GSD projects. Next, the identified barriers were further validated with real-world GSD practitioners using a questionnaire survey. Finally, we applied the analytical hierarchy process to prioritize the investigated barriers with respect to their significance for the RE process in the GSD domain. The results show that coordination is the most significant barrier category for the RE process in GSD projects. Lack of standard and procedure for RE in GSD, lack of synchronized communication infrastructure, and lack of mutual understanding between the overseas RE teams are also high-ranked barriers for the RE process in GSD. The authors believe that the findings of this study will assist practitioners and researchers in developing effective strategies and plans for the successful implementation of the RE process in the GSD context. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

IEEE Access, 2021

Internet of things (IoT) is leading a new digital age. IoT is regarded as the significant frontie... more Internet of things (IoT) is leading a new digital age. IoT is regarded as the significant frontier that can improve almost all aspect of our lives. Currently, the IoT technology faces several challenges to academic researchers and industry practitioners, mainly that related with security of data. The objective of this study is to develop a prioritization-based taxonomy of the challenging factors that could hinders the security of IoT. By conducting the literature review and questionnaire survey studies 21 challenging factors were identified that are reported in existing literature and in real-world practices. Moreover, the identified challenging factors are mapped in the core domain of IoT (i.e. smart city, smart home, smart wearable's and smart health care); and apply the fuzzy-AHP approach to rank the identified challenging factors with respect to their criticality for security of IoT technology. The application of fuzzy-AHP is novel in this research area as it is successfully applied in other domains of information technology to address the multicriterion decision making problems. This study is contributing by providing a prioritization-based taxonomy of the IoT security challenging factors that could help the practitioners and research community to revise and develop the new strategies for the secure IoT. INDEX TERMS Internet of Things (IoT), challenges, prioritization-based-taxonomy.

IEEE Access, 2021

Global Software Development (GSD) continues to receive interest from software industry due to pot... more Global Software Development (GSD) continues to receive interest from software industry due to potential economic benefits. Management of GSD projects is not straightforward due to involvement of different geographically distributed teams who collaborate to produce a software. The objective of this study is to prioritize the challenges faced by practitioners during management of a GSD project. A questionnaire survey was developed to collect feedback from GSD practitioners about relative importance of 20 challenges reported in literature. Next, the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) was used to rank the challenges associated with management of GSD projects. The study provides a prioritization-based taxonomy of challenges associated with management of GSD projects. We believe software organizations can use the taxonomy to better plan and manage GSD projects. INDEX TERMS Global software development, challenges, fuzzy analytical hierarchy process.

IEEE Access, 2020

Global Software Development (GSD) is adopted by organizations to develop quality software at rela... more Global Software Development (GSD) is adopted by organizations to develop quality software at relatively low cost. Requirement Change Management (RCM) plays a key role in overall success of a GSD project. The objective of this study is to identify the challenges of RCM process by adopting systematic literature review (SLR) and validate them by employing questionnaire survey approach in real world practices. A total of 25 challenges were identified through SLR and empirical study. We have further classified the identified challenges into client and vendor organizations with an aim to understand RCM challenges in the context of both types of GSD organizations. The identified challenges were also categorized into three core types of the organization size (small, medium, large), that highlights the significance of each challenge for specific organizational size. The results indicate that there is a moderate correlation between the ranking of these challenges in the literature and the survey results. The finding of this study has the potential to help the GSD organizations in addressing the problems related with RCM in GSD projects. INDEX TERMS Global software development (GSD), requirements change management (RCM), challenges, systematic literature review (SLR), size-based classification, client, and vendor. I. INTRODUCTION Change is a challenging aspect of requirements engineering process [1]. In the real world, software professionals face problems in identifying an extensive set of system requirements that reflect contemporary situations and adjust to changing needs [1]. One of the most important issues that software businesses have to address is the dynamic change in process requirements [2]. Several factors such as customer needs, market dynamics, global competitors, and government regulations contribute to the change in system requirements. Hence, Requirements Change Management (RCM) in software development is highly important and essential to the success of a software project [3]. In this paper, we adopt Nurmuliani's [4] definition as follows: ''the tendency of The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Xiao Liu. requirements to change over time reacting to the evolving needs of customers, stakeholders, organizations, and the work environment.'' Managing requirements changes is a challenge in collocated software development projects and is more complex in the global software development (GSD) environment [5]. The key practices to the successful management of requirements include communication and coordination between stakeholders [5]-[7]. Inappropriate management of requirements changes can lead to disastrous effects on system development in terms of high software cost, delayed schedules, volatile requirements, and endless testing, ultimately cause project failure [7], [8]. Global software development (GSD) is a modern software development paradigm in which development activities are carried out at geographically distributed locations around the globe [9]. To achieve economic and strategic

IEEE Access, 2020

The software organizations are outsourcing their development activities across the geographical b... more The software organizations are outsourcing their development activities across the geographical border due to huge business gains. However, the adoption of the global software development (GSD) paradigm is not straightforward; various challenges are associated with it, particularly related to the requirements engineering (RE) process. The objective of this study is to identify the barriers to the RE process faced during GSD. To achieve this, we have conducted a systematic mapping study and questionnaire survey to identify and validate the barriers of the RE process with industry practitioners. A total of 20 barriers were identified and validated with the experts. Moreover, we have performed organization types (client and vendor), organization size (small, medium, and large) and experts' levels (junior, intermediate, and senior) based analysis to provide a clear understanding of the RE barriers in the three different context. Besides, we have also developed a theoretical framework by mapping the investigated barriers into six core knowledge areas of software process improvement. The mapping results indicated that project administration is the most significant knowledge area of investigated barriers. We believe that the findings of this study will provide a framework that assists the GSD practitioners in developing an effective plan and strategies to improve the RE process in the GSD context. INDEX TERMS Global software development, requirements engineering (RE), empirical investigation, client, vendor.

Review of Computer Engineering Research, 2019

The internet of things (IOT) is a phenomenon of connected devices over the internet to ease human... more The internet of things (IOT) is a phenomenon of connected devices over the internet to ease human life. It is a system where a separate computing device embedded with sensors is connected to other devices or to the cloud through the different infrastructures of the Internet. The implication of the IOT is still challenging in a geographically distributed environment. Particularly, the main challenges are associated with data privacy and security. In this study, we investigate in the report the risks/issue related to IoT data privacy and security from the existing literature for the last two years and provide a review. We identify a total of seven issues related to IoT data privacy and security. The findings revolved that Privacy, Security, confidentiality, and integrity are the most significant issues for IoT in the current era. The findings of this study provide the researchers with a body of knowledge about the critical issues faced by the users and practitioners of IOT across the globe. Contribution/Originality: In this paper, we conducted the literature review to find out the main challenges that are being faced by challenges related to privacy and security mainly, authentication and access control, confidentiality and integrity IOT devices users and as well as for IOT manufacturer. We highlighted seven, privacy, trust on the device and conducted a questionnaire survey from different organizations and from different research experts and ranked it accordingly.

IEEE Access, 2019

Currently, being deployed by organizations to develop high-quality software at a low cost, global... more Currently, being deployed by organizations to develop high-quality software at a low cost, global software development (GSD) faces many challenges that make development activities more complex. These GSD challenges are mainly concerned with requirements to change management (RCM). RCM plays a key role in the successful execution of software projects. The objective of this paper is to identify the best practices of the RCM process by adopting a systematic literature review (SLR) and validate them using questionnaire survey with industry experts. A total of 46 best practices were identified through SLR and validated with industry experts. We have further classified the identified practices in the domain of client and vendor GSD organizations with the aim to provide a clear understanding of the RCM best practices in the context of both types of GSD organizations (client, vendor). Moreover, we have conducted a comparison analysis between SLR and questionnaire survey data and found a moderate positive correlation in the ranks of both data sets (r s = 0.522, p=0.003). In addition, the criticality of the identified best practices was assessed using the criteria of a practice having frequency ≥50%. The findings of this paper provide a framework that could help the GSD organizations to address the problems related to RCM in GSD environment. INDEX TERMS Global software development (GSD), requirements change management (RCM), best practices, systematic literature review (SLR), empirical investigation, client, vendor.

Lab on a Chip, 2015

We present a GC-on-chip module capable of providing highly efficient separation and ultra-sensiti... more We present a GC-on-chip module capable of providing highly efficient separation and ultra-sensitive detection of volatile organic compounds on a single platform.

Procedia Computer Science, 2014

WAVE by IEEE, CALM by ISO and Car-to-Car are the popular VANET architectures. These architectures... more WAVE by IEEE, CALM by ISO and Car-to-Car are the popular VANET architectures. These architectures mainly focus on safety applications. IEEE 802.11p is the IEEE recommended MAC and PHY layer standard for VANET. Different VANET protocol stacks recommend this standard not only for the safety applications but also other applications. In this paper, we focus on Multimedia-based ad-hoc networking and WLAN aspects for VANETs. The use of Multimedia applications is increasing day by day. Applications like Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing, online gaming and file transfer etc. demand time bounded and high throughput services. To fulfill these demands in a vehicular environment, there is a need to evaluate the current IEEE VANET standard for MAC (IEEE 802.11p) to know its limitations for these applications and move towards exploration of a new standard. IEEE 802.11n claims high throughput up to 300Mbps and proved to be more suitable standard for multimedia applications. In this paper, we have evaluated IEEE 802.11p and IEEE 802.11n specifically for multimedia applications in VANET. Simulation results show, IEEE 802.11n comparatively performs better for multimedia applications in urban environment in low BER (bit error rate) as well as high BER as compared to IEEE 802.11p.

The Analyst, 2014

The majority of current micro-scale gas chromatography (mGC) systems focus on air sampling to det... more The majority of current micro-scale gas chromatography (mGC) systems focus on air sampling to detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs). However, purging the VOCs from a water sample using microsystems is an unchartered territory. Various organic compounds used in everyday life find their way to water bodies. Some of these water organic compounds (WOCs) persist or degrade slowly, threatening not just human existence but also aquatic life. This article reports the first micro-purge extractor (mPE) chip and its integration with a micro-scale gas chromatography (mGC) system for the extraction and analysis of water organic compounds (WOCs) from aqueous samples. The 2 cm  3 cm mPE chip contains two inlet and outlet ports and an etched cavity sealed with a Pyrex cover. The aqueous sample is introduced from the top inlet port while a pure inert gas is supplied from the side inlet to purge WOCs from the mPE chip. The outlets are assigned for draining water from the chip and for directing purged WOCs to the micro-thermal preconcentrator (mTPC). The trapped compounds are desorbed from the mTPC by resistive heating using the on-chip heater and temperature sensor, are separated by a 2 m long, 80 mm wide, and 250 mm deep polydimethylsiloxane (OV-1) coated mGC separation column, and are identified using a micro-thermal conductivity detector (mTCD) monolithically integrated with the column. Our experiments indicate that the combined system is capable of providing rapid chromatographic separation (<1.5 min) for quaternary WOCs namely toluene, tetrachloroethylene (PCE), chlorobenzene and ethylbenzene with a minimum detection concentration of 500 parts-per-billion (ppb) in aqueous samples. The proposed method is a promising development towards the future realization of a miniaturized system for sensitive, on-site and real-time field analysis of organic contaminants in water.

Energy, Exploration & Exploitation, 2006

The paper proposes an Agent System for multi faceted distributed generation setup with green powe... more The paper proposes an Agent System for multi faceted distributed generation setup with green power generators identifying role and requirements of each agent. The Object Model, treating various agents as Entity/Object is proposed showing their interaction/interfacing. Each entity has been elaborated with its attributes. In addition, the services expected from each agent are highlighted. The Use Case Model is proposed showing assigned role of each agent. Each use case has been elaborated with its purpose, data handling, stimuli and responses. A lay out of the subsystems of each of the proposed main agents has also been included. Subsequently the State Machine Model is proposed showing behavior of system in real time scenarios. Finally the Event Loop Model is appended along with sensor/actuator control process.

Automated Software Engineering

Quantum computing systems harness the power of quantum mechanics to execute computationally deman... more Quantum computing systems harness the power of quantum mechanics to execute computationally demanding tasks more effectively than their classical counterparts. This has led to the emergence of Quantum Software Engineering (QSE), which focuses on unlocking the full potential of quantum computing systems. As QSE gains prominence, it seeks to address the evolving challenges of quantum software development by offering comprehensive concepts, principles, and guidelines. This paper aims to identify, prioritize, and develop a systematic decision-making framework of the challenging factors associated with QSE process execution. We conducted a literature survey to identify the challenging factors associated with QSE process and mapped them into 7 core categories. Additionally, we used a questionnaire survey to collect insights from practitioners regarding these challenges. To examine the relationships between core categories of challenging factors, we applied Interpretive Structure Modeling ...

Soft Computing

In today’s world, suspicious or unusual activities express threats and danger to others. For the ... more In today’s world, suspicious or unusual activities express threats and danger to others. For the prevention of various security issues, an automatic video detection system is very important. It is difficult to consecutively monitor camera videos recorded in public places to detect any abnormal event, so an automated video detection system is needed. The study objective is to create an intelligent and trustworthy system that will take a video stream as input and detect what kind of suspicious activity is happening in that video to reduce the time that consumes watching the video. In this work, we use three models Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), GRU, and ConvLSTM model. These models are trained on the same dataset of 6 suspicious activities of humans that are: Running, Punching, Falling, Snatching, Kicking, and Shooting. The dataset consists of various videos related to each activity. Different deep learning techniques are applied in the proposed work: preprocessing, data annotati...

International Journal of Intelligent Systems

CT vertebral segmentation plays an essential role in various clinical applications, such as compu... more CT vertebral segmentation plays an essential role in various clinical applications, such as computer-assisted surgical interventions, assessment of spinal abnormalities, and vertebral compression fractures. Automatic CT vertebral segmentation is challenging due to the overlapping shadows of thoracoabdominal structures such as the lungs, bony structures such as the ribs, and other issues such as ambiguous object borders, complicated spine architecture, patient variability, and fluctuations in image contrast. Deep learning is an emerging technique for disease diagnosis in the medical field. This study proposes a patch-based deep learning approach to extract the discriminative features from unlabeled data using a stacked sparse autoencoder (SSAE). 2D slices from a CT volume are divided into overlapping patches fed into the model for training. A random under sampling (RUS)-module is applied to balance the training data by selecting a subset of the majority class. SSAE uses pixel intensi...

Axioms

The main objective of this unmanned ground vehicle is to deal with the security issues like terro... more The main objective of this unmanned ground vehicle is to deal with the security issues like terrorist activities across the border and in various remote combat missions by reducing the involvement of soldiers. This unmanned ground robot comprises a wireless high-definition camera that can transfer live streams from the robot to headquarters using Wi-Fi. The robot’s movement can be controlled with two modes; one of them is a radio controller working on 2.4 GHz frequency with seven independent channels. Secondly, its movement can also be controlled using a Python-based GUI application. Nowadays, different techniques have been used for face recognition; in our remotely piloted robot, we have used Haar-cascade classifiers in combination with the LBPH algorithm to implement real-time facial recognition. The robot uses a rack and pinion driving mechanism and an ATMEL Cortex-M3 CPU as a controller with 32-bit/s processing speed. In addition, a laser is installed on the turret to shoot the ...

IEEE Access

DevOps (development and operations) is a set of collaborative practices that automate delivery of... more DevOps (development and operations) is a set of collaborative practices that automate delivery of new software updates with the aim to reduce the development life cycle and produce quality software products. Software organizations face several barriers while adopting DevOps practices as the integration of development and operation teams requires merger of different processes, tools, and skill sets. This study aims to develop a prioritization-based framework of the DevOps best practices based on evidence collected from industry experts. To attain the study aims, firstly, a systematic literature review was conducted to identify DevOps best practices reported in the literature. Next, a questionnaire survey study was conducted to receive insight from industry practitioners for the identified best practice. Finally, the fuzzy-AHP technique was applied to prioritize the best practices concerning to the significance for DevOps process. We believe that the identified best practices, their categorization and fuzzy-AHP based framework will help industry experts to revise and improve their strategies to make the DevOps process sustainable. INDEX TERMS DevOps, best practices, fuzzy AHP analysis.

Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 2022

Due to multitudes factors like rapid change in technology, customer needs, and business trends, t... more Due to multitudes factors like rapid change in technology, customer needs, and business trends, the software organizations are facing pressure to deliver quality software on time. To address this concern, the software industry is continually looking the solution to improve processing timeline. Thus, the Development and Operations (DevOps) has gained a wide popularity in recent era, and several organizations are adopting it, to leverage its perceived benefits. However, companies are facing several problems while executing the DevOps practices. The objective of this work is to identify the DevOps success factors that will help in DevOps process improvement. To accomplish this research firstly, a systematic literature review is conducted to identify the factors having positive influence on DevOps. Secondly, success factors were mapped with DevOps principles, i.e., culture, automation, measurement, and sharing. Thirdly, the identified success factors and their mapping were further verif...

Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, 2022

Rehabilitation engineering is playing a more vital role in the field of healthcare for humanity. ... more Rehabilitation engineering is playing a more vital role in the field of healthcare for humanity. It is providing many assistive devices to diplegia patients (The patients whose conditions are weak in terms of muscle mobility on both sides of the body and their paralyzing effects are high either in the arms or in the legs). Therefore, in order to rehabilitate such types of patients, an intelligent healthcare system is proposed in this research. The electric sticks and chairs are also a type of this system which was used previously to facilitate the diplegia patients. It is worth noting that a voice recognition system along with wireless control feature has been integrated intelligently in the proposed healthcare system in order to replace the common and conventional assistive tools for diplegia patients. These features will make the proposed system more user friendly, convenient and comfortable. The voice recognition system has been used for movements of system in any desired directi...

IEEE Access, 2020

The cloud based global software development (CGSD) is the most widely adopted development paradig... more The cloud based global software development (CGSD) is the most widely adopted development paradigm in software industry. The CGSD offers significant economic and strategic benefits; besides, various complexities are faced by the practitioners while deploying CGSD. Hence, this study aims to identify and prioritize the best practices that are important for the success and progression of CGSD paradigm. Using the systematic literature review a total of 30 best practices were identified and were further verified with industry experts using questionnaire survey study. The identified best practices were further prioritize using fuzzy-AHP approach. The fuzzy-AHP is novel in this domain as it successfully applied in other engineering domain to address the multicriteria decision making problems. The findings of this study will provide a prioritization-based taxonomy of the investigated best practices which assists the academic researchers and industry experts to develop and revise the strategies of CGSD. INDEX TERMS Cloud based global software development (CGSD), best practices, fuzzy-AHP.

IEEE Access, 2020

The software organizations rapidly adopting global software development (GSD) to gain the economi... more The software organizations rapidly adopting global software development (GSD) to gain the economic and strategic benefits. Besides, GSD faces many challenges that mainly concerned with the requirements change management (RCM). This study aims to identify and empirically validate the factors that can negatively influence the RCM process in GSD. To this end, literature review and questionnaire survey were conducted for the investigation and validation of RCM challenges. A total of 31 RCM challenges were identified. We have further classified the identified challenges in organization types, organization size and based on experts' opinions with the aim to provide a clear understanding of the RCM process and its challenges to the practitioners. Based on these identified challenges, we believe that this study can provide a framework for tackling problems associated with RCM activities in GSD environment, which is significant to success and progression of GSD organizations. INDEX TERMS Requirements change management, challenges, empirical investigations.

IET Software, 2021

Software industry is adopting global software development (GSD) due to its potential to produce q... more Software industry is adopting global software development (GSD) due to its potential to produce quality products at a lower cost. However, the GSD firms face many challenges that make development activities more complicated, especially related to the requirements engineering (RE) process. The objectives of this article are to investigate and prioritize the barriers faced by the GSD organizations during the RE process. First, we identified 17 barriers related to the RE process in the GSD projects. Next, the identified barriers were further validated with real-world GSD practitioners using a questionnaire survey. Finally, we applied the analytical hierarchy process to prioritize the investigated barriers with respect to their significance for the RE process in the GSD domain. The results show that coordination is the most significant barrier category for the RE process in GSD projects. Lack of standard and procedure for RE in GSD, lack of synchronized communication infrastructure, and lack of mutual understanding between the overseas RE teams are also high-ranked barriers for the RE process in GSD. The authors believe that the findings of this study will assist practitioners and researchers in developing effective strategies and plans for the successful implementation of the RE process in the GSD context. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

IEEE Access, 2021

Internet of things (IoT) is leading a new digital age. IoT is regarded as the significant frontie... more Internet of things (IoT) is leading a new digital age. IoT is regarded as the significant frontier that can improve almost all aspect of our lives. Currently, the IoT technology faces several challenges to academic researchers and industry practitioners, mainly that related with security of data. The objective of this study is to develop a prioritization-based taxonomy of the challenging factors that could hinders the security of IoT. By conducting the literature review and questionnaire survey studies 21 challenging factors were identified that are reported in existing literature and in real-world practices. Moreover, the identified challenging factors are mapped in the core domain of IoT (i.e. smart city, smart home, smart wearable's and smart health care); and apply the fuzzy-AHP approach to rank the identified challenging factors with respect to their criticality for security of IoT technology. The application of fuzzy-AHP is novel in this research area as it is successfully applied in other domains of information technology to address the multicriterion decision making problems. This study is contributing by providing a prioritization-based taxonomy of the IoT security challenging factors that could help the practitioners and research community to revise and develop the new strategies for the secure IoT. INDEX TERMS Internet of Things (IoT), challenges, prioritization-based-taxonomy.

IEEE Access, 2021

Global Software Development (GSD) continues to receive interest from software industry due to pot... more Global Software Development (GSD) continues to receive interest from software industry due to potential economic benefits. Management of GSD projects is not straightforward due to involvement of different geographically distributed teams who collaborate to produce a software. The objective of this study is to prioritize the challenges faced by practitioners during management of a GSD project. A questionnaire survey was developed to collect feedback from GSD practitioners about relative importance of 20 challenges reported in literature. Next, the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) was used to rank the challenges associated with management of GSD projects. The study provides a prioritization-based taxonomy of challenges associated with management of GSD projects. We believe software organizations can use the taxonomy to better plan and manage GSD projects. INDEX TERMS Global software development, challenges, fuzzy analytical hierarchy process.

IEEE Access, 2020

Global Software Development (GSD) is adopted by organizations to develop quality software at rela... more Global Software Development (GSD) is adopted by organizations to develop quality software at relatively low cost. Requirement Change Management (RCM) plays a key role in overall success of a GSD project. The objective of this study is to identify the challenges of RCM process by adopting systematic literature review (SLR) and validate them by employing questionnaire survey approach in real world practices. A total of 25 challenges were identified through SLR and empirical study. We have further classified the identified challenges into client and vendor organizations with an aim to understand RCM challenges in the context of both types of GSD organizations. The identified challenges were also categorized into three core types of the organization size (small, medium, large), that highlights the significance of each challenge for specific organizational size. The results indicate that there is a moderate correlation between the ranking of these challenges in the literature and the survey results. The finding of this study has the potential to help the GSD organizations in addressing the problems related with RCM in GSD projects. INDEX TERMS Global software development (GSD), requirements change management (RCM), challenges, systematic literature review (SLR), size-based classification, client, and vendor. I. INTRODUCTION Change is a challenging aspect of requirements engineering process [1]. In the real world, software professionals face problems in identifying an extensive set of system requirements that reflect contemporary situations and adjust to changing needs [1]. One of the most important issues that software businesses have to address is the dynamic change in process requirements [2]. Several factors such as customer needs, market dynamics, global competitors, and government regulations contribute to the change in system requirements. Hence, Requirements Change Management (RCM) in software development is highly important and essential to the success of a software project [3]. In this paper, we adopt Nurmuliani's [4] definition as follows: ''the tendency of The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Xiao Liu. requirements to change over time reacting to the evolving needs of customers, stakeholders, organizations, and the work environment.'' Managing requirements changes is a challenge in collocated software development projects and is more complex in the global software development (GSD) environment [5]. The key practices to the successful management of requirements include communication and coordination between stakeholders [5]-[7]. Inappropriate management of requirements changes can lead to disastrous effects on system development in terms of high software cost, delayed schedules, volatile requirements, and endless testing, ultimately cause project failure [7], [8]. Global software development (GSD) is a modern software development paradigm in which development activities are carried out at geographically distributed locations around the globe [9]. To achieve economic and strategic

IEEE Access, 2020

The software organizations are outsourcing their development activities across the geographical b... more The software organizations are outsourcing their development activities across the geographical border due to huge business gains. However, the adoption of the global software development (GSD) paradigm is not straightforward; various challenges are associated with it, particularly related to the requirements engineering (RE) process. The objective of this study is to identify the barriers to the RE process faced during GSD. To achieve this, we have conducted a systematic mapping study and questionnaire survey to identify and validate the barriers of the RE process with industry practitioners. A total of 20 barriers were identified and validated with the experts. Moreover, we have performed organization types (client and vendor), organization size (small, medium, and large) and experts' levels (junior, intermediate, and senior) based analysis to provide a clear understanding of the RE barriers in the three different context. Besides, we have also developed a theoretical framework by mapping the investigated barriers into six core knowledge areas of software process improvement. The mapping results indicated that project administration is the most significant knowledge area of investigated barriers. We believe that the findings of this study will provide a framework that assists the GSD practitioners in developing an effective plan and strategies to improve the RE process in the GSD context. INDEX TERMS Global software development, requirements engineering (RE), empirical investigation, client, vendor.

Review of Computer Engineering Research, 2019

The internet of things (IOT) is a phenomenon of connected devices over the internet to ease human... more The internet of things (IOT) is a phenomenon of connected devices over the internet to ease human life. It is a system where a separate computing device embedded with sensors is connected to other devices or to the cloud through the different infrastructures of the Internet. The implication of the IOT is still challenging in a geographically distributed environment. Particularly, the main challenges are associated with data privacy and security. In this study, we investigate in the report the risks/issue related to IoT data privacy and security from the existing literature for the last two years and provide a review. We identify a total of seven issues related to IoT data privacy and security. The findings revolved that Privacy, Security, confidentiality, and integrity are the most significant issues for IoT in the current era. The findings of this study provide the researchers with a body of knowledge about the critical issues faced by the users and practitioners of IOT across the globe. Contribution/Originality: In this paper, we conducted the literature review to find out the main challenges that are being faced by challenges related to privacy and security mainly, authentication and access control, confidentiality and integrity IOT devices users and as well as for IOT manufacturer. We highlighted seven, privacy, trust on the device and conducted a questionnaire survey from different organizations and from different research experts and ranked it accordingly.

IEEE Access, 2019

Currently, being deployed by organizations to develop high-quality software at a low cost, global... more Currently, being deployed by organizations to develop high-quality software at a low cost, global software development (GSD) faces many challenges that make development activities more complex. These GSD challenges are mainly concerned with requirements to change management (RCM). RCM plays a key role in the successful execution of software projects. The objective of this paper is to identify the best practices of the RCM process by adopting a systematic literature review (SLR) and validate them using questionnaire survey with industry experts. A total of 46 best practices were identified through SLR and validated with industry experts. We have further classified the identified practices in the domain of client and vendor GSD organizations with the aim to provide a clear understanding of the RCM best practices in the context of both types of GSD organizations (client, vendor). Moreover, we have conducted a comparison analysis between SLR and questionnaire survey data and found a moderate positive correlation in the ranks of both data sets (r s = 0.522, p=0.003). In addition, the criticality of the identified best practices was assessed using the criteria of a practice having frequency ≥50%. The findings of this paper provide a framework that could help the GSD organizations to address the problems related to RCM in GSD environment. INDEX TERMS Global software development (GSD), requirements change management (RCM), best practices, systematic literature review (SLR), empirical investigation, client, vendor.

Lab on a Chip, 2015

We present a GC-on-chip module capable of providing highly efficient separation and ultra-sensiti... more We present a GC-on-chip module capable of providing highly efficient separation and ultra-sensitive detection of volatile organic compounds on a single platform.

Procedia Computer Science, 2014

WAVE by IEEE, CALM by ISO and Car-to-Car are the popular VANET architectures. These architectures... more WAVE by IEEE, CALM by ISO and Car-to-Car are the popular VANET architectures. These architectures mainly focus on safety applications. IEEE 802.11p is the IEEE recommended MAC and PHY layer standard for VANET. Different VANET protocol stacks recommend this standard not only for the safety applications but also other applications. In this paper, we focus on Multimedia-based ad-hoc networking and WLAN aspects for VANETs. The use of Multimedia applications is increasing day by day. Applications like Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing, online gaming and file transfer etc. demand time bounded and high throughput services. To fulfill these demands in a vehicular environment, there is a need to evaluate the current IEEE VANET standard for MAC (IEEE 802.11p) to know its limitations for these applications and move towards exploration of a new standard. IEEE 802.11n claims high throughput up to 300Mbps and proved to be more suitable standard for multimedia applications. In this paper, we have evaluated IEEE 802.11p and IEEE 802.11n specifically for multimedia applications in VANET. Simulation results show, IEEE 802.11n comparatively performs better for multimedia applications in urban environment in low BER (bit error rate) as well as high BER as compared to IEEE 802.11p.

The Analyst, 2014

The majority of current micro-scale gas chromatography (mGC) systems focus on air sampling to det... more The majority of current micro-scale gas chromatography (mGC) systems focus on air sampling to detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs). However, purging the VOCs from a water sample using microsystems is an unchartered territory. Various organic compounds used in everyday life find their way to water bodies. Some of these water organic compounds (WOCs) persist or degrade slowly, threatening not just human existence but also aquatic life. This article reports the first micro-purge extractor (mPE) chip and its integration with a micro-scale gas chromatography (mGC) system for the extraction and analysis of water organic compounds (WOCs) from aqueous samples. The 2 cm  3 cm mPE chip contains two inlet and outlet ports and an etched cavity sealed with a Pyrex cover. The aqueous sample is introduced from the top inlet port while a pure inert gas is supplied from the side inlet to purge WOCs from the mPE chip. The outlets are assigned for draining water from the chip and for directing purged WOCs to the micro-thermal preconcentrator (mTPC). The trapped compounds are desorbed from the mTPC by resistive heating using the on-chip heater and temperature sensor, are separated by a 2 m long, 80 mm wide, and 250 mm deep polydimethylsiloxane (OV-1) coated mGC separation column, and are identified using a micro-thermal conductivity detector (mTCD) monolithically integrated with the column. Our experiments indicate that the combined system is capable of providing rapid chromatographic separation (<1.5 min) for quaternary WOCs namely toluene, tetrachloroethylene (PCE), chlorobenzene and ethylbenzene with a minimum detection concentration of 500 parts-per-billion (ppb) in aqueous samples. The proposed method is a promising development towards the future realization of a miniaturized system for sensitive, on-site and real-time field analysis of organic contaminants in water.

Energy, Exploration & Exploitation, 2006

The paper proposes an Agent System for multi faceted distributed generation setup with green powe... more The paper proposes an Agent System for multi faceted distributed generation setup with green power generators identifying role and requirements of each agent. The Object Model, treating various agents as Entity/Object is proposed showing their interaction/interfacing. Each entity has been elaborated with its attributes. In addition, the services expected from each agent are highlighted. The Use Case Model is proposed showing assigned role of each agent. Each use case has been elaborated with its purpose, data handling, stimuli and responses. A lay out of the subsystems of each of the proposed main agents has also been included. Subsequently the State Machine Model is proposed showing behavior of system in real time scenarios. Finally the Event Loop Model is appended along with sensor/actuator control process.