Nathan LaBelle, Eugene Wallingford: Inter-Package Dependency Networks in Open-Source Software
Abstract:
This research analyzes complex networks in open-source software at the inter-package level, where package dependencies often span across projects and between development groups. We review complex networks identified at "lower" levels of abstraction, and then formulate a description of interacting software components at the package level, a relatively "high" level of abstraction. By mining open-source software repositories from two sources, we empirically show that the coupling of modules at this granularity creates a small-world and scale-free network in both instances.

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This research has shown that package dependency networks mined from two open-source software repositories share the following properties typical to other real-world networks:
• The small-world effect: short geodesic path lengths and high clustering.
• Near power-law distribution of edges.
• The presence of a giant component, [....]

There are many directions for future research in the study of software networks. Currently, there is no model of network formation that takes software dynamics (reuse, refactoring, addition of new packages) in to account. Also, the impact of the network structure on software dynamics should be investigated. Future research should identify other networks in software and move towards formulating a theory of networks and their value to software engineering. Additional dependency networks can be constructed on Windows computers using memory profiling tools, and determining interactions based on shared .DLL (Dynamic Library Link) files and Active-X controls.

Jämför t.ex. med Komplexitet i mjukvaruarkitektur.

[hakank.blogg]

I am interested in the small world characteristics of information - so I will look at parallels here

11:13:25 PM    

I, too am greatly interested in SNA and have followed the discussion for 3 1/2 years. Although it has not made the radar screen in my graduate IAKM program, studying the information flow between people is really of upmost interst and I think that this is reflected in my list of subscribed KM related blogs. That aside this post has a link to the National Library of Health (UK) that has a good general discussion of the aspects, commercial and academic of KM today

Social Network Analysis.

As I've mentioned previously, I'm currently enthralled with the concept of social network analysis (SNA). An understanding of information/knowledge flow through an organization would seem to be as vital to the information age as creating oil pipelines in the manufacturing age. A quick overview of SNA: "In the context of knowledge management, social network analysis (SNA) enables relationships between people to be mapped in order to identity knowledge flows: who do people seek information and knowledge from? Who do they share their information and knowledge with?"

7:05:21 PM    

Emergence: Complexity and Organization

New journal with first issue free and related publications. Good resource

1:14:05 AM    

Language of Networks

Lightweight mention of network analysis, specifically social network analysis.WIRED

...At a symposium titled "Language of Networks," a panel of
mathematicians and graphics geeks dazzled a standing-room-only crowd
 with elaborate diagrams of social networks. Social network analysis has been around since the 1930s, but only recently has it become automated. It's still more art than  science, but it's fast becoming indispensible for nailing opinion leaders, locating hubs
of influence, and tracing flows of ideas.

10:29:06 PM    

Piers blogs about how it bugs him that people either talk about Personal KM with an emergent/systems approach or about Organisational KM with a top-down approach. If you accept the systems approach he says then you also have to accept that this translates to the organisational level as well.

[PersonalSomethingManagement]

Mine: The systems approach should work for both organizational and personal KM

6:07:01 PM    

Sony lab tips 'emergent semantics' to make sense of Web

Sony Computer Science Laboratory is positioning its "emergent semantics" as a self-organizing alternative to the W3C's Semantic Web that does not require any recoding of the data currently available online. Based on successful experiments with communities of robots, emergent-semantic technology is built on the principles of human learning, representatives of the Sony lab said at an open house here last month.

Much as these communities of "agents" extract meaning (semantics) from the character of their interactions, emergent semantics extracts the meaning of Web documents from the manner in which people use them, the researchers said. Based on just-patented emergent-semantics principles for its robots, the Sony scheme harnesses the human communication and social interaction among peer-to-peer file sharers, database searchers and content creators to append the semantic dimension to the Web automatically, instead of depending on the owner of each piece of data to tag it.

10:42:31 PM    

Patterns in Knowledge Discovery not data mining: Drug companies take note

Thanks to elearnspace for notice of this knowledge discovery item.

"Instead of mining for a nugget of gold, knowledge discovery is more like sifting through a warehouse filled with small gears, levers, etc., none of which is particularly valuable by itself. After appropriate assembly, however, a Rolex watch emerges from the disparate parts."

............

"You run the risk of drowning in data," said W. Nicholas Delgass, a Purdue professor of chemical engineering. "What you really want is knowledge, not data."

.......Discovery informatics depends on a two-part repeating cycle made up of a "forward model" and an "inverse process" and two types of artificial intelligence software: hybrid neural networks and genetic algorithms.

10:14:52 PM