NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Peppertree Press announces the early 2018 release of The Lübecker by M.J. Joseph. A sweeping tale of historical fiction that unfolds against the backdrop of World War I, The Lübecker is slated for simultaneous publication in print and electronic editions. The Lübecker will be available where fine books are sold on January 23, 2018.
About The Lübecker: Parallel narratives blend together to form an exquisite, multi-layered novel about life during the roiling milieu of European history leading to the onset of World War I in M.J. Joseph's The Lübecker.
A stunning and richly-wrought debut novel, The Lübecker centers on the lives of a diverse cast of characters. Readers will find themselves quickly swept up and deeply invested in the compelling characters introduced in this extraordinary novel. The Lübecker brilliantly portrays myriad facets of life during the World War I era by showcasing such stories as that of Dr. Sam Yoffey, a young doctor practicing in Florida's Panhandle Bayou region in 1886, who has rather inconveniently fallen in love with a nun. Moreover, The Lübecker presents the unforgettable story of David Rosenberg of the northern German city of Lübeck, 8 years old in 1894, and his family—a family forced to endure unspeakable tragedy. Through the stories of David, his beloved aunt Kathe Kahn-Matthäus, parents Gabriele and Jürgen Rosenberg, grandmother Elizabeth Kahn-Matthäus and grandfather Bernhard Gerfried Matthäus, as well as uncle Heinrich Rosenberg, long estranged from brother Jürgen, The Lübecker presents a uniquely human tale destined to stay with readers long after the final page is turned.
In this remarkable work of fiction, M.J. Joseph probes the dynamics of personal identity and self-knowledge, highlights some of Western literature's most profound philosophical and religious challenges, and gives voice to one of history's most moving and memorable human struggles. Highlighting the vast chasm, yet undeniable similarities, among characters with varied cultural, intellectual, and religious traditions, The Lübecker is a thoughtful and thought-provoking novel by a dynamic new voice in historical fiction.
Born and raised in Florida, M.J. Joseph maintains membership in the English Goethe Society, the Siegfried Sassoon Society and other literary associations. He is a supporter-member of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature, as well as an Associate of Lincoln Cathedral. Prior to retiring, Joseph enjoyed a lengthy and rewarding career with an industrial firm where he served as CEO and managed the company's merger with a larger international corporation. He divides his time between Europe and his home on Florida's northern coast. M.J. Joseph and his wife Ann have two children.
The Peppertree Press is an independent book publisher based in Florida. Members of the news media wishing to request a review copy of The Lübecker or more information about author M.J. Joseph are kindly asked to contact Maryglenn McCombs by phone – (615) 297-9875, or by email – maryglenn@maryglenn.com.


text:
Q: Reading data from a text file and building a table with arrays I have an input file named "animals.txt":
sheep 10.5 12.3 4
horse 8.4  11.2 7
cow   13.7 7.2  10
duck  23.2 2.5  23
pig   12.4 4.6  12

To put my question simply, I would like to know how to store the 4 columns of data into 4 separate 1 dimensional arrays from the input file.
The output should like something like this...
[sheep, horse, cow, duck, pig]
[10.5, 8.4, 13.7, 23.2, 12.4]
[12.3, 11.2, 7.2, 2.5, 4.6]
[4, 7, 10, 23, 12]

So far I have figured out how to store all of the data into one large array, but I need to know how to break it down and store each column into its own array instead.
My code:
public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException {

    String[] animal = new String[5];
    int index = 0;

    File file = new File("animals.txt");
    Scanner input = new Scanner(file);

    while (input.hasNextLine() && index < animal.length) {
        animal[index] = input.nextLine();
        index++;
    }

A: You could use an array of arrays to store what you need, like:
String[][] animal = new String[5][];

Then, when you read your file, store an array of all the values, like this:
while (input.hasNextLine() && index < animal.length) {
    animal[index] = input.nextLine().split(" "); //split returns an array
    index++;
}

Then, when you want to output, just loop over the array of arrays:
for (String[] a : animal)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < a.length; i++)
        System.out.print(a[i] + ", ");
    System.out.println("");
}

A: Below is code for a way to do it - you can cut and paste it into a java project in an IDE like eclipse and run it or put it in a file.java and compile and run it on the command line.  Next step would be to make it fully general to take any input including lines with variable number of columns with no predetermined max and without reading the input file twice or storing it memory as an array or other object.
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Scanner;

public class BuildTableWithArrays {

    private static final String separator = "\\s+"; // regex for parsing lines
    private static final int rowWidth = 4;

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        Map<Integer, ArrayList<String>> columns = buildMapWithColumnArrayLists("animals.txt");
        printMap(columns);  // for demo
        // if you want actual arrays
        Map<Integer, String[]> colArrays = buildMapWithColumnArrays(columns);

    }

    public static Map<Integer, ArrayList<String>> buildMapWithColumnArrayLists(
        String fileName) {

        ArrayList<String> col0 = new ArrayList<String>();
        ArrayList<String> col1 = new ArrayList<String>();
        ArrayList<String> col2 = new ArrayList<String>();
        ArrayList<String> col3 = new ArrayList<String>();

        Map<Integer, ArrayList<String>> columns = new HashMap<Integer, ArrayList<String>>();
        columns.put(0, col0);
        columns.put(1, col1);
        columns.put(2, col2);
        columns.put(3, col3);

        File file = new File(fileName);
        try {
            Scanner input = new Scanner(file);
            while (input.hasNextLine()) {
                String[] line = input.nextLine().trim().replaceAll(separator, " ")
                    .split(separator);
                for (int i = 0; i < rowWidth; i++) {
                    if (line[i] == null) {
                        columns.get(Integer.valueOf(i)).add("null");
                    } else {
                        columns.get(Integer.valueOf(i)).add(line[i]);
                    }
                }
            }
            input.close();
        } catch (FileNotFoundException x) {
            System.out.println(x.getMessage());
        }

        return columns;
    }

    public static void printMap(Map<Integer, ArrayList<String>> columns) {

        for (int i = 0; i < rowWidth; i++) {
            System.out.println("col" + i + " #elements = "
                + columns.get(Integer.valueOf(i)).size());
            for (String s : columns.get(Integer.valueOf(i))) {
                System.out.print(s + " ");
            }
            System.out.println("\n");
        }
    }

    public static String[] convertArrayList2Array (ArrayList<String> arrayList) {

        String[] array = new String[arrayList.size()];
        array = arrayList.toArray(array);
        return array;

    }

    public static Map<Integer, String[]> buildMapWithColumnArrays(Map<Integer, ArrayList<String>> columns) {

        Map<Integer, String[]> cols = new HashMap<Integer, String[]>();

        for (Map.Entry<Integer, ArrayList<String>> entry : columns.entrySet()) {
            Integer key = entry.getKey();
            ArrayList<String> value = entry.getValue();
            String[] val = convertArrayList2Array(value);
            cols.put(key,val);
        }

        return cols;

    }

}

A: If the structure of your input file is guaranteed then you can use the scanner to get the data that you need. Start by declaring the 4 arrays that you want with appropriate types.
Then in your while loop use:
  input.next()

to get a string
  input.nextInt()

to get an integer and
  input.nextDouble()

to get a double value. Of course you assign these values to the appropriate array.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Improbable Research And Ig Nobel
January 14, 2019 December 31, 2018 johndabell	0 Comments Awards, Harvard University, Ig Nobel, Marc Abrahams, Nobel Centre, Nobel Prize
What is Ig Noble?
I have huge respect for the Nobel Prize. Ideas can and do change the world. I've visited the Nobel Centre Museum in Stockholm and I've marvelled at what human beings are capable of. The achievements are huge.
But there is another Nobel prize that you may not have heard about called the Ig Nobel. This is a parody of the Nobel Prize and it awarded every autumn to celebrate achievements that make people LAUGH, and then THINK.
Created in 1991 by Marc Abrahams, the prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honour the imaginative and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology.
For example, in 2018 the Medicine Prize as awarded to Marc Mitchell and David Wartinger, for using roller coaster rides to try to hasten the passage of kidney stones.
The Biology Prize was awarded to Paul Becher et al for demonstrating that wine experts can reliably identify, by smell, the presence of a single fly in a glass of wine.
And how about this one for the Literature Prize: Life Is Too Short to RTFM: How Users Relate to Documentation and Excess Features in Consumer Products.
It might be easy to laugh at what you see and could make you think "What a waste of time and money!" but who decides what is and isn't important?
Over the years there have been some incredibly sounding achievements. Find all the past winners here.
Thought-provoking and entertaining books by Marc Abrahams include This Is Improbable: Cheese String Theory, Magnetic Chickens, And Other Wtf Research and This is Improbable Too: Synchronized Cows, Speedy Brain Extractors and More WTF Research.
The 29th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will happen in September, 2019, at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
← In A Nutshell: Formative Assessment
What Every Staffroom Needs →

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Yahoo! search introduces a new, modern design for web search resutls page in the U.S. that is more consistent with the new Yahoo! homepage.
The new Yahoo! Search, covering Web and vertical intents like images, local, news etc. that puts search results front and center. "When it comes to search, nothing should stand between you and your results. That's why we'he placed search results higher on the page," Yahoo wrote.
And, the new "navigation bar" at the top of the page, helps users easily browse other Yahoo! sites. Yahoo says, it'll be rolling out the navigation bar across more Yahoo! properties soon!.
Update 06/06: Yahoo! Mail rolls out a couple of features including an easiest to way to navigate Yahoo Mail inbox by effortlessly "scrolling through hundreds of messages at a time" to find what you're looking for.
"To jump back to the top of your message list, click on the gray arrow in the lower-right corner that follows you as you scroll down the page. And to get to the earliest or most recent message in the list, simply sort by date in the menu above your inbox," explains Yahoo.
And, the preview pane, now have the option to view it on the side of your inbox.
By Deepak Gupta Posted on June 5, 2013 April 6, 2018 News, Search , Yahoo Mail, Yahoo!


text:
Q: Can Python object instances have different logger levels at the same time? I wanted different objects in my program to have different logging levels. Is that possible?
I made a base class as shown below containing methods to set the logging levels.
class Logging():
""" Utility class for common methods."""

logging_levels = ['DEBUG','INFO']#,'WARNING','ERROR'

@property
def verbosity(self):
    return self.__verbosity

@verbosity.setter
def verbosity(self,verbosity):
    """Method to set verbosity of logging on terminal. Different classes may have different levels of verbosity."""

    assert verbosity in self.logging_levels, '{} is not a valid logging level!'.format(verbosity)

    self.__verbosity = verbosity

    #Set logging level - {DEBUG,INFO,WARNING,ERROR}
    if verbosity == 'DEBUG':
        logging.getLogger().setLevel(logging.DEBUG)

    elif verbosity == 'INFO':
        logging.getLogger().setLevel(logging.INFO)

    elif verbosity == 'WARNING':
        logging.getLogger().setLevel(logging.INFO)

    print('{}:Logging level is set to:{}'.format(self.name,verbosity))

    return self.__verbosity

My other two classes inherit from the 'Logging' class and I have following in their respective init methods:
self.verbosity = verbosity

However, what I observed is that whenever an instance of either class is used to set the logging level, the logging level is set globally.
Is there any way to restrict logging levels to specific class instances?
Edited:
Using the suggestion from John Gordon, I was able to come up with a solution. Please see below.

A: if verbosity == 'DEBUG':
    logging.getLogger().setLevel(logging.DEBUG)

elif verbosity == 'INFO':
    logging.getLogger().setLevel(logging.INFO)

elif verbosity == 'WARNING':
    logging.getLogger().setLevel(logging.INFO)

Calling getLogger() without a name returns the root logger.
So, all of these calls operate on the root logger, erasing any previous setting.
One way around this is to supply a name when calling getLogger(), and ensure the name is different for each class instance.

A: I was able to resolve it by making the following changes to my Logger class.
class Logging():
""" Utility class for common methods."""

logging_levels = ['DEBUG','INFO']#,'WARNING','ERROR'

def initialize_logger(self):
    """Initialize loggers for different classes."""

    self.logger = logging.getLogger(type(self).__name__)

@property
def verbosity(self):
    return self.__verbosity

@verbosity.setter
def verbosity(self,verbosity):
    """Method to set verbosity of logging on terminal. Different classes may have different levels of verbosity."""

    assert verbosity in self.logging_levels, '{} is not a valid logging level!'.format(verbosity)

    self.__verbosity = verbosity

    #Set logging level - {DEBUG,INFO,WARNING,ERROR}
    if verbosity == 'DEBUG':
        self.logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)

    elif verbosity == 'INFO':
        self.logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)

    elif verbosity == 'WARNING':
        self.logger.setLevel(logging.WARNING)

    self.logger.debug('{}:Logging level is set to:{}'.format(self.name,verbosity))

    return self.__verbosity

I added the initialize_logger() method and called it in the init function of the classes I wanted to log from.
self.initialize_logger()
#Set logging level - {DEBUG,INFO,WARNING,ERROR}
self.verbosity = verbosity

Then finally, I used the logger object I created with initialize_logger() instead of logging.debug().
self.logger.debug('My log message')

Now I can control the logging level separately for all the classes.


Larry Yu, a spokesman for Google said that the filming was a mistake. "It is against our policy to request access to military bases for the purpose of capturing imagery in Street View," he said. The imagery that was causing trouble for the US military apparently showed the location of the guards and other intricate details that shouldn't be public; according to Google, it was promptly removed from the site. Are you sure, guys? I can still virtually drive around that base quite comfortably.


This is a must-have item for every farmer, and it is handy for your emergency/survivalist kit!
It is particularly useful for the owner or vet having occasional stock to dehorn. It can also be used for small cutting jobs and will cut small saplings.
This 50cm long, all stainless steel bridle, can be used with dehorning wire handles, calving chain handles, or any other convenient handle.
Survivalists fashion sapling handles or bows and use the wire for cutting small trees.
It accomplishes a quick and efficient dehorning job on larger horns, but be sure to follow all usual dehorning rules and staunch bleeding.
Barnes dehorners offer a simple dehorning solution for calves up to about 15 months old. They are a ..
We recommend the large Convex up to mature stock, but where horns are not at maximum growth. The ´pa..
Economy embryotomy and dehorning wire 12 metres..
Simple plastic rack spreads leathers of wet bridles to dry in more natural shape.Fingers 8cm lon..


Delhi's unbreathable air, with particulate matter levels more than four times permissible levels in 22 of November's 30 days, certainly calls for emergency measures.
Delhi's unbreathable air, with particulate matter levels more than four times permissible levels in 22 of November's 30 days, certainly calls for emergency measures. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal's odd-even scheme, whereby odd-numbered cars can only be used on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, has Delhi-ites rushing for cover — ride-sharing provider BlaBlaCar, for instance, is reporting 300-400 people registering for its service already and country manager Raghav Gupta expects a significant pick up over the next few weeks.
While the odd-even scheme is one of the emergency recommendations of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), ironically, Kejriwal has junked the most important part of the CSE's plan to fix Delhi's environment — that of making the vastly polluting diesel more costly and of encouraging people to use buses by both lowering road taxes on them as well as by extending, and fixing, the bus rapid transport corridor that was meant to help increase bus speeds.
Right now, the VAT on diesel levied by the Delhi government is just 55% that on petrol and the vastly more carbon-friendly buses end up paying 13-14 times more road tax each year.
A comprehensive solution to Delhi's pollution mess, however, cannot take place till the Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressways are built so that trucks — they account for 15% of the capital's pollution — bypass Delhi; and till the central government decides to hike excise duties on diesel cars/fuel to reverse the rampant dieselisation of the last few decades. Most important, the Centre needs to move quickly to more stringent fuel norms that reduce diesel pollution levels to close to those of petrol engines — right now, diesel can legally emit 7.5 times more particulate matter than petrol — and to levy a cess on diesel to fund the upgrading of refineries for this.


text:
Home Culture Johnny Depp: When was the last time an actor assassinated a President?
Johnny Depp: When was the last time an actor assassinated a President?
Hollywood needs to be Boycotted. I'm disappointed in Johnny, as I've always enjoyed his acting.
Anyone who threatens the president of the United States should be arrested. It's a crime to even say anything like that.
You can criticize him or cuss at him but you can't threaten him by any means. Really anyone as far as that goes.
Johnny Deep was the latest in line who threatened President Trump:
During a Q&A session at the Glastonbury Festival in England on Thursday, actor Johnny Depp suggested he wants to assassinate the democratically elected President of the United States.
"Can we bring Trump here?" Depp asked the crowd, who responded with loud boos. "No, no, no, you've misunderstood completely.
"I think Trump needs help," he said. "There are a lot of dark places he could go."
"I'm not insinuating anything – by the way, this will be in the press and it will be horrible – but when was the last time an actor assassinated a president?" Depp said.
The crowd erupted into cheers.
"Now, I want to clarify, I'm not an actor – I lie for a living," he said.
While short, the video is extremely telling. He knows it's gonna get him in trouble, so he said it in England (wimp). He even says it under his breath. Then, he drops this bomb:
"When was the last time an actor assassinated a President?"
I don't care who you are but if you threaten the presidents life that is a felony and you should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Depp's comments came just eight days after a Bernie Sanders supporter attempted to massacre a group of Republican congressmen while they were playing baseball at a park in Alexandria.
These celebrities think they can say and do anything and get away with it because they are famous. A lot of people follow them and do what they say!! If this was some regular person saying this, they would be in jail already.
Threatening the President of the United States is a class E felony under the United States Code Title 18, Section 871.
Scroll down to leave a comment below!
Social media censorship is suppressing the truth about the dangers of globalism and brutal cultures infiltrating the west. Please share this article wherever you can. It is the only way we can work around their censorship and ensure people receive news about issues that Democrats and the mainstream media suppress.
Scroll down to leave a comment below.
Johnny Deep
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https://DefiantAmerica.com
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state strives to control all aspects of people's public and private life through mass surveillance, restriction of speech, state controlled media, and terrorism. This is what the corporate press and social media channels have become in America today. 🍺 🥓 🗽
The Great Reset: The Global Elite's Plan to Radically Remake Our Economic and Social Lives
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Video: 23-Year-Old Woman Tried To Pull A Home Invasion With Her Squad – They...
Concrete Barriers Are Going Up Around The White House And Here's The Reason Why...
Video: Young Tattooed Guy In A Wife-Beater Learns The Hard Way...
Road Rage Incident In Tulsa Quickly Escalates Into Attempted Murder, No...


text:
Snap Shares Rise as Underwriters Start Coverage with 'Buy'
A banner for Snap Inc. hangs from the front of the New York Stock Exchange, March 2, 2017, in New York.
Snap Inc., owner of messaging app Snapchat, received top ratings from a number of its IPO underwriters on Monday, sending its shares up more than 3 percent in premarket trading.
Snap had a red-hot debut on March 1 in what was the largest listing by a technology firm in three years. However, many investors have been critical of the company's lack of profitability and decelerating user growth.
At least six brokerages, including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, rated the stock "buy" or higher, citing the company's long-term growth in a highly competitive market.
As of Friday's close, the stock had risen nearly 34 percent from its $17 initial public offering price. The stock was trading at $23.52 before the bell on Monday.
The Los Angeles-based company's app, which allows users to share short-lived messages and pictures, is popular with young people but faces intense competition from larger rivals such as Facebook Inc.'s Instagram. Snap has warned it may never become profitable.
"SNAP's engaged/hard-to-reach millennial users and unique video offerings should attract significant ad dollars," said Morgan Stanley analysts, who started the stock with an "overweight" rating.
The analysts also said that Snap's ad monetization was still in its infancy.
Among other underwriters, Jefferies, RBC, Cowen & Co and Credit Suisse rated the stock a "buy." RBC was the most bullish with a $31 price target.
"The big question is whether SNAP's user base can 'age up,'" analysts at Cowen & Co. said in a note.
However, JP Morgan, also an underwriter, started with a "neutral" rating.
"[The] neutral rating is driven by an increasingly competitive social media landscape which includes Facebook and others implementing successful Snap features across a broader user base, potentially weighing on user growth, and lack of profit until 2019E," JP Morgan analysts said.
Including the latest actions, Snap now has eight "buy" or higher ratings, six "sell" and seven "neutral" ratings, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Snapchat Parent Rockets Higher in Wall Street Debut
US High School Makes $24M from Snap IPO
Snap Applies Lock-up to IPO Shares
More Entrepreneurship news
US Treasury to Increase Borrowing Amid Debt Ceiling Standoff
House Speaker McCarthy Optimistic on US Debt Deal
Is Tipping Getting Out of Control? Many US Consumers Say Yes
'Whale Meat' Vending Machines Push Sales in Japan


text:
Rodoald (også Rodwald; ? – 653) var en langobardisk konge af Italien der regerede fra 652 til 653. Han var søn og arving til den tidligere konge Rothari og ligesom ham kristen arianer. Rodoald blev beskyldt for at bedrive hor med en anden langobarders hustru og blev dræbt af denne efter kun 5 måneder og 7 dage på tronen. Han blev efterfulgt af Aripert, der havde den katolske kirkes opbakning.

Kilder
 Paulus Diaconus, Historia gentis Langobardorum, fjerde bog

Langobardiske konger
Tjek fødselsår

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Radhoc began as a coalition between multiple social justice organizations at Memorial University and has since evolved into it's own youth leadership organization. We offer youth leadership development programs primarily consisting of conferences for high school and university students. Through our conferences, Radhoc aims to educate students about global social issues in the hope that they will be able to return to their own schools and communities with the motivation and skills necessary to make their own change in the world.
Radhoc started in 2007, when seven Memorial University global social justice groups (Engineers Without Borders, Oxfam, Amnesty International, MUNHOPE, Project Green, STAND!, and Warchild) recognized they could put together their collective youth engagement work to put off a large conference for high school students. At that time, the RADHOC acronym stood for "Rights and Development High school Outreach Conference", but we have since abandoned the acronym and simply use Radhoc as our name.
From 2008 to 2011, Radhoc continued to organize annual conferences and began to develop its own workshops and content. Social change became the goal of our events: youth learned action-oriented leadership skills with the aim of applying those skills in social change work. Further, we realized the need for hands-on experience in leadership, and our content shifted to becoming completely experiential. Finally, we began calling our conference attendees "Champions", investing in their very real capacity to create change independently.
In 2011 and 2012, we recognized the need for Radhoc to come to many students who couldn't make it to our annual event, so we began our "Travelling Workshops" and have since reached hundreds of students provincially each year. Our annual provincial conference was also transformed: youth now participate in content streams, choosing what they want to learn about. We also became committed to partnering with community organizations and government, and we are currently exploring collaborations with several other non-profits and schools. We have also begun to push online engagement of Canadian youth, developing an influential social and web presence.
In 2014, Radhoc recognized that, so far, all of our programs were directed towards high school students, leading to the creation of our annual Intersections Conferences, which are designed specifically for university students and Grade 12 students.
Now that we have reached 2019 we are striving to reach as many youth as possible, with our main program being our Summer Camp. We continue to host university conferences and strive to reach out to schools through our travelling workshops! We are excited for what the future holds!
Almost all Radhoc workshops are built according to the five I's, making our content unique, hands-on, self-led, motivating and action-oriented.


text:
Mack Defense Showcases Granite M917A3 Heavy Dump Truck
ALLENTOWN, PA (Nov. 8, 2018) – Mack Defense recently showcased the Mack® Granite®-based M917A3 Heavy Dump Truck (HDT) at the Association of United States Army (AUSA) 2018 show at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. Mack Defense was awarded a $296 million contract in May 2018 to produce 683 HDTs for the U.S. Army.
"The M917A3 is a great example of the capabilities Mack Defense has to develop solutions for military customers," said David Hartzell, president of Mack Defense. "Using the rugged Mack Granite as a foundation, we were able to engineer the M917A3 to meet the U.S. Army's challenging applications."
Based on the civilian Mack Granite model, Mack Defense optimized the M917A3 HDT to meet the current needs of the U.S. Army, while allowing for evolving requirements and future growth. Mack Defense engineers added heavier-duty rear axles and all-wheel drive, while increasing the suspension's ride height to create a heavy dump truck capable of meeting the demanding payload and mobility requirements set by the U.S. Army HDT program.
The M917A3's cab armor was engineered by external partner experts to maintain all the comfort and driver-focused amenities of the commercial Granite model, while adding force protection to keep occupants safe in hostile environments.
Mack Defense is a member of AUSA, whose vision is to be the premier voice for America's soldiers. AUSA is committed to building the best professional and representative association for the U.S. Army. More than 30,000 attendees visited AUSA and the 700 exhibitors representing 100 countries around the world.
By Admin at November 08, 2018


text:
← What changed between April 1998 and April 2013?
Not unlikely at all: CHP's 'modernists' may stage an uprising →
Finally, an awakening on media
Posted on April 26, 2013 by yavuzbaydar
"…notes with concern that most media are owned by and concentrated in large conglomerates with a wide range of business interests ; reiterates its call for the adoption of a new media law addressing, inter alia, the issues of independence, ownership and administrative control…"
The excerpt is from the European Parliament Resolution on Turkey, adopted yesterday. It comes as follows a series of concerns and notes on the legal restrictions of Turkish laws and widely applied self-censorship.I am relieved that the awareness on the root causes of immense problems that concern Turkey's media has now started to reach the important corners of the world. It feels like progress, in the name of truth.
It finally succeeded in ringing strong alarm bells with the help of the Hasan Cemal/Milliyet case, and the arbitrary sacking of another respected colleague, Amberin Zaman, from daily Habertürk. These types of things have happened before, and more are to come, for certain. As Turkey's grave issues with media have piled up, with prosecutions and punitive measures on professional conduct and public dissent, I have together with a handful of colleagues consistently argued the following:
"Do not make believe that the unjustified jailing of some journalists — such as Nedim Şener and Ahmet Şık – or many Kurdish activist/editors-reporters — is the only issue which should concern us. Implementation of laws, such as the Anti-Terror Act, is only the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface, there are a huge amount of issues concerning media independence, which is at least as important as freedom, because lack of it means lack of freedom. We should develop therefore a holistic view, which exposes the root causes of the gangrene that has been eating up the so-called "big media," controlled by moguls who are also involved in other big business besides media." Today, they control over 80 percent of the sector.
The problem with some colleagues was that for them the political animosity and ideological allergy towards the Justice and Development Party (AKP) had a much higher, defining priority than the overall problems strangling free and independent journalism: they seemed to be much more engaged in writing about the legal cases about their employer's tax evasion than the question why those very moguls had chased out trade unions from their media outlets and why there was virtually no independent coverage of corruption or no investigative journalism in Turkey since early nineties.
Two linked events came to prove my point. Not even the editor of Milliyet could conceal the fact that he was forced by the proprietor to sack a veteran colleague, Cemal, because he was discussing journalism in his column, and days after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan revealed that the very proprietor, Erdoğan Demirören, had asked him (earlier) who to appoint as the editor for Milliyet, which he had purchased. (Pictured below, Erdoğan Demirören poses together with Prime minister Erdoğan. On right, Demirören's son, Yıldırım. Holding a t-shirt they gave to the PM.)
For those who remained unconvinced, there needed to come a direct statement by President Abdullah Gül, shaming the proprietors for submission to powers. "You shall resist, my fellow!" he said recently, in an unusually angry mood.
As well as the media chapter on EU's Turkey Report, the manifesto of freedom by the influential Writers and Journalists' Foundation (JWF) could not have been more timely. It is obvious that a tipping point in democratic patience has been reached, and a correct, bold diagnosis, naming the root causes, was detailed in the manifesto.
The sheer fact that there were only a very few newspapers and TV channels that "dared" cover the JWF statement is a powerful enough confirmation in itself as to what really are the real problems with the media freedom, and independence, of today's Turkey.
"Political agents' oppression of the media and media owners' collaboration in this oppression, prioritizing their commercial interests or using their power as means for blackmail, represent an intervention in freedom of the press. Journalists need to take a stance against such pressures, defending the honor and principles of their profession," reads the statement. "The commercial affairs and governmental affairs of media owners should not restrict of freedom of the press."
Let us repeat again: unless the owners do not stand in defense of media freedom, and keep obeying powers and greed, Turkish media will never be free, nor independent.
No matter how many colleagues one releases from prison.
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text:
\section{Conclusion}
\label{sec:conclusion}

This paper presents an experience report on TAPI in one DevOps team at F-Secure. For the study purpose, we reviewed a collection of experience notes, team reflection reports, and telemetry result reports. Several meetings were held to discuss the details. As the study results, first, we reported that, the team defined its test automation maturity for continuous development by a set of indicators, see Section~\ref{sec:casedescription}. Second, it is noted that, to successfully conduct TAPI, the team has performed main practices around a set of factors mapped into different dimensions, see Table~\ref{tab:factors}. Third, under the further investigation, we found that the team has the tailored test automation process for continuous development, which may have the similarities or differences with the ones defined in prior literature.

This study has three main contributions. First, from the industry perspective, it introduces the industrial case of successfully carrying out TAPI in a DevOps team. Second, from the academia perspective, this study connects to the prior studies and makes novel contribution. For example, the success factors of TAPI frequently mentioned in prior studies are explained with empirical evidence. Also, we identified new factors such as the whole team effort, incremental approach, and telemetry. Third, as an empirical research, this study narrows the gap between academia and industry.

In the future, we plan to assess the level of test automation maturity in the same DevOps team at F-Secure. Based on the assessment results, we could investigate the specific impact of critical success factors on the maturity level and the short-term and long-term benefits and effects of test automation. Additionally, the set of key success factors presented in this paper may be only a part of possible solutions to some software organizations. We also could widen the research by carrying out a case study surveying more software organizations.

\section{Discussion}
In this section we carry out the discussion on our research question, explain the TAPI culture in F-Secure, and outline the threats to validity.

\label{sec:dicussion}
\subsection{RQ1 - Goal}
In this study, we present a set of key success factors of TAPI in one DevOps team of F-Secure. We compared our results with the results of other studies in this research scope and found the similarities and differences.

Many success factors (identified in this study) have been examined in existing literature. For example, test tool choice and integration, expert team members, and self-motivated team members were mentioned by Mark Fewster and Dorothy Graham in the book `Software test automation-effective use of test execution tools', which was published in 1999\cite{fewster1999}. In other case studies (e.g.,\cite{wiklund2012, Spersson2004,grindal2006}) which were published several years ago, product testability related factors were recognized on test automation maturity studies in particular software organizations.  Our results complement the research of existing studies by showing that those factors are still valid for TAPI practices in the current industry. Nevertheless, we explore and explain new success factors, e.g., the whole team effort, incremental approach, and agile-oriented process related factors, which were rarely observed in other studies. We claim those factors should receive enough attention in future TAPI research.

On the other hand, our study results are in conflict with some observations of TAPI of the prior research:

\begin{itemize}
    \item \textbf{Defining an explicit test automation strategy at start can guide organizations to do TAPI in general.} Test automation strategy related topics are discussed in many test maturity models like TMap~\cite{Skoomen2013tmap} and TestSPICE~3.0~\cite{TestSPICE}. Also, prior studies (e.g.,~\cite{collins2012,kasurinen2010}) surveying practitioners about the TAPI in practices confirmed that developing a test automation strategy with right concerns may contribute to the success of TAPI in Agile development environment. However, based on the observation, having a test automation strategy at the initial phase seems is not that critical for the success of TAPI in the DevOps team at F-Secure. As described in Section~\ref{sec:incrementalFactor}, there was no documented test automation strategy. With the incremental approach, there was the broad understanding about what they have now and what they want to add on the basis of existing test automation process. The goals and action plans were allowed to be discovered at any time.

    \item \textbf{Selecting test tools to fit the current needs and future development.} Lots of SE researchers and practitioners have highlighted that selecting right test tools to fit the current needs and future development is critical to test automation success~\cite{raulamo2017}. However, in the observed team in this study, test tools are treated as interchangeable Lego bricks. They could be selected to serve the instant ideas, and changed as new insight emerged.

    \item \textbf{Measuring the quality of performance of test automation is important.} Based on the study~\cite{wang2019}, the quality of performance of test automation must be measured to reflect how the goals of TAPI are achieved. In our case, the measurements are shown, i.e., in the dashboard or telemetry. Rather than the quantitative measures,  the qualitative investigation and discussions were conducted to regular examine the changes in their TAPI.

    \item \textbf{The TAPI must follow the guidelines,} as described in prior literature~\cite{furtado2014}. With the incremental approach, the observed team in this study has tailored its own test automation process depending on its requirements.
\end{itemize}

The above differences may point out the gap between the academia and industry, though more research is needed to confirm this.

\subsection{Test automation process improvement culture in F-Secure}

Experience report on TAPI culture with Epics reports on a company following a relaxed, verbally communicated strategy without strict rules and processes relying on developers voluntary participation. We consider this an unusual success with TAPI resulting in high maturity of test automation as well as continuously improving it.

TAPI culture with Epics relied on the idea that a running test automation system documents itself and people working in teams and across teams in networked manner co-create continuous strategy of experimenting and improving. Appreciating what the team had, and continuously adding to it to make it better resulted in shifting the team to a place where they are happy with their automation.

Test Automation had been team-driven to serve teams and developers as opposed to manager reporting or return on investment calculations.  Architectural layering of test automation architecture blocks, "interchangeable Lego bricks" each provide a service small enough to replace with better ideas and implementations. Customer value and TAPI value had been prioritized as equal candidates from same team effort budget.

Finally, internal open source applied at F-Secure includes a developer-friendly sense of ownership and lack of bureaucracy to make changes towards one company's needs and goals.

\subsection{Threats to validity}

In this section, the threats to the validity of the study in this paper and approaches taken to minimize their impacts are explored, according to a standard checklist in software engineering from Wohlin~\cite{wohlin2012}.

\textbf{Construct validity} refers to the extent to which the study can represent the theory behind it~\cite{wohlin2012}. We reviewed prior literature about the concept of TAPI and related work before conducting the case. The study protocol was defined beforehand. We carried out several meetings to further verify the content of experience reports and complement the details. At the end, our observations and study results were reviewed and verified with the representatives (who involved in TAPI in Epics) to avoid false interpretations and ensure the reliability.

\textbf{External validity} is concerned with how the study results can be generalized~\cite{wohlin2012}. The study setting of this paper may threaten the external validity. Our findings are strongly bounded by the context of this team at F-Secure, and they may not be representative for TAPI of all software organizations. To address this threat, we attempted to describe the company and the team in as much detail as possible, but since the time span of their TAPI is large it is hard to acquire detailed information about the context of F-Secure conducting TAPI in very early years. This makes it more challenge to relate the case in this paper to other similar TAPI cases in the industry. Individual differences are suggested to be considered when generalizing the study results.

\textbf{Conclusion validity} refers to whether the correct conclusions are made through observations of the study~\cite{wohlin2012}. In our study, the conclusions were made according to the thematic analysis on raw data. We performed the data analysis  with NVivo in where all qualitative codes were stored. The conclusions were verified among co-authors.

\textbf{Internal validity} focus on how the study causes the outcomes~\cite{wohlin2012}.  In our study, threats to internal validity may lie in the data collection. Our data were mainly collected from a collection of experience notes, team reflection reports, and telemetry result reports. Materials were provided by one person (the second author of this paper) in Epics at F-Secure. They were filtered through models available in literature practitioners suggest may provide an outdated perspective to maturity. Viewpoints on the material as well as selecting aspects to highlight from the material might have  some subjective viewpoints. We tried to overcome this type of threat by acquiring more quantitative data to explain the results. However, because of the personnel and technology changes in passed years, collecting and comparing quantitative data beyond what was accessible at first was outside scope of this work.

\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:introduction}
Nowadays, software organizations bear the pressure to get their products to the market quickly and deploy them frequently~\cite{kroll2018}. Test automation has been widely applied to ensure consistent product quality in the frequent release cycles. However, many organizations still have immature test automation processes with process-related issues such as inefficiency of test activities, heavy maintenance effort, slow feedback to the development work~\cite{rafi2012benefits,wiklund2012}.

According to the state of testing report 2019~\cite{PractiTest2019}, the software industry has been more and more concerned about test automation process improvement (TAPI). Many software organizations are conducting TAPI aimed at achieving for continuous development~\cite{eldh2014,furtado2014}. Continuous development can be seen as
``process for iterative software development and is an umbrella over several other processes including continuous integration, continuous testing, continuous delivery and continuous deployment"~\cite{Gnew}. However, based on many sources~\cite{kasurinen2010,worldqualityreport18,ISTQB2018}, despite the effort, not all software organizations are able to meet the purpose of TAPI, usually caused by inadequate implementation.

Several researchers have stated the importance of  TAPI research to increase the likelihood of succeeding with TAPI~\cite{wang2019,wang2018test}. Since TAPI is a new trend in recent years, little empirical research has been conducted on observing software organizations that have been successfully carrying out TAPI and gaining  test automation maturity for continuous development~\cite{garousi2017,hrabovska2019}.

The purpose of this paper is to present an experience report on TAPI in one DevOps team at F-Secure (a Finnish software company).  The team builds Windows application software and exists in F-Secure's TAPI culture. The team self-reports high satisfaction and maturity in test automation for continuous development. This paper aims to answer the research question:

\newcommand{RQ1 - Goal}{RQ1 - Perceived success factors}
\newcommand{How the the overall goal of TAPI was achieved?}{What makes TAPI successful in the DevOps team at F-Secure?}

\begin{itemize}
    \item \textbf{RQ1 - Goal}: How the the overall goal of TAPI was achieved?
\end{itemize}

The second author of this paper is an engineering manager who monitored TAPI in the observed team at F-Secure. She provided a collection of experience notes, team reflection reports, and telemetry result reports. To answer the research question, we reviewed those materials and hold several meetings to discuss the details. The first author conducted thematic analysis  to identify critical factors that make TAPI successful in the team on the available materials. Those factors were verified and revised by the second author to ensure the accuracy and correctness. The detailed study results can be found in the remainder of the paper.

This paper is structured as follows. Section~\ref{sec:background} introduces the background and related work that indicate the reason for our research. Section~\ref{sec:method} introduces the research method and process. Section~\ref{sec:results} presents the study results. Section~\ref{sec:dicussion} discusses the implications to study results and threats to validity.  Section~\ref{sec:conclusion} concludes the study and illustrates the future work.

\section{background}
\label{sec:background}
This section reviews the concept of software test automation and related work conducted on TAPI research.

\subsection{Software test automation}
Test automation is the use of tools (normally referred as test tools) to automatically test the applications in software development~\cite{pocatilu2002}. Similar to general purpose of software development, test automation follows a lifecycle which determines how it begins, evolves,
and ends~\cite{pocatilu2002,garousi2017test}. Test automation covers the entire software test process and consists of the variety of testing activities, e.g., test case design, test scripting, test execution, test evaluation, to test-result reporting~\cite{Vahid2016When}.

\subsection{Related work}
TAPI related topics have been studied by software engineering (SE) practitioners and researchers for many years.  Many practitioners have published their TAPI related articles in blogs, magazines, SE related websites. For example, there are such articles explain why and how TAPI should be carried out for continuous development~\cite{Tatu}. Other studies (e.g.,~\cite{G1,G2}) that summarize the benefits, challenges, general steps, success factors of TAPI also exist.

For TAPI research, based on our review on related work, there are survey studies (e.g., \cite{karhu2009,kasurinen2010}) exploring the state of art of test automaton in the industry, and indicates the need for TAPI for many organizations, especially for those who are far from being mature. Several empirical studies (e.g., \cite{pettichord1999,graham2012}) have been explored the steps and practices of conducting TAPI in software organizations. Additionally, there is the number of recent studies conducted test automation maturity models for providing the guidelines for TAPI, for example, Eldh \textit{et al.}~\cite{eldh2014} develops the TAIM model and Furtado \textit{et al.}~\cite{furtado2014} develops MPTA.BR.

However, despite many TAPI topics have been examined by prior work,  we failed to identify  empirical research conducted on observing software organizations that are carrying TAPI in practices.

\section{Research method}
\label{sec:method}

We studied several industrial experience reports conducted in software engineering field. We conducted our study in three stages: (1) a study plan, (2) data collection, (3) data analysis. Each stage is described in the following sub-sections.

\subsection{A study plan}
 We defined a study plan to set data collection and analysis process for presenting an experience report. This plan was agreed by all authors.

\subsection{Data collection}

The second author was
responsible for facilitating the access to the required data
from the team of F-Secure for this study. The data
collection was carried out in two steps.

 In the first step, a collection of experience notes, team reflection reports, software production snapshot data were shared with all co-authors. Experience notes describe the evolution of TAPI practices from 2005 to 2019. They were created by the second author of this paper for purposes of this research. Software production snapshot data from 2019 was collected for sharing telemetry statistics, release and test automation change log excerpts. The first and third authors of this paper studied those materials to familiarize with the case and identify data answering research questions.

In the second step, six online meetings among co-authors were conducted via Skype. The duration was 55-67 minutes. Before a meeting, a meeting guide was prepared to outline the discussion topics including, for example, when, why, and how they do particular TAPI practices (recorded on the materials), and what effect those TAPI practices have. During a meeting, we carried out the discussion around those topics. The second author took responsibility to explain the contents on company experience materials and complement with details. Open questions were asked for answering our research question. The notes were written down at a meeting. All meetings were audio recorded. The audio records of meetings were transcribed verbatim into text files.

\subsection{Data analysis}
The text files that record the transcription verbatim of meetings, meeting notes, as well as experience notes were imported into NVivo (a qualitative data analysis software)~\cite{Nvivo}. We identified critical success factors from those materials by performing inductive coding~\cite{cruzes2011}. Inductive coding is an thematic analysis technique. It uses a iterative approach to extract data from sources and then build the common themes to classify them. Our inductive coding process was performed in three steps, as shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:dataAnalysis}.

\begin{figure} [h]
\centerline{\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{fig/NEXTA2020.png}}
\caption{Data thematic analysis process (modified according to~\cite{cruzes2011})}
\label{fig:dataAnalysis}
\end{figure}

First, the initial reading was performed to identify relevant texts (that describe relevant critical success factors) on available materials. Second, we coded the segment of relevant texts in NVivo. The memos were written throughout the coding process. Third, by reviewing the codes and memos, we establish themes to describe the critical success factors.

We reviewed the trustworthiness of our list of success factors mapped into categories, when necessary, the original texts were examined.

Based on the thematic analysis, the first author summarized study results to answer the research question in this paper. The second author reviewed the study results and proposed the changes: (1) revise inappropriate contents, (2) complement more examples and details, (3) add new contents considered to be important. The final modification were made in the discussion among co-authors. The final results was reported by the first author and the second author by the paired-simultaneous writing. The third author reviewed that.

\begin{comment}
\begin{table}[htbp]
\caption{Table Type Styles}
\label{tab:Extractdata}
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{p{1cm} p{2cm} p{5cm}}
\hline

\textbf{RQ} &\textbf{ Code data} & \textbf{Categories}  \\
\hline
 & - & \\

 & Key success factors for TAPI & Predefined categories: Organizational factors, Human factors, technical factors. The new categories emerged in the review by applying 'inductive coding'.    \\
\hline

\hline

\end{tabular}
\label{tab1}
\end{center}
\end{table}
 \end{comment}

\section{Results}
\label{sec:results}
To present the study results, we first provide an overview of case description. Next,
the research question is answered.

\subsection{The company and team description}
\label{sec:casedescription}
F-Secure Oyj is a cyber security company with headquarters in Finland and over 1600 employees globally. F-Secure's products protect enterprises and consumers against a wide variety of security threats. Windows endpoint security products (incl. features such as antivirus) form a product line sharing code assets and practices. F-Secure has multiple DevOps teams attending to different customer segment's needs, creating different Windows endpoint security products from a common product line.

With 30 years of history in testing Windows endpoint security products, the start of serious test automation efforts date back to 1999 with a training by Mark Fewster. Efforts lead to tool selection and implementation in place in 2005, following best practices of the time.  Since then, the TAPI initiative was started.

Nowadays, test  automation  is  an integral  part of  fast-paced  development  giving  developers  feedback at F-Secure for Windows endpoint security products. TAPI is embedded in the culture for continuous development. The goal of TAPI is to enhance the ability to produce and maintain the quality of products in agile and continuous integration (CI) environment. TAPI practices may be different from team to team, but each team shares the TAPI culture at F-Secure.

The DevOps team observed in this paper is Epics, with currently 11 engineers. Epics is responsible for developing and operating Windows endpoint security products that integrate with cloud-based Protection Service for Businesses management system for corporate customers. Epics was created in 2016 to build on an existing consumer product and further develop it for corporate customers. Epics product responsibility has grown from original 1 product to currently 14 products it releases versions on with a monthly schedule. Products Epics operate count their users in millions. Epics shares F-Secure's culture of TAPI and leads efforts in speeding up Windows endpoint security product's release cadence.

Looking back to 2005, test automation in the similar team operating for Windows endpoint security products looks different. While application development was responsibility of several feature teams, test automation was responsibility of two test automation developers in a separate team providing reusable test libraries as a service for those feature teams. Using a commercial Capture and playback tool as programming platform, the two test automation developers created a library of tests feature teams would run. Separating the creation and maintenance from running created a few particular issues. The coverage of test automation was limited, running it and analyzing results was manual work, skills for maintenance unavailable in feature teams and selected market leader tool evolved out of its market position and was left behind better tools.

The current generation of test automation efforts with  Epics are founded on a Windows endpoint protection platform, multi-team effort started in 2009 for consumer products and built from whole-team responsibility with open source tools. Both the new product architecture and the test automation system were created as a pair to support one another. Epics joined in 2016 to develop corporate products with the same platform, followed by a second corporate team with different product responsibility in 2018.

Fig.~\ref{fig:architecture} shows the current test automation system shared among teams (including Epics) for Windows endpoint products. The whole system consists of seven areas: Tools Root, Scripts, TestLab infra, WinOS image, Environment virtualization service, Jenkins, Radiator and TA telemetry. CI to build test automation system exists and it pulls latest from code repositories for test automation to run test automation in CI environment on product change.

\begin{figure}[h]
\centerline{\includegraphics[width=1\linewidth]{fig/TAArchitecture.png}}
\caption{Test automation system}
\label{fig:architecture}
\end{figure}
At the time of writing this paper, Epics self-reports high  satisfaction and maturity in test automation for  continuous development, which is demonstrated by the set of indicators:

 \begin{itemize}
    \item \textbf{The increasing speed to release:} Epics has the ability to make continuous release decisions based on test automation results. While regular release cycle has been 1-2 major, 2 minor releases a year for each product team, Epics had 9 releases of its products in 2019 shown in  Table~\ref{tab:releaseTA}. Each release contained hundreds of changes on product and test automation. Time from release decision to release at first customer machines has improved from 5 days (2018) to 4 hours (2019) and the team makes progress towards two week cadence typical for web applications for a Windows application with distributed deployment.

    \item \textbf{Improving productivity of the team:} Epics with 11 people was capable splitting their effort to test automation, customer valuable features, maintaining, monitoring, and operating for a large, significantly growing, user base. Epics contributed 2917 code changes (including test automation) to Windows endpoint security platform to take forward products they are responsible for.

    \item \textbf{Shared platform work efficiency:} Quality of the Windows endpoint security platform remained high showing up in low number of maintenance issues, while it was developed actively in multi-team multi-site independent teams. Test automation showed what part of the system in CI is unavailable and when it returns to availability.

    \item \textbf{Sustainable test automation maintenance effort:} Test automation stayed up to speed with changes while team had bandwidth to other work. Every team member contributed to test automation, sharing the load.

    \item \textbf{Finding relevant issues:} Test automation helped add a set of Server products in a few days finding operating system specific issues, identified large number of crashes and pinpointed relevant problems.

    \item \textbf{The high satisfaction of customers:} Epics addressed 167 support issues from customer base counted in millions and worked on one support escalation for their products.

    \item  \textbf{High test efficiency:} Run a maximum of 213 708 tests on single working day to cover the changes of that day.

    \item \textbf{Reasonable investment for TAPI:} No visible investment on improving test automation process as it is part of normal work.
\end{itemize}

\begin{table}[htbp]
\caption{Release information in 2019}
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{p{1.1cm} p{2cm} p{2cm} p{2cm}}
\hline

\textbf{Release} &\textbf{ \# of commits on product} & \textbf{\# of commits on test automation} & \textbf{Availability} \\
\hline
19.1 & 655 & 398 & 23.01.2019 \\
19.2 & 689 & 298 & 05.03.2019 \\
19.3 & 519 & 349 & 03.05.2019 \\
19.4 & 517 & 255 & 06.06.2019 \\
19.5 & 304 & 184 & 27.06.2019
\\
19.6& 285 & 195 & 12.08.2019
\\
19.7 & 290 & 137 & 05.09.2019
\\
19.8 & 530 & 311 & 28.10.2019 \\
19.9 & 304 & 365 & 19.11.2019
\\
\hline

\end{tabular}
\label{tab1}
\label{tab:releaseTA}
\end{center}
\end{table}

\subsection{RQ1 - Goal}
To answer `RQ1 - Goal', we identified critical factors that determine the success of TAPI in the DevOps team at F-Secure. Those factors were classified into several dimensions, see Table~\ref{tab:factors}. In next sub-sections, we elaborate the details about what test automation practices are performed around those factors and what impacts each factor has.

\begin{table}[htbp]
\caption{Perceived Success Factors}

\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{p{2cm} p{5.4cm}}
\hline

\textbf{Dimension} &\textbf{Factor}  \\
\hline
Human &  Whole team
effort
\newline Expert team members \newline Self-motivated team members
\\

\hline

Organizing &
Allow time for learning curve
\newline Internal open source community mindset
\\

\hline

Technical & Test tool choice and architecture \newline
Testlab infrastructure \newline
Product testability\newline
Telemetry\\
\hline

Process & Incremental approach\newline
Process observation and optimization
\\ \hline

\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\label{tab:factors}
\end{table}

\subsubsection{Whole team effort} The whole team effort is considered as a critical factor for the success of TAPI in Epics.

In 2005, when the two-person in the separate team are creating a library of automated tests for the feature teams for Windows endpoint products, the test automation was isolated from other development work. Maintenance was hindered by lack of test automation skills in feature teams, which were trying to use the created automation.

In 2009, when product architecture was completely revamped and new test automation created side by side to it, test automation became a developer specialty creating individual Python developers building test automation systems from within the team.

In 2016, when Epics started working, their practices and tooling for test automation came with the Endpoint protection platform. New hires included a test automation specialist (a new Python developer). Allowing growing to learn Python on the job with continuous progress in TAPI gradually took the team towards supporting continuous testing and frequent releases.

In 2018, the team moved organically to a `whole team effort model'- \textit{everyone working toward the same goals to build software products} - while serving growing user base and more frequent releases. The goal was to release more often, which required removing possible bottlenecks in test automation. In this model, everyone was encouraged to conduct test automation. Establishing the release practice and seeing each member contributes to test automation activities took a year.

At the time of writing this paper, the team is cross-functional and carry out agile and CI practices. There are two dedicated specialists in the area of test automation. All team members perform test automation tasks. The team takes care of feature and test automation discovery, development and maintenance, and operate and monitor the production environment. Each member worked with more responsibility to create and enhance the value of automated tests.

\subsubsection{Expert team members}

One important factor determining success of TAPI is in the mix of people in Epics. From first senior test automation developer who had never written Python to senior test strategist, to senior developers experienced with test automation, to a junior aged 15 when starting with the team, they provided a mix of perspectives and forced deliberate learning as part of the work. Test automation expertise was not test automation developer specialty, but something every team member had perspectives to contribute on. Significant contributions to better test automation came from a continued series of insights implemented in code, e.g., a team interaction leading a Python developer implement the telemetry plugin.

\subsubsection{Self-motivated team members} Self-motivated team members was understood as one major factor. When moving to `the whole team effort' model in Epics, the goal of TAPI was modeled through some members actions to other members. All members in the team were allowed to take test automation tasks and learn while doing them. Team members voluntarily distributed each responsibility among themselves depending on their preference and experience level. They became more self-motivated to increase their involvement in test automation by, e.g., actively using existing test tools, fetching useful results for their needs, growing ideas that may add value for the team, and sharing the expertise with others. It was noted that test automation can be performed in a better way, when test professionals was not over-burdened with assigned tasks.

\subsubsection{Allow time for learning curve} Allowing time for learning is a factor that determines the success of TAPI at F-Secure as well as Epics. Because of technology changes (e.g., test tools, product architecture, test infrastructure) and the discovery of new knowledge, people were expected to learn new things. Since Epics started, a learning-by-doing strategy has been applied. In the `the whole team effort model', all team members were encouraged to improve their test automation expertise and skills by performing test automation tasks. They were allowed to fail with test automation in a safe way. Experiences are discussed without scheduled meetings, sharing a team room and a discussion chat.

\subsubsection{Internal open source community mindset} Internal open source community mindset is considered critical for the success of TAPI to gain test automation maturity for continuous development. Since 2009, F-Secure has worked with internal open source community model meaning all code is visible and changeable to anyone internally. Running code served as documentation that different teams contribute on. Before 2009, projects worked on isolated branches and bringing changes together was difficult.

In 2016, when Epics started, product code (including the test automation part) was shared in the internal open source community with other development teams, who build products from same Windows Endpoint Protection platform. Test automation assets were first created separately for Epics, and in 2018 combined with other teams on the platform into a shared repository, even if different folders. Over time, sharing assets (creating reusable methods in test automation) increased while there is still a per team separation visible in the folder structure. Shared repository with cross-team review responsibilities enabled co-creation of shared assets for test automation beyond individual team's capabilities.

\subsubsection{Test tool choice and architecture} For Epics, the use of test tools is necessary and critical for its test automation. Without the current test tools, the success of TAPI seems impossible. In 2005, the tool in use was commercial tool allowing capture and replay, used as a scripting platform. Since then, the closed languages in commercial tools were deemed limiting.

Nowadays, the team co-owns a tailored tool set that contains more than 10 different test tools, see Fig~\ref{fig:architecture}. Each tool is used for a purpose in the present test automation system. There is many kinds of code created for test automation, for example: Nose Plugins for reusable functionalities like telemetry sending, Jenkins DSLs for job definitions in test automation, Wrappers for C++ to Python bindings, Libraries and tools for observing security incidents, and crash analyzer for post-processing analysis, scripts for specific actions and verification. Test runs and change orchestration and continuous integration related tasks are performed with Jenkins.

Individual tools are interchangeable and got replaced when better options come along. Test tools were selected to serve current ideas, and changed as new insight emerged. Team members were allowed to identify the needs for suitable test tools. The final test tool selection decisions were made through approving a change into the system, discussing at least between two people. Each test tool was selected with experimentation mindset, to see if  that it is useful and maintainable. Benefits were discovered through experimenting with the test automation continuously running to support software production.
Integrating the variety of test tools into the same system was not a straightforward task but includes discovery. Lots of changes to the test automation system were done to combine the strengths of test tools. In the current system, test automation is based on a general purpose programming language Python that supports and integrates with the C++-based products by its design.

\subsubsection{Test lab infrastructure} ``Let us create a tool that would really enable fast provisioning of different test environments,'' said by a developer at F-Secure about ten years ago. From the insight of what could be built, with support from peers enthusiasm, they implemented a tool that framed
the internal managed test lab infrastructure plus the images for the provisioning of various test environment. Because of the positive  results of this first attempt, since  that, this tool was put in use for a long time in product teams that are responsible for Windows endpoint security products. The provisioning system was able to start a new working test environment in 5 seconds and played a significant role in test automation progress.

Some years after, the developer who implemented the tool left F-Secure. Future maintenance and operation was split between R\&D and IT departments - maintenance and operations with R\&D, providing infrastructure to run on from IT. With new cloud-based cost allocation, provisioning and security models, wishes to have these with the tooling emerged. In 2018, it was seen that current test lab infrastructure was under-resourced (needing more machines it got), and poorly managed (hard to find a quick fix in case of problems).  Operational problems with current system were fixed in 2019 and a future replacement is under consideration.

\subsubsection{Product testability}
The 2005 lessons on test automation lead to an insight on importance of product making test automation possible - testability, e.g., products requiring reboot are harder to automate, so new architecture does not require reboots. Testability was a major architectural change, not minor coordination from an outside team and test automation testers in the separate team made significant effort living with the architecture rather than changing it to testable.

In 2009, with  a  change  in  business  focus  and  need  of solving  product  performance  issues,  the  product  architecture was completely revamped. With this change, automation testability features were designed into the products and team practices, in efforts lead by developers to ensure the feedback they need from the test automation. From intertwined functionality, the design moved towards isolated functionality in components. Information reliable automation needed was made available with C++ to Python wrappers every functionality now comes with.

Complete redesign of product architecture enabled asking for visibility and control for test automation purposes, and getting it - or doing the necessary change yourself. Under this architecture,  services and components are  more independent. Testing a single part independently became less complex, and the effort to do it was deducted.

\subsubsection{Telemetry}
Telemetry is process of automatically recording and transmitting the collection of data for monitoring~\cite{kechagia2015}. Product telemetry use in scale for Epics started in 2017, and expanded from product telemetry in test environments to test automation telemetry in 2019.
Test automation telemetry solved two perceived problems: radiator snapshots were immediately outdated due to numbers of builds to test, and each failure required reading logs to know who the feedback was targeted for while being hard to collate to find trends.

In November 2019, a Python developer in Epics implemented telemetry plugin into the test automation system for monitoring automated tests. Every automated tests automatically reported itself as it runs with telemetry. For example, it can be seen that how many automated tests are failed, passed, and skipped, how long they take. This made all of such relevant information on automated tests in scale of 200 000 tests a day visible and collated in real time. It is more straightforward than before to track and control of test automation process for continuous improvement.

\subsubsection{Incremental approach}
\label{sec:incrementalFactor}
An emphasis was put on the incremental approach to improve test automation and its process for those 15 years in F-Secure for Windows endpoint security platform and products. From the old teams to Epics, an incremental approach was used with the point of continuous learning. Since the initial phase of TAPI, there was no documented test automation strategy specifying what should be improved for determining the mature test automation process.
Indeed, the strategy was discovered step by step in practices. Epics continuously explored their needs and possibilities for test automation. The direction of TAPI was discussed in the groups of internal stakeholders - usually in informal settings, peer to peer. Accordingly, the actionable steps were took to make the meaningful changes.

Rather than totally changing the whole test automation process, the changes were always added incrementally piece by piece into the existing test automation process. Some changes occurred naturally as problems arise and needed to be fixed. The change steps were carried out through experiments to allow learning, even though some succeeded and some failed. The incremental changes affected daily work of the team, both positively and negatively. The positive results became part of TAPI.

\subsubsection{Process observation and optimization} The capability to continuously explore useful information for optimizing test automation process is critical for Epics. There was a model to specify which aspects (e.g., maintenance costs, test execution times) should be addressed for optimizing the test automation process. However, the actual optimization was done reacting to the current ideas. A principle of ``appreciate what you have and make it better" was regularly applied. Especially after `the whole team effort` model was introduced, everybody was allowed to bring or implement process optimization related ideas in the team.

\section*{Acknowledgment}
The first and third author of this study are supported by TESTOMAT Project (ITEA3 ID number 16032), funded by Business Finland under Grant Decision ID 3192/31/2017.

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


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European Parliament Considers Warped Intellectual Property Directive
Electronic Frontier Foundation Says Exclude Non-Commercial Infringement
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San Francisco, CA - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
today asked concerned Europeans to contact Members of the
European Parliament (MEPs) prior to a March 8 vote on a
controversial proposed directive on Intellectual Property
Enforcement. EFF is asking Europeans to seek an amendment
that would limit application of the directive to intentional
commercial infringements of intellectual property rights.
"EFF is urging its members to ask their MEPs to seek an
amendment to the proposed European Intellectual Property
Enforcement directive because it does not distinguish
large-scale commercial infringement and counterfeiting
enterprises from unintentional, non-commercial infringement
by individuals," said EFF Staff Attorney Gwen Hinze. "If the
European Parliament adopts this directive, a person who
unwittingly infringes copyright -- even if it has no effect
on the market -- could potentially have her assets seized,
bank accounts frozen, and home invaded."
An action alert available on the EFF website makes it
possible for Europeans to contact and voice their concerns
to key members of the European Parliament.
EFF action alert on European Union Intellectual Property
Rights Enforcement directive.
Gwen Hinze
gwen@eff.org
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On This Day: Monday, 22 June 2020
Anniversaries and commemorations come and go daily. Most of us, even the best historians, miss most occasions. If we think of history as events then we are faced with a continually showering in the grains of sand. Nevertheless, we do pick out certain patterns in the remembrance of historical dates. The blog here reminds us […]
Anniversaries and commemorations come and go daily. Most of us, even the best historians, miss most occasions. If we think of history as events then we are faced with a continually showering in the grains of sand. Nevertheless, we do pick out certain patterns in the remembrance of historical dates. The blog here reminds us of some dates where the local, state, national, and global perspectives entwine.
What Time is It? It is flow of a sandstorm that will on each day compress somewhere into a structure – sandstone, selected and only remembered in the longue durée.
On 22 June 1870, The office of the Solicitor General of the United States is set up, to supervise and conduct government litigation in the United States Supreme Court.
On 22 June 1870, The U.S. Congress creates the United States Department of Justice.
On Tuesday, 22 June 1920, Greek Summer Offensive: Greece attacks Turkish troops.
On Friday, 22 June 1990, Cold War: Checkpoint Charlie is dismantled.
On Thursday, 22 June 1995, Japanese police rescue 365 hostages from a hijacked All Nippon Airways Flight 857 (Boeing 747-200) at Hakodate airport. The hijacker was armed with a knife and demanded the release of Shoko Asahara.
On Monday, 22 June 2015, The Federal Government orders an inquiry into the Australian Broadcasting Corporation after former terrorism suspect Zaky Mallah appears on the Q&A programme.
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Neville Buch
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Neville Buch (Pronounced Book) Ph.D. is a certified member of the Professional Historians Association (Queensland). Since 2010 he has operated a sole trade business in history consultancy. He was a Q ANZAC 100 Fellow 2014-2015 at the State Library of Queensland. Dr Buch was the PHA (Qld) e-Bulletin, the monthly state association's electronic publication, and was a member of its Management Committee. He is the Managing Director of the Brisbane Southside History Network.
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How to sing better in a band situation?
The singer in my band can sing very well. When he is singing by himself playing an acoustic guitar he sounds great. However when put into a situation where he is singing with a full band (ie: studio or rehearsal), his singing is nowhere near as good.
Are there any tricks for him to perform better as a singer when playing with other people?
voice band rehearsal
Craig CurtisCraig Curtis
Sounds to me like he's pushing his voice a lot harder to get over the band volume. In an acoustic situation, he's singing in a more relaxed way, but put all the instruments in, at a volume which is probably unnecessary anyway, and the sing becomes more of a shout. By turning up his mic a balance will partially be restored, (but his ears will still tell him to sing as loudly as possible), but surely it's better to get that back by turning the instruments down.Give it a try - there's nothing to lose - except your hearing if that volume is up.
I agree that the likely issue is the level of the vocals compared to the music. In a rehearsal situation, it's likely too low too. I find that in the studio, the balance between the music and the vocals are very important. If the backing track is too low and the vocals are too high, there will be a resistance to use enough power when singing. It can be an issue of hearing oneself ̣too well too. – Meaningful Username Jan 27 '14 at 12:23
@Meaningful Username - The balance is vital, not just very important, and not only in the studio. There are also a heck of a lot of vocalists out there that don't know how to use mics properly. They check the volume with the mic a couple of inches (or less) from their mouth, and don't seem to understand how vocal volume and mic proximity can be used to enhance the voice production. – Tim Jan 27 '14 at 13:08
Craig, the other answers all address the possibility that his "singing nowhere near as good" is because he's getting drowned out by the other band members. There's another possiblity as well. If he sings very well by himself, accompanying himself, that doesn't necessarily translate into singing well with other people who are accompanying him. It's a different skill, and needs to be learned. You can't be quite as free with the beat if everyone has to stick together.
So if the problem is that he's straining his voice, then yes, you need to work on the mix. However, if the problem is that everything sounds sloppy, then you all need to work together to get a tighter sound. I don't mean that he has to get rigid to stay on the beat, that doesn't sound good either. But there's a kind of tapping into each others ideas that goes on when a band is really playing well together. Each person has to get to know each other's style, and each person has to value the contribution of every other band member as much as his own. Sometimes that's a problem for prima-donna type lead singers. I know this because I've been one myself before. :)
BobRodesBobRodes
I agree with Tim. A lot of bands tend to crank up their instruments way too loudly which is unfortunate. Everybody wants to be heard. Vocals are crucial for a vocal based band and the band should really work on mixing.
Things you can do are make sure that the Vocalist can be heard clearly over all of the other instruments, especially the lead guitar and drums! Controlling the sound of drums is difficult especially if there are no mics for the drums. Band placement plays a role in this case. However, the volumes of all of the other instruments is totally controllable. You might also want to consider getting some monitors so that the band members can actually hear themselves. If you're playing with just the speakers that the audience hears it can be pretty hard to hear yourself clearly.
So my suggestions are monitors and turn the vocalist up and the instruments down! As I said before, in a vocal based band, the vocals are crucial. People want to hear and understand the singer.
MrTheBardMrTheBard
See also "Stage volumes at rehearsals..." Mar 25, '13, for what turned out to be a very prolonged discussion, but interesting. – Tim Jan 22 '14 at 15:13
Link. – shambulator Jan 24 '14 at 15:25
"A violin player plays very nice when he is playing by himself. If he is bowing while another player does the fingering, he's not half as good."
"A dancer is dancing the steps of some figure very well by himself. When he is dancing with another..."
A dancing pair is two beings moving with a common center of gravity and a common purpose. It takes a lot of practice to arrive there: the end result is one of both doing their part confidently without being hampered by any apparent consideration for the other getting in the away. In a similar vein, it takes a lot of practice for a band to play as one in a particular configuration.
It will also have taken a lot of time for your singer before his guitar playing and his singing formed one organic unit. Now he has managed to have the whole performance under his single control. Which is exactly what is not his job in a band setting.
Tim's answer coveres the vocal straining / hearinign yourself issue, but other factors I have noticed myself :
Are the band in tune? The vocalist doen'st stand a chnace if someone is out of tune with the rest. Which note should he/she settle on ?
Which instruments are too loud ? My band has been using a new bassist for the last year as our usual guy got very ill. The new fella's bass is a 6 string thingy which goes so low it makes your buttocks rattle, and on more usual bass notes it's quite all-encompassing, even though not massively loud. I can hear that I'm singing quite clearly, but it's hard to pick a note out.
A bit of reverb/echo on the vocals helps enormously. It needs to be in the folback monitors so the vocalist can hear it. I'm not sure of the science behind that but it does seem to work.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged voice band rehearsal or ask your own question.
Stage volume levels in rehearsal and performance
Voice - Trouble with high notes
Why does singing high notes seem to strain my vocal chords more than low notes?
How to conduct rehearsals in a small band?
How do I train my musical ear. (Not sure how to phrase this question.)
Getting used to sing into a mic
The name of the technique for 'not breathing noisily while singing'?
Learning to sing while playing a syncopated strum
Do contemporary singers sound "wrong" without a microphone?
Why I cannot sing always well?
I cannot hold my pitch when accompanied. How to best practice this?


text:
Winner of the Santander and Smarta Breakthrough 50 Award
Tracsis plc is pleased to announce it has been chosen as the overall winner of the Santander Breakthrough 50 Business Awards.
The award recognises the fastest growing businesses in the UK who have a blueprint for sustainable success. The judging panel included Ana Patricia Botin, CEO of Santander UK Plc, The Rt Hon
Baroness Vadera, former Small Business Minister, Bev Hurley, CEO YTKO Group, Dr Hermann Hauser, Amadeus Capital Partners, Tom Teichman, Chairman of Spark Ventures, and high profile CEOs of successful UK companies.
As overall winner, Tracsis will join a global trade mission with UK Trade and Industry and work with overseas Chambers and Embassies to promote its brand.
"We are absolutely thrilled at being chosen as overall winner of the Santander Breakthrough 50 awards. We have a fantastic team of technical and industry experts and this award is recognition for the hard work they put in to make our business what it is today."
http://breakthrough50.smarta.com/
Using Technology To Enhance Rail Safety.
US rail operators are using cloud data capture and AI to improve rail safety. Data loggers at grade crossings are preventing accidents.
Exploring technology solutions to the US rail labor shortage.
Technology solutions to US rail labor shortage. Rail automation benefits include efficiency, improved safety, reduced costs, and better use of skilled workers.
iBlocks to showcase 'market ready' Pay As You Go solution at Transport Ticketing Global
iBlocks will showcase its unique Pay As You Go ( PAYG) product at the Transport Ticketing Global event next week.


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'House of Cards' star Robin Wright says Donald Trump 'stole all our ideas'
According to Robin Wright, Donald Trump's presidency plays like an episode of House of Cards.
Wright, who plays Claire Underwood on Netflix's popular political drama, confessed the U.S. President's many scandals are disheartening. "I've got to see the hope somewhere," Wright told Variety, "Oh my God, we have four years of this."
The actress, 51, attended Variety and Kering's Women in Motion Talk at the Cannes Film Festival. "Trump has stolen all of our ideas for season 6," she joked.
RELATED: Robin Wright reveals she demanded same salary as Kevin Spacey
But if Wright had her way, she'd like to see "Michelle Obama up there. She would be a great female president."
House of Cards has been a big feather in the cap of Wright, who has an impressive resume with roles in Forrest Gump and The Princess Bride. It turns out, however, she almost turned down the role of the Mrs. Underwood.
She was hesitant to return to television and was worried by her character's minor role in the British show that inspired the hit Netflix series. Her confidence was renewed after being told Claire would be an equal to the character played by Kevin Spacey.
RELATED: First official trailer for 'House of Cards' Season 5
"She's Lady Macbeth to Richard III," said Wright. "You realize she's just as fierce and evil, she just doesn't have to talk so much. She's the best of both sexes."
Wright also addressed the demand for more diversity in Hollywood: "You don't have to yell. You can just stand your ground, speak your truth, and amplify your voice in that way."
"Feminism today has become such a derogatory or diva like word," she continued. "Feminism means equality period. Equal work, equal pay."
"Equal work, equal pay" is something Wright knows plenty about. She made headlines as a role model for gender equality after successfully demanding the same equal pay as her House of Cards co-star Spacey. That is why it was so unsettling when it was recently revealed that show creators were reportedly lying to her face.
Posing topless for The Edit Magazine, Wright reflected on finding out Spacey was making approximately $80,000 more than her per episode. "I was told that I was getting equal pay and I believed them and I found out recently that it's not true," she revealed. "So that's something to investigate."
The actress added: "Claire and Francis are equivalent as far as their power, their union and the plot. I may not have as many scenes or words as Francis, but Claire doesn't need to verbalize as much. Francis is an orator, a poet, a demonstrator."
Continuing, "Claire is an [ego] that sits in the back and directs him, but they are partners on the same plane."
A report from The Huffington Post estimates Spacey was making $500,000 per episode ahead of season 3, while Wright made $5.5 million for her role on the show between 2014 to 2015, averaging out at $420,000 per episode.
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