Aug 2026· Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Advanced Graph Neural Networks
Abstract
This paper introduces a novel framework for generating graph embeddings that explicitly accounts for the temporal dynamics of relationships within a network. Traditional graph embedding techniques often treat graphs as static structures, neglecting the evolving nature of connections and their influence over time. Our approach leverages a recurrent neural network (RNN) coupled with a custom-designed loss function that measures "temporal divergence" – the difference in embeddings of nodes at consecutive time steps – weighted by the strength and type of relationships. This allows the model to learn and represent how relationships change over time, leading to more accurate and robust graph embeddings. We argue that this method represents a significant advancement over existing static embedding techniques and offers the potential to capture emergent network behaviors and predict future network modifications with improved accuracy. The core claim of this work is that incorporating temporal dynamics dramatically enhances graph embedding capabilities. ---
Agile methods continue to gain popularity. In particular, the Scrum method appears to be on the verge of becoming a de-facto standard in the industry, leading the so called Agile movement. While there are success stories and recommendations, there is little scientifically valid evidence of the challenges in the adoption of Agile methods in general, and Scrum in particular. Little, if anything, is empirically known about the application and adoption of Scrum in a multi-team and multi-project situation. The authors carried out an ethnographically informed longitudinal case study in industrial settings and closely followed how the Scrum method was adopted in a 20-person department, working in a simultaneous multi-project R&D environment. Altogether 10 challenges pertinent to the case of multi-team multi-project Scrum adoption were identified in the study. The authors contend that these results carry great relevance for other industrial teams. Future research avenues arising from the study are indicated.
A. Marchenko, P. Abrahamsson· Agile Conference· 59 citations· ⚡11
Context: While there are many success stories of achieving high reuse and improved quality using software platforms, there is a need to investigate the issues and challenges organizations face when transitioning to a software platform strategy. Objective: This case study provides a comprehensive taxonomy of the challenges faced when a medium-scale organization decided to adopt software platforms. The study also reveals how new trends in software engineering (i.e. agile methods, distributed development, and flat management structures) interplayed with the chosen platform strategy. Method: We used an ethnographic approach to collect data by spending time at a medium-scale company in Scandinavia. We conducted 16in-depth interviews with representatives of eight different teams, three of which were working on three separate platforms. The collected data was analyzed using Grounded Theory. Results: The findings identify four classes of challenges, namely: business challenges, organizational challenges, technical challenges, and people challenges. The article explains how these findings can be used to help researchers and practitioners identify practical solutions and required tool support. Conclusion: The organization's decision to adopt a software platform strategy introduced a number of challenges. These challenges need to be understood and addressed in order to reap the benefits of reuse. Researchers need to further investigate issues such as supportive organizational structures for platform development, the role of agile methods in software platforms, tool support for testing and continuous integration in the platform context, and reuse recommendation systems.
Yaser Ghanam, F. Maurer, P. Abrahamsson· Information and Software Tec...· 41 citations· ⚡3
This article is a contribution towards an understanding of open access (OA) publishing. It proposes an analysis framework of 18 core attributes, divided into the areas of bibliographic information, activity metrics, economics, accessibility, and predatory issues. The framework has been employed in a systematic analysis of 30 OA journals in software engineering (SE) and information systems (IS), which were selected from among 386 OA journals in Computer Science from the Directory of OA Journals. An analysis was performed on the sample of the journals, to provide an overview of the current situation of OA journals in the fields of SE and IS. The journals were then compared between-group, according to the presence of article processing charges. A within-group analysis was performed on the journals requesting article processing charges from authors, in order to understand what is the value added according to different price ranges. This article offers several contributions. It presents an overview of OA definitions and models. It provides an analysis framework born from the observation of data and the existing literature. It raises the need to study OA in the fields of SE and IS while offering a first analysis. Finally, it provides recommendations to readers of OA journals. This paper highlights several concerns still threatening the adoption of OA publishing in the fields of SE and IS. Among them, it is shown that high article processing charges are not sufficiently justified by the publishers, which often lack transparency and may prevent authors from adopting OA.
D. Graziotin, Xiaofeng Wang, P. Abrahamsson· Scientometrics· 21 citations· ⚡1
Software Engineering practitioners work using highly diverse methods and practices, and general theories in software engineering are lacking. One attempt at creating a common ground in the area of software engineering methodologies has been the Essence Theory of Software Engineering, which can be considered a method-agnostic project management tool for software engineering. Essence supports the use of any development practices and provides a framework for building a suitable method for any software engineering context. However, Essence presently suffers from low practitioner adoption that is partially considered to be caused by a lack of proper tooling. In this paper, we present Essencery, a tool for essentializing software engineering methods and practices using the Essence graphical syntax. Essencery aims to facilitate adoption of Essence among potential future users. We present an empirical evaluation of the tool by means of a qualitative, quasi-formal experiment and, based on the experiment, confirm that the tool is easy to use and useful for its intended purpose.
A. Evensen, Kai-Kristian Kemell, Xiaofeng Wang et al.· arXiv.org· 5 citations
The main principle of the Lean Startup movement is that static business planning should be replaced by a dynamic development, where products, services, business model elements, business objectives and activities are frequently changed based on constant customer feedback. Our ambition is to empirically measure if such changes of the business idea, the business model elements, the project management and close interaction with customers really increases the success rate of entrepreneurs, and in what way. Our first paper; “Does Lean Startup really work? Foundation for an empirical study” presented the first attempt to model the relations we want to measure. This paper will focus on how to build and set up a test harness (from now on called the Entrepreneurship Platform or EP) to gather empirical data from Companies and how to store these data together with demographical and financial data from the PROFF-portal in the Entrepreneurial Data Warehouse (from now called the EDW). We will end the paper by discussing the potential methodological problems with our method, before we document a test run of our set-up to verify that we are actually able to populate the Data Warehouse with time series data.
Yngve Dahle, M. Steinert, Anh Nguyen-Duc et al.· International Conference on...· 4 citations
The field of software engineering has evolved significantly over the past decades. It can be argued that software has become the vital element of any system or service. Interestingly, even in the field of automotive industry, 90% of recent innovations stem from software and electronics (ITEA2 2005). Ever since the classic NATO conference in 1968, however, software has been argued to be in some state of crisis. From the 1990s, the crisis has been labeled as a chronic one. It is quite evident that several attempts to improve the state of software industry have taken place with varying levels of success. Software process improvement approaches have been developed since many decades ago. The results have been impressive, on the one hand, but many problems still exist. As an example, the business impact of software process improvement endeavors has been difficult to pinpoint, several of the improvement initiatives appear to fall short of their goals, and overemphasis on comparing processes with fixed reference models may lead an organization astray regarding the product or service perspective. The Profes conference series was established in 1999 to provide a venue for industry and academia to present and discuss the shift from model-based improvement to a product-oriented perspective in the field of software engineering and software process improvement. This includes a context-oriented understanding of the process-product relationships. Recently, the focus in practice and, consequently, in research has been on viewing software development as a global endeavor rather than a local one. There are several reasons for this. To name but a few: The distribution of software development enables the optimum use of competence regardless of the geographical location. The large software-intensive organizations operate in the global space and market, which makes distribution a necessity rather than a choice. On the positive side, distribution enables the development of software and services close to the prominent market area. Despite these relatively clear advantages and 2 benefits, global software development has brought with it several challenges due to increased complexity and cultural as well as technology issues. These challenges are now being tackled by means of research taking place in Europe and elsewhere as witnessed by this special issue of Profes conference research papers. Profes Conference series was established at the end of European IST project called PROFES (PROduct Focused Software process improvement) for disseminating the research results of the project area to industry. The PROFES Consortium included …
P. Abrahamsson, Jürgen Münch, P. Kuvaja· Software Process: Improvemen...· 4 citations
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