100 lines
3.2 KiB
TeX
100 lines
3.2 KiB
TeX
\documentclass{article}
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\usepackage[L7x,T1]{fontenc}
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\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
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\usepackage{csquotes}
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\usepackage[english]{babel}
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\usepackage[style=authoryear]{biblatex}
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\addbibresource{bib.bib}
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\usepackage{hyperref}
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\title{
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Research Methodology -- Fifth exercise\\ \vspace{4mm}
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Critical evaluation of scientific work
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}
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\author{Motiejus Jakštys}
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\date{\today}
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\begin{document}
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\maketitle
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\section{Introduction}
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This article reviews \cite{186171}, and answers the following questions:
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\begin{enumerate}
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\item What kind of study is this? Theoretical, strategic, applied, or
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experimental?
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\item What is the main purpose of the research task (descriptive,
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explanatory, correlative, prognostic, prescriptive, or exploratory?
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\item What strategies have been applied? Qualitative, quantitative or
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mixed?
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\item Do the findings adequately reflect the results?
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\item Has the scientific method been applied properly?
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\item Are the findings based on the research findings described in the
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text?
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\item Can the study be repeated, is there sufficient information?
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\item Did the study create new knowledge? Is there practical value?
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\end{enumerate}
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\section{The Paper}
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Besides other things, \cite{186171} analyzed 198 randomly selected failures in
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popular distributed systems, and classified the reasons for each failure. This
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is one of the most interesting findings:
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\blockquote[\cite{186171}] {
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Almost all (92\%) of the catastrophi system failures are the result of
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incorrect handling of non-fatal errors explicitly signaled in software.
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}
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\section{Structure overview}
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\subsection{Kind of study}
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The paper is strategic, applied:
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\begin{description}
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\item[Strategic:] authors have developed an artifact \tt{Aspirator} which
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helps software maintainers find certain classes of bugs. What is more,
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they provided new knowledge, like in the quote above.
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\item[Applied:] the artifact of the work, \tt{Aspirator}, can be applied by
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other software developers looking for similar classes of bugs.
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\end{description}
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\subsection{Purpose of the research task}
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The research task is descriptive and correlative: given a well-understood
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situation of distributed systems fail catastrophically, researchers are finding
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common reasons for failures, and developing tools to mitigate them.
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Conclusions and suggestions are prescriptive: the researchers are warning
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engineers against common failures, and suggesting tools to mitigate them.
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\subsection{Applied Strategies}
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The task is mixed:
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\begin{description}
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\item[Quantitative:] researchers are analyzing and classifying a large
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number of bugs.
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\item[Qualitative:] each bug requires careful analysis in order to classify
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it and make interesting conclusions.
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\end{description}
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\subsection{Do findings reflect the purpose and results?}
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Research findings are derived directly from the purpose and research results.
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Namely, the researchers set out to find the most common reasons for
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catastrophic failures in distributed systems. They found them, classified them,
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and gave suggestions for future generations of distributed systems developers.
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\subsection{Scientific Method}
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\printbibliography
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\end{document}
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