Research Papers Am Reading

I am currently a PhD student in Computer Science with the University of Eastern Finland under the supervision of Prof. Jorma Sajaniemi up to 2014. I will therefore be alternating my stay between Malawi (my home country) and Finland. In this post and other posts in this blog, I will attempt to chronicle my academic journey by documenting some of the research papers I am reading for assigned academic tasks. So Help me God!

Mental Representations in Programming

Canas J. et al.(1994). Mental models and computer programming. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. 40. 795-811

Sajaniemi J. et al. (2007). A study of the Development of Students Visualizations of Program State during an Elementary Object-Oriented Programming Course. ICER07. ACM Press.

Fix V. et al (1993). Mental Representations of Programs by Novices and Experts. INTERCHI 93. ACM Press.

Ramalingam V. and Wiedenbeck S. (1997). An Empirical study of novice program comprehension in the imperative and object-oriented styles. ACM Press, New York, USA.

Petre M. et al. (2003). My criterion is: Is it a Boolean? : A card-sort elicitation of students knowledge of programming constructs

Petre M. and Blackwell A.F. (1996). A Glimpse of Expert Programmers' Mental Imagery

Requirements Engineering

Bray I.K. (2002). An Introduction to Requirements Engineering. Addison Wesley

Kovitz B.L. (1999). Practical Software Requirements. Manning Publications Company

Lauesen S. (2002). Software Requirements. Addison-Wesley

Leffingwell D. and Widrig D. (2003). Managing Software Requirements. Addison-Wesley

Software Process Models

Boehm B.W. (1988). A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement. IEEE Computer.

Brooks F.P. (1987). Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering. IEEE Computer.

Larman C. and Basili V.R. (2003). Iterative and Incremental Development: A Brief History. IEEE Computer Society.

Empirical Studies in Programming

Davies S. P. (1993b). The Structure and Content of Programming Knowledge: Disentangling Training and Language Effects in Theories of Skill Development. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 5(4), 325-346.

Soloway E., Ehrlich K., (1984). Empirical Studies of Programming Knowledge. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 10(5), 595-609.

Spohrer J. C., Pope E., Lipman M., Sack W., Freiman S., Littman D., Johnson L., Soloway E. (1985). Bugs in Novice Programs and Misconceptions in Novice Programmers. K. Duncan, D. Harris (eds.), Computers in Education, Elsevier Science Publishers, 543-552.

Sajaniemi J., Navarro Prieto R. (2005). An Investigation into Professional Programmers’ Mental Representations of Variables. 13th International Workshop on Program Comprehension (IWPC 2005), IEEE Computer Society, 55-64.

Pennington N. (1987). Comprehension Strategies in Programming. G. M. Olson, S. Sheppard, E. Soloway (eds.), Empirical Studies of Programmers: Second Workshop, Ablex Publ. Co., 100-113.

Davies S. P. (1993a). Models and Theories of Programming Strategy. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies 39(2), 237-267.

Vans A. M., von Mayrhauser A., Somlo G. (1999). Program Understanding Behavior during Corrective Maintenance of Large-Scale Software. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 51(1), 31-70.


Rist R. S. (1989). Schema Creation in Programming. Cognitive Science 13, 389-414.

Détienne F. (1997). Assessing the Cognitive Consequences of the Object-oriented Approach: A Survey of Empirical Research on Object-oriented Design by Individuals and Teams. Interacting with Computers, 9, 47-

Singer J., Lethbridge T. (1998). Studying Work Practices to Assist Tool Design in Software Engineering. Sixth International Workshop on Program Comprehension IWPC’98, Ischia, Italy.

Sajaniemi J. (2000). Program Comprehension through Multiple Simultaneous Views: A Session with VinEd. Eight International Workshop on Program Comprehension IWPC’2000, Limerick, Ireland, 99-108.

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Babies cry more

All of us have one of those days. Some of us have one of those seasons. Some even have one of those lives. It feels like the world is chewing on us. It isn't, it just feels that way.

I have long realized that life isn't really what it is; it's what we think it is based on relative things and our knowledge level. If you have traveled extensively, you know that in many parts of the world just clean drinking water is a rarity. We flush with clean drinking water. So many of us have so much when you compare it. Those of you who are reading this have access to the Internet, email and a computer. You can see, and you are not reading this from a hospital.

We have so much, yet there is an innate tendency to complain.

I tried to think of the easiest point in our lives to see if we complained then. Babies have perhaps the easiest life around. Babies don't have to go to the toilet because mama changes their diapers. Mama breast feeds them or gives them a bottle, rocks them to sleep, and lets them sleep as much as they want. Babies go to bed when they want. Babies wake up when they want. Babies don't have to work. Babies don't have to deal with bills or bosses. Babies don't worry if their thighs have gotten too fat or if their hair is receding. It's as easy as it gets.

With all of that, babies cry more. Babies cry more, with all of that. Maybe it's not circumstances, but the closer we are to babies (regardless of circumstances) the more we cry and complain. I shall leave you with that thought. Babies cry more.

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Malawi holds a youth conference on climate change

Malawi successfully held a youth conference on climate change for southern Africa from 18th to 20th November 2010 at Cresta Crossroads Hotel in Lilongwe.

The conference website is at http://www.sayccc.org/

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APCCEM launches website

The Association of Professional Chemists and Chemical Engineers of Malawi (APCCEM) has launched their website at http://www.apccem.org/ The mission of APCCEM is to promote the application of chemistry and chemical engineering in the socio-economic development of Malawi.

Having done chemistry up to second year of my undergraduate studies at Chancellor College (University of Malawi), I am still fascinated by chemistry as an exciting subject. I always remember the lectures of Dr. Chokhotho and the late Dr Elizabeth Henry. The analytic skills I learnt in those chemistry classes still help me in my career as a computer scientist and how I generally understand issues in scientific circles and public life.

By the way the following story is true: Gotcha!

There were these two fairly average college students taking the required chemistry course at their school one semester. They were both pretty good at chemistry, so by the end of the course they both had A averages. The final for this class was on a Monday. Since they were both doing well, they figured that they could go to a party that weekend up at another school. Well, obviously they didn't quite make it back.

So they decided they would tell their lecturer that they went up to another school that weekend, had a flat tyre on the way back, and couldn't get help for a long time so that they just didn't get back in time. The lecturer thought about it and finally decided to let them take the final the next day. So they went home that night, studied hard, and went to bed early. The next day they went in, the lecturer gave each of them a copy of the final, and put them in separate rooms. So they started the exam. The first page had one problem worth five points, and it was a fairly simple problem dealing with moles and molarity. So they figured this would be an easy exam. The second page also had one question. It was worth ninety-five points: "Which tyre?" Original author of story: Unknown

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