Nicolò Paternoster

Software startups are newly created companies with no operating history and oriented towards producing cutting-edge products. However, despite the increasing importance of startups in the economy, few scientific studies attempt to address software engineering issues, especially for early-stage startups. If anything, startups need engineering practices of the same level or better than those of larger companies, as their time and resources are more scarce, and one failed project can put them out… Mostrar más

Software startups are newly created companies with no operating history and oriented towards producing cutting-edge products. However, despite the increasing importance of startups in the economy, few scientific studies attempt to address software engineering issues, especially for early-stage startups. If anything, startups need engineering practices of the same level or better than those of larger companies, as their time and resources are more scarce, and one failed project can put them out of business. In this study we aim to improve understanding of the software development strategies employed by startups. We performed this stateof- practice investigation using a grounded theory approach. We packaged the results in the Greenfield Startup Model (GSM), which explains the priority of startups to release the product as quickly as possible. This strategy allows startups to verify product and market fit, and to adjust the product trajectory according to early collected user feedback. The need to shorten time-to-market, by speeding up the development through low-precision engineering activities, is counterbalanced by the need to restructure the product before targeting further growth. The resulting implications of the GSM outline challenges and gaps, pointing out opportunities for future research to develop and validate engineering practices in the startup context. Mostrar menos

An impressive number of new startups are launched every day as a result of growing new markets, accessible technologies, and venture capital. New ventures such as Facebook, Supercell, Linkedin, Spotify, WhatsApp, and Dropbox, to name a few, are good examples of startups that evolved into successful businesses. However, despite many successful stories, the great majority of them fail prematurely. Operating in a chaotic and rapidly evolving domain conveys new uncharted challenges for startuppers.… Mostrar más

An impressive number of new startups are launched every day as a result of growing new markets, accessible technologies, and venture capital. New ventures such as Facebook, Supercell, Linkedin, Spotify, WhatsApp, and Dropbox, to name a few, are good examples of startups that evolved into successful businesses. However, despite many successful stories, the great majority of them fail prematurely. Operating in a chaotic and rapidly evolving domain conveys new uncharted challenges for startuppers. In this study, the authors characterize their context and identify common software development startup practices. Mostrar menos

Context: Software startups are newly created companies with no operating history and fast in producing cutting-edge technologies. These companies develop software under highly uncertain conditions, tackling fast-growing markets under severe lack of resources. Therefore, software startups present an unique combination of characteristics which pose several challenges to software development activities. Objective: This study aims to structure and analyze the literature on software development in… Mostrar más

Context: Software startups are newly created companies with no operating history and fast in producing cutting-edge technologies. These companies develop software under highly uncertain conditions, tackling fast-growing markets under severe lack of resources. Therefore, software startups present an unique combination of characteristics which pose several challenges to software development activities. Objective: This study aims to structure and analyze the literature on software development in startup companies, determining thereby the potential for technology transfer and identifying software development work practices reported by practitioners and researchers. Method: We conducted a systematic mapping study, developing a classification schema, ranking the selected primary studies according their rigor and relevance, and analyzing reported software development work practices in startups. Results: A total of 43 primary studies were identified and mapped, synthesizing the available evidence on software development in startups. Only 16 studies are entirely dedicated to software development in startups, of which 10 result in a weak contribution (advice and implications (6); lesson learned (3); tool (1)). Nineteen studies focus on managerial and organizational factors. Moreover, only 9 studies exhibit high scientific rigor and relevance. From the reviewed primary studies, 213 software engineering work practices were extracted, categorized and analyzed. Conclusion: This mapping study provides the first systematic exploration of the state-of-art on software startup research. The existing body of knowledge is limited to a few high quality studies. Furthermore, the results indicate that software engineering work practices are chosen opportunistically, adapted and configured to provide value under the constrains imposed by the startup context. Mostrar menos

Despite the increasing economical importance and the high failure rate, there are only a few scientific studies attempting to address software engineering (SE) issues, especially for early-stages startups. In a context where a wrong decision can easily lead the entire business to failure, the support of SE can contribute to foster performances of startups and making a big impact on a large number of companies.
For this reason this research aims to understand how software development… Mostrar más

Despite the increasing economical importance and the high failure rate, there are only a few scientific studies attempting to address software engineering (SE) issues, especially for early-stages startups. In a context where a wrong decision can easily lead the entire business to failure, the support of SE can contribute to foster performances of startups and making a big impact on a large number of companies.
For this reason this research aims to understand how software development strategies are engineered by practitioners, in the period of time that goes from idea conception to the first open beta release of the software product.
This research combines a systematic review of the state-of-the-art with a cross-sectional case study conducted in 13 web startups recently founded and distributed in different geographic areas and market sectors.
The research provided a wide set of evidences fostering the understanding of how software development is structured and executed, from idea conception to the first release. The results revealed the urgent priority of startups of releasing the product as quickly as possi- ble to verify the product/market fit and to adjust the business and product trajectory according to the early collected user feedbacks.
Nevertheless, the initial gain obtained in speeding-up the development by low-precision and product-centric engineering activities is counterbalanced by the need of restructuring the product and the workflows before setting for further grow. In fact, when user requests and company’s size start to increase startups face an initial and temporary drop-down in productivity, creating the need of mitigation strategies to find a sweet spot between being fast enough to enter the market early while controlling the amount of accumulated technical debt. Mostrar menos

The state-space formalism allows one to discretize cochlear models in a straightforward matrix form and to modify the main physical properties of the cochlear model by changing the position and functional form of a few matrix elements. Feed-forward and feed-backward properties can be obtained by simply introducing off-diagonal terms in the matrixes expressing the coupling between the dynamical variables and the additional active pressure on the basilar membrane. Some theoretical issues related… Mostrar más

The state-space formalism allows one to discretize cochlear models in a straightforward matrix form and to modify the main physical properties of the cochlear model by changing the position and functional form of a few matrix elements. Feed-forward and feed-backward properties can be obtained by simply introducing off-diagonal terms in the matrixes expressing the coupling between the dynamical variables and the additional active pressure on the basilar membrane. Some theoretical issues related to different cochlear modeling choices, their implementation in a state-space scheme, and their physical consequences on the cochlear phenomenology, as predicted by numerical simulations, are discussed. Different schematizations of the active term describing the behavior of the outer hair cell’s feedback mechanism, including nonlinear and nonlocal dependences on either pressure or basilar membrane displacement, are also discussed, showing their effect on some measurable cochlear properties. Mostrar menos

A nonlinear and non-local cochlear model has been efficiently solved in the time domain numerically, obtaining the evolution of the transverse displacement of the basilar membrane at each cochlear place. This information allows one to follow the forward and backward propagation of the traveling wave along the basilar membrane, and to evaluate the otoacoustic response from the time evolution of the stapes displacement. The phase/frequency relation of the response can be predicted, as well as the… Mostrar más

A nonlinear and non-local cochlear model has been efficiently solved in the time domain numerically, obtaining the evolution of the transverse displacement of the basilar membrane at each cochlear place. This information allows one to follow the forward and backward propagation of the traveling wave along the basilar membrane, and to evaluate the otoacoustic response from the time evolution of the stapes displacement. The phase/frequency relation of the response can be predicted, as well as the physical delay associated with the response onset time, to evaluate the relation between different cochlear characteristic times as a function of the stimulus level and of the physical parameters of the model. For a nonlinear cochlea, simplistic frequency-domain interpretations of the otoacoustic response phase behavior may give inconsistent results. Time-domain numerical solutions of the underlying nonlinear and non-local full cochlear model using a large number (thousands) of partitions in space and an adaptive mesh in time are rather time and memory consuming. Therefore, in order to be able to use standard personal computers for simulations reliably, the discretized model has been carefully designed to enforce sparsity of the matrices using a multi-iterative approach. Preliminary results concerning the cochlear characteristic delays are also presented. Mostrar menos

This proceeding was presented during the annual conference in Tourin of the Italian Association of Acoustic.

Dopo una breve panoramica sul funzionamento dell’udito umanoquesta tesi si sofferma in particolare sulla fisionomia e sul funzionamento dell’orecchio interno, concentrandosi sullameccanica dei fenomeni che avvengono all’interno della coclea. Ed è proprio nella coclea che hanno origine le emissioniotoacustiche ,dei segnali acustici di piccola intensità misuraticon una sonda microfonica all’interno del canale udivo provenienti dall’orecchio interno. Le misurazioni di questeemissioni vengono… Mostrar más

Dopo una breve panoramica sul funzionamento dell’udito umanoquesta tesi si sofferma in particolare sulla fisionomia e sul funzionamento dell’orecchio interno, concentrandosi sullameccanica dei fenomeni che avvengono all’interno della coclea. Ed è proprio nella coclea che hanno origine le emissioniotoacustiche ,dei segnali acustici di piccola intensità misuraticon una sonda microfonica all’interno del canale udivo provenienti dall’orecchio interno. Le misurazioni di questeemissioni vengono eseguite in laboratorio tramite apparati per larilevazione dei segnali e un software specifico che elabora i datiregistrati. Per studiare questo fenomeno, noto alla ricerca dacirca trent’anni e tuttora in discussione, gli scienziati fannoricorso talvolta a calcolatori che permettono loro di simulare larisposta della coclea quando viene somministrato uno stimolo al suo ingresso. In questa tesi, è stato costruito all’interno di matlab un simulatore capace di risolvere numericamentemodelli di una coclea attiva e non lineare tramite modelli matematici che prevedono la soluzione di equazionidifferenziali del secondo ordine, e una piattaforma di analisi dei dati costruita ex novo in matlab .Sfruttando questo framework sono state effettuate un numero elevato di simulazioni cocleari, variando numerosi parametri e cambiando il tipo di stimolo e con i dati ottenuti in uscita si è cercato poi di evidenziare le emissioniotoacustiche, studiandone il comportamento e confrontando i risultati ottenuti con le aspettative teoriche,rafforzando con numerose prove i modelli teorici in questione, favorendone alcuni a discapito di altri. A rafforzarei risultati ottenuti virtualmente, si dispone di alcuni dati provenienti da reali registrazioni di otoemissioni effettuatein laboratorio su cavie umane, con le quali sono stati eseguiti dei confronti selettivi, concentrando l’attenzione sui prodotti di distorsione e sulle emissioni evocate da stimoli transienti . Mostrar menos