Sound anomaly detection is a task that aims at identifying unusual or abnormal sounds within audio data. These sounds could be caused by different factors, such as background noise, equipment malfunctions, or unexpected events. Anomaly detection in sound is a well-studied topic, with a lot of research being done in the field. Anomaly localization refers to the process of identifying the specific location or region within a sample where an anomaly (or outlier) occurs. When applied to audio signals, anomaly localization can involve analyzing the spectral content of the sound to detect regions that deviate from the typical or expected pattern.In this study, we present a simple yet effective model based on the Student-Teacher Feature Pyramid Matching Method for locating anomalies in audio data. Utilizing the MIMII dataset by augmenting it with synthetic anomalies, we evaluate the method’s accuracy. Our results demonstrate that the proposed model can accurately locate artificially created anomalies within the spectrograms, both in terms of time and frequency. This approach offers a promising solution for identifying and determining the precise location of anomalies in various audio applications.

Issue trackers, such as Jira, have become the prevalent collaborative tools in software engineering for managing issues, such as requirements, development tasks, and software bugs. However, issue trackers inherently focus on the lifecycle of single issues, although issues have and express dependencies on other issues that constitute issue dependency networks in large complex collaborative projects. The objective of this study is to develop supportive solutions for the improved management of dependent issues in an issue tracker. This study follows the Design Science methodology, consisting of eliciting drawbacks and constructing and evaluating a solution and system. The study was carried out in the context of The Qt Company's Jira, which exemplifies an actively used, almost two-decade-old issue tracker with over 100,000 issues. The drawbacks capture how users operate with issue trackers to handle issue information in large, collaborative, and long-lived projects. The basis of the solution is to keep issues and dependencies as separate objects and automatically construct an issue graph. Dependency detections complement the issue graph by proposing missing dependencies, while consistency checks and diagnoses identify conflicting issue priorities and release assignments. Jira's plugin and service-based system architecture realize the functional and quality concerns of the system implementation. We show how to adopt the intelligent supporting techniques of an issue tracker in a complex use context and a large data-set. The solution considers an integrated and holistic system view, practical applicability and utility, and the practical characteristics of issue data, such as inherent incompleteness.

Machine learning (ML) provides us with numerous opportunities, allowing ML systems to adapt to new situations and contexts. At the same time, this adaptability raises uncertainties concerning the run-time product quality or dependability, such as reliability and security, of these systems. Systems can be tested and monitored, but this does not provide protection against faults and failures in adapted ML systems themselves. We studied software designs that aim at introducing fault tolerance in ML systems so that possible problems in ML components of the systems can be avoided. The research was conducted as a case study, and its data was collected through five semi-structured interviews with experienced software architects. We present a conceptualisation of the misbehaviour of ML systems, the perceived role of fault tolerance, and the designs used. Common patterns to incorporating ML components in design in a fault tolerant fashion have started to emerge. ML models are, for example, guarded by monitoring the inputs and their distribution, and enforcing business rules on acceptable outputs. Multiple, specialised ML models are used to adapt to the variations and changes in the surrounding world, and simpler fall-over techniques like default outputs are put in place to have systems up and running in the face of problems. However, the general role of these patterns is not widely acknowledged. This is mainly due to the relative immaturity of using ML as part of a complete software system: the field still lacks established frameworks and practices beyond training to implement, operate, and maintain the software that utilises ML. ML software engineering needs further analysis and development on all fronts.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has made its way into everyday activities, particularly through new techniques such as machine learning (ML). These techniques are implementable with little domain knowledge. This, combined with the difficulty of testing AI systems with traditional methods, has made system trustworthiness a pressing issue. This paper studies the methods used to validate practical AI systems reported in the literature. Our goal is to classify and describe the methods that are used in realistic settings to ensure the dependability of AI systems. A systematic literature review resulted in 90 papers. Systems presented in the papers were analysed based on their domain, task, complexity, and applied validation methods. The validation methods were synthesized into a taxonomy consisting of trial, simulation, model-centred validation, and expert opinion. Failure monitors, safety channels, redundancy, voting, and input and output restrictions are methods used to continuously validate the systems after deployment. Our results clarify existing strategies applied to validation. They form a basis for the synthesization, assessment, and refinement of AI system validation in research and guidelines for validating individual systems in practice. While various validation strategies have all been relatively widely applied, only few studies report on continuous validation.