Hasil untuk "Harbors and coast protective works. Coastal engineering. Lighthouses"

Lei Zhang

The quantum threat to cybersecurity has accelerated the standardization of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC). Migrating legacy software to these quantum-safe algorithms is not a simple library swap, but a new software engineering challenge: existing vulnerability detection, refactoring, and testing tools are not designed for PQC's probabilistic behavior, side-channel sensitivity, and complex performance trade-offs. To address these challenges, this paper outlines a vision for a new class of tools and introduces the Automated Quantum-safe Adaptation (AQuA) framework, with a three-pillar agenda for PQC-aware detection, semantic refactoring, and hybrid verification, thereby motivating Quantum-Safe Software Engineering (QSSE) as a distinct research direction.

Alexander Korn, Lea Zaruchas, Chetan Arora et al.

Large Language Models, particularly decoder-only generative models such as GPT, are increasingly used to automate Software Engineering tasks. These models are primarily guided through natural language prompts, making prompt engineering a critical factor in system performance and behavior. Despite their growing role in SE research, prompt-related decisions are rarely documented in a systematic or transparent manner, hindering reproducibility and comparability across studies. To address this gap, we conducted a two-phase empirical study. First, we analyzed nearly 300 papers published at the top-3 SE conferences since 2022 to assess how prompt design, testing, and optimization are currently reported. Second, we surveyed 105 program committee members from these conferences to capture their expectations for prompt reporting in LLM-driven research. Based on the findings, we derived a structured guideline that distinguishes essential, desirable, and exceptional reporting elements. Our results reveal significant misalignment between current practices and reviewer expectations, particularly regarding version disclosure, prompt justification, and threats to validity. We present our guideline as a step toward improving transparency, reproducibility, and methodological rigor in LLM-based SE research.

I. Möller, K. O’Leary

With coastal populations rising at three times the global average, sustainable ways of safeguarding human needs around access and use of the coast alongside lasting ecosystem health of coastal environments must be developed. At the same time, human populations are facing the challenge of managing coastal access on the back of a legacy of human interventions that have already altered – and have often had unintended or unforeseen impacts on – the coastal system and its functioning.

I Gede Agus Novanda, Martiwi Diah Setiawati, I Putu Sugiana et al.

Remote sensing offers an effective alternative for estimating mangrove carbon stocks by analyzing the relationship between satellite pixel values and field-based carbon measurements. This research was carried out in the mangrove forests of western Bali, Indonesia, encompassing three areas situated in a non-conservation mangrove forest area. This study assessed 32 remote sensing vegetation indices derived from Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to identify the optimal model for quantifying the above-ground carbon (Cag) content in mangrove ecosystems. Field data were collected using stratified random sampling and were used to develop regression models linking the Cag with vegetation indices. The Simple Ratio (SR) index exhibited the highest correlation (r = 0.847, R² = 0.707), while the Three Index Vegetation Above-Ground Carbon (TrIVCag) model, combining the SR, Specific Leaf Area Vegetation Index (SLAVI), and Transformed Ratio Vegetation Index (TRVI) indices, achieved the best performance (r = 0.870, R² = 0.728). The model validation results confirmed the reliability of the TrIVCag model, as indicated by a correlation of 0.852 between the model estimates and measured Cag values from independent field data. In 2023, the mangrove area in western Bali (excluding West Bali National Park) was estimated at 376.85 ha, with a total above-ground carbon stock of 34,994.55 tonC/ha. Region A had the highest average Cag at 98.97 tonC/ha, followed by Regions B (66.58 tonC/ha) and C (86.98 tonC/ha). This model offers a practical and scalable approach to carbon monitoring and is expected to play a valuable role in supporting blue carbon conservation efforts and contributing to climate change mitigation.

Yanjie Sun, Xiaolong Song, Zhi Li et al.

This study introduces an innovative approach to modeling meandering river morphology, integrating and investigating the effects of geometric characteristics and vegetation-induced channel coarsening. The developed comprehensive framework combines several advanced techniques: Genetic Programming for refining the scour factor of transverse bed slope, a Leaf Area Index (LAI)-enhanced analytical model for quantifying vegetative flow resistance, and an upstream-weighted moving average method for efficient approximation of the convolution integral in meander migration calculations. The model is validated against both an idealized Kinoshita meander and a natural bend of the Tumen River (China) in equilibrium, demonstrating its robustness across diverse scales and conditions. The model's ability to simulate the long-term evolution, including cutoff events, provides valuable insight for river management strategies. The current findings demonstrate that channel geometry, particularly width-to-depth ratio, plays a dominant role in meander evolution, with wider channels prone to more complex and rapid morphological changes. Vegetation effects are most pronounced in channels with moderate width-to-depth ratios, where they can significantly influence migration rates and bed topography. A combination of channel widening and deepening, coupled with strategic vegetation management, can effectively enhance navigability while maintaining channel stability in the studied Tumen River reach. Sensitivity analyses highlight the complex interplay between hydraulic conditions, sediment characteristics, and vegetation in shaping river morphology. This research advances understanding of the multifaceted nature of meandering river systems and offers practical tools for informed decision-making in river engineering and environmental management, particularly in the context of climate change and increasing anthropogenic pressures on fluvial ecosystems.

Le Wang, Dayu Wang, Alan James Stewart Cuthbertson et al.

Flocculation of cohesive sediments is widely observed in natural aquatic-sedimentary environments, such as river estuaries and nearshore coastal waters, where salinity, suspended sediment concentration and flow turbulence cause fine sediment particles to aggregate into larger flocs, resulting in intensified sedimentation. In contrast, there is currently very little evidence linking enhanced sedimentation, leading to significant storage loss within large freshwater reservoirs, specifically to fine sediment flocculation processes. Massive fine sediment volumes have been deposited in the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR), China, which has been impounded over the past two decades. It has not yet been established what role, if any, fine sediment flocculation processes play a role in the amplified sedimentation rates that have been observed. The current study aims to test the hypothesis that fine sediment flocculation processes, which occur under prevalent hydrodynamic (i.e., turbulent shear rate G ≈ 4.67–227.39 s−1) and sedimentary (i.e., sediment concentration C ≈ 0.02–2.00 kg/m3) conditions in the TGR, play important roles in sedimentation rates during reservoir impoundment. A laboratory-based, experimental study was conducted within a new, bespoke Couette flow system designed specifically to mimic the environmental shear flow conditions experienced during impoundment. Sediment samples obtained directly from the TGR bed deposits were tested within this facility to ascertain their flocculation and settling behavior under controlled shear flows and sediment concentrations. A comprehensive analysis combining the sediment composition, measured aggregate/floc size distributions and their corresponding settling behavior collectively pointed to the occurrence of fine sediment flocculation within the TGR. By disentangling the individual influences of flow velocity and sediment concentration on floc size, the combined influence of the flocculation parameters C/G1/2 on floc size is fully revealed through experimental evidence, with a new empirical combined parameter, C0.44/G0.47, identified as being more appropriate for characterizing the variability in floc size under varying flow‒sediment conditions. The majority of flocs measured in the tests have a mean settling velocity nearly five times greater than that of the majority of primary fine sediment particles (i.e., with diameter D ≤ 29 μm) that comprise the sediment grain size distribution found in the TGR impoundment. This finding provides new evidence for the potential for flocculation-enhanced sedimentation rates occurring within the TGR and other similar large freshwater reservoirs, as dam construction disrupts the natural sediment continuity within the river system and inhibits the downstream transport of fine sediments.

Junqiang Xia, Yifei Cheng, Meirong Zhou et al.

A general increase in the bankfull width and depth is found in downstream reaches because of upstream damming, especially in the braided reach of the Lower Yellow River (LYR), but the magnitude of bank erosion and its relation with bed incision remain little explored. Here based on long-term measured cross-sectional profiles (1999–2020), a quantitative method is proposed to estimate the bank erosion volume in the braided reach of the Lower Yellow River, with the contribution of bank erosion to the channel scour volume further determined. A quantitative relation was developed and calibrated between bank erosion width and bed incision depth, using the sediment continuity equation and measured data. The results indicate that: (i) significant bank erosion and bed incision processes are prevalent in the braided reach and its sub-reaches, with the bankfull widths increasing by 317–511 m and the bankfull depths increasing by 1.9–2.4 m in these reaches after the operation of the Xiaolangdi (XLD) Reservoir in 1999. Bank erosion has been dominant over bank accretion at more than 71% of the sections in the braided reach, with the most active bank deformation detected in the middle sub-reach. (ii) The cumulative bank erosion volumes temporally increased and spatially decreased, with the value of 1.80×108 m3 in the upper sub-reach (R1), 1.52×108 m3 in the middle sub-reach (R2), 1.08×108 m3 in the lower sub-reach (R3), and 4.40×108 m3 in the whole braided reach during the period of 1999–2020. Bank erosion contributed 33% of the cumulative channel scour volume in the braided reach, with a close relation developed between cumulative bank erosion volume and the previous 5-year average incoming sediment coefficient during flood seasons. (iii) A close inverse relation exists between bank erosion and bed incision in the whole braided reach and its sub-reaches, with the coefficients of determination greater than 0.90, which indicated that bank erosion hindered the process of bed incision. If there was no bank erosion after 1999, the cumulative bed incision depth would increase by at least 0.7 m in each reach. Furthermore, a similar quantitative relation was also applied to calculate the cumulative bed incision depth and bank erosion width in the braided reach during the period of 1960–1964 (the first stage after operation of the Sanmenxia Reservoir). Quite high accuracy was achieved in this analysis, with the coefficient of determination being equal to 0.96.

Xiaolong Song, Haijue Xu, Yuchuan Bai

Rivers significantly influence delta morphology and sedimentation patterns. However, the dynamic effects of rivers on the upper neck areas of subaerial deltas, which are the complex zones connecting main channels to distributary networks, remain understudied. In this research, the impacts of discharge variation on cross-sectional topography within the upper neck area of a laboratory-scale subaerial delta were examined via an integrated shallow water jet (SWJ)–long short-term memory (LSTM) modeling approach that synergistically couples SWJ equations incorporating analytical velocity distributions and parameterized bedload transport relationships with LSTM networks and gradient boosting for data-driven enhancements. Laboratory experiments, which provide detailed topographic measurements, were used for model calibration and validation. We investigated stepwise, periodic, and stochastic discharge alteration scenarios. The results revealed a fundamental pattern of spatially differentiated morphodynamic sensitivity within the upper neck area. The section farthest upstream consistently exhibited relative stability. In stark contrast, the mid-sections (spanning approximately 20%–30% of the total delta length from the inlet) emerged as the primary loci of morphological change, consistently demonstrating robust switching behaviors between pronounced erosion and deposition regimes under varying discharge regimes. In contrast, the section farthest downstream showed a more integrated and dampened response. This distinct switching mechanism within defined mid-sections, rather than diffuse variability, constituted a key finding regarding the mechanism by which the upper neck area could fundamentally process discharge fluctuations. Specifically, discharge decreases typically led to localized scouring and enhanced channelization, particularly within these active mid-sections. Conversely, increases in discharge induced increasingly complex responses involving erosion and deposition, with the specific outcome being dependent on the precise location within these mid-sections and on the nature of discharge alteration. The core components of the morphological evolution of the delta were further evaluated by the finding that the magnitude, rate, and timing of discharge changes (e.g., rapid exponential changes and slow logistic decreases), along with the amplitude of periodic fluctuations, significantly governed the intensity and characteristics of this switching behavior and the resultant morphology. Increasingly pronounced effects were observed under rapid exponential changes, slow logistic decreases, and large periodic amplitudes. Under stochastic discharge, the mean reversion rate and long-term mean volatility of discharge exerted complex, spatially variable influences on the mean bed elevation change, highlighting their critical roles in shaping morphology, whereas the volatility had a more subtle and discharge-dependent impact. Thus, this research revealed not only variability but also a spatially organized response framework featuring critical zones and specific mechanisms, such as mid-section switching, governed by identifiable hydraulic parameters. The findings offered practical insights into delta management, climate adaptation, and environmental assessment, strengthening our understanding of fluvial–deltaic interactions and supporting ecosystem sustainability.

Marc Bruni, Fabio Gabrielli, Mohammad Ghafari et al.

Prompt engineering reduces reasoning mistakes in Large Language Models (LLMs). However, its effectiveness in mitigating vulnerabilities in LLM-generated code remains underexplored. To address this gap, we implemented a benchmark to automatically assess the impact of various prompt engineering strategies on code security. Our benchmark leverages two peer-reviewed prompt datasets and employs static scanners to evaluate code security at scale. We tested multiple prompt engineering techniques on GPT-3.5-turbo, GPT-4o, and GPT-4o-mini. Our results show that for GPT-4o and GPT-4o-mini, a security-focused prompt prefix can reduce the occurrence of security vulnerabilities by up to 56%. Additionally, all tested models demonstrated the ability to detect and repair between 41.9% and 68.7% of vulnerabilities in previously generated code when using iterative prompting techniques. Finally, we introduce a "prompt agent" that demonstrates how the most effective techniques can be applied in real-world development workflows.

Shavindra Wickramathilaka, John Grundy, Kashumi Madampe et al.

The use of diverse mobile applications among senior users is becoming increasingly widespread. However, many of these apps contain accessibility problems that result in negative user experiences for seniors. A key reason is that software practitioners often lack the time or resources to address the broad spectrum of age-related accessibility and personalisation needs. As current developer tools and practices encourage one-size-fits-all interfaces with limited potential to address the diversity of senior needs, there is a growing demand for approaches that support the systematic creation of adaptive, accessible app experiences. To this end, we present AdaptForge, a novel model-driven engineering (MDE) approach that enables advanced design-time adaptations of mobile application interfaces and behaviours tailored to the accessibility needs of senior users. AdaptForge uses two domain-specific languages (DSLs) to address age-related accessibility needs. The first model defines users' context-of-use parameters, while the second defines conditional accessibility scenarios and corresponding UI adaptation rules. These rules are interpreted by an MDE workflow to transform an app's original source code into personalised instances. We also report evaluations with professional software developers and senior end-users, demonstrating the feasibility and practical utility of AdaptForge.

Qiaolin Qin, Ronnie de Souza Santos, Rodrigo Spinola

Context. The rise of generative AI (GenAI) tools like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot has transformed how software is learned and written. In software engineering (SE) education, these tools offer new opportunities for support, but also raise concerns about over-reliance, ethical use, and impacts on learning. Objective. This study investigates how undergraduate SE students use GenAI tools, focusing on the benefits, challenges, ethical concerns, and instructional expectations that shape their experiences. Method. We conducted a survey with 130 undergraduate students from two universities. The survey combined structured Likert-scale items and open-ended questions to investigate five dimensions: usage context, perceived benefits, challenges, ethical and instructional perceptions. Results. Students most often use GenAI for incremental learning and advanced implementation, reporting benefits such as brainstorming support and confidence-building. At the same time, they face challenges including unclear rationales and difficulty adapting outputs. Students highlight ethical concerns around fairness and misconduct, and call for clearer instructional guidance. Conclusion. GenAI is reshaping SE education in nuanced ways. Our findings underscore the need for scaffolding, ethical policies, and adaptive instructional strategies to ensure that GenAI supports equitable and effective learning.

Mauro Marcelino, Marcos Alves, Bianca Trinkenreich et al.

[Context] An evidence briefing is a concise and objective transfer medium that can present the main findings of a study to software engineers in the industry. Although practitioners and researchers have deemed Evidence Briefings useful, their production requires manual labor, which may be a significant challenge to their broad adoption. [Goal] The goal of this registered report is to describe an experimental protocol for evaluating LLM-generated evidence briefings for secondary studies in terms of content fidelity, ease of understanding, and usefulness, as perceived by researchers and practitioners, compared to human-made briefings. [Method] We developed an RAG-based LLM tool to generate evidence briefings. We used the tool to automatically generate two evidence briefings that had been manually generated in previous research efforts. We designed a controlled experiment to evaluate how the LLM-generated briefings compare to the human-made ones regarding perceived content fidelity, ease of understanding, and usefulness. [Results] To be reported after the experimental trials. [Conclusion] Depending on the experiment results.

Jan Petzold, Jürgen Scheffran

Climate change has been recognised as a major concern in coastal hotspots exposed to multiple climate hazards under regionally specific characteristics of vulnerability. We review the emerging research and current trends in the academic literature on coastal climate risk and adaptation from a human security perspective. The ecological and socioeconomic developments are analysed for key risk areas, including coastal infrastructure; water, food and fisheries; health; human mobility; and conflict, taking the different geographical contexts of coastal areas in islands, megacities and deltas into consideration. Compounding and cascading interactions require integrative research and policy approaches to address the growing complexity. Governance mechanisms focus on coastal management and adaptation, nature-based solutions and community-based adaptation, considering their synergies and trade-offs. This perspective allows for a holistic view on climate risks to human security and vicious circles of societal instability in coastal systems and the interconnectedness of different risk dimensions and systems necessary for sustainable and transformative adaptation solutions for the most affected coastal hotspots.

Nicolas Guillou, Georges Chapalain

Seiches oscillations may account for an important proportion of sea level variations in nearshore environments, inducing overflow and surges while impacting the safety of marine areas. However, complementary investigations are still required to characterize seiches in coastal basins, including especially estuaries. The present study exhibited seiches characteristics in the intertidal zone of the upper Elorn estuary (western Brittany, France), within the city of Landerneau, which is regularly subjected to river overflow and inundation. This investigation relied on five-year measurements of the free-surface elevation. As recorded time series were highly discontinuous around low tide, an original data analysis technique was implemented to exhibit seiches characteristics during the different tidal cycles. Measurements revealed important seiches oscillations with heights liable to exceed 0.6 m and periods of around 45–70 min. Seiches showed furthermore a fortnightly variability with pronounced heights and an increased number of oscillations during neap tides. These variations appeared, however, to be disturbed by the additional effects of meteorological conditions, including especially the influence of wind. The number of oscillations around high tide was thus found to increase in strong wind conditions. These effects were particularly noticeable at low atmospheric pressure, suggesting a sensitivity of seiches to wind meteorological patterns during cyclonic events.

Diana Robinson, Christian Cabrera, Andrew D. Gordon et al.

What if end users could own the software development lifecycle from conception to deployment using only requirements expressed in language, images, video or audio? We explore this idea, building on the capabilities that generative Artificial Intelligence brings to software generation and maintenance techniques. How could designing software in this way better serve end users? What are the implications of this process for the future of end-user software engineering and the software development lifecycle? We discuss the research needed to bridge the gap between where we are today and these imagined systems of the future.

Marco Autili, Martina De Sanctis, Paola Inverardi et al.

As testified by new regulations like the European AI Act, worries about the human and societal impact of (autonomous) software technologies are becoming of public concern. Human, societal, and environmental values, alongside traditional software quality, are increasingly recognized as essential for sustainability and long-term well-being. Traditionally, systems are engineered taking into account business goals and technology drivers. Considering the growing awareness in the community, in this paper, we argue that engineering of systems should also consider human, societal, and environmental drivers. Then, we identify the macro and technological challenges by focusing on humans and their role while co-existing with digital systems. The first challenge considers humans in a proactive role when interacting with digital systems, i.e., taking initiative in making things happen instead of reacting to events. The second concerns humans having a reactive role in interacting with digital systems, i.e., humans interacting with digital systems as a reaction to events. The third challenge focuses on humans with a passive role, i.e., they experience, enjoy or even suffer the decisions and/or actions of digital systems. The fourth challenge concerns the duality of trust and trustworthiness, with humans playing any role. Building on the new human, societal, and environmental drivers and the macro and technological challenges, we identify a research roadmap of digital systems for humanity. The research roadmap is concretized in a number of research directions organized into four groups: development process, requirements engineering, software architecture and design, and verification and validation.

Anderson Targino da Silva Ferreira, Regina Célia de Oliveira, Maria Carolina Hernandez Ribeiro et al.

As the interface between land and water, coastlines are highly dynamic and intricately tied to the sediment budget. These regions have a high functional diversity and require enlightened management to preserve their value for the future. In this study we assess changes to the São Paulo State (SE Brazil) coastline over the last 36 years. The study innovatively employs big data remote sensing techniques and multivariate statistical models to evaluate and generate erosion/accretion rates (1985–2021) relative to beach orientation and slope. Shoreline change rates have been obtained for sandy beaches at 485 one-kilometer-spaced transects. Our findings capture the complexity and heterogeneity of the analyzed coastline, at a regional and local scale. No association was found between shoreline changes and beach face orientation. Nonetheless, a dependency relationship was found between dissipative beaches with moderate to high accretion. Beaches facing south, with relative stability, were prone to sediment accumulation. Locations with slow accretion, like sandy spits and tombolo-protected beaches, were associated with dissipative beaches with moderate to high accretion. The southeast-oriented beaches are more prone to erosion due to storm waves from the south. Results provide a broad, fast, and relatively low-cost methodology that can be used in any sandy beach context, bringing essential information for coastal management and decision-making related to the use and occupation of the coastal zones.

Emily Hunt, Mark Davidson, Edward C. C. Steele et al.

Climate change is resulting in global changes to sea level and wave climates, which in many locations significantly increase the probability of erosion, flooding and damage to coastal infrastructure and ecosystems. Therefore, there is a pressing societal need to be able to forecast the morphological evolution of our coastlines over a broad range of timescales, spanning days-to-decades, facilitating more focused, appropriate and cost-effective management interventions and data-informed planning to support the development of coastal environments. A wide range of modelling approaches have been used with varying degrees of success to assess both the detailed morphological evolution and/or simplified indicators of coastal erosion/accretion. This paper presents an overview of these modelling approaches, covering the full range of the complexity spectrum and summarising the advantages and disadvantages of each method. A focus is given to reduced-complexity modelling approaches, including models based on equilibrium concepts, which have emerged as a particularly promising methodology for the prediction of coastal change over multi-decadal timescales. The advantages of stable, computationally-efficient, reduced-complexity models must be balanced against the requirement for good generality and skill in diverse and complex coastal settings. Significant obstacles are also identified, limiting the generic application of models at regional and global scales. Challenges include the accurate long-term prediction of model forcing time-series in a changing climate, and accounting for processes that can largely be ignored in the shorter term but increase in importance in the long term. Further complications include coastal complexities, such as the accurate assessment of the impacts of headland bypassing. Additional complexities include complex structures and geology, mixed grain size, limited sediment supply, sources and sinks. It is concluded that with present computational resources, data availability limitations and process knowledge gaps, reduced-complexity modelling approaches currently offer the most promising solution to modelling shoreline evolution on daily-to-decadal timescales.