Background: Static Code Analysis (SCA) tools are widely adopted to enforce code quality standards. However, little is known about how open-source projects use and customize these tools. Aims: This paper investigates how GitHub projects use and customize a popular SCA tool, namely SonarQube Cloud.

Method: We conducted a mining study of GitHub projects that are linked through GitHub Actions to SonarQube Cloud projects.

Results: Among 321 GitHub projects using SonarQube Cloud, 81% of them are correctly connected to SonarQube Cloud projects, while others exhibit misconfigurations or restricted access. Among 265 accessible SonarQube Cloud projects, 75% use the organization's default quality gate, i.e., a set of conditions that deployed source code must meet to pass automated checks. While 55% of the projects use the built-in quality gate provided by SonarQube Cloud, 45% of them customize their quality gate with different conditions. Overall, the most common quality conditions align with SonarQube Cloud's 'Clean as You Code' principle and enforce security, maintainability, reliability, coverage, and a few duplicates on newly added or modified source code.

Conclusions: Many projects rely on predefined configurations, yet a significant portion customize their configurations to meet specific quality goals. Building on our initial results, we envision a future research agenda linking quality gate configurations to actual software outcomes (e.g., improvement of software security). This would enable evidence-based recommendations for configuring SCA tools like SonarQube Cloud in various contexts. 

The European energy sector, particularly the market for electricity distribution, is entering a period of major transformation. Moving from a historically stable setting focused on grid maintenance and harmonization, the sector now faces a predicted unprecedented demand growth driven by electrification and new energy-intensive industries. Meeting this challenge appears to require major investments in grid infrastructure. Given the monopolistic nature of electricity distribution system operators (DSOs), it is essential to ensure that such investments are efficiently employed. Moreover, as secure and affordable electricity supply underpins economic competitiveness and social welfare, evaluating regulatory effectiveness and addressing information asymmetries between DSOs and regulators remain vital.

This thesis contributes to the understanding of DSO performance across Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland, by encompassing five distinct papers. The first paper, Rasmussen (2025a), describes the data collection and harmonization process for an empirical cross-country dataset used throughout the subsequent papers. The second paper, Rasmussen (2025b), identifies both persistent structural (exogenous) and transient (endogenous) cost inefficiencies across DSOs in all five countries. The third paper, Qasim et al. (2026), shows that ownership structures vary widely but that shifting ownership does not consistently improve efficiency, though it may affect strategic and operational priorities. The fourth paper, Rasmussen et al. (2026), finds that many DSOs operate below optimal scale size, suggesting unrealized economies of scale, which could be realized through merger encouragement. Finally, the fifth paper, Rasmussen (2025c), shows that Danish revenue regulation appears to have modestly reduced overall DSO costs but has not consistently improved cost efficiency within the regulatory time period examined.

Together, these papers offer three key policy insights: 1) Cost inefficiencies persist, suggesting that existing revenue or price cap mechanisms, particularly in Denmark, may provide insufficient motivation for sustained efficiency gains. However, when imposed, such frameworks should also account for structural factors beyond DSOs’ control. 2) Further mergers could improve market efficiency, but incentives must avoid promoting over-consolidation beyond optimal scale size. 3) Since ownership type alone does not appear as a driver of efficiency, regulators should focus on operational performance rather than ownership form.

Climate change requires us to fundamentally change the way we plan and develop our cities and regions. This raises questions about the role and capacity of spatial planning in general and the agency and expertise of planners in particular. Based on 27 qualitative interviews with Swedish planning professionals, we identify four key constraints: the increasing politicisation and complexity of planning practice, a cultivated practice of bypassing planners' expertise and a loss of control over their own professional sphere. Our findings suggest that the Swedish planning community is 'congealed' rather than agile when it comes to promoting zero-carbon cities and regions.

Accurate knowledge of seawater optical properties is essential for underwater imaging, sensing, and optical communication, particularly in coastal and shallow-water environments where geometric light propagation effects can influence measurement accuracy. While empirical formulations describing the refractive index of seawater are well established and widely used in the visible spectral range, their applicability in the near-ultraviolet region has received limited experimental validation. In this work, the applicability of an established empirical seawater refractive-index formulation in the near-ultraviolet band is investigated through a combined numerical and experimental approach. First, the empirical model is evaluated numerically to examine its spectral behavior across the visible-near-ultraviolet transition. The results indicate smooth and physically consistent refractive-index variation near the ultraviolet boundary. Second, a controlled laboratory experiment is conducted in which near-ultraviolet beam refraction through stratified seawater is measured using a multi-compartment tank designed to emulate discrete ocean depth intervals. Beam displacement measurements at two near-ultraviolet wavelength bands are compared directly with predictions obtained from a multi-layer ray-tracing simulation based on the empirical formulation. The close agreement between simulated and experimentally measured beam displacement across multiple depth configurations provides physical validation of the empirical refractive-index model in the near-ultraviolet region under the investigated conditions. These findings support the use of established refractive-index formulations for near-ultraviolet underwater optical modeling and contribute to a more reliable foundation for near-UV marine optical sensing and measurement applications.

In this paper, a two-dimensional (2D) autoregressive (AR) model is employed as a mitigation algorithm for interference in the Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radars. The AR model, due to its simple structure, can perform super efficiently in multi-dimensional estimation problems and can be a suitable replacement for complex Neural Network (NN) based algorithms. This study addresses the advanced requirements of the 2DAR algorithm for mitigating interference in actual frames collected from real-world experiments. Three approaches to interference generation were incorporated to reproduce and study the most common and likely circumstances of mutual interference. A dynamic sampling direction selection framework is developed to address the unpredictable shapes of interfered segments within a frame. An iterative signal reconstruction algorithm is proposed to reconstruct the damaged areas using clean samples. Finally, the parallelizable processes were vectorized to make them implementable in the real world. The 2DAR mitigator’s performance was assessed using a diverse dataset of frames collected from real-world experiments, each containing unique target, noise, and interference attributes. The derived mitigator improved the signal in all experimental cases, down to the noise floor, and increased the Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) to almost 15 dB. Finally, the performance of different order models was compared in an identical hardware and software environment to provide a scaled indicator of the computation escalation in different model orders.

Team-based capstone projects are vital in preparing computer science students for real-world work by developing teamwork, communication, and industry-relevant technical skills. Their assessment, however, is challenging, requiring alignment between academic criteria and external stakeholder expectations, fair evaluation of individual contributions, recognition of diverse skills, and clarity on external partners involvement in the evaluation process. The high stakes of these projects further demand transparent and equitable assessment methods that are perceived as fair by all involved. Our working group (WG) addresses the challenges of capstone project assessment by examining the perspectives of instructors, students, and external stakeholders to support fair and effective evaluation. Building on insights from our previous WG and a comprehensive review of the literature, we used a mixed-methods approach combining online surveys (quantitative) and in-depth interviews (qualitative) with instructors, students, and external stakeholders. In total, we collected 66 survey responses and conducted 30 interviews across multiple countries and institutions, capturing a diverse range of global perspectives on capstone course assessments. Insights from instructors and students revealed several commonalities, for example, in the types of assessed components and the challenges of identifying and addressing non-contributing group members. Our findings also revealed clear variation between instructor and student perspectives on how contributions are measured and weighted. Instructors were reluctant to rely heavily on peer or self-evaluation due to concerns about reliability, preferring scaffolded assessments and early-warning systems to gather contribution data and moderate team dynamics. They viewed contribution-based grading as positive but resource-intensive. Students, in contrast, emphasized the need for more transparency, formative feedback, and accurate recognition of individual contributions. They also expressed concerns about the lack of recognition for hidden labor (e.g., project management, team coordination), assessor inconsistency, and a reluctance to critique peers. Instructors treated peer input as supplementary evidence, whereas students perceived it as high-stakes and socially risky. Stakeholder involvement in assessment was generally limited to providing formative feedback and participating in final showcase events. We also identified generative AI as a rapidly evolving challenge, with both students and instructors seeking guidance on acceptable use and exploring opportunities to automate aspects of assessment. Our results offer actionable evidence-based guidance for designing transparent and equitable assessment practices in team-based computing capstones. 

One of the most important choices a researcher makes is selecting a research paradigm and methodology, without which they will be hampered in their search for knowledge and answers. Ideally, researchers consider all possible approaches and select the most appropriate one, but several factors constrain this: Time, familiarity with certain approaches, and the uncertainty of the benefit of change. \Cer draws from many research disciplines, exposing new possibilities that may not be seized due to these limitations. The Cards for Alternative Research Design (CARD) deck is designed to expand researchers awareness of different research approaches through a card-based prototyping exercise. This serious card-based game approach could be used by graduate students, early-career researchers, research course instructors, research mentors, and even experienced researchers. CARD games are intended to reduce the formality and potentially confrontational aspects of being asked to consider new approaches, allowing participants to examine their current research and plans through different paradigms, methodologies, and constraints, without it being a direct criticism of their current choices. This can increase the level of understanding of research framing and practice, strengthening the arguments for using a given approach and introducing valid arguments to adopt different approaches, with low time investment. This report summarizes the current evolution of the CARD deck, including an accompanying glossary and multiple games that can be played with the cards. 

INTRODUCTION: Sexual life is important for many people and may be limited by breathlessness. We evaluated associations between breathlessness and individuals' perceived satisfaction with sexual lives and explored mediating factors in this relationship.

METHODS: A cross-sectional, online, population-based survey of Australian adults with key demographics (age, sex, rurality, state/territory) reflected the 2016 national census. Assessments included: demographics, breathlessness (modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) scale); satisfaction with overall sexual life; whether breathlessness had affected overall sexual life and physical, social and emotional functioning. Binomial and ordinal logistic regression evaluated associations; a structural equation model evaluated direct, indirect and total associations.

RESULTS: Of 10 033 respondents (52% women; mean age 45.4 (SD 18.6)), 4245/10 033 (42%) reported mMRC ≥1, 1214/10 033 (12%) reported being very dissatisfied with their overall sexual life and 943/10 033 (9%) reported that breathlessness had impacted their overall sexual life. Compared with mMRC 0, there was an unadjusted association between mMRC 1 and satisfaction with overall sexual life which remained after adjusting for age, sex and body mass index (adjusted OR (aOR): 1.50; 95% CI 1.29 to 1.74).Breathlessness severity was associated with worse unadjusted and adjusted impact on overall sexual life: mMRC 0 versus mMRC 1 (aOR: 1.84; 95% CI 1.36 to 2.47). The associations increased stepwise for each higher mMRC level. There may be moderation of the effect of breathlessness on satisfaction with sexual life through emotional functioning.

CONCLUSIONS: Increasing breathlessness severity increases the likelihood of a person's overall sexual life being impacted negatively, potentially mediated partly through emotional functioning. 

Carefully selecting the source data is crucial to achieve high performance of transfer learning methods for brain–computer interfaces (BCIs). Especially so in settings where a large amount of source data is available, and finding the optimal source is not computationally feasible. This paper presents a novel method for source selection, the so-called Transfer Performance Predictor (TPP) method. The TPP method is based on computationally simple features, a choice made to enable real-time implementation and reduce calibration time. The presented method outperforms other comparable source selection methods in BCI settings where a large amount of source data is available. By using the TPP method, source selection can be performed quickly with good results for transfer learning performance, which means that the BCI calibration time can be reduced and a new target user can more quickly start using the BCI. 

Generative AI (GenAI) is playing an increasingly influential role in computing education across all levels, offering new opportunities to support both teaching and learning. However, its effective integration raises critical concerns related to trust, academic integrity, and broader social and ethical implications. While substantial attention has been given to GenAI use in introductory programming courses (e.g., CS0/CS1), there remains a notable gap in research addressing its application in upper-level computing courses, such as software engineering, human-computer interaction, algorithms, operating systems, and theoretical computer science. This working group report presents two complementary studies: A systematic literature review of GenAI interventions in upper-level computing education, and a survey of computing instructors on their practices and perspectives regarding GenAI integration in these contexts. Based on the combined findings, this report presents an overview of current practice and practical guidance for computing instructors. The report is intended to inform the design of engaging, pedagogically sound, and forward-looking curricula that align with modern educational and workforce standards and expectations.