Dashboard system for measuring green software design

Global ICT industry is claimed to account for approximately 2 percent of global carbon dioxide which is a figure equivalent to the aviation industry. This is due to lack of awareness to reduce the environmental impact of ICT products and services by the ICT industry practitioners. Therefore, we proposed a GreenDash system, a web-based dashboard that provides a platform for software developers to measure green software design. Software developers capable to calculate sustainability of green software design based on the four components of Information System (IS): database, hardware, people and network. GreenDash System helps to assist software developers to ensure that they considered about green software in designing software product and services

Tidal dynamics and mangrove carbon sequestration during the Oligo–Miocene in the South China Sea

Modern mangroves are among the most carbon-rich biomes on Earth, but their long-term (≥106 yr) impact on the global carbon cycle is unknown. The extent, productivity and preservation of mangroves are controlled by the interplay of tectonics, global sea level and sedimentation, including tide, wave and fluvial processes. The impact of these processes on mangrove-bearing successions in the Oligo–Miocene of the South China Sea (SCS) is evaluated herein. Palaeogeographic reconstructions, palaeotidal modelling, and facies analysis suggest that elevated tidal range and bed shear stress optimised mangrove development along tide-influenced tropical coastlines. Preservation of mangrove organic carbon (OC) was promoted by high tectonic subsidence and fluvial sediment supply. Lithospheric storage of OC in peripheral SCS basins potentially exceeded 4000 Gt (equivalent to 2000 ppm of atmospheric CO2). These results highlight the crucial impact of tectonic and oceanographic processes on mangrove OC sequestration within the global carbon cycle on geological timescales

Productive practices of Hotel Management System using usability approach: a case study

Hospitality industry encompasses a variety of service industries that include food service, tourism and hotels. Nowadays, hospitality industry has turned to IT as a way to cope with an environment characterized by globalization, competition, high client turnover, and rising guest expectations. Commonly in hotel field, Hotel Management System (HMS) is the main component used to handle the operation of all major tasks such as reservation, room check-in, room check-out and all others monitoring tasks. This work aims to evaluate the usability aspect of HMS and its relation to productive practices. Usability is one of the important attributes for system quality, thus it does affect the business productivity. We focused on the evaluation of six usability attributes which adopted from ISO/IEC 25010 and Software Usability Measurement Inventory (SUMI) which are effectiveness, efficiency, affect, helpfulness, control, and learnability. It is limited to five common tasks in HMS that ordinarily perform by the users. There are two stages of usability testing were conducted in this study, which are preliminary usability testing to evaluate the usability of the current HMS, and post survey usability testing on the improve version of the HMS. The improve version of the HMS was develop as a prototype based on the preliminary usability testing result where some usability improvement was adding to the prototype. Based on the study conducted, it is found that the productivity in the hotel operation has potential to be increased by improving the usability of the HMS

Extensive rectus sheath hematoma secondary to erroneous technique of anticoagulant injection

Rectus sheath hematoma (RSH) is a rare clinical entity that has been associated with the use of injectable anticoagulant therapy. Although low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) was proven to have a better safety profile than its predecessor, it is not without its own risk of bleeding. The increase in use of self-injectable LMWH in both in-patient as well as out-patient basis warrants greater awareness among health care providers, patients and caregivers regarding the potential risks and identification of possible complications. We present a fatal case of rectus sheath hematoma in an elderly man that occurred following erroneous technique of Dalteparin injection

A Multi-commodity network flow model for cloud service environments

Next-generation systems, such as the big data cloud, have to cope with several challenges, e.g., move of excessive amount of data at a dictated speed, and thus, require the investigation of concepts additional to security in order to ensure their orderly function. Resilience is such a concept, which when ensured by systems or networks they are able to provide and maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of various faults and challenges. In this paper, we investigate the multi-commodity flows problem, as a task within our D 2 R 2 +DR resilience strategy, and in the context of big data cloud systems. Specifically, proximal gradient optimization is proposed for determining optimal computation flows since such algorithms are highly attractive for solving big data problems. Many such problems can be formulated as the global consensus optimization ones, and can be solved in a distributed manner by the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) algorithm. Numerical evaluation of the proposed model is carried out in the context of specific deployments of a situation-aware information infrastructure

VoVo: a hybrid requirements prioritization technique in scrum-agile environment

Requirements prioritization is a crucial process in Requirements Engineering. However, selecting an appropriate technique in Scrum-Agile environment which can satisfy a quality factor such as scalability, effectiveness and efficiency can be difficult. Moreover, it becomes much more difficult if the stakeholders are distributed in different places and most of stakeholders tend to neglect this activity. This paper will proposed VoVo technique, a hybrid requirements prioritization technique which combined cumulative voting and Volere techniques. VoVo offers a structurally guided prioritization technique which can encourage user participation in prioritization process and also can mitigating the scalability issues especially in geographically distributed project. This hybrid technique is using two tiers prioritization process where in the first tier, the prioritization will be done by stakeholders while in the second tier requirementss will be prioritized by an experts usually a scrum master or project manager. The implemented VoVo has been evaluated through evaluation survey which addressed directly to scrum practitioners. Its suitability and effectiveness in managing and prioritizing requirements in Sprint Backlog will be measured based on testing and evaluation survey feedbacks. Hence, we conclude that VoVo technique is suitable to be used for managing and prioritizing requirements in Scrum project

Trial protocol OPPTIMUM : does progesterone prophylaxis for the prevention of preterm labour improve outcome?

Background Preterm birth is a global problem, with a prevalence of 8 to 12% depending on location. Several large trials and systematic reviews have shown progestogens to be effective in preventing or delaying preterm birth in selected high risk women with a singleton pregnancy (including those with a short cervix or previous preterm birth). Although an improvement in short term neonatal outcomes has been shown in some trials these have not consistently been confirmed in meta-analyses. Additionally data on longer term outcomes is limited to a single trial where no difference in outcomes was demonstrated at four years of age of the child, despite those in the “progesterone” group having a lower incidence of preterm birth. Methods/Design The OPPTIMUM study is a double blind randomized placebo controlled trial to determine whether progesterone prophylaxis to prevent preterm birth has long term neonatal or infant benefit. Specifically it will study whether, in women with singleton pregnancy and at high risk of preterm labour, prophylactic vaginal natural progesterone, 200 mg daily from 22 – 34 weeks gestation, compared to placebo, improves obstetric outcome by lengthening pregnancy thus reducing the incidence of preterm delivery (before 34 weeks), improves neonatal outcome by reducing a composite of death and major morbidity, and leads to improved childhood cognitive and neurosensory outcomes at two years of age. Recruitment began in 2009 and is scheduled to close in Spring 2013. As of May 2012, over 800 women had been randomized in 60 sites. Discussion OPPTIMUM will provide further evidence on the effectiveness of vaginal progesterone for prevention of preterm birth and improvement of neonatal outcomes in selected groups of women with singleton pregnancy at high risk of preterm birth. Additionally it will determine whether any reduction in the incidence of preterm birth is accompanied by improved childhood outcome

Evaluation of the tissue toxicity of antiseptics by the hen's egg test on the chorioallantoic membrane (HETCAM)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Antiseptics are frequently used for the prophylaxis and treatment of local infections of chronic wounds. Whereas local antiseptics in general have a positive effect on wound healing an uncritical use may impair wound healing due to toxic side effects.</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>We sought to assess the vascular irritation potential of different antiseptic solutions and ointments commonly used for short and long term application as a measure of tissue toxicity.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>The vascular irritation was evaluated by the hen's egg test (HET) on the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM). The effects on the vessels of a mucous membrane were directly assessed by stereomicroscopic observation in vivo.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Severe CAM irritation was observed after short-term applications of 1% octenidin-2HCl (Octeni sept™), 72% isopropanol (Cutasept™), 0.35% chloroxylenol (Dettol™) and 10% PVP-I ointment (Betaisodona™). Medium irritations were observed for 10% PVP-I solution (Betaisodona™), 3% lysosomal PVP-I ointment (Repithel™), 1.8% cadexomer-iodine ointment (Iodosorb™) and 1% cadexomer-iodine pellets (Iodosorb™). Finally, slight irritations were observed for 1% PVP-I solution (Betaisodona™), 0.1% polyhexanid plus betain (Prontosan™) and 1% silver-sulfadiazine ointment (Flammazine™), whereas 0.04% polyhexanid solution (Lavanid™), washings from sterile maggots of Lucilia sericata and filtrated enzymes from Clostridium histolyticum (Iruxol-N™) showed no effects of irritation. In the long-term approaches, no vascular irritations were found for polyhexanid, washings from Lucilia sericata and enzyme filtrations from Clostridium histolyticum.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The vascular injuries caused by the studied antiseptics are an indirect indicator of their tissue toxicity. Strikingly, even therapeutic substances, which have been regarded as safe in their application for the treatment of chronic wounds in clinical studies, showed severe irritations on the CAM. We suggest that agents with no or low irritation potential on the CAM should be preferred in the clinical practice in order to obtain optimal results.</p

Self-duality of the D1-D5 near-horizon

We explore fermionic T-duality and self-duality in the geometry AdS3 x S3 x T4 in type IIB supergravity. We explicitly construct the Killing spinors and the fermionic T-duality isometries and show that the geometry is self-dual under a combination of two bosonic AdS3 T-dualities, four fermionic T-dualities and either two additional T-dualities along T4 or two T-dualities along S3. In addition, we show that the presence of a B-field acts as an obstacle to self-duality, a property attributable to S- duality and fermionic T-duality not commuting. Finally, we argue that fermionic T-duality may be extended to CY2 = K3, a setting where we cannot explicitly construct the Killing spinors.Comment: 24 pages, references added, changes made to reinforce the point that S-duality and fermionic T-duality generically do not commute, version accepted to JHE