Integrating testing techniques through process programming

Integration of multiple testing techniques is required to demonstrate high quality of software. Technique integration has three basic goals: incremental testing capabilities, extensive error detection, and cost-effective application. We are experimenting with the use of process programming as a mechanism of integrating testing techniques. Having set out to integrate DATA FLOW testing and RELAY, we proposed synergistic use of these techniques to achieve all three goals. We developed a testing process program much as we would develop a software product from requirements through design to implementation and evaluation. We found process programming to be effective for explicitly integrating the techniques and achieving the desired synergism. Used in this way, process programming also mitigates many of the other problems that plague testing in the software development process

FAMILY REUNIFICATION OF NON-EU NATIONALS IN IRELAND. ESRI RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 62 MAY 2017

Joining family is among the myriad reasons for migration, accounting for 30 per cent of all permanent migration into OECD countries in 2015 (OECD 2016). The right to family, or family unity, is a principle enshrined in international, European and domestic law. Family reunification promotes the integration of migrants already in the host country (INIS, 2016a; UNHCR, 2013). The EU Directive on the right to family reunification states that it helps to create socio-cultural stability, facilitating integration and promoting economic and social cohesion. Family reunification is also central to the protection mandate of UNHCR as it is fundamental to ensuring the protection and wellbeing of the individual family members and the integration of refugees (UNHCR, 2001). Family reunification is often a feature of national immigration systems used to attract highly skilled migrants. For example, research identifies the absence of clearly defined family reunification as a possible barrier to attracting non-EEA1 nationals to Ireland (Quinn and Gusciute, 2013). The purpose of this study is to analyse family reunification policy, law and practice in Ireland, considering recent changes in law and guidance. The study focuses on rules governing family reunification for non-EEA citizens. Some comparisons are drawn between the EU context and the Irish context where relevant

Illinois Water Quality and the Clean Water Act

This report contains the conclusions of a study performed by the Environmental Law and Policy Center of the Midwest ("ELPC") on the water quality of Illinois' rivers, lakes and streams, and Illinois' implementation of the Clean Water Act. The Lumpkin Foundation of Mattoon, Illinois provided funding for the study. Because the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency ("IEPA") is responsible for implementing the Clean Water Act in Illinois and for preparing most of the key reports relating to Illinois water quality, our research necessarily focused on the work of that agency. ELPC studied the publicly available IEPA data on a number of key indicators of water quality and the strength of a number of elements of IEPA's water pollution control efforts. Within the resources available for this study, ELPC also looked, for comparison purposes, at data from federal agencies and selected data collected by pollution control agencies of other states. Further, ELPC conducted interviews with federal and state officials and others with knowledge relating to the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Illinois water quality program. The study considered the following areas: Illinois Water Quality; Amount and Kind of Water Quality Data Collected; Strength of Water Quality Standards; Adequacy of Permit Conditions For Preventing Violations of Water Quality Standards; Permit Enforcement; Illinois' Stormwater and Combined Sewer Overflow Programs; Illinois' Non-Point Source Programs. Project Team: Howard Learner, Executive Director; Ann Alexander, Staff Attorney; Faith Bugel, Staff Attorney; Albert Ettinger, Senior Staff Attorney*; Shannon Fisk, Staff Attorney. * Principal Autho

New genetic loci implicated in fasting glucose homeostasis and their impact on type 2 diabetes risk.

Levels of circulating glucose are tightly regulated. To identify new loci influencing glycemic traits, we performed meta-analyses of 21 genome-wide association studies informative for fasting glucose, fasting insulin and indices of beta-cell function (HOMA-B) and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) in up to 46,186 nondiabetic participants. Follow-up of 25 loci in up to 76,558 additional subjects identified 16 loci associated with fasting glucose and HOMA-B and two loci associated with fasting insulin and HOMA-IR. These include nine loci newly associated with fasting glucose (in or near ADCY5, MADD, ADRA2A, CRY2, FADS1, GLIS3, SLC2A2, PROX1 and C2CD4B) and one influencing fasting insulin and HOMA-IR (near IGF1). We also demonstrated association of ADCY5, PROX1, GCK, GCKR and DGKB-TMEM195 with type 2 diabetes. Within these loci, likely biological candidate genes influence signal transduction, cell proliferation, development, glucose-sensing and circadian regulation. Our results demonstrate that genetic studies of glycemic traits can identify type 2 diabetes risk loci, as well as loci containing gene variants that are associated with a modest elevation in glucose levels but are not associated with overt diabetes

Solar heating and cooling systems design and development

The development and delivery of eight prototype solar heating and cooling systems for installation and operational test was reported. Two heating and six heating and cooling units will be delivered for single family residences, multiple family residences and commercial applications

Design and installation package for solar hot water system

Included are the system performance specifications, system design drawings, hazard analysis and other information necessary to evaluate the design and install the system

Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQCODE) for the diagnosis of dementia within community dwelling populations

<b>Background</b><p></p> Various tools exist for initial assessment of possible dementia with no consensus on the optimal assessment method. Instruments that use collateral sources to assess change in cognitive function over time may have particular utility. The most commonly used informant dementia assessment is the Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQCODE).<p></p> A synthesis of the available data regarding IQCODE accuracy will help inform cognitive assessment strategies for clinical practice, research and policy.<p></p> <b>Objectives</b><p></p> Our primary objective was to determine the diagnostic accuracy of the informant based questionnaire IQCODE, for detection of all cause (undifferentiated) dementia in community-dwelling adults with no previous cognitive assessment. We sought to describe the accuracy of IQCODE (the index test) against a clinical diagnosis of dementia (the reference standard).<p></p> Our secondary objective was to describe the effect of heterogeneity on the summary estimates. We were particularly interested in the traditional 26-item scale versus the 16-item short form; and language of administration. We explored the effect of varying the threshold IQCODE score used to define 'test positivity'.<p></p> <b>Search methods</b><p></p> We searched the following sources on 28 January 2013: ALOIS (Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group), MEDLINE (OvidSP), EMBASE (OvidSP), PsycINFO (OvidSP), BIOSIS Previews (ISI Web of Knowledge), Web of Science with Conference Proceedings (ISI Web of Knowledge), LILACS (BIREME). We also searched sources relevant or specific to diagnostic test accuracy: MEDION (Universities of Maastrict and Leuven); DARE (York University); ARIF (Birmingham University). We used sensitive search terms based on MeSH terms and other controlled vocabulary.<p></p> <b>Selection criteria</b><p></p> We selected those studies performed in community settings that used (not necessarily exclusively) the IQCODE to assess for presence of dementia and, where dementia diagnosis was confirmed, with clinical assessment. Our intention with limiting the search to a 'community' setting was to include those studies closest to population level assessment. Within our predefined community inclusion criteria, there were relevant papers that fulfilled our definition of community dwelling but represented a selected population, for example stroke survivors. We included these studies but performed sensitivity analyses to assess the effects of these less representative populations on the summary results.<p></p> <b>Data collection and analysis</b><p></p> We screened all titles generated by the electronic database searches and abstracts of all potentially relevant studies were reviewed. Full papers were assessed for eligibility and data extracted by two independent assessors. For quality assessment (risk of bias and applicability) we used the QUADAS 2 tool. We included test accuracy data on the IQCODE used at predefined diagnostic thresholds. Where data allowed, we performed meta-analyses to calculate summary values of sensitivity and specificity with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs). We pre-specified analyses to describe the effect of IQCODE format (traditional or short form) and language of administration for the IQCODE.<p></p> <b>Main results</b><p></p> From 16,144 citations, 71 papers described IQCODE test accuracy. We included 10 papers (11 independent datasets) representing data from 2644 individuals (n = 379 (14%) with dementia). Using IQCODE cut-offs commonly employed in clinical practice (3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6) the sensitivity and specificity of IQCODE for diagnosis of dementia across the studies were generally above 75%.<p></p> Taking an IQCODE threshold of 3.3 (or closest available) the sensitivity was 0.80 (95% CI 0.75 to 0.85); specificity was 0.84 (95% CI 0.78 to 0.90); positive likelihood ratio was 5.2 (95% CI 3.7 to 7.5) and the negative likelihood ratio was 0.23 (95% CI 0.19 to 0.29).<p></p> Comparative analysis suggested no significant difference in the test accuracy of the 16 and 26-item IQCODE tests and no significant difference in test accuracy by language of administration. There was little difference in sensitivity across our predefined diagnostic cut-points.<p></p> There was substantial heterogeneity in the included studies. Sensitivity analyses removing potentially unrepresentative populations in these studies made little difference to the pooled data estimates. The majority of included papers had potential for bias, particularly around participant selection and sampling. The quality of reporting was suboptimal particularly regarding timing of assessments and descriptors of reproducibility and inter-observer variability.<p></p> <b>Authors' conclusions</b><p></p> Published data suggest that if using the IQCODE for community dwelling older adults, the 16 item IQCODE may be preferable to the traditional scale due to lesser test burden and no obvious difference in accuracy. Although IQCODE test accuracy is in a range that many would consider 'reasonable', in the context of community or population settings the use of the IQCODE alone would result in substantial misdiagnosis and false reassurance. Across the included studies there were issues with heterogeneity, several potential biases and suboptimal reporting quality

Interleukin-1 blockade in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction: rationale and design of the Diastolic Heart Failure Anakinra Response Trial 2 (D-HART2)

Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) now accounts for the majority of con-firmed HF cases in the United States. However, there are no highly effective evidence-basedtreatments currently available for these patients. Inflammation correlates positively withadverse outcomes in HF patients. Interleukin (IL)-1, a prototypical inflammatory cytokine, hasbeen implicated as a driver of diastolic dysfunction in preclinical animal models and a pilot clini-cal trial. The Diastolic Heart Failure Anakinra Response Trial 2 (D-HART2) is a phase 2, 2:1 ran-domized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial that will test the hypothesis that IL-1blockade with anakinra (recombinant human IL-1 receptor antagonist) improves (1) cardiorespi-ratory fitness, (2) objective evidence of diastolic dysfunction, and (3) elevated inflammation inpatients with HFpEF (http://www.ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02173548). The co–primary endpointswill be placebo-corrected interval changes in peak oxygen consumption and ventilatory effi-ciency at week 12. In addition, secondary and exploratory analyses will investigate the effectsof IL-1 blockade on cardiac structure and function, systemic inflammation, endothelial function,quality of life, body composition, nutritional status, and clinical outcomes. The D-HART2 clinicaltrial will add to the growing body of evidence on the role of inflammation in cardiovascular dis-ease, specifically focusing on patients with HFpEF

Search algorithms for regression test case prioritization

Regression testing is an expensive, but important, process. Unfortunately, there may be insufficient resources to allow for the re-execution of all test cases during regression testing. In this situation, test case prioritisation techniques aim to improve the effectiveness of regression testing, by ordering the test cases so that the most beneficial are executed first. Previous work on regression test case prioritisation has focused on Greedy Algorithms. However, it is known that these algorithms may produce sub-optimal results, because they may construct results that denote only local minima within the search space. By contrast, meta-heuristic and evolutionary search algorithms aim to avoid such problems. This paper presents results from an empirical study of the application of several greedy, meta-heuristic and evolutionary search algorithms to six programs, ranging from 374 to 11,148 lines of code for 3 choices of fitness metric. The paper addresses the problems of choice of fitness metric, characterisation of landscape modality and determination of the most suitable search technique to apply. The empirical results replicate previous results concerning Greedy Algorithms. They shed light on the nature of the regression testing search space, indicating that it is multi-modal. The results also show that Genetic Algorithms perform well, although Greedy approaches are surprisingly effective, given the multi-modal nature of the landscape

Using audit and feedback to increase clinician adherence to clinical practice guidelines in brain injury rehabilitation: v

ObjectiveThis study evaluated whether frequent (fortnightly) audit and feedback cycles over a sustained period of time (>12 months) increased clinician adherence to recommended guidelines in acquired brain injury rehabilitation.DesignA before and after study design.SettingA metropolitan inpatient brain injury rehabilitation unit.ParticipantsClinicians; medical, nursing and allied health staff.InterventionsFortnightly cycles of audit and feedback for 14 months. Each fortnight, medical file and observational audits were completed against 114 clinical indicators.Main outcome measureAdherence to guideline indicators before and after intervention, calculated by proportions, Mann-Whitney U and Chi square analysis.ResultsClinical and statistical significant improvements in median clinical indicator adherence were found immediately following the audit and feedback program from 38.8% (95% CI 34.3 to 44.4) to 83.6% (95% CI 81.8 to 88.5). Three months after cessation of the intervention, median adherence had decreased from 82.3% to 76.6% (95% CI 72.7 to 83.3, pConclusionA fortnightly audit and feedback program increased clinicians’ adherence to guideline recommendations in an inpatient acquired brain injury rehabilitation setting. We propose future studies build on the evidence-based method used in the present study to determine effectiveness and develop an implementation toolkit for scale-up.</div