Lean object-oriented software development

Software failures can be dramatic, exp3ensive and catastrophic. The London Stock Exchange was developed eleven years late and 13,200% over budget (Corr 2002). A catastro0phic software failure in February 1998 interrupted the New York Mercantile Exchange and phone service in several East Coast cities (NIST 2002). All industries need software development process improvement. Of 800 business technology managers responding to an InformationWeek survey, 97% reported problems with software bugs in the past year and nine out of 10 reported higher costs, lost revenue, or both as a result (Hayes 2002, p. 40

Bias adjustment of infrared-based rainfall estimation using Passive Microwave satellite rainfall data

This study explores using Passive Microwave (PMW) rainfall estimation for spatial and temporal adjustment of Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks-Cloud Classification System(PERSIANN-CCS). The PERSIANN-CCS algorithm collects information from infrared images to estimate rainfall. PERSIANN-CCS is one of the algorithms used in the IntegratedMultisatellite Retrievals for GPM (Global Precipitation Mission) estimation for the time period PMW rainfall estimations are limited or not available. Continued improvement of PERSIANN-CCS will support Integrated Multisatellite Retrievals for GPM for current as well as retrospective estimations of global precipitation. This study takes advantage of the high spatial and temporal resolution of GEO-based PERSIANN-CCS estimation and the more effective, but lower sample frequency, PMW estimation. The Probability Matching Method (PMM) was used to adjust the rainfall distribution of GEO-based PERSIANN-CCS toward that of PMW rainfall estimation. The results show that a significant improvement of global PERSIANN-CCS rainfall estimation is obtained

Planting date, storage and gibberellic acid affect dormancy of Zantedeschia Spreng. hybrids : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Applied Science, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

To match the supply of Zantedeschia cut flowers and tubers to the demands of the international market, crops have to be timed to a schedule, which requires control of the growth cycle and, in particular, dormancy. In order to improve the predictability and accuracy of timing of Zantedeschia, the effect of different planting seasons and two dormancy-breaking treatments were tested on cultivars 'Black Magic' and 'Treasure', which were known to have a contrasting level of dormancy. Tissue-cultured plants were ex-flasked in July and November 1999, and grown for 180 days in a heated glasshouse (first cycle). Between 120 and 180 days of growth, plants were harvested at 15 days intervals, and tubers cured. Subsequently, tubers were stored for 0 or 3 weeks (10 ± 1°C; 70-80% RH) and dipped in 100 mg.L -1 gibberellic acid plus surfactant or water plus surfactant, prior to planting for dormancy assessment (second cycle). Growing the plants with four months difference in planting date did not cause major alteration in the occurrence of dormancy. Dormancy was brought forward by up to 10 days after the November date of ex-flask, but this was most likely to be due to higher temperatures during that period. In contrast, depth of dormancy varied between cultivars, with 'Black Magic' taking in average 16 days longer to emerge than 'Treasure'. Storage partially released bud dormancy of the tubers. It increased emergence to over 80% regardless of the time of harvest in the first cycle and cultivar, but reduced time to emergence mostly after harvests at 180 days. Furthermore, following storage, time to emergence was reduced to over 50 and 30 days for 'Black Magic' and 'Treasure', respectively, which exceeded the commercially acceptable period to emerge. Gibberellic acid also broke bud dormancy, improving emergence to over 80%, and reduced time to emergence to between 29 and 57 days, irrespective of the time of harvest in the first cycle and cultivar. The effectiveness of gibberellic acid at any time following harvest during the first cycle, may imply that dormancy of Zantedeschia is not as deep as in temperate woody plants. Cessation of leaf emergence in the first cycle was found not to be directly related to the occurrence of dormancy. Degree-days, on the other hand, presented a possible alternative to predict this process. It was estimated that deepest dormancy of 'Black Magic' occurred between 2614 and 2732 °C-days after planting, while deepest dormancy of 'Treasure' occurred between 2681 and 2839 °C-days after planting. The present study presents storage and gibberellic acid as possible options to control dormancy, and the use of degree-days to predict the occurrence of this process. Further research is necessary to develop these options as commercially applicable practices, and to further clarify the process of dormancy in Zantedeschia

To be or not to Be? - First Evidence for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay

Double beta decay is indispensable to solve the question of the neutrino mass matrix together with $\nu$ oscillation experiments. Recent analysis of the most sensitive experiment since nine years - the HEIDELBERG-MOSCOW experiment in Gran-Sasso - yields a first indication for the neutrinoless decay mode. This result is the first evidence for lepton number violation and proves the neutrino to be a Majorana particle. We give the present status of the analysis in this report. It excludes several of the neutrino mass scenarios allowed from present neutrino oscillation experiments - only degenerate scenarios and those with inverse mass hierarchy survive. This result allows neutrinos to still play an important role as dark matter in the Universe. To improve the accuracy of the present result, considerably enlarged experiments are required, such as GENIUS. A GENIUS Test Facility has been funded and will come into operation by early 2003.Comment: 16 pages, latex, 10 figures, Talk was presented at International Conference "Neutrinos and Implications for Physics Beyond the Standard Model", Oct. 11-13, 2002, Stony Brook, USA, Proc. (2003) ed. by R. Shrock, also see Home Page of Heidelberg Non-Accelerator Particle Physics Group: http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/non_acc

Economic Integration in East Asia: Trends, Prospects, and a Possible Roadmap

This paper, which is a revised version of the ADB Working Paper on Regional Economic Integration No. 2, reviews trends in East Asian regionalism in the areas of trade and investment, money and finance, and infrastructure. It finds that trade and, to a lesser extent, financial integration is starting to increase in the region. It also finds that business cycles are starting to be more synchronized, enhancing the case for further monetary integration among these countries. The paper also outlines a roadmap for East Asian integration.

Economic Integration in East Asia: Trends, Prospects, and a Possible Roadmap

This paper reviews trends in East Asian regionalism in the areas of trade and investment, money and finance, and infrastructure. It presents various measures of trade and financial integration. An important finding of the paper is that increasing trade and financial integration in the region is now starting to lead to a synchronization of business cycles in a selected group of countries, further enhancing the case for monetary integration among these countries. The paper also outlines a roadmap for East Asian integration.ASEAN/East Asian economic cooperation and integration; business cycle synchronization; free trade agreements; policy coordination

Efficient Algorithms for Searching the Minimum Information Partition in Integrated Information Theory

The ability to integrate information in the brain is considered to be an essential property for cognition and consciousness. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) hypothesizes that the amount of integrated information ($\Phi$) in the brain is related to the level of consciousness. IIT proposes that to quantify information integration in a system as a whole, integrated information should be measured across the partition of the system at which information loss caused by partitioning is minimized, called the Minimum Information Partition (MIP). The computational cost for exhaustively searching for the MIP grows exponentially with system size, making it difficult to apply IIT to real neural data. It has been previously shown that if a measure of $\Phi$ satisfies a mathematical property, submodularity, the MIP can be found in a polynomial order by an optimization algorithm. However, although the first version of $\Phi$ is submodular, the later versions are not. In this study, we empirically explore to what extent the algorithm can be applied to the non-submodular measures of $\Phi$ by evaluating the accuracy of the algorithm in simulated data and real neural data. We find that the algorithm identifies the MIP in a nearly perfect manner even for the non-submodular measures. Our results show that the algorithm allows us to measure $\Phi$ in large systems within a practical amount of time

Geographical versus Industrial Diversification: A Mean Variance Spanning Approach

This paper addresses whether country allocation provides benefits over industry allocation in a sample of European country and industry indexes. Strategy performance is compared using a mean-variance spanning test. We find that, for investors with low risk aversion, industry allocation is as good as investing in the complete set of assets. Moreover, in the most recent subperiod coinciding with the inception of the Euro, country and industry diversification are both effective. By contrast, investors with high risk aversion should always mix country and industry portfolios. A striking aspect of our analysis is that we do not find empirical evidence to support the argument that country diversification is a superior approach.Diversification gains, EMU, mean-variance spanning, portfolio allocation strategies