Applying Standard Independent Verification and Validation (IVV) Techniques Within an Agile Framework: Is There a Compatibility Issue?

Agile methods have gained wide acceptance over the past several years, to the point that they are now a standard management and execution approach for small-scale software development projects. While conventional Agile methods are not generally applicable to large multi-year and mission-critical systems, Agile hybrids are now being developed (such as SAFe) to exploit the productivity improvements of Agile while retaining the necessary process rigor and coordination needs of these projects. From the perspective of Independent Verification and Validation (IVV), however, the adoption of these hybrid Agile frameworks is becoming somewhat problematic. Hence, we find it prudent to question the compatibility of conventional IVV techniques with (hybrid) Agile practices.This paper documents our investigation of (a) relevant literature, (b) the modification and adoption of Agile frameworks to accommodate the development of large scale, mission critical systems, and (c) the compatibility of standard IVV techniques within hybrid Agile development frameworks. Specific to the latter, we found that the IVV methods employed within a hybrid Agile process can be divided into three groups: (1) early lifecycle IVV techniques that are fully compatible with the hybrid lifecycles, (2) IVV techniques that focus on tracing requirements, test objectives, etc. are somewhat incompatible, but can be tailored with a modest effort, and (3) IVV techniques involving an assessment requiring artifact completeness that are simply not compatible with hybrid Agile processes, e.g., those that assume complete requirement specification early in the development lifecycle

Optimality Driven Nearest Centroid Classification from Genomic Data

Nearest-centroid classifiers have recently been successfully employed in high-dimensional applications, such as in genomics. A necessary step when building a classifier for high-dimensional data is feature selection. Feature selection is frequently carried out by computing univariate scores for each feature individually, without consideration for how a subset of features performs as a whole. We introduce a new feature selection approach for high-dimensional nearest centroid classifiers that instead is based on the theoretically optimal choice of a given number of features, which we determine directly here. This allows us to develop a new greedy algorithm to estimate this optimal nearest-centroid classifier with a given number of features. In addition, whereas the centroids are usually formed from maximum likelihood estimates, we investigate the applicability of high-dimensional shrinkage estimates of centroids. We apply the proposed method to clinical classification based on gene-expression microarrays, demonstrating that the proposed method can outperform existing nearest centroid classifiers

Cdc14B depletion leads to centriole amplification, and its overexpression prevents unscheduled centriole duplication

Centrosome duplication is tightly controlled in coordination with DNA replication. The molecular mechanism of centrosome duplication remains unclear. Previous studies found that a fraction of human proline-directed phosphatase Cdc14B associates with centrosomes. However, Cdc14B's involvement in centrosome cycle control has never been explored. Here, we show that depletion of Cdc14B by RNA interference leads to centriole amplification in both HeLa and normal human fibroblast BJ and MRC-5 cells. Induction of Cdc14B expression through a regulatable promoter significantly attenuates centriole amplification in prolonged S phase–arrested cells and proteasome inhibitor Z-L3VS–treated cells. This inhibitory function requires centriole-associated Cdc14B catalytic activity. Together, these results suggest a potential function for Cdc14B phosphatase in maintaining the fidelity of centrosome duplication cycle

Amorphous Transparent Conducting Oxides (TCOs) Deposited at T 100<= ..deg.. C

The summary of this report is that amorphous InZnO (a-IZO) is a very versatile TCO with: (1) low process temperatures ({approx} 100 C); (2) easy to make by sputtering; (3) excellent optical and electronic properties; (4) very smooth etchable films; and (5) remarkable thermal processing stability

A critical review of the impacts of cover crops on nitrogen leaching, net greenhouse gas balance and crop productivity

This work contributes to the UK-China Virtual Joint Centre N-Circle (grant number BB/N013484/1), SuperG (funded under EU Horizon 2020 programme) and ADVENT (grant number NE/M019691/1). DRC was supported by the UK-China Virtual joint Centre for Agricultural Nitrogen (CINAg, BB/N013468/1) and the UK-Brazil Virtual Joint Centre to deliver enhanced N-use efficiency via an integrated soil-plant systems approach (NUCLEUS), which are jointly supported by Newton fund via UK BBSRC and NERC. Jaak Truu received financing from Estonian Research Council (grant PRG548).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

An Introspective Comparison of Random Forest-Based Classifiers for the Analysis of Cluster-Correlated Data by Way of RF++

Many mass spectrometry-based studies, as well as other biological experiments produce cluster-correlated data. Failure to account for correlation among observations may result in a classification algorithm overfitting the training data and producing overoptimistic estimated error rates and may make subsequent classifications unreliable. Current common practice for dealing with replicated data is to average each subject replicate sample set, reducing the dataset size and incurring loss of information. In this manuscript we compare three approaches to dealing with cluster-correlated data: unmodified Breiman's Random Forest (URF), forest grown using subject-level averages (SLA), and RF++ with subject-level bootstrapping (SLB). RF++, a novel Random Forest-based algorithm implemented in C++, handles cluster-correlated data through a modification of the original resampling algorithm and accommodates subject-level classification. Subject-level bootstrapping is an alternative sampling method that obviates the need to average or otherwise reduce each set of replicates to a single independent sample. Our experiments show nearly identical median classification and variable selection accuracy for SLB forests and URF forests when applied to both simulated and real datasets. However, the run-time estimated error rate was severely underestimated for URF forests. Predictably, SLA forests were found to be more severely affected by the reduction in sample size which led to poorer classification and variable selection accuracy. Perhaps most importantly our results suggest that it is reasonable to utilize URF for the analysis of cluster-correlated data. Two caveats should be noted: first, correct classification error rates must be obtained using a separate test dataset, and second, an additional post-processing step is required to obtain subject-level classifications. RF++ is shown to be an effective alternative for classifying both clustered and non-clustered data. Source code and stand-alone compiled versions of command-line and easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) versions of RF++ for Windows and Linux as well as a user manual (Supplementary File S2) are available for download at: http://sourceforge.org/projects/rfpp/ under the GNU public license

Orbital effects of a monochromatic plane gravitational wave with ultra-low frequency incident on a gravitationally bound two-body system

We analytically compute the long-term orbital variations of a test particle orbiting a central body acted upon by an incident monochromatic plane gravitational wave. We assume that the characteristic size of the perturbed two-body system is much smaller than the wavelength of the wave. Moreover, we also suppose that the wave's frequency is much smaller than the particle's orbital one. We make neither a priori assumptions about the direction of the wavevector nor on the orbital geometry of the planet. We find that, while the semi-major axis is left unaffected, the eccentricity, the inclination, the longitude of the ascending node, the longitude of pericenter and the mean anomaly undergo non-vanishing long-term changes. They are not secular trends because of the slow modulation introduced by the tidal matrix coefficients and by the orbital elements themselves. They could be useful to indepenedently constrain the ultra-low frequency waves which may have been indirectly detected in the BICEP2 experiment. Our calculation holds, in general, for any gravitationally bound two-body system whose characteristic frequency is much larger than the frequency of the external wave. It is also valid for a generic perturbation of tidal type with constant coefficients over timescales of the order of the orbital period of the perturbed particle.Comment: LaTex2e, 24 pages, no figures, no tables. Changes suggested by the referees include

Transparent Conducting Contacts Based on Zinc Oxide Substitutionally Doped with Gallium: Preprint

Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) are a critical element in photovoltaic devices. This paper describes research on Ga:ZnO (a TCO candidate) using a high-throughput combinatorial approach