Some Findings Concerning Requirements in Agile Methodologies

gile methods have appeared as an attractive alternative to conventional methodologies. These methods try to reduce the time to market and, indirectly, the cost of the product through flexible development and deep customer involvement. The processes related to requirements have been extensively studied in literature, in most cases in the frame of conventional methods. However, conclusions of conventional methodologies could not be necessarily valid for Agile; in some issues, conventional and Agile processes are radically different. As recent surveys report, inadequate project requirements is one of the most conflictive issues in agile approaches and better understanding about this is needed. This paper describes some findings concerning requirements activities in a project developed under an agile methodology. The project intended to evolve an existing product and, therefore, some background information was available. The major difficulties encountered were related to non-functional needs and management of requirements dependencies

Evidence of acaricide resistance in different life stages of Amblyomma mixtum and Rhipicephalus microplus (Acari: Ixodidae) collected from the same farm in the state of Veracruz, Mexico.

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the resistance of Amblyomma mixtum and Rhipicephalus microplus ticks from co-infested bovines from the Veracruz region in Mexico to different acaricide families and to demonstrate the viability of the packet test on different A. mixtum instars. The following acaricide families were used: a combination (cypermethrin 15 g+chlorpyrifos 25 g+citronella 1 g+butoxide piperonyl 15 g), amidine (formamidine 12.5 g), pyrethroid (cypermethrin 15 g), and organophosphate (dichlorvos 60 g+chlorpyrifos 20 g). Regarding the packet test in both species, resistance was found for the pyrethroid and amidine families in A. mixtum and R. microplus, as efficacy did not surpass 40 %, including in immature instars; regarding the adult immersion test in R. microplus, the efficacy was 93.3 % for the amidine family and 26.2 % for the pyrethroid family. The proposed methodology is an alternative technique to optimize resistance detection in immature ticks with a heteroxenous life cycle

Bond-disordered Anderson model on a two dimensional square lattice - chiral symmetry and restoration of one-parameter scaling

Bond-disordered Anderson model in two dimensions on a square lattice is studied numerically near the band center by calculating density of states (DoS), multifractal properties of eigenstates and the localization length. DoS divergence at the band center is studied and compared with Gade's result [Nucl. Phys. B 398, 499 (1993)] and the powerlaw. Although Gade's form describes accurately DoS of finite size systems near the band-center, it fails to describe the calculated part of DoS of the infinite system, and a new expression is proposed. Study of the level spacing distributions reveals that the state closest to the band center and the next one have different level spacing distribution than the pairs of states away from the band center. Multifractal properties of finite systems furthermore show that scaling of eigenstates changes discontinuously near the band center. This unusual behavior suggests the existence of a new divergent length scale, whose existence is explained as the finite size manifestation of the band center critical point of the infinite system, and the critical exponent of the correlation length is calculated by a finite size scaling. Furthermore, study of scaling of Lyapunov exponents of transfer matrices of long stripes indicates that for a long stripe of any width there is an energy region around band center within which the Lyapunov exponents cannot be described by one-parameter scaling. This region, however, vanishes in the limit of the infinite square lattice when one-parameter scaling is restored, and the scaling exponent calculated, in agreement with the result of the finite size scaling analysis.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures. RevTe

Selective Persulfide Detection Reveals Evolutionarily Conserved Antiaging Effects of S-Sulfhydration

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordData and Code Availability The raw data corresponding to the antibody microarray Detection of persulfidation of EGFR Pathway kinases represent entirely new application of the dimedone switch method and are therefore available in more detail from the corresponding author on request. Proteomic data used for Figure S2C are stored in Data S1 and S2 and for Figures S3H and S3I in Data S3 and S4. All in-gel persulfidation, as well as Western blot sufenylation and sulfynilation data are reported in main and supporting Figures. Other raw data are available at https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/pw2wz39tsk/2Life on Earth emerged in a hydrogen sulfide (H2S)-rich environment eons ago and with it protein persulfidation mediated by H2S evolved as a signaling mechanism. Protein persulfidation (S-sulfhydration) is a post-translational modification of reactive cysteine residues, which modulate protein structure and/or function. Persulfides are difficult to label and study due to their reactivity and similarity with cysteine. Here, we report a facile strategy for chemoselective persulfide bioconjugation using dimedone-based probes, to achieve highly selective, rapid, and robust persulfide labeling in biological samples with broad utility. Using this method, we show persulfidation is an evolutionarily conserved modification and waves of persulfidation are employed by cells to resolve sulfenylation and prevent irreversible cysteine overoxidation preserving protein function. We report an age-associated decline in persulfidation that is conserved across evolutionary boundaries. Accordingly, dietary or pharmacological interventions to increase persulfidation associate with increased longevity and improved capacity to cope with stress stimuli.IDEX BordeauxFRMMedical Research Council (MRC)Brian Ridge ScholarshipNorthcott Devon Medical Research FoundationMinistry of Education, Science and Technology Development of the Republic of SerbiaNIHDFG, GermanyAmerican Heart Association-Allen Initiative in Brain Health and Cognitive Impairmen

No evidence that footedness in pheasants influences cognitive performance in tasks assessing colour discrimination and spatial ability

The differential specialization of each side of the brain facilitates the parallel processing of information and has been documented in a wide range of animals. Animals that are more lateralized as indicated by consistent preferential limb use are commonly reported to exhibit superior cognitive ability as well as other behavioural advantages.We assayed the lateralization of 135 young pheasants (Phasianus colchicus), indicated by their footedness in a spontaneous stepping task, and related this measure to individual performance in either 3 assays of visual or spatial learning and memory. We found no evidence that pronounced footedness enhances cognitive ability in any of the tasks. We also found no evidence that an intermediate footedness relates to better cognitive performance. This lack of relationship is surprising because previous work revealed that pheasants have a slight population bias towards right footedness, and when released into the wild, individuals with higher degrees of footedness were more likely to die. One explanation for why extreme lateralization is constrained was that it led to poorer cognitive performance, or that optimal cognitive performance was associated with some intermediate level of lateralization. This stabilizing selection could explain the pattern of moderate lateralization that is seen in most non-human species that have been studied. However, we found no evidence in this study to support this explanation

Evidence of adaptive evolutionary divergence during biological invasion

Rapid phenotypic diversification during biological invasions can either arise by adaptation to alternative environments or by adaptive phenotypic plasticity. Where experimental evidence for adaptive plasticity is common, support for evolutionary diversification is rare. Here, we performed a controlled laboratory experiment using full-sib crosses between ecologically divergent threespine stickleback populations to test for a genetic basis of adaptation. Our populations are from two very different habitats, lake and stream, of a recently invaded range in Switzerland and differ in ecologically relevant morphological traits. We found that in a lake-like food treatment lake fish grow faster than stream fish, resembling the difference among wild type individuals. In contrast, in a stream-like food treatment individuals from both populations grow similarly. Our experimental data suggest that genetically determined diversification has occurred within less than 140 years after the arrival of stickleback in our studied region