Tagging a Boxcar In an Anxious Age

On Wednesday, September 12th, scheduled to fly from Salt Lake City to San Francisco, I found myself instead driving a rental car from Logan, Utah to the Bay Area. I left early - at daybreak, on a clear morning, just at that turning point when summer slides into autumn. Several hours later, on Interstate 80 east of Salt Lake and along the Bonneville Salt Flats, the National Public Radio station began to crackle and fade. By the time I crossed into Nevada, and moments after turning off the radio, I slunk into a state of sad resignation. Two hours of news about the horrors of the collapse of the World Trade Center and attack on the Pentagon were all I could take. The talk of war had put me in a sullen mood

Ethical Issues in the Software Quality Assurance Function

The responsibility for correct execution of software, as well as its fitness in any given setting, becomes increasingly complex, especially when the software impacts life and death. This paper addresses the role of the software quality assurance (SQA) function and explores the ethics of the SQA organization as the last point of contact between the software manufacturer and the consumers of the software application. We explore the range of potential ethical issues, possible mitigation strategies, and responsibilities to disclose findings to both software manufacturers and consumers of software applications

Integrating Human Computer Interaction Testing into the Medical Device Approval Process

Medical devices that utilize computer software are becoming common place in today’s health care environment. In this paper we examine device failures in the area of the human computer interaction—a failure of the interface between the hardware/software in the medical device, and the person using the device. We make the case that human computer interaction testing—starting early on in the product development life cycle—should be required before medical devices are approved by the FDA. Use of human computer interaction testing of medical devices can improve device quality and user experience, and most importantly, has the potential to reduce serious health care outcome

The Development of a Thorough Test Plan in the Analysis Phase Leading to more Successful Software Development Projects

A critical problem in many software development projects is missing some important requirements until late in the development life cycle. The impact of a missing or misunderstood requirement can add to the project cost and delay product launch due to rework both of the application code, documentation updates, and addition test passes. Building a thorough test plan very early in the product development cycle has the potential for early discovery of missing requirements with attendant reduction in project costs and schedule improvement. In this paper we discuss some of the causative factors of how and why requirements can be missed in software development projects and show how the early formulation of a test plan can directly address these factors. Key to the success of this approach is the understanding that mature tests often go beyond the documented requirements for applications and into exploring the boundaries of the application domain where missing requirements can often be uncovered. In addition the test methodology of looking at features from multiple users\u27 perspectives and less common use cases, shed light on misinterpreted and/or misunderstood requirements

The Development of a Thorough Test Plan in the Analysis Phase leading to more Successful Software Development Projects

A critical problem in many software development projects is missing some important requirements until late in the development life cycle. Building a thorough test plan very early in the product development cycle has the potential for early discovery of missing requirements with attendant reduction in project costs and schedule improvement. Key to the success of this approach is the understanding that mature tests often go beyond the documented requirements for applications and into exploring the boundaries of the application domain where missing requirements are often uncovered. In addition, the test methodology of looking at features from multiple users’ perspectives and less common use cases, shed light on misinterpreted and/or misunderstood requirements

A Full Life Cycle Defect Process Model That Supports Defect Tracking, Software Product Cycles, And Test Iterations

There are a variety of models, methods and tools to help organizations manage defects found in the development of software. Defect tracking and processing must be integrated in the project life cycle and the testing process for software. This paper reviews a number of defect models and proposes the Full Life Cycle Defect Process model to manage defects that supports defect, project, and test processes. We describe the various states in our model and provide examples of various scenarios and paths through the model

Effects of Light Intensity on the Oxygen Production of Spirulina

Space travel is challenging due to the depletion of resources as missions become lengthier. The cyanobacteria, Arthrosprira platensis, has the potential to resolve this problem. Spirulina is an excellent source of protein, vitamins, and minerals. It is also a photosynthetic organism, so it converts light energy into the chemical energy it needs to survive. Through this process, carbon dioxide is absorbed, and oxygen is released as a byproduct. Spirulina could not only be used as a food source due to its high protein and vitamin content but as a way to consume carbon dioxide and produce oxygen due to its photosynthetic nature

Integrating Failure Mode Effect Analysis into the Medical Device Approval Process

Medical devices that utilize computer software are becoming common place in today’s health care environment. Device failures can have life threatening consequences. The medical device approval process issued by the FDA should enhance the software testing requirements. In this paper we suggest that Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FEMA) should be a standard component in the testing of software in medical devices that can have life threatening consequences

Analysis of wheat SAGE tags reveals evidence for widespread antisense transcription

BACKGROUND: Serial Analysis of Gene Expression (SAGE) is a powerful tool for genome-wide transcription studies. Unlike microarrays, it has the ability to detect novel forms of RNA such as alternatively spliced and antisense transcripts, without the need for prior knowledge of their existence. One limitation of using SAGE on an organism with a complex genome and lacking detailed sequence information, such as the hexaploid bread wheat Triticum aestivum, is accurate annotation of the tags generated. Without accurate annotation it is impossible to fully understand the dynamic processes involved in such complex polyploid organisms. Hence we have developed and utilised novel procedures to characterise, in detail, SAGE tags generated from the whole grain transcriptome of hexaploid wheat. RESULTS: Examination of 71,930 Long SAGE tags generated from six libraries derived from two wheat genotypes grown under two different conditions suggested that SAGE is a reliable and reproducible technique for use in studying the hexaploid wheat transcriptome. However, our results also showed that in poorly annotated and/or poorly sequenced genomes, such as hexaploid wheat, considerably more information can be extracted from SAGE data by carrying out a systematic analysis of both perfect and "fuzzy" (partially matched) tags. This detailed analysis of the SAGE data shows first that while there is evidence of alternative polyadenylation this appears to occur exclusively within the 3' untranslated regions. Secondly, we found no strong evidence for widespread alternative splicing in the developing wheat grain transcriptome. However, analysis of our SAGE data shows that antisense transcripts are probably widespread within the transcriptome and appear to be derived from numerous locations within the genome. Examination of antisense transcripts showing sequence similarity to the Puroindoline a and Puroindoline b genes suggests that such antisense transcripts might have a role in the regulation of gene expression. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that the detailed analysis of transcriptome data, such as SAGE tags, is essential to understand fully the factors that regulate gene expression and that such analysis of the wheat grain transcriptome reveals that antisense transcripts maybe widespread and hence probably play a significant role in the regulation of gene expression during grain development