An assessment of systems and software engineering scholars and institutions (2000-2004)

This paper presents the findings of a five-year study of the top scholars and institutions in the Systems and Software Engineering field, as measured by the quantity of papers published in the journals of the field in 2000-2004. The top scholar is Hai Zhuge of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the top institution is Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. This paper is part of an ongoing study, conducted annually, that identifies the top 15 scholars and institutions in the most recent five-year period. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

An assessment of systems and software engineering scholars and institutions (2002-2006)

This paper summarizes a survey of publications in the field of systems and software engineering from 2002 to 2006. The survey is an ongoing, annual event that identifies the top 15 scholars and institutions over a 5-year period. The rankings are calculated based on the number of papers published in TSE, TOSEM, JSS, SPE, EMSE, IST, and Software. The top-ranked institution is Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea, and the top-ranked scholar is Magne Jørgensen of Simula Research Laboratory, Norway. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.postprin

An assessment of systems and software engineering scholars and institutions (2001-2005)

This paper presents the findings of a five-year study of the top scholars and institutions in the systems and software engineering field, as measured by the quantity of papers published in the journals of the field in 2001-2005. The top scholar is Magne Jørgensen of Simula Research Laboratory, Norway, and the top institution is Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea. This paper is part of an ongoing study, conducted annually, that identifies the top 15 scholars and institutions in the most recent five-year period. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.postprin

Agile methods for agile universities

We explore a term, Agile, that is being used in various workplace settings, including the management of universities. The term may have several related but slightly different meanings. Agile is often used in the context of facilitating more creative problem-solving and advocating for the adoption, design, tailoring and continual updating of more innovative organizational processes. We consider a particular set of meanings of the term from the world of software development. Agile methods were created to address certain problems with the software development process. Many of those problems have interesting analogues in the context of universities, so a reflection on agile methods may be a useful heuristic for generating ideas for enabling universities to be more creative

Assessment of the infectious diseases surveillance system of the Republic of Armenia: an example of surveillance in the Republics of the former Soviet Union

BACKGROUND: Before 1991, the infectious diseases surveillance systems (IDSS) of the former Soviet Union (FSU) were centrally planned in Moscow. The dissolution of the FSU resulted in economic stresses on public health infrastructure. At the request of seven FSU Ministries of Health, we performed assessments of the IDSS designed to guide reform. The assessment of the Armenian infectious diseases surveillance system (AIDSS) is presented here as a prototype. DISCUSSION: We performed qualitative assessments using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for evaluating surveillance systems. Until 1996, the AIDSS collected aggregate and case-based data on 64 infectious diseases. It collected information on diseases of low pathogenicity (e.g., pediculosis) and those with no public health intervention (e.g., infectious mononucleosis). The specificity was poor because of the lack of case definitions. Most cases were investigated using a lengthy, non-disease-specific case-report form Armenian public health officials analyzed data descriptively and reported data upward from the local to national level, with little feedback. Information was not shared across vertical programs. Reform should focus on enhancing usefulness, efficiency, and effectiveness by reducing the quantity of data collected and revising reporting procedures and information types; improving the quality, analyses, and use of data at different levels; reducing system operations costs; and improving communications to reporting sources. These recommendations are generalizable to other FSU republics. SUMMARY: The AIDSS was complex and sensitive, yet costly and inefficient. The flexibility, representativeness, and timeliness were good because of a comprehensive health-care system and compulsory reporting. Some data were questionable and some had no utility

An Exercise in Reverse Engineering for Safety-Critical Systems: An Experience for the Classroom

Since the Y2K crisis, reverse engineering has become a major area of work in industrial software application development, but lacks emphasis in US academia. This issue is exemplified by the high demand for software systems in new and expanding software application areas, which has resulted in systems being implemented before the requirements and design phases have been completed. Towards the maintenance of such systems, it is necessary to conducted reverse engineering for the derivation of software documentation for requirements and high-level and low-level design. When this scenario exists in the domain of safety-critical system, particularly in the aviation industry, reverse engineering takes on greater value because such software systems have to undergo development regulations and certification restrictions. This work reports on the pedagogical revelations gained from conducting reverse engineering on a software system that was developed and deployed for use in managing the assignment of commercial aircrafts to airport terminal gates. The software system incorporated genetic algorithms solutions and was implemented on a high-speed multi-processor system. The reverse engineering methodology applied was based on the RTCA DO-178C Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification specification for onboard avionic software systems

Possible effect of medically administered antibiotics on the mutans streptococci: implications for reduction in decay

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/74585/1/j.1399-302X.1989.tb00103.x.pd

A systematic review of correlates of sedentary behaviour in adults aged 18–65 years: a socio-ecological approach

Background: Recent research shows that sedentary behaviour is associated with adverse cardio-metabolic consequences even among those considered sufficiently physically active. In order to successfully develop interventions to address this unhealthy behaviour, factors that influence sedentariness need to be identified and fully understood. The aim of this review is to identify individual, social, environmental, and policy-related determinants or correlates of sedentary behaviours among adults aged 18-65 years. Methods: PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO and Web of Science were searched for articles published between January 2000 and September 2015. The search strategy was based on four key elements and their synonyms: (a) sedentary behaviour (b) correlates (c) types of sedentary behaviours (d) types of correlates. Articles were included if information relating to sedentary behaviour in adults (18-65 years) was reported. Studies on samples selected by disease were excluded. The full protocol is available from PROSPERO (PROSPERO 2014:CRD42014009823). Results: 74 original studies were identified out of 4041: 71 observational, two qualitative and one experimental study. Sedentary behaviour was primarily measured as self-reported screen leisure time and total sitting time. In 15 studies, objectively measured total sedentary time was reported: accelerometry (n = 14) and heart rate (n = 1). Individual level factors such as age, physical activity levels, body mass index, socio-economic status and mood were all significantly correlated with sedentariness. A trend towards increased amounts of leisure screen time was identified in those married or cohabiting while having children resulted in less total sitting time. Several environmental correlates were identified including proximity of green space, neighbourhood walkability and safety and weather. Conclusions: Results provide further evidence relating to several already recognised individual level factors and preliminary evidence relating to social and environmental factors that should be further investigated. Most studies relied upon cross-sectional design limiting causal inference and the heterogeneity of the sedentary measures prevented direct comparison of findings. Future research necessitates longitudinal study designs, exploration of policy-related factors, further exploration of environmental factors, analysis of inter-relationships between identified factors and better classification of sedentary behaviour domains

A Theoretical Exploration of Birhythmicity in the p53-Mdm2 Network

Experimental observations performed in the p53-Mdm2 network, one of the key protein modules involved in the control of proliferation of abnormal cells in mammals, revealed the existence of two frequencies of oscillations of p53 and Mdm2 in irradiated cells depending on the irradiation dose. These observations raised the question of the existence of birhythmicity, i.e. the coexistence of two oscillatory regimes for the same external conditions, in the p53-Mdm2 network which would be at the origin of these two distinct frequencies. A theoretical answer has been recently suggested by Ouattara, Abou-Jaoudé and Kaufman who proposed a 3-dimensional differential model showing birhythmicity to reproduce the two frequencies experimentally observed. The aim of this work is to analyze the mechanisms at the origin of the birhythmic behavior through a theoretical analysis of this differential model. To do so, we reduced this model, in a first step, into a 3-dimensional piecewise linear differential model where the Hill functions have been approximated by step functions, and, in a second step, into a 2-dimensional piecewise linear differential model by setting one autonomous variable as a constant in each domain of the phase space. We find that two features related to the phase space structure of the system are at the origin of the birhythmic behavior: the existence of two embedded cycles in the transition graph of the reduced models; the presence of a bypass in the orbit of the large amplitude oscillatory regime of low frequency. Based on this analysis, an experimental strategy is proposed to test the existence of birhythmicity in the p53-Mdm2 network. From a methodological point of view, this approach greatly facilitates the computational analysis of complex oscillatory behavior and could represent a valuable tool to explore mathematical models of biological rhythms showing sufficiently steep nonlinearities