Walking Through the Method Zoo: Does Higher Education Really Meet Software Industry Demands?

Software engineering educators are continually challenged by rapidly evolving concepts, technologies, and industry demands. Due to the omnipresence of software in a digitalized society, higher education institutions (HEIs) have to educate the students such that they learn how to learn, and that they are equipped with a profound basic knowledge and with latest knowledge about modern software and system development. Since industry demands change constantly, HEIs are challenged in meeting such current and future demands in a timely manner. This paper analyzes the current state of practice in software engineering education. Specifically, we want to compare contemporary education with industrial practice to understand if frameworks, methods and practices for software and system development taught at HEIs reflect industrial practice. For this, we conducted an online survey and collected information about 67 software engineering courses. Our findings show that development approaches taught at HEIs quite closely reflect industrial practice. We also found that the choice of what process to teach is sometimes driven by the wish to make a course successful. Especially when this happens for project courses, it could be beneficial to put more emphasis on building learning sequences with other courses

Tripeptide emulsifiers

Traditional, surfactant based emulsions have applications in the food, cosmetic, encapsulation and materials industries. The majority of the surfactants that are currently in use are based on lipids that are extracted from natural sources, however, other surfactants, based on polypeptides, copolymers and solid particles (Pickering emulsions)are also used. The process by which traditional amphiphilic surfactants stabilize biphasic mixtures by interfacial assembly and the consequent reduction of surface tension is well understood. Although these surfactants are well-suited to stabilize emulsions, they are not always biocompatible or biodegradable. In addition, they may not have sufficient stability at elevated temperatures or extremes of pH, which can limit their utility in a variety of applications. Therefore, it is desirable to identify a class of surfactants that can be tuned, or tailored, to match the application for which they are used

Enzymatically active apurinic/apyrimidinic endodeoxyribonuclease 1 is released by mammalian cells through exosomes

The apurinic/apyrimidinic endodeoxyribonuclease 1 (APE1), the main AP-endonuclease of the DNA base excision repair pathway, is a key molecule of interest to researchers due to its unsuspected roles in different nonrepair activities, such as: I) adaptive cell response to genotoxic stress, ii) regulation of gene expression, and iii) processing of microRNAs, which make it an excellent drug target for cancer treatment. We and others recently demonstrated that APE1 can be secreted in the extracellular environment and that serum APE1 may represent a novel prognostic biomarker in hepatocellular and non-smallcell lung cancers. However, the mechanism by which APE1 is released extracellularly was not described before. Here, using three different approaches for exosomes isolation: Commercial kit, nickel-based isolation, and ultracentrifugation methods and various mammalian cell lines, we elucidated the mechanisms responsible for APE1 secretion. We demonstrated that APE1 p37 and p33 forms are actively secreted through extracellular vesicles (EVs), including exosomes from different mammalian cell lines. We then observed that APE1 p33 form is generated by proteasomal-mediated degradation and is enzymatically active in EVs. Finally, we revealed that the p33 form of APE1 accumulates in EVs upon genotoxic treatment by cisplatin and doxorubicin, compounds commonly found in chemotherapy pharmacological treatments. Taken together, these findings provide for the first time evidence that a functional Base Excision Repair protein is delivered through exosomes in response to genotoxic stresses, shedding new light into the complex noncanonical biological functions of APE1 and opening new intriguing perspectives on its role in cancer biology

An ambipolar BODIPY derivative for a white exciplex OLED and cholesteric liquid crystal laser toward multifunctional devices

A new interface engineering method is demonstrated for the preparation of an efficient white organic light-emitting diode (WOLED) by embedding an ultrathin layer of the novel ambipolar red emissive compound 4,4-difluoro-2,6-di(4-hexylthiopen-2-yl)-1,3,5,7,8-pentamethyl-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-s-indacene (bThBODIPY) in the exciplex formation region. The compound shows a hole and electron mobility of 3.3 × 10–4 and 2 × 10–4 cm2 V–1 s–1, respectively, at electric fields higher than 5.3 × 105 V cm–1. The resulting WOLED exhibited a maximum luminance of 6579 cd m–2 with CIE 1931 color coordinates (0.39; 0.35). The bThBODIPY dye is also demonstrated to be an effective laser dye for a cholesteric liquid crystal (ChLC) laser. New construction of the ChLC laser, by which a flat capillary with an optically isotropic dye solution is sandwiched between two dye-free ChLC cells, provides photonic lasing at a wavelength well matched with that of a dye-doped planar ChLC cell

Exposure factors manual

ABSTRACT: Assessing health risks associated with potential exposure to chemicals from petroleum or petrochemical operations requires the consideration of multiple exposure pathways. These pathways include ingestion of water, food, or soil, inhalation of vapors or airborne particulate, and dermal absorption from contaminated soil, water, or by direct skin contact. To estimate the exposures for each pathway, a number of variables related to exposure, that is, exposure factors, are needed. Some categories of exposure factors include physiologic factors (e.g., body weight), time-activity factors (e.g., time spent at home), and contact rate factors (e.g., soil ingestion rate). This manual is organized by exposure factor category and includes a description of selected exposure factors commonly used in risk assessments, a brief summary, and an evaluation of the current scientific data supporting a recommended point value for each factor, and available information on the known distributions. It is hoped that this information will promote consistency and quality among various risk assessment activities

Catching up with Method and Process Practice: An Industry-Informed Baseline for Researchers

Software development methods are usually not applied by the book.companies are under pressure to continuously deploy software products that meet market needs and stakeholders\u27 requests. To implement efficient and effective development processes, companies utilize multiple frameworks, methods and practices, and combine these into hybrid methods. A common combination contains a rich management framework to organize and steer projects complemented with a number of smaller practices providing the development teams with tools to complete their tasks. In this paper, based on 732 data points collected through an international survey, we study the software development process use in practice. Our results show that 76.8% of the companies implement hybrid methods.company size as well as the strategy in devising and evolving hybrid methods affect the suitability of the chosen process to reach company or project goals. Our findings show that companies that combine planned improvement programs with process evolution can increase their process\u27 suitability by up to 5%

Thiazole-induced rigidification in substituted dithieno-tetrathiafulvalene : the effect of planarisation on charge transport properties

Two novel tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) containing compounds 1 and 2 have been synthesised via a four-fold Stille coupling between a tetrabromo-dithienoTTF 5 and stannylated thiophene 6 or thiazole 4. The optical and electrochemical properties of compounds 1 and 2 have been measured by UV-vis spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry and the results compared with density functional theory (DFT) calculations to confirm the observed properties. Organic field effect transistor (OFET) devices fabricated from 1 and 2 demonstrated that the substitution of thiophene units for thiazoles was found to increase the observed charge transport, which is attributed to induced planarity through S-N interactions of adjacent thiazole nitrogen atoms and TTF sulfur atoms and better packing in the bulk

Determining Context Factors for Hybrid Development Methods with Trained Models

Selecting a suitable development method for a specific project context is one of the most challenging activities in process design. Every project is unique and, thus, many context factors have to be considered. Recent research took some initial steps towards statistically constructing hybrid development methods, yet, paid little attention to the peculiarities of context factors influencing method and practice selection. In this paper, we utilize exploratory factor analysis and logistic regression analysis to learn such context factors and to identify methods that are correlated with these factors. Our analysis is based on 829 data points from the HELENA dataset. We provide five base clusters of methods consisting of up to 10 methods that lay the foundation for devising hybrid development methods. The analysis of the five clusters using trained models reveals only a few context factors, e.g., project/product size and target application domain, that seem to significantly influence the selection of methods. An extended descriptive analysis of these practices in the context of the identified method clusters also suggests a consolidation of the relevant practice sets used in specific project contexts

Higher levels of bodily pain in people with long-term type 1 diabetes: associations with quality of life, depressive symptoms, fatigue and glycaemic control – the Dialong study

Aims To compare reported level of bodily pain, overall and health‐related quality of life (QoL), depression and fatigue in people with long‐term type 1 diabetes vs. a comparison group without diabetes. Further, to examine the associations of total bodily pain with QoL, depression, fatigue and glycaemic control in the diabetes group. Methods Cross‐sectional study of 104 (76% of eligible) people with type 1 diabetes of ≥ 45 years’ duration attending the Norwegian Diabetes Centre and 75 persons without diabetes who completed questionnaires measuring bodily pain (RAND‐36 bodily pain domain), shoulder pain (Shoulder Pain and Disability Index), hand pain (Australian/Canadian Osteoarthritis Hand Index), overall QoL (World Health Organization Quality of Life – BREF), health‐related QoL (RAND‐36), diabetes‐specific QoL (Audit of Diabetes‐Dependent Quality of Life; only diabetes group), depression (Patient Health Questionnaire) and fatigue (Fatigue questionnaire). For people with type 1 diabetes, possible associations between the bodily pain domain (lower scores indicate higher levels of bodily pain) and other questionnaire scores, were measured with regression coefficients (B) per 10‐unit increase in bodily pain score from linear regression. Results The diabetes group reported higher levels of bodily (P = 0.003), shoulder and hand pain (P < 0.001) than the comparison group. In the diabetes group, bodily pain was associated with lower overall and diabetes‐specific QoL [B (95% confidence intervals)]: 0.2 (0.1, 0.2) and 0.2 (0.1, 0.3); higher levels of depression −1.0 (−1.3, −0.7) and total fatigue −1.5 (−1.9, −1.2); and worse glycaemic control HbA1c (mmol/mol; %) −0.8 (−1.5, −0.1); −0.1 (−0.1, −0.01). Conclusions People with long‐term type 1 diabetes experience a high level of bodily pain compared with a comparison group. Total bodily pain was associated with worse QoL and glycaemic control.publishedVersio