Incorporation of Agile Development Methodology into a Capstone Software Engineering Project

This paper describes the incorporation of agile development methodology into a capstone software engineering project course. The author has been teaching a team-based software project course for nearly two decades. In the past, teams were required to use a traditional prescriptive development process that employed detailed up-front requirements analysis and emphasis on high-level design. These front-end loaded processes placed a heavy emphasis on detailed documentation and deferred the onset of coding until a number of weeks into the semester. With little experience in gathering and documenting requirements, student teams generally struggled with this phase of the project and often failed to capture a complete enough set of requirements to provide an adequate basis for subsequent design activities. The late start in coding often meant that teams were not able to implement as much functionality as desired and quality was sometimes adversely impacted by the rushed development effort. For the spring, 2014 offering, it was decided to drastically modify the capstone course to employ an agile development methodology. Agile development is based upon that notion of lightweight processes that eschew front-end loading of analysis and design in favor of self-organizing teams that execute multiple, short development sprints, each focusing on completion of a small subset of product features. While agile development has been widely embraced by industry over the past decade, its adoption within academia is still nascent, most likely due to its perceived abandonment of formal process and rigid methodology. Software engineering textbooks have only recently begun to include coverage of agile development. For the course, 25 students were divided into five agile teams. The students had limited knowledge of, and experience with, agile development methodologies from a prerequisite course. During the first two weeks of the semester, while teams worked on developing the concept for their projects, an intensive introduction to a popular agile methodology called SCRUM was conducted. Students were introduced to an on-line tool called Pivotal Tracker to organize and track the progress of their development sprints. Teams were also required to develop a comprehensive testing strategy and identify appropriate testing tools. The teams then embarked on a sequence of six two-week development sprints. At the conclusion of each sprint teams were required to do an in-class progress review and retrospective. Compared to the previous offerings of the course using a prescriptive development process, the use of agile methodology allowed students to complete considerably more scope during the semester. The relatively large number of short-duration development sprints forced teams to work consistently and productively, and to effectively use automated testing and configuration management tools. Overall, the scope and quality of projects improved significantly compared to prior offerings of the course

An in situ instrument for planar O2 optode measurements at benthic interfaces

A new in situ instrument for two‐dimensional mapping of oxygen in coastal sediments is presented. The measuring principle is described, and potential mechanical disturbances, solute and particle smearing associated with the measurements, and calibration routines are evaluated. The first in situ measurements obtained in two different benthic communities are presented. In a shallow photosynthetic sediment (1 m of water depth), an extensive horizontal and temporal variation in the O2 distribution caused by benthic photosynthesis and irrigating fauna was resolved. Repetitive planar optode measurements performed along a transect in central Øresund, Denmark (17 m of water depth) revealed a positive correlation between the apparent O2 penetration depths (OP) measured with a lateral distance <5.0 mm, whereas OP measured with a larger horizontal distance (up to 50 m) were not correlated. Consequently, the OP varied in patches with a characteristic size of 5.0 mm. The instrument described is a powerful new tool for in situ characterization of spatiotemporal variations in O2 distributions within benthic communities. The instrument can be adapted for use at full ocean depths, e.g., on deep‐sea landers or remote operating vehicles

Endemic microorganisms of a Drosophila simulans strain and their relationships with the non-mendelian transmission of a character

International audienc

Effectiveness of Cold-Flo Anhydrous Ammonia with Forage Sorghum Silage

Forage sorghum was treated with Cold-Flo anhydrous ammonia at ensiling time and compared with untreated silage supplemented with soybean meal at feeding time. One hundred Angus steers were used in the 91-day trial. Average daily gain of the cattle fed the two silages was very similar. However, cattle fed the amonia-treated forage sorghum consumed less feed than controls, resulting in a substantially better (16.7%) conversion by steers on the ammonia-treated silage ration. The result of this experiment indicate that Cold-Flo anhydrous ammonia is efficiently utilized as nonprotein nitrogen source with forage sorghum silage. Further research is necessary with other low energy silages to confirm this original finding and expand the beneficial uses of this inexpensive silage additive for producers

Effect of Cement Dust and Reimplanting on Finishing Heifer Performance

Eighty crossbred yearling heifers were used to determine the possible benefit of including 2% cement kiln dust in a typical high-concentrate finishing ration. The value of reimplanting with Ralgro during a 151-day feeding period was also evaluated. Cattle on the cement dust ration gained 13% slower and ate 6.3% less feed per day than control heifers, resulting in an 8.5% poorer feed conversion with cement dust. Carcass quality and yield grades were not affected by cement dust in the ration. In this study, no benefit was observed from implanting heifers twice during a 151-day feeding period as compared with a single implant in terms of finishing trial performance or carcass characteristics

Effectiveness of Lasalocid with Solar-Dried Acid Treated and Ensiled Shelled Corn Finishing Rations

Three shelled corn storage forms (solar-dried, propionic acid-treated and ensiled) were also investigated in this trial because of the intensive interest in minimizing the energy costs required for drying or preserving high-moisture corn and to examine the relative feeding value of corn stored in these three ways. A horizontal plastic Silopress bag was used to store the ensiled shelled corn in order to gain experience with this ensiling systems

Preweaning and Postweaning Performance of Crossbred Calves--0, 1 or 2 Ralgro Implants

The preweaning performance of 221 steer and heifer calves given differing numbers of Ralgro implants was evaluated. The steer and heifer calves given one implant had an additional 23 and 33 lb weaning weight compared to those receiving no implant. No additional response was shown by steer calves receiving a second implant 100 days after the first was given. Average daily gains during the 105-day growing period were not significantly faster than those receiving two implants during the 103-day finishing phase. This work supports other studies indicating that implanting calves at weaning time is an economical management practice. The work further indicates to feeders that calfhood implants have little or no effect on subsequent performance in the feedlot

Aborting feedlot heifers with Alfavet® or Bovilene®

Alfavet® (alfaprostol), an experimental prostaglandin analog for inducing abortion in feedlot heifers, was evaluated for efficacy. Abortion was induced within 8 days following injection of 5 mg alfaprostol in 45 of 51 heifers (88.2%) ranging from 40 to 150 days in gestation. Bovilene® (fenprostalene), injected at 1 mg per head resulted in abortion in 45 of 49 heifers (91.8%) of similar pregnancy status. Both products were 95-100% effective from 40 to 120 days of pregnancy, but only 75% effective from 121 to 150 days

Nodal domains in open microwave systems

Nodal domains are studied both for real $\psi_R$ and imaginary part $\psi_I$ of the wavefunctions of an open microwave cavity and found to show the same behavior as wavefunctions in closed billiards. In addition we investigate the variation of the number of nodal domains and the signed area correlation by changing the global phase $\phi_g$ according to $\psi_R+i\psi_I=e^{i\phi_g}(\psi_R'+i\psi_I')$. This variation can be qualitatively, and the correlation quantitatively explained in terms of the phase rigidity characterising the openness of the billiard.Comment: 7 pages, 10 figures, submitted to PR

Dynamical tunneling in mushroom billiards

We study the fundamental question of dynamical tunneling in generic two-dimensional Hamiltonian systems by considering regular-to-chaotic tunneling rates. Experimentally, we use microwave spectra to investigate a mushroom billiard with adjustable foot height. Numerically, we obtain tunneling rates from high precision eigenvalues using the improved method of particular solutions. Analytically, a prediction is given by extending an approach using a fictitious integrable system to billiards. In contrast to previous approaches for billiards, we find agreement with experimental and numerical data without any free parameter.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure