StakeNet: using social networks to analyse the stakeholders of large-scale software projects

Many software projects fail because they overlook stakeholders or involve the wrong representatives of significant groups. Unfortunately, existing methods in stakeholder analysis are likely to omit stakeholders, and consider all stakeholders as equally influential. To identify and prioritise stakeholders, we have developed StakeNet, which consists of three main steps: identify stakeholders and ask them to recommend other stakeholders and stakeholder roles, build a social network whose nodes are stakeholders and links are recommendations, and prioritise stakeholders using a variety of social network measures. To evaluate StakeNet, we conducted one of the first empirical studies of requirements stakeholders on a software project for a 30,000-user system. Using the data collected from surveying and interviewing 68 stakeholders, we show that StakeNet identifies stakeholders and their roles with high recall, and accurately prioritises them. StakeNet uncovers a critical stakeholder role overlooked in the project, whose omission significantly impacted project success

StakeSource: harnessing the power of crowdsourcing and social networks in stakeholder analysis

Projects often fail because they overlook stakeholders. Unfortunately, existing stakeholder analysis tools only capture stakeholders' information, relying on experts to manually identify them. StakeSource is a web-based tool that automates stakeholder analysis. It "crowdsources" the stakeholders themselves for recommendations about other stakeholders and aggregates their answers using social network analysis

Seed size, fecundity and postfire regeneration strategy are interdependent in Hakea

Seed size is a key functional trait that affects plant fitness at the seedling stage and may vary greatly with species fruit size, growth form and fecundity. Using structural equation modelling (SEM) and correlated trait evolution analysis, we investigated the interaction network between seed size and fecundity, postfire regeneration strategy, fruit size, plant height and serotiny (on-plant seed storage) among 82 species of the woody shrub genus, Hakea, with a wide spectrum of seed sizes (2–500 mg). Seed size is negatively correlated with fecundity, while fire-killed species (nonsprouters) produce more seeds than resprouters though they are of similar size. Seed size is unrelated to plant height and level of serotiny while it scales allometrically with fruit size. A strong phylogenetic signal in seed size revealed phylogenetic constraints on seed size variation in Hakea. Our analyses suggest a causal relationship between seed size, fecundity and postfire regeneration strategy in Hakea. These results demonstrate that fruit size, fecundity and evolutionary history have had most control over seed size variation among Hakea species

Phenotypic variation and differentiated gene expression of Australian plants in response to declining rainfall

Declining rainfall is projected to have negative impacts on the demographic performance of plant species. Little is known about the adaptive capacity of species to respond to drying climates, and whether adaptation can keep pace with climate change. In fire-prone ecosystems, episodic recruitment of perennial plant species in the first year postfire imposes a specific selection environment, offering a unique opportunity to quantify the scope for adaptive response to climate change. We examined the growth of seedlings of four fire-killed species under control and drought conditions for seeds from populations established in years following fire receiving average-to-above-average winter rainfall, or well-below-average winter rainfall. We show that offspring of plants that had established under drought had more efficient water uptake, and/or stored more water per unit biomass, or developed denser leaves, and all maintained higher survival in simulated drought than did offspring of plants established in average annual rainfall years. Adaptive phenotypic responses were not consistent across all traits and species, while plants that had established under severe drought or established in years with average-to-above-average rainfall had an overall different physiological response when growing either with or without water constraints. Seedlings descended from plants established under severe drought also had elevated gene expression in key pathways relating to stress response. Our results demonstrate the capacity for rapid adaptation to climate change through phenotypic variation and regulation of gene expression. However, effective and rapid adaptation to climate change may vary among species depending on their capacity to maintain robust populations under multiple stresses

Impact of Pulp on the Chemical Profile of Mango Wine

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of mango pulp inclusion (which mimicked the maceration stepin grape wine fermentation) on the fermentation dynamics and chemical profile of mango wine, especiallythe volatiles. The growth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae MERIT.ferm was slower in the mango juice with pulp(uncentrifuged juice), with a corresponding slower reduction in °Brix, relative to the juice without pulp(centrifuged juice). The utilisation of glucose, fructose and sucrose was similar in both uncentrifuged andcentrifuged juices, with almost complete consumption. Citric, tartaric, malic, pyruvic and succinic acidwere the major organic acids in the wines fermented from both the uncentrifuged and centrifuged juices.Citric acid decreased slightly in the macerated wine. Tartaric and malic acid decreased in both wines.Pyruvic acid increased slightly and succinic acid remained almost constant in both wines. Monoterpenes,as one of the signature aroma compounds in mango juice, decreased dramatically in both wines, but wereten times higher in the macerated wine. Terpenols were at least four times higher in the macerated wine.The macerated wine also produced higher levels of fusel alcohols and acetate esters compared to the nonmaceratedwine. On the other hand, the non-macerated wine possessed a higher concentration of mediumchainfatty acids and corresponding ethyl esters. This study indicates that the inclusion of pulp in mangowine fermentation would contribute to the aroma complexity

A clustering based technique for large scale prioritization during requirements elicitation

We consider the prioritization problem in cases where the number of requirements to prioritize is large using a clustering technique. Clustering is a method used to find classes of data elements with respect to their attributes. KMeans, one of the most popular clustering algorithms, was adopted in this research. To utilize k-means algorithm for solving requirements prioritization problems, weights of attributes of requirement sets from relevant project stakeholders are required as input parameters. This paper showed that, the output of running k-means algorithm on requirement sets varies depending on the weights provided by relevant stakeholders. The proposed approach was validated using a requirement dataset known as RALIC. The results suggested that, a synthetic method with scrambled centroids is effective for prioritizing requirements using k-means clustering

Outlier detection in 2 × 2 crossover design using Bayesian framework

We consider the problem of outlier detection method in 2×2 crossover design via Bayesian framework. We study the problem of outlier detection in bivariate data fitted using generalized linear model in Bayesian framework used by Nawama. We adapt their work into a 2×2 crossover design. In Bayesian framework, we assume that the random subject effect and the errors to be generated from normal distributions. However, the outlying subjects come from normal distribution with different variance. Due to the complexity of the resulting joint posterior distribution, we obtain the information on the posterior distribution from samples by using Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling. We use two real data sets to illustrate the implementation of the method

In Vitro Propagation of Globba brachyanthera K. Schum

An in vitro propagation system was developed for Globba brachyanthera K.Schum., a potential ornamental plant by surface sterilized adventitious bulbils in 20% Clorox for 20 minutes and cultured on Gamborg B5 medium supplemented with a biocide Plant Preservative Mixture (PPM) and antibiotic tetracycline. Shoot tips (2-5mm) obtained from in vitro cultured plantlets were induced to form shoots on Gamborg B5 medium containing 20% sucrose and 2.8 g/L Gelrite supplemented with various concentrations of 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) ranging from 1.0 to 3.0mg/L, either individually or in combination with alpha-naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) at 0.1 mg/L or 0.5 mg/L. All treatments induced formation of multiple shoots as well as rooting after 8 weeks of culture. The highest multiplication rate of 6.6 shoots per explants was obtained in Gamborg B5 medium supplemented with 3.0 mg/L BAP. The generated shoots elongated on Gamborg B5 medium and the multiplication rate did not change further in all of the successive subcultures

Brain region-specific expression of genes mapped within quantitative trait loci for behavioral responsiveness to acute stress in Fisher 344 and Wistar Kyoto male rats

Acute stress responsiveness is a quantitative trait that varies in severity from one individual to another; however, the genetic component underlying the individual variation is largely unknown. Fischer 344 (F344) and Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rat strains show large differences in behavioral responsiveness to acute stress, such as freezing behavior in response to footshock during the conditioning phase of contextual fear conditioning (CFC). Quantitative trait loci (QTL) have been identified for behavioral responsiveness to acute stress in the defensive burying (DB) and open field test (OFT) from a reciprocal F2 cross of F344 and WKY rat strains. These included a significant QTL on chromosome 6 (Stresp10). Here, we hypothesized that the Stresp10 region harbors genes with sequence variation(s) that contribute to differences in multiple behavioral response phenotypes between the F344 and WKY rat strains. To test this hypothesis, first we identified differentially expressed genes within the Stresp10 QTL in the hippocampus, amygdala, and frontal cortex of F344 and WKY male rats using genome-wide microarray analyses. Genes with both expression differences and non-synonymous sequence variations in their coding regions were considered candidate quantitative trait genes (QTGs). As a proof-of-concept, the F344.WKY-Stresp10 congenic strain was generated with the Stresp10 WKY donor region into the F344 recipient strain. This congenic strain showed behavioral phenotypes similar to those of WKYs. Expression patterns of Gpatch11 (G-patch domain containing 11), Cdkl4 (Cyclin dependent kinase like 4), and Drc1 (Dynein regulatory complex subunit 1) paralleled that of WKY in the F344.WKY-Stresp10 strain matching the behavioral profiles of WKY as opposed to F344 parental strains. We propose that these genes are candidate QTGs for behavioral responsiveness to acute stress

Homoserine and quorum-sensing acyl homoserine lactones as alternative sources of threonine:A potential role for homoserine kinase in insect-stage Trypanosoma brucei

10.1111/mmi.12853Molecular Microbiology951143-15