International league of associations for rheumatology recommendations for the management of psoriatic arthritis in resource-poor settings

Background Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a challenging heterogeneous disease. The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) and the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and PsA (GRAPPA) last published their respective recommendations for the management of PsA in 2015. However, these guidelines are primarily based on studies conducted in resource replete countries and may not be applicable in countries in the Americas (except Canada and USA) and Africa. We sought to adapt the existing recommendations for these regions under the auspices of the International League of Associations for Rheumatology (ILAR). Process The ADAPTE Collaboration (2009) process for guideline adaptation was followed to adapt the EULAR and GRAPPA PsA treatment recommendations for the Americas and Africa. The process was conducted in three recommended phases: set-up phase; adaptation phase (defining health questions, assessing source recommendations, drafting report), and finalization phase (external review, aftercare planning, and final production). Result ILAR recommendations have been derived principally by adapting the GRAPPA recommendations, additionally, EULAR recommendations where appropriate and supplemented by expert opinion and literature from these regions. A paucity of data relevant to resource-poor settings was found in PsA management literature. Conclusion The ILAR Treatment Recommendations for PsA intends to serve as reference for the management of PsA in the Americas and Africa. This paper illustrates the experience of an international working group in adapting existing recommendations to a resource-poor setting. It highlights the need to conduct research on the management of PsA in these regions as data are currently lacking

A model for reengineering legacy software systems to object oriented systems

Vita.Object-oriented methodology facilitates the development and maintenance of large complex software systems. The migration of existing systems to object-oriented technology is becoming increasingly important. In this dissertation, a reengineering model is proposed to provide a comprehensive method to reengineer legacy software systems into an object-oriented systems. The model consists of three main processes: reverse engineering, merging, and object-oriented development. Reverse engineering extracts requirements and knowledge from an existing software system and redocuments the system. In the merging process, recovered requirements and knowledge from the reverse engineering process are merged with new requirements and knowledge. The merging process removes redundancy, checks for inconsistency, and detects incompleteness. In the object-oriented development, a reengineered system is developed using an object-oriented software development method. In this instance, Object Modeling Technique is employed. One of the major contributions of this research is that it demonstrates that a successful reengineering to object-oriented technology can be achieved by extracting requirements and knowledge from the original system as a basis for developing the object-oriented system. The model proved to be useful where a paradigm shift is needed. The effectiveness of the model was demonstrated by converting a legacy software system (implemented in C) into an object-oriented system (implemented in Smalltalk). A set of tools was also built to support the model. An additional contribution of this research is identification of guidelines that minimize the effort involved when transformation from non object-oriented paradigm into object-oriented paradigm is needed

A model for reengineering legacy software systems to object oriented systems

Vita.Object-oriented methodology facilitates the development and maintenance of large complex software systems. The migration of existing systems to object-oriented technology is becoming increasingly important. In this dissertation, a reengineering model is proposed to provide a comprehensive method to reengineer legacy software systems into an object-oriented systems. The model consists of three main processes: reverse engineering, merging, and object-oriented development. Reverse engineering extracts requirements and knowledge from an existing software system and redocuments the system. In the merging process, recovered requirements and knowledge from the reverse engineering process are merged with new requirements and knowledge. The merging process removes redundancy, checks for inconsistency, and detects incompleteness. In the object-oriented development, a reengineered system is developed using an object-oriented software development method. In this instance, Object Modeling Technique is employed. One of the major contributions of this research is that it demonstrates that a successful reengineering to object-oriented technology can be achieved by extracting requirements and knowledge from the original system as a basis for developing the object-oriented system. The model proved to be useful where a paradigm shift is needed. The effectiveness of the model was demonstrated by converting a legacy software system (implemented in C) into an object-oriented system (implemented in Smalltalk). A set of tools was also built to support the model. An additional contribution of this research is identification of guidelines that minimize the effort involved when transformation from non object-oriented paradigm into object-oriented paradigm is needed

Diameter at breast height-crown width prediction models for Anogeissus Leiocarpus (DC.) Guill &Perr and Combretum Hartmannianum Schweinf

JOURNAL OF FOREST PRODUCTS & INDUSTRIES, 2014, 3(4), 191-197 ISSN:2325–4513(PRINT) ISSN 2325 - 453X (ONLINE)This study was carried out at El-Nour Natural Forest Reserve, Rosaries district, Blue Nile State with objective of predicting Crown width from Diameter at Breast Height for Anogeissus leiocarpus (DC.) Guill & Perr, and Combretum hartmannianum Schweinf species. Five models for predicting crown width were tested for these two species. For each species, dbh, total height and crown width were recorded. DataFit-9 statistical package of the Oakdale Engineering was used to fit the selected models. Akaike’s information criterion (AIC), adjusted coefficient of determination (Ra2), root mean squared error (RMSE), numerical and graphical analyses of the residuals were used for evaluating the models. The results of the study showed that, all fitted models were found to give satisfactory results with Ra2 range of 0.65 to 0.74 and RMSE of 1.12 to 1.40. The AIC values range from 114.8 for Combretum hartmannianum Schweinf and to 356.4 for Anogeissus leiocarpus (DC.) Guill & Perr. The study concluded that, the crown width could be estimated by the mean of diameter at breast height as it is easy to measure for ground-based inventory and stand structure determination. The crown width-diameter models examined in this study produced reasonably precise estimates for crown width and could be used to predict the crown width of the species under consideration. The study recommended that, Future research is needed with a greater variety of site and stand conditions in addition to a greater variety of tree sizes and ages. It should be noted that, the models used by this study were based on data collected from El-Nour Natural Forest Reserve in Blue Nile State; therefore, it should be used with caution outside this area

Diameter at breast height-crown width prediction models for Anogeissus Leiocarpus (DC.) Guill &Perr and Combretum Hartmannianum Schweinf

JOURNAL OF FOREST PRODUCTS & INDUSTRIES, 2014, 3(4), 191-197 ISSN:2325–4513(PRINT) ISSN 2325 - 453X (ONLINE)This study was carried out at El-Nour Natural Forest Reserve, Rosaries district, Blue Nile State with objective of predicting Crown width from Diameter at Breast Height for Anogeissus leiocarpus (DC.) Guill & Perr, and Combretum hartmannianum Schweinf species. Five models for predicting crown width were tested for these two species. For each species, dbh, total height and crown width were recorded. DataFit-9 statistical package of the Oakdale Engineering was used to fit the selected models. Akaike’s information criterion (AIC), adjusted coefficient of determination (Ra2), root mean squared error (RMSE), numerical and graphical analyses of the residuals were used for evaluating the models. The results of the study showed that, all fitted models were found to give satisfactory results with Ra2 range of 0.65 to 0.74 and RMSE of 1.12 to 1.40. The AIC values range from 114.8 for Combretum hartmannianum Schweinf and to 356.4 for Anogeissus leiocarpus (DC.) Guill & Perr. The study concluded that, the crown width could be estimated by the mean of diameter at breast height as it is easy to measure for ground-based inventory and stand structure determination. The crown width-diameter models examined in this study produced reasonably precise estimates for crown width and could be used to predict the crown width of the species under consideration. The study recommended that, Future research is needed with a greater variety of site and stand conditions in addition to a greater variety of tree sizes and ages. It should be noted that, the models used by this study were based on data collected from El-Nour Natural Forest Reserve in Blue Nile State; therefore, it should be used with caution outside this area

Psoriatic arthritis in developing and resource-poor countries

Published literature regarding the prevalence, incidence, management, and outcomes for psoriatic arthritis from developing countries and under-resourced regions is scarce. Most of the data available are from developed countries, especially European countries, the USA, and Canada. The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) and Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA) have developed recommendations for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis based on data from developed countries. 1 , 2 These recommendations are often later tailored to suit patients and health-care settings in developing countries, but to date there have been no guidelines specifically looking at the management of psoriatic arthritis in resource-poor countries