Technical debt and waste in non-functional requirements documentation:an exploratory study

Background: To adequately attend to non-functional requirements (NFRs), they must be documented; otherwise, developers would not know about their existence. However, the documentation of NFRs may be subject to Technical Debt and Waste, as any other software artefact. Aims: The goal is to explore indicators of potential Technical Debt and Waste in NFRs documentation. Method: Based on a subset of data acquired from the most recent NaPiRE (Naming the Pain in Requirements Engineering) survey, we calculate, for a standard set of NFR types, how often respondents state they document a specific type of NFR when they also state that it is important. This allows us to quantify the occurrence of potential Technical Debt and Waste. Results: Based on 398 survey responses, four NFR types (Maintainability, Reliability, Usability, and Performance) are labelled as important but they are not documented by more than 22% of the respondents. We interpret that these NFR types have a higher risk of Technical Debt than other NFR types. Regarding Waste, 15% of the respondents state they document NFRs related to Security and they do not consider it important. Conclusions: There is a clear indication that there is a risk of Technical Debt for a fixed set of NFRs since there is a lack of documentation of important NFRs. The potential risk of incurring Waste is also present but to a lesser extent

Poxviral CrmD is an essential virulence factor

The role of cytokines and chemokines in anti-viral defense has been demonstrated, but their relative contribution to protective anti-viral responses in vivo is not fully understood. Cytokine response modifier D (CrmD) is a secreted receptor for TNF and lymphotoxin containing the smallpox virus-encoded chemokine receptor (SECRET) domain and is expressed by ectromelia virus, the causative agent of the smallpox-like disease mousepox. Here we show that CrmD is an essential virulence factor that controls natural killer cell activation and allows progression of fatal mousepox, and demonstrates that both SECRET and TNF binding domains are required for full CrmD activity. Vaccination with recombinant CrmD protects animals from lethal mousepox. These results indicate that a specific set of chemokines enhance the inflammatory and protective anti-viral responses mediated by TNF and lymphotoxin, and illustrate how viruses optimize anti-TNF strategies with addition of a chemokine binding domain as soluble decoy receptors.This work was funded by Grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiviness and European Union (European Regional Development’s Funds, FEDER) (grant SAF2015-67485-R), and the Wellcome Trust (grant 051087/Z97/Z). M. B. R.-A. and A. Alejo were recipients of a Ramón y Cajal Contract from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation

The world's first sprayed net hyperboloid ice structure

In the winter of 2018, a team of architects and engineers from the University of Cambridge built the world's rst hyperboloid-net ice structure in Harbin, China. A prestressed hemp rope net was sprayed with a cellulose water mix to form a structural sculpture which won the International Ice and Snow Construction Competition to which it was entered. Ice structures have traditionally been constructed from blocks of ice whereas, this project used a variation of Pykrete sprayed onto a flexible formwork. This paper explores areas of ice construction that have been little researched; the spraying of rope nets, di culties in the construction of ice nodes, and the buckling of struts during construction are discussed. The project proved the viability of sprayed net ice structures and successfully used rope formwork to pretension the ice columns in a design that was both e cient and novel

Referred pain from myofascial trigger points in head and neck–shoulder muscles reproduces head pain features in children with chronic tension type headache

Our aim was to describe the referred pain pattern and areas from trigger points (TrPs) in head, neck, and shoulder muscles in children with chronic tension type headache (CTTH). Fifty children (14 boys, 36 girls, mean age: 8 ± 2) with CTTH and 50 age- and sex- matched children participated. Bilateral temporalis, masseter, superior oblique, upper trapezius, sternocleidomastoid, suboccipital, and levator scapula muscles were examined for TrPs by an assessor blinded to the children’s condition. TrPs were identified with palpation and considered active when local and referred pains reproduce headache pain attacks. The referred pain areas were drawn on anatomical maps, digitalized, and also measured. The total number of TrPs was significantly greater in children with CTTH as compared to healthy children (P < 0.001). Active TrPs were only present in children with CTTH (P < 0.001). Within children with CTTH, a significant positive association between the number of active TrPs and headache duration (rs = 0.315; P = 0.026) was observed: the greater the number of active TrPs, the longer the duration of headache attack. Significant differences in referred pain areas between groups (P < 0.001) and muscles (P < 0.001) were found: the referred pain areas were larger in CTTH children (P < 0.001), and the referred pain area elicited by suboccipital TrPs was larger than the referred pain from the remaining TrPs (P < 0.001). Significant positive correlations between some headache clinical parameters and the size of the referred pain area were found. Our results showed that the local and referred pains elicited from active TrPs in head, neck and shoulder shared similar pain pattern as spontaneous CTTH in children, supporting a relevant role of active TrPs in CTTH in children

Non-L\'evy mobility patterns of Mexican Me'Phaa peasants searching for fuelwood

We measured mobility patterns that describe walking trajectories of individual Me'Phaa peasants searching and collecting fuelwood in the forests of "La Monta\~na de Guerrero" in Mexico. These one-day excursions typically follow a mixed pattern of nearly-constant steps when individuals displace from their homes towards potential collecting sites and a mixed pattern of steps of different lengths when actually searching for fallen wood in the forest. Displacements in the searching phase seem not to be compatible with L\'evy flights described by power-laws with optimal scaling exponents. These findings however can be interpreted in the light of deterministic searching on heavily degraded landscapes where the interaction of the individuals with their scarce environment produces alternative searching strategies than the expected L\'evy flights. These results have important implications for future management and restoration of degraded forests and the improvement of the ecological services they may provide to their inhabitants.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures. First version submitted to Human Ecology. The final publication will be available at http://www.springerlink.co

Efficiency analysis of spur gears with a shifting profile

A model for the assessment of the energy efficiency of spur gears is presented in this study, which considers a shifting profile under different operating conditions (40–600 Nm and 1500–6000 rpm). Three factors affect the power losses resulting from friction forces in a lubricated spur gear pair, namely, the friction coefficient, sliding velocity and load sharing ratio. Friction forces were implemented using a Coulomb’s model with a constant friction coefficient which is the well-known Niemann formulation. Three different scenarios were developed to assess the effect of the shifting profile on the efficiency under different operating conditions. The first kept the exterior radii constant, the second maintained the theoretical contact ratio whilst in the third the exterior radii is defined by the shifting coefficient. The numerical results were compared with a traditional approach to assess the results.The authors would like to acknowledge Project DPI2013-44860 funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology and the COST ACTION TU 1105 for supporting this research

Agile software development practices in Egypt SMEs : a grounded theory investigation

Agile information system development methods have been adopted by most software development organizations due to their proven benefits in terms of flexibility, reliability, and responsiveness. However, companies face significant challenges in adopting these approaches. Specifically, this research investigates challenges faced by software development companies in Egypt while transitioning to Agile. As little previous research is available targeting their concerns, we have conducted a grounded theory investigation. Key problem areas were found including lack of cadence in sprints planning, inadequate use of effort estimation and product quality issues. The developed grounded theory reflects on the key problem areas found with SMEs adopting agile practices and can be used by software development practitioners adopting agile methods in Egypt or similar developing countries as an outline for the common problem areas they are expected to find

Stress related epigenetic changes may explain opportunistic success in biological invasions in Antipode mussels

Different environmental factors could induce epigenetic changes, which are likely involved in the biological invasion process. Some of these factors are driven by humans as, for example, the pollution and deliberate or accidental introductions and others are due to natural conditions such as salinity. In this study, we have analysed the relationship between different stress factors: time in the new location, pollution and salinity with the methylation changes that could be involved in the invasive species tolerance to new environments. For this purpose, we have analysed two different mussels’ species, reciprocally introduced in antipode areas: the Mediterranean blue mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis and the New Zealand pygmy mussel Xenostrobus securis, widely recognized invaders outside their native distribution ranges. The demetylathion was higher in more stressed population, supporting the idea of epigenetic is involved in plasticity process. These results can open a new management protocols, using the epigenetic signals as potential pollution monitoring tool. We could use these epigenetic marks to recognise the invasive status in a population and determine potential biopollutants