Determining the Relative Importance of Personality Traits in Influencing Software Quality and Team Productivity

Software projects are almost always team efforts and successful projects involve well-formed and well-composed teams. Past studies have revealed that personality contributes to effective team composition and, therefore, project success. Yet despite its importance, only a couple of empirical studies have quantitatively evaluated the impact of personality on software quality and team productivity. Our previous study was an effort in this direction. In that study, we proposed a metric called Team Homogeneity Index and evaluated its impact on software quality and team productivity for two phases (implementation and testing) of the software development life cycle. This study is a continuation of our previous work. In this study, we replicate our experiment on three different phases of software development life cycle (i.e. analysis and design, implementation, and testing). We also determine the weights for all five personality traits using input from the industry and propose an improved version of Team Homogeneity Index called Weighted Team Homogeneity Index. Finally, we conduct a comparative analysis of Team Homogeneity Index and Weighted Team Homogeneity Index to determine whether weights assigned to personality traits make any difference. Our findings reveal that weights do make a difference and Weighted Team Homogeneity Index is more strongly correlated than Team Homogeneity Index for almost all of the teams, especially those composed of practitioners, in the three different phases of Software Development Life Cycle

Factors Affecting Impulsive Buying Behavior with Mediating role of Positive Mood: An Empirical Study

This research which is guided by impulse buying literature and “Stimulus-Organism Response (S-O-R) model”, explores the relationship between individual differences and impulse buying behavior directly and indirectly through the mediating role of positive mood. Survey methodology was conducted in order to collect data from 300 customers in Lahore. Convenience sampling technique was used and the associations between the concepts were analyzed by using PLS based SEM analysis. Results of the study prove that the factors which significantly affect impulse buying behavior are positive mood, impulse buying tendency and fashion involvement while insignificant variables for impulse buying are self-esteem, shopping enjoyment and hedonism. SE, IBT, Hedonism and Self-esteem have a direct significant impact with the mediating variable positive mood whereas FI shows an insignificant relation with PM. Results regarding mediation demonstrated that the relationship between IBB and Shopping enjoyment is completely mediated by positive mood but the relationship between fashion involvement, self-esteem, Hedonism, Impulsive buying tendency and IBB is partially mediated by positive mood. This research paper will prove beneficial for marketing practitioners and researchers by developing a comprehensive knowledge and understanding about customer’s impulse buying behavior and its relationship with its determinants. This study validates and extends the “S-O-R model of Mehrabian and Russell (1974)” by incorporating personal traits’ influences  on impulse buying behavior

Factors Affecting Impulsive Buying Behavior with Mediating role of Positive Mood: An Empirical Study

This research which is guided by impulse buying literature and “Stimulus-Organism Response (S-O-R) model”, explores the relationship between individual differences and impulse buying behavior directly and indirectly through the mediating role of positive mood. Survey methodology was conducted in order to collect data from 300 customers in Lahore. Convenience sampling technique was used and the associations between the concepts were analyzed by using PLS based SEM analysis. Results of the study prove that the factors which significantly affect impulse buying behavior are positive mood, impulse buying tendency and fashion involvement while insignificant variables for impulse buying are self-esteem, shopping enjoyment and hedonism. SE, IBT, Hedonism and Self-esteem have a direct significant impact with the mediating variable positive mood whereas FI shows an insignificant relation with PM. Results regarding mediation demonstrated that the relationship between IBB and Shopping enjoyment is completely mediated by positive mood but the relationship between fashion involvement, self-esteem, Hedonism, Impulsive buying tendency and IBB is partially mediated by positive mood. This research paper will prove beneficial for marketing practitioners and researchers by developing a comprehensive knowledge and understanding about customer’s impulse buying behavior and its relationship with its determinants. This study validates and extends the “S-O-R model of Mehrabian and Russell (1974)” by incorporating personal traits’ influences  on impulse buying behavior

Diversified Traditional Wooden Implements Used in Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Practices in Ladakh

The traditional wooden tools are the necessities of the daily life of the people of Ladakh region and are linked directly with geographical conditions of the region. A lot of diversity in the wooden tools used by the tribal farmers of Ladakh since ancient times is observed. The tools are made up of different, locally available materials in a unique fashion by the localites. These wooden implements are preferred over modern one’s because of their multipurpose uses. Secondly these traditional implements find wide applicability in the region because of steep terrain, where the scope of mechanized farm implements is very limited. In the present study few important traditional tools of Ladakh have been presented. The important tools viz; chepo, shak, zungba, rzgeem, saddle, khem, khaczhay, thougk, gourgur, butter churner, plough, smeing, rbhat, grookook etc. have been described in detail in this paper

Acquiring Guideline-enabled data driven clinical knowledge model using formally verified refined knowledge acquisition method

Background and Objective: Validation and verification are the critical requirements for the knowledge acquisition method of the clinical decision support system (CDSS). After acquiring the medical knowledge from diverse sources, the rigorous validation and formal verification process are required before creating the final knowledge model. Previously, we have proposed a hybrid knowledge acquisition method with the support of a rigorous validation process for acquiring medical knowledge from clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) and patient data for the treatment of oral cavity cancer. However, due to lack of formal verification process, it involves various inconsistencies in knowledge relevant to the formalism of knowledge, conformance to CPGs, quality of knowledge, and complexities of knowledge acquisition artifacts.Methods: This paper presents the refined knowledge acquisition (ReKA) method, which uses the Z formal verification process. The ReKA method adopts the verification method and explores the mechanism of theorem proving using the Z notation. It enhances a hybrid knowledge acquisition method to thwart the inconsistencies using formal verification.Results: ReKA adds a set of nine additional criteria to be used to have a final valid refined clinical knowledge model. These criteria ensure the validity of the final knowledge model concerning formalism of knowledge, conformance to GPGs, quality of the knowledge, usage of stringent conditions and treatment plans, and inconsistencies possibly resulting from the complexities. Evaluation, using four medical knowledge acquisition scenarios, shows that newly added knowledge in CDSS due to the additional criteria by the ReKA method always produces a valid knowledge model. The final knowledge model was also evaluated with 1229 oral cavity patient cases, which outperformed with an accuracy of 72.57% compared to a similar approach with an accuracy of 69.7%. Furthermore, the ReKA method identified a set of decision paths (about 47.8%) in the existing approach, which results in a final knowledge model with low quality, non-conformed from standard CPGs.Conclusion: ReKA refined the hybrid knowledge acquisition method by discovering the missing steps in the current validation process at the acquisition stage. As a formally proven method, it always yields a valid knowledge model having high quality, supporting local practices, and influenced by standard CPGs. Furthermore, the final knowledge model obtained from ReKA also preserves the performance such as the accuracy of the individual source knowledge models.N/

Global, regional, and national burden of colorectal cancer and its risk factors, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Funding: F Carvalho and E Fernandes acknowledge support from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. (FCT), in the scope of the project UIDP/04378/2020 and UIDB/04378/2020 of the Research Unit on Applied Molecular Biosciences UCIBIO and the project LA/P/0140/2020 of the Associate Laboratory Institute for Health and Bioeconomy i4HB; FCT/MCTES through the project UIDB/50006/2020. J Conde acknowledges the European Research Council Starting Grant (ERC-StG-2019-848325). V M Costa acknowledges the grant SFRH/BHD/110001/2015, received by Portuguese national funds through Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), IP, under the Norma Transitória DL57/2016/CP1334/CT0006.proofepub_ahead_of_prin

Measuring routine childhood vaccination coverage in 204 countries and territories, 1980-2019 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2020, Release 1

Background Measuring routine childhood vaccination is crucial to inform global vaccine policies and programme implementation, and to track progress towards targets set by the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) and Immunization Agenda 2030. Robust estimates of routine vaccine coverage are needed to identify past successes and persistent vulnerabilities. Drawing from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2020, Release 1, we did a systematic analysis of global, regional, and national vaccine coverage trends using a statistical framework, by vaccine and over time. Methods For this analysis we collated 55 326 country-specific, cohort-specific, year-specific, vaccine-specific, and dosespecific observations of routine childhood vaccination coverage between 1980 and 2019. Using spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression, we produced location-specific and year-specific estimates of 11 routine childhood vaccine coverage indicators for 204 countries and territories from 1980 to 2019, adjusting for biases in countryreported data and reflecting reported stockouts and supply disruptions. We analysed global and regional trends in coverage and numbers of zero-dose children (defined as those who never received a diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis [DTP] vaccine dose), progress towards GVAP targets, and the relationship between vaccine coverage and sociodemographic development. Findings By 2019, global coverage of third-dose DTP (DTP3; 81.6% [95% uncertainty interval 80.4-82 .7]) more than doubled from levels estimated in 1980 (39.9% [37.5-42.1]), as did global coverage of the first-dose measles-containing vaccine (MCV1; from 38.5% [35.4-41.3] in 1980 to 83.6% [82.3-84.8] in 2019). Third- dose polio vaccine (Pol3) coverage also increased, from 42.6% (41.4-44.1) in 1980 to 79.8% (78.4-81.1) in 2019, and global coverage of newer vaccines increased rapidly between 2000 and 2019. The global number of zero-dose children fell by nearly 75% between 1980 and 2019, from 56.8 million (52.6-60. 9) to 14.5 million (13.4-15.9). However, over the past decade, global vaccine coverage broadly plateaued; 94 countries and territories recorded decreasing DTP3 coverage since 2010. Only 11 countries and territories were estimated to have reached the national GVAP target of at least 90% coverage for all assessed vaccines in 2019. Interpretation After achieving large gains in childhood vaccine coverage worldwide, in much of the world this progress was stalled or reversed from 2010 to 2019. These findings underscore the importance of revisiting routine immunisation strategies and programmatic approaches, recentring service delivery around equity and underserved populations. Strengthening vaccine data and monitoring systems is crucial to these pursuits, now and through to 2030, to ensure that all children have access to, and can benefit from, lifesaving vaccines. Copyright (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe

Global, regional, and national sex-specific burden and control of the HIV epidemic, 1990-2019, for 204 countries and territories: the Global Burden of Diseases Study 2019

Background: The sustainable development goals (SDGs) aim to end HIV/AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. Understanding the current state of the HIV epidemic and its change over time is essential to this effort. This study assesses the current sex-specific HIV burden in 204 countries and territories and measures progress in the control of the epidemic. Methods: To estimate age-specific and sex-specific trends in 48 of 204 countries, we extended the Estimation and Projection Package Age-Sex Model to also implement the spectrum paediatric model. We used this model in cases where age and sex specific HIV-seroprevalence surveys and antenatal care-clinic sentinel surveillance data were available. For the remaining 156 of 204 locations, we developed a cohort-incidence bias adjustment to derive incidence as a function of cause-of-death data from vital registration systems. The incidence was input to a custom Spectrum model. To assess progress, we measured the percentage change in incident cases and deaths between 2010 and 2019 (threshold >75% decline), the ratio of incident cases to number of people living with HIV (incidence-to-prevalence ratio threshold <0·03), and the ratio of incident cases to deaths (incidence-to-mortality ratio threshold <1·0). Findings: In 2019, there were 36·8 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 35·1–38·9) people living with HIV worldwide. There were 0·84 males (95% UI 0·78–0·91) per female living with HIV in 2019, 0·99 male infections (0·91–1·10) for every female infection, and 1·02 male deaths (0·95–1·10) per female death. Global progress in incident cases and deaths between 2010 and 2019 was driven by sub-Saharan Africa (with a 28·52% decrease in incident cases, 95% UI 19·58–35·43, and a 39·66% decrease in deaths, 36·49–42·36). Elsewhere, the incidence remained stable or increased, whereas deaths generally decreased. In 2019, the global incidence-to-prevalence ratio was 0·05 (95% UI 0·05–0·06) and the global incidence-to-mortality ratio was 1·94 (1·76–2·12). No regions met suggested thresholds for progress. Interpretation: Sub-Saharan Africa had both the highest HIV burden and the greatest progress between 1990 and 2019. The number of incident cases and deaths in males and females approached parity in 2019, although there remained more females with HIV than males with HIV. Globally, the HIV epidemic is far from the UNAIDS benchmarks on progress metrics. Funding: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Institute on Aging of the NIH