The history of disaster incidents and impact in Nepal 1900-2005: ecological, geographical, and development perspectives

The people of Nepal today are exposed to perennial local disaster events and profound vulnerability to disaster. The combined efforts of government, donors, UN agencies, NGOs, and Nepalese communities are needed to avert the impacts of disaster events. Much more can be done immediately to reduce the impacts by reviewing the scope and distribution of past disaster events. This article provides an overview of Nepal’s disaster vulnerability through an analysis of the record of disaster events that occurred from 1900 to 2005. The data were generated from historical archives and divided into incidents at the district, subnational, and national levels. Statistical and Geographical Information System (GIS) analyses were carried out to generate district level disaster vulnerability maps. It is concluded that small-scale, local disasters have a greater cumulative impact in terms of casualties than large-scale, national disasters

Generic meta-modelling with concepts, templates and mixin layers

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16145-2_2Proceedings of 13th International Conference, MODELS 2010, Oslo, Norway, October 3-8, 2010.Meta-modelling is a key technique in Model Driven Engineering, where it is used for language engineering and domain modelling. However, mainstream approaches like the OMG’s Meta-Object Facility provide little support for abstraction, modularity, reusability and extendibility of (meta-)models, behaviours and transformations. In order to alleviate this weakness, we bring three elements of generic programming into meta-modelling: concepts, templates and mixin layers. Concepts permit an additional typing for models, enabling the definition of behaviours and transformations independently of meta-models, making specifications reusable. Templates use concepts to express requirements on their generic parameters, and are applicable to models and meta-models. Finally, we define functional layers by means of meta-model mixins which can extend other meta-models. As a proof of concept we also report on MetaDepth, a multi-level meta-modelling framework that implements these ideas.Work sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Science, project TIN2008-02081 and mobility grants JC2009-00015 and PR2009-0019, and by the R&D programme of the Community of Madrid, project S2009/TIC-165

Kinerja Keuangan Ditinjau dari Pusat Biaya, Pendapatan, Laba dan Pusat Investasi pada PT. Ake Abadi Airmadidi

Kinerja keuangan dilihat dari pusat biaya, pusat pendapatan, pusat laba dan pusat investasi menggolongkan, mencatat, meringkas, dan melaporkan biaya-biaya yang dihubungkan dengan tingkatan-tingkatan manajemen yang bertanggung jawab. Oleh karena itu, biaya-biaya harus digolongkan dan diberi kode sesuai dengan tingkat manajemen dalam struktur organisasi. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui kinerja keuangan ditinjau dari pusat biaya, pusat pendapatan, pusat laba dan pusat investasi pada PT Ake Abadi. Metode analisis yang digunakan adalah analisis deskriptif. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa kinerja keuangan ditinjau dari pusat biaya dari tahun 2010 sampai tahun 2012 tidak efisien. Sedangkan Kinerja keuangan ditinjau dari pusat pendapatan, pusat laba di lihat dari Gross Profit Margin, Operating Profit Margin, Net Profit Margin, dan pusat investasi di lihat dari Return On Invesment dan Return On Equit Perusahaan dari tahun 2010 sampai tahun 2012 menunjukkan hasil yang baik dan membawa keberhasilan bagi Perusahaan. Sebaiknya manajemen Perusahaan melakukan evaluasi terhadap biaya USAha yaitu biaya-biaya yang termasuk dalam biaya penjualan serta biaya administrasi dan umum, agar Perusahaan dapat meningkatkan efisiensi biaya dan dapat digunakan secara efektif, sehingga tidak terjadi pemborosan biaya

Abstracting modelling languages: A reutilization approach

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31095-9_9Proceedings of 24th International Conference, CAiSE 2012, Gdansk, Poland, June 25-29, 2012Model-Driven Engineering automates the development of information systems. This approach is based on the use of Domain-Specific Modelling Languages (DSMLs) for the description of the relevant aspects of the systems to be built. The increasing complexity of the target systems has raised the need for abstraction techniques able to produce simpler versions of the models, but retaining certain properties of interest. However, developing such abstractions for each DSML from scratch is a time and resource consuming activity. Our solution to this situation is a number of techniques to build reusable abstractions that are defined once and can be reused over families of modelling languages sharing certain requirements. As a proof of concept, we present a catalogue of reusable abstractions, together with an implementation in the MetaDepth multi-level meta-modelling tool.Work funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity (TIN2011-24139), and the R&D programme of Madrid Region (S2009/TIC-1650)

Assessing architectural evolution: A case study

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2011 SpringerThis paper proposes to use a historical perspective on generic laws, principles, and guidelines, like Lehman’s software evolution laws and Martin’s design principles, in order to achieve a multi-faceted process and structural assessment of a system’s architectural evolution. We present a simple structural model with associated historical metrics and visualizations that could form part of an architect’s dashboard. We perform such an assessment for the Eclipse SDK, as a case study of a large, complex, and long-lived system for which sustained effective architectural evolution is paramount. The twofold aim of checking generic principles on a well-know system is, on the one hand, to see whether there are certain lessons that could be learned for best practice of architectural evolution, and on the other hand to get more insights about the applicability of such principles. We find that while the Eclipse SDK does follow several of the laws and principles, there are some deviations, and we discuss areas of architectural improvement and limitations of the assessment approach

A Human TREK-1/HEK Cell Line: A Highly Efficient Screening Tool for Drug Development in Neurological Diseases

TREK-1 potassium channels are involved in a number of physiopathological processes such as neuroprotection, pain and depression. Molecules able to open or to block these channels can be clinically important. Having a cell model for screening such molecules is of particular interest. Here, we describe the development of the first available cell line that constituvely expresses the TREK-1 channel. The TREK-1 channel expressed by the h-TREK-1/HEK cell line has conserved all its modulation properties. It is opened by stretch, pH, polyunsaturated fatty acids and by the neuroprotective molecule, riluzole and it is blocked by spadin or fluoxetine. We also demonstrate that the h-TREK-1/HEK cell line is protected against ischemia by using the oxygen-glucose deprivation model

Petrología y geoquímica de la ofiolita neoproterozoica de Bou Azzer (Marruecos)

Depto. de Mineralogía y PetrologíaFac. de Ciencias GeológicasTRUEpu

Developing a tool to measure health worker motivation in district hospitals in Kenya

BACKGROUND: We wanted to try to account for worker motivation as a key factor that might affect the success of an intervention to improve implementation of health worker practices in eight district hospitals in Kenya. In the absence of available tools, we therefore aimed to develop a tool that could enable a rapid measurement of motivation at baseline and at subsequent points during the 18-month intervention study. METHODS: After a literature review, a self-administered questionnaire was developed to assess the outcomes and determinants of motivation of Kenyan government hospital staff. The initial questionnaire included 23 questions (from seven underlying constructs) related to motivational outcomes that were then used to construct a simpler tool to measure motivation. Parallel qualitative work was undertaken to assess the relevance of the questions chosen and the face validity of the tool. RESULTS: Six hundred eighty-four health workers completed the questionnaires at baseline. Reliability analysis and factor analysis were used to produce the simplified motivational index, which consisted of 10 equally-weighted items from three underlying factors. Scores on the 10-item index were closely correlated with scores for the 23-item index, indicating that in future rapid assessments might be based on the 10 questions alone. The 10-item motivation index was also able to identify statistically significant differences in mean health worker motivation scores between the study hospitals (p<0.001). The parallel qualitative work in general supported these conclusions and contributed to our understanding of the three identified components of motivation. CONCLUSION: The 10-item score developed may be useful to monitor changes in motivation over time within our study or be used for more extensive rapid assessments of health worker motivation in Kenya