Evolving web-based test automation into agile business specifications

Usually, test automation scripts for a web application directly mirror the actions that the tester carries out in the browser, but they tend to be verbose and repetitive, making them expensive to maintain and ineffective in an agile setting. Our research has focussed on providing tool-support for business-level, example-based specifications that are mapped to the browser level for automatic verification. We provide refactoring support for the evolution of existing browser-level tests into business-level specifications. As resulting business rule tables may be incomplete, redundant or contradictory, our tool provides feedback on coverage

Food Justice in the Trump Age: Priorities for Urban Food Advocates

This essay outlines priorities for food advocates following the election of President Donald Trump. Specifically, this essay advocates for: 1. preservation of snap, 2. prevention of industry deregulation, and 3. sustainment of regional food systems. In its analysis, this essay examines each of the potential conservative-back counter proposals for these priorities

Parallelism, It\u27s Evolutionary Origin and Systematic Significance

Parallelism as one of the forms of biological similarity is investigated in the light of recent findings from developmental and molecular biology. From the organismic point of view, functional constraints and evolutionary canalization are well established as causes of parallelism. To these may be added, from the molecular perspective, (a) erratic activations of repressed genes; (b) activations of alternative pathways under the influence ofhomoeotic genes; and (c) horizontal gene transfer, for which a simple mechanism is proposed. The control of gene expression through the action oftransposable elements, reversible to some degree, appears to be an evolutionarily important and frequent phenomenon, which may account for many cases formerly interpreted as losses or irreversible changes of genes. It is suggested that this mechanism, which seems to be optimized in angiosperms, may account for the great evolutionary plasticity of this plant group. It may also provide an explanation for so-called reversals which appear as artifacts of character analyses and are biologically barely explicable. Events of horizontal gene transfer, creative for evolution but disturbing for classification, appear less frequent, or otherwise the structure of the taxonomic hierarchy would not be perceptible. Increasing knowledge in the fields of molecular and developmental biology tends to blur the borderline between homology, homoiology, parallelism, and perhaps convergence, phenomena formerly thought to be more or less distinct

Technology of forced flow and once-through boiling: A survey

Representative boiling heat transfer and pressure drop information obtained primarily from past NASA and AEC programs is presented which is applicable to forced flow and once-through boiler systems. The forced convection boiler has a number of advantages: little possibility of flow mal-distribution; heat transfer characteristics are usually consistent; and conductances are predictable, so that higher heat fluxes may be employed with safety (which leads to more compact, lighter weight equipment). It was found that in gas-fired systems particularly, the controlling heat transfer resistance may be on the hot side, so that increased fluxes would require extended surfaces. If in a power generation system the working fluid is very expensive, a forced flow boiler can be designed especially for small holdup volume. If the fluid is temperature sensitive, the boiling side wall temperatures can be tailored to maintain maximum heat transfer rates without overheating the fluid. The forced flow and once-through configurations may be the only type which can satisfy a specific need (such as the automotive Rankine cycle power plant design having a very short time-response boiler)

Lean as a scrum troubleshooter

Abstract-Systematic works at CMMI level 5 and uses Lean Software Development as a driver for optimizing software processes. Many of the optimizations described in this paper are the result of using A3 problem solving. What makes the Systematic experience unique, is the larger focus of the problem solving effort, at an organizational level, in which individual projects are used as experiments to try out countermeasures to address root causes. This is possible because Systematic, based on a CMMI focus, already employs a level of standard work across project and product engagements so that we can apply learning from an experiment on one project to future projects. Experience from the past five years has resulted in significant improvements to our processes including our Scrum implementation, and has revealed insight into five key measures to monitor projects. The experiences also show important lessons learned on how to combine team retrospective learning with organizational learning

Let Them Eat Lunch: The Impact of Universal Free Meals on Student Performance

Children need healthy and balanced meals to perform well in school. Universal Free Meal programs improve English and Math test scores and may even reduce obesity among middle school students. District and school leaders nationwide should consider adopting this program

Struggling for food in a time of crisis: Responsibility and paradox

Responsibility is a useful lens through which to examine the current state of food poverty in the UK in the context of the Covid‐19 crisis, noting that this concept contains several paradoxes. Currently, responsibility involves the voluntary sector, the food industry and the state, a situation which the author has been exploring for the last five years in an ethnographic study of food poverty and food aid in the UK. Food aid organizations, especially food banks, have mushroomed during the period of austerity. This reveals the first paradox: namely, that the existence of food banks conveys the message that ‘something is being done’, but in actuality this is very far from being sufficient to meet the needs of either the ‘old’ or ‘new’ food insecure. The second paradox is that at the onset of the crisis, a government which had been responsible for inflicting austerity on the country for 10 years, dramatically reversed some of its policies. However, predictably, this did not change the situation vis‐à‐vis food insecurity. The third paradox is that the frequent rhetoric invoking the two world wars has not resulted in lessons being learned – notably, the creation of a ministry to deal with food and rationing, as in the Second World War. The final paradox relates to Brexit and its likely deleterious effects on food security, particularly if no ‘deal’ is achieved with the European Union, as seems likely. The voluntary food aid sector, try as it may, cannot possibly assume responsibility for the long‐standing and now hugely increased problems of food insecurity. That belongs to the state

Workgroup Report: Indoor Chemistry and Health

Chemicals present in indoor air can react with one another, either in the gas phase or on surfaces, altering the concentrations of both reactants and products. Such chemistry is often the major source of free radicals and other short-lived reactive species in indoor environments. To what extent do the products of indoor chemistry affect human health? To address this question, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health sponsored a workshop titled “Indoor Chemistry and Health” on 12–15 July 2004 at the University of California–Santa Cruz. Approximately 70 experts from eight countries participated. Objectives included enhancing communications between researchers in indoor chemistry and health professionals, as well as defining a list of priority research needs related to the topic of the workshop. The ultimate challenges in this emerging field are defining exposures to the products of indoor chemistry and developing an understanding of the links between these exposures and various health outcomes. The workshop was a step toward meeting these challenges. This summary presents the issues discussed at the workshop and the priority research needs identified by the attendees

College Students and SNAP: The New Face of Food Insecurity in the United States

Over the last decade, multiple studies of food insecurity among college students have found rates from 20% to more than 50%, considerably higher than the 12% rate for the entire US population. Reasons for higher rates of food insecurity among college students include a growing population of low-income college students, high college costs and insufficient financial aid, more financial hardship among many low- and moderate-income families, a weak labor market for part-time workers, declining per capita college resources, and Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) policies that specifically exclude many college students from participation. This essay reviews the causes and consequences of food insecurity on campus, explores reasons for the low SNAP participation rate, and describes how campuses have responded to food insecurity. It summarizes federal, state, and local changes in SNAP policies that can facilitate college student participation and retention and suggests strategies for more robust and effective university responses to food insecurity,including SNAP enrollment campaigns, a stronger role for campus food services, and a redefinition of the goals and purposes of campus food pantries