Evaluation of Cost Estimation Metrics: Towards a Unified Terminology

Cost overrun of software projects is major cause of their failures. In order to facilitate accurate software cost estimation, there are several metrics, tools and datasets. In this paper, we evaluate and compare different metrics and datasets in terms of similarities and differences of involved software attributes. These metrics forecast project cost estimations based on different software attributes. Some of these metrics are public and standard while others are only employed in a particular metric tool/dataset.Sixteen public cost estimation datasets are collected and analyzed. Different perspectives are used to compare and classify those datasets. Tools for feature selection and classification are used to find the most important attributes in cost estimation datasets toward the goal of effort prediction. In order to have better estimation it is needed to correlate cost estimation from different resources, which requires a unified standard for software cost estimation metric tools and datasets. It is pertinent that a common cost estimation model may not work for each project due to diverse project size, application areas etc. We suggest having a standardized terminology of project attributes used for cost estimation. This would improve cost estimation as multiple metrics could be applied on a project without much additional effort.</p

Issues Related to the Detection of Source Code Plagiarism in Students Assignments

Detecting similarity or plagiarism in the academic research publications, source code, etc. has been a long time complex and time consuming task. Several algorithms, tools and websites exist that try to find plagiarism or possible plagiarism in those human creative products. In this paper we used source code plagiarism detection tools to assess the level of plagiarism in source codes. We also investigated issues related to accuracy and challenges in detecting possible plagiarism in students\u27 assignments. In a second study, we evaluated some tools against detecting possible plagiarism in research papers. Results showed that such process or decision is not binary to make and that subjectivity is high. In addition, there is a need to tune plagiarism detection tools to give criticality or weights by users of those tools to categorize and classify different levels of seriousness for committing plagiarism

THE HDAC INHIBITOR SODIUM PHENYLBUTYRATE ENHANCES THE CYTOTOXICITY INDUCED BY 5-FLUOROURACIL, OXALIPLATIN, AND IRINOTECAN IN COLORECTAL CANCER CELL LINES

Objective: The main objective of this study was to evaluate the ability of sodium phenylbutyrate (NaPB) to enhance the cytotoxicity of 5-fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, and irinotecan against colorectal cancer cell lines expressing wild-type and mutant p53.Methods: The antiproliferative effect of NaPB alone or in combination with 5-fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, or irinotecan in HCT-116 and HT-29 colorectal cancer cell lines was investigated using the MTT cell proliferation assay. IC50 values were calculated using Compusyn Software 1.0 (Combosyn Inc.). Synergy values (R) were calculated using the ratio of IC50 of each primary drug alone divided by combination IC50s. For each two pairs of experiments, student's t-test was used for analysis. In combination studies, one-way ANOVA test; Tukey post-hoc testing was performed using R 3.3.2 software. P-value&lt;0.05 was considered significant.Results: NaPB inhibited the growth of HCT-116 and HT-29 cell lines in a dose-dependent manner (IC50s 4.7 mmol, and 10.1 mmol, respectively). HT-29 cell lines (mutant p53) were more sensitive to NaPB at low concentrations (&lt;4 mmol). Moreover, the addition of NaPB to HCT-116 and HT-29 with 5-fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, or irinotecan synergistically induced the antiproliferative effect (R&gt;1.6, p-value&lt;0.05).Conclusion: NaPB enhanced the cytotoxicity of conventional chemotherapy against colorectal cancer cell lines harboring wild-type or mutant p53. Thus NaPB is a promising potential adjuvant chemotherapy in colorectal cancer

Factorial Structure of the Covid-19 Pandemic Anxiety Scale (PAS-38) Using Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis

COVID-19 has created an unprecedented challenge for the whole world. Apart from being a big threat to lives, it has also created a lot of anxiety among the people. This study aimed to identify the factorial structures of the psychological anxiety scale for the COVID-19 pandemic. The initial form of the scale consisted of (55) items. The validity and reliability of the scale were verified. Moreover, the exploratory factor analysis was extracted, which showed the presence of three factors on which the items gathered: the somatic, the psychological, and the cognitive. Twelve items were deleted because they were not saturated with any of the three dimensions, then the confirmatory factor analysis was applied using the Amos program which indicated the results of the exploratory factor analysis of the scale, where nearly all the items of the three factors had significant loadings on the factor it belongs. Finally, the study recommended using this scale in future researches

A Novel Root Based Arabic Stemmer

Stemming algorithms are used in information retrieval systems, indexers, text mining, text classifiers etc., to extract stems or roots of different words, so that words derived from the same stem or root are grouped together. Many stemming algorithms were built in different natural languages. Khoja stemmer is one of the known and widely used Arabic stemmers. In this paper, we introduced a new light and heavy Arabic stemmer. This new stemmer is presented in this study and compared with two well-known Arabic stemmers. Results showed that accuracy of our stemmer is slightly better than the accuracy yielded by each one of those two well-known Arabic stemmers used for evaluation and comparison. Evaluation tests on our novel stemmer yield 75.03% accuracy, while the other two Arabic stemmers yield slightly lower accuracy

A new approach to deploy a self-adaptive distributed firewall

Distributed firewall systems emerged with the proposal of protecting individual hosts against attacks originating from inside the network. In these systems, firewall rules are centrally created, then distributed and enforced on all servers that compose the firewall, restricting which services will be available. However, this approach lacks protection against software vulnerabilities that can make network services vulnerable to attacks, since firewalls usually do not scan application protocols. In this sense, from the discovery of any vulnerability until the publication and application of patches there is an exposure window that should be reduced. In this context, this article presents Self-Adaptive Distributed Firewall (SADF). Our approach is based on monitoring hosts and using a vulnerability assessment system to detect vulnerable services, integrated with components capable of deciding and applying firewall rules on affected hosts. In this way, SADF can respond to vulnerabilities discovered in these hosts, helping to mitigate the risk of exploiting the vulnerability. Our system was evaluated in the context of a simulated network environment, where the results achieved demonstrate its viability

Weak or no association of TCF7L2 variants with Type 2 diabetes risk in an Arab population

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The rs7903146 and rs12255372 variants of <it>TCF7L2 </it>have been strongly associated with type 2 diabetes (T2D) risk in most populations studied to date. Meta-analysis of 27 different studies has resulted in a global OR of 1.46 [1.42–1.51] (rs7903146 variant). Thus far, despite a high incidence of T2D, the role of this variant in Arabs has not been established.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We performed a case-control association study using 522 Saudi T2D patients (WHO criteria), and 346 controls (age > 60; fasting plasma glucose < 7 mmol/L). Genotyping was performed by pyrosequencing. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 13.0 for Windows (SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>For rs7903146, the T allele frequency of the cases (0.415) was not different from that observed in the controls (0.405). The crude odds ratio (OR) was 1.04 with a 95% CI of 0.86–1.27 (P = 0.675). For rs12255372, the T allele frequency of the cases (0.368) was not different from that observed in the controls (0.355). Retrospective power calculations based upon an OR of 1.46 reported in a comprehensive meta-analysis of <it>TCF7L2 </it>risk, indicated this study was sufficiently powered (96.92%; α = 0.05) to detect an effect of similar magnitude to that reported for rs7903146.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our study is consistent with weak or no association of T2D in Arabs with the two <it>TCF7L2 </it>variants, however it cannot rule out an effect of other SNPs in this gene. Future studies in this population are required to confirm our findings and may indicate the presence of yet to be defined genetic risk factors for T2D.</p