New Investigations in the Environment, History and Archaeology of the Iraqi Hilly Flanks: Shahrizor Survey Project 2009-2011

Recent palaeoenvironmental, historical, and archaeological investigations, primarily consisting of site reconnaissance, in the Shahrizor region within the province of Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan are bringing to light new information on the region’s social and socio-ecological development. This paper summarises two seasons of work by researchers from German, British, Dutch, and Iraqi-Kurdish institutions working in the survey region. Palaeoenvironmental data have determined that during the Pleistocene many terraces developed which came to be occupied by a number of the larger tell sites in the Holocene. In the sedimentary record, climatic and anthropogenic patterns are noticeable, and alluviation has affected the recovery of archaeological remains through site burial in places. Historical data show the Shahrizor shifting between periods of independence, either occupied by one regional state or several smaller entities, and periods that saw the plain’s incorporation within large empires, often in a border position. New archaeological investigations have provided insight into the importance of the region as a transit centre between Western Iran and northern and southern Mesopotamia, with clear material culture links recovered. Variations between periods’ settlement patterns and occupations are also beginning to emerge

IDENTIFICATION AND QUANTIFICATION OF FACTORS AFFECTING REUSABILITY OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE IN REUSE-INTENSIVE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Open Source Software (OSS) is one of the emerging areas in software engineering. Reuse of OSS is employed in reuse-intensive software development such as Component Based Software Development and Software Product Lines. OSS is gaining the interest of the software development community due to its enormous benefits. The context of this study is the identification and quantification of factors affecting reusability of OSS in reuse-intensive software development. The use of OSS in the systematic reuse of software, such as in Software Product Lines (SPLs) is a new phenomenon. Therefore, the aim of this study is to identify and quantify the factors affecting the reusability of OSS in reuse-intensive software development, especially for SPLs. In this study, a mixed methods based approach is employed to identify the factors affecting the reusability of OSS. Interviews are conducted with experts in this field as the qualitative part, followed by a survey, experiments and a statistical analysis. The factors identified during the interviews are ranked by software engineers in a survey. Experiment is conducted to assess the reusability of open source packages. The factors are validated by conducting a statistical analysis of the results of the experiments. A set of nine factors were identified as a result of the qualitative study. A model was formed on the basis of the findings of interviews and a survey. It includes five factors. These were statistically analyzed by applying the model to 77 open source packages. A set of nine factors were identified as affecting reusability of OSS in a reuse-intensive development environment. Five of them were validated at the code level. The statistical results show a positive correlation between reusability and the identified factors

Backscatter and Dielectric Measurements from Rocks of South-Eastern Utah at C-, X-and K\u3csub\u3eu\u3c/sub\u3e-bands

Radar backscatter from bare sandstones, shales and limestones was measured in May 1982 in the Monument Upwarp region of south-eastern Utah using a helicopter-borne 4-4-17-6 GHz multipolarization radar scatterometer. Rock samples for laboratory analysis were collected and surface conditions described. The purpose of the experiment was to observe the backscatter from selected rock formations as a function of incidence angle, frequency and polarization to determine the degree of correlation with the permittivity and roughness of the rocks. An additional goal was to measure the permittivity of the rock samples using free space, waveguide and in situ methods. The permittivity of the sandstone ranged from 3·0 to 3·75, the shales from 4·2 to 5·0, and the limestones from 7·5 to 8·5. Multiple linear regression analysis of the data indicated a high (greater than 90 per cent) correlation between the radar backscatter and the permittivity of the rocks

Epidemiology, clinical presentation, and patterns of drug resistance of salmonella typhi in Karachi, Pakistan

Introduction: Enteric fever remains a major public health problem in Asia. Planning appropriate preventive measures such as immunization requires a clear understanding of disease burden. We conducted a community-based surveillance for Salmonella Typhi infection in children in Karachi, Pakistan. Methodology: A de jure household census was conducted at baseline in the study setting to enumerate all individuals. A health-care facility-based passive surveillance system was used to capture episodes of fever lasting three or more 3 days in children 2 to 16 years old. Results: A total of 7,401 blood samples were collected for microbiological confirmation, out of which 189 S. Typhi and 32 S. Paratyphi A isolates were identified with estimated annual incidences of 451/100,000 (95% CI: 446 – 457) and 76/100,000 (95% CI: 74 – 78) respectively. At the time of presentation, after adjusting for age, there was an association between the duration of fever and temperature at presentation, and being infected with multidrug-resistant S. Typhi. Of 189 isolates 83 were found to be resistant to first-line antimicrobial therapy. There was no statistically significant difference in clinical presentation of blood culture sensitive and resistant S. Typhi isolates. Conclusion: Incidence of S. Typhi in children is high in urban squatter settlements of Karachi, Pakistan. Findings from this study identified duration of fever and temperature at the time of presentation as important symptoms associated with blood culture-confirmed typhoid fever. Preventive strategies such as immunization and improvements in water and sanitation conditions should be the focus of typhoid control in urban settlements of Pakistan