Development of a prototype for multidimensional performance management in software engineering

Managing performance is an important, and difficult, topic, and tools are needed to help organizations manage their performance. Understanding, and improving performance is an important problem. Performance management has become more and more important for organizations, and managers are always on the lookout for better solutions to manage performance within their organizations. One of the most important consequences of not having a Performance Management Framework (PMF) in place is the difficulty of differentiating organizational success from failure over time. Performance Management Frameworks have become important to organizations that need to plan, monitor, control, and improve their decisions. Use of a PMF can show an organization how it is performing and indicate whether or not an organization is going in the right direction to achieve its objectives. Over the years, several frameworks have been developed to address the management of organizational assets, both tangible and intangible. Performance measurement has always mostly been focused on the economic viewpoint. The framework developed by Kaplan and Norton adds three other viewpoints to this, and this addition represents a significant improvement to PMFs. The PMFs currently proposed do not meet the analytical requirements of software engineering management when various viewpoints must be taken into account concurrently. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that the underlying quantitative data are multidimensional, and so the usual two- and three-dimensional approaches to visualization are generally not sufficient to represent such models. Organizations vary considerably in the wide variety of viewpoints that influence their performance, and every organization has their own viewpoints that they want to manage, and which must be represented in a consolidated manner. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a prototype for managing multidimensional performance in software engineering. The thesis begins by defining the important terms or key concepts used in the research: software, performance, management, model, multidimensional, development, engineering, and prototype, and the various associations of these terms. This is followed by a review of the multidimensional PMFs that are specific to software engineering and the generic multidimensional performance models that are available to management. A framework for managing performance in software engineering in four phases: design, implementation, use of the framework, and performance improvement is then presented. Based on this framework, a prototype tool is developed. The prototype notably includes visual analytical tools to manage, interpret, and understand the results in a consolidated manner, while at the same time keeping track of the values of the individual dimensions of performance. The repository of software project data made available by the International Software Benchmarking Standard Group (ISBSG) is integrated into and used by the prototype as well

Optimized scanning procedures for 4D CT data acquisition in radiation therapy

The goal of conformal radiation techniques is to improve local tumor control through dose escalation to target volumes while at the same time sparing surrounding healthy tissue. Accurate target volume delineation is essential in achieving this goal to avoid inadequate tumor coverage and/or irradiation of an unnecessary volume of healthy tissue. Respiratory motion is known to be the largest intra-fractional organ motion and the most significant source of uncertainty in treatment planning for chest lesions. A method to minimize effects of respiratory motion is to use four-dimensional (4D) radiotherapy.A novel scanning procedure for 4D CT data acquisition is described in this work. Three single-slice helical scans are acquired simultaneously with the real-time tracking of several markers placed on a moving phantom. At the end of the three scans. CT data is binned into different respiratory phases according to the externally recorded respiratory signal and the scanned volume is reconstructed for several respiratory phases. The 4D CT images obtained show an overall improvement when compared to conventional CT images of a moving phantom

Reconstruction d'images en tomographie par impédance électrique en utilisant une équation de type Lippmann-Schwinger

MONTPELLIER-BU Sciences (341722106) / SudocSudocFranceF

State anxiety and frontal alpha asymmetry effects of the REThink online video game for children and adolescents: A six-month follow-up

Background: Emotional disorders are the most prevalent mental health conditions affecting children and adolescents. Thus, it becomes essential to develop and test early intervention strategies that are accessible and attractive as therapeutic strategies and can effectively improve youth's emotional and psychobiological reactivity to distress. Methods: A randomized control trial compared the prevention effects of a newly-developed therapeutic game based on Rational Emotive Behavior Education, REThink, to those of a standard, face-to-face group Rational Emotive Behavior Education (REBE) and those of a waitlist. Out of 142 healthy children and adolescents who completed the intervention stage, 137 completed follow-up assessment measuring subjective anxiety and biological stress reactivity in an impromptu speech task. Results: No differences were found between groups at follow-up in terms of subjective state anxiety variations between baseline, anticipation, speech and recovery. In terms of the psychobiological index, results showed an increase in left asymmetry for the REThink group at post-test and follow-up compared to pre-intervention levels. The same trend was found for the WL group, but not for the REBE group. Conclusions: Preliminary results suggest that decreases in the biological reactivity can be maintained in the long run following a therapeutic video game for children and adolescents. Future research needs to clarify the adequate usage of the therapeutic videogames to bring significant improvements in the psychobiological functioning of the youths

An investigation into the use of mmctp to tune accelerator source parameters and testing its clinical application

This paper presents an alternative method to tune Monte Carlo electron beam parameters to match measured data using a minimal set of variables in order to reduce the model setup time prior to clinical implementation of the model. Monte Carlo calculations provide the possibility of a powerful treatment planning verification technique. The nonstandardized and nonautomated process of tuning the required accelerator model is one of the reasons for delays in the clinical implementation of Monte Carlo techniques. This work aims to establish and verify an alternative tuning method that can be carried out in a minimal amount of time, allowing it to be easily implemented in a clinical setting by personnel with minimal experience with Monte Carlo methods. This tuned model can then be incorporated into the MMCTP system to allow the system to be used as a second dose calculation check for IMRT plans. The technique proposed was used to establish the primary electron beam parameters for accelerator models for the Varian Clinac 2100 6 MV photon beam using the BEAMnrc Monte Carlo system. The method is intended to provide a clear, direct, and efficient process for tuning an accelerator model using readily available clinical quality assurance data. The tuning provides a refined model, which agrees with measured dose profile curves within 1.5% outside the penumbra or 3 mm in the penumbra, for square fields with sides of 3 cm up to 30 cm. These models can then be employed as the basis for Monte Carlo recalculations of dose distributions, using the MMCTP system, for clinical treatment plans, providing an invaluable assessment tool. This was tested on six IMRT plans and compared to the measurements performed for the pretreatment QA process. These Monte Carlo values for the average dose to the chamber volume agreed with measurements to within 0.6%

An investigation into the use of mmctp to tune accelerator source parameters and testing its clinical application

This paper presents an alternative method to tune Monte Carlo electron beam parameters to match measured data using a minimal set of variables in order to reduce the model setup time prior to clinical implementation of the model. Monte Carlo calculations provide the possibility of a powerful treatment planning verification technique. The nonstandardized and nonautomated process of tuning the required accelerator model is one of the reasons for delays in the clinical implementation of Monte Carlo techniques. This work aims to establish and verify an alternative tuning method that can be carried out in a minimal amount of time, allowing it to be easily implemented in a clinical setting by personnel with minimal experience with Monte Carlo methods. This tuned model can then be incorporated into the MMCTP system to allow the system to be used as a second dose calculation check for IMRT plans. The technique proposed was used to establish the primary electron beam parameters for accelerator models for the Varian Clinac 2100 6 MV photon beam using the BEAMnrc Monte Carlo system. The method is intended to provide a clear, direct, and efficient process for tuning an accelerator model using readily available clinical quality assurance data. The tuning provides a refined model, which agrees with measured dose profile curves within 1.5% outside the penumbra or 3 mm in the penumbra, for square fields with sides of 3 cm up to 30 cm. These models can then be employed as the basis for Monte Carlo recalculations of dose distributions, using the MMCTP system, for clinical treatment plans, providing an invaluable assessment tool. This was tested on six IMRT plans and compared to the measurements performed for the pretreatment QA process. These Monte Carlo values for the average dose to the chamber volume agreed with measurements to within 0.6%