Are Delayed Issues Harder to Resolve? Revisiting Cost-to-Fix of Defects throughout the Lifecycle

Many practitioners and academics believe in a delayed issue effect (DIE); i.e. the longer an issue lingers in the system, the more effort it requires to resolve. This belief is often used to justify major investments in new development processes that promise to retire more issues sooner. This paper tests for the delayed issue effect in 171 software projects conducted around the world in the period from 2006--2014. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest study yet published on this effect. We found no evidence for the delayed issue effect; i.e. the effort to resolve issues in a later phase was not consistently or substantially greater than when issues were resolved soon after their introduction. This paper documents the above study and explores reasons for this mismatch between this common rule of thumb and empirical data. In summary, DIE is not some constant across all projects. Rather, DIE might be an historical relic that occurs intermittently only in certain kinds of projects. This is a significant result since it predicts that new development processes that promise to faster retire more issues will not have a guaranteed return on investment (depending on the context where applied), and that a long-held truth in software engineering should not be considered a global truism.Comment: 31 pages. Accepted with minor revisions to Journal of Empirical Software Engineering. Keywords: software economics, phase delay, cost to fi

Safe Haven for Salvadorans in the Context of Contemporary International Law--A Case Study in Equivocation

This Article analyzes the basis for safe-haven programs for refugees fleeing war and civil strife under contemporary principles of international law. The authors trace the development of safe-haven programs in the United States and offer an analysis and critique of the Temporary Protected Status program created by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990. Focusing on the struggle to gain safe haven for refugees from El Salvador, the authors review the United States government\u27s historical use of safe haven programs as a political tool. Finally, the Article looks at how other countries have responded to refugee crises and suggests a policy for the United States that is consistent with international refugee law

At the Crossroads: Learning to Speak the (Foreign) Language of Higher Education Leadership

More than ten years have passed since the 2007 MLA Ad Hoc Committee of Foreign Languages report recommended structural and curricular change initiatives to counteract the growing crisis in postsecondary world language education. Almost a decade earlier, Heidi Byrnes had already expounded on the need to replace persistent bifurcated curricular legacy systems in world language education with clearly articulated programs across the entire undergraduate spectrum. To do so, she argued, faculty members at all levels needed to abandon unrealistic and nativist expectations of student proficiency, stop pitting teaching against research, and replace the dictates of a textbook or chosen methodology with well-thought-out curricula. She also urged practitioners to engage in “deep reflection on the value of foreign language study in a collegiate context” to help “learners perform the humanist act of discovering themselves” through the acquisition of multiple literacies (278). If we consider John Kotter’s change theory (1993), world language practitioners have been aware of a sense of urgency to devise and enact change since the 1990s; however, attempts at building a guiding coalition or forming a strategic vision and initiatives have—with few notable exceptions—rarely been enacted or yielded many tangible results at the department level

Koinonia

ACSD Celebrates 20 Year AnniversaryACSD: Past, Present, Future, Barry Loy and Skip Trudeau ACSD Memories, Tim Nichols Our Scrapbook: The People, The Places, The Lives We\u27ve Touched In This IssueWhy Do We Do the Things We Do?: Questions to be asked by the follower of Jesus, David Johnstone Be Prepared to Prepare: Our students search for a simple faith and a simple truth, Brad Bowser and Damon Seacott In The FieldPreparing for a Professional Transition, Steve Beers Regular FeaturesPresident\u27s Corner Editor\u27s Disk Coalition of Christian College Activities (CoCCA) News from the Regions: Spotlight on the North Central Region ACSD Business: Executive Committee Ballot Proposed ACSD Constitution Changes Perspective: A University of Characterhttps://pillars.taylor.edu/acsd_koinonia/1018/thumbnail.jp

Complementary Activity of ETV5, RBPJ, and TCF3 Drives Formative Transition from Naive Pluripotency.

The gene regulatory network (GRN) of naive mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) must be reconfigured to enable lineage commitment. TCF3 sanctions rewiring by suppressing components of the ESC transcription factor circuitry. However, TCF3 depletion only delays and does not prevent transition to formative pluripotency. Here, we delineate additional contributions of the ETS-family transcription factor ETV5 and the repressor RBPJ. In response to ERK signaling, ETV5 switches activity from supporting self-renewal and undergoes genome relocation linked to commissioning of enhancers activated in formative epiblast. Independent upregulation of RBPJ prevents re-expression of potent naive factors, TBX3 and NANOG, to secure exit from the naive state. Triple deletion of Etv5, Rbpj, and Tcf3 disables ESCs, such that they remain largely undifferentiated and locked in self-renewal, even in the presence of differentiation stimuli. Thus, genetic elimination of three complementary drivers of network transition stalls developmental progression, emulating environmental insulation by small-molecule inhibitors.This research was funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, European Commission (contract no. 200720, EuroSyStem) and the Louis Jeantet Foundation. The Cambridge Stem Cell Institute receives core support from the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. AS is a Medical Research Council Professor

Campus Pride

This project proposed a better means to identify what manifests a sense of pride on college campuses and identify how, specifically, VCU could enrich the campus image, the campus experience and the campus environment to nurture and enhance institutional pride. Of the ideas that were proposed, Mary Cox, University Architect, was able to implement several under the purview of facilities management. The VCU Rams logo painted on campus streets and the use of banners highlighting key university accomplishments were among the ideas proposed in this project

A review of current methods for assessing hemostasis in vivo and introduction to a potential alternative approach

A validated method for assessing hemostasis in vivo is critical for testing the hemostatic efficacy of therapeutic agents in preclinical animal models and in patients with inherited bleeding disorders, such as von Willebrand disease (VWD) and hemophilia A, or with acquired bleeding disorders such as those resulting from medications or disease processes. In this review, we discuss current methods for assessing hemostasis in vivo and the associated challenges. We also present ARFI-Monitored Hemostatic Challenge; a new, potentially alternate method for in vivo hemostasis monitoring that is in development by our group

Banner News

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Metabolic control of DNA methylation in naive pluripotent cells.

Naive epiblast and embryonic stem cells (ESCs) give rise to all cells of adults. Such developmental plasticity is associated with genome hypomethylation. Here, we show that LIF-Stat3 signaling induces genomic hypomethylation via metabolic reconfiguration. Stat3-/- ESCs show decreased α-ketoglutarate production from glutamine, leading to increased Dnmt3a and Dnmt3b expression and DNA methylation. Notably, genome methylation is dynamically controlled through modulation of α-ketoglutarate availability or Stat3 activation in mitochondria. Alpha-ketoglutarate links metabolism to the epigenome by reducing the expression of Otx2 and its targets Dnmt3a and Dnmt3b. Genetic inactivation of Otx2 or Dnmt3a and Dnmt3b results in genomic hypomethylation even in the absence of active LIF-Stat3. Stat3-/- ESCs show increased methylation at imprinting control regions and altered expression of cognate transcripts. Single-cell analyses of Stat3-/- embryos confirmed the dysregulated expression of Otx2, Dnmt3a and Dnmt3b as well as imprinted genes. Several cancers display Stat3 overactivation and abnormal DNA methylation; therefore, the molecular module that we describe might be exploited under pathological conditions