Tape Mbo'e: A First Experimental Assessment

The development of software not only needs to consider the construction process, but also other aspects such as cost, human resources and communication among stakehold- ers. The lack of simplicity into this context becomes explicit when some restrictions, such as service oriented architecture, must be considered as the basic style to build sus- tainable applications into environments were practitioners are not aware of this software technology. In addition to this, most of the available software processes are not directly applicable nor are they reusable, so learning times becomes risk for the development of the project. Therefore, Tape Mbo'e (TME) has been proposed to support the building of such applications, into development environments like developing countries where we can have economic constraints and scarcity of proficient practitioners. The first application of TME has been to develop a service-based application whose goal is to provide the interoperability among legacy systems of different public agencies in Paraguay. Initial results of this experience indicated the feasibility and simplicity of TME when applied in this field. The evaluation process, its results and conclusions are described in this paper

An Evidence-based Roadmap for IoT Software Systems Engineering

Context: The Internet of Things (IoT) has brought expectations for software inclusion in everyday objects. However, it has challenges and requires multidisciplinary technical knowledge involving different areas that should be combined to enable IoT software systems engineering. Goal: To present an evidence-based roadmap for IoT development to support developers in specifying, designing, and implementing IoT systems. Method: An iterative approach based on experimental studies to acquire evidence to define the IoT Roadmap. Next, the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge life cycle was used to organize the roadmap and set temporal dimensions for IoT software systems engineering. Results: The studies revealed seven IoT Facets influencing IoT development. The IoT Roadmap comprises 117 items organized into 29 categories representing different concerns for each Facet. In addition, an experimental study was conducted observing a real case of a healthcare IoT project, indicating the roadmap applicability. Conclusions: The IoT Roadmap can be a feasible instrument to assist IoT software systems engineering because it can (a) support researchers and practitioners in understanding and characterizing the IoT and (b) provide a checklist to identify the applicable recommendations for engineering IoT software systems

How do practitioners perceive the relevance of requirements engineering research? An ongoing study

The relevance of Requirements Engineering (RE) research to practitioners is a prerequisite for problem-driven research in the area and key for a long-term dissemination of research results to everyday practice. To understand better how industry practitioners perceive the practical relevance of RE research, we have initiated the RE-Pract project, an international collaboration conducting an empirical study. This project opts for a replication of previous work done in two different domains and relies on survey research. To this end, we have designed a survey to be sent to several hundred industry practitioners at various companies around the world and ask them to rate their perceived practical relevance of the research described in a sample of 418 RE papers published between 2010 and 2015 at the RE, ICSE, FSE, ESEC/FSE, ESEM and REFSQ conferences. In this paper, we summarize our research protocol and present the current status of our study and the planned future steps.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Macrophage-dependent IL-1β production induces cardiac arrhythmias in diabetic mice

Diabetes mellitus (DM) encompasses a multitude of secondary disorders, including heart disease. One of the most frequent and potentially life threatening disorders of DM-induced heart disease is ventricular tachycardia (VT). Here we show that toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) and NLRP3 inflammasome activation in cardiac macrophages mediate the production of IL-1β in DM mice. IL-1β causes prolongation of the action potential duration, induces a decrease in potassium current and an increase in calcium sparks in cardiomyocytes, which are changes that underlie arrhythmia propensity. IL-1β-induced spontaneous contractile events are associated with CaMKII oxidation and phosphorylation. We further show that DM-induced arrhythmias can be successfully treated by inhibiting the IL-1β axis with either IL-1 receptor antagonist or by inhibiting the NLRP3 inflammasome. Our results establish IL-1β as an inflammatory connection between metabolic dysfunction and arrhythmias in DM.Facultad de Ciencias MédicasCentro de Investigaciones Cardiovasculare

Macrophage-dependent IL-1β production induces cardiac arrhythmias in diabetic mice

Diabetes mellitus (DM) encompasses a multitude of secondary disorders, including heart disease. One of the most frequent and potentially life threatening disorders of DM-induced heart disease is ventricular tachycardia (VT). Here we show that toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) and NLRP3 inflammasome activation in cardiac macrophages mediate the production of IL-1β in DM mice. IL-1β causes prolongation of the action potential duration, induces a decrease in potassium current and an increase in calcium sparks in cardiomyocytes, which are changes that underlie arrhythmia propensity. IL-1β-induced spontaneous contractile events are associated with CaMKII oxidation and phosphorylation. We further show that DM-induced arrhythmias can be successfully treated by inhibiting the IL-1β axis with either IL-1 receptor antagonist or by inhibiting the NLRP3 inflammasome. Our results establish IL-1β as an inflammatory connection between metabolic dysfunction and arrhythmias in DM.Facultad de Ciencias MédicasCentro de Investigaciones Cardiovasculare

Detecting defects in object oriented designs: Using reading techniques to increase software quality

Inspections can be used to identify defects in software artifacts. In this way, inspection methods help to improve software quality, especially when used early in software development. Inspections of software design may be especially crucial since design defects (problems of correctness and completeness with respect to the requirements, internal consistency, or other quality attributes) can directly affect the quality of, and effort required for, the implementation. We have created a set of “reading techniques ” (so called because they help a reviewer to “read ” a design artifact for the purpose of finding relevant information) that gives specific and practical guidance for identifying defects in Object-Oriented designs. Each reading technique in the family focuses the reviewer on some aspect of the design, with the goal that an inspection team applying the entire family should achieve a high degree of coverage of the design defects. In this paper, we present an overview of this new set of reading techniques. We discuss how some elements of these techniques are based on empirical results concerning an analogous set of reading techniques that supports defect detection in requirements documents. We present an initial empirical study that was run to assess the feasibility of these new techniques, and discuss the changes made to the latest version of the techniques based on the results of this study