From Somalia to Yemen: great dangers, few prospects

Growing numbers of people are escaping conflict and poverty in Somalia and Ethiopia by making a hazardous journey across the Red Sea. Yemen, their initial destination, has signed the 195 1 Refugee Convention – unlike its Arabian peninsula neighbours – but this poorest of Arab states lacks the means to provide support

On the accuracy of spectrum-based fault localization

Spectrum-based fault localization shortens the test- diagnose-repair cycle by reducing the debugging effort. As a light-weight automated diagnosis technique it can easily be integrated with existing testing schemes. However, as no model of the system is taken into account, its diagnostic accuracy is inherently limited. Using the Siemens Set benchmark, we investigate this diagnostic accuracy as a function of several parameters (such as quality and quantity of the program spectra collected during the execution of the system), some of which directly relate to test design. Our results indicate that the superior performance of a particular similarity coefficient, used to analyze the program spectra, is largely independent of test design. Furthermore, near- optimal diagnostic accuracy (exonerating about 80% of the blocks of code on average) is already obtained for low-quality error observations and limited numbers of test cases. The influence of the number of test cases is of primary importance for continuous (embedded) processing applications, where only limited observation horizons can be maintained

Diagnosis of embedded software using program spectra

Automated diagnosis of errors detected during software testing can improve the efficiency of the debugging process, and can thus help to make software more reliable. In this paper we discuss the application of a specific automated debugging technique, namely software fault localization through the analysis of program spectra, in the area of embedded software in high-volume consumer electronics products. We discuss why the technique is particularly well suited for this application domain, and through experiments on an industrial test case we demonstrate that it can lead to highly accurate diagnoses of realistic errors

Automatic systems diagnosis without behavioral models

Recent feedback obtained while applying Model-based diagnosis (MBD) in industry suggests that the costs involved in behavioral modeling (both expertise and labor) can outweigh the benefits of MBD as a high-performance diagnosis approach. In this paper, we propose an automatic approach, called ANTARES, that completely avoids behavioral modeling. Decreasing modeling sacrifices diagnostic accuracy, as the size of the ambiguity group (i.e., components which cannot be discriminated because of the lack of information) increases, which in turn increases misdiagnosis penalty. ANTARES further breaks the ambiguity group size by considering the component's false negative rate (FNR), which is estimated using an analytical expression. Furthermore, we study the performance of ANTARES for a number of logic circuits taken from the 74XXX/ISCAS benchmark suite. Our results clearly indicate that sacrificing modeling information degrades the diagnosis quality. However, considering FNR information improves the quality, attaining the diagnostic performance of an MBD approach

The distributed ASCI supercomputer project

The Distributed ASCI Supercomputer (DAS) is a homogeneous wide-area distributed system consisting of four cluster computers at different locations. DAS has been used for research on communication software, parallel languages and programming systems, schedulers, parallel applications, and distributed applications. The paper gives a preview of the most interesting research results obtained so far in the DAS project

Induction of labour versus expectant monitoring in women with pregnancy induced hypertension or mild preeclampsia at term: the HYPITAT trial

Contains fulltext : 53183.pdf ( ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND: Hypertensive disorders, i.e. pregnancy induced hypertension and preeclampsia, complicate 10 to 15% of all pregnancies at term and are a major cause of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality. The only causal treatment is delivery. In case of preterm pregnancies conservative management is advocated if the risks for mother and child remain acceptable. In contrast, there is no consensus on how to manage mild hypertensive disease in pregnancies at term. Induction of labour might prevent maternal and neonatal complications at the expense of increased instrumental vaginal delivery rates and caesarean section rates. METHODS/DESIGN: Women with a pregnancy complicated by pregnancy induced hypertension or mild preeclampsia at a gestational age between 36+0 and 41+0 weeks will be asked to participate in a multi-centre randomised controlled trial. Women will be randomised to either induction of labour or expectant management for spontaneous delivery. The primary outcome of this study is severe maternal morbidity, which can be complicated by maternal mortality in rare cases. Secondary outcome measures are neonatal mortality and morbidity, caesarean and vaginal instrumental delivery rates, maternal quality of life and costs. Analysis will be by intention to treat. In total, 720 pregnant women have to be randomised to show a reduction in severe maternal complications of hypertensive disease from 12 to 6%. DISCUSSION: This trial will provide evidence as to whether or not induction of labour in women with pregnancy induced hypertension or mild preeclampsia (nearly) at term is an effective treatment to prevent severe maternal complications. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The protocol is registered in the clinical trial register number ISRCTN08132825

Clinical characteristics of women captured by extending the definition of severe postpartum haemorrhage with 'refractoriness to treatment': a cohort study

Background: The absence of a uniform and clinically relevant definition of severe postpartum haemorrhage hampers comparative studies and optimization of clinical management. The concept of persistent postpartum haemorrhage, based on refractoriness to initial first-line treatment, was proposed as an alternative to common definitions that are either based on estimations of blood loss or transfused units of packed red blood cells (RBC). We compared characteristics and outcomes of women with severe postpartum haemorrhage captured by these three types of definitions. Methods: In this large retrospective cohort study in 61 hospitals in the Netherlands we included 1391 consecutive women with postpartum haemorrhage who received either ≥4 units of RBC or a multicomponent transfusion. Clinical characteristics and outcomes of women with severe postpartum haemorrhage defined as persistent postpartum haemorrhage were compared to definitions based on estimated blood loss or transfused units of RBC within 24 h following birth. Adverse maternal outcome was a composite of maternal mortality, hysterectomy, arterial embolisation and intensive care unit admission. Results: One thousand two hundred sixty out of 1391 women (90.6%) with postpartum haemorrhage fulfilled the definition of persistent postpartum haemorrhage. The majority, 820/1260 (65.1%), fulfilled this definition within 1 h following birth, compared to 819/1391 (58.7%) applying the definition of ≥1 L blood loss and 37/845 (4.4%) applying the definition of ≥4 units of RBC. The definition persistent postpartum haemorrhage captured 430/471 adverse maternal outcomes (91.3%), compared to 471/471 (100%) for ≥1 L blood loss and 383/471 (81.3%) for ≥4 units of RBC. Persistent postpartum haemorrhage did not capture all adverse outcomes because of missing data on timing of initial, first-line treatment. Conclusion: The definition persistent postpartum haemo