The Software Engineering Laboratory: An operational software experience factory

For 15 years, the Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) has been carrying out studies and experiments for the purpose of understanding, assessing, and improving software and software processes within a production software development environment at NASA/GSFC. The SEL comprises three major organizations: (1) NASA/GSFC, Flight Dynamics Division; (2) University of Maryland, Department of Computer Science; and (3) Computer Sciences Corporation, Flight Dynamics Technology Group. These organizations have jointly carried out several hundred software studies, producing hundreds of reports, papers, and documents, all of which describe some aspect of the software engineering technology that was analyzed in the flight dynamics environment at NASA. The studies range from small, controlled experiments (such as analyzing the effectiveness of code reading versus that of functional testing) to large, multiple project studies (such as assessing the impacts of Ada on a production environment). The organization's driving goal is to improve the software process continually, so that sustained improvement may be observed in the resulting products. This paper discusses the SEL as a functioning example of an operational software experience factory and summarizes the characteristics of and major lessons learned from 15 years of SEL operations

Out of the Vault: Developing a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon to Enhance Public Programming for University Archives and Special Collections

Academic libraries are more cognizant of their public program offerings than ever before. How does this shift impact the university archives and special collections? How does this area of the academic library meet the challenge of public programming that engages their users with their core missions? At Eastern Washington University (EWU), a regional comprehensive university, library and archives staff collaborated to develop a Wikipedia edit-a-thon that would provide an opportunity for undergraduate students to 1) expose them to archival materials, and 2) provide them with experience in collaborative knowledge creation. This article reviews the literature on the use of the Wikipedia platform and edit-a-thon events by cultural heritage institutions (libraries, archives, and museums), as well as the literature on public programming for archives and special collections. It details the steps taken to organize the event held at EWU, and reflects on the implications of this type of outreach and public programming event for archives and special collections in academic libraries

Consumers’ Preferences for Wax Prints for Ceremonial Occasions in the New Juaben Municipality

Wax prints play an important role in ceremonies and they have a significant communicative value, indicating status of an individual. Different fabric types of wax print fabrics, and different colours and designs are worn by consumers for different ceremonial programmes, including naming, marriage and funeral ceremonies. The study aimed at examining examine consumers’ preferences for wax prints for ceremonial programmes. It included the fabric type of wax prints preferred by consumers for ceremonial programmes, the design of wax prints preferred by consumers for ceremonial programmes, and the colour of wax prints preferred by consumers for ceremonial programmes. The study adopted a cross sectional and descriptive study designs. A total of 100 respondents were sampled for the study. Accidental sampling was used to sample respondents for the study. Interview schedule was used to collect data from the respondents. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations were used to describe the data. The study found that the main factor for the preference of fabrics from particular wax prints for certain ceremonial programmes was the communicative function of fashion, and while consumers preferred wax prints of high social class and relatively more expensive to outdooring and wedding programmes, they preferred wax prints of low social class and less expensive wax prints for funeral programmes. Designs and colours in wax prints had influence on the selection of fabrics by all the respondents for ceremonial programmes. The study recommends that textile manufacturing companies should consider the function of fabrics in the selection of their colour and designs for particular fabrics. Keywords: Wax prints, ceremonial occasions, fabric colour, fabric design

The Effect of Fabrics and Designs on the Physical Comfort of Children Clothes in the Accra Metropolis

Safety and comfort are considered as top priority when selecting fabrics for manufacturing children’s apparels. Delicate skin of children reacts to certain fabrics which make them less comfortable to wear. The study aimed at examining the effects of fabrics and designs on the physical comfort of children clothes. The study adopted a descriptive study design. A total of 100 respondents, 30 fashion designers and 70 parents and guardians, were sampled for the study. Simple random sampling was used for the fashion designers, whereas accidental sampling was used for the parents and guardians. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages were used to analyse the data. Crosstabulations were also used to examine the relationship between variables. The study found that more parents considered the appearance of their children before other factors such as safety and comfortability. However, majority preferred cotton fabrics to be used for their children’s apparels. A majority of the fashion designers did not know that children’s skin reacts to certain fabrics. The main factors considered by the fashion designers in the selection of fabrics for constructing children’s apparels were colour, design, and purpose of apparels. The majority of the fashion designers adopted a number of safety measures, such as linen of apparel, light-weighted zippers and use of few buttons, to enhance the comfortability of children’s apparel. The study recommends that the NVTI, and the Ghana Fashion Designers Association should educate fashion designers on the reaction of children’s skin to fabrics from certain sources. The NVTI in collaboration with the Fashion Designers Association of Ghana should sensitise or train fashion designers on safety measures in apparel making through improved finishes. Keywords: fabrics, designs, safety, comfort, children, clothes, apparel

A preliminary study of Ricinus communis survivorship at Ballona Wetlands and Temescal Canyon, Los Angeles, California

Invasive plants such as Castor bean (Ricinus communis) are known to threaten ecosystems due to their competition for resources. The Ballona Wetlands and Temescal Canyon managers employ different techniques to manage the spread of R. communis, potentially resulting in differences in plant survivorship. To investigate this possibility, height of the stems of individual R. communis plants at each site were recorded in order to assign them to cohort groups. Based on the hypothesis predicted that R. communis would have a similar cohort structure at both sites but would exhibit higher survivorship at Temescal Canyon, where R. communis are removed less frequently than at the Ballona Wetlands. However, results indicate that management does not affect cohort structure or stability at either site, but rather, it may have contributed to the significantly higher overall survivorship of R. communis at Temescal Canyon

Self-sustained oscillations in homogeneous shear flow

Generation of the large-scale coherent vortical structurs in homogeneous shear flow couples dynamical processes of energy and enstrophy production. In the large rate of strain limit, the simple estimates of the contributions to the energy and enstrophy equations result in a dynamical system, describing experimentally and numerically observed self-sustained non-linear oscillations of energy and enstrophy. It is shown that the period of these oscilaltions is independent upon the box size and the energy and enstrophy fluctuations are strongly correlated.Comment: 10 pages 6 figure

Hybrid chaotic map with L-shaped fractal Tromino for image encryption and decryption

Insecure communication in digital image security and image storing are considered as important challenges. Moreover, the existing approaches face problems related to improper security at the time of image encryption and decryption. In this research work, a wavelet environment is obtained by transforming the cover image utilizing integer wavelet transform (IWT) and hybrid discrete cosine transform (DCT) to completely prevent false errors. Then the proposed hybrid chaotic map with L-shaped fractal Tromino offers better security to maintain image secrecy by means of encryption and decryption. The proposed work uses fractal encryption with the combination of L-shaped Tromino theorem for enhancement of information hiding. The regions of L-shaped fractal Tromino are sensitive to variations, thus are embedded in the watermark based on a visual watermarking technique known as reversible watermarking. The experimental results showed that the proposed method obtained peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) value of 56.82dB which is comparatively higher than the existing methods that are, Beddington, free, and Lawton (BFL) map with PSNR value of 8.10 dB, permutation substitution, and Boolean operation with PSNR value of 21.19 dB and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) level permutation-based logistic map with PSNR value of 21.27 dB

The Pursuit of Happiness: A new ambition for our mental health

Chaired by former MP and minister for mental health, Paul Burstow, the CentreForum Mental Health Commission undertook a 12 month study of the state of wellbeing in England by identifying five key priorities between now and 2020