A study on effectiveness of project management of software development in IT vendors for financial institutions of Japan : Influence investigation in PM action

Concerning the information-system development for financial institutions, the mass media often focuses on the effectiveness and efficiency of project management of the large-scale development projects which have big social impacts. In practice, however, there are more small-scale development projects and so called enhance projects. The enhance project refers to a project of adding a function to the original product and system and/or improving its performance. The enhance project needs different project management from large-scale development project for the following reasons. First, not only the quality assurance of added part, but also the measures for maintaining the performance of the existing part at the same level are indispensable. Second, many enhance project goals are modification requirements which directly link to urgent business necessity such as “we need to carry out performance improvement as early as possible to cope with the complaint from the client”, and “we must add a new function to compete against our rival who provided new services.” Third, the evaluation of cost effectiveness of enhance project is particularly difficult. Thus, the objective of this paper is to study what project manager’s actions (referred to as PM actions) are appropriate for software development in IT vendors for financial institutions of Japan. Here, the authors focus on small-scale enhance projects where the total man day is less than 100 man-months from the stage of requirement definition to the stage of system testing. Concretely, the effectiveness of four types of PM actions with different reporting styles, catch-up contents, communication, and participation are studied. Then, workload, productivity, communication, morale of staff, and the ratio of the actual cost to the estimated cost are studied for each project management. The result shows that different project management from ordinary project management is more effective. It is suggested that different aspects should also be emphasized for small-scale enhance projects

Controls of Atmospheric Methane on Early Earth and Inhabited Earth-like Terrestrial Exoplanets

Methane (CH4) is a primarily biogenic greenhouse gas. As such, it represents an essential biosignature to search for life on exoplanets. Atmospheric CH4 abundance on Earth-like inhabited exoplanets is likely controlled by marine biogenic production and atmospheric photochemical consumption. Such interactions have been previously examined for the case of the early Earth where primitive marine ecosystems supplied CH4 to the atmosphere, showing that the atmospheric CH4 response to biogenic CH4 flux variations is nonlinear, a critical property when assessing CH4 reliability as a biosignature. However, the contributions of atmospheric photochemistry, metabolic reactions, or solar irradiance to this nonlinear response are not well understood. Using an atmospheric photochemical model and a marine microbial ecosystem model, we show that production of hydroxyl radicals from water vapor photodissociation is a critical factor controlling the atmospheric CH4 abundance. Consequently, atmospheric CH4 partial pressure (pCH4) on inhabited Earth-like exoplanets orbiting Sun-like stars (F-, G-, and K-type stars) would be controlled primarily by stellar irradiance. Specifically, irradiance at wavelengths of approximately 200-210 nm is a major controlling factor for atmospheric pCH4 when the carbon dioxide partial pressure is sufficiently high to absorb most stellar irradiance at 170-200 nm. Finally, we also demonstrated that inhabited exoplanets orbiting near the outer edge of K-type stars' habitable zones are better suited for atmospheric pCH4 buildup. Such properties will valuably support future detection of life signatures

On the Initial Imperfections and Their Relations to the Strength of Webplates of Actual Steel Bridges

This study is mainly concerned with statistical investigations on the actual initial imperfections and their relations to the load carrying capacities of the webplates of steel bridges. The basic data to be used throughout the study have been collected by the Initial Deflection Measurement Committee, IDMC, of the Society of Steel Construction of Japan, abbreviated as JSSC. In order to show what types of webplate systems are covered throughout the study, various statistical information on the mechanical and geometric parameters is firstly presented, and then, various kinds of the initial imperfections existing in the actual steel bridges are subjected to statistical considerations. Through the statistical analyses, the probabilities of exceedance of various imperfections are evaluated. From these fractile values, some comments on the regulations of the initial imperfections by the current design codes are drawn

Catastrophes of Elastic Column Structures

The elasto-static instability phenomena of structures can be typically classified by the catastrophe theory in the local form near a certain singular point of their total potential energy. Then, the imperfection sensitivity of the structures can be evaluated in terms of the bifurcation set, mapping the singular points of the equilibrium space to the control space. In ordinary structural problems, this consists of a simple loading parameter and some imperfection parameters. In this paper, several simplified column models are studied by the catastrophe theory. They include both continuous and discrete models exhibiting stable symmetric, unstable symmetric, asymmetric and their compound buckling. From a comparison of the results of the two-degree-of-freedom systems, namely the continuous systems and the finite element discrete systems, the following conclusions are drawn : (i) The discrete analysis can be shown to realize the instability phenomena, predicted by the continuous analysis. The results of the discrete analysis are shown to converge to those of the continuous analysis generally, as the number of discrete finite elements increases. (ii) The imperfection sensitivity of the structures can be evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively by means of the bifurcation set in the control space through the catastrophe theory. (iii) For a legitimate evaluation of the “cusp and dual cusp catastrophe”, the 4th order non-linear terms must be earnestly considered in expressions for both the strain energy and the external work. Then, the stable symmetric buckling model is shown to indicate a typical cusp catastrophe. (iv) The unstable symmetric buckling model can be shown to indicate a typical dual cusp catastrophe for a relatively small stiffness of the elastic foundation, the cusp catastrophe for a relatively large stiffness and the compound double cusp catastrophe at a certain critical stiffness value. (v) The asymmetric buckling model can be shown to indicate the typical fold catastrophe for a relatively small stiffness of the inclined elasic foundation, the dual cusp catastrophe for a relatively large stiffness and the compound hyperbolic umbilic catastrophe at a certain critical stiffness value

Driving restrictions in patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators and pacemakers

Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) improve the survival in patients at risk of sudden cardiac death. However, these patients have an ongoing risk of sudden incapacitation that may cause harm to individuals and others when driving. Considerable disagreement exists about whether and when these patients should be allowed to resume driving after ICD therapies. This information is critical for the management decisions to avoid future potentially lethal incidents and unnecessary restrictions for ICD patients. The cardiac implantable device committee of the Japanese Heart Rhythm Society reassessed the risk of driving for ICD patients based on the literature and domestic data. We reviewed the driving restrictions of ICD patients in various regions and here present updated Japanese driving restrictions

Clinical features requiring SIJ arthrodesis

Purpose : This study aimed to reveal the clinical features requiring sacroiliac joint (SIJ) arthrodesis, which was performed for patients who complain of severe SIJ pain. Methods : The differences in clinical features between a surgical treatment group (n = 20) and a conservative treatment group (n = 66) were investigated. All patients were definitively diagnosed with SIJ pain by the use of SIJ injections. Results : Six significant features were identified in the surgical treatment group, namely, sitting tolerance ( 6 months of continued substantial conservative treatment

Successful treatment of ascites accumulation and diarrhea associated with protein-losing enteropathy with oral equine placenta extract supplementation in a dog: A case report

Background: Protein-losing enteropathy (PLE) is characterized by leakage of serum proteins into the intestinal lumen, indicating hypoproteinemia. Immunosuppressive agents are the mainstay of treatment, but in many cases, patients are forced to taper off early owing to the induction of liver damage. Case Description: An 8-year-old, non-spayed female Chihuahua presented with diarrhea and ascites effusion lasting 2 weeks. Based on the results of radiography and blood tests, a diagnosis of PLE was made. Prednisolone (3 mg/kg semel in die [SID]) and MitoMax (200 mg/day) were administered, but ascites accumulation and diarrhea did not improve. Thus, azathioprine (2 mg/kg/day) was added, but there was no improvement, and liver damage developed. The liver injury did not improve immediately, but diarrhea and ascites effusion improved after serum total protein and serum albumin levels increased after they had decreased. Subsequent tapering of prednisolone from 3 mg/kg SID to 1 mg/kg SID, combined with MitoMax (200 mg/day) and equine placenta extract (eqPE) (2 ml/day), resulted in no recurrence of ascites or diarrhea. Conclusion: In canine PLE with prolonged diarrhea and ascites effusion, supplementation with eqPE may be considered a reasonable additional therapeutic strategy

Non-Gaussianity of Low Frequency Heart Rate Variability and Sympathetic Activation: Lack of Increases in Multiple System Atrophy and Parkinson Disease

The correlates of indices of long-term ambulatory heart rate variability (HRV) of the autonomic nervous system have not been completely understood. In this study, we evaluated conventional HRV indices, obtained from the daytime (12:00–18:00) Holter recording, and a recently proposed non-Gaussianity index (λ; Kiyono et al., 2008) in 12 patients with multiple system atrophy (MSA) and 10 patients with Parkinson disease (PD), known to have varying degrees of cardiac vagal and sympathetic dysfunction. Compared with the age-matched healthy control group, the MSA patients showed significantly decreased HRV, most probably reflecting impaired vagal heart rate control, but the PD patients did not show such reduced variability. In both MSA and PD patients, the low-to-high frequency (LF/HF) ratio and the short-term fractal exponent α1, suggested to reflect the sympathovagal balance, were significantly decreased, as observed in congestive heart failure (CHF) patients with sympathetic overdrive. In contrast, the analysis of the non-Gaussianity index λ showed that a marked increase in intermittent and non-Gaussian HRV observed in the CHF patients was not observed in the MSA and PD patients with sympathetic dysfunction. These findings provide additional evidence for the relation between the non-Gaussian intermittency of HRV and increased sympathetic activity