Early aspects: aspect-oriented requirements engineering and architecture design

This paper reports on the third Early Aspects: Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering and Architecture Design Workshop, which has been held in Lancaster, UK, on March 21, 2004. The workshop included a presentation session and working sessions in which the particular topics on early aspects were discussed. The primary goal of the workshop was to focus on challenges to defining methodical software development processes for aspects from early on in the software life cycle and explore the potential of proposed methods and techniques to scale up to industrial applications

Evaluating the Cost Effectiveness of Heifer International Country Programs

Background: In the 1950s and ‘60s cost effectiveness was the primary focus of evaluation of international development aid, but in recent decades this has been increasingly neglected. The most recent decade saw great interest in impact evaluation, but the step from impacts to cost effectiveness was often neglected. This article explains how a multi-year evaluation of a major international NGO that was designed to estimate country program impacts was expanded to include estimates of cost effectiveness.    Purpose: The article explains the importance and illustrates the practicability of evaluation for cost effectiveness. It describes the evaluation’s methodology and presents its major finding, that Heifer International is highly cost effective in improving the income, assets and nutrition of poor households in Albania, Nepal and Uganda.   Setting: The article focuses mainly on the 2011 evaluation of the Heifer International country program in Uganda.    Intervention: The evaluations focused on usually three to five year projects of usually a few dozen to a few hundred households, but the evaluation itself did not conduct interventions (beyond its interviews). To add evaluation of cost effectiveness, the focus was changed from the project to the household level and evaluators estimated changes in income, assets and nutrition due to the project. Estimates of income impacts were then used as the primary basis for estimating the cost effectiveness of the respective country program (although assets and nutrition were also considered).   Data Collection and Analysis: Data were collected through two and a half to three week country program evaluations by two or three evaluators and their translators. Group and household interviews were based on questionnaires, but they also required evaluators to pursue lines of inquiry to logical conclusions. Quantitative and qualitative factors were considered as a basis for impact estimates on scales from zero to five in the original evaluation and in terms of economic values for income and assets. Analysis was carried out largely with Excel spreadsheets.   Findings: Due to Heifer International’s expenditure of about $7 million over six years, about 8,500 Ugandan families are likely to experience income gains exceeding$8.5 million a year on an ongoing basis and asset gains of about $17 million. About 5,500 of their children are likely to avoid stunting due to nutritional shortfalls. For each$1 expenditure by country programs in Albania, Nepal and Uganda, households can be expected to gain about $2.35,$1.19 and $1.25 in the respective country programs on an ongoing basis once the projects reach the maturity profile of those included in the evaluation

Discovery of distant high luminosity infrared galaxies

We have developed a method for selecting the most luminous galaxies detected by IRAS based on their extreme values of R, the ratio of 60 micron and B-band luminosity. These objects have optical counterparts that are close to or below the limits of Schmidt surveys. We have tested our method on a 1079 deg^2 region of sky, where we have selected a sample of IRAS sources with 60 micron flux densities greater than 0.2 Jy, corresponding to a redshift limit z~1 for objects with far-IR luminosities of 10^{13} L_sun. Optical identifications for these were obtained from the UK Schmidt Telescope plates, using the likelihood ratio method. Optical spectroscopy has been carried out to reliably identify and measure the redshifts of six objects with very faint optical counterparts, which are the only objects with R>100 in the sample. One object is a hyperluminous infrared galaxy (HyLIG) at z=0.834. Of the remaining, fainter objects, five are ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIGs) with a mean redshift of 0.45, higher than the highest known redshift of any non-hyperluminous ULIG prior to this study. High excitation lines reveal the presence of an active nucleus in the HyLIG, just as in the other known infrared-selected HyLIGs. In contrast, no high excitation lines are found in the non-hyperluminous ULIGs. We discuss the implications of our results for the number density of HyLIGs at z<1 and for the evolution of the infrared galaxy population out to this redshift, and show that substantial evolution is indicated. Our selection method is robust against the presence of gravitational lensing if the optical and infrared magnification factors are similar, and we suggest a way of using it to select candidate gravitationally lensed infrared galaxies.Comment: 6 pages, accepted for publication in A&

Retirement Plan Contributions and Withdrawals

Qualified retirement plans provide for tax deferral, but they are also subject to a 15% excise tax on excess distributions or accumulations, potentially higher marginal income tax rates on plan withdrawals, mandatory contributions for employers, estate taxes at death, and possible substantial income tax liability for plan beneficiaries. Three possible planning strategies to optimize return on funds available for contributions to a qualified plan include investment in alternative assets, lifetime gifts, and accelerated plan withdrawals. While the 3-year suspension of excess distribution excise taxes under the Small Business Job Protection Act may favor plan withdrawals, in certain situations participants are often best served by leaving the full amount in the plan to take advantage of the tax deferrals

The Impact of Stress Management on Nurse Productivity and Retention

Throughout the history of nursing there is a seeming legacy of personnel shortage, lack of funds, and, based on the nature of the role and related services, heightened levels of stress involved in patient care.The future of the profession and more imminently, patient care and the health of nurses, may be significantly impacted by repeated challenges where current levels of stress and burnout are contributing to organizational problems, burnout, and attrition.Employee stress and burn out commonly lead to myriad health-related problems that result in significant organizational consequences.There are many methods of stress management, and sometimes the best and most effective begin with simple recognition, validation, and visible and committed efforts by the nurse executive.Regardless of the technique or approach, what is clear is that there is a need for nurse executives to include the development and enhancement of comprehensive stress-management programming for employees as a priority item to avoid burnout and attrition

Major inpatient surgeries and in-hospital mortality in New South Wales public hospitals in Australia: A state-wide retrospective cohort study

BACKGROUND Surgical interventions save lives and are important focus for health services research worldwide. Investigating variation in postoperative mortality may improve understanding of unwarranted variations and promote safety and quality in surgical care. We aimed to evaluate trends of in-hospital mortality rates among adult inpatients receiving major elective surgeries and determine the variation in mortality among New South Wales (NSW) public hospitals. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this study, we used the all-inclusive population-based NSW Admitted Patient Data from July 2001 to June 2014. We retrospectively included adult patients aged 18 + years receiving Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) repair, Peripheral bypass, Colorectal surgeries, Joint replacement, Spinal surgeries, or Cardiac surgeries. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality for selected surgeries. Changes in mortality rates over time and hospital standardised mortality rates were modelled using multivariate logistic regression models adjusting for case-mix factors. RESULTS Over 13-year study period, the in-hospital mortality rates declined annually by 6.4% (95% Confidence Interval (CI): 4.3, 8.4) for Colorectal surgery by 5.7% (95%CI: 2.0, 9.3) for Joint replacement and by 4.2% (95%CI: 1.9, 6.4) for Cardiac surgery. After controlling for patient-level factors, little variation was observed among hospitals for in-hospital mortality. There was a greater variability for cardiac surgery compared with the other surgical groups but no outlier hospital was consistently associated with significantly higher than expected mortality rate. CONCLUSIONS Mortality has declined for major surgeries in the past 15 years. There was some variation among hospitals regarding in-hospital mortality that was mostly explained by patients demographic and admission characteristics. Our findings are reassuring for patients and contribute to knowledge that can help further improve surgical care