Reflecting on Evidence-Based Timelines

Project retrospectives can be powerful tools for project teams to collectively identify communication gaps and practices to improve for future projects. However, even if project members take the time for a retrospective, it can be hard to correctly remember and jointly discuss past events in a constructive way. Fact-based timelines that visualize a project's events offer a possible solution

Design and implementation of a platform for hyperconnected cyber physical systems

International audienceThe Internet of Things (IoT) is an area of growing importance as more and more computing capability becomes embedded into real world objects and environments. But at the same time IoT is just one component of a widespread shift towards a new age of federation, combining with other trends such as cloud computing, blockchain and automation to create a new hyperconnected infrastructure. This infrastructure will emerge from the convergence of traditional, cloud and IoT-based models of computing, creating a more decentralised, secure and democratic computing platform for the future. But while bringing significant benefits, federation also brings significant problems-in particular the complexity of building, integrating and managing systems built using highly distributed and heterogeneous platforms. In this paper we discuss our work on modelling, deployment and management for this new converged computing environment, leveraging previous work on domain languages, cloud computing and the Web of Things to accelerate and democratize the development of real world hyperconnected systems

Reprogramming Low-end IoT Devices from the Cloud

International audienceThe Internet of Things (IoT) consists in a variety of smart connected objects, among which a category of low-end devices based on micro-controllers. The orchestration of low-end IoT devices is not straightforward because of the lack of generic and holistic solutions articulating cloud-based tools on one hand, and low-end IoT device software on the other hand. In this paper, we describe such a solution, combining a cloud-based IDE, graphical programming, and automatic JavaScript generation. Scripts are pushed over the Internet and over-the-air for the last hop, updating runtime containers hosted on heterogeneous low-end IoT devices running RIOT. We demonstrate a prototype working on common off-the-shelf low-end IoT hardware with as little as 32kB of memory

Abdominal drainage versus no drainage after distal pancreatectomy: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background: The placement of prophylactic intra-abdominal drains has been common practice in abdominal operations including pancreatic surgery. The PANDRA trial showed that the omission of drains following pancreatic head resection was non-inferior to intra-abdominal drainage in terms of postoperative reinterventions and superior in terms of clinically relevant pancreatic fistula rate and fistula-associated complications. The aim of the present PANDRA II trial is to evaluate the clinical outcome with versus without prophylactic drain placement after distal pancreatectomy. Methods: The PANDRA II trial is a mono-center, randomized controlled, non-inferiority trial with two parallel study groups. In the control group at least one passive intra-abdominal drain is placed at the pancreatic resection margin. In the experimental group no drains are placed. The primary endpoint of this trial will be the Comprehensive Complication Index (CCI) measuring all postoperative complications within 90 days. Secondary endpoints are in-hospital mortality and morbidity, including the rates of postoperative pancreatic fistula, chyle leak, postpancreatectomy hemorrhage, delayed gastric emptying, reinterventions and reoperations, surgical site infection, and abdominal fascia dehiscence. Moreover, length of hospital stay, duration of intensive care unit stay, and the rate of readmission after discharge from hospital (up to day 90 after surgery) are assessed. We will need to analyze 252 patients to test the hypothesis that no drainage is non-inferior to drain placement in terms of the CCI (δ 7.5 points) in a one-sided t test with a one-sided level of significance of 2.5% and a power of 80%. Discussion: The results of the PANDRA II trial will help to evaluate the effect of an omission of prophylactic intraperitoneal drainage on the rate of complications after open or minimally invasive distal pancreatectomy. Trial registration: German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS), DRKS00013763. Registered on 6 March 2018

High frequency oscillatory ventilation and prone positioning in a porcine model of lavage-induced acute lung injury

BACKGROUND: This animal study was conducted to assess the combined effects of high frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) and prone positioning on pulmonary gas exchange and hemodynamics. METHODS: Saline lung lavage was performed in 14 healthy pigs (54 ± 3.1 kg, mean ± SD) until the arterial oxygen partial pressure (PaO(2)) decreased to 55 ± 7 mmHg. The animals were ventilated in the pressure controlled mode (PCV) with a positive endexpiratory pressure (PEEP) of 5 cmH(2)O and a tidal volume (V(T)) of 6 ml/kg body weight. After a stabilisation period of 60 minutes, the animals were randomly assigned to 2 groups. Group 1: HFOV in supine position; group 2: HFOV in prone position. After evaluation of prone positioning in group 2, the mean airway pressure (P(mean)) was increased by 3 cmH(2)O from 16 to 34 cmH(2)O every 20 minutes in both groups accompanied by measurements of respiratory and hemodynamic variables. Finally all animals were ventilated supine with PCV, PEEP = 5 cm H(2)O, V(T )= 6 ml/kg. RESULTS: Combination of HFOV with prone positioning improves oxygenation and results in normalisation of cardiac output and considerable reduction of pulmonary shunt fraction at a significant (p < 0.05) lower P(mean )than HFOV and supine positioning. CONCLUSION: If ventilator induced lung injury is ameliorated by a lower P(mean), a combined treatment approach using HFOV and prone positioning might result in further lung protection

What you need is what you get! The vision of view-based requirements specifications

Software requirements specifications play a crucial role in software development projects. Especially in large projects, these specifications serve as a source of communication and information for a variety of roles involved in downstream activities like architecture, design, and testing. This vision paper argues that in order to create high-quality requirements specifications that fit the specific demands of successive document stakeholders, our research community needs to better understand the particular information needs of downstream development roles. In this paper, the authors introduce the idea of view-based requirements specifications. Two scenarios illustrate (1) current problems and challenges related to the research underlying the envisioned idea and (2) how these problems could be solved in the future. Based on these scenarios, challenges and research questions are outlined and supplemented with current results of exemplary user studies. Furthermore, potential future research is suggested, which the community should perform to answer the research questions as part of a research agenda

On the Notion of Determining System Adequacy by Analyzing the Traceability of Quality

Abstract. Current research and practice in business process modeling corroborate the belief that quality issues are still not addressed with the necessary diligence here as, for instance, in the area of requirements engineering. Our position to be discussed is that the continuous traceability of quality issues could lead to more adequate processes and systems. To underpin this position, we develop an initial meta-model that shows how quality goals, business processes, and quality requirements for the involved systems are intertwined, and how they influence each other. Based on this meta-model, we present a hypothesis on what adequacy means and how the adequacy of business processes and software can be determined.