Analyzing impact of experience curve on ROI in the software product line adoption process

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Context: Experience curve is a well-known concept in management and education science, which explains the phenomenon of increased worker efficiency with repetitive production of a good or service. Objective: We aim to analyze the impact of the experience curve effect on the Return on Investment (ROI) in the software product line engineering (SPLE) process. Method: We first present the results of a systematic literature review (SLR) to explicitly depict the studies that have considered the impact of experience curve effect on software development in general. Subsequently, based on the results of the SLR, the experience curve effect models in the literature, and the SPLE cost models, we define an approach for extending the cost models with the experience curve effect. Finally, we discuss the application of the refined cost models in a real industrial context. Results: The SLR resulted in 15 primary studies which confirm the impact of experience curve effect on software development in general but the experience curve effect in the adoption of SPLE got less attention. The analytical discussion of the cost models and the application of the refined SPLE cost models in the industrial context showed a clear impact of the experience curve effect on the time-to-market, cost of development and ROI in the SPLE adoption process. Conclusions: The proposed analysis with the newly defined cost models for SPLE adoption provides a more precise analysis tool for the management, and as such helps to support a better decision making. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Detrimental effects of species of Tenthredinidae (Insecta: Hymenoptera) on plants and control methods

Tenthredinidae family is included in suborder Symphyta of order Hymenoptera (Insecta). The species belonging to this family is harmful by feeding on leaf, stem, bud, flower, etc., of plants. The detrimental effects of these species are especially constituted by larval forms. Larva damages plants by eatingplant tissue, forming gal and opening galleries in leaf, stem and bud of plants. These harmful species can be controlled with biological, cultural and chemical methods. The control methods change according to the species. However, although chemical control is harmful for nature on a large scale, itis generally being used

Considering The Strands of Diversity in Calculation of Unemployment Rate: An Emerging Agenda

This research aims at demonstrating the role of diversity for increasing unemployment rate for the countries. Also, it brings a multidisciplinary perspective for the fields of management and economics. The main reason for adopting such a perspective is to create a research agenda for decreasing unemployment rate. In order to achieve the aforementioned aim, we focus on subtle factors as externalities that come from the strands of diversity. In the present study, we focus on gender, religion and age as the subtle factors that can create negative externalities and increase the calculation of the unemployment rate. Based on examining the scholarly literature, we provide evidence for the subtle factors, and we conclude our study to open a research agenda for future research

Ground truth deficiencies in software engineering: when codifying the past can be counterproductive

Many software engineering tools build and evaluate their models based on historical data to support development and process decisions. These models help us answer numerous interesting questions, but have their own caveats. In a real-life setting, the objective function of human decision-makers for a given task might be influenced by a whole host of factors that stem from their cognitive biases, subverting the ideal objective function required for an optimally functioning system. Relying on this data as ground truth may give rise to systems that end up automating software engineering decisions by mimicking past sub-optimal behaviour. We illustrate this phenomenon and suggest mitigation strategies to raise awareness

Population Stratification of a Common APOBEC Gene Deletion Polymorphism

The APOBEC3 gene family plays a role in innate cellular immunity inhibiting retroviral infection, hepatitis B virus propagation, and the retrotransposition of endogenous elements. We present a detailed sequence and population genetic analysis of a 29.5-kb common human deletion polymorphism that removes the APOBEC3B gene. We developed a PCR-based genotyping assay, characterized 1,277 human diversity samples, and found that the frequency of the deletion allele varies significantly among major continental groups (global F (ST) = 0.2843). The deletion is rare in Africans and Europeans (frequency of 0.9% and 6%), more common in East Asians and Amerindians (36.9% and 57.7%), and almost fixed in Oceanic populations (92.9%). Despite a worldwide frequency of 22.5%, analysis of data from the International HapMap Project reveals that no single existing tag single nucleotide polymorphism may serve as a surrogate for the deletion variant, emphasizing that without careful analysis its phenotypic impact may be overlooked in association studies. Application of haplotype-based tests for selection revealed potential pitfalls in the direct application of existing methods to the analysis of genomic structural variation. These data emphasize the importance of directly genotyping structural variation in association studies and of accurately resolving variant breakpoints before proceeding with more detailed population-genetic analysis

Non-alignment comparison of human and high primate genomes

Compositional spectra (CS) analysis based on k-mer scoring of DNA sequences was employed in this study for dot-plot comparison of human and primate genomes. The detection of extended conserved synteny regions was based on continuous fuzzy similarity rather than on chains of discrete anchors (genes or highly conserved noncoding elements). In addition to the high correspondence found in the comparisons of whole-genome sequences, a good similarity was also found after masking gene sequences, indicating that CS analysis manages to reveal phylogenetic signal in the organization of noncoding part of the genome sequences, including repetitive DNA and the genome "dark matter". Obviously, the possibility to reveal parallel ordering depends on the signal of common ancestor sequence organization varying locally along the corresponding segments of the compared genomes. We explored two sources contributing to this signal: sequence composition (GC content) and sequence organization (abundances of k-mers in the usual A,T,G,C or purine-pyrimidine alphabets). Whole-genome comparisons based on GC distribution along the analyzed sequences indeed gives reasonable results, but combining it with k-mer abundances dramatically improves the ordering quality, indicating that compositional and organizational heterogeneity comprise complementary sources of information on evolutionary conserved similarity of genome sequences

Mitochondrial carrier homolog 1 (Mtch1) antibodies in neuro-Behçet's disease

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Efforts for the identification of diagnostic autoantibodies for neuro-Behcet's disease (NBD) have failed. Screening of NBD patients' sera with protein macroarray identified mitochondrial carrier homolog 1 (Mtch1), an apoptosis-related protein, as a potential autoantigen. ELISA studies showed serum Mtch1 antibodies in 68 of 144 BD patients with or without neurological involvement and in 4 of 168 controls corresponding to a sensitivity of 47.2% and specificity of 97.6%. Mtch1 antibody positive NBD patients had more attacks, increased disability and lower serum nucleosome levels. Mtch1 antibody might be involved in pathogenic mechanisms of NBD rather than being a coincidental byproduct of autoinflammation. © 2013 Elsevier B.V