ELICA: An Automated Tool for Dynamic Extraction of Requirements Relevant Information

Requirements elicitation requires extensive knowledge and deep understanding of the problem domain where the final system will be situated. However, in many software development projects, analysts are required to elicit the requirements from an unfamiliar domain, which often causes communication barriers between analysts and stakeholders. In this paper, we propose a requirements ELICitation Aid tool (ELICA) to help analysts better understand the target application domain by dynamic extraction and labeling of requirements-relevant knowledge. To extract the relevant terms, we leverage the flexibility and power of Weighted Finite State Transducers (WFSTs) in dynamic modeling of natural language processing tasks. In addition to the information conveyed through text, ELICA captures and processes non-linguistic information about the intention of speakers such as their confidence level, analytical tone, and emotions. The extracted information is made available to the analysts as a set of labeled snippets with highlighted relevant terms which can also be exported as an artifact of the Requirements Engineering (RE) process. The application and usefulness of ELICA are demonstrated through a case study. This study shows how pre-existing relevant information about the application domain and the information captured during an elicitation meeting, such as the conversation and stakeholders' intentions, can be captured and used to support analysts achieving their tasks.Comment: 2018 IEEE 26th International Requirements Engineering Conference Workshop

LOL: An Investigation into Cybernetic Humor, or: Can Machines Laugh?

The mechanisms of humour have been the subject of much study and investigation, starting with and up to our days. Much of this work is based on literary theories, put forward by some of the most eminent philosophers and thinkers of all times, or medical theories, investigating the impact of humor on brain activity or behaviour. Recent functional neuroimaging studies, for instance, have investigated the process of comprehending and appreciating humor by examining functional activity in distinctive regions of brains stimulated by joke corpora. Yet, there is precious little work on the computational side, possibly due to the less hilarious nature of computer scientists as compared to men of letters and sawbones. In this paper, we set to investigate whether literary theories of humour can stand the test of algorithmic laughter. Or, in other words, we ask ourselves the vexed question: Can machines laugh? We attempt to answer that question by testing whether an algorithm - namely, a neural network - can "understand" humour, and in particular whether it is possible to automatically identify abstractions that are predicted to be relevant by established literary theories about the mechanisms of humor. Notice that we do not focus here on distinguishing humorous from serious statements - a feat that is clearly way beyond the capabilities of the average human voter, not to mention the average machine - but rather on identifying the underlying mechanisms and triggers that are postulated to exist by literary theories, by verifying if similar mechanisms can be learned by machines

Executable formal specifications of complex distributed systems with CoreASM

Formal specifications play a crucial role in the design of reliable complex software systems. Executable formal specifications allow the designer to attain early validation and verification of design using static analysis techniques and accurate simulation of the runtime behavior of the system-to-be. With increasing complexity of software-intensive computer-based systems and the challenges of validation and verification of abstract software models prior to coding, the need for interactive software tools supporting executable formal specifications is even more evident. In this paper, we discuss how CoreASM, an environment for writing and running executable specifications according to the ASM method, provides flexibility and manages the complexity by using an innovative extensible language architecture

Modeling web applications infrastructure with ASMs

We describe via Abstract State Machines the major ingredients of contemporary web applications: a web browser running JavaScript programs and a web server dispatching requests to one of several modules, each one representing a class of established web application frameworks. The web browser model comes in four levels, namely transport, stream, context and browser level, and is focussed on the interaction with possibly multiple servers (which requires a concurrent computation model) and on script execution (which requires a dynamic assignment of agents to programs). The server model is focussed on the Request–Reply pattern, and specifies a delegation strategy where the handling of a request is entrusted to a module. We show how several major frameworks for web applications can be described as progressive refinements of a number of basic modules. Three modules are further detailed: static file transfer, CGI and generic scripting modules

Cisplatin induced toxicity in rat tissues: The protective effect of Lisosan G

The protective effect of a powder of grain (Lisosan G) against cisplatin-induced toxicity in rats was studied. Male rats were fed with Lisosan G before injection of cisplatin and four days later they were killed and blood was collected along with hepatic, renal and testicular tissues. The results showed that cisplatin treatment increased plasma blood urea nitrogen, creatinine and hydrogen peroxide and decreased cytochrome P450 content in renal and hepatic tissues. It also reduced the plasmatic testosterone level and caused a depletion of testicular 17a-progesterone hydroxylase activity. In the group fed with Lisosan G and treated with cisplatin blood urea nitrogen and creatinine returned to the control level indicating a protective effect of Lisosan G. It was also observed that the ones fed with Lisosan G were able to attenuate the decrease in the P450-dependent activities and the activities of antioxidant enzymes as well. Lisosan G protected the testicular 17a-progesterone hydroxylase activity and increased the plasma testosterone level compared to animals treated only with cisplatin. Our results showed a protective effect of Lisosan G against the cisplatin induced toxicity. The protective effect of Lisosan G could be associated mainly with the attenuation of the oxidative stress and the preservation in antioxidant enzymes

Xenobiotic Metabolizing Cytocbrome P450 in Pig; a Promising Animai Model

Abstract: The pig has been used as an important animai model far human studies because of its similarity in size, physiology and disease development However, in contrast to the extensive data available on the cytochrome P450 (CYP) system far humans and rodents, the data related to pig afe limited because or, among others, the presence of intra-species differences (domestic pigs and minipigs) The knowledge of the CYP superfamily in a given experimental animaI is crucial far pharmacological and toxicological tests in developing drugs and far understanding the metaboli~ pathways of toxicants and carcinogens. In addition, information on the CYP system in pigs is Important smce Il plays a domlnant role m the metabolism of veterinary drugs, whose residues rernain in the porcine tissues which afe food far humans The aim of the present review is to examine -in the liver alId extrahepatic tissues of pig -our current knowledge of the xenobioticmetabolizing CYPs be!onging lO. famili.es 1-4, in terms of drug metabolism, substrate specificity, inhibition, gene expression and receptor- dnven regulatlon, m companson wlth human data It is hoped, furthermore, that this review may stimulate research on the porcine drug-metabollzmg enzymes morder to evaluate the hypothesis whereby pig data may better reflect human drug metabolism and toxicity than those obtained from the traditional non-rodent models. Keywords: Pig, minipig, cytochrome P450 (CYP), liver, extrahepatic tissues, animai model, xenobiotics, porcine nuclear receptors

Purification, molecular cloning, heterologous expression and characterization of pig CYP1A2

Porcine cytochrome P450 (CYP) 1A2 was purified to electrophoretic homogeneity from the hepatic microsomes of -naphthoflavone-treated male pigs. In a reconstituted system, this enzyme showed a good catalytic activity towards caffeine, acetanilide, and methoxyresorufin, all known markers of mammalian CYP1A2. Using 30- and 50-rapid amplification of coding DNA (cDNA) ends (RACE), we amplified from the liver RNA of control pigs a full-length 1827 bp cDNA containing an open reading frame of 1548 bp which encoded a putative CYP1A2 protein of 516 amino acids and an estimated Mr of 58 380 Da. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) experiments showed that the messenger RNA (mRNA) of CYP1A2 was expressed in liver, heart and nasal mucosa but not in lung, small intestine, kidney and brain. Using the pCW vector containing a N-terminal modified cDNA, pig CYP1A2 was expressed in Escherichia coli. 3-[(3-Chloroamidopropyl)dimethylmmonio]-1-propanesulfonate (CHAPS)-solubilized E. coli preparations expressing CYP1A2 produced a functionally isoform which, in a reconstituted system, was catalytically active toward ethoxyresorufin and methoxyresorufin showing Km\u27s similar to those obtained with CYP1A2 purified from pig liver or human recombinant CYP1A2. Taken together, these results demonstrate that domestic pigs have a functionally active CYP1A2 gene well expressed in the liver with biochemical properties quite similar to those corresponding to the human enzyme

Natural Language Requirements Processing: A 4D Vision

The future evolution of the application of natural language processing technologies in requirements engineering can be viewed from four dimensions: discipline, dynamism, domain knowledge, and datasets

Two-photon Imaging of Microglial Processes' Attraction Toward ATP or Serotonin in Acute Brain Slices

International audienceMicroglial cells are resident innate immune cells of the brain that constantly scan their environment with their long processes and, upon disruption of homeostasis, undergo rapid morphological changes. For example, a laser lesion induces in a few minutes an oriented growth of microglial processes, also called "directional motility", toward the site of injury. A similar effect can be obtained by delivering locally ATP or serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine [5-HT]). In this article, we describe a protocol to induce a directional growth of microglial processes toward a local application of ATP or 5-HT in acute brain slices of young and adult mice and to image this attraction over time by multiphoton microscopy. A simple method of quantification with free and open-source image analysis software is proposed. A challenge that still characterizes acute brain slices is the limited time, decreasing with age, during which the cells remain in a physiological state. This protocol, thus, highlights some technical improvements (medium, air-liquid interface chamber, imaging chamber with a double perfusion) aimed at optimizing the viability of microglial cells over several hours, especially in slices from adult mice