A review of software change impact analysis

Change impact analysis is required for constantly evolving systems to support the comprehension, implementation, and evaluation of changes. A lot of research effort has been spent on this subject over the last twenty years, and many approaches were published likewise. However, there has not been an extensive attempt made to summarize and review published approaches as a base for further research in the area. Therefore, we present the results of a comprehensive investigation of software change impact analysis, which is based on a literature review and a taxonomy for impact analysis. The contribution of this review is threefold. First, approaches proposed for impact analysis are explained regarding their motivation and methodology. They are further classified according to the criteria of the taxonomy to enable the comparison and evaluation of approaches proposed in literature. We perform an evaluation of our taxonomy regarding the coverage of its classification criteria in studied literature, which is the second contribution. Last, we address and discuss yet unsolved problems, research areas, and challenges of impact analysis, which were discovered by our review to illustrate possible directions for further research

Identification of quality parameters for an E-Health platform in the federal state of Thuringia in Germany

Many developed countries experience an acute shortage of medical specialists beyond urbanized areas. Specialists and services that are available are usually concentrated in cities apart from the growing number elderly people, who represent the main part of the population in rural areas. These people underlie a growing risk of dementia and live in marginalized isolation apart from specialist support. With the recent development in information and communication technologies, new options for telemedicine and for general knowledge sharing at a distance are becoming increasingly accessible to medical specialists as well as geographically and demographically disadvantaged populations. This paper provides a selected insight into the current state of the art of an E-Health based platform on federal state levels in order to assist medical doctors, nursing services or family members, to communicate with each other. We conclude that such an interconnected platform is highly suitable for the federal state Thuringia in Germany, which is bearing a positive influence on the future of regional health care

An IHE-conform telecooperation platform supporting the treatment of dementia patients

Ensuring medical support of patients of advanced age in rural areas is a major challenge. Moreover, the number of registered doctors—medical specialists in particular—will decrease in such areas over the next years. These unmet medical needs in combination with communication deficiencies among different types of health-care professionals pose threats to the quality of patient treatment. This work presents a novel solution combining telemedicine, telecooperation, and IHE profiles to tackle these challenges. We present a telecooperation platform that supports longitudinal electronic patient records and allows for intersectoral cooperation based on shared electronic medication charts and other documents. Furthermore, the conceived platform allows for an integration into the planned German telematics infrastructure

Superradiance and Phase Multistability in Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics

By modeling the coupling of multiple superconducting qubits to a single cavity in the circuit-quantum electrodynamics (QED) framework we find that it should be possible to observe superradiance and phase multistability using currently available technology. Due to the exceptionally large couplings present in circuit-QED we predict that superradiant microwave pulses should be observable with only a very small number of qubits (just three or four), in the presence of energy relaxation and non-uniform qubit-field coupling strengths. This paves the way for circuit-QED implementations of superradiant state readout and decoherence free subspace state encoding in subradiant states. The system considered here also exhibits phase multistability when driven with large field amplitudes, and this effect may have applications for collective qubit readout and for quantum feedback protocols.Comment: Published Versio

Unmet needs in the diagnosis and treatment of dyslipidemia in the primary care setting in Germany

Objectives and methods: DETECT is a cross-sectional study of 55,518 unselected consecutive patients in 3188 representative primary care offices in Germany. In a random subset of 7519 patients, an extensive standardized laboratory program was undertaken. The study investigated the prevalence of cardiovascular disease, known risk factors (such as diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia and their co-morbid manifestation), as well as treatment patterns. The present analysis of the DETECT laboratory dataset focused on the prevalence and treatment of dyslipidemia in primary medical care in Germany. Coronary artery disease (CAD), risk categories and LDL-C target achievement rates were determined in the subset of 6815 patients according to the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) ATP III Guidelines. Results: Of all patients, 54.3% had dyslipidemia. Only 54.4% of the NCEP-classified dyslipidemic patients were diagnosed as ‘dyslipidemic’ by their physicians. Only 27% of all dyslipidemic patients (and 40.7% of the recognized dyslipidemic patients) were treated with lipid-lowering medications, and 11.1% of all dyslipidemic patients (41.4% of the patients treated with lipid-lowering drugs) achieved their LDL-C treatment goals. In conclusion, 80.3% of patients in the sample with dyslipidemia went undiagnosed, un-treated or under-treated

Seasonal Variations in Vegetation Indices derived from in situ Type Vegetation Monitoring System at typical landcovers in Japan : From the Observation Results in PGLIERC and Lake Biwa Project

研究概要:本研究では光学センサー搭載衛星データの検証及び地表面フラックスとの対応関係を調べるために簡易式の地上設置型植生モニタリングシステムを日本を代表する土地被覆上(草地,水田,アカマツ林,落葉広葉樹)に設置し,それぞれの土地被覆から得られる植生指標の季節変化について示した.その結果,以下の知見が得られた;1.草原系(草地・水田)では各植生の季節変化特性を良好にモニターすることが可能である,2.森林系(アカマツ林・落葉広葉樹)ではセンサーとキャノピーの距離が近すぎるため,思うような結果を得ることが出来なかった.3.ただし全般としては各土地被覆特性を示す連続したデータを取得することができ,システムの妥当性を示すことができた

All-cause mortality and serum insulin-like growth factor I in primary care patients

Objective: Previous population-based studies provided conflicting results regarding the association of total serum insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) and mortality. The aim of the present study was to assess the relation of IGF-I levels with all-cause mortality in a prospective study. Design: DETECT (Diabetes Cardiovascular Risk-Evaluation: Targets and Essential Data for Commitment of Treatment) is a large, multistage, and nationally representative study of primary care patients in Germany. The study population included 2463 men and 3603 women. Death rates were recorded by the respective primary care physician. Serum total IGF-I levels were determined by chemiluminescence immunoassays and categorized into three groups (low, moderate, and high) according to the sex- and age-specific 10th and 90th percentiles. Results: Adjusted analyses revealed that men with low [hazard ratio (HR) 1.70 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.05–2.73), p=0.03] and high [HR 1.76 (95% CI 1.09–2.85), p=0.02] IGF-I levels had higher risk of all-cause mortality compared to men with moderate IGF-I levels. The specificity of low IGF-I and high IGF-I levels increased with lower and higher cut-offs, respectively. No such association became apparent in women. Conclusions: The present study revealed a U-shaped relation between IGF-I and all-cause mortality in male primary care patients

Associations of age-dependent IGF-I SDS with cardiovascular diseases and risk conditions: cross-sectional study in 6773 primary care patients

Objective: We aimed at investigating the association of age-dependent IGF-I SDS with diabetes, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and heart diseases, in a large patient sample. Background: IGF-I has been suggested to be associated with several diseases and a prognostic marker for the development of cardiovascular diseases and risk factors. The findings, though, have been inconsistent possibly due to the methodological factors. Methods: We studied 6773 consecutive primary care patients, aged 18+ years, in a cross-sectional, epidemiological study in primary care, Diabetes Cardiovascular Risk-Evaluation: Targets and Essential Data for Commitment of Treatment study. All patients underwent a standardized clinical diagnostic and laboratory assessment. IGF-I levels were measured with an automated chemiluminescence assay system. We calculated the odds ratios (OR) for diseases in quintiles of IGF-I, and additionally analyzed the association of age-dependent IGF-I SDS with these conditions. Results: After multiple adjustments for confounders, we found increased ORs for coronary artery disease in patients with high IGF-I. Women, but not men, with low IGF-I also showed increased ORs for coronary artery disease. Dyslipidemia was positively associated with IGF-I. Type 2 diabetes showed a curvilinear association with IGF-I SDS. Conclusions: The findings suggest the existence of multiple and complex interactions between IGF-I and several health conditions. The complex nature of disease- and subgroup-specific associations along with the methodological factors can be held responsible for divergent findings in previous studies

Associations of age-dependent IGF-I SDS with cardiovascular diseases and risk conditions: cross-sectional study in 6773 primary care patients,

Abstract Objective: We aimed at investigating the association of age-dependent IGF-I SDS with diabetes, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and heart diseases, in a large patient sample. Background: IGF-I has been suggested to be associated with several diseases and a prognostic marker for the development of cardiovascular diseases and risk factors. The findings, though, have been inconsistent possibly due to the methodological factors. Methods: We studied 6773 consecutive primary care patients, aged 18C years, in a cross-sectional, epidemiological study in primary care, Diabetes Cardiovascular Risk-Evaluation: Targets and Essential Data for Commitment of Treatment study. All patients underwent a standardized clinical diagnostic and laboratory assessment. IGF-I levels were measured with an automated chemiluminescence assay system. We calculated the odds ratios (OR) for diseases in quintiles of IGF-I, and additionally analyzed the association of age-dependent IGF-I SDS with these conditions. Results: After multiple adjustments for confounders, we found increased ORs for coronary artery disease in patients with high IGF-I. Women, but not men, with low IGF-I also showed increased ORs for coronary artery disease. Dyslipidemia was positively associated with IGF-I. Type 2 diabetes showed a curvilinear association with IGF-I SDS. Conclusions: The findings suggest the existence of multiple and complex interactions between IGF-I and several health conditions. The complex nature of disease-and subgroup-specific associations along with the methodological factors can be held responsible for divergent findings in previous studies. European Journal of Endocrinology 158 153-16