Towards guidelines for building a business case and gathering evidence of software reference architectures in industry

Background: Software reference architectures are becoming widely adopted by organizations that need to support the design and maintenance of software applications of a shared domain. For organizations that plan to adopt this architecture-centric approach, it becomes fundamental to know the return on investment and to understand how software reference architectures are designed, maintained, and used. Unfortunately, there is little evidence-based support to help organizations with these challenges. Methods: We have conducted action research in an industry-academia collaboration between the GESSI research group and everis, a multinational IT consulting firm based in Spain. Results: The results from such collaboration are being packaged in order to create guidelines that could be used in similar contexts as the one of everis. The main result of this paper is the construction of empirically-grounded guidelines that support organizations to decide on the adoption of software reference architectures and to gather evidence to improve RA-related practices. Conclusions: The created guidelines could be used by other organizations outside of our industry-academia collaboration. With this goal in mind, we describe the guidelines in detail for their use.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Integrating business, social, and environmental goals in open innovation through partner selection

Although collaborative networks (CN) are widespread in academia and have come to be even more used in corporations all over the world, they still face several challenges on behalf of the new product development (NPD) context, especially in regard to the selection of the CN’s right partner. This becomes even more evident when it comes to promoting sustainable development goals within a CN’s activities, by selecting the right partners with a wide consensus from a CN’s management board, avoiding, therefore, the subjectivity around managers’ perception of a CN’s partner selection. Therefore, this work attempts to answer this problem, by presenting a soft-computing-based framework, to support the managers’ board on partner search and selection. The method presented here is further assessed by using a case study, based on the development of a green product, where, according to the obtained results, it is demonstrated that the proposed approach is extremely effective for partner selection, by assessing and prioritizing each candidate involved. The most suitable candidate that fulfills the CN’s requirements is then selected to be integrated as a future partner.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Benefits and drawbacks of software reference architectures: A case study

Context: Software Reference Architectures (SRAs) play a fundamental role for organizations whose business greatly depends on the efficient development and maintenance of complex software applications. However, little is known about the real value and risks associated with SRAs in industrial practice. Objective: To investigate the current industrial practice of SRAs in a single company from the perspective of different stakeholders. Method An exploratory case study that investigates the benefits and drawbacks perceived by relevant stakeholders in nine SRAs designed by a multinational software consulting company. Results: The study shows the perceptions of different stakeholders regarding the benefits and drawbacks of SRAs (e.g., both SRA designers and users agree that they benefit from reduced development costs; on the contrary, only application builders strongly highlighted the extra learning curve as a drawback associated with mastering SRAs). Furthermore, some of the SRA benefits and drawbacks commonly highlighted in the literature were remarkably not mentioned as a benefit of SRAs (e.g., the use of best practices). Likewise, other aspects arose that are not usually discussed in the literature, such as higher time-to-market for applications when their dependencies on the SRA are managed inappropriately. Conclusions: This study aims to help practitioners and researchers to better understand real SRAs projects and the contexts where these benefits and drawbacks appeared, as well as some SRA improvement strategies. This would contribute to strengthening the evidence regarding SRAs and support practitioners in making better informed decisions about the expected SRA benefits and drawbacks. Furthermore, we make available the instruments used in this study and the anonymized data gathered to motivate others to provide similar evidence to help mature SRA research and practice.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Integrating business, social, and environmental goals in open innovation through partner selection

Although collaborative networks (CN) are widespread in academia and have come to be even more used in corporations all over the world, they still face several challenges on behalf of the new product development (NPD) context, especially in regard to the selection of the CN’s right partner. This becomes even more evident when it comes to promoting sustainable development goals within a CN’s activities, by selecting the right partners with a wide consensus from a CN’s management board, avoiding, therefore, the subjectivity around managers’ perception of a CN’s partner selection. Therefore, this work attempts to answer this problem, by presenting a soft-com-puting-based framework, to support the managers’ board on partner search and selection. The method presented here is further assessed by using a case study, based on the development of a green product, where, according to the obtained results, it is demonstrated that the proposed approach is extremely effective for partner selection, by assessing and prioritizing each candidate involved. The most suitable candidate that fulfills the CN’s requirements is then selected to be integrated as a future partner.publishersversionpublishe

A CASE OF HYPOGLYCEMIA…

Introdução: O hipopituitarismo é caracterizado por insuficiência da secreção hormonal hipófisária. A clínica é variável e depende da etiologia, evolução temporal e hormonas envolvi- das. Caso: Criança do sexo masculino com 2 anos, trazida à urgência por alteração súbita da consciência. No período neonatal apresentou quadro de hipoglicemia, trombocitopenia, icterícia e sépsis sem agente identificado. Objetivou-se crescimento regular no P10-25, desenvolvimento psicomotor adequado e estrabismo divergente. Ao exame objectivo apresentava-se subfebril e com Escala de Coma de Glasgow 10. Foi constatada hipoglicemia grave (26mg/dL) sendo realizado de imediato estudo endocrinológico e metabólico que mostrou cortisol baixo e défices de ACTH e GH; posteriormente foi confirmado défice de TSH. Iniciou terapêutica de substituição com hidrocortisona e levotiroxina. A neuroimagem mostrou alterações estruturais com hipoplasia da neuro-hipófise. Conclusão: Este diagnóstico raro exige elevado grau de suspeição. A ocorrência progressiva dos défices hormonais obriga à avaliação clínica e laboratorial regular

Subjective wellbeing, sense of humor and psychological health in hemodialysis patients

Objective: To investigate the relationship between satisfaction with life in general, sense of humor, and anxiety, depression and stress with subjective happiness in chronic kidney disease patients undergoing hemodialysis. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional and correlational study was developed in two units of the Diaverum dialysis clinic and one hospital unit, with 183 chronic kidney disease patients undergoing hemodialysis. An instrument was used to characterize the sociodemographic and clinical profile of the sample (age, gender, nationality, education, occupation, marital status, dialysis sessions length, presence of hypertension and diabetes): the subjective happiness scale; the satisfaction with life in general; depression, anxiety and stress scale 21; and multidimensional sense of humor scale. Inferential procedures included Spearman correlation coefficients, and multiple linear regression adjusting to age, marital status, professional activity and diabetes.Results: Subjective Happiness was positively correlated with satisfaction with life in general, and the three dimensions of Sense of Humor. Nevertheless, subjective happiness was negatively correlated with stress / anxiety and depression. Satisfaction with life in general, humor production and social use of humor, and attitude towards humor had a positive relationship with subjective happiness. However, depression had a negative relationship with subjective happiness. Conclusions: Higher levels of subjective happiness were associated with higher levels of satisfaction with life in general, and sense of humor, however they were also associated with lower levels of depression in patients undergoing hemodialysis

BioRePortAP, an electronic clinical record coupled with a database : an example of its use in a single

Aims: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the treatment of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patients with tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antagonists in the Rheumatology Department of Hospital de Santa Maria using the BioRePortAP. Methods: The Portuguese Society of Rheumatology (SPR) developed an electronic medical chart coupled with a database for the follow up of PsA patients, the BioRePortAP, which was launched in May 2009. This evaluation was based on all the PsA patients that were on active treatment with TNF antagonists in September 2009 and were registered in the BioRePortAP. All the previous data on these patients were introduced in BioRePortAP using the prospective paper based follow up protocol that this Department was using since 1999. Only patients with more than 9 months of treatment were analyzed. Results: Forty-two patients with PsA, actively treated with anti-TNF agents in September 2009, for at least 9 months, were analyzed in BioRePortAP. Twenty-three patients were male (55%) and nineteen were female (45%). The average age of these patients was 49.8±10.9 years old, the average disease duration was of 10.7±5.6 years and the mean duration of biological therapy was of 37.8±27.8 months. For the 81% of patients with peripheral joint disease there was a mean reduction of more than 80% in the swollen and tender joint counts, and almost 50% in the health assessment questionnaire (HAQ) value. In the 19% of the patients with axial involvement the reduction of BASDAI and BASFI was not statistically significative. On top of that, PASI score suffered a reduction of 64%. Fourteen patients (33.3%) had to switch their TNF antagonist treatment. 58.8% of the switches were due to adverse effects and 41.2% due to therapy failure. Regarding the 56 adverse reactions registered, only one was a severe reaction. The remaining adverse reactions were not severe and 67% of them were due to infections. Discussion: The results of this first report of the use of the BioRePortAP in clinical practice confirm the efficacy and safety of TNF antagonist treatment in PsA. The results shown here elucidate the potential applications of BioRePortAP as a tool for efficacy and safety assessment of PsA patients treated with biotechnological drugs

A framework for software reference architecture analysis and review

Premio al mejor artículo, X Workshop Latinoamericano Ingeniería de Software Experimental, ESELAW 2013Tight time-to-market needs pushes software companies and IT consulting firms to continuously look for techniques to improve their IT services in general, and the design of software architectures in particular. The use of soft-ware reference architectures allows IT consulting firms reusing architectural knowledge and components in a systematic way. In return, IT consulting firms face the need to analyze the return on investment in software reference architectures for organizations, and to review these reference architectures in order to ensure their quality and incremental improvement. Little support exists to help IT consulting firms to face these challenges. In this paper we present an empirical framework aimed to support the analysis and review of software reference architectures and their use in IT projects by harvesting relevant evidence from the wide spectrum of involved stakeholders.Award-winningPostprint (author’s final draft

Programa de secagem para a madeira de seringueira (Hevea brasiliensis Muell. Arg.)

The rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis Muell. Arg.) has been cultivated for tapping purposes and it is considered as wood supply in the end of the productive cycle of latex. Drying is one of the most important steps in the mechanical processing of wood. As far as rubberwood is concerned, kiln-drying is particularly an essential step due to its high susceptibility to decay and mold fungi attacks mainly when the wood moisture content is high. Thus, this study aimed to develop and evaluate a conventional drying schedule for four clones of Hevea brasiliensis (IAN-873, IAN-717, GT-711 and AVROS-1301) planted in Ituberá and Grapiúna counties in the Bahia state, Brazil. The conventional drying schedule applied, with minimum and maximum drying temperatures, respectively, of 50°C and 75°C in a Hildebrand test dryer kiln with a Gann automatic control, was efficient, producing a very fast drying (less than 4 days for clones IAN-873, IAN-717 and GT-711) and fast (4,5 days to clone AVROS-1301) with low drying defects development.A seringueira (Hevea brasiliensis Muell. Arg.) tem sido cultivada para extração de látex e utilizada para produção de madeira ao fim do ciclo produtivo do látex. A secagem é uma etapa fundamental no processamento mecânico da madeira. No caso da madeira de seringueira, faz-se particularmente necessária a secagem artificial em estufa para a sua utilização, devido à alta susceptibilidade ao ataque de fungos emboloradores e apodrecedores quando úmida. Dessa maneira, este trabalho teve como objetivo elaborar e avaliar programa de secagem convencional para quatro clones de Hevea brasiliensis (IAN-873, IAN-717, GT-711 e AVROS-1301) plantados nos municípios de Ituberá e Grapiúna, no Estado da Bahia, Brasil. O programa de secagem convencional utilizado, com temperatura inicial de 50°C e final de 75°C, aplicado em uma estufa Hildebrand tipo “Test Dryer” com controle automático Gann, foi eficiente, produzindo uma secagem muito rápida (menos de 4 dias para os clones IAN-873, IAN-717 e GT-711) e rápida (4,5 dias para o clone AVROS-1301), observando-se uma baixa incidência de defeitos de secagem

Under a cloak of terror: violence and armed conflict in Europe

As it is impossible to prove that human nature is intrinsically violent and warlike, history does not allow us to deny that war is one of the most present elements at different times. As an omnipresent phenomenon, it can also be considered a total social fact due to the multiple implications it entails. Furthermore, due to its implications, it becomes an object of historical study that is interpreted in different ways by either testimonies, participants, observers, or victims, thus building a multiple and never univocal interpretative basis. Not only can war be the stage of the worst crimes, but it can also be where expected or unlikely heroes arise and human greatness is externalized in unforeseen initiatives or positions. Examples such as the Holocaust or even the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 not only serve as an identification of heroes and evidence of the greatness of some basic humanitarian principles but also as the example of the greatest genocides. This text seeks to reflect on the way in which war and peace played a fundamental role in the way Europe was designed over the centuries. In this regard, the chronological scope goes back to the beginning of the first civilizations, trying to understand how war has always played a leading role in the definition of societies, borders, the exercise of power, the exploitation of man by man, and how this main role continues to be assumed as a process of change and continuity until the present day. When the questions are more than the answers, we believe we are going on the right path