Software quality attribute measurement and analysis based on class diagram metrics

Software quality measurement lies at the heart of the quality engineering process. Quality measurement for object-oriented artifacts has become the key for ensuring high quality software. Both researchers and practitioners are interested in measuring software product quality for improvement. It has recently become more important to consider the quality of products at the early phases, especially at the design level to ensure that the coding and testing would be conducted more quickly and accurately. The research work on measuring quality at the design level progressed in a number of steps. The first step was to discover the correct set of metrics to measure design elements at the design level. Chidamber and Kemerer (C&K) formulated the first suite of OO metrics. Other researchers extended on this suite and provided additional metrics. The next step was to collect these metrics by using software tools. A number of tools were developed to measure the different suites of metrics; some represent their measurements in the form of ordinary numbers, others represent them in 3D visual form. In recent years, researchers developed software quality models which went a bit further by computing quality attributes from collected design metrics. In this research we extended on the software quality modelers’ work by adding a quality attribute prioritization scheme and a design metric analysis layer. Our work is all focused on the class diagram, the most fundamental constituent in any object oriented design. Using earlier researchers’ work, we extract a class diagram’s metrics and compute its quality attributes. We then analyze the results and inform the user. We present our figures and observations in the form of an analysis report. Our target user could be a project manager or a software quality engineer or a developer who needs to improve the class diagram’s quality. We closely examine the design metrics that affect quality attributes. We pinpoint the weaknesses in the class diagram, based on these metrics, inform the user about the problems that emerged from these classes, and advice him/her as to how he/she can go about improving the overall design quality. We consider the six basic quality attributes: “Reusability”, “Functionality”, “Understandability”, “Flexibility”, “Extendibility”, and “Effectiveness” of the whole class diagram. We allow the user to set priorities on these quality attributes in a sequential manner based on his/her requirements. Using a geometric series, we calculate a weighted average value for the arranged list of quality attributes. This weighted average value indicates the overall quality of the product, the class diagram. Our experimental work gave us much insight into the meanings and dependencies between design metrics and quality attributes. This helped us refine our analysis technique and give more concrete observations to the user

Simultaneous determination of levonorgestrel and ethinyl estradiol in combined dosage form utilizing spectrophotometric methods and high performance thin layer chromatographic method on nanosilica gel plates

Simultaneous quantification of levonorgestrel (LEV) and ethinyl estradiol (EE) was performed utilizing five different spectrophotometric methods and a high performance thin layer chromatographic method (HPTLC). The applied spectrophotometric methods were based on either ratio spectra namely; ratio difference, ratio subtraction and derivative ratio or the presence of isosbestic point specifically; absorbance subtraction and amplitude modulation. The proposed methods had the ability to resolve the overlapped spectra of the drugs with a linear relationship in the concentration range 1-65 µg/mL and 1-95 µg/mL for LEV and EE, respectively. The developed HPTLC method has revealed a good separation of the drugs upon utilizing Nano Silica Gel on TLC plates with fluorescent indicator 254 nm glass plates as the stationary phase and chloroform: methanol (99:1, v:v) as the mobile phase. The proposed HPTLC method has shown high sensitivity, where the linearity range was 0.02-3.00 µg/band and 0.5-20.0 µg/band, for LEV and EE, respectively. The proposed methods were successfully applied for the analysis of laboratory prepared mixtures as well as combined dosage form. Validation for all methods was conducted in compliance with the ICH guidelines proving the methods to be selective, linear, precise and accurate. The proposed methods were statistically compared with the pharmacopoeial method, where the obtained results showed no significant difference regarding accuracy and precision

A new potentiometric sensor based on molecularly imprinted polymer for analysis of a veterinary drug imidocarb dipropionate

A new potentiometric sensor based on molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) was fabricated for the recognition and determination of imidocarb dipropionate. The MIP was synthesized using imidocarb as the template material, methacrylic acid as a functional monomer, and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as a cross linking agent. The sensor showed a high selectivity and a sensitive response to the template molecule in aqueous solution. The MIP-electrode exhibited a near-Nernstian response in a wide concentration range 10-5 - 10-2 M with a lower detection limit of 2×10-6 M. The potentiometric conditions were carefully studied and all measuring parameters were optimized including pH, buffer type, plasticizer type, response time and stability. The applicability of the sensor was tested through potentiometric determination of imidocarb dipropionate in pure drug as well as in pharmaceutical formulation. The proposed method was statistically compared with a reported one showing no significant difference regarding accuracy and precision, which assured a good reliable novel sensor for imidocarb estimation

Proposed Framework for Smart Healthcare Services

Smart healthcare is of great interest to researchers and governments due to the increasing development of new smart cities. However, there is no current standard practice to format the cloud computing infrastructure and to assist the healthcare system architect in designing a comprehensive solution for the basic services that are required by the healthcare users while taking into consideration a balanced approach towards their specific functional and non-functional needs such as openness, scalability, concurrency, interoperability and security factors. The integration of smart healthcare services with cloud computing needs a concrete framework. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the different frameworks that discuss smart healthcare services and reach to a conclusion of the common factors to arrive at a unified and smart framework

A software design analysis tool for class diagrams

[abstract not available

Square-wave voltammetric determination of drospirenone and ethinylestradiol in pharmaceutical dosage form using square wave technique

Cathodic voltammetric behaviors of drospirenone and ethinylestradiol were used for the simultaneous determination of both drugs in bulk and in pharmaceutical formulation (Yasmin® tablets) without the interference of excipients. The determinations were made on hanging mercury dropping electrode using square-wave technique in a voltammetric cell containing 10 mL of 0.04 mole/L Britton-Robinson. After every aliquot addition, the solution was stirred for 10 s at 1000 rpm, rested for 10 s then square wave voltammetry mode was ramped from +100 to -1700 mV with scan rate of 100 mV/s, pulse amplitude of 50 mV and measurement time of 5 ms. Several factors such as pH, type of supporting electrolyte, pulse amplitude and scan rate were studied to optimize the condition for voltammetric determination of these drugs. With optimized experimental parameters, a good linearity was obtained for both drugs over a range of 1.36×10-6 to 1.91×10-7 mole/L and 6.75×10-8 to 6.07×10-7 mol/L of drospirenone and ethinylestradiol, respectively. Characterization of the proposed method was done according to International Conference on Harmonization, Q2B: Validation of Analytical procedures. The proposed method was statistically compared with the reference method and the results revealed no significant difference regarding accuracy and precision

Pericardial effusion in prosthetic and native valve infective endocarditis

Background: Pericardial effusion (PE) is widely believed to signify more advanced infective endocarditis (IE) and a generally worse outcome. Purpose: To determine the prevalence and clinical significance of PE in a series of patients with confirmed native and prosthetic valve infections. Methods: Data were collected from 338 consecutive patients with definite or possible IE who visited a single referral center; these patients were examined for the presence of PE as detected by transthoracic echocardiography. Clinical characteristics, the incidence of complications, and outcomes were compared between patients with IE with and without PE. IE patients with PE were then divided into two subgroups: those with and those without cardiac prostheses. Results: Eighty-eight patients out of the total 338 (26%) were found to have PE. Compared with patients who did not have PE, patients who did were significantly younger (32.9 ± 13.4 vs 29.0 ± 9.2, p = 0.003), had more left-sided vegetation (55.6% vs 77.3%, p < 0.001), more root abscesses (9.2% vs 25.0%, p < 0.001), needed surgery more frequently (68.0% vs 84.1%, p = 0.001), and had a higher mortality rate (22.0% vs 32.9%, p = 0.03). PE was not found to be a predictor of mortality. No significant difference was found between IE patients with PE with (n = 13) and without (n = 75) prostheses with regard to causative organisms, clinical characteristics, or clinical outcomes. Conclusion: Regardless of whether the IE was in native or prosthetic valves, compared with patients without PE, patients with PE had more severe infections and a worse prognosis, but PE was not an independent predictor of mortality. Keywords: Endocarditis, Pericardial effusion, Heart valve