JAD Can Get Better

Interviewing and other conventional approaches failed to produce the user-developer understanding required to establish high-quality systems requirements for software development. .Joint Application Development (JAD) was introduced in the late 1970s, and has been widely used to alleviate this problem. But JAD s success has been critically dependent on the excellence of facilitation to deflect many of the relational problems that are typically experienced with the freely interacting group structure used to conduct JAD sessions. While the use of JAD is pervasive, excellent facilitators are scarce, which hampers or even precludes some JAD efforts. In this article we recommend a solution to this problem—using the nominal group technique (NGT) in JAD sessions to reduce the impact of negative group dynamics on JAD results. We provide some indications of the potential effectiveness of this proposal

Antigenic variability in Neuraminidase protein of Influenza A/H3N2 vaccine strains (1968 – 2009)

Antigenic drift and shift involving the surface proteins of Influenza virus gave rise to new strains that caused epidemics affecting millions of people worldwide over the last hundred years. Variations in the membrane proteins like Hemagglutinin (HA) and Neuraminidase (NA) necessitates new vaccine strains to be updated frequently and poses challenge to effective vaccine design. Though the HA protein, the primary target of the human immune system, has been well studied, reports on the antigenic variability in the other membrane protein NA are sparse. In this paper we investigate the molecular basis of antigenic drift in the NA protein of the Influenza A/H3N2 vaccine strains between 1968 and 2009 and proceed to establish correlation between antigenic drift and antigen-antibody interactions. Sequence alignments and phylogenetic analyses were carried out and the antigenic variability was evaluated in terms of antigenic distance. To study the effects of antigenic drift on the protein structures, 3D structure of NA from various strains were predicted. Also, rigid body docking protocol has been used to study the interactions between these NA proteins and antibody Mem5, a 1998 antibody

Disorder-driven electronic localization and phase separation in superconducting Fe1+yTe0.5Se0.5 single crystals

We have investigated the influence of Fe-excess on the electrical transport and magnetism of Fe1+yTe0.5Se0.5 (y=0.04 and 0.09) single crystals. Both compositions exhibit resistively determined superconducting transitions (Tc) with an onset temperature of about 15 K. From the width of the superconducting transition and the magnitude of the lower critical field Hc1, it is inferred that excess of Fe suppresses superconductivity. The linear and non-linear responses of the ac-susceptibility show that the superconducting state for these compositions is inhomogeneous. A possible origin of this phase separation is a magnetic coupling between Fe-excess occupying interstitial sites in the chalcogen planes and those in the Fe-square lattice. The temperature derivative of the resistivity drho/dT in the temperature range Tc < T < Ta with Ta being the temperature of a magnetic anomaly, changes from positive to negative with increasing Fe. A log 1/T divergence of the resistivity above Tc in the sample with higher amount of Fe suggests a disorder driven electronic localization.Comment: 7 page

Anatomy and physiology of cisternostomy

Cisternostomy is defined as opening the basal cisterns to atmospheric pressure. This technique helps to reduce the intracranial pressure in severe head trauma as well as other conditions when the so-called sudden "brain swelling" troubles the surgeon. We elaborated the surgical anatomy of this procedure as well as the proposed physiology of how cisternostomy works. This novel technique may change the current trends in neurosurgery

Comparison and agreement between arterial versus venous blood gas analysis and pulse oxymetry in children with acute asthma

Background: Blood gas analysis is critical in managing children in intensive care unit primarily in respiratory disorders. This study aimed to ascertain agreement between the arterial and peripheral venous measurement of pH, pCO2, pO2 and bicarbonate levels along with SpO2 in acute asthma.Methods: Hospital based cross sectional analytical study was conducted at Pushpagiri Institute of Medical Sciences in 50 children within the age group of 5-15 years who presented with symptoms suggestive of acute asthma with a modified PSI&gt;6 after informed consent from parents and assent from child. SpO2 monitoring and ABG simultaneously with VBG were done immediately after admission. Statistical analysis was done to find out any correlation using Pearson correlation coefficient and Bland Altman plots were drawn to assess agreement.Results: 50 children in the age group 5 years to 15 years were included in the study. Arterial pH and venous pH were found to be correlated significantly, Pearson correlation coefficient r=0.438. There was a good correlation between the arterial and venous pCO2 with r= 0.610, bicarbonate values r=0.608. There was poor correlation between arterial PO2 and venous PO2 values (r=0.030). The bias plot for pH and pCO2 showed moderate agreement in with 95% limits of agreement being in acceptably narrow range. The mean bias in pH was 0.0242 (SD=0.04912, 95% limits of agreement = -0.0721 to 0.12045); bias in pCO2 was -4.04400 (SD=5.53616, 95% limits of agreement = -14.8949 to 6.8069), and in bicarbonate levels -0.0940 (SD=2.09, 95% limits of agreement = -4.1998 to 4.0119).Conclusions: Even though there was a good correlation and a moderate agreement between ABG and VBG parameters like pH, pCO2 and bicarbonate, VBG cannot be replaced for ABG in acute asthma. Pulse oximetry also has limitations in children with acute severe asthma as compared to ABG value.

Examination of aerosol distributions and radiative effects over the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea region during ICARB using satellite data and a general circulation model

In this paper we analyse aerosol loading and its direct radiative effects over the Bay of Bengal (BoB) and Arabian Sea (AS) regions for the Integrated Campaign on Aerosols, gases and Radiation Budget (ICARB) undertaken during 2006, using satellite data from the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the Terra and Aqua satellites, the Aerosol Index from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on board the Aura satellite, and the European-Community Hamburg (ECHAM5.5) general circulation model extended by Hamburg Aerosol Module (HAM). By statistically comparing with large-scale satellite data sets, we firstly show that the aerosol properties measured during the ship-based ICARB campaign and simulated by the model are representative for the BoB and AS regions and the pre-monsoon season. In a second step, the modelled aerosol distributions were evaluated by a comparison with the measurements from the ship-based sunphotometer, and the satellite retrievals during ICARB. It is found that the model broadly reproduces the observed spatial and temporal variability in aerosol optical depth (AOD) over BoB and AS regions. However, AOD was systematically underestimated during high-pollution episodes, especially in the BoB leg. We show that this underprediction of AOD is mostly because of the deficiencies in the coarse mode, where the model shows that dust is the dominant component. The analysis of dust AOD along with the OMI Aerosol Index indicate that missing dust transport that results from too low dust emission fluxes over the Thar Desert region in the model caused this deficiency. Thirdly, we analysed the spatio-temporal variability of AOD comparing the ship-based observations to the large-scale satellite observations and simulations. It was found that most of the variability along the track was from geographical patterns, with a minor influence by single events. Aerosol fields were homogeneous enough to yield a good statistical agreement between satellite data at a 1&amp;deg; spatial, but only twice-daily temporal resolution, and the ship-based sunphotometer data at a much finer spatial, but daily-average temporal resolution. Examination of the satellite data further showed that the year 2006 is representative for the five-year period for which satellite data were available. Finally, we estimated the clear-sky solar direct aerosol radiative forcing (DARF). We found that the cruise represents well the regional-seasonal mean forcings. Constraining simulated forcings using the observed AOD distributions yields a robust estimate of regional-seasonal mean DARF of &amp;minus;8.6, &amp;minus;21.4 and +12.9 W m&lt;sup&gt;&amp;minus;2&lt;/sup&gt; at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), at the surface (SUR) and in the atmosphere (ATM), respectively, for the BoB region, and over the AS, of, &amp;minus;6.8, &amp;minus;12.8, and +6 W m&lt;sup&gt;&amp;minus;2&lt;/sup&gt; at TOA, SUR, and ATM, respectively

The effect of distance on observed mortality, childhood pneumonia and vaccine efficacy in rural Gambia.

We investigated whether straight-line distance from residential compounds to healthcare facilities influenced mortality, the incidence of pneumonia and vaccine efficacy against pneumonia in rural Gambia. Clinical surveillance for pneumonia was conducted on 6938 children living in the catchment areas of the two largest healthcare facilities. Deaths were monitored by three-monthly home visits. Children living >5 km from the two largest healthcare facilities had a 2·78 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1·74-4·43] times higher risk of all-cause mortality compared to children living within 2 km of these facilities. The observed rate of clinical and radiological pneumonia was lower in children living >5 km from these facilities compared to those living within 2 km [rate ratios 0·65 (95% CI 0·57-0·73) and 0·74 (95% CI 0·55-0·98), respectively]. There was no association between distance and estimated pneumococcal vaccine efficacy. Geographical access to healthcare services is an important determinant of survival and pneumonia in children in rural Gambia