Cent CORE: Centralized Cloud Oriented Requirement Engineering Strategy for Tracking and Elicitation of Dynamic Requirements

Requirement Engineering is one of the most important stages of Software Engineering. Eliciting requirements is highly critical and a complex process as the software end product totally depends on the quality of requirements that were collected. The property of the requirements is dynamic that keeps changing and constantly evolving. The Traditional Strategies for Requirement Engineering lacked organization and change management was entirely manual which consumed a lot of time and skilled labor. A centralized strategy for Elicitation of Dynamic Requirements using the concept of Requirement Cloud is proposed with high level of organization and structuring. A novel idea of using Cloud Storage Service for Requirement Engineering is implemented using a heuristics approach. Change management is incorporated and a few activities like requirements document generation is automated in this approach. Finally a survey between the Traditional Requirement Engineering and Proposed Cloud Methodology is conducted to prove the proposed methodology is better than the traditional strategies of Requirement Engineering

Testing of weak form of efficient market hypothesis: evidence from the Bahrain Bourse

Efficient market hypothesis (EMH) states that financial markets are “informationally efficient”, implying that current prices fully reflect all available information. The present study aims at testing the weak form of market efficiency of the individual stocks listed on the Bahrain Bourse for the period 2011 to 2015. Weak form of EMH is tested using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness of fit test, run test and autocorrelation test. The K-S test result concludes that in general the stock price movement does not follow random walk. The results of the runs test reveals that share prices of seven companies do not follow random walk. Autocorrelation tests reveal that share prices exhibit low to moderate correlation varying from negative to positive values. As the study shows mixed results, it is difficult to conclude the weak form of efficiency of Bahrain Bourse

Empirical Testing of Month of the Year Effect on Selected Commercial Banks and Services Sector Companies Listed on Bahrain Bourse

In financial literature we find numerous studies examining the presence of diverse types of calendar anomalies in different stock exchanges of the world. The current paper aims to investigate the month of the year effect in randomly selected ten companies from banking sector and service sector traded on the Bahrain Bourse for a period of five years commencing from 1st January 2010 to 31st December 2014. The empirical research was conducted using descriptive statistics and Kruskal-Wallis H Test. The findings of the study revealed that none of the companies selected for the study exhibited significant monthly returns for the study period except Bahrain Maritime & Mercantile International (BMMI). The paper suggests that the absence of said calendar anomaly may be due to thin trading practiced in the Bahrain Stock Exchange. Keywords: Calendar Anomalies, Month of the Year Effect, Bahrain Stock Exchange, Descriptive Statistics and Kruskal-Wallis H Test, Thin Trading. JEL Classifications:  G10, G14, G1

The impact of oil price crisis on financial performance of commercial banks in Bahrain

Oil export is the major source of revenue for the countries in the Middle East. Their economies are sensitive to fluctuations in oil prices. The present study examines the impact of oil crisis on the performance of selected banks of Kingdom of Bahrain using profitability, efficiency, capital adequacy and liquidity ratios in the pre-crisis and crisis periods. The study reveals that there is no significant difference in the performance of banks in the pre-crisis and crisis period. The results indicate that there is a significant difference in the performance of conventional banks and Islamic banks in the pre-crisis period. However, there is no significant difference in the performance of conventional banks and Islamic banks during the crisis period

1,6-Conjugate Additions of Carbon Nucleophiles to 2-[(1E,3E)-4-Arylbuta-1,3-dien-1-yl]-4H-chromen-4-ones

KGaA, Weinheim The 1,6-conjugate addition of nitromethane to 2-[(1E,3E)-4-arylbuta-1,3-dien-1-yl]-4H-chromen-4-ones was accomplished and led mainly to the corresponding β-(nitromethyl)chromones. (E)-5′-(Nitromethyl)-3′-styryl-[1,1′-biphenyl] -2-ol and 3′-aryl-2′-nitro-5′-(nitromethyl)spiro[chromane-2,1′-cyclohexan]-4-one derivatives were also isolated as minor products from tandem processes, which result from the addition of a second molecule of nitromethane. The nucleophile scope was investigated with malononitrile, acetylacetone, ethyl cyanoacetate, and diethyl malonate, which gave the expected 1,6-addition products; in the last case, it was also possible to isolate a minor product formed through a 1,8-/1,6-addition sequence. Computational calculations provided a rationale for the experimental reactivity of carbon nucleophiles with 2-[(1E,3E)-4-arylbuta-1,3-dien-1-yl] -4H-chromen-4-ones. The further functionalization of some adducts allowed the preparation of new nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds, such as new styrylpyrrolidines and new pyrazole and bis(pyrazole) derivatives.Thanks are due to the University of Aveiro and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)/Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (MEC) for the financial support of the QOPNA research unit (FCT UID/QUI/00062/2013) through national funds and, where applicable, cofinanced by Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement, and to the Portuguese NMR Network as well as the Instituto Politécnico de Bragança. H. M. T. A. is grateful to Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) for his PhD grant (SFRH/BD/86277/ 2012).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Performance Analysis of Commercial Banks in the Kingdom of Bahrain (2001-2015)

Banking sector plays a leading role in financing a country's economic activities.  Its performance is crucial in determining a country's economic growth. This paper examines the performance of commercial retail banks (conventional and Islamic) in Bahrain and financial ratios were used for the period 2001-2015 on parameters such as profitability, liquidity, operating efficiency, capital adequacy and leverage. The empirical results revealed that conventional retail banks, except for Bahrain Development Bank, have consistent performance in ROA and ROE while among the Islamic retail banks, the performance of Kuwait Finance House is satisfactory in terms of profitability. The data also shows that all banks have satisfactory risk assets ratio. The commercial banks' profitability and capital adequacy as well as their profitability and efficiency are statistically correlated. There is a significant difference in the capital adequacy but no significant difference in profitability and liquidity was found among the listed commercial retail banks. Keywords: Performance Analysis, Conventional Banks, Islamic Banks JEL Classifications: G20, G2

Self-reported antibiotic stewardship and infection control measures from 57 intensive care units: An international ID-IRI survey

We explored the self-reported antibiotic stewardship (AS), and infection prevention and control (IPC) activities in intensive care units (ICUs) of different income settings. A cross-sectional study was conducted using an online questionnaire to collect data about IPC and AS measures in participating ICUs. The study participants were Infectious Diseases-International Research Initiative (IDI-IR) members, committed as per their institutional agreement form. We analyzed responses from 57 ICUs in 24 countries (Lower-middle income (LMI), n = 13; Upper-middle income (UMI), n = 33; High-income (HI), n = 11). This represented (similar to 5%) of centers represented in the ID-IRI. Surveillance programs were implemented in (76.9%-90.9%) of ICUs with fewer contact precaution measures in LMI ones (p = 0.02); (LMI:69.2%, UMI:97%, HI:100%). Participation in regional antimicrobial resistance programs was more significantly applied in HI (p = 0.02) (LMI:38.4%,UMI:81.8%,HI:72.2%). AS programs are implemented in 77.2% of institutions with AS champions in 66.7%. Infectious diseases physicians and microbiologists are members of many AS teams (59%&50%) respectively. Unqualified healthcare professionals(42.1%), and deficient incentives(28.1%) are the main barriers to implementing AS. We underscore the existing differences in IPC and AS programs' implementation, team composition, and faced barriers. Continuous collaboration and sharing best practices on APM is needed. The role of regional and international organizations should be encouraged. Global support for capacity building of healthcare practitioners is warranted. (C) 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences

Convergent evolution of the arginine deiminase pathway:the ArcD and ArcE arginine/ornithine exchangers

The arginine deiminase (ADI) pathway converts L-arginine into L-ornithine and yields 1 mol of ATP per mol of L-arginine consumed. The L-arginine/L-ornithine exchanger in the pathway takes up L-arginine and excretes L-ornithine from the cytoplasm. Analysis of the genomes of 1281 bacterial species revealed the presence of 124 arc gene clusters encoding the pathway. About half of the clusters contained the gene encoding the well-studied L-arginine/L-ornithine exchanger ArcD, while the other half contained a gene, termed here arcE, encoding a membrane protein that is not a homolog of ArcD. The arcE gene product of Streptococcus pneumoniae was shown to take up L-arginine and L-ornithine with affinities of 0.6 and 1 μmol/L, respectively, and to catalyze metabolic energy-independent, electroneutral exchange. ArcE of S. pneumoniae could replace ArcD in the ADI pathway of Lactococcus lactis and provided the cells with a growth advantage. In contrast to ArcD, ArcE catalyzed translocation of the pathway intermediate L-citrulline with high efficiency. A short version of the ADI pathway is proposed for L-citrulline catabolism and the presence of the evolutionary unrelated arcD and arcE genes in different organisms is discussed in the context of the evolution of the ADI pathway

Variations in seasonal solar insolation are associated with a history of suicide attempts in bipolar I disorder

Background: Bipolar disorder is associated with circadian disruption and a high risk of suicidal behavior. In a previous exploratory study of patients with bipolar I disorder, we found that a history of suicide attempts was associated with differences between winter and summer levels of solar insolation. The purpose of this study was to confirm this finding using international data from 42% more collection sites and 25% more countries. Methods: Data analyzed were from 71 prior and new collection sites in 40 countries at a wide range of latitudes. The analysis included 4876 patients with bipolar I disorder, 45% more data than previously analyzed. Of the patients, 1496 (30.7%) had a history of suicide attempt. Solar insolation data, the amount of the sun’s electromagnetic energy striking the surface of the earth, was obtained for each onset location (479 locations in 64 countries). Results: This analysis confirmed the results of the exploratory study with the same best model and slightly better statistical significance. There was a significant inverse association between a history of suicide attempts and the ratio of mean winter insolation to mean summer insolation (mean winter insolation/mean summer insolation). This ratio is largest near the equator which has little change in solar insolation over the year, and smallest near the poles where the winter insolation is very small compared to the summer insolation. Other variables in the model associated with an increased risk of suicide attempts were a history of alcohol or substance abuse, female gender, and younger birth cohort. The winter/summer insolation ratio was also replaced with the ratio of minimum mean monthly insolation to the maximum mean monthly insolation to accommodate insolation patterns in the tropics, and nearly identical results were found. All estimated coefficients were significant at p < 0.01. Conclusion: A large change in solar insolation, both between winter and summer and between the minimum and maximum monthly values, may increase the risk of suicide attempts in bipolar I disorder. With frequent circadian rhythm dysfunction and suicidal behavior in bipolar disorder, greater understanding of the optimal roles of daylight and electric lighting in circadian entrainment is needed