Towards data-driven software engineering skills assessment

Purpose - Today’s software engineers often work in teams to develop complex software systems. Therefore, successful software engineering in practice require team members to possess not only sound programming skills such as analysis, design, coding and testing but also soft skills such as communication, collaboration and self-management. However, existing examination-based assessments are often inadequate for quantifying students’ soft skill development. The purpose of this paper is to explore alternative ways for assessing software engineering students’ skills through a data-driven approach. Design/methodology/approach - In this paper, the exploratory data analysis approach is adopted. Leveraging the proposed online agile project management tool – Human-centred Agile Software Engineering (HASE), a study was conducted involving 21 Scrum teams consisting of over 100 undergraduate software engineering students in multi-week coursework projects in 2014. Findings - During this study, students performed close to 170,000 software engineering activities logged by HASE. By analysing the collected activity trajectory data set, the authors demonstrate the potential for this new research direction to enable software engineering educators to have a quantifiable way of understanding their students’ skill development, and take a proactive approach in helping them improve their programming and soft skills. Originality/value - To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there has yet to be published previous studies using software engineering activity data to assess software engineers’ skills

Synthesis of 4′,7-Diacetoxyapigenin and Its Apoptotic Induction in Human Hep G2 Cells

In this study, 4′,7-diacetoxyapigenin [4-(7-acetoxy-5-hydroxy-4-oxo-4H-chromen-2-yl) phenyl acetate] was synthesized for the first time. Its chemical structure was identified by UV, ESI-MS, 1H and 13C-NMR. It could inhibit the proliferation of Hep G2 cells in a dose-dependent manner and induce the significant increase of the G0/G1 cell population. After treatment by 4′,7-diacetoxyapigenin, phosphatidylserine of Hep G2 cells could significantly translocate to the surface of the membrane. The increase of an early apoptotic population was observed by both annexin-FITC and PI staining. It was concluded that 4′,7-diacetoxyapigenin not only induced cells to enter into apoptosis, but also affected the progress of the cell cycle

The prognostic value of the tertiary lymphoid structure in gastrointestinal cancers

BackgroundNumerous studies and research papers have provided evidence suggesting that tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) play a crucial role in combating and suppressing tumor growth and progression. Despite the wealth of information on the significance of TLS in various types of cancer, their prognostic value in gastrointestinal (GI) cancers remains uncertain. Therefore, this meta-analysis investigated the prognostic value of TLS in GI cancers.MethodsWe searched Web of science, Pubmed, Embase and Cochrane Library for studies that met the requirements as of May 1, 2023, and the hazard ratio (HR) and the corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) were included in the analysis. The bioinformatics analysis results based on the TCGA database are used to supplement our research.ResultsThe meta-analysis included 32 studies involving 5778 patients. The results of comprehensive analysis showed that TLS-High is associated with prolonged OS (HR=0.525,95%CI:0.447-0.616 (P < 0.001), RFS (HR=0.546,95%CI:0.461-0.647, P < 0.001), DFS (HR=0.519,95%CI:0.417-0.646, P < 0.001) and PFS (HR=0.588,95%CI:0.406-0.852, P=0.005) in GI cancer. Among the patients who received immunotherapy, TLS-High is associated with significantly prolonged OS (HR=0.475, 95%CI:0.282-0.799, P=0.005) and PFS(HR=0.576, 95%CI:0.381-0.871, P=0.009). It is worth noting that subgroup analysis showed that there was no significant relationship between TLS and OS(HR=0.775, 95%CI:0.570-1.053,P=0.103) in CRC. And when Present is used as the cut-off criteria of TLS, there is no significant correlation between TLS and OS (HR=0.850, 95%CI:0.721-1.002, P=0.053)in HCC.ConclusionTLS is a significant predictor of the prognosis of GI cancers and has the potential to become a prognostic biomarker of immunotherapy-related patients.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/#recordDetails, identifier CRD42023443562

Clinical observation on skin adverse reactions after treatment of programmed cell death protein-1 inhibitors

Objective To investigate the occurrence and outcomes of immune-related adverse events (irAEs) in the clinical application of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitors. Methods A retrospective cohort studies was performed on 456 patients with malignant tumors treated with PD-1 inhibitors from March 2020 to November 2022, and the types, grades and prognosis of adverse skin reactions were observed. Results In the cohort, 101 patients experienced irAEs. There were 71 (70.29%) patients having reactive cutaneous capillary endothelial proliferation (RCCEP), including 15 cases of grade 2 and 56 cases of grade 1, most of whom did not receive special treatment and a small number of whom had hemangioma regression after apatinib treatment; 22 (21.7%) patients developing itchy skin, including 4 cases of grade 2 and 18 cases of grade 1, with the symptoms disappearing within 1 week after topical glucocorticoid and oral antihistamine treatment; 15 (14.8%) patients experiencing maculopapular rash, including 9 cases of grade 1 and 6 cases of grade 2 of skin adverse reactions, which were greatly improved after symptomatic treatment with emollients, topical glucocorticoids and oral antihistamines; 4 (3.9%) cases of vitiligo-like depigmentation, including 1 case of grade 2 and 3 cases of grade 1, all of which did not receive special treatment; 1 case of toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN), and the skin lesions were improved after ICU supportive therapy and hormonal antibiotic administration; and 1 case of psoriasis at grade 3 skin reaction, and the lesions were improved after intravenous glucocorticoid drugs. Conclusion Among the irAEs events after PD-1 inhibitor treatment, the adverse skin reactions are mainly grade 1~3, and grade 4 or above are rare. After symptomatic treatment of irAEs, most symptoms can be relieved. Early identification and full management of skin adverse events can prevent the deterioration of lesions, and irAEs are generally safe and controllable

Efficient Collaborative Crowdsourcing

We consider the problem of making efficient quality-time-cost trade-offs in collaborative crowdsourcing systems in which different skills from multiple workers need to be combined to complete a task. We propose CrowdAsm - an approach which helps collaborative crowdsourcing systems determine how to combine the expertise of available workers to maximize the expected quality of results while minimizing the expected delays. Analysis proves that CrowdAsm can achieve close to optimal profit for workers in a given crowdsourcing system if they follow the recommendations

Temperature-Insensitive Structure Design of Micromachined Resonant Accelerometers

Micromachined resonant accelerometers (MRAs), especially those devices fabricated by silicon on glass technology, suffer from temperature drift error caused by inherent thermal stress. This paper proposes two structure designs to attenuate the effect of thermal stress. The first MRA structure is realized by optimizing the locations of the bonding anchors and utilizing a special-shaped substrate to isolate the thermal stress generated during the die attach process. The second structure is designed using an isolation frame fixed by a single anchor to replace all dispersed anchors associated with the suspension beams and micro-levers. Simulated and experimental results show that both of the MRA structures can effectively reduce the thermal stress effect. The experimental results on one MRA prototype indicate that the differential temperature sensitivity reduces down to 1.9 μg/°C and its 15-day bias stability reaches 1.4 μg

a systematic information collection method for business intelligence

Academic Committee; Society of Management Science of ChinaBusiness intelligence (BI) has been becoming an important factor of the enterprises core competence, especially in times of an economic downturn. The purpose of BI is get proper knowledge to make wise decisions on data and information; but most BI is partial or local, which lack of systematic information collection and processing. On the other hand, collect more information can lead to information and knowledge overload which make BI more and more difficult. A structured information collection method is designed based on Extenics theory; it can collect proper data or information according to a information list cube integrating web search technology and Extenics, then process the information by data mining and Extension transformation. Finally we store them in the element base which helps to get more solutions by intelligent knowledge management platform. It will accelerate the development of BI from a new direction. © 2009 Crown Copyright

VEGF-A/Neuropilin 1 Pathway Confers Cancer Stemness via Activating Wnt/β-Catenin Axis in Breast Cancer Cells

Background/Aims: Targeting cancer stem cells (CSCs) is emerging as a promising method for cancer treatment. We previously indicated that knockdown of Neuropilin 1(NRP-1) could inhibit breast cancer cell proliferation. Here, we continue exploring the roles and mechanisms of VEGF-A/NRP-1 axis in breast CSCs formation. Methods: qRT-PCR was used to detect the levels of VEGF-A and NRP-1 in breast cancer sphere cells and wild-type cells. Mammospheres formation, flow cytometry, soft agar colony and tumor formation assays were performed to evaluate the effects of VEGF-A/NRP-1 on breast cancer stemness. Further HUVECs tube formation, cell invasion assays were carried out to detect the effects of VEGF-A/NRP-1 on breast cancer spheres-induced angiogenesis. Finally, Annexin V/PI apoptosis and CCK8 assays were used to detect the effects of VEGF-A/NRP-1 on chemoresistance. Results: Overexpression of VEGF-A or NRP-1 conferred CSCs-related traits in MCF-7 cells, while knockdown of VEGF-A or NRP-1 reduced CSCs-related traits in MDA-MB-231 cells in vitro and in vivo. Notably, VEGF-A acted in a NRP-1 dependent way. Mechanistically, the VEGF-A/NRP-1 axis conferred CSCs phenotype via activating Wnt/β-catenin pathway. Conclusion: our results suggest that VEGF-A/NRP-1 axis could confer CSCs-related traits and chemoresistance