All About Software Maintenance: 50 Questions and Answers

This article answers 50 key questions that every software maintenance manager should ask to improve the software maintenance process. Issues include the feasibility and applicability of software reuse and the development of maintainable software as well as the improvement of existing software and achieving programmer and software productivity. An overview of software tools that aid in maintaining code is also provided.     

Role of the support and of the preparation method for copper-based catalysts in the 2-propanol decomposition

Pure copper oxide and mixed CuO/ZnO catalysts with different Cu:Zn atomic ratios were tested for the 2-propanol decomposition in order to investigate the nature of the active site and the role of the ZnO support. Fresh catalysts as well as catalysts oxidized in pure oxygen did not exhibit any catalytic activity below 373 K. When reduced either in pure hydrogen or in reaction mixture (helium plus alcohol) both copper oxide and mixed two-phase catalysts showed a dehydrogenating activity in the temperature range 323–423 K. The apparent activation energy for both reduced CuO and reduced CuO/ZnO catalysts was 60 ± 8 kJ mol^–1. The first order rate constants were found to be a linear function of the exposed zero-valent copper area. The comparison of Cu(0) turnover frequency in unsupported Cu(0) and in Cu(0)/ZnO samples did not show any synergic effect of the support. The role of the preparation method on the Cu(0) dispersion is also discussed.     

改进白炭黑胶料的加工:混炼设备的优化

通过实验考察了不同的密炼机和密炼机调整对白炭黑胶料硅烷化过程效率的影响,发现密炼机常压模式混炼、优化转子设计以及空气注入等可提高硅烷化的效率.     

All About Software Maintenance: 50 Questions and Answers

Abstract

This article answers 50 key questions that every software maintenance manager should ask to improve the software maintenance process. Issues include the feasibility and applicability of software reuse and the development of maintainable software as well as the improvement of existing software and achieving programmer and software productivity. An overview of software tools that aid in maintaining code is also provided.     

Revealing determinant factors for early breast cancer recurrence by decision tree

Early breast cancer recurrence is indicative of poor response to adjuvant therapy and poses threats to patients’ lives. Most existing prediction models for breast cancer recurrence are regression-based models and difficult to interpret. We apply a Decision Tree algorithm to the clinical information of a cohort of non-metastatic invasive breast cancer patients, to establish a classifier that categorizes patients based on whether they develop early recurrence and on similarities of their clinical and pathological diagnoses. The classifier predicts for whether a patient developed early disease recurrence; and is estimated to be about 70% accurate. For an independent validation cohort of 65 patients, the classifier predicts correctly for 55 patients. The classifier also groups patients based on intrinsic properties of their diseases; and for each subgroup lists the disease characteristics in a hierarchal order, according to their relevance to early relapse. Overall, it identifies pathological nodal stage, percentage of intra-tumor stroma and components of TGFβ-Smad signaling pathway as highly relevant factors for early breast cancer recurrence. Since most of the disease characteristics used by this classifier are results of standardized tests, routinely collected during breast cancer diagnosis, the classifier can easily be adopted in various research and clinical settings.     

Perceive-decide-act, perceive-decide-act: How abstract is repetition-related decision learning?

Recent encounters with a stimulus often facilitate or “prime” future responses to the same or similar stimuli. However, studies are inconclusive as to whether changing the response that is required attenuates priming only for identical stimuli, or also for categorically related items. In 2 object priming experiments, the authors show that priming was eliminated if the initial decision associated with a stimulus changed on a later trial. This disruption of priming extended to perceptually and conceptually similar object exemplars and was found even when the classification tasks were uncorrelated with one another, many other items had intervened, and after only 1 prior encounter with a given stimulus. These outcomes are consistent with the rapid and automatic binding of a stimulus with a response into an episodic “instance” or “event file” and demonstrate that repetition-related decision learning is not hyperspecific but generalizes to new stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Method matters: Systematic effects of testing procedure on visual working memory sensitivity.

Visual working memory (WM) is traditionally considered a robust form of visual representation that survives changes in object motion, observer's position, and other visual transients. This article presents data that are inconsistent with the traditional view. We show that memory sensitivity is dramatically influenced by small variations in the testing procedure, supporting the idea that representations in visual WM are susceptible to interference from testing. In the study, participants were shown an array of colors to remember. After a short retention interval, memory for one of the items was tested with either a same–different task or a 2-alternative-forced-choice (2AFC) task. Memory sensitivity was much lower in the 2AFC task than in the same–different task. This difference was found regardless of encoding similarity or of whether visual WM required a fine or coarse memory resolution. The 2AFC disadvantage was reduced when participants were informed shortly before testing which item would be probed. The 2AFC disadvantage diminished in perceptual tasks and was not found in tasks probing visual long-term memory. These results support memory models that acknowledge the labile nature of visual WM and have implications for the format of visual WM and its assessment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measurement of nonrigid freeform surfaces by coordinate measuring machine

Nonrigid part could be subjected to significant distortion after the removal of manufacturing forces. This condition, known as free-state variation, is principally due to weight and flexibility of the part and the release of internal stresses resulting from fabrication. The present work deals with the inspection of freeform surfaces belonging to nonrigid parts. A manufactured aeronautic component, named Mid Cowling, is considered as case study. The design of an appropriate fixture equipment will be firstly presented: it enables both to simulate the mating part interface and to locate the part in coordinate measuring machines working volume. Then, a method for evaluation of a freeform surface with respect to the nominal one will be presented. This evaluation is based on Euclidean distance between actual and nominal surfaces. Finally, an analysis of the part deformation presented in order to evaluate the measurement process in terms of interaction of the measurement system with the inspected part will be proposed. The adopted method, based on a finite element analysis, was proposed in order to evaluate the interaction, due to the measuring force, between the touch probe and the inspected surface and thus its effect on the measurement result.     

An Automated Approach to the Supply of Samples for Screening

Pfizer Global Research and Development, based at Sandwich in the UK, took delivery of its Automated Liquid Sample Bank in January 2000, and the system has been delivering samples to the company's battery of Drug Discovery programs since April 2000. In essence, the ALSB is a robotic system designed to securely store liquid samples and automatically prepare them to the format requested by a remote experimenter.