A framework to improve communication during the requirements elicitation process in GSD projects

Achieving a shared understanding of requirements is difficult in any situation, even more so in global software development projects. In such environments, people must deal not only with the lack of face to face communication, but also with other issues such as time difference, cultural diversity and a large amount of information originating from different sources throughout the world. Obtaining the right requirements therefore implies extra effort. In order to minimize such problems, we propose a framework that focuses on analyzing the factors that may be problematic in global software development and which suggests a set of strategies to improve the requirements elicitation process in such environments. In this paper, we describe the different phases of our framework and present the results of an experiment that test part of this framework. The results indicate that applying some of the strategies proposed in the framework seems to positively affect the stakeholders’ satisfaction with regard to communication. Moreover, the quality of the written software requirements specifications seems to be better as well when using those strategies.     

Analysis and optimization of continuous organic solvent nanofiltration by membrane cascade for pharmaceutical separation

The major part of the production costs of pharmaceuticals can be imputed to the downstream processing, where membrane technologies have to deal with some challenges as separations involving solutes with similar sizes or solvent recovery and recycling. This work contributes to the progress in the design of continuous organic solvent nanofiltration systems for this purpose and includes the configuration of dual membrane cascades, sensitivity analysis of the operation variables, and economic optimization as innovations. Analyzed configurations include multistage cascades up to three stages, and dual membrane cascades up to five stages. The total costs (TC) were chosen as the formulated objective function to minimize in the economic optimization strategy. The treatment of the residual stream leaving the system resulted the main cost of the process (more than 85% for dual cascades), but the solvent recovery units can significantly reduce the TC (64–77% depending on the required solvent quality). © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 60: 931–948, 2014     

Development of a thermal neutron detector based on scintillating fibers and silicon photomultipliers

We propose a technique for thermal neutron detection, based on a (6)Li converter placed in front of scintillating fibers readout by means of silicon photomultipliers. Such a technique allows building cheap and compact detectors and dosimeters, thus possibly opening new perspectives in terms of granular monitoring of neutron fluxes as well as space-resolved neutron detection.     

Model calculations to optimise multi-cathode flow through electrolysers: direct cathodic reduction of C.I. Sulphur Black 1

A laboratory cell equipped with multiple porous electrodes connected electrically in parallel and hydrostatically in series was used to reduce dispersed Colour Index (C.I.) Sulphur Black 1 to synthesise C.I. Leuco Sulphur Black 1. At higher cell current bipolar effects limit the maximum thickness of a porous cathode element. A mathematical model has been established to estimate the maximum thickness of a cathode element. The cell voltage can be calculated using a simple resistor network. The presented model calculations permit optimisation of a cell with multiple porous electrodes with regard to dimensions, cell costs and energy consumption. A multi-cathode cell, equipped with 10 cathodes for a total cell current of 10 A, was used to study production of highly concentrated C.I. Leuco Sulphur Black 1 solutions. Compared to chemical reduction, dyeing behaviour was found to be independent of reduction method used.     

Optical eye tracking system for noninvasive and automatic monitoring of eye position and movements in radiotherapy treatments of ocular tumors

A noninvasive eye tracking system based on infrared 3-D video-oculographic techniques is proposed for the automatic monitoring of eye position and orientation in external beam radiotherapy of ocular tumors. The presented method can be applied for the real-time estimation of lesion position and tumor-beam misalignments, allowing automatic patient setup and eye movement gated treatments. A prototypal eye tracker was developed and tested on five subjects, achieving gaze estimation errors of 0.5° and eye monitoring frequencies of 125 Hz. The proposed application can potentially improve quality and efficacy of ocular radiotherapy treatments, currently based on invasive, qualitative, and manual control procedures.     

Development of highly oriented polymer crystals from row assemblies

The development of organized structures from sheared isotactic polypropylene melts with different amounts of dibenzylidene sorbitol (DBS) as a nucleating agent has been followed in real time using small angle X-ray scattering in conjunction with synchrotron radiation. The results show that, above a certain DBS concentration threshold, the lamellar crystals are highly oriented perpendicular to the direction of the prior applied shear field. The role of the directing agent in nucleating the crystallization and templating the crystal anisotropy is discussed.