Quantifying requirements elaboration to improve early software cost estimation

This paper describes an empirical study undertaken to investigate the quantitative aspects of the phenomenon of requirements elaboration which deals with transformation of high-level goals into low-level requirements. Prior knowledge of the magnitude of requirements elaboration is instrumental in developing early estimates of a project’s cost and schedule. This study examines the data on two different types of goals and requirements - capability and level of service (LOS) - of 20 real-client, graduate-student, team projects done at USC. Metrics for data collection and analyses are described along with the utility of results they produce. Besides revealing a marked difference between the elaboration of capability goals and the elaboration of LOS goals, these results provide some initial relationships between the nature of projects and their ratios of elaboration of capability goals into capability or functional requirements.     

Multi‐Objective Optimization in Distillation Unit: A Case Study

Increasing social pressure and strict legislations have resulted in changing the approach of traditional design practices to incorporate multiple objectives in the design of process plants. Distillation is one of the major operations in the chemical process industry that is widely used for purifying products or recovering solvents or separation of valuable reactants from waste stream. In this paper, a procedure for multi‐objective optimization is discussed with the help of a distillation unit from hydrocarbon recovery plant of a distillate fraction process. The procedure developed here consists of four stages and is based on current design tools. The aim is to support decisions during design phase and optimize the process variables in order to generate a process with improved economics along with satisfaction of environmental objectives. Total potential environment impact and total annualized cost are used as indicator for environmental and economic objectives, respectively.     

LEARNING TO IMPROVE PLAN QUALITY

Adaptive automated planning systems that can, over time, improve the quality of plans they produce are a promising prospect. The first part of the article discusses the issues involved in designing quality improving learning for planning systems and reviews recent work on learning to improve plan quality. The second part describes our work on the Performance Improving Planning (PIP) System. The heart of PIP is an analytic technique that compares two planning episodes for solving a planning problem that led to two different quality solutions—a higher-quality solution and a lower quality solution—and identifies the critical differences that were responsible for the resulting differences in the quality of the completed plans. We compare the effectiveness of two different ways of storing and applying the knowledge learned from this analysis—as search-control rules and as rewrite rules. The results show that the search-control rules are more effective in improving plan quality. Further analysis of PIP-search-control—the version of PIP that stores the learned knowledge as search-control rules—shows that it is an effective technique for improving plan quality in a variety of situations.     

Kinetic modeling of pyrolysis of three Iranian waste oils in a micro-fluidized bed

Different approaches have been used to convert the waste materials into a clean syngas or other chemicals such as methanol. Among them, pyrolysis is a good candidate to produce the synthesis gas and volatile matters for industrial and refinery applications. In this work, we studied the kinetic and chemical behavior of three Iranian waste oils through a kinetic model and an experimental study. The experiments carried out in a micro-FB reactor, which is a good option for low emissions. Results showed that the reaction temperature and reaction rate are two of the most important factors for maximum conversion level of fuel. Results also showed an optimum value for reaction rate. The modeling results validated against the experimental measurements and found to be in good agreements.     

Degradation of sulfamonomethoxine with Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles as heterogeneous activator of persulfate

The photocatalytic HCrO(4)(-) reduction was investigated in air equilibrated solution using the spinel CuFe(2)O(4) nanoparticles as sensitizers. The oxide is p-type semi conductor, prepared from nitrates decomposition. The catalytic performance increases with decreasing pH and the concomitant oxidation of salicylic acid contributes significantly to the photoactivity through the charges separation of electron/hole pairs (C(7)H(6)O(3)+6 O(2)+4h(+)+3 H(2)O → 7 CO(2)+4 H(3)O(+)). Evidence has been given to show the advantages of the hetero-system CuFe(2)O(4)/CdS in the chromate reduction. CuFe(2)O(4) acts as electrons pump and the electron transfer to chromate is mediated via CdS hexagonal variety (greenockite). A reduction of 60% occurs and the process is well described by a pseudo first order kinetic with a half life of ～2.8h and a quantum yield of ～0.12% for an initial HCrO(4)(-) concentration of 3 × 10(-4)M. An improvement up to 72% is obtained when the reaction occurs in a stirred reactor and no cadmium was detected after 6h illumination. The results indicate a competitive effect with the water reduction. The hydrogen evolutions are found to be 0.236 and 0.960 cm(3)mn(-1)g(-1) in presence and in absence of HCrO(4)(-), respectively.     

Design considerations for an automotive magnetorheological brake

In this paper, design considerations for building an automotive magnetorheological (MR) brake are discussed. The proposed brake consists of multiple rotating disks immersed in a MR fluid and an enclosed electromagnet. When current is applied to the electromagnet, the MR fluid solidifies as its yield stress varies as a function of the magnetic field applied. This controllable yield stress produces shear friction on the rotating disks, generating the braking torque. In this work, practical design criteria such as material selection, sealing, working surface area, viscous torque generation, applied current density, and MR fluid selection are considered to select a basic automotive MR brake configuration. Then, a finite element analysis is performed to analyze the resulting magnetic circuit and heat distribution within the MR brake configuration. This is followed by a multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) procedure to obtain optimal design parameters that can generate the maximum braking torque in the brake. A prototype MR brake is then built and tested and the experimental results show a good correlation with the finite element simulation predictions. However, the braking torque generated is still far less than that of a conventional hydraulic brake, which indicates that a radical change in the basic brake configuration is required to build a feasible automotive MR brake.     

Survey of antibodies against various infectious disease agents in racing camels in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

1. The roles of both Ca2+ and adenosine 3':5'-cyclic monophosphate (cyclic AMP) in carbachol and K(+)-stimulated [3H]-noradrenaline release from SH-SY5Y human neuroblastoma cells were examined. 2. Both carbachol and K+ caused a time- and dose-related stimulation of [3H]-noradrenaline release. The release event in perfused cells was monophasic. Half-maximum stimulation measured in statically incubated (3 min) cells was 38 +/- 4 microM and 63 +/- 4 mM respectively. K+ (100 mM, added)-evoked release was greater than that produced by carbachol (1 mM). 3. Both carbachol and K+ caused a time- and dose (measured at 3 min)-related stimulation of cyclic AMP formation with half-maximum stimulation occurring at 5 +/- 1 microM and 49 +/- 2 mM respectively. In contrast to its effects on release, carbachol produced a greater stimulation of cyclic AMP formation than K+. 4. K(+)-stimulated [3H]-noradrenaline release was entirely dependent on Ca2+ entry as 2.5 mM Ni2+ abolished release. However, carbachol-evoked (1 mM) release appeared to be unaffected by Ni2+ pretreatment. 5. These data suggest that in SH-SY5Y cells, elevated cyclic AMP levels are not directly involved in [3H]-noradrenaline release. In addition, carbachol-stimulated release is largely independent of extracellular Ca2+ possibly implying a role for intracellular stored Ca2+ in the release process.     

Fluorescent lipids of bovine brain white matter

Two fluorescent lipids were isolated from a chloroform-methanol (2∶1 v/v) extract of bovine brain white matter by two-step preparative thin layer chromatography on Silica Gel G. The first step was performed with chloroform-diethyl ether-acetic acid (70∶30∶1 v/v) as developing solvent and revealed a single fluorescent band below the solvent front. The band was scraped off, and the lipid was eluted in chloroform and reapplied to Silica Gel G plates. In the second step, benzene-methanol-ethyl acetate (85∶10∶5 v/v) as developing solvent revealed two fluoresent bands (A and B) with R_f values of 0.72 and 0.65. The lipids were eluted and the UV and visible absorption spectra were measured in heptane, as were the excitation and fluorescence spectra. Sulfuric acid absorption spectra (2 and 24 hr treatment at 22 C) as well as the resulting excitation and fluorescence spectra were also determined. The fluorescent lipids reacted positively in a number of nonspecific color tests for steroids, but the chemical nature of these minor components of the neutral lipid fraction remains to be established.