Identifying high perceived value practices of CMMI level 2: An empirical study

ObjectiveIn this paper, we present findings from an empirical study that was aimed at identifying the relative “perceived value” of CMMI level 2 specific practices based on the perceptions and experiences of practitioners of small and medium size companies. The objective of this study is to identify the extent to which a particular CMMI practice is used in order to develop a finer-grained framework, which encompasses the notion of perceived value within specific practices.MethodWe used face-to-face questionnaire based survey sessions as the main approach to collecting data from 46 software development practitioners from Malaysia and Vietnam. We asked practitioners to choose and rank CMMI level 2 practices against the five types of assessments (high, medium, low, zero or do not know). From this, we have proposed the notion of ‘perceived value’ associated with each practice.ResultsWe have identified three ‘requirements management’ practices as having a ‘high perceived value’. The results also reveal the similarities and differences in the perceptions of Malaysian and Vietnamese practitioners with regard to the relative values of different practices of CMMI level 2 process areas.ConclusionsSmall and medium size companies should not be seen as being “at fault” for not adopting CMMI – instead the Software Process Improvement (SPI) implementation approaches and its transition mechanisms should be improved. We argue that research into “tailoring” existing process capability maturity models may address some of the issues of small and medium size companies.     

Refining the systematic literature review process—two participant-observer case studies

Systematic literature reviews (SLRs) are a major tool for supporting evidence-based software engineering. Adapting the procedures involved in such a review to meet the needs of software engineering and its literature remains an ongoing process. As part of this process of refinement, we undertook two case studies which aimed 1) to compare the use of targeted manual searches with broad automated searches and 2) to compare different methods of reaching a consensus on quality. For Case 1, we compared a tertiary study of systematic literature reviews published between January 1, 2004 and June 30, 2007 which used a manual search of selected journals and conferences and a replication of that study based on a broad automated search. We found that broad automated searches find more studies than manual restricted searches, but they may be of poor quality. Researchers undertaking SLRs may be justified in using targeted manual searches if they intend to omit low quality papers, or they are assessing research trends in research methodologies. For Case 2, we analyzed the process used to evaluate the quality of SLRs. We conclude that if quality evaluation of primary studies is a critical component of a specific SLR, assessments should be based on three independent evaluators incorporating at least two rounds of discussion.     

Ternary adsorbent photocatalyst hybrid (APH) nanomaterials for improved abstraction of tetracycline from water

ABSTRACT

Current health situations have instigated increased frequency of taking antibiotics for cure of infections but this amplified use is posing threats to environment. This research is focused to remove Tetracycline (TC), an antibiotic from water, using an advanced nanohybrid that compact the properties of adsorbent and photocatalyst. Compared to conventional methods for remediation of TC, large surface area (452 m²g^?1) adsorbent photocatalyst hybrid (APH) g-C₃N₄/α-MoO₃/ZIF-67 (CMZ) have found much effective as 97% degradation of TC is observed in 110 min with 0.1 g of APH. Increasing g-C₃N₄ in the hybrids has improved percent degradation of TC molecules. CMZ-3 is found as a potential candidate for water treatment.     

Optimal Automatic Generation Control of Asynchronous Power Systems Using Output Feedback Control Strategy with Dynamic Participation of Wind Turbines

Abstract—This article presents the design of optimal output feedback automatic generation control regulators for an interconnected power system with dynamic participation of doubly fed induction generator based wind turbines. The power systems consist of plants with hydro-thermal turbines and are interconnected via parallel AC/DC links. Efforts have been made to propose optimal automatic generation control regulators based on feedback of output state variables, which are easily accessible and available for the measurement. The designed optimal output feedback automatic generation control regulators are implemented, and the system dynamic responses for various system states are obtained considering 1% load perturbation in one of the areas. The dynamic performance is compared with that obtained with optimal automatic generation control regulators designed using full state vector feedback. The pattern of closed-loop eigenvalues is also determined to test the system stability.     

In situ measurements of human cough aerosol hygroscopicity

The airborne dynamics of respiratory droplets, and the transmission routes of pathogens embedded within them, are governed primarily by the diameter of the particles. These particles are composed of the fluid which lines the respiratory tract, and is primarily mucins and salts, which will interact with the atmosphere and evaporate to reach an equilibrium diameter. Measuring organic volume fraction (OVF) of cough aerosol has proved challenging due to large variability and low material volume produced after coughing. Here, the diametric hygroscopic growth factors (GF) of the cough aerosol produced by healthy participants were measured in situ using a rotating aerosol suspension chamber and a humidification tandem differential mobility analyser. Using hygroscopicity models, it was estimated that the average OVF in the evaporated cough aerosol was 0.88 ± 0.07 and the average GF at 90% relative humidity (RH) was 1.31 ± 0.03. To reach equilibrium in dry air the droplets will reduce in diameter by a factor of approximately 2.8 with an evaporation factor of 0.36 ± 0.05. Hysteresis was observed in cough aerosol at RH = ∼35% and RH = ∼65% for efflorescence and deliquescence, respectively, and may depend on the OVF. The same behaviour and GF were observed in nebulized bovine bronchoalveolar lavage fluid.     

Influence of plasticizer with different functional groups on thermoplastic starch

Retrogradation of amorphous thermoplastic starch (TPS) films obtained by compression molding of spray dried modified potato starch was investigated. The aim was to investigate the influence of plasticizers with similar molecular weight but different functionality, i.e., isoleucine, asparagine and malic acid, on the properties of plasticized powder and TPS films. Combinations of malic acid with glycerol, urea, and maltodextrin were also evaluated. Except for isoleucine formulated starch, all samples were obtained as amorphous powders and films. Malic acid was identified as a strong antiretrogradation agent as it inhibited recrystallization of starch over the full range of humidity levels. Malic acid was also found to inhibit the retrogradation of formulations containing urea, glycerol and maltodextrin. The converse of the strong inhibition implied strong moisture absorption and high strain at break values, and low tensile strengths. Malic acid was also identified as a potential crosslinking agent to control swelling of starch‐based products. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42012.     

Viscoplastic regularization of local damage models: revisited

Local damage models are known to produce pathological mesh dependent results. Regularization techniques are therefore mandatory if local damage models are used for academic research or industrial applications. The viscoplastic framework can be used for regularization of local damage models. Despite of the easy implementation of viscoplasticity, this method of regularization did not gain much popularity in comparison to the non-local or gradient damage models. This work is an effort to further explore viscoplastic regularization for quasi-static problems. The focus of this work is on ductile materials. Two different types of strain rate hardening models i.e. the Power law (with a multiplicative strain rate part) and the simplified Bergström van Liempt (with an additive strain rate part) models are used in this study. The modified Lemaitre’s anisotropic damage model with a strain rate dependency was used in this study. It was found that the primary viscoplastic length scale is a function of the hardening and softening (damage) parameters and does not depend upon the prescribed strain rate whereas the secondary length scale is a function of the strain rate. As damage grows, the effective regularization length gradually decreases. When the effective regularization length gets shorter than the element length numerical results become mesh dependent again. This loss of objectivity can not be solved but the effect can be minimized by selecting a very fine mesh or by prescribing high deformation velocities.