Requirements engineering (RE) tools are software tools which provide automated assistance during the RE process. However, the RE practice relies on office tools rather than RE-tools provided by various companies. Reasons for not using the RE-tools include financial causes. The part of the problem also lies in the difficulty to evaluate such tools before acquisition to support the RE process. Hence, to support the completeness and effectiveness of RE-tool evaluation, a sound framework providing methodological guidelines is needed. This work proposes an RE-tool evaluation approach (R-TEA), which provides a systematic way of the RE-tool assessment using two evaluation frameworks. The framework for the functional RE-tool requirements consists of three dimensions: representation, agreement, and specification. The representation dimension deals with the degree of formality, where requirements are described using informal, semiformal and formal languages. The agreement dimension deals with the degree of agreement among project participants through communication means. The specification dimension deals with the degree of requirements understanding and completeness at a given time moment. The second framework categorises the non-functional RE-tool features to process, product, and external requirements. Process requirements characterise constraints placed upon the user’s work practice. Product requirements specify the desired qualitative characteristics of RE-tools. External requirements are derived from the user’s internal and external environment. Both frameworks are applied to a specification exemplar which application initiates preparation of the requirements specification for the RE-tool selection. Assessment of the RE-tools’ compatibility to the specified RE-tool requirements is performed using different evaluation techniques. Decision about RE-tool selection is made after summarising all the assessment results. A prototype tool is developed supporting the frameworks and R-TEA. The R-TEA method is tested in a number of case studies. The findings report on positive trends of the frameworks, prototype and the R-TEA method.

BPH¡]Benign prostate hyperplasia¡^is one of the most common chronic diseases in aging male around the globe. TURP¡]Transurethral Resection of Prostate¡^remains the gold standard procedure of choice in BPH treatment. But limited literatures regarding the late complication of TURP was available. For understanding the long term follow up result after TURP, and predict the risk factors for re-intervention, we accessed the hospital claims for TURP from the National Health Insurance database, utilizing data from 2001 to 2007 , in 2001, 2002, 2003 TURP cases, we followed each cohort for 5 years to evaluate the late complications. We also examined the association between the characteristics of patient, hospital and the long term prognosis. In this study we found that from 2001to 2003, totally 1,225 patients under went TURP surgery, with the average age 71.52 ¡Ó 7.65 years (47-94 years). Among these cases, 140 patients (11.43%) experienced secondary surgery. Of the 140 secondary surgery patients, 71 received a secondary TURP, 35 received urethral stricture related surgery and 34 received bladder neck contracture related surgery. The study revealed both the characteristics of the patient and the hospital did not show significantly effect to the long term prognosis. In prediction the risk factors of the secondary surgery, the logistic regression analysis revealed those hospitals located at the central part of Taiwan compared to those at northern part of Taiwan showed a relative risk of 0.58, a significant trend of lower risk for secondary surgery. Otherwise, except this geographic location difference, other characteristics of the patient and the hospital show no significantly risk to the post-TURP second surgery. Conclusion of our study, the result of TURP surgery in Taiwan was fairly equal to that in advanced countries. Patient comorbidity, treated in different level, ownership hospitals resulted no significant difference in post-TURP prognosis.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 164-172).

Sustainable rehabilitation can be compromised by the inability of vegetation to survive in hostile mine wastes on a long-term basis. The adverse chemical and physical properties of mine wastes, together with extreme pH conditions and lack of nutrients, provide poor growth conditions for vegetation during seed development and germination. This raises concern for the long-term survival of vegetation through means of seed production when under stress from the punitive properties of mine wastes. Seed vigour is a function of a variety of factors to which the parent plant is subjected during seed formation and maturation. Environmental conditions experienced by the maternal plant during the growth season plays a significant role in determining subsequent germination rates in seeds. Traits of offspring seed depend on the abiotic environment attributed by the growth medium during seed development and maturation The general aim of this study was to determine the viability of seed produced by a previous generation of grass species established in eight different mine wastes and two soils (namely: gypsum wastes; gold tailings with low pyrite content; gold tailings with high pyrite content; platinum tailings; kimberlite mine waste; fluorspar mine waste; andalusite mine waste; coal discard; red soil; and vertic soil) in order to identify suitable species for specific mine wastes to ensure long-term survival through means of seed production. The species selected included: Eragrostis curvula; Eragrostis tef; Cenchrus ciliaris; Eragrostis curvula; Digitaria eriantha; Cynodon dactylon; Chloris gayana; Hyparrhenia hirta; and Sorghum bicolor. The progeny seed‟s viability and ability to germinate were determined through a pot trial study and additional germination testing at the laboratory of Advance Seed (Pty) Ltd. (AS). The germination results were correlated with the growth media analyses by statistical non-parametric correlations which indicated several significant correlations among the growth media properties themselves, and with the germination of the progeny seed. C. gayana (Rhodes grass) seed had poor germination percentages, especially seed harvested from Rhodes grass grown in acidic wastes. Seed harvested from each of the E. curvula grasses grown in various mine wastes, had excellent germination percentages. According to the Repeated Measures ANOVA statistical analysis, there was a significant influence of the growth media in which the parent grass were grown as a variable on the germination of the progeny seed batches from S. bicolor, C. ciliaris, C. gayana, and D. eriantha, indicating that the environmental factors as attributed by the growth media, i.e. the eight different mine waste materials and two soils, and experienced by the maternal plant, did indeed influence the germination of progeny seed. However, it was found that significant correlations between the properties of the growth media and the germination of the progeny seed, was species dependent. The second general aim for this study was to evaluate above-ground re-growth of parent plants after cutting in the mine waste materials and soil types mentioned above. The ability of established grasses to re-grow after a cutting event was determined by cutting the above-ground biomass of the parent grasses, after which it was scored according observable above-ground growth in the following growth season. The measurement of re-growth was subjectively done by scoring the grasses according to observable above-ground biomass. Re-growth was observed for all the perennial grass species. This can be ascribed to the grasses showing resilience to stress factors attributed by the growth media; or new grasses which emerged from seed that collected in the pots, being mistaken for re-growth; or new emerging grasses from the nodes of stolons and/or rhizomes being mistaken for re-growth. However, the emergence of new grasses was an indicator of good health, as biomass allocation to rhizomes and stolons is reduced under low nutrient availability and stress conditions. Therefore the emergence of new grasses is indicative that the plant is either tolerant to stress conditions or that the plant adapted to the restriction of growth due to the roots being bound to the size of the pot. / MSc (Environmental Sciences), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Sustainable rehabilitation can be compromised by the inability of vegetation to survive in hostile mine wastes on a long-term basis. The adverse chemical and physical properties of mine wastes, together with extreme pH conditions and lack of nutrients, provide poor growth conditions for vegetation during seed development and germination. This raises concern for the long-term survival of vegetation through means of seed production when under stress from the punitive properties of mine wastes. Seed vigour is a function of a variety of factors to which the parent plant is subjected during seed formation and maturation. Environmental conditions experienced by the maternal plant during the growth season plays a significant role in determining subsequent germination rates in seeds. Traits of offspring seed depend on the abiotic environment attributed by the growth medium during seed development and maturation The general aim of this study was to determine the viability of seed produced by a previous generation of grass species established in eight different mine wastes and two soils (namely: gypsum wastes; gold tailings with low pyrite content; gold tailings with high pyrite content; platinum tailings; kimberlite mine waste; fluorspar mine waste; andalusite mine waste; coal discard; red soil; and vertic soil) in order to identify suitable species for specific mine wastes to ensure long-term survival through means of seed production. The species selected included: Eragrostis curvula; Eragrostis tef; Cenchrus ciliaris; Eragrostis curvula; Digitaria eriantha; Cynodon dactylon; Chloris gayana; Hyparrhenia hirta; and Sorghum bicolor. The progeny seed‟s viability and ability to germinate were determined through a pot trial study and additional germination testing at the laboratory of Advance Seed (Pty) Ltd. (AS). The germination results were correlated with the growth media analyses by statistical non-parametric correlations which indicated several significant correlations among the growth media properties themselves, and with the germination of the progeny seed. C. gayana (Rhodes grass) seed had poor germination percentages, especially seed harvested from Rhodes grass grown in acidic wastes. Seed harvested from each of the E. curvula grasses grown in various mine wastes, had excellent germination percentages. According to the Repeated Measures ANOVA statistical analysis, there was a significant influence of the growth media in which the parent grass were grown as a variable on the germination of the progeny seed batches from S. bicolor, C. ciliaris, C. gayana, and D. eriantha, indicating that the environmental factors as attributed by the growth media, i.e. the eight different mine waste materials and two soils, and experienced by the maternal plant, did indeed influence the germination of progeny seed. However, it was found that significant correlations between the properties of the growth media and the germination of the progeny seed, was species dependent. The second general aim for this study was to evaluate above-ground re-growth of parent plants after cutting in the mine waste materials and soil types mentioned above. The ability of established grasses to re-grow after a cutting event was determined by cutting the above-ground biomass of the parent grasses, after which it was scored according observable above-ground growth in the following growth season. The measurement of re-growth was subjectively done by scoring the grasses according to observable above-ground biomass. Re-growth was observed for all the perennial grass species. This can be ascribed to the grasses showing resilience to stress factors attributed by the growth media; or new grasses which emerged from seed that collected in the pots, being mistaken for re-growth; or new emerging grasses from the nodes of stolons and/or rhizomes being mistaken for re-growth. However, the emergence of new grasses was an indicator of good health, as biomass allocation to rhizomes and stolons is reduced under low nutrient availability and stress conditions. Therefore the emergence of new grasses is indicative that the plant is either tolerant to stress conditions or that the plant adapted to the restriction of growth due to the roots being bound to the size of the pot. / MSc (Environmental Sciences), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

ITC/USA 2008 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Fourth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 27-30, 2008 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / Enclosed weapon bays on modern aircraft interfere with prelaunch, Flight Termination System verification during training test launches. Range safety personnel need to verify the functionality of the flight termination system prior to missile launch. The missile telemetry RF is highly attenuated when the aircraft missile bay doors are closed, limiting the range for which the aircraft can fly during training flights. Teletronics Technology Corporation and Lockheed Martin designed a system to provide telemetry data for these aircraft. The system re-radiates the telemetry from the missiles with the weapon bay doors closed. This paper describes the design considerations for this flexible system that accommodates multiple weapon systems in multiple weapon bay configurations.

Background: There is a growing understanding that different kinds of interpersonal violence are interrelated. Many victims report experiences of cumulative violence, i.e., being subjected to more than one kind of violent behaviour (sexual, physical, emotional) and/or violence from more than one kind of perpetrator (family members, partners, acquaintances/strangers). To gain a more comprehensive understanding of what violence entails for victims, how victims can be helped and how violence can be prevented, there is a need to learn more about the co-occurrence of violence. Also, despite strong associations repeatedly being found between exposure to violence and the reporting of different kinds of ill-health, only a minority of victims have told health care professionals about their victimization. Less is known about the process of disclosing victimization to health care professionals for men than for women. Main aims: 1) Investigate the prevalence and co-occurrence of self-reported lifetime experiences of different kinds of interpersonal violence among male and female clinical and random population samples in Sweden (Study I-II). 2) Investigate whether cumulative violence is more strongly associated with       self-reported symptoms off psychological ill-health than with any kind of victimization alone (Study III).   3) Develop a theoretical model concerning male victims’ process of disclosing experiences of victimization to health care professionals in Sweden (Study IV).   Method: The self-reported prevalence of interpersonal violence as well as self-reported symptoms of psychological ill-health were estimated by means of secondary analyses of data collected with the NorVold Abuse Questionnaire (NorAQ). Both sexes were represented in clinical (women n=2439 men n=1767) and random population samples (women n=1168 men n=2924). Descriptive statistics as well as binary logistic regression and ordinal regression analyses were used (Study I-III). In study IV, constructivist grounded theory was used, and 12 men were interviewed concerning their experience of disclosing victimization to health care professionals. Results: A large proportion of victims (women: 47-48%, men: 29-31%) reported experiences of more than one kind of violent behaviour. Many also reported being subjected to violence by more than one kind of perpetrator (women: 33-37%, men: 22-23%). Reporting cumulative violence had a stronger association with symptoms of psychological ill-health than reporting only one kind of victimization. In study IV, the interviewed men’s own perceptions and considerations beforehand (e.g., perceived need for help and feelings of shame), as well as the dynamics during the actual health care encounter (e.g., patient-provider relationship and time constraints), were essential for understanding the process of disclosure. Also, the men’s own conformity to hegemonic constructions of masculinity and professionals’ adherence to gender norms had a strong negative influence on the men’s process of disclosure. Discussion: Experiences of cumulative violence were common. Prevalence rates of experiences of different kinds of interpersonal violence were compared to previous studies on interpersonal violence in Sweden. Large discrepancies were found between all studies, which is a symptom of methodological and conceptual difficulties within the research field. Violence is a gendered phenomenon. Differences were seen in the kind of violence men and women reported. In addition to this, the results in study IV indicate that gender affects how violence is perceived and how victims are treated by health care professionals. Conclusion: Integrated approaches in research on interpersonal violence, as well as in clinical work, are needed. If the co-occurrence of violence is ignored, it may hamper our understanding of the experiences and consequences of interpersonal violence for victims. More research is needed into what produces the differences found in prevalence rates between studies to improve the methodology.

In modern software development, the gap between software requirements and implementation is not always conciliated. Typically, for Web services-based context-aware systems, reconciling this gap is even harder. The aim of this research is to explore how software reengineering can facilitate the reconciliation between requirements and implementation for the said systems. The underlying research in this thesis comprises the following three components. Firstly, the requirements recovery framework underpins the requirements elicitation approach on the proposed reengineering framework. This approach consists of three stages: 1) Hypothesis generation, where a list of hypothesis source code information is generated; 2) Segmentation, where the hypothesis list is grouped into segments; 3) Concept binding, where the segments turn into a list of concept bindings linking regions of source code. Secondly, the derived viewpoints-based context-aware service requirements model is proposed to fully discover constraints, and the requirements evolution model is developed to maintain and specify the requirements evolution process for supporting context-aware services evolution. Finally, inspired by context-oriented programming concepts and approaches, ContXFS is implemented as a COP-inspired conceptual library in F#, which enables developers to facilitate dynamic context adaption. This library along with context-aware requirements analyses mitigate the development of the said systems to a great extent, which in turn, achieves reconciliation between requirements and implementation.

The evident progression of ubiquitous technologies has put forward the introduction of new features which software systems can sustain. Several of the ubiquitous technologies available today are regarded as fundamental elements of many software applications in various domains. The utilisation of ubiquitous technologies has an apparent impact on business processes that can grant organisations a competitive advantage and improve their productivity. The change in the business processes in such organisations typically leads to a change in the underlying software systems. In addressing the need for change in the underlying software systems, this research is focused on establishing a general framework and methodology to facilitate the reengineering of software systems in order to allow the incorporation of new features which are introduced by the employment of ubiquitous technologies. Although this thesis aims to be general and not limited to a specific programming language or software development approach, the focus is on Object-Oriented software. The reengineering framework follows a systematic step-based approach, with greater focus on the reverse engineering aspect. The four stages of the framework are: program understanding, additional-requirement engineering, integration, and finally the testing and operation stage. In its first stage, the proposed reengineering framework regards the source code as the starting point to understand the system using a static-analysis based method. The second stage is concerned with the elicitation of the user functional requirements resulting from the introduction of ubiquitous technologies. In the third stage, the goal is to integrate the system’s components and hardware handlers using a developed integration algorithm and available integration techniques. In the fourth and final stage, which is discussed in a general manner only in this thesis, the reengineered system is tested and put in the operation phase. The proposed approach is demonstrated using a case study in Java to show that the proposed approach is feasible and promising in its domain. Conclusions are drawn based on analysis and further research directions are discussed at the end of the study.

Recent studies have found that large numbers of consumers innovate. In our study, we provide a re-estimation of the figures provided in the extant literature. We do so by conducting a study in which we apply two different methods of data collection: (1) telephone interviews, the method considered most valid in previous research, and (2) personal interviews, which involve much higher effort but induce better individual recollection. Using telephone interviews, we measured a user-innovator frequency of 10.8% in our sample. In stark contrast, personal follow-up interviews resulted in a frequency of 39.7%, indicating a considerable underestimation in extant research. We then used the correction factor generated to re-estimate findings on user innovation frequency in Finland, Japan, Korea, Sweden, the UK, and the USA. It appears that user innovation is indeed a mass phenomenon that should not be overlooked by policymakers or firms. (authors' abstract)