Disciplined or Agile?

Software requirements changes become necessary due to changes in customer requirements and changes in business rules and operating environments; hence, requirements development, which includes requirements changes, is a part of a software process. Previous studies have shown that failing to manage software requirements changes well is a main contributor to project failure. Given the importance of the subject, there is a plethora of efforts in academia and industry that discuss the management of requirements change in various directions, ways, and means. This chapter provided information about the current state-of-the-art approaches (i.e., Disciplined or Agile) for RCM and the research gaps in existing work. Benefits, risks, and difficulties associated with RCM are also made available to software practitioners who will be in a position of making better decisions on activities related to RCM. Better decisions can lead to better planning, which will increase the chance of project success.

Evaluating GraphQL and REST API Services Performance in a Massive and Intensive Accessible Information System

Currently, most middleware application developers have two choices when designing or implementing API services: They can either stick with REST or explore the emerging GraphQL technology. Although REST is widely considered the standard method for API development, GraphQL is believed to overcome the main drawbacks of REST, especially data fetching issues. Yet, doubts remain as there are no experimental studies with convincing results to evaluate the performance of the two services. In this paper, we propose a research methodology to evaluate the performance of REST and GraphQL API services, which includes two main contributions. The first contribution is that the performance evaluation of the two services is conducted in the real operation of a massive and intensively accessible management information system. The second contribution is the fair and independent performance evaluation results obtained for both API services. The performance evaluation was studied using basic measures of QoS, including response time, throughput, CPU load, and memory usage. The results show that REST is still faster in response time and throughput, while GraphQL is very efficient in resource utilization, i.e., CPU load and memory utilization. Therefore, GraphQL is the right choice when data requirements change frequently and resource utilization is the most important consideration. REST is used when some data is frequently accessed called by multiple requests.

Changes in diet from pregnancy to one year after birth: a longitudinal study

Background Pregnancy and the first year after giving birth are marked by physiological and psychological changes. While it is well known that energy requirements change during this time, the question of how a woman’s diet actually changes from pregnancy until 1 year postpartum has been left virtually unexplored. The present study employs a longitudinal design to investigate these changes. Methods Data were collected within the framework of the LIFE Child study (Leipzig, Germany). The diet composition and culture of eating of 110 women were assessed at 3 time points: in the 24th week of pregnancy, 3 months after giving birth (breastfeeding period), and 12 months after giving birth (after weaning). We assessed differences in nutritional health (Nutritional Health Score, NHS) and the consumption of different food items at each of these time points. We also investigated associations between nutritional health and age, socio-economic status (SES), BMI before pregnancy, and previous births at all three time points. Results The analyses revealed high correlations in the NHS values between the three time points (rhot0/t1 = .55, rhot0/t2 = .60). On average, nutritional health was lower in the breastfeeding period than during pregnancy. In more detail, women reported less healthy levels of treats and white bread consumption and a higher frequency of snacking in the breastfeeding period than during pregnancy. In contrast, overall nutritional health did not differ significantly between pregnancy and the time after weaning. Increased age was associated with a healthier diet during pregnancy, and a high SES was associated with healthier diet after weaning. Furthermore, the increase in nutritional health from the breastfeeding period to the time after weaning was significantly stronger in women with a higher BMI. We observed no significant associations between dietary nutritional health and previous births. Conclusions The present findings suggest that higher energy requirements in the breastfeeding period are met by consuming high-calorie and unhealthy food products rather than healthy and nutrient-rich food. Young mothers should be supported in taking care of their own nutritional health during the challenging time of breastfeeding and caring for a newborn child.

Analisis Dampak Perubahan Artefak Kebutuhan Berdasarkan Kedekatan Semantik Pada Pengembangan XP

The Extreme Programming (XP) development method is popular because of the flexibility of the development process, it can accommodate changes quickly. But this method has a weakness in terms of documentation. It is expected that the speed of discovering which parts of the source code need to be changed will be greatly improved by analyzing the impact of changes on the requirements document. In this study, a method of analyzing the impact of changes is proposed by tracing changes in the artifact of the need to find out the source code that occurs. Early language methods and semantic approaches are used. Based on the proximity of the semantics, it will be analyzed to find out the elements in the source code that use the Spearman Correlation Coefficient. The test dataset in this study consisted of the source code in the PHP programming language as well as the functional requirements of the software. Requirements change list is generated by analysis of the latest 2 (two) expert versions of the source code. The changing needs are described in a user story document. Based on the test results in this study, the average precision was 0.1725 and the average recall value was 0.6041.

Severe Sepsis: The Fragile Anatomy of Crude Mortality

Clinical trials of severe sepsis that target crude (total) mortality as an end point do not have sufficient power to detect differences in mortality due to the intervention. We aim to discuss the importance of including the subcomponents of crude mortality in study design; estimate how sample size requirements change based on the proportion of attributable mortality; and how minor changes from predicted outcomes can affect results. We derived statistical curves to illustrate our points.

HANDLING OF EXPLICIT UNCERTAINTY IN REQUIREMENTS CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Innovation projects are characterized by numerous uncertainties. Typical concepts in development management like the application of safety coefficients imply limitations of the solution space. In contrast, explicit handling of uncertainties can support engineers in understanding the problem space and in utilising the full potential of the design space along iterative product development steps. As a result from literature analysis, there is a lack of a support for product development that addresses the specific problem of uncertainty and risk in the context of requirement changes. The aim of the contribution at hand is to enhance the efficient development of complex interdisciplinary systems by enabling uncertainty handling in requirements change management. Based on a classification of uncertainty types resulting in a descriptive model, risk management measures are identified to support requirements engineers. The proposed method includes identification & modelling, analysis, treatment and monitoring of risks and counter-measures. By applying this method, engineers are supported in adopting agile approaches and enabling flexible Requirements Engineering.