Quality Practitioners’ Differing Perspectives on Future Software Quality Assurance Practices

Constant changes in a business context and software development make it important to understand how software quality assurance (SQA) should respond. Examining SQA from supplier and client perspectives, this study explores how different groups of SQA practitioners perceive future needs. A survey (n = 93) conducted in fall 2017 explored the views of SQA organizations on future trends. The results indicate that SQA organizations differ slightly in their attitudes to quality categories, as do different groups of SQA practitioners. It is argued that these differences should be taken into account when developing and implementing future SQA strategy. It is further argued that the found basic enables SQA management, evaluation of new practices, and allocation of resources to ensure that all quality categories remain balanced in the future.

The Impact of Design Interventions on Occupant Satisfaction: A Workplace Pre-and Post-Occupancy Evaluation Analysis

Understanding how occupants perceive the built environment is a growing interest in sustainability research. This article looks into how design interventions in a workplace renovation project impact occupants’ satisfaction through a pre-and post-occupancy survey. In two years (from 2016 to 2018), an interdisciplinary research team from the University of Minnesota administered online occupancy surveys at the headquarters of the Cuningham Group, a national renowned design firm in Minnesota. The surveys included 12 indoor environmental quality categories (with 26 criteria on a 7-point Likert scale) that measured how occupants perceived their existing workplace and the renovated environment. Mann–Whitney U tests and Chi-square tests were conducted for 12 indoor environmental quality categories between the pre-and post-surveys. Results showed that occupants’ satisfaction significantly increased with the design interventions in the renovated workplace. Perceived work performance and health also improved in the post-survey. Among 12 indoor environmental quality categories, occupants perceived the biggest improvements in lighting such as adjustability and quality of task lighting. Design interventions in electric lighting, especially improved ease of control, effectiveness of automatic systems, plus visual and acoustic comfort, contributed to occupants’ satisfaction. Overall, the pre-and post-occupancy evaluation survey analysis confirmed the positive impact of the renovated Cuningham Group facility. The article presents a comprehensive measure of the impact of the data-driven design interventions derived from pre-and post-occupancy evaluation surveys on occupant satisfaction.

SYSTEMS OF NURSERY MANAGEMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN

The article outlines the ways for the development of horticulture in the Republic of Kazakhstan, provides data on the study of apple, pear, cherry and plum rootstocks. The results of many years of research in order to optimize scion-rootstock combinations suitable for setting up intensive plantings are analyzed. The original plants isolated as a result of such observations should be propagated without disturbing productivity and genetic stability, and mother planting and field repositories should be established with the resulting planting material of the highest quality categories. To obtain basic seedlings, it is necessary, first of all, to use seedlings of the Sievers apple tree (Malus siversi) and the Niedzwetzky apple tree (Malus niedzwetzkyana), growing in the forests of the northern Tien Shan, and for the pear, seedlings of low-growing rootstocks of the East Asian group: Xiang Li, Tszy Li, Yue li, Bai li, Chang bai li, because the seeds of pome crops are free from harmful viruses. Before harvesting stone fruit seeds, it is necessary to test trees, since a harmful viral infection is transmitted with pollen.

STUDIES ON THE VARIABILITY OF MORPHOLOGIVAL AND QUALITY CHARACTERS IN SAFFRON (CROCUS SATIVUS)

Saffron is an aromatic herb appreciated for its olfactory qualities, but also for its medicinal contributions, having multiple pharmaceutical properties. The cultivation of saffron in Romania is rather little known, the scientific data obtained being of interest for farmers who want to start such a culture. In this paper two populations of saffron were studied, the bulbs being of the same origin and age, grown in two different localities in western Romania: Izvin and Cicir. Regarding the quality characteristics, the two cultures belong to quality categories 1 and 2, and analyses were determined on moisture, colouring power (crocin), aromatic power (safranal) and bitterness power (picrocrocin). From a quantitative point of view, the variability of morphological characters, the manifestation of morphological characters, the coefficients of corallance on characters such as: number of bulbs, total diameter of bulbs, diameter of dominant bulb, length of leaflet, leaf length, leaf width, number of leaves dominant bulb, petal length, petal width, petal number, stamen length, stigma length were determined.

Identification and Quantification of Olive Oil Quality Parameters Using an Electronic Nose

An electronic nose (EN), which is a kind of chemical sensor, was employed to check olive oil quality parameters. Fifty samples of olive oil, covering the four quality categories extra virgin, virgin, ordinary virgin and lampante, were gathered from different Palestinian cities. The samples were analysed chemically using routine tests and signals for each chemical were obtained using EN. Each signal acquisition represents the concentration of certain chemical constituents. Partial least squares (PLS) models were used to analyse both chemical and EN data. The results demonstrate that the EN was capable of modelling the acidity parameter with a good performance. The correlation coefficients of the PLS-1 model for acidity were 0.87 and 0.88 for calibration and validation sets, respectively. Furthermore, the values of the standard error of performance to standard deviation (RPD) for acidity were 2.61 and 2.68 for the calibration and the validation sets, respectively. It was found that two principal components (PCs) in the PLS-1 scores plot model explained 86% and 5% of EN and acidity variance, respectively. PLS-1 scores plot showed a high performance in classifying olive oil samples according to quality categories. The results demonstrated that EN can predict/model acidity with good precision. Additionally, EN was able to discriminate between diverse olive oil quality categories.

Computer Simulations of Air Quality and Bio-climatic Indices for the City of Sofia

Air pollution is responsible for any adverse effects on human beings. Thermal discomfort, on the other hand, is able to overload the human body and eventually provoke health implications due to the heat imbalance. Methods: The aim of the present work is to study the behavior of two bio-climatic indexes and statistical characteristics of the air quality index for Sofia city - the capital of Bulgaria for the period 2008 - 2014. The study is based on WRF-CMAQ model system simula-tions with a spatial resolution of 1 kilometer. The air quality is estimated by the air quality index, taking into account the influence of different pollutants and the thermal conditions by two indi-ces, respectively, for hot and cold weather. Results: It was found that half of the heat and cold index categories are present in the simulations. Their distribution has some spatial features. All air quality categories are present in the domain, with dominance only of the O3 and PM10. Conclu-sions: It was found that Sofia is not so hot and air polluted place, but in some situations, people have to have some concerns when intend to be outdoors for a prolonged time.

USING OF CIRCUMSTANCES IN JOE BIDEN’S INAUGURATION SPEECH FROM ENGLISH TO INDONESIAN TRANSLATION

This research aimed to identify the types of circumstances used in Joe Biden’s inauguration speech. This research used the transcript in English version and Indonesian version of Joe Biden’s inauguration speech on January 21, 2021 in Washington DC as the source of the data. Furthermore, the researcher applied a qualitative descriptive method of this research. This result of research showed that there are 37 data found in the type of circumstances such as (2) extent, (2) location, manner divided into (3) means, (7) quality, (3) comparison, (3) degree, cause divided into (4) reason, (4) purpose, and (2) behalf. Moreover, accompaniment consists of (1) comitative. Role has (4) guise category, (1) matter, and angle has (1) in viewpoint category. Moreover, the dominant circumstances that present are quality categories in circumstances of manner.

Quality of Hand Radiograph Collimation Determined by Artificial Intelligence Algorithm Correlates with Radiograph Quality Scores Assigned by Radiologists

Providing direct feedback to technologists has become challenging for radiologists due to geographic separation and other reasons. As such, there is a need for automated solutions to solve quality issues in radiography. We evaluated the feasibility of using a computer vision artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm to classify hand radiographs into quality categories in order to automate quality assurance processes in radiology. A bounding box was placed over the hand on 300 hand radiographs. These inputs were employed to train the computational neural network (CNN) to automatically detect hand boundaries. The trained CNN detector was used to place bounding boxes over the hands on an additional 100 radiographs, independently of the training or validation sets. A computer algorithm processed each output image to calculate unused air spaces. The same 100 images were classified by two musculoskeletal radiologists into four quality categories. The correlation between the AI-calculated unused space metric and radiologist-assigned quality scores was determined using the Spearman correlation coefficient. The kappa statistic was used to calculate the inter-reader agreement. The best negative correlation between the AI-assigned metric and the radiologists’ assigned quality scores was achieved using the calculation of the unused space at the top of the image. The Spearman correlation coefficients were −0.7 and −0.6 for the two radiologists. The kappa correlation coefficient for interobserver agreement between the two radiologists was 0.6. Automatic calculation of the percentage of unused space or indirect collimation at the top of hand radiographs correlates moderately well with radiographic collimation quality.

Effect of Breed Purity and Rearing Systems on the Stability of Sliced Iberian Dry-Cured Ham Stored in Modified Atmosphere and Vacuum Packaging

The long-term storage stability of three quality categories of sliced Iberian dry-cured ham defined by the Spanish Iberian Quality Standard (Black, purebred Iberian reared outdoors in Montanera system; Red, Iberian × Duroc crossed (50%) pigs reared outdoors in Montanera system; and White, Iberian × Duroc crossed (50%) pigs commercially fed) and packaged under vacuum and modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) was studied. Commercial category affected the shelf life, being Black and Red presented the highest lipid oxidation during storage, whereas the effect of packaging was not as clear as the effect of commercial category. MAP preserved more the colour and the antioxidants content than vacuum packaging, while this latter reduced lipid oxidation development and maintained better the brightness and flavour of slices than MAP.