Utilizing usability evaluating model in applying CMM to improve.

Maintenance plays an important role in the life cycle of a software product. It is estimated that there are more than 100 billion lines of code in production in the world. As much as 80% of it is unstructured, patched and not well documented. Maintenance can alleviate these problems. The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) to improve the quality of software maintenance process (SMP). The architecture of the CMM model has been retained almost as is while its content, which was specific to the development process, has been either modified or extende d to take into account the characteristics specified to the maintenance function, these characteristics were th en organized into key process areas (KPAs) of CMM model. This paper applied the definition of (ISO 9241-1 1, 1998) that examines effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. The emphasis will be given to the SMP activitie

Linerboard made from Soda-Anthraquinone (Soda-AQ) treated coconut coir fiber and effect of pulp beating

The performance of coir fiber in the production of linerboard made from soda-anthraquinone (soda-AQ) pulp was evaluated. Based on chemical analysis, the composition of coir fiber is suitable for the pulping process. Out of nine pulping conditions characterized, a pulping condition of 18% active alkali for 90 min cooking time was chosen. These conditions provided the highest screened yield (48.99%), a low rejection yield (0.27%), high viscosity (11.73 cP), and a kappa number (41) that is acceptable for unbleached linerboard production. Beating strengthened the coir pulp. Analyzing the beating revealed that coir pulp was optimized at 1000 to 2000 revolutions, based on a graph of freeness vs. burst index. For all beating conditions (1000 to 8000 revolutions), FESEM micrographs showed the presence of internal and external fibrillation of the fiber, which gradually increased fiber conformability and improved the inter-fiber bonding within the paper formation. Based on its burst strength of 4.57 kPa.m2/g and ring crush test of 1.76 Nm2/g, which complies with the minimum requirement of the industry standard, coir fiber can be considered an alternative fiber source for linerboard production

A notification system model for bioinformatics community of practice

Bioinformatics can be considered as a new field of study and it promises a vast exploration area (Carzaniga., Rosenblum., Wolf ., 2001). In order to expedite the maturity in this area, a proper and supportive portal where all researchers could gather and cooperate in conducting their research need to be established. One of the features in a portal that can assist Bioinformatics researchers in performing their work is the ability of the portal to notify. Notification system is a combination of software and hardware to provide a method of distributing message(s) to a set of recipients. The notification messages could assist the recipients in many ways, from time saving and cost saving till life saving. Notification system can be developed with numerous functions depending on the needs and one of the most beneficial functions in research area is notification on the next most relevant knowledge to be read. This type of notification could lessen the researchers’ time in finding the correct thus enhancing their research efficiency. Another type of notification that could assist researchers is the events reminder. Busy and hectic researchers could forget their pack schedule and put total focus on their research while the reminder prompts them when it is time through Windows’ pop up, email and SMS as the means of delivering the messages. Whilst the knowledge management system (KMS) provides a sturdy basic for the Bioinformatics portal as a whole, the agent technology support the operation of the notification system. Agent technology offers great capabilities in ensuring the recipients is notified accordingly through its autonomous, learning and cooperative characteristics. The objective of this project is to build a notification system for Bioinformatics community of practice (CoP). Researchers in this community could utilize this system to make their research process more efficient

MASK-SM : multi-agent system based knowledge management system to support knowledge sharing of software maintenance knowledge environment.

Knowledge management (KM) has become an important topic as organizations wish to take advantage of the information that they produce and that can be brought to bear on present decisions. This paper described a system to manage the information and knowledge generated during the software maintenance process (SMP). Knowledge Management System (KMS) is utilizing to help employees build a shared vision, since the same codification is used and misunderstanding in staff communications may be avoided. The architecture of the system is formed from a set of agent communities each community of practice(CoP) is in charge of managing a specific type of knowledge. The agents can learn from previous experience and share their knowledge with other agents or communities in a group of multi-agent system (MAS). This paper also described on the theoretical concept and approach of multi-agent technology framework that could be implemented software maintenance process (SMP) in order to facilitate knowledge sharing among the maintainers of the learning organization. as well as to demonstrate it into the system wise, on how the multi-agent technology could be utilized in the software maintenance process (SMP) system model for serving the maintainer that is developed by using groupware such as Lotus Notes software. This architecture will be named as MASK-SM (MAS Architecture to Facilitate Knowledge Sharing of Software Maintenance). The author followed the Prometheus methodology to design the MAS architecture. This paper applied the definition of ISO 9241-11 (1998) that examines effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. The emphasis will be given to the software maintenance process (SMP) activities that may concern with multi-agent technology to help the maintainers especially in learning organization to work collaboratively including critical success factor in order to ensure that software maintenance process (SMP) initiatives would be delivered competitive advantage for the community of practice(CoP) as well as users of the organization

A new multicast-based architecture to support host mobility in IPv6

A new multicast group join/leave mechanism for mobile nodes (MNs) is proposed. The mechanism is based on hash algorithm. This paper explains the construction of a dynamic delivery tree of the mobile node movement for a multicast-based mobile IPv6 network, such that the branches of the tree constitute the shortest paths from the packet source to each of the visited locations. The branches of the tree grow and shrink to reach the mobile node when necessary. The mobile node is assigned a multicast address and the correspondent nodes (CNs) send packets to the multicast group. As the mobile node moves to a new location, it joins the multicast group through the new location and prunes through the old location. The performance of the proposed mechanism was evaluated through a simulation model built for this purpose. Simulation results show that the dynamics of joining and leaving the group directly affect handoff latency and smoothness, as a result it conserve radio frequency (RF) bandwidth

Issues in implementing a scientific data grid based on peer-to-peer architecture

Grid and peer-to-peer (P2P) networks enable the sharing and aggregation of geographically distributed resources. Grids mostly deal with large computational problems and provide geographically distributed resources for large-scale data-intensive applications that generate large data sets, whereas P2P provides a way for sharing huge volumes of data. In a modern scientific computing, the communities of researchers involves in organizing, moving, visualizing, and analyzing massive amounts of a very large data collections in a geographically distributed environment. Research in the area of grid and P2P computing; have given us various ideas and solutions to address the problems. One of the most challenging issues in grid computing that address above requirements is locating and sharing remote data. In this paper, we illustrate the idea of using P2P approach for locating and sharing data in scientific data grid environment through our P2P scientific data grid framework

Dry matter and nutrient partitioning of kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.) varieties grown on sandy bris soil

Dry matter and nutrient partitioning of different kenaf varieties grown on sandy Beach Ridges Interspersed with Swales (BRIS) soils were investigated. The experiment was conducted under a shade house condition. Five kenaf varieties, V36, G4, KK60, HC2 and HC95 were grown in pots, replicated four times in a randomized complete block design. Plants were partitioned into roots, stems, and leaves and the dry weights were recorded at harvesting time. The dry matter accumulation differed significantly among varieties. Total biomasses for the different varieties ranged from 56.19g to 63.33g. Stem accounted for the greatest proportion of dry matter (63.98%), followed by root (18.99%). The proportion of the dry matter accumulation in stem was highest (64.28%) in HC2, followed by V36 (64.04%). The average dry matters were 76.83% and 20.56%. in stems and leaves, respectively. The proportion of the macro- and micronutrients in kenaf parts differed significantly among varieties. Nitrogen content had the highest proportion (27.54 to 28.04%) in leaves and lowest (8.06 to 8.24%) in stem, which followed by K, Ca, P and Mg. Most of the kenaf varieties showed variation in nutrient use efficiency (NUE), respect to the measured nutrient elements. The NUE values of < 1.0 g dry matter mg-1nutrient were observed for macronutrients, whereas higher NUE values obtained for micronutrients. Total nutrient accumulation in the plant components differed among the kenaf varieties. Partitioning of dry matter and nutrients in kenaf provides a means to select better varieties and makes it possible to grow kenaf on BRIS soil using better fertilizer program

Mechanical and physical properties of kenaf-derived cellulose (KDC)-filled polylactic acid (PLA) composites

Kenaf-derived cellulose (KDC)-filled poly(lactic acid) (PLA) composites were prepared via melt blending and compression molding to improve the properties of PLA by introducing a natural cellulose that was chemically derived (chlorination and mercerization processes) from plant-based kenaf bast fibers. The effect of KDC content (0-60 wt.%) on the tensile elongation at the break point and during flexural and impact testing and on the water absorption and density of the composites was investigated, while the neat PLA polymer (without the addition of cellulose) served as a reference for the composites. The elongation at the break point of the composites was 9% on average, making it less elastic than the neat PLA. The flexural strength and modulus also increased by 36% and 54%, respectively. The impact strength of the composites was improved at KDC contents below 40 wt.%, but the impact strength was reduced above 40 wt.%. The composite containing the highest amount of KDC (60 wt.%) was denser than the neat PLA and had a water uptake of approximately 12%, which is notably low for a biocomposite system