Wichita State University

About: Wichita State University is a education organization based out in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 4988 authors who have published 9563 publications receiving 253824 citations. The organization is also known as: WSU & Fairmount College.

Integrated impact analysis for managing software changes

Abstract: The paper presents an adaptive approach to perform impact analysis from a given change request to source code. Given a textual change request (e.g., a bug report), a single snapshot (release) of source code, indexed using Latent Semantic Indexing, is used to estimate the impact set. Should additional contextual information be available, the approach configures the best-fit combination to produce an improved impact set. Contextual information includes the execution trace and an initial source code entity verified for change. Combinations of information retrieval, dynamic analysis, and data mining of past source code commits are considered. The research hypothesis is that these combinations help counter the precision or recall deficit of individual techniques and improve the overall accuracy. The tandem operation of the three techniques sets it apart from other related solutions. Automation along with the effective utilization of two key sources of developer knowledge, which are often overlooked in impact analysis at the change request level, is achieved. To validate our approach, we conducted an empirical evaluation on four open source software systems. A benchmark consisting of a number of maintenance issues, such as feature requests and bug fixes, and their associated source code changes was established by manual examination of these systems and their change history. Our results indicate that there are combinations formed from the augmented developer contextual information that show statistically significant improvement over stand-alone approaches.

Increased toxicity to invertebrates associated with a mixture of atrazine and organophosphate insecticides.

Abstract: This study examined the joint toxicity of atrazine and three organophosphate (OP) insecticides (chlorpyrifos, methyl parathion, and diazinon) exposed to Hyalella azteca and Musca domestica. A factorial design was used to evaluate the toxicity of binary mixtures in which the lethal concentration/lethal dose (LC1/LD1, LC5/LD5, LC15/LD15, and LC50/LD50) of each OP was combined with atrazine concentrations of 0, 10, 40, 80, and 200 microg/L for H. azteca and 0, 200, and 2,000 ng/mg for M. domestica. Atrazine concentrations (> or = 40 microg/L) in combination with each OP caused a significant increase in toxicity to H. azteca compared with the OPs dosed individually. Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity also was examined for the individual OPs with and without atrazine treatment. Atrazine in combination with each of the OPs resulted in a significant decrease in AChE activity compared with the OPs dosed individually. In addition, H. azteca that were pretreated with atrazine (> or = 40 microg/L) were much more sensitive to the OP insecticides compared with H. azteca that were not pretreated with atrazine before being tested. Topical exposure to atrazine concentrations did not significantly increase OP toxicity to M. domestica. The results of this study indicate the potential for increased toxicity in organisms exposed to environmental mixtures.

Depression is not more common in rheumatoid arthritis: a 10-year longitudinal study of 6,153 patients with rheumatic disease

Abstract: OBJECTIVE To determine if depression scores and depressive symptoms are higher in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) than among those with other rheumatic disorders; and to describe norms for the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scale (AIMS) depression scale. METHODS A 100% sample of all clinic visits of 6,153 consecutive patients with rheumatic disease seen in an outpatient rheumatic disease clinic during a 10-year period. 19,122 AIMS depression scores were utilized. For each patient an average depression score was calculated. Covariates included age, sex, education level, ethnic origin, and number of clinic visits. RESULTS RA depressive symptoms and depression scores did not differ from all other clinic patients (taken as a whole). Patients with fibromyalgia had significantly more abnormal scores. CONCLUSION Depression scores are not higher or depressive symptoms more common in patients with RA compared with other clinic patients. By every measure depression is increased in fibromyalgia. The notion that patients with RA have increased depression or are somehow more susceptible to depression is not supported by the data and should be abandoned.

Returning a recently adopted companion animal: adopters' reasons for and reactions to the failed adoption experience.

Abstract: The return of a recently adopted companion animal places the nonhuman animal in jeopardy and may be painful and frustrating to the humans involved. However, if returners learn from the failed adoption experience, future adoptions may be more satisfactory for all concerned. In this study, 78 people who had adopted and returned dogs or cats to an animal shelter in a U.S. Midwestern city were interviewed regarding their reasons for return, reactions to the experience, and plans for future adoptions. Although some returners adjusted their pet ownership plans in potentially beneficial ways, most reacted by counseling greater forethought and planning before adopting. The last, although sound advice, had little to do with reasons for return, which primarily were problems that arose postadoption: pet behavior such as not getting along with other pets or children. Changing expectations about the development of new pet-family relationships and the provision of postadoption services might help adopters tolerate the adjustment period and handle problems without resorting to returning the animal.

SWNT-Based Supramolecular Nanoarchitectures with Photosensitizing Donor and Acceptor Molecules

Abstract: Single-wall carbon nanotube (SWNT)-based supramolecular nanoarchitectures constructed using photosensitizing donor and acceptor molecules reveal efficient photoinduced charge separation, thus carry...