This paper examines only just a few, but extremely impressive examples of “successful Software Process Improvement (SPI),” a highly controversial and much disputed field. SPI is the discipline of characterizing, defining, measuring, and improving software management and engineering processes, leading to successful software engineering management, higher product quality, greater product innovati...

In hepatic disorders, abnormal plasma amino acid profiles are observed. In this study, we examined whether soy protein isolate (SPI) improved plasma methionine concentration in the model animals. Portacaval shunt (PCS) increased alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity and methionine concentration in blood of rats fed a 40% casein diet supplemented with 0.6% methionine (casein-M diet). A 40% SPI...

Infections due to seafood associated Salmonella serovars are a great risk to public health. It is known that genes involved in pathogenesis of Salmonella spp. are clustered within Salmonella pathogenicity islands. Therefore, this study was aimed at detecting the prevalence of 12 different virulence associated genes coded by 4 pathogenicity islands, namely, SPI-1, SPI-2, SPI-3 and SPI-5, among 3...

Berry, Susan A., Pearl L. Bergad, Allison M. Stolz, Howard C. Towle, and Sarah Jane Schwarzenberg. Regulation of Spi 2.1 and 2.2 gene expression after turpentine inflammation: discordant responses to IL-6. Am. J. Physiol. 276 (Cell Physiol. 45): C1374–C1382, 1999.—The rat serine protease inhibitor (Spi) 2 gene family includes both positive (Spi 2.2) and negative (Spi 2.1) acute phase reactants,...

BACKGROUND Chad Lake is a central place in a region with a high prevalence of vitamin A deficiency. Spirulina, a natural source of β-carotene, is traditionally produced and eaten as "Dihé" around Chad Lake. β-carotene spirulina has been found to have a high conversion factor to retinol. The aim of the study was to assess if the retinol status between healthy women eating spirulina Dihé daily (S...

Invasion of intestinal epithelial cells is a critical step in Salmonella infection and requires the expression of genes located in Salmonella pathogenicity island 1 (SPI-1). A key factor for SPI-1 expression is DNA adenine (Dam) methylation, which activates synthesis of the SPI-1 transcriptional activator HilD. Dam-dependent regulation of hilD is postranscriptional (and therefore indirect), ind...

Received: 29 December 2008 Revised: 1 October 2009 2nd Revision: 13 November 2009 3rd Revision: 28 February 2010 Accepted: 1 March 2010 Abstract Software Process Improvement (SPI) projects are large-scale, complex organization-wide change initiatives. They require considerable investments in personnel, time and money and impact just about every aspect of software firms. The group charged with c...

Software Process Improvement (SPI) has become the most popular approach to delivering improvements to the software product. Based on statistical process control, the underlying theme is that by understanding and defining the current state of a company’s software development processes, quality practitioners and managers can sufficiently determine and control areas within the development process ...

In this paper we present findings from our recent empirical study of software process improvement (SPI) implementation critical barriers (CBs) in twenty-six Australian software companies. The objective of this study is to summarise the issues that playa negative role in the implementation of SPI programmes and to identify the key barriers. Through our empirical study we identified 5 barriers (o...

Chemical cross-linking modification can significantly enhance the tensile strength (TS) of soy protein isolate (SPI)-based composites, but usually at the cost of a reduction in the elongation at break (EB). In this study, eco-friendly and high-potential hybrid SPI-based nanocomposites with improved TS were fabricated without compromising the reduction of EB. The hybrid of carboxymethylated chit...