This work-in-progress paper reports on the initial results of an eye-tracking research of collaborative program development, more particularly, in the case of pair programming. The study was conducted in nearly industrial-like settings and focused on pair programming productivity and improvement of the protocol that is followed by the pair-programming pair. Results are based on both the practic...

Under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1967 the Health Care Financing Administration's proficiency-testing requirement applies to approximately 12,000 hospital, reference, and large-clinic laboratories in the United States. The Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene is approved by the Health Care Financing Administration to provide proficiency testing in all specialties and subspecialt...

Traditional quality-control methods are effective for detecting systematic error caused by deterioration of reagents or instruments, but ineffective for detecting sporadic error, which is more likely to occur in low-volume testing environments. Decentralized testing performed by individuals without formal laboratory training has a high potential for sporadic errors. New methods for validating t...

Drastic genetic changes have occurred in many commercial broiler lines during the last years with regard to performance. This genetic improvement needs a corresponding adjustment of our knowledge about amino acid nutrition in broilers. Additionally, today broiler feed formulators are not only focused on minimising the costs. They also have to take into consideration environmental issues and the...

Public concern over increasing health-care costs plus dramatized testing errors, has resulted in CLIA '88 with its more stringent rules governing laboratory performance. The purpose of the 1990 U.S. Health Care Financing Administration Final Rules for Proficiency Tests is to separate the quality laboratory from the poorly performing one. From the perspective of total quality management, the cus...

Simulation of crop systems has evolved from a neophyte science into a robust and increasingly accepted discipline. Our vision is that crop systems simulation can serve important roles in agriculture and environment. Important roles and uses of crop systems simulation are in five primary areas: (1) basic research synthesis and integration, where simulation is used to synthesize our understanding...

Aquaculture in developing countries is largely based on unimproved fish strains. There is ample evidence indicating the potential of genetic improvement programs and a range of selection methods may be used. Examples of the application of mass, cohort, within family, and combined between-within family are given. The methods are discussed in terms of their effectiveness and suitability. It is co...

in this paper, a mathematical method is proposed to formulate a generalized ordering problem. this model is formed as a linear optimization model in which some variables are binary. the constraints of the problem have been analyzed with the emphasis on the assessment of their importance in the formulation. on the one hand, these constraints enforce conditions on an arbitrary subgraph and then g...

In this paper, a brief summary of the heuristic methods, single-stage optimization methods, time-phased optimization methods, artificial intelligence (AI) techniques and iterative improvement methods are presented. Finally, some of the important characteristics of network programming methods and their strengths and weaknesses are identified and compared. Key-words Heuristic Methods, Single-Stag...