Working with software process improvement (SPI), using measurements and statistical methods, can easily be a challenge for SPI people. Workers dislike having their processes monitored and managers dislike being informed of their processes being less than perfect. The power needed by SPI people for carrying out their work may thus be challenged, and one way of facing up to this might be to argue...

Software Process Improvement (SPI) is a recognised systematic approach for improving the capability of software organisations. Such initiatives have met with a number of difficulties such as: scaling the SPI initiatives, setting realistic goals, the complexity of organisational changes, and the organisational culture. For organisations with no earlier experience with SPI, the first initiative m...

Software organisations have for many years struggled to mature engineering practices using a variety of approaches. Over the last decade a new approach, known as software process improvement (SPI), has emerged and become widely used in the software industry. In this paper we position SPI in the landscape of initiatives that can be used in software organisations to mature their operations. A map...

One of the most popular ways to improve the software development capability in organizations is to embark upon a Software Process Improvement (SPI) program often based on a normative model. Main concerns in such a SPI program includes creating commitment towards SPI, involving all parts of the organization in the SPI program, and creating opportunities for learning. We suggest the use of projec...

The successful implementation of Software Process Improvement (SPI) depends not only on the abilities of practitioners to identify processes modifications that may help to increase organizations capabilities to develop software, but also abilities to overcome barriers that can jeopardize the organizational change process provoked by SPI initiatives. The literature reports show that SPI practiti...

Software Process Improvement (SPI) encompasses the analysis and modification of the processes within software development, aimed at improving key areas that contribute to the organizations’ goals. The task of evaluating whether the selected improvement path meets these goals is challenging. On the basis of the results of a systematic literature review on SPI measurement and evaluation practices...

Background. Surgical noxious stimuli generate a stress response with an increased sympathetic activity, potentially affecting the perioperative outcome. Surgical Pleth Index (SPI), derived from the pulse plethysmogram, has been proposed as a tool to assess nociception-antinociception balance. The relationship between SPI and autonomic nervous system (ANS) during general anesthesia is poorly und...

Research on Symbolic Probabilistic Inference (SPI) [2, 3) has provided an algorithm for re­ solving general queries in Bayesian networks. SPI applies the concept of dependency­ directed backward search to probabilistic in­ ference, and is incremental with respect to both queries and observations. Unlike tra­ ditional Bayesian network inferencing algo­ rithms, SPI algorithm is goal directed, per...

Every so often, a new methodology is launched onto the software engineering landscape with all the force of a religious crusade. From its humble beginnings, Software Process Improvement (SPI), which includes initiatives such as CMM and ISO 9000, has spread its wings into virtually every sector of the software engineering community and in the process has transformed itself from a bag of tools an...

Isoflavones are phytochemical components of soy diets that bind weakly to estrogen receptors (ERs). To study potential estrogen-like actions of soy in the mammary gland during early development, we fed weanling male and female Sprague-Dawley rats a semipurified diet with casein as the sole protein source from postnatal day 21 to 33, the same diet substituting soy protein isolate (SPI) for casei...