Software process improvement (SPI) approaches have been designed to produce changes at many levels, i.e. in the strategies, culture and working practices, of software development. Studies have shown that nearly two thirds of all SPI efforts have failed or fallen short of expectations. It is often stated in SPI-related literature and practice that "commitment" to SPI plays an important part in d...

In recent years a substantial number of organizations have gained experience in software process improvement (SPI). Furthermore, some researchers have studied such organizations by collecting and analyzing costs and benefits data on their SPI efforts. The objective of this report is to review and summarize the empirical evidence thus far on the costs and benefits of SPI. The intention is that t...

BACKGROUND Three pathogenicity islands, viz. SPI-1 (Salmonella pathogenicity island 1), SPI-2 (Salmonella pathogenicity island 2) and T6SS (Type VI Secretion System), present in the genome of Salmonella typhimurium have been implicated in the virulence of the pathogen. While the regulation of SPI-1 and SPI-2 (both encoding components of the Type III Secretion System - T3SS) are well understood,...

The present study investigated the effect of dietary soy protein isolate (SPI) on tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF) productivity in peritoneal macrophages from nephritic and hepatoma-bearing rats. Dietary SPI significantly inhibited the elevated production of TNF by lipopolysaccharide-stimulated macrophages in nephritic and hepatoma-bearing rats compared with dietary casein, while it exerted no...

While software process improvement is well established as a practice, it still presents challenges for some adopters. Drop-outs from SPI programs are not uncommon. The paper argues that SPI sustainment is a function of the organizational context of the program, not just of the program (or SPI ‘product’) itself. Critical in this context is the organization’s operational capabilities and capacity...

The prevailing paradigm of Salmonella enteropathogenesis based on monolayers asserts that Salmonella pathogenicity island-1 Type Three Secretion System (SPI-1 T3SS) is required for bacterial invasion into intestinal epithelium. However, little is known about the role of SPI-1 in mediating gastrointestinal disease in humans. Recently, SPI-1 deficient nontyphoidal Salmonella strains were isolated...

Soy protein isolate (SPI) in the diet may inhibit colon tumorigenesis. We examined azoxymethane (AOM)-induced aberrant crypt foci (ACF) in male rats in relation to lifetime, pre-weaning, or post-weaning dietary exposure to SPI and also within the context of fetal alcohol exposure. Pregnant Sprague Dawley rats were fed AIN-93G diets containing casein (20%, the control diet) or SPI (20%) as the s...

The authors report in this article from a survey of medium-sized and large software companies in Denmark where major variations were found in the practice of software process improvement (SPI). Many software companies intend to do SPI; but few companies invest the necessary effort in improvement, and few perform maturity assessments. In general, across the surveyed companies, the effects of SPI...

Software Process Improvement (SPI) typically involves rather complex organizational changes. Acknowledging that managers can approach these changes in quite different ways, this paper addresses the following question:what perspectives do the research literature offer on SPI as organizational change and how is this knowledgepresented andpublished?To answer this question,weanalyzed SPI researchpu...

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...