0000000000600055
AUTHOR
Rafael Capilla
Simulating multilevel dynamics of antimicrobial resistance in a membrane computing model
Membrane computing is a bio-inspired computing paradigm whose devices are the so-called membrane systems or P systems. The P system designed in this work reproduces complex biological landscapes in the computer world. It uses nested “membrane-surrounded entities” able to divide, propagate, and die; to be transferred into other membranes; to exchange informative material according to flexible rules; and to mutate and be selected by external agents. This allows the exploration of hierarchical interactive dynamics resulting from the probabilistic interaction of genes (phenotypes), clones, species, hosts, environments, and antibiotic challenges. Our model facilitates analysis of several aspects…
ScrumBut as an Indicator of Process Debt
Technical debt analysis is used to detect problems in a codebase. Most technical debt indicators rely on measuring the quality of the code, as developers tend to induce recurring technical debt that emerges along with evolution cycles. This debt can emerge when project pressure leads to process deviations, for instance. In agile methods like Scrum, such deviations are commonly known as ScrumButs (like Scrum but …), which can be considered as a form of process debt. In this paper, we investigate two recurring signs of process debt (i.e. code smells and anti-patterns) caused by Scrumbuts. Our contribution investigates typical ScrumBut practices found in agile projects in one company and we re…
A membrane computing simulator of trans-hierarchical antibiotic resistance evolution dynamics in nested ecological compartments (ARES)
In this article, we introduce ARES (Antibiotic Resistance Evolution Simulator) a software device that simulates P-system model scenarios with five types of nested computing membranes oriented to emulate a hierarchy of eco-biological compartments, i.e. a) peripheral ecosystem; b) local environment; c) reservoir of supplies; d) animal host; and e) host's associated bacterial organisms (microbiome). Computational objects emulating molecular entities such as plasmids, antibiotic resistance genes, antimicrobials, and/or other substances can be introduced into this framework and may interact and evolve together with the membranes, according to a set of pre-established rules and specifications. AR…