A retrospective study to determine relationships between the incidence of dengue cases and climatological variables and to obtain a predictive equation was carried out for the relatively small Caribbean island of Barbados which is divided into 11 parishes. The study used the weekly dengue cases and precipitation data for the years (1995 - 2000) that occurred in the small area of a single parish. Other climatological data were obtained from the local meteorological offices. The study used primarily cross correlation analysis and found the strongest correlation with the vapour pressure at a lag of 6 weeks. A weaker correlation occurred at a lag of 7 weeks for the precipitation. The minimum temperature had its strongest correlation at a lag of 12 weeks and the maximum temperature a lag of 16 weeks. There was a negative correlation with the wind speed at a lag of 3 weeks. The predictive models showed a maximum explained variance of 35%.

No abstract

No abstract

One of the techniques employed by programmers during the development process is the use of code and design conventions. These are rules‐of‐thumb or best practices that improve the maintainability of software applications. In general, these conventions are maintained manually by the programmer since automated support is usually restricted to the automatic generation of code. However, the late discovery of convention errors can result in significant costs due to the effort required to correct them. In order to facilitate the early detection of these errors, the Practical Preprocessor for Programming Conventions system, P³ (pronounced P3),is proposed. This tool acts as a preprocessor to the Java compiler by providing facilities for the maintenance of specific object‐oriented code conventions and design principles during the creation of Java programs. This paper presents the design and implementation of the P³ system and also the practical experience of using this facility in a University programming environment. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

No abstract