No abstract

Many businesses strive to align their business goals, strategies, and systems before and during system development as the studies of GORE and alignment of business/IT show. However, the level of success derived from their interrelationships may be ambiguous because the relationships between goals, strategies, and systems are often vague. As agile development becomes more prevalent, it is becoming more difficult to adjust a system to accommodate changing goals and strategies. By linking GQM+Strategies and SysML, we propose a method to systematically align business requirements and system functions. Then we evaluate this method from the viewpoint of traceability from business requirements to system functions and the solution to fill the gap between them. This proposed method not only helps maintain consistency from business requirements to system functions but also solves the gap between customers' needs and the developed system while simultaneously dealing with changing strategies and requirements.

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Understanding the mechanisms underlying seed dispersal is a fundamental issue in plant ecology and vegetation management. Several species demonstrate myxospermy, a phenomenon where the seeds form mucilage after absorbing water. Mucilage is thought to act as a glue, enabling seeds to attach to the external surfaces of dispersing agents. However, there have been no quantitative investigations of the efficacy of this function of seed mucilage. We performed a trampling and walking experiment to investigate the seed dispersal of a perennial herb, Asian plantain (Plantago asiatica L.), which forms polysaccharide mucilage upon hydration. Our experiment showed that: (1) after trampling, more seeds of P. asiatica attached to shoes in wet conditions (after rainfall), in which seed mucilage was created, than in dry conditions (no rainfall); and (2) after walking for 1000 m, more seeds remained attached to shoes in wet conditions than in dry conditions. Our results indicate that mucilage promotes the adherence of seeds to the surface of vectors. We therefore provide the first empirical evidence that seed mucilage facilitates epizoochory and human-mediated dispersal.