The role of SARS-CoV-2 aerosol transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2, has touched most parts of the world and devastated the lives of many. The high transmissibility coupled with the initial poor outcome for the elderly led to crushingly high fatalities. The scientific response to the pandemic has been formidable, aided by advancements in virology, computing, data analysis, instrumentation, diagnostics, engineering and infection control. This has led to improvements in understanding and has helped to challenge some established orthodoxies. Sufficient time has elapsed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that a clearer view has emerged about transmission and infection risks, public health responses and related societal and economic impacts. This timely volume has provided an opportunity for the science community to report on these new developments

Real-time agreement and fulfilment of SLAs in Cloud Computing environments

A Cloud Computing system must readjust its resources by taking into account the demand for its services. This raises the need for designing protocols that provide the individual components of the Cloud architecture with the ability to self-adapt and to reach agreements in order to deal with changes in the services demand. Furthermore, if the Cloud provider has signed a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the clients of the services that it offers, the appropriate agreement mechanism has to ensure the provision of the service contracted within a specified time. This paper introduces real-time mechanisms for the agreement and fulfilment of SLAs in Cloud Computing environments. On the one hand, it presents a negotiation protocol inspired by the standard WSAgreement used in web services to manage the interactions between the client and the Cloud provider to agree the terms of the SLA of a service. On the other hand, it proposes the application of a real-time argumentation framework for redistributing resources and ensuring the fulfilment of these SLAs during peaks in the service demand.This work is supported by the Spanish government Grants CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 CSD2007-00022, TIN2011-27652-C03-01, TIN2012-36586-C03-01 and TIN2012-36586-C03-03.De La Prieta, F.; Heras Barberá, SM.; Palanca Cámara, J.; Rodríguez, S.; Bajo, J.; Julian Inglada, VJ. (2014). Real-time agreement and fulfilment of SLAs in Cloud Computing environments. 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Kombinatorikus optimalizálás alkalmazásai a villamosságtanban = Combinatorial optimization and its applications in electrical engineering

A kombinatorikus optimalizálás eszközeit (gráf- és matroidelméleti algoritmusok, bonyolultságelméleti vizsgálatok) alkalmaztuk villamosságtani és informatikai problémák megoldására, így konkrétan -- a nagybonyolultságú integrált áramkörök 2- és 3-dimenziós huzalozási kérdéseire (csatorna- vagy 'switchbox'-huzalozás, minimális összhosszúságú/területű/térfogatú huzalozás); -- hardware és software komponenseket egyaránt tartalmazó rendszerek szintézisére; -- távközlési hálózatok megbízhatóságának, szolgáltatás-minőségének növelésére; -- közlekedési hálózatok informatikai szolgáltatásaira (pl. haladó járművek adatai alapján a hálózat topológiájának vizsgálata, optimális útvonal javaslása); -- az adaptív elosztott multimédia szerver fejlesztésére; -- web oldalakon hatékonyabb kereső programmok készítésére. Eközben tiszta matematikai és számítástudományi eredményekhez is jutottunk, így konkrétan -- a gráfelméletben (összefüggőséget növelő kiegészítések, Hamilton-körök, gráf-izomorfia); -- a matroidelméletben (gyenge és erős leképezések); -- a kvantumszámításokban (periódikus függvények, rejtett részcsoportok); -- a paraméteres bonyolultságelméletben (gráfok és hipergráfok színezése és listaszínezése); -- rúdszerkezetek és ''tensegrity'' szerkezetek merevségének elméletében. | Methods of combinatorial optimization (algorithms for graphs and matroids, complexity considerations) were applied for various problems in electrical engineering and informatics, in particular -- for the detailed routing of 2- and 3-dimensional VLSI circuits (channel and switchbox routing, minimum length/area/volume routing); -- for hardware/software codesign; -- for improving the quality of service of telecommunication networks; -- for integrated traffic information services (e.g. map generation and route guidance from floating car data); -- for the developments of adaptive distributed multimedia servers; -- for designing more effective search algorithms in the web graph. During these studies we also obtained results in pure mathematics and in theoretical computer science as well, in particular -- in the theory of graphs (connectivity augmentations, Hamiltonian circuits, graph isomorphism); -- in the theory of matroids (strong and weak maps); -- in quantum computing (periodic functions, hidden subgroup properties); -- in parametrized complexity theory (colouring or list-colouring of graphs and hypergraphs); -- in the theory of rigidity of bar-and-joint and tensegrity frameworks

A précis of philosophy of computing and information technology

The authors recently finished a comprehensive chapter on “Philosophy of Computing and Information Technology” for the forthcoming (fall 2009) Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Sciences (Ed.: A. Meijers), Volume IX in the Elsevier series Handbook of the Philosophy of Science (Eds.: D. Gabbay, P. Thagard and J. Woods). The purpose of the chapter is to review and discuss the main developments, concepts, topics, and contributors in the intersection between philosophy and computing, as well as provide some suggestions on how to structure the many subcategories within what is loosely referred to as philosophy of computing. In this short synopsis, we will give an outline of the kinds of issues raised in this chapter