Supply chain modeled as a metabolic pathway

A new model of economic production process is proposed (in the form of a set of ODEs) based on an idea that nonconsumable factors of production facilitate the conversion of inputs to output in much the same catalytic way as do enzymes in living cells when transforming substrates into different chemical compounds. The output of a converging, multi-resource, single-product supply chain network is shown to depend on the minimum of its inputs in the form of the Leontief--Liebig production function, providing the validity of the clearing function approximation. In turn use of the clearing function is legitimate when the machine processing time is much shorter than the machine loading time

An Ontology-Based Approach To Concern-Specific Dynamic Software Structure Monitoring

Software reliability has not kept pace with computing hardware. Despite the use reliability improvement techniques and methods, faults remain that lead to software errors and failures. Runtime monitoring can improve software reliability by detecting certain errors before failures occur. Monitoring is also useful for online and electronic services, where resource management directly impacts reliability and quality. For example, resource ownership errors can accumulate over time (e. g. , as resource leaks) and result in software aging. Early detection of errors allows more time for corrective action before failures or service outages occur. In addition, the ability to monitor individual software concerns, such as application resource ownership structure, can help support autonomic computing for self-healing, self-adapting and self-optimizing software. This thesis introduces ResOwn - an application resource ownership ontology for interactive session-oriented services. ResOwn provides software monitoring with enriched concepts of application resource ownership borrowed from real-world legal and ownership ontologies. ResOwn is formally defined in OWL-DL (Web Ontology Language Description Logic), verified using an off-the-shelf reasoner, and tested using the call processing software for a small private branch exchange (PBX). The ResOwn Prime Directive states that every object in an operational software system is a resource, an owner, or both simultaneously. Resources produce benefits. Beneficiary owners may receive resource benefits. Nonbeneficiary owners may only manage resources. This approach distinguishes resource ownership use from management and supports the ability to detect when a resource's role-based runtime capacity has been exceeded. This thesis also presents a greybox approach to concern-specific, dynamic software structure monitoring including a monitor architecture, greybox interpreter, and algorithms for deriving monitoring model from a monitored target's formal specifications. The target's requirements and design are assumed to be specified in SDL, a formalism based on communicating extended finite state machines. Greybox abstraction, applicable to both behavior and structure, provides direction on what parts, and how much of the target to instrument, and what types of resource errors to detect. The approach was manually evaluated using a number of resource allocation and ownership scenarios. These scenarios were obtained by collecting actual call traces from an instrumented PBX. The results of an analytical evaluation of ResOwn and the monitoring approach are presented in a discussion of key advantages and known limitations. Conclusions and recommended future work are discussed at the end of the thesis

Tick-, mosquito-, and rodent-borne parasite sampling designs for the National Ecological Observatory Network

Parasites and pathogens are increasingly recognized as significant drivers of ecological and evolutionary change in natural ecosystems. Concurrently, transmission of infectious agents among human, livestock, and wildlife populations represents a growing threat to veterinary and human health. In light of these trends and the scarcity of long-term time series data on infection rates among vectors and reservoirs, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) will collect measurements and samples of a suite of tick-, mosquito-, and rodent-borne parasites through a continental-scale surveillance program. Here, we describe the sampling designs for these efforts, highlighting sampling priorities, field and analytical methods, and the data as well as archived samples to be made available to the research community. Insights generated by this sampling will advance current understanding of and ability to predict changes in infection and disease dynamics in novel, interdisciplinary, and collaborative ways. (Résumé d'auteur

Tick-, Mosquito-, and Rodent-Bourne Parasite Sampling Designs for the National Ecological Observatory Network

Parasites and pathogens are increasingly recognized as significant drivers of ecological and evolutionary change in natural ecosystems. Concurrently, transmission of infectious agents among human, livestock, and wildlife populations represents a growing threat to veterinary and human health. In light of these trends and the scarcity of long-term time series data on infection rates among vectors and reservoirs, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) will collect measurements and samples of a suite of tick-, mosquito-, and rodent-borne parasites through a continental-scale surveillance program. Here, we describe the sampling designs for these efforts, highlighting sampling priorities, field and analytical methods, and the data as well as archived samples to be made available to the research community. Insights generated by this sampling will advance current understanding of and ability to predict changes in infection and disease dynamics in novel, interdisciplinary, and collaborative ways

Tick-, Mosquito-, and Rodent-Borne Parasite Sampling Designs for the National Ecological Observatory Network [Special Feature: NEON Design]

Parasites and pathogens are increasingly recognized as significant drivers of ecological and evolutionary change in natural ecosystems. Concurrently, transmission of infectious agents among human, livestock, and wildlife populations represents a growing threat to veterinary and human health. In light of these trends and the scarcity of long-term time series data on infection rates among vectors and reservoirs, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) will collect measurements and samples of a suite of tick-, mosquito-, and rodent-borne parasites through a continental-scale surveillance program. Here, we describe the sampling designs for these efforts, highlighting sampling priorities, field and analytical methods, and the data as well as archived samples to be made available to the research community. Insights generated by this sampling will advance current understanding of and ability to predict changes in infection and disease dynamics in novel, interdisciplinary, and collaborative ways

Tick‐, mosquito‐, and rodent‐borne parasite sampling designs for the National Ecological Observatory Network

Parasites and pathogens are increasingly recognized as significant drivers of ecological and evolutionary change in natural ecosystems. Concurrently, transmission of infectious agents among human, livestock, and wildlife populations represents a growing threat to veterinary and human health. In light of these trends and the scarcity of long‐term time series data on infection rates among vectors and reservoirs, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) will collect measurements and samples of a suite of tick‐, mosquito‐, and rodent‐borne parasites through a continental‐scale surveillance program. Here, we describe the sampling designs for these efforts, highlighting sampling priorities, field and analytical methods, and the data as well as archived samples to be made available to the research community. Insights generated by this sampling will advance current understanding of and ability to predict changes in infection and disease dynamics in novel, interdisciplinary, and collaborative ways

Nonterrestrial utilization of materials: Automated space manufacturing facility

Four areas related to the nonterrestrial use of materials are included: (1) material resources needed for feedstock in an orbital manufacturing facility, (2) required initial components of a nonterrestrial manufacturing facility, (3) growth and productive capability of such a facility, and (4) automation and robotics requirements of the facility

Laboratory technology research: Abstracts of FY 1998 projects

The Laboratory Technology Research (LTR) program supports high-risk, multidisciplinary research partnerships to investigate challenging scientific problems whose solutions have promising commercial potential. These partnerships capitalize on two great strengths of the country: the world-class basic research capability of the DOE Office of Science (SC) national laboratories and the unparalleled entrepreneurial spirit of American industry. Projects supported by the LTR program in FY 1998 explore the applications of basic research advances relevant to DOE`s mission over a full range of scientific disciplines. The program presently emphasizes three critical areas of mission-related research: advanced materials, intelligent processing and manufacturing research, and environmental and biomedical research. Abstracts for 85 projects are contained in this report