Microservice Transition and its Granularity Problem: A Systematic Mapping Study

Microservices have gained wide recognition and acceptance in software industries as an emerging architectural style for autonomic, scalable, and more reliable computing. The transition to microservices has been highly motivated by the need for better alignment of technical design decisions with improving value potentials of architectures. Despite microservices' popularity, research still lacks disciplined understanding of transition and consensus on the principles and activities underlying "micro-ing" architectures. In this paper, we report on a systematic mapping study that consolidates various views, approaches and activities that commonly assist in the transition to microservices. The study aims to provide a better understanding of the transition; it also contributes a working definition of the transition and technical activities underlying it. We term the transition and technical activities leading to microservice architectures as microservitization. We then shed light on a fundamental problem of microservitization: microservice granularity and reasoning about its adaptation as first-class entities. This study reviews state-of-the-art and -practice related to reasoning about microservice granularity; it reviews modelling approaches, aspects considered, guidelines and processes used to reason about microservice granularity. This study identifies opportunities for future research and development related to reasoning about microservice granularity.Comment: 36 pages including references, 6 figures, and 3 table

Numerical Simulations of Void Linkage in Model Materials using a Nonlocal Ductile Damage Approximation

Experiments on the growth and linkage of 10 μm diameter holes laser drilled in high precision patterns into Al-plates were modelled with finite elements. The simulations used geometries identical to those of the experiments and incorporated ductile damage by element removal under the control of a ductile damage indicator based on the micromechanical studies of Rice and Tracey. A regularization of the problem was achieved through an integral-type nonlocal model based on the smoothing of the rate of a damage indicator D over a characteristic length L. The simulation does not predict the experimentally observed damage acceleration either in the case where no damage is included or when only a local damage model is used. However, the full three-dimensional simulations based on the nonlocal damage methodology do predict both the failure path and the failure strain at void linkage for almost all configurations studied. For the cases considered the critical parameter controlling the local deformations at void linkage was found to be the ratio between hole diameter and hole spacing

Transcription forms and remodels supercoiling domains unfolding large-scale chromatin structures

DNA supercoiling is an inherent consequence of twisting DNA and is critical for regulating gene expression and DNA replication. However, DNA supercoiling at a genomic scale in human cells is uncharacterized. To map supercoiling we used biotinylated-trimethylpsoralen as a DNA structure probe to show the genome is organized into supercoiling domains. Domains are formed and remodeled by RNA polymerase and topoisomerase activities and are flanked by GC-AT boundaries and CTCF binding sites. Under-wound domains are transcriptionally active, enriched in topoisomerase I, “open” chromatin fibers and DNaseI sites, but are depleted of topoisomerase II. Furthermore DNA supercoiling impacts on additional levels of chromatin compaction as under-wound domains are cytologically decondensed, topologically constrained, and decompacted by transcription of short RNAs. We suggest that supercoiling domains create a topological environment that facilitates gene activation providing an evolutionary purpose for clustering genes along chromosomes

Factors affecting glomerular filtration rate, as measured by iohexol disappearance, in men with or at risk for HIV infection

Objective: Formulae used to estimate glomerular filtration rate (GFR) underestimate higher GFRs and have not been well-studied in HIV-infected (HIV(+)) people; we evaluated the relationships of HIV infection and known or potential risk factors for kidney disease with directly measured GFR and the presence of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Design: Cross-sectional measurement of iohexol-based GFR (iGFR) in HIV(+) men (n = 455) receiving antiretroviral therapy, and HIV-uninfected (HIV(-)) men (n = 258) in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study. Methods: iGFR was calculated from disappearance of infused iohexol from plasma. Determinants of GFR and the presence of CKD were compared using iGFR and GFR estimated by the CKD-Epi equation (eGFR). Results: Median iGFR was higher among HIV(+) than HIV(-) men (109 vs. 106 ml/min/1.73 m2, respectively, p = .046), and was 7 ml/min higher than median eGFR. Mean iGFR was lower in men who were older, had chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, or had a history of AIDS. Low iGFR (≤90 ml/min/1.73 m2) was associated with these factors and with black race. Other than age, factors associated with low iGFR were not observed with low eGFR. CKD was more common in HIV(+) than HIV(-) men; predictors of CKD were similar using iGFR and eGFR. Conclusions: iGFR was higher than eGFR in this population of HIV-infected and -uninfected men who have sex with men. Presence of CKD was predicted equally well by iGFR and eGFR, but associations of chronic HCV infection and history of clinically-defined AIDS with mildly decreased GFR were seen only with iGFR. © 2014 Margolick et al

May Measurement Month 2018: a pragmatic global screening campaign to raise awareness of blood pressure by the International Society of Hypertension

Aims Raised blood pressure (BP) is the biggest contributor to mortality and disease burden worldwide and fewer than half of those with hypertension are aware of it. May Measurement Month (MMM) is a global campaign set up in 2017, to raise awareness of high BP and as a pragmatic solution to a lack of formal screening worldwide. The 2018 campaign was expanded, aiming to include more participants and countries. Methods and results Eighty-nine countries participated in MMM 2018. Volunteers (≥18 years) were recruited through opportunistic sampling at a variety of screening sites. Each participant had three BP measurements and completed a questionnaire on demographic, lifestyle, and environmental factors. Hypertension was defined as a systolic BP ≥140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥90 mmHg, or taking antihypertensive medication. In total, 74.9% of screenees provided three BP readings. Multiple imputation using chained equations was used to impute missing readings. 1 504 963 individuals (mean age 45.3 years; 52.4% female) were screened. After multiple imputation, 502 079 (33.4%) individuals had hypertension, of whom 59.5% were aware of their diagnosis and 55.3% were taking antihypertensive medication. Of those on medication, 60.0% were controlled and of all hypertensives, 33.2% were controlled. We detected 224 285 individuals with untreated hypertension and 111 214 individuals with inadequately treated (systolic BP ≥ 140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥ 90 mmHg) hypertension. Conclusion May Measurement Month expanded significantly compared with 2017, including more participants in more countries. The campaign identified over 335 000 adults with untreated or inadequately treated hypertension. In the absence of systematic screening programmes, MMM was effective at raising awareness at least among these individuals at risk

Clinical Study Influence of Fever and Hospital-Acquired Infection on the Incidence of Delayed Neurological Deficit and Poor Outcome after Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

Although fever and infection have been implicated in the causation of delayed neurological deficits (DND) and poor outcome after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), the relationship between these two often related events has not been extensively studied. We reviewed these events through of our retrospective database of patients with SAH. Multivariate logistic regression was used to determine independent predictors of DND and poor outcome. A total of 186 patients were analyzed. DND was noted in 76 patients (45%). Fever was recorded in 102 patients (55%); infection was noted in 87 patients (47%). A patient with one infection was more likely to experience DND compared to a patient with no infections (adjusted OR 3.73, 95% CI 1.62, 8.59). For those with more than two infections the likelihood of DND was even greater (adjusted OR 4.24, 95% CI 1.55, 11.56). Patients with 1-2 days of fever were less likely to have a favorable outcome when compared to their counterparts with no fever (adjusted OR 0.19, 95% CI 0.06, 0.62). This trend worsened as the number of days febrile increased. These data suggest that the presence of infection is associated with DND, but that fever may have a stronger independent association with overall outcome

Time-orthogonal unitary dilations and noncommutative Feynman-Kac formulae

An analysis of Feynman-Kac formulae reveals that, typically, the unperturbed semigroup is expressed as the expectation of a random unitary evolution and the perturbed semigroup is the expectation of a perturbation of this evolution in which the latter perturbation is effected by a cocycle with certain covariance properties with respect to the group of translations and reflections of the line. We consider generalisations of the classical commutative formalism in which the probabilistic properties are described in terms of non-commutative probability theory based on von Neumann algebras. Examples of this type are generated, by means of second quantisation, from a unitary dilation of a given self-adjoint contraction semigroup, called the time orthogonal unitary dilation, whose key feature is that the dilation operators corresponding to disjoint time intervals act nontrivially only in mutually orthogonal supplementary Hilbert spaces.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46525/1/220_2005_Article_BF01976044.pd