Validating a method for the estimate of gait spatio-temporal parameters with IMUs data on healthy and impaired people from two clinical centers

Instrumented gait analysis offers objective clinical outcome assessment. To this purpose, inertial measurement units (IMUs) represent nowadays a very effective solution due to their limited cost, ease of use and improved wearability. The aim of this study was to apply a well-documented IMU-based method to measure gait spatio-temporal parameters in a large number of healthy and gait-impaired subjects, and evaluate its robustness and validity across two clinical centers. Overall, the results of this work represent a robust and reliable foundation for the clinical use of the proposed IMU based method for gait parameters estimation

MORPH: A Reference Architecture for Configuration and Behaviour Self-Adaptation

An architectural approach to self-adaptive systems involves runtime change of system configuration (i.e., the system's components, their bindings and operational parameters) and behaviour update (i.e., component orchestration). Thus, dynamic reconfiguration and discrete event control theory are at the heart of architectural adaptation. Although controlling configuration and behaviour at runtime has been discussed and applied to architectural adaptation, architectures for self-adaptive systems often compound these two aspects reducing the potential for adaptability. In this paper we propose a reference architecture that allows for coordinated yet transparent and independent adaptation of system configuration and behaviour

Thermal stability and aggregation of sulfolobus solfataricus b-glycosidase are dependent upon the N-e-methylation of specific lysyl residues: critical role of in vivo post-translational modifications.

Methylation in vivo is a post-translational modification observed in several organisms belonging to eucarya, bacteria, and archaea. Although important implications of this modification have been demonstrated in several eucaryotes, its biological role in hyperthermophilic archaea is far from being understood. The aim of this work is to clarify some effects of methylation on the properties of β-glycosidase from Sulfolobus solfataricus, by a structural comparison between the native, methylated protein and its unmethylated counterpart, recombinantly expressed in Escherichia coli. Analysis by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy indicated similar secondary structure contents for the two forms of the protein. However, the study of temperature perturbation by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and turbidimetry evidenced denaturation and aggregation events more pronounced in recombinant than in native β-glycosidase. Red Nile fluorescence analysis revealed significant differences of surface hydrophobicity between the two forms of the protein. Unlike the native enzyme, which dissociated into SDS-resistant dimers upon exposure to the detergent, the recombinant enzyme partially dissociated into monomers. By electrospray mapping, the methylation sites of the native protein were identified. A computational analysis of β-glycosidase three-dimensional structure and comparisons with other proteins from S. solfataricus revealed analogies in the localization of methylation sites in terms of secondary structural elements and overall topology. These observations suggest a role for the methylation of lysyl residues, located in selected domains, in the thermal stabilization of β-glycosidase from S. solfataricu

Altered deoxyribonucleotide pools in T-lymphoblastoid cells expressing the multisubstrate nucleoside kinase of Drosophila melanogaster

The multisubstrate nucleoside kinase of Drosophila melanogaster (Dm-dNK) can be expressed in human solid tumor cells and its unique enzymatic properties makes this enzyme a suicide gene candidate. In the present study, Dm-dNK was stably expressed in the CCRF-CEM and H9 T-lymphoblastoid cell lines. The expressed enzyme was localized to the cell nucleus and the enzyme retained its activity. The Dm-dNK overexpressing cells showed approximately 200-fold increased sensitivity to the cytostatic activity of several nucleoside analogs, such as the pyrimidine nucleoside analogs (E)-5-(2-bromovinyl)-2'-deoxyuridine (BVDU) and 1-beta-d-arabinofuranosylthymine (araT), but not to the antiherpetic purine nucleoside analogs ganciclovir, acyclovir and penciclovir, which may allow this technology to be applied in donor T cells and/or rescue graft vs. host disease to permit modulation of alloreactivity after transplantation. The most pronounced effect on the steady-state dNTP levels was a two- to 10-fold increased dTTP pool in Dm-dNK expressing cells that were grown in the presence of 1 microm of each natural deoxyribonucleoside. Although the Dm-dNK expressing cells demonstrated dNTP pool imbalances, no mitochondrial DNA deletions or altered mitochondrial DNA levels were detected in the H9 Dm-dNK expressing cells

Automated synthesis of executable web service compositions from BPEL4WS processes

We propose a technique for the automated synthesis of new com-posite web services. Given a set of abstract BPEL4WS descriptions of component services, and a composition requirement, we auto-matically generate a concrete BPEL4WS process that, when exe-cuted, interacts with the components and satisfies the requirement. We implement the proposed approach exploiting efficient repre-sentation techniques, and we show its scalability over case stud-ies taken from a real world application and over a parameterized domain

In Medio Stat Virtus: Effective Communication and Preferences for Redistribution in Hard Times

This paper evaluates the effects of statistical information on preferences for redistribution of scarce public resources. We refer to scarce resource with reference to the COVID-19 emergency: allocation of the first round of vaccine and the allocation of financial resources provided by the Italian national government to fight the economic emergency triggered by the pandemic. Randomly allocating the information through an online experiment, we show that treated respondents tend to prioritize the group targeted by the information, and they are more likely to do so if they are "in the middle", in terms of age, political preferences, religiosity and education

ПІДХІД ДЛЯ АВТОМАТИЗОВАНОЇ КОМПОЗИЦІЇ BPEL ПРОЦЕСІВ / ПЕРЕКЛАД СТАТТІ «AN APPROACH FOR THE AUTOMATED COMPOSITION OF BPEL PROCESSES» (ПЕРЕКЛАД РЕМАРОВИЧ С.)

Ми описуємо метод для автоматизованого синтезу нових композитних Веб-сервісів. Враховуючи набір компонентних сервісів, які описані як абстрактні BPEL4WS процеси, збагачені семантичними анотаціями, а також враховуючи вимогу композиції, ми автоматично генеруємо виконуваний BPEL4WS процес, який після розгортання здатний взаємодіяти з компонентами, щоб задовольнити вимогу. Ми орієнтуємося, зокрема, на опис анотацій, які ми повинні додати до \ud абстрактних BPEL4WS процесів для того, щоб охопити «семантичні» аспекти їх виконання, і на роль, яку ці семантичні анотації грають в завданні автоматизованої композиції

АВТОМАТИЗОВАНИЙ СИНТЕЗ КОМПОЗИТНИХ BPEL4WS ВЕБ-СЕРВІСІВ. ПЕРЕКЛАД СТАТТІ «AUTOMATED SYNTHESIS OF COMPOSITE BPEL4WS WEB SERVICES» (ПЕРЕКЛАД РЕМАРОВИЧ С.)

У цій статті ми пропонуємо метод для автоматизованого синтезу нових композитних Веб-сервісів. Враховуючи набір абстрактних BPEL4WS описів компонентних сервісів, а також вимогу композиції, ми автоматично генеруємо виконуваний BPEL4WS процес, який, після розгортання, здатний взаємодіяти з компонентами, щоб задовольнити вимогу. Ми реалізували запропонований підхід, використовуючи ефективні засоби синтезу, і експеримент з деякими тематичними дослідженнями, взятими з реальних застосувань і з параметризованим доменом. Ми показали, що метод може масштабуватися до випадків, в яких ручна розробка BPEL4WS композитних сервісів не є тривіальною і вимагає багато часу

D-SPACE4Cloud: A Design Tool for Big Data Applications

The last years have seen a steep rise in data generation worldwide, with the development and widespread adoption of several software projects targeting the Big Data paradigm. Many companies currently engage in Big Data analytics as part of their core business activities, nonetheless there are no tools and techniques to support the design of the underlying hardware configuration backing such systems. In particular, the focus in this report is set on Cloud deployed clusters, which represent a cost-effective alternative to on premises installations. We propose a novel tool implementing a battery of optimization and prediction techniques integrated so as to efficiently assess several alternative resource configurations, in order to determine the minimum cost cluster deployment satisfying QoS constraints. Further, the experimental campaign conducted on real systems shows the validity and relevance of the proposed method