Software fault-freeness and reliability predictions

Many software development practices aim at ensuring that software is correct, or fault-free. In safety critical applications, requirements are in terms of probabilities of certain behaviours, e.g. as associated to the Safety Integrity Levels of IEC 61508. The two forms of reasoning - about evidence of correctness and about probabilities of certain failures -are rarely brought together explicitly. The desirability of using claims of correctness has been argued by many authors, but not been taken up in practice. We address how to combine evidence concerning probability of failure together with evidence pertaining to likelihood of fault-freeness, in a Bayesian framework. We present novel results to make this approach practical, by guaranteeing reliability predictions that are conservative (err on the side of pessimism), despite the difficulty of stating prior probability distributions for reliability parameters. This approach seems suitable for practical application to assessment of certain classes of safety critical systems

Cryotherapy of Liver Tumours–A Practical Guide

The use of cryotherapy for the treatment of some unresectable liver tumours has been clearly established as a therapeutic option. Intra-operative ultrasound has enhanced the process by enabling the surgeon to identify hepatic lesions and to allow visualisation of the freezing process to ensure that the cryolesion will include the tumour mass. The purpose of this paper is to provide a practical guide to surgeons who wish to perform cryotherapy of liver tumours. Patient selection and anaesthetic considerations are important. The surgeon should be able to deal with the complications of cryotherapy, particularly the intra-operative haemorrhage which may arise from cracking of the hepatic parenchyma as the iceball thaws. Follow-up is based on tumour marker assay and imaging of the liver and repeat cryotherapy can be considered for selected cases

Evaluation of in vitro anti-inflammatory activity of five selected marine sponges against denaturation of protein-A pilot study

Background: Marine sponges are well renowned for producing bioactive secondary metabolites with drug leads. Screening of anti-inflammatory compounds from marine sponges is highly appreciated in the field of marine pharmacognosy due to their effectiveness and specificity over the most of synthetic non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. In vitro models to test anti-inflammatory activity are considered obligatory prior to pre-clinical studies. Objective: To evaluate in vitro anti-inflammatory effect of crude extracts of five marine sponge samples (N=5), collected from Dehiwala, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Methodology: Identification of sponge species were based on morphology, spicule and skeleton analysis, using light microscopy. Each sponge crude extract (SCE) was tested for selected zoo- chemicals and against the denaturation of albumin to assess the anti-inflammatory activity. Diclofenac sodium was used as the reference drug. Results: Sponge samples were identified as 1) Stylissa sp, 2) Stylissa carteri, 3) Axinella sp., 4) Phakellia sp. and 5) Family Axinellidae. Zoo-chemical analysis indicated the presence of alkaloids, saponins, terpenoids, and sterols in sponge extracts in varying degree. Heat induced egg albumin denaturation was inhibited by 4 SCEs specifying marked anti-inflammatory activity. Accordingly, the 3 sponge crude extracts were more potent (IC50 = 22.74 for Sp. 02, 3.98 for Sp. 03 and 63.665\u3bcgmL -1for Sp. 05) than the of standard reference drug, Diclofinac sodium (IC50=147.02 \u3bcg/mL). Conclusions: Thus, the present study for the first time investigated in vitro anti-inflammatory activity of crude extract of 5 selected marine sponge species from Sri Lanka, out of which 3 were more potent than the reference diclofenac sodium. Therefore, isolation and characterization of bioactive compounds which are responsible for anti- inflammatory activity will lead to discover novel marine derived anti-inflammatory drugs in the future

Stability of the neutron-proton-electron matter under strong magnetic fields: the covariant Vlasov approach

The neutron-proton-electron(npe) matter under a strong magnetic field is studied in the context of the covariant Vlasov approach. We use a Walecka-type hadronic model and the dispersion relations for the longitudinal and transverse modes are obtained. The instability regions for longitudinal and transverse modes are also studied. The crust-core transition of a magnetized neutron star is discussed.Comment: 14pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in PR

Influência do espaçamento e da população de plantas de sorgo sacarino em diferentes épocas semeadura.

O trabalho objetivou avaliar a interferência do espaçamento entrelinhas e população de plantas sobre a produção do sorgo sacarino em duas épocas de semeadura, safra e safrinha. Os experimentos foram conduzidos na Embrapa Milho e Sorgo, em Sete Lagoas (MG), em Latossolo Vermelho Distrófi co, na safra 2011/2012. Para as duas épocas de semeadura, as parcelas foram compostas por cinco espaçamentos entrelinhas (50; 60; 70; e 80cm e linha dupla 100x50x50cm), e as subparcelas por quatro populações de plantas de sorgo sacarino (80.000, 100.000, 120.000 e 140.000 plantas ha-1). O delineamento utilizado foi em blocos ao acaso (DBC), com três repetições. Utilizou-se a variedade de sorgo sacarino BRS506. O experimento de safra foi implantado em novembro/2011 e de safrinha em março/2012. A época de semeadura no período de safra resultou em maior rendimento de matéria fresca de colmos, matéria fresca de biomassa total, massa de caldo e Brix do sorgo sacarino, independente do arranjo de plantas. O espaçamento de 50cm entrelinhas resultou em maior produção de biomassa total e massa de caldo ha-1, independente da época de semeadura. O espaçamento duplo resultou em valores similares ao espaçamento de 80cm, para as principais variáveis produtivas, independente da época de semeadura. As populações de plantas não influenciaram o rendimento de matéria fresca de colmos e massa de caldo, independente da época de semeadura

Video object tracking by label propagation and backward projection

This paper presents an approach dedicated to the tracking of one or several semantic objects in a video shot. A state of the art on spatio-temporal segmentation techniques allows us to introduce our own approach. It combines three different steps: label prediction based on partition projection, local segmentation associated with a label propagation, and classification by backward projection. Experimental results highlight the visual quality obtained with this method. Different kinds of objects can be accurately tracked in different kinds of video sequences.Cet article présente nos travaux sur le suivi d'objets dans un plan séquence. Un état de l'art sur les techniques de segmentation spatio-temporelle nous permet d'introduire notre propre méthode de suivi temporel d'objets. Elle est constituée de trois phases distinctes : une prédiction d'étiquettes par projection de partition, une segmentation locale associée à une propagation d'étiquettes, et une classification par rétro-projection. L'association de ces trois étapes cumule les avantages de chaque approche pour un suivi rigoureux d'objets et réduit le temps de traitement de chaque image. La qualité visuelle des résultats obtenus par cette méthode est illustrée en fin d'article. Pour cela nous avons considéré le suivi d'objets ayant des caractéristiques différentes au niveau de leur composition et de leur déplacement