Business process modelling and visualisation to support e-government decision making: Business/IS alignment

© 2017 Springer-Verlag. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57487-5_4.Alignment between business and information systems plays a vital role in the formation of dependent relationships between different departments in a government organization and the process of alignment can be improved by developing an information system (IS) according to the stakeholders’ expectations. However, establishing strong alignment in the context of the eGovernment environment can be difficult. It is widely accepted that business processes in the government environment plays a pivotal role in capturing the details of IS requirements. This paper presents a method of business process modelling through UML which can help to visualise and capture the IS requirements for the system development. A series of UML models have been developed and discussed. A case study on patient visits to a healthcare clinic in the context of eGovernment has been used to validate the models

Prenatal Vitamin D Supplementation and Child Respiratory Health: A Randomised Controlled Trial

PMCID: PMC3691177This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Screening a variable germplasm collection of Cucumis melo L. for seedling resistance to Macrophomina phaseolina

[EN] We evaluate the seedling resistance to charcoal rot caused by Macrophomina phaseolina in ninety-seven Cucumis melo accessions, from different geographical origins and five F1 generations, derived from crosses of five accessions selected for their resistance. Artificial inoculations with the toothpick method, previously reported to be useful for predicting shoot resistance, were performed, and plants were scored using a scale of disease severity. The average disease severity was calculated for each accession and was used to cluster the accession in five reaction classes. The screening revealed that sources of natural resistance to this fungus are limited. However, seedlings of seven accessions of different botanic groups displayed a resistant response to the stem inoculation, one cantaloup from Israel, one conomon accession from Korea, two wild agrestis and one acidulus from Africa, and two dudaim accessions from Middle East. The response of the F1 progenies varied from susceptibility to high resistance, the latter in progenies from the two agrestis wild types. These results suggest differences in the genetic basis of the resistance in the different selected sources. The resistant accessions are suggested to be screened under field conditions to confirm the level of resistance at adult plant stage and under stressful conditions.This work has been partially funded by the Project No 294/13 of the Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior CAPES (Brazil). M. M. Q. Ambrosio and A. C. A. Dantas thank CAPES for their research fellowships. B.Pico thanks the Programa Hispano-Brasileno de Cooperacion Universitaria HBP2012-008 and PHBP14/00021 and to the MINECO project AGL2014-53398-C2-2-R.Ambrosio, MM.; Dantas, AC.; Martinez Perez, EM.; Medeiros, AC.; Sousa Nunes, GHD.; Picó Sirvent, MB. (2015). Screening a variable germplasm collection of Cucumis melo L. for seedling resistance to Macrophomina phaseolina. Euphytica. 206(2):287-300. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-015-1452-xS2873002062Aegerter BJ, Gordon TR, Davis RM (2000) Occurrence and pathogenicity of fungi associated with melon root rot and vine decline in California. Plant Dis 84:224–230Almeida AMR, Abdelnoor RV, Arias CAA, Carvalho VP, Jacoud Filho DS, Marin SRR, Benato LC, Pinto MC, Carvalho CGP (2003) Genotypic diversity among Brazilian isolates of Macrophomina phaseolina revealed by RAPD. Fitopatol Bras 28:279–285Almeida AMRA, Seixas CDSS, Farias JRBF, Oliveira MCN, Franchini JC, Debiasi H, Costa JM, Gaudêncio CA (2014) Macrophomina phaseolina em soja. Embrapa Soja, Londrina, p 30pAmbrósio MMQ, Bueno CJ, Padovani CR, Souza NL (2009) Sobrevivência de fungos fitopatogênicos habitantes do solo, em microcosmo, simulando solarização com prévia incorporação de materiais orgânicos. Summa Phytopathol 35(1):20–25Andrade DEGT, Michereff SJ, Biondi CM, Nascimento CWA, Sales R Jr (2005) Frequência de fungos associados ao colapso do meloeiro e relação com características físicas, químicas e microbiológicas dos solos. Summa Phytopathol 31(4):327–333Bedendo IP (2011) Podridões de raiz e de colo. In: Amorin L, Rezende JAM, Bergamin Filho A (eds) Manual de Fitopatologia: Princípios e conceitos. Agronômica Ceres, São Paulo, pp 443–448Bramel-Cox PJ, Stein IS, Rodgers DM, Claflin LE (1988) Inheritance of resistance to Macrophomina phaseolina (Tassi) Goid. and Fusarium moniliforme Sheldom in Sorghum. Crop Sci 28(1):37–40Bruton BD, Miller E (1997) Occurrence of vine decline diseases of melons in Honduras. Plant Dis 81(6):696Bruton BD, Jeger MD, Reuveni R (1987) Macrophomina phaseolina infection and vine decline in cantaloupe in relation to planting date, soil environment, and maturation. Plant Dis 71(3):259–263Burger Y, Katzir N, Tzuri G, Portnoy V, Saar U, Shriber S, Perl-Treves R, Cohen R (2003) Variation in the response of melon genotypes to Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. melonis race 1 determined by inoculation tests and molecular markers. Plant Pathol 52:204–211Chamorro M, Miranda L, Domínguez P, Medina JJ, Soria C, Romero F, López Aranda JM, De los Santos B (2015) Evaluation of biosolarization for the control of charcoal rot disease (Macrophomina phaseolina) in strawberry. Crop Prot 67:279–286Cohen R (1993) A leaf disk assay for detection of resistance of melons to Sphaerotheca fuliginea race 1. Plant Dis 77(5):513–517Cohen R, Katzir N, Schreiber S, Greenberg R (1996) Occurrence of Shaerotheca fuliginea Race 3 on Cucurbits in Israel. Plant Dis 80:334Cohen R, Omari N, Porat A, Edelstein M (2012) Management of Macrophomina wilt in melons using grafting or fungicide soil application: pathological, horticultural and economical aspects. Crop Prot 35:58–63Cohen R, Tyutyunik J, Fallik E, Oka Y, Tadmor Y, Edelstein M (2014) Phytopathological evaluation of exotic watermelon germplasm as a basic for rootstock breeding. Sci Hortic 165:203–210Dantas AMM, Ambrósio MMQ, Nascimento SRC, Senhor RF, Cézar MA, Lima JSS (2013) Incorporation of plant materials in the control of root pathogens in mushmelon. Revista Agro@ambiente on-line 7(3):338–344Davis RM, Turini TA, Aegerter BJ, Stapleton JJ (2009) Cucurbits charcoal rot, pathogen: Macrophomina phaseolina. UC IPM online. http://www.totoagriculture.org/PDFs/PlantDiseasesPests/1026.pdf . Accessed 25 Feb 2015Dias RCS, Picó B, Espinos A, Nuez F (2004) Resistance to melón vine decline derived from Cucumis melo ssp. agrestis: genetic analysis of root structure and root response. Plant Breed 123:66–72Diourte M, Starr JL, Jegger MJ, Stack JP, Rosenow DT (1995) Charcoal rot (Macrophomina phaseolina) resistance and the effect of water stress on disease development in Sorghum. Plant Pathol 44:196–202Esteras C, Pascual B, Nuez F, Picó MB (2009) Use of ecotilling to identify natural allelic variants of melon candidate genes involved in fuit ripening. 8th Plant Genomics European Meeting (Plant GEM 8) Istambul, 213Esteras C, Formisano G, Roig C, Díaz A, Blanca J, Garcia-Mas J, Gómez-Guillamón ML, López-Sesé AI, Lázaro A, Monforte AJ, Picó B (2013) SNP genotyping in melons: genetic variation, population structure, and linkage disequilibrium. Theor Appl Genet 126(5):1285–1303. doi: 10.1007/s00122-013-2053-5Fang X, Phillips D, Li H, Sivasithamparama K, Barbettia MJ (2011) Comparisons of virulence of pathogens associated with crown and root diseases of strawberry in Western Australia with special reference to the effect of temperature. Sci Hortic 131(22):39–48Food and Agriculture Organization (2014) Faostat. http://faostat.fao.org/site/567/default.aspx#ancor . Accessed 11 Nov 2011García-Jiménez J, Martínez-Ferrer G, Armengol J, Velazquez MT, Orts M, Juárez M, Ortega A, Jordá MC, Alfaro A (1993) Agentes asociados al colapso del melón en distintas zonas españolas. Bol San Veg Plagas 19:401–423Grezes-Besset B, Lucante N, Kelechian V, Dargent R, Muller H (1996) Evaluation of castor bean resistance to sclerotial wilt disease caused by Macrophomina phaseolina. Plant Dis 80(8):842–846Hutcheson SW (1998) Current concepts of active defense in plants. Annu Rev Phytopathol 36:59–90Iglesias A, Picó B, Nuez F (2000) A temporal genetic analysis of disease resistance genes resistance to melon vine decline derived from Cucumis melo var. agrestis. Plant Breed 119:329–334Islam MS, Haque MS, Islam MM, Emdad EM, Halim A, Hossen QMM, Hossain MZ, Ahmed B, Rahim S, Rahman MS, Alam MM, Hou S, Wan X, Saito JÁ, Alam M (2012) Tools to kill: genome of one of the most destructive plant pathogenic fungi Macrophomina phaseolina. BMC Genomic 13(493):1–16Jacob CJ, Krarup C, Díaz A, Latorre BA (2013) A severe outbreak of charcoal rot in cantaloupe melon caused by Macrophomina phaseolina in Chile. Plant Dis 97(1):141Kaur S, Dhillon GS, Brar SK, Vallad GE, Chand R, Chauhan VB (2012) Emerging phytopathogen Macrophomina phaseolina: biology, economic importance and current diagnostic trends. Crit Rev Microbiol 38(1):136–151Keeling A (1982) Seedling test for resistance to soybean stem canker caused by diaporthe phaseolorum var. caulivora. Phytopathology 72(7):807–809Khan SN (2007) Macrophomina phaseolina as causal agent for charcoal rot of sunflower. Mycopath 5(2):111–118Khan SH, Shuaib M (2007) Identification of sources of resistance in Mung bean (Vigna radiata L.) against Charcoal Rot Macrophomina phaseolina (Tassi) Goid. Afr Crop Sci 8:2101–2102Krikun J, Orion D, Nachmias A, Reuveni R (1982) The role of soilborne pathogens under conditions of intensive agricultura. Phytoparasitica 10(4):247–258Mahmoudi SB, Ghashghaie S (2013) Reaction of sugar beet S1 lines and cultivars to different isolates of Macrophomina phaseolina and Rhizoctonia solani AG-2-2IIIB. Euphytica 190:39–445. doi: 10.1007/s10681-012-0832-8Mertely J, Seijo T, Peres N (2005) First report of Macrophomina phaseolina causing a crown rot of strawberry in Florida. Plant Dis 89(4):434Mughogho LK, Pande S (1984) Charcoal Rot of Sorghum. In: Mughogho LK, Rosenberg G (eds) Sorghum root and stalk rots, a critical review: proceedings of the consultative group discussion on research needs and strategies for control of sorghum root and stalk rot diseases. Icrisat, Bellagio, pp 11–24Nischwitz C, Olsen M, Rasmussen S (2004) Effect of irrigation type on inoculum density of Macrophomina phaseolina in melon fields in Arizona. J Phytopathol 152(3):133–137Noling JW, Becker JO (1994) The challenge of research and extension to define and implement alternatives to methyl bromide. J Nematol 26(4S):573–586Pitrat M (2008) Melon. In: Prohens J, Nuez F (eds) Handbook of plant breeding. Springer, New York, pp 283–315Purkayastha S, Kaur B, Dilbaghi N, Chaudhury A (2006) Characterization of Macrophomina phaseolina, the charcoal rot pathogen of cluster bean, using conventional techniques and PCR-based molecular markers. Plant Pathol 55:106–116. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3059.2005.01317.xRadwan O, Rouhana LV, Hartman GL, Korban SS (2014) Genetic mechanisms of host-pathogen interactions for charcoal rot in soybean. Plant Mol Biol Report 32(3):617–629Ravf BA, Ahmad I (1998) Studies on correlation of seed infection to field incidence of Alternaria alternate and Macrophomina phaseolina in Sunflower. 13th Iranian Plant Protection Congress-Karaj, p 113Roustaee A, Reyhan MK, Jafari M (2011) Study of interaction between salinity and charcoal rot diseases of melon (Macrophomina phaseolina) in Semnan and Garmsar. Desert 16(2):175–218Salari M, Panjehkeh N, Nasirpoor Z, Abkhoo J (2012) Reaction of melón (Cucumis melo L.) cultivars to soil-borne plant pathogenic fungi in Iran. Afr J Biotecnol 11(87):15324–15329Sales R Jr, Oliveira OF, Medeiros EV, Guimarães IM, Correia KC, Michereff SJ (2012) Ervas daninhas como hospedeiras alternativas de patógenos causadores do colapso do meloeiro. Rev Ciênc Agron 43(1):195–198Sas Institute (2000) Sas/Stat user´s guide: statistics, version 8.01, v. 2, 4. SAS Institute, Inc, CaryScandiani MM, Ruberti DS, Giorda LM, Pioli RN, Luque AG, Bottai H, Ivancovich JJ, Aoki T, O´Donnell K (2011) Comparison of inoculation methods for characterizing relative aggressiveness of two soybean sudden-death syndrome pathogens, Fusarium virguliforme and F. tucumaniae. Trop Plant Pathol 36(3):133–140Scott AJ, Knott MA (1974) Cluster analysis method for grouping means in the analysis of variance. Biometrics 30(3):507–512Sebastian P, Schaefer H, Telford IRH, Renner SS (2010) Cucumber (Cucumis sativus) and melon (C. melo) have numerous wild relatives in Asia and Australia, and the sister species of melon is from Australia. Proc Natl Acad Sci 107:14269–14273Sharmishtha P, Bhavneet K, Neeraj D, Ashok C (2006) Evaluation of cluster bean genotypes for resistance to charcoal rot caused by Macrophomina phaseolina using different host inoculation methods pages. J Crop Improv 15(1):67–79Shekhar M, Sharma RC, Singh L, Dutta R (2006) Morphological and pathogenic variability of Macrophomina phaseolina (Tassi.) Goid Incitant of charcoal rot of maize in India. Indian Phytopath 59(3):294–298Stapleton JJ (2000) Soil solarization in various agricultural production systems. Crop Prot 19:837–841Twizeyimana M, Hill CB, Pawlowski M, Paul C, Hartman GL (2012) A cut-stem inoculation technique to evaluate soybean for resistance to Macrophomina phaseolina. Plant Dis 96(8):1210–1215Watson A, Napier T (2009) Disease of cucurbit vegetables. Primefact 832:1–6Wolukau JN, Zhou XH, Li Y, Zhang Y, Chen J (2007) Resistance to gummy stem blight in melon (Cucumis melo L.) germplasm and inheritance of resistance from plant introductions 157076, 420145, and 323498. HortScience 42(2):215–221Wrather JA, Anderson TR, Arsyad DM, Tan Y, Ploper LD, Porta-Puglia A, Ram HH, Yorinori JT (2001) Soybean disease loss estimates for the top ten soybean-producing countries in 1998. Can J Plant Pathol 23:115–12

Internal mammary artery dilatation in a patient with aortic coarctation, aortic stenosis, and coronary disease. Case report

The ideal surgical approach is unclear in adult patients with coarctation of the aorta that is associated with other cardiovascular pathologies that require intervention. Standard median sternotomy allows simultaneous, coronary revascularization surgery, valve replacement and repair of aortic coarctation. However the collateral circulation and the anatomy of the mammary arteries must be determined, to avoid possible complications. We report a case of a 69 year-old man with aortic coarctation, aortic stenosis, coronary artery disease and internal mammary artery dilatation who underwent concomitant surgical procedures through a median sternotomy

Single-nucleus RNA-seq2 reveals functional crosstalk between liver zonation and ploidy.

Funder: Cancer Research UKSingle-cell RNA-seq reveals the role of pathogenic cell populations in development and progression of chronic diseases. In order to expand our knowledge on cellular heterogeneity, we have developed a single-nucleus RNA-seq2 method tailored for the comprehensive analysis of the nuclear transcriptome from frozen tissues, allowing the dissection of all cell types present in the liver, regardless of cell size or cellular fragility. We use this approach to characterize the transcriptional profile of individual hepatocytes with different levels of ploidy, and have discovered that ploidy states are associated with different metabolic potential, and gene expression in tetraploid mononucleated hepatocytes is conditioned by their position within the hepatic lobule. Our work reveals a remarkable crosstalk between gene dosage and spatial distribution of hepatocytes

Regulatory perturbations of ribosome allocation in bacteria reshape the growth proteome with a trade-off in adaptation capacity

Bacteria regulate their cellular resource allocation to enable fast growth-adaptation to a variety of environmental niches. We studied the ribosomal allocation, growth, and expression profiles of two sets of fast-growing mutants of Escherichia coli K-12 MG1655. Mutants with only three of the seven copies of ribosomal RNA operons grew faster than the wild-type strain in minimal media and show similar phenotype to previously studied fast-growing rpoB mutants. Comparing these two different regulatory perturbations (rRNA promoters or rpoB mutations), we show how they reshape the proteome for growth with a concomitant fitness cost. The fast-growing mutants shared downregulation of hedging functions and upregulated growth functions. They showed longer diauxic shifts and reduced activity of gluconeogenic promoters during glucose-acetate shifts, suggesting reduced availability of the RNA polymerase for expressing hedging proteome. These results show that the regulation of ribosomal allocation underlies the growth/hedging phenotypes obtained from laboratory evolution experiments

Hole-Hole Contact Interaction in the t-J Model

Using an analytical variational approach we calculate the hole-hole contact interaction on the N\'{e}el background. Solution of the Bethe-Salpeter equation with this interaction gives bound states in $d$- and p-waves with binding energies close to those obtained by numerical methods. At $t/J \ge 2-3$ the bound state disappears. In conclusion we discuss the relation between short range and long range interactions and analogy with the problem of pion condensation in nuclear matter.Comment: 11 pp. (LATEX), 7 figures (PostScript) appended, report N

NAS battery demonstration at American Electric Power:a study for the DOE energy storage program.

The first U.S. demonstration of the NGK sodium/sulfur battery technology was launched in August 2002 when a prototype system was installed at a commercial office building in Gahanna, Ohio. American Electric Power served as the host utility that provided the office space and technical support throughout the project. The system was used to both reduce demand peaks (peak-shaving operation) and to mitigate grid power disturbances (power quality operation) at the demonstration site. This report documents the results of the demonstration, provides an economic analysis of a commercial sodium/sulfur battery energy storage system at a typical site, and describes a side-by-side demonstration of the capabilities of the sodium/sulfur battery system, a lead-acid battery system, and a flywheel-based energy storage system in a power quality application

Insights from Amphioxus into the Evolution of Vertebrate Cartilage

Central to the story of vertebrate evolution is the origin of the vertebrate head, a problem difficult to approach using paleontology and comparative morphology due to a lack of unambiguous intermediate forms. Embryologically, much of the vertebrate head is derived from two ectodermal tissues, the neural crest and cranial placodes. Recent work in protochordates suggests the first chordates possessed migratory neural tube cells with some features of neural crest cells. However, it is unclear how and when these cells acquired the ability to form cellular cartilage, a cell type unique to vertebrates. It has been variously proposed that the neural crest acquired chondrogenic ability by recruiting proto-chondrogenic gene programs deployed in the neural tube, pharynx, and notochord. To test these hypotheses we examined the expression of 11 amphioxus orthologs of genes involved in neural crest chondrogenesis. Consistent with cellular cartilage as a vertebrate novelty, we find that no single amphioxus tissue co-expresses all or most of these genes. However, most are variously co-expressed in mesodermal derivatives. Our results suggest that neural crest-derived cartilage evolved by serial cooption of genes which functioned primitively in mesoderm