Enhancing Job Scheduling of an Atmospheric Intensive Data Application

Nowadays, e-Science applications involve great deal of data to have more accurate analysis. One of its application domains is the Radio Occultation which manages satellite data. Grid Processing Management is a physical infrastructure geographically distributed based on Grid Computing, that is implemented for the overall processing Radio Occultation analysis. After a brief description of algorithms adopted to characterize atmospheric profiles, the paper presents an improvement of job scheduling in order to decrease processing time and optimize resource utilization. Extension of grid computing capacity is implemented by virtual machines in existing physical Grid in order to satisfy temporary job requests. Also scheduling plays an important role in the infrastructure that is handled by a couple of schedulers which are developed to manage data automaticall

Does it pay to be Shariah-compliant? Evidence from the European stock market

The comparison of financial results between different cultural and religious systems is still an open academic debate. There is no consensus among scholars on the existence and magnitude of financial performance differences for companies acting under diverse cultural and religious background. The aim of this paper is to compare the performance of European listed firms applying Shariah principles and those who do not act according to such guidelines. To serve such purpose we have built a sample of companies operating with Shariah-based principles of management and compared the latter with a control comprising companies that do not adopt Shariah parameters over the period 2005–2017. Results suggest that the Shariah-compliant sample performs better than the conventional one. In particular, during the recent recession, Shariah-compliant companies obtained better periodical stock market returns and even in the event of negative returns, losses posted by these companies were lower than those of conventional companies. Moreover, Shariah-compliant sample presents a lower risk-profile than conventional one

The medieval pilgrims routes in the Apulian settlements and their relationship with Rome and Santiago de Compostela

The medieval pilgrims routes in the Apulian settlements and their relationship with Rome and Santiago de Compostela The Medieval cave settlements and cave churches in the Apulia region, in southern Itlay, created with their frescoes, along the pilgrims roads and the Ancient Appia route, a connection with the grave of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela. Indeed during the Middle Age the Church and the local nobles and feudatories used the Apulian medieval pilgrims’ routes for religious and marketing purposes linking Apulian Cave frescoes churches with Santiago de Compostela, therefore one of the aim of the research is to retrace the pilgrims routes basing on the images of the Saints painted in some frescoes and to create a veritable virtual link of the Apulian medieval cave churches with Saint James’ tomb in Santiago de Compostela thanks to the representation of the Saint bringing the pecten iacobeus (shell of St. James) and the Pilgrim’s bagshow. Aim of the research, applied to the proposed study area of the ravines and cave churches of Apulia, is to analyse, plan and restructure the ancient routes and livestock trail paths of the area by means of the files found in the archives in order to “redraw” the historical, social and environmental landscape and present it as paths with strong touristic interest with reference to the Apulian ravines area, the agricultural and forest landscapes and the traditional farmhouses

CD20: A target antigen for immunotherapy of autoimmune diseases

This article reviews the role of CD20 antigen in B cell function and the effectiveness and limits of passive immunotherapy with anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody (Rituximab) in the treatment of autoimmune (or immune-mediated) diseases. Active immunotherapy is a more feasible way to control these chronic diseases. A peptide that mimics the CD20 epitope recognized by Rituximab is employed to stimulate the host immune response against CD20. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Enhancing Job Scheduling of an Atmospheric Intensive Data Application

Nowadays, e-Science applications involve great deal of data to have more accurate analysis. One of its application domains is the Radio Occultation which manages satellite data. Grid Processing Management is a physical infrastructure geographically distributed based on Grid Computing, that is implemented for the overall processing Radio Occultation analysis. After a brief description of algorithms adopted to characterize atmospheric profiles, the paper presents an improvement of job scheduling in order to decrease processing time and optimize resource utilization. Extension of grid computing capacity is implemented by virtual machines in existing physical Grid in order to satisfy temporary job requests. Also scheduling plays an important role in the infrastructure that is handled by a couple of schedulers which are developed to manage data automatically

Structural and elemental analysis of the freshwater, low-Mg calcite coralline alga <i>pneophyllum cetinaensis</i>

Coralline algae are one of the most diversified groups of red algae and represent a major component of marine benthic habitats from the poles to the tropics. This group was believed to be exclusively marine until 2016, when the first freshwater coralline algae Pneophyllum cetinaensis was discovered in the Cetina River, southern Croatia. While several studies investigated the element compositions of marine coralline algal thalli, no information is yet available for the freshwater species. Using XRD, LA-ICP-MS and nano indentation, this study presents the first living low-Mg calcite coralline algae with Mg concentrations ten times lower than is common for the average marine species. Despite the lower Mg concentrations, hardness and elastic modulus (1.71 ± 1.58 GPa and 29.7 ± 18.0 GPa, respectively) are in the same range as other marine coralline algae, possibly due to other biogenic impurities. When compared to marine species, Ba/Ca values were unusually low, even though Ba concentrations are generally higher in rivers than in seawater. These low values might be linked to different physical and chemical characteristics of the Cetina River

Accessing Cloud Services through Biometrics Authentication

© 2016 IEEE. The adoption of Cloud computing involves many advantages in terms of flexibility, scalability and reliability, but also implies new challenges on security, data privacy and protection of personal data. Since more and more sensitive applications and data are moved to the cloud, the verification of the digital identity of the participants in the electronic communication has become a crucial challenge. Currently, the use of biometric techniques can be considered as an effective solution to ensure a significant increase of security in the authentication protocols managed by modern authentication servers. However the use of biometric data for the logical access to IT services is a more challenging and still unsolved problem. The project Cloud for SME integrates a biometric authentication based on fingerprints with a cloud computing platform, investigating how highly secure authentication methods can increase the adoption of cloud computing technologies among small and medium enterprises