A theory of contracts for web services

<p>Contracts are behavioural descriptions of Web services. We devise a theory of contracts that formalises the compatibility of a client to a service, and the safe replacement of a service with another service. The use of contracts statically ensures the successful completion of every possible interaction between compatible clients and services.</p> <p>The technical device that underlies the theory is the definition of filters, which are explicit coercions that prevent some possible behaviours of services and, in doing so, they make services compatible with different usage scenarios. We show that filters can be seen as proofs of a sound and complete subcontracting deduction system which simultaneously refines and extends Hennessy's classical axiomatisation of the must testing preorder. The relation is decidable and the decision algorithm is obtained via a cut-elimination process that proves the coherence of subcontracting as a logical system.</p> <p>Despite the richness of the technical development, the resulting approach is based on simple ideas and basic intuitions. Remarkably, its application is mostly independent of the language used to program the services or the clients. We also outline the possible practical impact of such a work and the perspectives of future research it opens.</p&gt

Resolving Non-Determinism in Choreographies

Resolving non-deterministic choices of choreographies is a crucial task. We introduce a novel notion of realisability for choreographies –called whole-spectrum implementation– that rules out deterministic implementations of roles that, no matter which context they are placed in, will never follow one of the branches of a non-deterministic choice. We show that, under some conditions, it is decidable whether an implementation is whole-spectrum. As a case study, we analyse the POP protocol under the lens of whole-spectrum implementation

AR AND VR FOR ENHANCING MUSEUMS’ HERITAGE THROUGH 3D RECONSTRUCTION OF FRAGMENTED STATUE AND ARCHITECTURAL CONTEXT

This paper presents the results of multidisciplinary research in which reconstructive digital modelling operates on different areas of heritage and at different scales to realize an analysis, interpretation, and communication experience in the field of museum valorization. It is, in fact, a work that includes both the philological reconstruction of the lost parts of a Buddha statue of Gandhāra, dating back to the second century b.C. and kept at the Museum of Oriental Art (MAO) in Turin, and its contextualization within a coeval architectural complex, recognized as philologically compatible, located in Balo-Kale, in the region of Gandhāra. The reconstructive models are finally used with communicative purposes for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications inside the museum

Electrocatalytic properties of Pd-based nano-structured material for application in fuel cells

Fuel cells, especially low temperature fuel cells, are clean-energy devices that have high potentiality for use in electric power production and non-polluting vehicles. Platinum is commonly used as electrocatalysts in fuel cell electrodes, because of its excellent electrocatalytic activity and chemical stability. But, because of its high cost and limited resources, its use represents a bottleneck for large-scale application and commercialization of fuel cells. Palladium could be a good substitute for Pt, because of its similar chemical and physical properties, lower cost and higher abundance. Main challenges concern the development of Pd-based materials with high catalytic activity and durability at a reduced cost (i.e. metal content). Crucial technological issue is the optimization of the active surface of the catalysts, by the control of the morphology, shape and dispersion of the metal particles. The talk will describe the main results of the research activity carried out during the second year of the Italia-USA Bilateral Project in ENEA, concerning the fabrication and characterization of different kinds of nanostructured Pd-based electrocatalysts, by using both electrochemical and vacuum thin film deposition techniques

On Global Types and Multi-Party Session

Global types are formal specifications that describe communication protocols in terms of their global interactions. We present a new, streamlined language of global types equipped with a trace-based semantics and whose features and restrictions are semantically justified. The multi-party sessions obtained projecting our global types enjoy a liveness property in addition to the traditional progress and are shown to be sound and complete with respect to the set of traces of the originating global type. Our notion of completeness is less demanding than the classical ones, allowing a multi-party session to leave out redundant traces from an underspecified global type. In addition to the technical content, we discuss some limitations of our language of global types and provide an extensive comparison with related specification languages adopted in different communities

Prevention of mucositis in bone marrow transplantation: A double blind randomised controlled trial of sucralfate

Mucositis is still a leading side effect of high dose chemotherapy and irradiation delivered in autologous and allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. In this double blind randomised study, we tested the efficacy of sucralfate for the prevention of mucositis induced by such conditioning treatments. Treatment was started one day before conditioning regimen and patients were prospectively evaluated. The main endpoint was severe mucositis that was more frequent in the placebo group than in the sucralfate group (47% vs. 29%, P = 0.07). This trend was confirmed after adjustment on total body irradiation (TBI) (P = 0.06), the sole stratification parameter. Interestingly, patients receiving sucralfate showed a significant reduction of diarrhoea (25% vs. 53%, P = 0.005). Overall, the preventive administration of sucralfate appears to be an effective proce dure to diminish the occurrence of severe oral and intestinal mucositis in patients treated by high dose chemotherapy alone or combined with TBI before bone marrow transplantatio

Gelatin-based coating enriched with blueberry juice preserves the nutraceutical quality and reduces the microbial contamination of tomato fruit

To preserve quality and extend the shelf life of tomato, a bioactive edible coating was prepared using gelatin wastes from pharmaceutical industry and lyophilised blueberry juice (BJ). The effectiveness of gelatin-coating (G) and G enriched with blueberry juice (GB) was tested, monitoring carotenoids, polyphenols and flavonoids content, the antioxidant activity and the antimicrobial efficiency of coating against the native microflora. After 7 d of storage, coated fruit showed higher phenolic and flavonoids content and increased antioxidant activity, while carotenoids were unaffected by the treatments. The growth of mesophilic bacteria of GB, and the growth of coliform bacteria of G and GB were significantly reduced during the entire period. The results indicate that GB preserved the nutritional quality of tomatoes and that BJ was able to increase the antimicrobial activity of the coating. This paves the way for a possible use of this biodegradable waste polymer as an eco-friendly coating material

Increasing Vegetable Intakes: An Updated Systematic Review of Published Interventions

Vegetable consumption is important for a variety of health reasons, yet intakes are typically lower than recommended. Interventions to improve fruit and vegetable consumption are available, but these interventions are typically more successful for fruit consumption, while vegetable intakes remain low. This chapter details the interventions currently available that focus specifically on improving vegetable intakes. A systematic review of the published literature was conducted in 2015, and this has been updated for this chapter. Databases - PubMed, PsychInfo and Medline were searched over all years of records until January 2017 using pre-specified terms. Our searches identified 119 studies, detailing 206 interventions. Interventions aimed to use or change hedonic factors, such as taste, liking and familiarity (n=103), use or change environmental factors (n=54), use or change cognitive factors (n=28), or a combination of strategies (n=21). Increased vegetable acceptance, selection and/or consumption were reported to some degree in 186 (90%) interventions. Greatest success appears to be achieved in interventions that improve education, change the environment or use multiple approaches, but long-term success and cost-effectiveness are rarely considered. A focus on long-term benefits and sustained behaviour change is required

Behavioral types in programming languages

A recent trend in programming language research is to use behav- ioral type theory to ensure various correctness properties of large- scale, communication-intensive systems. Behavioral types encompass concepts such as interfaces, communication protocols, contracts, and choreography. The successful application of behavioral types requires a solid understanding of several practical aspects, from their represen- tation in a concrete programming language, to their integration with other programming constructs such as methods and functions, to de- sign and monitoring methodologies that take behaviors into account. This survey provides an overview of the state of the art of these aspects, which we summarize as the pragmatics of behavioral types