Process Scenarios in Open Source Software Certification

Certification of Open Source Software (OSS) presents inherent trade-offsdue to the necessity of precisely identifying both a product and an independent certificationagent, and on the other of maintain the peculiar, valuable OSS characteristicof being available to an unlimited multiplicity of actors for trial, use and change.This is an intriguing challenge, usually solved by removing from the picture thecertifying agent and providing an intrinsic certification by means of rigorous, reapplicableproperty demonstrations, adopting Formal Methods (FM) in expressingand verifying the code. As such approach, yet quite valuable and good-promising,has some restrictions (such as the limited set of provable product qualities), we proposeto tackle the problem by analysing the various processes executed by differentOSS stakeholders, including the process of an independent Certification Body. Inthe paper some kinds of representative scenarios in which such processes interleaveare presented and discussed. The aim is to introduce a process-centered perspectivefor OSS that can stimulate research to further understand and mitigate the mentionedtrade-offs

reliminary cyclostratigraphic results on planktonic foraminifera from IODP-Hole U1406A

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Observational study of sleep-related disorders in Italian patients with Parkinson's disease: usefulness of the Italian version of Parkinson's disease sleep scale.

Sleep disturbances are common in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). We aimed to evaluate prevalence and severity of nighttime sleep disturbances in Italian PD patients and to validate the Italian version of the Parkinson's disease sleep scale. A total of 221 PD patients and 57 healthy controls participated in a cross-sectional study with retest. PDSS, Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), and Hoehn and Yahr staging were applied. PDSS total and individual items scores from patients were significantly lower than those in controls. Internal consistency of PDSS scale was satisfactory and intraclass correlation coefficient for test-retest reliability was 0.96 for total PDSS score. A significant negative correlation was found between total PDSS and ESS scores, and between total PDSS and HDRS scores. PDSS scores were also related to UPDRS sections II, III and IV, and H&Y stage. PDSS and ESS scores were not related to levodopa equivalent dose. Daytime sleepiness, depressive symptoms and disease severity correlate with sleep disturbances in Italian PD patients. The PDSS is a valid and reliable tool to evaluate sleep disturbances in Italian patients. © 2011 Springer-Verlag

PTPA variants and impaired PP2A activity in early-onset parkinsonism with intellectual disability

The protein phosphatase 2A complex (PP2A), the major Ser/Thr phosphatase in the brain, is involved in a number of signalling pathways and functions, including the regulation of crucial proteins for neurodegeneration, such as alpha-synuclein, tau and LRRK2. Here, we report the identification of variants in the PTPA/PPP2R4 gene, encoding a major PP2A activator, in two families with early-onset parkinsonism and intellectual disability. We carried out clinical studies and genetic analyses, including genome-wide linkage analysis, whole-exome sequencing, and Sanger sequencing of candidate variants. We next performed functional studies on the disease-associated variants in cultured cells and knock-down of ptpa in Drosophila melanogaster. We first identified a homozygous PTPA variant, c.893T&gt;G (p.Met298Arg), in patients from a South African family with early-onset parkinsonism and intellectual disability. Screening of a large series of additional families yielded a second homozygous variant, c.512C&gt;A (p.Ala171Asp), in a Libyan family with a similar phenotype. Both variants co-segregate with disease in the respective families. The affected subjects display juvenile-onset parkinsonism and intellectual disability. The motor symptoms were responsive to treatment with levodopa and deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus. In overexpression studies, both the PTPA p.Ala171Asp and p.Met298Arg variants were associated with decreased PTPA RNA stability and decreased PTPA protein levels; the p.Ala171Asp variant additionally displayed decreased PTPA protein stability. Crucially, expression of both variants was associated with decreased PP2A complex levels and impaired PP2A phosphatase activation. PTPA orthologue knock-down in Drosophila neurons induced a significant impairment of locomotion in the climbing test. This defect was age-dependent and fully reversed by L-DOPA treatment. We conclude that bi-allelic missense PTPA variants associated with impaired activation of the PP2A phosphatase cause autosomal recessive early-onset parkinsonism with intellectual disability. Our findings might also provide new insights for understanding the role of the PP2A complex in the pathogenesis of more common forms of neurodegeneration.</p

Automated Natural Language Analysis of Requirements and Specifications

Requirements analysis is a nontrivial, tedious, error prone and time consuming process. This paper describes a tool that automates identification of requirements defects that exist because of inadequate use of language for the purpose intended. The paper also describes results of using the tool on actual requirements documents from different industries. Our results show that the tool identifies defects that often escape detection by human inspectors

Frontal lobe dysfunction in essential tremor: A preliminary study

27 patients with essential tremor (ET) were studied to determine the cognitive feature of this condition. 15 familial cases and 12 cases with a family history Parkinson's disease (PD) were identified. Performances on frontal lobe tasks of ET patients were compared with those of 15 patients with PD and 15 healthy control subjects. The ET patients showed significant impairments both in attentional and conceptual thinking tasks, similar to those observed in the PD group. Despite the noso-graphic independence of the two conditions, data showed that the frontal lobe feature of ET was similar to those of PD, thus possibly suggesting a common dysregulation of dopamine pathways

Role-based security policies management: a health care example

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro , 7 Rome / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal