Auditable data structures: theory and applications

Every digital process needs to consume some data in order to work properly. It is very common for applications to use some external data in their processes, getting them by sources such as external APIs. Therefore, trusting the received data becomes crucial in such scenarios, considering that if the data are not self-produced by the consumer, the trust in the external data source, or in the data that the source produces, can not always be taken for granted. The most used approach to generate trust in the external source is based on authenticated data structures, that are able to authenticate the source when queried through the generation of proofs. Such proofs are useful to assess authenticity or integrity, however, an external user could also be interested in verifying the data history and its consistency. This problem seems to be unaddressed by current literature, which proposes some approaches aimed at executing audits by internal actors with prior knowledge about the data structures. In this paper, we address the scenario of an external auditor with no data knowledge that wants to verify the data history consistency. We analyze the terminology and the current state of the art of the auditable data structures, then we will propose a general framework to support external audits from both internal and external users

Royal Jelly: An ancient remedy with remarkable antibacterial properties

Royal Jelly (RJ), a honeybee hypopharyngeal gland secretion of young nurse and an exclusive nourishment for bee queen, has been used since ancient times for care and human health and it is still very important in traditional and folkloristic medicine, especially in Asia within the apitherapy. Recently, RJ and its protein and lipid components have been subjected to several investigations on their antimicrobial activity due to extensive traditional uses and for a future application in medicine. Antimicrobial activities of crude Royal Jelly, Royalisin, 10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid, Jelleines, Major Royal Jelly Proteins against different bacteria have been reported. All these beehive products showed antimicrobial activities that lead their potential employment in several fields as natural additives. RJ and its derived compounds show a highest activity especially against Gram positive bacteria. The purpose of this Review is to summarize the results of antimicrobial studies of Royal Jelly following the timescale of the researches. From the first scientific applications to the isolation of the single components in order to better understand its application in the past years and propose an employment in future studies as a natural antimicrobial agent

Sulla distanza di mutazione tra sequenze biologiche

BpMatch è un nuovo algoritmo la cui funzione è di calcolare efficientemente, date le sequenze S e T, la massima copertura di T utilizzando solo sottosequenze e sottosequenze invertite complementate di S, di lunghezza minima l, eventualmente sovrapposte, e, nella copertura massima, di minimizzare il numero di sottosequenze utilizzate. Il problema viene risolto eseguendo una preelaborazione di S (indipendentemente dalla sequenza di cui successivamente verrà poi cercata la massima copertura e, quindi, preelaborazione da effettuare una sola volta e valida per ogni T), generando un grafo che permetta un rapido riconoscimento delle sottosequenze di S. I grafi G e G' devono essere generati rispettivamente dalla sequenza S e da S invertita e complementata, poi, utilizzando G, G' e T, il calcolo della copertura massima può essere computato in tempo O(u*log(log(n))) (n=|S| e u=|T|) nel caso medio ed in spazio lineare

The Emergence of Diversity and Stability: from Biological Systems to Machine Learning

The observation of emergent properties of biological systems has been the inspiration of successful technologies opening new fields of computer science like artificial neural nets, swarm intelligence algorithms, evolutive algorithms, etc. In this work we focus on the emergence of negative feedback cycles: self-regulatory mechanisms able to react to alterations of some environmental parameters (temperature, gas concentrations, solar light, etc.) in order to compensate, preserving the environment in a state suitable for life. We make the hypothesis that speciation events play a central role for feedback formation and, and in order to select the negative cycles, the arising species need to be strongly connected to the environment, therefore the speciation needs to be sympatric (a speciation mode where new species arise without geographical isolation). As an intermediate result, we propose a simulative model of sympatric speciation and apply it to the field of evolutive algorithms. We propose some variations of the standard island model, a model used in evolutive algorithms to evolve multiple populations, to obtain dynamics similar to the sympatric speciation model, enhancing the diversity and the stability of the evolutive system. Then we propose a technique to define a metric and calculate approximated distances on very complex genetic spaces (a recurring problem for several evolutionary algorithms approaches). Finally, we describe the more complex model of negative feedback cycles emergence and discuss the problems that, in the current model formulation, make it not applicable to real world problems but only to ad hoc defined resource spaces; conclusively we propose possible solutions and some applications

Lumbricus webis: a parallel and distributed crawling architecture for the Italian web

Web crawlers have become popular tools for gattering large portions of the web that can be used for many tasks from statistics to structural analysis of the web. Due to the amount of data and the heterogeneity of tasks to manage, it is essential for crawlers to have a modular and distributed architecture. In this paper we describe Lumbricus webis (short L.webis) a modular crawling infrastructure built to mine data from the web domain ccTLD .it and portions of the web reachable from this domain. Its purpose is to support gathering of advanced statics and advanced analytic tools on the content of the Italian Web. This paper describes the architectural features of L.webis and its performance. L.webis can currently download a mid-sized ccTLD such as ".it" in about one week

Beeswax: A minireview of its antimicrobial activity and its application in medicine

Abstract Beeswax is the substance that forms the structure of a honeycomb; the bees secrete wax to build the honeycombs where to store honey. Thanks to its rich hydrophobic protective properties, the beeswax is in fact present within cosmetics and body products. Also, beeswax is used in the food industry: as a film to wrap cheese for maturing or as a food additive (E901) to give shine to the products. Exactly as the honey which it contains, beeswax is also characterized by several therapeutic properties of great interest to us; it is thought to be particularly effective in healing bruises, inflammation and burns. Recently, the interest of researchers has moved even on antimicrobial properties of beeswax although there are still few studies in the literature focused only on the action of beeswax. The few studies showed an antimicrobic effectiveness of beeswax against overall Staphylococcus aureus , Salmonella enterica , Candida albicans and Aspergillus niger ; these inhibitory effects are enhanced synergistically with other natural products such as honey or olive oil. This minireview aims to be a collection of major scientific works that have considered the antimicrobial activity of beeswax alone or in combination with other natural products in recent years

Cohabitation of settlements among crested porcupine (Hystrix cristata), red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and European badger (Meles meles)

In Italy, porcupines, badgers and red foxes share the same settlements. However, there is lack of informa-tion concerning their cohabitation. From 2012 to 2019, cohabitation by these three mammals was studied using camera-trapping and was found to occur only between porcupines and badgers, even in the presence of porcupettes. Cohabitation was associated with aggressive interaction between porcupines and badg-ers. Foxes were found to be scavengers of porcupine carcasses. Cohabitation among these semi-fossorial mammals and scavenging behaviour could play a role in disease transmission, including zoonotic diseases

Field chemical immobilization of free-ranging crested porcupines with zoletil®: A reviewed dosage

The tiletamine-zolazepam mixture is a widely used anesthetic for chemical immobilization of wild mammals due to its short induction time, good muscle relaxation, smooth recovery with low convulsions occurrence, and minimal effect on respiration. An injection dose of 7–8 mg/kg of tiletamine-zolazepam has been proven to be an effective and safe immobilizing mixture for crested porcupines under field conditions. However, the occurrence of long immobilization and recovery times, with high excitement and convulsion during awakening, were recorded. In order to reduce such side effects after recovery, the effectiveness of a lower dosage (4–6 mg/kg) of tiletamine-zolazepam (Zoletil® ) was tested. The results obtained confirm that the use of tiletamine-zolazepam in crested porcupine immobilization provides a quick induction, wide safety margin, and predictable awakening under field conditions. A smaller injection dosage of 5 mg/kg has been proven to be sufficient to ensure a short induction time (average: 7.1 min), with good muscle relaxation and little excitement of the animals during awakening. The lower dosage of tiletamine-zolazepam, while providing a shorter recovery time (average: 53.6 min), proves to be adequate for standard handling procedures. Furthermore, the smaller amount of tiletamine-zolazepam also ensures safe immobilization for pregnant individuals and porcupettes