Using Lightweight Activity Diagrams for Modeling and Generation of Web Information Systems

The development process of web information systems nowadays improved a lot regarding effectiveness and tool support, but still contains many redundant steps for similar tasks. In order to overcome this, we use a model-driven approach to specify a web information system in an agile way and generate a full- edged and runnable application from a set of models. The covered aspects of the system comprise data structure, page structure including view on data, page- and workflow within the system as well as overall application structure and user rights management. Appropriate tooling allows transforming these models to complete systems and thus gives us opportunity for a lightweight development process based on models. In this paper, we describe how we approach the page- and workflow aspect by using activity diagrams as part of the agile modeling approach MontiWIS. We give an overview of the defined syntax, describe the supported forms of action contents and finally explain how the behavior is realized in the generated application.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Identification of New Genes Involved in Human Adipogenesis and Fat Storage

Since the worldwide increase in obesity represents a growing challenge for health care systems, new approaches are needed to effectively treat obesity and its associated diseases. One prerequisite for advances in this field is the identification of genes involved in adipogenesis and/or lipid storage. To provide a systematic analysis of genes that regulate adipose tissue biology and to establish a target-oriented compound screening, we performed a high throughput siRNA screen with primary (pre)adipocytes, using a druggable siRNA library targeting 7,784 human genes. The primary screen showed that 459 genes affected adipogenesis and/or lipid accumulation after knock-down. Out of these hits, 333 could be validated in a secondary screen using independent siRNAs and 110 genes were further regulated on the gene expression level during adipogenesis. Assuming that these genes are involved in neutral lipid storage and/or adipocyte differentiation, we performed InCell-Western analysis for the most striking hits to distinguish between the two phenotypes. Beside well known regulators of adipogenesis and neutral lipid storage (i.e. PPARγ, RXR, Perilipin A) the screening revealed a large number of genes which have not been previously described in the context of fatty tissue biology such as axonemal dyneins. Five out of ten axonemal dyneins were identified in our screen and quantitative RT-PCR-analysis revealed that these genes are expressed in preadipocytes and/or maturing adipocytes. Finally, to show that the genes identified in our screen are per se druggable we performed a proof of principle experiment using an antagonist for HTR2B. The results showed a very similar phenotype compared to knock-down experiments proofing the “druggability”. Thus, we identified new adipogenesis-associated genes and those involved in neutral lipid storage. Moreover, by using a druggable siRNA library the screen data provides a very attractive starting point to identify anti-obesity compounds targeting the adipose tissue

DNA methylation levels in candidate genes associated with chronological age in mammals are not conserved in a long-lived seabird

© 2017 De Paoli-Iseppi et al. This 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. Most seabirds do not have any outward identifiers of their chronological age, so estimation of seabird population age structure generally requires expensive, long-term banding studies. We investigated the potential to use a molecular age biomarker to estimate age in short-tailed shearwaters (Ardenna tenuirostris). We quantified DNA methylation in several A. tenuirostris genes that have shown age-related methylation changes in mammals. In birds ranging from chicks to 21 years of age, bisulphite treated blood and feather DNA was sequenced and methylation levels analysed in 67 CpG sites in 13 target gene regions. From blood samples, five of the top relationships with age were identified in KCNC3 loci (CpG66: R2 = 0.325, p = 0.019). In feather samples ELOVL2 (CpG42: R2 = 0.285, p = 0.00048) and EDARADD (CpG46: R2 = 0.168, p = 0.0067) were also weakly correlated with age. However, the majority of markers had no clear association with age (of 131 comparisons only 12 had a p-value < 0.05) and statistical analysis using a penalised lasso approach did not produce an accurate ageing model. Our data indicate that some age-related signatures identified in orthologous mammalian genes are not conserved in the long-lived short tailed shearwater. Alternative molecular approaches will be required to identify a reliable biomarker of chronological age in these seabirds

Verifying Component and Connector Models against Crosscutting Structural Views

The structure of component and connector (C&C) models, which are used in many application domains of software en-gineering, consists of components at different containment levels, their typed input and output ports, and the connec-tors between them. C&C views, presented in [24], can be used to specify structural properties of C&C models in an expressive and intuitive way. In this work we address the verification of a C&C model against a C&C view and present efficient (polynomial) al-gorithms to decide satisfaction. A unique feature of our work, not present in existing approaches to checking struc-tural properties of C&C models, is the generation of wit-nesses for satisfaction/non-satisfaction and of short natural-language texts, which serve to explain and formally justify the verification results and point the engineer to its causes. A prototype tool and an evaluation over four example systems with multiple views, performance and scalability experiments, as well as a user study of the usefulness of the witnesses for engineers, demonstrate the contribution of our work to the state-of-the-art in component and connector modeling and analysis

The importance of business culture, social responsibility in improving business performance

В статье рассмотрены основные особенности организации предпринимательской деятельности в сфере обслуживания; требования, предъявляемые к профессиональной подготовке менеджмента и сотрудников, указанных предприятий; отмечена важная роль в организации предпринимательской деятельности социальной ответственности, культуры и философии. Особо подчеркивается, что специалист в области организации, управления производством должен владеть навыками и приемами делового общения; анализа конфликтных ситуаций; уметь с помощью слова убеждать, аргументировать, достигать согласия; осуществлять "психологическую терапию". Умение говорить, быть правильно понятым, слушать и понимать, ненавязчиво убеждать, создавать доверительные отношения, искренне сочувствовать – все это важнейшие характеристики делового общения. Удовлетворять таким требованиям может только тот руководитель, который постоянно совершенствует свои знания, умения, никогда не останавливается на достигнутом.In the article the basic features of organization of entrepreneurial activity are considered in the field of service; requirements, produced to professional preparation of management and employees, indicated enterprises; an important role is marked in organization of entrepreneurial activity of social responsibility, culture and philosophy. It is especially underlined that a specialist is in area of organization, managements must own a production by skills and receptions of business commonunication; analysis of conflict situations; able by means of word to convince, argue, arrive at a consent; to carry out "psychological therapy". Ability to talk, being is correct to understood, to listen and understand, unobtrusively to convince, create confidence relations, sincerely to sympathize are all major descriptions of business commonunication. A that leader, that perfects the knowledge, abilities constantly, never decides on attained, can satisfy to such requirements only. In this regard, in modern conditions, a specialist in the field of organization and management of the restaurant business must have the skills and techniques of business communication; analysis of conflict situations; to be able to convince, argue, reach agreement with the help of the word; to carry out "psychological therapy". Ability to speak, be correctly understood, listen and understand, gently convince, create trusting relationships, sincerely sympathize – all these are the most important characteristics of business communication