Architecting Enterprise Applications for the Cloud: The Unicorn Universe Cloud Framework

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018. Recent IT advances that include extensive use of mobile and IoT devices and wide adoption of cloud computing are creating a situation where existing architectures and software development frameworks no longer fully support the requirements of modern enterprise application. Furthermore, the separation of software development and operations is no longer practicable in this environment characterized by fast delivery and automated release and deployment of applications. This rapidly evolving situation requires new frameworks that support the DevOps approach and facilitate continuous delivery of cloud-based applications using micro-services and container-based technologies allowing rapid incremental deployment of application components. It is also becoming clear that the management of large-scale container-based environments has its own challenges. In this paper, we first discuss the challenges that developers of enterprise applications face today and then describe the Unicorn cloud framework (uuCloud) designed to support the development and deployment of cloud-based applications that incorporate mobile and IoT devices. We use a doctor surgery reservation application “Lekar” case study to illustrate how uuCloud is used to implement a large-scale cloud-based application

What problems associated with ageing are seen in a specialist service for older people living with HIV?

OBJECTIVES: By 2030 the majority of the people living with HIV in the United Kingdom will be over the age of 50. HIV services globally must adapt to manage people living with HIV as they age. Currently these services are often designed based on data from the wider population or from the experiences of HIV clinicians. This article aims to help clinicians designing inclusive HIV services by presenting the most common needs identified during the first year of a specialist clinic for older people living with HIV at the Ian Charleson Day Centre, Royal Free Hospital in London, United Kingdom. METHODS: The records of all thirty-five patients attending the inaugural nine sessions were reviewed. RESULTS: The median age of attendees was 69 (53-93) with 77% being male, 63% being White, 49% being heterosexual and 97% being virally suppressed respectively. The majority (83%) met the criteria for frailty using the Fried frailty phenotype. Eighteen issues linked to ageing were identified with the most common being affective symptoms (51%), memory loss (37%) and falls (29%). CONCLUSIONS: Whilst older people living with HIV are a heterogeneous group frailty is common and appears to present earlier. HIV services either need to adapt to meet these additional needs or must support users in transitioning to existing services. We feel that our multidisciplinary model is successful in identifying problems associated with ageing in people living with HIV and could be successfully replicated elsewhere

Evaluating the effects of bilingual traffic signs on driver performance and safety

Variable Message Signs (VMS) can provide immediate and relevant information to road users and bilingual VMS can provide great flexibility in countries where a significant proportion of the population speak an alternative language to the majority. The study reported here evaluates the effect of various bilingual VMS configurations on driver behaviour and safety. The aim of the study was to determine whether or not the visual distraction associated with bilingual VMS signs of different configurations (length, complexity) impacted on driving performance. A driving simulator was used to allow full control over the scenarios, road environment and sign configuration and both longitudinal and lateral driver performance was assessed. Drivers were able to read one and two-line monolingual signs and two-line bilingual signs without disruption to their driving behaviour. However, drivers significantly reduced their speed in order to read four-line monolingual and four-line bilingual signs, accompanied by an increase in headway to the vehicle in front. This implies that drivers are possibly reading the irrelevant text on the bilingual sign and various methods for reducing this effect are discussed

Evaluation of rK39 rapid diagnostic tests for canine visceral leishmaniasis : longitudinal study and meta-analysis

Canine visceral leishmaniasis is a vector-borne disease caused by the intracellular parasite Leishmania infantum. It is an important veterinary disease, and dogs are also the main animal reservoir for human infection. The disease is widespread in the Mediterranean area, and parts of Asia and South and Central America, and is potentially fatal in both dogs and humans unless treated. Diagnosis of canine infections requires serological or molecular tests. Detection of infection in dogs is important prior to treatment, and in epidemiological studies and control programmes, and a sensitive and specific rapid diagnostic test would be very useful. Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) have been developed, but their diagnostic performance has been reported to be variable. We evaluated the sensitivity of a RDT based on serological detection of the rK39 antigen in a cohort of naturally infected Brazilian dogs. The sensitivity of the test to detect infection was relatively low, but increased with time since infection and the severity of infection. We then carried out a meta-analysis of published studies of rK39 RDTs, evaluating the sensitivity to detect disease and infection. The results suggest that rK39 RDTs may be useful in a veterinary clinical setting, but the sensitivity to detect infection is too low for operational control programmes

Reproductive performance in sows in relation to Japanese Encephalitis Virus seropositivity in an endemic area

Japanese Encephalitis Virus (JEV) is considered an important reproductive pathogen in pigs. Most studies of the reproductive impact of JEV have been conducted in areas where the disease occurs in seasonal epidemics. In this study, the associations between seropositivity for JEV, measured with an IgG ELISA, and the number of piglets born alive and stillborn were investigated in a tropical area endemic for JEV in Vietnam. Sixty percent of sows from four farms in the Mekong delta of Vietnam were seropositive to JEV and the Odds Ratio for a sow being infected was highest (6.4) in sows above 3.5 years (95% confidence interval 2.2–18.3). There was an association between increasing Optical Density (OD) values from the ELISA and the number of stillborn piglets in sows less than 1.5 years, but no effect of seropositivity could be shown when all sows were studied. OD values had an effect (p = 0.04) on the number of piglets born alive in the statistical analysis only when interacting with the effect of the breeds. An increase in mean OD value of the herd was correlated (p < 0.0001) with an increase in the number of piglets born alive. In this study, there was evidence of a negative association between seropositivity for JEV and the reproductive performance only in sows less than 1.5 years in endemic areas. This could be explained by a year-round infection with the virus, which would lead to immunity in many gilts before their first pregnancy. This, in turn, may imply that JEV infection in pigs is of minor importance for the reproductive performance in endemic areas

FRAGMATIC: A randomised phase III clinical trial investigating the effect of fragmin® added to standard therapy in patients with lung cancer

Background Venous thromboembolism (VTE) occurs when blood clots in the leg, pelvic or other deep vein (deep vein thrombosis) with or without transport of the thrombus into the pulmonary arterial circulation (pulmonary embolus). VTE is common in patients with cancer and is increased by surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and disease progression. Low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) is routinely used to treat VTE and some evidence suggests that LMWH may also have an anticancer effect, by reduction in the incidence of metastases. The FRAGMATIC trial will assess the effect of adding dalteparin (FRAGMIN), a type of LMWH, to standard treatment for patients with lung cancer. Methods/Design The study design is a randomised multicentre phase III trial comparing standard treatment and standard treatment plus daily LMWH for 24 weeks in patients with lung cancer. Patients eligible for this study must have histopathological or cytological diagnosis of primary bronchial carcinoma (small cell or non-small cell) within 6 weeks of randomisation, be 18 or older, and must be willing and able to self-administer 5000 IU dalteparin by daily subcutaneous injection or have it administered to themselves or by a carer for 24 weeks. A total of 2200 patients will be recruited from all over the UK over a 3 year period and followed up for a minimum of 1 year after randomisation. Patients will be randomised to one of the two treatment groups in a 1:1 ratio, standard treatment or standard treatment plus dalteparin. The primary outcome measure of the trial is overall survival. The secondary outcome measures include venous thrombotic event (VTE) free survival, serious adverse events (SAEs), metastasis-free survival, toxicity, quality of life (QoL), levels of breathlessness, anxiety and depression, cost effectiveness and cost utility. Trial registration Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN8081276

Geometry sensing by dendritic cells dictates spatial organization and PGE2-induced dissolution of podosomes

Assembly and disassembly of adhesion structures such as focal adhesions (FAs) and podosomes regulate cell adhesion and differentiation. On antigen-presenting dendritic cells (DCs), acquisition of a migratory and immunostimulatory phenotype depends on podosome dissolution by prostaglandin E2 (PGE2). Whereas the effects of physico-chemical and topographical cues have been extensively studied on FAs, little is known about how podosomes respond to these signals. Here, we show that, unlike for FAs, podosome formation is not controlled by substrate physico-chemical properties. We demonstrate that cell adhesion is the only prerequisite for podosome formation and that substrate availability dictates podosome density. Interestingly, we show that DCs sense 3-dimensional (3-D) geometry by aligning podosomes along the edges of 3-D micropatterned surfaces. Finally, whereas on a 2-dimensional (2-D) surface PGE2 causes a rapid increase in activated RhoA levels leading to fast podosome dissolution, 3-D geometric cues prevent PGE2-mediated RhoA activation resulting in impaired podosome dissolution even after prolonged stimulation. Our findings indicate that 2-D and 3-D geometric cues control the spatial organization of podosomes. More importantly, our studies demonstrate the importance of substrate dimensionality in regulating podosome dissolution and suggest that substrate dimensionality plays an important role in controlling DC activation, a key process in initiating immune responses

Historical Demographic Processes Dominate Genetic Variation in Ancient Atlantic Cod Mitogenomes

Ancient DNA (aDNA) approaches have been successfully used to infer the long-term impacts of climate change, domestication, and human exploitation in a range of terrestrial species. Nonetheless, studies investigating such impacts using aDNA in marine species are rare. Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), is an economically important species that has experienced dramatic census population declines during the last century. Here, we investigated 48 ancient mitogenomes from historical specimens obtained from a range of archeological excavations in northern Europe dated up to 6,500 BCE. We compare these mitogenomes to those of 496 modern conspecifics sampled across the North Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas. Our results confirm earlier observations of high levels of mitogenomic variation and a lack of mutation-drift equilibrium—suggestive of population expansion. Furthermore, our temporal comparison yields no evidence of measurable mitogenomic changes through time. Instead, our results indicate that mitogenomic variation in Atlantic cod reflects past demographic processes driven by major historical events (such as oscillations in sea level) and subsequent gene flow rather than contemporary fluctuations in stock abundance. Our results indicate that historical and contemporaneous anthropogenic pressures such as commercial fisheries have had little impact on mitogenomic diversity in a wide-spread marine species with high gene flow such as Atlantic cod. These observations do not contradict evidence that overfishing has had negative consequences for the abundance of Atlantic cod and the importance of genetic variation in implementing conservation strategies. Instead, these observations imply that any measures toward the demographic recovery of Atlantic cod in the eastern Atlantic, will not be constrained by recent loss of historical mitogenomic variation.</jats:p