CrossFlow: Integrating Workflow Management and Electronic Commerce

The CrossFlow1 architecture provides support for cross-organisational workflow management in dynamically established virtual enterprises. The creation of a business relationship between a service provider organisation performing a service on behalf of a consumer organisation can be made dynamic when augmented by virtual market technology, the dynamic configuration of the contract enactment infrastructures, and the provision of fine grained service monitoring and control. Standard ways of describing services and contracts can be combined with matchmaking technology to create a virtual market for such service provision and consumption. A provider can then advertise its services in the market and consumers can search for a compatible business partner. This provides choice in selecting a partner and allows the deferment of the decision to a point in time where it can be made on the most up-to-date requirements of the consumer and service offers in the market. The penalty for deferred decision making is the time to set up the infrastructure in each organisation for the dynamically established contract. Thus, a further aspect of CrossFlow was to exploit the contract in the dynamic and automatic configuration of the contract enactment and supervision infrastructures of the respective organisations and in linking them in a dynamic fashion. The electronic contract, which results from the agreement between the newly established business partners, completely specifies the intended collaboration between them. Given the importance of the business process enacted by the provider, this includes fine-grained monitoring and control to allow tight co-operation between the organisations

CrossFlow: Cross-Organizational Workflow Management for Service Outsourcing in Dynamic Virtual Enterprises

In this report, we present the approach to cross-organizational workflow management of the CrossFlow project. CrossFlow is a European research project aiming at the support of cross-organizational workflows in dynamic virtual enterprises. The cooperation in these virtual enterprises is based on dynamic service outsourcing specified in electronic contracts. Service enactment is performed by dynamically linking the workflow management infrastructures of the involved organizations. Extended service enactment support is provided in the form of cross-organizational transaction management and process control, advanced quality of service monitoring, and support for high-level flexibility in service enactment. CrossFlow technology is realized on top of a commercial workflow management platform and applied in two real-world scenarios in the contexts of a logistics and an insurance company

MATERNAL HEALTH AND ZOONOSIS

Master of Public HealthPublic Health Interdepartmental ProgramDavid G. RenterI completed my field experience at the Department of Public Health (DPH) at the Fort Riley Army Installation, Kansas. There are six sections within the DPH that each have a different job, but they all work together to protect the health of the soldiers, families, retirees, and civilian employees at Fort Riley. The six sections of the DPH are Environmental Health, Industrial Hygiene, Army Wellness Center, Army Public Health Nursing, Occupational Health, and the Army Hearing Program. Veterinary Services also works in partnership with DPH as well, but is not actually a section in the DPH. These seven different sections, in general function to provide safe work environments on post, provide counseling regarding how individuals can improve overall health and well-being, prevent injury and illness, and protect the safety of the food supplied and served on post. My capstone project focused on zoonotic concerns in maternal health. Zoonosis is any disease naturally found in animals that can infect humans. There are more than 800 zoonotic pathogens that can potentially infect humans. Pregnant women are more susceptible to zoonotic disease due to immunosuppression, making them an important group to provide education on zoonosis prevention. I created fact sheets for veterinarians and human health care providers for four zoonotic diseases, Toxoplasmosis, Leptospirosis, Q fever, and Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis. I chose these four diseases because they not only present health risks for the mother but they also pose serious risks to fetal development and viability. There are many zoonotic diseases that a pregnant woman could be infected with but these four have the most serious consequences for not only the mother’s health but the fetus’ health as well. Also, if an expecting mother practices the preventative measures for these four diseases then she has a very low risk of becoming infected with any zoonotic disease during her pregnancy. This project allowed me to combine my experience as a practicing veterinarian along with my experience from my MPH coursework and my field experience at the DPH. Researching these four diseases allowed me to use my virology, bacteriology, parasitology, and immunology knowledge from my veterinary degree and practice along with my epidemiology coursework for my MPH. My field experience also helped to tie together the research for my capstone project, my MPH coursework in Epidemiology, Social and Behavioral Bases of Public Health, and Administration of Health Care Organizations. My field experience allowed me to see the topics covered in these courses in actual day-to-day practice in a department of public health

Spelling, phonology and etymology in Hittite historical linguistics, a review article on Kloekhorst, A. Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon (Leiden: 2008)

This review article addresses the representation of glottal stops in Akkadian and Hittite cuneiform

Differential hydrophobicity drives self-assembly in Huntington's disease

Identifying the driving forces and the mechanism of association of huntingtin-exon1, a close marker for the progress of Huntington's disease, is an important prerequisite towards finding potential drug targets, and ultimately a cure. We introduce here a modelling framework based on a key analogy of the physico-chemical properties of the exon1 fragment to block copolymers. We use a systematic mesoscale methodology, based on Dissipative Particle Dynamics, which is capable of overcoming kinetic barriers, thus capturing the dynamics of significantly larger systems over longer times than considered before. Our results reveal that the relative hydrophobicity of the poly-glutamine block as compared to the rest of the (proline-based) exon1 fragment, ignored to date, constitutes a major factor in the initiation of the self-assembly process. We find that the assembly is governed by both the concentration of exon1 and the length of the poly-glutamine stretch, with a low length threshold for association even at the lowest volume fractions we considered. Moreover, this self-association occurs irrespective of whether the glutamine stretch is in random coil or hairpin configuration, leading to spherical or cylindrical assemblies, respectively. We discuss the implications of these results for reinterpretation of existing research within this context, including that the routes towards aggregation of exon1 may be distinct to those of the widely studied homopolymeric poly-glutamine peptides

La conductividad como herramienta para evaluar el funcionamiento del proceso de lavado en cama móvil

En el presente trabajo se considera la conductividad eléctrica de disoluciones iónicas como una propiedad física adecuada para el monitoreo de impurezas de naturaleza iónica (disolución de NaCl), las cuales son eliminadas en el proceso de lavado en cama móvil de sólidos granulares (arena de cuarzo). Después de un estudio reológico se seleccionó el Polivinilpirrolidon (PVP) como el mejor candidato disponible para aumentar la viscosidad de las disoluciones y se demostró matemáticamente que estatiene una ligera influencia sobre la magnitud de la conductividadeléctrica medida en el rango de concentración analizado (0 g/L < cPVP < 35 g/L). También se determinó que las variaciones de temperatura no afectan de modo significativo esta magnitud eléctrica en el rango de temperaturas estudiado (20 °C < T < 30 °C). Con los valores experimentales de conductividad para las diferentes concentraciones de PVP, en el rango de temperatura señalado, se calcularon los coeficientes de temperatura y concentración de la conductividad que permitieron corregir la medición de dicha magnitud eléctrica. Finalmente se pudo determinar la concentración de impurezas (NaCl) para dos fracciones granulométricas de arena de cuarzo(x50,3 =160 μm (Geba) y 337 μm (Dorsilit 9H)) lavadas conagua desmineralizada. Se utilizaron, además, los datos de proceso tomados en el sedimentador y la ecuación de conductividad modificada teniendo en cuenta las desviacionesen la conductividad debido a las variaciones de temperatura y la adición de PVP

Whole exome sequencing in a random sample of north American women with leiomyomas identifies MED12 mutations in majority of uterine leiomyomas

Uterine leiomyomas (uterine fibroids) arise from smooth muscle tissue in the majority of women by age 45. It is common for these clonal tumors to develop from multiple locations within the uterus, leading to a variety of symptoms such as pelvic pain, abnormal uterine bleeding, and infertility. We performed whole exome sequencing on genomic DNA from five pairs of leiomyomas and corresponding normal myometrium to determine genetic variations unique to leiomyomas. Whole exome sequencing revealed that the gene encoding transcription factor MED12 (Mediator complex subunit 12) harbored heterozygous missense mutations caused by single nucleotide variants in highly conserved codon 44 of exon 2 in two of five leiomyomas. Sanger re-sequencing of MED12 among these five leiomyomas confirmed the two single nucleotide variants and detected a 42 base-pair deletion within exon 2 of MED12 in a third leiomyoma. MED12 was sequenced in an additional 143 leiomyomas and 73 normal myometrial tissues. Overall, MED12 was mutated in 100/148 (67%) of the genotyped leiomyomas: 79/148 (53%) leiomyomas exhibited heterozygous missense single nucleotide variants, 17/148 (11%) leiomyomas exhibited heterozygous in-frame deletions/insertion-deletions, 2/148 (1%) leiomyomas exhibited intronic heterozygous single nucleotide variants affecting splicing, and 2/148 (1%) leiomyomas exhibited heterozygous deletions/insertion-deletions spanning the intron 1-exon 2 boundary which affected the splice acceptor site. Mutations were not detected in MED12 in normal myometrial tissue. MED12 mutations were equally distributed among karyotypically normal and abnormal uterine leiomyomas and were identified in leiomyomas from both black and white American women. Our studies show an association between MED12 mutations and leiomyomas in ethnically and racially diverse American women. © 2012 McGuire et al

Solar cycle response and long-term trends in the mesospheric metal layers

The meteoric metal layers (Na, Fe, and K)—which form as a result of the ablation of incoming meteors—act as unique tracers for chemical and dynamical processes that occur within the upper mesosphere/lower thermosphere region. In this work, we examine whether these metal layers are sensitive indicators of decadal long-term changes within the upper atmosphere. Output from a whole-atmosphere climate model is used to assess the response of the Na, K, and Fe layers across a 50 year period (1955–2005). At short timescales, the K layer has previously been shown to exhibit a very different seasonal behavior compared to the other metals. Here we show that this unusual behavior is also exhibited at longer timescales (both the ~11 year solar cycle and 50 year periods), where K displays a much more pronounced response to atmospheric temperature changes than either Na or Fe. The contrasting solar cycle behavior of the K and Na layers predicted by the model is confirmed using satellite and lidar observations for the period 2004–2013