Supporting Engineering Processes Utilizing Service-Oriented Grid Technology

Speeding up knowledge-intensive core processes in engineering and increas-ing the quality of their results is becoming more and more decisive, since economic pressure from national and international competitors and customers is rising. In particular, these demands exceed the organizational and infrastructural capacities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) by far. Hence, combining complementary core competencies across organizational boundaries is crucial for an enterprise's continuing success. Efficient and economically reasonable support of knowledge-intensive core processes in virtual organisations is therefore a predominant requirement for future IT infrastructures. The paradigm shift to service-orientation in Grid middleware opens the possibility to provide such support along the product lifecycle by employing a flexible software development approach, namely to compose applications from standard components, promising easier development and modification of Grid applications. In this paper, a service-oriented Grid computing approach is presented which aims at supporting distributed business processes in industry (see section 2 for industrial scenarios) from top level modelling, workflow design and exe-cution to actual Grid service code (presented in section 3). Parts of this gap between processes and code can be bridged by semi-automatically generated Grid service code. Orchestration of these Grid services is also automated by using a Grid-enabled workflow engine (see section 3). The feasibility of the proposed approach is demonstrated by presenting an exemplary process chain from the casting industry (see full paper)

Repeated sensitization of mice with microfilariae of Litomosoides sigmodontis induces pulmonary eosinophilia in an IL-33-dependent manner

Background Eosinophilia is a hallmark of helminth infections and eosinophils are essential in the protective immune responses against helminths. Nevertheless, the distinct role of eosinophils during parasitic filarial infection, allergy and autoimmune disease-driven pathology is still not sufficiently understood. In this study, we established a mouse model for microfilariae-induced eosinophilic lung disease (ELD), a manifestation caused by eosinophil hyper-responsiveness within the lung. Methods Wild-type (WT) BALB/c mice were sensitized with dead microfilariae (MF) of the rodent filarial nematode Litomosoides sigmodontis three times at weekly intervals and subsequently challenged with viable MF to induce ELD. The resulting immune response was compared to non-sensitized WT mice as well as sensitized eosinophil-deficient dblGATA mice using flow cytometry, lung histology and ELISA. Additionally, the impact of IL-33 signaling on ELD development was investigated using the IL-33 antagonist HpARI2. Results ELD-induced WT mice displayed an increased type 2 immune response in the lung with increased frequencies of eosinophils, alternatively activated macrophages and group 2 innate lymphoid cells, as well as higher peripheral blood IgE, IL-5 and IL-33 levels in comparison to mice challenged only with viable MF or PBS. ELD mice had an increased MF retention in lung tissue, which was in line with an enhanced MF clearance from peripheral blood. Using eosinophil-deficient dblGATA mice, we demonstrate that eosinophils are essentially involved in driving the type 2 immune response and retention of MF in the lung of ELD mice. Furthermore, we demonstrate that IL-33 drives eosinophil activation in vitro and inhibition of IL-33 signaling during ELD induction reduces pulmonary type 2 immune responses, eosinophil activation and alleviates lung lacunarity. In conclusion, we demonstrate that IL-33 signaling is essentially involved in MF-induced ELD development.</p

High tandem repeat content in the genome of the short-lived annual fish Nothobranchius furzeri: a new vertebrate model for aging research

A genomic analysis of the annual fish Nothobranchius furzeri, a vertebrate with the shortest known life span in captivity and which may provide a new model organism for aging research

Towards an integrated crowdsourcing definition

Crowdsourcing is a relatively recent concept that encompasses many practices. This diversity leads to the blurring of the limits of crowdsourcing that may be identified virtually with any type of internet-based collaborative activity, such as co-creation or user innovation. Varying definitions of crowdsourcing exist, and therefore some authors present certain specific examples of crowdsourcing as paradigmatic, while others present the same examples as the opposite. In this article, existing definitions of crowdsourcing are analysed to extract common elements and to establish the basic characteristics of any crowdsourcing initiative. Based on these existing definitions, an exhaustive and consistent definition for crowdsourcing is presented and contrasted in 11 cases.Estelles Arolas, E.; González-Ladrón-De-Guevara, F. (2012). Towards an integrated crowdsourcing definition. Journal of Information Science. 32(2):189-200. doi:10.1177/0165551512437638S189200322Vukovic, M., & Bartolini, C. (2010). Towards a Research Agenda for Enterprise Crowdsourcing. Leveraging Applications of Formal Methods, Verification, and Validation, 425-434. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16558-0_36Brabham, D. C. (2008). Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 14(1), 75-90. doi:10.1177/1354856507084420Vukovic, M. (2009). Crowdsourcing for Enterprises. 2009 Congress on Services - I. doi:10.1109/services-i.2009.56Doan, A., Ramakrishnan, R., & Halevy, A. Y. (2011). Crowdsourcing systems on the World-Wide Web. Communications of the ACM, 54(4), 86. doi:10.1145/1924421.1924442Brabham, D. C. (2008). Moving the crowd at iStockphoto: The composition of the crowd and motivations for participation in a crowdsourcing application. First Monday, 13(6). doi:10.5210/fm.v13i6.2159Huberman, B. A., Romero, D. M., & Wu, F. (2009). Crowdsourcing, attention and productivity. Journal of Information Science, 35(6), 758-765. doi:10.1177/0165551509346786Andriole, S. J. (2010). Business impact of Web 2.0 technologies. Communications of the ACM, 53(12), 67. doi:10.1145/1859204.1859225Denyer, D., Tranfield, D., & van Aken, J. E. (2008). Developing Design Propositions through Research Synthesis. Organization Studies, 29(3), 393-413. doi:10.1177/0170840607088020Egger, M., Smith, G. D., & Altman, D. G. (Eds.). (2001). Systematic Reviews in Health Care. doi:10.1002/9780470693926Tatarkiewicz, W. (1980). A History of Six Ideas. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-8805-7Cosma, G., & Joy, M. (2008). Towards a Definition of Source-Code Plagiarism. IEEE Transactions on Education, 51(2), 195-200. doi:10.1109/te.2007.906776Brabham, D. C. (2009). Crowdsourcing the Public Participation Process for Planning Projects. Planning Theory, 8(3), 242-262. doi:10.1177/1473095209104824Alonso, O., & Lease, M. (2011). Crowdsourcing 101. Proceedings of the fourth ACM international conference on Web search and data mining - WSDM ’11. doi:10.1145/1935826.1935831Bederson, B. B., & Quinn, A. J. (2011). Web workers unite! addressing challenges of online laborers. Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems - CHI EA ’11. doi:10.1145/1979742.1979606Grier, D. A. (2011). Not for All Markets. Computer, 44(5), 6-8. doi:10.1109/mc.2011.155Heer, J., & Bostock, M. (2010). Crowdsourcing graphical perception. Proceedings of the 28th international conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI ’10. doi:10.1145/1753326.1753357Heymann, P., & Garcia-Molina, H. (2011). Turkalytics. Proceedings of the 20th international conference on World wide web - WWW ’11. doi:10.1145/1963405.1963473Kazai, G. (2011). In Search of Quality in Crowdsourcing for Search Engine Evaluation. Advances in Information Retrieval, 165-176. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-20161-5_17La Vecchia, G., & Cisternino, A. (2010). Collaborative Workforce, Business Process Crowdsourcing as an Alternative of BPO. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 425-430. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16985-4_40Liu, E., & Porter, T. (2010). Culture and KM in China. VINE, 40(3/4), 326-333. doi:10.1108/03055721011071449Oliveira, F., Ramos, I., & Santos, L. (2010). Definition of a Crowdsourcing Innovation Service for the European SMEs. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 412-416. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16985-4_37Porta, M., House, B., Buckley, L., & Blitz, A. (2008). Value 2.0: eight new rules for creating and capturing value from innovative technologies. Strategy & Leadership, 36(4), 10-18. doi:10.1108/10878570810888713Ribiere, V. M., & Tuggle, F. D. (Doug). (2010). Fostering innovation with KM 2.0. VINE, 40(1), 90-101. doi:10.1108/03055721011024955Sloane, P. (2011). The brave new world of open innovation. Strategic Direction, 27(5), 3-4. doi:10.1108/02580541111125725Wexler, M. N. (2011). Reconfiguring the sociology of the crowd: exploring crowdsourcing. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 31(1/2), 6-20. doi:10.1108/01443331111104779Whitla, P. (2009). Crowdsourcing and Its Application in Marketing Activities. Contemporary Management Research, 5(1). doi:10.7903/cmr.1145Yang, J., Adamic, L. A., & Ackerman, M. S. (2008). Crowdsourcing and knowledge sharing. Proceedings of the 9th ACM conference on Electronic commerce - EC ’08. doi:10.1145/1386790.1386829Brabham, D. C. (2010). MOVING THE CROWD AT THREADLESS. Information, Communication & Society, 13(8), 1122-1145. doi:10.1080/13691181003624090Giudice, K. D. (2010). Crowdsourcing credibility: The impact of audience feedback on Web page credibility. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 47(1), 1-9. doi:10.1002/meet.14504701099Stewart, O., Huerta, J. M., & Sader, M. (2009). Designing crowdsourcing community for the enterprise. Proceedings of the ACM SIGKDD Workshop on Human Computation - HCOMP ’09. doi:10.1145/1600150.1600168Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-396. doi:10.1037/h0054346Veal, A. J. (Ed.). (2002). Leisure and tourism policy and planning. doi:10.1079/9780851995465.0000Dahlander, L., & Gann, D. M. (2010). How open is innovation? Research Policy, 39(6), 699-709. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2010.01.01

MECP2 genomic structure and function: insights from ENCODE

MECP2, a relatively small gene located in the human X chromosome, was initially described with three exons transcribing RNA from which the protein MeCP2 was translated. It is now known to have four exons from which two isoforms are translated; however, there is also evidence of additional functional genomic structures within MECP2, including exons potentially transcribing non-coding RNAs. Accompanying the recognition of a higher level of intricacy within MECP2 has been a recent surge of knowledge about the structure and function of human genes more generally, to the extent that the definition of a gene is being revisited. It is timely now to review the published and novel functional elements within MECP2, which is proving to have a complexity far greater than was previously thought

The efficacy of the benzimidazoles oxfendazole and flubendazole against Litomosoides sigmodontis is dependent on the adaptive and innate immune system

Filarial nematodes can cause debilitating diseases such as lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis. Oxfendazole (OXF) is one promising macrofilaricidal candidate with improved oral availability compared to flubendazole (FBZ), and OXF is currently under preparation for phase 2 clinical trials in filariasis patients. This study aimed to investigate the immune system’s role during treatment with OXF and FBZ and explore the potential to boost the treatment efficacy via stimulation of the immune system. Wild type (WT) BALB/c, eosinophil-deficient ΔdblGata1, IL-4r/IL-5−/−, antibody-deficient μMT and B-, T-, NK-cell and ILC-deficient Rag2/IL-2rγ−/− mice were infected with the rodent filaria Litomosoides sigmodontis and treated with an optimal and suboptimal regimen of OXF and FBZ for up to 5 days. In the second part, WT mice were treated for 2–3 days with a combination of OXF and IL-4, IL-5, or IL-33. Treatment of WT mice reduced the adult worm burden by up to 94% (OXF) and 100% (FBZ) compared to vehicle controls. In contrast, treatment efficacy was lower in all immunodeficient strains with a reduction of up to 90% (OXF) and 75% (FBZ) for ΔdblGata1, 50 and 92% for IL-4r/IL-5−/−, 64 and 78% for μMT or 0% for Rag2/IL-2rγ−/− mice. The effect of OXF on microfilariae and embryogenesis displayed a similar pattern, while FBZ’s ability to prevent microfilaremia was independent of the host’s immune status. Furthermore, flow cytometric analysis revealed strain-and treatment-specific immunological changes. The efficacy of a shortened 3-day treatment of OXF (−33% adult worms vs. vehicle) could be boosted to a 91% worm burden reduction via combination with IL-5, but not IL-4 or IL-33. Our results suggest that various components of the immune system support the filaricidal effect of benzimidazoles in vivo and present an opportunity to boost treatment efficacy