Tools for modelling and simulating migration-based preservation

This report describes two tools for modelling and simulating the costs and risks of using IT storage systems for the long-term archiving of file-based AV assets. The tools include a model of storage costs, the ingest and access of files, the possibility of data corruption and loss from a range of mechanisms, and the impact of having limited resources with which to fulfill access requests and preservation actions. Applications include archive planning, development of a technology strategy, cost estimation for business planning, operational decision support, staff training and generally promoting awareness of the issues and challenges archives face in digital preservation

Self-organising agent communities for autonomic computing

Efficient resource management is one of key problems associated with large-scale distributed computational systems. Taking into account their increasing complexity, inherent distribution and dynamism, such systems are required to adjust and adapt resources market that is offered by them at run-time and with minimal cost. However, as observed by major IT vendors such as IBM, SUN or HP, the very nature of such systems prevents any reliable and efficient control over their functioning through human administration.For this reason, autonomic system architectures capable of regulating their own functioning are suggested as the alternative solution to looming software complexity crisis. Here, large-scale infrastructures are assumed to comprise myriads of autonomic elements, each acting, learning or evolving separately in response to interactions in their local environments. The self-regulation of the whole system, in turn, becomes a product of local adaptations and interactions between system elements.Although many researchers suggest the application of multi-agent systems that are suitable for realising this vision, not much is known about regulatory mechanisms that are capable to achieve efficient organisation within a system comprising a population of locally and autonomously interacting agents. To address this problem, the aim of the work presented in this thesis was to understand how global system control can emerge out of such local interactions of individual system elements and to develop decentralised decision control mechanisms that are capable to employ this bottom-up self-organisation in order to preserve efficient resource management in dynamic and unpredictable system functioning conditions. To do so, we have identified the study of complex natural systems and their self-organising properties as an area of research that may deliver novel control solutions within the context of autonomic computing.In such a setting, a central challenge for the construction of distributed computational systems was to develop an engineering methodology that can exploit self-organising principles observed in natural systems. This, in particular, required to identify conditions and local mechanisms that give rise to useful self-organisation of interacting elements into structures that support required system functionality. To achieve this, we proposed an autonomic system model exploiting self-organising algorithms and its thermodynamic interpretation, providing a general understanding of self-organising processes that need to be taken into account within artificial systems exploiting self-organisation.<br/

Self-organising agent communities for autonomic resource management

The autonomic computing paradigm addresses the operational challenges presented by increasingly complex software systems by proposing that they be composed of many autonomous components, each responsible for the run-time reconfiguration of its own dedicated hardware and software components. Consequently, regulation of the whole software system becomes an emergent property of local adaptation and learning carried out by these autonomous system elements. Designing appropriate local adaptation policies for the components of such systems remains a major challenge. This is particularly true where the system’s scale and dynamism compromise the efficiency of a central executive and/or prevent components from pooling information to achieve a shared, accurate evidence base for their negotiations and decisions.In this paper, we investigate how a self-regulatory system response may arise spontaneously from local interactions between autonomic system elements tasked with adaptively consuming/providing computational resources or services when the demand for such resources is continually changing. We demonstrate that system performance is not maximised when all system components are able to freely share information with one another. Rather, maximum efficiency is achieved when individual components have only limited knowledge of their peers. Under these conditions, the system self-organises into appropriate community structures. By maintaining information flow at the level of communities, the system is able to remain stable enough to efficiently satisfy service demand in resource-limited environments, and thus minimise any unnecessary reconfiguration whilst remaining sufficiently adaptive to be able to reconfigure when service demand changes

Fantazmat klasistowski

The classist phantasm The aim of this article is to trace to process of dehierarchisation of modern societies as a “mission” undertaken by the middle class. Hierarchy is an element of the social unconscious, it is also what constitutes the conditions of establishing new relations. The study of sociogenesis postulated by Bourdieu is not about reconstructing a historical process but about discovering how specific historical conditions determine the present forms and practices creating representations of, in this instance, equality and brotherhood. The sociogenesis of Western European brotherhood allows for an insight into how hierarchy gets reproduced in equality and what “intensities” are hidden behind it.   Fantazmat klasistowski Celem artykułu jest prześledzenie procesu dehierarchizacji nowoczesnych społeczeństw jako „misji”, jaką wzięła na siebie klasa średnia. Hierarchia jest elementem nieświadomości społecznej oraz tym, co tworzy warunki ustanawiania nowych relacji. W zalecanym przez Bourdieu badaniu socjogenezy nie chodzi o rekonstrukcję procesu historycznego, ale o odkrycie, jak określone warunki historyczne determinują aktualne formy i praktyki, w tym wypadku wytwarzania przedstawień równości i braterstwa. Socjogeneza zachodnioeuropejskiego braterstwa pozwala zatem odpowiedzieć na pytanie, jak w równości reprodukuje się hierarchia i jakie kryją się za nią „intensywności”

Fantazmat klasistowski

The classist phantasmThe aim of this article is to trace to process of dehierarchisation of modern societies as a “mission” undertaken by the middle class. Hierarchy is an element of the social unconscious, it is also what constitutes the conditions of establishing new relations. The study of sociogenesis postulated by Bourdieu is not about reconstructing a historical process but about discovering how specific historical conditions determine the present forms and practices creating representations of, in this instance, equality and brotherhood. The sociogenesis of Western European brotherhood allows for an insight into how hierarchy gets reproduced in equality and what “intensities” are hidden behind it. Fantazmat klasistowskiCelem artykułu jest prześledzenie procesu dehierarchizacji nowoczesnych społeczeństw jako „misji”, jaką wzięła na siebie klasa średnia. Hierarchia jest elementem nieświadomości społecznej oraz tym, co tworzy warunki ustanawiania nowych relacji. W zalecanym przez Bourdieu badaniu socjogenezy nie chodzi o rekonstrukcję procesu historycznego, ale o odkrycie, jak określone warunki historyczne determinują aktualne formy i praktyki, w tym wypadku wytwarzania przedstawień równości i braterstwa. Socjogeneza zachodnioeuropejskiego braterstwa pozwala zatem odpowiedzieć na pytanie, jak w równości reprodukuje się hierarchia i jakie kryją się za nią „intensywności”

Effects of birth weight and standardized litter size on growth performance of boars and subsequent reproductive performance

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of birth weight and rearing litter size on growth and reproductive performance of boars. One hundred and forty male piglets were allotted to two groups, based on litter size: a smaller litter (SL) (8 piglets/litter, 70 boars) and a larger litter (LL) (12 piglets/litter, 70 boars). The boars in these litters were separated into two birth weight subgroups: lower birth weight (LBW) (mean: 1.15 kg, 70 boars) and greater birth weight (GBW) (mean: 1.59 kg, 70 boars). Testes volume, sexual activity and semen quality of boars at 180 days old were evaluated. The males in the GBW group, when compared with the LBW group, had greater bodyweight at 21, 28, and 63 days old (P &lt;0.01) and 180 days old (P &lt;0.05), greater testes volume and semen volume (P &lt;0.05), greater sperm concentration and total number of sperm in the semen (P &lt;0.01) and a longer ejaculation time (P &lt;0.05). The boars in the SL group had greater (P &lt;0.01) bodyweight at 21 and 28 days old, greater (P &lt;0.05) sperm concentration and total number of sperm in the semen than boars in the LL group. These results indicate that birth weight is a good predictor of sperm production in adult boars and suggest the possibility of increasing sperm production in adult boars by reducing the litter size in which they are reared.Keywords: Boars, bodyweight, piglets, reproduction, seme

The relationship between seminal plasma aspartate aminotransferase activity, sperm osmotic resistance test value, and semen quality in boars

The relationship between the activity of aspartate aminotransferase (AspAT) in seminal plasma and the values of the osmotic resistance test (ORT) of acrosomal membranes and semen traits was examined on 120 young hybrid Pietrain and Duroc boars. The following semen quality traits were determined: the volume of the ejaculate, the percentage of spermatozoa with progressive motility, sperm concentration and the total number of spermatozoa in the ejaculate, percentage of spermatozoa with normal acrosome, the percentage of spermatozoa with major and minor morphological defects, ORT, and the activity of AspAT in seminal plasma. The activity of AspAT in seminal plasma was negatively correlated (p_0.01) with the spermatozoa concentration and total number per ejaculate, percentage of spermatozoa with progressive motility and percentage of spermatozoa with a normal acrosome, while positively with the percentage of spermatozoa with major (p≤0.001) and minor (p≤0.01) morphological defects. The ORT values negatively correlated with the percentage of spermatozoa with major (p≤0.05) and minor (p≤0.01) morphological defects, while positively (p≤0.001) with the percentage of spermatozoa with a normal acrosome

Synergy and Other Interactions between Polymethoxyflavones from Citrus Byproducts

The citrus by-products released from citrus processing plants may contain high levels of potentially bioactive compounds such as flavonoids, which are a widely distributed group of polyphenolic compounds with health-related properties based on their antioxidant activity. In the study reported here, the potential bioactivities and antioxidant activities of extracts, fractions and compounds from citrus by-products were evaluated along with the chemical interactions of binary mixtures of compounds and complex mixtures. The bioactivities and interactions were evaluated in wheat coleoptile bioassays and the antioxidant activity was evaluated by the al DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhdrazyl radical) radical scavenging assay. The extracts, fractions and most of the isolated compounds (mainly polymethoxyflavones) showed high activity in the wheat coleoptile bioassay. However, the antioxidant activity was not consistently high, except in the acetone extract fractions. Moreover, a study of the interactions with binary mixtures of polymethoxyflavones showed the occurrence of synergistic effects. The complex mixtures of fractions composed mainly of polymethoxyflavones caused a synergistic effect when it was added to a bioactive compound such as anethole. The results reported here highlight a new application for the wheat coleoptile bioassay as a quick tool to detect potential synergistic effects in compounds or mixtures