Statically Checking Web API Requests in JavaScript

Many JavaScript applications perform HTTP requests to web APIs, relying on the request URL, HTTP method, and request data to be constructed correctly by string operations. Traditional compile-time error checking, such as calling a non-existent method in Java, are not available for checking whether such requests comply with the requirements of a web API. In this paper, we propose an approach to statically check web API requests in JavaScript. Our approach first extracts a request's URL string, HTTP method, and the corresponding request data using an inter-procedural string analysis, and then checks whether the request conforms to given web API specifications. We evaluated our approach by checking whether web API requests in JavaScript files mined from GitHub are consistent or inconsistent with publicly available API specifications. From the 6575 requests in scope, our approach determined whether the request's URL and HTTP method was consistent or inconsistent with web API specifications with a precision of 96.0%. Our approach also correctly determined whether extracted request data was consistent or inconsistent with the data requirements with a precision of 87.9% for payload data and 99.9% for query data. In a systematic analysis of the inconsistent cases, we found that many of them were due to errors in the client code. The here proposed checker can be integrated with code editors or with continuous integration tools to warn programmers about code containing potentially erroneous requests.Comment: International Conference on Software Engineering, 201

Opportunities in Software Engineering Research for Web API Consumption

Nowadays, invoking third party code increasingly involves calling web services via their web APIs, as opposed to the more traditional scenario of downloading a library and invoking the library's API. However, there are also new challenges for developers calling these web APIs. In this paper, we highlight a broad set of these challenges and argue for resulting opportunities for software engineering research to support developers in consuming web APIs. We outline two specific research threads in this context: (1) web API specification curation, which enables us to know the signatures of web APIs, and (2) static analysis that is capable of extracting URLs, HTTP methods etc. of web API calls. Furthermore, we present new work on how we combine (1) and (2) to provide IDE support for application developers consuming web APIs. As web APIs are used broadly, research in supporting the consumption of web APIs offers exciting opportunities.Comment: Erik Wittern and Annie Ying are both first author

Housing for People with Substance Use and Concurrent Disorders: Summary of Literature and Annotated Bibliography

Researchers at the Centre for Applied Research on Mental Health and Addiction (CARMHA) were contracted by Vancouver Coastal Health Authority to compile a brief, annotated bibliography focussing on the provision of housing for people with substance use and co-occurring mental disorders. A comprehensive literature review was completed. The list of publications and search methods are attached. The initial list was culled to extract those manuscripts with the greatest relevance. An expert panel reviewed each of the selected manuscripts and reached consensus on the major conclusions, implications, and quality of each paper. Finally, a brief synopsis of findings was produced

SciSports: Learning football kinematics through two-dimensional tracking data

SciSports is a Dutch startup company specializing in football analytics. This paper describes a joint research effort with SciSports, during the Study Group Mathematics with Industry 2018 at Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The main challenge that we addressed was to automatically process empirical football players' trajectories, in order to extract useful information from them. The data provided to us was two-dimensional positional data during entire matches. We developed methods based on Newtonian mechanics and the Kalman filter, Generative Adversarial Nets and Variational Autoencoders. In addition, we trained a discriminator network to recognize and discern different movement patterns of players. The Kalman-filter approach yields an interpretable model, in which a small number of player-dependent parameters can be fit; in theory this could be used to distinguish among players. The Generative-Adversarial-Nets approach appears promising in theory, and some initial tests showed an improvement with respect to the baseline, but the limits in time and computational power meant that we could not fully explore it. We also trained a Discriminator network to distinguish between two players based on their trajectories; after training, the network managed to distinguish between some pairs of players, but not between others. After training, the Variational Autoencoders generated trajectories that are difficult to distinguish, visually, from the data. These experiments provide an indication that deep generative models can learn the underlying structure and statistics of football players' trajectories. This can serve as a starting point for determining player qualities based on such trajectory data.Comment: This report was made for the Study Group Mathematics with Industry 201

A point mutation in the hair cell nicotinic cholinergic receptor prolongs cochlear inhibition and enhances noise protection

The transduction of sound in the auditory periphery, the cochlea, is inhibited by efferent cholinergic neurons projecting from the brainstem and synapsing directly on mechanosensory hair cells. One fundamental question in auditory neuroscience is what role(s) this feedback plays in our ability to hear. In the present study, we have engineered a genetically modified mouse model in which the magnitude and duration of efferent cholinergic effects are increased, and we assess the consequences of this manipulation on cochlear function. We generated the Chrna9L9′T of knockin mice with a threonine for leucine change (L9′T) at position 9′ of the second transmembrane domain of the α9 nicotinic cholinergic subunit, rendering α9-containing receptors that were hypersensitive to acetylcholine and had slower desensitization kinetics. The Chrna9L9′T allele produced a 3-fold prolongation of efferent synaptic currents in vitro. In vivo, Chrna9L9′T mice had baseline elevation of cochlear thresholds and efferent-mediated inhibition of cochlear responses was dramatically enhanced and lengthened: both effects were reversed by strychnine blockade of the α9α10 hair cell nicotinic receptor. Importantly, relative to their wild-type littermates, Chrna9L9′T/L9′T mice showed less permanent hearing loss following exposure to intense noise. Thus, a point mutation designed to alter α9α10 receptor gating has provided an animal model in which not only is efferent inhibition more powerful, but also one in which sound-induced hearing loss can be restrained, indicating the ability of efferent feedback to ameliorate sound trauma.Fil: Taranda, Julian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres"; Argentina. Tufts University School of Medicine; Estados UnidosFil: Maison, Stéphane F.. Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary; Estados UnidosFil: Ballestero, Jimena Andrea. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres"; ArgentinaFil: Katz, Eleonora. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres"; ArgentinaFil: Savino, Jessica. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres"; ArgentinaFil: Vetter, Douglas E.. Tufts University School of Medicine; Estados UnidosFil: Boulter, Jim. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Liberman, M. Charles. Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary; Estados UnidosFil: Fuchs, Paul A.. The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Estados UnidosFil: Elgoyhen, Ana Belen. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres"; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Departamento de Farmacología; Argentin

An evidence-based review on the likely economic and environmental impact of genetically modified cereals and oilseeds for UK agriculture

An evidence-based review of the potential impact that the introduction of genetically-modified (GM) cereal and oilseed crops could have for the UK was carried out. The inter-disciplinary research project addressed the key research questions using scenarios for the uptake, or not, of GM technologies. This was followed by an extensive literature review, stakeholder consultation and financial modelling. The world area of canola, oilseed rape (OSR) low in both erucic acid in the oil and glucosinolates in the meal, was 34M ha in 2012 of which 27% was GM; Canada is the lead producer but it is also grown in the USA, Australia and Chile. Farm level effects of adopting GM OSR include: lower production costs; higher yields and profits; and ease of farm management. Growing GM OSR instead of conventional OSR reduces both herbicide usage and environmental impact. Some 170M ha of maize was grown in the world in 2011 of which 28% was GM; the main producers are the USA, China and Brazil. Spain is the main EU producer of GM maize although it is also grown widely in Portugal. Insect resistant (IR) and herbicide tolerant (HT) are the GM maize traits currently available commercially. Farm level benefits of adopting GM maize are lower costs of production through reduced use of pesticides and higher profits. GM maize adoption results in less pesticide usage than on conventional counterpart crops leading to less residues in food and animal feed and allowing increasing diversity of bees and other pollinators. In the EU, well-tried coexistence measures for growing GM crops in the proximity of conventional crops have avoided gene flow issues. Scientific evidence so far seems to indicate that there has been no environmental damage from growing GM crops. They may possibly even be beneficial to the environment as they result in less pesticides and herbicides being applied and improved carbon sequestration from less tillage. A review of work on GM cereals relevant for the UK found input trait work on: herbicide and pathogen tolerance; abiotic stress such as from drought or salinity; and yield traits under different field conditions. For output traits, work has mainly focussed on modifying the nutritional components of cereals and in connection with various enzymes, diagnostics and vaccines. Scrutiny of applications submitted for field trial testing of GM cereals found around 9000 applications in the USA, 15 in Australia and 10 in the EU since 1996. There have also been many patent applications and granted patents for GM cereals in the USA for both input and output traits;an indication of the scale of such work is the fact that in a 6 week period in the spring of 2013, 12 patents were granted relating to GM cereals. A dynamic financial model has enabled us to better understand and examine the likely performance of Bt maize and HT OSR for the south of the UK, if cultivation is permitted in the future. It was found that for continuous growing of Bt maize and HT OSR, unless there was pest pressure for the former and weed pressure for the latter, the seed premia and likely coexistence costs for a buffer zone between other crops would reduce the financial returns for the GM crops compared with their conventional counterparts. When modelling HT OSR in a four crop rotation, it was found that gross margins increased significantly at the higher levels of such pest or weed pressure, particularly for farm businesses with larger fields where coexistence costs would be scaled down. The impact of the supply of UK-produced GM crops on the wider supply chain was examined through an extensive literature review and widespread stakeholder consultation with the feed supply chain. The animal feed sector would benefit from cheaper supplies of raw materials if GM crops were grown and, in the future, they might also benefit from crops with enhanced nutritional profile (such as having higher protein levels) becoming available. This would also be beneficial to livestock producers enabling lower production costs and higher margins. Whilst coexistence measures would result in increased costs, it is unlikely that these would cause substantial changes in the feed chain structure. Retailers were not concerned about a future increase in the amount of animal feed coming from GM crops. To conclude, we (the project team) feel that the adoption of currently available and appropriate GM crops in the UK in the years ahead would benefit farmers, consumers and the feed chain without causing environmental damage. Furthermore, unless British farmers are allowed to grow GM crops in the future, the competitiveness of farming in the UK is likely to decline relative to that globally

Utilitarianism for animals, Kantianism for people? Harming animals and humans for the greater good

Most people hold that it is wrong to sacrifice some humans to save a greater number of humans. Do people also think that it is wrong to sacrifice some animals to save a greater number of animals, or do they answer such questions about harm to animals by engaging in a utilitarian cost-benefit calculation? Across 10 studies (N = 4,662), using hypothetical and real-life sacrificial moral dilemmas, we found that participants considered it more permissible to harm a few animals to save a greater number of animals than to harm a few humans to save a greater number of humans. This was explained by a reduced general aversion to harm animals compared to humans, which was partly driven by participants perceiving animals to suffer less and to have lower cognitive capacity than humans. However, the effect persisted even in cases where animals were described as having greater suffering capacity and greater cognitive capacity than some humans, and even when participants felt more socially connected to animals than to humans. The reduced aversion to harming animals was thus also partly due to speciesism—the tendency to ascribe lower moral value to animals due to their species-membership alone. In sum, our studies show that deontological constraints against instrumental harm are not absolute but get weaker the less people morally value the respective entity. These constraints are strongest for humans, followed by dogs, chimpanzees, pigs, and finally inanimate objects

Influence of preceding length of anticoagulant treatment and initial presentation of venous thromboembolism on risk of recurrence after stopping treatment: analysis of individual participants’ data from seven trials

Objective To determine how length of anticoagulation and clinical presentation of venous thromboembolism influence the risk of recurrence after anticoagulant treatment is stopped and to identify the shortest length of anticoagulation that reduces the risk of recurrence to its lowest level