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Discovering web services to specify more complete system requirements
Service-centric systems pose new challenges and opportunities for requirements processes and techniques. This paper reports new techniques developed by the EU-funded SeCSE Integrated Project that enable service discovery during early requirements processes and exploit discovered services to enhance requirements specifications. The paper describes the algorithm for discovering services from requirements expressed using structured natural language, and demonstrates it using an automotive example. The paper also reports a first evaluation of the utility of the environment that implements this algorithm when improving the specification of requirements with retrieved services
Transgenic avian-derived recombinant human interferon-alpha2b (AVI-005) in healthy subjects: an open-label, single-dose, controlled study.
BACKGROUND/AIMS: This study characterized the safety and pharmacological properties of AVI-005, a novel glycosylated recombinant human interferon-alpha2b produced from the egg whites of chickens transfected with human cDNA.
METHODS: 18 healthy volunteers received single subcutaneous rising doses (0.5, 1.66 or 5 million international units, MIU) of AVI-005. A randomized parallel comparator group of 10 subjects received 5 MIU of unglycosylated IFN-alpha2b (Intron A). The pharmacokinetic parameters t1/2, tmax, Cmax, AUC0-24h, Vd, and clearance were compared between AVI-005 and unglycosylated IFN-alpa2b.
RESULTS: At equipotent doses, AVI-005 had a larger AUC0-24h than the control interferon. Pharmacodynamic markers ofneopterin and beta2-microglobulin for the two treatments were similar. These markers were increased by AVI-005 in a dose-dependent manner. Pharmacodynamic responses to treatment with AVI-005 were shown by the change in mRNA expression for interferon inducible protein kinase and 2\u275\u27-oligoadenylate synthetase. Adverse events in the two groups were qualitatively and quantitatively similar.
CONCLUSION: AVI-005 demonstrates biological activity and pharmaco-kinetic properties in humans that support further development
Theoretical Limb Darkening for Classical Cepheids: II. Corrections for the Geometric Baade-Wesselink Method
The geometric Baade-Wesselink method is one of the most promising techniques
for obtaining a better calibration of the Cepheid period-luminosity relation by
means of interferometric measurements of accurate diameters. In this paper we
present new wavelength- and phase-dependent limb darkening corrections based on
our time-dependent hydrodynamic models of the classical Cepheid zeta Gem. We
show that a model simulation of a Cepheid atmosphere, taking into account the
hydrodynamic effects associated with the pulsation, shows strong departures
from the limb darkening otherwise predicted by a static model. For most of its
pulsational cycle the hydrodynamic model predicts a larger limb darkening then
the equivalent static model. The hydrodynamics affects the limb darkening
mainly at UV and optical wavelengths. Most of these effects evolve slowly as
the star pulsates, but there are phases, associated with shocks propagating
into the photosphere, in which significant changes in the limb darkening take
place on time-scales of the order of less than a day. We assess the implication
of our model LD corrections fitting the geometric Baade-Wesselink distance of
zeta Gem for the available near-IR PTI data. We discuss the effects of our
model limb darkening on the best fit result, and analyze the requirements
needed to test the time-dependence of the limb darkening with future
interferometric measurements.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures, to be published on the Astrophysical Journal,
June 1 2003 issu
A Very Low Resource Language Speech Corpus for Computational Language Documentation Experiments
Most speech and language technologies are trained with massive amounts of
speech and text information. However, most of the world languages do not have
such resources or stable orthography. Systems constructed under these almost
zero resource conditions are not only promising for speech technology but also
for computational language documentation. The goal of computational language
documentation is to help field linguists to (semi-)automatically analyze and
annotate audio recordings of endangered and unwritten languages. Example tasks
are automatic phoneme discovery or lexicon discovery from the speech signal.
This paper presents a speech corpus collected during a realistic language
documentation process. It is made up of 5k speech utterances in Mboshi (Bantu
C25) aligned to French text translations. Speech transcriptions are also made
available: they correspond to a non-standard graphemic form close to the
language phonology. We present how the data was collected, cleaned and
processed and we illustrate its use through a zero-resource task: spoken term
discovery. The dataset is made available to the community for reproducible
computational language documentation experiments and their evaluation.Comment: accepted to LREC 201
\u3ci\u3eSnowedOut Atlanta\u3c/i\u3e: Examining digital emergence on facebook during a crisis
Individuals in emergencies form spontaneous, emergent groups to respond and recover. With the rise of social media use in crises, academics and professionals must be aware of how groups digitally coordinate emergent response efforts. This paper examines digital emergence through the case of SnowedOut Atlanta, a Facebook group formed during the 2014 ice storms in Atlanta. The posts and actions of the group members are in line with those of traditional emergent groups. For example, group members shared informational, material, and emotional support. The findings also provide implications for practitioners and insight into the communication of such groups. In particular, emergency managers have an opportunity to seek out and partner with these types of groups in future similar events
The implications of service quality gaps for strategy implementation
This article addresses the problem of service quality strategy implementation and
proposes three interrelated models: a static model of the organisation; a comprehensive
dynamic model of the implementation process, both synthesised from the literature; and
a mixed model, which integrates static and dynamic models. The mixed model is
combined with the service quality gaps (SQGs) model, drawn at a previous congress
paper, to propose a map of the pattern of SQGs occurring at each implementation stage;
the organisational variables that can be manipulated to eliminate SQGs; and several
implications to practising managers
HIT-COVID, a global database tracking public health interventions to COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked unprecedented public health and social measures (PHSM) by national and local governments, including border restrictions, school closures, mandatory facemask use and stay at home orders. Quantifying the effectiveness of these interventions in reducing disease transmission is key to rational policy making in response to the current and future pandemics. In order to estimate the effectiveness of these interventions, detailed descriptions of their timelines, scale and scope are needed. The Health Intervention Tracking for COVID-19 (HIT-COVID) is a curated and standardized global database that catalogues the implementation and relaxation of COVID-19 related PHSM. With a team of over 200 volunteer contributors, we assembled policy timelines for a range of key PHSM aimed at reducing COVID-19 risk for the national and first administrative levels (e.g. provinces and states) globally, including details such as the degree of implementation and targeted populations. We continue to maintain and adapt this database to the changing COVID-19 landscape so it can serve as a resource for researchers and policymakers alike
The Beginning and Evolution of the Universe
We review the current standard model for the evolution of the Universe from
an early inflationary epoch to the complex hierarchy of structure seen today.
We summarize and provide key references for the following topics: observations
of the expanding Universe; the hot early Universe and nucleosynthesis; theory
and observations of the cosmic microwave background; Big Bang cosmology;
inflation; dark matter and dark energy; theory of structure formation; the cold
dark matter model; galaxy formation; cosmological simulations; observations of
galaxies, clusters, and quasars; statistical measures of large-scale structure;
and measurement of cosmological parameters. We conclude with discussion of some
open questions in cosmology. This review is designed to provide a graduate
student or other new worker in the field an introduction to the cosmological
literature.Comment: 69 pages. Invited review article for Publications of the Astronomical
Society of the Pacific. Supplementary references, tables, and more concise
PDF file at http://www.physics.drexel.edu/univers
Intrinsic Terahertz Plasmons and Magnetoplasmons in Large Scale Monolayer Graphene
We show that in graphene epitaxially grown on SiC the Drude absorption is
transformed into a strong terahertz plasmonic peak due to natural nanoscale
inhomogeneities, such as substrate terraces and wrinkles. The excitation of the
plasmon modifies dramatically the magneto-optical response and in particular
the Faraday rotation. This makes graphene a unique playground for
plasmon-controlled magneto-optical phenomena thanks to a cyclotron mass 2
orders of magnitude smaller than in conventional plasmonic materials such as
noble metals.Comment: to appear in Nano Letter
Manipulating infrared photons using plasmons in transparent graphene superlattices
Superlattices are artificial periodic nanostructures which can control the
flow of electrons. Their operation typically relies on the periodic modulation
of the electric potential in the direction of electron wave propagation. Here
we demonstrate transparent graphene superlattices which can manipulate infrared
photons utilizing the collective oscillations of carriers, i.e., plasmons of
the ensemble of multiple graphene layers. The superlattice is formed by
depositing alternating wafer-scale graphene sheets and thin insulating layers,
followed by patterning them all together into 3-dimensional
photonic-crystal-like structures. We demonstrate experimentally that the
collective oscillation of Dirac fermions in such graphene superlattices is
unambiguously nonclassical: compared to doping single layer graphene,
distributing carriers into multiple graphene layers strongly enhances the
plasmonic resonance frequency and magnitude, which is fundamentally different
from that in a conventional semiconductor superlattice. This property allows us
to construct widely tunable far-infrared notch filters with 8.2 dB rejection
ratio and terahertz linear polarizers with 9.5 dB extinction ratio, using a
superlattice with merely five graphene atomic layers. Moreover, an unpatterned
superlattice shields up to 97.5% of the electromagnetic radiations below 1.2
terahertz. This demonstration also opens an avenue for the realization of other
transparent mid- and far-infrared photonic devices such as detectors,
modulators, and 3-dimensional meta-material systems.Comment: under revie
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