Proxy dynamic delegation in grid gateway

Nowadays one of the main obstacles the research comes up against is the difficulty in accessing the required computational resources. Grid is able to offer the user a wide set of resources, even if they are often too hard to exploit for non expert end user. Use simplification has today become a common practice in the access and utilization of Cloud, Grid, and data center resources. With the launch of L-GRID gateway, we introduced a new way to deal with Grid portals. L-GRID is an extremely light portal developed in order to access the EGI Grid infrastructure via Web, allowing users to submit their jobs from whatever Web browser in a few minutes, without any knowledge about the underlying Grid infrastructure.Comment: 6 page

Surveillance of Hepatitis B in Malta : a four year trend

Surveillance systems include three fundamental elements of ongoing collection, analysis and feedback or dissemination of the data. A surveillance system for Hepatitis B was established in 1988 in order to improve prevention and control of transmission of this endemic disease. A disease register including data obtained mainly from notifications, laboratory reports and active case finding was established. This paper shows the findings from 1990 to 1993. The system shown cannot claim to be complete. However the findings suggest that some 14 clinically evident cases of Hepatitis B are confirmed each year. No rising trend has been seen. In anyone year a prevalence of 15.4 x 10-5 HBsAg positive results in persons who had previously not known that they were positive may be detected. Six month follow-up of these persons reveals that some 39 persons become chronic carriers each year. This has implications both for the targeted vaccination programme as well as for the individual’s chronic liver complications and treatment.peer-reviewe

Rural Development and Wine Tourism in Southern Italy

Tourism provides communities with an opportunity to display their region’s distinct and unique cultural and natural assets while creating employment and diversifying the regional economy. A diverse economy is one that can cope with the changes experienced in our current environment. Tourism is an industry like any other and requires sound planning and a firm commitment from the community to make it work. Like all economic activities the benefits of tourism may create social and environmental impacts which need to be managed through a partnership approach and appropriate planning at a local level. Wine sector has shown significant growth in the last decade and the related tourism activity has also increased, particularly in the Mediterranean countries. Wine tourism is defined as tourism in which the opportunity for wine related experiences contributes significantly to the reason for travel to the destination or to itinerary planning while at the destination. Wine tourism has been identified as sector that could be drivers for increased tourism in the Mediterranean region, both by attracting more visitors and extending the length of stay and spending of current visitors. The general purpose of the paper is to undertake a review of existing wine tourism activities, identify areas for growth and make recommendations with respect to an action plan that will develop wine, tourism and expand tourism growth in the Mediterranean region. Historically, in fact, in southern Italy viticulture has had role of great importance in agricultural field. From over 2000 years wine is made by traditional methods and especially in this area have place most of the autochthonous grape varieties. The development of wine tourism in conjunction with the spread of the industry has become important to the viability of regional economies and the industry's many smaller businesses. The policies that lie behind the development of the wine industry have important implications for the development of other industries in the Mediterranean area, notably: - as a model for the development of high-value industries on a sustainable basis in the agricultural sector; - as a model of collaborative development for other manufacturing industries

Development of low cost, high reliability sealing techniques for hybrid microcircuit packages. Phase 2, supplement 1: Moisture permeation of adhesive-sealed hybrid microcircuit packages

The susceptibility of adhesive-sealed ceramic packages to moisture permeation was investigated. The two adhesives, Ablebond 789-1 and Epo-Tek H77, were evaluated as package sealants. These adhesives were previously selected as the most promising candidates for this application from a group of ten adhesives. Ceramic packages sealed with these adhesives were exposed to temperature-humidity conditions of 25 C/98 percent RH, 50 C/60 percent RH, 50 C/98 percent RH, and 85 C/85 percent RH and their moisture contents using were monitored solid state moisture sensors sealed inside them. Five packages were tested at each of these exposures - two ceramic packages sealed with each of the two adhesives and one seam-sealed gold-plated Kovar package. This latter package was included to serve as a control. The results showed that the adhesive-sealed packages were not hermetic to moisture. The rates at which moisture entered the packages increased with the severity of the exposure environments (i.e., higher temperatures and higher moisture vapor pressures) with greater dependence on temperature than on moisture vapor pressure

Investigation of low cost, high reliability sealing techniques for hybrid microcircuits, phase 1

A preliminary investigation was made to determine the feasibility of using adhesive package sealing for hybrid microcircuits. Major effort consisted of: (1) surveying representative hybrid manufacturers to assess the current use of adhesives for package sealing; (2) making a cost comparison of metallurgical versus adhesive package sealing; (3) determining the seal integrity of gold plated flatpack type packages sealed with selected adhesives, thermal shock, temperature cycling, mechanical shock, and constant acceleration test environments; and (4) defining a more comprehensive study to continue the evaluation of adhesives for package sealing. Results showed that 1.27 cm square gold plated flatpack type packages sealed with the film adhesives and the paste adhesive retained their seal integrity after all tests, and that similarly prepared 2.54 cm square packages retained their seal integrity after all tests except the 10,000 g's constant acceleration test. It is concluded that these results are encouraging, but by no means sufficient to establish the suitability of adhesives for sealing high reliability hybrid microcircuits

Design guidelines for hybrid microcircuits; organic adhesives for hybrid microcircuits

The properties of organic adhesives were studied to acquire an adequate information base to generate a guideline document for the selection of adhesives for use in high reliability hybrid microcircuits. Specific areas covered include: (1) alternate methods for determining the outgassing of cured adhesives; (2) effects of long term aging at 150C on the electrical properties of conductive adhesives; (3) effects of shelf life age on adhesive characteristics; (4) bond strengths of electrically conductive adhesives on thick film gold metallization, (5) a copper filled adhesive; (6) effects of products outgassed from cured adhesives on device electrical parameters; (7) metal migration from electrically conductive adhesives; and (8) ionic content of electrically insulative adhesives. The tests performed during these investigations are described, and the results obtained are discussed in detail

Development of low cost, high reliability sealing techniques for hybrid microcircuit packages, phase 2

Adhesives were evaluated to determine if they qualify for application to hybrid microcircuit packages. The effort consisted of the following: (1) seal gold-plated Kovar packages with selective adhesives and determine seal integrity after exposure to temperature humidity environments; (2) seal both gold-plated Kovar and ceramic packages with the four best adhesives identified in (1) and determine seal integrity after exposure to MIL-STD-883A test environments; and (3) subject the best adhesive identified in (2) to a 60 C/98% RH environment and determine susceptibility to moisture permeation. Test results are provided

Investigation of organic adhesives for hybrid microcircuits

The properties of organic adhesives were investigated to acquire information for a guideline document regarding the selection of adhesives for use in high reliability hybrid microcircuits. Specifically, investigations were made of (1) alternate methods for determining the outgassing of cured adhesives, (2) effects of long term aging at 150 C on the electrical properties of conductive adhesives, (3) effects of shelf life age on adhesive characteristics, (4) bond strengths of electrically conductive adhesives on thick film gold metallization, (5) a copper filled adhesive, (6) effects of products outgassed from cured adhesives on device electrical parameters, (7) metal migration from electrically conductive adhesives, and (8) ionic content of electrically insulative adhesives. The tests performed during these investigations are described, and the results obtained are discussed

Blood lead levels in pregnant women and the neonate

Population studies carried out during the 1980s had shown that the Maltese population was characterized by high blood lead (PbB) levels. These high levels appeared to be a feature at all age groups including neonates. A number of environmental control measures had been initiated to attempt to decrease these PbB levels. The present study reviews PbB levels in pregnant women and newborns. It is shown that mean cord PbB levels decreased significantly in the last decade from a mean of 165.1 + 87.9 ug/I in 1985 to 89.79 + 31.23 ug/I in 1996. This decrease did not correlate with the increasing use of multimineral supplements which include the zinc cation said to be useful to counter the effects of chronic lead intoxication. Placental transfer of lead is also shown to follow closely maternal levels with a correlation coefficient of 0.81. In spite of the apparent decrease in PbB levels, about half of newborns still I have levels which require preventive community measures.peer-reviewe

Long-term changes in grassland, woodland and forest vegetation of south-eastern Australia : impacts of land-use change

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Science.Since European settlement of south-eastern Australia in 1788, native vegetation assemblages have been dramatically changed by Europeans with activities such as land clearing associated with forestry, agriculture and urban development. These have either destroyed or fragmented a large proportion of the original native vegetation. The plant species composition of vegetation assemblages has been modified by native species extinctions and exotic species colonizations. Acting in concert, the alteration of native vegetation by human activities, the decline and extinction of native species and the successful colonization by exotic species have the potential to lead to the homogenization and/or differentiation of the plant species composition of native vegetation associations. In this thesis, I address the broad question: Have native species extinctions and exotic species colonizations resulted in the plant species composition of vegetation assemblages becoming more similar (i.e. homogenized) or less similar (i.e. differentiated) in south-eastern Australia? I compared historical species assemblages with contemporary species assemblages in three vegetation associations, at three separate spatial scales, to determine change in species composition over time. Specifically, I examined forest vegetation at the catchment spatial scale over a period of four decades, grassland vegetation at a regional scale over two decades and both woodland and forest vegetation at a continental scale over a period of c. 220 years. At the catchment spatial scale, I used historical (1968–69) and contemporary (2007) vegetation surveys to determine change in species composition of vegetation assemblages. I investigated the effects of logging as well as both native species extinctions and exotic species colonizations on changes in species composition of 30 native wet sclerophyll forest stands, 10 unlogged and 20 logged, in the upper Shoalhaven River catchment over a period of four decades. Changes in the similarity of species composition of the unlogged and logged stands over time were compared, the findings indicating the species composition of wet sclerophyll forest in the catchment has become homogenized since the historical survey. It is likely that homogenization in unlogged stands is due to successional changes in the vegetation resulting from long inter-fire intervals. However, logging has been the key driver of homogenization across the logged stands. Historical surveys are generally not available at large spatial and long temporal scales because accurate surveys were not conducted in the long-term past at large spatial scales or records of such surveys no longer exist. To circumvent the problem of a lack of historical survey data, ecologists have devised a method to reconstruct the species composition of historical vegetation assemblages. Historical species assemblages are reconstructed by both removing exotic species from the species inventory of the contemporary assemblage and adding currently extinct native species. Exotic species are removed because these species are assumed to not have been present in the historical assemblage. Added extinct native species account for species lost due to extinction. I used the above method to reconstruct the historical species composition of woodland and forest vegetation in 20 conservation reserves, first comparing changes in the similarity of species composition at a continental scale cross a broad region of south-eastern Australia since European settlement (c. 220 years ago). Then, observed patterns of homogenization and differentiation were related to the geographic and human-related attributes of each conservation reserve. Both native species extinctions and exotic species colonizations differentiated the species composition for all species, native species only and exotic species only in woodland vegetation. In forest vegetation, however, only native species extinctions differentiated the species composition of all species and native species only. For woodland, patterns of differentiation in woodland for native species were associated with both latitudinal and longitudinal separation of reserves. Furthermore, the differentiating effect of exotic species was also associated with longitudinal separation of reserves. In forest vegetation, the differentiating effect of native species extinctions could not be associated with any of the geographic or human-related factors. The reconstruction technique above is problematic if data sources are of a different spatial scale. To address the lack of historical data and the shortcomings of the existing method, I employed two novel stochastic models to reconstruct the species composition of historical assemblages at large spatial and temporal scales. I used contemporary survey data on the species composition of 87 woodland and 51 forest locations at a continental scale over a period of c. 220 years (i.e. since European settlement). Both models consistently indicated that native species extinctions promote homogenization of woodland vegetation. In contrast, exotic species colonizations promote differentiation in woodland vegetation. Similarly, in forest vegetation, both stochastic models suggested that native species extinctions promote homogenization. Furthermore, my observations suggested that exotic species colonizations promoted differentiation. At a regional scale, I investigated change in the species composition of 30 native remnant grassland sites located along a 280 km urban–rural gradient in western Victoria. Their species composition was first sampled in 1984, re-sampled in 2001 (14 sites) and 2007 (the other 16 sites). The contemporary surveys oversampled the species composition across all 30 sites. I used a variant of the earlier stochastic modelling technique to correct for oversampling. For all 30 sites as well as urban, peri-urban and rural subsets of these sites I determined patterns of homogenization and differentiation resulting from native species extinctions and exotic species extinctions and colonizations. For all 30 sites across the region, native species extinctions promote differentiation in the native species composition of grassland vegetation. In contrast, exotic species extinctions and colonizations promote homogenization of the exotic species composition of grassland sites. However, the composition of all species remains in stasis. For urban sites, native species extinctions promote differentiation in native species composition. Exotic species extinctions and colonizations promote homogenization in exotic species composition, but these patterns of change are not statistically significant. However, changes in exotic species composition were large enough to buffer the opposite (i.e. differentiating) effect of native species extinctions. As a result, the species composition for all species has become homogenized in urban sites. In peri-urban sites, exotic species extinctions and colonizations homogenize the exotic species composition, but do not have an overall effect on the composition of all species. Native species extinctions promote differentiation in native species, and exotic species extinctions and colonizations homogenize the exotic species composition of rural sites. However, the differentiating effect of extinctions in the native flora is greater than the homogenizing effect of exotic species extinctions and colonizations. Consequently, the composition for all species in rural sites has become differentiated. The patterns of homogenization and differentiation above were examined to see how human-related and environmental site attributes might be associated with patterns of vegetation change for the same 30 remnant grassland sites and their subsets – how change in human population density, maximum fire interval, solar radiation, temperature and precipitation are associated with patterns of homogenization and differentiation. At a regional scale, differentiation in native species composition is associated with change in human population density. However, for urban, peri-urban and rural subsets of these sites no statistically significant association emerged. The only environmental site attribute that was associated with patterns of homogenization and differentiation was maximum temperature, which was associated with homogenization resulting from exotic species extinctions and colonizations in all 30 sites and peri-urban sites as well as change in the composition of all species for urban sites. Overall my results revealed complex patterns of homogenization and differentiation in forest, woodland and grassland vegetation at a range of spatial and temporal scales. Moreover, I was able to relate change in individual vegetation associations to a range of human-related and environmental factors