Adaptable decentralized Service Oriented Architecture.

In the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), BPEL specified business processes are executed by non-scalable centralized orchestration engines. In order to address the scalability issue, decentralized orchestration engines are applied, which decentralize BPEL processes into static fragments at design time without considering runtime requirements. The fragments are then encapsulated into runtime components such as agents. There are a variety of attitudes towards workflow decentralization; however, only a few of them produce adaptable fragments with runtime environment. In this paper, producing runtime adaptable fragments is presented in two aspects. The first one is frequent-path adaptability that is equal to finding closely interrelated activities and encapsulating them in the same fragment to omit the communication cost of the activities. Another aspect is proportional-fragment adaptability, which is analogous to the proportionality of produced fragments with number of workflow engine machines. It extenuates the internal communication among the fragments on the same machine. An ever-changing runtime environment along with the mentioned adaptability aspects may result in producing a variety of process versions at runtime. Thus, an Adaptable and Decentralized Workflow Execution Framework (ADWEF) is introduced that proposes an abstraction of adaptable decentralization in the SOA orchestration layer. Furthermore, ADWEF architectures Type-1 and Type-2 are presented to support the execution of fragments created by two decentralization methods, which produce customized fragments known as Hierarchical Process Decentralization (HPD) and Hierarchical Intelligent Process Decentralization (HIPD). However, mapping the current system conditions to a suitable decentralization method is considered as future work. Evaluations of the ADWEF decentralization methods substantiate both adaptability aspects and demonstrate a range of improvements in response-time, throughput, and bandwidth-usage compared to previous methods

Obesity-Related Oxidative Stress: the Impact of Physical Activity and Diet Manipulation

Obesity-related oxidative stress, the imbalance between pro-oxidants and antioxidants (e.g., nitric oxide), has been linked to metabolic and cardiovascular disease, including endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are essential for physiological functions including gene expression, cellular growth, infection defense, and modulating endothelial function. However, elevated ROS and/or diminished antioxidant capacity leading to oxidative stress can lead to dysfunction. Physical activity also results in an acute state of oxidative stress. However, it is likely that chronic physical activity provides a stimulus for favorable oxidative adaptations and enhanced physiological performance and physical health, although distinct responses between aerobic and anaerobic activities warrant further investigation. Studies support the benefits of dietary modification as well as exercise interventions in alleviating oxidative stress susceptibility. Since obese individuals tend to demonstrate elevated markers of oxidative stress, the implications for this population are significant. Therefore, in this review our aim is to discuss (i) the role of oxidative stress and inflammation as associated with obesity-related diseases, (ii) the potential concerns and benefits of exercise-mediated oxidative stress, and (iii) the advantageous role of dietary modification, including acute or chronic caloric restriction and vitamin D supplementation

A computational framework for complex disease stratification from multiple large-scale datasets.

BACKGROUND: Multilevel data integration is becoming a major area of research in systems biology. Within this area, multi-'omics datasets on complex diseases are becoming more readily available and there is a need to set standards and good practices for integrated analysis of biological, clinical and environmental data. We present a framework to plan and generate single and multi-'omics signatures of disease states. METHODS: The framework is divided into four major steps: dataset subsetting, feature filtering, 'omics-based clustering and biomarker identification. RESULTS: We illustrate the usefulness of this framework by identifying potential patient clusters based on integrated multi-'omics signatures in a publicly available ovarian cystadenocarcinoma dataset. The analysis generated a higher number of stable and clinically relevant clusters than previously reported, and enabled the generation of predictive models of patient outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: This framework will help health researchers plan and perform multi-'omics big data analyses to generate hypotheses and make sense of their rich, diverse and ever growing datasets, to enable implementation of translational P4 medicine

Gallblader sonographic abnormality following ceftriaxone treatment in children

Background and Objective: Considering the relatively wide application of ceftriaxone in pediatric infectious diseases and its side effects, this study was done to determine gallblader sonographic abnormality following ceftriaxone treatment in children. Materials and Methods: This descriptive cross- sectional study was carried out on 60 patients age 1 month up to 12 years in Besat hospital, Hamadan, Iran during 2007. The sonographic abnormal finding of gallbladder before ceftriaxone therapy and 5 days after therapy were recorded. In case of any abnormality in gallblader sonography was repeated twice a week in the first two weeks and afterward once a week up to disappearance of abnormalities. Results: Gallblader sonographic abnormality were observed in 10 cases (16.5%). Out of them, 8 and 2 patients had bile stone and bile sludge, respectivley. The patients did not show any clinical manifestations. There was no relation between age and sex with abnormal findings. Gallblader abnormality completely were disappeared in the worst cases by sixteen days. Conclusion: This study showed that the incidence of either gallstone or biliary sludge after treatment with ceftriaxone was 16.5% which is relatively similar to other studies

The Lateral Fibular Stress Test: High Variability of Force Applied by Orthopaedic Surgeons in a Biomechanical Model

Background: The lateral fibular stress test (LFST), also known as the hook or Cotton test, is commonly performed to assess syndesmotic instability intraoperatively. Several studies have used 100 N as the force applied when performing the LFST to detect syndesmotic instability, though no evidence-based requisite force has been described for the test. We hypothesize that surgeons do not apply force uniformly or consistently when performing the LFST and that substantial variation exists. Fundamentally, this could lead to inconsistent diagnosis of syndesmotic instability as surgeons may not be applying the force in a consistent manner. Methods: A biomechanical ankle model consisting of an industrial force gauge attached through a SawBones model was fashioned. Orthopaedic attending surgeons and trainees were asked to perform a series of LFSTs and to simulate the force they typically apply intraoperatively. Basic demographic data were collected on each participant. Results: Thirty-three surgeons participated in the study, including 18 trainees. The median (IQR) force applied during the LFST was 96.42 (71.42-126.33), 87.49 (69.19-117.40), 99.99 (79.91-137.49), for the pooled group, attendings, and trainees respectively. More than half (54.5%) of all trials were less than 100 N (57.8% of surgeons, 51.8% trainees). Intraobserver correlation was excellent within the overall cohort (0.92, P < .001), trainees (0.90, P < .001), and attendings (0.94, P < .001), respectively. Interobserver reliability was fair among the overall cohort (κ =0.28, P = .49), and poor between the attendings (κ = 0.11, P = .69) and the trainees (κ = 0.05, P = .82), respectively. Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that the amount of force applied by typical surgeons when performing the LFST test is highly variable. Variable force application when performing the LFST may lead to inconsistent detection of syndesmotic instability, which may portend a poorer outcome. Clinical Relevance: In this study, we demonstrate the wide variability in the amount of force used during a lateral fibular stress test. High variability of force application when performing the LFST may lead to inconsistent diagnosis of syndesmotic instability, which may portend a poorer outcome. Our findings suggest the need for further investigation into the technical aspects of syndesmotic testing that will permit more reproducible and valid interrogation of the syndesmosis