Dynamic and Transparent Analysis of Commodity Production Systems

We propose a framework that provides a programming interface to perform complex dynamic system-level analyses of deployed production systems. By leveraging hardware support for virtualization available nowadays on all commodity machines, our framework is completely transparent to the system under analysis and it guarantees isolation of the analysis tools running on its top. Thus, the internals of the kernel of the running system needs not to be modified and the whole platform runs unaware of the framework. Moreover, errors in the analysis tools do not affect the running system and the framework. This is accomplished by installing a minimalistic virtual machine monitor and migrating the system, as it runs, into a virtual machine. In order to demonstrate the potentials of our framework we developed an interactive kernel debugger, nicknamed HyperDbg. HyperDbg can be used to debug any critical kernel component, and even to single step the execution of exception and interrupt handlers.Comment: 10 pages, To appear in the 25th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, Antwerp, Belgium, 20-24 September 201

Cooperation and Intertrade between Community Currencies

Cooperation, interchange or intertrade of complementary currencies is not yet very common, perhaps of because the funding impulse of most complementary currencies does not cover the question of interchange and cooperation yet, or because theoretical aspects are not often studied. The article describes money or currency as an instrument of cooperation, based on a sociological and institutional economics background. It then postulates currency as an operating system and focuses on the technical terms of trade if one would try to establish cooperation between such systems. Basic principles of interchange and intertrade, which are necessary for success, are presented, such as the ideas of trade balance, compensation funds, exchange rates and clearing, set-points and limits, references, anchoring money and tolls and taxes. Further some aspects of governance and negotiation are discussed and a nested framework of rules is adapted to currencies. As an Appendix a case study of the Zurich region is presented where a process of negotiation and building of an interchange network between several CC-groups is on-going

Analysis of process variables via CFD to evaluate the performance of a FCC riser

Feedstock conversion and yield products are studied through a 3D model simulating the main reactor of the fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) process. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) is used with Eulerian-Eulerian approach to predict the fluid catalytic cracking behavior. The model considers 12 lumps with catalyst deactivation by coke and poisoning by alkaline nitrides and polycyclic aromatic adsorption to estimate the kinetic behavior which, starting from a given feedstock, produces several cracking products. Different feedstock compositions are considered. The model is compared with sampling data at industrial operation conditions. The simulation model is able to represent accurately the products behavior for the different operating conditions considered. All the conditions considered were solved using a solver ANSYS CFX 14.0. The different operation process variables and hydrodynamic effects of the industrial riser of a fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) are evaluated. Predictions from the model are shown and comparison with experimental conversion and yields products are presented; recommendations are drawn to establish the conditions to obtain higher product yields in the industrial process

Family Physician\u27s Clinical Inertia in the Management of Hypoglycemia

Though the management of diabetes is widely documented in scientific literature, little is published about how hypoglycemia is managed by family physicians. The objective of this study was to create a measurement for family physician clinical inertia in managing hypoglycemia, and to determine family physicians’ characteristics associated with clinical inertia. The design was a secondary analysis of the data provided by 162 family physicians from the Canadian InHypo-DM Study. The outcome for this thesis was a score for physician clinical inertia. The methods applied were exploratory factor analysis, bivariate analysis and multiple linear regression. Results showed no statistically significant differences in clinical inertia score for any of the independent variables. This study provides evidence that clinical inertia in management of hypoglycemia is not associated with family physicians’ characteristics. Further testing this score will provide more information on aspects of clinical inertia and its role in the management of hypoglycemia

Mobile Web 2.0

After years of stagnation in the Internet following the burst of the New Economy, a new phenomenon ignites the fantasies of the Internet community. Web 2.0 seems to redefine the economical foundations of the Internet economy. Services such as MySpace, YouTube and Second Life have demonstrated the power of the alleged new online community services. User-generated content and social networks are the artefacts of the new movement. The mobile service industry has picked up the trend, and developed cutting-edge mobile services based on user-generated content. In the paper the emerging mobile extensions of existing online Web 2.0 applications and pure mobile Web 2.0 services are analysed and compared and the potentials for a profitable positioning of mobile operators in the value chain are extracted

Evaluation of Future Mobile Services Based on the Technology Acceptance Model

Mobile telecommunication operators are under great pressure to launch new profitable data services. However, most of the mobile data services have fallen short of the expectation and have failed on the market. One important reason for the failure of mobile data services is the difficulty to assess user needs and requirements in advance. This paper suggests to use the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to approximate the user acceptance of non-existing mobile services. The TAM model is applied to assess the potential future acceptance of five mobile broadcasting service scenario. The results show that TAM is a helpful model to evaluate the user acceptance of future services. However, the more innovative the new service is, the less accurate is the model. The results show furthermore that the most influential aspect on the future intention to use is the perceived value of the future prod

Cancer cachexia

In recent years many efforts of researchers and clinicians were made to improve our knowledge of cachexia syndrome. Not only cancer, but also many chronic or end-stage diseases such as AIDS, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), rheumatoid arthritis, tuberculosis and Crohn's disease are associated with cachexia, a condition of abnormally low weight, weakness, and general bodily decline which deteriorates quality of life and reduces the prognosis of the patients who suffer from it. In the present editorial we will focus cachexia related on cancer and provide some insight into this prognosis-limiting syndrome

Ischemic preconditioning attenuates portal venous plasma concentrations of purines following warm liver ischemia in man

Background/Aims: Degradation of adenine nucleotides to adenosine has been suggested to play a critical role in ischemic preconditioning (IPC). Thus, we questioned in patients undergoing partial hepatectomy whether (i) IPC will increase plasma purine catabolites and whether (ii) formation of purines in response to vascular clamping (Pringle maneuver) can be attenuated by prior IPC. Methods: 75 patients were randomly assigned to three groups: group I underwent hepatectomy without vascular clamping; group II was subjected to the Pringle maneuver during resection, and group III was preconditioned (10 min ischemia and 10 min reperfusion) prior to the Pringle maneuver for resection. Central, portal venous and arterial plasma concentrations of adenosine, inosine, hypoxanthine and xanthine were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography. Results: Duration of the Pringle maneuver did not differ between patients with or without IPC. Surgery without vascular clamping had only a minor effect on plasma purine transiently increased. After the Pringle maneuver alone, purine plasma concentrations were most increased. This strong rise in plasma purines caused by the Pringle maneuver, however, was significantly attenuated by IPC. When portal venous minus arterial concentration difference was calculated for inosine or hypoxanthine, the respective differences became positive in patients subjected to the Pringle maneuver and were completely prevented by preconditioning. Conclusion: These data demonstrate that (i) IPC increases formation of adenosine, and that (ii) the unwanted degradation of adenine nucleotides to purines caused by the Pringle maneuver can be attenuated by IPC. Because IPC also induces a decrease of portal venous minus arterial purine plasma concentration differences, IPC might possibly decrease disturbances in the energy metabolism in the intestine as well. Copyright (C) 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel