The potential use of service-oriented infrastructure framework to enable transparent vertical scalability of cloud computing infrastructure

Cloud computing technology has become familiar to most Internet users. Subsequently, there has been an increased growth in the use of cloud computing, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). To ensure that IaaS can easily meet the growing demand, IaaS providers usually increase the capacity of their facilities in a vertical IaaS increase capability and the capacity for local IaaS amenities such as increasing the number of servers, storage and network bandwidth. However, at the same time, horizontal scalability is sometimes not enough and requires additional strategies to ensure that the large number of IaaS service requests can be met. Therefore, strategies requiring horizontal scalability are more complex than the vertical scalability strategies because they involve the interaction of more than one facility at different service centers. To reduce the complexity of the implementation of the horizontal scalability of the IaaS infrastructures, the use of a technology service oriented infrastructure is recommended to ensure that the interaction between two or more different service centers can be done more simply and easily even though it is likely to involve a wide range of communication technologies and different cloud computing management. This is because the service oriented infrastructure acts as a middle man that translates and processes interactions and protocols of different cloud computing infrastructures without the modification of the complex to ensure horizontal scalability can be run easily and smoothly. This paper presents the potential of using a service-oriented infrastructure framework to enable transparent vertical scalability of cloud computing infrastructures by adapting three projects in this research: SLA@SOI consortium, Open Cloud Computing Interface (OCCI), and OpenStack

Processing of spatial-frequency altered faces in schizophrenia: Effects of illness phase and duration

Low spatial frequency (SF) processing has been shown to be impaired in people with schizophrenia, but it is not clear how this varies with clinical state or illness chronicity. We compared schizophrenia patients (SCZ, n534), first episode psychosis patients (FEP, n522), and healthy controls (CON, n535) on a gender/facial discrimination task. Images were either unaltered (broadband spatial frequency, BSF), or had high or low SF information removed (LSF and HSF conditions, respectively). The task was performed at hospital admission and discharge for patients, and at corresponding time points for controls. Groups were matched on visual acuity. At admission, compared to their BSF performance, each group was significantly worse with low SF stimuli, and most impaired with high SF stimuli. The level of impairment at each SF did not depend on group. At discharge, the SCZ group performed more poorly in the LSF condition than the other groups, and showed the greatest degree of performance decline collapsed over HSF and LSF conditions, although the latter finding was not significant when controlling for visual acuity. Performance did not change significantly over time for any group. HSF processing was strongly related to visual acuity at both time points for all groups. We conclude the following: 1) SF processing abilities in schizophrenia are relatively stable across clinical state; 2) face processing abnormalities in SCZ are not secondary to problems processing specific SFs, but are due to other known difficulties constructing visual representations from degraded information; and 3) the relationship between HSF processing and visual acuity, along with known SCZ- and medication-related acuity reductions, and the elimination of a SCZ-related impairment after controlling for visual acuity in this study, all raise the possibility that some prior findings of impaired perception in SCZ may be secondary to acuity reductions

Gas holdup and flow patterns in three phase bubble columns

The main objective of this research is to determine the effect of solids on gas holdup and flow pattern in bubble columns. The other objective is to study the effect of gas distributors on the above parameters. Use of a porous plate gas distributor in bubble columns results in higher gas holdup values because of a more uniform gas distribution. Gas holdup was found to show a maximum at low solid concentrations in the bubble flow pattern. Beyond 10 weight percent solids the porous plate behaves like a sieve plate gas distributor. Gas holdup increases linearly with superficial gas velocity in the bubble slug pattern for all solid concentrations

Impact of Perceived Organizational Virtuousness and Psychological Capital on Work Performance: The mediating effect of employee well-being

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Detection of allelic variations of human gene expression by polymerase colonies

Abstract Background Quantification of variations of human gene expression is complicated by the small differences between different alleles. Recent work has shown that variations do exist in the relative allelic expression levels in certain genes of heterozygous individuals. Herein, we describe the application of an immobilized polymerase chain reaction technique as an alternative approach to measure relative allelic differential expression. Results Herein, we report a novel assay, based on immobilized polymerase colonies, that accurately quantifies the relative expression levels of two alleles in a given sample. Mechanistically, this was accomplished by PCR amplifying a gene in a cDNA library in a thin polyacrylamide gel. By immobilizing the PCR, it is ensured that each transcript gives rise to only a single immobilized PCR colony, or "polony". Once polony amplified, the two alleles of the gene were differentially labeled by performing in situ sequencing with fluorescently labeled nucleotides. For these sets of experiments, silent single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were used to discriminate the two alleles. Finally, a simple count was then performed on the differentially labeled polonies in order to determine the relative expression levels of the two alleles. To validate this technique, the relative expression levels of PKD2 in a family of heterozygous patients bearing the 4208G/A SNP were examined and compared to the literature. Conclusions We were able to reproduce the results of allelic variation in gene expression using an accurate technology known as polymerase colonies. Therefore, we have demonstrated the utility of this method in human gene expression analysis.</p

Effects of Coating Solvent and Thermal Treatment on Transport and Morphological Characteristics of PDMS/Torlon Composite Hollow Fiber Membrane

A new approach for formation of the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) layer on Torlon polyamide-imide hollow fiber (PAI-HF) support has been developed by directly after fiber spinning without the need to undergo the final conventional solvent exchange and drying step, thereby saving postspinning processing steps. The produced PDMS/PAI-HF composite membranes were found to have high CO2 permeance (i.e., 1100 GPU) and exhibited good CO2/N2 selectivities of 8—10 which is close to 90% of that of a PDMS dense film. The effects of coating solution, rewetting and crosslinking temperature on the PAI-HF morphological features, that is, gas transport, skin thickness, skin integrity, and substructure resistance are investigated. The rewetting and thermal treatment of the PAI-HF caused the densification of the skin layer and reduced the pore sizes on the top layer. In addition, the potential use of the PAI-HF support with polymers that are insoluble in hexane is also considered. Effects of water, methanol, and hexane exposure of PAI-HF to these solvents are considered. This evaluation calls attention to issues that must be addressed in any eventual use of the PAI-HF with water-soluble or methanol-soluble selective layer polymers, rather than simple hexane-soluble polymers such as PDMS

MHealth and the management of chronic conditions in rural areas: A note of caution from Southern India

This article examines challenges facing implementation of likely mHealth programmes in rural India. Based on fieldwork in Andhra Pradesh in 2014, and taking as exemplars two chronic medical ‘conditions’ – type 2 diabetes and depression – we look at ways in which people in one rural area currently access medical treatment; we also explore how adults there currently use mobile phones in daily life, to gauge the realistic likelihood of uptake for possible mHealth initiatives. We identify the very different pathways to care for these two medical conditions, and we highlight the importance to the rural population of healthcare outside the formal health system provided by those known as registered medical practitioners (RMP), who despite their title are neither registered nor trained. We also show how limited is the use currently made of very basic mobile phones by the majority of the older adult population in this rural context. Not only may this inhibit mHealth potential in the near future; just as importantly, our data suggest how difficult it may be to identify a clinical partner for patients or their carers for any mHealth application designed to assist the management of chronic ill-health in rural India. Finally, we examine how the promotion of patient ‘self-management’ may not be as readily translated to a country like India as proponents of mHealth might assume