Alien Registration- Persson, Nils E. (Readfield, Kennebec County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/17239/thumbnail.jp

Algebraic service composition for user-centric IoT applications

The Internet of Things (IoT) requires a shift in our way of building applications, as it is aimed at providing many services to society in general. Non-developer people require increasingly complex IoT applications and support for their ever changing run-time requirements. Although service composition allows the combination of functionality into more complex behaviours, current approaches provide support for dealing with one IoT scenario at a time, as they allow the definition of only one workflow. In this paper, we present DX-MAN, an algebraic model for static service composition that allows the definition of composite services that encompass multiple workflows for run-time scenarios. We evaluate our proposal on an example in the domain of smart homes

Diverse Bone Morphogenetic Protein Expression Profiles and Smad Pathway Activation in Different Phenotypes of Experimental Canine Mammary Tumors

BACKGROUND:BMPs are currently receiving attention for their role in tumorigenesis and tumor progression. Currently, most BMP expression studies are performed on carcinomas, and not much is known about the situation in sarcomas. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:We have investigated the BMP expression profiles and Smad activation in clones from different spontaneous canine mammary tumors. Spindle cell tumor and osteosarcoma clones expressed high levels of BMPs, in particular BMP-2, -4 and -6. Clones from a scirrhous carcinoma expressed much lower BMP levels. The various clones formed different tumor types in nude mice but only clones that expressed high levels of BMP-6 gave bone formation. Phosphorylated Smad-1/5, located in the nucleus, was detected in tumors derived from clones expressing high levels of BMPs, indicating an active BMP signaling pathway and BMP-2 stimulation of mammary tumor cell clones in vitro resulted in activation of the Smad-1/5 pathway. In contrast BMP-2 stimulation did not induce phosphorylation of the non-Smad pathway p38 MAPK. Interestingly, an increased level of the BMP-antagonist chordin-like 1 was detected after BMP stimulation of non-bone forming clones. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:We conclude that the specific BMP expression repertoire differs substantially between different types of mammary tumors and that BMP-6 expression most probably has a biological role in bone formation of canine mammary tumors

Forecasting drug utilization and expenditure in a metropolitan health region

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>New pharmacological therapies are challenging the healthcare systems, and there is an increasing need to assess their therapeutic value in relation to existing alternatives as well as their potential budget impact. Consequently, new models to introduce drugs in healthcare are urgently needed. In the metropolitan health region of Stockholm, Sweden, a model has been developed including early warning (horizon scanning), forecasting of drug utilization and expenditure, critical drug evaluation as well as structured programs for the introduction and follow-up of new drugs. The aim of this paper is to present the forecasting model and the predicted growth in all therapeutic areas in 2010 and 2011.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Linear regression analysis was applied to aggregate sales data on hospital sales and dispensed drugs in ambulatory care, including both reimbursed expenditure and patient co-payment. The linear regression was applied on each pharmacological group based on four observations 2006-2009, and the crude predictions estimated for the coming two years 2010-2011. The crude predictions were then adjusted for factors likely to increase or decrease future utilization and expenditure, such as patent expiries, new drugs to be launched or new guidelines from national bodies or the regional Drug and Therapeutics Committee. The assessment included a close collaboration with clinical, clinical pharmacological and pharmaceutical experts from the regional Drug and Therapeutics Committee.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The annual increase in total expenditure for prescription and hospital drugs was predicted to be 2.0% in 2010 and 4.0% in 2011. Expenditures will increase in most therapeutic areas, but most predominantly for antineoplastic and immune modulating agents as well as drugs for the nervous system, infectious diseases, and blood and blood-forming organs.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The utilisation and expenditure of drugs is difficult to forecast due to uncertainties about the rate of adoption of new medicines and various ongoing healthcare reforms and activities to improve the quality and efficiency of prescribing. Nevertheless, we believe our model will be valuable as an early warning system to start developing guidance for new drugs including systems to monitor their effectiveness, safety and cost-effectiveness in clinical practice.</p

Alien Registration- Persson, Nils E. (Readfield, Kennebec County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/17239/thumbnail.jp

Where Is the Unmatched Transition Metal in Substoichiometric Diboride Line Compounds?

The atomic structure and local composition of high quality epitaxial substoichiometric titaniumdiboride (TiB1.9) thin film, deposited by unbalanced magnetron sputtering, were studied usinganalytical high-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy, density functional theoryand image simulations. The unmatched Ti is pinpointed to planar defects on {1-100} prismaticplanes and attributed to the absence of B between Ti planes that locally relaxes the structure.This mechanism allows the line compound to accommodate the off-stoichiometry and remaina line compound between defects. The planar defects are embedded in otherwise stoichiometricTiB2 and are delineated by insertion of dislocations. An accompanied decrease in Ti-Ti bondlengths along and across the faults is observed.Introduction</div

Automated Analysis of Orientational Order in Images of Fibrillar Materials

Nanofibers are a ubiquitous structural motif in a variety of functional materials. In the field of organic electronics, π–π-stacking of conjugated polymers leads to fibrillar morphologies with a wide array of fiber packing behavior. Fiber orientation and alignment are known to influence the charge transport properties of devices such as organic field effect transistors. The solution processing methods used to create these devices give rise to large variations in these structural parametershowever, they are only observable with imaging techniques such as atomic force microscopy (AFM). To bring more rigorous quantification of orientation and alignment to these materials, a comprehensive image analysis tool is introduced to quantify the two-dimensional orientation and alignment of nanofibers from AFM images. It has been developed in MATLAB and packaged as a stand-alone application, so that researchers with no computational expertise can produce publication-ready figures directly from their images. AFM frequently yields images with low contrast and moderate noise, making quantitative feature extraction a significant challenge. In this protocol, each image is analyzed in the context of an Orientation Map, in which nanofibers are thinned to single-pixel width and an orientation is extracted for each of these pixels. The Orientation Map is obtained through a five-step process: fiber smoothing by anisotropic diffusion filtering, contrast enhancement by top hat filtering, binarization by adaptive thresholding, skeletonization, and recovery of orientations from the result of diffusion filtering. Each step involves parameters that can be set using physical heuristics, which are examined in detail. This Orientation Map yields an orientation distribution and a plot of <i>S</i>_2D, an orientational order parameter, as a function of frame size. The image analysis procedure is used to quantify differences in P3HT nanofiber morphology induced by various solution processing recipes, as well as the effect of spin-coating when used to deposit solutions of nanofibers. All examples presented in this protocol can be reproduced from beginning to end using the included software, with visualizations produced at each stage of processing

Where is the unpaired transition metal in substoichiometric diboride line compounds?

The atomic structure and local composition of high quality epitaxial substoichiometric titanium diboride (TiB1.9) thin film, deposited by unbalanced magnetron sputtering, were studied using analytical high-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy, density functional theory, and image simulations. The unpaired Ti is pinpointed to inclusion of Ti-based stacking faults within a few atomic layers, which terminates the {1 (1) over bar 00} prismatic planes of the crystal structure and attributed to the absence of B between Ti planes that locally relaxes the structure. This mechanism allows the line compound to accommodate off-stoichiometry and remain a line compound between defects. The planar defects are embedded in otherwise stoichiometric TiB2 and are delineated by insertion of dislocations. An accompanied decrease in Ti-Ti bond lengths along and across the faults is observed. (c) 2020ActaMaterialiaInc. PublishedbyElsevierLtd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)Funding Agencies|Swedish Research CouncilSwedish Research Council [2016-04412, 642-2013-8020, 2016-07213]; Knut and Alice Wallenberg FoundationKnut &amp; Alice Wallenberg Foundation [KAW 2015.0043]; Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF)Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research [EM16-00 04, RIF 14-0074]; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU) [2009 00971]</p