A compositional method for reliability analysis of workflows affected by multiple failure modes

We focus on reliability analysis for systems designed as workflow based compositions of components. Components are characterized by their failure profiles, which take into account possible multiple failure modes. A compositional calculus is provided to evaluate the failure profile of a composite system, given failure profiles of the components. The calculus is described as a syntax-driven procedure that synthesizes a workflows failure profile. The method is viewed as a design-time aid that can help software engineers reason about systems reliability in the early stage of development. A simple case study is presented to illustrate the proposed approach

Taming Model Uncertainty in Self-adaptive Systems Using Bayesian Model Averaging

Research on uncertainty quantification and mitigation of software-intensive systems and (self-)adaptive systems, is increasingly gaining momentum, especially with the availability of statistical inference techniques (such as Bayesian reasoning) that make it possible to mitigate uncertain (quality) attributes of the system under scrutiny often encoded in the system model in terms of model parameters. However, to the best of our knowledge, the uncertainty about the choice of a specific system model did not receive the deserved attention.This paper focuses on self-adaptive systems and investigates how to mitigate the uncertainty related to the model selection process, that is, whenever one model is chosen over plausible alternative and competing models to represent the understanding of a system and make predictions about future observations. In particular, we propose to enhance the classical feedback loop of a self-adaptive system with the ability to tame the model uncertainty using Bayesian Model Averaging. This method improves the predictions made by the analyze component as well as the plan that adopts metaheuristic optimizing search to guide the adaptation decisions. Our empirical evaluation demonstrates the cost-effectiveness of our approach using an exemplar case study in the robotics domain

An Information System for Product Development Planning

Companies in every industry segment that design and manufacture products can benefit of a variety of information system solutions proposed by researchers and also available on the market. To reduce the possible negative impact of Product Data Management (PDM) systems into an organisation, we propose an incremental introduction based on a low-level Project Management (PM) and a Business Intelligence (BI) module respectively for planning and to monitor scheduling in new products development. A high-level PM package has also been considered. We have simulated and tested our solution within a two-wheel vehicle manufacturer and have evaluated possible extension to other medium-large traditional production companies by benchmarking

Omentum flap as a spacer before carbon ion radiotherapy for gynecological recurrences. A technical note

Re-irradiation of pelvic recurrent gynecological cancer is a challenge due to the proximity of high-radiation-sensitive organs, such as the bowel and the urinary tract. Hadrontherapy for re-irradiation emerges as a safe and effective treatment with a mild rate of morbidity of surrounding normal tissue. To improve the dose to the tumor, a prophylactic displacement of organs at risk is needed, and a multidisciplinary approach is recommended. In this technical note, we report a surgical technique of omentum spacer placement for patients enrolled for carbon ion radiotherapy as re-irradiation for recurrent gynecological tumors. (C) 2022 Societe franc , aise de radiotherapie oncologique (SFRO). Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved

Identifying confidentiality violations in architectural design using palladio

Meeting confidentiality requirements in software systems is vital for organizations. Considering confidentiality in early development phases such as the architectural design phase is beneficial compared to late phases such as the implementation because fixing design issues is more cost-efficient in early phases. This tutorial introduces an approach for modeling and statically analyzing confidentiality in software architectures within the Palladio tool suite. Besides foundational knowledge, the tutorial provides a practical hands-on session using the tool. The goal is to show that it is already possible to consider confidentiality in the early design process and that this consideration can be integrated into existing architectural design tools

Caracterização laboratorial da enteropatia observada na Síndrome de Emagrecimento Progressivo de Sagüis mantidos em cativeiro

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The impact of particle radiotherapy on the functioning of cardiac implantable electronic devices: a systematic review of in vitro and in vivo studies according to PICO criteria

The number of oncological patients who may benefit from proton beam radiotherapy (PBT) or carbon ion radiotherapy (CIRT), overall referred to as particle radiotherapy (RT), is expected to strongly increase in the next future, as well as the number of cardiological patients requiring cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs). The management of patients with a CIED requiring particle RT deserves peculiar attention compared to those undergoing conventional photon beam RT, mostly due to the potential generation of secondary neutrons by particle beams interactions. Current consensus documents recommend managing these patients as being at intermediate/high risk of RT-induced device malfunctioning regardless of the dose on the CIED and the beam delivery method used, despite the last one significantly affects secondary neutrons generation (very limited neutrons production with active scanning as opposed to the passive scattering technique). The key issues for the current review were expressed in four questions according to the Population, Intervention, Control, Outcome criteria. Three in vitro and five in vivo studies were included. Based on the available data, PBT and CIRT with active scanning have a limited potential to interfere with CIED that has only emerged from in vitro study so far, while a significant potential for neutron-related, not severe, CIED malfunctions (resets) was consistently reported in both clinical and in vitro studies with passive scattering

Cancer Testis Antigen Vaccination Affords Long-Term Protection in a Murine Model of Ovarian Cancer

Sperm protein (Sp17) is an attractive target for ovarian cancer (OC) vaccines because of its over-expression in primary as well as in metastatic lesions, at all stages of the disease. Our studies suggest that a Sp17-based vaccine can induce an enduring defense against OC development in C57BL/6 mice with ID8 cells, following prophylactic and therapeutic treatments. This is the first time that a mouse counterpart of a cancer testis antigen (Sp17) was shown to be expressed in an OC mouse model, and that vaccination against this antigen significantly controlled tumor growth. Our study shows that the CpG-adjuvated Sp17 vaccine overcomes the issue of immunologic tolerance, the major barrier to the development of effective immunotherapy for OC. Furthermore, this study provides a better understanding of OC biology by showing that Th-17 cells activation and contemporary immunosuppressive T-reg cells inhibition is required for vaccine efficacy. Taken together, these results indicate that prophylactic and therapeutic vaccinations can induce long-standing protection against OC and delay tumor growth, suggesting that this strategy may provide additional treatments of human OC and the prevention of disease onset in women with a family history of OC

Harmonization and standardization of data for a pan-European cohort on SARS- CoV-2 pandemic

The European project ORCHESTRA intends to create a new pan-European cohort to rapidly advance the knowledge of the effects and treatment of COVID-19. Establishing processes that facilitate the merging of heterogeneous clusters of retrospective data was an essential challenge. In addition, data from new ORCHESTRA prospective studies have to be compatible with earlier collected information to be efficiently combined. In this article, we describe how we utilized and contributed to existing standard terminologies to create consistent semantic representation of over 2500 COVID-19-related variables taken from three ORCHESTRA studies. The goal is to enable the semantic interoperability of data within the existing project studies and to create a common basis of standardized elements available for the design of new COVID-19 studies. We also identified 743 variables that were commonly used in two of the three prospective ORCHESTRA studies and can therefore be directly combined for analysis purposes. Additionally, we actively contributed to global interoperability by submitting new concept requests to the terminology Standards Development Organizations