Authentication and Authorization in Microservice-Based Applications

The development of microservice-based applications adds challenges when using different cloud services. One such challenge is the integration of authentication and authorization among different systems. In this publication, we describe the development of a software as a service solution with the focus on the integration of authentication and authorization. For the development of the business logic, the integration platform as a service MuleSoft is used. The identity and access management as a service solution Okta is used to provide the necessary means for authentication. To perform authorization decisions, JSON Web Tokens and API proxies are used

Toward the development of a virtual spray test-rig using the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics method

In this work we present the numerical simulation of air-assisted liquid atomization at high pressure us- ing the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. Different post-processing tools are applied to facilitate the comparison with experimental observations. This allows to quantitatively validate the nu- merical method against the experiment, in terms of (i) frequency of the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability that develops on the jet surface, and (ii) statistical distribution of the jet intact length. The qualitative com- parison also shows a good prediction of the jet global instability and of the fragmented liquid lumps, with regards to length and time scales. In addition, the post-processing tools also give access to the local parameters of the generated spray in the vicinity of the nozzle, which are not easily accessible in a real experiments. Using these tools, 1D profiles and 2D maps of the liquid phase properties such as the vol- ume fraction, the droplet concentration, the Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD) and the droplet sphericity are presented. Because of the Lagrangian nature of the SPH method, it is also possible to monitor the whole atomization cascade as a causal tree, from the primary instabilities to the spray characteristics. This tree contains various information such as the fragmentation spectrum and the breakup activity, which are of great interest for researchers and engineers. Hence, the capability of the Smoothed Particle Hydrody- namics (SPH) method for simulating air-assisted atomization at high ambient pressure is demonstrated as well as its applicability to realistic configurations. This is a first step towards the development of a complete virtual spray test-rig

Autoantibodies to aS1-Casein Are Induced by Breast-Feeding

Background: The generation of antibodies is impaired in newborns due to an immature immune system and reduced exposure to pathogens due to maternally derived antibodies and placental functions. During nursing, the immune system of newborns is challenged with multiple milk-derived proteins. Amongst them, caseins are the main constituent. In particular, human aS1-casein (CSN1S1) was recently shown to possess immunomodulatory properties. We were thus interested to determine if auto-antibodies to CSN1S1 are induced by breast-feeding and may be sustained into adulthood. Methods: 62 sera of healthy adult individuals who were (n = 37) or were not (n = 25) breast-fed against human CSN1S1 were investigated by a new SD (surface display)-ELISA. For cross-checking, these sera were tested for anti Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) antibodies by a commercial ELISA. Results: IgG-antibodies were predominantly detected in individuals who had been nursed. At a cut-off value of 0.4, the SDELISA identified individuals with a history of having been breast-fed with a sensitivity of 80% and a specificity of 92%. Under these conditions, 35 out of 37 sera from healthy donors, who where breast-fed, reacted positively but only 5 sera of the 25 donors who were not breast-fed. The duration of breast-feeding was of no consequence to the antibody reaction as some healthy donors were only short term breast-fed (5 days minimum until 6 weeks maximum), but exhibited significant serum reaction against human CSN1S1 nonetheless. Conclusion: We postulate that human CSN1S1 is an autoantigen. The antigenicity is orally determined, caused by breastfeeding, and sustained into adulthood

Chemical-protein relation extraction with ensembles of carefully tuned pretrained language models

The identification of chemical-protein interactions described in the literature is an important task with applications in drug design, precision medicine and biotechnology. Manual extraction of such relationships from the biomedical literature is costly and often prohibitively time-consuming. The BioCreative VII DrugProt shared task provides a benchmark for methods for the automated extraction of chemical-protein relations from scientific text. Here we describe our contribution to the shared task and report on the achieved results. We define the task as a relation classification problem, which we approach with pretrained transformer language models. Upon this basic architecture, we experiment with utilizing textual and embedded side information from knowledge bases as well as additional training data to improve extraction performance. We perform a comprehensive evaluation of the proposed model and the individual extensions including an extensive hyperparameter search leading to 2647 different runs. We find that ensembling and choosing the right pretrained language model are crucial for optimal performance, whereas adding additional data and embedded side information did not improve results. Our best model is based on an ensemble of 10 pretrained transformers and additional textual descriptions of chemicals taken from the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database. The model reaches an F1 score of 79.73% on the hidden DrugProt test set and achieves the first rank out of 107 submitted runs in the official evaluation. Database URL: https://github.com/leonweber/drugprot

Oscillatory Shear Flow-Induced Alignment of Lamellar Melts of Hydrogen-Bonded Comb Copolymer Supramolecules

In this work we present the orientational behavior of comb copolymer-like supramolecules P4VP(PDP)1.0, obtained by hydrogen bonding between poly(4-vinylpyridine) and pentadecylphenol, during large-amplitude oscillatory shear flow experiments over a broad range of frequencies (0.001-10 Hz). The alignment diagram, presenting the macroscopic alignment in T/TODT vs ω/ωc, contains three regions of parallel alignment separated by a region of perpendicular alignment. For our material, the order-disorder temperature TODT = 67 °C and ωc, the frequency above which the distortion of the chain conformation dominates the materials’ viscoelasticity, is around 0.1 Hz at 61 °C. For the first time flipping from a pure transverse alignment via biaxial transverse/perpendicular alignment to a perpendicular alignment as a function of the strain amplitude was found.

The Effectiveness of Contract Farming for Raising Income of Smallholder Farmers in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: a Systematic Review

Contract farming is used by an increasing number of firms as a preferred modality to source products from smallholder farmers in low and middle-income countries. Quality requirements of consumers, economies of scale in production or land ownership rights are common incentives for firms to offer contractual arrangements to farmers. Prices and access to key technology, key inputs or support services are the main incentives for farmers to enter into these contracts. There is great heterogeneity in contract farming, with differences in contracts, farmers, products, buyers, and institutional environments. The last decade shows a rapid increase in studies that use quasi-experimental research designs to assess the effects of specific empirical instances of contract farming on smallholders. The objective of this systematic review was to distill generalised inferences from this rapidly growing body of evidence. The review synthesised the studies in order to answer two questions: 1: What is known about the effect size of contract farming on income and food security of smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries? 2: Under which enabling or limiting conditions are contract farming arrangements effective for improving income and food security of smallholders

Taking two to tango:fMRI analysis of improvised joint action with physical contact

<div><p>Many forms of joint action involve physical coupling between the participants, such as when moving a sofa together or dancing a tango. We report the results of a novel two-person functional MRI study in which trained couple dancers engaged in bimanual contact with an experimenter standing next to the bore of the magnet, and in which the two alternated between being the leader and the follower of joint improvised movements. Leading showed a general pattern of self-orientation, being associated with brain areas involved in motor planning, navigation, sequencing, action monitoring, and error correction. In contrast, following showed a far more sensory, externally-oriented pattern, revealing areas involved in somatosensation, proprioception, motion tracking, social cognition, and outcome monitoring. We also had participants perform a “mutual” condition in which the movement patterns were pre-learned and the roles were symmetric, thereby minimizing any tendency toward either leading or following. The mutual condition showed greater activity in brain areas involved in mentalizing and social reward than did leading or following. Finally, the analysis of improvisation revealed the dual importance of motor-planning and working-memory areas. We discuss these results in terms of theories of both joint action and improvisation.</p></div