Introduction

The goal of this volume is precisely to explore the intersections between Cultural Studies and Migration Studies, opening more cracks and proposing new ideas, themes, and approaches that speak to the varied field of migration studies, starting from the approach of cultural studies and post-colonial studies. By doing so, we will contribute to opening up visibilities and trajectories invisible in other discourses and narratives. The contributions collected here assume, in fact, different points of view not only concerning the disciplines involved and the methodologies adopted but also the addressed spatial and temporal contexts that have much to offer

Size Matters: Microservices Research and Applications

In this chapter we offer an overview of microservices providing the introductory information that a reader should know before continuing reading this book. We introduce the idea of microservices and we discuss some of the current research challenges and real-life software applications where the microservice paradigm play a key role. We have identified a set of areas where both researcher and developer can propose new ideas and technical solutions.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1706.0735

Monitored Energy Use Patterns in Low-Income Housing in a Hot and Humid Climate

The Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) is metering energy use in two Habitat for Humanity developments. The objective is to understand how energy is used in low income housing and how it can be effectively reduced. The ten "control homes" come from a conventional housing project built by in 1993 Habitat for Humanity in Homestead, Florida. Another ten "experimental homes" have been recruited from the 190 home Jordan Commons development in the same vicinity. These houses, which are soon to be metered, are designed to be energy efficient with high SEER air conditioners, reflective roofing, solar water heaters and energy efficient lighting and appliances.' The instrumentation was installed in the control homes in July of 1994 with a year of 15-minute data now collected on all sites. Data are obtained on seven electrical end-uses (air conditioning, heating, hot water, dryer, range, refrigerator, washer/freezer) as well as total. Weather conditions are also monitored as well as interior comfort conditions (temperature and humidity) and hot water consumption and window ventilation status. The field data allow unique insight into how energy is used in low income housing in a hot and humid climate

Covid 19: How Really is the Epidemiological Curve? Epidemiological Curve Growth Rate is Less than One

This paper shows some views on the mathematical structure of the diffusion of the Coronavirus (COVID-19), often claimed to have a positive exponential structure. However, we find that the exponential growth rate is past the inflection point and that growth is much slower than this implication. It presents conclusions on the future expected outcome of the current situation-not only in terms of diffusion of the disease but also for the hysteria that have been created around it

A Calculus for Orchestration of Web Services

We introduce COWS (Calculus for Orchestration of Web Services), a new foundational language for SOC whose design has been influenced by WS-BPEL, the de facto standard language for orchestration of web services. COWS combines in an original way a number of ingredients borrowed from well-known process calculi, e.g. asynchronous communication, polyadic synchronization, pattern matching, protection, delimited receiving and killing activities, while resulting different from any of them. Several examples illustrates COWS peculiarities and show its expressiveness both for modelling imperative and orchestration constructs, e.g. web services, flow graphs, fault and compensation handlers, and for encoding other process and orchestration languages

Predictive and Prognostic Molecular Factors in Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphomas

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is the commonest form of lymphoid malignancy, with a prevalence of about 40% worldwide. Its classification encompasses a common form, also termed as "not otherwise specified" (NOS), and a series of variants, which are rare and at least in part related to viral agents. Over the last two decades, DLBCL-NOS, which accounts for more than 80% of the neoplasms included in the DLBCL chapter, has been the object of an increasing number of molecular studies which have led to the identification of prognostic/predictive factors that are increasingly entering daily practice. In this review, the main achievements obtained by gene expression profiling (with respect to both neoplastic cells and the microenvironment) and next-generation sequencing will be discussed and compared. Only the amalgamation of molecular attributes will lead to the achievement of the long-term goal of using tailored therapies and possibly chemotherapy-free protocols capable of curing most (if not all) patients with minimal or no toxic effects

A timed semantics of workflows

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015. We formalize timed workflow with abnormal behavior management (i.e. recovery) and demonstrate how temporal logics and model checking are methodologies to iteratively revise the design correct-by construction system. We define a formal semantics by compiling generic workflow patterns into an extension of LTL with dense time clocks (CLTLoc). CLTLoc allows us to define the first logical formalization of workflows that can be practically employed in verification tools and to avoid the use of well-known automata based formalisms dealing with real-time. We use an ad-hoc bound model checker to prove requirements validity on a business process. The working assumption is that lightweight approaches easily fit into processes that are already in place so that radical change of procedures, tools and people’s attitudes are not needed. The complexity of formalisms and invasiveness of methods have been demonstrated to be one of the major drawback and obstacle for deployment of formal engineering techniques into mundane projects

CombiROC : an interactive web tool for selecting accurate marker combinations of omics data

Diagnostic accuracy can be improved considerably by combining multiple markers, whose performance in identifying diseased subjects is usually assessed via receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The selection of multimarker signatures is a complicated process that requires integration of data signatures with sophisticated statistical methods. We developed a user-friendly tool, called CombiROC, to help researchers accurately determine optimal markers combinations from diverse omics methods. With CombiROC data from different domains, such as proteomics and transcriptomics, can be analyzed using sensitivity/specificity filters: the number of candidate marker panels rising from combinatorial analysis is easily optimized bypassing limitations imposed by the nature of different experimental approaches. Leaving to the user full control on initial selection stringency, CombiROC computes sensitivity and specificity for all markers combinations, performances of best combinations and ROC curves for automatic comparisons, all visualized in a graphic interface. CombiROC was designed without hard-coded thresholds, allowing a custom fit to each specific data: this dramatically reduces the computational burden and lowers the false negative rates given by fixed thresholds. The application was validated with published data, confirming the marker combination already originally described or even finding new ones. CombiROC is a novel tool for the scientific community freely available at http://CombiROC.eu

Revertant Fibers in the mdx Murine Model of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy: An Age- and Muscle-Related reappraisal

Muscles in Duchenne dystrophy patients are characterized by the absence of dystrophin, yet transverse sections show a small percentage of fibers (termed “revertant fibers”) positive for dystrophin expression. This phenomenon, whose biological bases have not been fully elucidated, is present also in the murine and canine models of DMD and can confound the evaluation of therapeutic approaches. We analyzed 11 different muscles in a cohort of 40 mdx mice, the most commonly model used in pre-clinical studies, belonging to four age groups; such number of animals allowed us to perform solid ANOVA statistical analysis. We assessed the average number of dystrophin-positive fibers, both absolute and normalized for muscle size, and the correlation between their formation and the ageing process. Our results indicate that various muscles develop different numbers of revertant fibers, with different time trends; besides, they suggest that the biological mechanism(s) behind dystrophin re-expression might not be limited to the early development phases but could actually continue during adulthood. Importantly, such finding was seen also in cardiac muscle, a fact that does not fit into the current hypothesis of the clonal origin of “revertant” myonuclei from satellite cells. This work represents the largest, statistically significant analysis of revertant fibers in mdx mice so far, which can now be used as a reference point for improving the evaluation of therapeutic approaches for DMD. At the same time, it provides new clues about the formation of revertant fibers/cardiomyocytes in dystrophic skeletal and cardiac muscle