A co-locating fast file system for UNIX

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1998.Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-54).by Constantine Sapuntzakis.M.Eng

An approach for virtual appliance distribution for service deployment

Fulfilling a service request in highly dynamic service environments may require deploying a service. Therefore, the effectiveness of service deployment systems affects initial service response times. On Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud systems deployable services are encapsulated in virtual appliances. Services are deployed by instantiating virtual machines with their virtual appliances. The virtual machine instantiation process is highly dependent on the size and availability of the virtual appliance that is maintained by service developers. This article proposes an automated virtual appliance creation service that aids the service developers to create efficiently deployable virtual appliances in former systems this task was carried out manually by the developer. We present an algorithm that decomposes these appliances in order to replicate the common virtual appliance parts in IaaS systems. These parts are used to reduce the deployment time of the service by rebuilding the virtual appliance of the service on the deployment target site. With the prototype implementation of the proposed algorithms we demonstrate the decomposition and appliance rebuilding algorithms on a complex web service. © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Polyphenolic content and antioxidant capacity in fruits of plum (prunus domestica l.) Cultivars "valjevka" and "mildora" as influenced by air drying

Polyphenolic content and antioxidant capacity of freshly harvested plums cvs. "Valjevka" and "Mildora," and changes caused by drying were analyzed. Plum drying at 90C resulted in significant changes in anthocyanins, flavonoids and phenolics content, and antioxidant capacity in both cultivars examined. Statistical analysis showed that antioxidant capacity of both fresh plums and prunes of "Valjevka" and "Mildora" is strongly influenced by the phenolic constituents of the fruit. The major phenolic compound in fresh plums and prunes is neochlorogenic acid, followed by caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid. After drying, a significant decrease in neochlorogenic acid and an increase in caffeic acid was observed, while chlorogenic acid content decreased in prunes of "Valjevka," and increased in prunes of "Mildora." Rutin and protocatechuic acid contents were slightly decreased after drying, while gallic acid content was dramatically increased. A complete degradation of cyanidin was induced by drying

Sex- and Gonad-Affecting Scent Compounds and 3 Male Pheromones in the Rat

This study was aimed at identifying sex pheromones of the rat (Rattus norvegicus). We characterized the volatiles and semivolatiles of rat preputial gland and voided urine by using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and quantified them by their GC areas (abundances) and percentage of GC areas (relative abundances). Although all the compounds other than 4-heptanone and phenol detected were shared by males and females, the quantities for some of these sex-common compounds exhibited sexual dimorphism and decreased with gonadectomy. Thus, these compounds might be sex pheromones. Among them, squalene from preputial glands and 2-heptanone and 4-ethyl phenol from urine were 3 major compounds. They were richer in males and could be suppressed by castration. Adding any of the 3 compounds (at a concentration higher than its physiological level in male urine) to castrated male urine (CMU) increased the attractiveness of CMU to sex-naive females. Adding the 3 together (at the levels in normal male urine) to CMU significantly increased the attractiveness of CMU to females. However, such combination did not fully restore females' preference for urine from intact males, suggesting that some other trace compounds such as 4-heptanone and phenol might also play some roles in sex attractiveness. Thus, squalene, 2-heptanone, and 4-ethyl phenol were indeed male pheromone molecules in rats. Our study also indicates that E,E-β-farnesene and E-α-farnesene, both richer in females than males, might be putative female pheromones

High availability using virtualization - 3RC

High availability has always been one of the main problems for a data center. Till now high availability was achieved by host per host redundancy, a highly expensive method in terms of hardware and human costs. A new approach to the problem can be offered by virtualization. Using virtualization, it is possible to achieve a redundancy system for all the services running on a data center. This new approach to high availability allows the running virtual machines to be distributed over a small number of servers, by exploiting the features of the virtualization layer: start, stop and move virtual machines between physical hosts. The 3RC system is based on a finite state machine, providing the possibility to restart each virtual machine over any physical host, or reinstall it from scratch. A complete infrastructure has been developed to install operating system and middleware in a few minutes. To virtualize the main servers of a data center, a new procedure has been developed to migrate physical to virtual hosts. The whole Grid data center SNS-PISA is running at the moment in virtual environment under the high availability system.Comment: 10 page

Vitamin A status of 20- to 59-year-old adults living in Seoul and the metropolitan area, Korea

Dietary intakes and plasma concentrations of retinol and carotenoids were estimated in assessing the vitamin A status of Korean adults living in Seoul and the metropolitan area. Three consecutive 24-h food recalls were collected from 106 healthy subjects (33 males and 73 females) aged 20-59 years. Fasting blood samples of the subjects were obtained and plasma retinol and carotenoids were analyzed. The daily vitamin A intakes (mean ± SD) were 887.77 ± 401.35 µg retinol equivalents or 531.84 ± 226.42 µg retinol activity equivalents. There were no significant differences in vitamin A intakes among age groups. The retinol intake of subjects was 175.92 ± 129.87 µg/day. The retinol intake of the subjects in their 50's was significantly lower than those in their 20's and 30's (P < 0.05). Provitamin A carotenoid intakes were 3,828.37 ± 2,196.29 µg/day β-carotene, 472.57 ± 316.68 µg/day α-carotene, and 412.83 ± 306.46 µg/day β-cryptoxanthin. Approximately 17% of the subjects consumed vitamin A less than the Korean Estimated Average Requirements for vitamin A. The plasma retinol concentration was 1.22 ± 0.34 µmol/L. There was no significant difference in plasma retinol concentrations among age groups. However, the concentrations of β-carotene, lycopene, and lutein of subjects in their 50's were significantly higher than those of in their 20's. Only one subject had a plasma retinol concentration < 0.70 µmol/L indicating marginal vitamin A status. Plasma retinol concentration in 30% of the subjects was 0.70- < 1.05 µmol/L, which is interpreted as the concentration possibly responsive to greater intake of vitamin A. In conclusion, dietary intakes and status of vitamin A were generally adequate in Korean adults examined in this study

Role of lycopene and tomato products in prostate health

AbstractEpidemiological evidence associating the decreased risk of prostate cancer with frequent consumption of tomato products inspired us to conduct a small intervention trial among patients diagnosed with prostate adenocarcinoma. Tomato sauce pasta was consumed daily for 3 weeks before their scheduled prostatectomy, and biomarkers of tomato intake, prostate cancer progression and oxidative DNA damage were followed in blood and the available prostate tissue. The whole food intervention was so well accepted by the subjects that the blood lycopene (the primary carotenoid in tomatoes responsible for their red color) doubled and the prostate lycopene concentration tripled during this short period. Oxidative DNA damage in leukocytes and prostate tissues was significantly diminished, the latter mainly in the tumor cell nuclei, possibly due to the antioxidant properties of lycopene. Quite surprising was the decrease in blood prostate-specific antigen, which was explained by the increase in apoptotic death of prostate cells, especially in carcinoma regions. Prostate cancer cell cultures (LNCaP) were also sensitive to lycopene in growth medium, which caused an increased apoptosis and arrested the cell cycle. A possible explanation of these promising results may reside in lycopene effects on the genes governing the androgen stimulation of prostate growth, cytokines and on the enzymes producing reactive oxygen species, all of which were recently discovered by nutrigenomic techniques. Other phytochemicals in tomato may act in synergy with lycopene to potentiate protective effects and to help in the maintenance of prostate health