Discovery and composition of web services using artificial intelligence planning and web service modeling ontology

In today’s Web environment, Web services are the preferred standards-based way to realize Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) computing. A problem that has become one of the recent critical issues is automated discovery and composition of Semantic Web services. A number of approaches have been presented to solve the problem. However, most of these approaches only consider discovery or composition of Web services but not both. In this study, an effective approach called AIMO, based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) planning, Web Service Modeling Ontology (WSMO), and Semantic Web has been proposed to tackle the problem. The main purpose of this study is to investigate and develop a novel approach for automated Web service discovery and composition. In this case, a comparative evaluation of state-of-the-art approaches for Web service composition approaches has been done and the strengths and weaknesses of those approaches have been discussed. Moreover a translator for interaction between WSMO and AI-planning based on Description Logics has been proposed. In addition, some parts of AIMO architecture have been tested on a practical case study, and the results based on the experimental validation demonstrate that AIMO provides an effective and applicable solution. AIMO continues to support loose coupling paradigm of SOA by separating the discovery from the composition of Web services

ACE and Atherosclerosis: pieces of the puzzle

There is increasing evidence that atherosclerosis is not only involved in cardiovascular diseases (CVD) but also other diseases of the elderly such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Since CVD are highly fatal and usually occur earlier than Alzheimer’s disease, the co-morbidity by CVD might hamper studies on the association between atherosclerosis risk factors and AD. Here we used the inverse probability of censoring weighted analyses method to test this hypothesis, in a study on the relationship between the insertion/deletion polymorphism of the angiotensin converting enzyme gene (ACE I/D) and risk of AD. We used data from the Rotterdam Study, a prospective population based study. We .rst performed a Cox proportional hazards model including all available cardiovascular risk factors to calculate the probability of death from CVD and thereby the probability of being free from fatal CVD events. These probabilities were then used to weight the subjects who were uncensored by fatal disease by the inverse of their survival probability. In a weighted analysis we estimated the association between the ACE I/D polymorphism and AD. Among 2431 men that were free from Alzheimer’s disease at baseline, 51 persons were diagnosed for AD and 196 individual had fatal cardiovascular events without occurrence of AD during the follow up. Among 3281 women, these numbers were 89 and 159, respectively. Survival analyses showed that the association between the I allele and AD was mainly present in women (p values for trend was 0.09). In the weighted analyses the hazard ratios did not materially change in any of the gender groups. Our results indicate that the association between the I allele of the ACE gene and Alzheimer’s disease is not due to the co-morbidity effect of CVD

Mapping of QTL for intermedium spike on barley chromosome 4H using EST-based markers

The lateral spikelets of two-rowed barley are reduced in size and sterile, but in six-rowed barley all three spikelets are fully fertile. The trait is largely controlled by alleles at the vrs1 locus on chromosome arm 2HL, as modified by the allele present at the I locus on chromosome arm 4HS. Molecular markers were developed to saturate the 4HS region by exploiting expressed sequence-tags, either previously mapped in barley to this region, or present in the syntenic region of rice chromosome 3. Collinearity between rice and barley was strong in the 4.8 cM interval BJ468164-AV933435 and the 10 cM interval AV942364-BJ455560. A major QTL for lateral spikelet fertility (the I locus) explained 44% of phenotypic variance, and was located in the interval CB873567-BJ473916. The genotyping of near-isogenic lines for I placed the locus in a region between CB873567 and EBmac635, and therefore the most likely position of the I locus was proximal to CB873567 in a 5.3 cM interval between CB873567-BJ473916

Polymorphisms in metabolic genes, their combination and interaction with tobacco smoke and alcohol consumption and risk of gastric cancer: a case-control study in an Italian population.

BACKGROUND: The distribution and the potential gene-gene and gene-environment interaction of selected metabolic genetic polymorphisms was investigated in relation to gastric cancer risk in an Italian population. METHODS: One hundred and seven cases and 254 hospital controls, matched by age and gender, were genotyped for CYP1A1, CYP2E1, mEH, GSTM1, GSTT1, NAT2 and SULT1A1 polymorphisms. Haplotype analysis was performed for EPHX1 exons 3 and 4, as well as CYP2E1 RsaI (*5 alleles) and CYP2E1 DraI (*5A or *6 alleles). The effect modification by alcohol and cigarette smoking was tested with the heterogeneity test, while the attributable proportion (AP) was used to measure the biological interaction from the gene-gene interaction analysis. RESULTS: Gastric cancer risk was found to be associated with the inheritance of GSTT1 null genotype (OR = 2.10, 95%CI: 1.27-3.44) and the SULT1A1 His/His genotype (OR = 2.46, 95%CI: 1.03-5.90). No differences were observed for the haplotype distributions among cases and controls. For the first time an increased risk was detected among individuals carrying the *6 variant allele of CYP2E1 if ever-drinkers (OR = 3.70; 95%CI: 1.45-9.37) with respect to never-drinkers (OR = 0.18; 95% CI: 0.22-1.46) (p value of heterogeneity among the two estimates = 0.001). Similarly, the effect of SULT1A1 variant genotype resulted restricted to ever-smokers, with an OR of 2.58 (95%CI: 1.27-5.25) for the carriers of His allele among smokers, and an OR of 0.86 (95%CI: 0.45-1.64) among never-smokers (p value of heterogeneity among the two estimates = 0.03). The gene-gene interaction analyses demonstrated that individuals with combined GSTT1 null and NAT2 slow acetylators had an additional increased risk of gastric cancer, with an OR of 3.00 (95%CI: 1.52-5.93) and an AP of 52%. CONCLUSION: GSTT1, SULT1A1 and NAT2 polymorphisms appear to modulate individual's susceptibility to gastric cancer in this Italian population, particularly when more than one unfavourable genotype is present, or when combined with cigarette smoke. The increased risk for the carriers of CYP2E1*5A or *6 alleles among drinkers need to be confirmed by larger prospective studies

Potential of Acid-Activated Bentonite and SO3H-Functionalized MWCNTs for Biodiesel Production From Residual Olive Oil Under Biorefinery Scheme

Application of acid-activated bentonite and SO3H-functionlized multiwall carbon nanotubes (SO3H-MWCNTs) for lowering free fatty acids (FFAs) content of low-quality residual olive oil, prior to alkali-catalyzed transesterification was investigated. The used bentonite was first characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Inductively Coupled Plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), and X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and was subsequently activated by different concentrations of H2SO4 (3, 5, and 10 N). Specific surface area of the original bentonite was measured by Brunauer, Emmett, and Teller (BET) method at 45 m2/g and was best improved after 5 N-acid activation (95–98°C, 2 h) reaching 68 m2/g. MWCNTs was synthesized through methane decomposition (Co-Mo/MgO catalyst, 900°C) during the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. After two acid-purification (HCl, HNO3) and two deionized-water-neutralization steps, SO3H was grafted on MWCNTs (concentrated H2SO4, 110°C for 3 h) and again neutralized with deionized water and then dried. The synthesized SO3H-MWCNTs were analyzed using Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). The activated bentonite and SO3H-MWCNTs were utilized (5 wt.% and 3 wt.%, respectively), as solid catalysts in esterification reaction (62°C, 450 rpm; 15:1 and 12:1 methanol-to-oil molar ratio, 27 h and 8 h, respectively), to convert FFAs to their corresponding methyl esters. The results obtained revealed an FFA to methyl ester conversion of about 67% for the activated bentonite and 65% for the SO3H-MWCNTs. More specifically, the acid value of the residual olive oil was decreased significantly from 2.5 to 0.85 and 0.89 mg KOH/g using activated bentonite and SO3H-MWCNTs, respectively. The total FFAs in the residual olive oil after esterification was below 0.5%, which was appropriate for efficient alkaline-transesterification reaction. Both catalysts can effectively pretreat low-quality oil feedstock for sustainable biodiesel production under a biorefinery scheme. Overall, the acid-activate bentonite was found more convenient, cost-effective, and environment-friendly than the SO3H-MWCNTs

Research Article Novel Security Conscious Evaluation Criteria for Web Service Composition

Abstract: This study aims to present a new mathematical based evaluation method for service composition with respects to security aspects. Web service composition as complex problem solver in service computing has become one of the recent challenging issues in today's web environment. It makes a new added value service through combination of available basic services to address the problem requirements. Despite the importance of service composition in service computing, security issues have not been addressed in this area. Considering the dazzling growth of number of service based transactions, making a secure composite service from candidate services with different security concerns is a demanding task. To deal with this challenge, different techniques have been employed which have direct impacts on secure service composition efficiency. Nonetheless, little work has been dedicated to deeply investigate those impacts on service composition outperformance. Therefore, the focus of this study is to evaluate the existing approaches based on their applied techniques and QoS aspects. A mathematicalbased security-aware evaluation framework is proposed wherein Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a multiple criteria decision making technique, is adopted. The proposed framework is tested on state-of-the-art approaches and the statistical analysis of the results presents the efficiency and correctness of the proposed work

The genetics of cardiovascular disease

Recent advances in genotyping technology and insights into disease mechanisms have increased interest in the genetics of cardiovascular disease. Several candidate genes involved in cardiovascular diseases were identified from studies using animal models, and the translation of these findings to human disease is an exciting challenge. There is a trend towards large-scale genome-wide association studies that are subject to strict quality criteria with regard to both genotyping and phenotyping. Here, we review some of the strategies that have been developed to translate findings from experimental models to human disease and outline the need for optimizing global approaches to analyze such results. Findings from ongoing studies are interpreted in the context of disease pathways instead of the more traditional focus on single genetic variants

Conversion of barley SNPs into PCR-based markers using dCAPS method

Molecular genetic research relies heavily on the ability to detect polymorphisms in DNA. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are the most frequent form of DNA variation in the genome. In combination with a PCR assay, the corresponding SNP can be analyzed as a derived cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence (dCAPS) marker. The dCAPS method exploits the well-known specificity of a restriction endonuclease for its recognition site and can be used to virtually detect any SNP. Here, we describe the use of the dCAPS method for detecting single-nucleotide changes by means of a barley EST, CK569932, PCR-based marker