Architectural mismatch tolerance

The integrity of complex software systems built from existing components is becoming more dependent on the integrity of the mechanisms used to interconnect these components and, in particular, on the ability of these mechanisms to cope with architectural mismatches that might exist between components. There is a need to detect and handle (i.e. to tolerate) architectural mismatches during runtime because in the majority of practical situations it is impossible to localize and correct all such mismatches during development time. When developing complex software systems, the problem is not only to identify the appropriate components, but also to make sure that these components are interconnected in a way that allows mismatches to be tolerated. The resulting architectural solution should be a system based on the existing components, which are independent in their nature, but are able to interact in well-understood ways. To find such a solution we apply general principles of fault tolerance to dealing with arch itectural mismatche

More about orbitally excited hadrons from lattice QCD

This is a second paper describing the calculation of spectroscopy for orbitally excited states from lattice simulations of Quantum Chromodynamics. New features include higher statistics for P-wave systems and first results for the spectroscopy of D-wave mesons and baryons, for relatively heavy quark masses. We parameterize the Coulomb gauge wave functions for P-wave and D-wave systems and compare them to those of their corresponding S-wave states.Comment: 21 pages plus 14 figs, 3 include

Prosocial behaviours under collective quarantine conditions. A latent class analysis study during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown in Italy

We aimed to identify the patterns of prosocial behaviours under collective quarantine conditions. Survey data were collected from a sample of Italian adults during the March May 2020 COVID-19 lockdown in Italy. Participants reported on offline and online prosocial behaviours, sense of community responsibility (SoC-R) and perceptions of community resilience. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used for data analysis. A total of 4,045 participants completed the survey, and 2,562 were eligible (72% female; mean age 38.7 years). LCA revealed four classes of prosocial behaviours: Money donors (7%), Online and offline helpers (59%), Online health information sharers (21%) and Neighbour helpers (13%). The classes were partially invariant across age groups (18-35 and 35-65 years). Being a man, having achieved a higher educational level and higher SoC-R scores were associated with belonging to the Online and offline helper class. The members of this class also reported the greatest perceptions of community resilience. The results provide insight on the multidimensionality of prosociality under collective quarantine conditions. Online and offline helpers could be targeted for promoting sustained altruism and involvement in community organisations. For the other groups, programmes should aim at eliminating barriers to help others in multiple ways. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement

Erratum: Internet and mobile-based psychological interventions: Applications, efficacy and potential for improving mental health. A report of the EFPA E-Health Taskforce (European Psychologist (2018) 23 (167-187) DOI: 10.1027/1016-9040/a000318)

© 2018 2018 Hogrefe Publishing. The article entitled Internet and mobile-based psychological interventions: Applications, efficacy and potential for improving mental health. A report of the EFPA E-Health Taskforce. by Ebert, D. D., Van Daele, T., Nordgreen, T., Karekla, M., Compare, A., Zarbo, C., Brugnera, B., Overland, S., Trebbi, G., Jensen, K. L., Kaehlke, F. (on behalf of the EFPA E-Health Taskforce), & Baumeister, H. (2018, European Psychologist, 23(2), 167-187. https://doi.org/ 10.1027/1016-9040/a000318) contained an error on the first page: The author Jacqui Taylor is missing and the list of authors should correctly read as follows: David Daniel Ebert1, Tom Van Daele2, Tine Nordgreen3, Maria Karekla4, Angelo Compare6, Cristina Zarbo5, Agostino Brugnera5, Svein Overland7, Glauco Trebbi8, Kit L. Jensen9, Fanny Kaehlke (on behalf of the EFPA E-Health Taskforce)1, Harald Baumeister10, and Jacqui Taylor11 1Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen- Nrnberg, Erlangen, Germany 2Department of Applied Psychology, Thomas More University of Applied Sciences, Antwerp, Belgium 3Division of Psychiatry, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway 4Department of Psychology, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Republic of Cyprus 5Department of Human and Social Science, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy 6Human Factors and Technology in Healthcare, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, BG, Italy 7SuperEgo AS, Trondheim, Norway 8Trebbipsicologie, Luxembourg & Societe Luxembourgeoise de Psychologie SLP, Luxembourg 9Private Practice, Skagen, Denmark 10Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Ulm, Germany 11Psychology Department, Bournemouth University, UK The authors regret any inconvenience or confusion this error may have caused

Development and validation of the short version of the Psychological General Well-Being Index (PGWB-S)

BACKGROUND: The PGWBI is a 22-item health-related Quality of Life (HRQoL) questionnaire developed in US which produces a self-perceived evaluation of psychological well-being expressed by a summary score. The PGWBI has been validated and used in many countries on large samples of the general population and on specific patient groups. Recently a study was carried out in Italy to reduce the number of items of the original questionnaire, yielding the creation of a shorter validated version of the questionnaire (PGWB-S). The purpose of the present paper is to describe the methods adopted and to report and discuss the relevance of results. METHODS: Data for this study were collected from 4 different population samples: two general population samples a student and a patient sample. On the basis of the results of the first (development) sample population, six relevant items were identified statistically from the original questionnaire and grouped to assemble a new summary scale. Following the newly created 6-item questionnaire was administered in three independent population samples. Descriptive statistics, correlation coefficients, univariate and multivariate regression analyses were used to compare the performance of the long and short questionnaire, within and between population samples and across relevant subgroups. A further independent sample extracted by an ongoing cancer clinical trial served as final validation step. RESULTS: Overall, the questionnaires were administered to 1443 subjects. Six items were selected by a step-wise approach to explain 90% of the variance of the summary measure of the original questionnaire. Response rates reached 100%, while missing items were not observed. University students (n = 400) showed the highest mean value of the summary measure (75.3); while the patient sample (n = 28) had the lowest score (71.5). The correlation coefficients between the summary measures and the single items according to the different studies were satisfactory, reaching the highest estimates in the student sample. The internal consistency showed high values of the Cronbach's alpha coefficient (range 0.80 – 0.92) for all three study samples, coming close to the value of the coefficient established for the original questionnaire (0.94). A cross-validation in an independent sample of 755 cancer patients confirmed the item selection procedure and amount of variance explained by the new shorter questionnaire (ranging from 90. 2 to 95.1 %, across age and sex strata). CONCLUSION: The newly identified PGWB-S showed good acceptability and validity for the use in various settings in Italy. The translation of the PGWB-S into different languages, and its use in other linguistic settings will add evidence about its cross-cultural validity

Variations in Helicobacter pylori Cytotoxin-Associated Genes and Their Influence in Progression to Gastric Cancer: Implications for Prevention

Helicobacter pylori (HP) is a bacterium that colonizes the human stomach and can establish a long-term infection of the gastric mucosa. Persistent Hp infection often induces gastritis and is associated with the development of peptic ulcer disease, atrophic gastritis, and gastric adenocarcinoma. Virulent HP isolates harbor the cag (cytotoxin-associated genes) pathogenicity island (cagPAI), a 40 kb stretch of DNA that encodes components of a type IV secretion system (T4SS). This T4SS forms a pilus for the injection of virulence factors into host target cells, such as the CagA oncoprotein. We analyzed the genetic variability in cagA and other selected genes of the HP cagPAI (cagC, cagE, cagL, cagT, cagV and cag Gamma) using DNA extracted from frozen gastric biopsies or from clinical isolates. Study subjects were 95 cagA+ patients that were histologically diagnosed with chronic gastritis or gastric cancer in Venezuela and Mexico, areas with high prevalence of Hp infection. Sequencing reactions were carried out by both Sanger and next-generation pyrosequencing (454 Roche) methods. We found a total of 381 variants with unambiguous calls observed in at least 10% of the originally tested samples and reference strains. We compared the frequencies of these genetic variants between gastric cancer and chronic gastritis cases. Twenty-six SNPs (11 non-synonymous and 14 synonymous) showed statistically significant differences (P<0.05), and two SNPs, in position 1039 and 1041 of cagE, showed a highly significant association with cancer (p-value = 2.07×10−6), and the variant codon was located in the VirB3 homology domain of Agrobacterium. The results of this study may provide preliminary information to target antibiotic treatment to high-risk individuals, if effects of these variants are confirmed in further investigations

Deep sequencing of gastric carcinoma reveals somatic mutations relevant to personalized medicine

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Globally, gastric cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related death, with the majority of the health burden borne by economically less-developed countries.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Here, we report a genetic characterization of 50 gastric adenocarcinoma samples, using affymetrix SNP arrays and Illumina mRNA expression arrays as well as Illumina sequencing of the coding regions of 384 genes belonging to various pathways known to be altered in other cancers.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Genetic alterations were observed in the WNT, Hedgehog, cell cycle, DNA damage and epithelial-to-mesenchymal-transition pathways.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The data suggests targeted therapies approved or in clinical development for gastric carcinoma would be of benefit to ~22% of the patients studied. In addition, the novel mutations detected here, are likely to influence clinical response and suggest new targets for drug discovery.</p