Using Lightweight Activity Diagrams for Modeling and Generation of Web Information Systems

The development process of web information systems nowadays improved a lot regarding effectiveness and tool support, but still contains many redundant steps for similar tasks. In order to overcome this, we use a model-driven approach to specify a web information system in an agile way and generate a full- edged and runnable application from a set of models. The covered aspects of the system comprise data structure, page structure including view on data, page- and workflow within the system as well as overall application structure and user rights management. Appropriate tooling allows transforming these models to complete systems and thus gives us opportunity for a lightweight development process based on models. In this paper, we describe how we approach the page- and workflow aspect by using activity diagrams as part of the agile modeling approach MontiWIS. We give an overview of the defined syntax, describe the supported forms of action contents and finally explain how the behavior is realized in the generated application.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Advocacy at the Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery

The Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery (WCPCCS) will be held in Washington DC, USA, from Saturday, 26 August, 2023 to Friday, 1 September, 2023, inclusive. The Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery will be the largest and most comprehensive scientific meeting dedicated to paediatric and congenital cardiac care ever held. At the time of the writing of this manuscript, The Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery has 5,037 registered attendees (and rising) from 117 countries, a truly diverse and international faculty of over 925 individuals from 89 countries, over 2,000 individual abstracts and poster presenters from 101 countries, and a Best Abstract Competition featuring 153 oral abstracts from 34 countries. For information about the Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, please visit the following website: [www.WCPCCS2023.org]. The purpose of this manuscript is to review the activities related to global health and advocacy that will occur at the Eighth World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery. Acknowledging the need for urgent change, we wanted to take the opportunity to bring a common voice to the global community and issue the Washington DC WCPCCS Call to Action on Addressing the Global Burden of Pediatric and Congenital Heart Diseases. A copy of this Washington DC WCPCCS Call to Action is provided in the Appendix of this manuscript. This Washington DC WCPCCS Call to Action is an initiative aimed at increasing awareness of the global burden, promoting the development of sustainable care systems, and improving access to high quality and equitable healthcare for children with heart disease as well as adults with congenital heart disease worldwide

Catalysis of linear alkene metathesis by Grubbs-type ruthenium alkylidene complexes containing hemilabile α,α-diphenyl-(monosubstituted-pyridin-2-yl)methanolato ligands

Four new Grubbs-type precatalysts [RuCl(H2IMes)(O^N)(=CHPh)], where [O^N = α,α-diphenyl-(3-methylpyridin-2-yl)methanolato, α,α-diphenyl-(4-methylpyridin-2-yl)methanolato, α,α-diphenyl-(5-methylpyridin-2-yl)methanolato and α,α-diphenyl-(3-methoxypyridin-2-yl)methanolato] were synthesized and tested for their activity, stability and selectivity in the 1-octene metathesis reaction. Overall the precatalysts showed good activity and high stability for the metathesis of 1-octene at temperatures above 80 °C and up to 110 °C. Selectivities towards the primary metathesis products, i.e., 7-tetradecene and ethene, above 85% were obtained with all the precatalysts at 80 and 90 °C. High selectivities were also observed at 100 °C for the 4-Me- and 3-OMe-substituted precatalysts. With an increase in temperature an increase in isomerisation products and secondary metathesis products were observed with the latter reaching values >20% for the 3-OMe- and 3-Me-substituted precatalysts at 110 and 100 °C, respectively. All the precatalysts exhibits first-order kinetics at 80 °C with the 3-substituted precatalysts the slowest. The behaviour of the 3-substituted precatalysts can be attributed to electronic and steric effects associated with the adjacent bulky phenyl groups

The Multifaceted Antibacterial Mechanisms of the Pioneering Peptide Antibiotics Tyrocidine and Gramicidin S

Cyclic β-sheet decapeptides, such as tyrocidines and gramicidin S, were among the first antibiotics in clinical application. Although they have been used for such a long time, there is virtually no resistance to them, which has led to a renewed interest in this peptide class. Both tyrocidines and gramicidin S are thought to disrupt the bacterial membrane. However, this knowledge is mainly derived from in vitro studies, and there is surprisingly little knowledge about how these long-established antibiotics kill bacteria. Our results shed new light on the antibacterial mechanism of β-sheet peptide antibiotics and explain why they are still so effective and why there is so little resistance to them.Cyclic β-sheet decapeptides from the tyrocidine group and the homologous gramicidin S were the first commercially used antibiotics, yet it remains unclear exactly how they kill bacteria. We investigated their mode of action using a bacterial cytological profiling approach. Tyrocidines form defined ion-conducting pores, induce lipid phase separation, and strongly reduce membrane fluidity, resulting in delocalization of a broad range of peripheral and integral membrane proteins. Interestingly, they also cause DNA damage and interfere with DNA-binding proteins. Despite sharing 50% sequence identity with tyrocidines, gramicidin S causes only mild lipid demixing with minor effects on membrane fluidity and permeability. Gramicidin S delocalizes peripheral membrane proteins involved in cell division and cell envelope synthesis but does not affect integral membrane proteins or DNA. Our results shed a new light on the multifaceted antibacterial mechanisms of these antibiotics and explain why resistance to them is virtually nonexistent

Building an ecologically founded disease risk prioritization framework for migratory wildlife species based on contact with livestock

Shared use of rangelands by livestock and wildlife can lead to disease transmission. To align agricultural livelihoods with wildlife conservation, a multipronged and interdisciplinary approach for disease management is needed, particularly in data-limited situations with migratory hosts. Migratory wildlife and livestock can range over vast areas, and opportunities for disease control interventions are limited. Predictive frameworks are needed which can allow for identification of potential sites and timings of interventions. We developed an iterative three-step framework to assess cross-species disease transmission risk between migrating wildlife and livestock in data-limited circumstances and across social-ecological scales. The framework first assesses risk of transmission for potentially important diseases for hosts in a multi-use landscape. Following this, it uses an epidemiological risk function to represent transmission-relevant contact patterns, using density and distribution of the host to map locations and periods of disease risk. Finally, it takes fine-scale data on livestock management and observed wildlife-livestock interactions to provide locally relevant insights on disease risk. We applied the framework to characterize disease transmission between livestock and saiga antelopes Saiga tatarica in Central Kazakhstan. At step 1, we identified peste-des-petits-ruminants as posing a high risk of transmission from livestock to saigas, foot-and-mouth disease as low risk, lumpy skin disease as unknown and pasteurellosis as uncertain risk. At step 2, we identified regions of high disease transmission risk at different times of year, indicating where disease management should be focussed. At step 3, we synthesized field surveys, government data and literature review to assess the role of livestock in the 2015 saiga mass mortality event from pasteurellosis, concluding that it was minimal. Synthesis and applications. Our iterative framework has wide applicability in assessing and predicting disease spill-over at management-relevant temporal and spatial scales in areas where livestock share space with migratory species. Our case study demonstrated the value of combining ecological and social information to inform management of targeted interventions to reduce disease risk, which can be used to plan disease surveillance and vaccination programmes