Property specification patterns at work: verification and inconsistency explanation

Property specification patterns (PSPs) have been proposed to ease the formalization of requirements, yet enable automated verification thereof. In particular, the internal consistency of specifications written with PSPs can be checked automatically with the use of, for example, linear temporal logic (LTL) satisfiability solvers. However, for most practical applications, the expressiveness of PSPs is too restricted to enable writing useful requirement specifications, and proving that a set of requirements is inconsistent can be worthless unless a minimal set of conflicting requirements is extracted to help designers to correct a wrong specification. In this paper, we extend PSPs by considering Boolean as well as atomic numerical assertions, we contribute an encoding from extended PSPs to LTL formulas, and we present an algorithm computing inconsistency explanations, i.e., irreducible inconsistent subsets of the original set of requirements. Our extension enables us to reason about the internal consistency of functional requirements which would not be captured by basic PSPs. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach can check and explain (in)consistencies in specifications with nearly two thousand requirements generated using a probabilistic model, and that it enables effective handling of real-world case studies

SV-IV Peptide1–16 reduces coagulant power in normal Factor V and Factor V Leiden

Native Factor V is an anticoagulant, but when activated by thrombin, Factor X or platelet proteases, it becomes a procoagulant. Due to these double properties, Factor V plays a crucial role in the regulation of coagulation/anticoagulation balance

Autoantibodies against type I IFNs in patients with life-threatening COVID-19

Interindividual clinical variability in the course of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is vast. We report that at least 101 of 987 patients with life-threatening coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia had neutralizing immunoglobulin G (IgG) autoantibodies (auto-Abs) against interferon-w (IFN-w) (13 patients), against the 13 types of IFN-a (36), or against both (52) at the onset of critical disease; a few also had auto-Abs against the other three type I IFNs. The auto-Abs neutralize the ability of the corresponding type I IFNs to block SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro. These auto-Abs were not found in 663 individuals with asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection and were present in only 4 of 1227 healthy individuals. Patients with auto-Abs were aged 25 to 87 years and 95 of the 101 were men. A B cell autoimmune phenocopy of inborn errors of type I IFN immunity accounts for life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia in at least 2.6% of women and 12.5% of men

Automata based test generation with SpecPro

In this paper we introduce a new automata based test generation algorithm implemented in SPECPRO, our library for supporting analysis and development of formal requirements in cyber-physical systems. We consider specifications written in Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) from which we extract automatically trap properties representing the expected behaviour of the system under development. With respect to manual generation, the main advantage of SPECPRO is that it frees the developer from the burden of generating tests in order to achieve stated coverage targets. Our goal is to have SPECPRO handle specifications of small-but-critical components in an effective way

Antibiotic effects of Lunularia cruciata (Bryophyta) extract

This work aims to extend our knowledge on the antibacterial and antifungal activity of the liverwort, Lunularia cruciata (Bryophyta). We evaluated the action of its acetone extract against 13 bacterial and 2 fungal strains. On pharmacological screening, substantial antibacterial activities were observed for the acetone extract of the mature gametophyte oft. cruciata while antifungal activity was not observed on the strains tested. Adult thalli oft. cruciate, collected in the Botanical Gardens of Naples, underwent extraction with acetone. Inhibition of bacterial growth was compared with that of Na-cefotaxime, benzyl penicillin, and tetracycline, while the antifungal activity was compared with that of griseofulvin. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) were determined for the extract showing exclusively bacteriostatic activity