Towards run-time monitoring of web services conformance to business-level agreements

Web service behaviour is currently specified in a mixture of ways, often using methods that are only partially complete. These range from static functional specifications, based on interfaces in WSDL and preconditions in RIF, to business process simulations using executable process-based models such as BPEL, to detailed quality of service (QoS) agreements laid down in a service level agreement (SLA). This paper recognises that something similar to a SLA is required at the higher business level to govern the contract between service producers, brokers and consumers. We call this a business level agreement (BLA) and within this framework, seek to unify disparate aspects of functional specification, QoS and run-time verification. We propose that the method for validating a web service with respect to its advertised BLA should be based on run-time service monitoring. This is a position paper towards defining these goals

Agronomic practices influence soil biodiversity with strong feedback to plant growth

Non-Peer Reviewe

Theory for Gossamer and Resonating Valence Bond Superconductivity

We use an effective Hamiltonian for two-dimensional Hubbard model including an antiferromagnetic spin-spin coupling term to study recently proposed gossamer superconductivity. We formulate a renormalized mean field theory to approximately take into account the strong correlation effect in the partially projected Gutzwiller wavefucntions. At the half filled, there is a first order phase transition to separate a Mott insulator at large Coulomb repulsion U from a gossamer superconductor at small U. Away from the half filled,the Mott insulator is evolved into an resonating valence bond state, which is adiabatically connected to the gossamer superconductor.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figure

Transcriptional and Post-Transcriptional Regulation of Autophagy

Autophagy is a widely conserved process in eukaryotes that is involved in a series of physiological and pathological events, including development, immunity, neurodegenerative disease, and tumorigenesis. It is regulated by nutrient deprivation, energy stress, and other unfavorable conditions through multiple pathways. In general, autophagy is synergistically governed at the RNA and protein levels. The upstream transcription factors trigger or inhibit the expression of autophagyor lysosome-related genes to facilitate or reduce autophagy. Moreover, a significant number of noncoding RNAs (microRNA, circRNA, and lncRNA) are reported to participate in autophagy regulation. Finally, post-transcriptional modifications, such as RNA methylation, play a key role in controlling autophagy occurrence. In this review, we summarize the progress on autophagy research regarding transcriptional regulation, which will provide the foundations and directions for future studies on this self-eating process

A sol-gel method for growing superconducting MgB2 films

In this paper we report a new sol-gel method for the fabrication of MgB2 films. Polycrystalline MgB2 films were prepared by spin-coating a precursor solution of Mg(BH_4)_2 diethyl ether on (001)Al2O3 substrates followed with annealing in Mg vapor. In comparison with the MgB2 films grown by other techniques, our films show medium qualities including a superconducting transition temperature of Tc ~ 37 K, a critical current density of Jc(5 K, 0 T) ~ 5 {\times} 10^6 A cm^{-2}, and a critical field of H_{c2}(0) ~ 19 T. Such a sol-gel technique shows potential in the commercial fabrication of practically used MgB2 films as well as MgB2 wires and tapes.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Microfluidic synthesis of protein-loaded nanogels in a coaxial flow reactor using a design of experiments approach

Ionic gelation is commonly used to generate nanogels but often results in poor control over size and polydispersity. In this work we present a novel approach to the continuous manufacture of protein-loaded chitosan nanogels using microfluidics whereby we demonstrate high control and uniformity of the product characteristics. Specifically, a coaxial flow reactor (CFR) was employed to control the synthesis of the nanogels, comprising an inner microcapillary of internal diameter (ID) 0.595 mm and a larger outer glass tube of ID 1.6 mm. The CFR successfully facilitated the ionic gelation process via chitosan and lysozyme flowing through the inner microcapillary, while cross-linkers sodium tripolyphosphate (TPP) and 1-ethyl-2-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)-carbodiimide (EDC) flowed through the larger outer tube. In conjunction with the CFR, a four-factor three-level face-centered central composite design (CCD) was used to ascertain the relationship between various factors involved in nanogel production and their responses. Specifically, four factors including chitosan concentration, TPP concentration, flow ratio and lysozyme concentration were investigated for their effects on three responses (size, polydispersity index (PDI) and encapsulation efficiency (% EE)). A desirability function was applied to identify the optimum parameters to formulate nanogels in the CFR with ideal characteristics. Nanogels prepared using the optimal parameters were successfully produced in the nanoparticle range at 84 ± 4 nm, showing a high encapsulation efficiency of 94.6 ± 2.9% and a high monodispersity of 0.26 ± 0.01. The lysis activity of the protein lysozyme was significantly enhanced in the nanogels at 157.6% in comparison to lysozyme alone. Overall, the study has demonstrated that the CFR is a viable method for the synthesis of functional nanogels containing bioactive molecules

Strongly Ideal Robust Weyl Semimetals in Cubic Symmetry with Spatial-Inversion Breaking

We show that compounds in a family that possess time-reversal symmetry and share a non-centrosymmetric cubic structure with the space group F-43m (No. 216) host robust ideal Weyl semi-metal fermions with desirable topologically protected features. The candidates in this family are compounds with different chemical formulas AB2, ABC, ABC2, and ABCD and their Fermi levels are predominantly populated by nontrivial Weyl fermions. Symmetry of the system requires that the Weyl nodes with opposite chirality are well separated in momentum space. Adjacent Weyl points have the same chirality, thus these Weyl nodes would not annihilate each other with respect to lattice perturbations. As Fermi arcs and surface states connect Weyl nodes with opposite chirality, the large separation of the latter in momentum space guarantees the appearance of very long arcs and surface states. This work demonstrates the use of system symmetry by first-principles calculations as a powerful recipe for discovering new Weyl semi-metals with attractive features whose protected fermions may be candidates of many applications.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

PharmGED: Pharmacogenetic Effect Database

Prediction and elucidation of pharmacogenetic effects is important for facilitating the development of personalized medicines. Knowledge of polymorphism-induced and other types of drug-response variations is needed for facilitating such studies. Although databases of pharmacogenetic knowledge, polymorphism and toxicogenomic information have appeared, some of the relevant data are provided in separate web-pages and in terms of relatively long descriptions quoted from literatures. To facilitate easy and quick assessment of the relevant information, it is helpful to develop databases that provide all of the information related to a pharmacogenetic effect in the same web-page and in brief descriptions. We developed a database, Pharmacogenetic Effect Database (PharmGED), for providing sequence, function, polymorphism, affected drugs and pharmacogenetic effects. PharmGED can be accessed at free of charge for academic use. It currently contains 1825 entries covering 108 disease conditions, 266 distinct proteins, 693 polymorphisms, 414 drugs/ligands cited from 856 references