The Benefits of Using XML Technologies in Astronomical Data Retrieval and Interpretation

This paper describes a solution found during recent research that could provide improvements in the efficiency, reliability and cost of retrieving stored astronomical data. This solution uses XML Technologies in showing that when querying a variety of astronomical data sources a standardised data structure can be output into an XML query results Document. This paper shows the astronomical XMLSchema that has been partially developed in conjunction with simple custom supporting system software. It also discusses briefly possible future implications

Experimental Demonstration of Compensation of Beam-Beam Effects by Electron Lenses

We report the first experimental demonstration of compensation of beam-beam interaction effects in high-energy particle collider by using space-charge forces of a low-energy electron beam. In our experiments, an electron lens, a novel instrument developed for the beam-beam compensation, was set on a 980-GeV proton bunch in the Tevatron proton-antiproton collider. The proton bunch losses due to its interaction with antiproton beam were reduced by a factor of 2 when the electron lens was operating. We describe the principle of electron lens operation and present experimental results.Comment: submitted to Physical Review Letters, April 2, 2007. submitted to Physical Review Letters, April 2, 200

Meat quality of quail fed diets enriched with probiotic lactobacilli

The article describes the effect of probiotic strains Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus AG16, Limosilactobacillus fermentum HFD1, and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum LS-4.4 on the meat quality of quail. The strains were grown on a whey-based nutrient medium, and in the form of suspension were introduced into the diet of birds for two months. The use of these feed additives, especially L. fermentum HFD1, resulted in a decrease in the pH of the quail breast meat. All tested strains induced a decrease in water holding capacity and cooking loss of quail breast meat compared to the control variant. The meat of quail fed with probiotic lactobacilli was less stiff, that resulted in less chewing effort in the raw meat and less cutting effort in the cooked meat

Genesis and Prospects of Higher Insurance Education Development in Russia

The article discusses the history and stages of development of insurance education in Russia in comparison with the development of the insurance market in 1990–2020, determines the prospects and conditions for development of insurance education. The internal and external factors that influenced the direction and rate of the market of educational services development in the field of insurance are highlighted, the reasons for the creation and liquidation of specialized departments in Russian universities are analyzed. Based on the analysis of the Russian insurance market in 1990-2020, an understanding of the real and reported indicators of the insurance market is being formed, the differences in which caused at the first stage the creation of a significant number of insurance departments in Russian universities, not supported by a real need for specialists, and then the liquidation of the departments with the loss of the already established competencies for training insurance specialists. In the late 2010s, the modernization processes in the requirements for insurance organizations took place, the financial stability and solvency standards were being raised, mandatory actuarial valuation and new forms of financial reporting were being introduced that required specialized knowledge, basic and professional standards were being developed and adopted with the participation of self-regulatory organizations of insurers. All of that actualized the activities of specialized insurance departments based on the integration of professional requirements fixed in professional and basic standards, and educational standards, which should allow the implementation of economically successful undergraduate and master’s programs.The history of insurance departments in modern Russia may be of interest to researchers of the history of education in modern Russia, the origins and causes of the current state of the educational services market, periods of growth and decline in the number of active players. Based on the analysis of archival and current insurance development strategies, the article highlights the adopted basic and professional standards, prospects for the development of insurance departments, gives recommendations for interaction with professional participants of the insurance market. The revealed trends are also typical for other highly professional departments

Optical-electronic System and Software Complex for Research and Identification of Macro- and Micro-optical Elements of Security Holograms

The paper presents an automated optical-electronic software and hardware complex for carrying out activities to identify and control the authenticity of diffraction and holographic optical security elements. The developed complex makes it possible to significantly simplify the work of the expert in conducting forensic studies of objects marked with security holograms

Search for potential gastric cancer markers using miRNA databases and gene expression analysis

Aim: The aim of this study was to identify genes that are differentially expressed in gastric tumors and to analyze the association of their expression level with tumor clinicopathologic features. Methods: In the present research, we used bioinformatic-driven search to identify miRNA that are down-regulated in gastric tumors and to find their potential targets. Then, the expression levels of some of the target mRNAs were investigated using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis. Results: As a result of the bioinformatics analysis, fifteen genes were found to be potentially differentially expressed between the tumors and normal gastric tissue. Five of them were chosen for the further analysis (WNT4, FGF12, EFEMP1, CTGF, and HSPG2) due to their important role in cell proliferation and differentiation. Expression levels of these genes were evaluated in our collection of frozen tissue samples of gastric tumor and paired normal stomach epithelia. Increased FGF12 expression was observed in diffuse type of gastric cancer while WNT4 mRNA was found to be down-regulated in intestinal type of gastric cancer. Besides, CTGF gene overexpression was revealed in diffuse type of stomach cancer in comparison with that in intestinal type. Up-regulation of CTGF was also associated with lymph node metastasis. Conclusions: The findings show its expedient to perform further investigations in order to clarify diagnostic and prognostic value of CTGF, FGF12, and WNT4’s in stomach cancer as well as the role of these genes in carcinogenesis

Target and (Astro-)WISE technologies - Data federations and its applications

After its first implementation in 2003 the Astro-WISE technology has been rolled out in several European countries and is used for the production of the KiDS survey data. In the multi-disciplinary Target initiative this technology, nicknamed WISE technology, has been further applied to a large number of projects. Here, we highlight the data handling of other astronomical applications, such as VLT-MUSE and LOFAR, together with some non-astronomical applications such as the medical projects Lifelines and GLIMPS, the MONK handwritten text recognition system, and business applications, by amongst others, the Target Holding. We describe some of the most important lessons learned and describe the application of the data-centric WISE type of approach to the Science Ground Segment of the Euclid satellite.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, Proceedngs IAU Symposium No 325 Astroinformatics 201

The Euclid Archive Processing and Data Distribution Systems: A Distributed Infrastructure for Euclid and Associated Data

The Euclid Archive System is an ambitious information system, which sits at the heart of the Euclid Science Ground Segment. It is a joint development between the Euclid Consortium and the ESAC Science Data Centre. It encompases both Euclid data and the large volume of associated ground based data (e.g. KiDS, DES and LSST). The Euclid Science Ground Segment consists of the Euclid Science Operations Centre and ten national Science Data Centres. The large data volumes demand that data transfer is minimized and that the processing is taken to the data. This is supported by the Euclid Archive Data Processing System and the Euclid Archive Distributed Data System. The Data Processing System consists of a central metadata repository, which contains the information necessary to process any data item and full data lineage of any data product created. The Distributed Data System provides a cloud solution with a node at each of the national Science Data Centres, which controls data storage and transfer. It supports a large number of storage types, including POSIX, iRODS, gridftp and Xrootd. No limitations are placed on the storage implemented at an individual SDC. Further more, the user of the system needs no knowledge of where data is located. Jobs will be started at the most appropriate locations, or data transferred as necessary