The Now of Salvation: Thoughts on Charles Williams\u27 \u3ci\u3eEt In Sempiternum Pereant\u3c/i\u3e

Analysis of Williams’s short story, noting how the symbolism of time is connected to salvation or damnation

Studies relating to Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid (PUFA) Supplementation and Fertility in Cattle

End of project reportReproductive inefficiency has a significant impact on the economic performance of both dairy and beef herds, particularly in seasonal calving systems. Nutrition plays a fundamental role in reproduction. Furthermore, there is emerging evidence that supplemental dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) may increase cow fertility independent of their role as energy substrates. A number of studies have reported enhanced reproductive performance in dairy cows following dietary supplementation with sources of n-3 PUFA. However the possible mechanisms involved have not been identified and there is some inconsistency in the published literature on this topic. The objective of the research reported was to conduct a holistic examination of the effects of dietary long-chain n-3 PUFA supplementation on metabolic and reproductive responses in cattle. Such information is essential for the appropriate formulation of diets to enhance cow reproductive performance and in particular embryo survival

Appliance Management for Federated Cloud Environments

International audienceCloud infrastructures provide compelling features for scientific and engineering applications. Federated clouds additionally promise improved scalability via access to a larger pool of resources and improved service availability through geographically distributed redundant servers. Effective use of federated clouds requires the creation of portable appliances and consistent appliance management techniques. The StratusLab Marketplace, a platform-agnostic appliance registry, facilitates appliance management in a federated environment. This paper describes the Marketplace design goals, implementation, and security concerns. It also covers the planned improvements based on our experience of running this service in production for more than two years

First Year Infrastructure Operations Report

This document summarizes the achievements of the infrastructure operations activity during the first year of the project. It describes the technical specifications of the infrastructure that has been put into operation, the process that was followed to establish it, the problems encountered and the various solutions that were applied. It also provides statistics about the usage of cloud resources and an assessment of their utilization

Childhood Trauma and Eating Psychopathology:A Mediating Role for Dissociation and Emotion Dysregulation?

The present study examined the relationship between different forms of childhood trauma and eating psychopathology using a multiple mediation model that included emotion dysregulation and dissociation as hypothesised mediators. 142 female undergraduate psychology students studying at two British Universities participated in this cross-sectional study. Participants completed measures of childhood trauma (emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect and physical neglect), eating psychopathology, dissociation and emotion dysregulation. Multiple mediation analysis was conducted to investigate the study's proposed model. Results revealed that the multiple mediation model significantly predicted eating psychopathology. Additionally, both emotion dysregulation and dissociation were found to be significant mediators between childhood trauma and eating psychopathology. A specific indirect effect was observed between childhood emotional abuse and eating psychopathology through emotion dysregulation. Findings support previous research linking childhood trauma to eating psychopathology. They indicate that multiple forms of childhood trauma should be assessed for individuals with eating disorders. The possible maintaining role of emotion regulation processes should also be considered in the treatment of eating disorders

Infrastructure Specifications

This document presents the computing infrastructure deployed in the context of StratusLab project, details the configuration of the computing resources used and the commitments made from the project partners to contribute with computing resources in the project. During the first months of operation this infrastructure has already been significantly exploited to deliver the first results towards the project's goals. The OpenNebula virtual management software has been used to install private clouds on different OS platforms. Two pre-production grid sites have been deployed in the private cloud and are used to test the implications of providing grid services in cloud environments. Experience from the deployment and operation of the above sites will help us identify the required tools and procedures for offering grid production sites over computing clouds. Finally the document presents related work, relevant to infrastructure operations, taking place in other projects and initiatives

Infrastructure Operations Final Report

This document serves as a final report of the activities and achievements of WP5 throughout the whole duration of the project. The document covers the areas of infrastructure operation, service provisioning, support, testing and benchmarking. In addition, the document provides a record of the practical knowledge accumulated during the provision of various public cloud services over a period of almost two years

StratusLab Cloud Distribution

International audienceCloud technologies provide many benefits for scientific and engineering applications, such as customised execution environments, near-instantaneous provisioning, elasticity, and the ability to run user-level services. However, a rapid, wholesale shift to using public, commercial cloud services is unlikely because of capital investments in existing resources and data management issues. To take full advantage of cloud technologies in the short term, institutes and companies must be able to deploy their own cloud infrastructures. The StratusLab project provides a complete, open-source cloud distribution that permits them to do this. The StratusLab services include the computing, storage, and networking services required for an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud. It also includes high-level services like the Marketplace that facilitates the sharing of machine images and Claudia that allows the deployment and management of complete software systems

Reference Architecture for StratusLab Toolkit 2.0

The document describes the updated Reference Architecture for StratusLab v2.0, building on D4.1, which described the architecture for StratusLab v1.0. This document contains two main parts, the overall architecture identifying the required services and components of which it is composed, followed by detailed descriptions for each of these elements. For v2.0, the architecture is rationalized and consolidated. For example, the policy validation, caching and cloud storage are integrated as default features. The Appliance Repository is replaced by the cloud storage service. Several services are also added, such as cloud storage, virtual network provisioning and inter-cloud connectivity. From v1.0 to v2.0, incremental versions of the StratusLab distribution will be built and released to provide an increasing amount of the functionality identified in this document, alongside further improvements to the robustness of the distribution

Divergent and convergent evolution after a common-source outbreak of hepatitis C virus.

The genomic sequences of viruses that are highly mutable and cause chronic infection tend to diverge over time. We report that these changes represent both immune-driven selection and, in the absence of immune pressure, reversion toward an ancestral consensus. Sequence changes in hepatitis C virus (HCV) structural and nonstructural genes were studied in a cohort of women accidentally infected with HCV in a rare common-source outbreak. We compared sequences present in serum obtained 18–22 yr after infection to sequences present in the shared inoculum and found that HCV evolved along a distinct path in each woman. Amino acid substitutions in known epitopes were directed away from consensus in persons having the HLA allele associated with that epitope (immune selection), and toward consensus in those lacking the allele (reversion). These data suggest that vaccines for genetically diverse viruses may be more effective if they represent consensus sequence, rather than a human isolate