An effective scalable SQL engine for NoSQL databases

NoSQL databases were initially devised to support a few concrete extreme scale applications. Since the specificity and scale of the target systems justified the investment of manually crafting application code their limited query and indexing capabilities were not a major im- pediment. However, with a considerable number of mature alternatives now available there is an increasing willingness to use NoSQL databases in a wider and more diverse spectrum of applications and, to most of them, hand-crafted query code is not an enticing trade-off. In this paper we address this shortcoming of current NoSQL databases with an effective approach for executing SQL queries while preserving their scalability and schema flexibility. We show how a full-fledged SQL engine can be integrated atop of HBase leading to an ANSI SQL compli- ant database. Under a standard TPC-C workload our prototype scales linearly with the number of nodes in the system and outperforms a NoSQL TPC-C implementation optimized for HBase.(undefined

Unexpected ring‑opening of 2,3‑dihydropyridines

The reaction of 2,3-dihydropyridines with sulfonyl halides surprisingly yielded open chain dienes with sulfonylimine structure. The products were specific out of several possible isomers and, therefore, a separation of isomers was not necessary. All new compounds were characterized using FT-IR spectroscopy, HRMS, and NMR spectroscopy. A bicyclic by-product from the reaction of a 2,3-dihydropyridine with mesyl chloride was isolated and its structure elucidated using a single X-ray crystal analysis. Some biological activities, like antimicrobial and cytotoxic properties were investigated

Scalable data management in distributed information systems

[EN] In the era of cloud computing and huge information systems, distributed applications should manage dynamic workloads; i.e., the amount of client requests per time unit may vary frequently and servers should rapidly adapt their computing efforts to those workloads. Cloud systems provide a solid basis for this kind of applications but most of the traditional relational database systems are unprepared to scale up with this kind of distributed systems. This paper surveys different techniques being used in modern SQL, NoSQL and NewSQL systems in order to increase the scalability and adaptability in the management of persistent data. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.This work has been supported by EU FEDER and Spanish MICINN under research grants TIN2009-14460-C03-01 and TIN2010-17193Pallardó Lozoya, MR.; Esparza Peidro, J.; García Escriva, JR.; Decker, H.; Muñoz Escoí, FD. (2011). Scalable data management in distributed information systems. 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Differences in Relative Hippocampus Volume and Number of Hippocampus Neurons among Five Corvid Species

The relative size of the avian hippocampus (Hp) has been shown to be related to spatial memory and food storing in two avian families, the parids and corvids. Basil et al. [Brain Behav Evol 1996;47: 156-164] examined North American food-storing birds in the corvid family and found that Clark’s nutcrackers had a larger relative Hp than pinyon jays and Western scrub jays. These results correlated with the nutcracker’s better performance on most spatial memory tasks and their strong reliance on stored food in the wild. However, Pravosudov and de Kort [Brain Behav Evol 67 (2006), 1-9] raised questions about the methodology used in the 1996 study, specifically the use of paraffin as an embedding material and recalculation for shrinkage. Therefore, we measured relative Hp volume using gelatin as the embedding material in four North American species of food-storing corvids (Clark’s nutcrackers, pinyon jays, Western scrub jays and blue jays) and one Eurasian corvid that stores little to no food (azure-winged magpies). Although there was a significant overall effect of species on relative Hp volume among the five species, subsequent tests found only one pairwise difference, blue jays having a larger Hp than the azure-winged magpies. We also examined the relative size of the septum in the five species. Although Shiflett et al. [J Neurobiol 51 (2002), 215-222] found a difference in relative septum volume amongst three species of parids that correlated with storing food, we did not find significant differences amongst the five species in relative septum. Finally, we calculated the number of neurons in the Hp relative to body mass in the five species and found statistically significant differences, some of which are in accord with the adaptive specialization hypothesis and some are not

Differences in Relative Hippocampus Volume and Number of Hippocampus Neurons among Five Corvid Species

The relative size of the avian hippocampus (Hp) has been shown to be related to spatial memory and food storing in two avian families, the parids and corvids. Basil et al. [Brain Behav Evol 1996;47: 156-164] examined North American food-storing birds in the corvid family and found that Clark’s nutcrackers had a larger relative Hp than pinyon jays and Western scrub jays. These results correlated with the nutcracker’s better performance on most spatial memory tasks and their strong reliance on stored food in the wild. However, Pravosudov and de Kort [Brain Behav Evol 67 (2006), 1-9] raised questions about the methodology used in the 1996 study, specifically the use of paraffin as an embedding material and recalculation for shrinkage. Therefore, we measured relative Hp volume using gelatin as the embedding material in four North American species of food-storing corvids (Clark’s nutcrackers, pinyon jays, Western scrub jays and blue jays) and one Eurasian corvid that stores little to no food (azure-winged magpies). Although there was a significant overall effect of species on relative Hp volume among the five species, subsequent tests found only one pairwise difference, blue jays having a larger Hp than the azure-winged magpies. We also examined the relative size of the septum in the five species. Although Shiflett et al. [J Neurobiol 51 (2002), 215-222] found a difference in relative septum volume amongst three species of parids that correlated with storing food, we did not find significant differences amongst the five species in relative septum. Finally, we calculated the number of neurons in the Hp relative to body mass in the five species and found statistically significant differences, some of which are in accord with the adaptive specialization hypothesis and some are not

Just Another Day on Twitter: A Complete 24 Hours of Twitter Data

At the end of October 2022, Elon Musk concluded his acquisition of Twitter. In the weeks and months before that, several questions were publicly discussed that were not only of interest to the platform's future buyers, but also of high relevance to the Computational Social Science research community. For example, how many active users does the platform have? What percentage of accounts on the site are bots? And, what are the dominating topics and sub-topical spheres on the platform? In a globally coordinated effort of 80 scholars to shed light on these questions, and to offer a dataset that will equip other researchers to do the same, we have collected all 375 million tweets published within a 24-hour time period starting on September 21, 2022. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first complete 24-hour Twitter dataset that is available for the research community. With it, the present work aims to accomplish two goals. First, we seek to answer the aforementioned questions and provide descriptive metrics about Twitter that can serve as references for other researchers. Second, we create a baseline dataset for future research that can be used to study the potential impact of the platform's ownership change

Genotoxic potential of Cotinus coggygria Scop. (Anacardiaceae) stem extract in vivo

The intention was to evaluate the possible in vivo genotoxic potential in different cell-types, of a methanol extract obtained from the plant stem of Cotinus coggygria Scop., using the sex-linked recessive lethal (or SLRL) test and alkaline comet assay. The SLRL test, revealed the genotoxic effect of this extract in postmeiotic and premeiotic germ-cell lines. The comet assay was carried out on rat liver and bone marrow at 24 and 72 h after intraperitoneal administration. For genotoxic evaluation, three concentrations of the extract were tested, viz., 500, 1000 and 2000 mg/kg body weight (bw), based on the solubility limit of the extract in saline. Comet tail moment and total scores in the group treated with 500 mg/kg bw, 24 and 72 h after treatment, were not significantly different from the control group, whereas in the groups of animals, under the same conditions, but with 1000 and 2000 mg/kg bw of the extract, scores were statistically so. A slight decrease in the comet score and tail moment observed in all the doses in the 72 h treatment, gave to understand that DNA damage induced by Cotinus coggygria extract decreased with time. The results of both tests revealed the genotoxic effect of Cotinus coggygria under our experimental conditions

Assessment of motor functioning in the preschool period

The assessment of motor functioning in young children has become increasingly important in recent years with the acknowledgement that motor impairment is linked with cognitive, language, social and emotional difficulties. However, there is no one gold standard assessment tool to investigate motor ability in children. The aim of the current paper was to discuss the issues related to the assessment of motor ability in young pre-school children and to provide guidelines on the best approach for motor assessment. The paper discusses the maturational changes in brain development at the preschool level in relation to motor ability. Other issues include sex differences in motor ability at this young age, and evidence for this in relation to sociological versus biological influences. From the previous literature it is unclear what needs to be assessed in relation to motor functioning. Should the focus be underlying motor processes or movement skill assessment? Several key assessment tools are discussed that produce a general measure of motor performance followed by a description of tools that assess specific skills, such as fine and gross motor, ball and graphomotor skills. The paper concludes with recommendations on the best approach in assessing motor function in pre-school children