Security Aware Service Composition

Security assurance of Service-Based Systems (SBS) is a necessity and a key challenge in Service Oriented Computing. Several approaches have been introduced in order to take care of the security aspect of SBSs, from the design to the implementation stages. Such solutions, however, require expertise with regards to security languages and technologies or modelling formalisms. Furthermore, existing approaches allow only limited verification of security properties over a service composition, as they focus just on specific properties and require expressing compositions and properties in a model based formalism. In this thesis we present a unified security aware service composition approach capable of validation of arbitrary security properties. This approach allows SBS designers to build secure applications without the need to learn formal models thanks to security descriptors for services, being they self-appointed or certified by an external third-party. More specifically, the framework presented in this thesis allows expressing and propagating security requirements expressed for a security composition to requirements for the single activities of the composition, and checking security requirements over security service descriptors. The approach relies on the new core concept of secure composition patterns, modelling proven implications of security requirements within an orchestration pattern. The framework has been implemented and tested extensively in both a SBS design-time and runtime scenario, based respectively on Eclipse BPEL Designer and the Runtime Service Discovery Tool

Playing non-professional football in COVID-19 time: a narrative review of recommendations, considerations, and best practices

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020 resulted in widespread interruption of team sports training and competitions. Our aim was to review the recommendations and best practices in return to play in non-professional football after activity lockdown. The authors searched two electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science) to extract studies published before September 15 2020. Twenty studies explained recommendations, considerations, or best practices in return to play in football, and all of them were clustered into three groups: (1) training load management (n = 10), (2) medical recommendations (n = 9), and (3) recovery related issues (n = 5). The way to establish a progression in training process should be based on training load management and managing the number of stimuli per time. Following the studies, this training process should be divided into three phases: phase 1-physical distancing should be maintained; phases 2 and 3-group training should start. Medical considerations were clustered into different groups: general, pre- and post- training, during training, education, planning to return to competition, and suggestions for post confinement weeks. In particular, social issues, strict hygiene questions, and continuous PCR testing should be considered in return to play over football season. Finally, since a correlation has been found between high-intensive training loads and immunoglobulin A, nutritional and lifestyle recovery strategies should be performed. Moreover, since immunosuppression has been related to congested schedules (<72 h between matches), football federations should avoid this situation

Human sinusoidal subendothelial cells regulate homing and invasion of circulating metastatic prostate cancer cells to bone marrow

: Subendothelial cells (pericytes) are the clonogenic, multipotent and self-renewing skeletal stem cells (SSCs) found in bone marrow (BM) stroma. They express genes maintaining hematopoietic stem cell (HMC) niche identity and, transplanted in immunocompromised mice, organize the hematopoietic microenvironment (HME) generating humanized bone/BM ossicles. To create a mouse model of hematogenous metastasis of human prostate cancer (PC) cells to human bone/BM, we injected PC cells in the blood circulatory system of Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID)/beige mice bearing heterotopic ossicles. Results indicate that PC cells could efficiently home to mice-implanted extraskeletal BM ossicles, but were not able to colonize mice skeletal segments. In humanized bone/BM ossicles, early foci of PC cells occupied a perisinusoidal position, in close contact with perivascular stromal cells. These findings demonstrate the importance of the SSC compartment in recreating a suitable environment to metastatic PC cells. Our data support the hypothesis that BM SSCs committed to a pericyte fate can specify for homing niches of PC cells, suggesting an involvement of specific interactions with subendothelial stromal cells in extravasation of circulating metastatic PC cells to BM

Efficient Photothermal Generation by Nanoscale Light Trapping in a Forest of Silicon Nanowires

n/

Performance comparison between signal digitizers and low-cost digital oscilloscopes: spectroscopic, pulse shape discrimination and timing capabilities for nuclear detectors

Signal digitizers revolutionized the approach to the electronics readout of radiation detectors in Nuclear Physics. These highly specialized pieces of equipment are designed to acquire the signals that are characteristic of the detectors in nuclear physics experiments. The functions of the several modules that were once needed for signal acquisition, can now be substituted by a single digitizer. As suggested by the name, with such readout modules, signals are first digitized (i.e. the signal waveform is sampled and converted to a digital representation) and then either stored or analyzed on-the-fly. The performances can be comparable or better than the traditional analog counterparts, in terms of energy, time resolution, and acquisition rate. In this work, we investigate the use of general-purpose digital oscilloscopes as signal digitizers for nuclear detectors. In order to have a proper comparison, we employ a distributed data acquisition system (DAQ), that standardizes the interface between the hardware and the on-line data analysis. The signals, from a set of typical radiation detectors, are digitized and analyzed with the very same algorithms in order to avoid biases due to different software analysis. We compare two traditional signal digitizers (CAEN DT5725 and CAEN DT5751) to two low-cost digital oscilloscopes (Digilent Analog Discovery 2, and Red Pitaya STEMLab 125-14), in terms of their capabilities for spectroscopy (energy resolution), time resolution, pulse shape discrimination, and maximum acquisition rate.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables, Prepared for submission to JINS

The impact of angle-dependent partial frequency redistribution on the scattering polarization of the solar Na i D lines

The long-standing paradox of the linear polarization signal of the Na i D1 line was recently resolved by accounting for the atom's hyperfine structure and the detailed spectral structure of the incident radiation field. That modeling relied on the simplifying angle-averaged (AA) approximation for partial frequency redistribution (PRD) in scattering, which potentially neglects important angle-frequency couplings. This work aims at evaluating the suitability of a PRD-AA modeling for the D1 and D2 lines through comparisons with general angle-dependent (AD) PRD calculations, both in the absence and presence of magnetic fields. We solved the radiative transfer problem for polarized radiation in a one-dimensional semi-empirical atmospheric model with microturbulent and isotropic magnetic fields, accounting for PRD effects, comparing PRD-AA and PRD-AD modelings. The D1 and D2 lines are modeled separately as two-level atomic system with hyperfine structure. The numerical results confirm that a spectrally structured radiation field induces linear polarization in the D1 line. However, the PRD-AA approximation greatly impacts the Q/I shape, producing an antisymmetric pattern instead of the more symmetric PRD-AD one, while presenting a similar sensitivity to magnetic fields between 10 and 200 G. Under the PRD-AA approximation, the Q/I profile of the D2 line presents an artificial dip in its core, which is not found for the PRD-AD case. We conclude that accounting for PRD-AD effects is essential to suitably model the scattering polarization of the Na i D lines. These results bring us closer to exploiting the full diagnostic potential of these lines for the elusive chromospheric magnetic fields

Evolution of land distribution in West Bengal 1967–2004: Role of land reform and demographic changes

This paper studies how land reform and population growth affect land inequality and landlessness, focusing particularly on indirect effects owing to their influence on household divisions and land market transactions. Theoretical predictions of a model of household division and land transactions are successfully tested using household panel data from West Bengal spanning 1967–2004. The tenancy reform lowered inequality through its effects on household divisions and land market transactions, but its effect was quantitatively dominated by inequality-raising effects of population growth. The land distribution program lowered landlessness, but this was partly offset by targeting failures and induced increases in immigration

a distributed data acquisition system for nuclear detectors

Nowadays, many examples of data acquisition (DAQ) software for experimental nuclear physics are monolithic processes that run on a computer attached to the DAQ hardware. In this article we present a distributed DAQ system developed for the C-BORD project. With our system, we propose a novel approach, in which each task related to the different DAQ parts (acquisition, pre-process, analysis, etc.) runs in a separate process. In particular, the system is composed of a set of servers that exchange information through dedicated communication sockets. Therefore, with this architecture, an important advantage is the possibility to run the processes on different computers to distribute the computational load. The initial tests of the system have been giving excellent results, both in terms of performance (i.e., maximum acquisition rates) and stability. The project entitled "Effective container inspection at BORDer control points" (C-BORD) is funded by the European H2020 programme. Its aim is to develop a comprehensive set of technologies for the generalized non-intrusive inspection (NII) of containers and large-volume freight at the European Union border

A large factory-scale application of selected autochthonous lactic acid bacteria for PDO Pecorino Siciliano cheese production

The main hypothesis of this study was that the autochthonous lactic acid bacteria (LAB) selected for their dairy traits are able to stabilize the production of PDO (Protected Denomination of Origin) Pecorino Siciliano cheese, preserving its typicality. The experimental plan included the application of a multistrain lactic acid bacteria (LAB) culture, composed of starter (Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis CAG4 and CAG37) and non starter (Enterococcus faecalis PSL71, Lactococcus garviae PSL67 and Streptococcus macedonicus PSL72) strains, during the traditional production of cheese at large scale level in six factories located in different areas of Sicily. The cheese making processes were followed from milk to ripened cheeses and the effects of the added LAB were evaluated on the microbiological, chemico-physical and sensorial characteristics of the final products. Results highlighted a high variability for all investigated parameters and the dominance of LAB cocci in bulk milk samples. The experimental curds showed a faster pH drop than control curds and the levels of LAB estimated in 5-month ripened experimental cheeses (7.59 and 7.27 Log CFU/g for rods and cocci, respectively) were higher than those of control cheeses (7.02 and 6.61 Log CFU/g for rods and cocci, respectively). The comparison of the bacterial isolates by randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)-PCR evidenced the dominance of the added starter lactococci over native milk and vat LAB, while the added non starter LAB were found at almost the same levels of the indigenous strains. The sensory evaluation showed that the mixed LAB culture did not influence the majority of the sensory attributes of the cheeses and that each factory produced cheeses with unique characteristics. Finally, the multivariate statistical analysis based on all parameters evaluated on the ripened cheeses showed the dissimilarities and the relationships among cheeses. Thus, the main hypothesis of the work was accepted since the quality parameters of the final cheeses were stabilized, but all cheeses maintained their local typicality

Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus CA15 (DSM 33960) as a Candidate Probiotic Strain for Human Health

Lactobacilli with probiotic properties have emerged as promising tools for both the prevention and treatment of vaginal dysbiosis. The present study aimed to study the in vitro probiotic potential of the Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus CA15 (DSM 33960) strain isolated from a healthy vaginal ecosystem. The strain was evaluated for both functional (antagonistic activity against pathogens; H2O2, organic acid, and lactic acid production; antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities; ability to adhere to intestinal mucus and to both CaCo-2 and VK7/E6E7 cell lines; exopolysaccharide production; surface properties; and ability to survive during gastrointestinal transit) and safety (hemolytic, DNase, and gelatinase activities; mucin degradation ability; production of biogenic amines; and resistance to antimicrobials) characteristics. Data revealed that the tested strain was able to antagonize a broad spectrum of vaginal pathogens. In addition, the adhesion capacity to both vaginal and intestinal cell lines, as well as anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities, was detected. The ability of the Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus CA15 (DSM 33960) strain to survive under harsh environmental conditions occurring during the gastrointestinal passage suggests its possible oral delivery. Thus, in vitro data highlighted interesting probiotic properties of the CA15 (DSM 33960) strain, which could represent a valuable candidate for in vivo vaginal infections treatment