Model-driven Test Engineering: A Practical Analysis in the AQUA-WS Project

The effective application of test phases has been one of the most relevant, critical and cost phases in the life cycle of software projects in the last years. During the test phase, the test team has to assure the quality of the system and the concordance with the initial requirements of the system. The model driven paradigm is offering suitable results in some areas and the test phase could be one of them. This paper presents how the application of this paradigm can help to improve this aspect in the functional test generation and it analyses the experience in a real project developed under this approach.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2010-20057-C03-02Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN 2010-12312-EJunta de Andalucía TIC-578

GWpilot: Enabling multi-level scheduling in distributed infrastructures with GridWay and pilot jobs

Current systems based on pilot jobs are not exploiting all the scheduling advantages that the technique offers, or they lack compatibility or adaptability. To overcome the limitations or drawbacks in existing approaches, this study presents a different general-purpose pilot system, GWpilot. This system provides individual users or institutions with a more easy-to-use, easy-toinstall, scalable, extendable, flexible and adjustable framework to efficiently run legacy applications. The framework is based on the GridWay meta-scheduler and incorporates the powerful features of this system, such as standard interfaces, fair-share policies, ranking, migration, accounting and compatibility with diverse infrastructures. GWpilot goes beyond establishing simple network overlays to overcome the waiting times in remote queues or to improve the reliability in task production. It properly tackles the characterisation problem in current infrastructures, allowing users to arbitrarily incorporate customised monitoring of resources and their running applications into the system. This functionality allows the new framework to implement innovative scheduling algorithms that accomplish the computational needs of a wide range of calculations faster and more efficiently. The system can also be easily stacked under other software layers, such as self-schedulers. The advanced techniques included by default in the framework result in significant performance improvements even when very short tasks are scheduled

Corrosion resistance of protective coatings against molten nitrate salts for thermal energy storage and their environmental impact in CSP technology

Sol-gel ZrO2–3%molY2O3 coating deposited by means of a dip-coating application on P91 steel was statically tested at 500 °C in contact with Solar Salt (60% wt.% NaNO3/40 wt.% of KNO3) for 1000 h. This work assessed the behaviour of the coated P91 steel both from a technical and environmental point of view. Both studies were compared to those obtained with AISI 304 steel, which is currently used in commercial CSP plants. In terms of corrosion evaluation, the behaviour of the coated P91 was directly comparable to that of the uncoated AISI 304, SEM micrographs revealing the better behaviour of coated samples and the maintenance of a compact coating layer, with a thickness ranging between 1 and 1.4 μm. Furthermore, environmental analyses revealed the environmental benefits obtained by using lower Cr-Ni content steel coated with ZrO2–Y2O3 compared to AISI 304 alloy, since this coating had a negligible environmental impact (its influence is below 0.03%). Thus, the proposed scenario seems to be workable in CSP high-temperature applications both from technical and environmental points of view. The linked technical-environmental quantification provided in this paper highlights the importance of considering the whole assessment when conducting material selection for CSP applications.Publicad

COVID-19 Pandemic and its Impact on the Management of Head and Neck Cancer in the Spanish Healthcare System

Introduction Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has represented a major challenge for healthcare systems worldwide, changing the habits of physicians. A reorganization of healthcare activity has been necessary, limiting surgical activity to essential cases (emergencies and oncology), and improving the distribution of health resources. Objective To analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on head and neck cancer surgery management in Spain. Methods A cross-sectional study, through an anonymous and voluntary online survey distributed to 76 Spanish otorhinolaryngology departments. Results A total of 44 centers completed the survey, 65.9% of which were high-volume. A total of 45.5% of them had to stop high-priority surgery and 54.5% of head and neck surgeons were relocated outside their scope of practice. Surgeons reported not feeling safe during their usual practice, with a decrease to a 25% of airway procedures. A total of 29.5% were "forced" to deviate from the "standard of care" due to the epidemiological situation. Conclusions Approximately half of the departments decreased their activity, not treating their patients on a regular basis, and surgeons were reassigned to other tasks. It seems necessary that the head and neck surgeons balance infection risk with patient care. The consequences of the reported delays and changes in daily practice should be evaluated in the future in order to understand the real impact of the pandemic on the survival of head and neck cancer patients

Productive Performance of Growing Cattle Grazing a Silvopastoral System with \u3cem\u3eLeucaena leucocephala\u3c/em\u3e

In tropical regions, the feeding of cattle is usually based on the grazing of medium to low quality grasses. Low fertility of soils, changing climatic conditions and the poor management of pastures, have further reduced the quality and forage yield of pastures. The low availability and quality of grasses gives modest weight gains for grazing cattle and this in-turn causes low economical efficiency of cattle production systems (Campos et al. 2011). Silvopastoral systems represent a sustainable option for meat and milk production in the tropics. The association of grasses with legumes such as Leucaena leucocephala (leucaena) supply forage with high concentration of crude protein (Barros et al. 2012). There are reports in the scientific literature which show that intake of leucaena can result in good rates of growth in cattle (e.g. Shelton and Dalzell 2007); however the presence of the free amino acid mimosine and its metabolites (3,4-DHP and 2,3-DHP) in leucaena when the anaerobic bacteria Synergistes jonesii (Allison et al. 1992) is absent from the rumen, may induce subclinical toxicity in grazing ruminants (Graham 2007; Dalzell et al. 2012; Phaikaew et al. 2012). There are no reports in Mexico regarding the rate of growth of cattle grazing silvopastoral systems with leucaena. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the rate of growth of cattle grazing an association of Panicum maximum and leucaena compared to that of cattle fed a high grain ration (feedlot)

Neuropathic Pain in Dogs and Cats: Current Evaluation and Treatment Perspectives: Review

Abstract: During the past decade, the number of scientific papers on the recognition and multimodal management of pain in small animals increased exponentially. However, the variable of neuropathic pain, or adaptive disorder, has not yet been characterized completely. Its genesis is related to several diseases and injuries of the nervous system that change the neuroanatomical structures that participate in pain processing. Finding novel neurobiological mechanisms and the development of techniques for diagnosis and treatment in Human Medicine, are opening great opportunities for research and the understanding of neuropathic pain in pets

English compound and non-compound processing in bilingual and multilingual speakers: effects of dominance and sequential multilingualism

This article reports on a study investigating the relative influence of the first and dominant language on L2 and L3 morpho-lexical processing. A lexical decision task compared the responses to English NV-er compounds (e.g., taxi driver) and non-compounds provided by a group of native speakers and three groups of learners at various levels of English proficiency: L1 Spanish-L2 English sequential bilinguals and two groups of early Spanish-Basque bilinguals with English as their L3. Crucially, the two trilingual groups differed in their first and dominant language (i.e., L1 Spanish-L2 Basque vs. L1 Basque-L2 Spanish). Our materials exploit an (a)symmetry between these languages: while Basque and English pattern together in the basic structure of (productive) NV-er compounds, Spanish presents a construction that differs in directionality as well as inflection of the verbal element (V[3SG] + N). Results show between and within group differences in accuracy and response times that may be ascribable to two factors besides proficiency: the number of languages spoken by a given participant and their dominant language. An examination of response bias reveals an influence of the participants' first and dominant language on the processing of NV-er compounds. Our data suggest that morphological information in the nonnative lexicon may extend beyond morphemic structure and that, similarly to bilingualism, there are costs to sequential multilingualism in lexical retrieval

Statistical inference and the replication crisis

The replication crisis has prompted many to call for statistical reform within the psychological sciences. Here we examine issues within Frequentist statistics that may have led to the replication crisis, and we examine the alternative—Bayesian statistics—that many have suggested as a replacement. The Frequentist approach and the Bayesian approach offer radically different perspectives on evidence and inference with the Frequentist approach prioritising error control and the Bayesian approach offering a formal method for quantifying the relative strength of evidence for hypotheses. We suggest that rather than mere statistical reform, what is needed is a better understanding of the different modes of statistical inference and a better understanding of how statistical inference relates to scientific inference