An Algorithm for Automatic Service Composition

Telecommunication companies are struggling to provide their users with value-added services. These services are expected to be context-aware, attentive and personalized. Since it is not economically feasible to build services separately by hand for each individual user, service providers are searching for alternatives to automate service creation. The IST-SPICE project aims at developing a platform for the development and deployment of innovative value-added services. In this paper we introduce our algorithm to cope with the task of automatic composition of services. The algorithm considers that every available service is semantically annotated. Based on a user/developer service request a matching service is composed in terms of component services. The composition follows a semantic graph-based approach, on which atomic services are iteratively composed based on services' functional and non-functional properties

The XPF-ERCC1 endonuclease and homologous recombination contribute to the repair of minor groove DNA interstrand crosslinks inmammalian cells produced by the pyrrolo[2,1-c][1,4]benzodiazepine dimer SJG-136

SJG-136, a pyrrolo[2,1-c][1,4]benzodiazepine (PBD) dimer, is a highly efficient interstrand crosslinking agent that reacts with guanine bases in a 5'-GATC-3' sequence in the DNA minor groove. SJG-136 crosslinks form rapidly and persist compared to those produced by conventional crosslinking agents such as nitrogen mustard, melphalan or cisplatin which bind in the DNA major groove. A panel of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells with defined defects in specific DNA repair pathways were exposed to the bi-functional agents SJG-136 and melphalan, and to their mono-functional analogues mmy-SJG and mono-functional melphalan. SJG-136 was >100 times more cytotoxic than melphalan, and the bi-functional agents were much more cytotoxic than their respective mono-functional analogues. Cellular sensitivity of both SJG-136 and melphalan was dependent on the XPF-ERCC1 heterodimer, and homologous recombination repair factors XRCC2 and XRCC3. The relative level of sensitivity of these repair mutant cell lines to SJG-136 was, however, significantly less than with major groove crosslinking agents. In contrast to melphalan, there was no clear correlation between sensitivity to SJG-136 and crosslink unhooking capacity measured using a modified comet assay. Furthermore, repair of SJG-136 crosslinks did not involve the formation of DNA double-strand breaks. SJG-136 cytotoxicity is likely to result from the poor recognition of DNA damage by repair proteins resulting in the slow repair of both mono-adducts and more importantly crosslinks in the minor groove

Challenges in risk assessment of multiple mycotoxins in food

Review articleMost fungi are able to produce several mycotoxins simultaneously and, consequently, to contaminate a wide variety of foodstuffs. Therefore, the risk of human co-exposure to multiple mycotoxins is real, raising a growing concern about their potential impact on human health. Besides, government and industry regulations are usually based on individual toxicities, and do not take into account the complex dynamics associated with interactions between co-occurring groups of mycotoxins. The present work assembles, for the first time, the challenges posed by the likelihood of human co-exposure to these toxins and the possibility of interactive effects occurring after absorption, towards knowledge generation to support a more accurate human risk assessment. Regarding hazard assessment, a physiologically-based framework is proposed in order to infer the health effects from exposure to multiple mycotoxins in food, including knowledge on the bioaccessibility, toxicokinetics and toxicodynamics of single and combined toxins. The prioritisation of the most relevant mixtures to be tested under experimental conditions that attempt to mimic human exposure and the use of adequate mathematical approaches to evaluate interactions, particularly concerning the combined genotoxicity, were identified as the main challenges for hazard assessment. Regarding exposure assessment, the need of harmonised food consumption data, availability of multianalyte methods for mycotoxin quantification, management of left-censored data, use of probabilistic models and multibiomarker approaches are highlighted, in order to develop a more precise and realistic exposure assessment. To conclude, further studies on hazard and exposure assessment of multiple mycotoxins, using harmonised methodologies, are crucial towards an improvement of data quality and a more reliable and robust risk characterisation, which is central for risk management and, consequently, to prevent mycotoxins-associated adverse effects. A deep understanding of the nature of interactions between multiple mycotoxins will contribute to draw real conclusions on the health impact of human exposure to mycotoxin mixtures.This research was performed under the MycoMix project ‘Exploring the toxic effects of mixtures of mycotoxins in infant food and potential health impact’ (PTDC/DTP-FTO/0417/2012), through CESAM: UID/AMB/50017/2013 and ToxOmics: UID/BIM/00009/2013, all funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Defining and Prototyping a Life-cycle for Dynamic Service Composition

Since the Internet has become a commodity in both wired and wireless environments, new applications and paradigms have emerged to explore this highly distributed and widespread system. One such paradigm is service-orientation, which enables the provision of software functionality as services, \ud allowing in this way the construction of distributed systems with loosely coupled parts. The Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) provides a set of principles to create service-oriented systems, by defining how services can be \ud created, composed, published, discovered and invoked. In accordance with these principles, in this paper we address the challenge of performing dynamic service composition. The composition process and its associated tasks have to be precisely defined so that the different problems of dynamic service composition can be identified and tackled. To achieve this, this paper defines a life-cycle for dynamic service composition, which defines the required phases and stakeholders. Furthermore, we present our prototype in which the different phases of the dynamic service composition life-cycle are being implemented. This prototype is being used to experiment with and validate our initial ideas on dynamic service composition

Análise longitudinal da performance em nadadores de ranking mundial

A natação pura desportiva é uma modalidade cíclica onde o alcançar da máxima p e r f o rma n c e é o derradeiro objectivo. Mais ainda, o número de pesquisas de âmbito longitudinal em natação é bastante reduzido