AUTOMATED COMPOSITION OF WEB SERVICES VIA PLANNING IN ASYNCHRONOUS DOMAINS\ud

The service-oriented paradigm promises a novel degree of interoperability between\ud business processes, and is leading to a major shift in way distributed applications are\ud designed and realized. While novel and more powerful services can be obtained, in such\ud setting, by suitably orchestrating existing ones, manually developing such orchestrations\ud is highly demanding, time-consuming and error-prone. Providing automated service\ud composition tools is therefore essential to reduce the time to market of services, and\ud ultimately to successfully enact the service-oriented approach.\ud In this paper, we show that such tools can be realized based on the adoption and extension\ud of powerful AI planning techniques, taking the “planning via model-checking” approach\ud as a stepping stone. In this respect, this paper summarizes and substantially extends a\ud research line that started early in this decade and has continued till now. Specifically, this\ud work provides three key contributions.\ud First, we describe a novel planning framework for the automated composition of Web\ud services, which can handle services specified and implemented using industrial standard\ud languages for business processes modeling and execution, like ws-bpel. Since these\ud languages describe stateful Web services that rely on asynchronous communication\ud primitives, a distinctive aspect of the presented framework is its ability to model and\ud solve planning problems for asynchronous domains.\ud Second, we formally spell out the theory underlying the framework, and provide algorithms\ud to solve service composition in such framework, proving their correctness and\ud completeness. The presented algorithms significantly extend state-of-the-art techniques\ud for planning under uncertainty, by allowing the combination of asynchronous domains\ud according to behavioral requirements.\ud Third, we provide and discuss an implementation of the approach, and report extensive\ud experimental results which demonstrate its ability to scale up to significant cases for\ud which the manual development of ws-bpel composed services is far from trivial and time\ud consuming

MORPH: A Reference Architecture for Configuration and Behaviour Self-Adaptation

An architectural approach to self-adaptive systems involves runtime change of system configuration (i.e., the system's components, their bindings and operational parameters) and behaviour update (i.e., component orchestration). Thus, dynamic reconfiguration and discrete event control theory are at the heart of architectural adaptation. Although controlling configuration and behaviour at runtime has been discussed and applied to architectural adaptation, architectures for self-adaptive systems often compound these two aspects reducing the potential for adaptability. In this paper we propose a reference architecture that allows for coordinated yet transparent and independent adaptation of system configuration and behaviour

Calibration of XRF data on silicate rocks using chemicals as in-house standards

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is an accurate, rapid spectroscopic technique for chemical element determinations on rock samples. The aim of this research was to evaluate a calibration method based on the use of suitable mixtures of chemicals. X-ray fluorescence analysis of major elements (Na, Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca, Fe) was carried out using sample-lithium borate fusion mixtures (with a 1:9 sample/borate dilution). The accuracy of the proposed calibration method was tested on twenty-four international rock standards. Results are in good or excellent agreement with the literature recommended value

Localizzazione inusuale di cisti del dotto tireoglosso

nglish version Summary: An unusual localization of thyroglossal duct cyst. M. Barbaro, A. Di Mario, D. De Seta, G. Rispoli, E. Covelli, G.A. Bertoli, A. Minni Thyroglossal duct cysts are most common neck masses after benign lymphonodes. They originate from primitive thiroglossal duct, so they could be locate along its course. Every mass in the middle line of the neck can be considerated as a thyroglossal cyst. Best treatment is surgery (Sistrunk procedure). We present a case of unusual localization at floor of the mouth of thyroglossal in a 34 years old woman. To our knowledge in literature, only two cases, have been reported both

Analisi agli elementi finiti di stabilità e degli sforzi sulla strumentazione per diverse tecniche di fissazione spinale

LAUREA MAGISTRALEQuesto progetto di tesi si pone come obiettivo quello di verificare quale soluzione di fissazione spinale sia più adeguata tra T9-L5 e T9-S1, confrontandole dal punto di vista della stabilità spinale e degli sforzi massimi di Von Mises presenti sulle barre. Inoltre, questa tesi vuole anche verificare se vi sia, effettivamente, una differenza dal punto di vista biomeccanico tra l'applicazione dell'ALIF in L5-S1 e l'esecuzione dell'ACR in L3-L4, che vada a rispecchiare le discrepanze riscontrate, dal punto di vista clinico, tra queste due tecniche chirurgiche.This project aims to verify which spinal fixation is better between T9-L5 and T9-S1, by comparing their Von Mises maximum stresses. Furthermore, this study also wants to verify, once the most adequate spinal fixation has been defined, which is the best solution and if exist a difference between the ALIF in L5-S1 and the ACR in L3-L4 from a biomechanical point of view, because some clinical evidences showed significant differences between these two surgical techniques

Energy Densities of Brown Trout (Salmo trutta) and Its Main Prey Items in an Alpine Stream of the Slizza Basin (Northwest Italy)

ABSTRACT In the present study, energy densities of 80 adult brown trout (Salmo trutta), seasonally sampled in an alpine stream in the eastern Alps and energy densities of their main prey items, were determined. The energy density (J/g wet mass) and dry weight content (%) of fish were highly correlated (p<0.00 1) and averaged 5, 611.6 ± 857.9 J/g wet mass and 25.3 ± 2.1% dry weight, respectively. Energy density values were significantly higher in fish sampled in spring than in other seasons. No major changes in the energy content were observed due to age or sex. Macroinvertebrates. particularly Ephemeroptera and Diptera, were the major food source of brown trout in the sampled area. Their gross energy content varied within a wide range of values (1, 654–5, 110 J/g wet weight), depending on the taxa and family or genus within a given taxon

Identification and impact on Pseudomonas aeruginosa virulence of mutations conferring resistance to a phage cocktail for phage therapy

Phage therapy represents a promising strategy for curing bacterial infections refractory to antibiotics. However, the success rate of phage therapy may be lowered by the emergence of bacterial resistance to the phages used for therapy. In this work, we studied the resistance to the CK4 cocktail, which is a mixture composed of four phages able to cure Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections in animal models. CK4-resistant mutants were easily isolated from cultures grown in either a standard laboratory medium or an artificial sputum medium mimicking the composition of the airway fluid of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients, who are highly susceptible to P. aeruginosa chronic lung infections. In both cases, CK4-resistant mutants resulted in being defective in lipopolysaccharide (LPS) biosynthesis. Accordingly, all CK4 phages were unable to infect wzy mutants lacking the O-antigen polymerase. A survey of the other 15 P. aeruginosa phages isolated from different environmental sources showed that they all needed either wzy or the Type IV-pilus (T4P) biosynthetic gene pilQ for the infection. Overall, our data suggest that 16 out of the 19 analyzed Pseudomonas phages may use either the LPS or the T4P as a receptor. Interestingly, CK4-resistant mutants devoid of the O-antigen had strongly attenuated virulence in a zebrafish embryo infection model, and the lack of T4P also decreased virulence in zebrafish. With respect to isolates from patients with CF, phages not reproducing in the Δwzy mutant had a wider host range than those requiring pilQ, suggesting that phages dependent on PAO1-type T4P may have limited therapeutic value for treating CF-related infections

Metabolic rate and climate change across latitudes: Evidence of mass-dependent responses in aquatic amphipods

Predictions of individual responses to climate change are often based on the assumption that temperature affects individuals’ metabolism independently of their body mass. However, empirical evidence indicates that interactive effects exist. Here, we investigated the response of individual Standard Metabolic Rate (SMR) to annual temperature range and forecasted temperature rises of 0.6-1.2°C above the current maxima, under the conservative climate change scenario IPCC-RCP2.6. As a model organism we used the amphipod Gammarus insensibilis, collected across latitudes along the western coast of the Adriatic Sea down to the southernmost limit of the species’ distributional range, with individuals varying in body mass (0.4-13.57mg). Overall, we found that the effect of temperature on SMR is mass-dependent. Within the annual temperature range, the mass-specific SMR of small/young individuals increased with temperature at a greater rate (activation energy: E=0.48 eV) than large/old ones (E=0.29 eV), with a higher metabolic level for high-latitude than low-latitude populations. However, under the forecasted climate conditions, the large individuals’ mass-specific SMR responded differently across latitudes. Unlike the higher-latitude population, whose mass-specific SMR increased in response to the forecasted climate change across all size classes, in the lower-latitude populations, this increase was not seen in large individuals. The larger/older conspecifics at lower latitudes could therefore be the first to experience the negative impacts of warming on metabolism-related processes. Although the ecological collapse of such a basic trophic level (aquatic amphipods) due to climate change would have profound consequences for population ecology, the risk is significantly mitigated by phenotypic and genotypic adaptation