MobiEureka: an approach for enhancing the discovery of mobile web services

While several service discovery protocols and standards have been proposed for supporting service discovery from mobile devices, this remains a challenging problem. In many cases, mobile clients may discover services which they consider relevant but soon realize that such services are not completely usable on their mobile devices due to compatibility and interoperability issues. Without integrating device capabilities into the discovery process, or a device-aware mobile service discovery, it becomes extremely difficult to determine whether discovered services may or may not function properly within the device’s constraints. This paper introduces a solution known as MobiEureka, a mobile device-aware system for enhancing the discovery of mobile web services from mobile devices. Experimental validation, results, and analysis of the introduced ideas are discussed.     

Distinctive Microbial Signatures and Gut-Brain Crosstalk in Pediatric Patients with Coeliac Disease and Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

Coeliac disease (CD) and Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) are immune-mediated diseases. Emerging evidence suggests that dysbiosis in the gut microbiome plays a role in the pathogenesis of both diseases and may also be associated with the development of neuropathy. The primary goal in this cross-sectional pilot study was to identify whether there are distinct gut microbiota alterations in children with CD (n = 19), T1DM (n = 18) and both CD and T1DM (n = 9) compared to healthy controls (n = 12). Our second goal was to explore the relationship between neuropathy (corneal nerve fiber damage) and the gut microbiome composition. Microbiota composition was determined by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Corneal confocal microscopy was used to determine nerve fiber damage. There was a significant difference in the overall microbial diversity between the four groups with healthy controls having a greater microbial diversity as compared to the patients. The abundance of pathogenic proteobacteria Shigella and E. coli were significantly higher in CD patients. Differential abundance analysis showed that several bacterial amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) distinguished CD from T1DM. The tissue transglutaminase antibody correlated significantly with a decrease in gut microbial diversity. Furthermore, the Bacteroidetes phylum, specifically the genus Parabacteroides was significantly correlated with corneal nerve fiber loss in the subjects with neuropathic damage belonging to the diseased groups. We conclude that disease-specific gut microbial features traceable down to the ASV level distinguish children with CD from T1DM and specific gut microbial signatures may be associated with small fiber neuropathy. Further research on the mechanisms linking altered microbial diversity with neuropathy are warranted.     

Sedimentation rates and pollution history of the eastern Mediterranean Sea: Syrian coast

Sedimentation rates along the Syrian coast were determined by the 210Pb dating method to a total of nine cores taken in 1993; rates were found to vary between 0.11 and 0.87 cm year(-1). These rates were used to provide historical records of the total organic content, major elements such as Al, Ca, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, Ba and Br and some trace metals (As, Cr, Pb, Zn and Cu) concentrations along the Syrian coast. High total organic content up to 52% was found near Banias City; the Banise oil refinery and oil export activities were identified to be the pollution source of that area. Down core concentration profiles of trace metals show an increase in the concentrations of As and Cr in the upper layers for some of the collected cores. The highest values measured for As and Cr were 186 and 380 ppm, respectively, which are much higher than the natural levels. These high levels may be due to discharges of chemical wastes either from ships or coastal factories. However, the data can be used as a base background level for a future marine monitoring program of the Syrian coast.     

Interoperability among Service Registry Standards

Basic similarities among the several service-registry standards that exist today suggest the potential for interoperability. Given that service registries are key components in Web services architectures, interoperability will play an increasingly important role in facilitating dynamic business-to-business interactions. Yet, the standards' distinctive approaches to discovery make it unclear whether the provisional specifications will eventually merge or coexist     

Toward Quality-Driven Web Service Discovery

Service-oriented architectures follow the find-bind-execute paradigm, in which service providers register their services in public or private registries, which clients use to locate Web services. If a service registry has information on a service that matches a client's criteria, it provides a contract and an access point. Web service discovery is a key component in service-oriented computing. However, without Web service quality standards and quality-based discovery mechanisms, the trustworthiness of business-to-business interactions can't be guaranteed.     

WSB: a broker‐centric framework for quality‐driven web service discovery

Web service interfaces can be discovered through several means, including service registries, search engines, service portals, and peer‐to‐peer networks. But discovering Web services in such heterogeneous environments is becoming a challenging task and raises several concerns, such as performance, reliability, and robustness. In this paper, we introduce the Web Service Broker (WSB) framework that provides a universal access point for discovering Web services. WSB uses a crawler to collect the plurality of Web services disseminated throughout the Web, continuously monitor the behavior of Web services in delivering the expected functionality, and enable clients to articulate service queries tailored to their needs. The framework features ranking algorithms we have developed which are capable of ranking services according to Quality of Web Service parameters. WSB can be seamlessly integrated into the existing service‐oriented architectures. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sedimentation rates and pollution history of a dried lake: Al-Oteibeh Lake

Mercury emissions from chlor-alkali plants have been past and present sources of soil contamination with Hg. Here we calculate net mercury (Hg) deposition to soils in the vicinity (100-1000-m downwind) of three-chlor alkali plants. Calculations were based on spatial distribution patterns of Hg concentrations in soils, which were extrapolated by kriging. Moreover, we investigated to what extent Hg deposition depends on the elevation of receptors and canopy throughfall. Mercury concentrations in soil exceed background values up to a factor of 56 and show enrichment factors between 2 and 5.8 calculated from the median Hg concentration. Net deposition rates range between 2356 and 8952 microg m(-2) year(-1), which is up to 224-fold the background values. Net deposition of Hg to soils at the three sites varies between 1.2 and 2.4% of total emitted Hg. Highest deposition rates were found at sites with extended elevated or forested areas. Here, Hg concentrations in soils increased by a factor of up to 7.3 in elevated (+180 m) forest areas compared to non-elevated grassland soils.     

Wegener''s look-alike

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection in transplant recipients can lead to lymphomas termed posttransplantation lymphoproliferative disorders (PTLDs). Most PTLDs are malignancies of B lymphocytes and are linked to EBV infection, but the rare T lymphocyte PTLDs have been inconsistently linked to EBV infection. Although the B lymphocyte is the main host cell of EBV, it has been suggested that T lymphocytes may also become infected by EBV. A review of EBV-induced PTLDs at our institution identified one of 61 cases that was restricted to T lymphocytes. Of 36 cases of T cell PTLD identified through a literature review, 21 were investigated for the presence of EBV, and eight (38%) were documented to be EBV-induced. We compared the features of EBV-positive and EBV-negative T cell PTLDs and concluded that cases of EBV-positive T cell PTLD have some distinctive clinical features.