Adaptable Decentralized Service Oriented Architecture

In the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), BPEL specified business processes are executed by non-scalable centralized orchestration engines. In order to address the scalability issue, decentralized orchestration engines are applied, which decentralize BPEL processes into static fragments at design time without considering runtime requirements. The fragments are then encapsulated into runtime components such as agents. There are a variety of attitudes towards workflow decentralization; however, only a few of them produce adaptable fragments with runtime environment. In this paper, producing runtime adaptable fragments is presented in two aspects. The first one is frequent-path adaptability that is equal to finding closely interrelated activities and encapsulating them in the same fragment to omit the communication cost of the activities. Another aspect is proportional-fragment adaptability, which is analogous to the proportionality of produced fragments with number of workflow engine machines. It extenuates the internal communication among the fragments on the same machine. An ever-changing runtime environment along with the mentioned adaptability aspects may result in producing a variety of process versions at runtime. Thus, an Adaptable and Decentralized Workflow Execution Framework (ADWEF) is introduced that proposes an abstraction of adaptable decentralization in the SOA orchestration layer. Furthermore, ADWEF architectures Type-1 and Type-2 are presented to support the execution of fragments created by two decentralization methods, which produce customized fragments known as Hierarchical Process Decentralization (HPD) and Hierarchical Intelligent Process Decentralization (HIPD). However, mapping the current system conditions to a suitable decentralization method is considered as future work. Evaluations of the ADWEF decentralization methods substantiate both adaptability aspects and demonstrate a range of improvements in response-time, throughput, and bandwidth-usage compared to previous methods.     

Sampling Search-Engine Results

We consider the problem of efficiently sampling Web search engine query results. In turn, using a small random sample instead of the full set of results leads to efficient approximate algorithms for several applications, such as:

Network visualization by semantic substrates

Networks have remained a challenge for information visualization designers because of the complex issues of node and link layout coupled with the rich set of tasks that users present. This paper offers a strategy based on two principles: (1) layouts are based on user-defined semantic substrates, which are non-overlapping regions in which node placement is based on node attributes, (2) users interactively adjust sliders to control link visibility to limit clutter and thus ensure comprehensibility of source and destination. Scalability is further facilitated by user control of which nodes are visible. We illustrate our semantic substrates approach as implemented in NVSS 1.0 with legal precedent data for up to 1122 court cases in three regions with 7645 legal citations     

Assessing T-Cell Immunity in Kidney Transplant Recipients with Absent Antibody Production after a 3rd Dose of the mRNA-1273 Vaccine

The vulnerable population of kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) are low responders to COVID-19 vaccines, so specific immune surveillance is needed. The interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) release assay (IGRA) is effective in assessing T cell-mediated immunity. We assessed SARS-CoV-2-directed T cell responses in KTRs with absent antibody production after a third dose of the mRNA-1273 vaccine, using two different IGRAs. A cohort of 57 KTRs, who were actively followed up, received a third dose of the mRNA-1273 vaccine. After the evaluation of humoral immunity to SARS-CoV-2, 14 seronegative patients were tested with two commercial IGRAs (SD Biosensor and Euroimmun). Out of 14 patients, one and three samples were positive by IGRAs with Euroimmun and SD Biosensor, respectively. The overall agreement between the two assays was 85.7% (κ = 0.444). In addition, multivariate linear regression analysis showed no statistically significant association between the IFN-γ concentration, and the independent variables analyzed (age, gender, years since transplant, total lymphocytes cells/mcl, CD3+ cells/mcl, CD3+ CD4+ cells/mcl, CD3+ CD8+ cells/mcl, CD19+ cells/mcl, CD3-CD16+CD56+ cells/mcl) (p > 0.01). In a vulnerable setting, assessing cellular immune response to complement the humoral response may be advantageous. Since the two commercial IGRAs showed a good agreement on negative samples, the three discordant samples highlight the need for further investigations.     

超音速火焰喷涂与激光重熔Al0.2CrFeNi(Co,Cu)合金的干滑动磨损及氧化性能对比研究

用超音速火焰喷涂(HVOF)法在316L不锈钢基体上沉积Al0.2CrFeNiCo和Al0.2CrFeNiCu两种高熵合金涂层,然后对涂层进行激光重熔(LR)以改善其显微组织.研究LR工艺对涂层干滑动磨损和氧化行为的影响.结果表明,将粉末与单体元素混合导致HVOF涂层中形成内氧化物.LR消除了氧化物和气孔.LR后,两种...     

A Bayesian approach to design of adaptive multi-model inferential sensors with application in oil sand industry

In the context of process industries, online monitoring of quality variables is often restricted by inadequacy of measurement techniques or low reliability of measuring devices. Therefore, there has been a growing interest in the development of inferential sensors to provide frequent online estimates of key process variables on the basis of their correlation with real-time process measurements. Representation of multi-modal processes is one of the challenging issues that may arise in the design of inferential sensors. In this paper, Bayesian procedures for the development and implementation of adaptive multi-model inferential sensors are presented. It is shown that the application of a Bayesian scheme allows for accommodating the overlapping operating modes and facilitating the inclusion of prior knowledge. The effectiveness of the proposed procedures are first demonstrated through a simulation case study. The efficacy of the method is further highlighted by a successful industrial application of an adaptive multi-model inferential sensor designed for real-time monitoring of a key quality variable in an oil sands processing unit.     

Application of MIKE SHE modelling system to set up a detailed water balance computation

Estimation of total water balance is a substantial issue for watershed modelling in order to simulate the major components of the hydrological cycle to determine the stress of different anthropogenic activities on the available water resources within a catchment. In this context, the fully distributed physically based MIKE SHE modelling system was used to simulate the individual hydrological components of the total water balance for the Paya Indah Wetlands (PIW) watershed in the west of Peninsular Malaysia. Results reveal that the overall water balance is predominantly controlled by climate variables. Application of the model to the PIW watershed provides detailed estimation of the total water balance for a first‐order catchment in which actual evapotranspiration (ET) represents approximately 65 and 58%, while overland flow (OL) to the PIW lake system represents 12.38 and 12.3% of the total rainfall during the calibration and validation periods, respectively. The difference of the inflow and outflow was taken as storage in depth. Overall, the model gives a reasonable output of total error of less than 1% of the total rainfall, which in turn indicates that the interaction among components is satisfactorily sustained.     

Microwave Dehydration of Borax: Characterization,Dehydration Kinetics,and Modelling

Glass Physics and Chemistry - In the present study, borax (Na2B4O7·10H2O) was dehydrated using microwave radiation and the dehydration rate curves were calculated. The kinetic parameters and...     

Two-step purification strategy for enhanced recovery of recombinant hepatitis B surface antigen from Pichia pastoris

Univariate screening on factors affecting the purification performance of recombinant hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) on ion exchange chromatography (IEC) and size exclusion chromatography (SEC) and the establishment of a two-step purification strategy were performed. Amongst four IEC adsorbents examined, the use of Q Sepharose XL IEC adsorbent under optimized conditions together with optimized SEC purification was able to efficiently purify HBsAg. An established purification strategy comprising the two techniques further demonstrated adaptability for scale-up operations with a final total purification factor (PF) of 94.82 ± 16.20, HBsAg purity of 95.48% and recovery yield of 78.07%.