Fine structure of the male accessory glands of Triatoma rubrofasciata (De Geer, 1773) (Hemiptera, Triatominae)

Male of Triatoma rubrofasciata has four elongated sac-like reproductive mesodermic accessory glands, lined by an inner single layer of secretory cells, with basal plasma membrane infolds and short apical microvilli, and externally enveloped by a thin visceral muscle layer. The secretory cells have a well-developed rough endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi complex, mitochondria, and secretory granules. In one day old adult the gland cells are poorly developed, presenting small, electron-transparent secretory granules scattered among the rough endoplasmatic reticulum, whereas in three days old adult these cells have the cisternae of the rough endoplasmatic reticulum varing size degree, filled with granular electrondense content. In five days old males the secretory granules increase in diameter, being released to the gland lumen. Therefore, there is an increase of the secretory activity according to male maturation.     

Development and applications of surface-activated chemical ionization

This review regards the recently developed ionization source named surface-activated chemical ionization (SACI) that employs an interaction with a surface placed at low voltage for the activation of the ionization of sample molecules to increase the sensitivity in the analysis of various compounds of biological and clinical interest. These results are due to the strong chemical noise decrease and the increase of ionization efficiency. This ionization source has been employed for the analysis of various compounds of different molecular mass and polarity (addicted and pharmaceutical drugs, amino acids, steroids, peptides, and proteins). The SACI development theoretical mechanism, benefits, disadvantages, applications, and future developments are reported and discussed.     

Residual stress measurement on Titanium Grade 5 and Inconel 625 thin dissimilar welded joints by contour method

Journal of Materials Science - Residual stress assessment is a key factor in engineering design owing to its impact on engineering properties of materials, structural components and welded joints....     

Integrating Contexts to Support Coordination: The CHAOS Project

The paper reports on the outcomes of the CHAOS project whose aim was the development of a computer-based tool for coordinating activities not organized in a structured flow of work. In CHAOS coordination is achieved by negotiating commitments within conversations. The paper illustrates the conceptual foundation on which the prototype is based and its main functionalities. The latter are organized into four logical modules that are responsible of the management of the information concerning the communication, operation, organization and linguistic contexts, respectively, in which the communication occurs. The paper presents achievements and limits of the project and positions its aims and outcomes in relation to the recent debate about the Coordinator.     

Learning independent components on the orthogonal group of matrices by retractions

Neural independent component learning algorithms based on optimization on manifolds have attracted interest in the neural network community. In the past years, we have developed learning algorithms specialized for the orthogonal group of matrices as parameters manifold. Here, we sketch a view of these algorithms by the help of ‘retractions’ on manifolds.     

Timed CCP compositionally embeds Argos and Lustre

We prove that both the synchronous data-flow language Lustre restricted to types with finite values and the synchronous state-oriented language Argos are embedded in the synchronous paradigm Timed Concurrent Constraint Programming (tccp). In fact, for each of the two languages we provide a tccp language encoding it compositionally with respect to the syntax of programs and linearly with respect to the size of programs. Besides giving results of expressiveness for tccp, our encodings permit us to obtain a language tailored for programming reactive systems where both control handling aspects and data processing aspects are relevant.Author partially supported by MIUR progetto cofinanziato Modelli Formali per la Sicurezza e il Tempo and by ESPRIT Working Group Constraint Programming for Time Critical Applications, Project Number 23677Accepted in revised form 22 October 2003 by M. Broy, G. Lüttgen and M. Mendler     

On the adoption of blockchain for business process monitoring

Being the blockchain and distributed ledger technologies particularly suitable to create trusted environments where participants do not trust each other, business process management represents a proper setting in which these technologies can be adopted. In this direction, current research work primarily focuses on blockchain-oriented business process design, or on execution engines able to enact processes through smart contracts. Conversely, less attention has been paid to study if and how blockchains can be beneficial to business process monitoring. This work aims to fill this gap by (1) providing a reference architecture for enabling the adoption of blockchain technologies in business process monitoring solutions, (2) defining a set of relevant research challenges derived from this adoption, and (3) discussing the current approaches to address the aforementioned challenges.

     

A preliminary analysis of self-adaptive systems according to different issues

Software Quality Journal - Self-adaptive systems dynamically change their structure and behavior in response to changes in their execution environment to ensure the quality of the services they...     

Advances in Lee–Schetzen Method for Volterra Filter Identification

This paper concerns the identification of nonlinear discrete causal systems that can be approximated with the Wiener–Volterra series. Some advances in the efficient use of Lee–Schetzen (L–S) method are presented, which make practical the estimate of long memory and high order models. Major problems in L–S method occur in the identification of diagonal kernel elements. Two approaches have been considered: approximation of gridded data, with interpolation or smoothing, and improved techniques for diagonal elements estimation. A comparison of diagonal elements estimated, with different methods has been shown with extended tests on fifth order Volterra systems.First Online Version Published in July, 2005