Business Object Modeling, Validation, and Mediation for Integrating Heterogeneous Application Systems

When different business organizations come together to conduct a joint business in a virtual enterprise environment, their application systems need to have a convenient way to specify the services needed from other systems and to transfer data needed by these services. The transferred data needs to be validated and, in some cases, mediated to meet the constraints and data representation requirements of both the source and target application systems. Ideally, the validation and mediation tasks should be done outside of the legacy application systems so that these systems do not have to be modified. In this work, the Business Object Documents (BODs) introduced by the Open Applications Group (OAG) are used for specifying business operations and transferring data among application systems. We use an active object model to model BODs. The model captures not only the data attributes and methods associated with these business objects, but also events and rules for specifying and triggering the enforcement of attribute constraints and inter-attribute constraints and the activation of data mediation operations. The conceptual models of these BODs with their added semantics are used to generate entity classes, converters and skeletal programs needed for enforcing constraints and for converting data. These generated object classes and software components in Java constitute the platform-independent adapters through which heterogeneous application systems inter-operate over CORBA and RMI communication infrastructures. A distributed approach to data validation and mediation is used. It allows the generated code for validation and mediation to be distributed and processed at different sites, thus avoiding the potential network bottleneck of a centralized approach to the validation and mediation of business object documents.     

Compositional pattern producing networks: A novel abstraction of development

Natural DNA can encode complexity on an enormous scale. Researchers are attempting to achieve the same representational efficiency in computers by implementing developmental encodings, i.e. encodings that map the genotype to the phenotype through a process of growth from a small starting point to a mature form. A major challenge in in this effort is to find the right level of abstraction of biological development to capture its essential properties without introducing unnecessary inefficiencies. In this paper, a novel abstraction of natural development, called Compositional Pattern Producing Networks (CPPNs), is proposed. Unlike currently accepted abstractions such as iterative rewrite systems and cellular growth simulations, CPPNs map to the phenotype without local interaction, that is, each individual component of the phenotype is determined independently of every other component. Results produced with CPPNs through interactive evolution of two-dimensional images show that such an encoding can nevertheless produce structural motifs often attributed to more conventional developmental abstractions, suggesting that local interaction may not be essential to the desirable properties of natural encoding in the way that is usually assumed.

Generalized Lévy-walk model for DNA nucleotide sequences

We propose a generalized Lévy walk to model fractal landscapes observed in noncoding DNA sequences. We find that this model provides a very close approximation to the empirical data and explains a number of statistical properties of genomic DNA sequences such as the distribution of strand-biased regions (those with an excess of one type of nucleotide) as well as local changes in the slope of the correlation exponent alpha. The generalized Lévy-walk model simultaneously accounts for the long-range correlations in noncoding DNA sequences and for the apparently paradoxical finding of long subregions of biased random walks (length lj) within these correlated sequences. In the generalized Lévy-walk model, the lj are chosen from a power-law distribution P(lj) varies as lj(-mu). The correlation exponent alpha is related to mu through alpha = 2-mu/2 if 2 < mu < 3. The model is consistent with the finding of "repetitive elements" of variable length interspersed within noncoding DNA.     

Isolation of bacterial metabolites as natural inducers for larval settlement in the marine polychaete Hydroides elegans (Haswell)

The bacterial component of marine biofilms plays an important role in the induction of larval settlement in the polychaete Hydroides elegans. In this study, we provide experimental evidence that bacterial metabolites comprise the chemical signal for larval settlement. Bacteria were isolated from biofilms, purified and cultured according to standard procedures. Bacterial metabolites were isolated from spent culture broth by chloroform extraction as well as by closed-loop stripping and adsorption of volatile components on surface-modified silica gel. A pronounced biological activity was exclusively observed when concentrated metabolites were adsorbed on activated charcoal. Larvae did not respond to waterborne metabolites when prevented from contacting the bacterial film surface. These results indicate that an association of the chemical signal with a sorbent-like substratum may be an essential cofactor for the expression of biological activity. The functional role of bacterial exopolymers as an adsorptive matrix for larval settlement signals is discussed.     

Prerequisites for offering ultrasound services in general practice]

In the course of the past few years, sonography has become firmly established in clinical practice. The accuracy of the investigations does not only depend on the quality of the equipment used but also to a considerable degree on the standards of investigator training. To reduce the discrepancy between the number and quality of the investigations in the German Federal Republic, the "Kassen?rztliche Vereinigung" has released guidelines requiring the users of sonographic equipment to undergo theoretical and practical training. These guidelines are reviewed and commented.     

The organization and postnatal development of the commissural projection of the rat somatic sensory cortex

Anterograde and retrograde tracing experiments have been used to demonstrate the origin and terminal distribution of commissural fibers in the first somatosensory cortex (SI) of the rat. The commissural fibers originate from pyramidal cells of all layers, but predominantly from layers III and V. The fibers terminate in a series of approximately vertical bands. In each of these there are concentrations of terminals extending from the inner portion of the molecular layer to the deep portion of layer III as well as in the superficial part of layer V, and in layer VI. Discrete vertical bands of cortex are reciprocally connected across the midline to give both the origin and terminal regions of the projection a patchy or "columnar" appearance. The commissural fibers arise from and terminate in areas of the cortex that lie between and alongside the aggregations of granule cells that distinguish SI of the rat. No commissural fibers terminate within the aggregations of layer IV cells themselves but the more superficial terminal ramifications may come to overlie these aggregations. A heterotopic projection to the contralateral second somatosensory cortex has been observed and is similar in form to the homotopic projection to SI. Many commissural fibers have crossed the midline in the corpus callosum by the day of birth but lie in the underlying white matter and do not enter the cortical plate until at least the third postnatal day. During the first postnatal week these fibers grow somewhat diffusely into the maturing cortex and their topographic and laminar pattern of distribution attains its adult characteristics by the end of the first week. Commissural axons, thus, arise from immature cells but the maturation of cell form seems to precede the ingrowth of these axons and the acquisition of commissural synapses.     

Ethnicity, culture, and sexual aggression: Risk and protective factors.

Explanatory models of sexual aggression were examined among mainland Asian American (n = 222), Hawaiian Asian American (n = 127), and European American men (n = 399). The Malamuth et al. (N. M. Malamuth, D. Linz, C. L. Heavey, G. Barnes, & M. Acker, 1995; N. M. Malamuth, R. J. Sockloskie, M. P. Koss, & J. S. Tanaka, 1991) confluence model of sexual aggression, which posits impersonal sex and hostile masculinity as paths to sexual aggression, was consistently supported. Culture-specific moderators of sexual aggression were also identified. Whereas loss of face was a protective factor against sexual aggression in the Asian American samples, it generally was not a protective factor among European Americans. These findings are not a function of actual or perceived minority status. An implication is that theoretical models may need to be augmented with cultural constructs for optimal application in certain ethnic group contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personalcasting: Tailored Broadcast News

Broadcast news sources and newspapers provide society with the vast majority of real-time information. Unfortunately, cost efficiencies and real-time pressures demand that producers, editors, and writers select and organize content for stereotypical audiences. In this article we illustrate how content understanding, user modeling, and tailored presentation generation promise personalcasts on demand. Specifically, we report on the design and implementation of a personalized version of a broadcast news understanding system, MITRE’s Broadcast News Navigator (BNN), that tracks and infers user content interests and media preferences. We report on the incorporation of Local Context Analysis to both expand the user’s original query to the most related terms in the corpus, as well as to allow the user to provide interactive feedback to enhance the relevance of selected newsstories. We describe an empirical study of the search for stories on ten topics from a video corpus. By personalizing both the selection of stories and the form in which they are delivered, we provide users with tailored broadcast news. This individual news personalization provides more fine-grained content tailoring than current personalized television program level recommenders and does not rely on externally provided program metadata.     

Facile Synthesis and Proposed Mechanism of α,ω‐Oxetanyl-Telechelic Poly(3-nitratomethyl-3-methyl oxetane) by an SN2(i) Nitrato Displacement Method in Basic Media

The synthesis of a novel heterocyclic–telechelic polymer, α,ω-oxetanyl-telechelic poly(3-nitratomethyl-3-methyl oxetane), is described. Infrared spectroscopy (IR), gel permeation chromatography (GPC), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy have been used to confirm the successful synthesis, demonstrating the presence of the telechelic-oxetanyl moieties. Synthesis of the terminal functionalities has been achieved via displacement of nitrato groups, in a manner similar to that employed with other leaving groups such as azido, bromo, and nitro, initiated by nucleophiles. In the present case, displacement occurs on the ends of a nitrato-functionalized polymer driven by the formation of sodium nitrate, which is supported by the polar aprotic solvent N,N-dimethyl formamide. The formation of an alkoxide at the polymer chain ends is favored and allows internal back-biting to the nearest carbon bearing the nitrato group, intrinsically in an S_N2(i) reaction, leading to α,ω-oxetanyl functionalization. The telechelic-oxetanyl moieties have the potential to be cross-linked by chemical (e.g., acidic) or radiative (e.g., ultraviolet) curing methods without the use of high temperatures, usually below 100°C. This type of material was designed for future use as a contraband simulant, whereby it would form the predominant constituent of elastomeric composites comprising rubbery polymer with small quantities of solids, typically crystals of contraband substances, such as explosives or narcotics. This method also provides an alternative approach to ring closure and synthesis of heterocycles.