title: Cloud Material Handling Systems: Conceptual Model and Cloud-Based Scheduling of Handling Activities

text: Nowadays, the implementation of cloud manufacturing technologies epitomizes the avant-garde in production systems. This affects several aspects of the management of these production systems, in particular scheduling activities, due to the possibility provided by cloud manufacturing of having real-time information about the stages of a product life cycle and about the status of all services. However, so far, cloud manufacturing has mainly focused on machines, with limited interest in material handling systems. This shortfall has been addressed in this study, where a new material-handling paradigm, called Cloud Material Handling System (CMHS) and developed in the Logistics 4.0 Lab at NTNU (Norway), has been introduced. With CMHS, the scheduling of the Material Handling Modules (MHMs) can be optimized, increasing the flexibility and productivity of the overall manufacturing system. To achieve this, the integration of advanced industry 4.0 technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), and in particular Indoor Positioning Technologies (IPT), Cloud Computing, Machine Learning (ML), and Artificial Intelligence (AI), is required. In fact, based on the relevant information provided on the cloud platform by IPT and IoT for each product, called Smart Object (SO) (position, physical characteristics and so on), an Intelligent Cognitive Engine (ICE) can use ML and AI to decide, in real time, which MHM is most suitable for carrying out the tasks required by these products based on a compatibility matrix, on their attributes, and on the defined scheduling procedure.


title: Integrated Scheduling of Information Services and Logistics Flows in the Omnichannel System

text: This chapter develops a model for dynamic integrated scheduling of information services and logistics flows in the omnichannel system. The proposed service-oriented description makes it possible to coordinate the information services and material process schedules simultaneously. It also becomes possible to determine the volume of information services needed for physical supply processes. In addition, impact of disruptions in information services on the schedule execution in the physical structure is analyzed. The results provide a base for information service scheduling according to actual physical process execution.


title: Proactive Scheduling and Reactive Real-Time Control in Industry 4.0

text: Scheduling in Industry 4.0 systems belongs to a class of problems that have mixed structural-temporal-logical constraints. In other words, a strong coupling is considered when product and process are created simultaneously. As a result of the proven NP-hardness of such problems, solution methods have extensively utilized different decomposition principles. The known decomposition methods in discrete optimization are founded on the difficulties in deriving analytical properties. The existing solutions in continuous optimization are based on the maximum principle and yield a dynamic process decomposition using the natural logic of time. By combining the advantages of continuous and discrete optimization, this chapter develops a decomposition method for shop floor scheduling in Industry 4.0 manufacturing systems. Technically, this study proposes to decompose dynamically the large-scale assignment matrix according to the precedence relations between the operations of the jobs and considers only the operations that satisfy these precedence relations at a given time point in small-dimensional, discrete optimization models. Continuous optimization is used to generate a schedule from the assignments found in the discrete optimization models at each time point by extremizing the Hamiltonian function at this time point subject to scheduling objective(s). In addition, the execution of the operations in time can be accurately modeled in continuous time as a continuous state variable; the machine availability and capacity disturbances at the machines are also considered. The method developed provides further insights into decomposition methods for scheduling and is supported by an analytical analysis and an algorithmic realization.


Virtual Visits and the Future of No-Shows


title: Chemophobia versus the identity of chemists: heroes of chemistry as an effective communication strategy

text: ABSTRACT: Decades of chemophobia are taking a high toll on chemistry. As current surveys suggest, people are displaying an irrational desire to live in a world without chemistry, but at the same time are unable to answer trivial chemistry questions. Constant questioning of the importance of chemistry induced by chemophobia leads to a weakening of the identity of chemists and can have negative consequences on the reproduction of chemistry. The need for the support of a positive perception of the chemical profession and an offer of positive examples for self-identification is the result. Everyday communication thus becomes the background on which the determination of the identity of the chemist takes place. The new communication strategy, which we call “heroes of chemistry”, aims not only to add a much-needed human touch to chemistry communications, but also to create the conditions for strengthening the identity of the chemist. GRAPHIC ABSTRACT: [Image: see text]


title: Requiem for a Dream: Perceived Economic Conditions and Subjective Well-Being in Times of Prosperity and Economic Crisis

text: Using the Panel of Social Inequalities in Catalonia, Spain (PaD 2001–2012), this article investigates the relationship between perceptions of economic conditions and subjective well-being in times of prosperity and economic crisis. It also analyses how this relationship plays out across different social backgrounds. Periods of economic crisis and prosperity serve as a proxy for objective macroeconomic conditions. The Spanish region of Catalonia is a relevant setting because it faced one of the highest increases in inequality and unemployment in Europe as a result of the 2008 Economic Crisis. Our results show that perceived economic conditions matter beyond objective micro and macroeconomic realm and become a strong determinant of subjective well-being during a crisis, particularly for the middle class. However, contrary to our initial expectations, our results also show the existence of a close correlation between perceptions of economic conditions and subjective well-being for low social background individuals in times of economic prosperity, and an even stronger relationship in times of economic crisis. The article stipulates several potential explanations for these results.


Correction to Lancet Infect Dis 2019; published online April 20. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30160-2


Technology in the COVID-19 era: pushing the boundaries


The future of critical care: lessons from the COVID-19 crisis


Coatings Experts Discuss Use of Anti-Viral Surface Technologies to Tackle COVID-19


Can community pharmacists treat hepatitis C virus?


Practical guidelines for triage to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced ovarian cancer: Big risk, big reward…or too much risk?


Inmunoterapia CAR-T en hemato-oncología pediátrica… presente y futuro


Anti-viral Coatings: Protecting Your Health or the Durability of the Item?


Home of the brave?


We risk letting a new threat expose us to old enemies


BASF Group Withdraws 2020 Outlook


BCF's launches #essentialcoatings and #essentialinks campaign campaign


Axalta Releases First Quarter 2020 Results, Provides Update on COVID-19 Impacts


Low rate of bacterial co-infection in patients with COVID-19


Researchers Develop New Antimicrobial Coating


Stability and neutralising capacity of SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies in convalescent plasma


COVID-19 diagnostics—not at the expense of other diseases


COVID-19: global coatings industry shows solidarity


A new dawn for the management of influenza?


Anti-Viral Surface Coating to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19


COVID-19 and measles: double trouble for Burundi


A strong voice for young people with arthritis


Monitoring investments in coronavirus research and development


Virtual Meeting Announcment


ACA Announces American Coatings Award Winner


BCF Partners with GTMA to Encourage More UK Manufacturing


BWK Intern


Personalia / Karriere


title: Multi-channel Image Registration of Cardiac MR Using Supervised Feature Learning with Convolutional Encoder-Decoder Network

text: It is difficult to register the images involving large deformation and intensity inhomogeneity. In this paper, a new multi-channel registration algorithm using modified multi-feature mutual information (α-MI) based on minimal spanning tree (MST) is presented. First, instead of relying on handcrafted features, a convolutional encoder-decoder network is employed to learn the latent feature representation from cardiac MR images. Second, forward computation and backward propagation are performed in a supervised fashion to make the learned features more discriminative. Finally, local features containing appearance information is extracted and integrated into α-MI for achieving multi-channel registration. The proposed method has been evaluated on cardiac cine-MRI data from 100 patients. The experimental results show that features learned from deep network are more effective than handcrafted features in guiding intra-subject registration of cardiac MR images.


title: Nonlinear Alignment of Whole Tractograms with the Linear Assignment Problem

text: After registration of the imaging data of two brains, homologous anatomical structures are expected to overlap better than before registration. Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) techniques and tractography techniques provide a representation of the anatomical connections in the white matter, as hundreds of thousands of streamlines, forming the tractogram. The literature on methods for aligning tractograms is in active development and provides methods that operate either from voxel information, e.g. fractional anisotropy, orientation distribution function, T1-weighted MRI, or directly from streamline information. In this work, we align streamlines using the linear assignment problem (LAP) and propose a method to reduce the high computational cost of aligning whole brain tractograms. As further contribution, we present a comparison among some of the freely-available linear and nonlinear tractogram alignment methods, where we show that our LAP-based method outperforms all others. In discussing the results, we show that a main limitation of all streamline-based nonlinear registration methods is the computational cost and that addressing such problem may lead to further improvement in the quality of registration.


title: Diffusion Tensor Driven Image Registration: A Deep Learning Approach

text: Tracking microsctructural changes in the developing brain relies on accurate inter-subject image registration. However, most methods rely on either structural or diffusion data to learn the spatial correspondences between two or more images, without taking into account the complementary information provided by using both. Here we propose a deep learning registration framework which combines the structural information provided by [Formula: see text]-weighted ([Formula: see text]w) images with the rich microstructural information offered by diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) scans. This allows our trained network to register pairs of images in a single pass. We perform a leave-one-out cross-validation study where we compare the performance of our multi-modality registration model with a baseline model trained on structural data only, in terms of Dice scores and differences in fractional anisotropy (FA) maps. Our results show that in terms of average Dice scores our model performs better in subcortical regions when compared to using structural data only. Moreover, average sum-of-squared differences between warped and fixed FA maps show that our proposed model performs better at aligning the diffusion data.


title: Multilevel 2D-3D Intensity-Based Image Registration

text: 2D-3D image registration is an important task for computer-aided minimally invasive vascular therapies. A crucial component for practical image registration is the use of multilevel strategies to avoid local optima and to speed-up runtime. However, due to the different dimensionalities of the 2D fixed and 3D moving image, the setup of multilevel strategies is not straightforward. In this work, we propose an intensity-driven 2D-3D multiresolution registration approach using the normalized gradient fields (NGF) distance measure. We discuss and empirically analyze the impact on the choice of 2D and 3D image resolutions. Furthermore, we show that our approach produces results that are comparable or superior to other state-of-the-art methods.


title: Towards Segmentation and Spatial Alignment of the Human Embryonic Brain Using Deep Learning for Atlas-Based Registration

text: We propose an unsupervised deep learning method for atlas-based registration to achieve segmentation and spatial alignment of the embryonic brain in a single framework. Our approach consists of two sequential networks with a specifically designed loss function to address the challenges in 3D first trimester ultrasound. The first part learns the affine transformation and the second part learns the voxelwise nonrigid deformation between the target image and the atlas. We trained this network end-to-end and validated it against a ground truth on synthetic datasets designed to resemble the challenges present in 3D first trimester ultrasound. The method was tested on a dataset of human embryonic ultrasound volumes acquired at 9 weeks gestational age, which showed alignment of the brain in some cases and gave insight in open challenges for the proposed method. We conclude that our method is a promising approach towards fully automated spatial alignment and segmentation of embryonic brains in 3D ultrasound.


title: Learning-Based Affine Registration of Histological Images

text: The use of different stains for histological sample preparation reveals distinct tissue properties and may result in a more accurate diagnosis. However, as a result of the staining process, the tissue slides are being deformed and registration is required before further processing. The importance of this problem led to organizing an open challenge named Automatic Non-rigid Histological Image Registration Challenge (ANHIR), organized jointly with the IEEE ISBI 2019 conference. The challenge organizers provided several hundred image pairs and a server-side evaluation platform. One of the most difficult sub-problems for the challenge participants was to find an initial, global transform, before attempting to calculate the final, non-rigid deformation field. This article solves the problem by proposing a deep network trained in an unsupervised way with a good generalization. We propose a method that works well for images with different resolutions, aspect ratios, without the necessity to perform image padding, while maintaining a low number of network parameters and fast forward pass time. The proposed method is orders of magnitude faster than the classical approach based on the iterative similarity metric optimization or computer vision descriptors. The success rate is above 98% for both the training set and the evaluation set. We make both the training and inference code freely available.


title: Deep Volumetric Feature Encoding for Biomedical Images

text: Deep learning research has demonstrated the effectiveness of using pre-trained networks as feature encoders. The large majority of these networks are trained on 2D datasets with millions of samples and diverse classes of information. We demonstrate and evaluate approaches to transferring deep 2D feature spaces to 3D in order to take advantage of these and related resources in the biomedical domain. First, we show how VGG-19 activations can be mapped to a 3D variant of the network (VGG-19-3D). Second, using varied medical decathlon data, we provide a technique for training 3D networks to predict the encodings induced by 3D VGG-19. Lastly, we compare five different 3D networks (one of which is trained only on 3D MRI and another of which is not trained at all) across layers and patch sizes in terms of their ability to identify hippocampal landmark points in 3D MRI data that was not included in their training. We make observations about the performance, recommend different networks and layers and make them publicly available for further evaluation.


title: An Image Registration-Based Method for EPI Distortion Correction Based on Opposite Phase Encoding (COPE)

text: Surprisingly, estimated voxel displacement maps (VDMs), based on image registration, seem to work just as well to correct geometrical distortion in functional MRI data (EPI) as VDMs based on actual information about the magnetic field. In this article, we compare our new image registration-based distortion correction method ‘COPE’ to an implementation of the pixelshift method. Our approach builds on existing image registration-based techniques using opposite phase encoding, extending these by local cost aggregation. Comparison of these methods with 3T and 7T spin-echo (SE) and gradient-echo (GE) data show that the image registration-based method is a good alternative to the fieldmap-based EPI distortion correction method.


title: An Image Registration Framework for Discontinuous Mappings Along Cracks

text: A novel crack capable image registration framework is proposed. The approach is designed for registration problems suffering from cracks, gaps, or holes. The approach enables discontinuous transformation fields and also features an automatically computed crack indicator function and therefore does not require a pre-segmentation. The new approach is a generalization of the commonly used variational image registration approach. New contributions are an additional dissipation term in the overall energy, a proper balancing of different ingredients, and a joint optimization for both, the crack indicator function and the transformation. Results for histological serial sectioning of marmoset brain images demonstrate the potential of the approach and its superiority as compared to a standard registration.


title: Reinforced Redetection of Landmark in Pre- and Post-operative Brain Scan Using Anatomical Guidance for Image Alignment

text: Re-identifying locations of interest in pre- and post-operative images is a hard identification problem, as the anatomical landscape changes dramatically due to tumor resection and tissue displacement. Classical image registration techniques oftentimes fail in vicinity of the tumor, where the enclosing structures are massively altered from one scan to another. Still, locations nearby the tumor or the resection cavity are the most relevant for evaluating tumor progression patterns and for comparing pre- and post-operative radiomic signatures. We address this issue by exploring a Reinforcement Learning (RL) approach. An artificial agent is self-taught to find the optimal path towards a target driven by a feedback signal from the environment. Incorporating anatomical guidance, we restrict the agent’s search space to surgery-unaffected structures only. By defining landmarks for each patient individually, we aim to obtain a patient-specific representation of its differential radiomic features across different time points for enhancing image alignment. Estimated landmarks reach a remarkable mean distance error around 3 mm. In addition, they show a high agreement with expert annotations on a challenging dataset of MR scans from the brain before and after tumor resection.


title: An Unsupervised Learning Approach to Discontinuity-Preserving Image Registration

text: Most traditional image registration algorithms aimed at aligning a pair of images impose well-established regularizers to guarantee smoothness of unknown deformation fields. Since these methods assume global smoothness within the image domain, they pose issues for scenarios where local discontinuities are expected, such as the sliding motion between the lungs and the chest wall during the respiratory cycle. Furthermore, an objective function must be optimized for each given pair of images, thus registering multiple sets of images become very time-consuming and scale poorly to higher resolution image volumes. Using recent advances in deep learning, we propose an unsupervised learning-based image registration model. The model is trained over a loss function with a custom regularizer that preserves local discontinuities, while simultaneously respecting the smoothness assumption in homogeneous regions of image volumes. Qualitative and quantitative validations on 3D pairs of lung CT datasets will be presented.


title: Enabling Manual Intervention for Otherwise Automated Registration of Large Image Series

text: Aligning thousands of images from serial imaging techniques can be a cumbersome task. Methods ([2, 11, 21]) and programs for automation exist (e.g. [1, 4, 10]) but often need case-specific tuning of many meta-parameters (e.g. mask, pyramid-scales, denoise, transform-type, method/metric, optimizer and its parameters). Other programs, that apparently only depend on a few parameter often just hide many of the remaining ones (initialized with default values), often cannot handle challenging cases satisfactorily. Instead of spending much time on the search for suitable meta-parameters that yield a usable result for the complete image series, the described approach allows to intervene by manually aligning problematic image pairs. The manually found transform is then used by the automatic alignment as an initial transformation that is then optimized as in the pure automatic case. Therefore the manual alignment does not have to be very precise. This way the worst case time consumption is limited and can be estimated (manual alignment of the whole series) in contrast to tuning of meta-parameters of pure auto-alignment of complete series which can hardly be guessed.


title: Multi-channel Registration for Diffusion MRI: Longitudinal Analysis for the Neonatal Brain

text: In multi-channel (MC) registration, fusion of structural and diffusion brain MRI provides information on both cortex and white matter (WM) structures thus decreasing the uncertainty of deformation fields. However, the existing solutions employ only diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) derived metrics which are limited by inconsistencies in fiber-crossing regions. In this work, we extend the pipeline for registration of multi-shell high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) [15] with a novel similarity metric based on angular correlation and an option for multi-channel registration that allows incorporation of structural MRI. The contributions of channels to the displacement field are weighted with spatially varying certainty maps. The implementation is based on MRtrix3 (MRtrix3: https://www.mrtrix.org) toolbox. The approach is quantitatively evaluated on intra-patient longitudinal registration of diffusion MRI datasets of 20 preterm neonates with 7–11 weeks gap between the scans. In addition, we present an example of an MC template generated using the proposed method.


title: Multimodal MRI Template Creation in the Ring-Tailed Lemur and Rhesus Macaque

text: We present a multimodal registration algorithm for simultaneous alignment of datasets with both scalar and tensor MRI images. We employ a volumetric, cubic B-spline parametrised transformation model. Regularisation is based on the logarithm of the singular values of the local Jacobian and ensures diffeomorphic warps. Tensor registration takes reorientation into account during optimisation, through a finite-strain approximation of rotation due to the warp. The combination of scalar, tensor and regularisation cost functions allows us to optimise the deformations in terms of tissue matching, orientation matching and distortion minimisation simultaneously. We apply our method to creating multimodal T2 and DTI MRI brain templates of two small primates (the ring-tailed lemur and rhesus macaque) from high-quality, ex vivo, 0.5/0.6 mm isotropic data. The resulting templates are of very high quality across both modalities and species. Tissue contrast in the T2 channel is high indicating excellent tissue-boundary alignment. The DTI channel displays strong anisotropy in white matter, as well as consistent left/right orientation information even in relatively isotropic grey matter regions. Finally, we demonstrate where the multimodal templating approach overcomes anatomical inconsistencies introduced by unimodal only methods.


title: Towards Automated Spine Mobility Quantification: A Locally Rigid CT to X-ray Registration Framework

text: Different pathologies of the vertebral column, such as scoliosis, require quantification of the mobility of individual vertebrae or of curves of the spine for treatment planning. Without the necessary mobility, vertebrae can not be safely re-positioned and fused. The current clinical workflow consists of radiologists or surgeons estimating angular differences of neighbouring vertebrae from different x-ray images. This procedure is time consuming and prone to inaccuracy. The proposed method automates this quantification by deforming a CT image in a physiologically reasonable way and matching it to the x-ray images of interest. We propose a proof of concept evaluation on synthetic data. The automatic and quantitative analysis enables reproducible results independent of the investigator. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this chapter (10.1007/978-3-030-50120-4_7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.


title: Learning Deformable Image Registration with Structure Guidance Constraints for Adaptive Radiotherapy

text: Accurate registration of CT and CBCT images is key for adaptive radiotherapy. A particular challenge is the alignment of flexible organs, such as bladder or rectum, that often yield extreme deformations. In this work we analyze the impact of so-called structure guidance for learning based registration when additional segmentation information is provided to a neural network. We present a novel weakly supervised deep learning based method for multi-modal 3D deformable CT-CBCT registration with structure guidance constraints. Our method is not supervised by ground-truth deformations and we use the energy functional of a variational registration approach as loss for training. Incorporating structure guidance constraints in our learning based approach results in an average Dice score of [Formula: see text] compared to a score of [Formula: see text] for the same method without constraints. An iterative registration approach with structure guidance results in a comparable average Dice score of [Formula: see text]. However, learning based registration requires only a single pass through the network, yielding computation of a deformation fields in less than 0.1 s which is more than 100 times faster than the runtime of iterative registration.


Emsland auf dem Weg in den kommunalen Portalverbund


Markenmanagement im Stadtmarketing


Arbeitsfähig mit Flexibilität und Pragmatismus


title: Reimbursement Patterns and User Experiences in Pediatric Allergy Home Telehealth

text: BACKGROUND: Telehealth use has been increasing over the last decade. Studies have shown that patients have a positive attitude towards incorporating telehealth into their healthcare. Significant uncertainty remains over reimbursement policies that vary widely between states and by payer. OBJECTIVE: Explore the clinical, operational, and financial feasibility of a home telehealth (HTH) program in a pediatric Allergy & Immunology (A&I) clinic. METHODS: A&I Physicians defined use cases they deemed appropriate for HTH appointments. Established patients in the A&I clinic were approached to complete an attitudes and perception survey. Patients meeting the use case definitions were asked to participate in the pilot program. After their HTH appointment took place, they completed a validated satisfaction survey. Our institution’s revenue cycle management team provided reimbursement data. RESULTS: Patient attitudes toward HTH were generally favorable. 51 HTH appointments were offered and 46 appointments were made. 37 appointments were completed successfully among 32 unique patients. Patients were very satisfied with the HTH experience. 36 out of 37 encounters were reimbursed by 19 different public and private payers. Payers on average reimbursed ±6% of the expected allowable for an equivalent in-person visit. CONCLUSION: Patients showed reservations about HTH initially but were very satisfied with their experience. Both private and public payers reimbursed HTH the same as in-person appointments. HTH is both well accepted by patients and financially viable.


Working together alone: Preface to the second special issue by the preterm birth international collaborative (PREBIC)


AI in the noosphere: an alignment of scientific and wisdom traditions


title: Assessing the Contributions of Inactivation, Removal, and Transfer of Ebola Virus and Vesicular Stomatitis Virus by Disinfectant Pre-soaked Wipes

text: Disinfectant pre-soaked wipes (DPW) containing activated hydrogen peroxide (AHP) or quaternary ammonium compounds (QAC) were tested using ASTM E2967-15 to determine removal, transfer, and inactivation of Ebola virus Makona variant (EBOV/Mak) and vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) from contaminated stainless steel prototypic environmental surfaces. The infectious virus-contaminated carriers were subjected to wiping in the Wiperator per the standard. Following the use of negative control (J-Cloth)-, AHP-, or QAC-based wipes, recovery of residual infectious virus was assayed. In the case of the J-Cloth wipes (negative control), although removal of virus from inoculated carriers was extensive i.e., ~99% (1.9–3.5 log(10)) transfer of virus by these wipes to a secondary surface amounted to ≤ 2% (~3.8 log(10)) of the initial virus load. In the case of each DPW, >6 log(10) removal/inactivation of virus was observed, with limited (EBOV/Mak) or no (VSV) virus transfer observed. The efficacy of wipes for decontaminating high-touch environmental surfaces spiked with EBOV/Mak or VSV is discussed. In summary, removal of EBOV/Mak and VSV using wipes was extensive in this study. In the absence of a sufficient concentration and contact time of an appropriate microbicidal active in DPW (such as the AHP- and QAC-based DPW tested), transfer of a low, albeit significant (from an infectious unit/infectious dose perspective), quantity of infectious virus from the inoculated surface to a secondary surface was observed. In the case of Ebola virus, it is essential that a DPW with an appropriate microbicidal active, following the appropriate contact time, be used to prevent unintended transfer of infectious virus to a clean secondary surface (as observed in negative control /J-Cloth). Otherwise, there exists the possibility of dissemination of Ebola virus and the associated risk of transmission of Ebola virus disease.


title: HOW DISPLAYS ARE HOLDING US TOGETHER

text: Very first thing, I hope this finds each of you, your families, and friends healthy. These are difficult times for all of us and there are priorities much greater than our professions at the moment. For those of you facing hardship, we extend our heartfelt sympathies and wish your circumstances to improve soon.


After Covid


Five years… and still going


title: Solidarity, Heterarchy, and Political Morality

text: This article claims that, despite its ambivalent relationship with the heterarchical paradigm, A Union of Peoples is a truly innovative contribution to the complex debate on the European project, especially in the current troubled climate. Its ability to dismantle the prevailing positivist understanding of the interaction between legal orders and to stand out from the overwhelming and often repetitive literature on the philosophy of EU law should be praised. What is especially noteworthy is the idea of “corrective justice.” This notion explains very well the adoption of financial assistance measures as expression of a new form of solidarity, based on the notion of fair redress for a committed wrong, namely the structural deficiencies detectable in the design of the eurozone.


Imagining our futures in different keys


SCI's corporate partners respond


Aktuelles aus der DGU-Pressestelle


Therapie des oligo- und polytopmetastasierten Prostatakarzinoms


title: The Effects of Novel Thermal and Nonthermal Technologies on the Properties of Edible Food Packaging

text: Edible packaging is influenced by factors such as formulation, production technology, and solvent and additive properties. With the increase in the request for coating and film quality, appropriate form, and high product safety and storage period, various technologies such as high hydrostatic pressure, irradiation, ultrasound, high-pressure homogenization, cold plasma, and microwave have been reviewed. The present study states definitions and mechanisms of novel technologies. The experimental condition, packaging matrix, and the results pertaining to the effects of these technologies on various types of edible packaging is also discussed. The most of the matrix used for packaging was whey protein, soy protein isolate, chitosan, and gelatin. The technologies conditions such as power, frequency, time, temperature, dose, pressure, and voltage can have a significant influence on the application of them in film and coating. Therefore, finding the optimum point for the features of the technologies is important because improper use of them reduces the properties of the edible packaging.


Expertises en temps de crise sanitaire


Psychosis and pandemics: is there a secret protector?


title: New and Emerging Systemic Treatments for Atopic Dermatitis

text: Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a prevalent inflammatory skin condition that, depending on its severity, can cause enormous morbidity. Corticosteroids and systemic immunosuppression, traditionally standard of care for difficult-to-treat disease, have many undesirable side effects. The desire for targeted treatments along with an improved understanding of the pathophysiology of AD has spurred the development of novel treatments. In this article, we review promising new treatments and discuss how their targets—IL-13, IL-31, OX40 (CD134), and the Janus kinase family of proteins—participate in the pathogenesis of AD. We review the published phase II and III data for dupilumab, tralokinumab, lebrikizumab, nemolizumab, anti-OX40 antibody, baricitinib, abrocitinib, and upadacitinib. The introduction of new agents may offer new options, but it remains to be seen how narrow-acting agents, like single interleukin inhibitors, will compare in safety and efficacy to broad-acting agents such as JAK inhibitors.


title: TGF-β and WNT signaling pathways in cardiac fibrosis: non-coding RNAs come into focus

text: Cardiac fibrosis describes the inappropriate proliferation of cardiac fibroblasts (CFs), leading to accumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins in the cardiac muscle, which is found in many pathophysiological heart conditions. A range of molecular components and cellular pathways, have been implicated in its pathogenesis. In this review, we focus on the TGF-β and WNT signaling pathways, and their mutual interaction, which have emerged as important factors involved in cardiac pathophysiology. The molecular and cellular processes involved in the initiation and progression of cardiac fibrosis are summarized. We focus on TGF-β and WNT signaling in cardiac fibrosis, ECM production, and myofibroblast transformation. Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) are one of the main players in the regulation of multiple pathways and cellular processes. MicroRNAs, long non-coding RNAs, and circular long non-coding RNAs can all interact with the TGF-β/WNT signaling axis to affect cardiac fibrosis. A better understanding of these processes may lead to new approaches for diagnosis and treatment of many cardiac conditions.


title: The influence of vaccination on the control of JE with a standard incidence rate of mosquitoes, pigs and humans

text: In this article, a nonlinear mathematical model used for the impact of vaccination on the control of infectious disease, Japanese encephalitis with a standard incidence rate of mosquitoes, pigs and humans has been planned and analyzed. During the modeling process, it is expected that the disease spreads only due to get in touch with the susceptible and infected class only. It is also assumed that due to the effect of vaccination, the total human population forms a separate class and avoids contact with the infection. The dynamical behaviors of the system have been explored by using the stability theory of differential equations and numerical simulations. The local and global stability of the system for both equilibrium states under certain conditions has been studied. We have set up a threshold condition in the language of the vaccine-induced reproduction number [Formula: see text] , which is fewer than unity, the disease dies in the absence of the infected population, otherwise, the infection remains in the population. Furthermore, it is found that vaccine coverage has a substantial effect on the basic reproduction number. Also, by continuous efforts and effectiveness of vaccine coverage, the disease can be eradicated. It is also found a more sensitive parameter for the transmission of Japanese encephalitis virus by using sensitivity analysis. In addition, numerical results are used to investigate the effect of some parameters happening the control of JE infection, for justification of analytical results.


title: Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis is associated with Bartonella henselae infection in a patient with multiple susceptibility genes

text: BACKGROUND: Adult-onset hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) is a rare and life-threatening condition, which is often triggered by certain types of infection, cancer and numerous autoimmune diseases; however, of the numerous infectious triggers associated with HLH, the consequences of Bartonella henselae infection have been rarely reported. CASE PRESENTATION: A 48-year-old female presented with a 20-day history of intermittent fever accompanied by systemic rash, fatigue, anorexia and weight loss later she developed shock and unconsciousness. Blood tests showed a reduction of leukocyte, anemia and thrombocytopenia, and pathological results of a bone marrow biopsy confirmed hemophagocytic activity. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) analysis of the lymph node detected the presence of B. henselae. Whole exome sequencing revealed two gene variants, STXBP2 and IRF5, in this adult patient with secondary HLH. Then, she received minocycline and rifampin combination anti-infective therapy. Intravenous immunoglobulin for 5 days followed by a high dose of methylprednisolone were also administered. The patient was successfully discharged from the intensive care unit and remained in good condition after 2 months of follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: mNGS served crucial roles in obtaining an etiological diagnosis, which suggested that screening for B. henselae should be considered in patients with HLH, especially those with a cat at home. In addition, the genetic defects were discovered to not only be present in primary HLH, but also in secondary HLH, even in the elderly.


title: Learning while shopping: an experimental investigation into the effect of learning on consumer search

text: In many search environments, searchers are learning about the distribution of offers in the market. I conduct an experiment exploring a broad class of search problems with learning about the distribution of payoffs. My results support the prediction that learning results in declining reservation values, providing evidence that learning may be an explanation for recall. Theory predicts a “one step” reservation value strategy, but many subjects instead choose to set a high reservation value in order to learn about the distribution before adjusting based on their observations. Under-searching in search experiments may stem from a reinforcement heuristic and lack of negative feedback after using sub-optimal strategies. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10683-020-09659-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.


Opening Up New Supply Chains


title: Addressing Africa’s Energy Dilemma

text: This chapter discusses how the ongoing low-carbon energy transformation could reshape geopolitics within Africa and between the continent and the rest of the world. The chapter first attempts to define what ‘transition’ means in African contexts and if the concept applies at all to African dynamics. It then delves into the drivers and modalities of Africa’s alleged shift to finally explore geopolitical dynamics, questioning whether Africa is still the locus for the global supply of natural resources, introducing patterns of engagement between Africa and international/regional actors, and finally presenting the socio-economic implications of the shift. We conclude that while the venues and sources of geopolitical interest might change in the new geopolitical order that the transition to renewable energy implies, the content and modalities of interaction may see a continuity with the past, namely, dependence on external financing and technology. With yet at least one novelty: increased relevance of regional interdependencies.


title: Setting Up a Global System for Sustainable Energy Governance

text: The global energy landscape is currently shaken by tectonic shifts. We witness dramatic changes in energy geopolitics, the formation of the global system of energy governance, a huge wave of massive technological innovations, global markets are undergoing a radical transformation embracing a fast multiplication of new sources of energy, new products, new producers, and suppliers, coupled with the development of the vast and sophisticated infrastructure and an increasing efficiency in energy use. Each and every component of the system is touched upon by a wind of change that brings about the contours of a new energy global order.


title: The Exploration and Research of Blended Teaching Mode Based on “Internet+” Big Data Cloud Platform

text: In the light of problems in online teaching of new coronavirus (2019-nCoV) epidemic period in advanced mathematics curriculum, this paper analyzes the teaching effect of short-term one-way online education mode in the teaching practice of concrete courses by using the real-time data of “rain classroom” teaching management platform. Above that this paper explore and practice the hybrid teaching mode based on “Internet+” big data cloud platform, aiming at promoting the “Internet+Education” information technology and curriculum teaching depth integration, improving the teaching effect, and promoting education and teaching reform.


title: Governing the Global Energy Transformation

text: An effective and efficient governance is key for the global energy transformation. We argue that the process under the Paris Agreement, its ‘rulebook’ and the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) will have to be accompanied by focused and tailored governance mechanisms in the energy realm. The energy sector itself is key to limiting global warming to two degrees centigrade compared to the preindustrial level, because it is responsible for over two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, neither the energy transition nor energy governance start from scratch. Energy governance is already happening on many levels: the local, the national, the regional and the global. These multi-level governance structures are necessary to enable, facilitate, and accelerate the energy transition(s) on the ground. They have to be adapted, however, to the changing and transforming energy world as we argue in the conclusions. In a first step, we conceptualize the notion of ‘energy transition’ and relate it to the concept of ‘energy transformation’. We argue that it is necessary to firstly move beyond the normative and target-driven idea(s) behind ‘transition’ and to secondly bring in the systemic aspects of energy transformation. Moreover, energy security, economic efficiency, sustainability and climate neutrality have emerged over time as the guiding paradigms, forming a strategic quadrangle, as opposed to a strategic triangle, traditionally used to define energy security. In a second step, we present an overview of the current international energy governance system where multilayered governance structures have developed over time. We argue that the existing architecture is stemming from the past and is neither fit for governing the energy transition, nor even reflecting the proccesses underway in todays’ world. In a third step, we highlight that the energy transformation has and will have tremendous techno-economic, socio-technical and political (Cherp et al. 2018) effects that have both internal and external dimensions. Moreover, the transformation comes with (geo)political effects as it changes the political economy of energy on all levels: the global, the regional, the national and the local. In the final step, we look at ways forward. We argue that it is necessary to preserve existing multilateral institutions and to strengthen them. Moreover, we assume that governance approaches towards and inside regions will have to be re-shaped or even created from scratch. We conclude that the crumbling of the global liberal order and the crises of multilateralism are complicating the approach to a better governance of the energy transition on the global level. Moreover, we witness the emergence of illiberal tendencies in the Western democracies as well. Climate and energy are playing into the polarization of societies as the two topics emerged as a major cleavage and a conflict line. We emphasize that a just and inclusive energy transition, both on national and international levels, is necessary to keep countries and the world on a sustainable energy transformation path. The challenge faced by the planet is indeed systemic.


title: Deep Statistical Model Checking

text: Neural networks (NN) are taking over ever more decisions thus far taken by humans, even though verifiable system-level guarantees are far out of reach. Neither is the verification technology available, nor is it even understood what a formal, meaningful, extensible, and scalable testbed might look like for such a technology. The present paper is a modest attempt to improve on both the above aspects. We present a family of formal models that contain basic features of automated decision making contexts and which can be extended with further orthogonal features, ultimately encompassing the scope of autonomous driving. Due to the possibility to model random noise in the decision actuation, each model instance induces a Markov decision process (MDP) as verification object. The NN in this context has the duty to actuate (near-optimal) decisions. From the verification perspective, the externally learnt NN serves as a determinizer of the MDP, the result being a Markov chain which as such is amenable to statistical model checking. The combination of a MDP and a NN encoding the action policy is central to what we call “deep statistical model checking” (DSMC). While being a straightforward extension of statistical model checking, it enables to gain deep insight into questions like “how high is the NN-induced safety risk?”, “how good is the NN compared to the optimal policy?” (obtained by model checking the MDP), or “does further training improve the NN?”. We report on an implementation of DSMC inside The Modest Toolset in combination with externally learnt NNs, demonstrating the potential of DSMC on various instances of the model family.


title: Strategy Synthesis for Autonomous Driving in a Moving Block Railway System with Uppaal Stratego

text: Moving block railway systems are the next generation signalling systems currently under development as part of the Shift2Rail European initiative, including autonomous driving technologies. In this paper, we model a suitable abstraction of a moving block signalling system with autonomous driving as a stochastic priced timed game. We then synthesise safe and optimal driving strategies for the model by applying advanced techniques that combine statistical model checking with reinforcement learning as provided by Uppaal Stratego. Hence, we show the applicability of Uppaal Stratego in this concrete case study.


title: Towards a Hybrid Verification Methodology for Communication Protocols (Short Paper)

text: We present our preliminary work towards a comprehensive solution for the hybrid (static + dynamic) verification of open distributed systems, using session types. We automate a solution for binary sessions where one endpoint is statically checked, and the other endpoint is dynamically checked by a monitor acting as an intermediary between typed and untyped components. We outline our theory, and illustrate a tool that automatically synthesises type-checked session monitors, based on the Scala language and its session programming library (lchannels).


title: Derivation of Heard-of Predicates from Elementary Behavioral Patterns

text: There are many models of distributed computing, and no unifying mathematical framework for considering them all. One way to sidestep this issue is to start with simple communication and fault models, and use them as building blocks to derive the complex models studied in the field. We thus define operations like union, succession or repetition, which makes it easier to build complex models from simple ones while retaining expressivity. To formalize this approach, we abstract away the complex models and operations in the Heard-Of model. This model relies on (possibly asynchronous) rounds; sequence of digraphs, one for each round, capture which messages sent at a given round are received before the receiver goes to the next round. A set of sequences, called a heard-of predicate, defines the legal communication behaviors – that is to say, a model of communication. Because the proposed operations behave well with this transformation of operational models into heard-of predicates, we can derive bounds, characterizations, and implementations of the heard-of predicates for the constructions.


title: Trace Equivalence and Epistemic Logic to Express Security Properties

text: In process algebra, we can express security properties using an equivalence on processes. However, it is not clear which equivalence is the most suitable for the purpose. Indeed, several definitions of some properties are proposed. For example, the definition of privacy is not unique. This situation means that we are not certain how to express an intuitive security notion. Namely, there is a gap between an intuitive security notion and the formulation. Proper formalization is essential for verification, and our purpose is to bridge this gap. In the case of the applied pi calculus, an outputted message is not explicitly expressed. This feature suggests that trace equivalence appropriately expresses indistinguishability for attackers in the applied pi calculus. By chasing interchanging bound names and scope extrusions, we prove that trace equivalence is a congruence. Therefore, a security property expressed using trace equivalence is preserved by application of contexts. Moreover, we construct an epistemic logic for the applied pi calculus. We show that its logical equivalence agrees with trace equivalence. It means that trace equivalence is suitable in the presence of a non-adaptive attacker. Besides, we define several security properties to use our epistemic logic.


title: A Formal Framework for Consent Management

text: The aim of this work is to design a formal framework for consent management in line with EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). To make a general solution, we consider a high-level modeling language for distributed service-oriented systems, building on the paradigm of active objects. Our framework provides a general solution for data subjects to observe and change their privacy settings and to be informed about all personal data stored about them. The solution consists of a set of predefined types for privacy related concepts, a formalization of policy compliance, a set of interfaces that forms the basis of interaction with external users for consent management, a set of classes that is used in interaction with the runtime system, and a runtime system enforcing the consented policies.


title: Conformance-Based Doping Detection for Cyber-Physical Systems

text: We present a novel and generalised notion of doping cleanness for cyber-physical systems that allows for perturbing the inputs and observing the perturbed outputs both in the time– and value–domains. We instantiate our definition using existing notions of conformance for cyber-physical systems. We show that our generalised definitions are essential in a data-driven method for doping detection and apply our definitions to a case study concerning diesel emission tests.


title: Defining and Verifying Durable Opacity: Correctness for Persistent Software Transactional Memory

text: Non-volatile memory (NVM), aka persistent memory, is a new paradigm for memory that preserves its contents even after power loss. The expected ubiquity of NVM has stimulated interest in the design of novel concepts ensuring correctness of concurrent programming abstractions in the face of persistency. So far, this has lead to the design of a number of persistent concurrent data structures, built to satisfy an associated notion of correctness: durable linearizability. In this paper, we transfer the principle of durable concurrent correctness to the area of software transactional memory (STM). Software transactional memory algorithms allow for concurrent access to shared state. Like linearizability for concurrent data structures, opacity is the established notion of correctness for STMs. First, we provide a novel definition of durable opacity extending opacity to handle crashes and recovery in the context of NVM. Second, we develop a durably opaque version of an existing STM algorithm, namely the Transactional Mutex Lock (TML). Third, we design a proof technique for durable opacity based on refinement between TML and an operational characterisation of durable opacity by adapting the TMS2 specification. Finally, we apply this proof technique to show that the durable version of TML is indeed durably opaque. The correctness proof is mechanized within Isabelle.


title: Towards Bridging Time and Causal Reversibility

text: Causal consistent reversibility blends causality and reversibility. For a concurrent system, it says that an action can be undone provided this has no consequences, thereby making it possible to bring the system back to a past consistent state. Time reversibility is considered instead in the performance evaluation field. A continuous-time Markov chain is time reversible if its behavior remains the same when the direction of time is reversed. We try to bridge these two theories by showing the conditions under which both causal consistent reversibility and time reversibility can be achieved in the setting of a stochastic process algebra.


title: Tutorial: Parameterized Verification with Byzantine Model Checker

text: Threshold guards are a basic primitive of many fault-tolerant algorithms that solve classical problems of distributed computing, such as reliable broadcast, two-phase commit, and consensus. Moreover, threshold guards can be found in recent blockchain algorithms such as Tendermint consensus. In this tutorial, we give an overview of the techniques implemented in Byzantine Model Checker (ByMC). ByMC implements several techniques for automatic verification of threshold-guarded distributed algorithms. These algorithms have the following features: (1) up to t of processes may crash or behave Byzantine; (2) the correct processes count messages and make progress when they receive sufficiently many messages, e.g., at least [Formula: see text]; (3) the number n of processes in the system is a parameter, as well as t; (4) and the parameters are restricted by a resilience condition, e.g., [Formula: see text]. Traditionally, these algorithms were implemented in distributed systems with up to ten participating processes. Nowadays, they are implemented in distributed systems that involve hundreds or thousands of processes. To make sure that these algorithms are still correct for that scale, it is imperative to verify them for all possible values of the parameters.


title: Typechecking Java Protocols with [St]Mungo

text: This is a tutorial paper on [St]Mungo, a toolchain based on multiparty session types and their connection to typestates for safe distributed programming in Java language. The StMungo (“Scribble-to-Mungo”) tool is a bridge between multiparty session types and typestates. StMungo translates a communication protocol, namely a sequence of sends and receives of messages, given as a multiparty session type in the Scribble language, into a typestate specification and a Java API skeleton. The generated API skeleton is then further extended with the necessary logic, and finally typechecked by Mungo. The Mungo tool extends Java with (optional) typestate specifications. A typestate is a state machine specifying a Java object protocol, namely the permitted sequence of method calls of that object. Mungo statically typechecks that method calls follow the object’s protocol, as defined by its typestate specification. Finally, if no errors are reported, the code is compiled with javac and run as standard Java code. In this tutorial paper we give an overview of the stages of the [St]Mungo toolchain, starting from Scribble communication protocols, translating to Java classes with typestates, and finally to typechecking method calls with Mungo. We illustrate the [St]Mungo toolchain via a real-world case study, the HTTP client-server request-response protocol over TCP. During the tutorial session, we will apply [St]Mungo to a range of examples having increasing complexity, with HTTP being one of them.


title: On Implementable Timed Automata

text: Generating code from networks of timed automata is a well-researched topic with many proposed approaches, which have in common that they not only generate code for the processes in the network, but necessarily generate additional code for a global scheduler which implements the timed automata semantics. For distributed systems without shared memory, this additional component is, in general, undesired. In this work, we present a new approach to the generation of correct code (without global scheduler) for distributed systems without shared memory yet with (almost) synchronous clocks if the source model does not depend on a global scheduler. We characterise a set of implementable timed automata models and provide a translation to a timed while language. We show that each computation of the generated program has a network computation path with the same observable behaviour.


title: Probabilistic Timed Automata with One Clock and Initialised Clock-Dependent Probabilities

text: Clock-dependent probabilistic timed automata extend classical timed automata with discrete probabilistic choice, where the probabilities are allowed to depend on the exact values of the clocks. Previous work has shown that the quantitative reachability problem for clock-dependent probabilistic timed automata with at least three clocks is undecidable. In this paper, we consider the subclass of clock-dependent probabilistic timed automata that have one clock, that have clock dependencies described by affine functions, and that satisfy an initialisation condition requiring that, at some point between taking edges with non-trivial clock dependencies, the clock must have an integer value. We present an approach for solving in polynomial time quantitative and qualitative reachability problems of such one-clock initialised clock-dependent probabilistic timed automata. Our results are obtained by a transformation to interval Markov decision processes.


title: Pedestrian wind comfort near a super-tall building with various configurations in an urban-like setting

text: Pedestrian wind comfort near a 400 m super-tall building in high and low ambient wind speeds, referred to as Windy and Calm climates, is evaluated by conducting computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The super-tall building has 15 different configurations and is located at the center of 50 m medium-rise buildings in an urban-like setting. Pedestrian level mean wind speeds near the super-tall building is obtained from three-dimensional (3D), steady-state, Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS)-based simulations for five incident wind directions (θ = 0°, 22.5°, 45°, 90°, 180°) that are subsequently compared with two wind comfort criteria specified for Calm and Windy climates. Results show a 1.53 times increase in maximum mean wind speed in the urban area after the construction of a square-shaped super-tall building. The escalated mean wind speeds result in a 23%–15% and 36%–29% decrease in the area with “acceptable wind comfort” in Calm and Windy climates, respectively. The area with pedestrian wind comfort varies significantly with building configuration and incident wind direction, for example, the configurations with sharp corners, large plan aspect ratios and, frontal areas and the orientation consistently show a strong dependency on incident wind direction except for the one with rounded plan shapes. Minor aerodynamic modifications such as corner modifications and aerodynamically-shaped configurations such as tapered and setback buildings show promise in improving pedestrian wind comfort in Windy climate.


title: Long-term Changes of Disinfection Byproducts in Treatment of Simulated Ballast Water

text: This study investigated the changes in concentrations of haloacetic acids (HAAs) and haloacetonitriles (HANs) as disinfection byproducts (DBPs) for different storage times (as long as 20 days) and temperatures (5 to 20°C). A ship’s voyage after treatment of its ballast water with active substances was considered. The HAA showed a clear trend of increasing concentration only with storage time, especially for dibromoacetic acid (DBAA). Dissolved organic nitrogen concentration was increased by the decomposition of dead organisms at 10 days, and then reacted with the remaining total residual oxidants, resulting in increased concentration of DBPs. An environmental risk assessment indicated that DBAN and monochloroacetic acid (MCAA) could have a negative impact on the marine environment. This study suggests that, because all international vessels must have a ballast water management system installed by September, 2024, the conc e ntra tio ns of DBPs, especially DBAN, MCAA, and DBAA, should be monitored in the waters at major international ports.


title: Immune effect of a Newcastle disease virus DNA vaccine with IL-12 as a molecular adjuvant delivered by electroporation

text: Newcastle disease (ND), caused by virulent Newcastle disease virus (NDV) strains, has been one of the most problematic diseases affecting the poultry industry worldwide. Conventional vaccines provide effective protection for birds to survive ND outbreaks, but they may not completely suppress NDV shedding. NDV strains circulate on farms for a long time after the initial infection and cause potential risks. A new vaccine with fast clearance ability and low viral shedding is needed. In this study, we used interleukin-12 (IL-12) as an adjuvant and electroporation (EP) as an advanced delivery system to improve a DNA vaccine candidate. The fusion (F) protein gene from an NDV strain of the prevalent genotype VII.1.1 was cloned to prepare the vaccine. Chickens immunized with the F gene DNA vaccine co-delivered with an IL-12-expressing plasmid DNA showed higher neutralizing antibody levels and stronger concanavalin-A-induced lymphocyte proliferation than those treated with the F gene DNA vaccine alone. The co-delivered vaccine provided 100% protection, and less viral shedding and a shorter release time were observed in challenged chickens than when the F gene DNA vaccine was administered alone. The use of F gene DNA combined with IL-12 delivered by electroporation is a promising approach for vaccination against ND.


title: Acute Exacerbations of Chronic Lung Disease: Cardiac Considerations

text: The importance of appropriately recognizing and managing patients with cardiovascular and pulmonary comorbidities is underscored by the poor outcomes described in complex comorbid patients. Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have an increased risk, up to one-third greater than the general population, of cardiovascular comorbidities including hypertension and diabetes [1].


Editors’ Note


Opportunities Arising from a Pandemic Crisis: A Challenge for Humanity Driven by Science, Solidarity, and Cultural Change


Product News


title: Conclusions

text: The aim is to test the claim made in the Introduction to this volume that Britain has a unique tabloid culture that combines on a single platform a range of serious and trivial elements, from international news and investigative journalism to sex and gossip. The three most prominent stories from the digital editions of five tabloids—the Sun, the Star, the Mirror, the Mail and the Express—were checked between 16.30 and 17.30 GMT on Friday 24 January 2020. It was found that all five tabloids gave adequate coverage to what Reuters considered the main item of international news that afternoon, and two prioritised serious articles that were critical of the British government. However, sensationalised and frivolous pieces also featured among the most prominent posts, which confirmed the eclectic nature of tabloid content.


title: Unruh-like effects: effective temperatures along stationary worldlines

text: We study the detailed balance temperatures recorded along all classes of stationary, uniformly accelerated worldlines in four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime, namely along (i) linear uniform acceleration, (ii) cusped, (iii) circular, (iv) catenary, and (v) helix worldlines, among which the Unruh temperature is the particular case for linear uniform acceleration. As a measuring device, we employ an Unruh-DeWitt detector, modeled as a qubit that interacts for a long time with a massless Klein-Gordon field in the vacuum state. The temperatures in each case (i) - (v) are functions of up to three invariant quantities: curvature or proper acceleration, κ, torsion, b, and hypertorsion, ν, and except for the case (i), they depend on the transition frequency difference of the detector, ω. We investigate numerically the behavior of the frequency-dependent temperatures for different values of κ, b, and ν along the stationary worldlines (ii) - (v) and evaluate analytically the regimes where the temperatures recorded along the different worldlines coincide with each other in terms of relevant asymptotic limits for κ, b, or ν, and discuss their physical meaning. We demonstrate that the temperatures in cases (ii) - (v) dip under the Unruh temperature at low frequencies and go above the Unruh temperature for large |ω|. It is our hope that this study will be relevant to the design of experiments seeking to verify the Unruh effect or generalizations thereof.


title: Automatic Semantic Description Extraction from Social Big Data for Emergency Management

text: Emergency events are unexpected and dangerous situations which the authorities must manage and respond to as quickly as possible. The main objectives of emergency management are to provide human safety and security, and Social Big Data (SBD) offers an important information source, created directly from eyewitness reports, to assist with these issues. However, the manual extraction of hidden meaning from SBD is both time-consuming and labor-intensive, which are major drawbacks for a process that needs accurate information to be produced in real-time. The solution is an automatic approach to knowledge discovery, and we propose a semantic description technique based on the use of triple store indexing for named entity recognition and relation extraction. Our technique can discover hidden SBD information more effectively than traditional approaches, and can be used for intelligent emergency management.


Goldilocks and the BCG: Bacillus Calmette-Guérin Dose Reduction in the Age of Shortage


Global Health in Radiation Oncology: The Intention-Investment Gap


How the Emergency Department Works: A Work in Progress


title: Forecasted datasets of electric vehicle consumption on the electricity grid of Spain

text: The information included in this study were calculated on the basis of data provided by the Spanish electricity grid, for thirteen years between 2007 and 2019. This data includes: the average consumption demand on the Spanish electricity grid at national level, and its availability. Subsequently, the report looks at the number of electric vehicles that could be supported in the years 2020-2023, depending on the consumption demand and availably of the electricity grid for those future years. The data presented in the article refers to the research study: ‘Electric vehicles in Spain: An overview of charging systems’[1] and ‘Analysis of charging stations for electric vehicles in Spain’ [2].


Reply to the letter to the editor


title: Scanning and Sensemaking

text: Leading disruptive companies of our times develop forward-looking processes and “future-proofing” routines instead of relying on organizational dogma. Such scanning is important, but sensemaking is too, which is essentially scanning with mindfulness as executives work to conceptualize through awareness and interpretation of the world around them. It requires being attentive to the deviations from commonly accepted interpretations, habits of mind, and routines. To do this, executives can take several steps including creating a search map, developing horizon thinking, and tapping “outsiders” in the scanning process.


title: Event-Based Customization of Multi-tenant SaaS Using Microservices

text: Popular enterprise software such as ERP, CRM is now being made available on the Cloud in the multi-tenant Software as a Service (SaaS) model. The added values come from the ability of vendors to enable customer-specific business advantage for every different tenant who uses the same main enterprise software product. Software vendors need novel customization solutions for Cloud-based multi-tenant SaaS. In this paper, we present an event-based approach in a non-intrusive customization framework that can enable customization for multi-tenant SaaS and address the problem of too many API calls to the main software product. The experimental results on Microsoft’s eShopOnContainers show that our approach can empower an event bus with the ability to customize the flow of processing events, and integrate with tenant-specific microservices for customization. We have shown how our approach makes sure of tenant-isolation, which is crucial in practice for SaaS vendors. This direction can also reduce the number of API calls to the main software product, even when every tenant has different customization services.


title: Towards Energy-, Time- and Security-Aware Multi-core Coordination

text: Coordination is a well established computing paradigm with a plethora of languages, abstractions and approaches. Yet, we are not aware of any adoption of the principle of coordination in the broad domain of cyber-physical systems, where non-functional properties, such as execution/response time, energy consumption and security are as crucial as functional correctness. We propose a coordination approach, including a functional coordination language and its associated tool flow, that considers time, energy and security as first-class citizens in application design and development. We primarily target cyber-physical systems running on off-the-shelf heterogeneous multi-core platforms. We illustrate our approach by means of a real-world use case, an unmanned aerial vehicle for autonomous reconnaissance mission, which we develop in close collaboration with industry.


title: CHOReVOLUTION: Hands-On In-Service Training for Choreography-Based Systems

text: CHOReVOLUTION is a platform for the tool-assisted development and execution of scalable applications that leverage the distributed collaboration of services specified through service choreographies. It offers an Integrated Development and Runtime Environment (IDRE) comprising a wizard-aided development environment, a system monitoring console, and a back-end for managing the deployment and execution of the system on the cloud. In this tutorial paper, we describe the platform and demonstrate its step-by-step application to an industrial use case in the domain of Smart Mobility & Tourism. (Demo Video: youtu.be/ae2jI9SYsvg) (GitHub: https://github.com/chorevolution/CHOReVOLUTION-IDRE)


title: Team Automata@Work: On Safe Communication

text: We study requirements for safe communication in systems of reactive components in which components communicate via synchronised execution of common actions. These systems are modelled in the framework of team automata in which any number of components can participate—as a sender or as a receiver—in the execution of a communication action. Moreover, there is no fixed synchronisation policy as these policies in general depend on the application. In this short paper, we reconsider the concept of safe communication in terms of reception and responsiveness requirements, originally defined for synchronisation policies determined by a synchronisation type. Illustrated by a motivating example, we propose three extensions. First, compliance, i.e. satisfaction of communication requirements, does not have to be immediate. Second, the synchronisation type (and hence the communication requirements) no longer has to be uniform, but can be specified per action. Third, we introduce final states to be able to distinguish between possible and guaranteed executions of actions.


title: Formal Modeling and Analysis of Medical Systems

text: Medical systems are composed of medical devices and apps which are developed independently by different vendors. A set of communication patterns, based on asynchronous message-passing, has been proposed to loosely integrate medical devices and apps. These patterns guarantee the point-to-point quality of communication service (QoS) by local inspection of messages at its constituent components. These local mechanisms inspect the property of messages to enforce a set of parametrized local QoS properties. Adjusting these parameters to achieve the required point-to-point QoS is non-trivial and depends on the involved components and the underlying network. We use Timed Rebeca, an actor-based formal modeling language, to model such systems and asses their QoS properties by model checking. We model the components of communication patterns as distinct actors. A composite medical system using several instances of patterns is subject to state-space explosion. We propose a reduction technique preserving QoS properties. We prove that our technique is sound and show the applicability of our approach in reducing the state space by modeling a clinical scenario made of several instances of patterns.


title: Resilient Distributed Collection Through Information Speed Thresholds

text: One of the key coordination problems in physically-deployed distributed systems, such as mobile robots, wireless sensor networks, and IoT systems in general, is to provide notions of “distributed sensing” achieved by the strict, continuous cooperation and interaction among individual devices. An archetypal operation of distributed sensing is data summarisation over a region of space, by which several higher-level problems can be addressed: counting items, measuring space, averaging environmental values, and so on. A typical coordination strategy to perform data summarisation in a peer-to-peer scenario, where devices can communicate only with a neighbourhood, is to progressively accumulate information towards one or more collector devices, though this typically exhibits problems of reactivity and fragility, especially in scenarios featuring high mobility. In this paper, we propose coordination strategies for data summarisation involving both idempotent and arithmetic aggregation operators, with the idea of controlling the minimum information propagation speed, so as to improve the reactivity to input changes. Given suitable assumptions on the network model, and under the restriction of no data loss, these algorithms achieve optimal reactivity. By empirical evaluation via simulation, accounting for various sources of volatility, and comparing to other existing implementations of data summarisation algorithms, we show that our algorithms are able to retain adequate accuracy even in high-variability scenarios where all other algorithms are significantly diverging from correct estimations.


title: Towards a Formally Verified EVM in Production Environment

text: Among dozens of decentralized computing platforms, Ethereum attracts widespread attention for its native support of smart contracts by means of a virtual machine called Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Programs can be developed in various front-end languages. For example, Solidity can be deployed to the blockchain in the form of compiled EVM opcodes. However, such flexibility leads to critical safety challenges. In this paper, we formally define the behavior of EVM in Why3, a platform for deductive program verification, which facilitates the verification of different properties. The extracted implementation in OCaml can be directly integrated into the production environment and tested against the standard test suite. The combination of proofs and testing in our framework serves as a powerful analysis basis for EVM and smart contracts.


title: Weighted PCL over Product Valuation Monoids

text: We introduce a weighted propositional configuration logic over a product valuation monoid. Our logic is intended to serve as a specification language for software architectures with quantitative features such as the average of all interactions’ costs of the architecture and the maximum cost among all costs occurring most frequently within a specific number of components in an architecture. We provide formulas of our logic which describe well-known architectures equipped with quantitative characteristics. Moreover, we prove an efficient construction of a full normal form which leads to decidability of equivalence of formulas in this logic.


title: SFJ: An Implementation of Semantic Featherweight Java

text: There are two approaches to defining subtyping relations: the syntactic and the semantic approach. In semantic subtyping, one defines a model of the language and an interpretation of types as subsets of this model. Subtyping is defined as inclusion of subsets denoting types. An orthogonal subtyping question, typical of object-oriented languages, is the nominal versus the structural subtyping. Dardha et al. [11, 12] defined boolean types and semantic subtyping for Featherweight Java (FJ) and integrated both nominal and structural subtyping, thus exploiting the benefits of both approaches. However, these benefits were illustrated only at a theoretical level, but not exploited practically. We present SFJ—Semantic Featherweight Java, an implementation of FJ which features boolean types, semantic subtyping and integrates nominal as well as structural subtyping. The benefits of SFJ, illustrated in the paper and the accompanying video (with audio/subtitles) [27], show how static type-checking of boolean types and semantic subtyping gives higher guarantees of program correctness, more flexibility and compactness of program writing.


title: GoPi: Compiling Linear and Static Channels in Go

text: We identify two important features to enhance the design of communication protocols specified in the pi-calculus, that are linear and static channels, and present a compiler, named GoPi, that maps high level specifications into executable Go programs. Channels declared as linear are deadlock-free, while the scope of static channels, which are bound by a hide declaration, does not enlarge at runtime; this is enforced statically by means of type inference, while specifications do not include annotations. Well-behaved processes are transformed into Go code that supports non-deterministic synchronizations and race-freedom. We sketch two main examples involving protection against message forwarding, and forward secrecy, and discuss the features of the tool, and the generated code. We argue that GoPi can support academic activities involving process algebras and formal models, which range from the analysis and testing of concurrent processes for research purposes to teaching formal languages and concurrent systems.


title: Quality of Service Ranking by Quantifying Partial Compliance of Requirements

text: While there is not much discussion on the importance of formally describing and analysing quantitative requirements in the process of software construction; in the paradigm of API-based software systems it could be vital. Quantitative attributes can be thought as attributes determining the Quality of Service – QoS provided by a software component published as a service. In this sense, they play a determinant role in classifying software artifacts according to specific needs stated as requirements. In previous works we presented an efficient, and fully automatic, analysis technique for establishing Service Level Agreements – SLA. Such a proposal relays on describing QoS contracts as convex specifications, and compliance checking is performed by the application of an analysis algorithm based on state of the art techniques used in hybrid system verification. Such a technique succeeds in offering a procedure for determining SLA but fails in the more realistic scenario where, potentially, no service fully satisfies the requirements. In this scenario the running application may still prefer to invoke the service that offers the best chances of successfully executing with values for QoS attributes meeting the requirements satisfactorily. In this work we propose and implement a metric for automatically quantifying partial satisfaction of QoS requirements, leading to a way of ranking services according to such notion of partial compliance.


title: Refined Mean Field Analysis: The Gossip Shuffle Protocol Revisited

text: Gossip protocols form the basis of many smart collective adaptive systems. They are a class of fully decentralised, simple but robust protocols for the distribution of information throughout large scale networks with hundreds or thousands of nodes. Mean field analysis methods have made it possible to approximate and analyse performance aspects of such large scale protocols in an efficient way that is independent of the number of nodes in the network. Taking the gossip shuffle protocol as a benchmark, we evaluate a recently developed refined mean field approach. We illustrate the gain in accuracy this can provide for the analysis of medium size models analysing two key performance measures: replication and coverage. We also show that refined mean field analysis requires special attention to correctly capture the coordination aspects of the gossip shuffle protocol.


title: Combining SLiVER with CADP to Analyze Multi-agent Systems

text: We present an automated workflow for the analysis of multi-agent systems described in a simple specification language. The procedure is based on a structural encoding of the input system and the property of interest into an LNT program, and relies on the CADP software toolbox to either verify the given property or simulate the encoded system. Counterexamples to properties under verification, as well as simulation traces, are translated into a syntax similar to that of the input language: therefore, no knowledge of CADP is required. The workflow is implemented as a module of the verification tool SLiVER. We present the input specification language, describe the analysis workflow, and show how to invoke SLiVER to verify or simulate two example systems. Then, we provide details on the LNT encoding and the verification procedure.


title: Architecture Modelling of Parametric Component-Based Systems

text: We study formal modelling of architectures applied on parametric component-based systems consisting of an unknown number of instances of each component. Architecture modelling is achieved by means of logics. We introduce an extended propositional interaction logic and investigate its first-order level which serves as a formal language for the interactions of parametric systems. Our logic effectively describes the execution order of interactions which is a main feature in several important architectures. We state the decidability of equivalence, satisfiability, and validity of first-order extended interaction logic formulas, and provide several examples of formulas describing well-known architectures.


title: Implementing Multiparty Session Types in Rust

text: Multiparty Session Types (MPST) is a typing discipline for distributed protocols, which ensures communication safety and deadlock-freedom for more than two participants. This paper reports on our research project, implementing multiparty session types in Rust. Current Rust implementations of session types are limited to binary (two-party communications). We extend an existing library for binary session types to MPST. We have implemented a simplified Amazon Prime Video Streaming protocol using our library for both shared and distributed communication transports.


title: Operational Representation of Dependencies in Context-Dependent Event Structures

text: The execution of an event in a complex and distributed system where the dependencies vary during the evolution of the system can be represented in many ways, and one of them is to use Context-Dependent Event structures. Many kinds of event structures are related to various kind of Petri nets. The aim of this paper is to find the appropriate kind of Petri net that can be used to give an operational flavour to the dependencies represented in a Context/Dependent Event structure.


title: Time-Fluid Field-Based Coordination

text: Emerging application scenarios, such as cyber-physical systems (CPSs), the Internet of Things (IoT), and edge computing, call for coordination approaches addressing openness, self-adaptation, heterogeneity, and deployment agnosticism. Field-based coordination is one such approach, promoting the idea of programming system coordination declaratively from a global perspective, in terms of functional manipulation and evolution in “space and time” of distributed data structures, called fields. More specifically, regarding time, in field-based coordination it is assumed that local activities in each device, called computational rounds, are regulated by a fixed clock, typically, a fair and unsynchronized distributed scheduler. In this work, we challenge this assumption, and propose an alternative approach where the round execution scheduling is naturally programmed along with the usual coordination specification, namely, in terms of a field of causal relations dictating what is the notion of causality (why and when a round has to be locally scheduled) and how it should change across time and space. This abstraction over the traditional view on global time allows us to express what we call “time-fluid” coordination, where causality can be finely tuned to select the event triggers to react to, up to to achieve improved balance between performance (system reactivity) and cost (usage of computational resources). We propose an implementation in the aggregate computing framework, and evaluate via simulation on a case study.


title: On Implementing Symbolic Controllability

text: Runtime Monitors observe the execution of a system with the aim of reaching a verdict about it. One property that is expected of monitors is consistent verdict detections; this property was characterised in prior work via a symbolic analysis called symbolic controllability. This paper explores whether the proposed symbolic analysis lends itself well to the construction of a tool that checks monitors for this deterministic behaviour. We implement a prototype that automates this symbolic analysis, and establish complexity upper bounds for the algorithm used. We also consider a number of optimisations for the implemented prototype, and assess the potential gains against benchmark monitors.


title: Choreography Automata

text: Automata models are well-established in many areas of computer science and are supported by a wealth of theoretical results including a wide range of algorithms and techniques to specify and analyse systems. We introduce choreography automata for the choreographic modelling of communicating systems. The projection of a choreography automaton yields a system of communicating finite-state machines. We consider both the standard asynchronous semantics of communicating systems and a synchronous variant of it. For both, the projections of well-formed automata are proved to be live as well as lock- and deadlock-free.


title: ARx: Reactive Programming for Synchronous Connectors

text: Reactive programming (RP) languages and Synchronous Coordination (SC) languages share the goal of orchestrating the execution of computational tasks, by imposing dependencies on their execution order and controlling how they share data. RP is often implemented as libraries for existing programming languages, lifting operations over values to operations over streams of values, and providing efficient solutions to manage how updates to such streams trigger reactions, i.e., the execution of dependent tasks. SC is often implemented as a standalone formalism to specify existing component-based architectures, used to analyse, verify, transform, or generate code. These two approaches target different audiences, and it is non-trivial to combine the programming style of RP with the expressive power of synchronous languages. This paper proposes a lightweight programming language to describe component-based Architectures for Reactive systems, dubbed ARx, which blends concepts from RP and SC, mainly inspired to the Reo coordination language and its composition operation, and with tailored constructs for reactive programs such as the ones found in ReScala. ARx is enriched with a type system and with algebraic data types, and has a reactive semantics inspired in RP. We provide typical examples from both the RP and SC literature, illustrate how these can be captured by the proposed language, and describe a web-based prototype tool to edit, parse, and type check programs, and to animate their semantics.


title: Choreographic Development of Message-Passing Applications: A Tutorial

text: Choreographic development envisages distributed coordination as determined by interactions that allow peer components to harmoniously realise a given task. Unlike in orchestration-based coordination, there is no special component directing the execution. Recently, choreographic approaches have become popular in industrial contexts where reliability and scalability are crucial factors. This tutorial reviews some recent ideas to harness choreographic development of message-passing software. The key features of the approach are showcased within [Image: see text] , a toolchain which allows software architects to identify defects of message-passing applications at early stages of development.


title: A Choreography-Driven Approach to APIs: The OpenDXL Case Study

text: We propose a model-driven approach based on formal data-driven choreographies to model message-passing applications. We apply our approach to the threat intelligence exchange (TIE) services provided by McAfee through the OpenDXL industrial platform. We advocate a chain of model transformations that (i) devises a visual presentation of communication protocols, (ii) formalises a global specification from the visual presentation that captures the data flow among services, (iii) enables the automatic derivation of specifications for the single components, and (iv) enables the analysis of software implementations.


"Immer bereit sein, die Extrameile zu gehen"


title: Renegotiation and Recursion in Bitcoin Contracts

text: BitML is a process calculus to express smart contracts that can be run on Bitcoin. One of its current limitations is that, once a contract has been stipulated, the participants cannot renegotiate its terms: this prevents expressing common financial contracts, where funds have to be added by participants at run-time. In this paper, we extend BitML with a new primitive for contract renegotiation. At the same time, the new primitive can be used to write recursive contracts, which was not possible in the original BitML. We show that, despite the increased expressiveness, it is still possible to execute BitML on standard Bitcoin, preserving the security guarantees of BitML.


title: A True Concurrent Model of Smart Contracts Executions

text: The development of blockchain technologies has enabled the trustless execution of so-called smart contracts, i.e. programs that regulate the exchange of assets (e.g., cryptocurrency) between users. In a decentralized blockchain, the state of smart contracts is collaboratively maintained by a peer-to-peer network of mutually untrusted nodes, which collect from users a set of transactions (representing the required actions on contracts), and execute them in some order. Once this sequence of transactions is appended to the blockchain, the other nodes validate it, re-executing the transactions in the same order. The serial execution of transactions does not take advantage of the multi-core architecture of modern processors, so contributing to limit the throughput. In this paper we propose a true concurrent model of smart contracts execution. Based on this, we show how static analysis of smart contracts can be exploited to parallelize the execution of transactions.


title: Not Quite Right: Representations of Eastern Europeans in ECJ Discourse

text: Although the increasing responsiveness of the Court of Justice of the European Union (the ‘ECJ’) jurisprudence to western Member States’ concerns regarding Central and Eastern European (‘CEE’) nationals’ mobility has garnered academic attention, ECJ discourse has not been scrutinised for how it approaches the CEE region or CEE movers. Applying postcolonial theory, this article seeks to fill this gap and to explore whether there are any indications that ECJ discourse is in line with the historical western-centric inferiorisation of the CEE region. A critical discourse analysis of a set of ECJ judgments and corresponding Advocate General opinions pertaining to CEE nationals illustrates not only how the ECJ adopts numerous discursive strategies to maintain its authority, but also how it tends to prioritise values of the western Member States, while overlooking interests of CEE movers. Its one-sided approach is further reinforced by referring to irrelevant facts and negative assumptions to create an image of CEE nationals as socially and economically inferior to westerners, as not belonging to the proper EU polity and as not quite deserving of EU law’s protections. By silencing CEE nationals’ voices, while disregarding the background of east/west socio-economic and political power differentials and precariousness experienced by many CEE workers in the west, such racialising discourse normalises ethnicity- and class-based stereotypes. These findings also help to contextualise both EU and western policies targeting CEE movers and evidence of their unequal outcomes in the west, and are in line with today’s nuanced expressions of racisms. By illustrating the ECJ’s role in addressing values pertinent to mobile CEE individuals, this study facilitates a fuller appreciation of the ECJ’s power in shaping and reflecting western-centric EU identity and policies. Engaging with such issues will not only allow us to better appreciate—and question—the ECJ’s legitimacy, but might also facilitate a better understanding of power dynamics within the EU. This study also makes significant theoretical and methodological contributions. It expands (and complicates) the application of postcolonial theory to contemporary intra-EU processes, while illustrating the usefulness of applying critical discourse analysis to exploring differentiation, exclusion, subordination and power within legal language.


title: Documento de consenso de la Sociedad Española de Medicina Intensiva, Crítica, y Unidades Coronarias (SEMICYUC), la Sociedad Española de Otorrinolaringología y Cirugía de Cabeza y Cuello (SEORL-CCC) y la Sociedad Española de Anestesiología y Reanimación (SEDAR) sobre la traqueotomía en pacientes con COVID-19()

text: The current COVID-19 pandemic has rendered up to 15% of patients under mechanical ventilation. Because the subsequent tracheotomy is a frequent procedure, the three societies mostly involved (SEMICYUC, SEDAR and SEORL-CCC) have setup a consensus paper that offers an overview about indications and contraindications of tracheotomy, be it by puncture or open, clarifying its respective advantages and enumerating the ideal conditions under which they should be performed, as well as the necessary steps. Regular and emergency situations are displayed together with the postoperative measures.


Editorial: Bridging the Gap in Neuroelectronic Interfaces