Symbolic music representation in MPEG

With the spread of computer technology into the artistic fields, new application scenarios for computer-based applications of symbolic music representation (SMR) have been identified. The integration of SMR in a versatile multimedia framework such as MPEG will enable the development of a huge number of new applications in the entertainment, education, and information delivery domains.     

Estimation and prediction metrics for adaptive maintenance effortof object-oriented systems

Many software systems built in recent years have been developed using object-oriented technology and, in some cases, they already need adaptive maintenance in order to satisfy market and customer needs. In most cases, the estimation and prediction of maintenance effort is performed with difficulty due to the lack of metrics and suitable models. In this paper, a model and metrics for estimation/prediction of adaptive maintenance effort are presented and compared with some other solutions taken from the literature. The model proposed can be used as a general approach for adopting well-known metrics (typically used for the estimation of development effort) for the estimation/prediction of adaptive maintenance effort. The model and metrics proposed have been validated against real data by using multilinear regression analysis. The validation has shown that several well-known metrics can be profitably employed for the estimation/prediction of maintenance effort     

Assessment of a Flexible Architecture for Distributed Control*

Production pipelines of manufactory industries present several machines and robots in which the movements of interpolated axes are managed by computerized numerical controls (CNCs). These are typically synchronized with several other simpler actuators along the pipeline of production. CNCs have to be flexible, easily expandable, and reusable, when pipelines of production are frequently reconfigured to realize different arranged pipelines with different technical requirements. In this paper, the assessment of a flexible CNC for such reconfigurable pipelines is presented. The analysis has been focused on defining objective metrics that can be applied for assessing performance and feasibility of distributed controls for pipelines. The method proposed has been applied on the distributed control architecture defined in the MUPAAC ESPRIT HPCN (Multi Processor Architecture for Automatic Control, High Performance Computer Networking of the European Commission). MUPAAC architecture and prototype has been assessed in order to identify the critical configurations and the limits of the architecture.     

Effect of various methods of treatment in chronic renal insufficiency on the quality of life in patients

Interest in measuring the quality of life (QL) in relation to health care has increased enormously in recent years. This is also true for end-stage renal failure where it is important not only to provide a better survival but also the quality of that survival. The aim of this study was to assess the relative influence of different kinds of treatment on end-stage renal disease after the patients' evaluation of their overall QL. We studied 167 patients receiving conservative treatment (45), haemodialysis (44), haemodialysis and erythropoieth (36), and continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (42). The patients completed an original questionnaire consisting of 37 questions divided in five groups and generating 15 QL variables: personal data (name, gender, age, basic kidney disease); sociodemographic data influenced by the illness (family history, working ability, employment status); general health characteristics (fatigue, appetite, wound healing, sleep, resistance to cold); aspects of private life that are mostly influenced by the disease (social interaction, traveling, mood, sports, sexual life), and patients subjective assessment of their condition (self care and happiness). Patients on haemodialysis showed lower levels of QL than that on peritoneal dialysis related to fatigue (p < 0.01), working ability (p < 0.05), wound healing (p < 0.05), and appetite (p < 0.01) compared to the conservative treatment. Peritoneal dialysis had also a statistically significant positive influence on fatigue (p < 0.05) compared to conservative treatment. However, erythropoletin treatment showed better results with regard to traveling (p < 0.05), resistance to cold (p < 0.01), self care (p < 0.05) and mood (p < 0.05) compared to peritoneal dialysis, and working ability (p < 0.05), fatigue (p < 0.05) and mood (p < 0.05) compared to conservative treatment and haemodialysis.     

Preparative isoelectric focusing in multicompartment electrolyzers: novel, hydrolytically stable and hydrophilic isoelectric membranes

Preparative isoelectric focusing in multicompartment electrolyzers is based on the production of isoelectric membranes of precise isoelectric point, able to buffer at their pI value and to titrate proteins tangent to or crossing the membranes. Up to the present, such membranes have been based on polyacrylamide chemistry; acrylamide, however, is neither stable in acidic nor basic environments. We describe here novel membranes, produced with a unique monomer, N-acryloylaminoethoxyethanol (AAEE). Poly(AAEE) membranes are extremely stable to alkaline hydrolysis (500 times more stable than polyacrylamide) and even more hydrophilic than the latter matrix. This allows production of highly reproducible membranes (these do not change their pI with time, since no acrylic acid is produced by hydrolysis upon storage) which do not adsorb proteins by hydrophobic interaction.     

Formalising a Value-Passing Calculus in HOL

Milner's value-passing calculus for describing and reasoning about communicating systems is formalised in the HOL proof assistant. Based on a previously defined mechanisation of pure CCS (no data communication, only synchronisation) in HOL, value-passing agents are given behavioural semantics by translating them into pure agents. An interactive proof environment is derived that supports both reasoning about the value-passing calculus and verification of value-passing specifications, which are defined over an infinite value domain. Received September 1997 / Accepted in revised form July 1999     

A process mining-based analysis of business process work-arounds

Business process work-arounds are specific forms of incompliant behavior, where employees intentionally decide to deviate from the required procedures although they are aware of them. Detecting and understanding the work-arounds performed can guide organizations in redesigning and improving their processes and support systems. Existing process mining techniques for compliance checking and diagnosis of incompliant behavior rely on the available information in event logs and emphasize technological capabilities for analyzing this information. They do not distinguish intentional incompliance and do not address the sources of this behavior. In contrast, the paper builds on a list of generic types of work-arounds found in practice and explores whether and how they can be detected by process mining techniques. Results obtained for four work-around types in five real-life processes are reported. The remaining two types are not reflected in events logs and cannot be currently detected by process mining. The detected work-around data are further analyzed for identifying correlations between the frequency of specific work-around types and properties of the processes and of specific activities. The analysis results promote the understanding of work-around situations and sources.     

Mobile Medicine: semantic computing management for health care applications on desktop and mobile devices

In many health care situations, powerful mobile tools may help to make decisions and provide support for continuous education and training. They can be useful in emergency conditions and for the supervised application of protocols and procedures. To this end, content models and formats with semantic and intelligence have more flexibility to provide medical personnel (both in off-line and on-line conditions) with more powerful tools than those currently on the market. In this paper, we are presenting Mobile Medicine solution, which exploits a collection of semantic computing technologies together with intelligent content model and tools to provide innovative services for medical personnel. Most of the activities of semantic computing are performed on the back office on a cloud computing architecture for: clustering, recommendations, intelligent content production and adaptation. The mobile devices have been endowed with a content organizer to collect local data, provide local suggestions, while supporting taxonomical searches and local queries on PDA and iPhone. The proposed solution is under usage at the main hospital in Florence. The smart content has been produced by medical personnel, with the adoption of the new ADF-Design authoring tool, which produces content in MPEG-21 format. The mobile content distribution service is integrated with a collaborative networking portal, for discussion on procedures and content, thus suggestions are provided on both PC and Mobiles (PDA and iPhone).