154 research outputs found
Hypertext Transfer Protocol - HTTP/1.1
No full textThe Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. It is a generic, stateless, object-oriented protocol which can be used for many tasks, such as name servers and distributed object management systems, through extension of its request methods. A feature of HTTP is the typing and negotiation of data representation, allowing systems to be built independently of the data being transferred. HTTP has been in use by the World-Wide Web global information initiative since 1990. This specification defines the protocol referred to as "HTTP/1.1". HTTP Working Group R. Fielding, UC Irvine INTERNET-DRAFT H. Frystyk, MIT/LCS <draft-ietf-http-v11-spec-04> T. Berners-Lee, MIT/LCS J. Gettys, DEC J. C. Mogul, DEC Expires October 3, 1996 June 3, Fielding, Frystyk, Berners-Lee, Gettys and Mogul [Page 3] Table of Contents HYPERTEXT TRANSFER PROTOCOL -- HTTP/1.1........................................... 1 Status of t..
Changes in bioactive IGF-I and IGF-binding protein-1 during an oral glucose tolerance test in patients with liver cirrhosis
No full textLiver cirrhosis is characterized by reduced circulating IGF-I and this has been linked to an adverse clinical outcome. Therefore, we investigated the dynamic changes in circulating total, free, and bioactive IGF-I, IGF-binding protein (IGFBP)-1, IGFBP-2, and IGFBP-1-bound IGF-I (binary complex) during an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) in patients with liver cirrhosis
The effect of prolonged fasting on levels of growth hormone-binding protein and free growth hormone.
No full textOBJECTIVE: There are limited data on growth hormone-binding protein (GHBP) and free GH levels during the physiological challenge of a prolonged fast. Our aim was to explore the relationships between GHBP, free GH, total GH and non-esterified fatty acid (NEFA) levels during overnight and 24-hour fasts in healthy young adults. DESIGN: We measured nocturnal levels of GHBP at three time-points (22:00, 03:00, 08:00), NEFA every 60 min and ultra-filtered free GH and total GH at 15-minute intervals for 10 h (22:00-08:00) during an overnight and a 24-hour fast in 7 female and 4 male normal-weight subjects aged 24.8 years (range: 22.8-26.9) with BMI 22.5 kg/m² (range: 18-27). RESULTS: Spontaneous free and total GH levels were closely related during the overnight and 24-hour fasts (r=0.99, p<0.0001 and r=0.99, p<0.0001 respectively). 24 h of fasting led to an increase in levels of basal free GH (p=0.03), mean free GH (p=0.04), mean total GH (p=0.04) and NEFA (p<0.0001) whilst GHBP levels remained similar (p=0.8). Percentage free (over total) GH was similar during the overnight and prolonged fasts (p=0.3). There were no associations between levels of NEFA and free (r=0.24, p=0.5) or total GH (r=0.20, p=0.6). CONCLUSIONS: A 24-hour fast led to parallel increases in free and total GH levels whilst there was no discernable change in GHBP levels or the fraction of free GH. This suggests that GHBP plays a role in limiting variations of circulating free GH levels. NEFA levels increased during the prolonged fast but they were not correlated with free or total GH levels
Cross-middleware Interoperability in Distributed Concurrent Engineering
No full textSecure, distributed collaboration between different organizations is a key challenge in Grid computing today. The GDCD project has produced a Grid-based demonstrator Virtual Collaborative Facility (VCF) for the European Space Agency. The purpose of this work is to show the potential of Grid technology to support fully distributed concurrent design, while addressing practical considerations including network security, interoperability, and integration of legacy applications. The VCF allows domain engineers to use the concurrent design methodology in a distributed fashion to perform studies for future space missions. To demonstrate the interoperability and integration capabilities of Grid computing in concurrent design, we developed prototype VCF components based on ESA’s current Excel-based Concurrent Design Facility (a non-distributed environment), using a STEP-compliant database that stores design parameters. The database was exposed as a secure GRIA 5.1 Grid service, whilst a .NET/WSE3.0-based library was developed to enable secure communication between the Excel client and STEP database
36 h fasting of young men influences adipose tissue DNA methylation of LEP and ADIPOQ in a birth weight-dependent manner
No full textBackground: Subjects born with low birth weight (LBW) display a more energy-conserving response to fasting compared with normal birth weight (NBW) subjects. However, the molecular mechanisms explaining these metabolic differences remain unknown. Environmental influences may dynamically affect epigenetic marks, also in postnatal life. Here, we aimed to study the effects of short-term fasting on leptin (LEP) and adiponectin (ADIPOQ) DNA methylation and gene expression in subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) from subjects with LBW and NBW. Methods: Twenty-one young LBW men and 18 matched NBW controls were studied during 36 h fasting. Eight subjects from each group completed a control study (overnight fast). We analyzed SAT LEP and ADIPOQ methylation (Epityper MassARRAY), gene expression (q-PCR), and adipokine plasma levels. Results: After overnight fast (control study), LEP and ADIPOQ DNA methylation levels were higher in LBW compared to those in NBW subjects (p ≤ 0.03) and increased with 36 h fasting in NBW subjects only (p ≤ 0.06). Both LEP and ADIPOQ methylation levels were positively associated with total body fat percentage (p ≤ 0.05). Plasma leptin levels were higher in LBW versus NBW subjects after overnight fasting (p = 0.04) and decreased more than threefold in both groups after 36 h fasting (p ≤ 0.0001). Conclusions: This is the first study to demonstrate that fasting induces changes in DNA methylation. This was shown in LEP and ADIPOQ promoters in SAT among NBW but not LBW subjects. The altered epigenetic flexibility in LBW subjects might contribute to their differential response to fasting, adipokine levels, and increased risk of metabolic disease
Effects of heparin on renal morphology and albuminuria in experimental diabetes
No full textFemale nondiabetic and streptozotocin diabetic Wistar rats received 200 units heparin two times daily by subcutaneous injection for 6 mo. Mesangial volume fraction was reduced in heparin-treated control (CH) compared with untreated control (C) animals (CH 0.18 +/- 0.02 vs. C 0.24 +/- 0.02, P < 0.05), but other histological parameters were similar. In the heparin-treated diabetic (DH) group, wet kidney weight was increased compared with the untreated diabetic (D) group (DH 1,156 +/- 39 vs. D 1,050 +/- 30 mg, P < 0.05), as were absolute, but not fractional, glomerular volume (P < 0.05) and capillary volume (P < 0.05). Basement membrane thickness (DH 193 +/- 3 vs. D 231 +/- 9 nm, P < 0.01) and mesangial/glomerular volume fraction (P < 0.001) were decreased. Urinary albumin excretion was increased in the heparin-treated control animals compared with control animals [CH 980 (range 150-4,448) vs. C 221 (range 86-654) micrograms/24 h, P < 0.001] and in the heparin-treated diabetic animals compared with the diabetic animals [DH 12,785 (range 4,495-29,520) vs. D 899 (range 450-1,335) micrograms/24 h, P < 0.001]. Thus the possibly deleterious increases in glomerular capillary volume and albumin excretion may negate the beneficial effects of heparin on mesangial and basement membrane structures.</jats:p
Power and Performance Management in Cloud Computing Systems
No full textCloud computing is an emerging computing paradigm which is gaining popularity
in IT industry for its appealing property of considering "Everything as a Service".
The goal of a cloud infrastructure provider is to maximize its profit by minimizing the amount of violations of Quality-of-Service (QoS) levels agreed with service providers, and, at the same time, by lowering infrastructure costs.
Among these costs, the energy consumption induced by the cloud infrastructure, for running cloud services, plays a primary role.
Unfortunately, the minimization of QoS violations and, at the same time, the reduction of energy consumption is a conflicting and challenging problem.
In this thesis, we propose a framework to automatically manage computing resources of cloud infrastructures in order to simultaneously achieve suitable QoS levels and to reduce as much as possible the amount of energy used for providing services.
We show, through simulation, that our approach is able to dynamically adapt to time-varying workloads (without any prior knowledge) and to significantly reduce QoS violations and energy consumption with respect to traditional static approaches
Multi-party authentication protocols for web services
No full textThe Web service technology allows the dynamic composition of a workflow (or a business flow) by composing a set of existing Web services scattered across the Internet. While a given Web service may have multiple service instances taking part in several workflows simultaneously, a workflow often involves a set of service instances that belong to different Web services. In order to establish trust relationships amongst service instances, new security protocols are urgently needed. Hada and Maruyama [HAD02] presented a session-oriented, multi-party authentication protocol to resolve this problem. Within a session the protocol provides a common session secret shared by all the service instances, thereby distinguishing the instances from those of other sessions. However, individual instances cannot be distinguished and identified by the session secret. This leads to vulnerable session management and poor threat containment. In this thesis, we present a new design for a multi-party authentication protocol. In this protocol, each service instance is provided with a unique identifier. The Diffie-Hellman Key Agreement scheme is employed to generate the trust relationship between service instances within the same flow. The Coordinated Atomic Action scheme is exploited for achieving an improved level of threat containment. The new protocol was implemented in Java and evaluated by a combined use of experiments and model-based analysis. The results show that the time consumption for multi-party authentication increases linearly as the number of service instances that are introduced into a session increases. Our solution is therefore potentially applicable for Web service flow with a large number of participants. Various public key algorithms are also compared and evaluated during the experiments in order to select the most suitable one for our new protocol
Kidney IGF-I and renal hypertrophy in GH-deficient diabetic dwarf rats
No full text Insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) has been proposed as a renotropic factor in initial diabetic kidney growth. To examine the effects of an isolated growth hormone (GH) and IGF-I deficiency on diabetic renal hypertrophy, dwarf rats were made diabetic and studied over a period of 7 days. Diabetic dwarf rats treated with human GH (hGH) or insulin and diabetic rats with intact pituitary were used as controls. In diabetic control animals kidney weight had increased by day 2 (P less than 0.01), and the increase amounted to 27% after 7 days, whereas untreated diabetic dwarf rats had a slower and lesser degree of kidney weight increase, reaching significance on day 7 only, amounting to 8%. hGH administration in diabetic dwarf rats increased the kidney weight on day 7 when compared with untreated diabetic dwarf rats (P less than 0.05) and was 19% over that of insulin-treated diabetic dwarf rats. The glomerular volume had increased by 43% in untreated diabetic control rats at day 7, compared with a 29% increase in untreated diabetic dwarf rats (P less than 0.05). hGH administration in diabetic dwarf rats increased the glomerular volume by 46%, comparable to the increase seen in diabetic control animals. Kidney IGF-I was increased on day 2 by 51 and 46% in saline- and hGH-injected diabetic dwarf rats, respectively, but a significantly higher increase in kidney IGF-I amounting to 96% was seen in diabetic control rats.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS) </jats:p
Atomic service-based scheduling for web services composition
No full textWith the rapid development of Internet technologies and widespread of Internet applications, Web Services has become an important research issue of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). In order to cope with various requirements from service users, services need to be thoroughly and precisely described, thus improvement needs to be made in describing services as more properties should be added to the current service description model based on OWL-ร, an ontology structure consisting of service profiles and operations. Semantics is widely considered as one of the core supplements, which is able to provide the metadata of services, so as to better match requirements with services in the service repository. On the other hand, Web Services has attracted people from various fields to perform relevant experiments on how to cope with users' requirements. Service providers tend to coordinate service implementation by means of interacting with available resources and reconstructing existing service modules. The integration of self-contained software components becomes a key step to meet service demands. This thesis makes contributions to current service description. The introduction of the term "Atomic Service" is not only considered to be a more refined service structure, but also serves as the fundamental component for all service modules. Based on this, the thesis will discuss issues including composition and scheduling, with the purpose of building interoperations among composable service units and setting up the mechanism of realising business goals with composite services under the guidance of the service scheduling language. This notion is illustrated in a demonstration system to justify the manageable interrelationship between service modules and the way of composition
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