24 research outputs found
Anyone Can Cloud: Democratizing Cloud Application Programming
No full textThe cloud is widely adopted as a flexible and on-demand computing infrastructure. In recent years, a new and promising cloud paradigm emerged: serverless computing. Serverless computing promises a pay-as-you-go model and offers features such as autoscaling and high availability. Nevertheless, developing scalable cloud applications remains a painstaking task. Currently, programming models for the cloud mix operational code and business logic causing developers to spend a significant amount of time on other tasks rather than implementing the intended functionality. Moreover, the developer must consider distributed systems concerns such as consistency, communication, and persistence. Modern dataflow systems, such as Apache Flink and Google Dataflow, address these concerns but suffer from the same problem: they lack an intuitive programming interface for general-purpose applications. It remains an open problem to design a developer-friendly programming interface for implementing scalable cloud applications with strong guarantees. In this thesis, we solve this problem by presenting an intuitive programming interface for scalable cloud applications in which developers primarily focus on business logic. Given a set of easy-to-follow code conventions, programmers author stateful entities a programming abstraction embedded in Python. We present a compiler pipeline named StateFlow, to analyze the abstract syntax tree of a Python application and rewrite it into an intermediate representation based on stateful dataflow graphs. In addition, we present a set of building blocks that allow the execution of this intermediate representation on a target runtime system or cloud provider without a tight integration. Supported runtime systems include Apache Flink and Beam, AWS Lambda, Flink's Statefun, and Cloudburst, each providing a different set of guarantees. Finally, we introduce a client-side programming interface and HTTP server integration to interact with the deployed application.We demonstrate that the execution with StateFlow typically incurs less than 1\% overhead. Furthermore, we identify limitations of current dataflow systems in executing cloud applications at scale in a performance benchmark. Finally, we compare the expressiveness of StateFlow's programming abstraction to native runtime implementations. We show that StateFlow lets a developer write universal code that does not mix business with operational logic or the runtime's API and prevents vendor lock-in by allowing them to switch between runtimes in less than ten lines of code.Computer Science | Software Technolog
Pneumatosis intestinalis associated with enteral tube feeding.
No full textA 49-year-old man presented with a Hinchey II perforated diverticulitis and underwent laparoscopic peritoneal lavage. During the postoperative course the patient received enteral tube feeding which was followed by a bowel obstruction accompanied with pneumatosis intestinalis (PI). Explorative laparotomy showed an omental band adhesion without signs of ischaemia. After a short period of total parenteral nutrition PI resolved almost completely and enteral tube feeding could be continued once again. In the weeks that followed the patient developed atypical bowel symptoms and recurrent PI which resolved each time the drip feeding was discontinued. Despite the mild clinical course, a CT scan showed massive PI on day 21 after the laparotomy. After excluding life-threatening conditions conservative management was instituted and the patient recovered completely after discontinuing the drip feeding. We present one of the few cases of subclinical PI associated with enteral tube feeding that could be managed conservatively
Feasibility study on the application of fiber-reinforced polymers in large lock gates
No full textHydraulic StructuresHydraulic EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience
A plug-in infrastructure for the CodeFeedr project
No full textCodeFeedr is a research project at the software engineering division of the Delft University of Technology in collaboration with the Software Improvement Group. The research focuses on a software infrastructure which serves software practitioners in utilizing data-driven decision making. Currently, frameworks like Apache Flink are capable of high-performance data streaming. However, these frameworks have a lot of overhead in setting up, and adding new streaming queries takes a lot of time. They also have several limitations in combining real-time data with historical data and doing aggregations on streams from multiple sources. The developed product is a plug-in framework on top of Apache Flink, that provides a pipelining system for streaming queries. This product includes abstractions for well-known sources like GitHub, TravisCI and Twitter as well as support for historical data in mongoDB. With this framework the users can spend their efforts on actually writing streaming queries instead of setting up environments, input sources and output destinations. The product also includes orchestration tools for running streaming jobs on a distributed system.Computer Scienc
Giant adrenal myelolipoma: when trauma and oncology collide.
No full textThree patients presented some decades after severe traumatic injury with atypical bowel symptoms which were caused by a giant myelolipoma of the adrenal gland. The aetiology of this rare, benign and generally asymptomatic tumour is virtually unknown at present and several hypotheses have been devised. This report describes a possible association between high-energy trauma and the development of giant myelolipomas, further contributing to the hypothesis that severe systemic stress could be an aetiological factor in the development of an adrenal myelolipoma
Hyperammonemic Encephalopathy in a Patient with Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumor and Portosystemic Shunt
No full textHyperammonemia can lead to encephalopathy and may be accompanied by a diagnostic dilemma. Imaging as well as biochemical analyses are the cornerstone for identifying possible underlying causes such as severe liver disease or urea cycle defect. We report a case of a patient that presented with neurological deficits based on hyperammonemia in the presence of a large pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (PNET) and portosystemic shunts in the liver. Prior cases are rather scarce, and the exact mechanism is not fully understood. The case illustrates the added value of a multimodality imaging approach in patients presenting with hyperammonemia-induced encephalopathy
Handbook of disaster ritual : multidisciplinary perspectives, cases and themes
No full textThe Handbook of Disaster Ritual presents an overview of relevant literature, perspectives, methods, concepts, as well as a selection of topical themes in relation to current disaster rituals. The handbook has been compiled from multi-disciplinary and geographically diverse perspectives and works with broad definitions of the concepts of both disaster and ritual. A disaster is defined as an event or situation that causes a significant disruption of a society or a group and evokes a collective and/or an individual reaction with expression of mourning, compassion, indignation, protest, call for justice, recovery, reconciliation, and consolation. In this working definition, it is clear that the impact of a disaster is 'translated ritually'. Disasters bring forth a variety of ritual practices. The Handbook of Disaster Ritual consists of three parts. After an extensive conceptual and historiographical introduction, Part I presents several perspectives on the study of disasters and disaster rituals. In Part II, a team of international scholars presents nineteen case studies of various disasters and disaster rituals. Part III addresses various themes from the case studies that can be seen as key elements in disaster rituals.
Introduction -- Introduction. Some conceptual and historiographical explorations on ritual, disaster and disaster ritual / Paul Post.
Part I -- General Perspectives -- 1. Disaster studies. Perspectives between nature and ritual / Georg Frerks & Dorothea Hilhorst -- 2. Even, contingency and unexpectedness in social philosophy / Sanem Yazicioğlu -- 3. A victimology of corona. The disaster of our times / Antony Pemberton -- 4. Grief, trauma and meaning making after disaster / Joanna Wojtkowiak -- 5. Death studies and disasters. Ritualizing and numbering numbing realities / Douglas Davies -- 6. Restoring a negative destination image. The case of Palestine / Rami Isaac & Merel Sijm -- 7. "Groaning inwardly while waiting for the redemption of our bodies". Toward a theology of trauma / Erik Borgman.
Part II -- Case Studies -- 8. Coping with suffering in a memorial ceremony after the 2011 tsunami in Japan / Yu Fukuda -- 9. The Pacific islands. Encounters with disaster and ritualized responses / Andrew J. Strathern Pamela J. Stewart -- 10. The great Wenchuan earthquake of 2008. Dark tourism, seismic memorials, and disaster rituals / Ken Foote Tang Yong -- 11. Ke garne? (What can one do?). How people 'on the ground' perceived the incomplete improvised mortuary rituals at Pashupatinath after the earthquake in Nepal, 2015 / Albertina Nugteren, Hans Hadders Rojisha Poudel -- 12. German central commemoriation of the Germanwings air crash 2015 / Brigitte Benz -- 13. When paradise became hell. The 2002 Bali bombings and their post-disaster ritual practices and repertoires / Herman L. Beck -- 14. School shootings and rituals. The case of Parkland, Florida in 2018 / Birgit Pfeifer André Mulder -- 15. Ritualizing after the terror attacks in Norway on 22 July 2011 / Lars Johan Danbolt Hans Stifoss-Hanssen -- 'Refugee ritual'. Ritual practices in connection with the Mediterranean refugee crisis / Paul Post -- 17. Walking the Marš Mira. War, tourism and ritual practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina / Siri Driessen -- 18. Genocide commemoration in Rwanda. Remembrance of the dead and the performance of missed funeral rituals / Célestin Nsengimana -- 19. The Armenian genocide commemoration. A dynamic demand of memory / Rima Nasrallah -- 20. Blood Brothers. The Armenian genocide commemorated in art projects / Martin J.M. Hoondert Sam van Alebeek -- 21. The glory of disaster. The Herero Flag Marches / Walter van Beek Jan-Bart Gewald -- 22. Commemorating the struggle against colonialism in Freedom Park, Pretoria / Marcel Barnard Cas Wpener -- 23. Making a space for ritual. Regime loyalists after the end of the German Democratic Republic / David Clarke -- 24. #MeToo as a ritual resonse to the slow-moving disaster of sexual violence / Heleen E. Zorgdrager -- 25. Ritualization in the context of the global food crisis / Mirella Klomp Marcel Barnard -- 26. How could Baptism cleanse us with polluted water? / Ernst M. Conradie -- 27. Ritualizing the COVID-19 pandemic. Global impressions / Sébastien P. Boret Yu Fukuda; David Clarke; Albertina Nugteren; Pamela J. Stewart Andrew Strathern; Cas Wepener; Joanna Wojtkowiak; Hans Stifoss-Hanssen Lars Johan Danbolt.
Part III -- Selected Themes -- 28. State apology. The simultaneously hegemonic and brittle ritual / Tom Bentley -- 29. Relics. The ritual role of traces and remnants / Paul Post -- 30. Disaster theater. Play when thigs go awry / Kees de Groot -- 31. Shocked in more ways than one. Media (re)presentation of improvised funerary activities after the 2015 earthquake in Nepal / Albertina Nugteren -- 32. E-rituals in the coronavirus context / Paul Post -- 33. The mobile witness. Mobile media affective witnessing during disasters / Larissa Hjorth & Kathleen M. Cumiskey -- 34. 'You'll die of old age. I'll die of climate change!' Children and disaster rituals / Suzanne van der Beek
Defining sarcopenia and myosteatosis:the necessity for consensus on a technical standard and standardized cut-off values
No full textLeveraging Large Language Models for Sequential Recommendation
No full textSequential recommendation problems have received increasing attention in
research during the past few years, leading to the inception of a large variety
of algorithmic approaches. In this work, we explore how large language models
(LLMs), which are nowadays introducing disruptive effects in many AI-based
applications, can be used to build or improve sequential recommendation
approaches. Specifically, we devise and evaluate three approaches to leverage
the power of LLMs in different ways. Our results from experiments on two
datasets show that initializing the state-of-the-art sequential recommendation
model BERT4Rec with embeddings obtained from an LLM improves NDCG by 15-20%
compared to the vanilla BERT4Rec model. Furthermore, we find that a simple
approach that leverages LLM embeddings for producing recommendations, can
provide competitive performance by highlighting semantically related items. We
publicly share the code and data of our experiments to ensure reproducibility.Comment: 9 page
