RADAR: Resilient Application for Dependable Aided Reporting

Many organizations must produce many reports for various reasons. Although this activity could appear simple to carry out, this fact is not at all true: indeed, generating reports requires the collection of possibly large and heterogeneous data sets. Furthermore, different professional figures are involved in the process, possibly with different skills (database technicians, domain experts, employees): the lack of common knowledge and of a unifying framework significantly obstructs the effective and efficient definition and continuous generation of reports. This paper presents a novel framework named RADAR, which is the acronym for “Resilient Application for Dependable Aided Reporting”: the framework has been devised to be a ”bridge” between data and employees in charge of generating reports. Specifically, it builds a common knowledge base in which database administrators and domain experts describe their knowledge about the application domain and the gathered data; this knowledge can be browsed by employees to find out the relevant data to aggregate and insert into reports, while designing report layouts; the framework assists the overall process from data definition to report generation. The paper presents the application scenario and the vision by means of a running example, defines the data model and presents the architecture of the framework.

Holistic data-driven requirements elicitation in the big data era

Digital transformation stimulates continuous generation of large amounts of digital data, both in organizations and in society at large. As a consequence, there have been growing efforts in the Requirements Engineering community to consider digital data as sources for requirements acquisition, in addition to human stakeholders. The volume, velocity and variety of the data make requirements discovery increasingly dynamic, but also unstructured and complex, which current elicitation methods are unable to consider and manage in a systematic and efficient manner. We propose a framework, in the form of a conceptual metamodel and a method, for continuous and automated acquisition, analysis and aggregation of heterogeneous digital sources that aims to support data-driven requirements elicitation and management. The usability of the framework is partially validated by an in-depth case study from the business sector of video game development.

Analysis of the Influence of Thickness and Density on Acoustic Absorption of Materials Made from Used Cigarette Butts

The effects of the density and thickness of samples made from used cigarette butts on acoustic characteristics were analyzed in this study. All the analyzed samples showed high acoustic performance, indicating that the fabrication of acoustic absorbing material may be a good use for this problematic waste (due to its toxicity, continuous generation, lack of recycling method, etc.). An increase in either density or thickness shifted the absorption characteristics of the samples to lower frequencies and increased the overall absorption. The relationships of the frequency and value of the maximum absorption coefficient with thickness and/or density were analyzed. The shift of the maximum absorption coefficient value due to varying thickness is in good agreement with previous studies.

A constraint to thermal conductivity of Earth’s core and CMB heat flow by assessment on a stable region of Earth’s core

<p>It is still controversial for an emergence of a stable region at the top of Earth’s core in theoretical modeling because both thermal conductivity of Earth’s core and heat flow across the core-mantle boundary (CMB) have not been clearly constrained from mineral physics and geophysical observations, ranging 20 to 220 W/m/K for the thermal conductivity (denoted as ) and 5 to 20 TW for the present-day CMB heat flow (denoted as Q<sup>P</sup><sub>CMB</sub>). In this study, in order to resolve these uncertainties, we try to constrain the values of thermal conductivity of Earth’s core and the present-day CMB heat flow by requiring continuous generation of geomagnetic field in addition to existence of a stable region at the top of present Earth’s core using a one-dimensional thermal and compositional evolution model.  </p><p>Numerical experiments for various values of  and Q<sup>P</sup><sub>CMB</sub> show that the solutions satisfying both long-term magnetic field generation and emergence of a stable region is possible only when  is larger than 40 W/m/K and Q<sup>P</sup><sub>CMB</sub> is less than 18.5 TW. The specific required value of depends on Q<sup>P</sup><sub>CMB</sub>. If the expected CMB heat flow would be as large value as 17.5 TW, which is suggested by the recent studies on the core evolution theory (e.g., Labrosse, 2015),  should be a high value such as about 212 W/m/K to satisfy our requirements. The thickness of an expected stable region would be about 30 km in this case. In contrast, when Q<sup>P</sup><sub>CMB</sub> is as small as that derived from numerical mantle convection models (e.g., 10 TW; Nakagawa and Tackley, 2010), the required value of  decreases to 110 W/m/K. In this case, a stable region extends about 75 km thickness below CMB.</p><p>If the requirements assumed in this study is confirmed by certain geophysical observations and/or Q<sup>P</sup><sub>CMB</sub> can be restricted more precisely with some methods, our assessment scheme would be useful for evaluations of the radial convective structure of Earth’s core and for further constraint of the value of thermal conductivity of Earth’s core.</p>

Analysis of intraspecies diversity reveals a subset of highly variable plant immune receptors and predicts their binding sites

Plants have two kinds of pathogen recognition receptors: extracellular receptor like kinases and proteins (RLKs and RLPs) and intracellular Nucleotide-Binding Leucine Rich Repeat (NLR) receptors. NLRs comprise three main domains: a central Nucleotide Binding domain (NB-ARC) that mediates receptor oligomerization upon activation, a C-terminal Leucine Rich Repeat (LRR) domain that defines receptor specificity and an N-terminal domain that mediates immunity. Based on the latter domain, the NLRs are subdivided into three monophyletic groups: RNLs (Resistance to Powdery Mildew8), CNLs (Coiled-Coils) and TNLs (Toll/Interleukin-1 Receptor homology). NLRs can be sensors or signal transducers. As sensors, NLRs can recognize pathogens by directly binding the effectors, by recognizing the effector’s action on other proteins, or by recognition of modifications to a non-canonical NLR domain. Continuous generation of NLR diversity is required to keep up with a range of rapidly evolving pathogens.

THE ESSENCE OF A PROJECT-ORIENTED ENTERPRISE IN THE CONDITIONS OF INDUSTRY 4.0

Industry 4.0 radically changes the approaches to the functioning of modern enterprises, business processes, components of competitive advantages of enterprises. There is an urgent need for continuous generation and use of knowledge and application of information technology in the innovative activities of the enterprise, which is implemented in the form of projects. Therefore, it is advisable to study the essential content of the category "project-oriented enterprise" and its transformation into "project-oriented enterprise 4.0" in Industry 4.0. Today, more and more Ukrainian enterprises are engaged in projects that allow them to implement innovative developments. Project activities occupy an important place along with their operational activities. Enterprises are aware of the need to implement project management and are in the process of their transformation into project-oriented enterprises. However, there is no single approach to defining the concept of "project-oriented enterprise", especially taking into account the peculiarities of their operation in Ukraine. The article is devoted to the study of the essential content of the category "project-oriented enterprise" and its transformation into the category "project-oriented enterprise 4.0" in Industry 4.0. The main features of the operation of project-oriented enterprises and the impact on them Industry 4.0 are identified. One of the main features of a project-oriented enterprise is the more intensive use of knowledge as a source of competitive advantage. It is determined that the approaches to the essence of the project-oriented enterprise have undergone significant changes with the advent of the concept of Industry 4.0. It is established that "project-oriented enterprise 4.0" is an enterprise which, in addition to its operational activities, is actively engaged in project activities, which undergoes various stages of transformation into project-oriented, its organizational structure has matrix elements and one of the main features is knowledge management system, which includes technological and social aspects, the purpose of which is the formation of "artificial" intellectual capital as a source of competitive advantage.