Software development is a complex and difficult task. Software developers and researchers try to deal with software development in a simple way from multiple perspectives. This leads to the use of various kinds of models, including informal, semi-formal, and formal models, and all kinds of development methods, including informal and formal methods. In fact, every software development method contains multiple models from different perspectives. In contrast to an informal method, a formal method is considered to be a set of tools and notations (with formal semantics) used ...

CINCINNATI – Early laboratory tests are the first to successfully use an experimental molecular therapy to block a hard-to-target part of a protein complex linked to several types of invasive cancer. Scientists report online Feb. 4 in PNAS Early Edition the rational design of a small-molecule inhibitor they call Y16. In laboratory tests, the inhibitor helped stop the spread of cultured human breast cancer cells, especially when it was used with another compound known as Rhosin/G04. The study was conducted by researchers in the Cancer and Blood Diseases Institute at ...

A study conducted at the University of Granada has revealed that there is a direct relationship between exposure to pesticides (Persistent Organic Pollutants, CPOs) in food, air and water and prevalence of type 2 diabetes in adults, regardless of age, gender and body mass index. These substances tend to concentrate in body fat, and they might be one of the reasons why obese people are more likely to develop diabetes, since the more fat the higher the COP concentrations in the body. In a paper recently published in the journal Environmental Research, researchers demonstrate ...

The vast majority – approximately 80 percent – of our DNA does not code for proteins, yet it gets transcribed into RNA. These RNA molecules are called non-coding and fulfill multiple tasks in the cell. Alongside a well-studied group of small RNAs, there is also a class of so-called long non-coding RNAs consisting of more than 200 nucleotides. Long non-coding RNAs regulate cellular processes such as cell cycle, growth and cell death. Therefore, it came as no surprise that many of these controlling molecules are linked to the progression of cancer. An example is the non-coding ...

Johns Hopkins researchers have found that mice can recover from physically debilitating strokes that damage the primary motor cortex, the region of the brain that controls most movement in the body, if the rodents are quickly subjected to physical conditioning that rapidly "rewires" a different part of the brain to take over lost function. Their research, featuring precise, intense and early treatment, and tantalizing clues to the role of a specific brain area in stroke recovery, is described online in the journal Stroke. "Despite all of our approved therapies, stroke ...

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine are able to detect deficits in social attention in infants as young as six months of age who later develop Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Published in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry, the results showed that these infants paid less attention to people and their activities than typically developing babies. Katarzyna Chawarska, associate professor at the Yale Child Study Center, and her colleagues investigated whether six-month-old infants later diagnosed with ASD showed prodromal symptoms — early signs of ASD such as ...

Since its October 2008 launch, NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has provided images of the invisible interactions between our home in the galaxy and interstellar space. Particles emanating from this boundary produce a striking, narrow ribbon, which had yet to be explained despite more than a dozen possible theories. In a new "retention model," researchers from the University of New Hampshire and Southwest Research Institute suggest that charged particles trapped in this region create the ribbon as they escape as neutral atoms. The Sun continually sends out ...

The UK dog population is estimated to be around ten million, with dogs producing approximately 1,000 tonnes of excrement each day. New research has shown that dogs act as a major source of the parasite egg, Toxocara, which can potentially contaminate the public environment and infect humans. The aim of the study, led by Dr Eric Morgan and colleagues from the University of Bristol's School of Veterinary Sciences and published in the international scientific journal, Veterinary Parasitology, was to identify where efforts to control the parasite should focus, in the interests ...

How, when and where a pathogen is transmitted between two individuals in a population is crucial in understanding and predicting how a disease will spread. New research has laid the foundation for a new generation of zoonotic disease spreading models, which could allow for more targeted prevention strategies. By using novel complexity sciences tools the study, published in Physical Review Letters, outlines a predictive model of a spatial epidemic spread in a population of territorial animals. By quantifying the instances of transmission events, the research team, ...

Researchers from CSIC's Aula Dei Experimental Station in Zaragoza, Spain have confirmed that the frequency of intense rainfall has been decreasing in the Ebro basin since 1955. Despite what it may seem, intense rain is becoming rarer in the Ebro basin according to two studies carried out by Spanish researchers from the Department of Soil and Water of CSIC's Aula Dei Experimental Station in Zaragoza. Their results have been published in the 'Journal of Hydrology' and the 'Hydrology and Earth System Sciences' journal. Santiago Beguería, one of the authors of both studies, ...

A new ESF position paper calls for increasing use of ICT to deliver health and social care services. A new position paper, Developing a New Understanding of Enabling Health and Wellbeing in Europe, published today by the European Science Foundation, highlights the need for change in health and social care across Europe. As social care and informal care are essential to improving health and preventing health problems, especially in an ageing population, there are still large gaps of knowledge in how best to organise this, and how best to combine it with health care. ...

Athens, Ga. – When Li Tan approached his colleagues at the University of Georgia with some unusual data he had collected, they initially seemed convinced that his experiment had become contaminated; what he was seeing simply didn't make any sense. Tan was examining some of the sugars, proteins and polymers that make up plant cell walls, which provide the structural support and protection that allow plants to grow. Yet his samples contained a mixture of sugars that should not be present in the same structure. However, Tan was convinced that his samples were pure so ...

Despite its appearance, which looks much like countless other galaxies, Messier 106 hides a number of secrets. Thanks to this image, which combines data from Hubble with observations by amateur astronomers Robert Gendler and Jay GaBany, they are revealed as never before. At its heart, as in most spiral galaxies, is a supermassive black hole, but this one is particularly active. Unlike the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, which pulls in wisps of gas only occasionally, Messier 106's black hole is actively gobbling up material. As the gas spirals towards the black ...

OAKLAND, Calif., February 5, 2013 – Community-based efforts to change the environment are proving to be an effective way of encouraging more physical activity and nutrition among school-age children, according to findings announced today from Kaiser Permanente. Researchers examined a series of Kaiser Permanente community-based obesity prevention interventions in adults and children and found that the more effective obesity prevention interventions were those that were "high dose" – reaching large populations with greater strength – and those that focused specifically on ...

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Marital satisfaction -- so critical to health and happiness – generally declines over time. A brief writing intervention that helps spouses adopt a more objective outlook on marital conflict could be the answer. New Northwestern University research shows that this writing intervention, implemented through just three, seven-minute writing exercises administered online, prevents couples from losing that loving feeling. "I don't want it to sound like magic, but you can get pretty impressive results with minimal intervention," said Eli Finkel, lead author ...

ANN ARBOR—Many medically minded researchers are in hot pursuit of designs that will allow drug-carrying nanoparticles to navigate tissues and the interiors of cells, but University of Michigan engineers have discovered that these particles have another hurdle to overcome: escaping the bloodstream. Drug delivery systems promise precision targeting of diseased tissue, meaning that medicines could be more effective at lower doses and with fewer side effects. Such an approach could treat plaques in arteries, which can lead to heart attacks or strokes. Drug carriers would ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A team of biologists from Indiana University and Brown University believes it has discovered the mechanism by which interacting mutations in mitochondrial and nuclear DNA produce an incompatible genotype that reduces reproductive fitness and delays development in fruit flies. The new research, led by IU biologists Kristi Montooth and Colin Meiklejohn and including former IU undergraduate researcher Mo Siddiq, describes the cause and consequences of an interaction between the two genomes that co-exist within eukaryotic cells. Animal mitochondrial ...

Alexandria, VA –Scientists are revisiting the age-old question of how Earth's moon formed with the development of two new models that work out the complicated physics of planetary collisions. The idea of a moon-forming collision is not new: The Giant Impact Theory put forth in the 1970s suggested that the moon resulted from a collision with a protoplanet approximately half the size of ancient Earth. But the physics underlying such a collision implied that the moon should be made up of debris mostly from the protoplanet. Since then we've discovered the moon is instead very ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Diseases from a mutation in one genome are complicated enough, but some illnesses arise from errant interactions between two genomes: the DNA in the nucleus and in the mitochondria. Scientists want to know more about how such genomic disconnects cause disease. In a step in that direction, scientists at Brown University and Indiana University have traced one such incompatibility in fruit flies down to the level of individual nucleotide mutations and describe how the genetic double whammy makes the flies sick. "This has relevance to ...

Obesity kills, giving rise to a host of fatal diseases. This much is well known. But when it comes to seniors, a slew of prominent research has reported an "obesity paradox" that says, at age 65 and older, having an elevated BMI won't shorten your lifespan, and may even extend it. A new study takes another look at the numbers, finding the earlier research flawed. The paradox was a mirage: As obese Americans grow older, in fact, their risk of death climbs. Ryan Masters, PhD, and Bruce Link, PhD, at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, in collaboration ...

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have devised a way to detect whether cells previously transplanted into a living animal are alive or dead, an innovation they say is likely to speed the development of cell replacement therapies for conditions such as liver failure and type 1 diabetes. As reported in the March issue of Nature Materials, the study used nanoscale pH sensors and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines to tell if liver cells injected into mice survived over time. "This technology has the potential to turn the human body into less of a black box and tell us if ...

ANN ARBOR—Iridescence, or sheen that shifts color depending on your viewing angle, is pretty in peacock feathers. But it's been a nuisance for engineers trying to mimic the birds' unique color mechanism to make high-resolution, reflective, color display screens. Now, researchers at the University of Michigan have found a way to lock in so-called structural color, which is made with texture rather than chemicals. A paper on the work is published online in the current edition of the Nature journal Scientific Reports. In a peacock's mother-of-pearl tail, precisely arranged ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — As some Pacific island cultures have "westernized" over the last several decades, among the changes has been a dramatic increase in obesity. Researchers don't understand all the reasons why, but even a decade ago in American Samoa 59 percent of men and 71 percent of women were obese. A new Brown University study finds that the Samoan epidemic of obesity may start with rapid weight gain in early infancy. The implications of the study published online in the journal Pediatric Obesity may not be confined to Polynesian populations, said ...

For the first time, scientists have created single layers of a naturally occurring rare mineral called tungstenite, or WS2. The resulting sheet of stacked sulfur and tungsten atoms forms a honeycomb pattern of triangles that have been shown to have unusual light-emitting, or photoluminescent, properties. According to team leader Mauricio Terrones, a professor of physics and of materials science and engineering at Penn State, the triangular structures have potential applications in optical technology; for example, for use in light detectors and lasers. The results of the ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Research at Oregon State University has found that one particular omega-3 fatty acid has a powerful effect in preventing liver inflammation and fibrosis – common problems that are steadily rising along with the number of Americans who are overweight. The American Liver Foundation has estimated that about 25 percent of the nation's population, and 75 percent of those who are obese, have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. This early-stage health condition can sometimes progress to more serious, even fatal diseases, including nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, ...