Towards an engine for coordination-based architectural reconfigurations

Software reconfigurability became increasingly relevant to the architectural process due to the crescent dependency of modern societies on reliable and adaptable systems. Such systems are supposed to adapt themselves to surrounding environmental changes with minimal service disruption, if any. This paper introduces an engine that statically applies reconfigurations to (formal) models of software architectures. Reconfigurations are specified using a domain specific language— ReCooPLa—which targets the manipulation of software coordinationstructures,typicallyusedinservice-orientedarchitectures(soa).Theengine is responsible for the compilation of ReCooPLa instances and their application to the relevant coordination structures. The resulting configurations are amenable to formal analysis of qualitative and quantitative (probabilistic) properties.

Stress induced risk-aversion is reverted by D2/D3 agonist in the rat

Stress exposure triggers cognitive and behavioral impairments that influence decision-making processes. Decisions under a context of uncertainty require complex reward-prediction processes that are known to be mediated by the mesocorticolimbic dopamine (DA) system in brain areas sensitive to the deleterious effects of chronic stress, in particular the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Using a decision-making task, we show that chronic stress biases risk-based decision-making to safer behaviors. This decision-making pattern is associated with an increased activation of the lateral part of the OFC and with morphological changes in pyramidal neurons specifically recruited by this task. Additionally, stress exposure induces a hypodopaminergic status accompanied by increased mRNA levels of the dopamine receptor type 2 (Drd2) in the OFC; importantly, treatment with a D2/D3 agonist quinpirole reverts the shift to safer behaviors induced by stress on risky decision-making. These results suggest that the brain mechanisms related to risk-based decision-making are altered after chronic stress, but can be modulated by manipulation of dopaminergic transmission.

Microfluidic based on aqueous two-phase system for plasmidic DNA purification

Dissertação de mestrado em Bioquímica Aplicada (área de especialização em Biotecnologia)