Studies on the food web structure of Lake Donghu using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios

Food web structure was studied by using carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios in a hypereutrophic subtropical Chinese lake, Lake Donghu. High external nutrient loading and the presence of abundant detritus from submersed macrophytes were responsible for the high sediment delta(15)N and delta(13)C, respectively. C-13 was significantly higher in submersed macrophytes than in other macrophytes. The similar delta(13)C values in phytoplankton, zooplankton, zoobenthos, and planktivorous fish indicate that phytoplankton was the major food source for the consumers. By using a delta(15)N mass balance model, we estimate that the contributions of zooplankton to the diet of silver carp and bighead carp were 54% and 74%, respectively, which is in agreement with previous microscopic observations on intestinal contents of these fishes.

Construction and characterization of a novel recombinant single-chain variable fragment antibody against White Spot Syndrome Virus from shrimp

An antibody phage display library against White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV) was constructed. After four rounds of panning against WSSV, 192 out of 480 clones displayed WSSV binding activity. One of the positive clones, designated A1, had relatively higher activity specifically binding to WSSV A1-soluble, single-chain fragment variable (scFv) antibody has an affinity constant (K-aff) of 2.02 +/- 0.42 x 10(9) M-1. Dot blot assays showed that A1-soluble scFv could detect WSSV directly from shrimp hemolymph after 24-h feeding infection by WSSV. A1 scFv has potential for the development of a cheap, simple and sensitive diagnostic kit for WSSV in the field. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Characterization of an iridovirus from the cultured pig frog Rana grylio with lethal syndrome

Three virus isolates, RGV-9506, RGV-9807 and RGV-9808, were obtained from cultured pig frogs Rana grylio undergoing lethal infections. Previously, the first isolate, RGV-9506, was shown to be an iridovirus based on ultrastructural and morphological studies. In the present study, the original isolate, along with 2 recent ones, were more extensively characterized by experimental infection studies, histopathology, electron microscopy, serological reactivity, gel electrophoresis of viral polypeptides and DNA restriction fragments, PCR amplification, and nucleic acid sequence analysis of the major capsid protein (MCP) gene. The 3 isolates were shown to be identical to each other, and very similar to FV3, the type species of the genus Ranavirus (family Iridoviridae). These results suggest that RGV should be considered a strain of FV3, and indicate that FV3-like iridoviruses are capable of causing widespread, severe disease among cultured frogs.

Purification and characterization of White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV) produced in an alternate host: crayfish, Cambarus clarkii

Penaeid shrimp is the natural host of White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV) that can cause high mortality in the infected hosts. Attempts to obtain sufficient amounts of purified intact WSSV for characterization have been unsuccessful. Using crayfish, Cambarus clarkii as a proliferation system, a large amount of infectious WSSV was reproduced and intact WSSV viral particles were purified with a new isolation medium by ultra-centrifugation. Purified WSSV particles were very sensitive to organic solvents and the detergent, Triton X-100. The size of the rod-shape, somewhat elliptical, intact WSSV was 110-130 x 260-350 mm with a long, tail-like envelope extension. The naked viral nucleocapsid was about 80 x 350 nm, and it possessed 15 spiral and cylindrical helices composed of 14 globular capsomers along its long axis, and a 'ring' structure at one terminus. Distinct WSSV genome DNA patterns were obtained when the purified genomic dsDNA of WSSV was digested with five different restriction enzymes (HindIII, XhoI, B(BamHI, SalI, and SacI). In addition, at least 13 major and distinct protein bands could be observed when purified intact WSSV viruses were separated by SDS-PAGE followed by Coomassie Brilliant R-250 staining. The estimated molecular weights of these proteins were 190, 84, 75, 69, 68, 58, 52, 44, 28, 27.5, 23, 19, and 16 kD, respectively. Both the 44 and 190 kD proteins were easily removed if the hemolymph from the: WSSV infected crayfish was transiently treated with 1%, Triton X-100 before it was subjected to gradient centrifugation, indicating that both of them are located on the surface of the viral envelope. These characteristics are consistent with WSSV isolated from the penaeid shrimp. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Web Services Workflows—Composition, Co-Ordination, and Transactions in Service-Oriented Computing

Web services can be seen as a newly emerging research area for Service-oriented Computing and their implementation in Service-oriented Architectures. Web services are self-contained, self-describing modular applications or components providing services. Web services may be dynamically aggregated, composed, and enacted as Web services Workflows. This requires frameworks and interaction protocols for their co-ordination and transaction support. In a Service-oriented Computing setting, transactions are more complex, involve multiple parties (roles), span many organizations, and may be long-running, consisting of a highly decentralized service partner and performed by autonomous entities. A Service-oriented Transaction Model has to provide comprehensive support for long-running propositions including negotiations, conversations, commitments, contracts, tracking, payments, and exception handling. Current transaction models and mechanisms including their protocols and primitives do not sufficiently cater for quality-aware and long running transactions comprising loosely-coupled (federated) service partners and resources. Web services transactions require co-ordination behavior provided by a traditional transaction mechanism to control the operations and outcome of an application. Furthermore, Web services transactions require the capability to handle the co-ordination of processing outcomes or results from multiple services in a more flexible manner. This requires more relaxed forms of transactions—those that do not strictly have to abide by the ACID properties—such as loosely-coupled collaboration and workflows. Furthermore, there is a need to group Web services into applications that require some form of correlation, but do not necessarily require transactional behavior. The purpose of this paper is to provide a state-of-the-art review and overview of some proposed standards surrounding Web services composition, co-ordination, and transaction. In particular the Business Process Execution Language for Web services (BPEL4WS), its co-ordination, and transaction frameworks (WS-Co-ordination and WS-Transaction) are discussed.

一种基于SSL／TLS的Web安全代理的设计与实现

SSL Web代理能有效保护Internet上数据传输和存有敏感信息的Web服务器的安全。但是SSL协议中大量的数据处理带来的性能瓶须和协议实现中受到的安全威胁将严亚影响SSL Web代理的效用。该文在分析SSL/TLS协议性能和安全的基础上，设计并实现了一种高效的、安全的SSL-TLS Web代理。

一种基于BLP模型的安全Web服务器系统

针对基于Web的通信存在的弱点，提出了安全Web服务器的概念，并以此为目标，提出并实现了一种基于BLP形式化模型的安全Web服务器系统。

基于在线模型评估的动态Web系统性能保障

动态多层Web系统在运行时会受到许多不确定性因素的影响.同时,在不同的负载模式下具有不同的性能特性,需要不同的性能模型进行描述.为消除不确定性因素对系统性能的影响,基于反馈控制原理设计的性能保障机制主要采用单一、固定的系统性能模型,对动态Web系统变化的性能特征考虑不够.在负载呈波动且具有不可预测特性的Internet环境中,这会降低性能目标的精确性和稳定性.采用自适应控制的思想,以满足请求平均响应时间为目标,提出了一种基于在线评估系统性能模型的保障机制,并采用两个不同类型的事务性Web测试基准,对所提方法进行了评价.结果表明,该方法能够有效减轻变化负载模式下响应时间与预期目标的偏离程度.

一个基于自管理单元支持差分服务的Web容器

随着Internet的飞速发展,符合J2EE规范的Web容器已经成为部署企业Web应用的主流平台.同时,企业Web应用的多样化和复杂性的增长,迫切地要求Web容器提供差分服务的支持.然而,传统的Web容器采用尽力而为的服务模型,无法提供差分服务支持.已有的研究采用准入控制、优先级调度等方法来为Web容器提供差分服务支持,但是它们只能提供单调、静态的差分服务策略.提出了一个基于自管理单元的Web容器DSWC,它能够根据SLA定义提供两级差分服务支持.此外,提出了一个自适应差分服务策略选择算法,它能够根据动态变化的运行环境自适应地选择差分服务策略.原型系统的实验结果显示,DSWC能够有效地为请求提供符合SLA定义的细粒度的差分服务支持.

无线Web访问的缓存和预取机制

缓存和预取在提高无线环境下的Web访问性能方面发挥着重要作用。文章研究针对无线局域网的Web缓存和预取机制,分别基于数据挖掘和信息论提出了采用序列挖掘和延迟更新的预测算法,设计了上下文感知的预取算法和获益驱动的缓存替换机制,上述算法已在Web缓存系统OnceEasyCache中实现。性能评估实验结果表明,上述算法的集成能有效地提高缓存命中率和延迟节省率。

一种Web应用服务器集群管理系统的设计与实现

随着计算机的普及和网络技术的发展，Internet上的Web用户爆炸性增长。作为Web应用主要支撑平台的Web应用服务器经常面临过载的问题。Web应用服务器集群技术是解决这一问题的有效手段。然而，集群规模变大导致的集群拓扑结构复杂、计算环境的高度异构以及应用对性能等非功能需求的多样化使得Web应用服务器集群的安装、配置和维护等管理过程难度大大增加。Web应用服务器集群迫切需要改变目前静态、被动的管理方式，而通过自管理方式来降低其管理成本、适应计算环境变化以及应用的个性化非功能需求。 Web应用服务器集群管理主要包括拓扑结构、资源以及负载等方面的管理。本文设计了一个Web应用服务器集群管理系统。针对集群拓扑结构管理，设计了基于广播的集群节点自配置设施，并通过基于Cookie Insertion的请求会话粘滞设计实现了多个负载均衡器的协同工作；针对集群资源管理，设计了基于Java规则引擎的动态资源管理框架，并在此基础上实现了集群规模的动态调整；针对集群负载管理，设计了基于反馈-控制机制的动态负载均衡算法，可根据节点负载动态调整权值，使集群能够适应负载变化。 基于上述设计，本论文在Web应用服务器系统OnceAS中实现了该集群管理系统，包括支持多种通信模式的集群通信组件，拓扑结构管理器，资源管理器，负载均衡器，以及节点管理器，同时提供了相应的管理工具。系统测试结果表明，该系统支持集群拓扑结构、资源和负载的管理，能够更好地适应负载变化，提高Web应用服务器的整体性能表现。