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Conventional middleware systems fail to address important issues related to dynamism. Modern computer systems have to deal not only with heterogeneity in the underlying hardware and software platforms but also with highly dynamic environments. Mobile and distributed applications are greatly affected by dynamic changes of the environment characteristics such as security constraints and resource availability. Existing middleware is not prepared to react to these changes. In many cases, application developers know when adaptive changes in communication and security strategies would improve system performance. But often, they are not able to benefit from it because the middleware lacks the mechanisms to support monitoring (to detect when adaptation should take place) and on-the-fly reconfiguration. dynamicTAO is a CORBA-compliant reflective ORB that supports dynamic configuration. It maintains an explicit representation of its own internal structure and uses it to carry out runtime customization safely. After describing dynamicTAO's design and implementation, we discuss our experience on the development of two systems benefiting from the reflective nature of our ORB: a flexible monitoring system for distributed objects and a mechanism for enforcing access control based on dynamic security policies. There is nothing permanent except change. Heraclitus of Ephesus (535-475 BC) This research is supported by NSF grants 98-70736 and 99-70139. Fabio Kon is supported in part by a grant from CAPES-Brazil, proc.#1405/95-2.

The application of metabolomics in translational research suffers from several technological bottlenecks, such as data reproducibility issues and the lack of standardization of sample profiling procedures. Here, we report an automated high-throughput metabolite array technology that can rapidly and quantitatively determine 324 metabolites including fatty acids, amino acids, organic acids, carbohydrates, and bile acids. Metabolite identification and quantification is achieved using the Targeted Metabolome Batch Quantification (TMBQ) software, the first cross-vendor data processing pipeline. A test of this metabolite array was performed by analyzing serum samples from patients with chronic liver disease (N = 1234). With high detection efficiency and sensitivity in serum, urine, feces, cell lysates, and liver tissue samples and suitable for different mass spectrometry systems, this metabolite array technology holds great potential for biomarker discovery and high throughput clinical testing. Additionally, data generated from such standardized procedures can be used to generate a clinical metabolomics database suitable for precision medicine in next-generation healthcare.

Aqueous zinc‐ion batteries with low cost and inherent safety are considered to be the next‐generation energy storage device. However, they suffer from poor cycling stability and low coulombic efficiency caused by the serious zinc dendrites during the cycling. In this work, a porous water‐based filter membrane is first proposed as separator due to its good toughness and uniform pore distribution. The results demonstrate that the symmetrical cell using a filter membrane can cycle over 2600 h with a low voltage hysteresis of 47 mV. Moreover, an aqueous Zn//NaV3O8·1.5H2O cell based on the filter membrane is constructed, which demonstrates a high capacity retention of 83.8% after 5000 cycles at 5 A g−1. The mechanism research results reveal that the excellent dendrites inhibiting the ability of the filter membrane should be attributed to its uniform pore distribution rather than its composition. This work proposes a filter membrane separator and reveals the great influence of separator on the zinc stripping/plating process, which will shed light on the development of high‐performance aqueous zinc‐ion batteries.

LF-rTMS and HF-rTMS are both beneficial to the recovery of linguistic function in patients with post-stroke non-fluent aphasia. LF-rTMS produced immediate benefits that persisted long-term, while HF-rTMS only produced long-term benefits. In addition, the benefits produced with LF-rTMS were more marked than those produced by HF-rTMS.