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Objectives To detect possible severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA contamination of inanimate surfaces in areas at high risk of aerosol formation by patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Methods Sampling was performed in the emergency unit and the sub-intensive care ward. SARS-CoV-2 RNA was extracted from swabbed surfaces and objects and subjected to real-time RT-PCR targeting RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and E genes. Virus isolation from positive samples was attempted in vitro on Vero E6 cells. Results Twenty-six samples were collected and only two were positive for low-level SARS-CoV-2 RNA, both collected on the external surface of continuous positive airway pressure helmets. All transport media were inoculated onto susceptible cells, but none induced a cytopathic effect on day 7 of culture. Conclusions Even though daily contact with inanimate surfaces and patient fomites in contaminated areas may be a medium of infection, our data obtained in real-life conditions suggest that it might be less extensive than hitherto recognized.

We describe clinical characteristics, treatments and outcomes of 44 Caucasian patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a single hospital in Pavia, Italy, from 21–28 February 2020, at the beginning of the outbreak in Europe. Seventeen patients developed severe disease, two died. After a median of 6 days, 14 patients were discharged from hospital. Predictors of lower odds of discharge were age > 65 years, antiviral treatment and for severe disease, lactate dehydrogenase > 300 mg/dL.

Context: The popularity of domain-specific languages and model driven development has made the tacit use of domain knowledge in system development more tangible. Our vision is a development process where a (software) system specification is based on multiple domain models, and where the specification method is built from cognitive concepts, presumably derived from natural language. Goal: To realize this vision, we evaluate and reflect upon the existing literature in domain-oriented specification techniques. Method: We designed and conducted a systematic literature review on domain-oriented specification techniques. Results: We identified 53 primary studies, populated the classification framework for each study, and summarized our findings per classification aspect. We found many approaches for creating domain models or domain-specific languages. Observations include: (i) most methods are defined incompletely; (ii) none offers methodical support for the use of domain models or domain-specific languages to create other specifications; (iii) there are specification techniques to integrate models in general, but no study offers methodical support for multiple domain models. Conclusion: The results indicate which topics need further research and which can instead be reused to realize our vision on system development. Editor's note: Open Science material was validated by the Journal of Systems and Software Open Science Board.

Background:Digital infrastructures, i.e., ICT systems, or system-of-systems, providing digital capabilities, such as storage and computational services, are experiencing an ever-growing demand for data consumption, which is only expected to increase in the future. This trend leads to a question we need to answer: How can we evolve digital infrastructures to keep up with the increasing data demand in a sustainable way?Objective:The goal of this study is to understand what is the future of sustainable digital infrastructures, in terms of: which solutions are, or will be, available to sustainably evolve digital infrastructures, and which are the related adoption factors, impediments, and open problems.Method:We carried out a 3-phase mixed-method qualitative empirical study, comprising semi-structured interviews, followed by focus groups, and a plenary session with parallel working groups. In total, we conducted 13 sessions involving 48 digital infrastructure practitioners and researchers.Results:From our investigation emerges a landscape for sustainable digital infrastructures, composed of 30 solutions, 5 adoption factors, 4 impediments, and 13 open problems. We further synthesized our results in 4 incremental scenarios, which outline the future evolution of sustainable digital infrastructures.Conclusions:From an initial shift from on-premise to the cloud, as time progresses, digital infrastructures are expected to become increasingly distributed, till it will be possible to dynamically allocate resources by following time, space, and energy. Numerous solutions will support this change, but digital infrastructures are envisaged to be able to evolve sustainably only by (i) gaining a wider awareness of digital sustainability, (ii) holding every party accountable for their sustainability throughout value chains, and (iii) establishing cross-domain collaborations.

Context.: There are many e-Health mobile apps on the apps store, from apps to improve a user's lifestyle to mental coaching. Whilst these apps might consider user context when they give their interventions, prompts, and encouragements, they still tend to be rigid e.g., not using user context and experience to tailor themselves to the user. Objective.: To better engage and tailor to the user, we have previously proposed a Reference Architecture for enabling self-adaptation and AI personalization in e-Health mobile apps. In this work we evaluate the end users’ perception, usability, performance impact, and energy consumption contributed by this Reference Architecture. Method.: We do so by implementing a Reference Architecture compliant app and conducting two experiments: a user study and a measurement-based experiment. Results.: Although limited in the number of participants, the results of our user study show that usability of the Reference Architecture compliant app is similar to the control app. Users’ perception was found to be positively influenced by the compliant app when compared to the control group. Results of our measurement-based experiment showed some differences in performance and energy consumption measurements between the two apps. The differences are, however, deemed minimal. Conclusions.: Our experiments show promising results for an app implemented following our proposed Reference Architecture. This is preliminary evidence that the use of personalization and self-adaptation techniques can be beneficial within the domain of e-Health apps.

Introduction In 1973, Petrea Jacobsen described the first patient showing dysmorphic features, developmental delay and congenital heart disease (atrial and ventricular septal defect) associated to a 11q deletion, inherited from the father. Since then, more than 200 patients have been reported, and the chromosomal critical region responsible for this contiguous gene disorder has been identified. Patients’ presentation We report on two unrelated newborns observed in Italy affected by Jacobsen syndrome (JBS, also known as 11q23 deletion). Both patients presented prenatal and postnatal bleeding, growth and developmental delay, craniofacial dysmorphisms, multiple congenital anomalies, and pancytopenia of variable degree. Array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) identified a terminal deletion at 11q24.1-q25 of 12.5 Mb and 11 Mb, in Patient 1 and 2, respectively. Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis of the parents documented a de novo origin of the deletion for Patient 1; parents of Patient 2 refused further genetic investigations. Conclusions Present newborns show the full phenotype of JBS including thrombocytopenia, according to their wide 11q deletion size. Bleeding was particularly severe in one of them, leading to a cerebral hemorrhage. Our report highlights the relevance of early diagnosis, genetic counselling and careful management and follow-up of JBS patients, which may avoid severe clinical consequences and lower the mortality risk. It may provide further insights and a better characterization of JBS, suggesting new elements of the genotype-phenotype correlations.

The field green ICT focuses on the greening of ICT and using ICT to optimise the energy footprint of the ICT-supported processes. For organisations, applying green ICT in the broadest sense presents them with challenges. In this paper we explore what factors are influencing the adoption of green ICT. We follow three organisations that used a green ICT tool, the SURF Green ICT Maturity Model, to identify such factors. Tools like the maturity model help organisations identify the what and how. We found other factors, such as strategic alignment, culture and leadership, determine the why. As ICT is a general purpose technology, it potentially affects all processes in an organisation. To have a greening impact, the main challenge for green ICT is to take a systemic approach and involve all (relevant) parties. ICT departments often position themselves as support (followers, not leaders), this proves to be a big hurdle in the adoption of green ICT.

Background Since sustainability became a challenge in software engineering, researchers mainly from requirements engineering and software architecture communities have contributed to defining the basis of the notion of sustainability-aware software. Problem Despite these valuable efforts, the assessment and design based on the notion of sustainability as a software quality is still poorly understood. There is no consensus on which sustainability requirements should be considered. Aim and Method To fill this gap, a survey was designed with a double objective: i) determine to which extent quality requirements contribute to the sustainability of software-intensive systems; and ii) identify direct dependencies among the sustainability dimensions. The survey involved different target audiences (e.g. software architects, ICT practitioners with expertise in Sustainability). We evaluated the perceived importance/relevance of each sustainability dimension, and the perceived usefulness of exploiting a sustainability model in different software engineering activities. Results Most respondents considered modifiability as relevant for addressing both technical and environmental sustainability. Functional correctness, availability, modifiability, interoperability and recoverability favor positively the endurability of software systems. This study has also identified security, satisfaction, and freedom from risk as very good contributors to social sustainability. Satisfaction was also considered by the respondents as a good contributor to economic sustainability.

We empirically studied the energy impact of two best practices for energy-efficient software.We applied the practices on two widely used software applications, MySQL Server and Apache Webserver.Each practice successfully reduced the energy consumption of our test environment.The hardware resource usage of the modified applications is more energy-proportional.Software design and implementation choices significantly affect energy efficiency. Background. Energy efficiency is an increasingly important property of software. A large number of empirical studies have been conducted on the topic. However, current state-of-the-Art does not provide empirically-validated guidelines for developing energy-efficient software.Aim. This study aims at assessing the impact, in terms of energy savings, of best practices for achieving software energy efficiency, elicited from previous work. By doing so, it identifies which resources are affected by the practices and the possible trade-offs with energy consumption.Method. We performed an empirical experiment in a controlled environment, where we applied two different Green Software practices to two software applications, namely query optimization in MySQL Server and usage of "sleep" instruction in the Apache web server. We then performed a comparison of the energy consumption at system-level and at resource-level, before and after applying the practice.Results. Our results show that both practices are effective in improving software energy efficiency, reducing consumption up to 25%. We observe that after applying the practices, resource usage is more energy-proportional i.e., increasing CPU usage increases energy consumption in an almost linear way. We also provide our reflections on empirical experimentation in software energy efficiency.Conclusions. Our contribution shows that significant improvements in software energy efficiency can be gained by applying best practices during design and development. Future work will be devoted to further validate best practices, and to improve their reusability.

The energy consumed by data centers hosting cloud services is increasing enormously. This brings the need to reduce energy consumption of different components in data centers. In this work, we focus on energy efficiency of the networking component. However, how different networking solutions impact energy consumption is still an open question. We investigate the state of the art in energy-efficient networking solutions in cloud-based environments. We follow a systematic literature review method to select primary studies. We create a metamodel based on the codes extracted from our primary studies using the Coding analytical method. Our findings show three abstraction levels of the proposed networking solutions to achieve energy efficiency in cloud-based environments: Strategy, Solution, and Technology. We study the historical trends in the investigated solutions and conclude that the emerging and most widely adopted one is the Decision framework .

Software development is increasingly carried out by developer communities in a global setting. One way to prepare for development success is to uncover and harmonize these communities to exploit their collective, collaborative potential. A proposed decision tree can help practitioners do this.

Context: Many publications have described, measured, tracked or assessed Informationand Communication Technology (ICT) activities that impact the environment. A complete conceptualview of the environmental impact of ICT can be described in three orders of effect: Direct, indirectand systemic. Objective: The goal of this study is to find out how the existing literature contributestowards our understanding of the environmental impact of ICT. We approach this question byidentifying factors that can be of influence on the environmental impact and map these factors onto aconceptual framework of Green ICT. Method: We used a systematic literature review to collect factorsof influence regarding the environmental impact of ICT. Results: From the data we collected and theanalyses made, we created a taxonomy, and report on the frequencies of the factors of influence in theprimary studies as well as gaps and additions compared to the conceptual framework. We foundfive main classes of influence that can form a continuous cycle, but noted that the research field isstrongly focused on the direct impact of ICT. Conclusion: Our study contributes towards a betterunderstanding of the environmental impact of ICT by framing factors of influence in a conceptualframework. The taxonomy we create and the analysis of the studies could be helpful in defininga research agenda, to further enable the full potential of Green ICT. In addition, the taxonomy canbe used as a starting point for a practical tool, for organizations that wish to apply Green ICT to itsfull extent.

Knowledge management plays an important role in the software architecting process. Recently, this role has become more apparent by a paradigm shift that views a software architecture as the set of architectural design decisions it embodies. This shift has sparked the discussion in both research and practice on how to best facilitate sharing of so-called architectural knowledge, and how tools can best be employed. In order to design successful tool support for architectural knowledge sharing it is important to take into account what software architecting really entails. In this paper, we define the main characteristics of architecting, based on observations in a large software development organization, and state-of-the-art literature in software architecture. Based on the defined characteristics, we determine how best practices known from knowledge management could be used to improve architectural knowledge sharing. This results in the definition of a set of desired properties of architectural knowledge sharing tools. Finally, we highlight the design and implementation of EAGLE, an architectural knowledge sharing portal that implements those properties.

Wireless services are software-based services that exploit distribution infrastructure embedded in our everyday life as various communication and computing technologies. Service architecture defines concepts and principles to develop and maintain services to obtain the quality issues with minimum cost and faster time-to-market. In order to boost the development of wireless services, more effective means of using existing architectural know-how and artifacts are required. Our contribution is the architectural knowledge base that introduces three cornerstones: the service taxonomy, reference service architecture, and basic services that alt together provide an efficient means of creating added value with wireless services. The service taxonomy assists in identifying the required functional and quality properties of services and the constraints of the underlying technology platforms. The reference architecture realizes the required properties, based on a selected set of architectural styles and patterns, and provides a skeleton upon which a new end-user service can be developed faster and more easily by using partially ready-made solutions, and furthermore, to keep the architectural knowledge base evolving at the same time. The architectural knowledge base has been validated in several research projects with industrial companies.

Service-oriented computing is a paradigm for effectively delivering software services in a dynamic environment. Accordingly, many service-oriented software engineering (SOSE) methodologies have been proposed and practiced in both academia and industry. Some of these methodologies share common features (e. g. cover similar life-cycle phases) but are presented for different purposes, ranging from project management to system modernization, and from business analysis to technical solutions development. Given this diversity in the methodologies available in the literature, it is very hard for a company to decide which methodology would fit best for its specific needs. With this aim, we took a feature analysis approach and devised a framework for comparing the existing SOA methodologies. Different from existing comparison frameworks, ours specifically highlights aspects that are specific to SOA and aims to differentiate the methodologies that are truly service-oriented from those that deal little with service aspects. As such, the criteria defined in the framework can be used as a checklist for selecting a SOSE methodology. © 2011 The Author(s).

Data centers represent today's major energy consumers. This is especially true in the Netherlands, informally called “the data center country” for Amsterdam includes 33% of the data centers of the whole European Union. To address this problem, the Dutch Government initiated the MJA (Meerjarenafspraken, or in English multiannual agreements), a nationwide initiative intended to improve energy efficiency of ICT products, services and processes. Major energy consumers, like data centers, actively participate in the MJA initiative to lower and optimize their energy consumption. To this end, the MJA members have documented the green ICT practices developed so far. The resulting documentation consists of an excel sheet of 83 consolidated practices. As a way to formalize, classify and share green practices, in our previous work we have proposed a green strategy model and have mapped the MJA practices accordingly. In this way we made explicit the fundamental knowledge elements of a green practice, namely the MJA green goals, green practices, and practice's effects. In this work, we take a further step into the content of the codified practices, by: i) classifying the practices based on the concerns they address, ii) looking into the goals that data centers intend to achieve in relation to the concerns that practices address, iii) classifying the practices based on the role that IT plays, and iv) distinguishing practices that are software-related from non-software related ones. In this way, we provide a picture of how data centers currently address the problem of reducing their energy footprint, possibly offering inspiration to both researchers (in progressing in their research further from what already exists), and practitioners (in reusing practices and learning what knowledge elements are important for informed decision making).