Title: A Computational Model for Genetic and Epigenetic Signals in Colon Cancer

Supervisor: Prof. Heather Ruskin

Abstract:
Cancer, a class of diseases, characterized by abnormal cell growth, has one of the highest overall death rates world-wide. Its development has been linked to aberrant genetic and epigenetic events, affecting the regulation of key genes that control cellular mechanisms. However, a major issue in cancer research is the lack of precise information on tumour pathways, so that delineation of these and the processes underlying disease proliferation is an important area of investigation. A computational approach to modelling malignant system events can help to improve understanding of likely triggers, i.e. initiating abnormal micro-molecular signals that occur during cancer development. Here, we introduce a network-based model for genetic and epigenetic events observed at different stages of colon cancer, with a focus on the gene relationships and tumour pathways. These changes are studied in relation to ageing, also considered to be one of the major risk factors in neoplastic disease development. Gender is also specifically accounted for in the genetic/epigenetic framework. Additionally, further directions, including a detailed plan of development, are presented. The current work aims to provide improved insight on the way in which aberrant modifications characterize cancer initiation and progression. The framework dynamics are described in terms of interdependencies of three main layers: genetic and epigenetic events, gene relationships andcancer stage levels.

Title: Reliable Architecture-Centric Self-Adaptation of Component-Based

Abstract: A major challenge in distributed and heterogeneous software is to maintain a proper coordination of functional components that form a running system. In such dynamic settings, connectors are responsible for providing an additional and external coordination mechanism to control the interaction between components. The connectors are surrounded by functional components that may be attached or detached in autonomous and unpredictable manners. In existing solutions, the automated analysis of non-functional requirement violations is not addressed. This research, however, discusses how component connectors are enhanced with self-adaptive capabilities to react to environmental changes that may cause violations in non-functional requirements. We specifically consider compositional coordination models allowing the (re)construction of composite component connectors from atomic ones. We discuss how a connector can be verified against quantifiable non-functional requirements (such as reliability or performance) by adopting “models at run-time” that has implications for proper reconfigurations. This results in robust connectors which not only recognize changes in environmental assumptions, but also guarantee the expected non-functional requirements by exploiting reliable architecture-centric self-adaptations.