Elastic Highly Available Cloud Computing

High availability and elasticity are two the cloud computing services technical features. Elasticity is a key feature of cloud computing where provisioning of resources is closely tied to the runtime demand. High availability assure that cloud applications are resilient to failures. Existing cloud solutions focus on providing both features at the level of the virtual resource through virtual machines by managing their restart, addition, and removal as needed. These existing solutions map applications to a specific design, which is not suitable for many applications especially virtualized telecommunication applications that are required to meet carrier grade standards. Carrier grade applications typically rely on the underlying platform to manage their availability by monitoring heartbeats, executing recoveries, and attempting repairs to bring the system back to normal. Migrating such applications to the cloud can be particularly challenging, especially if the elasticity policies target the application only, without considering the underlying platform contributing to its high availability (HA). In this thesis, a Network Function Virtualization (NFV) framework is introduced; the challenges and requirements of its use in mobile networks are discussed. In particular, an architecture for NFV framework entities in the virtual environment is proposed. In order to reduce signaling traffic congestion and achieve better performance, a criterion to bundle multiple functions of virtualized evolved packet-core in a single physical device or a group of adjacent devices is proposed. The analysis shows that the proposed grouping can reduce the network control traffic by 70 percent. Moreover, a comprehensive framework for the elasticity of highly available applications that considers the elastic deployment of the platform and the HA placement of the application’s components is proposed. The approach is applied to an internet protocol multimedia subsystem (IMS) application and demonstrate how, within a matter of seconds, the IMS application can be scaled up while maintaining its HA status

Leveraging Cloud-based NFV and SDN Platform Towards Quality-Driven Next-Generation Mobile Networks

Network virtualization has become a key approach for Network Service Providers (NSPs) to mitigate the challenge of the continually increasing demands for network services. Tightly coupled with their software components, legacy network devices are difficult to upgrade or modify to meet the dynamically changing end-user needs. To virtualize their infrastructure and mitigate those challenges, NSPs have started to adopt Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). To this end, this thesis addresses the challenges faced on the road of transforming the legacy networking infrastructure to a more dynamic and agile virtualized environment to meet the rapidly increasing demand for network services and serve as an enabler for key emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G networking. The thesis considers different approaches and platforms to serve as an NFV/SDN based cloud applications while closely considering how such an environment deploys its virtualized services to optimize the network and reducing their costs. The thesis starts first by defining the standards of adopting microservices as architecture for NFV. Then, it focuses on the latency-aware deployment approach of virtual network functions (VNFs) forming service function chains (SFC) in a cloud environment. This approach ensures that NSPs still meet their strict quality of service and service level agreements while considering both functional and non-functional constraints of the NFV-based applications such as, delay, resource allocation, and intercorrelation between VNF instances. In addition, the thesis proposes a detailed approach on recovering and handling of those instances by optimizing the decision of migrating or re-instantiating the virtualized services upon a sudden event (failure/overload…). All the proposed approaches contribute to the orchestration of NFV applications to meet the requirements of the IoT and NGNs era

Past, Prologue, and Constitutional Limits on Criminal Penalties

Most criminal prosecutions occur at a level that is both neglected by many legal scholars and central to the lives of most people entangled in the criminal legal system: the level of the state. State v. Citizen prosecutions, which encompass most crimes ranging from robbery to homicide, are governed both by the federal constitution and by the constitution of the prosecuting state. This is no less true for sentences than for prosecutions. When it comes to sentences, state courts are bound by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which famously proclaims that no American shall be subjected to “cruel and unusual punishment.” But state constitutions may go further than the federal constitution. States may adopt constitutional provisions analogous to the Eighth Amendment that establish even more effective guards against unreasonable or vindictive punishments. One state—Illinois—has so chosen. At Illinois’s most recent constitutional convention in 1970, a group of statewide delegates agreed to reconsider the limits set by the state’s constitution on criminal punishments. From that convention emerged a revolutionary idea: that Illinois should adopt in its constitution the strongest known language in the nation limiting a government’s ability to mete out extreme punishments to those citizens who have transgressed the criminal law—and clearly identifying the purpose of those criminal sentences as rehabilitation. Thus was born what appears in Illinois’s constitution today: the so-called proportionate-penalties clause. That clause, codified in 1970 as Article 1, Section 11 of the Illinois Constitution, proclaims that “all penalties shall be determined both according to the seriousness of the offense and with the objective of restoring the offender to useful citizenship. No conviction shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate. No person shall be transported out of the State for an offense committed within the State.” This Article traces the origins of the proportionate-penalties clause back to the 1970 constitutional convention, using floor debate transcripts and other contemporaneous sources to establish that its authors did, indeed, intend Illinois sentences to serve rehabilitative purposes. To interrogate the context of those documents, this Article also examines the surrounding historical events of late 1960s-era Chicago, as well the lives and identities of the delegates who propelled this clause forward. This Article uses the authors’ words as prescient calls for a new interpretation of the proportionate-penalties clause that hews to their vision —and that can serve as a model for rethinking the guardrails around criminal punishments nationwide. Indeed, a constitutional scheme that insists that criminal penalties be directed at rehabilitative ends can and must carry implications for many of the statutes and rules that sustain our current system of mass incarceration

Sjuksköterskans upplevelse av att vårda patienter i den sena palliativa fasen på en sluten vårdavdelning

Bakgrund: Palliativ vård har som mål att lindra individens lidande ända in i döden. Sjuksköterskan ska ta hänsyn till individens psykiska, fysiska, sociala och existentiella behov för att främja livskvaliteten. Det är vanligt förekommande att patienter med en palliativ diagnos vårdas inom slutenvården. Att vårda patienter i livets slutskede är en viktig men krävande uppgift med ett stort ansvar för sjuksköterskan.Syfte: Litteraturstudiens syfte var att belysa sjuksköterskans upplevelse av att vårda patienter i den sena palliativa fasen på en sluten vårdavdelning. Metod: Litteraturstudien baserades på nio vetenskapliga artiklar med kvalitativ design. Databaserna som användes var Pubmed och Cinahl. Analysen gjordes med inspiration av Fribergs analysmodell. Analysen resulterade i fyra huvudteman och åtta subteman. Resultat: I resultatet presenteras fyra huvudteman: sjuksköterskans upplevelse av välbefinnande, sjuksköterskans upplevelse av de personcentrerade mötet, sjuksköterskans upplevelse av frustration och andra emotionella insikter, sjuksköterskans upplevelse av hinder för att utföra en god palliativ vård.  Slutsats: Litteraturstudien beskriver sjuksköterskans upplevelse av att vårda patienter i den sena palliativa fasen på en sluten vårdavdelning i Sverige. Vårda patienter i den sena palliativa fasen innebär ett stort ansvar för sjuksköterskan då de ska arbeta utifrån den palliativa vårdfilosofin där patientens ses som en helhet.  

Detection at All Costs: Is Cancer Screening Always Better?

Cancer treatment and prevention is a continuously evolving field. Canadian guidelines suggest that women of average breast cancer risk receive mammography screening regularly. Screening seems an intuitive approach to diagnosing cancer in its early and curable stages. However, repeat cancer screening is not without drawbacks; as the intensity and frequency of cancer screening increases, so do the consequences of overdiagnosis, including avoidable testing and treatment, pain, stress, unwillingness to participate in future testing, and healthcare spending. Therefore, achieving optimal screening outcomes requires an accurate understanding of the costs and benefits associated with this procedure. By empowering patients to make informed decisions regarding cancer screening, one potential strategy to improve patient care is to improve communication and decision-making between physicians and patients. Other strategies to achieve better screening include targeted screening programs for high-risk patients that rely on different screening modalities