A Joint Evaluation Methodology for Service Quality and User Privacy in Location Based Systems

Pervasive and ubiquitous applications provide novel and exciting services leveraging on a multitude of data obtained from people's devices, adapting the computation to the context in which the user currently is. This improves the service quality of these applications, which can provide a more tailored configuration of the application itself depending on the user context and needs. In these scenarios privacy is of paramount importance, since users must be also be protected against the misuse of their personal data. Analyzing ubiquitous systems in terms of service quality and privacy issues is however a challenging task, due to the heterogeneity of the possible attacks, which makes it difficult to compare two applications. In this paper we propose a novel methodology to jointly evaluate the service quality and the privacy issues in ubiquitous applications in an extensible and comparable way, building on the data available in each part of the system to be analyzed, and defining service qualities and privacy issues so that they can be easily re-used in other analyses. Our evaluation on a candidate application highlights the benefits of our proposal, showing the dependency between privacy levels and service quality, and paving the way for a novel methodology for the definition of these scenarios

Automotive Communications in LTE: A Simulation-Based Performance Study

2017 IEEE 86th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC-Fall)The integration of automotive communications in 5G systems must build on a clear understanding of the performance of services for connected vehicles in today's LTE deployments. In this paper, we carry out a simulation-based performance evaluation of automotive communications in LTE, with particular attention to realism: to that end, we investigate the impact of different road traffic models, employ a state-of-the-art commercial LTE tool, and study a practical service use case. Our results demonstrate that unrealistic road traffic datasets can bias network simulations in urban vehicular environments, and provide insights on the limitations of the current radio access architecture, when confronted to connected vehicles.This research has received funding from the People Pro-gramme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Unions Sev-enth Framework Programme (FP7/2007- 2013) under REA grant agreement n.630211, ReFleX. Also, this work has been performed in the framework of the H2020-ICT-2014-2 project 5G NORMA

Cell-type-specific gene expression in developing mouse neocortex: intermediate progenitors implicated in axon development

Cerebral cortex projection neurons (PNs) are generated from intermediate progenitors (IPs), which are in turn derived from radial glial progenitors (RGPs). To investigate developmental processes in IPs, we profiled IP transcriptomes in embryonic mouse neocortex, using transgenic Tbr2-GFP mice, cell sorting, and microarrays. These data were used in combination with in situ hybridization to ascertain gene sets specific for IPs, RGPs, PNs, interneurons, and other neural and non-neural cell types. RGP-selective transcripts (n = 419) included molecules for Notch receptor signaling, proliferation, neural stem cell identity, apical junctions, necroptosis, hippo pathway, and NF-κB pathway. RGPs also expressed specific genes for critical interactions with meningeal and vascular cells. In contrast, IP-selective genes (n = 136) encoded molecules for activated Delta ligand presentation, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, core planar cell polarity (PCP), axon genesis, and intrinsic excitability. Interestingly, IPs expressed several “dependence receptors” (Unc5d, Dcc, Ntrk3, and Epha4) that induce apoptosis in the absence of ligand, suggesting a competitive mechanism for IPs and new PNs to detect key environmental cues or die. Overall, our results imply a novel role for IPs in the patterning of neuronal polarization, axon differentiation, and intrinsic excitability prior to mitosis. Significantly, IPs highly express Wnt-PCP, netrin, and semaphorin pathway molecules known to regulate axon polarization in other systems. In sum, IPs not only amplify neurogenesis quantitatively, but also molecularly “prime” new PNs for axogenesis, guidance, and excitability

Search for Neutron Flux Generation in a Plasma Discharge Electrolytic Cell

Following some recent unexpected hints of neutron production in setups like high-voltage atmospheric discharges and plasma discharges in electrolytic cells, we present a measurement of the neutron flux in a configuration similar to the latter. We use two different types of neutron detectors, poly-allyl-diglicol-carbonate (PADC, aka CR-39) tracers and Indium disks. At 95% C.L. we provide an upper limit of 1.5 neutrons cm^-2 s^-1 for the thermal neutron flux at ~5 cm from the center of the cell. Allowing for a higher energy neutron component the largest allowed flux is 64 neutrons cm^-2 s^-1. This upper limit is two orders of magnitude smaller than what previously claimed in an electrolytic cell plasma discharge experiment. Furthermore the behavior of the CR-39 is discussed to point our possible sources of spurious signals.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Relationship between fatty liver and glucose metabolism: A cross-sectional study in 571 obese children

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Early onset type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is associated with obesity, insulin resistance and impaired beta-cell function. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) may be an independent risk factor for T2DM. We investigated the relationship between NAFLD and glucose metabolism in a large sample of obese children. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 571 obese children (57% males and 43% females) aged 8-18 years were consecutively studied at a tertiary care centre specialised in paediatric obesity. Liver ultrasonography was used to diagnose NAFLD after exclusion of hepatitis B and C and alcohol consumption. Oral-glucose tolerance testing (OGTT) was performed; insulin sensitivity was evaluated by using the insulin sensitivity index (ISI) and beta-cell function by using the ratio between the incremental areas under the curve (AUC) of insulin and glucose (incAUCins/incAUCglu). A total of 41% of the obese children had NAFLD. Impaired glucose tolerance or T2DM was present in 25% of the children with NAFLD versus 8% of those without it (p<0.001). Children with NAFLD had higher body mass index (BMI), fasting glucose, 120-min OGTT glucose, incAUCins/incAUCglu and lower ISI as compared with children without NAFLD (p</=0.002). At bootstrapped multivariable median regression analysis controlling for gender, age, pubertal status and BMI, NAFLD was an independent predictor of 120-min OGTT glucose and ISI, but not of incAUCins/incAUCglu. Similar findings were obtained using continuous liver steatosis as the predictor, instead of dichotomous NAFLD. CONCLUSION: NAFLD was present in 41% of our obese children and was associated with higher insulin resistance, but not with impaired beta-cell function

Body water distribution in severe obesity and its assessment from eight-polar bioelectrical impedance analysis

Objective: To measure body water distribution and to evaluate the accuracy of eight-polar bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) for the assessment of total body water (TBW) and extracellular water (ECW) in severe obesity. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Obesity clinic. Subjects: In all, 75 women aged 18-66 y, 25 with body mass index (BMI) between 19.1 and 29.9 kg/m(2) (ie not obese), 25 with BMI between 30.0 and 39.9 kg/m(2) (ie class I and II obese), and 25 with BMI between 40.0 and 48.2 kg/m(2) (ie class III obese). Methods: TBW and ECW were measured by (H2O)-H-2 and Br dilution. Body resistance (R) was obtained by summing the resistances of arms, trunk and legs as measured by eight-polar BIA (InBody 3.0, Biospace, Seoul, Korea). The resistance index at a frequency of x kHz (RIx) was calculated as height 2/R-x. Results: ECW: TBW was similar in women with class III (46 +/- 3%, mean +/- s.d.) and class I-II obesity (45 +/- 3%) but higher than in nonobese women (39 +/- 3%, P < 0.05). In a random subsample of 37 subjects, RI500 explained 82% of TBW variance (P < 0.0001) and cross-validation of the obtained algorithm in the remaining 38 subjects gave a percent root mean square error (RMSE%) of 5% and a pure error (PE) of 2.1 l. In the same subjects, RI5 explained 87% of ECW variance (P < 0.0001) and cross-validation of the obtained algorithm gave a RMSE% of 8% and a PE of 1.4 l. The contribution of weight and BMI to the prediction of TBW and ECW was nil or negligible on practical grounds. Conclusions: ECW: TBW is similar in women with class I-II and class III obesity up to BMI values of 48.2 kg/m(2). Eight-polar BIA offers accurate estimates of TBW and ECW in women with a wide range of BMI (19.1-48.2 kg/m(2)) without the need of population-specific formulae

On the Hydrodynamic Interaction of Shock Waves with Interstellar Clouds. II. The Effect of Smooth Cloud Boundaries on Cloud Destruction and Cloud Turbulence

The effect of smooth cloud boundaries on the interaction of steady planar shock waves with interstellar clouds is studied using a high-resolution local AMR technique with a second-order accurate axisymmetric Godunov hydrodynamic scheme. A 3D calculation is also done to confirm the results of the 2D ones. We consider an initially spherical cloud whose density distribution is flat near the cloud center and has a power-law profile in the cloud envelope. When an incident shock is transmitted into a smooth cloud, velocity gradients in the cloud envelope steepen the smooth density profile at the upstream side, resulting in a sharp density jump having an arc-like shape. Such a ``slip surface'' forms immediately when a shock strikes a cloud with a sharp boundary. For smoother boundaries, the formation of slip surface and therefore the onset of hydrodynamic instabilities are delayed. Since the slip surface is subject to the Kelvin-Helmholtz and Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities, the shocked cloud is eventually destroyed in $\sim 3-10$ cloud crushing times. After complete cloud destruction, small blobs formed by fragmentation due to hydrodynamic instabilities have significant velocity dispersions of the order of 0.1 $v_b$, where $v_b$ is the shock velocity in the ambient medium. This suggests that turbulent motions generated by shock-cloud interaction are directly associated with cloud destruction. The interaction of a shock with a cold HI cloud should lead to the production of a spray of small HI shreds, which could be related to the small cold clouds recently observed by Stanimirovic & Heiles (2005). The linewidth-size relation obtained from our 3D simulation is found to be time-dependent. A possibility for gravitational instability triggered by shock compression is also discussed.Comment: 62 pages, 16 figures, submitted to Ap