82 research outputs found
Ethernet - a survey on its fields of application
During the last decades, Ethernet progressively became the most widely used local area networking (LAN) technology. Apart from LAN installations, Ethernet became also attractive for many other fields of application, ranging from industry to avionics, telecommunication, and multimedia. The expanded application of this technology is mainly due to its significant assets like reduced cost, backward-compatibility, flexibility, and expandability. However, this new trend raises some problems concerning the services of the protocol and the requirements for each application. Therefore, specific adaptations prove essential to integrate this communication technology in each field of application. Our primary objective is to show how Ethernet has been enhanced to comply with the specific requirements of several application fields, particularly in transport, embedded and multimedia contexts. The paper first describes the common Ethernet LAN technology and highlights its main features. It reviews the most important specific Ethernet versions with respect to each application field’s requirements. Finally, we compare these different fields of application and we particularly focus on the fundamental concepts and the quality of service capabilities of each proposal
Breaking records in the evolutionary race
We explore some aspects of the relationship between biological evolution
processes and the mathematical theory of records. For Eigen's quasispecies
model with an uncorrelated fitness landscape, we show that the evolutionary
trajectories traced out by a population initially localized at a randomly
chosen point in sequence space can be described in close analogy to record
dynamics, with two complications. First, the increasing number of genotypes
that become available with increasing distance from the starting point implies
that fitness records are more frequent than for the standard case of
independent, identically distributed random variables. Second, fitness records
can be bypassed, which strongly reduces the number of genotypes that take part
in an evolutionary trajectory. For exponential and Gaussian fitness
distributions, this number scales with sequence length as , and
it is of order unity for distributions with a power law tail. This is in strong
contrast to the number of records, which is of order for any fitness
distribution.Comment: Proceedings of 8th ICCMSP/Marrakech, to be published in Physica
Record statistics for biased random walks, with an application to financial data
We consider the occurrence of record-breaking events in random walks with
asymmetric jump distributions. The statistics of records in symmetric random
walks was previously analyzed by Majumdar and Ziff and is well understood.
Unlike the case of symmetric jump distributions, in the asymmetric case the
statistics of records depends on the choice of the jump distribution. We
compute the record rate , defined as the probability for the th
value to be larger than all previous values, for a Gaussian jump distribution
with standard deviation that is shifted by a constant drift . For
small drift, in the sense of , the correction to
grows proportional to arctan and saturates at the value
. For large the record rate approaches a
constant, which is approximately given by
for .
These asymptotic results carry over to other continuous jump distributions with
finite variance. As an application, we compare our analytical results to the
record statistics of 366 daily stock prices from the Standard & Poors 500
index. The biased random walk accounts quantitatively for the increase in the
number of upper records due to the overall trend in the stock prices, and after
detrending the number of upper records is in good agreement with the symmetric
random walk. However the number of lower records in the detrended data is
significantly reduced by a mechanism that remains to be identified.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure
Distribution of the time at which N vicious walkers reach their maximal height
We study the extreme statistics of N non-intersecting Brownian motions
(vicious walkers) over a unit time interval in one dimension. Using
path-integral techniques we compute exactly the joint distribution of the
maximum M and of the time \tau_M at which this maximum is reached. We focus in
particular on non-intersecting Brownian bridges ("watermelons without wall")
and non-intersecting Brownian excursions ("watermelons with a wall"). We
discuss in detail the relationships between such vicious walkers models in
watermelons configurations and stochastic growth models in curved geometry on
the one hand and the directed polymer in a disordered medium (DPRM) with one
free end-point on the other hand. We also check our results using numerical
simulations of Dyson's Brownian motion and confront them with numerical
simulations of the Polynuclear Growth Model (PNG) and of a model of DPRM on a
discrete lattice. Some of the results presented here were announced in a recent
letter [J. Rambeau and G. Schehr, Europhys. Lett. 91, 60006 (2010)].Comment: 30 pages, 12 figure
Evolution in random fitness landscapes: the infinite sites model
We consider the evolution of an asexually reproducing population in an
uncorrelated random fitness landscape in the limit of infinite genome size,
which implies that each mutation generates a new fitness value drawn from a
probability distribution . This is the finite population version of
Kingman's house of cards model [J.F.C. Kingman, \textit{J. Appl. Probab.}
\textbf{15}, 1 (1978)]. In contrast to Kingman's work, the focus here is on
unbounded distributions which lead to an indefinite growth of the
population fitness. The model is solved analytically in the limit of infinite
population size and simulated numerically for finite . When
the genome-wide mutation probability is small, the long time behavior of
the model reduces to a point process of fixation events, which is referred to
as a \textit{diluted record process} (DRP). The DRP is similar to the standard
record process except that a new record candidate (a number that exceeds all
previous entries in the sequence) is accepted only with a certain probability
that depends on the values of the current record and the candidate. We develop
a systematic analytic approximation scheme for the DRP. At finite the
fitness frequency distribution of the population decomposes into a stationary
part due to mutations and a traveling wave component due to selection, which is
shown to imply a reduction of the mean fitness by a factor of compared to
the limit.Comment: Dedicated to Thomas Nattermann on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
Submitted to JSTAT. Error in Section 3.2 was correcte
Pathomechanisms of ALS8: altered autophagy and defective RNA binding protein (RBP) homeostasis due to the VAPB P56S mutation.
Mutations in RNA binding proteins (RBPs) and in genes regulating autophagy are frequent causes of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (fALS). The P56S mutation in vesicle-associated membrane protein-associated protein B (VAPB) leads to fALS (ALS8) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). While VAPB is primarily involved in the unfolded protein response (UPR), vesicular trafficking and in initial steps of the autophagy pathway, the effect of mutant P56S-VAPB on autophagy regulation in connection with RBP homeostasis has not been explored yet. Examining the muscle biopsy of our index ALS8 patient of European origin revealed globular accumulations of VAPB aggregates co-localised with autophagy markers LC3 and p62 in partially atrophic and atrophic muscle fibres. In line with this skin fibroblasts obtained from the same patient showed accumulation of P56S-VAPB aggregates together with LC3 and p62. Detailed investigations of autophagic flux in cell culture models revealed that P56S-VAPB alters both initial and late steps of the autophagy pathway. Accordingly, electron microscopy complemented with live cell imaging highlighted the impaired fusion of accumulated autophagosomes with lysosomes in cells expressing P56S-VAPB. Consistent with these observations, neuropathological studies of brain and spinal cord of P56S-VAPB transgenic mice revealed signs of neurodegeneration associated with altered protein quality control and defective autophagy. Autophagy and RBP homeostasis are interdependent, as demonstrated by the cytoplasmic mis-localisation of several RBPs including pTDP-43, FUS, Matrin 3 which often sequestered with P56S-VAPB aggregates both in cell culture and in the muscle biopsy of the ALS8 patient. Further confirming the notion that aggregation of the RBPs proceeds through the stress granule (SG) pathway, we found persistent G3BP- and TIAR1-positive SGs in P56S-VAPB expressing cells as well as in the ALS8 patient muscle biopsy. We conclude that P56S-VAPB-ALS8 involves a cohesive pathomechanism of aberrant RBP homeostasis together with dysfunctional autophagy
The importance of nodule CO2 fixation for the efficiency of symbiotic nitrogen fixation in pea at vegetative growth and during pod formation
Nodule CO2 fixation is of pivotal importance for N2 fixation. The process provides malate for bacteroids and oxaloacetate for nitrogen assimilation. The hypothesis of the present paper was that grain legume nodules would adapt to higher plant N demand and more restricted carbon availability at pod formation through increased nodule CO2 fixation and a more efficient N2 fixation. Growth, N2 fixation, and nodule composition during vegetative growth and at pod formation were studied in pea plants (Pisum sativum L.). In parallel experiments, 15N2 and 13CO2 uptake, as well as nodule hydrogen and CO2 release, was measured. Plants at pod formation showed higher growth rates and N2 fixation per plant when compared with vegetative growth. The specific activity of active nodules was about 25% higher at pod formation. The higher nodule activity was accompanied by higher amino acid concentration in nodules and xylem sap with a higher share of asparagine. Nodule 13CO2 fixation was increased at pod formation, both per plant and per 15N2 fixed unit. However, malate concentration in nodules was only 40% of that during vegetative growth and succinate was no longer detectable. The data indicate that increased N2 fixation at pod formation is connected with strongly increased nodule CO2 fixation. While the sugar concentration in nodules at pod formation was not altered, the concentration of organic acids, namely malate and succinate, was significantly lower. It is concluded that strategies to improve the capability of nodules to fix CO2 and form organic acids might prolong intensive N2 fixation into the later stages of pod formation and pod filling in grain legumes
How do companies collaborate in open source ecosystems? An empirical study of OpenStack
OpenSourceSoftware (OSS) has come to play a critical role in the software industry. Some large ecosystems enjoy the participation of large numbers of companies, each of which has its own focus and goals. Indeed, companies that otherwise compete, may become collaborators within the OSS ecosystem they participate in. Prior research has largely focused on commercial involvement in OSS projects, but there is a scarcity of research focusing on company collaborations within OSS ecosystems. Some of these ecosystems have become critical building blocks for organizations worldwide; hence, a clear understanding of how companies collaborate within large ecosystems is essential. This paper presents the results of an empirical study of the Open Stack ecosystem, in which hundreds of companies collaborate on thousands of project repositories to deliver cloud distributions. Based on a detailed analysis, we identify clusters of collaborations, and identify four strategies that companies adopt to engage with the Open Stack ecosystem. We also find that companies may engage in intentional or passive collaborations, or may work in an isolated fashion. Further, we find that a company’s position in the collaboration network is positively associated with its productivity in Open Stack. Our study sheds light on how large OSS ecosystems work, and in particular on the patterns of collaboration within one such large ecosystem
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