Design of switch architecture for the geographical cell transport protocol

The Internet is divided into multiple layers to reduce and manage complexity. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) developed a 7 layer network model and had been revised to a 5 layer TCP/IP based Internet Model. The layers of the Internet can also be divided into top layer TCP/IP protocol suite layers and the underlying transport network layers. SONET/SDH, a dominant transport network, was designed initially for circuit based telephony services. Advancement in the internet world with voice and video services had pushed SONET/SDH to operate with reduced efficiencies and increased costs. Hence, redesign and redeployment of the transport network has been and continues to be a subject of research and development. Several projects are underway to explore new transport network ideas such as G.709 and GMPLS. This dissertation presents the Geographical Cell Transport (GCT) protocol as a candidate for a next generation transport network. The GCT transport protocol and its cell format are described. The benefits provided by the proposed GCT transport protocol as compared to the existing transport networks are investigated. Existing switch architectures are explored and a best architecture to be implemented in VLSI for the proposed transport network input queued virtual output queuing is obtained. The objectives of this switch are high performance, guaranteed fairness among all inputs and outputs, robust behavior under different traffic patterns, and support for Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning. An implementation of this switch architecture is carried out using HDL. A novel pseudo random number generation unit is designed to nullify the bias present in an arbitration unit. The validity of the designed is checked by developing a traffic load model. The speedup factor required in the switch to maintain desired throughput is explored and is presented in detail. Various simulation results are shown to study the behavior of the designed switch under uniform and hotspot traffic. The simulation results show that QoS behavior and the crossing traffic through the switch has not been affected by hotspots

Mixed Reality: The Interface of the Future

The world is slowly moving towards everything being simulated digitally and virtually. Mixed Reality (MR) is the amalgam of the real world with virtual stimuli. It has great prospects in the future in terms of various applications additionally with some challenges. This paper focuses on how Mixed Reality could be used in the future along with the challenges that could arise. Several application areas along with the potential benefits are studied in this research. Three research questions are proposed, analyzed, and concluded through the experiments. While the availability of MR devices could introduce a lot of potential, specific challenges need to be scrutinized by the developers and manufacturers. Overall, MR technology has a chance to enhance personalized, supportive, and interactive experiences for human lives.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figure

FACTORS AFFECTING PARTICIPATION BEHAVIOR OF LIMITED RESOURCE FARMERS IN COST-SHARE PROGRAMS IN ALABAMA

This study examines factors that affect the participation behavior of limited resource farmers in cost-share programs in Alabama. The data was generated from a survey administered to a sample of limited resource farm operators. A binary logit was employed to analyze the data. Results indicate that college education, age, total farm size, as well as membership in conservation association had significant influence on participation.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Solving Atomic Wave Functions Using Artificial Neural Networks

Carleo and Troyer [3] have recently pointed out the possibility of solving quantum many-body problems by using Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). Their work is based on minimizing a variational wave function to obtain the ground states for various spin-dependent systems. This work is primarily focused on developing efficient method using ANN to solve the ground state wave function for atomic systems. We have developed a theoretical groundwork to represent the wave function of a many-electron atom by using artificial neural network while still preserving its antisymmetric property. By using the Metropolis algorithm, Variational Monte Carlo (VMC), and Stochastic Reconfiguration (SR) methods for minimization, we were able to obtain a highly accurate ground state wave function for the He atom. To verify our optimization algorithm, we reproduced the results for the ground state of a three dimensional Simple Harmonic Oscillator (SHO) given by Teng [18]

Synthesis of CADA Analogs for Down-Modulation of Sortilin, CD4 and ACE2

Cyclotriazadisulfonamide (CADA) prevents HIV entry into host cells by down-modulating CD4 receptor expression. The model for binding the CADA compounds involves a dominant dipole- dipole interaction between one of the side arms and a glutamine residue (Q15) in the hydrophobic (H) region of the CD4 signal peptide. There are three different regions in the CADA molecule that may actively bind with the signal peptide. These three regions are the isobutylene head group, the arenesulfonyl sidearms, and the tail group. Different modifications were previously done to these regions of CADA analogs to investigate structure-activity relationships (SAR). This study aims to modify the tail and the sidearm of the CADA compounds to find the structure-activity relationship for the down-modulation of sortilin, human-CD4, and ACE2.Interestingly, the signal peptide-containing protein sortilin was identified as a new target for CADA. Sortilin is a transmembrane protein similar to hCD4 that shuttles between the cell surface. Both cellular expression and in vitro co-translational translocation of sortilin were significantly reduced by CADA, similar to hCD4. My research aim is to target the signaling sequence of sortilin and ACE2 using newly developed CADA analogs. A negatively charged aspartate in the sortilin sequence at position 35 may play an essential role in binding with the carboxylic acid tail in SG analogs. A glutamine residue is also present at position 25 in the hydrophobic (H) region, which may play a similar role to Q15 in the hCD4 signal peptide. Similarly, the cationic arginine residue at positions 36 could play an essential role in binding. The strategy is to design CADA analogs that can bind with the signal sequence of sortilin to down- modulate its expression by forming a salt bridge with the amino acid residues present in the sortilin sequence. In this study, the current CADA analog’s benzyl tail is replaced with a long chain carboxylic acid tail to synthesized 14 different new CADA analogs. Among the synthesized 14 ii new analogs, SG001, SG003, SG010, SG006, and SG008 have an ester functional group at the tail region, while SG002, SG004, and SG011 has a carboxylic acid tail. In addition to this, the debenzylated analogs SG005 and SG012 are synthesized as an intermediate. We propose that the carboxylic acid group form an ion pair and/or hydrogen bond with glutamine Q25 in the signal sequence of sortilin and increase drug potency for sortilin down-modulation. We also hypothesized the carboxylic acid tail is essential. It may form a salt bridge with arginine 36 or a hydrogen bond interaction with aspartic acid 35, passing the signal peptidase cleavage site between serine 33 and glutamine 34. The signal peptide-containing protein ACE2 is also a new target for CADA. ACE2 is a monocarboxypeptidase, a part of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS). ACE2 is responsible for converting Ang II to Ang (1-7), which has some beneficial effects on the human body. However, ACE2 is a receptor for SARS-CoV2 to enter the human alveolar cell. So, the drug that can downmodulate the expression of ACE2 could be potential therapeutics for SARS-CoV2. This study involves screening of newly synthesized SG analogs in Calu-3 cells to see the down- modulation of ACE2 using the peptide Mca-APK-Dnp as a fluorescence substrate. The screening result shows that SG analogs with long hydrophobic ester tail are more potent than the carboxylic acid tail analogs

Comparative Analysis of CPU and GPU Profiling for Deep Learning Models

Deep Learning(DL) and Machine Learning(ML) applications are rapidly increasing in recent days. Massive amounts of data are being generated over the internet which can derive meaningful results by the use of ML and DL algorithms. Hardware resources and open-source libraries have made it easy to implement these algorithms. Tensorflow and Pytorch are one of the leading frameworks for implementing ML projects. By using those frameworks, we can trace the operations executed on both GPU and CPU to analyze the resource allocations and consumption. This paper presents the time and memory allocation of CPU and GPU while training deep neural networks using Pytorch. This paper analysis shows that GPU has a lower running time as compared to CPU for deep neural networks. For a simpler network, there are not many significant improvements in GPU over the CPU.Comment: 6 pages, 11 figure

Solving Atomic Wave Functions Using Artificial Neural Networks

Carleo and Troyer [3] have recently pointed out the possibility of solving quantum many-body problems by using Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). Their work is based on minimizing a variational wave function to obtain the ground states for various spin-dependent systems. This work is primarily focused on developing efficient method using ANN to solve the ground state wave function for atomic systems. We have developed a theoretical groundwork to represent the wave function of a many-electron atom by using artificial neural network while still preserving its antisymmetric property. By using the Metropolis algorithm, Variational Monte Carlo (VMC), and Stochastic Reconfiguration (SR) methods for minimization, we were able to obtain a highly accurate ground state wave function for the He atom. To verify our optimization algorithm, we reproduced the results for the ground state of a three dimensional Simple Harmonic Oscillator (SHO) given by Teng [18]