Exhaled nitric oxide measurements with dynamic flow restriction in children aged 4-8 yrs

Fractional exhaled nitric oxide concentration (FENO) depends on exhalation flow; however, children often are unable to perform controlled flow procedures. Therefore, a device was developed for off-line FENO sampling, with dynamic flow restriction (DFR). The authors compared off-line w

Integrating CSI Sensing in Wireless Networks: Challenges to Privacy and Countermeasures

The path toward 6G is still long and blurred, but a few key points seem to be already decided: integration of many different access networks; adoption of massive MIMO technologies; use of frequencies above current radio spectrum up to THz and beyond; and inclusion of artificial intelligence and machine learning in standard management and operations. One additional point that is less discussed, but seems key for success, is the advanced use of channel state information (CSI) for both equalization and decoding purposes as well as for sensing ones. CSI-based sensing promises a plethora of new applications and a quantum leap in service personalization and customer-centric network management. At the same time, CSI analysis, being based on the physical characteristics of the propagated signal, poses novel threats to people's privacy and security: No software-based solution or cryptographic method above the physical layer can prevent the analysis of CSI. CSI analysis can reveal people's position or activity, allow tracking them, and discover details on the environment that today can be seen only with cameras or radars. In this article, we discuss the current status of CSI-based sensing and present some technologies that can protect people's privacy and at the same time allow legitimate use of the information carried by the CSI to offer better services

On the Implementation of Location Obfuscation in openwifi and Its Performance

Wi-Fi sensing as a side-effect of communications is opening new opportunities for smart services integrating communications with environmental properties, first and foremost the position of devices and people. At the same time, this technology represents an unprecedented threat to people’s privacy, as personal information can be collected directly at the physical layer without any possibility to hide or protect it. Several works already discussed the possibility of safeguarding users’ privacy without hampering communication performance. Usually, some signal pre-processing at the transmitter side is needed to introduce pseudo-random (artificial) patterns in the channel response estimated at the receiver, preventing the extraction of meaningful information from the channel state. However, there is currently just one implementation of such techniques in a real system (openwifi), and it has never been tested for performance. In this work, we present the implementation of a location obfuscation technique within the openwifi project that enables fine manipulation of the radio signal at transmitter side and yields acceptable, if not good, performance. The paper discusses the implementation of the obfuscation subsystem, its performance, possible improvements, and further steps to allow authorized devices to “de-obfuscate” the signal and retrieve the sensed information

Exact Distributed Load Centrality Computation: Algorithms, Convergence, and Applications to Distance Vector Routing

Many optimization techniques for networking protocols take advantage of topological information to improve performance. Often, the topological information at the core of these techniques is a centrality metric such as the Betweenness Centrality (BC) index. BC is, in fact, a centrality metric with many well-known successful applications documented in the literature, from resource allocation to routing. To compute BC, however, each node must run a centralized algorithm and needs to have the global topological knowledge; such requirements limit the feasibility of optimization procedures based on BC. To overcome restrictions of this kind, we present a novel distributed algorithm that requires only local information to compute an alternative similar metric, called Load Centrality (LC). We present the new algorithm together with a proof of its convergence and the analysis of its time complexity. The proposed algorithm is general enough to be integrated with any distance vector (DV) routing protocol. In support of this claim, we provide an implementation on top of Babel, a real-world DV protocol. We use this implementation in an emulation framework to show how LC can be exploited to reduce Babel's convergence time upon node failure, without increasing control overhead. As a key step towards the adoption of centrality-based optimization for routing, we study how the algorithm can be incrementally introduced in a network running a DV routing protocol. We show that even when only a small fraction of nodes participate in the protocol, the algorithm accurately ranks nodes according to their centrality

Randomized Controlled Trial of Fish Oil and Montelukast and Their Combination on Airway Inflammation and Hyperpnea-Induced Bronchoconstriction

Both fish oil and montelukast have been shown to reduce the severity of exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB). The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of fish oil and montelukast, alone and in combination, on airway inflammation and bronchoconstriction induced by eucapnic voluntary hyperpnea (EVH) in asthmatics. In this model of EIB, twenty asthmatic subjects with documented hyperpnea-induced bronchoconstriction (HIB) entered a randomized double-blind trial. All subjects entered on their usual diet (pre-treatment, n = 20) and then were randomly assigned to receive either one active 10 mg montelukast tablet and 10 placebo fish oil capsules (n = 10) or one placebo montelukast tablet and 10 active fish oil capsules totaling 3.2 g EPA and 2.0 g DHA (n = 10) taken daily for 3-wk. Thereafter, all subjects (combination treatment; n = 20) underwent another 3-wk treatment period consisting of a 10 mg active montelukast tablet or 10 active fish oil capsules taken daily. While HIB was significantly inhibited (p0.017) between treatment groups; percent fall in forced expiratory volume in 1-sec was −18.4±2.1%, −9.3±2.8%, −11.6±2.8% and −10.8±1.7% on usual diet (pre-treatment), fish oil, montelukast and combination treatment respectively. All three treatments were associated with a significant reduction (p0.017) in these biomarkers between treatments. While fish oil and montelukast are both effective in attenuating airway inflammation and HIB, combining fish oil with montelukast did not confer a greater protective effect than either intervention alone. Fish oil supplementation should be considered as an alternative treatment for EIB

On the Progressive Introduction of Heterogeneous CACC Capabilities

Can we introduce Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) technologies on the road without separated road infrastructures? This simple question is often latent in works dealing with cooperative driving, especially in feasibility analysis of cooperative driving. As of today, the question has indeed received no definitive answer in the literature because it is hard to model analytically heterogeneous systems or to experiment with them. This work helps understanding how vehicles interact among each others when they do not run a single, a-priory defined, CACC algorithm, but rather each vehicle adopt its own one. We introduce the concept of mixed platoon, i.e., a string of vehicles where more than one CACC algorithm is used, and we experiment with mixed platoons in silico to study how the mixture of CACC algorithms affects efficiency and safety. For instance we analyze scenarios where we progressively introduce homogeneous and mixed platoons among standard Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) vehicles, quantifying the positive or negative effects on traffic efficiency and safety induced by the introduction of CACC technologies as a function of their penetration rate. The obtained results encourage additional research on the topic, starting from theoretical analysis of mixed platoons down to performance evaluations of actual implementations

Wi-Fi Localization Obfuscation: An implementation in openwifi

Wi-Fi sensing as a side-effect of communications is opening new opportunities for smart services integrating communications with environmental properties, first and foremost the position of devices and people. At the same time, this technology represents an unprecedented threat to people's privacy, as personal information can be collected directly at the physical layer without any possibility to hide or protect it. Several works already discussed the possibility of safeguarding users’ privacy without hampering communication performance, using signal pre-processing at the transmitter side to introduce pseudo-random (artificial) patterns in the channel response estimated at the receiver, preventing the extraction of meaningful information from the channel state, a process called obfuscation. One step beyond the proof-of-concept for obfuscation feasibility, is its implementation in working systems. In this work, we present the implementation of a location obfuscation technique within the openwifi project that enables fine manipulation of the radio signal at transmitter side and yields acceptable, if not good, performance, the system has been implemented for both 802.11a/g/h and 802.11n systems, including MPDU aggregation, while implementation for 802.11ac or ax is still not feasible because openwifi does not support 40MHz channelization and beyond. This contribution discusses the implementation of the obfuscation subsystem, its performance, possible improvements, and further steps to allow authorized devices to “de-obfuscate” the signal and retrieve the sensed information