Pricing in Infrastructure Clouds – An Analytical and Empirical Examination

With the increasing maturity of the cloud computing market, specifically in the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) domain, adequate pricing of services has become a crucial success factor for providers. In this work, we take a threefold approach to examine the current situation concerning pricing in the IaaS market. Based on an initial literature review, we find that pay-as-you-go pricing is perceived as the dominant scheme by the scientific community. Based on this notion, we discuss other pricing schemes with respect to their advantages, disadvantages, and challenges for a cloud provider. These results are complemented by an empirical study, in which we identify pay-as-you-go and subscription pricing as the dominant options that are practically applied in the IaaS market today

Classifying the evolutionary and ecological features of neoplasms

The consensus conference was supported by Wellcome Genome Campus Advanced Courses and Scientific Conferences. C.C.M. is supported in part by US NIH grants P01 CA91955, R01 CA149566, R01 CA170595, R01 CA185138 and R01 CA140657 as well as CDMRP Breast Cancer Research Program Award BC132057. M.J. is supported by NIH grant K99CA201606. K.S.A. is supported by NCI 5R21 CA196460. K. Polyak is supported by R35 CA197623, U01 CA195469, U54 CA193461, and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. K.J.P. is supported by NIH grants CA143803, CA163124, CA093900 and CA143055. D.P. is supported by the European Research Council (ERC-617457- PHYLOCANCER), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BFU2015-63774-P) and the Education, Culture and University Development Department of the Galician Government. K.S.A. is supported in part by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and NCI R21CA196460. C.S. is supported by the Royal Society, Cancer Research UK (FC001169), the UK Medical Research Council (FC001169), and the Wellcome Trust (FC001169), NovoNordisk Foundation (ID 16584), the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF), the European Research Council (THESEUS) and Marie Curie Network PloidyNet. T.A.G. is a Cancer Research UK fellow and a Wellcome Trust funded Investigator. E.S.H. is supported by R01 CA185138-01 and W81XWH-14-1-0473. M.Gerlinger is supported by Cancer Research UK and The Royal Marsden/ICR National Institute of Health Research Biomedical Research Centre. M.Ge., M.Gr., Y.Y., and A.So. were also supported in part by the Wellcome Trust [105104/Z/14/Z]. J.D.S. holds the Edward B. Clark, MD Chair in Pediatric Research, and is supported by the Primary Children's Hospital (PCH) Pediatric Cancer Research Program, funded by the Intermountain Healthcare Foundation and the PCH Foundation. A.S. is supported by the Chris Rokos Fellowship in Evolution and Cancer. Y.Y. is a Cancer Research UK fellow and supported by The Royal Marsden/ICR National Institute of Health Research Biomedical Research Centre. E.S.H. was supported in part by PCORI grants 1505–30497 and 1503–29572, NIH grants R01 CA185138, T32 CA093245, and U10 CA180857, CDMRP Breast Cancer Research Program Award BC132057, a CRUK Grand Challenge grant, and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. A.R.A.A. was funded in part by NIH grant U01CA151924. A.R.A.A., R.G. and J.S.B. were funded in part by NIH grant U54CA193489

Remanufacturing approaches contributing to sustainable engineering Abordagens de remanufatura - uma contribuição para engenharia sustentável

Increasing use of resources by an increasing population with unequally distributed wealth make sustainability an urgent topic to pay attention to. A reference model for sustainability in engineering is presented referring to education and research, management, technology, processes and products as the relevant issues for a global change to sustainability. The European environmental laws for sustainable development are an attempt to cope with this challenge by legislative means. The provocative reality of practical implementation in dealing with electric and electronic products after their usage phases in Europe is illustrated. Laboratory developments in disassembly and testing demonstrate the feasibility of remanufacturing. In addition, approaches to increase the efficiency of remanufacturing by improving the product design are introduced.O crescente uso de recursos gerado pelo contínuo crescimento populacional inserido em um cenário de distribuição desigual de riqueza faz do termo sustentabilidade um tópico urgente para discussão. Neste artigo, apresenta-se um modelo de referência para sustentabilidade em engenharia que aborda questões relevantes para uma mudança global no caminho para a sustentabilidade, priorizando os seguintes elementos: educação e pesquisa; gestão, tecnologia, processos e produtos. As leis ambientais da União Européia esforçam-se para tratar com responsabilidade esse desafio de desenvolvimento sustentável. A realidade de implementações práticas em consideração a produtos eletro-eletrônicos depois de sua fase de uso é ilustrada no artigo. Desenvolvimentos em laboratório de desmontagens e testes demonstram a viabilidade da remanufatura. Além disso, abordagens para aumentar a eficiência do processo de remanufatura a partir de melhorias no processo de desenvolvimento do produto são também sugeridas

Pricing the cloud – a user perspective

CLOUD COMPUTING PROMISES ENHANCED FLEXIBILITY AND SUBSTANTIAL ECONOMIC BENEFITS THROUGH THE ON-DEMAND LEASE OF IT RESOURCES. THESE TWO ASPECTS ARE STRONGLY INFLUENCED BY THE PRICING OF CLOUD RESOURCES. BASED ON A SAMPLE OF 48 INFRASTRUCTURE PROVIDERS, WE EXAMINE CURRENT PRICING SCHEMES IN THE CLOUD MARKET FROM A USER PERSPECTIVE

Maintenance : changing role in life cycle management

As attention to environmental problems grows, product life cycle management is becoming a crucial issue in realizing a sustainable society. Our objective is to provide the functions necessary for such a society while minimizing material and energy consumption. From this viewpoint, we should redefine the role of maintenance as a prime method for life cycle management. In this paper, we first discuss the changing role of maintenance from the perspective of life cycle management. Then, we present a maintenance framework that shows management cycles of maintenance activities during the product life cycle. According to this framework, we identify technical issues of maintenance and discuss the advances of technologies supporting the change in the role of maintenance

T-cell Responses in the Microenvironment of Primary Renal Cell Carcinoma-Implications for Adoptive Cell Therapy

Abstract In vitro expansion of large numbers of highly potent tumor-reactive T cells appears a prerequisite for effective adoptive cell therapy (ACT) with autologous tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) as shown in metastatic melanoma (MM). We therefore sought to determine whether renal cell carcinomas (RCC) are infiltrated with tumor-reactive T cells that could be efficiently employed for adoptive transfer immunotherapy. TILs and autologous tumor cell lines (TCL) were successfully generated from 22 (92%) and 17 (77%) of 24 consecutive primary RCC specimens and compared with those generated from metastatic melanoma. Immune recognition of autologous TCLs or fresh tumor digests was observed in CD8+ TILs from 82% of patients (18/22). Cytotoxicity assays confirmed the tumoricidal capacity of RCC-TILs. The overall expansion capacity of RCC-TILs was similar to MM-TILs. However, the magnitude, polyfunctionality, and ability to expand in classical expansion protocols of CD8+ T-cell responses was lower compared with MM-TILs. The RCC-TILs that did react to the tumor were functional, and antigen presentation and processing of RCC tumors was similar to MM-TILs. Direct recognition of tumors with cytokine-induced overexpression of human leukocyte antigen class II was observed from CD4+ T cells (6/12; 50%). Thus, TILs from primary RCC specimens could be isolated, expanded, and could recognize tumors. However, immune responses of expanded CD8+ RCC-TILs were typically weaker than MM-TILs and displayed a mono-/oligofunctional pattern. The ability to select, enrich, and expand tumor-reactive polyfunctional T cells may be critical in developing effective ACT with TILs for RCC. In summary, TILs isolated from primary RCC specimens could recognize tumors. However, their immune responses were weaker than MM-TILs and displayed a mono-/oligofunctional pattern. The ability to select and expand polyfunctional T cells may improve cell therapy for RCC. Cancer Immunol Res; 6(2); 222–35. ©2018 AACR.</jats:p