Design and implementation of the OFELIA FP7 facility: The European OpenFlow testbed

The growth of the Internet in terms of number of devices, the number of networks associated to each device and the mobility of devices and users makes the operation and management of the Internet network infrastructure a very complex challenge. In order to address this challenge, innovative solutions and ideas must be tested and evaluated in real network environments and not only based on simulations or laboratory setups. OFELIA is an European FP7 project and its main objective is to address the aforementioned challenge by building and operating a multi-layer, multi-technology and geographically distributed Future Internet testbed facility, where the network itself is precisely controlled and programmed by the experimenter using the emerging OpenFlow technology. This paper reports on the work done during the first half of the project, the lessons learned as well as the key advantages of the OFELIA facility for developing and testing new networking ideas. An overview on the challenges that have been faced on the design and implementation of the testbed facility is described, including the OFELIA Control Framework testbed management software. In addition, early operational experience of the facility since it was opened to the general public, providing five different testbeds or islands, is described

Depletion of Dendritic Cells Enhances Innate Anti-Bacterial Host Defense through Modulation of Phagocyte Homeostasis

Dendritic cells (DCs) as professional antigen-presenting cells play an important role in the initiation and modulation of the adaptive immune response. However, their role in the innate immune response against bacterial infections is not completely defined. Here we have analyzed the role of DCs and their impact on the innate anti-bacterial host defense in an experimental infection model of Yersinia enterocolitica (Ye). We used CD11c-diphtheria toxin (DT) mice to deplete DCs prior to severe infection with Ye. DC depletion significantly increased animal survival after Ye infection. The bacterial load in the spleen of DC-depleted mice was significantly lower than that of control mice throughout the infection. DC depletion was accompanied by an increase in the serum levels of CXCL1, G-CSF, IL-1α, and CCL2 and an increase in the numbers of splenic phagocytes. Functionally, splenocytes from DC-depleted mice exhibited an increased bacterial killing capacity compared to splenocytes from control mice. Cellular studies further showed that this was due to an increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by neutrophils. Adoptive transfer of neutrophils from DC-depleted mice into control mice prior to Ye infection reduced the bacterial load to the level of Ye-infected DC-depleted mice, suggesting that the increased number of phagocytes with additional ROS production account for the decreased bacterial load. Furthermore, after incubation with serum from DC-depleted mice splenocytes from control mice increased their bacterial killing capacity, most likely due to enhanced ROS production by neutrophils, indicating that serum factors from DC-depleted mice account for this effect. In summary, we could show that DC depletion triggers phagocyte accumulation in the spleen and enhances their anti-bacterial killing capacity upon bacterial infection

A Latency-Aware Real-Time Video Surveillance Demo: Network Slicing for Improving Public Safety

© 2021 IEEE.  Personal use of this material is permitted.  Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other worksWe report the automated deployment of 5G services across a latency-aware, semidisaggregated, and virtualized metro network. We summarize the key findings in a detailed analysis of end-to-end latency, service setup time, and soft-failure detection timeThe research leading to these results has received funding from the EC and BMBF through the METRO-HAUL project (G.A. No. 761727) and OTB-5G+ project (reference No. 16KIS0979K

Change in physical activity level and clinical outcomes in older adults with knee pain: a secondary analysis from a randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Exercise interventions improve clinical outcomes of pain and function in adults with knee pain due to osteoarthritis and higher levels of physical activity are associated with lower severity of pain and higher levels of physical functioning in older adults with knee osteoarthritis in cross-sectional studies. However, to date no studies have investigated if change in physical activity level during exercise interventions can explain clinical outcomes of pain and function. This study aimed to investigate if change in physical activity during exercise interventions is associated with future pain and physical function in older adults with knee pain. METHODS: Secondary longitudinal data analyses of a three armed exercise intervention randomised controlled trial. Participants were adults with knee pain attributed to osteoarthritis, over the age of 45 years old (n = 514) from Primary Care Services in the Midlands and Northwest regions of England. Crude and adjusted associations between absolute change in physical activity from baseline to 3 months (measured by the self-report Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly (PASE)) and i) pain ii) physical function (Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index) and iii) treatment response (OMERACT-OARSI responder criteria) at 3 and 6 months follow-up were investigated using linear and logistic regression. RESULTS: Change in physical activity level was not associated with future pain, function or treatment response outcomes in crude or adjusted models at 3 or 6 months (P > 0.05). A 10 point increase in PASE was not associated with pain β = - 0.01 (- 0.05, 0.02), physical function β = - 0.09 (- 0.19, 0.02) or likelihood (odds ratio) of treatment response 1.02 (0.99, 1.04) at 3 months adjusting for sociodemographics, clinical covariates and the trial intervention arm. Findings were similar for 6 month outcome models. CONCLUSIONS: Change in physical activity did not explain future clinical outcomes of pain and function in this study. Other factors may be responsible for clinical improvements following exercise interventions. However, the PASE may not be sufficiently responsive to measure change in physical activity level. We also recommend further investigation into the responsiveness of commonly used physical activity measures. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ( ISRCTN93634563 ). Registered 29th September 2011

Midlife muscle strength and human longevity up to age 100 years: a 44-year prospective study among a decedent cohort

We studied prospectively the midlife handgrip strength, living habits, and parents’ longevity as predictors of length of life up to becoming a centenarian. The participants were 2,239 men from the Honolulu Heart Program/Honolulu–Asia Aging Study who were born before the end of June 1909 and who took part in baseline physical assessment in 1965–1968, when they were 56–68 years old. Deaths were followed until the end of June 2009 for 44 years with complete ascertainment. Longevity was categorized as centenarian (≥100 years, n = 47), nonagenarian (90–99 years, n = 545), octogenarian (80–89 years, n = 847), and ≤79 years (n = 801, reference). The average survival after baseline was 20.8 years (SD = 9.62). Compared with people who died at the age of ≤79 years, centenarians belonged 2.5 times (odds ratio (OR) = 2.52, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.23–5.10) more often to the highest third of grip strength in midlife, were never smokers (OR = 5.75 95% CI = 3.06–10.80), had participated in physical activity outside work (OR = 1.13 per daily hour, 95% CI = 1.02–1.25), and had a long-lived mother (≥80 vs. ≤60 years, OR = 2.3, 95% CI = 1.06–5.01). Associations for nonagenarians and octogenarians were parallel, but weaker. Multivariate modeling showed that mother’s longevity and offspring’s grip strength operated through the same or overlapping pathway to longevity. High midlife grip strength and long-lived mother may indicate resilience to aging, which, combined with healthy lifestyle, increases the probability of extreme longevity

Influence of Socioeconomic Status Trajectories on Innate Immune Responsiveness in Children

Lower socioeconomic status (SES) is consistently associated with poor health, yet little is known about the biological mechanisms underlying this inequality. In children, we examined the impact of early-life SES trajectories on the intensity of global innate immune activation, recognizing that excessive activation can be a precursor to inflammation and chronic disease.Stimulated interleukin-6 production, a measure of immune responsiveness, was analyzed ex vivo for 267 Canadian schoolchildren from a 1995 birth cohort in Manitoba, Canada. Childhood SES trajectories were determined from parent-reported housing data using a longitudinal latent-class modeling technique. Multivariate regression was conducted with adjustment for potential confounders.SES was inversely associated with innate immune responsiveness (p=0.003), with persistently low-SES children exhibiting responses more than twice as intense as their high-SES counterparts. Despite initially lower SES, responses from children experiencing increasing SES trajectories throughout childhood were indistinguishable from high-SES children. Low-SES effects were strongest among overweight children (p<0.01). Independent of SES trajectories, immune responsiveness was increased in First Nations children (p<0.05) and urban children with atopic asthma (p<0.01).These results implicate differential immune activation in the association between SES and clinical outcomes, and broadly imply that SES interventions during childhood could limit or reverse the damaging biological effects of exposure to poverty during the preschool years