Hybrid optical fiber-wireless communication to support tactile internet

5G technologies are systems that will set to change the way people, devices and machines connect. This generation of mobile services provide connection in just one click. The advanced 5G infrastructure, defined as “ubiquitous ultra-broadband network supporting future Internet”, represents a revolution in the telecommunications field. It will enable new secure and reliable services to everyone and everything with ultra-low latency. “Full Immersive Experience”, enriched by “Context Information” and “Anything as a Service” are the main drivers for a substantial adoption of the fifth generation networks [1]. The technical challenges that must be taken into account in the design of the 5G system are many and unprecedented. Therefore,5G is expected to be about 10 times faster than LTE-4G, in addition, it is projected that this network will have100-1000 times higher system capacity, user data rates in the order of Gbps everywhere, 10-100 higher number of connected devices per area, latency in the order of 1 millisecond, and 10 times longer battery life for devices. Due to all these technological changes, for years, researchers, suppliers and manufacturers around the world have studied this new network. In order to transform the user's wireless experience and be able to offer fast generalized connectivity anytime, anywhere, to any device.[2]. All this requires an enabler in the new approach of radio access networks, which could be hybrid optical Fiber-Wireless communications. “Photonics technology has been recognized by the European Union as a Key Enabling Technology (KET), which is a technology that enables a market, many times larger than the market of technology itself”. Photonic techniques have become key enablers to unlock future broadband wireless communications with terabit data rates in order to support the current trends of mobile data traffic[3]. The aim of this thesis is to conceive experimentally and validate 1 millisecond latency hybrid optical Fiber-Wireless access links support for tactile Internet taking into account the system requirements. For this purpose, first a review about the implementation of high-speed data links at 75-110 GHz band with low latency was made. Likewise, this work summarizes the components of hybrid optical Fiber-Wireless communication in W- Band. Second, measurements of the delay contribution from individual elements in the W -Band hybrid system were made. In addition, the main contribution was to develop a procedure for measuring latency physically using software defined radio (SDR) and estimating the overall system latency. In this procedure, potential sources of delay can be identified in current high-data-rate hybrid optical-RF communication systems. After knowing how to measure latency in a hybrid optical Fiber-Wireless system, the following objectives were developed: to test an appropriate multiplexing scheme such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), and Generalized Frequency Division Multiplexing (GFDM), to achieve the lowest latency with improved performance; and to implement WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) to achieve the required low latency.Resumen: Las tecnologías 5G son sistemas de generación de servicios móviles configurados para cambiar la forma en que las personas, los dispositivos y las máquinas se conectan. La infraestructura 5G está definida como una red ubicua de banda ultra-ancha que soportará Internet en el futuro, dicha red representa una revolución en el campo de las telecomunicaciones. Permitirá eficientemente nuevos servicios ultra-confiables, rápidos y seguros, preservando la privacidad y acelerando los servicios críticos para todos y para cada cosa. Estas redes son la evolución del Internet de las cosas, en donde cada una de ellas es tratada como un objeto cognitivo formando sistemas cibernéticos (CPS). La "experiencia de inmersión total", enriquecida con "información de contexto" y "todo como un servicio" son los principales impulsores para una adopción masiva de los nuevos componentes de ésta tecnología y su aceptación del mercado [1]. Se espera que 5G sea aproximadamente 10 veces más rápido que 4G LTE. Por lo tanto, los desafíos técnicos que deben abordarse en el diseño del sistema 5G son muchos y sin precedentes. Actualmente hay varias actividades en todo el mundo para capturar las aplicaciones y los requisitos para 5G, algunas empresas proveedoras de servicio y fabricantes incluso ya han realizado pruebas para la implementación de dichas redes. Algunos de los principales requisitos que demandan estas redes se pueden resumir en: 100-1000 veces más capacidad del sistema, tasas de datos de usuario en el orden de Gbps en todas partes, latencia en el orden de 1 milisegundo, 10-100 veces mayor número de dispositivos conectados por área, 10 veces más duración de la batería para dispositivos. Estos requisitos transformarán dramáticamente la experiencia inalámbrica de un usuario en un sistema 5G al ofrecer conectividad generalizada rápida en cualquier momento, en cualquier lugar, a cualquier dispositivo [2]. Todo esto requiere un habilitador en el nuevo enfoque de las redes de acceso por radio, que podrían ser comunicaciones híbridas de fibra óptica y transmisiones inalámbricas vía radio. La fotónica por su parte ha sido reconocida por la Unión Europea como una Tecnología Clave Habilitadora (KET), una tecnología que permite un mercado que es muchas veces más grande que el mercado de la tecnología en sí. Las técnicas fotónicas combinadas con la generación de microondas en lo que se conoce en su término en inglés como microwave-photonics se han convertido en habilitadores clave para desbloquear futuras comunicaciones inalámbricas de banda ancha con tasas de datos de terabit a fin de soportar las tendencias actuales del tráfico de datos móviles [3]. El objetivo de esta tesis es concebir experimentalmente y validar enlaces de acceso híbridos de fibra óptica-radio, cuya latencia sea de 1 milisegundo con el fin de soportar Internet táctil, el cual es una aplicación de 5G, teniendo en cuenta los requisitos del sistema. Para ello, primero se realizó una investigación sobre la implementación de enlaces de datos con redes híbridas fibra óptica-radio en la banda de 75-110 GHz con baja latencia. Con esto, se analizaron los componentes de la comunicación híbrida fibra ópticaradio en la banda W. En segundo lugar, se realizaron mediciones de los retardos que se generan en cada uno de los elementos en el sistema híbrido de banda W, haciendo la estimación de la latencia general del sistema e identificando fuentes potenciales de demora en los sistemas híbridos de comunicación óptica-RF de alta velocidad de datos. La principal contribución de este trabajo fue el desarrollo de un procedimiento para medir la latencia utilizando radio definida por software (SDR), además de introducir estos sistemas en los enlaces híbridos fibra óptica-radio. Una vez conocido como medir la latencia en un sistema híbrido de fibra óptica-radio, los siguientes objetivos que se desarrollaron fueron: probar un esquema de multiplexación apropiado, como la multiplexación por división de frecuencia ortogonal (OFDM) y la multiplexación por división de frecuencia generalizada (GFDM), para lograr una latencia más baja. A su vez, implementar Multiplexación por división de longitud de onda (WDM) para conocer la latencia y la confiabilidad en cuanto a tasa de error de bits variando la multiplexacion eléctrica y óptica.Doctorad

Smart City, tendencias y evolución: Un análisis bibliométrico

A smart city places people at the centre of development and incorporates ICTs into urban management as a response to problems such as pollution, insecurity, and congestion. Developed countries focus on improving the quality of life of their inhabitants and work on making cities intelligent, inclusive, and sustainable spaces. In academia, the term "smart city" has been gaining interest, as shown by a review of Clarivate's WoS database, which shows 9 records for 2011 rising to 950 records in 2019. The search results showed a sample of 2833 documents in the period from 2001 - 2019. As an area of knowledge in development, it is relevant to know the trends that frame its evolution. The proposed analysis is based on the postulates of bibliometrics and scientometrics, which through the co-occurrence of data and the strength of links between components of a network, infers related bodies of knowledge in an objective manner, recognizing hot topics, declining themes, relevant publications, among others. The VOSviewer software was used as an information processing tool, which is a open source software that provides the construction and visualization of knowledge networks, which facilitates their exploration. In this study one can see that the knowledge area is focused on 3 themes: 1) Development of cities based on innovation and sustainability, 2) design and administration of cities by means of Internet and the Internet of Things as well as 3) frameworks based on bigdata aimed at governance. These results guide researchers interested in broadening the horizons of this theme and in seeking new paradigms related to the Smart city.Una ciudad inteligente, es una ciudad que sitúa a las personas como centro de desarrollo e incorpora TICS en la gestión urbana como respuesta a problemas como la contaminación, inseguridad y congestión. Los países desarrollados se enfocan en mejorar la calidad de vida de sus habitantes y trabajan en hacer de las ciudades, espacios inteligentes, incluyentes y sostenibles. En el ámbito académico, el término “smart city” ha tenido un interés en aumento, como se demuestra en una búsqueda en la base de datos WoS de Clarivate, en la cual se registran 9 records para el 2011 incrementándose a 950 records en 2019. De los resultados de la búsqueda se obtuvo una muestra de 2833 documentos en el periodo entre 2001 – 2019. Al ser un área de conocimiento en desarrollo es relevante conocer las tendencias que enmarcan su evolución. El análisis propuesto se basa en los postulados de la bibliometría y la cienciometría, que por medio del examen de los patrones de coocurrencia de términos y de la evaluación de la fortaleza de vínculos entre componentes de una red, se infiere la existencia de grupos o clusters de conocimiento, se reconocen temáticas emergentes, temáticas en declive, publicaciones relevantes, entre otras. Para el procesamiento de datos se implementó la herramienta VOSviewer, el cual es un software gratuito para la visualización de redes de conocimiento. En el estudio se puede observar que el área de conocimiento se focaliza en 3 temáticas: 1) Desarrollo de ciudades a partir de la innovación y sostenibilidad, 2) diseño y administración de ciudades a través del internet e internet de las cosas y 3) marcos de trabajo basados en bigdata encaminados hacia la gobernanza. Estos resultados orientan a los investigadores interesados en ampliar los horizontes de esta temática y en buscar nuevos paradigmas relacionados con Smart city

Molecular characterization of multidrug resistant Enterobacterales strains isolated from liver and kidney transplant recipients in Spain

The objective of this study was to analyse the mechanisms of resistance to carbapenems and other extended-spectrum-?-lactams and to determine the genetic relatedness of multidrug-resistant Enterobacterales (MDR-E) causing colonization or infection in solid-organ transplantation (SOT) recipients. Prospective cohort study in kidney (n= 142), liver (n= 98) or kidney/pancreas (n= 7) transplant recipients between 2014 and 2018 in seven Spanish hospitals. We included 531 MDR-E isolates from rectal swabs obtained before transplantation and weekly for 4?6 weeks after the procedure and 10 MDR-E from clinical samples related to an infection. Overall, 46.2% Escherichia coli, 35.3% Klebsiella pneumoniae, 6.5% Enterobacter cloacae, 6.3% Citrobacter freundii and 5.7% other species were isolated. The number of patients with MDR-E colonization post-transplantation (176; 71.3%) was 2.5-fold the number of patients colonized pre-transplantation (71; 28.7%). Extended spectrum ?-lactamases (ESBLs) and carbapenemases were detected in 78.0% and 21.1% of MDR-E isolates respectively. In nine of the 247 (3.6%) transplant patients, the microorganism causing an infection was the same strain previously cultured from surveillance rectal swabs. In our study we have observed a low rate of MDR-E infection in colonized patients 4?6 weeks post-transplantation. E. coli producing blaCTX-M-G1 and K. pneumoniae harbouring blaOXA-48 alone or with blaCTX-M-G1 were the most prevalent MDR-E colonization strains in SOT recipients.Acknowledgements The authors thank Mª Jesús Lecea and Laura Álvarez for technical assistance. Tis research was supported by ‘Plan Nacional de I+D+i and Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias 13/01191), Subdirección General de Redes y Centros de Investigación Cooperativa, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, and the Spanish Network for Research in Infectious Diseases (REIPI RD16/0016/0007, RD16/0016/0010, RD16/0016/0012, RD16/0016/0011, RD16/0016/0008, RD16/0016/0002). Te study was co-fnanced by the European Development Regional Fund “A way to achieve Europe” and the Operative Program Intelligent Growth 2014‐2020

Biochemical diversity of carboxyl Esterases and Lipases from Lake Arreo (Spain) : a metagenomic approach

The esterases and lipases from the / hydrolase superfamily exhibit an enormous sequence diversity, fold plasticity, and activities. Here, we present the comprehensive sequence and biochemical analyses of seven distinct esterases and lipases from the metagenome of Lake Arreo, an evaporite karstic lake in Spain (42°46=N, 2°59=W; altitude, 655 m). Together with oligonucleotide usage patterns and BLASTP analysis, our study of esterases/lipases mined from Lake Arreo suggests that its sediment contains moderately halophilic and cold-adapted proteobacteria containing DNA fragments of distantly related plasmids or chromosomal genomic islands of plasmid and phage origins. This metagenome encodes esterases/lipases with broad substrate profiles (tested over a set of 101 structurally diverse esters) and habitat-specific characteristics, as they exhibit maximal activity at alkaline pH (8.0 to 8.5) and temperature of 16 to 40°C, and they are stimulated (1.5 to 2.2 times) by chloride ions (0.1 to 1.2 M), reflecting an adaptation to environmental conditions. Our work provides further insights into the potential significance of the Lake Arreo esterases/lipases for biotechnology processes (i.e., production of enantiomers and sugar esters), because these enzymes are salt tolerant and are active at low temperatures and against a broad range of substrates. As an example, the ability of a single protein to hydrolyze triacylglycerols, (non)halogenated alkyl and aryl esters, cinnamoyl and carbohydrate esters, lactones, and chiral epoxides to a similar extent was demonstrated.The Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (project CSD2007-00005), the European Community project MAGICPAH (FP7-KBBE-2009-245226), the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and the Government of Canada through Genome Canada, Ontario Genomics Institute, and Ontario Research Fund (2009-OGI-ABC-1405 and ORF-GL2-01-004). M.-E.G. thanks the CSIC for a JAE fellowship.http://aem.asm.org/am201

SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity are associated with genetic variants affecting gene expression in a variety of tissues

Variability in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity between individuals is partly due to genetic factors. Here, we identify 4 genomic loci with suggestive associations for SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and 19 for COVID-19 disease severity. Four of these 23 loci likely have an ethnicity-specific component. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) signals in 11 loci colocalize with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) associated with the expression of 20 genes in 62 tissues/cell types (range: 1:43 tissues/gene), including lung, brain, heart, muscle, and skin as well as the digestive system and immune system. We perform genetic fine mapping to compute 99% credible SNP sets, which identify 10 GWAS loci that have eight or fewer SNPs in the credible set, including three loci with one single likely causal SNP. Our study suggests that the diverse symptoms and disease severity of COVID-19 observed between individuals is associated with variants across the genome, affecting gene expression levels in a wide variety of tissue types

Whole-genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical COVID-19

Critical COVID-19 is caused by immune-mediated inflammatory lung injury. Host genetic variation influences the development of illness requiring critical care1 or hospitalization2–4 after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The GenOMICC (Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care) study enables the comparison of genomes from individuals who are critically ill with those of population controls to find underlying disease mechanisms. Here we use whole-genome sequencing in 7,491 critically ill individuals compared with 48,400 controls to discover and replicate 23 independent variants that significantly predispose to critical COVID-19. We identify 16 new independent associations, including variants within genes that are involved in interferon signalling (IL10RB and PLSCR1), leucocyte differentiation (BCL11A) and blood-type antigen secretor status (FUT2). Using transcriptome-wide association and colocalization to infer the effect of gene expression on disease severity, we find evidence that implicates multiple genes—including reduced expression of a membrane flippase (ATP11A), and increased expression of a mucin (MUC1)—in critical disease. Mendelian randomization provides evidence in support of causal roles for myeloid cell adhesion molecules (SELE, ICAM5 and CD209) and the coagulation factor F8, all of which are potentially druggable targets. Our results are broadly consistent with a multi-component model of COVID-19 pathophysiology, in which at least two distinct mechanisms can predispose to life-threatening disease: failure to control viral replication; or an enhanced tendency towards pulmonary inflammation and intravascular coagulation. We show that comparison between cases of critical illness and population controls is highly efficient for the detection of therapeutically relevant mechanisms of disease

MAGIC and H.E.S.S. detect VHE gamma rays from the blazar OT081 for the first time: a deep multiwavelength study

https://pos.sissa.it/395/815/pdfPublished versio

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

A first update on mapping the human genetic architecture of COVID-19

peer reviewe