Supporting Continuous Media: Is Serial Storage Architecture (SSA) Better Than SCSI?

The existing SCSI parallel bus has been widely used in supporting multimedia applications. However, it may not fully utilize the aggregate throughput from disks in supporting continuous media because of its unfair bus accesses. The emerging serial interface, Serial Storage Architecture (SSA), provides high data bandwidth, fair accesses, and fault tolerance. The fairness algorithm in SSA ensures a fraction of data bandwidth is allocated to each disk. In this paper, we study the performance of SSA and SCSI in supporting continuous media. 1 Introduction A multimedia server should guarantee continuous display of video without jitters by allocating enough network bandwidth, memory, and storage resources. Because of the high bandwidth requirements, a multimedia server must have large storage capacity, high performance I/O, and network subsystems. Even though the existing SCSI parallel bus has been widely used for most of storage subsystems, unfair accesses on an SCSI bus may hinder with su..

The unreversible reduced but persistent activated NK and CD8+ T cells in severe/critical COVID-19 during omicron pandemic in China

ABSTRACTAs a hallmark of COVID-19 progression, lymphopenia alongside its subtle immune disturbance has been widely reported, but yet to be thoroughly elucidated. Aiming at exploring clinical immune biomarkers with accessibility in the current and acute omicron epidemic abrupted in China post-control era, we design a real-world prospective observation cohort in Peking Union Medical College Hospital to describe immunological, haematological profiles inducing lymphocyte subsets related to SARS-CoV-2 infection. In this COVID-19 cohort, we enrolled 17 mild/moderate (M/M), 24 severe (S) and 25 critical (C) patients. The dynamics of lymphocytes of COVID-19 demonstrated that the sharp decline of NK, CD8+, and CD4+ T cell counts was the main contributor to lymphopenia in the S/C group, compared to the M/M group. Expressions of activation marker CD38 and proliferation marker Ki-67 both in CD8+ T and NK cells were significantly higher in all COVID-19 patients than that in healthy donors, independent of disease severity. The subsequent analysis showed in contrast to the M/M group, NK and CD8+ T cell counts remained low-level after therapy in the S/C group. CD38 and Ki-67 expressions in NK and CD8+ T cells still stay at a high level, despite active treatment. Targeting relatively elderly patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection, severe COVID-19 features the unreversible reduction of NK and CD8+ T cells with persistent activation and proliferation, which assist clinicians in early recognizing and saving severe or critical COVID-19 patients. Given that immunophenotype, the new immunotherapy improving NK and CD8+ T lymphocyte antiviral efficiency should be considered

The prevalence of drug resistance among treatment-naïve HIV-1-infected individuals in China during pre- and post- 2004

Abstract Background The widespread use of antiretroviral therapies has led to considerable concerns about the prevalence of drug-resistant, as transmission of drug-resistant (TDR) strains poses a challenge for the control of the HIV-1 epidemic. Methods We conducted an epidemiological study enrolling treatment-naïve HIV-1-positive subjects at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital since 1991. Drug resistance was determined by submitting the sequences to the Stanford University Network HIV-1 database. Results Of 521 participants, 478 samples were amplified and sequenced successfully. HIV Transmitted drug resistance prevalence in China was determined to be 6.7 %. We did not find significant differences in the TDR rate by demographic characteristics. No significant time trend in the prevalence of overall TDR was observed (p > 0.05). Conclusions We identified an intermediate prevalence of transmitted drug resistance (TDR), exhibiting a stable time trend. These findings enhance our understanding of HIV-1 drug resistance prevalence and time trend, and provide some guidelines for the comprehensive public health strategy of TDR prevention