570 research outputs found
A Cloud Native Solution for Dynamic Auto Scaling of MME in LTE
Due to rapid growth in the use of mobile
devices and as a vital carrier of IoT traffic, mobile networks
need to undergo infrastructure wide revisions to meet explosive
traffic demand. In addition to data traffic, there has
been a significant rise in the control signaling overhead due
to dense deployment of small cells and IoT devices. Adoption
of technologies like cloud computing, Software Defined
Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization
(NFV) is impressively successful in mitigating the existing
challenges and driving the path towards 5G evolution.
However, issues pertaining to scalability, ease of use, service
resiliency, and high availability need considerable study
for successful roll out of production grade 5G solutions in
cloud. In this work, we propose a scalable Cloud Native
Solution for Mobility Management Entity (CNS-MME) of
mobile core in a production data center based on micro service
architecture. The micro services are lightweight MME
functionalities, in contrast to monolithic MME in Long
Term Evolution (LTE). The proposed architecture is highly
available and supports auto-scaling to dynamically scale-up
and scale-down required micro services for load balancing.
The performance of proposed CNS-MME architecture is
evaluated against monolithic MME in terms of scalability,
auto scaling of the service, resource utilization of MME,
and efficient load balancing features. We observed that,
compared to monolithic MME architecture, CNS-MME
provides 7% higher MME throughput and also reduces
the processing resource consumption by 26%
Unveiling metabolic vulnerability and plasticity of human osteosarcoma stem and differentiated cells to improve cancer therapy
Defining the metabolic phenotypes of cancer-initiating cells or cancer stem cells and of their differentiated counterparts might provide fundamental knowledge for improving or developing more effective therapies. In this context we extensively characterized the metabolic profiles of two osteosarcoma-derived cell lines, the 3AB-OS cancer stem cells and the parental MG-63 cells. To this aim Seahorse methodology-based metabolic flux analysis under a variety of conditions complemented with real time monitoring of cell growth by impedentiometric technique and confocal imaging were carried out. The results attained by selective substrate deprivation or metabolic pathway inhibition clearly show reliance of 3AB-OS on glycolysis and of MG-63 on glutamine oxidation. Treatment of the osteosarcoma cell lines with cisplatin resulted in additive inhibitory effects in MG-63 cells depleted of glutamine whereas it antagonized under selective withdrawal of glucose in 3AB-OS cells thereby manifesting a paradoxical pro-survival, cell-cycle arrest in S phase and antioxidant outcome. All together the results of this study highlight that the efficacy of specific metabolite starvation combined with chemotherapeutic drugs depends on the cancer compartment and suggest cautions in using it as a generalizable curative strategy
Architectural Challenges and Solutions for Collocated LWIP - A Network Layer Perspective
Achieving a tighter level of aggregation between
LTE and Wi-Fi networks at the radio access network (a.k.a.
LTE-Wi-Fi Aggregation or LWA) has become one of the most
prominent solutions in the era of 5G to boost network capacit
y
and improve end user's quality of experience. LWA offers
flexible resource scheduling decisions for steering user tr
affic
via LTE and Wi-Fi links. In this work, we propose a Collocated
LTE/WLAN Radio Level Integration architecture at IP layer
(C-LWIP), an enhancement over 3GPP non-collocated LWIP
architecture. We have evaluated C-LWIP performance in vari
ous
link aggregation strategies (LASs). A C-LWIP node (
i.e.
, the node
having collocated, aggregated LTE eNodeB and Wi-Fi access
point functionalities) is implemented in NS-3 which introd
uces a
traffic steering layer (
i.e.
, Link Aggregation Layer) for efficient
integration of LTE and Wi-Fi. Using extensive simulations,
we
verified the correctness of C-LWIP module in NS-3 and evaluat
ed
the aggregation benefits over standalone LTE and Wi-Fi netwo
rks
with respect to varying number of users and traffic types. We
found that split bearer performs equivalently to switched b
earer
for UDP flows and switched bearer outperforms split bearer in
the case of TCP flows. Also, we have enumerated the potential
challenges to be addressed for unleashing C-LWIP capabilit
ies.
Our findings also include WoD-Link Aggregation Strategy whi
ch
is shown to improve system throughput by 50% as compared to
Naive-LAS in a densely populated indoor stadium environmen
t
Different spatial distribution of inflammatory cells in the tumor microenvironment of ABC and GBC subgroups of diffuse large B cell lymphoma
Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) presents a high clinical and biological heterogeneity, and the tumor microenvironment chracteristics are important in its progression. The aim of this study was to evaluate tumor T, B cells, macrophages and mast cells distribution in GBC and ABC DLBCL subgroups through a set of morphometric parameters allowing to provide a quantitative evaluation of the morphological features of the spatial patterns generated by these inflammatory cells. Histological ABC and GCB samples were immunostained for CD4, CD8, CD68, CD 163, and tryptase in order to determine both percentage and position of positive cells in the tissue characterizing their spatial distribution. The results evidenced that cell patterns generated by CD4-, CD8-, CD68-, CD163- and tryptase-positive cell profiles exhibited a significantly higher uniformity index in ABC than in GCB subgroup. The positive-cell distributions appeared clustered in tissues from GCB, while in tissues from ABC such a feature was lower or absent. The combinations of spatial statistics-derived parameters can lead to better predictions of tumor cell infiltration than any classical morphometric method providing a more accurate description of the functional status of the tumor, useful for patient prognosis
Macro- And micro-nutrient composition and antioxidant activity of Chickpea and Pea Accessions
Epidemiological studies reported an inverse association between the consumption of legumes and the incidence of age-related diseases. This trend could be attributed to the presence of antioxidant compounds, especially phenolic and flavonoid compounds. In this paper, five pea (Pisum sativum L.) and twelve chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) accessions, having different characteristics and geographical origin, were characterised in terms of antioxidant activity, as well as macro- and micro-nutrient composition. The antioxidant activity has been evaluated using both DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydra-zyl) and ABTS (2,2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) radical scavenging capacity assays. Chickpea and pea accessions showed a different behaviour in the presence of these different radicals. Chickpea accessions were characterised by significantly higher DPPH• scavenging activity, while peas showed a significantly higher value of antioxidant activity evaluated using the ABTS assay. Pea accessions had the highest content of total phenolic compounds, Zn, and Cu. A positive correlation was found between some minerals, such as Zn, Cu and P, and the ABTS•+ scavenging activity. Black and brown chickpea accessions showed significantly higher contents of anthocyanins, Mn, Mg, and Ca, which were positively correlated with the antioxidant activity assessed with the DPPH assay. Despite the dataset investigated in our study included a limited number of accessions, it was possible to highlight the influence of the chemical composition on the antioxidant activity due to the high phenotypic diversity found between the accessions, emphasising the importance of selecting the antioxidant activity assay according to the matrix to be evaluated
Balancing selection of a frame-shift mutation in the MRC2 gene accounts for the outbreak of the crooked tail syndrome in Belgian blue cattle
Abstract We herein describe the positional identification of a 2-bp deletion in the open reading frame of the MRC2 receptor causing the recessive Crooked Tail Syndrome in cattle. The resulting frame-shift reveals a premature stop codon that causes nonsense-mediated decay of the mutant messenger RNA, and the virtual absence of functional Endo180 protein in affected animals. Cases exhibit skeletal anomalies thought to result from impaired extracellular matrix remodeling during ossification, and as of yet unexplained muscular symptoms. We demonstrate that carrier status is very significantly associated with desired characteristics in the general population, including enhanced muscular development, and that the resulting heterozygote advantage caused a selective sweep which explains the unexpectedly high frequency (25%) of carriers in the Belgian Blue Cattle Breed
Interferometry with Bose-Einstein Condensates in Microgravity
Atom interferometers covering macroscopic domains of space-time are a
spectacular manifestation of the wave nature of matter. Due to their unique
coherence properties, Bose-Einstein condensates are ideal sources for an atom
interferometer in extended free fall. In this paper we report on the
realization of an asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer operated with a
Bose-Einstein condensate in microgravity. The resulting interference pattern is
similar to the one in the far-field of a double-slit and shows a linear scaling
with the time the wave packets expand. We employ delta-kick cooling in order to
enhance the signal and extend our atom interferometer. Our experiments
demonstrate the high potential of interferometers operated with quantum gases
for probing the fundamental concepts of quantum mechanics and general
relativity.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; 8 pages of supporting materia
The Road to Quantum Computational Supremacy
We present an idiosyncratic view of the race for quantum computational
supremacy. Google's approach and IBM challenge are examined. An unexpected
side-effect of the race is the significant progress in designing fast classical
algorithms. Quantum supremacy, if achieved, won't make classical computing
obsolete.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figur
A protein kinase a-independent pathway controlling aquaporin 2 trafficking as a possible cause for the syndrome of inappropriate antidiuresis associated with polycystic kidney disease 1 haploinsufficiency.
Renal water reabsorption is controlled by vasopressin (AVP) which binds to V2 receptors resulting in PKA activation, phosphorylation of AQP2 at serine 256 (pS256) and translocation to the plasma membrane. Besides S256, AVP causes dephosphorylation of S261. Recent studies showed that cyclin-dependent kinases can phosphorylate S261 AQP2 peptides in vitro. In an attempt to investigate the possible role of cdks on AQP2 phosphorylation, we identified a new PKA-independent pathway regulating AQP2 trafficking. In ex-vivo kidney slices and MDCK-AQP2 cells, R-roscovitine, a specific cdks inhibitor, increased pS256 and decreased pS261. The changes in AQP2 phosphorylation were paralleled by an increase in cell surface AQP2 expression and osmotic water permeability in the absence of forskolin stimulation. Of note, R-roscovitine didn’t alter cAMP-dependent PKA activity. Because phosphorylation results from the balance between kinase and phosphatase activity, we evaluated the possible contribution of protein phosphatases PP1, PP2A and PP2B. Of these, R-roscovitine treatment specifically reduced PP2A protein expression and activity in MDCK cells. Interestingly, in PKD1+/- mice displaying a syndrome of inappropriate antidiuresis with high level of pS256 despite unchanged AVP and cAMP, we found a reduced PP2A expression and activity and reduced pS261. Similarly to what previously found in PKD1+/- mice, R-roscovitine treatment caused a significant decrease in intracellular calcium in MDCK cells.
Our data indicate that a reduced activity of PP2A, secondary to reduced intracellular Ca2+ levels, promotes AQP2 trafficking independently of the AVP-PKA axis. This pathway may be relevant for explaining pathological states characterized by inappropriate AVP secretion and positive water balance
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