Virtual numbers for virtual machines?

Knowing the number of virtual machines (VMs) that a cloud physical hardware can (further) support is critical as it has implications on provisioning and hardware procurement. However, current methods for estimating the maximum number of VMs possible on a given hardware is usually the ratio of the specifications of a VM to the underlying cloud hardware’s specifications. Such naive and linear estimation methods mostly yield impractical limits as to how many VMs the hardware can actually support. It was found that if we base on the naive division method, user experience on VMs at those limits would be severely degraded. In this paper, we demonstrate through experimental results, the significant gap between the limits derived using the estimation method mentioned above and the actual situation. We believe for a more practicable estimation of the limits of the underlying infrastructure

Time for Cloud? Design and implementation of a time-based cloud resource management system

The current pay-per-use model adopted by public cloud service providers has influenced the perception on how a cloud should provide its resources to end-users, i.e. on-demand and access to an unlimited amount of resources. However, not all clouds are equal. While such provisioning models work for well-endowed public clouds, they may not always work well in private clouds with limited budget and resources such as research and education clouds. Private clouds also stand to be impacted greatly by issues such as user resource hogging and the misuse of resources for nefarious activities. These problems are usually caused by challenges such as (1) limited physical servers/ budget, (2) growing number of users and (3) the inability to gracefully and automatically relinquish resources from inactive users. Currently, cloud resource management frameworks used for private cloud setups, such as OpenStack and CloudStack, only uses the pay-per-use model as the basis when provisioning resources to users. In this paper, we propose OpenStack Café, a novel methodology adopting the concepts of 'time' and booking systems' to manage resources of private clouds. By allowing users to book resources over specific time-slots, our proposed solution can efficiently and automatically help administrators manage users' access to resource, addressing the issue of resource hogging and gracefully relinquish resources back to the pool in resource-constrained private cloud setups. Work is currently in progress to adopt Café into OpenStack as a feature, and results of our prototype show promises. We also present some insights to lessons learnt during the design and implementation of our proposed methodology in this paper

The FNAL injector upgrade

The present FNAL H- injector has been operational since the 1970s and consists of two magnetron H- sources and two 750 keV Cockcroft-Walton Accelerators. In the upgrade, both slit-type magnetron sources will be replaced with circular aperture sources, and the Cockcroft-Waltons with a 200 MHz RFQ (radio frequency quadrupole). Operational experience at BNL (Brookhaven National Laboratory) has shown that the upgraded source and RFQ will be more reliable, improve beam quality and require less manpower than the present system.Comment: 3 pp. Particle Accelerator, 24th Conference (PAC'11) 2011. 28 Mar - 1 Apr 2011. New York, US

Revealing copper contamination at the Penang industrial area by using Malaysian mussel watch approach.

Concentrations of Cd, Cu, Ni, Fe, Pb and Zn were determined in the four different parts of soft tissues and shells of Perna viridis collected from 6 geographical sites in the Straits of Malacca in 2005. All the 6 metal concentrations except for Cu were considered low and comparable to those reported in the literature. The Cu concentrations found in the Penang population was found to be extremely elevated and exceeding the ranges for most reported studies as well as safety guidelines, which may be derived from a variety of industrial activities at Penang industrial area. Therefore, the consumption of mussels collected from the intertidal water adjacent to Penang Industrial Area should be given a special caution since human consumption on the mussels could pose toxicological risk of Cu. The present study showed that the Penang coastal water was receiving industrial effluents as a point source of Cu pollution as indicated by the elevated concentration of Cu in the different soft tissues of P. viridis

Enhanced critical current density in MgB2 superconductor via Si and C coadditions.

In this study, nanosize Silicon and Carbon (Si+C) were reacted with MgB2 in order to enhance the critical current density. The polycrystalline bulks were synthesized by the direct in situ reaction method and their phase formation, crystal structure, and superconducting properties were evaluated. The enhanced relative peak intensity of Mg2Si and MgB4 indicates the formation of a large volume fraction of these two phases with increasing (Si+C) additions. The a-axis lattice parameter shrinks significantly while c-axis increases slightly. The estimated C doping level at B site increases, leading to a degradation of the superconducting transition temperature with increasing (Si+C) additions. By a reaction with (Si+C), the field dependence of critical current density is shown to enhance at both 5 K and 20 K

An electrochemical DNA biosensor based gold-thiolate conjugation utilizing ruthenium complex [Ru(dppz)<inf>2</inf>(qtpy)]Cl<inf>2</inf>

Non toxicity and high isoelectric point of zinc oxide nanorods (ZnO NRs) are the promising materials widely used in biomolecule detection and biomedicine application. An electrochemical DNA biosensor was successfully fabricated by depositing (3-Aminopropyl)triethoxysilane and gold nanoparticles (GNPs) on the hydrothermal growth ZnO NRs. The modified surface with GNPs (35 ± 5 nm) was characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray and X-ray diffraction. The fabricated electrode was used for the label-free detection of DNA. Thiolated (–SH) single stranded DNA was immobilized onto the GNPs surface to form a gold-thiolate bond. Hybridization with complementary target DNA was performed with the presence of ruthenium complex. Immobilization and hybridization detection were performed using µAUTOLAB with cyclic voltammetric software. The measured sensitivity of the fabricated electrode for hybridization is up to 1.6 times larger than immobilization. © 2016, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Protocadherin 19 (PCDH19) interacts with paraspeckle protein NONO to co-regulate gene expression with estrogen receptor alpha (ERalpha)

De novo and inherited mutations of X-chromosome cell adhesion molecule protocadherin 19 (PCDH19) cause frequent, highly variable epilepsy, autism, cognitive decline and behavioural problems syndrome. Intriguingly, hemizygous null males are not affected while heterozygous females are, contradicting established X-chromosome inheritance. The disease mechanism is not known. Cellular mosaicism is the likely driver. We have identified p54nrb/NONO, a multifunctional nuclear paraspeckle protein with known roles in nuclear hormone receptor gene regulation, as a PCDH19 protein interacting partner. Using breast cancer cells we show that PCDH19-NONO complex is a positive co-regulator of ERα-mediated gene expression. Expression of mutant PCDH19 affects at least a subset of known ERα-regulated genes. These data are consistent with our findings that genes regulated by nuclear hormone receptors and those involved in the metabolism of neurosteroids in particular are dysregulated in PCDH19-epilepsy girls and affected mosaic males. Overall we define and characterize a novel mechanism of gene regulation driven by PCDH19, which is mediated by paraspeckle constituent NONO and is ERα-dependent. This PCDH19-NONO-ERα axis is of relevance not only to PCDH19-epilepsy and its comorbidities but likely also to ERα and generally nuclear hormone receptor-associated cancers.Duyen H. Pham, Chuan C. Tan, Claire C. Homan, Kristy L. Kolc, Mark A. Corbett, Dale McAninch, Archa H. Fox, Paul Q. Thomas, Raman Kumar Jozef Gec

Inferring User Actions from Provenance Logs

Progger, a kernel-spaced cloud data provenance logger which provides fine-grained data activity records, was recently developed to empower cloud stakeholders to trace data life cycles within and across clouds. Progger logs have the potential to allow analysts to infer user actions and create a data-centric behaviour history in a cloud computing environment. However, the Progger logs are complex and noisy and therefore, currently this potential can not be met. This paper proposes a statistical approach to efficiently infer the user actions from the Progger logs. Inferring logs which capture activities at kernel-level granularity is not a straightforward endeavour. This paper overcomes this challenge through an approach which shows a high level of accuracy. The key aspects of this approach are identifying the data preprocessing steps and attribute selection. We then use four standard classification models and identify the model which provides the most accurate inference on user actions. To our best knowledge, this is the first work of its kind. We also discuss a number of possible extensions to this work. Possible future applications include the ability to predict an anomalous security activity before it occurs

Quality of Life and Treatment Satisfaction Among Patients on Long Term Oral Anticoagulant in A Developing Country

Background: Randomised phase III studies had proven the efficacy and safety profile of direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) over warfarin in stroke and systemic embolism prevention for patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and venous thromboembolism (VTE). Nevertheless, patients’ quality of life (QOL) and treatment satisfaction was not explored in these studies. Objective: The primary objective of this study was to compare the QOL and treatment satisfaction of patients on long term warfarin versus DOACs in a tertiary hospital in Malaysia. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of patients with nonvalvular AF (NVAF) or VTE on long term warfarin versus DOACs attending the cardiology clinic and anticoagulation clinic of University Malaya Medical Centre from 1 st July 2016 to 30 st June 2018. Patients’ QOL was assessed by using Short Form 12v2 Health Survey (SF12v2); while treatment satisfaction was assessed by using Perception of Anticoagulation Treatment Questionnaire 2 (PACT-Q2). Results: Of 208 patients, 52.4% received warfarin and remaining 47.6% received DOACs. The warfarin group was significantly younger and had longer treatment duration (p b 0.001); while DOAC group had significant more underlying NVAF (p b 0.001) and polypharmacy (p= 0.003). There was no significant difference in the score of physical component summary (PCS) (p= 0.083), mental component summary (MCS) (p = 0.665) and each domain of SF-12v12 (p = 0.058 – 0.953) between anticoagulant groups. There were no differences between the 2 groups of anticoagulants even after adjustment of age. The satisfactionscore was significant higher in DOACs group compared to warfarin group (p = 0.003); but there was no difference in the convenience score (p= 0.234). Hospitalisation rate was significantly higher (p = 0.002) in warfarin group. Only 45.0% of patients achieved good time in therapeutic range (TTR). Conclusions: Despite no significant difference in QOL, patients with AF or VTE who were treated with DOACs demonstrated better efficacy, safety, and satisfaction profile, as well as a relatively stable within-group QOL