Virtual WLAN: Going beyond Virtual Access Points

Wireless nodes equipped with multiple radio interfaces open up new fields of application. Ranging from multi-channel usage in a cell in order to increase the bandwidth to the creation of meshed multi-hop topologies. Using multiple wireless cards demands a large physical space, more energy consumption and as a consequence decreasing in the battery lifetime. Virtualization of the wireless network interface, which means to use a single wireless network interface to connect to more than one network simultaneously, seems to be a promising approach, since it allows us to realize the mentioned scenarios only with one radio interface. In this paper, we want to shed light on the state of the art and want to introduce new approaches to push this field beyond the current status

Unified representation of monitoring information across federated cloud infrastructures

Nowadays one of the issues hindering the potential of federating cloud-based infrastructures to reach much larger scales is their standard management and monitoring. In particular, this is true in cases where these federated infrastructures provide emerging Future Internet and Smart Cities-oriented services, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), that benefit from cloud services. The contribution of this paper is the introduction of a unified monitoring architecture for federated cloud infrastructures accompanied by the adoption of a uniform representation of measurement data. The presented solution is capable of providing multi-domain compatibility, scalability, as well as the ability to analyze large amounts of monitoring data, collected from datacenters and offered through open and standardized APIs. The solution described herein has been deployed and is currently running on a community of 5 infrastructures within the framework of the European Project XIFI, to be extended to 12 more infrastructures

FIWARE Lab: managing resources and services in a cloud federation supporting future internet applications

Real-world experimentation facilities accelerate the development of Future Internet technologies and services, advance the market for smart infrastructures, and increase the effectiveness of business processes through the Internet. The federation of facilities fosters the experimentation and innovation with larger and more powerful environment, increases the number and variety of the offered services and brings forth possibilities for new experimentation scenarios. This paper introduces a management solution for cloud federation that automates service provisioning to the largest possible extent, relieves the developers from time-consuming configuration settings, and caters for real-time information of all information related to the whole lifecycle of the provisioned services. This is achieved by proposing solutions to achieve the seamless deployment of services across the federation and ability of services to span across different infrastructures of the federation, as well as monitoring of the resources and data which can be aggregated with a common structure, offered as an open ecosystem for innovation at the developers' disposal. This solution consists of several federation management tools and components that are part of the work on Cloud Federation conducted within XIFI project to build the federation of cloud infrastructures for the Future Internet Lab (FIWARE Lab). We present the design and implementation of the solution-concerned FIWARE Lab management tools and components that are deployed within a federation of 17 cloud infrastructures distributed across Europe

BonFIRE: A multi-cloud test facility for internet of services experimentation

BonFIRE offers a Future Internet, multi-site, cloud testbed, targeted at the Internet of Services community, that supports large scale testing of applications, services and systems over multiple, geographically distributed, heterogeneous cloud testbeds. The aim of BonFIRE is to provide an infrastructure that gives experimenters the ability to control and monitor the execution of their experiments to a degree that is not found in traditional cloud facilities. The BonFIRE architecture has been designed to support key functionalities such as: resource management; monitoring of virtual and physical infrastructure metrics; elasticity; single document experiment descriptions; and scheduling. As for January 2012 BonFIRE release 2 is operational, supporting seven pilot experiments. Future releases will enhance the offering, including the interconnecting with networking facilities to provide access to routers, switches and bandwidth-on-demand systems. BonFIRE will be open for general use late 2012

Federation of Internet experimentation facilities: architecture and implementation

International audienceRealistic experimentation facilities are indispensable to accelerate the design of novel Future Internet systems. As many of these ground-breaking new applications and services cover multiple innovation areas, the need for these solutions to be tested on cross-domain facilities with both novel infrastructure technologies and newly emerging service platforms is rising. The Fed4FIRE project therefore aims at federatingotherwise isolated experimentation facilities in order to foster synergies between research communities. Currently the federation includes over 15 facilities from the Future Internet Research and Experiment (FIRE) initiative, covering wired, wireless and sensor networks, SDN and OpenFlow, cloud computing, smart city services,etc.This paper presents the architecture and implementation details of the federation, based on an extensive set of requirements coming from infrastructure owners, service providers and support communitie

Architecture for the heterogeneous federation of future internet experimentation facilities

International audienceInternet systems are currently too complex to be entirely designed in advance and therefore must be thoroughly evaluated in realistic environments. Experimentally driven research is at the heart of Future Internet Research and Experiment (FIRE) facilities, which target various experimenter profiles, ranging from core Internet communities and sensor networks to clouds and web services. Such facilities exist in relative isolation to the detriment of innovative research ideas that could arise from the mixture of their diverse technologies and resources, and their combined power. Internet research communities can benefit from gaining access to a larger number and variety of resources through a federation of these facilities. To this end, we present an architecture to support such a federation of Future Internet experimentation facilities, based on use cases and requirements from infrastructure owners, as well as services and first line support communities

The Saudi Critical Care Society practice guidelines on the management of COVID-19 in the ICU: Therapy section

BACKGROUND: The rapid increase in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases during the subsequent waves in Saudi Arabia and other countries prompted the Saudi Critical Care Society (SCCS) to put together a panel of experts to issue evidence-based recommendations for the management of COVID-19 in the intensive care unit (ICU). METHODS: The SCCS COVID-19 panel included 51 experts with expertise in critical care, respirology, infectious disease, epidemiology, emergency medicine, clinical pharmacy, nursing, respiratory therapy, methodology, and health policy. All members completed an electronic conflict of interest disclosure form. The panel addressed 9 questions that are related to the therapy of COVID-19 in the ICU. We identified relevant systematic reviews and clinical trials, then used the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach as well as the evidence-to-decision framework (EtD) to assess the quality of evidence and generate recommendations. RESULTS: The SCCS COVID-19 panel issued 12 recommendations on pharmacotherapeutic interventions (immunomodulators, antiviral agents, and anticoagulants) for severe and critical COVID-19, of which 3 were strong recommendations and 9 were weak recommendations. CONCLUSION: The SCCS COVID-19 panel used the GRADE approach to formulate recommendations on therapy for COVID-19 in the ICU. The EtD framework allows adaptation of these recommendations in different contexts. The SCCS guideline committee will update recommendations as new evidence becomes available

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London

Surgical site infection after gastrointestinal surgery in high-income, middle-income, and low-income countries: a prospective, international, multicentre cohort study

Background: Surgical site infection (SSI) is one of the most common infections associated with health care, but its importance as a global health priority is not fully understood. We quantified the burden of SSI after gastrointestinal surgery in countries in all parts of the world. Methods: This international, prospective, multicentre cohort study included consecutive patients undergoing elective or emergency gastrointestinal resection within 2-week time periods at any health-care facility in any country. Countries with participating centres were stratified into high-income, middle-income, and low-income groups according to the UN's Human Development Index (HDI). Data variables from the GlobalSurg 1 study and other studies that have been found to affect the likelihood of SSI were entered into risk adjustment models. The primary outcome measure was the 30-day SSI incidence (defined by US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria for superficial and deep incisional SSI). Relationships with explanatory variables were examined using Bayesian multilevel logistic regression models. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02662231. Findings: Between Jan 4, 2016, and July 31, 2016, 13 265 records were submitted for analysis. 12 539 patients from 343 hospitals in 66 countries were included. 7339 (58·5%) patient were from high-HDI countries (193 hospitals in 30 countries), 3918 (31·2%) patients were from middle-HDI countries (82 hospitals in 18 countries), and 1282 (10·2%) patients were from low-HDI countries (68 hospitals in 18 countries). In total, 1538 (12·3%) patients had SSI within 30 days of surgery. The incidence of SSI varied between countries with high (691 [9·4%] of 7339 patients), middle (549 [14·0%] of 3918 patients), and low (298 [23·2%] of 1282) HDI (p < 0·001). The highest SSI incidence in each HDI group was after dirty surgery (102 [17·8%] of 574 patients in high-HDI countries; 74 [31·4%] of 236 patients in middle-HDI countries; 72 [39·8%] of 181 patients in low-HDI countries). Following risk factor adjustment, patients in low-HDI countries were at greatest risk of SSI (adjusted odds ratio 1·60, 95% credible interval 1·05–2·37; p=0·030). 132 (21·6%) of 610 patients with an SSI and a microbiology culture result had an infection that was resistant to the prophylactic antibiotic used. Resistant infections were detected in 49 (16·6%) of 295 patients in high-HDI countries, in 37 (19·8%) of 187 patients in middle-HDI countries, and in 46 (35·9%) of 128 patients in low-HDI countries (p < 0·001). Interpretation: Countries with a low HDI carry a disproportionately greater burden of SSI than countries with a middle or high HDI and might have higher rates of antibiotic resistance. In view of WHO recommendations on SSI prevention that highlight the absence of high-quality interventional research, urgent, pragmatic, randomised trials based in LMICs are needed to assess measures aiming to reduce this preventable complication

Vereinheitlichung von Monitoring Schnittstellen von föderierten Cloud und Future Internet Testbed Infrastrukturen

The federation of information and communication technology infrastructures is gaining significant attention from academia and industry, in particular in the fields of cloud and Future Internet testbeds, where heterogeneous resources and services are shared across multiple administrative domains. This is because of its multilateral benefits for users and infrastructure providers in terms of increasing the capacity of resources and diversity of offerings, as well as efficient resource utilization and complementarity. A major challenge in such federated environments is the exchange of monitoring data across the federation due to the variety and heterogeneity of the tools and interfaces used. Much effort has been made to unify interfaces by the use of common data models and protocols that are task or domain specific, particularly in the network domain. This hinders their application in other domains without significant modifications, becoming even more complex in federated, heterogeneous domains. This thesis addresses this issue and provides an architecture for the unification of monitoring interfaces to enable a unified data representation across federated, heterogeneous infrastructures. This is achieved by three mechanisms: first, an adaptation layer on top of the tools deployed at infrastructure level is responsible for providing the data in a unified representation through a common interface; second, the use of a flexible, extensible and schema-independent data transportation protocol; and third, the use of a common information model that is based on Semantic Web technologies and caters for the collection and representation of data in unified, meaningful manner, as well as facilitating interoperability between tools and data consolidation. This thesis delivers three major contributions as the main research results. These are an extensible monitoring architecture for federated, heterogeneous infrastructures, an ontology-based information model for describing monitoring related concepts and relations in federated, heterogeneous infrastructures at the conceptual and semantic levels, and a prototype implementation that has been validated through selected use-case projects.Die Föderation von Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie-Infrastrukturen erhält zur Zeit große Aufmerksamkeit der Forschung und der Industrie. Insbesondere in den Bereichen Cloud und Future Internet Testumgebungen, wo heterogene Ressourcen und Dienstleistungen über die Grenzen administrativer Domänen hinweg bereitgestellt und gemeinsam genutzt sind, zeigen sich die vielseitigen Vorteile für Nutzer und Infrastrukturanbieter im Hinblick auf die Erhöhung der Kapazität der Ressourcen und Angebotsvielfalt sowie effiziente Ressourcennutzung und Komplementarität. Aufgrund der Vielfalt und Heterogenität der verwendeten Werkzeugen und Schnittstellen jedoch, ist der föderationsweite Austausch von Monitoringdaten eine große Herausforderung in solchen föderierten Umgebungen. Viele Ansätze versuchen Schnittstellen durch die Verwendung gemeinsamer Datenmodellen und Protokollen zu vereinheitlichen, doch sind diese aufgaben- oder domänenspezifisch, insbesondere in der Netzwerkdomäne. Dies behindert ihre Anwendung in anderen Domännen ohne nennenswerte Modifikationen, besonders in den komplexen föderierten, heterogenen Domänen. Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit diesem Thema und bietet eine Architektur für die Vereinheitlichung der Monitoringschnittstellen, um eine einheitliche Darstellung von Daten innerhalb von föderierten, heterogenen Infrastrukturen zu ermöglichen. Dies wird durch drei Mechanismen erreicht. Zunächst ist eine Anpassungsschicht auf der eingesetzten Werkzeuge auf Infrastrukturebene für die Bereitstellung der Daten in einer einheitlichen Vertretung über eine gemeinsame Schnittstelle zuständig. Der zweite Mechanismus ist die Verwendung eines flexiblen, erweiterbaren und schemaunabhängigen Datentransportprotokolls. Schließlich ist die Verwendung eines gemeinsamen Informationsmodells, das auf Semantic Web Technologien basiert und für die Erfassung und Darstellung von Daten in einer einheitlichen, sinnvollen Art und Weise, sowie die Erleichterung der Werkzeuginteroperabilität und Datenkonsolidierung sorgt, der dritte Mechanismus. Diese Arbeit liefert drei Hauptbeiträge als Forschungsergebnisse. Diese sind eine erweiterbare Monitoringarchitektur für föderierte heterogene Infrastrukturen, ein Ontologie-basiertes Informationsmodell für die Beschreibung von Monitoring-bezogene Konzepten und Relationen in föderierten heterogenen Infrastrukturen auf der konzeptionellen und semantischen Ebenen, und eine Prototyp-Implementierung, die durch ausgewählte Use-Case-Projekte validiert wurde