Restless legs syndrome: a new entity of neuropathic pain? Treatment with prolonged release oxycodone/naloxone combination

Franco Gemignani,1 Andrea Melpignano,1,2 Giulia Milioli,1,2 Silvia Riccardi,1,2 Liborio Parrino1,2 1Neurology Unit, Department of Neurosciences, University of Parma, Parma, Italy; 2Sleep Disorders Center, Department of Neurosciences, University of Parma, Parma, Italy Abstract: Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a disorder of sensorimotor integration characterized by an urge to move the legs when at rest, especially at night or in the evening, which is relieved by movement. Sensory symptoms may be prominent, often exhibiting features consistent with neuropathic pain. Iron deficiency and genetic factors are implicated in RLS causation in most patients. The pathogenetic model of impaired circadian dopaminergic modulation of sensorimotor integration circuitry at the spinal level is fitting with the co-occurrence of movement disorders, sensory symptoms, and sleep disruption in RLS. Accordingly, levodopa and dopamine agonists are effective for RLS symptoms, which compensate for the impaired descending control by diencephalo-spinal dopa(min)ergic pathway. Dopamine agonists are usually indicated as the first-line therapy, but their use in long-term treatment is often complicated by augmentation and impulse control disorder, thus alpha-2-delta ligands also are now considered the first line of treatment. It has been recognized that endogenous opioid system is also involved in the mechanisms generating RLS, possibly through an impaired modulation of pain pathways. Opioids can be considered as an alternative therapy, particularly in patients with augmentation and/or refractory to other treatments. Recently introduced prolonged-release oxycodone–naloxone was efficacious for short-term treatment of patients with severe RLS inadequately controlled with previous treatment. It will be important to assess whether opioids, as well as other drugs, are especially effective in definite RLS subtypes such as the painful phenotype. Keywords: small fiber neuropathy, allodynia, hyperalgesi

GORA: Goodput Optimal Rate Adaptation for 802.11 using Medium Status Estimation,”

Abstract-Rate Adaptation for 802.11 has been deeply investigated in the past, but the problem of achieving optimal Rate Adaptation with respect not only to channel-related errors but also to contention-related issues (i.e., collisions and variations in medium access times) is still unsolved. In this paper we address this issue by proposing 1) a practical definition of the Medium Status in a multi-user 802.11 scenario in terms of channel errors, MAC collisions and packet service times, and a method for its estimation based on measurements; 2) an analytical model of the goodput performance as a function of the Medium Status; 3) a rate adaptation algorithm, called Goodput Optimal Rate Adaptation (GORA), which is based on this model. Unlike other Rate Adaptation schemes proposed in literature, which require either modifications to the IEEE 802.11 standard or cooperation among nodes, GORA is totally stand-alone and standard compliant. In fact, the Medium Status Estimation used by GORA is obtained by using standard MAC counters that are commonly collected by commercial MAC drivers, and no explicit interactions with the other devices in the network is required. Therefore, GORA offers the advantage of being readily deployable on real devices. The performance of GORA is evaluated through NS2 simulations which reveal that, as expected, GORA outperforms other wellknown Rate Adaptation algorithms in several scenarios and can be used as a new reference benchmark

Analysis of File Transfer Protocol Over Bluetooth Radio Link

TCP is the current dominant transport protocol, mainly used in fixed networks. It is well-known that TCP performance may degrade over paths that include wireless links, where packet losses are often not related to congestion, but to the unreliability of the transmission medium. In this paper, we examine this problem considering a wireless link based on Bluetooth radio equipment. Bluetooth (BT) is a low-cost system in the unlicensed 2.4GHz band. It provides a reliable data transmission using fast frequency hopping technique and Stop-and-Wait ARQ scheme. In our experiments, we have studied the performance of a heavy file transfer over a BT link, with different environmental conditions and BT radio packet formats. Results show that the best FTP performance in a wide range of radio channel conditions is obtained by using long non-FEC-protected radio packets. Nevertheless, in particularly hostile situations, the intermediate-length packet format appears more suitable. Furthermore, analysis has focused the possibility of inefficiency due to bad interaction between TCP and BT retransmission mechanisms

GORA: Goodput Optimal Rate Adaptation for 802.11 using Medium Status Estimation

Rate adaptation for 802.11 has been deeply investigated in the past, but the problem of achieving optimal rate adaptation with respect not only to channel-related errors but also to contention-related issues (i.e., collisions and variations in medium access times) is still unsolved. In this paper we address this issue by proposing (1) a practical definition of the medium status in a multi-user 802.11 scenario in terms of channel errors, MAC collisions and packet service times, and a method for its estimation based on measurements; (2) an analytical model of the goodput performance as a function of the Medium Status; (3) a rate adaptation algorithm, called goodput optimal rate adaptation (GORA), which is based on this model. Unlike other rate adaptation schemes proposed in literature, which require either modifications to the IEEE 802.11 standard or cooperation among nodes, GORA is totally stand-alone and standard compliant. In fact, the Medium Status Estimation used by GORA is obtained by using standard MAC counters that are commonly collected by commercial MAC drivers, and no explicit interactions with the other devices in the network is required. Therefore, GORA offers the advantage of being readily deployable on real devices. The performance of GORA is evaluated through NS2 simulations which reveal that, as expected, GORA outperforms other well- known rate adaptation algorithms in several scenarios and can be used as a new reference benchmark

VARIATION OF PERIODONTAL INDEXES DURING THE SAME DAY.

Vedi allegat

APOS: Adaptive Parameters Optimization Scheme for Voice over IEEE 802.11g

In this paper we present APOS, a method for dynamically adapting the parameters of IEEE 802.11 g to the estimated system state, with the aim of enhancing the quality of a voice communication between a mobile station and a remote peer node. The system state is estimated based on a number of counters that are collected by the MAC layer of the mobile station, regarding the number of successful and unsuccessful transmission/reception events, channel busy periods and idle slots. These statistics are processed to estimate the collision probability and the signal to noise ratio at the receiver side. Hence, a mathematical model is used to get the expected end-to-end network performance in terms of throughput, delay and packet error rate, for different settings of some PHY and MAC parameters, such as the modulation/coding scheme and the retransmission limit. The setting that is estimated to maximize the quality of service for the end user is then selected. Unlike other optimization mechanisms proposed in literature, APOS is totally stand-alone and standard compliant. In fact, APOS makes use of local information that can be collected from the Network Interface Card, and no explicit interactions with the other devices in the network is required