Multi-site Resource Allocation in a QoS-Aware 5G Infrastructure

Network softwarization has paved the way for 5G technologies, and a wide-range of (radically new) verticals. As the telecommunications infrastructure evolves into a sort of distributed datacenter, multiple tenants such as vertical industries and network service providers share its aggregate pool of resources (e.g., networking, computing, etc.) in a layered \u201das-a-Service\u201d approach exposed as slice abstractions. The challenge remains in the coordination of various stakeholders\u2019 assets in realizing end-to-end network slices and supporting the multi-site deployment and chaining of the micro-service components needed to implement cloud-native vertical applications (vApps). In this context, particular care must be taken to ensure that the required resources are identified, made available and managed in a way that satisfies the vApp requirements, allows for a fair share of resources and has a reasonable impact on the overall vApp deployment time. With these challenges in mind, this paper presents the Resource Selection Optimizer (RSO)-a software-service in the MATILDA Operations Support System (OSS), whose main goal is to select the most appropriate network and computing resources (according to some criterion) among a list of options provided by the Wide-area Infrastructure Manager (WIM). It consists of three submodules that respectively handle: (i) the aggregation of vApp components based on affinities, (ii) the forecasting of (micro-) datacenter resources utilization, (iii) and the multi-site placement of the (aggregated) vApp micro-service components. The RSO\u2019s performance is mainly evaluated in terms of the execution times of its submodules while varying their respective input parameters, and additionally, three selection policies are also compared. Experimental results aim to highlight the RSO behavior in both execution times and deployment costs, as well as the RSO interactions with other OSS submodules and network platform components, not only for multi-site vApp deployment but also for other network/services management operations

Genetic variability of the ovine αs1-casein

The casein genetic polymorphisms are important for their effects on quantitative traits and technological properties of milk. At the αs1-casein (CSN1S1) level three genetic variants were characterised (A, C, D) in ovine milk (Ferranti et al., 1995)

Proposal of a predictive mixed experimental-numerical approach for assessing the performance of farm tractor engines fuelled with diesel-biodiesel-bioethanol blends

The effect of biofuel blends on the engine performance and emissions of agricultural machines can be extremely complex to predict even if the properties and the effects of the pure substances in the blends can be sourced from the literature. Indeed, on the one hand, internal combustion engines (ICEs) have a high intrinsic operational complexity; on the other hand, biofuels show antithetic effects on engine performance and present positive or negative interactions that are difficult to determine a priori. This study applies the Response Surface Methodology (RSM), a numerical method typically applied in other disciplines (e.g., industrial engineering) and for other purposes (e.g., set-up of production machines), to analyse a large set of experimental data regarding the mechanical and environmental performances of an ICE used to power a farm tractor. The aim is twofold: i) to demonstrate the effectiveness of RSM in quantitatively assessing the effects of biofuels on a complex system like an ICE; ii) to supply easy-to-use correlations for the users to predict the effect of biofuel blends on performance and emissions of tractor engines. The methodology showed good prediction capabilities and yielded interesting outcomes. The effects of biofuel blends and physical fuel parameters were adopted to study the engine performance. Among all possible parameters depending on the fuel mixture, the viscosity of a fuel blend demonstrated a high statistical significance on some system responses directly related to the engine mechanical performances. This parameter can constitute an interesting indirect estimator of the mechanical performances of an engine fuelled with such blend, while it showed poor accuracy in predicting the emissions of the ICE (NOx, CO concentration and opacity of the exhaust gases) due to a higher influence of the chemical composition of the fuel blend on these parameters; rather, the blend composition showed a much higher accuracy in the assessment of the mechanical performance of the ICE

Modular detergents tailor the purification and structural analysis of membrane proteins including G-protein coupled receptors

Detergents enable the purification of membrane proteins and are indispensable reagents instructural biology. Even though a large variety of detergents have been developed in the lastcentury, the challenge remains to identify guidelines that allowfine-tuning of detergents forindividual applications in membrane protein research. Addressing this challenge, here weintroduce the family of oligoglycerol detergents (OGDs). Native mass spectrometry (MS)reveals that the modular OGD architecture offers the ability to control protein purificationand to preserve interactions with native membrane lipids during purification. In addition to abroad range of bacterial membrane proteins, OGDs also enable the purification and analysisof a functional G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR). Moreover, given the modular design ofthese detergents, we anticipatefine-tuning of their properties for specific applications instructural biology. Seen from a broader perspective, this represents a significant advance forthe investigation of membrane proteins and their interactions with lipids

The dark side of network functions virtualization: A perspective on the technological sustainability

The Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) paradigm is undoubtedly a key technological advancement in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) community, especially for the upcoming 5G network design. While most of its promise is quite straightforward, the implied reduction of the power consumption/carbon footprint is still debatable, and not in line with the energy efficiency perspective forecasted by the ETSI NFV working group (WG). In this paper, we provide an estimate of the possible future requirements of this upcoming technology when deployed according to the virtual Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) use case specified by the ETSI NFV WG. Our estimation is based on real performance levels, certified by independent third-party laboratories, and datasheet values provided by existing commercial products for both the legacy and NFV network architectures, under different deployment scenarios. Obtained results show that a massive deployment of the current NFV technologies in the EPC may lead to a minimum increase of 106 % in the carbon footprint/energy consumption with respect to the Business As Usual (BAU) network solutions. Moreover, these values tend to increase at a very high pace when the most suitable software/hardware combination is not applied, or when packet processing latency is taken into account

Optimal Grid Drawings of Complete Multipartite Graphs and an Integer Variant of the Algebraic Connectivity

How to draw the vertices of a complete multipartite graph $G$ on different points of a bounded $d$-dimensional integer grid, such that the sum of squared distances between vertices of $G$ is (i) minimized or (ii) maximized? For both problems we provide a characterization of the solutions. For the particular case $d=1$, our solution for (i) also settles the minimum-2-sum problem for complete bipartite graphs; the minimum-2-sum problem was defined by Juvan and Mohar in 1992. Weighted centroidal Voronoi tessellations are the solution for (ii). Such drawings are related with Laplacian eigenvalues of graphs. This motivates us to study which properties of the algebraic connectivity of graphs carry over to the restricted setting of drawings of graphs with integer coordinates.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 26th International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2018

Functional single nucleotide polymorphisms in dopaminergic receptors D2 predict clinical response to Cariprazine

Cariprazine (CAR) is an antipsychotic drug for the treatment of schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BD), and it acts as a partial agonist on the dopamine receptors (DR), D2, and D3. Although many single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes coding for these receptors are known to influence response to antipsychotics, to date, no study on CAR pharmacogenetics exists. In this pilot study, we investigated the relationship between SNPs in DRD2 (rs1800497 and rs6277) and DRD3 (rs6280), and response to CAR treatment, evaluated by the psychometric Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), in a cohort of Caucasian patients. We found a significant association between DRD2 rs1800497 and rs6277 and response to CAR treatment. When genotypes were combined into an arbitrary score, the receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that using a cut-off value of -2.5 the response to CAR treatment could be predicted with a positive likelihood ratio of 8.0. Our study report, for the first time, a correlation between SNPs in DRD2 and response to CAR treatment. After confirmation in a larger cohort of patients, our results could open the way for the identification of new tools for the provision of response to CAR treatment

EAU guidelines on prostate cancer

Objetivos: Presentar un resumen de la versión del 2007 de la guía de la Asociación Europea de Urología (EAU) para el cáncer de próstata (CaP). Métodos: Se realizó por un grupo de trabajo una revisión de los nuevos datos presentes desde 2004 hasta 2007 en la literatura. Las guías han sido actualizadas y el nivel de evidencia/grado de recomendación ha sido añadido al texto basándose en una revisión sistemática de la literatura, que incluía una búsqueda de las bases de datos online y revisiones bibliográficas. Resultados: Una versión completa está disponible en la EAU Office o en www.uroweb.org. El método diagnóstico de elección es la biopsia sistematizada de la próstata bajo control ecográfico. El tratamiento activo es el recomendado en la mayoría de los pacientes con enfermedad localizada y una larga esperanza de vida, siendo la prostatectomía radical superior a la vigilancia ("watchful waiting") en un ensayo randomizado prospectivo. La prostatectomía radical con preservación de bandeletas es la técnica de elección en la enfermedad órgano-confinada; el bloqueo androgénico neoadyuvante no ha demostrado una mejoría en las variables de resultados. La radioterapia debe realizarse con al menos 72 Gy en el CaP de bajo riesgo y con 78 Gy en el de intermedio - alto riesgo. El bloqueo androgénico en monoterapia es el estándar del tratamiento en el CaP metastásico; el bloqueo androgénico intermitente podría ser un tratamiento alternativo en pacientes seleccionados. El seguimiento se basa principalmente en los niveles de PSA y en la anamnesis específica de la enfermedad, estando las pruebas de imagen sólo indicadas cuando aparecen los síntomas. La quimioterapia con docetaxel ha surgido como el tratamiento de referencia para el CaP metastásico hormonorefractario. Conclusiones: El conocimiento en el campo del CaP está rápidamente cambiando. Estas guías de la EAU resumen los hallazgos más recientes y los aplican a la práctica clínica

Design, development and orchestration of 5G-ready applications over sliced programmable infrastructure

5G networks design and evolution is considered as a key to support the introduction of digital technologies in economic and societal processes. Towards this direction, vertical industries' needs should be considered as drivers of 5G networks design and development with high priority. In the current manuscript, MATILDA is presented, as a holistic 5G end-to-end services operational framework tackling the overall lifecycle of design, development and orchestration of 5G-ready applications and 5G network services over programmable infrastructure, following a unified programmability model and a set of control abstractions