Nondestructive Online In Vitro Monitoring of Pre-Osteoblast Cell Proliferation Within Microporous Polymer Scaffolds

We present a system for the online, in vitro, nondestructive monitoring of tissue growth within microporous polymer scaffolds. The system is based on measuring the admittance of the sample over a frequency range of 10-200 MHz using an open-ended coaxial probe and impedance analyzer. The sample admittance is related to the sample complex permittivity (CP) by a quasi-static model of the probe's aperture admittance. A modified effective medium approximation is then used to relate the CP to the cell volume fraction. The change of cell volume fraction is used as a measure of tissue growth inside the scaffold. The system detected relative cell concentration differences between microporous polymer scaffolds seeded with 0.4, 0.45, 0.5, and 0.6 x 10⁶ pre-osteoblast cells. In addition, the pre-osteoblast proliferation within 56 scaffolds over 14 days was recorded by the system and a concurrent DNA assay. Both techniques produced cell proliferation curves that corresponded to those found in literature. Thus, our data confirmed that the new system can assess relative cell concentration differences in microporous scaffolds enabling online nondestructive tissue growth monitoring.     

Adaptive bandwidth management in ATM networks

A framework for adaptive bandwidth management in ATM based networks is proposed. It is based on a layered approach which includes bandwidth allocation to virtual networks. The central concept of this approach is adaptive estimation of the effective bandwidth required, by connections carried in the network. To achieve reliable results the estimation process takes into account both the traffic source declarations and the connection superposition process measurements on the network links. This is done in an optimization framework provided by estimation theory. A study, based on a linear two-state Kalman filter, shows that the proposed approach provides good adaptation to undeclared changes in traffic parameters and that the network performance is significantly improved when compared to the effective bandwidth allocation based solely on the source parameters declarations. These features allow more relaxed source parameter declarations and at the same time permit less stringent source policing. Thus the two bottlenecks influencing bandwidth management in ATM networks can be significantly widened.     

Bisimilarity control of partially observed nondeterministic discrete event systems and a test algorithm

In this paper, the bisimilarity control of discrete event systems (DESs) under partial observations is investigated, where the plant and the specification are allowed to be nondeterministic. A notation of simulation-based controllability and a synchronization scheme for the supervised system are formalized based on the simulation relation between the specification and the plant. It is shown that the existence of bisimilarity supervisors is characterized by the notions of the simulation-based controllability and the language observability, which extends the traditional results of supervisory control from language equivalence to bisimulation equivalence. In addition, a polynomial algorithm to test the simulation-based controllability is developed by constructing a computing tree. This algorithm together with the test of language observability can be used to check the existence of bisimilarity supervisors.     

Wireless Internet Access Using IS-2000 Third Generation System: A Performance and Capacity Study

The Internet has been growing tremendously in the recent years and applications like web browsing are becoming increasingly popular. In a collective effort to provide seamless access to the Internet, wireless equipment manufacturers and service providers are developing 3G wireless systems that efficiently support current and future Internet applications. In this paper, we evaluate the performance and capacity of a 3G wireless data system based on IS-2000 standard. We consider web browsing as the common application for all users and evaluate the system performance for single and parallel web browsing sessions. We perform this study through a detailed simulation of web traffic model described by distributions of number of objects per page, object size, page request size and page reading time. The simulation includes HTTP and TCP/IP protocols, link level recovery, radio resource management, mobility, channel model and, delays in the Internet and the radio access network. We quantify important system attributes like average page download times and system throughput (Kb/s per carrier per sector). We also evaluate normalized object download time, normalized page download time, penalty in performance due to link errors, link layer buffer sizes needed, channel holding time, average power used and distribution of the power used in the system.     

Fair-efficient call admission control policies for broadbandnetworks-a game theoretic framework

A fundamental problem in connection oriented multiservice networks (ATM and STM) is finding the optimal policy for call acceptance. One seeks an admission control policy that efficiently utilizes network resources while at the same time being fair to the various call classes being supported. The theory of cooperative games provides a natural and precise framework for formulating such multicriterion problems as well as solution concepts. The authors describe how this framework can be used for analysis and synthesis of call admission strategies in broadband networks. In particular they investigate the Nash (1950), Raiffa-Kalai-Smorodinsky (Raiffa, 1953; Kalai and Smorodinsky, 1975), and modified Thomson (Cao, 1982) arbitration solutions from game theory. The performance of all solutions is evaluated by applying the value iteration algorithm from Markov decision theory. The approach is illustrated on a one-link network example for which the exact solutions can be achieved. The results indicate that the arbitration schemes from game theory provide some attractive features especially when compared to traditional control objectives: blocking equalization and traffic maximization. The authors also compare the optimal solutions with some simplified policies belonging to four different classes: complete sharing, coordinate convex, trunk reservation, and dynamic trunk reservation. The comparison indicates that in many cases, the trunk reservation and dynamic trunk reservation policies can provide fair, efficient solutions, close to the optimal ones     

A framework for bandwidth management in ATM networks-aggregateequivalent bandwidth estimation approach

A unified framework for traffic control and bandwidth management in ATM networks is proposed. It bridges algorithms for real-time and data services. The central concept of this framework is adaptive connection admission. It employs an estimation of the aggregate equivalent bandwidth required by connections carried in each output port of the ATM switches. The estimation process takes into account both the traffic source declarations and the connection superposition process measurements in the switch output ports. This is done in an optimization framework based on a linear Kalman filter. To provide a required quality of service guarantee, bandwidth is reserved for possible estimation error. The algorithm is robust and copes very well with unpredicted changes in source parameters, thereby resulting in high bandwidth utilization while providing the required quality of service. The proposed approach can also take into account the influence of the source policing mechanism. The tradeoff between strict and relaxed source policing is discussed     

Congestion probabilities in a circuit-switched integrated services network

We derive recurrence relations enabling the direct calculation of the joint distribution of the number of busy channels in a circuit-switched network whose offered traffic streams require a variable number of channels on each link. Approximate congestion probability calculation methods are developed based on the estimation of marginal link occupancy distributions taking account of link traffic correlation. These approximations are tested on a number of simple two-link examples.     

Nondestructive online in vitro monitoring of pre-osteoblast cell proliferation within microporous polymer scaffolds.

We present a system for the online, in vitro, nondestructive monitoring of tissue growth within microporous polymer scaffolds. The system is based on measuring the admittance of the sample over a frequency range of 10-200 MHz using an open-ended coaxial probe and impedance analyzer. The sample admittance is related to the sample complex permittivity (CP) by a quasi-static model of the probe's aperture admittance. A modified effective medium approximation is then used to relate the CP to the cell volume fraction. The change of cell volume fraction is used as a measure of tissue growth inside the scaffold. The system detected relative cell concentration differences between microporous polymer scaffolds seeded with 0.4, 0.45, 0.5, and 0.6 x 10(6) pre-osteoblast cells. In addition, the pre-osteoblast proliferation within 56 scaffolds over 14 days was recorded by the system and a concurrent DNA assay. Both techniques produced cell proliferation curves that corresponded to those found in literature. Thus, our data confirmed that the new system can assess relative cell concentration differences in microporous scaffolds enabling online nondestructive tissue growth monitoring.     

Rate management in multiuser detection based MAC design for ad hoc networks

We propose a framework that produces synergy between Medium Access Control (MAC) and physical layers in order to increase the users’ individual throughput in a high-capacity CDMA ad hoc network. The MAC layer supports a multiuser detection based access protocol. Users send data packets at different rates, depending on the fading channel state. The framework is based on an LMS (Least Mean Square) prediction algorithm that estimates channel gain at the physical layer. The performance of the scheme is evaluated by simulations. Multiuser detection typically triples the throughput of ad hoc networks but our prediction-based scheme further doubles this metric. The main advantage of the proposed scheme is its flexibility and efficiency in a wide range of data rates and target bit error rates. It is also well fitted to support high-quality multi-media transmissions, and to improve the performance of applications that require high quality of service (QoS).