Disaster-survivable cloud-network mapping

Cloud-computing services are provided to consumers through a network of servers and network equipment. Cloud-network (CN) providers virtualize resources [e.g., virtual machine (VM) and virtual network (VN)] for efficient and secure resource allocation. Disasters are one of the worst threats for CNs as they can cause massive disruptions and CN disconnection. A disaster may also induce post-disaster correlated, cascading failures which can disconnect more CNs. Survivable virtual-network embedding (SVNE) approaches have been studied to protect VNs against single physical-link/-node and dual physical-link failures in communication infrastructure, but massive disruptions due to a disaster and their consequences can make SVNE approaches insufficient to guarantee cloud-computing survivability. In this work, we study the problem of survivable CN mapping from disaster. We consider risk assessment, VM backup location, and post-disaster survivability to reduce the risk of failure and probability of CN disconnection and the penalty paid by operators due to loss of capacity. We formulate the proposed approach as an integer linear program and study two scenarios: a natural disaster, e.g., earthquake and a human-made disaster, e.g., weapons-of-mass-destruction attack. Our illustrative examples show that our approach reduces the risk of CN disconnection and penalty up to 90 % compared with a baseline CN mapping approach and increases the CN survivability up to 100 % in both scenarios.     

Quality-of-Service Based Protection in MPLS Control WDM Mesh Networks

Intelligent methods for automatic protection and restoration are critical in optical transport mesh networks. This paper discusses the problem of quality-of-service (QoS)-based protection in terms of the protection-switching time and availability for end-to-end lightpaths in a WDM mesh network. We analyze the backup lightpath-sharing problem in such networks and study the correlation of the working lightpaths and the impact of the correlation on the sharing of the backup lightpaths. We present a multi-protocol-label-switching (MPLS) control-based fully distributed algorithm to solve the protection problem. The proposed algorithm includes intelligent and automatic procedures to set up, take down, activate, restore, and manage backup lightpaths. It greatly reduces the required resources for protection by allowing the sharing of network resources by multiple backup lightpaths. At the same time, it guarantees, if possible, to satisfy the availability requirement even with resource sharing by taking the correlation of working lightpaths into consideration. A simple analysis of the proposed algorithm in terms of computation time and message complexity indicates that the implementation of the algorithm is practical. The illustrative studies that compare the performance of 1:1, unlimited sharing, and QoS-based backup sharing algorithms indicate that QoS-based sharing achieves comparable performance as unlimited sharing, which is much better than the 1:1 backup scheme in terms of connection blocking probability, average number of connections in the network for a given offered load, and network resource utilization.     

Development and machinability evaluation of MgO doped Y-ZTA ceramic inserts for high-speed machining of steel

ABSTRACT

In current high productivity manufacturing era, it is necessary to develop non-conventional newer tool materials. Here, an attempt has been made for developing MgO doped zirconia-toughened alumina (Mg-ZTA) using powder metallurgy process route. The 3 mol% yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) (10 wt%), alumina (Al₂O₃) (90 wt%) with varying percentage of magnesium oxide (MgO) (0–1 wt%) are mixed to study the phase transformation and uniaxially pressed into square inserts with 0.8 mm nose radius and sintered at 1,600ºC for 1 h in pressure less condition. The maximum hardness of 17.04 GPa, fracture toughness of 5.09 MPa m^1/2 and flexural strength of 502 MPa, respectively, has been reached at 0.6 wt% of MgO due to more metastable tetragonal phase. The performance of the insert has been evaluated by machining AISI 4340 steel (radius 75 mm) in lathe. The performance with respect to flank wear, cutting force and surface roughness is quite impressive at different cutting speed even after 20 min of machining. It can be inferred that MgO doped ZTA insert can be used for medium to high-speed machining in current manufacturing scenario and is very promising to replace carbide or coated carbide inserts in coming days.     

Network virtualization over WDM and flexible-grid optical networks

Network virtualization can eradicate the ossification of the Internet and stimulate innovation of new network architectures and applications. Optical networks are ideal substrates for provisioning high-bandwidth virtual-network services. In this study, we investigate the problem of network virtualization over both WDM and flexible-grid optical networks by formulating the problems as mixed integer linear programs (MILP). Two heuristics, namely MaxMapping and MinMapping, are developed for each kind of network to solve the problem quickly but suboptimally. Numerical examples show that MinMapping consumes fewer spectrum resources than MaxMapping and performs very close to the optimal results derived by the MILP in both kinds of optical networks, by exploring the opportunities of traffic grooming. Also, it is verified that flexible-grid optical networks can be more spectrum efficient than WDM networks as the substrate for network virtualization.     

Energy-efficient networking for content distribution over telecom network infrastructure

The use of content-based services over telecom network infrastructures is growing rapidly as user-generated content, over-the-top videos, on-demand videos, personalized TV with CatchUp/PauseLive features, etc. are becoming increasingly popular. To meet the demands of such services, content-delivery networks (or content-distribution networks (CDN)) are being deployed over these telecom network infrastructures in a similar fashion as traditional CDNs. However, with the increasing energy consumption and carbon footprint of the information and communication technology (ICT) industry, these CDNs must be designed to include energy-efficiency measures. Our study presents energy-consumption models, analysis, and content-placement techniques for different types of CDNs over telecom networks to reduce energy usage. Our suggested content-placement strategies exploit variations between storage power consumption and transmission power consumption to achieve energy efficiency. Also, in dynamic traffic scenarios, our content-placement strategies utilize the time-varying traffic irregularities of content-based services. By creating more content replicas during peak load and less replicas during off-peak load, dynamic approaches can save substantial amount of energy. Illustrative numerical examples show a significant improvement in the CDN energy efficiency using these approaches.     

Design of a partially compliant crank rocker mechanism using Ionic Polymer Metal Composite for path generation

Four-bar mechanisms traditionally are made of rigid links and they are used for path, motion or function generation. Actively changing the length of the rocker in a crank rocker four-bar mechanism results in the tip of the rocker following a closed path. In this paper a crank rocker mechanism has been designed with a variable length rocker using an Ionic Polymer Metal Composite (IPMC). A pseudo rigid body model is used to represent the IPMC bending during path generation and a dynamic model is developed to relate the position of the rocker tip and the input voltage required to bend the IPMC. A simple control system has been designed that can apply a desired voltage to the IPMC using pulse width modulation, for obtaining a particular deformation. Experimental results of a path generated using the proposed mechanism is presented. This mechanism has wide application in micro robots for pick and place applications, actively controllable partially complaint mechanisms, adaptive structures, etc.     

Local antibiotic delivery systems for the treatment of osteomyelitis – A review

Osteomyelitis, an inflammatory process accompanied by bone destruction, is caused by infective microorganisms. The high success rates of antimicrobial therapy by conventional routes of administration in controlling most infectious diseases have not yet been achieved with osteomyelitis for several reasons. Local and sustained availability of drugs have proven to be more effective in achieving prophylactic and therapeutic outcomes. This review introduces osteomyelitis – its present options for drug delivery and their limitations, and the wide range of carrier materials and effective drug choices. Local drug delivery for osteomyelitis is a topic of importance for more than 20 years. Carrier materials used for local delivery of antibiotics may be classified as nonbiodegradable and biodegradable. Commonly used non biodegradable carrier materials are polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), Acrylic beads, PMMA bone cement etc. and biodegradable materials are hydroxyapatite block, bioactive glass ceramics, collagen sponge, polylactide/ployglycolide implants. Both the systems release antibiotic at concentrations exceeding the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) for the most common pathogens involved in osteomyelitis without causing any adverse systemic effects although non biodegradable beads are to be removed from the surgical site after completion of antibiotic release.     

Effect of Temperature on Hydraulic Parameters of Cable-In-Conduit-Conductor of SST-1

Stable operation of superconducting magnets depend critically on the balance of heat deposition rate versus heat extraction rate by the cryo-coolant. Thus, the mass flow rate of the coolant in case of force-flow cooled superconducting magnet with Cable-In-Co-nduit-Conductor (CICC) construction becomes an important factor for optimum stability of magnets. The Toroidal and Poloidal Field magnets of Steady-state Superconducting Tokamak-1 (SST-1) is made of superconducting CICC with a void fraction of 40 %±2 %. For adequate cooling of magnets, supercritical helium at 4 bar and 4.5 K is forced-flown through the voids. Effect of temperature on mass flow rate and pressure drop in SST-1 CICC is studied in a 7 m long piece wound helically. The experimental friction factor of the CICC is also measured at different temperatures and flow rates and is compared with the standard Katheder equation and Tada equation. Also, based on the new findings obtained from the experimental results, the dimensionless Reynolds number has been slightly modified. This new number is used to propose a modified Katheder correlation for the friction factor in CICCs similar to that of SST-1.     

Traffic engineering in next-generation optical Networks

In this article traffic-engineering issues regarding network survivability, traffic grooming, impairment-aware routing, virtual-topology engineering, and coordination among multiple layers of network architecture will be reviewed for next-generation optical networks based on Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (WDM). Due to the recent progress and development of WDM technology, increasing traffic demands can be readily accommodated in the next-generation optical networks. In spite of the huge amount of capacity (e.g., OC-192) provided by a WDM channel, enhanced network services and network performance improvement can only be achieved with efficient traffic-engineering mechanisms. The fault-tolerant function is essential in order to provide seamless services to users by protecting their traffic against failures in the optical network because many connections can be carried on a fiber. Because the capacity of a WDM channel is very large, its bandwidth may not be efficiently utilized by a single connection. Hence, low-rate user connections need to be efficiently aggregated through the traffic-grooming scheme. An intelligent routing algorithm is especially necessary in the optical network where signal impairments due to device imperfections might degrade the signal quality. In addition, the virtual network connectivity (topology) should be flexibly maintained such that dynamic changes to the traffic demands can be easily absorbed, which can be implemented by the virtualtopology engineering method in a WDM network. As the dominant usage of Internet Protocol (IP) of the Internet is expected to reside directly above the WDM layer in the future network, the coordinated trafficengineering scheme should be deliberately designed for the multi-layer network by judiciously choosing where to put many overlapping functions in the different network layers.