A survey of techniques for remote access to home networks and resources

Consumer Electronics devices are becoming network enabled, and along with smart phones and personal computers, they are all interconnected in home networks with broadband Internet connectivity. This sets the opportunity of making the home network, its devices and content accessible from the Internet, allowing the home owners to remotely access their connected home any time, any place, using any device. This paper provides a holistic overview of the “Remote Acces” topic, presenting all the problems and issues that make it challenging in different contexts, and most importantly analyzing six techniques and methods for enabling the remote access scenarios. It is a guide created by the combination of scientific research, extensive industrial experiences and first hand participation in relevant standardization activities.     

Serverless streaming for emerging media: towards 5G network-driven cost optimization

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Immersive 3D media is an emerging type of media that captures, encodes and reconstructs the 3D appearance of people and objects, with applications in...     

Monitoring the effect of high pressure and transglutaminase treatment of milk on the evolution of flavour compounds during lactic acid fermentation using PTR-ToF-MS

In this study, the effects of thermal or high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) treatment of a milk base in the absence or presence of a transglutaminase (TGase) protein cross-linking step on the flavour development of yoghurt were investigated. The presence of several tentatively identified volatile flavour compounds (VOCs), both during the enzymatic treatment and the lactic acid fermentation of the milk base, were monitored using a proton transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometer (PTR-ToF-MS). The formation of the major flavour compounds (acetaldehyde, diacetyl, acetoin, and 2-butanone) followed a sigmoidal trend described by the modified Gompertz model. The HHP treatment of milk increased significantly the volatile compound formation rate whereas it did not affect the duration of the lag phase of formation, with the exception of acetaldehyde and diacetyl formation. On the contrary, the TGase cross-linking of milk did not significantly modify the formation rate of the volatile compounds but shortened the duration of the lag phase of their formation.     

Principles and Current Clinical Landscape of Multispecific Antibodies against Cancer

Building upon the resounding therapeutic success of monoclonal antibodies, and supported by accelerating progress in engineering methods, the field of multispecific therapeutic antibodies is growing rapidly. Over 140 different molecules are currently in clinical testing, with excellent results in recent phase 1–3 clinical trials for several of them. Multivalent bispecific IgG-modified formats predominate today, with a clear tendency for more target antigens and further increased valency in newer constructs. The strategies to augment anticancer efficacy are currently equally divided between disruption of multiple surface antigens, and additional redirection of cytotoxic T or NK lymphocytes against the tumor. Both effects complement other modern modalities, such as tyrosine kinase inhibitors and adoptive cell therapies, with which multispecifics are increasingly applied in combination or merged, for example, in the form of antibody producing CAR-T cells and oncolytics. While mainly focused on B-cell malignancies early on, the contemporary multispecific antibody sector accommodates twice as many trials against solid compared to hematologic cancers. An exciting emerging prospect is the targeting of intracellular neoantigens using T-cell receptor (TCR) fusion proteins or TCR-mimic antibody fragments. Considering the fact that introduction of PD-(L)1 inhibitors only a few years ago has already facilitated 5-year survival rates of 30–50% for per se highly lethal neoplasms, such as metastatic melanoma and non-small-cell lung carcinoma, the upcoming enforcement of current treatments with “next-generation” immunotherapeutics, offers a justified hope for the cure of some advanced cancers in the near future.     

Development and Evaluation of a Continuous Ambient PM2.5 Mass Monitor

A Continuous Ambient Mass Monitor (CAMM) for fine particle mass (PM_2.5) has recently been developed at the Harvard School of Public Health. The principle of this method is based on the measurement of the increase in pressure drop across a membrane filter (Fluoropore^TM) during particle sampling. The monitor consists of a conventional impactor inlet to remove particles larger than 2.5 mu m, a diffusion dryer to remove particle-bound water, a filter tape to collect particles, a filter tape transportation system to allow unassisted sampling, and a data acquisition and control unit. For each sampling period (typically 30- 60 min), a new segment of the filter tape is exposed so that particles remain close to equilibrium with the sample air during their collection. This results in mini mization of volatilization and adsorption artifacts during sampling. Furthermore, since the required flow rate for the fine particle mass monitoring channel is only 0.3 L / min, the relative humidity of the air sample can be easily reduced to 40% or less using a NafionTM diffusion dryer to remove particle-bound water. The CAMM has a detection limit of > 5 mu g / m³ for PM_2.5 concentrations averaged over 1 h. The performance of the newly developed monitor was investigated through laboratory and field studies. Laboratory tests included a calibration of the CAMM using polystyrene latex (PSL) and silica particles. A series of field studies were conducted in 7 cities with presumably different PM_2.5 chemical composition. The 24 1-h CAMM measurements were averaged and compared to Harvard Impactor (HI) 24 h PM_2.5 integrated measurements. Based on 211 valid sampling days, the measurements obtained from the Harvard Impactor and the CAMM were highly correlated (r² = 0.90). The average CAMM-to-HI concentration ratio was 1.07 (+- 0.18).     

Performance Stability of the Harvard Ambient Particle Concentrator

The Harvard Ambient Particle Concentrator (HAPC) has been used routinely for exposure testing for a period of approximately three years. The stability of concentrator performance has been investigated as a function of local meteorological conditions, ambient particle concentrations, composition, and size distribution. Concentrator performance is characterized by the concentration enrichment factor (CEF), a ratio of concentrated particle mass (or sulfate) concentration to the ambient concentration. Over three years of normal operation, the mass and sulfate CEFs averaged 27.9 and 28.6, respectively. The majority of variability in the CEF was found to be related to the mass median aerodynamic diameter (MMAD) of ambient particles and to the HAPC's total operating pressure drop.

The 50% cutpoint of the HAPC is 0.15 μ m. Between 0.15 and 2.5 μ m, the HAPC concentrates ambient particle mass by approximately a factor of 28. It is logical that changes in particle CEF should be influenced by the amount of ambient particle mass within the concentrator's effective size range.

The concentrator operates optimally at a pressure drop of 2.5 in. of water per stage. Total pressure drop ranges from 7.5–25 in. of water, depending on the alignment of the slits of the virtual impactors and other parameters. Increases in the pressure drop result in decrease of the CEF, mainly due to excessive particle loss by impaction on the edges of the collection slit. In contrast, the minor operating pressure drop was found to be consistently lower on days where neither the ambient particle mass, temperature, or relative humidity were high. This subset of days was found to have a higher CEF than days where any of the three variables were high. The HAPC minor flow pressure drops are thus monitored carefully, since they are the most controllable indicator of concentration enrichment efficiency.     

Performance fairness across multiple applications in wireless push systems

This letter addresses the area of performance fairness in wireless data broadcasting. It proposes an adaptive wireless push system capable of fairly allocating performance to multiple applications receiving content from a Broadcast Server. While requiring only minimal changes at the Broadcast Server, the proposed approach provides performance fairness to clients running different applications and manages to alleviate the performance difference that typically appears in wireless push systems, when different applications access different‐sized subsets of data items, via a possibly different demand pattern. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.