Improving cell edge throughput for LTE using combined uplink power control

Uplink power control is used in 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems to maximize the power of the desired received signals while limiting the interference. This paper analyzes two power control mechanisms, Fractional Power Control (FPC) and Interference Based Power Control (IBPC). A way of combining them is proposed in order to find an efficient algorithm to control the transmitted Power Spectral Density (PSD) in order to compensate poor channel conditions and thus to obtain better performance in terms of cell edge throughput.     

Reduction of Listeria monocytogenes on frankfurters treated with lactic acid solutions of various temperatures

United States regulations require ready-to-eat meat and poultry processors to control Listeria monocytogenes using interventions which may include antimicrobials that reduce post-processing contamination by at least 1 log-cycle; if the treatment achieves ≥2 log reductions, the plant is subject to less frequent microbial testing. Lactic acid (LA) may be useful as a post-lethality intervention and its antimicrobial properties may increase with temperature of application. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of LA solution concentration and temperature on L. monocytogenes counts of inoculated frankfurters and to identify parameters (concentration, temperature, and time) that achieve 1 and 2 log-unit immediate reductions. Frankfurters were surface-inoculated with a 10-strain mixture of L. monocytogenes (4.4 ± 0.1 log CFU/cm²) and then immersed in distilled water or LA solutions (0–3%) of 4, 25, 40, or 55 °C for 0–120 s. A regression equation for L. monocytogenes reduction included significant (P < 0.05) effects by the terms of concentration, time, temperature, and the interaction of concentration and temperature; other tested parameters (other interactions, quadratic and cubic terms), within the experimental range examined, did not affect (P ≥ 0.05) the extent of reduction. Results indicated that the effectiveness of LA against L. monocytogenes, in addition to concentration, increased with solution temperature (in the range of 0.6–2.8 log CFU/cm²). The developed equation may allow processors to vary conditions of treatment with LA to achieve a 1 or 2 log-unit reduction of the pathogen and comply with United States regulations.     

Sodium Nitroprusside-Induced Activation of Vascular Smooth Muscle BK Channels Is Mediated by PKG Rather Than by a Direct Interaction with NO

Nitric oxide (NO) is a powerful vasodilator in different vascular beds and NO-donors are widely used in clinical practice. Early data suggested that NO and NO-donors activate vascular smooth muscle high-conductance, calcium-activated potassium channels (BK channels). There exist two hypotheses explaining the effect of NO and NO-donors on BK channels—one stating that protein kinase G (PKG) mediates the effect of NO, and the other one stating that NO acts directly on the channel. Thus, the degree of contribution of PKG to the NO-induced activation of the BK channel is still not completely clear. This study tested the hypothesis that the sodium nitroprusside (SNP)-induced activation of vascular smooth muscle BK channels is fully mediated by PKG. This hypothesis was investigated using the patch-clamp technique and freshly isolated smooth muscle cells from rat tail artery. In whole-cell experiments, SNP considerably increased the outward current compared with the addition of the bath solution. SNP did not alter the current in the presence of iberiotoxin, the specific blocker of BK channels, during co-application with hydroxocobalamin, an NO-scavenger, and in the presence of Rp-8-Br-PET-cGMPS, the specific PKG-inhibitor. In inside-out patches, the activity of BK channels was increased by SNP, SNAP, and DEA-NO. However, these effects did not differ from the effect of the application of drug-free bath solution. Furthermore, a similar increase in single BK channel activity was induced by Rp-8-Br-PET-cGMPS, Rp-8-Br-PET-cGMPS together with SNP, hydroxocobalamin, and hydroxocobalamin together with SNP or DEA-NO. Finally, the activity of excised BK channels did not change in the absence of any application but was considerably increased by PKG compared with the addition of drug-free bath solution. These results suggest that NO released from NO-donors stimulates the BK current only through activation of PKG.     

Reconciling Electrical Resistance Tomography (ERT) Measurements with a Fluid Mixing Model for Semi‐Batch Operation of a Stirred Vessel

An electrical resistance tomography (ERT) system retrofitted to a 2.3 m³ vessel has been used to image the vessel volume for single feed semi‐batch operation. Images reconstructed from the raw ERT measurements may be represented as time incremented 3‐D iso‐surface representations of the fluid mixing. ERT derived mixing curves have been evaluated against a network of zones (NOZ) mixing model, which is able to compute the time evolving concentration fields. Like the ERT system, the NOZ model is also able to visualise the evolving feed plume and has the power to predict the corresponding time‐wise reaction behaviour in space for a simple A + B → products reaction.     

Enhancing grid security by fine-grained behavioral control and negotiation-based authorization

Nowadays, Grid has become a leading technology in distributed computing. Grid poses a seamless sharing of heterogeneous computational resources belonging to different domains and conducts efficient collaborations between Grid users. The core Grid functionality defines computational services which allocate computational resources and execute applications submitted by Grid users. The vast models of collaborations and openness of Grid system require a secure, scalable, flexible and expressive authorization model to protect these computational services and Grid resources. Most of the existing authorization models for Grid have granularity to manage access to service invocations while behavioral monitoring of applications executed by these services remains a responsibility of a resource provider. The resource provider executes an application under a local account, and acknowledges all permissions granted to this account to the application. Such approach poses serious security threats to breach system functionality since applications submitted by users could be malicious. We propose a flexible and expressive policy-driven credential-based authorization system to protect Grid computational services against a malicious behavior of applications submitted for the execution. We split an authorization process into two levels: a coarse-grained level that manages access to a computational service; and a fine-grained level that monitors the behavior of applications executed by the computational service. Our framework guarantees that users authorized on a coarse-grained level behave as expected on the fine-grained level. Credentials obtained on the coarse-grained level reflect on fine-grained access decisions. The framework defines trust negotiations on coarse-grained level to overcome scalability problem, and preserves privacy of credentials and security policies of, both, Grid users and providers. Our authorization system was implemented to control access to the Globus Computational GRAM service. A comprehensive performance evaluation shows the practical scope of the proposed system.

Reduced constants for simple cycle graph separation

 If G is an n vertex maximal planar graph and δ≤1 3, then the vertex set of G can be partitioned into three sets A, B, C such that neither A nor B contains more than (1−δ)n vertices, no edge from G connects a vertex in A to a vertex in B, and C is a cycle in G containing no more than (√2δ+√2−2δ)√n+O(1) vertices. Specifically, when δ=1 3, the separator C is of size (√2/3+√4/3)√n+O(1), which is roughly 1.97√n. The constant 1.97 is an improvement over the best known so far result of Miller 2√2≈2.82. If non-negative weights adding to at most 1 are associated with the vertices of G, then the vertex set of G can be partitioned into three sets A, B, C such that neither A nor B has weight exceeding 1−δ, no edge from G connects a vertex in A to a vertex in B, and C is a simple cycle with no more than 2√n+O(1) vertices. Received: 8 September 1993/11 December 1995     

Nonstandard finite-difference methods for predator–prey models with general functional response

Predator–prey systems with linear and logistic intrinsic growth rate of the prey are analyzed. The models incorporate the mutual interference between predators into the functional response which stabilizes predator–prey interactions in the system. Positive and elementary stable nonstandard (PESN) finite-difference methods, having the same qualitative features as the corresponding continuous predator–prey models, are formulated and analyzed. The proposed numerical techniques are based on a nonlocal modeling of the growth-rate function and a nonstandard discretization of the time derivative. This discretization approach leads to significant qualitative improvements in the behavior of the numerical solution. In addition, it allows for the use of an essentially implicit method for the cost of an explicit method. Applications of the PESN methods to specific predator–prey systems are also presented.     

Virtual angiography for visualization and validation of computational models of aneurysm hemodynamics

It has recently become possible to simulate aneurysmal blood flow dynamics in a patient-specific manner via the coupling of three-dimensional (3-D) X-ray angiography and cmputational fluid dynamics (CFD). Before such image-based CFD models can be used in a predictive capacity, however, it must be shown that they indeed reproduce the in vivo hemodynamic environment. Motivated by the fact that there are currently no techniques for adequately measuring complex blood velocity fields in vivo, in this paper we describe how cine X-ray angiograms may be simulated for the purpose of indirectly validating patient-sperific CFD models. Mimicking the radiological procedure, a virtual angiogram is constructed by first simulating the time-varying injection of contrast agent into a precomputed, patient-specific CFD model. A time-series of images is then constructed by simulating the attenuation of X-rays through the computed 3-D contrast-agent flow dynamics. Virtual angiographic images and residence time maps, here derived from an image-based CFD model of a giant aneurysm, are shown to be in excellent agreement wiith the corresponding clinical images and residence time maps, but only when the interaction between the quasisteady contrast agent injection and the pulsatile flow are properly accounted for. These virtual angiographic techniques pave the way for validating image-based CFD models against routinely available clinical data, and provide a means of visualizing complex, 3-D blood flow dynamics in a clinically relevant manner. They also clearly show how the contrast agent injection perturbs the noraml blood flow patterns, further highlighting the potential utility of image-based CFD as a window into the true aneurysmal hemodynamics.     

New insight into the redox behavior of polyaniline

Polyaniline is one the most promising conducting polymers due to its ability to respond to environmental modifications by change in the properties. Here, we report an unprecedented redox behavior of polyaniline. Namely, propagation of reduction in thin highly organized polyaniline films immersed in acid aqueous medium (see Video 1). The films represent a homogeneous interpenetrating network of nano-sized polyaniline fibrils and water molecules. It is found that the presence of highly hydrated anions like HCOO^? favors both short- and long-range ordering, as well as the propagation of reduction in the polymer.