Immunosenescence in Aging-Related Vascular Dysfunction

The immunosenescence-related disproportion in T lymphocytes may have important consequences for endothelial dysfunction, which is a key event in vascular aging. The study was designed to assess the prognostic values of the inflammatory-immune profile to better predict and prevent vascular diseases associated with old age. Eighty individuals aged 70.9 ± 5.3 years were allocated to a low- (LGI) or high-grade inflammation (HGI) group based on CRP (<3 or ≥3 mg/L) as a conventional risk marker of cardiovascular diseases. Significant changes in inflammatory and endothelium-specific variables IL-1β, IL-6, TNFα, oxLDL, H₂O₂, NO, 3-nitrotyrosine, and endothelial progenitor cells (OR 7.61, 95% CI 2.56–29.05, p < 0.0001), confirmed their interplay in vascular inflammation. The flow-cytometry analysis demonstrated a high disproportion in T lymphocytes CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ between LGI and HGI groups. CRP was <3 mg/mL for the CD4/CD8 ratio within the reference values ≥ 1 or ≤2.5, unlike for the CD4/CD8 ratio < 1 and >2.5. The odds ratios for the distribution of CD4⁺ (OR 5.98, 95% CI 0.001–0.008, p < 0.001), CD8⁺ (OR 0.23, 95% CI 0.08–0.59, p < 0.01), and CD8CD45RO⁺ T naïve cells (OR 0.27, 95% CI 0.097–0.695, p < 0.01) and CD4/CD8 (OR 5.69, 95% CI 2.07–17.32, p < 0.001) indicated a potential diagnostic value of T lymphocytes for clinical prognosis in aging-related vascular dysfunction.     

Fast RSVP: Efficient RSVP Mobility Support for Mobile IPv6

In recent years, with the development of mobile communication technologies and the increase of available wireless transmission bandwidth, deploying multimedia services in next generation mobile IPv6 networks has become an inevitable trend. RSVP (resource reservation protocol) proposed by the IETF is designed for hardwired and fixed networks and can not be used in mobile environments. This paper proposes a protocol, called Fast RSVP, to reserve resources for mobile IPv6. The protocol adopts a cross-layer design approach where two modules (RSVP module and Mobile IPv6 module) at different layers cooperate with each other. Fast RSVP divides a handover process with QoS guarantees into two stages: (1) setup of the resource reservation neighbor tunnel and (2) resource reservation on the optimized route. It can help a mobile node realize fast handover with QoS guarantees as well as avoid resource wasting by triangular routes, advanced reservations and duplicate reservations. In addition, fast RSVP reserves “guard channels” for handover sessions, thus greatly reducing the handover session forced termination rate while maintaining high performance of the network. Based on extensive performance analysis and simulations, Fast RSVP, compared with existing methods of resource reservation in mobile environments, performs better in terms of packet delay and throughput during handover, QoS recovery time after handover, resource reservation cost, handover session forced termination rate and overall session completion rate.     

QoS provisioning wireless multimedia transmission over cognitive radio networks

The rapid growing of wireless multimedia applications increases the needs of spectrum resources, but today’s spectrum resources have become more and more scarce and large part of the assigned spectrum is in an inefficiency usage. Cognitive Radio (CR) technologies are proposed to solve current spectrum inefficiency problems and offer users a ubiquitous wireless accessing environment, relying on dynamic spectrum allocation. However, there are two unsolved problems in previous work: 1) based on the simplified Quality of Service (QoS) uniform assumption, specific requirements of different wireless multimedia applications cannot be satisfied; 2) aiming at single-objective optimization of spectrum utilization or handoff rate, the co-optimization of these two necessary objectives in CR networks has not been achieved. In this paper, we propose a Two-tier Cooperative Spectrum Allocation method (TCSA) to solve these two problems. TCSA consists of two functional parts: one is a Spectrum Adjacency Ranking algorithm implemented at the secondary users’ terminals to satisfy the QoS requirements for different wireless multimedia applications; and the other is a Max Hyper-weight Matching algorithm implemented at the cognitive engines of CR networks to co-optimize spectrum utilization and secondary users’ spectrum handoff rate. Simulation results show that, compared with the other Random matching algorithm and Cost minimized algorithm, TCSA can significantly improve the performance of CR networks in terms of secondary users’ throughput and spectrum handoff rate.     

An Improved Markov Model for IEEE 802.15.4 Slotted CSMA/CA Mechanism

IEEE 802.15.4 protocol is proposed to meet the low latency and energy consumption needs in low-rate wireless applications,however,few analytical models are tractable enough for comprehensive evaluation of the protocol.To evaluate the IEEE 802.15.4 slotted CSMA/CA channel access mechanism in this paper,we propose a practical and accurate discrete Markov chain model,which can dynamically represent different network loads.By computing the steady-state distribution probability of the Markov chain,we obtain a...     

RSVP协议在移动IPv6网络中的扩展性研究

针对无线移动通信的特点,提出了一种在移动IPv6网络中保障用户通信服务质量的资源预留新方案Fast RSVP.该方案采用跨层设计的思想,将两个不同层次的模块:移动IPv6模块和RSVP模块结合起来,通过在两个模块之间增加一些原语使得二者配合工作以保证移动用户的通信业务质量.Fast RSVP方案引入了邻居隧道提前资源预留、优化路径资源预留、切换预留、路径融合等一系列新机制.仿真实验结果表明,与其他移动环境中的RSVP扩展方案相比,该Fast RSVP方案在支持无线移动通信方面具有如下优势:(1)能够实现移动节点带有服务质量保证的快速切换;(2)能够避免移动IP切换过程中三角路由和重复预留造成的资源浪费;(3)能够区分不同类型的切换预留请求,在保证网络整体性能的前提下显著降低因为切换而导致的服务中断率.     

Malignant Ascites Promote Adhesion of Ovarian Cancer Cells to Peritoneal Mesothelium and Fibroblasts

Although malignant ascites (MAs) are known to contribute to various aspects of ovarian cancer progression, knowledge regarding their role in the adhesion of cancer cells to normal peritoneal cells is incomplete. Here, we compared the effect of MAs and benign ascites (BAs) on the adhesion of A2780 and OVCAR-3 cancer cells to omentum-derived peritoneal mesothelial cells (PMCs) and peritoneal fibroblasts (PFBs). The results showed that MAs stimulated the adhesion of A2780 and OVCAR-3 cells to PMCs and PFBs more efficiently than did BAs, and the strongest binding occurred when both cancer and normal cells were exposed to the fluid. Intervention studies showed that MAs-driven adhesion of A2780 cells to PMCs/PFBs depends on the presence of TGF-β1 and HGF, whereas binding of OVCAR-3 cells was mediated by TGF-β1, GRO-1, and IGF-1. Moreover, MAs upregulated α5β1 integrin expression on PFBs but not on PMCs or cancer cells, vimentin expression in all cells tested, and ICAM-1 only in cancer cells. When integrin-linked kinase was neutralized in PMCs or PFBs, cancer cell adhesion to PMCs and PFBs decreased. Collectively, our report shows that MAs may contribute to the early stages of ovarian cancer metastasis by modulating the proadhesive interplay between normal and cancer cells.     

Apolipoproteins—New Biomarkers of Overweight and Obesity among Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Survivors?

Patients suffering from childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are at risk of late adverse treatment-related effects. The examination of targeted biomarkers could be used to improve the diagnosis and prediction of life-threatening ALL sequelae. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to search for treatment-related alterations in apolipoprotein (Apo) levels as potential markers of the occurrence of obesity in subjects treated for ALL, and to assess the relationships between weight, gender, anticancer treatment, and Apo concentrations. Fifty-eight ALL survivors were included in the study. The mean time of follow-up after treatment cessation was 5.41 ± 4.29 years. Serum levels of apolipoproteins were measured using a multiplex assay kit. Among ALL survivors, we observed a significant correlation of Apo-C1, Apo-C3, Apo-H, and Apo-J levels, depending on body mass index (BMI). Marked differences were observed in the area under the curve of Apo-A1, Apo-A2, Apo-C1, Apo-D. In our study, patients with a history of childhood ALL developed alterations in their Apo profile. Furthermore, this is the first study revealing that some apolipoproteins may act as valuable biomarkers useful in the prognosis of metabolic imbalance. We believe that this paper, at least partially, will highlight the importance of long-term prognosis of metabolic complications associated with the anticancer chemotherapy used to treat hematological malignancies in children.     

Byte-code scheduling of Java programs with branches for desktop grid

A method for an introductory optimization of multithreaded Java programs for execution on clusters of Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) inside desktop grids is presented. It is composed of two stages. In the first stage, a clustering algorithm is applied to extended macro data flow graphs generated on the basis of the byte-code compiled for multithreaded Java programs. These graphs account for data and control dependencies in programs including conditional branch instructions annotated by branch statistics driven from execution traces for representative sets of data. In the second stage, a list scheduling is performed based on the Earliest Task First (ETF) heuristics in which node mapping on JVMs accounts for mutually exclusive paths outgoing from conditional branch nodes. The presented object placement optimization algorithm is a part of the DG-ADAJ environment.