Clock stability characterization and measurement intelecommunications

Clock stability characterization and measurement for telecommunications pose peculiar issues and requirements. This paper aims to provide an overview on this subject. After briefly recalling the background work, the key features and issues of clock stability characterization and measurement in telecommunications are described. The timing signal reference model and the stability quantities adopted in the new international standards are introduced and the impact of the measurement configuration and of the time error sampling period on their behavior are elucidated. The measurement of clock stability in telecommunications is then addressed, and a standard practical measurement procedure is outlined. Several measurement results are provided to support the concepts expounded with experimental evidence. The results shown have been chosen among those obtained throughout the last three years by testing clerks of digital switching exchanges, clocks for synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) equipment, and state-of-the-art stand-alone slave clocks for synchronization networks. They thus represent a survey of the actual performance of clocks currently deployed in telecommunications networks     

A historical perspective on telecommunications networksynchronization

Network synchronization, at first unknown and considered irrelevant to the operation and performance of telecommunications networks, has played an increasingly important role throughout the evolution of telecommunications, especially since transmission and switching became digital. This survey deals with telecommunications network synchronization from a historical point of view, aiming to show how network synchronization issues have evolved with telephone networks over the last 30 years, beginning with old FDM networks up to the latest technologies through PDH, SDH/SONET, and ATM. For each case, the different synchronization needs and the peculiar techniques of timing transfer and distribution are pointed out, thus providing a comprehensive overview of the evolution steps of telecommunications network synchronization     

Buffering-deflection tradeoffs in optical burst switching

A very important issue in optical burst switching (OBS) networks is the excessive burst drop when no suitable network resources are found during path reservation. In this study, a network scenario is evaluated in which AWG-based optical nodes are used as burst router nodes within the optical network. The two classical solutions to solve the burst contentions on the channels outgoing from the node are considered, that is, either based on buffering within the node, or by exploiting deflection routing. A performance evaluation is carried out to evaluate and compare these solutions for different network topologies with different node and traffic parameters. Our main contribution is to set numerical tradeoffs between burst deflection through the network and buffering in the node, so that a guidance in optical network design is provided where node buffering is inherently technologically limited.     

Fast computation of maximum time interval error by binarydecomposition

Maximum time interval error (MTIE) is historically one of the main time-domain quantities for the specification of clock stability requirements in telecommunications standards. Nevertheless, plain computation of the MTIE standard estimator proves cumbersome in most cases of practical interest, due to its heavy computational weight. In this paper, MTIE is first introduced according to its standard definition. Then, a fast algorithm based on binary decomposition to compute the MTIE standard estimator is described. The computational weight of the binary decomposition algorithm is compared to that of the estimator plain calculation, showing that the number of operations needed is reduced to a term proportional to Nlog₂N instead of N². A heavy computational saving is therefore achieved, thus making feasible MTIE evaluation based on even long sequences of time error samples     

Slot Synchronization of a WDM Packet-Switched Slotted Ring

In this paper, we present two different strategies of slot synchronization in wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) packet-switched slotted-ring networks. Emphasis is given to the architecture behind the WDM optical network demonstrator over rings (WONDER) project, which is based on tunable transmitters and fixed receivers. The WONDER experimental prototype is currently being developed at the laboratories of Politecnico di Torino. In the former strategy, a slot-synchronization signal is transmitted by the master station on a dedicated control wavelength; in the latter, slave nodes achieve slot synchronization aligning on data packets that are received from the master. The performance of both synchronization strategies, particularly in terms of packet-collision probability, was evaluated by simulation. The technique based on transmitting a timing signal on a dedicated control wavelength achieves better performance, although it is more expensive due to the need for an additional wavelength. However, the technique based on aligning data packets that are received from the master, despite attaining lower timing stability, still deserves further study, particularly if limiting the number of wavelengths and receivers is a major requirement. Some experimental results, which were measured on the WONDER prototype, are also shown. Measurement results, together with theoretical findings, demonstrate the good synchronization performance of the prototype.     

Recombinant human interleukin-3 hastens trilineage hematopoietic recovery following high-dose (7 g/m2) cyclophosphamide cancer therapy

BACKGROUND: Interleukin-3, a recombinant cytokine with multilineage stimulatory effect on hematopoietic cells, was administered to 22 previously untreated breast cancer patients following high-dose therapy with cyclophosphamide (7 g/m2). PATIENTS AND METHODS: The growth factor, administered through continuous intravenous infusion at 1 (3 patients), 2.5 (3 patients), 5 (10 patients) and 10 micrograms/kg/day (6 patients), was well tolerated up to 5 micrograms/kg/day. RESULTS: Nausea, vomiting, fever and headache prevented administration of the intended dose to all 6 patients in the 10 micrograms/kg/day cohort. At the maximal tolerable dose (5 micrograms/kg/day) the growth factor significantly accelerated granulocyte, platelet and reticulocyte recovery as compared to matched historical controls who received high-dose cyclophosphamide without cytokine infusion. Moreover, no platelet transfusions and fewer erythrocyte transfusions were required in interleukin 3-treated patients. In contrast to GM-CSF and G-CSF, interleukin 3 showed no effect on the mobilization of hematopoietic progenitor cells in the peripheral blood. CONCLUSIONS: Interleukin-3 represents a well-tolerated cytokine, clinically useful for accelerating trilineage hematopoietic recovery following severely myelotoxic treatments such as high-dose cyclophosphamide.     

Architectures and performance of AWG-based optical switching nodes for IP networks

In order to support the continuous growth of transmission capacity demand, optical packet switching technology is emerging as a strong candidate, promising to allow fast dynamic allocation of wavelength-division multiplexing (channels, combined with a high degree of statistical resource sharing). This work addresses the design of optical switch architectures, based on previous proposals available in the technical literature that use an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) device to route packets. Since the port number of currently available AWGs is a limiting factor, we propose two new modified structures which better exploit the switching capability of this component in the wavelength domain. Since a limited hardware complexity is a key requirement for all-optical switches, due to the high cost of optical components, these different node configurations are compared in terms of complexity. Traffic performance of these new structures in a full optical packet switching scenario is also examined.     

Calcium Alginate Microspheres of Bacillus subtilis

Microspheres of Bacillus subtilis were prepared using sodium alginate. Some typical properties of microencapsulated systems, such as microorganism content, particle size, and germination time, were studied. Calcium alginate microspheres were obtained by the emulsification method, dripping into a solution of calcium salt. The conditions of the preparation steps were very soft to produce calcium alginate microspheres containing cells with no apparent changes in general biological properties. The hydrogel matrix provides protection without preventing communication with the surrounding medium.     

An Empirical Study on Time-Correlation of GSM Telephone Traffic

In this paper, we investigate possible timecorrelation of answered call arrivals in sets of real GSM telephone traffic data. Instead of attempting to model the empirical distribution of the call interarrival time, as done in several previous works in literature, we emphasize results obtained by the Modified Allan Variance (MAVAR), a widely used time-domain quantity with excellent capability of discriminating power-law noise types. The call arrival rate exhibits a diurnal trend, with peak hours in the morning and late afternoon. Besides this diurnal rate change, the number of call arrivals in a second is found perfectly uncorrelated to the number of arrivals in other seconds and Poisson distributed, with good consistency by X/sup 2/- test evaluation. Uniform and accurate whiteness of call arrivals per second is verified in all hours, regardless the time of the day. In all series analyzed, the empirical statistics of both originated and terminated call arrivals proves excellent consistency with the ideal Poisson model with diurnal variable rate λ(t). This study may be valuable to researchers concerned about realistic traffic modelling in planning and performance evaluation of cellular networks.