Genetic Profiles and Risk Stratification in Adult De Novo Acute Myeloid Leukaemia in Relation to Age,Gender, and Ethnicity: A Study from Malaysia

Hitherto, no data describing the heterogeneity of genetic profiles and risk stratifications of adult acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) in Southeast Asia are reported. This study assessed genetic profiles, Moorman’s hierarchical classification, and ELN 2017-based risk stratifications in relation to age, gender, and ethnicity in Malaysian adult AML patients. A total of 854 AML patients: male (52%), female (48%) were recruited comprising three main ethnic groups: Malays (59%), Chinese (32%) and Indians (8%). Of 307 patients with abnormal karyotypes: 36% exhibited translocations; 10% deletions and 5% trisomies. The commonest genotype was FLT3-ITD-NPM1wt (276/414; 66.7%). ELN 2017 risk stratification was performed on 494 patients, and 41% were classified as favourable, 39% as intermediate and 20% as adverse groups. More females (47%) were in the favourable risk group compared to males (37%), whereas adverse risk was higher in patients above 60 (24%) of age compared to below 60 (18%) patients. We observed heterogeneity in the distribution of genetic profiles and risk stratifications between the age groups and gender, but not among the ethnic groups. Our study elucidated the diversity of adult AML genetic profiles between Southeast Asians and other regions worldwide.     

Preparation and evaluation of photocrosslinkable chitosan as a drug delivery matrix

Epichlorohydrin (1‐chloro‐2,3‐epoxypropane) was reacted with sodium azide in the presence of a phase transfer catalyst to obtain 1‐chloro‐2‐hydroxy‐3‐azidopropane, which was further coupled onto chitosan to prepare a photocrosslinkable derivative of the biopolymer. Elemental analysis and infrared (IR) spectroscopy confirmed the incorporation of azide groups onto chitosan. Films were cast from an aqueous acetic acid solution of azidated chitosan containing a model drug, such as theophylline. Irradiation of the film with ultraviolet (UV) light led to crosslinking of the drug incorporated film. IR spectra indicated complete surface crosslinking within 2 h of irradiation. Release of theophylline from uncrosslinked and crosslinked films was examined in simulated gastric and intestinal fluids without enzymes at 37 °C. The release of the drug from the crosslinked films was slower than the release from uncrosslinked films. Although the system is far from being optimized to obtain sustained release of a pharmacologically active agent for long periods, the data obtained indicate the possibility of developing photocrosslinkable matrices of biopolymers, such as chitosan, for sustained drug delivery with many advantages over chemical crosslinking. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 86: 1873–1877, 2002     

A dual-direction technique for fast file downloads with dynamic load balancing in the Cloud

File downloads make up a large percentage of the Internet traffic to satisfy various clients using distributed environments for their Cloud, Grid and Internet applications. In particular, the Cloud has become a popular data storage provider and users (individuals and corporates) are relying heavily on it to keep their data. Furthermore, most cloud data servers replicate their data storage infrastructures and servers at various sites to meet the overall high demands of their clients and increase availability. However, most of them do not use that replication to enhance the download performance per client. To make use of this redundancy and to enhance the download speed, we introduce a fast and efficient concurrent technique for downloading large files from replicated Cloud data servers and traditional FTP servers as well. The technique, DDFTP utilizes the availability of replicated files on distributed servers to enhance file download times through concurrent downloads of file blocks from opposite directions in the files. DDFTP does not require coordination between the servers and relies on the in-order and reliability features of TCP to provide fast file downloads. In addition, DDFTP offers efficient load balancing among multiple heterogeneous data servers with minimal overhead. As a result, we can maximize network utilization while maintaining efficient load balancing on dynamic environments where resources, current loads and operational properties vary dynamically. We implemented and evaluated DDFTP and experimentally demonstrated considerable performance gains for file downloads compared to other concurrent/parallel file/data download models.     

A Service-Oriented Middleware for Building Collaborative UAVs

For a while, Unmanned Arial Vehicles (UAVs) use was limited to military applications, however recently UAVs are also used for a wide range of civilian applications. Some of these UAV applications may involve multiple UAVs that must cooperate to achieve a common goal. This kind of applications is termed collaborative UAV applications. This paper investigates the collaborative aspects and challenges of multiple UAV systems. One of the main issues for multiple UAV systems is developing an effective framework to enable the development of software systems for collaborative UAV operations. One possible approach is to rely on service-oriented computing and service-oriented middleware technologies to simplify the development and operations of such applications. This paper discusses how the service-oriented middleware approach can help resolve some of the challenges of developing collaborative UAVs. The paper also proposes a service-oriented middleware architecture that can satisfy the development and operations of such applications.     

A survey on service-oriented middleware for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are used for many applications such as environmental monitoring, infrastructure security, healthcare applications, and traffic control. The design and development of such applications must address many challenges dictated by WSN characteristics on one hand and the targeted applications on the other. One of the emerging approaches used for relaxing these challenges is using service-oriented middleware (SOM). Service-oriented computing, in general, aims to make services available and easily accessible through standardized models and protocols without having to worry about the underlying infrastructures, development models, or implementation details. SOM could play an important role in facilitating the design, development, and implementation of service-oriented systems. This will help achieve interoperability, loose coupling, and heterogeneity support. Furthermore, SOM approaches will provision non-functional requirements like scalability, reliability, flexibility, and Quality of Service (QoS) assurance. This paper surveys the current work in SOM and the trends and challenges to be addressed when designing and developing these solutions for WSN.     

Service-oriented middleware: A survey

Service-oriented computing aims to make services available and easily accessible through standardized models and protocols without having to worry about the underlying infrastructures, development models or implementation details. This helps achieve interoperability and loose coupling among distributed application components and also among user processes. In addition, this model offers users an on-demand usage model where they only use the services needed for the time needed, which relieves them from having to build and maintain a complete system in house. However, the design and implementation of robust and efficient service-oriented applications are still as complex and demanding as any other type of distributed application. Thus middleware can play an important role in facilitating the design, development and implementation of service-oriented systems. Furthermore, middleware approaches will provision non-functional requirements like performance, scalability, reliability, flexibility and quality of service (QoS) assurance. A lot of work has been done in this area and in this paper we survey some of this work in service-oriented middleware (SOM). As we study the different projects we develop a list of the main requirements that SOM should support. We also discuss the main objectives and characteristics of the surveyed approaches, and then we highlight the challenges to be addressed when designing and developing SOM solutions that satisfy the requirements of different application domains.     

A Framework for Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Data Collection in Linear Wireless Sensor Networks

The wireless sensor network (WSN) technology have been evolving very quickly in recent years. Sensors are constantly increasing in sensing, processing, storage, and communication capabilities. In many WSNs that are used in environmental, commercial and military applications, the sensors are lined linearly due to the linear nature of the structure or area that is being monitored making a special class of these networks; We defined these in a previous paper as Linear Sensor Networks (LSNs), and provided a classification of the different types of LSNs. A pure multihop approach to route the data all the way along the linear network (e.g. oil, gas and water pipeline monitoring, border monitoring, road-side monitoring, etc.), which can extend for hundreds or even thousands of kilometers can be very costly from an energy dissipation point of view. In order to significantly reduce the energy consumption used in data transmission and extend the network lifetime, we present a framework for monitoring linear infrastructures using LSNs where data collection and transmission is done using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The system defines four types of nodes, which include: sensor nodes (SNs), relay nodes (RNs), UAVs, and sinks. The SNs use a classic WSN multihop routing approach to transmit their data to the nearest RN, which acts as a cluster head for its surrounding SNs. Then, a UAV moves back and forth along the linear network and transport the data that is collected by the RNs to the sinks located at both ends of the LSN. We name this network architecture a UAV-based LSNs (ULSNs). This approach leads to considerable savings in node energy consumption, due to a significant reduction of the transmission ranges of the SN and RN nodes and the use of a one-hop transmission to communicate the data from the RNs to the UAV. Furthermore, the strategy provides for reduced interference between the RNs that can be caused by hidden terminal and collision problems, that would be expected if a pure multihop approach is used at the RN level. In addition, three different UAV movement approaches are presented, simulated, and analyzed in order to measure system performance under various network conditions.     

Self-configured multiple-network-interface socket

MuniSocket (Multiple-Network-Interface Socket) provides mechanisms to enhance the communication performance properties such as throughput, transfer time, and reliability by utilizing the existing multiple-network-interface cards on communicating hosts. Although the MuniSocket model has some communication performance advantages over the regular socket, it also has a number of usability and manageability drawbacks including the complexity of establishing multiple channels and configuring them for good communication performance. This paper discusses some enhancements for MuniSocket using autonomic computing techniques. These techniques include self-discovery for discovering the existence of network interfaces and their performance properties, self-configuration for establishing channels over the interfaces, and self-optimization for selecting the best channels combinations for efficiently sending messages of varying sizes. While these techniques enhance the communication performance among computers, they also reduce the complexity of configuring MuniSocket and make its interface compatible with the regular TCP socket interface, which in turn allows for a transparent use of MuniSocket by the applications.     

Towards more reliable and secure source routing in mobile ad hoc and sensor networks

Routing protocols in mobile ad hoc and sensor networks discover a multi-hop route between source and destination nodes. A highly reliable path is an important component for enhancing the security of communication. This paper presents RAS: a Reliable routing protocol for enhanced reliability and security of communication in mobile Ad hoc and Sensor networks. Enhanced reliability and security are achieved by the maintenance of a reliability factor by the nodes, which is increased when nodes participate successfully in data transmissions. This is determined through the use of positive and passive acknowledgements. Additional optimizations are included in order to increase the efficiency and performance of the network. Simulation experiments are performed in order to verify the operation of the proposed protocol and evaluate its performance. The results show an improvement in the reliability of the discovered path with the proper choice of certain important reliability parameters.     

Middleware infrastructure for parallel and distributed programming models in heterogeneous systems

We introduce a middleware infrastructure that provides software services for developing and deploying high-performance parallel programming models and distributed applications on clusters and networked heterogeneous systems. This middleware infrastructure utilizes distributed agents residing on the participating machines and communicating with one another to perform the required functions. An intensive study of the parallel programming models in Java has helped identify the common requirements for a runtime support environment, which we used to define the middleware functionality. A Java-based prototype, based on this architecture, has been developed along with a Java object-passing interface (JOPI) class library. Since this system is written completely in Java, it is portable and allows executing programs in parallel across multiple heterogeneous platforms. With the middleware infrastructure, users need not deal with the mechanisms of deploying and loading user classes on the heterogeneous system. Moreover, details of scheduling, controlling, monitoring, and executing user jobs are hidden, while the management of system resources is made transparent to the user. Such uniform services are essential for facilitating the development and deployment of scalable high-performance Java applications on clusters and heterogeneous systems. An initial deployment of a parallel Java programming model over a heterogeneous, distributed system shows good performance results. In addition, a framework for the agents' startup mechanism and organization is introduced to provide scalable deployment and communication among the agents.