Improving Throughput of Transmission Control Protocol Using Cross Layer Approach

Most of the internet users connect through wireless networks. Major part of internet traffic is carried by Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). It has some design constraints while operated across wireless networks. TCP is the traditional predominant protocol designed for wired networks. To control congestion in the network, TCP used acknowledgment to delivery of packets by the end host. In wired network, packet loss signals congestion in the network. But rather in wireless networks, loss is mainly because of the wireless characteristics such as fading, signal strength etc. When a packet travels across wired and wireless networks, TCP congestion control theory faces problem during handshake between them. This paper focuses on finding this misinterpretation of the losses using cross layer approach. This paper focuses on increasing bandwidth usage by improving TCP throughput in wireless environments using cross layer approach and hence named the proposed system as CRLTCP. TCP misinterprets wireless loss as congestion loss and unnecessarily reduces congestion window size. Using the signal strength and frame error rate, the type of loss is identified and accordingly the response of TCP is modified. The results show that there is a significant improvement in the throughput of proposed TCP upon which bandwidth usage is increased.     

Influence of the deposition conditions on the optical absorption of Ag-SiO2 nanocermet thin films

We report a study of the influence of the deposition conditions on the morphological parameters (shapes, size distribution and ordering) of Ag nanoclusters embedded in SiO2, deposited by different techniques of co-sputtering or multilayer deposition. The influence of the substrate temperature on the nucleation and growth process is also studied. The different cluster morphologies determined by various complementary techniques (transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy) are then correlated with the optical absorption, showing that the fabrication process is the key factor to control the position, shape and width of the surface plasmon resonance peaks and to achieve the desired optical properties. Films deposited by co-sputtering from 2 targets on a substrate heated at 440 °C show a very narrow absorption peak at 370 nm corresponding to the plasma resonance in near spherical silver particles. In multilayered films, the absorption peak is shifted from 340 to 480 nm with a larger half-band width. In cermet films co-sputtered from composite target on a rotating substrate, two absorption peaks are observed due to the more elongated shape of the metal nanoparticles. The experimental results are analysed in the frame of the Maxwell Garnett theory.     

Vibrations of skew plates immersed in water

Vibrations of skew plates immersed in water have been studied in the present work. Two skew prism fluid elements have been developed for the above study. As there is no information available on them, a few experiments have been conducted to measure the frequencies of vibration of these plates immersed in water. The results of both the theoretical and experimental investigations have been compared and found to be agreeing reasonably well. The general findings of these plates regarding their aspect ratios, thickness ratios and boundary conditions are discussed. In addition, the influence of skew angles on the vibration of skew plates have been investigated. It has been noticed that the effect of added mass is found to decrease with the increase of skew angle.     

Phase II trial of 5-fluorouracil, interferon-alpha and continuous infusion interleukin-2 for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma

BACKGROUND: This study was designed to evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of the combination of 5-fluorouracil, interferon-alpha, and interleukin-2 for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma. METHODS: Previously untreated patients with a Zubrod performance status of < or =2; adequate cardiac, pulmonary, and renal function; and absence of brain metastases were eligible. One course of therapy was 28 days. 5-fluorouracil was administered at a dose of 600 mg/m2/day as a continuous infusions on Days 1-5. Interleukin-2 also was administered as a continuous infusion on Days 1-5 at a dose of 2 million Roche U/m2/day. Interferon-alpha was given as a daily subcutaneous injection of 4 million U/m2/day. RESULTS: Fifty-five patients were enrolled in the trial and 52 were evaluable for response. All patients experienced fever and flu-like symptoms. Grade 3 or 4 nonhematologic toxic effects included hypertension (48%), dermatitis (12%), stomatitis (11%), and altered mental status (9%). There was one toxic death. Four complete responses and 12 partial responses were observed for a total response rate of 31% (95% confidence interval, 18-46%). The survival of responding patients was significantly better than that of nonresponding patients. The improvement in survival was even more significant when comparing patients with at least stable disease with those who progressed through treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The three-drug combination described in this study demonstrates activity. However, it appears to be more toxic than other regimens with similar response rates and cannot be recommended for standard practice. Changing the interleukin-2 route to subcutaneous administration may permit more continuous administration with less toxic effects.     

Improvement of Transmission Control Protocol for High Bandwidth Applications

Transmission control protocol (TCP) is the widely and dominantly used protocol in today’s internet. A very recent implementation of congestion control algorithm is BBR by Google. Bottleneck bandwidth and round-trip time (BBR) is a congestion control algorithm which is created with the aim of increasing throughput and reducing delay. The congestion control protocols mentioned previously try to determine congestion limits by filling router queues. BBR drains the router queues at the bottleneck by sending exactly at the bottleneck link rate. This is done by the BBR through pacing rate which infers the delivery rate of the receiver and uses this as the estimated bottleneck bandwidth. But when the data rate is high, in the startup phase itself pipe becomes full and leads to some degradation in the Access Point of wireless environments by inducing losses specific to this environment. So the current pacing rate is not suitable for producing higher throughputs. Therefore, in the proposed system named R-BBR, this startup gain should be lower than the current startup gain which eventually would reduce pacing rate to reduce queue pressure in the sink node during the startup phase. The startup phase of BBR is modified to solve the problem of pipe full under high data rate. R-BBR has been evaluated over a wide range of wired as well as wireless networks by varying different factors like startup gain, congestion window, and pacing rate. It is inferred that R-BBR performs better than BBR with significant performance improvement.

     

Convergence analysis of turbo decoding of product codes

Geometric interpretation of turbo decoding has founded an analytical basis, and provided tools for the analysis of this algorithm. We focus on turbo decoding of product codes, and based on the geometric framework, we extend the analytical results and show how analysis tools can be practically adapted for this case. Specifically, we investigate the algorithm's stability and its convergence rate. We present new results concerning the structure and properties of stability matrices of the algorithm, and develop upper bounds on the algorithm's convergence rate. We prove that for any 2×2 (information bits) product codes, there is a unique and stable fixed point. For the general case, we present sufficient conditions for stability. The interpretation of these conditions provides an insight to the behavior of the decoding algorithm. Simulation results, which support and extend the theoretical analysis, are presented for Hamming [(7,4,3)]² and Golay [(24,12,8)]² product codes     

Neutron and X-ray reflectivity analysis of ceramic-metal materials

Neutron and X-ray reflectivity measurements of a thin film of cermet (ceramic-metal) made by co-sputtering Pt and Al₂O₃ on the surface of a flat piece of float glass are presented. From the analysis of the specular and off-specular measurements, the morphology of the Pt clusters which are embedded in the Al₂O₃ matrix is determined by adjusting a model to the observed data. It is found that the structure of such films presents a certain degree of order in the direction normal to the surface of the films but no correlation (or with a very short correlation length not measurable by this technique) in the plane of the film.     

Haglund's syndrome

Haglund's syndrome is a painful condition of the heel caused by mechanically induced inflammation of the retrocalcaneal bursa, supracalcaneal bursa, and Achilles tendon. Surgical management has included calcaneal osteotomy, but results have been unpredictable because of the inability to measure accurately bone removal. A method was devised in this study to accurately determine radiographically the amount of bone removal necessary. Sixteen heels in 13 patients underwent surgery after failing 21 months of conservative treatment. The desired osteotomy angle (preop x-rays) was compared to the actual angle obtained at surgery. A patient questionnaire, developed by the Outcome Study Committee of the AOFAS, was used to assess results. There were 13 good results and 3 failures. The average actual angle of the good results was 49 degrees and that of the poor results was 61 degrees. These results were statistically significant to a p = .0012. The average score obtained by the good results was 87 points, while that of the failures was 25 points. Follow-up was 42 months. The authors recommend that the osteotomy be made in such a way as to remove not only the superolateral deformity, but also to decompress the retrocalcaneal bursa and to remove the calcaneal step. In order to do so, an osteotomy angle of 49 degrees should be achieved.     

Antiandrogen withdrawal syndrome with cyproterone acetate

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether the antiandrogen withdrawal syndrome occurs with the steroidal antiandrogen cyproterone acetate. METHODS: Cyproterone acetate was withheld in 12 patients with progressing androgen-independent metastatic prostate cancer. Eight patients had been receiving cyproterone acetate concomitant with androgen ablation, and in 4 patients it was prescribed after failure of androgen suppression. Time to response and to disease progression were defined by serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels and imaging studies. RESULTS: PSA levels decreased in 5 of the 1 2 patients; in 4 of them (33%), the decrease exceeded 50%. The decline lasted a median of 24 weeks (range 9 to 37.8). All 5 patients had received initial concomitant exposure to androgen ablation and cyproterone acetate. CONCLUSIONS: We recommend that the steroidal antiandrogen cyproterone acetate be added to the list of agents capable of inducing antiandrogen withdrawal syndrome.