VMs deployed in cloud environments are prone to performance interference due to dynamic and unpredictable contention for shared physical resources among colocated tenants. Current provider-centric ...solutions, such as careful co-scheduling of VMs and/or VM migration, require a priori profiling of customer VMs, which is infeasible in public clouds. Further, such solutions are not always aware of the user's SLO requirements or application bottlenecks. This paper presents DIAL, an interference-aware load balancing framework that can directly be employed by cloud users without requiring any assistance from the provider. The key idea behind DIAL is to infer the demand for contended resources on the physical hosts, which is otherwise hidden from users. Estimates of the colocated load are then used to dynamically shift load away from compromised VMs without violating the application's tail latency SLOs. We implement DIAL for web and online analytical processing applications, and show, via experimental results on OpenStack and AWS clouds, that DIAL can reduce tail latencies by as much as 70 percent compared to existing solutions.
mRNA RT-qPCR is shown to be a very sensitive technique to detect minimal residual disease (MRD) in patients with neuroblastoma. Multiple mRNA markers are known to detect heterogeneous neuroblastoma ...cells in bone marrow (BM) or blood from patients. However, the limited volumes of BM and blood available can hamper the detection of multiple markers. To make optimal use of these samples, we developed a multiplex RT-qPCR for the detection of MRD in neuroblastoma.
and
were tested as single markers. The adrenergic markers
,
,
and
and mesenchymal markers
,
and
were tested in multiplex. Using control blood and BM, we established new thresholds for positivity. Comparison of multiplex and singleplex RT-qPCR results from 21 blood and 24 BM samples from neuroblastoma patients demonstrated a comparable sensitivity. With this multiplex RT-qPCR, we are able to test seven different neuroblastoma mRNA markers, which overcomes tumor heterogeneity and improves sensitivity of MRD detection, even in those samples of low RNA quantity. With resources and time being saved, reduction in sample volume and consumables can assist in the introduction of MRD by RT-qPCR into clinical practice.
Neuroblastoma affects mostly young children, bearing a high morbidity and mortality. Liquid biopsies, e.g., molecular analysis of circulating tumor-derived nucleic acids in blood, offer a minimally ...invasive diagnostic modality. Cell-free RNA (cfRNA) is released by all cells, especially cancer. It circulates in blood packed in extracellular vesicles (EV) or attached to proteins. We studied the feasibility of analyzing cfRNA and EV, isolated by size exclusion chromatography (SEC), from platelet-poor plasma from healthy controls (
= 40) and neuroblastoma patients with localized (
= 10) and metastatic disease (
= 30). The mRNA content was determined using several multiplex droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) assays for a neuroblastoma-specific gene panel (
,
,
) and a cell cycle regulation panel (
,
,
,
,
,
). We applied corrections for the presence of platelets. We demonstrated that neuroblastoma-specific markers were present in plasma from 14/30 patients with metastatic disease and not in healthy controls and patients with localized disease. Most cell cycle markers had a higher expression in patients. The mRNA markers were mostly present in the EV-enriched SEC fractions. In conclusion, cfRNA can be isolated from plasma and EV and analyzed using multiplex ddPCR. cfRNA is an interesting novel liquid biopsy-based target to explore further.
The beneficial effects of boron (B) and calcium (Ca) nutrition on pea seed germinability under salinity stress have recently been shown. However, nothing is known about the influence of seed vigor ...status on these results, especially in oilseed rape as an important oil crop worldwide. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of seed vigor, boron and calcium nutrition on seed germinability, seedling growth, and some biochemical characteristics of oilseed rape seedlings under salinity. In spite of promotive effects of application of both boron and calcium nutrition on oilseed rape germinability and seedling growth, there was a more significant promotion on germination rate of high vigor seeds. Proline content and guaiacol peroxidase activity of seedlings were significantly increased by adding supplemental boron to the medium compared to the control. Finally, it can be concluded that boron and calcium nutrition would improve the salt tolerance capability of oilseed rape seedlings from vigorous seeds, at least in the early plant development.
BACKGROUND
Numerous RHD variant genes affect the expression of D on the red blood cell surface. In Suriname, 4.3% of pregnant women were D–, ranging from virtually zero to 7% among ethnic groups. ...Characterization of RHD variants, which are associated with a variable potential to induce anti‐D, is of practical clinical importance especially in case of limited access to preventive measures. Here we report on the occurrence of RHD variant genes in Surinamese serologically D– pregnant women and their D– newborns from different ethnic groups.
STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS
The RheSuN study is a cross‐sectional cohort study in D– pregnant women and their newborns, who visited hospitals in Paramaribo, Suriname, during routine pregnancy care. The presence of RHD variants was investigated using quantitative polymerase chain reaction targeting RHD Exons 5 and 7 and RH‐multiplex ligation–dependent probe amplification.
RESULTS
Seven RHD variant genes were detected in 35 of 84 women and four RHD variant genes in 15 of 36 newborns. The RHD*03 N.01 and RHD*08 N.01 variants represented 87% of a total of 62 variant genes. Variants were comparably frequent among ethnicities. In four cases genotyping would have changed anti‐D prophylaxis policy: one woman with a RHD*01EL.01 variant, not associated with anti‐D formation and three D– newborns with RHD*09.01 and RHD*09.03.01 variants, potentially capable of inducing anti‐D.
CONCLUSION
RHD variants at risk for anti‐D are common among serologic D– individuals from African descent in Suriname. While genotyping D– women has limited added value, it may be considered in newborns from D– women.
Total cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and tumor-derived cfDNA (ctDNA) can be used to study tumor-derived genetic aberrations. We analyzed the diagnostic and prognostic potential of cfDNA and ctDNA, obtained ...from pediatric patients with rhabdomyosarcoma.
cfDNA was isolated from diagnostic plasma samples from 57 patients enrolled in the EpSSG RMS2005 study. To study the diagnostic potential, shallow whole genome sequencing (shWGS) and cell-free reduced representation bisulphite sequencing (cfRRBS) were performed in a subset of samples and all samples were tested using droplet digital polymerase chain reaction to detect methylated
(
M). Correlation with outcome was studied by combining cfDNA
M detection with analysis of our rhabdomyosarcoma-specific RNA panel in paired cellular blood and bone marrow fractions and survival analysis in 56 patients.
At diagnosis, ctDNA was detected in 16 of 30 and 24 of 26 patients using shallow whole genome sequencing and cfRRBS, respectively. Furthermore, 21 of 25 samples were correctly classified as embryonal by cfRRBS.
-M was detected in 21 of 57 patients. The presence of
-M was significantly correlated with poor outcome (the 5-year event-free survival EFS rate was 46.2% for 21
-M
positive patients, compared with 84.9% for 36
-M
negative patients
< .001).
-M positivity had the highest prognostic effect among patients with metastatic disease. Patients both negative for
-M and the rhabdomyosarcoma-specific RNA panel (28 of 56 patients) had excellent outcome (5-year EFS 92.9%), while double-positive patients (11/56) had poor outcome (5-year EFS 13.6%,
< .001).
Analyzing ctDNA at diagnosis using various techniques is feasible in pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma and has potential for clinical use. Measuring
M in plasma at initial diagnosis correlated significantly with outcome, particularly when combined with paired analysis of blood and bone marrow using a rhabdomyosarcoma-specific RNA panel.
AI is increasingly being offered 'as a service' (AIaaS). This entails service providers offering customers access to pre-built AI models and services, for tasks such as object recognition, text ...translation, text-to-voice conversion, and facial recognition, to name a few. The offerings enable customers to easily integrate a range of powerful AI-driven capabilities into their applications. Customers access these models through the provider's APIs, sending particular data to which models are applied, the results of which returned. However, there are many situations in which the use of AI can be problematic. AIaaS services typically represent generic functionality, available 'at a click'. Providers may therefore, for reasons of reputation or responsibility, seek to ensure that the AIaaS services they offer are being used by customers for 'appropriate' purposes. This paper introduces and explores the concept whereby AIaaS providers uncover situations of possible service misuse by their customers. Illustrated through topical examples, we consider the technical usage patterns that could signal situations warranting scrutiny, and raise some of the legal and technical challenges of monitoring for misuse. In all, by introducing this concept, we indicate a potential area for further inquiry from a range of perspectives.
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