Bernard Burtschy

Reliability in the utility computing era: Towards reliable Fog computing

This paper considers current paradigms in computing and outlines the most important aspects concerning their reliability. The Fog computing paradigm as a non-trivial extension of the Cloud is considered and the reliability of the networks of smart devices are discussed. Combining the reliability requirements of grid and cloud paradigms with the reliability requirements of networks of sensor and actuators it follows that designing a reliable Fog computing platform is feasible.

Antioxidant micronutrients and childhood malignancy during oncological treatment

Serum antioxidant vitamins A (retinol) and E (alpha-tocopherol), beta-carotene, zinc, and selenium, and cholesterol and related proteins for 170 children with newly diagnosed malignancy were measured at diagnosis and 6 months after initiation of treatment, and compared with those of 632 cancer-free controls. Incident cancer cases and controls were 1-16 years old and recruited between 1986 and 1989. At diagnosis, age- and sex-adjusted serum concentrations of retinol, beta-carotene, zinc, and alpha-tocopherol were significantly inversely associated with cancer. No significant decreases in mean values were observed at 6 month, except for the alpha-tocopherol-to-cholesterol ratio in patients with bone tumors and serum zinc in bone tumors and central nervous system malignancies. An increase during the period of treatment was found for retinol and selenium in leukemia patients. beta-carotene was maintained at the initial concentrations determined prior to therapy. These findings provide further information about micronutrient requirements in children with cancer.

Reference values for serum zinc and selenium of French healthy children

Age — and sex — specific reference intervals derived from a healthy pediatric population are presented for zinc, selenium and related analytes in serum. No strong correlations were found between age, sex and trace elements in serum. Serum variables were discussed to assess their ability as biochemical indicators of micronutrient status in the field of biological epidemiology.

ON USING SOFT COMPUTING TECHNIQUES IN SOFTWARE RELIABILITY ENGINEERING

Previous investigations have shown the importance of evaluating computer performances and predicting the system reliability. This paper considers soft computing techniques in order to be used for software fault diagnosis, reliability optimization and for time series prediction during the software reliability analysis. It is shown that the study of the data collections during a software project development can be done within a soft computing framework.

Improving Software Reliability Forecasting

This work investigates some methods for software reliability forecasting. A supermodel is presented as a suited tool for prediction of reliability in software project development. Also, times series forecasting for cumulative interfailure time is proposed and illustrated.

Neutrosophic Logic Applied to Decision Making

Decision making addresses the usage of various methods to select “the best”, in some way, alternative strategy (from many available) when a problem is given for solving. The authors propose the usage of neutrosophic way of thinking, called also Smarandache’s logic, to select a model by experts when degrees of trustability, ultrastability (falsehood), and indeterminacy are used to decide. The procedures deal with multi-attribute neutrosophic decision making and a case study on e-learning software objects is presented.

Antioxidant Micronutrient Status during Oncological Treatment in Children with Cancer

Cancer is frequently associated with a combination of metabolic abnormalities leading to a complex, abnormal biochemical state in the tumor-bearing host, including alterations in vitamin and mineral concentrations. Moreover, the tumoricidal action of several anti-cancer drugs is known to be mediated by a free radical dependent mechanism (1). It has been suggested that lipid peroxidation is one of the main causes of irradiation damage. Conditioning regimens for cancer treatments in children often consist of high-dose chemotherapy, possibly combined with surgery or irradiation. These regimens may approach tolerance limit for several tissues. Vitamins and other micronutrients with antioxidant properties (2) have not been clearly assessed during childhood malignancies. We therefore investigated whether abnormal breakdown of antioxidants such as beta-carotene, alpha-tocopherol, zinc and selenium occurs at the time of diagnosis and might follow the conditioning therapy in certain groups of children with cancer. The study was conducted in France as a satellite investigation of a large multicenter case-control survey designed to document the relationship between serum micronutrient values and childhood malignancy (3). We therefore measured retinol (vitamin A), beta-carotene, alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E), cholesterol, zinc, selenium, and related proteins in serum collected from 1986 to 1989 from 170 children aged 1–16 years with newly diagnosed cancer, and from 632 healthy controls who were cancer-free. In the patient group, sample processing was performed twice, once at diagnosis and before treatment (month-0), and once 6 months after initiation of treatment (month-6).