Cost Benefit Analysis of Elastic and Mixed Line Rate Optical Network Models

<div>Network traffic continues to grow at more than 30 percent per year and we either have to install new optical infrastructures or upgrade our optical networks to meet the increasing demands. Installing new fibers seems very costly the network operators considering the heterogeneity of optical networks with some consumers requiring low bit rate and others requiring high bit rate demands. As an alternative, we can use the existing fiber infrastructure to meet the traffic demands by aggregating both high and low bit rate demands or using a single type of rate-tunable technology to handle the increasing demands. This paper analyzes the two planning strategies-all period planning and incremental planning- for allocating resources in an increasing traffic and shows the pros and cons that a network operator may experience in case of using either elastic or mixed line rate optical networks.</div>

Cost Benefit Analysis of Elastic and Mixed Line Rate Optical Network Models

<div>Network traffic continues to grow at more than 30 percent per year and we either have to install new optical infrastructures or upgrade our optical networks to meet the increasing demands. Installing new fibers seems very costly the network operators considering the heterogeneity of optical networks with some consumers requiring low bit rate and others requiring high bit rate demands. As an alternative, we can use the existing fiber infrastructure to meet the traffic demands by aggregating both high and low bit rate demands or using a single type of rate-tunable technology to handle the increasing demands. This paper analyzes the two planning strategies-all period planning and incremental planning- for allocating resources in an increasing traffic and shows the pros and cons that a network operator may experience in case of using either elastic or mixed line rate optical networks.</div>

A systematic review and meta-analysis of nab-paclitaxel mono-chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer

Background Various clinical trials and real-life studies have tried to explore the value of nab-paclitaxel mono-chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer (MBC). The safety and efficacy of nab-paclitaxel needs to be systematically evaluated. Methods Electronic searches for prospective clinical trials containing nab-paclitaxel monotherapy for MBC were performed. Requisite data were extracted, integrated and analyzed from the included studies according to different purposes using systematic review and meta-analysis. Results 22 studies with 3287 MBC patients were included. 1685 MBC patients received nab-paclitaxel as first-line therapy, 640 patients as further-line therapy, and 962 patients as mixed-line therapy. 1966 MBC patients (60.40%) received nab-paclitaxel weekly, while 1190 patients (36.56%) received nab-paclitaxel triweekly and 99 patients (3.04%) biweekly. The overall incidence of all grades neutropenia, leukopenia, peripheral sensory neuropathy, and fatigue was 52% (95% CI, 38%-66%), 58% (95% CI, 43%-73%), 58% (95% CI, 48%-68%), and 49% (95% CI, 41%-56%) respectively. The overall response rate (ORR) was 40% (95% CI, 35%-45%) and the clinical benefit rate (CBR) was 66% (95% CI, 59%-73%) following nab-paclitaxel monotherapy. The median progression free survival (PFS) was 7.64 months (95% CI, 6.89–8.40 months) and the median overall survival (OS) was 24.51 months (95% CI, 21.25–27.78 months). According to the meta-regression analysis, grade 3/4 neutropenia occurred less frequently in Her-2 negative patients compared with all population (P = 0.046). Patients who received first-line nab-paclitaxel monotherapy showed higher ORR (P = 0.006) and longer PFS (P = 0.045). Patients who received further-line therapy was demonstrated to have shorter median OS versus first- and mixed-line therapy. Efficacy outcomes were not affected by the administration schedule. However, patients appeared to have more superior ORR (P = 0.044) and longer PFS (P = 0.03) along with the increasing dosage of nab-paclitaxel under the same schedule. Conclusions Both weekly and triweekly nab-paclitaxel mono-chemotherapy were proved to be effective for MBC with generally reasonable toxicity profiles. Higher ORR, longer PFS and OS would be achieved in patients treated with nab-paclitaxel as first line. Increasing nab-paclitaxel dosage would result in better tumor control (higher ORR and PFS). Changing nab-paclitaxel schedule had no benefit on ameliorating the overall survival.

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Nab-Paclitaxel Mono-Chemotherapy for Metastatic Breast Cancer.

Background: Various clinical trials and real-life studies have tried to explore the value of nab-paclitaxel mono-chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer (MBC). The safety and efficacy of nab-paclitaxel needs to be systematically evaluated. Methods : Electronic searches for prospective clinical trials containing nab-paclitaxel monotherapy for MBC were performed. Requisite data were extracted, integrated and analyzed from the included studies according to different purposes using systematic review and meta-analysis.Results: 22 studies with 3287 MBC patients were included. 1685 MBC patients received nab-paclitaxel as first-line therapy, 640 patients as further-line therapy, and 962 patients as mixed-line therapy. 1966 MBC patients (60.40%) received nab-paclitaxel weekly, while 1190 patients (36.56%) received nab-paclitaxel triweekly and 99 patients (3.04%) biweekly. The overall incidence of all grades neutropenia, leukopenia, peripheral sensory neuropathy, and fatigue was 52% (95% CI, 38%-66%), 58% (95% CI, 43%-73%), 58% (95% CI, 48%-68%), and 49% (95% CI, 41%-56%) respectively. The overall response rate (ORR) was 40% (95% CI, 35%-45%) and the clinical benefit rate (CBR) was 66% (95% CI, 59%-73%) following nab-paclitaxel monotherapy. The median progression free survival (PFS) was 7.64 months (95% CI, 6.89-8.40 months) and the median overall survival (OS) was 24.51 months (95% CI, 21.25-27.78 months). According to the meta-regression analysis, grade 3/4 neutropenia occurred less frequently in Her-2 negative patients compared with all population (P=0.046). Patients who received first-line nab-paclitaxel monotherapy showed higher ORR (P=0.006) and longer PFS (P=0.045). Patients who received further-line therapy was demonstrated to have shorter median OS versus first- and mixed-line therapy. Efficacy outcomes were not affected by the administration schedule. However, patients appeared to have more superior ORR (P=0.044) and longer PFS (P=0.03) along with the increasing dosage of nab-paclitaxel under the same schedule. Conclusions: Both weekly and triweekly nab-paclitaxel mono-chemotherapy were proved to be effective for MBC with generally reasonable toxicity profiles. Higher ORR, longer PFS and OS would be achieved in patients treated with nab-paclitaxel as first line. Increasing nab-paclitaxel dosage would result in better tumor control (higher ORR and PFS). Changing nab-paclitaxel schedule had no benefit on ameliorating the overall survival.

On the performance of switching methods in space division multiplexing based optical networks

In the current work, for Space Division Multiplexing based Optical Networks (SDM-b-OTNs), we investigate the performance of various switching methods with a variation in traffic evolution over different time frame periods. Initially, comparison of the existing methods viz., independent switching (InSw), frequency switching (FqSw), and space switching (SpSw) demonstrates that (i) over longer periods of time frame, FqSw provisions low network usage, and (ii) SpSw offers low network usage for shorter periods of time frame; however, as time frame increases to longer periods, SpSw starts to outperform InSw. Next, we investigate a hybrid switching (HySw) method which begins by implementing InSw and then shifts to the use of SpSw after the activation of specific numbers of space channels. HySw is observed to provision substantial savings on the costs incurred for switching, and with lower space channel values it also offers a balance in the trade-off which occurs between the costs associated for activating the space channels and that incurred for switching. Lastly, a comparison of InSw, SpSw, and HySw considering mixed line rate (MLR) demands shows that the space channels assigned in the ‘in-between’ periods of time frame can be reduced by shifting from InSw to SpSw in the starting periods of time frame.Overall, from the results it is inferred that the network performance only slightly depends on the MLR traffic, and over longer periods of time frame, in comparison to InSw, the significant benefits of SpSw and HySw remains conserved.

A Smoothing Newton Method with a Mixed Line Search for Monotone Weighted Complementarity Problems

In this paper, we present a smoothing Newton method for solving the monotone weighted complementarity problem (WCP). In each iteration of our method, the iterative direction is achieved by solving a system of linear equations and the iterative step length is achieved by adopting a line search. A feature of the line search criteria used in this paper is that monotone and nonmonotone line search are mixed used. The proposed method is new even when the WCP reduces to the standard complementarity problem. Particularly, the proposed method is proved to possess the global convergence under a weak assumption. The preliminary experimental results show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method for solving the concerned WCP.

Time-of-arrival–based localization algorithm in mixed line-of-sight/non-line-of-sight environments

A novel time-of-arrival–based localization algorithm in mixed line-of-sight/non-line-of-sight environments is proposed. First, an optimization problem of target localization in the known distribution of line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight is established, and mixed semi-definite and second-order cone programming techniques are used to transform the original problem into a convex optimization problem which can be solved efficiently. Second, a worst-case robust least squares criterion is used to form an optimization problem of target localization in unknown distribution of line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight, where all links are treated as non-line-of-sight links. This problem is also solved using the similar techniques used in the known distribution of line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight case. Finally, computer simulation results show that the proposed algorithms have better performance in both the known distribution and the unknown distribution of line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight environments.