| 1. |
- Briscoe, Bob, et al.
(author)
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Reducing Internet Latency : A Survey of Techniques and Their Merits
- 2016
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In: IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials. - : IEEE. - 1553-877X. ; 18:3, s. 2149-2196
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Latency is increasingly becoming a performance bottleneck for Internet Protocol (IP) networks, but historically, networks have been designed with aims of maximizing throughput and utilization. This paper offers a broad survey of techniques aimed at tackling latency in the literature up to August 2014, as well as their merits. A goal of this work is to be able to quantify and compare the merits of the different Internet latency reducing techniques, contrasting their gains in delay reduction versus the pain required to implement and deploy them. We found that classifying techniques according to the sources of delay they alleviate provided the best insight into the following issues: 1) The structural arrangement of a network, such as placement of servers and suboptimal routes, can contribute significantly to latency; 2) each interaction between communicating endpoints adds a Round Trip Time (RTT) to latency, particularly significant for short flows; 3) in addition to base propagation delay, several sources of delay accumulate along transmission paths, today intermittently dominated by queuing delays; 4) it takes time to sense and use available capacity, with overuse inflicting latency on other flows sharing the capacity; and 5) within end systems, delay sources include operating system buffering, head-of-line blocking, and hardware interaction. No single source of delay dominates in all cases, and many of these sources are spasmodic and highly variable. Solutions addressing these sources often both reduce the overall latency and make it more predictable.
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| 2. |
- Carter, Bob, et al.
(author)
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Uncomfortable truths : teamworking under lean in the UK
- 2017
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In: International Journal of Human Resource Management. - : Taylor & Francis. - 0958-5192 .- 1466-4399. ; 28:3, s. 449-467
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A recent contribution in this journal – Procter, S. and Radnor, Z. (2014) ‘Teamworking under Lean in UK public services: lean teams and team targets in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC)’ International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25:21, 2978–2995 – provides an account of teamworking in the UK Civil Service, specifically Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), focused on the relationship between recently implemented lean work organisation and teams and teamworking. Procter and Radnor claim in this work that it delivers a ‘more nuanced’ analysis of lean in this government department and, it follows, of the lean phenomenon more generally. Our riposte critiques their article on several grounds. It suffers from problems of logic and construction, conceptual confusion and definitional imprecision. Methodological difficulties and inconsistent evidence contribute additionally to analytical weakness. Included in our response are empirical findings on teamworking at HMRC that challenge Procter and Radnor’s evidential basis and further reveal the shortcomings of their interpretation
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Russell, Bob, et al.
(author)
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System, society and dominance effects in the adoption of tele-health: A tri-country comparison
- 2017
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In: Economic and Industrial Democracy. - 0143-831X .- 1461-7099. ; 38:3, s. 425-447
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Although there have been many studies of low skilled call centre operators, research on professional workers in call centres is less common and cross-national research on such operations even rarer. This article compares the labour process experiences of tele-nurses – registered nurses in call centre settings – across three countries: the UK, Australia and Sweden. Using cross-national, comparative ethnographies, through a system, society and dominance (SSD) approach, the article explores the common problems tele-nurses face as well as distinctive societal differences in the ways in which this branch of e-health care is being established. The outcomes reveal both societal diversity and mounting pressures towards a globalizing conformity between the three countries with regard to the working practices of tele-nursing. The findings have important implications for whether or not a professional project can be developed around tele-health care.
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| 5. |
- Olsson, Bob, 1969, et al.
(author)
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CSF and blood biomarkers for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
- 2016
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In: The Lancet. Neurology. - 1474-4465. ; 15:7, s. 673-684
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Alzheimer's disease biomarkers are important for early diagnosis in routine clinical practice and research. Three core CSF biomarkers for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (Aβ42, T-tau, and P-tau) have been assessed in numerous studies, and several other Alzheimer's disease markers are emerging in the literature. However, there have been no comprehensive meta-analyses of their diagnostic performance. We systematically reviewed the literature for 15 biomarkers in both CSF and blood to assess which of these were most altered in Alzheimer's disease.
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| 6. |
- Olsson, Bob, 1969, et al.
(author)
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NFL is a marker of treatment response in children with SMA treated with nusinersen
- 2019
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In: Journal of Neurology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0340-5354 .- 1432-1459. ; 266:9, s. 2129-2136
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background Recently, the anti-sense oligonucleotide drug nusinersen was approved for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and our aim was to find a response marker for this treatment. Methods Twelve children with SMA type 1 and two copies of the SMN2 gene were included in a consecutive single-center study. The children were sampled for CSF at baseline and every time nusinersen was given intrathecally. The neuronal biomarkers NFL and tau and the glial biomarker GFAP were measured. Motor function was assessed using CHOP INTEND. Eleven similarly aged children, who were investigated to rule out neurological or infectious disease, were used as controls. Results Baseline levels of NFL (4598 +/- 981 vs 148 +/- 39, P = 0.001), tau (939 +/- 159 vs 404 +/- 86, P = 0.02), and GFAP (236 +/- 44 vs 108 +/- 26, P = 0.02) were significantly higher in SMA children than controls. Motor function improved by nusinersen treatment in median 13 points corresponding to 5.4 points per month of treatment (P = 0.001). NFL levels typically normalized ( < 380 pg/ml) between the fourth and fifth doses [- 879.5 pg/mL/dose, 95% CI (- 1243.4, - 415.6), P = 0.0001], tau levels decreased [- 112.6 pg/mL/dose, 95% CI (- 206-7, - 18.6), P = 0.01], and minor decreases in GFAP were observed [- 16.9 pg/mL/dose, 95% CI (- 22.8, - 11.2), P = 0.02] by nusinersen treatment. Improvement in motor function correlated with reduced concentrations of NFL (rho = - 0.64, P = 0.03) and tau (rho = - 0.85, P = 0.0008) but not GFAP. Conclusions Nusinersen normalized the axonal damage marker NFL and correlated with motor improvement in children with SMA. NFL may, therefore, be a novel biomarker to monitor treatment response early in the disease course.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Olsson, Bob, 1969, et al.
(author)
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The use of cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers to measure change in neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease clinical trials
- 2017
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In: Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1473-7175 .- 1744-8360. ; 17:8, s. 767-775
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Introduction: All recent phase 3 trials of potentially disease-modifying therapies for Alzheimer's disease (AD) have so far failed. Potential reasons include enrolling subjects whose disease is too advanced or who do not have AD pathology, or simply incorrect drug targets. The goal of disease-modifying AD trials is to halt the progress of neuronal damage and death and this can be assessed in vivo using cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers.Areas covered: The authors conducted a literature search of the use of CSF biomarkers in disease-modifying AD clinical trials using PubMed. The authors show that CSF biomarkers have only sparsely been used as outcome measures, and where they have, only in small subsets of patients. No clinical trials have yet showed any substantial effects on CSF biomarkers of neurodegeneration.Expert commentary: In future trials, the authors advocate that CSF biomarkers be used more extensively to optimize the chance of detecting positive drug effects. This includes the identification of potential AD patients - already in the early prodromal stage - for inclusion, for stratification, as readout i.e. proximity markers for changes in axonal/neurodegeneration between treatment and placebo groups - this also enables proof of principle verification in the discovery/dose finding phase, and for monitoring of side effects.
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| 9. |
- Sturm, Bob, 1975-, et al.
(author)
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Artificial Intelligence and Music: Open Questions of Copyright Law and Engineering Praxis
- 2019
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In: MDPI Arts. - : MDPI AG. - 2076-0752. ; 8:3
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The application of artificial intelligence (AI) to music stretches back many decades, and presents numerous unique opportunities for a variety of uses, such as the recommendation of recorded music from massive commercial archives, or the (semi-)automated creation of music. Due to unparalleled access to music data and effective learning algorithms running on high-powered computational hardware, AI is now producing surprising outcomes in a domain fully entrenched in human creativity—not to mention a revenue source around the globe. These developments call for a close inspection of what is occurring, and consideration of how it is changing and can change our relationship with music for better and for worse. This article looks at AI applied to music from two perspectives: copyright law and engineering praxis. It grounds its discussion in the development and use of a specific application of AI in music creation, which raises further and unanticipated questions. Most of the questions collected in this article are open as their answers are not yet clear at this time, but they are nonetheless important to consider as AI technologies develop and are applied more widely to music, not to mention other domains centred on human creativity.
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