• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.1436-1458
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• 2017

Quorum-based algorithms are widely used for solving several problems in mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) and wireless sensor networks (WSN). Several quorum-based protocols are proposed for multi-hop ad hoc networks that each one has its pros and cons. Quorum-based protocol (QEC or QPS) is the first study in the asynchronous sleep scheduling protocols. At the time, most of the proposed protocols were non-adaptive ones. But nowadays, adaptive quorum-based protocols have gained increasing attention, because we need protocols which can change their quorum size adaptively with network conditions. In this paper, we first introduce the most popular quorum systems and explain quorum system properties and its performance criteria. Then, we present a comparative and comprehensive survey of the non-adaptive and adaptive quorum-based protocols which are subsequently discussed in depth. We also present the comparison of different quorum systems in terms of the expected quorum overlap size (EQOS) and active ratio. Finally, we summarize the pros and cons of current adaptive and non-adaptive quorum-based protocols.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2004

Many bacteria monitor their population density and control the expression of specialized gene sets in response to bacterial cell density based on a mechanism referred to as quorum sensing. In all cases, quorum sensing involves the production and detection of extracellular signaling molecules, auto inducers, as which Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria use most prevalently acylated homoserine lactones and processed oligo-peptides, respectively. Through quorum-sensing communication circuits, bacteria regulate a diverse array of physiological functions, including virulence, symbiosis, competence, conjugation, antibiotic production, motility, sporulation, and biofilm formation. Many pathogens have evolved quorum-sensing mechanisms to mount population-density-dependent attacks to over-whelm the defense responses of plants, animals, and humans. Since these AHL-mediated signaling mechanisms are widespread and highly conserved in many pathogenic bacteria, the disruption of quorum-sensing system might be an attractive target for novel anti-infective therapy. To control AHL-mediated pathogenicity, several promising strategies to disrupt bacterial quorum sensing have been reported, and several chemicals and enzymes have been also investigated for years. These studies indicate that anti-quorum sensing strategies could be developed as possible alternatives of antibiotics.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.117-121
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• 2000

Recent advances in studies of bacterial gene expression and light microscopy show that cell-to cell communication and communication and community behavior are the rule rather than the exception. One type of cell-cell communication, quorum sensing in Gram-negative bacteria involves acyl-homoserine lactone signals. This type of quorum sension represents a dedicated communication system that enables a given species to sense when it has reached a critical population density. and to respond by activating expression of specific genes. The LuxR and LuxI proteins of Vibrio fisheri are the founding members of the acyl-homoserine lactone quorum sensing signal receptor and signal generator families of proteins. Acyl-homeserine lactone signaling in Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one model for the relationship between quorum sensing community behavior, and virulence. In the P. aeruginosa model. quorum sensing is required for normal biofilm maturation and virulence. There are multiple quorum-sensing circuits that control the expression of dozens of specific genes in P. aeruginosa.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.1661-1677
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• 2006

Rhizobium and related genera are soil bacteria with great metabolic plasticity. These microorganisms survive in many different environments and are capable of eliciting the formation of nitrogen-fixing nodules on legumes. The successful establishment of symbiosis is precisely regulated and requires a series of signal exchanges between the two partners. Quorum sensing (QS) is a prevalent form of population density-dependent gene regulation. Recently, increasing evidence indicates that rhizobial quorum sensing provides a pervasive regulatory network, which plays a more generalized role in the physiological activity of free-living rhizobia, as well as during symbiosis. Several rhizobia utilize multiple, overlapping quorum sensing systems to regulate diverse properties, including conjugal transfer and copy number control of plasmids, exopolysaccharide biosynthesis, rhizosphere-related functions, and cell growth. Genomic and proteomic analyses have begun to reveal the wide range of functions under quorum-sensing control.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.43 no.spc1
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• pp.101-109
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• 2005

To gain maximal benefit in a competitive environment, single-celled bacteria have adopted a community genetic regulatory mechanism, known as quorum sensing (QS). Many bacteria use QS signaling systems to synchronize target gene expression and coordinate biological activities among a local population. N-acylhomoserine lactones (AHLs) are one family of the well-characterized QS signals in Gram-negative bacteria, which regulate a range of important biological functions, including virulence and biofilm formation. Several groups of AHL-degradation enzymes have recently been identified in a range of living organisms, including bacteria and eukaryotes. Expression of these enzymes in AHL-dependent pathogens and transgenic plants efficiently quenches the microbial QS signaling and blocks pathogenic infections. Discovery of these novel quorum quenching enzymes has not only provided a promising means to control bacterial infections, but also presents new challenges to investigate their roles in host organisms and their potential impacts on ecosystems.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.753-760
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• 2017

In this paper, we propose a new method to improve the performance of a Quorum-based NDP (Neighbor Discovery Protocol) in heterogeneous wireless sensor networks. It creates a new set of discovery schedules by combining two different Quorum-based matrices. The original Quorum-based schedule guarantees only two overlapping active slots with a cycle, but the newly created matrix greatly increases the chance of neighbor discovery. Therefore, although the size of the combined matrix of the proposed method increases, the number of discovery chances with neighboring nodes considerably increases, and the new approach is superior to the original Quorum-based neighbor node discovery protocol. In this study, we compares the performance of the proposed method to the Quorum-based protocols such as SearchLight and Hedis using TOSSIM. We assume all sensor nodes operates in a different duty cycle in the experiment. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is superior to other Quorum-based methods.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartA
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• v.12A no.2 s.92
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• pp.171-180
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• 2005

In distributed systems data are replicated and stored at several nodes to increase the availability and overall performance. Here Quorum protocol doffing a certain set of replicas required for read/write operation exists for global concurrency control. One of the representative replication Protocols - the Tree Quorum protocol - has a drawback of rapidly growing number of replicas as the level increases, while the Grid protocol requires the same operation cost even without any failure. In this paper, thus, we propose a new replication protocol called hybrid protocol which capitalizes the merits of the existing protocols and solves the problems of them at the same time. The proposed hybrid protocol has very low operation cost in the absence of failure like the tree quorum protocol, and has relatively lower operation cost and higher availability than existing protocols when failure occurs by employing tree architecture as the overall organization while each level of the tree is organized as a row of a grid architecture. It is thus effective to be applied to survival storage system. We conduct cost and availability analysis of the proposed protocol through mathematical modeling, and response time and throughput are compared with those of the Tree Quorum protocol through computer simulation.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.18 no.9
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• pp.1518-1521
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• 2008

Bacteria sense their population density and coordinate the expression of target genes, including virulence factors in Gram-negative bacteria, by the N-acylhomoserine lactones (AHLs)-dependent quorum sensing (QS) mechanism. In contrast, several soil bacteria are able to interfere with QS by enzymatic degradation of AHLs, referred to as quorum quenching. A potent AHL-degrading enzyme, AiiA, from Bacillus thuringiensis has been reported to effectively attenuate the virulence of bacteria by quorum quenching. However, little is known about the role of AiiA in B. thuringiensis itself. In the present study, an aiiA-defective mutant was generated to investigate the role of AHA in rhizosphere competence in the root system of pepper. The aiiA mutant showed no detectable AHL￢-egrading activity and was less effective for suppression of soft-rot symptom caused by Erwinia carotovora on the potato slice. On the pepper root, the survival rate of the aiiA mutant significantly decreased over time compared with that of wild type. Interestingly, viable cell count analysis revealed that the bacterial number and composition of E. carotovora were not different between treatments of wild type and the aiiA mutant. These results provide evidence that AHA can play an important role in rhizosphere competentce of B. thuringiensis and bacterial quorum quenching to Gram-negative bacteria without changing bacterial number or composition.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.480-490
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• 2015

The reliability of sensor networks is generally dependent on the battery power of the sensor nodes that it employs; hence it is crucial for the sensor nodes to efficiently use their battery resources. This research paper presents a method to increase the reliability of sensor nodes by constructing a connected dominating tree (CDT), which is a subnetwork of wireless sensor networks. It detects the minimum number of dominatees, dominators, forwarder sensor nodes, and aggregates, as well as transmitting data to the sink. A new medium access control (MAC) protocol, called Homogenous Quorum-Based Medium Access Control (HQMAC), is also introduced, which is an adaptive, homogenous, asynchronous quorum-based MAC protocol. In this protocol, certain sensor nodes belonging to a network will be allowed to tune their wake-up and sleep intervals, based on their own traffic load. A new quorum system, named BiQuorum, is used by HQMAC to provide a low duty cycle, low network sensibility, and a high number of rendezvous points when compared with other quorum systems such as grid and dygrid. Both the theoretical results and the simulation results proved that the proposed HQMAC (when applied to a CDT) facilitates low transmission latency, high delivery ratio, and low energy consumption, thus extending the lifetime of the network it serves.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.83-91
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• 2012

Quorum sensing (QS) is a cell-to-cell communication system, which is used by many bacteria to regulate diverse gene expression in response to changes in population density. Bacteria recognize the differences in cell density by sensing the concentration of signal molecules such as N-acyl-homoserine lactones (AHL) and autoinducer-2 (AI-2). In particular, QS plays a key role in biofilm formation, which is a specific bacterial group behavior. Biofilms are dense aggregates of packed microbial communities that grow on surfaces, and are embedded in a self-produced matrix of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). QS regulates biofilm dispersal as well as the production of EPS. In some bacteria, biofilm formations are regulated by c-di-GMP-mediated signaling as well as QS, thus the two signaling systems are mutually connected. Biofilms are one of the major virulence factors in pathogenic bacteria. In addition, they cause numerous problems in industrial fields, such as the biofouling of pipes, tanks and membrane bioreactors (MBR). Therefore, the interference of QS, referred to as quorum quenching (QQ) has received a great deal of attention. To inhibit biofilm formation, several strategies to disrupt bacterial QS have been reported, and many enzymes which can degrade or modify the signal molecule AHL have been studied. QQ enzymes, such as AHL-lactonase, AHL-acylase, and oxidoreductases may offer great potential for the effective control of biofilm formation and membrane biofouling in the future. This review describes the process of bacterial QS, biofilm formation, and the close relationship between them. Finally, QQ enzymes and their applications for the reduction of biofouling are also discussed.