Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On joint spectrum sensing and data transmission in relay assisted cognitive radio networks

This paper proposes a joint spectral sensing and secondary data transmission scheme in decode and forward relay assisted cognitive radio networks (CRNs). Sensing information of cognitive source (CS) and cognitive relay (CR) are cooperatively combined at CS to determine the possible presence of primary user (PU). An optimization framework is developed to determine the sensing time, data transmission time for CS and CR along with their associated transmission power to maximize the average throughput of secondary transmission. The constraints are peak transmission power of CS and CR and average interference to PU. Simulation results are provided to validate our analysis.
Community Structure based on Node Traffic in Networks

community structure in networks has been always the prerequisite for the analysis of network structure and its properties. Based on node traffic, an efficient method for calculating betweenness measure is proposed. It is used iteratively to remove edges with high betweenness score from the network, thus splitting network into communities. The score is recalculated after each removal. The algorithm is best suited for networks with traffic generation capabilities.
Premotor Spinal Network with Balanced Excitation and Inhibition during Motor Patterns Has High Resilience to Structural Division

Direct measurements of synaptic inhibition (I) and excitation (E) to spinal motoneurons can provide an important insight into the organization of premotor networks. Such measurements of flexor motoneurons participating in motor patterns in turtles have recently demonstrated strong concurrent E and I as well as stochastic membrane potentials and irregular spiking in the adult turtle spinal cord. These findings represent a departure from the widespread acceptance of feedforward reciprocal rate models for spinal motor function. The apparent discrepancy has been reviewed as an experimental artifact caused by the distortion of local networks in the transected turtle spinal cord. We tested this assumption in the current study by performing experiments to assess the integrity of motor functions in the intact spinal cord and the cord transected at segments D9/D10. Excitatory and inhibitory synaptic inputs to motoneurons were estimated during rhythmic motor activity and demonstrated primarily intense inputs that consisted of qualitatively similar mixed E/I before and after the transection. To understand this high functional resilience, we used mathematical modeling of networks with recurrent connectivity that could potentially explain the balanced E/I. Both experimental and modeling data support the concept of a locally balanced premotor network consisting of recurrent E/I connectivity, in addition to the well known reciprocal network activity. The multifaceted synaptic connections provide spinal networks with a remarkable ability to remain functional after structural divisions.
Age and Sex-Related Differences in Dental Pulp Stem Cells

ii To my mom and dad for giving me love and support, no matter the distance and no matter the circumstance. I have been able to succeed in life only because of your continued guidance and encouragement along the way. To Ryan and Sabin for leaving home to be with me on this adventure in Iowa. I would not have been able to achieve what I have achieved here without you both. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I first need to recognize my mentor Dr. Liu Hong. You have been an invaluable resource for me throughout this process, and none of this would have been possible without your guidance, knowledge and input. I have learned so much from you and I want to express my gratitude to you for the amount of time and patience you have committed to me as my mentor. The things that you have taught me will no doubt serve as my foundation as I move forward in my career in academia. I hope that I can have the continued privilege to learn from you. I have to express my gratitude to Na Wei. It is only with your help that this project was possible. Thank you for walking me through every step and showing me every technique. Though we only got to spend a short amount of time together, it was apparent to me what an asset you are to the college. As I end this chapter in my life and head straight into the next, I know that you are beginning to do the same. I wish all the best in your future for you and your family. Dr. Gomez-you have made my experience at Iowa an absolute joy. I know that when I applied it was acknowledged that I was an odd fit for Iowa, and I thought so myself when I arrived here. After I met with each of you, however, I knew that this was the program that I wanted to attend. You have shown to me the type of educator I should strive to become. Thank you, Lisa, for always being there for me through all of my frustrations and concerns. I appreciate the time that you had always given to me, and the concern that you had always expressed. I don't believe that my completion of my thesis would have been possible without your assistance. It has been a privilege to talk …
Modeling the Mechanical Consequences of Age-Related Trabecular Bone Loss by XFEM Simulation

The elderly are more likely to suffer from fracture because of age-related trabecular bone loss. Different bone loss locations and patterns have different effects on bone mechanical properties. Extended finite element method (XFEM) can simulate fracture process and was suited to investigate the effects of bone loss on trabecular bone. Age-related bone loss is indicated by trabecular thinning and loss and may occur at low-strain locations or other random sites. Accordingly, several ideal normal and aged trabecular bone models were created based on different bone loss locations and patterns; then, fracture processes from crack initiation to complete failure of these models were observed by XFEM; finally, the effects of different locations and patterns on trabecular bone were compared. Results indicated that bone loss occurring at low-strain locations was more detrimental to trabecular bone than that occurring at other random sites; meanwhile, the decrease in bone strength caused by trabecular loss was higher than that caused by trabecular thinning, and the effects of vertical trabecular loss on mechanical properties were more severe than horizontal trabecular loss. This study provided a numerical method to simulate trabecular bone fracture and distinguished different effects of the possible occurrence of bone loss locations and patterns on trabecular bone.
Detection and classification of bleeding using statistical color features for wireless capsule endoscopy images

Wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE) is an immense discovery for Gastrointestinal Tract (GIT) diagnosis and it can visualize complete area in GIT. However, A severe problem associated with this new technology is that there are huge amount of images to be inspected by clinician through naked eyes which causes visual fatigue often and it leads to false detection. Therefore an automatic platform is much needed to find significant disease detection more accurately. This approach focuses on various color features which are also quite important and concerned criteria for clinicians. Here we propose five color features in HSV color space to differentiate between bleeding and non-bleeding frames. Support vector machine (SVM) is used as classifier to validate the performance of the proposed method and authorize the frames status. The result outcome shows that proposed method for feature and classification is quite effective and achieve high performance classifier.
High resolution D-INSAR measurement for land subsidence

TerraSAR-X is German first national remote sensing satellite. Compared to other European satellites, ERS-1/-2 and Envisat, TerraSAR-X data are more suitable for land subsidence monitoring due to its high resolution (strip-mode, 3 m) and short repeat acquisition cycle (11 days). It is well known, the major cause of the surface subsidence phenomenon is over-exploitation of groundwater, while the contribution of tectonic settlement was found to be very small. The traditional measurement method, differential leveling, can draw the spatial-temporal relationship between the real distribution of land subsidence and groundwater drawdown, their time series curves are similar, but the survey results shown the land subsidence centers don't overall match the groundwater depression cones, namely local deviations, and land subsidence always lags behind groundwater level decline, with different lag time at different sites. Some documents think that land subsidence centers shift from the corresponding groundwater depression cones to the sides with thicker accumulated clay layers and the shift strongly depends on the different physical properties of clay soils. In this paper, a study area of subsidence in the city of Taiyuan has been investigated using TerraSAR-X high resolution data and D-INSAR technique. In order to determine the accurate location and shape of each subsidence center, a time series of differential interferograms has been first generated and applied to preliminary location determination and rough subsidence rate estimation for each subsidence center, then the time series analysis of persistent scatterers including single point objects and highly coherent surface pieces for each subsidence center has been used for accurate positioning of subsidence center and precise subsidence rate estimation. In fact, the second step is a problem of parameter estimation based on a subsidence modeling. An important parameter, e.g. parameter limit estimation for phase or displacement rate must be preset in advance, this is done usually based on experience. In this paper, this parameter limit has been estimated through stacking a series of phase-unwrapped interferograms with corresponding time-weighted average. The results of the study using TerraSAR-X data for land subsidence measurement in Taiyuan represent that the high resolution TerraSAR-X interferometry may provide more details of the subsidence phenomenon, and help to determine the accurate location and shape of each subsidence center. In addition, the results of the study indicate that the misfit and shift of the subsidence center from groundwater drawdown measured by traditional leveling should be caused by inaccurate positioning of subsidence center, not by different thickness of the accumulated clay layers.
Design of circular patch antennas for bluetooth, HIPERLAN, and X band (8.4 GHz) applications

This paper presents a design of a multiband microstrip circular patch antenna. The antenna of a single patch is designed for the operation at 2.45 GHz and 5.2 GHz ISM (industrial, scientific, and medical) band. This band is occupied by the bluetooth and high performance radio local area network (HIPERLAN) applications. In addition, with the aid of a circular array, the previous antenna can be designed to operate in a place of x band (8.4 GHZ) used by the spacecraft-to-ground communication link. The return loss, input impedance, and the radiation pattern are calculated. Under the condition of the return loss is less than 10dB, the bandwidth at 2.45, 5.2 and 8.4 GHz are 24 %, 7.7%, and 6.7%, respectively. The analysis and design of the antenna is carried out using of the finite difference time domain (FDTD) with the perfect matched layer (PML) in addition to a numerical package based on the method of moment (MOM). The obtained results are compared with the available published data and the results of the cavity resonance technique. Good agreements are found.
Using Look-Ahead Protocol for Mobile Data Broadcast

In this paper, we propose an efficient approach to maintaining data consistency of broadcast data in mobile computing environments. At the server a special read-only transaction, the broadcast transaction, is scheduled to read data entities from the database for broadcasting data. Obviously, traditional concurrency control algorithms are inadequate and inefficient as the broadcast transaction creates numerous data conflicts with other update transactions, which are concurrently accessing the same set of data entities. Some algorithms for global-reading of databases, Shade Test and Color Test could be a solution. However, we observe that they have also some deficiencies. Therefore, we devise a new and efficient algorithm called Look-Ahead Protocol (LAP) to address this problem. The simulation results show that our algorithm outperforms all existing algorithms
SoPC-based parallel elite genetic algorithm for global path planning of an autonomous omnidirectional mobile robot

This paper presents an efficient parallel elite genetic algorithm (PEGA) for global path planning of an omnidirectional mobile robot moving in a static environment expressed by a grid-based map. This efficient PEGA, consisting of two parallel EGAs along with a migration operator, is proposed for global path planning of the mobile robots. The PEGA takes advantages of maintaining better population diversity, inhibiting premature convergence and keeping parallelism than conventional GAs do. The generated collision-free path is optimal in the sense of the shortest distance. The pipelined hardware implementation of IP (Intellectual Property) core library on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chip is employed to significantly speedup the processing time. Furthermore, a soft-core processor and a real-time operating system (RTOS) are embedded into the same chip to perform the global path planning using hardware/software co-design technique and SoPC (System-on-a-Programmable-Chip) concept. The merit and performance of the proposed SoPC-based PEGA are illustrated by conducting several simulations and experiments.
Combining Ordinal Preferences by Boosting

We analyze the relationship between ordinal ranking and binary classification with a new technique called reverse reduction. In particular, we prove that the regret can be transformed between ordinal ranking and binary classification. The proof allows us to establish a general equivalence between the two in terms of hardness. Furthermore, we use the technique to design a novel boosting approach that improves any cost-sensitive base ordinal ranking algorithm. The approach extends the well-known AdaBoost to the area of ordinal ranking, and inherits many of its good properties. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed approach can achieve decent training and test performance even when the base algorithm produces only simple decision stumps.
Skilled Piano Performance: Melody Lead Caused by Dynamic Differentiation

Simultaneous notes in the printed score (chords) are not played strictly simultaneously by pianists. As reported in the literature, an emphasised voice is not only played louder, but additionally precedes the other voices typically by around 30ms (melody lead; Hartmann, 1932; Vernon, 1937; Palmer, 1989, 1996; Repp, 1996). It is still unclear whether this phenomenon is “a common expressive feature in music performance . that aids listeners in identifying the melody in multivoiced music” (Palmer, 1996, 51). An alternative hypothesis is that it may be mostly due to the timing characteristics of the piano action (velocity artefact, Repp, 1996) and therefore a result of a dynamic differentiation of different voices. Especially in chords played by the right hand, high correlations between velocity difference and melody lead (between melody notes and accompaniment) seem to confirm this velocity artefact assumption (Repp, 1996). The investigated data, derived mostly from computer-monitored pianos, represents the asynchronies at the hammer-string contact points. The present study will be focused on asynchrony patterns at the finger-key contact times as well. Finger-key profiles represent what pianists initially do when striking chords. In this paper, we show that the melody lead phenomenon disappears at the finger-key level. That means that pianists tend to strike the keys almost simultaneously, and it is only the different dynamics (velocities) that result in the typical hammer-string asynchronies (melody lead).
Probing the Structure of Jets: Factorized and Resummed Angularity Distributions in SCET

Using the framework of soft-collinear effective theory (SCET), we factorize and calculate $e^+e^-$ angularity distributions, including perturbative resummation and the incorporation of a universal model for the nonperturbative soft function. Angularities $\tau_a$ are a class of event shapes varying in their sensitivity to the substructure of jets in the final state, controlled by a continuous parameter $a<2$. We calculate the jet and soft functions in factorized angularity distributions for all $a<1$ to first order in the strong coupling $\alpha_s$ and resum large logarithms to next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) accuracy. We employ a universal model for the nonperturbative soft function with a gap parameter which cancels the renormalon ambiguity in the partonic soft function.
Adjacent channel interference in 802.11a: Modeling and testbed validation

In this work we utilize the model for calculation of the interference power by partially overlapping channels and combine it with the signal to interference plus noise (SINK) criterion for signal capture to quantify the effect of adjacent channel interference (ACI) in 802.11a. We validate the results from our theoretical model by applying it on an in-lab testbed, in which we use signal splitters/combiners and fixed attenuators to emulate the wireless channel. Our experiment setup is able to isolate the mechanisms that the neighboring channel interference affects the 802.11a: the packet capture at the receiver and the clear channel assessment (CCA) mechanism. We quantify the effect of ACI for both of these mechanisms in terms of throughput. Our results indicate that equipping a single node with multiple interfaces requires careful channel allocation and physical antenna separation, since throughput can be severely degraded. Our future work focuses on field experimenting with 802.11a multi-radio mesh nodes in order to introduce the antenna characteristics in our model.
The Star Formation History of the Blue Compact Dwarf Galaxy UGCA 290

We present the star formation history of UGCA 290, a galaxy with properties intermediate between blue compact dwarfs (BCDs) and dwarf irregulars. This galaxy is particularly interesting because its young stellar population is extremely similar to that of the well-studied type iE blue compact dwarf VII Zw 403, despite its different spatial morphology and old stellar content. Our Hubble Space Telescope/Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 single-star photometry for UGCA 290 extends over 9 magnitudes in I and allows a detailed study of its star formation history. Using synthetic color-magnitude diagrams, we show that the recent "burst" which gives this galaxy its BCD status is a moderate enhancement in star formation which lasted for approximately 20 Myr, at a rate about 10 times above its previous rate. The star formation history for most of the previous billion years is consistent with a constant rate, although enhancements as large as the current one are possible at times earlier than 400 Myr ago. We estimate that the total mass converted into stars in UGCA 290 more than one billion years ago is about 3 times the astrated mass since that time. The initial mass function is consistent with a Salpeter slope, and the stellar metallicity is bracketed by Z☉/50 and Z☉/5, with evidence for metallicity evolution. Similar results for the star formation history over the past 600 Myr apply to VII Zw 403. Our main result is that despite the traditional picture of BCDs, the current bursts in these two galaxies are neither remarkably intense nor short-lived, and that most of their star formation occurred more than a billion years ago.
An Extended Throughput Analysis Model for SCTP with Scalable Congestion Control

The technologies of Wireless local networks and cellular network are very popular and more and more service under the integrated heterogeneous environment. Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) is considered as an ideal to support the communication between them by enabling a mobile client to freely switch the IP address in different networks. In this paper, we propose an extended analytical model for SCTP which consider the congestion window and scaleable of congestion control mechanism. A great advantage of our model is that estabishing a relationship between the throughput and congestion control mechanism. Furthermore, the analytical model provides a useful tool to improve congestion control mechanism of SCTP.
A Unified Theory for the Atmospheres of the Hot and Very Hot Jupiters: Two Classes of Irradiated Atmospheres

We highlight the importance of gaseous TiO and VO opacity on the highly irradiated close-in giant planets. The day-side atmospheres of these planets naturally fall into two classes that are somewhat analogous to the M- and L-type dwarfs. Those that are warm enough to have appreciable opacity due to TiO and VO gases we term ``pM class'' planets, and those that are cooler we term ``pL class'' planets. We calculate model atmospheres for these planets, including pressure-temperature profiles, spectra, and characteristic radiative time constants. We show that pM class planets have temperature inversions (hot stratospheres), appear ``anomalously'' bright in the mid-infrared secondary eclipse, and feature molecular bands in emission rather than absorption. From simple physical arguments, we show that they will have large day/night temperature contrasts and negligible phase shifts between orbital phase and thermal emission light curves, because radiative timescales are much shorter than possible dynamical timescales. The pL class planets absorb incident flux deeper in the atmosphere where atmospheric dynamics will more readily redistribute absorbed energy. This will lead to cooler day sides, warmer night sides, and larger phase shifts in thermal emission light curves. The boundary between these classes (~0.04-0.05 AU from a Sun-like primary for solar composition) is particularly dependent on the incident flux from the parent star, and less so on other factors. We apply these results to several planets and note that the eccentric transiting planets HD 147506b and HD 17156b alternate between the classes. Thermal emission in the optical from pM class planets is significant redward of 400 nm, making these planets attractive targets for optical detection. The difference in the observed day/night contrast between υ And b (pM class) and HD 189733b (pL class) is naturally explained in this scenario.
Parliaments, constitutional conventions, and popular sovereignty

There is growing interest in the United Kingdom in holding a constitutional convention (CC) to deliberate possible reforms to the political system. What form should a CC take? Having identified a range of possible models, we examine their merits according to stated normative criteria, focusing specifically on (1) how CC membership is determined, (2) whether a CC should have agenda-setting power and (3) whether it should have power to send proposals to binding referendum. We find good reasons to support a ‘citizen majority’ membership (chosen in a near-random fashion from the general public), agenda-setting power and referendum power. However, none of these features is likely to be the most appropriate in all contexts. Further design issues concerning citizen-majority conventions, such as whether they ought to include politicians as a minority or exclude them, are also considered. While the immediate focus of discussion is the United Kingdom, the core argument has wider relevance.