Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adding Transmitters Allows Unbounded Coded-Caching Gains with Bounded File Sizes

In the context of coded caching in the $K$-user BC, our work reveals the surprising fact that having multiple (L) transmitting antennas, dramatically ameliorates the longstanding subpacketization bottleneck of coded caching by reducing the required subpacketization to approximately its $L$th root, thus boosting the actual DoF by a multiplicative factor of up to $L$. In asymptotic terms, this reveals that as long as $L$ scales with the theoretical caching gain, then the full cumulative (multiplexing + full caching) gains are achieved with constant subpacketization. This is the first time, in any known setting, that unbounded caching gains appear under finite file-size constraints. The achieved caching gains here are up to $L$ times higher than any caching gains previously experienced in any single- or multiantenna fully-connected setting, thus offering a multiplicative mitigation to a subpacketization problem that was previously known to hard-bound caching gains to small constants. The proposed scheme is practical and it works for all values of $K, L$ and all cache sizes. The scheme's gains show in practice: e.g. for $K=100$, when $L=1$ the theoretical caching gain of $G=10$, under the original coded caching algorithm, would have needed subpacketization $s_{1}=\binom{K}{G}=\binom{100}{10} > 10^{13}$, while if extra transmitting antennas were added, the subpacketization was previously known to match or exceed $S_{1}$. Now for $L=5$, our scheme offers the theoretical (unconstrained) cumulative DoF $d_{I} = L+G = 5 +10 = 15$, with subpacketization $S_{L}=\binom{K/L}{G/L}=\binom{100/5}{10/5}=190$. The scheme's performance, given, subpacketization $s_{L}=\binom{K/L}{G/L}$, is within a factor of 2 from the optimal linear sum-DoF. The gains stemming from this work come by a virtual decomposition of the fully connected cache-aided channel into parallel ones, which significantly reduces the required subpacketization
A 0.016 mV/mA Cross-Regulation 5-Output SIMO DC–DC Buck Converter Using Output-Voltage-Aware Charge Control Scheme

A single-inductor multiple-output (SIMO) dc–dc converter with output-voltage-aware charge control (OVACC) is presented in this paper. The OVACC scheme reduces the cross regulation by computing the total energy required by all outputs to extract exactly the same amount of energy from the input. Moreover, the proposed design also extends the load capability range of the SIMO converter by supporting the operation in both continuous conduction mode and discontinuous conduction mode while boosting the overall power efficiency. The proposed SIMO (five outputs) dc–dc converter has been implemented in a 0.18 μm 1P6M CMOS process. Measurement results show that the best cross regulation is 0.016 mV/mA when the output current of 250 mA abruptly changes. And no cross regulation is observed when the first output current changes 150 mA, the second output current changes 160 mA, the third and fourth output currents change 180 mA, and the last output current changes 250 mA. Also, the measured peak power efficiency is 86%.
An Efficient Backoff Scheme in Wireless Sensor Networks

The IEEE 802.15. 4 protocol is designed to provide for connecting low data rate devices with low-power in wireless personal area network (LR-WPAN). In IEEE 802.15. 4, a slotted carrier sensing multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) algorithm is employed to coordinate a large number of sensor devices. Energy consumption requirements make it to use fewer number of backoffs, which adversely increases collisions, resulting in degradation of energy consumption. In this paper, we present a novel scheme to improve both network throughput and energy efficiency. We develop a Markov model for the proposed scheme with the provision of mathematical analysis, which is validated via experiments using ns- 2 simulator. It is shown that the proposed scheme significantly enhances the performance in respect of both network throughput and energy efficiency.
Semi-Supervised Classification for Hyperspectral Images Based on Multiple Classifiers and Relaxation Strategy

Hyperspectral image (HSI) classification is a fundamental and challenging problem in remote sensing and its various applications. However, it is difficult to perfectly classify remotely sensed hyperspectral data by directly using classification techniques developed in pattern recognition. This is partially owing to a multitude of noise points and the limited training samples. Based on multinomial logistic regression (MLR), the local mean-based pseudo nearest neighbor (LMPNN) rule, and the discontinuity preserving relaxation (DPR) method, in this paper, a semi-supervised method for HSI classification is proposed. In pre-processing and post-processing, the DPR strategy is adopted to denoise the original hyperspectral data and improve the classification accuracy, respectively. The application of two classifiers, MLR and LMPNN, can automatically acquire more labeled samples in terms of a few labeled instances per class. This is termed the pre-classification procedure. The final classification result of the HSI is obtained by employing the MLRsub approach. The effectiveness of the proposal is experimentally evaluated by two real hyperspectral datasets, which are widely used to test the performance of the HSI classification algorithm. The comparison results using several competing methods confirm that the proposed method is effective, even for limited training samples.
The hot ‘n’ cold of cue-induced drug relapse

Environmental cues associated with rewards can acquire motivational properties. However, there is considerable variation in the extent to which a reward cue gains motivational control over behavior, depending on the individual and the form of the cue. When a discrete cue is paired with food reward, it acquires greater control over motivated behavior in some rats (sign-trackers, STs) than others (goal-trackers, GTs) as indicated by the propensity to approach the cue, the willingness to work to obtain it, and its ability to reinstate reward-seeking behavior. Here, we review studies that employ this ST/GT animal model to investigate characteristics of individuals that are especially susceptible to reward cue-elicited behavior and the involvement of dopamine and acetylcholine neuromodulator systems in the susceptibility to cue-induced drug relapse. First, we discuss individual differences in the attribution of incentive salience to different forms of reward cues and the involvement of the mesolimbic dopamine system. We then discuss individual differences in cognitive/attentional control and the contributions of the cholinergic system in processing reward cues. It is suggested that in STs a propensity to attribute motivational properties to a drug cue is combined with poor attentional control in the face of these cues, making them particularly vulnerable to transition from casual/experimental patterns of drug use to addiction and to cue-induced relapse.
Fluoxetine Affects Differentiation of Midbrain Dopaminergic Neurons In Vitro

Recent meta-analyses found an association between prenatal exposure to the antidepressant fluoxetine (FLX) and an increased risk of autism in children. This developmental disorder has been related to dysfunctions in the brains’ rewards circuitry, which, in turn, has been linked to dysfunctions in dopaminergic (DA) signaling. The present study investigated if FLX affects processes involved in dopaminergic neuronal differentiation. Mouse neuronal precursors were differentiated into midbrain dopaminergic precursor cells (mDPCs) and concomitantly exposed to clinically relevant doses of FLX. Subsequently, dopaminergic precursors were evaluated for expression of differentiation and stemness markers using quantitative polymerase chain reaction. FLX treatment led to increases in early regional specification markers orthodenticle homeobox 2 (Otx2) and homeobox engrailed-1 and -2 (En1 and En2). On the other hand, two transcription factors essential for midbrain dopaminergic (mDA) neurogenesis, LIM homeobox transcription factor 1 α (Lmx1a) and paired-like homeodomain transcription factor 3 (Pitx3) were downregulated by FLX treatment. The stemness marker nestin (Nes) was increased, whereas the neuronal differentiation marker β3-tubulin (Tubb3) decreased. Additionally, we observed that FLX modulates the expression of several genes associated with autism spectrum disorder and downregulates the estrogen receptors (ERs) α and β. Further investigations using ERβ knockout (BERKO) mDPCs showed that FLX had no or even opposite effects on several of the genes analyzed. These findings suggest that FLX affects differentiation of the dopaminergic system by increasing production of dopaminergic precursors, yet decreasing their maturation, partly via interference with the estrogen system.
Mixed Design of SPAD Array Based TOF for Depth Camera and Unmanned Vehicle Applications

Depends on the increasing requirements of unmanned vehicle mobile Lidar systems, this paper presents a system design based on pulsed TOF depth image cameras. The design has a detection range of 300m and detecting resolution of 1.5cm. Pixels are made of SPAD. Meanwhile, innovative structure of multi-pixel sharing TDC is proposed, chip area is greatly reduced and the fill factor of light-sensing surface area is optimized. The TCSPC module with the functionalities of receiving each photon, measuring photon flight time and processing depth information is also included in the chip design. Based on 0. 13μm CIS CMOS technology, the entire design indicates high integration with low power and fast response features.
Prescription Drug Coverage and Outcomes of Myeloma Therapy Among Medicare Beneficiaries.

PURPOSE Novel parenteral (bortezomib) and oral (lenalidomide) therapies have improved survival in myeloma, but the standard Medicare benefit covers only parenteral drugs. We examined the association between prescription drug coverage, receipt of therapy, and survival among Medicare beneficiaries with myeloma. METHODS Using SEER-Medicare data, we identified enrollment in a Medicare Part D plan (PDP) or other creditable prescription drug coverage (OCC) among 9,755 beneficiaries who were diagnosed with myeloma in 2006 to 2011. We examined the receipt of active myeloma therapy and that of classic cytotoxic agents or bortezomib as first-line regimen and overall survival. We report relative risk (RR) for binary outcome comparisons and 3-year restricted mean survival time (RMST) ratios, with 95% CI, adjusting for baseline patient- and disease-related characteristics. Beneficiaries with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, a cancer that is uniformly treated with parenteral chemotherapy, served as a comparison cohort. RESULTS Compared with beneficiaries without prescription drug coverage, PDP or OCC enrollees were more likely to receive active myeloma care, and PDP enrollees were less frequently treated with parenteral agents (adjusted RR, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.80 to 0.93) or classic cytotoxic agents in particular (RR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.51 to 0.76). Overall survival was significantly better for beneficiaries with PDP coverage (adjusted RMST ratio, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.11 to 1.20) or OCC (RMST ratio, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.12 to 1.21). In contrast, we observed no survival differences by prescription drug coverage status in the control cohort with lymphoma. CONCLUSION Prescription drug coverage is associated with decreased use of classic cytotoxic chemotherapy and better survival among Medicare beneficiaries with myeloma, which suggests improved access to all existing treatment options. As oral targeted agents increasingly replace parenteral chemotherapy in oncology, adjustments in coverage policy are needed to ensure access to optimal treatment.
Improved High Step-Up Z-Source DC–DC Converter With Single Core and ZVT Operation

A previously proposed high step-up dc–dc converter based on Z-source circuit is improved such that conduction losses of the converter and current stress of its power switch are reduced. The improved converter contains only one magnetic core and all of the inductors are coupled. It is shown that using one core allows us to use windings with lower copper resistance that results in reducing resistive losses of the coupled inductors. Also, by rearranging two diodes of the converter, the switch current and its conduction loss are reduced. In addition, a previously proposed auxiliary circuit for zero-voltage-transition operation is employed with a minor modification that makes it possible to use a relatively large snubber capacitor that significantly decreases current–voltage overlap of the main switch at turn-off instant. Improvement in the overall efficiency of the presented structure over the existing high step-up Z-source converter is demonstrated by implementing a 100-W prototype of each converter for 30- to 300-V voltage conversion.
Measuring Coupling Coefficient of Windings With Dissimilar Turns’ Number or Tight Coupling Using Resonance

Multiple coupled inductors are used in power electronics to improve the dynamic cross regulation and to reduce mass and volume, mainly in high performance application, such as space or defense, where manufacturing cost is not the main driver. These elements can be modeled with its inductance matrix which is a symmetric and positive semidefinite matrix. The inductance matrix eases circuit analysis, many known circuital models are directly related to it and it can be used in SPICE simulation via its coupling coefficient component, which can be identified as the normalized matrix of the inductance matrix. Therefore, a precise and correct measurement technique of the inductance matrix or coupling coefficient matrix is needed. This paper analyzes different measuring techniques described in the technical literature and proposes a new method to measure the coupling coefficient or inductance matrix of tight coupled or dissimilar turns’ number windings, where other methods fail. A discussion follows, to know the influence of parasitic elements in the accuracy of the new proposed method called resonance (RE) method. The paper adds three experimental examples to verify the theoretical study and concludes that the RE method provides correct values of the coupling coefficient $k$ of tight coupled or dissimilar turns’ number windings compared to other measurement techniques.
2,3,5,4′-tetrahydroxy-stilbene-2-O-β-D-glucoside attenuates methionine and choline-deficient diet-induced non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Previous studies have suggested that 2,3,5,4′-tetrahydroxy-stilbene-2-O-β-D-glucoside (TSG) prevents progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) induced by high-fat diet. The present study aimed to evaluate whether TSG could reverse NAFLD induced by a methionine and choline-deficient (MCD) diet and identify the possible mechanism of action. C57BL6/J mice were fed a MCD diet and were treated with TSG, fenofibrate, and resveratrol for 9 weeks. Regulatory effects of several cytokines and enzymes, including Nod-like receptor protein 3, apoptosis-associated speck-like protein containing a C-terminal caspase recruitment domain (ASC), caspase-1, interleukin (IL)-18, IL-1β, and gut microbiota balance were investigated. TSG significantly reduced NAFLD biochemical indexes, including total cholesterol, triglyceride, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, very low density lipoprotein cholesterol, aspartate aminotransferase and free fatty acid. Middle dosage (TSG.M, 35 mg/kg) of TSG reduced the expression of ASC and caspase-1. Furthermore, TSG displayed gut microbiota regulatory effects on MCD-induced NAFLD mice. The results of the present study suggested that TSG prevented the occurrence and development of MCD diet-induced NAFLD. The data further indicated that TSG may serve as a promising lead compound that may aid with intervention in NAFLD therapy.
Point Cloud Attribute Compression via Clustering and Intra Prediction

With the rapid development of 3D capture technologies, point cloud has been widely used in many emerging applications such as augmented reality, autonomous driving, and 3D printing. However, point cloud, used to represent real world objects in these applications, may contain millions of points, which results in huge data volume. Therefore, efficient compression algorithms are essential for point cloud when it comes to storage and real-time transmission issues. Specially, the attribute compression of point cloud is still challenging owing to the sparsity and irregular distribution of corresponding points in 3D space. In this paper, we present a novel point cloud attribute compression scheme based on hierarchical clustering and 3D intra prediction. Unlike the commonly used octree decomposition based compression approaches, we divide point cloud into distinguishing clusters by a hierarchical clustering algorithm. Accordingly, a genetic algorithm based intra prediction is introduced to organize the irregularly distributed points in each cluster, and the color attributes of these points are mapped to 2D uniform grids. Finally, a well-developed image coding method is leveraged to achieve adorable compression performance. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme is much more efficient than traditional attribute compression schemes.
Optimization of targeted node set in complex networks under percolation and selection

Most of the existing methods for the robustness and targeted immunization problems can be viewed as greedy strategies, which are quite efficient but readily induce a local optimization. In this paper, starting from a percolation perspective, we develop two strategies, the relationship-related (RR) strategy and the prediction relationship (PR) strategy, to avoid a local optimum only through the investigation of interrelationships among nodes. Meanwhile, RR combines the sum rule and the product rule from explosive percolation, and PR holds the assumption that nodes with high degree are usually more important than those with low degree. In this manner our methods have a better capability to collapse or protect a network. The simulations performed on a number of networks also demonstrate their effectiveness, especially on large real-world networks where RR fragments each of them into the same size of the giant component; however, RR needs only less than 90% of the number of nodes which are necessary for the most excellent existing methods.
Reference State Trajectory Generation for Output Tracking with Constraints using Search Trees

This paper generates a reference state trajectory from a given reference output trajectory for redundant nonlinear affine dynamic systems subject to input, state and output constraints. Extending upon the expansive search tree (EST) methodology, a new probabilistic sampling method is proposed to address time dependence and output mappings. It is shown that the methodology is able to find a feasible solution given constraints, if such a solution exists. The use of the proposed methodology is illustrated by considering the end effector tracking of a multi-link cable-driven parallel robot.
A Solution to the Minimum $\ell_{1}$-Norm Controllability Problem for Discrete-Time Linear Systems via Iteratively Reweighted Least Squares

In this work, we study a fundamental controllability problem for discrete-time linear systems driven by sparse control sequences, that is, sequences comprised of a significant number of null elements, by utilizing an $\ell_{1}$ optimal control problem formulation. It is well known that the solution to the latter problem, which we refer to as the minimum $\ell_{1}$-norm controllability problem, enjoys, in general, nice sparsity properties in sharp contradistinction to the solution to the minimum $\ell_{2}$-norm controllability problem for discrete-time linear systems. On the other hand, it is well known that the latter problem can be reduced to a convex quadratic program subject to linear equality constraints, whose solution can be characterized in closed form, in contrast with the minimum $\ell_{1}$-norm controllability problem which lacks this analytic tractability. In this work, we propose an iterative approach that furnishes an approximate solution to the latter problem in closed form via the solution of a corresponding sequence of convex quadratic programs. Finally, we present numerical simulations from the application of the proposed approach to a space proximity operation problem.
A Smartphone-Based System for Outdoor Data Gathering Using a Wireless Beacon Network and GPS Data: From Cyber Spaces to Senseable Spaces

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and mobile devices are deeply influencing all facets of life, directly affecting the way people experience space and time. ICTs are also tools for supporting urban development, and they have also been adopted as equipment for furnishing public spaces. Hence, ICTs have created a new paradigm of hybrid space that can be defined as Senseable Spaces. Even if there are relevant cases where the adoption of ICT has made the use of public open spaces more “smart”, the interrelation and the recognition of added value need to be further developed. This is one of the motivations for the research presented in this paper. The main goal of the work reported here is the deployment of a system composed of three different connected elements (a real-world infrastructure, a data gathering system, and a data processing and analysis platform) for analysis of human behavior in the open space of Cardeto Park, in Ancona, Italy. For this purpose, and because of the complexity of this task, several actions have been carried out: the deployment of a complete real-world infrastructure in Cardeto Park, the implementation of an ad-hoc smartphone application for the gathering of participants’ data, and the development of a data pre-processing and analysis system for dealing with all the gathered data. A detailed description of these three aspects and the way in which they are connected to create a unique system is the main focus of this paper.
Application of the UX-FFE Model for Optimizing the Performance of the Upstream Innovation Process

The ability to successfully conduct radical innovation is mandatory for mature industrial companies that want to remain competitive on the global market. This ability relies on several ingredients, namely: (1) the structuring of the innovation process; (2) managerial principles; (3) methodological tools; (4) the presence of a culture of innovation. This paper reports about the impact of applying the UX-FFE model, which brings together the systemic innovation process with the social, economical and methodological aspects, on the outcomes of the innovation process. Firstly, the findings unveil a different quality of the social context between a group of co-creators addressing an incremental innovation and one-another targeting a radical innovation. Secondly, it appears that the operational performance of the upstream innovation process relies on the quality of the social context, intrinsic to the group of co-creators, corresponding to the reported perceived experience. Thirdly, the UX-FFE model application, as a consequence, allows optimizing the upstream innovation process performance. Indeed, we argue that the evaluation of the co-creators perceived experience brings new opportunities to optimize the operational performance of the upstream innovation process.