330,735 research outputs found
Predicting wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) using DARC (detecting apoptosing retinal cells) AI (artificial intelligence) technology
Objectives:
To assess a recently described CNN (convolutional neural network) DARC (Detection of Apoptosing Retinal Cells) algorithm in predicting new Subretinal Fluid (SRF) formation in Age-related-Macular-Degeneration (AMD).
Methods:
Anonymized DARC, baseline and serial OCT images (n = 427) from 29 AMD eyes of Phase 2 clinical trial (ISRCTN10751859) were assessed with CNN algorithms, enabling the location of each DARC spot on corresponding OCT slices (n = 20,629). Assessment of DARC in a rabbit model of angiogenesis was performed in parallel.
Results:
A CNN DARC count >5 at baseline was significantly (p = 0.0156) related to development of new SRF throughout 36 months. Prediction rate of eyes using unique DARC spots overlying new SRF had positive predictive values, sensitivities and specificities >70%, with DARC count significantly (p < 0.005) related to the magnitude of SRF accumulation at all time points. DARC identified earliest stages of angiogenesis in-vivo.
Conclusions:
DARC was able to predict new wet-AMD activity. Using only an OCT-CNN definition of new SRF, we demonstrate that DARC can identify early endothelial neovascular activity, as confirmed by rabbit studies. Although larger validation studies are required, this shows the potential of DARC as a biomarker of wet AMD, and potentially saving vision-loss
Emergent velocity agreement in robot networks
In this paper we propose and prove correct a new self-stabilizing velocity
agreement (flocking) algorithm for oblivious and asynchronous robot networks.
Our algorithm allows a flock of uniform robots to follow a flock head emergent
during the computation whatever its direction in plane. Robots are
asynchronous, oblivious and do not share a common coordinate system. Our
solution includes three modules architectured as follows: creation of a common
coordinate system that also allows the emergence of a flock-head, setting up
the flock pattern and moving the flock. The novelty of our approach steams in
identifying the necessary conditions on the flock pattern placement and the
velocity of the flock-head (rotation, translation or speed) that allow the
flock to both follow the exact same head and to preserve the flock pattern.
Additionally, our system is self-healing and self-stabilizing. In the event of
the head leave (the leading robot disappears or is damaged and cannot be
recognized by the other robots) the flock agrees on another head and follows
the trajectory of the new head. Also, robots are oblivious (they do not recall
the result of their previous computations) and we make no assumption on their
initial position. The step complexity of our solution is O(n)
Probabilistic and Distributed Control of a Large-Scale Swarm of Autonomous Agents
We present a novel method for guiding a large-scale swarm of autonomous
agents into a desired formation shape in a distributed and scalable manner. Our
Probabilistic Swarm Guidance using Inhomogeneous Markov Chains (PSG-IMC)
algorithm adopts an Eulerian framework, where the physical space is partitioned
into bins and the swarm's density distribution over each bin is controlled.
Each agent determines its bin transition probabilities using a
time-inhomogeneous Markov chain. These time-varying Markov matrices are
constructed by each agent in real-time using the feedback from the current
swarm distribution, which is estimated in a distributed manner. The PSG-IMC
algorithm minimizes the expected cost of the transitions per time instant,
required to achieve and maintain the desired formation shape, even when agents
are added to or removed from the swarm. The algorithm scales well with a large
number of agents and complex formation shapes, and can also be adapted for area
exploration applications. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this proposed
swarm guidance algorithm by using results of numerical simulations and hardware
experiments with multiple quadrotors.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Robotic
Coalitional Games in MISO Interference Channels: Epsilon-Core and Coalition Structure Stable Set
The multiple-input single-output interference channel is considered. Each
transmitter is assumed to know the channels between itself and all receivers
perfectly and the receivers are assumed to treat interference as additive
noise. In this setting, noncooperative transmission does not take into account
the interference generated at other receivers which generally leads to
inefficient performance of the links. To improve this situation, we study
cooperation between the links using coalitional games. The players (links) in a
coalition either perform zero forcing transmission or Wiener filter precoding
to each other. The -core is a solution concept for coalitional games
which takes into account the overhead required in coalition deviation. We
provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the strong and weak
-core of our coalitional game not to be empty with zero forcing
transmission. Since, the -core only considers the possibility of
joint cooperation of all links, we study coalitional games in partition form in
which several distinct coalitions can form. We propose a polynomial time
distributed coalition formation algorithm based on coalition merging and prove
that its solution lies in the coalition structure stable set of our coalition
formation game. Simulation results reveal the cooperation gains for different
coalition formation complexities and deviation overhead models.Comment: to appear in IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 14 pages, 14
figures, 3 table
Coalitional Games with Overlapping Coalitions for Interference Management in Small Cell Networks
In this paper, we study the problem of cooperative interference management in
an OFDMA two-tier small cell network. In particular, we propose a novel
approach for allowing the small cells to cooperate, so as to optimize their
sum-rate, while cooperatively satisfying their maximum transmit power
constraints. Unlike existing work which assumes that only disjoint groups of
cooperative small cells can emerge, we formulate the small cells' cooperation
problem as a coalition formation game with overlapping coalitions. In this
game, each small cell base station can choose to participate in one or more
cooperative groups (or coalitions) simultaneously, so as to optimize the
tradeoff between the benefits and costs associated with cooperation. We study
the properties of the proposed overlapping coalition formation game and we show
that it exhibits negative externalities due to interference. Then, we propose a
novel decentralized algorithm that allows the small cell base stations to
interact and self-organize into a stable overlapping coalitional structure.
Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm results in a notable
performance advantage in terms of the total system sum-rate, relative to the
noncooperative case and the classical algorithms for coalitional games with
non-overlapping coalitions
Coalition Formation Games for Collaborative Spectrum Sensing
Collaborative Spectrum Sensing (CSS) between secondary users (SUs) in
cognitive networks exhibits an inherent tradeoff between minimizing the
probability of missing the detection of the primary user (PU) and maintaining a
reasonable false alarm probability (e.g., for maintaining a good spectrum
utilization). In this paper, we study the impact of this tradeoff on the
network structure and the cooperative incentives of the SUs that seek to
cooperate for improving their detection performance. We model the CSS problem
as a non-transferable coalitional game, and we propose distributed algorithms
for coalition formation. First, we construct a distributed coalition formation
(CF) algorithm that allows the SUs to self-organize into disjoint coalitions
while accounting for the CSS tradeoff. Then, the CF algorithm is complemented
with a coalitional voting game for enabling distributed coalition formation
with detection probability guarantees (CF-PD) when required by the PU. The
CF-PD algorithm allows the SUs to form minimal winning coalitions (MWCs), i.e.,
coalitions that achieve the target detection probability with minimal costs.
For both algorithms, we study and prove various properties pertaining to
network structure, adaptation to mobility and stability. Simulation results
show that CF reduces the average probability of miss per SU up to 88.45%
relative to the non-cooperative case, while maintaining a desired false alarm.
For CF-PD, the results show that up to 87.25% of the SUs achieve the required
detection probability through MWCComment: IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, to appea
Plane Formation by Synchronous Mobile Robots in the Three Dimensional Euclidean Space
Creating a swarm of mobile computing entities frequently called robots,
agents or sensor nodes, with self-organization ability is a contemporary
challenge in distributed computing. Motivated by this, we investigate the plane
formation problem that requires a swarm of robots moving in the three
dimensional Euclidean space to land on a common plane. The robots are fully
synchronous and endowed with visual perception. But they do not have
identifiers, nor access to the global coordinate system, nor any means of
explicit communication with each other. Though there are plenty of results on
the agreement problem for robots in the two dimensional plane, for example, the
point formation problem, the pattern formation problem, and so on, this is the
first result for robots in the three dimensional space. This paper presents a
necessary and sufficient condition for fully-synchronous robots to solve the
plane formation problem that does not depend on obliviousness i.e., the
availability of local memory at robots. An implication of the result is
somewhat counter-intuitive: The robots cannot form a plane from most of the
semi-regular polyhedra, while they can form a plane from every regular
polyhedron (except a regular icosahedron), whose symmetry is usually considered
to be higher than any semi-regular polyhedrdon
Coalitional Games for Distributed Collaborative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Networks
Collaborative spectrum sensing among secondary users (SUs) in cognitive
networks is shown to yield a significant performance improvement. However,
there exists an inherent trade off between the gains in terms of probability of
detection of the primary user (PU) and the costs in terms of false alarm
probability. In this paper, we study the impact of this trade off on the
topology and the dynamics of a network of SUs seeking to reduce the
interference on the PU through collaborative sensing. Moreover, while existing
literature mainly focused on centralized solutions for collaborative sensing,
we propose distributed collaboration strategies through game theory. We model
the problem as a non-transferable coalitional game, and propose a distributed
algorithm for coalition formation through simple merge and split rules. Through
the proposed algorithm, SUs can autonomously collaborate and self-organize into
disjoint independent coalitions, while maximizing their detection probability
taking into account the cooperation costs (in terms of false alarm). We study
the stability of the resulting network structure, and show that a maximum
number of SUs per formed coalition exists for the proposed utility model.
Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm allows a reduction of up to
86.6% of the average missing probability per SU (probability of missing the
detection of the PU) relative to the non-cooperative case, while maintaining a
certain false alarm level. In addition, through simulations, we compare the
performance of the proposed distributed solution with respect to an optimal
centralized solution that minimizes the average missing probability per SU.
Finally, the results also show how the proposed algorithm autonomously adapts
the network topology to environmental changes such as mobility.Comment: in proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 200
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