Are Slepian-Wolf Rates Necessary for Distributed Parameter Estimation?

We consider a distributed parameter estimation problem, in which multiple terminals send messages related to their local observations using limited rates to a fusion center who will obtain an estimate of a parameter related to observations of all terminals. It is well known that if the transmission rates are in the Slepian-Wolf region, the fusion center can fully recover all observations and hence can construct an estimator having the same performance as that of the centralized case. One natural question is whether Slepian-Wolf rates are necessary to achieve the same estimation performance as that of the centralized case. In this paper, we show that the answer to this question is negative. We establish our result by explicitly constructing an asymptotically minimum variance unbiased estimator (MVUE) that has the same performance as that of the optimal estimator in the centralized case while requiring information rates less than the conditions required in the Slepian-Wolf rate region.Comment: Accepted in Allerton 201

Alterities of global citizenship: education, human rights, and everyday bordering

Assumptions abound regarding societal embetterment at the heart of global interconnections and the distributions of knowledge through international educational organisations and structures worldwide (Swanson, 2013; 2015). In schools and higher education institutions internationally, the cultivation of global citizenship in students has been at the centre of policy discourses at both institutional and curricular levels. Premised on a hegemonic neoliberal assumption that higher education needs to be "responsive to the requirements and challenges related to the globalization of societies, economy and labour markets" (Kalvemark and Van der Wende, 1997), global citizenship as operationalised within policy and curricular discourses purports to enable students to "compete successfully in an increasingly cosmopolitan world of work by expanding their intercultural and cross-cultural competency" (Haigh, 2014, p.13). Student mobility is one such mechanism that is reputed to enable students to participate in a global knowledge economy by affording them opportunities to establish global connections (Andrade, 2006, Bartram, 2008, Sherry et al., 2008). Yet, in locating the discussion on global citizenship within a broader context of the "securitization" of immigration (Aas, 2011; Huysmans, 2006), crimmigration (Stumpf, 2006), "new mobilities2 (Sheller and Urry, 2006) and the ensuing drive to delegitimise the mobility of others, variously constituted as "the refugee, the asylum seeker, the illegal immigrant, or the non-citizen, a darker underbelly of the neoliberal strand of global citizenship is revealed. Tracing its under-acknowledged meanings, this article seeks to open a theoretical space to trouble this notion of global citizenship in respect of some appropriations and applications. The arguments herein seek to recast the dominant view of global citizenship in relational terms by problematising “the margins or point of contact" (Isin, 2002, p.3) between the global citizen and its alterity. Within the operation of relationality, it renders visible the state violence inherent, yet hidden, in this space. It foregrounds sites of violence enacted through an "immobile infrastructure" of bordering, and an extant social, political and legal context that legitimises practices such as criminalisation, securitisation, detention, deportation and banishment of the alterities of the global citizen. These bordering ideologies traverse sites and bodies, and become foundational to states of containment as well as everyday life in every sphere. It is asserted, as a consequence, that new political philosophy requires being countenanced around the figure of the refugee rather than the global citizen

Nation state, popul(ar)ism, and discourses of global citizenship: examples from Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence

Through a critical examination of Scottish curricular policies and practices, this chapter addresses the ways in which nationalist popul(ar)ism assembles a range of identities, discourses and representations of the Scottish nation. It argues that the appropriation of global citizenship as articulated in such national policy frameworks as the Scottish national curriculum, Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), acts to hide its agency as producing ‘global citizenship’ as a complex site of discursive power that seeks to serve the hubris and intentions of nationalist discourses. By way of exemplification, a first section critically speaks to the ways in which these sentiments can be found within the Scottish Higher English curriculum, and the power of effect this holds symbolically in the discursive construction of the Scottish citizen. Working heuristically from Arnott and Ozga’s (2016) view that in its attempt to mobilise some of the resources of nationalist sentiment, the Scottish Government deploystwo interrelated discourses: The first one is an economy-driven, outward referencing discourse that aims to position Scotland as a key player in the global economy; the second master discourse, is inwardly referencing and promotes the nation to itself. An examination of this inwardly referencing discourse reveals the cultural postering, narratives and tropes that undergird the political project of Scottish nationhood. The second section supports the first by providing a critical discursive analysis of global citizenship policy and curricular intentions. It articulates how these are taken up in ways that centralise Scottish nationhood and the framing of youth identities within these nationalist global citizenship discourses, also alluding to the effects of power in such discursive manoeuvrings. In articulating the above concerns, this chapter seeks to reveal concomitant relationships between the reactions to expanding neoliberal institutional governance borne out by the rise of Alt-right fascism and Trumpianism, and nationalist popul(ar)isms, elements of which can be found embedded within educational institutions and mandates, such as those ofglobal citizenship education and curricula

Discussion of "Riverbed degradation below large capacity reservoirs"

CER58-9.Includes bibliographical references.Proc. paper 788

Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Some New 1,2,3-Triazole Derivatives As Anti-microbial Agents

A series of 1,2,3-triazole derivatives bearing different chemical entities were prepared starting from 2-(4-phenyl-1H-1,2,3-triazol-1-yl)acetohydrazide, compound 2. The purity of all new compounds was checked by TLC and elucidation of their structures was confirmed by IR, 1H and 13C NMR along with High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS). All the target compounds were evaluated for their possible antimicrobial activity. Most of the tested compounds showed moderate to good antibacterial activity against most of the bacterial strains used in comparison with ciprofloxacin as a reference drug. The most active compounds were 4a, 9a, 9b, and 9f. Results of antifungal activity revealed that most of the tested compounds showed a good antifungal activity in comparison to fluconazole as a reference drug. Compounds 4a, 9c, 9d and 9f were the most active ones

Conditional Decoding for X Channels

The conditional decoder is a low complexity and optimal decoder for multiplexed orthogonal designs in point-to-point channels. We extend this notion to X channels and differentiate between two interference scenarios. First, the interference is perfectly aligned in a different sub-space than the intended information symbols. For this scenario, the conditional decoder is applied as a one stage and two stages decoder to cancel the interference and decode the desired signal. Second, the interference is misaligned. In this case, the conditional decoder attempts to jointly cancel the interference and decode the intended signal while achieving a performance gain over other interference cancellation schemes. We consider the two user scenario where Alamouti codes are used at the transmitters and then extend our investigation to three user channels with arbitrary signal structure. Our numerical results establish the superiority of our decoder to previously proposed zero-forcing and decoupling techniques, in terms of performance. It is further shown that the proposed decoder achieves the same performance as the sphere decoder; while enjoying a much lower implementation complexity

Evaluation of translucency of two types of glass-ceramics with different thickness: an in vitro study

Background: Veneered all-ceramic restorations are associated with a high incidence of chipping and veneer delamination from the inner core. Monolithic all-ceramic crowns facilitate the fabrication process and minimize residual stresses between core and veneer. A new material, zirconia-reinforced lithium silicate (ZRL), Celtra Duo was recently introduced for the fabrication of monolithic anterior crowns to overcome the aesthetic drawbacks of traditional zirconia and also to improve the strength of the lithium disilicate. Aim: This study aimed to evaluate and compare the translucency of CAD/CAM zirconia reinforced lithium disilicate ceramic and Lithium silicate glass-ceramic at a different thickness. Materials and Methods: CAD/CAM Lithium Silicate glass-ceramic (e.max CAD) and CAD/CAM ZLS Celtra Duo ceramic materials were used in the study. A total of forty Disc-shaped ceramic specimens (n=40), which comprises 20 from each ceramic material (n=20) were fabricated. The twenty specimens from each material group were divided into four subgroups with five specimens each (n=5) with a thickness of 1.0 mm, 1.2 mm, 1.5 mm and 2.0 mm, respectively. All the specimens were thermo-cycled to simulate one-year clinical service followed by analyzing the degree of translucency using spectrophotometer.   The obtained data were subjected to statistical analysis using the student t-test and post-hoc pair-wise comparisons. Results: A decrease in translucency with an increase in the thickness of the ceramic specimens was observed. Significant differences were observed between the ceramic materials except at 1.5 mm thickness (p=0.621). Conclusion: Both the ceramic materials displayed decreased in their translucency with the increase in the thickness. The glazed Celtra Duo has demonstrated relatively more translucency than e.max CAD ceramic at all thicknesses

Effect of Some Medicinal Plants as Feed Additives on Growth Performance, Blood Constituents and Carcass Characteristics of Broilers

The present work aimed to study the effect of feeding broiler chicks on diets containing different levels of fenugreek, anise and curcuma seeds powder, as natural feed additive on productive performance, carcass characteristics, some blood constituents and economic feed efficiency. One hundred and forty, one-day old (Ross 38) unsexed broiler chicks were obtained from local commercial source, weighed and randomly distributed to 7 equal groups, each of 20. The birds were fed with two basal diets (starter and finisher diets). The experimental diets were as follows: basal control diet without any feed additives (G1), basal diets supplemented with 0.2 and 0.5% fenugreek (G2 and G3 respectively), basal diets supplemented with 0.3 and 0.6% anise seeds (G4 and G5 respectively), and lastly basal diets supplemented with 0.3 and 0.5% curcuma (G6 and G7 respectively). During the experiment the body weight and feed intake were measured and consequently, weight gain and feed conversion ratio were calculated. At the end of the experiment, three birds from each group were slaughtered for blood sampling and serum extraction then. Finally, economical evaluation of the diets was calculated. The results showed that, dietary inclusion of fenugreek, anise and curcuma, had significant (P <0.05) improvement in the live body weight, total weight gain and feed conversion ratio, While, the feed intake was not affected by the dietary inclusion of them. Some blood constituents were affected with these additions. The relative economic feed efficiency was increased by dietary inclusion of the three additives