Timing Jitter Analysis and Mitigation in Hybrid OFDM-DFMA PONs

Hybrid orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-digital filter multiple access passive optical networks (OFDM-DFMA PONs) offer a cost-effective solution to the challenging requirements of next-generation optical access networks and 5G and beyond radio access networks. It is crucial to consider the impact of timing jitter in any ADC/DAC-based system, therefore this paper presents an in-depth investigation into the impacts of DAC/ADC timing jitter on the hybrid OFDM-DFMA PON's performance. We introduce improved accuracy white and coloured, DAC and ADC timing jitter models, applicable to any DSP-based transmission system. We prove that DAC and ADC timing jitter effects are virtually identical and investigate the effects of white/coloured timing jitter on upstream performance in hybrid OFDM-DFMA PONs and determine the associated jitter-induced optical power penalties. To mitigate against the timing jitter-induced performance degradations, a simple, but highly effective DSP-based technique is implemented which increases robustness against the timing jitter effects and significantly reduces timing jitter-induced optical power penalties. This consequently relaxes DAC/ADC sampling clock jitter requirements and so reduces implementation costs. White (coloured) timing jitter effects are shown to be independent of (dependent on) ONU operating frequency band and a trade-off between DAC and ADC jitter levels can be exploited to reduce ONU costs

Periodismo y Ciudadanía Plural: problemas, rutinas y retos

Several researches bring about by the group Women and Mass Culture Feminary, from the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences at University of Barcelona (UAB), have driven attention to the fact that at the Spanish press, since the transition to democracy after several decades of dictatorship, some routines of the news making process persist and avoid newspapers to properly inform about important social transformations occurred since the begging of the democratic process in Spain. It is argued that the press is stuck in an androcentric point of view or way of scoping reality, restrictive to adult men related to power centres of politics, economics and cultural life. In addition, it is also argued that this preferred attention to power centres has become more abstract; more dehumanized moving far away from regular people

La situación de las profesoras jóvenes en la Facultad de Ciencias de la Comunicación de la UAB

This article analyses the present situation of academic and researchers women who were working in the Communication Sciences Faculty of the Autonomous University of Barcelona during 2007-2008. The principal aim is to determine if it is produced an inequality of gender and age in the evaluation of the academic quality in communication. We present the outcomes of a qualitative research carried on by interviews in depth with a sample of 5 professors. Our results show that the young women collective suffers different difficulties in the academic access that affect them especially and can derivates to a double discrimination.; En este artículo analizamos la situación de las profesoras jóvenes adscritas a la Facultad de Ciencias de la Comunicación de la UAB durante el curso 2007-2008.El objetivo principal es determinar si se produce una desigualdad de género y de edad en la evaluación de la calidad académica e investigadora en comunicación. La investigación se ha realizado a partir de entrevistas en profundidad a una muestra de 5 académicas. Los resultados muestran cómo el colectivo de mujeres jóvenes sufren una serie de obstáculos en su acceso a la academia que las afectan específicamente y que pueden significar una doble discriminación; Artikulu honetan Bartzelonako Unibertsitate Autonomoko (UAB) Komunikazio Zientzien Fakultateko emakumezko irakasle gazteen egoera 2007-2008 ikasturtean aztertzen dugu. Xede nagusia komunikazio alorrean akademia eta ikerkuntzakalitatea ebaluatzean genero eta adin mailako desberdintzarik ote dagoen egiaztatzea da. Ikerketa bost emakume akademikoko lagin bati egindako elkarrizketa luzeez burutu da. Ondorioek erakusten dute emakume gazteen kolektiboak, akademiara iritsi ahal izateko, zehazki eragiten dioten zenbait oztopo jasaten duela, diskriminazio bikoitza adieraz dezaketenak

La representación de las mujeres trabajadoras en la prensa española

En este artículo presentamos los resultados de varias investigaciones sobre la representación del trabajo de las mujeres en la prensa realizadas por el Feminario Mujeres y Cultura de Masas de la UAB. Demostramos mediante el análisis de contenido que la prensa de información general no ha reflejado la incorporación de una gran cantidad de mujeres españolas e inmigrantes al mercado de trabajo durante los últimos 30 años. Consideramos que un mayor tratamiento informativo de estos cambios sociales podría incidir en la realidad vital de las lectoras y proporcionarles elementos para evaluar las políticas públicas destinadas prioritariamente a las mujere

CIDADANIA E MEIO AMBIENTE SUSTENTÁVEL

A cidadania é um atributo constitucional, próprio da democracia, cujos contornos jurídicos foram sendo construídos ao longo do tempo. Desde quando a democracia ainda era ‘privilégio’ de poucos, os quais exerciam um monopólio de poder político e controlavam homens e mulheres escravos, hodiernamente se converteu em um arcabouço no qual a cidadania confere ao indivíduo o poder de atuar na vida efetiva do Estado como partícipe da sociedade política. O que transforma homens em partes integrantes e proativas do Estado, participando inclusive da proteção ambiental, o que se tornou uma constante preocupação dos indivíduos, tendo em vista os elementos essenciais à vida humana e à manutenção do equilíbrio ecológico. O que tem por objetivo primário tutelar a qualidade do meio ambiente em função da qualidade de vida, como expressão de um direito fundamental da pessoa humana. Ressalta-se, que, devido ao crescimento econômico e ao desenfreado consumismo, as catástrofes ambientais se tornaram comuns, o que conduz ao agravamento dos problemas do meio ambiente. Neste artigo são examinados os atributos constitucionais do meio ambiente sustentável, bem como os direitos das gerações futuras, quando observados do ponto de vista da cidadania

DP2 antagonism reduces airway smooth muscle mass in asthma by decreasing eosinophilia and myofibroblast recruitment

Increased airway smooth muscle mass, a feature of airway remodeling in asthma, is the strongest predictor of airflow limitation and contributes to asthma-associated morbidity and mortality. No current drug therapy for asthma is known to affect airway smooth muscle mass. Although there is increasing evidence that prostaglandin D2 type 2 receptor (DP2) is expressed in airway structural and inflammatory cells, few studies have addressed the expression and function of DP2 in airway smooth muscle cells. We report that the DP2 antagonist fevipiprant reduced airway smooth muscle mass in bronchial biopsies from patients with asthma who had participated in a previous randomized placebo-controlled trial. We developed a computational model to capture airway remodeling. Our model predicted that a reduction in airway eosinophilia alone was insufficient to explain the clinically observed decrease in airway smooth muscle mass without a concomitant reduction in the recruitment of airway smooth muscle cells or their precursors to airway smooth muscle bundles that comprise the airway smooth muscle layer. We experimentally confirmed that airway smooth muscle migration could be inhibited in vitro using DP2-specific antagonists in an airway smooth muscle cell culture model. Our analyses suggest that fevipiprant, through antagonism of DP2, reduced airway smooth muscle mass in patients with asthma by decreasing airway eosinophilia in concert with reduced recruitment of myofibroblasts and fibrocytes to the airway smooth muscle bundle. Fevipiprant may thus represent a potential therapy to ameliorate airway remodeling in asthma

Collaboration between explainable artificial intelligence and pulmonologists improves the accuracy of pulmonary function test interpretation

Background Few studies have investigated the collaborative potential between artificial intelligence (AI) and pulmonologists for diagnosing pulmonary disease. We hypothesised that the collaboration between a pulmonologist and AI with explanations (explainable AI (XAI)) is superior in diagnostic interpretation of pulmonary function tests (PFTs) than the pulmonologist without support. Methods The study was conducted in two phases, a monocentre study (phase 1) and a multicentre intervention study (phase 2). Each phase utilised two different sets of 24 PFT reports of patients with a clinically validated gold standard diagnosis. Each PFT was interpreted without (control) and with XAI's suggestions (intervention). Pulmonologists provided a differential diagnosis consisting of a preferential diagnosis and optionally up to three additional diagnoses. The primary end-point compared accuracy of preferential and additional diagnoses between control and intervention. Secondary end-points were the number of diagnoses in differential diagnosis, diagnostic confidence and inter-rater agreement. We also analysed how XAI influenced pulmonologists’ decisions. Results In phase 1 (n=16 pulmonologists), mean preferential and differential diagnostic accuracy significantly increased by 10.4% and 9.4%, respectively, between control and intervention (p<0.001). Improvements were somewhat lower but highly significant (p<0.0001) in phase 2 (5.4% and 8.7%, respectively; n=62 pulmonologists). In both phases, the number of diagnoses in the differential diagnosis did not reduce, but diagnostic confidence and inter-rater agreement significantly increased during intervention. Pulmonologists updated their decisions with XAI's feedback and consistently improved their baseline performance if AI provided correct predictions. Conclusion A collaboration between a pulmonologist and XAI is better at interpreting PFTs than individual pulmonologists reading without XAI support or XAI alone