Transforming from Addicted Video Gamer to Doctoral Candidate: An Autoethnographic Reflection

Video game addiction has become a significant concern in many countries with the development of the digital entertainment industry. Researchers have devoted their efforts to understanding the causes of video game addiction and seeking solutions and treatment approaches to help reduce the addictive problem. Similar to the worldwide situation, video game addiction issues are also a major socio-cultural problem in China. Although qualitative and quantitative research methods have been used in video game addiction studies, current research still follows the model of collecting data from objective participants and then analysing it. Contrarily, there is a lack of first-person empirical data on overcoming video game addiction. This research adopts the autoethnographic approach to study video game addiction topics. The outcome indicates that the author’s game addiction is mainly created by seeking fun in gameplay and escapism from real-life problems. The factors that help the author overcome the addiction and further turn into a positive influence in his life include shifting attention and making life more purposeful

Rate-Splitting for Multigroup Multicast Beamforming in Multicarrier Systems

In this paper, we consider multigroup multicast transmissions with different types of service messages in an overloaded multicarrier system, where the number of transmitter antennas is insufficient to mitigate all inter-group interference. We show that employing a rate-splitting based multiuser beamforming approach enables a simultaneous delivery of the multiple service messages over the same time-frequency resources in a non-orthogonal fashion. Such an approach, taking into account transmission power constraints which are inevitable in practice, outperforms classic beamforming methods as well as current standardized multicast technologies, in terms of both spectrum efficiency and the flexibility of radio resource allocation.Comment: SPAWC 2018, 5 Pages, 2 fig

On the Performance of PDCCH in LTE and 5G New Radio

5G New Radio (NR) Release 15 has been specified in June 2018. It introduces numerous changes and potential improvements for physical layer data transmissions, although only point-to-point (PTP) communications are considered. In order to use physical data channels such as the Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), it is essential to guarantee a successful transmission of control information via the Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH). Taking into account these two aspects, in this paper, we first analyze the PDCCH processing chain in NR PTP as well as in the state-of-the-art Long Term Evolution (LTE) point-to-multipoint (PTM) solution, i.e., evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS). Then, via link level simulations, we compare the performance of the two technologies, observing the Bit/Block Error Rate (BER/BLER) for various scenarios. The objective is to identify the performance gap brought by physical layer changes in NR PDCCH as well as provide insightful guidelines on the control channel configuration towards NR PTM scenarios.Comment: Globecomm 2018 workshop, 6 pages, 7 fig

Altered expression of Tim family molecules and an imbalanced ratio of Tim-3 to Tim-1 expression in patients with type 1 diabetes

BackgroundT-cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain (Tim) proteins are immunomodulatory molecules that play key roles in the regulation of T-cell activation. Published studies have reported that Tim molecules are involved in the pathogenesis of certain autoimmune diseases. Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease in which T cells mediate the destruction of islet β cells. However, the expression of Tim molecules in T1D remains unclear. In this study, we measured the expression of Tim family molecules as well as T-cell subset-specific transcription factors in T1D patients, and we explored the possible involvement of Tim molecules in the pathogenesis of T1D.MethodsNinety T1D patients, Thirty-six type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients and forty healthy controls (HCs) were recruited for this study. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were isolated, RNA was extracted from the PBMCs and reverse transcribed into cDNA, and gene expression patterns were analysed by RT–qPCR. The expression of Tim molecules in different T-cell subsets was analysed by flow cytometry.ResultsCompared with that in HCs, the mRNA expression of Tim-1 and RORC was increased in T1D patients (P=0.0355 and P=0.0423, respectively), while the expression of Tim-3 was decreased (P=0.0013). In addition, compared with HCs, the ratio of Tim-3 to Tim-1 expression in diabetic patients was decreased (P<0.0001 for T1D and P=0.0387 for T2D). The ratios of T-Bet to GATA3 expression and RORC to FOXP3 expression were higher in T1D patients than in HCs (P=0.0042 and P=0.0066, respectively). Furthermore, the T1D patients with defective islet function had more significant imbalances in the Tim-3/Tim-1 and RORC/FOXP3 ratios (P<0.0001, and P=0.001, respectively). Moreover, Both Tim-3 expression in CD4+ T cells and the Tim-3 to Tim-1 ratio were elevated in T1D in the remission phase compared to T1D.ConclusionOur study revealed altered expression of Tim molecules in T1D patients. The imbalanced ratios of Tim-3/Tim-1 expression were more pronounced in T1D patients with defective islet function. However, alterations in Tim molecule expression are mitigated in T1D in the remission phase. All these findings suggest that Tim family molecules may be involved in the pathogenesis of T1D

Pioneering Studies on LTE eMBMS: Towards 5G Point-to-Multipoint Transmissions

The first 5G (5th generation wireless systems) New Radio Release-15 was recently completed. However, the specification only considers the use of unicast technologies and the extension to point-to-multipoint (PTM) scenarios is not yet considered. To this end, we first present in this work a technical overview of the state-of-the-art LTE (Long Term Evolution) PTM technology, i.e., eMBMS (evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services), and investigate the physical layer performance via link-level simulations. Then based on the simulation analysis, we discuss potential improvements for the two current eMBMS solutions, i.e., MBSFN (MBMS over Single Frequency Networks) and SC-PTM (Single-Cell PTM). This work explicitly focus on equipping the current eMBMS solutions with 5G candidate techniques, e.g., multiple antennas and millimeter wave, and its potentials to meet the requirements of next generation PTM transmissions.Comment: SAM 2018, 5 pages, 4 fig