419 research outputs found
Containership Flag Selection: The Opening of Direct Shipping between Taiwan and China
The signature of the cross-strait sea transport (CST) Agreement in 2008 has not only established the cross-strait direct shipping link, but also lifted the ban on the involvement of Taiwanese flagged ships to call at China’s ports. This paper focuses on the flag selection for Taiwanese container shipping companies under the provisions of the CST Agreement, and embraces the empirical investigation based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Grey Relation Analysis (GRA) with the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). The results show Hong Kong is the optimal choice rather than China and Taiwan. Although cross-strait shipping is highly controlled by both sides of the strait, economic factors are still taken seriously in commercial activities. Further, to assist shipping companies to get direct shipping approvals from China and revising a package of financial measures under current shipping policies are recommended for the Taiwanese government
Multi-user lattice coding for the multiple-access relay channel
This paper considers the multi-antenna multiple access relay channel (MARC),
in which multiple users transmit messages to a common destination with the
assistance of a relay. In a variety of MARC settings, the dynamic decode and
forward (DDF) protocol is very useful due to its outstanding rate performance.
However, the lack of good structured codebooks so far hinders practical
applications of DDF for MARC. In this work, two classes of structured MARC
codes are proposed: 1) one-to-one relay-mapper aided multiuser lattice coding
(O-MLC), and 2) modulo-sum relay-mapper aided multiuser lattice coding
(MS-MLC). The former enjoys better rate performance, while the latter provides
more flexibility to tradeoff between the complexity of the relay mapper and the
rate performance. It is shown that, in order to approach the rate performance
achievable by an unstructured codebook with maximum-likelihood decoding, it is
crucial to use a new K-stage coset decoder for structured O-MLC, instead of the
one-stage decoder proposed in previous works. However, if O-MLC is decoded with
the one-stage decoder only, it can still achieve the optimal DDF
diversity-multiplexing gain tradeoff in the high signal-to-noise ratio regime.
As for MS-MLC, its rate performance can approach that of the O-MLC by
increasing the complexity of the modulo-sum relay-mapper. Finally, for
practical implementations of both O-MLC and MS-MLC, practical short length
lattice codes with linear mappers are designed, which facilitate efficient
lattice decoding. Simulation results show that the proposed coding schemes
outperform existing schemes in terms of outage probabilities in a variety of
channel settings.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figure
Filter and nested-lattice code design for fading MIMO channels with side-information
Linear-assignment Gel'fand-Pinsker coding (LA-GPC) is a coding technique for
channels with interference known only at the transmitter, where the known
interference is treated as side-information (SI). As a special case of LA-GPC,
dirty paper coding has been shown to be able to achieve the optimal
interference-free rate for interference channels with perfect channel state
information at the transmitter (CSIT). In the cases where only the channel
distribution information at the transmitter (CDIT) is available, LA-GPC also
has good (sometimes optimal) performance in a variety of fast and slow fading
SI channels. In this paper, we design the filters in nested-lattice based
coding to make it achieve the same rate performance as LA-GPC in multiple-input
multiple-output (MIMO) channels. Compared with the random Gaussian codebooks
used in previous works, our resultant coding schemes have an algebraic
structure and can be implemented in practical systems. A simulation in a
slow-fading channel is also provided, and near interference-free error
performance is obtained. The proposed coding schemes can serve as the
fundamental building blocks to achieve the promised rate performance of MIMO
Gaussian broadcast channels with CDIT or perfect CSITComment: submitted to IEEE Transactions on Communications, Feb, 200
Cognitive Radio with Partial Channel State Information at the Transmitter
In this paper, we present the cognitive radio system design with partial
channel state information known at the transmitter (CSIT).We replace the dirty
paper coding (DPC) used in the cognitive radio with full CSIT by the linear
assignment Gel'fand-Pinsker coding (LA-GPC), which can utilize the limited
knowledge of the channel more efficiently. Based on the achievable rate derived
from the LA-GPC, two optimization problems under the fast and slow fading
channels are formulated. We derive semianalytical solutions to find the
relaying ratios and precoding coefficients. The critical observation is that
the complex rate functions in these problems are closely related to ratios of
quadratic form. Simulation results show that the proposed semi-analytical
solutions perform close to the optimal solutions found by brute-force search,
and outperform the systems based on naive DPC. Asymptotic analysis also shows
that these solutions converge to the optimal ones solved with full CSIT when
the K-factor of Rician channel approaches infinity. Moreover, a new coding
scheme is proposed to implement the LA-GPC in practice. Simulation results show
that the proposed practical coding scheme can efficiently reach the theoretical
rate performance.Comment: resubmitted to IEEE Transaction on Wireless Communications, May 200
Clinical application of tumor volume in advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma to predict outcome
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Current staging systems have limited ability to adjust optimal therapy in advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). This study aimed to delineate the correlation between tumor volume, treatment outcome and chemotherapy cycles in advanced NPC.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A retrospective review of 110 patients with stage III-IV NPC was performed. All patients were treated first with neoadjuvant chemotherapy, then concurrent chemoradiation, and followed by adjuvant chemotherapy as being the definitive therapy. Gross tumor volume of primary tumor plus retropharyngeal nodes (GTVprn) was calculated to be an index of treatment outcome.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>GTVprn had a close relationship with survival and recurrence in advanced NPC. Large GTVprn (≧13 ml) was associated with a significantly poorer local control, lower distant metastasis-free rate, and poorer survival. In patients with GTVprn ≧ 13 ml, overall survival was better after ≧4 cycles of chemotherapy than after less than 4 cycles.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The incorporation of GTVprn can provide more information to adjust treatment strategy.</p
M-SpeechCLIP: Leveraging Large-Scale, Pre-Trained Models for Multilingual Speech to Image Retrieval
This work investigates the use of large-scale, pre-trained models (CLIP and
HuBERT) for multilingual speech-image retrieval. For non-English speech-image
retrieval, we outperform the current state-of-the-art performance by a wide
margin when training separate models for each language, and show that a single
model which processes speech in all three languages still achieves retrieval
scores comparable with the prior state-of-the-art. We identify key differences
in model behavior and performance between English and non-English settings,
presumably attributable to the English-only pre-training of CLIP and HuBERT.
Finally, we show that our models can be used for mono- and cross-lingual
speech-text retrieval and cross-lingual speech-speech retrieval, despite never
having seen any parallel speech-text or speech-speech data during training.Comment: Submitted to ICASSP 202
Maintenance therapy of low-dose nivolumab, S-1, and leucovorin in metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma with a germline mutation of MSH6: A case report
Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) provide substantial benefits to a small subset of patients with advanced cancer with mismatch repair deficiency (MMRD) or microsatellite instability (MSI), including patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). However, the long duration of ICI treatment presents a considerable financial burden. We present the case of a 63-year-old woman with metastatic PDAC refractory to conventional chemotherapy. Genetic analyses identified an MSH6 germline mutation and a high tumor mutation burden (TMB). Complete response (CR) was achieved after a short course of low-dose nivolumab (20 mg once every 2 weeks) with chemotherapy. CR was maintained for over 1 year with low-dose nivolumab and de-escalated chemotherapy without any immune-related adverse events. This case supports the further exploration of low-dose, affordable ICI-containing regimens in patients with advanced MSI-high/TMB-high cancer
Survival rate in nasopharyngeal carcinoma improved by high caseload volume: a nationwide population-based study in Taiwan
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Positive correlation between caseload and outcome has previously been validated for several procedures and cancer treatments. However, there is no information linking caseload and outcome of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) treatment. We used nationwide population-based data to examine the association between physician case volume and survival rates of patients with NPC.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Between 1998 and 2000, a total of 1225 patients were identified from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. Survival analysis, the Cox proportional hazards model, and propensity score were used to assess the relationship between 10-year survival rates and physician caseloads.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>As the caseload of individual physicians increased, unadjusted 10-year survival rates increased (<it>p </it>< 0.001). Using a Cox proportional hazard model, patients with NPC treated by high-volume physicians (caseload ≥ 35) had better survival rates (<it>p </it>= 0.001) after adjusting for comorbidities, hospital, and treatment modality. When analyzed by propensity score, the adjusted 10-year survival rate differed significantly between patients treated by high-volume physicians and patients treated by low/medium-volume physicians (75% <it>vs</it>. 61%; <it>p </it>< 0.001).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our data confirm a positive volume-outcome relationship for NPC. After adjusting for differences in the case mix, our analysis found treatment of NPC by high-volume physicians improved 10-year survival rate.</p
Effect of Antrodia
Antrodia camphorata is a rare Taiwanese medicinal mushroom. Antrodia camphorata extract has been reported to exhibit antioxidant, anti-inflammation, antimetastasis, and anticancer activities and plays a role in liver fibrosis, vasorelaxation, and immunomodulation. Critical vascular inflammation leads to vascular dysfunction and cardiovascular diseases, including abdominal aortic aneurysms, hypertension, and atherosclerosis. Platelet activation plays a crucial role in intravascular thrombosis, which is involved in a wide variety of cardiovascular diseases. However, the effect of Antrodia camphorata on platelet activation remains unclear. We examined the effects of Antrodia camphorata on platelet activation. In the present study, Antrodia camphorata treatment (56–224 μg/mL) inhibited platelet aggregation induced by collagen, but not U46619, an analogue of thromboxane A2, thrombin, and arachidonic acid. Antrodia camphorata inhibited collagen-induced calcium (Ca2+) mobilization and phosphorylation of protein kinase C (PKC) and Akt. In addition, Antrodia camphorata significantly reduced the aggregation and phosphorylation of PKC in phorbol-12, 13-dibutyrate (PDBu) activated platelets. In conclusion, Antrodia camphorata may inhibit platelet activation by inhibiting of Ca2+ and PKC cascade and the Akt pathway. Our study suggests that Antrodia camphorata may be a potential therapeutic agent for preventing or treating thromboembolic disorders
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