Providing Long-Term Participation Incentive in Participatory Sensing

Providing an adequate long-term participation incentive is important for a participatory sensing system to maintain enough number of active users (sensors), so as to collect a sufficient number of data samples and support a desired level of service quality. In this work, we consider the sensor selection problem in a general time-dependent and location-aware participatory sensing system, taking the long-term user participation incentive into explicit consideration. We study the problem systematically under different information scenarios, regarding both future information and current information (realization). In particular, we propose a Lyapunov-based VCG auction policy for the on-line sensor selection, which converges asymptotically to the optimal off-line benchmark performance, even with no future information and under (current) information asymmetry. Extensive numerical results show that our proposed policy outperforms the state-of-art policies in the literature, in terms of both user participation (e.g., reducing the user dropping probability by 25% to 90%) and social performance (e.g., increasing the social welfare by 15% to 80%).Comment: This manuscript serves as the online technical report of the article published in IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 201

STR amplification of DNA mixtures: fidelity of contributor proportion when calculated from DNA profile data using known mixture samples

DNA mixtures are frequently encountered in forensic casework especially in cases of sexual assault. When evidence is recovered, the sample may have come from multiple contributors in different proportions. The first part of this study examines the fidelity of contributor proportions by using the residual to analyze known mixture samples. The coefficient of determination between the expected and observed proportions was also determined and used to assess the fidelity of mixture proportions. The second part of this study involved separating major and minor contributors in a mixture by characterizing the observed proportions. Results for the 2-person mixture show that as the mass of amplified DNA decreases, the number of allele dropouts increases. Furthermore, as mass decreases, the level of variation between the expected and observed proportions increases, as determined by the residuals and the coefficients of determination. In addition, as mixture proportions become more disparate the amount of variations between the expected and observed proportions are not as great as the mass. For the 3-person mixtures, as mass decreases, the residuals increase. Also, when the coefficient of determination of the 3-person mixtures were compared to those obtained with the 2-person mixtures, it was determined that the R2 were larger for the former. This was a result of higher total amplification masses. In mixture 1:2/2:1, major and minor proportions are not distinguishable In mixture 1:4/4:1, major and minor proportions can be distinguished at 1 ng. In mixture 1:9/9:1, proportions are distinguishable at 1, and 0.5 ng. Mixtures could not be distinguished at the 0.25 ng level, despite proportion and is the result of the increase in variation with decreasing mass

Bc(B)→Dlν~B_c(B){\to}D l\tilde{\nu} form factors in Light-Cone Sum Rules and the DD-meson distribution amplitude

In this paper we calculate the weak form factors of the decays $B_c(B)\to Dl\tilde\nu$ by using the chiral current correlator within the framework of the QCD light-cone sum rules (LCSR). The expressions of the form factors only depend on the leading twist distribution amplitude (DA) of the $D$ meson. Three models of the $D$-meson distribution amplitude are employed and the calculated form factor $F_{B_c\to D}(0)$ is given. Our prediction, by using the $D$-meson distribution amplitude with the exponential suppression at the end points, is compatible with other approaches, and favors the three-points sum rules (3PSR) approach with the Coulumb corrections included.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure

Biphenyl-3,3′,4,4′-tetra­amine

The title compound, C12H14N4, has a crystallographically imposed centre of symmetry. Inter­molecular N—H⋯N hydrogen bonds between amino groups link adjacent mol­ecules into a three-dimensional network where ten-membered hydrogen-bonded rings are observed