Single-Server Single-Message Online Private Information Retrieval with Side Information

In many practical settings, the user needs to retrieve information from a server in a periodic manner, over multiple rounds of communication. In this paper, we discuss the setting in which this information needs to be retrieved privately, such that the identity of all the information retrieved until the current round is protected. This setting can occur in practical situations in which the user needs to retrieve items from the server or a periodic basis, such that the privacy needs to be guaranteed for all the items been retrieved until the current round. We refer to this setting as an \emph{online private information retrieval} as the user does not know the identities of the future items that need to be retrieved from the server. Following the previous line of work by Kadhe \emph{et al.}~we assume that the user knows a random subset of $M$ messages in the database as a side information which are unknown to the server. Focusing on scalar-linear settings, we characterize the \emph{per-round capacity}, i.e., the maximum achievable download rate at each round, and present a coding scheme that achieves this capacity. The key idea of our scheme is to utilize the data downloaded during the current round as a side information for the subsequent rounds. We show for the setting with $K$ messages stored at the server, the per-round capacity of the scalar-linear setting is $C_1= ({M+1})/{K}$ for round $i=1$ and ${C_i= {(2^{i-1}(M+1))}/{KM}}$ for round $i\geq2$, provided that ${K}/({M+1})$ is a power of $2$.Comment: 7 pages; This work is a long version of an article submitted to IEEE for possible publicatio

Relationship between Reframing Strategies Adopted by the Translator and the Attitude of the Reader toward the Translation: A Case Study of the Book "The Grass is Singing" by "Doris Lessing"

Since language is production and translation is reproduction, there are always slight changes in representing intentions. These changes may be greater in translation. Most changes occur unconsciously and unintentionally but sometimes these changes are consciously, intentionally and purposefully. Reframing is a strategy in narrative theory that is used to change some dimensions of translated text. In this paper the researcher was an attempt to investigate the ideological manipulation under Baker’s renarrative theory conducted within a descriptive framework through comparing a parallel text in English and Persian. In this paper, "The grass is singing" by "Doris Lessing", translated by Dr. Zahra Karimi was analyzed to see the changes that have occurred in translation. The analysis revealed that the instances of reframing are numerous but often overlapping. The most common reframing strategy was selective appropriation which, however, usually resulted in occurrences of other reframing strategies

Modelling multivariate, overdispersed count data with correlated and non-normal heterogeneity effects

Mixed Poisson models are most relevant to the analysis of longitudinal count data in various disciplines. A conventional specification of such models relies on the normality of unobserved heterogeneity effects. In practice, such an assumption may be invalid, and non-normal cases are appealing. In this paper, we propose a modelling strategy by allowing the vector of effects to follow the multivariate skew-normal distribution. It can produce dependence between the correlated longitudinal counts by imposing several structures of mixing priors. In a Bayesian setting, the estimation process proceeds by sampling variants from the posterior distributions. We highlight the usefulness of our approach by conducting a simulation study and analysing two real-life data sets taken from the German Socioeconomic Panel and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By a comparative study, we indicate that the new approach can produce more reliable results compared to traditional mixed models to fit correlated count data

A Compact Antenna with Dual Polarization for Mobile and Wireless Communication

In this paper, a dual-polarized antenna fed by CPW is presented. The proposed includes a conductor on the ‎radiator and has defected ground, so it has been achieved as an omnidirectional antenna which makes it a low loss, ‎and a simple antenna which is appropriate for a wireless communication system. By imposing the different ‎circumstances of U-shape elements on the ground, the features of antennas have been improved. The scattering ‎characteristic of the antenna are less than -20 dB with high impedance matching at 2.2GHz, 4.8GHz, and 6.6GHz. ‎Also, the antenna covers 400 MHz bandwidth from 2 GHz to 2.4 GHz, 500 MHz bandwidth from 4.6 GHz to 5.1 GHz, ‎and 1.3 GHz bandwidth from 5.7 GHz to 7 GHz, respectively. In addition, the maximum gain of the antenna is almost ‎‎10 dB. The simple and compact antenna with an overall size of 25x20mm2 is designed on an FR-4 substrate with 0.8 ‎mm thickness. On the one hand, the structure is fabricated and tested. The results of the antenna have shown that ‎the measured results agree with the simulated results; The performance of the antenna with CPW-fed, consisting of ‎compact size, circular polarization, and suitable gain at resonance frequencies, make it a suitable choice for the ‎communication system and the portable device.

People\u27s preferences and perceptions toward low-input versus conventional park design approaches using 3D images and interview-based questionnaires

Future urban planning and public satisfaction will be significantly impacted by understanding people\u27s preferences and perceptions of urban landscape design scenarios, particularly innovative sustainable development approaches. This study examined residents\u27 preferences in Mashhad, Iran, for low-input park design versus conventional park design techniques. The research method integrated questionnaire-based interviews with 3D-simulated images of a site designed with the two approaches. Ninety-three respondents answered validated questions regarding their preference towards the planting and architecture of the parks, their perceptions about social sustainability, psychological feelings, and their perceptions of low-input and maintenance of the spaces. T-test analyses showed that people preferred the low-input park design more than the conventional design for the first four factors. However, the respondents needed to recognize significant differences between the two plans for the low-input and maintenance character of the parks. These results showed that people have positive views and perceptions toward sustainable design approaches like low-input park design. This approach can attract the public and meet their social, psychological, and aesthetic needs with appropriate planning and designs. However, people require education and awareness about the maintenance and sustainability aspects of landscape design approaches. Architecture and planting design visual preferences were suitable predictors for people\u27s overall preference toward the low-input park design approach. The research outputs and the applied method provide insights into sustainable landscape planning in the urban environment

A Geometric View of the Service Rates of Codes Problem and its Application to the Service Rate of the First Order Reed-Muller Codes

Service rate is an important, recently introduced, performance metric associated with distributed coded storage systems. Among other interpretations, it measures the number of users that can be simultaneously served by the storage system. We introduce a geometric approach to address this problem. One of the most significant advantages of this approach over the existing approaches is that it allows one to derive bounds on the service rate of a code without explicitly knowing the list of all possible recovery sets. To illustrate the power of our geometric approach, we derive upper bounds on the service rates of the first order Reed-Muller codes and simplex codes. Then, we show how these upper bounds can be achieved. Furthermore, utilizing the proposed geometric technique, we show that given the service rate region of a code, a lower bound on the minimum distance of the code can be obtained