3,468 research outputs found
On Approaching the Ultimate Limits of Photon-Efficient and Bandwidth-Efficient Optical Communication
It is well known that ideal free-space optical communication at the quantum
limit can have unbounded photon information efficiency (PIE), measured in bits
per photon. High PIE comes at a price of low dimensional information efficiency
(DIE), measured in bits per spatio-temporal-polarization mode. If only temporal
modes are used, then DIE translates directly to bandwidth efficiency. In this
paper, the DIE vs. PIE tradeoffs for known modulations and receiver structures
are compared to the ultimate quantum limit, and analytic approximations are
found in the limit of high PIE. This analysis shows that known structures fall
short of the maximum attainable DIE by a factor that increases linearly with
PIE for high PIE.
The capacity of the Dolinar receiver is derived for binary coherent-state
modulations and computed for the case of on-off keying (OOK). The DIE vs. PIE
tradeoff for this case is improved only slightly compared to OOK with photon
counting. An adaptive rule is derived for an additive local oscillator that
maximizes the mutual information between a receiver and a transmitter that
selects from a set of coherent states. For binary phase-shift keying (BPSK),
this is shown to be equivalent to the operation of the Dolinar receiver.
The Dolinar receiver is extended to make adaptive measurements on a coded
sequence of coherent state symbols. Information from previous measurements is
used to adjust the a priori probabilities of the next symbols. The adaptive
Dolinar receiver does not improve the DIE vs. PIE tradeoff compared to
independent transmission and Dolinar reception of each symbol.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures; corrected a typo in equation 3
Mandatory waiting periods before abortion and sterilization: theory and practice
Some laws insist on a fixed, compulsory waiting period between the time of obtaining consent and when abortions or sterilizations are carried out. Waiting periods are designed to allow for reflection on the decision and to minimize regret. In fact, the cognitive processing needed for these important decisions takes place relatively rapidly. Clinicians are used to handling cases individually and tailoring care appropriately, including giving more time for decision-making. Psychological considerations in relation to the role of emotion in decision-making, eg, regret, raise the possibility that waiting periods could have a detrimental impact on the emotional wellbeing of those concerned which might interfere with decision-making. Having an extended period of time to consider how much regret one might feel as a consequence of the decision one is faced with may make a person revisit a stable decision. In abortion care, waiting periods often result in an extra appointment being needed, delays in securing a procedure and personal distress for the applicant. Some women end up being beyond the gestational limit for abortion. Those requesting sterilization in a situation of active conflict in their relationship will do well to postpone a decision on sterilization. Otherwise, applicants for sterilization should not be forced to wait. Forced waiting undermines people’s agency and autonomous decision-making ability. Low-income groups are particularly disadvantaged. It may be discriminatory when applied to marginalized groups. Concern about the validity of consent is best addressed by protective clinical guidelines rather than through rigid legislation. Waiting periods breach reproductive rights. Policymakers and politicians in countries that have waiting periods in sexual and reproductive health regulation should review relevant laws and policies and bring them into line with scientific and ethical evidence and international human rights law
The Configurable SAT Solver Challenge (CSSC)
It is well known that different solution strategies work well for different
types of instances of hard combinatorial problems. As a consequence, most
solvers for the propositional satisfiability problem (SAT) expose parameters
that allow them to be customized to a particular family of instances. In the
international SAT competition series, these parameters are ignored: solvers are
run using a single default parameter setting (supplied by the authors) for all
benchmark instances in a given track. While this competition format rewards
solvers with robust default settings, it does not reflect the situation faced
by a practitioner who only cares about performance on one particular
application and can invest some time into tuning solver parameters for this
application. The new Configurable SAT Solver Competition (CSSC) compares
solvers in this latter setting, scoring each solver by the performance it
achieved after a fully automated configuration step. This article describes the
CSSC in more detail, and reports the results obtained in its two instantiations
so far, CSSC 2013 and 2014
Smart thermostat
The current thermostat marketplace is dominated by programmable thermostats that are engineered to give the user as much control as possible. However, not all users program these thermostats optimally. Some prefer comfort over energy efficiency and will heat an empty house. Others do not care to program their thermostat and leave it at a set temperature. The Smart Thermostat that we have created is engineered to optimize the temperature for the user, using the common sense of the engineer to lower energy consumption. It uses a Raspberry Pi as a platform to implement a fuzzy logic control System. By removing the extensive control of the thermostat from the user we are able to create a more energy efficient product that also maintains the comfort level of the occupants
PPP in small towns' water supply in Uganda
PPP in small towns' water supply in Ugand
Bayesian Opponent Modeling in Multiplayer Imperfect-Information Games
In many real-world settings agents engage in strategic interactions with
multiple opposing agents who can employ a wide variety of strategies. The
standard approach for designing agents for such settings is to compute or
approximate a relevant game-theoretic solution concept such as Nash equilibrium
and then follow the prescribed strategy. However, such a strategy ignores any
observations of opponents' play, which may indicate shortcomings that can be
exploited. We present an approach for opponent modeling in multiplayer
imperfect-information games where we collect observations of opponents' play
through repeated interactions. We run experiments against a wide variety of
real opponents and exact Nash equilibrium strategies in three-player Kuhn poker
and show that our algorithm significantly outperforms all of the agents,
including the exact Nash equilibrium strategies
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