Adaptive medium access control for VoIP services in IEEE 802.11 WLANs

Abstract- Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is an important service with strict Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). The popular Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) of IEEE 802.11 Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol adopts a Binary Exponential Back-off (BEB) procedure to reduce the packet collision probability in WLANs. In DCF, the size of contention window is doubled upon a collision regardless of the network loads. This paper presents an adaptive MAC scheme to improve the QoS of VoIP in WLANs. This scheme applies a threshold of the collision rate to switch between two different functions for increasing the size of contention window based on the status of network loads. The performance of this scheme is investigated and compared to the original DCF using the network simulator NS-2. The performance results reveal that the adaptive scheme is able to achieve the higher throughput and medium utilization as well as lower access delay and packet loss probability than the original DCF

Real-time standard scan plane detection and localisation in fetal ultrasound using fully convolutional neural networks

Fetal mid-pregnancy scans are typically carried out according to fixed protocols. Accurate detection of abnormalities and correct biometric measurements hinge on the correct acquisition of clearly defined standard scan planes. Locating these standard planes requires a high level of expertise. However, there is a worldwide shortage of expert sonographers. In this paper, we consider a fully automated system based on convolutional neural networks which can detect twelve standard scan planes as defined by the UK fetal abnormality screening programme. The network design allows real-time inference and can be naturally extended to provide an approximate localisation of the fetal anatomy in the image. Such a framework can be used to automate or assist with scan plane selection, or for the retrospective retrieval of scan planes from recorded videos. The method is evaluated on a large database of 1003 volunteer mid-pregnancy scans. We show that standard planes acquired in a clinical scenario are robustly detected with a precision and recall of 69 % and 80 %, which is superior to the current state-of-the-art. Furthermore, we show that it can retrospectively retrieve correct scan planes with an accuracy of 71 % for cardiac views and 81 % for non-cardiac views

A nonlocal eigenvalue problem and the stability of spikes for reaction-diffusion systems with fractional reaction rates

We consider a nonlocal eigenvalue problem which arises in the study of stability of spike solutions for reaction-diffusion systems with fractional reaction rates such as the Sel'kov model, the Gray-Scott system, the hypercycle Eigen and Schuster, angiogenesis, and the generalized Gierer-Meinhardt system. We give some sufficient and explicit conditions for stability by studying the corresponding nonlocal eigenvalue problem in a new range of parameters

A Novel Averaging Principle Provides Insights in the Impact of Intratumoral Heterogeneity on Tumor Progression

Typically stochastic differential equations (SDEs) involve an additive or multiplicative noise term. Here, we are interested in stochastic differential equations for which the white noise is nonlinearly integrated into the corresponding evolution term, typically termed as random ordinary differential equations (RODEs). The classical averaging methods fail to treat such RODEs. Therefore, we introduce a novel averaging method appropriate to be applied to a specific class of RODEs. To exemplify the importance of our method, we apply it to an important biomedical problem, in particular, we implement the method to the assessment of intratumoral heterogeneity impact on tumor dynamics. Precisely, we model gliomas according to a well-known Go or Grow (GoG) model, and tumor heterogeneity is modeled as a stochastic process. It has been shown that the corresponding deterministic GoG model exhibits an emerging Allee effect (bistability). In contrast, we analytically and computationally show that the introduction of white noise, as a model of intratumoral heterogeneity, leads to monostable tumor growth. This monostability behavior is also derived even when spatial cell diffusion is taken into account

The expected signature of Brownian motion stopped on the boundary of a circle has finite radius of convergence

The expected signature is an analogue of the Laplace transform for probability measures on rough paths. A key question in the area has been to identify a general condition to ensure that the expected signature uniquely determines the measures. A sufficient condition has recently been given by Chevyrev and Lyons and requires a strong upper bound on the expected signature. While the upper bound was verified for many well‐known processes up to a deterministic time, it was not known whether the required bound holds for random time. In fact, even the simplest case of Brownian motion up to the exit time of a planar disc was open. For this particular case we answer this question using a suitable hyperbolic projection of the expected signature. The projection satisfies a three‐dimensional system of linear PDEs, which (surprisingly) can be solved explicitly, and which allows us to show that the upper bound on the expected signature is not satisfied

Rotation, Equivalence Principle, and GP-B Experiment

The ultra-precise Gravity Probe B experiment measured the frame-dragging effect and geodetic precession on four quartz gyros. We use this result to test WEP II (Weak Equivalence Principle II) which includes rotation in the universal free-fall motion. The free-fall E\"otv\"os parameter eta for rotating body is < = 10**(-11) with four-order improvement over previous results. The anomalous torque per unit angular momentum parameter lambda is constrained to (-0.05 +- 3.67) \times 10**(-15) s-1, (0.24 +- 0.98) \times 10**(-15) s-1, and (0 +- 3.6) \times 10**(-13) s-1 respectively in the directions of geodetic effect, frame-dragging effect and angular momentum axis; the dimensionless frequency-dependence parameter {\kappa} is constrained to (1.75 +- 4.96) \times 10**(-17), (1.80 +- 1.34) \times 10**(-17), and (0 +- 3) \times 10**(-14) respectively.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, 3 table

Single Crystal Growth and Characterization of the Iron-Based Superconductor KFe2As2 Synthesized by KAs Flux Method

Centimeter sized platelet single crystals of KFe2As2 were grown using a self-flux method. An encapsulation technique using commercial stainless steel container allowed the stable crystal growth lasting for more than 2 weeks. Ternary K-Fe-As systems with various starting compositions were examined to determine the optimal growth conditions. Employment of KAs flux led to the growth of large single crystals with the typical size of as large as 15 mm x 10 mm x 0.4 mm. The grown crystals exhibit sharp superconducting transition at 3.4 K with the transition width 0.2 K, as well as the very large residual resistivity ratio exceeding 450, evidencing the good sample quality.Comment: 4 pages, 6 Postscript figure

Uniqueness of nontrivially complete monotonicity for a class of functions involving polygamma functions

For $m,n\in\mathbb{N}$, let $f_{m,n}(x)=\bigr[\psi^{(m)}(x)\bigl]^2+\psi^{(n)}(x)$ on $(0,\infty)$. In the present paper, we prove using two methods that, among all $f_{m,n}(x)$ for $m,n\in\mathbb{N}$, only $f_{1,2}(x)$ is nontrivially completely monotonic on $(0,\infty)$. Accurately, the functions $f_{1,2}(x)$ and $f_{m,2n-1}(x)$ are completely monotonic on $(0,\infty)$, but the functions $f_{m,2n}(x)$ for $(m,n)\ne(1,1)$ are not monotonic and does not keep the same sign on $(0,\infty)$.Comment: 9 page