Joint Interference Alignment and Bi-Directional Scheduling for MIMO Two-Way Multi-Link Networks

By means of the emerging technique of dynamic Time Division Duplex (TDD), the switching point between uplink and downlink transmissions can be optimized across a multi-cell system in order to reduce the impact of inter-cell interference. It has been recently recognized that optimizing also the order in which uplink and downlink transmissions, or more generally the two directions of a two-way link, are scheduled can lead to significant benefits in terms of interference reduction. In this work, the optimization of bi-directional scheduling is investigated in conjunction with the design of linear precoding and equalization for a general multi-link MIMO two-way system. A simple algorithm is proposed that performs the joint optimization of the ordering of the transmissions in the two directions of the two-way links and of the linear transceivers, with the aim of minimizing the interference leakage power. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.Comment: To be presented at ICC 2015, 6 pages, 7 figure

Reprint of: The potential role of desalination in managing flood risks from dam overflows: the case of Sydney, Australia

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd Shifting climate patterns are causing extreme drought and flooding across the globe. This combined with the world's burgeoning population and insatiable thirst for water requires water service providers to think differently about the limited resources they manage. In Australia, the severe drought at the beginning of the century caused dams to fall to record levels. In response, many state governments invested heavily in rain-independent supplies such as desalination to augment and diversify traditional sources. However, extreme rainfall soon followed the drought, filled reservoirs and caused flooding in many locations leaving billions of dollars worth of damage and new water infrastructure standing idle. This is the case in Sydney, where the new desalination plant is still not used and the potential for major flooding has raised concerns over the safety of the large population downstream of the dam. This paper explores the growing need to understand the relationship between drought, flooding and infrastructure optimisation. The paper focuses on Sydney to illustrate the application of a system dynamics model. The new model explores options for raising the dam wall, offering airspace to assist flood protection, in contrast to options to lower the dam full supply level and utilise idle desalination capacity to fill the water security gap created. The illustrative results, using publicly available data, find that by lowering the dam water levels and operating desalination, significant flood protection can be achieved at a similar cost to raising the dam wall. The paper demonstrates the importance of optimising existing and new water resources for multiple purposes and how system dynamics modelling can assist water service providers in these complex investigations

The effect of polyethylene glycol (PEG 8000) supplementation on in vitro gas production kinetics of leaves from tannin containing trees

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of inclusion of polyethylene glycol (PEG 8000) during in vitro incubation on gas production kinetics, organic matter digestibility (OMD) and the metabolisable energy (ME) content of foliage from the tannin containing tree species, Pistica lentiscus, Arbutus andrachne and Juniperus communis. The amount of gas produced when the foliage was incubated with buffered rumen fluid, was determined after 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 72 and 96 h of incubation in the presence of PEG at inclusions rates of 15, 30, 60 and 90 mg and in the absence of PEG. Their kinetics were described using the equation p = a + b (1-e-ct). Addition of PEG resulted in an increased gas production at almost all incubation times in all tree species. However species showed variable responses. After 3 h of incubation the PEG addition showed no significant effect on gas production when the foliage from A. andrachne was incubated, but had a significant effect on gas production as duration of incubation extended. The increase in gas production in response to increased levels of PEG inclusion was linear for P. lentiscus and J. communis. However, when the PEG inclusion rates exceeded 60 mg there was no significant increase in gas production when A. andrachne was incubated. The estimated parameters such as gas production rate(c) and gas production (a) from the immediately soluble fraction were not affected by the level PEG treatment, except that PEG addition at 90 mg had a significant effect on the gas production (a) from immediately soluble fraction of leaves of J. communis. Gas production (b) from the insoluble fraction (mL) and potential gas production (a+b), OMD and ME of tree leaves increased significantly with increasing levels of PEG addition. However, when PEG inclusion exceeded 60 mg these parameters showed no significant increase when leaves from A. andrachne were incubated. Although the mean increase in OMD per mg PEG supplementation was 0.131 digestibility units, the increase in ME per mg PEG supplementation was 0.0201 ME units. The elevated levels of gas produced, and increased OMD and ME estimates with the inclusion of PEG demonstrated the negative effect of tannins in foliage on digestibility. South African Journal of Animal Science Vol. 35(4) 2005: 229-23

Effect of heat treatment on in situ rumen degradability and in vitro gas production of full-fat soyabeans and soyabean meal

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of the heat treatment of full-fat soyabean (FFSB) and solvent extracted soyabean meal (SBM) on the in situ dry matter (DM) and protein degradability, and in vitro gas production kinetics of the protein sources. Ruminal disappearance of DM and crude protein (CP), and in vitro gas production were determined after 0, 4, 8, 16, 24, 48 and 72 h incubation using the in situ ruminal degradation and in vitro gas production techniques, respectively. In situ DM and CP disappearances were fitted to the exponential equation p = a + b (1-e-ct), where a is the rapid degradable fraction and b is the slow degradable fraction. In vitro gas production data were fitted to the equation, y = A {1 – exp [- b (t-T) – c (√t - √T)]}. Where b and c are the initial gas production rate constant (h-1) and later gas production rate constant (h-1/2), respectively. The two protein sources were heat treated both with steam pressure in an autoclave at 120 °C and in an oven at 150 °C for 20 min. Heat treatment had a significant effect on effective DM degradability (EDMD), effective CP degradability (ECPD) and in vitro gas production. Although the heat treatments reduced the EDMD, ECPD and the amount of gas produced, the results were inconsistent between protein sources. The heat treatments applied in the autoclave and the oven reduced the ECPD0.02 of FFSB by 12.5% and 10.9%, respectively. On the other hand, heat treatment applied through the autoclave decreased the ECPD0.02 of SBM by 13.9%, but by 18.7% when heat was applied through the oven. Heat treatment of SBM using the oven seemed to be more effective than using autoclaving. Heat treatments in the autoclave and oven reduced the total gas production from FFSB by 7.25 and 7.32%, respectively, and from SBM by 12.69 and 7.91%, respectively. It was concluded that heat treatment is an effective method of altering the rumen degradation characteristics of DM and CP in SBM and FFSB. Both methods could be used to increase the proportion of the rumen non-degradable protein fraction in protein sources which would then reach the small intestines unaffected by ruminal fermentation. Keywords: Full-fat soyabean; soyabean meal; heat treatment; in situ protein degradation; in vitro gas production South African Journal of Animal Sciences Vol. 35 (3) 2005: pp.186-19

Dieulafoy Lesion in the Stomach

Dieulafoy disease is an uncommon cause of gastrointestinal system bleeding. Although the exact cause is not known, it is characterized by bleeding from abnormal submucosal vessels. There are many methods for diagnosis and treatment. In this case, a patient with a long-time undiagnosed stomach Dieulafoy lesion had a surgical resection. During the postoperative period the patient was discharged without any complication

Recovering 6D Object Pose: A Review and Multi-modal Analysis

A large number of studies analyse object detection and pose estimation at visual level in 2D, discussing the effects of challenges such as occlusion, clutter, texture, etc., on the performances of the methods, which work in the context of RGB modality. Interpreting the depth data, the study in this paper presents thorough multi-modal analyses. It discusses the above-mentioned challenges for full 6D object pose estimation in RGB-D images comparing the performances of several 6D detectors in order to answer the following questions: What is the current position of the computer vision community for maintaining "automation" in robotic manipulation? What next steps should the community take for improving "autonomy" in robotics while handling objects? Our findings include: (i) reasonably accurate results are obtained on textured-objects at varying viewpoints with cluttered backgrounds. (ii) Heavy existence of occlusion and clutter severely affects the detectors, and similar-looking distractors is the biggest challenge in recovering instances' 6D. (iii) Template-based methods and random forest-based learning algorithms underlie object detection and 6D pose estimation. Recent paradigm is to learn deep discriminative feature representations and to adopt CNNs taking RGB images as input. (iv) Depending on the availability of large-scale 6D annotated depth datasets, feature representations can be learnt on these datasets, and then the learnt representations can be customized for the 6D problem

A Search for leptophilic Z_(l) boson at future linear colliders

We study the possible dynamics associated with leptonic charge in future linear colliders. Leptophilic massive vector boson, Z_(l), have been investigated through the process e^(+)e^(-) -> mu^(+)mu^(-). We have shown that ILC and CLIC will give opportunity to observe Z_(l) with masses up to the center of mass energy if the corresponding coupling constant g_(l) exceeds 10^(-3).Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure