A Heuristic Learning Algorithm and its Application to Project Scheduling Problems

We present a real time heuristic learning algorithm. This algorithm is characterized by the complete heuristic learning process, which consists of state selection, heuristic learning, and search path review. The execution of the search path review is controlled by the user specified heuristic learning threshold. The algorithm will return an optimal solution with zero threshold, and near-optimal solutions with non- zero thresholds. We base on the dynamic nature of the resources of a project scheduling problem to present an application approach, which includes definition of states, state transition operator, and the cost of transition between states. Important results with the Patterson’s110 problems are presented

CSE1L/CAS, the cellular apoptosis susceptibility protein, enhances invasion and metastasis but not proliferation of cancer cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The cellular apoptosis susceptibility (CAS) protein is regarded as a proliferation-associated protein that associates with tumour proliferation as it associates with microtubule and functions in the mitotic spindle checkpoint. However, there is no any actual experimental study showing CAS (or CSE1 and CSE1L) can increase the proliferation of cancer cells. Previous pathological study has reported that CAS was strongly positive stained in all of the metastasis melanoma that be examined. Thus, CAS may regulate the invasion and metastasis of cancers. CAS is highly expressed in cancers; if CAS is associated with cancer proliferation, then increased CAS expression should be able to increase the proliferation of cancer cells. We studied whether increased CAS expression can increase cancer cell proliferation and whether CAS regulates the invasion of cancer cells.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We enhanced or reduced CAS expression by transfecting CAS or anti-CAS expression vectors into human MCF-7 breast cancer cells. The proliferations of cells were determined by trypan blue exclusion assay and flow cytometry analysis. Invasion of cancer cells were determined by matrigel-based invasion assay.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our studies showed that increased CAS expression was unable to enhance cancer cell proliferation. Immunofluorescence showed CAS was distributed in cytoplasm areas near cell membrane and cell protrusions. CAS was localized in cytoplasmic vesicle and immunogold electronmicroscopy showed CAS was located in vesicle membrane. CAS overexpression enhanced matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) secretion and cancer cell invasion. Animal experiments showed CAS reduction inhibited the metastasis of B16-F10 melanoma cells by 56% in C57BL/6 mice.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results indicate that CAS increases the invasion but not the proliferation of cancer cells. Thus, CAS plus ECM-degradation proteinases may be used as the markers for predicting the advance of tumour metastasis.</p

Performance Study of Cooperative Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access with Energy Harvesting

International audienceNon-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) is a candidate channel access technique for the future generation wireless communication systems. It exploits the power domain to enable simultaneous access for multiple users. In this paper, a NOMA system with a base station (BS) and two users is studied. A novel scheme where the near user (UE 1) harvests energy from the signals sent from BS and relays the previously decoded message of the far user (UE 2) is proposed. It includes two common energy harvesting schemes, namely, power splitting and time switching, as special cases. The performance is evaluated by the achievable data rate of UE 2 under different requirements on the data rate of UE 1. Numerical simulations and analysis reveal that when the channel conditions between BS and UE 1, and between UE 1 and UE 2 are good, while that between BS and UE 2 is bad, the proposed scheme works the best and has a significant gain over the conventional NOMA scheme without cooperation. In addition, for the sake of simplicity, the power splitting scheme can be used to replace the generalized scheme for energy extraction without jeopardizing the performance gain much

Re-thinking the incrementalist thesis in China: a reflection on the development of the minimum standard of living scheme in urban and rural areas

Many commentators contend that the Chinese government adopted an incremental approach to welfare policy reform because its leaders lacked an overall blueprint for it, allowing initiatives to be implemented only after lengthy experimentation. While this perspective has provided an essential account of the implementation and changes of some welfare programmes, it has inadequately addressed the slow progress in rural areas' welfare programmes and the different welfare entitlements for rural and urban residents. Further investigation is therefore required to resolve these anomalies. Using the minimum standard of living scheme (MSLS) as a case example, this article illustrates how the Chinese government's legitimacy needs, during different stages of its economic reforms, have been the principal motivation for the implementation of such schemes. The introduction of an urban MSLS in 1997 aimed to reduce laid-off workers' dissatisfaction following the government's reforms of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The implementation of a rural MSLS in 2007 was intended principally to minimise conflicts between land-losing farmers and local officials after widespread rural riots. These MSLSs are also minimal and stigmatising public-assistance schemes that fulfil the dual objective of securing a stable political environment for economic reform and maintaining poor people's work ethic for China's mixed economy

SocioGlass: Social interaction assistance with face recognition on google glass

We present SocioGlass - a system built on Google Glass paired with a mobile phone that provides a user with in-situ information about an acquaintance in face-to-face communication. The system can recognize faces from the live feed of visual input. Accordingly, it retrieves relevant information about a person with a matching face in the database. In order to provide interaction assistance, multiple aspects of personal information are categorized based on its relevance to the interaction scenario or context. Thus, the system can be adapted to the social context in interaction assistance. The system can be used to help acquaintances build relationships, or to assist people with memory problems

A Technical Review of Real-time QoS Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks

Real-time wireless sensor networks become more and more important in emerging new applications as message delivery timeliness is highly concerned. However, supporting real-time QoS in sensor networks has faced many challenges due to their wireless nature, limited resource, dynamic network topology, and the demand of distributed architecture. There are tradeoffs between different application requirements including energy efficiency and delay performance. This paper studies the state of the art of current real-time solutions including MAC protocols, routing protocols, data aggregation strategies, and cross-layer designs. Some research challenges and design favors are also identified. The discussion may offer a reference for future investigations

Real-Time Routing Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks

International audienceDeveloping real-time routing protocols under energy constraint is one of the key points for providing end-to-end delay guarantee in multi-hop wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we give, at first, an overview of the existing real-time routing protocols and point out some potential approaches to improve them. To enhance existing protocols, one way is to make routing decision based on multi-hop rather than 1-hop neighborhood information. We study the asymptotic performance of a generic routing metric as the quantity of information a priori increases and propose then a 2-hop neighborhood information based real-time routing protocol. As an example, the approach of mapping packet deadline to a velocity is adopted as in SPEED; however, our routing decision is made based on the 2-hop velocity. An energy efficient probabilistic drop is proposed to improve energy utilization efficiency. When packet deadline requirement is not stringent, a design is integrated to release nodes from heavy consumption. Energy balance over nodes is thus improved. Simulation results show that, compared with protocol SPEED that only utilizes 1-hop information, the proposed scheme leads to lower deadline miss ratio and higher energy efficiency

Use of Rubber Dams During Root Canal Treatment in Taiwan

Background/PurposeIsolation of teeth with rubber dams is an important procedure for infection control in dentistry, especially in endodontic treatment. This study surveyed the prevalence of rubber dam usage in nonsurgical root canal treatment (RCT) by dentists under the National Health Insurance system in Taiwan.MethodsA total of 1,332 completed RCT cases were randomly selected from a large database from the Bureau of National Health Insurance in Taiwan in 2004. The radiographs and dental charts of the selected cases were evaluated for the prevalence of rubber dam usage in RCT. The frequencies of rubber dam usage for RCT by dentists were compared between hospitals and private dental clinics and among six different regions in Taiwan.ResultsThe overall prevalence of rubber dam usage for RCT by dentists under the National Health Insurance system in Taiwan was 16.5%. The frequency of rubber dam usage for RCT by dentists in hospitals (32.8%) was significantly higher than that (10.3%) in private dental clinics (p < 0.0001). However, there was no significant difference in the frequency of rubber dam usage for RCT by dentists among six different geographic regions in Taiwan.ConclusionThe prevalence of rubber dam usage for RCT by dentists in Taiwan is relatively low. Because rubber dam isolation of an endodontically-treated tooth can provide better infection control, increase patient protection, and improve treatment efficiency, there is an urgent need to advise dentists in Taiwan to use rubber dams for every RCT case

Outage Probability Analysis for Two-antennas MISO-NOMA Downlink with Statistical CSI

International audienceIn this paper, we analyze the outage probability of the multiuser multiple-input single-output (MISO) down-link system by combining the non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) scheme. We derive tractable closed-form outage expressions given a minimum target rate for the individual users for the case of two antennas, by modeling cumulative distribution function (CDF) of received signal-to interference plus noise ratio (SINR). Simulation results illustrate the outage performance for different power allocation scenarios and verify the accuracy of our outage probability analysis