A Three-Dimensional Position Architecture Using Digital TDE Receiver and Cylindrical Array Antenna

AbstractThe robust three-dimensional position architecture is proposed in the paper, where the hybrid time difference of arrival (TDOA) and direction of arrival (DOA) position system was designed to backup the four-station TDOA position system. The digital time delay estimation (TDE) receiver is used for TDOA measurement and the cylindrical array antenna is used for DOA measurement. The general formula of linear phase compensation for cylindrical array antenna in horizontal plane is derived. The detection probability of the TDE receiver and the circular error probability (CEP) of the position systems over Rayleigh fading channel were numerically computed in three-dimensional space. Simulations indicate that the position accuracy of the four-station TDOA position system is degraded but the location function can be retained by the hybrid TDOA and DOA position system when any one of four-stations is out of work

The Gender Gap in Life Expectancy in Urban and Rural China, 2013–2018

Background: Gender differences in mortality are embedded within mortality transitions. Rural residents generally lag behind their urban counterparts in the transitions. The study objective is to identify major causes of death that drive gender differences in mortality in urban and rural China. Methods: We use age-, gender-, urban-rural- and cause-specific mortality data (2013–2018) derived from the national mortality surveillance system that covered about 24% of the Chinese population. We apply Arriaga's method to decompose age- and cause-specific contributions to the gender gap in life expectancy at birth. Analyses are stratified by urban-rural residence. Results: Women had a higher life expectancy at birth than men in both urban and rural areas. Cancers, cardiovascular disease, external causes, and respiratory disease accounted for more than 90% of the gender gap in both areas during 2013–2018. In urban areas, the gender gap decreased from 5.17 years in 2013–2015 to 4.98 years in 2016–2018. In rural areas, the gender gap stayed rather constant (2013–2015: 5.68 years; 2016–2018: 5.65 years). Traffic accidents, among external causes, contributed the most to decreasing the gender gap (urban: −0.07 years; rural: −0.10 years), especially in the 0–44 age group. However, the decrease in the gender gap was counteracted by an increase in the gender gap attributable to ischemic heart disease (urban: +0.05 years; rural: +0.08 years) and lung cancer (urban: +0.02 years; rural: +0.05 years) in older age groups. The gender gap attributable either to cerebrovascular disease or to chronic lower respiratory disease decreased in urban areas but increased in rural areas. Conclusions: The urban-rural variations in the cause-specific contributions to the gender gap in China suggest the necessity of implementing urban-rural-specific interventions to improve population health and health equity

Effects of biofertilizer containing N-fixer, P and K solubilizers and AM fungi on maize growth: a greenhouse trial

Biofertilizer has been identified as an alternative to chemical fertilizer to increase soil fertility and crop production in sustainable farming. The objective of this greenhouse study was to evaluate the effects of four biofertilizers containing an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (Glomus mosseae or Glomus intraradices) with or without N-fixer (Azotobacter chroococcum), P solubilizer (Bacillus megaterium) and K solubilizer (Bacillus mucilaginous) on soil properties and the growth of Zea mays. The application treatments included control (no fertilizer), chemical fertilizer, organic fertilizer and two types of biofertilizer. The application of biofertilizer containing mycorrhizal fungus and three species of bacteria significantly increased the growth of Z. mays. The use of biofertilizer (G. mosseae and three bacterial species) resulted in the highest biomass and seedling height. This greenhouse study also indicated that half the amount of biofertilizer application had similar effects when compared with organic fertilizer or chemical fertilizer treatments. Microbial inoculum not only increased the nutritional assimilation of plant (total N, P and K), but also improved soil properties, such as organic matter content and total N in soil. The arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) had a higher root infection rate in the presence of bacterial inoculation. By contrast, the AMF seemed to have an inhibiting effect on the P-solubilizing bacteria. The nutrient deficiency in soil resulted in a larger population of Nfixing bacteria and higher colonization of AMF

Improving interpretability and regularization in deep learning

Deep learning approaches yield state-of-the-art performance in a range of tasks, including automatic speech recognition. However, the highly distributed representation in a deep neural network (DNN) or other network variations is difficult to analyze, making further parameter interpretation and regularization challenging. This paper presents a regularization scheme acting on the activation function output to improve the network interpretability and regularization. The proposed approach, referred to as activation regularization, encourages activation function outputs to satisfy a target pattern. By defining appropriate target patterns, different learning concepts can be imposed on the network. This method can aid network interpretability and also has the potential to reduce overfitting. The scheme is evaluated on several continuous speech recognition tasks: the Wall Street Journal continuous speech recognition task, eight conversational telephone speech tasks from the IARPA Babel program and a U.S. English broadcast news task. On all the tasks, the activation regularization achieved consistent performance gains over the standard DNN baselines

Overcoming controllability problems in distributed testing from an input output transition system

This is the Pre-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2012 Springer VerlagThis paper concerns the testing of a system with physically distributed interfaces, called ports, at which it interacts with its environment. We place a tester at each port and the tester at port p observes events at p only. This can lead to controllability problems, where the observations made by the tester at a port p are not sufficient for it to be able to know when to send an input. It is known that there are test objectives, such as executing a particular transition, that cannot be achieved if we restrict attention to test cases that have no controllability problems. This has led to interest in schemes where the testers at the individual ports send coordination messages to one another through an external communications network in order to overcome controllability problems. However, such approaches have largely been studied in the context of testing from a deterministic finite state machine. This paper investigates the use of coordination messages to overcome controllability problems when testing from an input output transition system and gives an algorithm for introducing sufficient messages. It also proves that the problem of minimising the number of coordination messages used is NP-hard

Polybrominated Diphenyl Ether (PBDE) Levels in an Expanded Market Basket Survey of U.S. Food and Estimated PBDE Dietary Intake by Age and Sex

OBJECTIVES: Our objectives in this study were to expand a previously reported U.S. market basket survey using a larger sample size and to estimate levels of PBDE intake from food for the U.S. general population by sex and age. METHODS: We measured concentrations of 13 polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) congeners in food in 62 food samples. In addition, we estimated levels of PBDE intake from food for the U.S. general population by age (birth through ≥60 years of age) and sex. RESULTS: In food samples, concentrations of total PBDEs varied from 7.9 pg/g (parts per trillion) in milk to 3,726 pg/g in canned sardines. Fish were highest in PBDEs (mean, 1,120 pg/g; median, 616 pg/g; range, 11.14–3,726 pg/g). This was followed by meat (mean, 383 pg/g; median, 190 pg/g; range, 39–1,426 pg/g) and dairy products (mean, 116 pg/g; median, 32.2 pg/g; range, 7.9–683 pg/g). However, using estimates for food consumption (excluding nursing infants), meat accounted for the highest U.S. dietary PBDE intake, followed by dairy and fish, with almost equal contributions. Adult females had lower dietary intake of PBDEs than did adult males, based on body weight. We estimated PBDE intake from food to be 307 ng/kg/day for nursing infants and from 2 ng/kg/day at 2–5 years of age for both males and females to 0.9 ng/kg/day in adult females. CONCLUSION: Dietary exposure alone does not appear to account for the very high body burdens measured. The indoor environment (dust, air) may play an important role in PBDE body burdens in addition to food

Compression Stress-Induced Internal Magnetic Field in Bulky TiO2 Photoanodes for Enhancing Charge-Carrier Dynamics

Enhancing charge-carrier dynamics is imperative to achieve efficient photoelectrodes for practical photoelectrochemical devices. However, a convincing explanation and answer for the important question which has thus far been absent relates to the precise mechanism of charge-carrier generation by solar light in photoelectrodes. Herein, to exclude the interference of complex multi-components and nanostructuring, we fabricate bulky TiO2 photoanodes through physical vapor deposition. Integrating photoelectrochemical measurements and in situ characterizations, the photoinduced holes and electrons are transiently stored and promptly transported around the oxygen-bridge bonds and 5-coordinated Ti atoms to form polarons on the boundaries of TiO2 grains, respectively. Most importantly, we also find that compressive stress-induced internal magnetic field can drastically enhance the charge-carrier dynamics for the TiO2 photoanode, including directional separation and transport of charge carriers and an increase of surface polarons. As a result, bulky TiO2 photoanode with high compressive stress displays a high charge-separation efficiency and an excellent charge-injection efficiency, leading to 2 orders of magnitude higher photocurrent than that produced by a classic TiO2 photoanode. This work not only provides a fundamental understanding of the charge-carrier dynamics of the photoelectrodes but also provides a new paradigm for designing efficient photoelectrodes and controlling the dynamics of charge carriers

SO(3) Gauge Symmetry and Neutrino-Lepton Flavor Physics

Based on the SO(3) gauge symmetry for three family leptons and general see-saw mechanism, we present a simple scheme that allows three nearly degenerate Majorana neutrino masses needed for hot dark matter. The vacuum structure of the spontaneous SO(3) symmetry breaking can automatically lead to a maximal CP-violating phase. Thus the current neutrino data on both the atmospheric neutrino anomaly and solar neutrino deficit can be accounted for via maximal mixings without conflict with the current data on the neutrinoless double beta decay. The model also allows rich interesting phenomena on lepton flavor violations.Comment: 10 pages, Revtex, no figures, minor changes and references added, the version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Polyubiquitin binding to ABIN1 is required to prevent autoimmunity

The protein ABIN1 possesses a polyubiquitin-binding domain homologous to that present in nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kappa B) essential modulator (NEMO), a component of the inhibitor of NF-kappa B (I kappa B) kinase (IKK) complex. To address the physiological significance of polyubiquitin binding, we generated knockin mice expressing the ABIN1[D485N] mutant instead of the wild-type (WT) protein. These mice developed all the hallmarks of autoimmunity, including spontaneous formation of germinal centers, isotype switching, and production of autoreactive antibodies. Autoimmunity was suppressed by crossing to MyD88(-/-) mice, demonstrating that toll-like receptor (TLR)-MyD88 signaling pathways are needed for the phenotype to develop. The B cells and myeloid cells of the ABIN1[D485N] mice showed enhanced activation of the protein kinases TAK, IKK-alpha/beta, c-Jun N-terminal kinases, and p38 alpha mitogen-activated protein kinase and produced more IL-6 and IL-12 than WT. The mutant B cells also proliferated more rapidly in response to TLR ligands. Our results indicate that the interaction of ABIN1 with polyubiquitin is required to limit the activation of TLR-MyD88 pathways and prevent autoimmunity