34 research outputs found
LookinGood^{\pi}: Real-time Person-independent Neural Re-rendering for High-quality Human Performance Capture
We propose LookinGood^{\pi}, a novel neural re-rendering approach that is
aimed to (1) improve the rendering quality of the low-quality reconstructed
results from human performance capture system in real-time; (2) improve the
generalization ability of the neural rendering network on unseen people. Our
key idea is to utilize the rendered image of reconstructed geometry as the
guidance to assist the prediction of person-specific details from few reference
images, thus enhancing the re-rendered result. In light of this, we design a
two-branch network. A coarse branch is designed to fix some artifacts (i.e.
holes, noise) and obtain a coarse version of the rendered input, while a detail
branch is designed to predict "correct" details from the warped references. The
guidance of the rendered image is realized by blending features from two
branches effectively in the training of the detail branch, which improves both
the warping accuracy and the details' fidelity. We demonstrate that our method
outperforms state-of-the-art methods at producing high-fidelity images on
unseen people
Dynamic Metasurface Antennas for Energy Efficient Massive MIMO Uplink Communications
Future wireless communications are largely inclined to deploy a massive
number of antennas at the base stations (BS) by exploiting energy-efficient and
environmentally friendly technologies. An emerging technology called dynamic
metasurface antennas (DMAs) is promising to realize such massive antenna arrays
with reduced physical size, hardware cost, and power consumption. This paper
aims to optimize the energy efficiency (EE) performance of DMAs-assisted
massive MIMO uplink communications. We propose an algorithmic framework for
designing the transmit precoding of each multi-antenna user and the DMAs tuning
strategy at the BS to maximize the EE performance, considering the availability
of the instantaneous and statistical channel state information (CSI),
respectively. Specifically, the proposed framework includes Dinkelbach's
transform, alternating optimization, and deterministic equivalent methods. In
addition, we obtain a closed-form solution to the optimal transmit signal
directions for the statistical CSI case, which simplifies the corresponding
transmission design. The numerical results show good convergence performance of
our proposed algorithms as well as considerable EE performance gains of the
DMAs-assisted massive MIMO uplink communications over the baseline schemes
Joint Source-Relay Design for Full-Duplex MIMO AF Relay Systems
The performance of full-duplex (FD) relay systems can be greatly impacted by the self-interference (SI) at relays. By exploiting multiple antennas, the spectral efficiency of FD relay systems can be enhanced through spatial SI mitigation. This paper studies joint source transmit beamforming and relay processing to achieve rate maximization for FD multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) amplify-and-forward (AF) relay systems with consideration of relay processing delay. The problem is difficult to solve mainly due to the SI constraint induced by the relay processing delay. In this paper, we first present a sufficient condition under which the relay amplification matrix has rank-one structure. Then, for the case of rank-one amplification matrix, the rate maximization problem is equivalently simplified into an unconstrained problem that can be locally solved using the gradient ascent method. Next, we propose a penalty-based algorithmic framework, named P-BSUM, for a class of constrained optimization problems that have difficult equality constraints in addition to some convex constraints. By rewriting the rate maximization problem with a set of auxiliary variables, we apply the P-BSUM algorithm to the rate maximization problem in the general case. Finally, numerical results validate the efficiency of the proposed algorithms and show that the joint source-relay design approach under the rankone assumption could be strictly suboptimal as compared to the P-BSUM-based joint source-relay design approach
A Tutorial on Environment-Aware Communications via Channel Knowledge Map for 6G
Sixth-generation (6G) mobile communication networks are expected to have
dense infrastructures, large-dimensional channels, cost-effective hardware,
diversified positioning methods, and enhanced intelligence. Such trends bring
both new challenges and opportunities for the practical design of 6G. On one
hand, acquiring channel state information (CSI) in real time for all wireless
links becomes quite challenging in 6G. On the other hand, there would be
numerous data sources in 6G containing high-quality location-tagged channel
data, making it possible to better learn the local wireless environment. By
exploiting such new opportunities and for tackling the CSI acquisition
challenge, there is a promising paradigm shift from the conventional
environment-unaware communications to the new environment-aware communications
based on the novel approach of channel knowledge map (CKM). This article aims
to provide a comprehensive tutorial overview on environment-aware
communications enabled by CKM to fully harness its benefits for 6G. First, the
basic concept of CKM is presented, and a comparison of CKM with various
existing channel inference techniques is discussed. Next, the main techniques
for CKM construction are discussed, including both the model-free and
model-assisted approaches. Furthermore, a general framework is presented for
the utilization of CKM to achieve environment-aware communications, followed by
some typical CKM-aided communication scenarios. Finally, important open
problems in CKM research are highlighted and potential solutions are discussed
to inspire future work
Non-Ischemic, Non-Hypoxic Myocardial Injury, and Long-Term Mortality in Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019: A Retrospective Cohort Study.
Cardiac damage is commonly reported in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) but its prevalence and impact on the long-term survival of patients remain uncertain. This study aimed to explore the prevalence of myocardial injury and assess its prognostic value in patients with COVID-19. A single-center, retrospective cohort study was performed at the Affiliated Hospital of Jianghan University. Data from 766 patients with confirmed COVID-19 who were hospitalized from December 27, 2019 to April 25, 2020 were collected. Demographic, clinical, laboratory, electrocardiogram, treatment data and all-cause mortality during follow-up were collected and analyzed. Of the 766 patients with moderate to critically ill COVID-19, 86 (11.2%) died after a mean follow-up of 72.8 days. Myocardial injury occurred in 94 (12.3%) patients. The mortality rate was 64.9% (61/94) and 3.7% (25/672) in patients with and without myocardial injury, respectively. Cox regression showed that myocardial injury was an independent risk factor for mortality (hazard ratio: 8.76, 95% confidence interval: 4.76-16.11,    0.001). Of the 90 patients with myocardial injury with electrocardiogram results, sinus tachycardia was present in 29, bundle branch block in 26, low voltage in 10, and abnormal T-wave in 53. COVID-19 not only involves pneumonia but also cardiac damage. Myocardial injury is a common complication and an independent risk factor for mortality in COVID-19 patients
Vaccination against coronavirus disease 2019 in patients with pulmonary hypertension: a national prospective cohort study
Background:
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has potential risks for both clinically worsening pulmonary hypertension (PH) and increasing mortality. However, the data regarding the protective role of vaccination in this population are still lacking. This study aimed to assess the safety of approved vaccination for patients with PH.
Methods:
In this national prospective cohort study, patients diagnosed with PH (World Health Organization [WHO] groups 1 and 4) were enrolled from October 2021 to April 2022. The primary outcome was the composite of PH-related major adverse events. We used an inverse probability weighting (IPW) approach to control for possible confounding factors in the baseline characteristics of patients.
Results:
In total, 706 patients with PH participated in this study (mean age, 40.3 years; mean duration after diagnosis of PH, 8.2 years). All patients received standardized treatment for PH in accordance with guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of PH in China. Among them, 278 patients did not receive vaccination, whereas 428 patients completed the vaccination series. None of the participants were infected with COVID-19 during our study period. Overall, 398 patients received inactivated severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccine, whereas 30 received recombinant protein subunit vaccine. After adjusting for baseline covariates using the IPW approach, the odds of any adverse events due to PH in the vaccinated group did not statistically significantly increase (27/428 [6.3%] vs. 24/278 [8.6%], odds ratio = 0.72, P = 0.302). Approximately half of the vaccinated patients reported at least one post-vaccination side effects, most of which were mild, including pain at the injection site (159/428, 37.1%), fever (11/428, 2.6%), and fatigue (26/428, 6.1%).
Conclusions:
COVID-19 vaccination did not significantly augment the PH-related major adverse events for patients with WHO groups 1 and 4 PH, although there were some tolerable side effects. A large-scale randomized controlled trial is warranted to confirm this finding. The final approval of the COVID-19 vaccination for patients with PH as a public health strategy is promising
Towards Mobility Data Science (Vision Paper)
Mobility data captures the locations of moving objects such as humans,
animals, and cars. With the availability of GPS-equipped mobile devices and
other inexpensive location-tracking technologies, mobility data is collected
ubiquitously. In recent years, the use of mobility data has demonstrated
significant impact in various domains including traffic management, urban
planning, and health sciences. In this paper, we present the emerging domain of
mobility data science. Towards a unified approach to mobility data science, we
envision a pipeline having the following components: mobility data collection,
cleaning, analysis, management, and privacy. For each of these components, we
explain how mobility data science differs from general data science, we survey
the current state of the art and describe open challenges for the research
community in the coming years.Comment: Updated arXiv metadata to include two authors that were missing from
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