Optical Orbital Angular Momentum Demultiplexing and Channel Equalization by Using Equalizing Dammann Vortex Grating

A novel equalizing Dammann vortex grating (EDVG) is proposed as orbital angular momentum (OAM) multiplexer to realize OAM signal demultiplexing and channel equalization. The EDVG is designed by suppressing odd diffraction orders and adjusting the grating structure. The light intensity of diffraction is subsequently distributed evenly in the diffraction orders, and the total diffraction efficiency can be improved from 53.22% to 82%. By using the EDVG, OAM demultiplexing and channel equalization can be realized. Numerical simulation shows that the bit error rate (BER) of each OAM channel can decrease to 10-4 when the bit SNR is 22 dB, and the intensity is distributed over the necessary order of diffraction evenly

Waterways to Greenways: A Case Study in Shangjie, Zhengzhou, Henan, China

This case study introduces how we used a water sensitive approach to plan a storm water and sponge city project, which expanded into a holistic green infrastructure project. The project is in the Shangjie district in city of Zhengzhou, Henan China. The whole site is 61.16 km² including several waterways. The city is expanding into areas that were previously agricultural. Developers and city both desire to improve the ecological value of the city to boost the economic growth of the Shangjie district. The main goal for the client is to transform the existing industrial city into a more resilient and livable ecological region. Our approach is to holistically solve the region\u27s increasing demand for flood control and storm water management, and to improve ecological and recreational values along these riparian corridors. We propose additional waterways and water bodies to act as green infrastructure, then link the greenways to existing or proposed parks to form a comprehensive greenway network. Our multidisciplinary team conducted detailed investigations and collaborated extensively. The team consists of hydraulic engineers, civil engineers, environmental planners, landscape planners, urban planners, economic planners, and others. We used a variety of technologies, including GIS, Infoworks, remote sensing technology, MIKE model, and lab tests

Development and evaluation of the first high-throughput SNP array for common carp (Cyprinus carpio)

BACKGROUND: A large number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been identified in common carp (Cyprinus carpio) but, as yet, no high-throughput genotyping platform is available for this species. C. carpio is an important aquaculture species that accounts for nearly 14% of freshwater aquaculture production worldwide. We have developed an array for C. carpio with 250,000 SNPs and evaluated its performance using samples from various strains of C. carpio. RESULTS: The SNPs used on the array were selected from two resources: the transcribed sequences from RNA-seq data of four strains of C. carpio, and the genome re-sequencing data of five strains of C. carpio. The 250,000 SNPs on the resulting array are distributed evenly across the reference C.carpio genome with an average spacing of 6.6 kb. To evaluate the SNP array, 1,072 C. carpio samples were collected and tested. Of the 250,000 SNPs on the array, 185,150 (74.06%) were found to be polymorphic sites. Genotyping accuracy was checked using genotyping data from a group of full-siblings and their parents, and over 99.8% of the qualified SNPs were found to be reliable. Analysis of the linkage disequilibrium on all samples and on three domestic C.carpio strains revealed that the latter had the longer haplotype blocks. We also evaluated our SNP array on 80 samples from eight species related to C. carpio, with from 53,526 to 71,984 polymorphic SNPs. An identity by state analysis divided all the samples into three clusters; most of the C. carpio strains formed the largest cluster. CONCLUSIONS: The Carp SNP array described here is the first high-throughput genotyping platform for C. carpio. Our evaluation of this array indicates that it will be valuable for farmed carp and for genetic and population biology studies in C. carpio and related species

A New Framework Combining Local-Region Division and Feature Selection for Micro-Expressions Recognition

Micro-expressions are deliberate or unconscious movements of people's psychological activities, reflecting the transient facial true expressions. Previous works focus on the whole face for micro-expressions recognition. These methods can extract a number of feature vectors which are relevant or irrelevant to the micro-expressions recognition. Besides, the high-dimension feature vectors can result in longer computational time and increased computational complexity. In order to address these problems, we propose a new framework which combines the local-region division and the feature selection. Based on the proposed framework, the original images can retain more efficient regions and filter out the invalid components of feature vectors. Specifically, with the joint efforts of the facial deformation identification model and facial action coding system, the global region is divided into seven local regions with their corresponding actions units. The ReliefF algorithm is used to select effective components of feature vectors and reduce the dimension. To evaluate the proposed framework, we conduct experiments on both the Chinese Academy of Sciences Micro-expression II Database and Spontaneous Micro-expression Database with Leave-One-Subject-Out Cross Validation method. The results show that the performance in local combined regions outperforms its counterpart in the global region, and the recognition accuracy is further improved with the combination of feature selection

Covert communication in downlink NOMA systems with channel uncertainty

With the gradual promotion of the fifth generation (5G) mobile communication and Internet of Things (IoT) applications, wireless communication transmission will be more vulnerable to illegal interceptions and/or attacks. To ensure communication security, we study covert communication of downlink nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) systems, where the channel knowledge of users is uncertain. A multiantenna transmitter tries to covertly transmit information to a covert user (strong user) through the shield of a public communication link (weak user), while the warden tries to detect the communication behavior between the transmitter and the covert user. To improve security and energy efficiency, the ${k}$ th best antenna of the transmitter is selected, since the optimal antenna may be not available due to some schedule and/or other reasons. Aiming to evaluate the proposed framework performance, we start by deriving exact expressions for the minimum detection error probability and the optimal detection threshold of the warden, followed by a calculation analysis of the expected minimum detection error probability (EMDEP) and the outage probability of NOMA users. The asymptotic behavior for the outage probability is investigated at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to acquire greater useful insights. With the goal of improving the system covertness performance, we propose that a scheme is optimized to enhance the covert throughput of the system to the maximum. Simulation results show that the following hold: 1) channel estimation errors have a significant effect on system performance; 2) reliability performance tends to build up, as the total number of antennas grows large; and 3) as the transmitting power and number of antennas increases, there is an upper bound for maximizing the covert throughput

Tuber indicum and T. lijiangense colonization differentially regulates plant physiological responses and mycorrhizosphere bacterial community of Castanopsis rockii seedlings

Black truffles and white truffles are widely studied around the world, but their effects on plant growth and physiological responses, and on the mycorrhizosphere bacterial community of the host plant remain unclear. Here, mycorrhizal colonization of Castanopsis rockii by Tuber indicum (Chinese black truffle) and T. lijiangense (Chinese white truffle), respectively, was induced in a greenhouse study, and their effects on host growth, physiological responses and mycorrhizosphere bacterial communities were compared. The results show that colonization of both Tuber species significantly increased leaf photosynthetic rate, leaf P concentration and mycorrhizosphere acid phosphatase activity, as well as richness of mycorrhizosphere bacterial communities of C. rockii seedlings. However, T. indicum colonization on the one hand significantly decreased tartrate content, bacterial acid phosphatase, phoC gene abundance in the mycorrhizosphere, and peroxidase (POD) activity of ectomycorrhizal root tips, but on the other hand increased mycorrhizosphere pH and superoxide dismutase (SOD) of ectomycorrhizal root tips, compared to T. lijiangense colonization. Moreover, principal coordinate and β-diversity analyses show significant differences in mycorrhizosphere bacterial community composition between T. indicum and T. lijiangese colonized C. rockii seedlings. Finally, the relative abundance of the bacterium Agromyces cerinus significantly correlated to mycorrhizosphere acid phosphatase activity and leaf P concentration, suggesting that this bacterium might play an important role in P mobilization and acquisition. Overall, these results suggest that T. indicum and T. lijiangense differently regulate their host plant’s physiological responses and mycorrhizosphere bacterial community