A Sensing Error Aware MAC Protocol for Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive radios (CR) are intelligent radio devices that can sense the radio environment and adapt to changes in the radio environment. Spectrum sensing and spectrum access are the two key CR functions. In this paper, we present a spectrum sensing error aware MAC protocol for a CR network collocated with multiple primary networks. We explicitly consider both types of sensing errors in the CR MAC design, since such errors are inevitable for practical spectrum sensors and more important, such errors could have significant impact on the performance of the CR MAC protocol. Two spectrum sensing polices are presented, with which secondary users collaboratively sense the licensed channels. The sensing policies are then incorporated into p-Persistent CSMA to coordinate opportunistic spectrum access for CR network users. We present an analysis of the interference and throughput performance of the proposed CR MAC, and find the analysis highly accurate in our simulation studies. The proposed sensing error aware CR MAC protocol outperforms two existing approaches with considerable margins in our simulations, which justify the importance of considering spectrum sensing errors in CR MAC design.Comment: 21 page, technical repor

Sample size/power calculation for stratified case-cohort design

The Case-cohort (CC) study design usually has been used for risk factor assessment in epidemiologic studies or disease prevention trials for rare diseases. The sample size/power calculation for the CC design is given in Cai and Zeng [1]. However, the sample size/power calculation for a stratified case-cohort (SCC) design has not been addressed before. This article extends the results of Cai and Zeng [1] to the SCC design. Simulation studies show that the proposed test for the SCC design utilizing small sub-cohort sampling fractions is valid and efficient for situations where the disease rate is low. Furthermore, optimization of sampling in the SCC design is discussed and compared with proportional and balanced sampling techniques. An epidemiological study is provided to illustrate the sample size calculation under the SCC design

On Sparse Modern Hopfield Model

We introduce the sparse modern Hopfield model as a sparse extension of the modern Hopfield model. Like its dense counterpart, the sparse modern Hopfield model equips a memory-retrieval dynamics whose one-step approximation corresponds to the sparse attention mechanism. Theoretically, our key contribution is a principled derivation of a closed-form sparse Hopfield energy using the convex conjugate of the sparse entropic regularizer. Building upon this, we derive the sparse memory retrieval dynamics from the sparse energy function and show its one-step approximation is equivalent to the sparse-structured attention. Importantly, we provide a sparsity-dependent memory retrieval error bound which is provably tighter than its dense analog. The conditions for the benefits of sparsity to arise are therefore identified and discussed. In addition, we show that the sparse modern Hopfield model maintains the robust theoretical properties of its dense counterpart, including rapid fixed point convergence and exponential memory capacity. Empirically, we use both synthetic and real-world datasets to demonstrate that the sparse Hopfield model outperforms its dense counterpart in many situations.Comment: 37 pages, accepted to NeurIPS 202

Hypothesis testing for two-stage designs with over or under enrollment

Simon’s two-stage designs are widely used in cancer phase II clinical trials for assessing the efficacy of a new treatment. However in practice, the actual sample size for the second stage is often different from the planned sample size, and the original inference procedure is no longer valid. Previous work on this problem has certain limitations in computation. In this paper, we attempt to maximize the unconditional power while controlling for the type I error for the modified second stage sample size. A normal approximation is used for computing the power, and the numerical results show that the approximation is accurate even under small sample sizes. The corresponding confidence intervals for the response rate are constructed by inverting the hypothesis test, and they have reasonable coverage while preserving the type I error

Bayesian design of superiority clinical trials for recurrent events data with applications to bleeding and transfusion events in myelodyplastic syndrome: Bayesian Design of Superiority Clinical Trials for Recurrent Events Data with Applications

In many biomedical studies, patients may experience the same type of recurrent event repeatedly over time, such as bleeding, multiple infections and disease. In this article, we propose a Bayesian design to a pivotal clinical trial in which lower risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) patients are treated with MDS disease modifying therapies. One of the key study objectives is to demonstrate the investigational product (treatment) effect on reduction of platelet transfusion and bleeding events while receiving MDS therapies. In this context, we propose a new Bayesian approach for the design of superiority clinical trials using recurrent events frailty regression models. Historical recurrent events data from an already completed phase 2 trial are incorporated into the Bayesian design via the partial borrowing power prior of Ibrahim et al. (2012, Biometrics 68, 578–586). An efficient Gibbs sampling algorithm, a predictive data generation algorithm, and a simulation-based algorithm are developed for sampling from the fitting posterior distribution, generating the predictive recurrent events data, and computing various design quantities such as the type I error rate and power, respectively. An extensive simulation study is conducted to compare the proposed method to the existing frequentist methods and to investigate various operating characteristics of the proposed design

Kinetic study on the CO2 gasification of biochar derived from Miscanthus at different processing conditions

The CO2 gasification is an emerging process that can improve the quality of syngas and enhance the CO2 circular utilisation. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis on the CO2 gasification of Miscanthus-derived biochar produced at varying processing conditions. The gasification behaviour, kinetics and biochar reactivity were investigated and the correlations to the biochar preparation conditions and their microstructure were developed. Results showed that the preparation and gasification reaction conditions had major impact on the biochar reactivity. The order of significance that affected the biochar reactivity was gasification temperature, biochar preparation temperature and processing atmosphere. Increasing heating rate could enhance the biochar reactivity, while increasing preparation temperature could reduce the reactivity in N2 and He atmosphere. At 600 and 1000 °C, He atmosphere resulted in the most activity biochar, followed by N2 and CO2. At 800 °C, CO2 atmosphere gave the highest reactivity, followed by He and N2. The Activation Energy (E) of gasification reaction calculated by the Hybrid Model (HM) was mainly in the range of 78.09–212.46 kJ mol−1. The E decreased with the increase of carbon conversion rate. A great kinetic compensation effect between E and A was identified during the CO2 gasification process