Modulation and coding for quantized channels

We investigate reliable communication over quantized channels from an information theoretical point of view. People seldom consider the effect of quantization in conventional coded modulation systems since Analog-to-Digital (AD) converters used in these systems always have high resolution, e.g. 2/3 source bits are often quantized into 10/12 bits. However, AD converters with a high resolution are power consuming. In this paper, we present a scheme to design an optimum quantizer with low resolution which can be used to communicate over the quantized channel. Moreover, we show that reliable transmission over the Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel at a rate of R bit/use is possible with R + 1 or R + 2 quantized bits.\u

The Fundamental Plane of Open Clusters

We utilize the data from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment-2 (APOGEE-2) in the fourteenth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to calculate the line-of-sight velocity dispersion $\sigma_{1D}$ of a sample of old open clusters (age larger than 100\,Myr) selected from the Milky Way open cluster catalog of Kharchenko et al. (2013). Together with their $K_s$ band luminosity $L_{K_s}$, and the half-light radius $r_{h}$ of the most probable members, we find that these three parameters show significant pairwise correlations among each other. Moreover, a fundamental plane-{\it like} relation among these parameters is found for the oldest open clusters (age older than 1\,Gyr), $L_{K_s}\propto\sigma_{1D}^{0.82\pm0.29}\cdot r_h^{2.19\pm0.52}$ with $rms \sim\, 0.31$\,mag in the $K_s$ band absolute magnitude. The existence of this relation, which deviates significantly from the virial theorem prediction, implies that the dynamical structures of the old open clusters are quite similar, when survived from complex dynamical evolution to age older than 1 Gyr.Comment: accepted publication for ApJ lette

An Opportunistic Error Correction Layer for OFDM Systems

In this paper, we propose a novel cross layer scheme to lower power\ud consumption of ADCs in OFDM systems, which is based on resolution\ud adaptive ADCs and Fountain codes. The key part in the new proposed\ud system is that the dynamic range of ADCs can be reduced by\ud discarding the packets which are transmitted over 'bad' sub\ud carriers. Correspondingly, the power consumption in ADCs can be\ud reduced. Also, the new system does not process all the packets but\ud only processes surviving packets. This new error correction layer\ud does not require perfect channel knowledge, so it can be used in a\ud realistic system where the channel is estimated. With this new\ud approach, more than 70% of the energy consumption in the ADC can be\ud saved compared with the conventional IEEE 802.11a WLAN system under\ud the same channel conditions and throughput. The ADC in a receiver\ud can consume up to 50% of the total baseband energy. Moreover, to\ud reduce the overhead of Fountain codes, we apply message passing and\ud Gaussian elimination in the decoder. In this way, the overhead is\ud 3% for a small block size (i.e. 500 packets). Using both methods\ud results in an efficient system with low delay

Opportunistic Error Correction for WLAN Applications

The current error correction layer of IEEE 802.11a WLAN is designed\ud for worst case scenarios, which often do not apply. In this paper,\ud we propose a new opportunistic error correction layer based on\ud Fountain codes and a resolution adaptive ADC. The key part in the\ud new proposed system is that only packets are processed by the\ud receiver chain which have encountered ``good'' channel conditions.\ud Others are discarded. With this new approach, around $\frac{2}{3}$\ud of the energy consumption can be saved compared with the\ud conventional IEEE 802.11a WLAN system under the same channel\ud conditions and throughput

Opportunistic error correction: when does it work best for OFDM systems?

The water-filling algorithm enables an energy-efficient OFDM-based transmitter by maximizing the capacity of a frequency selective fading channel. However, this optimal strategy requires the perfect channel state information at the transmitter that is not realistic in wireless applications. In this paper, we propose opportunistic error correction to maximize the data rate of OFDM systems without this limit. The key point of this approach is to reduce the dynamic range of the channel by discarding a part of the channel in deep fading. Instead of decoding all the information from all the sub-channels, we only recover the data via the strong sub-channels. Just like the water-filling principle, we increase the data rate over the stronger sub-channels by sacrificing the weaker sub-channels. In such a case, the total data rate over a frequency selective fading channel can be increased. Correspondingly, the noise floor can be increased to achieve a certain data rate compared to the traditional coding scheme. This leads to an energy-efficient receiver. However, it is not clear whether this method has advantages over the joint coding scheme in the narrow-band wireless system (e.g. the channel with a low dynamic range), which will be investigated in this paper

Opportunistic error correction for OFDM-based DVB systems

DVB-T2 (second generation terrestrial digital video broadcasting) employs LDPC (Low Density Parity Check) codes combined with BCH (Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquengham) codes, which has a better performance in comparison to convolutional and Reed-Solomon codes used in other OFDM-based DVB systems. However, the current FEC layer in the DVB-T2standard is still not optimal. In this paper, we propose a novel error correction scheme based on fountain codes for OFDM-based DVB systems. The key element in this new scheme is that only packets are processed by the receiver which has encountered high-energy channels. Others are discarded. To achieve a data rate of 9.5 Mbits/s, this new approach has a SNR gain of at least 10 dB with perfect channel knowledge and 11 dB with non-perfect channel knowledge in comparison to the current FEC layer in the DVB-T2standard. With a low-complexity interpolation-based channel estimation algorithm, opportunistic error correction offers us a QEF (Quasi Error Free) quality with a maximum DF(Doppler Frequency) of 40 Hz but the current DVB-T2 FEC layer can only provide a BER of 10−7 quality after BCH decoding with a maximum DF of 20 Hz

Binary palmprint representation for feature template protection

The major challenge of biometric template protection comes from the intraclass variations of biometric data. The helper data scheme aims to solve this problem by employing the Error Correction Codes (ECC). However, many reported biometric binary features from the same user reach bit error rate (BER) as high as 40%, which exceeds the error correcting capability of most ECC (less than 25%). Therefore, a novel palmprint binary feature extraction method is proposed in this paper. The real-valued features are firstly extracted. Then one-bit quantization and reliable bits selection are processed. For verification multiple samples are required to be enrolled while training is not necessary. Experiments have been carried out on the HongKong PolyU Palmprint database. Results show that our method achieves much lower BER, lower verification error rate and allows a secret key long enough for security

Efficacy and safety of low-dose IL-2 in the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus: A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Objectives Open-labelled clinical trials suggested that low-dose IL-2 might be effective in treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). A double-blind and placebocontrolled trial is required to formally evaluate the safety and efficacy of low-dose IL-2 therapy. Methods A randomised, double-blind and placebocontrolled clinical trial was designed to treat 60 patients with active SLE. These patients received either IL-2 (n=30) or placebo (n=30) with standard treatment for 12 weeks, and were followed up for additional 12 weeks. IL-2 at a dose of 1 million IU or placebo was administered subcutaneously every other day for 2 weeks and followed by a 2-week break as one treatment cycle. The primary endpoint was the SLE Responder Index-4 (SRI-4) at week 12. The secondary endpoints were other clinical responses, safety and dynamics of immune cell subsets. Results At week 12, the SRI-4 response rates were 55.17% and 30.00% for IL-2 and placebo, respectively (p=0.052). At week 24, the SRI-4 response rate of IL-2 group was 65.52%, compared with 36.67% of the placebo group (p=0.027). The primary endpoint was not met at week 12. Low-dose IL-2 treatment resulted in 53.85% (7/13) complete remission in patients with lupus nephritis, compared with 16.67% (2/12) in the placebo group (p=0.036). No serious infection was observed in the IL-2 group, but two in placebo group. Besides expansion of regulatory T cells, low-dose IL-2 may also sustain cellular immunity with enhanced natural killer cells. Conclusions Low-dose IL-2 might be effective and tolerated in treatment of SThe work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31530020,31570880,81471601,81601417 and 81701598), Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences to ZG LI, Beijing Sci-Tech Committee Z171100000417007,Clinical Medicine Plus X-Young Scholars Project of Peking University (PKU2019LCXQ013) supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Beijing Nova Program Z171100001117025, National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFC0909003 to DY), BellberryViertel Senior Medical Research Fellowship to DY and Beijing SL PHARM

A Search for Light Fermionic Dark Matter Absorption on Electrons in PandaX-4T

We report a search on a sub-MeV fermionic dark matter absorbed by electrons with an outgoing active neutrino using the 0.63 tonne-year exposure collected by PandaX-4T liquid xenon experiment. No significant signals are observed over the expected background. The data are interpreted into limits to the effective couplings between such dark matter and electrons. For axial-vector or vector interactions, our sensitivity is competitive in comparison to existing astrophysical bounds on the decay of such dark matter into photon final states. In particular, we present the first direct detection limits for an axial-vector (vector) interaction which are the strongest in the mass range from 25 to 45 (35 to 50) keV/c$^2$