Container Terminal Berth-Quay Crane Capacity Planning Based on Markov Chain

This paper constructs a berth-quay crane capacity planning model with the lowest average daily cost in the container terminal, and analyzes the influence of the number of berths and quay cranes on the terminal operation. The object of berth-quay crane capacity planning is to optimize the number of berths and quay cranes to maximize the benefits of the container terminal. A steady state probability transfer model based on Markov chain for container terminal is constructed by the historical time series of the queuing process. The current minimum time operation principle (MTOP) strategy is proposed to correct the state transition probability of the Markov chain due to the characteristics of the quay crane movement to change the service capacity of a single berth. The solution error is reduced from 7.03% to 0.65% compared to the queuing theory without considering the quay crane movement, which provides a basis for the accurate solution of the berth-quay crane capacity planning model. The proposed berth-quay crane capacity planning model is validated by two container terminal examples, and the results show that the model can greatly guide the container terminal berth-quay crane planning

Achievable Diversity Order of HARQ-Aided Downlink NOMA Systems

The combination between non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) is capable of realizing ultra-reliability, high throughput and many concurrent connections particularly for emerging communication systems. This paper focuses on characterizing the asymptotic scaling law of the outage probability of HARQ-aided NOMA systems with respect to the transmit power, i.e., diversity order. The analysis of diversity order is carried out for three basic types of HARQ-aided downlink NOMA systems, including Type I HARQ, HARQ with chase combining (HARQ-CC) and HARQ with incremental redundancy (HARQ-IR). The diversity orders of three HARQ-aided downlink NOMA systems are derived in closed-form, where an integration domain partition trick is developed to obtain the bounds of the outage probability specially for HARQ-CC and HARQ-IR-aided NOMA systems. The analytical results show that the diversity order is a decreasing step function of transmission rate, and full time diversity can only be achieved under a sufficiently low transmission rate. It is also revealed that HARQ-IR-aided NOMA systems have the largest diversity order, followed by HARQ-CC-aided and then Type I HARQ-aided NOMA systems. Additionally, the users' diversity orders follow a descending order according to their respective average channel gains. Furthermore, we expand discussions on the cases of power-efficient transmissions and imperfect channel state information (CSI). Monte Carlo simulations finally confirm our analysis

Expression and localization of apolipoprotein M in human colorectal tissues

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>It has been well documented that apolipoprotein M (apoM) is principally expressed in the liver and kidney. However we found that there was weak apoM expression in other tissues or organs too, which could not be ignored. In the present study, we therefore examined apoM expression in human colorectal tissues including cancer tissues, cancer adjacent normal tissues, polyp tissues and normal mucosa as well as inflammatory mucosa.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Tissue samples were collected from patients who underwent surgical resection or endoscopic examination. ApoM mRNA levels were determined by the real-time RT-PCR and apoM protein mass were examined by the immunohistochemistry.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>ApoM protein can be detected in all colorectal tissues. However, apoM protein mass were significantly lower in the cancer tissues than its matched adjacent normal tissues, polyp tissues, normal mucosa and inflammatory mucosa. In parallel, apoM mRNA levels in the colorectal cancer tissues (0.0536 ± 0.0131) were also significantly lower than those in their adjacent normal tissues (0.1907 ± 0.0563) (<it>P </it>= 0.033). Interestingly, apoM mRNA levels in colorectal cancer tissues were statistic significant higher in the patients with lymph node metastasis than the patients without lymph node metastasis (<it>P </it>= 0.008). Patients under Dukes' C and D stages had much higher apoM mRNA levels than patients under Dukes' A and B stages (<it>P </it>= 0.034).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>It is concluded that apoM could also be expressed in human colorectal tissues besides liver and kidney. ApoM mRNA levels in the colorectal cancer tissues were significantly increased in the patients with lymph node metastasis. Whether increased apoM expression in the patients with lymph node metastasis being related to patients' prognosis and the physiopathological importance of apoM expression in colorectal tissues need further investigation.</p

Outage Performance and Optimal Design of MIMO-NOMA Enhanced Small Cell Networks With Imperfect Channel-State Information

This paper focuses on boosting the performance of small cell networks (SCNs) by integrating multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) in consideration of imperfect channel-state information (CSI). The estimation error and the spatial randomness of base stations (BSs) are characterized by using Kronecker model and Poisson point process (PPP), respectively. The outage probabilities of MIMO-NOMA enhanced SCNs are first derived in closed-form by taking into account two grouping policies, including random grouping and distance-based grouping. It is revealed that the average outage probabilities are irrelevant to the intensity of BSs in the interference-limited regime, while the outage performance deteriorates if the intensity is sufficiently low. Besides, as the channel uncertainty lessens, the asymptotic analyses manifest that the target rates must be restricted up to a bound to achieve an arbitrarily low outage probability in the absence of the inter-cell interference.Moreover, highly correlated estimation error ameliorates the outage performance under a low quality of CSI, otherwise it behaves oppositely. Afterwards, the goodput is maximized by choosing appropriate precoding matrix, receiver filters and transmission rates. In the end, the numerical results verify our analysis and corroborate the superiority of our proposed algorithm

Expression of apolipoprotein M in human hepatocellular carcinoma tissues

The present study examined mRNA levels and protein mass of apolipoprotein M (apoM) in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues and in the adjacent tissues. Plasma apoM levels in these HCC patients were also determined and compared to the normal subjects. The mean level of plasma apoM in the HCC patients was 0.61 +/- 0.30 OD mm(-2), which was significantly higher than that in the normal subjects 0.37 +/- 0.07 OD mm(-2) (P < 0.01). However, both apoM mRNA levels and apoM protein mass in the HCC tissues were significantly lower than in the adjacent tissues (P < 0.05). It is concluded that human hepatocellular carcinoma tissues had a reduced capacity to produce apoM than the adjacent non-tumor tissues. However, the plasma apoM levels were higher in the HCC patients than in normal subjects, which suggested that tissues adjacent to the tumors or extra-hepatic apoM production in the HCC patients may contribute to the higher plasma apoM levels in these patients. The clinical significance of apoM in relation to HCC still needs further investigation. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier GmbH