Experimental Demonstration of Staggered CAP Modulation for Low Bandwidth Red-Emitting Polymer-LED based Visible Light Communications

In this paper we experimentally demonstrate, for the first time, staggered carrier-less amplitude and phase (sCAP) modulation for visible light communication systems based on polymer light-emitting diodes emitting at ~639 nm. The key advantage offered by sCAP in comparison to conventional multiband CAP is its full use of the available spectrum. In this work, we compare sCAP, which utilises four orthogonal filters to generate the signal, with a conventional 4-band multi-CAP system and on-off keying (OOK). We transmit each modulation format with equal energy and present a record un-coded transmission speed of ~6 Mb/s. This represents gains of 25% and 65% over the achievable rate using 4-CAP and OOK, respectively.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figures, IEEE ICC 2019 conferenc

Vascular flora of calcareous outcrops in North-Western Sardinia (Italy)

Calcareous outcrops in North-Western Sardinia cover a large area (about 380 Km2) known as "Sassarese". In this study the vascular flora of this area is investigated. The actual flora is checked and, when possible, older references, synonyms and critical notes are given. The floristic list includes 840 entities. Among them, 18 have been cultivated (cultae), 11 are considered erroneously reported and so they are excluded from this area (excludendae) and 81 are in various ways considered not confirmed and to enquiry (inquirendae). The current floristic contingent is therefore reduced to 730 entities, divided into 98 families and 385 genera, many of them here documented for the first time in this area. Among them the more relevant are the Sardinian-Corsican endemic Silene nodulosa Viv. and the Sardinian endemic Hieracium gallurense Arrigoni, previously reported only for granite substrata in North-Eastern Sardinia. The biological spectrum shows a clear dominance of therophytes (41%). The chorological spectrum highlights the dominance of the Tethydic element, in which the dominance of more strictly Mediterranean element emerges. Four entities have in this area their locus classicus: Centaurea corensis Valsecchi et Filigheddu, Limonium racemosum (Lojac.) Diana and Scrophularia morisii Valsecchi, exclusive of the region object of this study, and Ophrys sphegodes Mill. subsp. praecox Corrias. Some entities, though not endemic, have a limited or fragmentary distribution in Sardinia, e.g. Capparis spinosa L. subsp. rupestris (Sm.) Nyman, Coridothymus capitatus (L.) Reichenb. f. and Erica multiflora L., whereas Viola arborescens L.. Borago pygmaea (DC.) Chater et Greuter and Carex panormitana Guss. are included in the Red Book of Italian Plants. Although the area is strongly urbanised and subjected since long time ago to agricultural and pastoral uses, its flora is still rather diversified. The presence of species depending on the existence of hedges, dry-stone walls and other smaller structures belonging to traditional agricultural activities still present, is also substantial, even though their dilapidated state is often high. Finally the presence of floristic elemento of great interest together with small residuals of spontaneous vegetation are of very high value. Indeed, several natural elements from traditionally agricultural activities are present within an area of intense anthropic impact. The indiscriminate building development of the valleys, the reckless exploitation of the water sources and the diffusion of dumps, threaten increasingly some habitats of the region. The improvement of the natural resources could be done through an adeguate ecological net starting from a basic knowledge of the floristic biodiversity, that is the main aim of this work

Reduction of the Cholesterol Sensor SCAP in the Brains of Mice Causes Impaired Synaptic Transmission and Altered Cognitive Function

The sterol sensor SCAP is a key regulator of SREBP-2, the major transcription factor controlling cholesterol synthesis. Recently, we showed that there is a global down-regulation of cholesterol synthetic genes, as well as SREBP-2, in the brains of diabetic mice, leading to a reduction of cholesterol synthesis. We now show that in mouse models of type 1 and type 2 diabetes, this is, in part, the result of a decrease of SCAP. Homozygous disruption of the Scap gene in the brains of mice causes perinatal lethality associated with microcephaly and gliosis. Mice with haploinsufficiency of Scap in the brain show a 60% reduction of SCAP protein and ~30% reduction in brain cholesterol synthesis, similar to what is observed in diabetic mice. This results in impaired synaptic transmission, as measured by decreased paired pulse facilitation and long-term potentiation, and is associated with behavioral and cognitive changes. Thus, reduction of SCAP and the consequent suppression of cholesterol synthesis in the brain may play an important role in the increased rates of cognitive decline and Alzheimer disease observed in diabetic states

An efficient decomposition approach for surgical planning

This talk presents an efficient decomposition approach to surgical planning. Given a set of surgical waiting lists (one for each discipline) and an operating theater, the problem is to decide the room-to-discipline assignment for the next planning period (Master Surgical Schedule), and the surgical cases to be performed (Surgical Case Assignment), with the objective of optimizing a score related to priority and current waiting time of the cases. While in general MSS and SCA may be concurrently found by solving a complex integer programming problem, we propose an effective decomposition algorithm which does not require expensive or sophisticated computational resources, and is therefore suitable for implementation in any real-life setting. Our decomposition approach consists in first producing a number of subsets of surgical cases for each discipline (potential OR sessions), and select a subset of them. The surgical cases in the selected potential sessions are then discarded, and only the structure of the MSS is retained. A detailed surgical case assignment is then devised filling the MSS obtained with cases from the waiting lists, via an exact optimization model. The quality of the plan obtained is assessed by comparing it with the plan obtained by solving the exact integrated formulation for MSS and SCA. Nine different scenarios are considered, for various operating theater sizes and management policies. The results on instances concerning a medium-size hospital show that the decomposition method produces comparable solutions with the exact method in much smaller computation time

Characterization, cloning and immunogenicity of antigens released by transforming cercariae of Schistosoma mansoni

A schistosome infection is initiated when the parasite penetrates the skin of a susceptible host. Relatively large quantities of protein are released by transforming cercariae compared to later larval stages. This represents the first parasite material to which the host's immune system is exposed, yet little is known about the proteins which are released during the first few hours post-transformation. We have shown that antiserum raised against such molecules was capable of imparting protection against a schistosome challenge infection upon passive transfer to naïve mice. By screening a cercarial cDNA library with this serum, 38 positive clones were identified. Sequence analysis showed these to represent 8 different molecules which included Schistosoma mansoni 21·7 kDa antigen, calcium-binding-protein and the vaccine candidate glutathione S-transferase (Sm28GST). In addition, 5 clones were isolated, 1 of which had significant homology to many cytochrome C proteins, another with leukocyte elastase inhibitors and 3 which represented novel molecules. Four clones were expressed in a prokaryotic high-level expression vector, sera produced against each purified recombinant protein and used subsequently to probe Western blots and parasite sections. The leukocyte elastase inhibitor homologue and 2 unknowns induced significant proliferation by lymph node cells recovered from mice vaccinated with irradiated cercariae. More strikingly, the 2 novel proteins stimulated very high levels of interferon [gamma] (IFN[gamma]) secretion both by lymph node cells and those recovered by broncho-alveolar lavage from the lungs of vaccinated mice. Such results will be discussed in the context of vaccine development

Halophilous vegetation of Olbia pond system (NE-Sardinia)

Authors report some results about a phytosociological study concerning the wetlands to the south of Olbia (Gallura, north-eastern Sardinia). Vegetation analysis allowed to detect 21 associations, among them two are new and denominated Halimionio portulacoidis-Limoniastretum monopetali ass. nova and Ephedro fragilis-Pistacietum lentisci ass. nova. Among them, the association Halimiono portulacoidis-Limoniastretum monopetali shows a particular phytogeographical interest, because it sets the Limoniastrum monopetalum vegetation in the only Sardinian station of this shrubby Plumbaginacea. From a syntaxonomic point of view, described syntaxa are included in 9 vegetation classes. Plant landscape of the area was reconstructed by the study of chain contacts among different communities, placed in space according to humidity and salinity gradients, determined by substratum texture and micromorphology. On the basis of phytocoenotic diversity stressed by this research, this study area is believed to be deserving of protection aiming at conserving and managing its populations and plant communities

Control and data channel resource allocation in OFDMA heterogeneous networks

This paper investigates the downlink resource allocation problem in Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) consisting of macro cells and small cells sharing the same frequency band. Dense deployment of small cells overlaid by a macro layer is considered to be one of the most promising solutions for providing hotspot coverage in future 5G networks. The focus is to devise an optimised policy for small cells’ access to the shared spectrum, in terms of their transmissions, in order to keep small cell served users sum data rate at high levels while ensuring that certain level of quality of service (QoS) for the macro cell users in the vicinity of small cells is provided. Both data and control channel constraints are considered, to ensure that not only the macro cell users’ data rate demands are met, but also a certain level of Bit Error Rate (BER) is ensured for the control channel information. Control channel reliability is especially important as it holds key information to successfully decode the data channel. The problem is addressed by our proposed linear binary integer programming heuristic algorithm which maximises the small cells utility while ensuring the macro users imposed constraints. To further reduce the computational complexity, we propose a progressive interference aware low complexity heuristic solution. Discussion is also presented for the implementation possibility of our proposed algorithms in a practical network. The performance of both the proposed algorithms is compared with the conventional Reuse-1 scheme under different fading conditions and small cell loads. Results show a negligible drop in small cell performance for our proposed schemes, as a trade-off for ensuring all macro users data rate demands, while Reuse-1 scheme can even lead up to 40 % outage when control region of the small cells in heavily loaded