2,670 research outputs found
Quasi-cyclic Generalized LDPC codes with low error floors
No full textIn this paper, a novel methodology for designing structured generalized LDPC (G-LDPC) codes is presented. The proposed design results in quasi-cyclic G-LDPC codes for which efficient encoding is feasible through shift-register-based circuits. The structure imposed on the bipartite graphs, together with the choice of simple component codes, leads to a class of codes suitable for fast iterative decoding. A pragmatic approach to the construction of G-LDPC codes is proposed. The approach is based on the substitution of check nodes in the protograph of a low-density parity-check code with stronger nodes based, for instance, on Hamming codes. Such a design approach, which we call LDPC code doping, leads to low-rate quasi-cyclic G-LDPC codes with excellent performance in both the error floor and waterfall regions on the additive white Gaussian noise channel
The Same Old New Normal
Get PDFJournal #14 from Media Rise's Quarantined Across Borders Collection by Ryan Arron D'Souza. From United Arab Emirates. Quarantined in United States, Florida.Media Rise Publications. Quarantined Across Borders Collection. Edited by Dr. Srividya "Srivi" Ramasubramanian.The author tries to make sense of the ideas and practices normalized during quarantine
A Bayesian hierarchical model for risk assessment of methylmercury
No full textThis article uses a Bayesian hierarchical model to quantify the adverse health effects associated with in-utero exposure to methylmercury. By allowing for study-to-study as well as outcome-to-outcome variability, the approach provides a useful meta-analytic tool for multi-outcome, multi-study environmental risk assessments. The analysis presented here expands on the findings of a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee, charged with advising the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on an appropriate approach to conducting a risk assessment for methylmercury. The NAS committee, for which the senior author (Ryan) was a committee member, reviewed the findings from several conflicting studies and reported the results from a Bayesian hierarchical model that synthesized information across several studies and for several outcomes. Although the NAS committee did not suggest that the hierarchical model be used as the actual basis for a methylmercury risk assessment, the results from the model were used to justify and support the final recommendation that the risk analysis be based on data from a study conducted in the Faroe Islands, which had found an association between in-utero exposure to methylmercury and impaired neurological development. We consider a variety of statistical issues, but particularly sensitivity to model specification. © 2003 American Statistical Association and the International Biometric Society
Novel multi-electrode probe with three dimensional spatial resolution for simultaneous recording/stimulation in long-term adaptive deep brain stimulaton
No full textWhen treating neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s Disease (PD) modern technologies experience many deficiencies and/or limitations that researchers have been working towards improving. The problems that occur with modern devices are inadequate mechanical robustness, glial scarring due to tissue damage, reduced target area localization, and inability to simultaneously record/stimulate in vivo post implantation. The research presented here resolves the issues stated above, delivering the design of a novel Multi-Electrode Probe with 3-D spatial resolution and an on-board preamplification/filtering chip capable of simultaneous recording/stimulation. The probe has been modeled in Wildfire Pro/Engineer 4.0 and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was performed in COMSOL Multiphysics 3.4. The neural chip which consists of both analog and digital circuitry was designed with Taiwan Semiconductor’s (TSMC) 0.18µm CMOS technology. The very large scale integration (VLSI) design and simulation was performed in Cadence Schematic and Spectre, respectively. The aforementioned work was done in hopes of delivering a neural probe that can eventually be used in a closed loop system for Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation treatment.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Ryan M. Elkhol
Importance-satisfaction analysis for marine-park hinterlands: A Western Australian case study
Get PDFTourist use of national and marine parks continues to increase worldwide. Effective management depends on being able to evaluate the quality of visitors' experiences, as well as protecting the natural environment. In tourism management, importance-performance analysis (IPA) has been used as part of quality management. It has recently been applied to national park management. This paper reconceptualises this analysis to one of importance satisfaction, enabling a focus on the quality of experience. Two methods, importanceperformance analysis and service quality gap, were modified and applied in the hinterland of Swan Estuary Marine Park in Western Australia. Both provided data useful for evaluating satisfaction, with the choice of method depending on the end user's resources and requirements as well as cognisance of each method's limitations. For most of the Marine Park attributes, satisfaction exceeded importance and hence no management attention is needed. Exceptions were the condition of the Swan River and associated footpaths, and the presence of litter and wildlife. For these, satisfaction was lower than importance, suggesting management attention is needed
Corrigendum: Expression analysis of candidate genes regulating successional tooth formation in the human embryo
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Expression analysis of candidate genes regulating successional tooth formation in the human embryo
by Olley, R., Xavier, G. M., Seppala, M., Volponi, A. A., Geoghegan, F., Sharpe, P. T., et al. (2014). Front. Physiol. 5:445. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2014.00445
The author Ryan Olley should appear as Olley RC on the published article “Expression analysis of candidate genes regulating successional tooth formation in the human embryo.”
The original article was updated
Shifting and persosting in the face of failure: Learning from what did not work
No full textSocial justice activism demands coordinated, concentrated efforts to move the needle in a positive direction. In the author's nine years as a social justice educator, he led multiple large- and small-scale projects for social justice within higher education. In many ways, those efforts failed to create a lasting impact. In the higher education ecosystem, they also took away time from the kind of promotable work which would benefit his case for tenure and promotion. Trying - and failing - to effect institutional changes left him emotionally, psychologically, and physically exhausted. Beyond that, he suffered from feelings of loneliness, exclusion, and lack of direction. For a long time, the author blamed himself for the failure to change the institution to be a place in which he felt comfortable. He also failed to cope with these negative experiences and emotions, often seething in frustration or anger or avoiding similar situations of vulnerability or creativity. It took years for him to remember and internalize lessons of persistence and shifting appraisals in order to maintain motivation for action and survive the stressors of working within an oppressive system.Published versio
Vacationing in Fairmount Park
Get PDFThesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2009.Includes bibliographical references (p. 69).The public perception of landscape is still primarily shaped by eighteenth-century English aesthetics, pastoral idealism disassociated with infrastructural reality. This idealism is on display in most cities, in the form of municipal parks which Koolhaas states can be read as both "an operation of preservation" and "a series of manipulations."' Further support of this assertion is the means by which municipal parks preserve an appearance of naturalness. Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, the site of this thesis, is continually constructed and managed by a staff of hundreds, assuring the right varieties of vegetation, constant fish stocks in a polluted river, purposeful insect infestations, etc. If this presentation of nature is wholly synthetic, can it be re-imagined as an architectural project? Modern architecture adopted the conditioned interior as a means of isolating the interior from exterior. Pushed to its logical end, could the conditioned interior become a new municipal park? The thesis proposes that the preservation programs of the park be recast as a new interior pleasure garden which makes visible Fairmount Park's necessarily synthetic construction.by Ryan M. Murphy.M.Arch
Current Practices in Monitoring and Reporting on Sustainability of Visitor Use of Protected Areas
Get PDFMany protected areas, especially national parks, have a dual function of preserving valued resources and realising the recreational values inherent within the area. The outcome of this duality can be difficult for protected area managers to reconcile when satisfying visitor use experiences threatens other values, especially biodiversity values. Understanding visitor use and its effect on biophysical resources is an important part of effective management. Monitoring of use and its effects, therefore, becomes vital to an adaptive management approach to address this sometimes conflicting management duality. Of concern though is the development and use of indicators to report on the sustainability of visitor use and management in protected areas (McCool & Stankey 2004).
While protected area managing agencies in Australia have long been concerned with monitoring visitor impacts and experiences, the efforts have largely been site and activity specific, with no consistent methodological approach to enable confident application beyond the site and issue of the specific monitoring. This project sought to describe current approaches to the monitoring and evaluation of visitor use of protected areas and make recommendations regarding an integrated approach
‘Powers of a squirrel, and also a girl’: Squirrel Girl and alternatives for women in superhero comic-books – an interview with Ryan North
Get PDFRyan North is a Canadian author who writes a host of comics, most notably Dinosaur Comics (www.
qwantz.com, 2003-present), Adventure Time (2012–2014, winner of both an Eisner and a Harvey Award),
The Midas Flesh (2013) and The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (R. North and E. Henderson, 2015). North
is also the creator of To Be Or Not To Be (2013), a choose-your-own-adventure version of Hamlet funded
through Kickstarter, published as a book and also as a computer game. North has recently followed this with
Romeo And/Or Juliet (2016)
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