2,714 research outputs found
Unequal Error Protection Querying Policies for the Noisy 20 Questions Problem
No full text© 2017 IEEE. In this paper, we propose an open-loop unequal-error-protection querying policy based on superposition coding for the noisy 20 questions problem. In this problem, a player wishes to successively refine an estimate of the value of a continuous random variable by posing binary queries and receiving noisy responses. When the queries are designed non-adaptively as a single block and the noisy responses are modeled as the output of a binary symmetric channel, the 20 questions problem can be mapped to an equivalent problem of channel coding with unequal error protection (UEP). A new non-adaptive querying strategy based on UEP superposition coding is introduced, whose estimation error decreases with an exponential rate of convergence that is significantly better than that of the UEP repetition coding introduced by Variani et al. (2015). With the proposed querying strategy, the rate of exponential decrease in the number of queries matches the rate of a closed-loop adaptive scheme, where queries are sequentially designed with the benefit of feedback. Furthermore, the achievable error exponent is significantly better than that of random block codes employing equal error protection
Decentralized Dictionary Learning Over Time-Varying Digraphs
Get PDFThis paper studies Dictionary Learning problems wherein the learning task is distributed over a multi-agent network, modeled as a time-varying directed graph. This formulation is relevant, for instance, in Big Data scenarios where massive amounts of data are collected/stored in different locations (e.g., sensors, clouds) and aggregating and/or processing all data in a fusion center might be inefficient or unfeasible, due to resource limitations, communication overheads or privacy issues. We develop a unified decentralized algorithmic framework for this class of nonconvex problems, which is proved to converge to stationary solutions at a sublinear rate. The new method hinges on Successive Convex Approximation techniques, coupled with a decentralized tracking mechanism aiming at locally estimating the gradient of the smooth part of the sum-utility. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first provably convergent decentralized algorithm for Dictionary Learning and, more generally, bi-convex problems over (time-varying) (di)graphs
A web-based screening tool for near-port air quality assessments
Get PDFAuthor(s): Isakov, Vlad; Barzyk, Timothy M; Smith, Elizabeth R; Arunachalam, Saravanan; Naess, Brian; Venkatram, Akul
Catholic Comments Podcast.
No full textFr. Brian McCoy, S.J. discusses his ministry to aboriginal Australians.
McCoy is an anthropologist and a scholar in residence at Creighton University this semester. He is also the author of the book, “Holding Men,” which studies health issues among aboriginal men
Botulinum neurotoxin for head and neck disorders/ [edited by] Andrew Blitzer, Brian E. Benson, Diana N. Kirke
No full textIncludes bibliographical references and index"Senior author Dr. Andrew Blitzer is an internationally renowned pioneer on the use of botulinum neurotoxin for functional disorders, with unparalleled expertise on this topic. Joined by co-editors Brian Benson and Diana Kirke, with multidisciplinary contributors, Botulinum Neurotoxin for Head and Neck Disorders Second Edition fills a gap in the medical literature. The unique textbook focuses on the use of botulinum neurotoxins for functional disorders of the head and neck, though with some aesthetic indications. The second edition reflects the latest advances and understanding of existing and emerging applications for botulinum neurotoxins, including new treatment paradigms, revised pharmacology, and an updated review of the literature in all chapters. Twenty superbly illustrated chapters cover the management of hyperfunctional, pain, and hypersecretory syndromes of the head and neck. Hyperfunctional motor disorders are discussed in chapters focused on blepharospasm, facial dystonia, Meige syndrome, oromandibular dystonia, spasmodic dysphonia (laryngeal dystonia), and cervical dystonia. Specific treatment approaches for pain are addressed in chapters on migraine and chronic daily tension headaches, temporomandibular disorders, and trigeminal neuralgia. The treatment of autonomic nervous system disorders is covered in chapters dedicated to Frey syndrome, facial hyperhydrosis, and sialorrhea"--Pharmacology of Botulinum Neurotoxins / Muna I. Bitar, Nikita Kohli, Maya Samman, and Andrew Blitzer -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Blepharospasm / Amit Patel, Andrew Blitzer, and Boris L. Bentsianov -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Facial Dystonia / Scott M. Rickert, Amy P. Wu, and Andrew Blitzer Botulinum -- Neurotoxin for Meige Syndrome / Niv Mor and Andrew Blitzer -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Oromandibular Dystonia / Daniel Novakovic and Ajay E. Chitkara -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Spasmodic Dysphonia / Phillip C. Song, Lucian Sulica, and Andrew Blitzer -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Cervical Dystonia / Tanya K. Meyer, Joel Guss, and Ronda E. Alexander -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Hemifacial Spasm and Facial Synkinesis / Lesley French Childs, Daniel Novakovic, and Scott R. Gibbs -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Hyperfunctional Facial Lines / Brian E. Benson, Diana N. Kirke, and Andrew Blitzer -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Upper and Lower Esophageal Spasm / Nwanmegha Young and Brian E. Benson -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Palatal Myoclonus / Ajay E. Chitkara, Catherine F. Sinclair, and Daniel Novakovic -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Temporomandibular Disorders, Masseteric Hypertrophy, and Cosmetic Masseter Reduction / Michael Z. Lerner and Andrew Blitzer -- Botulinum Neurotoxin Therapy in the Laryngopharynx / Craig H. Zalvan, Phillip C. Song, Nwanmegha Young, and Andrew Blitzer -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Migraine / Rachel Kaye, Jerome Schwartz, Brian E. Benson, and William J. Binder -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Chronic Tension Headache / Nwanmegha Young and Brian E. Benson -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Trigeminal Neuralgia / Elizabeth Guardiani, Andrew Blitzer, Lesley French Childs, and Ronda E. Alexander -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Frey's Syndrome / Rachel Kaye, Andrew Blitzer, and Brian E. Benson -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Facial Hyperhidrosis / Diana N. Kirke, Daniel Novakovic, and Andrew Blitzer -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Sialorrhea / Brianna K. Crawley, Scott M. Rickert, Senja Tomovic, and Andrew Blitzer -- Botulinum Neurotoxin for Radiation-Induced Spasm and Pain / Diana N. Kirke, Brian E. Benson, and Tanya K. Meyer1 online resourc
Routine genetic screening with a multi-gene panel in patients with pheochromocytomas
Get PDFPURPOSE:
Several new gene mutations have been reported in recent years to be associated with a risk of familial pheochromocytoma. However, it is unclear as to whether extensive genetic testing is required in all patients.
METHODS:
The clinical data of consecutive patients operated for pheochromocytoma over a decade in a tertiary referral center were reviewed. Genetic screening was performed using a 10-gene panel: RET, VHL, SDHB, SDHD, SDHA, SDHC, SDHAF2, MAX, TMEM127 and FH.
RESULTS:
A total of 166 patients were analyzed: 87 of them had genetic screening performed (39 M: 44.8%, 48 F: 55.2%, age range 6-81 years, mean 45±16.8 years). In total, 22/87 (25.3%) patients had germline mutations, while 65/87 (74.7%) patients presented with apparently sporadic tumors. Germline VHL mutations were identified in 11.7% of patients, RET in 6.8% (five MEN2A/MEN2 and one MEN2B/MEN3), SDHD in 2.3%, MAX in 2.3%, SDHB in 1.1%, and TMEM127 in 1.1% of patients. At diagnosis, 15.1% of patients with unilateral non-syndromic pheochromocytoma showed germline mutations. We identified 19.7% of mutations in patients with unilateral-non-recurrent pheochromocytomas within 5 years vs. 50% in the recurrent-bilateral-metastatic group (p = 0.01). Germline mutations were more frequently seen with bilateral pheochromocytomas (p = 0.001): 80% of patients with bilateral disease had germline mutations (4 VHL, 3 RET, 1 MAX).
CONCLUSIONS:
The advent of rapid genetic screening using a gene-panel makes it feasible to screen large cohorts of patients and provides a valuable tool to contribute to the prediction of bilateral and malignant disease and to screen family members
Digitally-Assisted Mixed-Signal Wideband Compressive Sensing
Get PDFDigitizing wideband signals requires very demanding analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) speed and resolution specifications. In this dissertation, a mixed-signal parallel compressive sensing system is proposed to realize the sensing of wideband sparse signals at sub-Nqyuist rate by exploiting the signal sparsity. The mixed-signal compressive sensing is realized with a parallel segmented compressive sensing (PSCS) front-end, which not only can filter out the harmonic spurs that leak from the local random generator, but also provides a tradeoff between the sampling rate and the system complexity such that a practical hardware implementation is possible. Moreover, the signal randomization in the
system is able to spread the spurious energy due to ADC nonlinearity along the signal bandwidth rather than concentrate on a few frequencies as it is the case for a conventional ADC. This important new property relaxes the ADC SFDR requirement when sensing frequency-domain
sparse signals.
The mixed-signal compressive sensing system performance is greatly impacted by the accuracy of analog circuit components, especially with the scaling of CMOS technology. In this dissertation, the effect of the circuit imperfection in the mixed-signal compressive
sensing system based on the PSCS front-end is investigated in detail, such as the finite settling
time, the timing uncertainty and so on. An iterative background calibration algorithm based on LMS (Least Mean Square) is proposed, which is shown to be able to effectively calibrate the error due to the circuit nonideal factors.
A low-speed prototype built with off-the-shelf components is presented. The prototype is able to sense sparse analog signals with up to 4 percent sparsity at 32 percent of the Nqyuist rate. Many practical constraints that arose during building the prototype such as circuit nonidealities are addressed in detail, which provides good insights for a future high-frequency integrated
circuit implementation. Based on that, a high-frequency sub-Nyquist rate receiver exploiting the parallel compressive sensing is designed and fabricated with IBM90nm CMOS technology, and measurement results are presented to show the capability of wideband
compressive sensing at sub-Nyquist rate. To the best of our knowledge, this prototype is the first reported integrated chip for wideband mixed-signal compressive sensing. The proposed prototype achieves 7 bits ENOB and 3 GS/s equivalent sampling rate in simulation assuming a 0.5 ps state-of-art jitter variance, whose FOM beats the FOM of the high speed state-of-the-art Nyquist ADCs by 2-3 times.
The proposed mixed-signal compressive sensing system can be applied in various fields. In particular, its applications for wideband spectrum sensing for cognitive radios and spectrum analysis in RF tests are discussed in this work
Supernova shrapnel: nearby supernovae and dust transport in the ISM
Get PDFThe last 2 decades have seen the proposal, detection, and confirmation of live ^60Fe radioisotopes from an extra-solar source on Earth, showing an event outside the Solar System directly delivered material to the Earth since its formation. This work examines the possible sources for the ^60Fe and models the passage of the material from its source through the Solar System to the ocean floor. We consider the production and deposition on Earth of isotopes with half-lives in the range 10^5 to 10^8 years that might provide signatures of nearby stellar explosions, extending previous analyses of Core-Collapse Supernovae (CCSNe) to include Electron-Capture Supernovae (ECSNe), Super-Asymptotic Giant Branch (SAGBs) stars, Thermonuclear/Type Ia Supernovae (TNSNe), and Kilonovae/Neutron Star Mergers (KNe). We revisit previous estimates of the ^60Fe and ^26Al signatures, and extend these estimates to include ^244Pu and ^53Mn. We show that (i) the ^60Fe yield rules out the TNSN and KN interpretations, (ii) the ^60Fe signals highly constrain a SAGB interpretation but do not completely them rule out, (iii) are consistent with a CCSN origin, and (iv) are highly compatible with an ECSN interpretation.
We also examine various influences on the path of interstellar dust carrying ^60Fe from a SN through the Heliosphere, with the aim of estimating the final global distribution on the ocean floor. We study the influences of magnetic fields, angle of arrival, wind and ocean cycling of SN material on the concentrations at different locations. We find that the passage of SN material through the mesosphere/lower thermosphere (MLT) is the greatest influence on the final global distribution, with ocean cycling causing lesser alteration as the SN material sinks to the ocean floor. SN distance estimates in previous works that assumed a uniform distribution are a good approximation. Including the effects on surface distributions, we estimate a distance of 46^(+10)_(-6) pc for an ECSN progenitor. We note that the SN dust retains directional information to within 1^(circ) through its arrival in the inner Solar System, so that SN debris deposition on inert bodies such as the Moon will be anisotropic, and thus could in principle be used to infer directional information.
Lastly, we examine the various influences on the path of dust within a SN remnant (SNR) to determine when/if the dust decouples from the plasma, how much it is sputtered, and where within the ejecta the dust is located. We find that the inclusion of Rayleigh-Taylor (R-T) instabilities are important in studying dust survival as R-T instabilities influence the location of the SN's reverse shock. We also find the presence of a magnetic field within the shocked ISM material will limit the passage of SN dust grains reflecting them or trapping within the heart of the SNR.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2018-08-01The student, Brian Fry, accepted the attached license on 2016-07-04 at 15:08.The student, Brian Fry, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2016-07-04 at 15:23.This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2016-07-08 at 16:47.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #9750 on 2016-11-10 at 12:24:50Made available in DSpace on 2016-11-10T18:39:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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Give growth and macroeconomic stability in Russia a chance - harden budgets by eliminating nonpayments
Get PDFThe authors analyze the links between Russia's disappointing growth performance in the second half of the 1990s, its costly and unsuccessful stabilization, the macroeconomic meltdown of 1998, and the spectacular rise of non-payments. Non-payments flourished in an environment of fundamental inconsistency between a macroeconomic policy geared at sharp disinflation, and a microeconomic policy of bailing enterprises out through soft budget constraints. Heavy untargeted implicit subsidies flowing through the non-payments system (amounting to 10 percent of GDP annually) have stifled growth, contributed to the August 1998 meltdown, through their impact on public debt, and have made at best a questionable contribution to equity. Dismantling this system must be a top priority, along with promoting enterprise restructuring and growth (by hardening budget constraints) and medium-term macroeconomic stability (by reducing the size of subsidies). Getting the government out of the non-payments system means settling all appropriately controlled budgetary expenditures on time, and in cash, and eschewing spending arrears, thereby setting an example for enterprises, and laying the groundwork for eliminating tax offsets at all levels of government, and insisting on cash tax payments. To stop energy-related subsidies, would require not only that the government pay its own energy bills on time, and in cash, but also that the energy monopolies be empowered to disconnect non-paying clients. This will enable the government to insist that the energy monopolies in turn pay their own taxes in full, and on time.Banks&Banking Reform,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Municipal Financial Management,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research
Author Correction: Dental anomaly detection using intraoral photos via deep learning (Scientific Reports, (2022), 12, 1, (11577), 10.1038/s41598-022-15788-1)
Get PDFIn the original version of this Article Ronilo Ragodos, Tong Wang and Brian J. Howe were omitted as equally contributing authors. Tong Wang was omitted as an additional corresponding author. Correspondence and requests for materials should also be addressed to [email protected]. In addition, the Author Contributions section in this Article was incorrect.Fil: Ragodos, Ronilo. University of Iowa; Estados UnidosFil: Wang, Tong. University of Iowa; Estados UnidosFil: Padilla, Carmencita. University of the Philippines; FilipinasFil: Hecht, Jacqueline T.. University of Texas; Estados UnidosFil: Poletta, Fernando Adrián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. CEMIC-CONICET. Centro de Educaciones Médicas e Investigaciones Clínicas "Norberto Quirno". CEMIC-CONICET; ArgentinaFil: Orioli, Ieda Maria. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; BrasilFil: Buxó, Carmen J.. Universidad de Puerto Rico; Puerto RicoFil: Butali, Azeez. University of Iowa; Estados UnidosFil: Valencia Ramirez, Consuelo. Clinica Noel; ColombiaFil: Restrepo Muñeton, Claudia. Clinica Noel; ColombiaFil: Wehby, George. University of Iowa; Estados UnidosFil: Weinberg, Seth M.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados Unidos. University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown; Estados UnidosFil: Marazita, Mary L.. University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown; Estados Unidos. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Moreno Uribe, Lina M.. University of Iowa; Estados UnidosFil: Howe, Brian J.. University of Iowa; Estados Unido
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