Physical Layer Data Fusion Via Distributed Co-Phasing With General Signal Constellations

This paper studies a pilot-assisted physical layer data fusion technique known as Distributed Co-Phasing (DCP). In this two-phase scheme, the sensors first estimate the channel to the fusion center (FC) using pilots sent by the latter; and then they simultaneously transmit their common data by pre-rotating them by the estimated channel phase, thereby achieving physical layer data fusion. First, by analyzing the symmetric mutual information of the system, it is shown that the use of higher order constellations (HOC) can improve the throughput of DCP compared to the binary signaling considered heretofore. Using an HOC in the DCP setting requires the estimation of the composite DCP channel at the FC for data decoding. To this end, two blind algorithms are proposed: 1) power method, and 2) modified K-means algorithm. The latter algorithm is shown to be computationally efficient and converges significantly faster than the conventional K-means algorithm. Analytical expressions for the probability of error are derived, and it is found that even at moderate to low SNRs, the modified K-means algorithm achieves a probability of error comparable to that achievable with a perfect channel estimate at the FC, while requiring no pilot symbols to be transmitted from the sensor nodes. Also, the problem of signal corruption due to imperfect DCP is investigated, and constellation shaping to minimize the probability of signal corruption is proposed and analyzed. The analysis is validated, and the promising performance of DCP for energy-efficient physical layer data fusion is illustrated, using Monte Carlo simulations.

Speaker verification based on the fusion of speech acoustics and inverted articulatory signals

We propose apractical, feature-level and score-level fusion approach by combining acoustic and estimated articulatory information for both text independent and text dependent speaker verification. From a practical point of view, we study how to improve speaker verification performance by combining dynamic articulatory information with the conventional acoustic features. On text independent speaker verification, we find that concatenating articulatory features obtained from measured speech production data with conventional Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) improves the performance dramatically. However, since directly measuring articulatory data is not feasible in many real world applications, we also experiment with estimated articulatory features obtained through acoustic-to-articulatory inversion. We explore both feature level and score level fusion methods and find that the overall system performance is significantly enhanced even with estimated articulatory features. Such a performance boost could be due to the inter-speaker variation information embedded in the estimated articulatory features. Since the dynamics of articulation contain important information, we included inverted articulatory trajectories in text dependent speaker verification. We demonstrate that the articulatory constraints introduced by inverted articulatory features help to reject wrong password trials and improve the performance after score level fusion. We evaluate the proposed methods on the X-ray Microbeam database and the RSR 2015 database, respectively, for the aforementioned two tasks. Experimental results show that we achieve more than 15% relative equal error rate reduction for both speaker verification tasks. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Stalking influenza by vaccination with pre-fusion headless HA mini-stem

Inaccuracies in prediction of circulating viral strain genotypes and the possibility of novel reassortants causing a pandemic outbreak necessitate the development of an anti-influenza vaccine with increased breadth of protection and potential for rapid production and deployment. The hemagglutinin (HA) stem is a promising target for universal influenza vaccine as stem-specific antibodies have the potential to be broadly cross-reactive towards different HA subtypes. Here, we report the design of a bacterially expressed polypeptide that mimics a H5 HA stem by protein minimization to focus the antibody response towards the HA stem. The HA mini-stem folds as a trimer mimicking the HA prefusion conformation. It is resistant to thermal/chemical stress, and it binds to conformation-specific, HA stem-directed broadly neutralizing antibodies with high affinity. Mice vaccinated with the group 1 HA mini-stems are protected from morbidity and mortality against lethal challenge by both group 1 (H5 and H1) and group 2 (H3) influenza viruses, the first report of cross-group protection. Passive transfer of immune serum demonstrates the protection is mediated by stem-specific antibodies. Furthermore, antibodies indudced by these HA stems have broad HA reactivity, yet they do not have antibody-dependent enhancement activity.

Determinacion de brucelosis en la poblacion canina en ocho barrios del distrito dos de Managua utilizando el metodo de Rosa de Bengala y Rivanol en Septiembre - Diciembre 2007

En Nicaragua se desconoce la situación actual nacional de Brucelosis en la población canina, debido a que solo se ha realizado un estudio en la zona urbana y suburbana de la ciudad de León acerca de esta enfermedad en esta especie. La importancia del estudio consiste en beneficiar a propietarios y criadores de razas caninas, a los profesionales de la medicina veterinaria que se dedican a las especies menores y técnicos de laboratorios, brindándoles información acerca de la situación de esta enfermedad para ser tomada en cuenta en su labor diaria. Con el objetivo de determinar la prevalencia de brucelosis en caninos con la colaboración del ministerio de salud (MINSA) durante la jornada de vacunación antirrábica se realizó un muestreo serológico en canes en los barrios Bo Monseñor Lezcano, Las Palmas, Santa Ana Norte, San Sebastián, Bóer, San José, Acahualinca y Batahola Norte del Distrito II de Managua en los meses de Septiembre a Diciembre del año 2007. Se recolectó un total de 100 sueros de canes de ambos sexos, sin categorizarlos por su raza y edad en el momento de la toma de las muestras, las cuales se analizaron por el método Rosa de Bengala (antígeno Brucella abortus cepa 1119-3)en el Centro Veterinario de Diagnóstico de investigación, Unidad de Microbiología UNAN -León y como prueba confirmatoria se utilizó Rivanol 1% en el laboratorio del MAGFOR Unidad de Sanidad Animal León. Los resultados obtenidos para el primer método fue de un reactor correspondiente una hembra de 2 meses de edad de raza no definida del barrio Las Palmas que posteriormente resultó negativa a la prueba de Rivanol. La prevalencia encontrada es del 0%.

Utilizacion del metodo Ovsynch (ovulacion sincronizada) en hembras bovinas receptoras para transplante de embriones en la finca Santa Rosa - UNA, Managua

El presente estudio investigativo fue realizado en la finca Santa Rosa, propiedad de la Universidad Nacional Agraria, ubicada en el departamento de Managua-Nicaragua. El objetivo fue determinar la efectividad del método Ovsynch (ovulación sincronizada) en la inducción de la ovulación en hembras bovinas receptoras. El tamaño de la muestra utilizado fue de 20 hembras receptoras; las cuales fueron previamente seleccionadas según la condición corporal, la edad comprendida entre los 3-5 años y los resultados del examen clínico y ginecológico para constatar que cumplieran con los requisitos o parámetros de salud estimados para la aplicación de este tratamiento hormonal. Las variables evaluadas fueron: 1) Tasa de ovulación. 2) Porcentaje de hembras con presentación de síntomas del celo. 3) Identificar la estructura de costos en la aplicación del método Ovsynch. Para el análisis estadístico se utilizó la Prueba de media de t de Student, estableciendo dos grupos, grupo 1 y grupo 2. Donde el grupo 1 fue el grupo bajo tratamiento (Ovsynch) y el grupo 2 fue el grupo control. Los resultados se obtuvieron con un nivel de confianza de un 95%. Para la variable porcentaje de ovulación se alcanzó una respuesta positiva de un 100% en las hembras del grupo 1 y un 70% en el grupo 2. La variable presentación de los síntomas clínicos del celo obtuvo un 100% en el grupo 1 y un 70% en el grupo 2. Se logró un 100% de hembras con presencia de cuerpo lúteo en el grupo 1 y un 70% des hembras del grupo 2. En la efectividad del tratamiento hormonal manifestó un 100% de efectividad en la inducción y sincronización de la ovulación, a diferencia del tratamiento con ovulación espontánea el cual presentó un 70% de efectividad y un 30% de no efectividad. Por lo tanto se concluye que debido a la adecuada efectividad del tratamiento hormonal y los bajos costos del mismo el método Ovsynch es factible y rentable para su implementación por parte de medianos productores de nuestro país.

Optimization of 2-stage gas gun for fusion refueling pellet injection with consideration of real effects

Analytic expression of pellet acceleration by constant base pressure with consideration of gas-wall friction, heat transfer and viscous dissipation that important for high speed injection is obtained. The process of compression stage is formulated by a set of governing equations and can be numerically integrated. Excellent confirmation with experiments is obtained and the ways to optimum match the compression stage with the launch stage are suggested.

Fusion energy-production from a deuterium-tritium plasma in the jet tokamak

Describes a series of experiments in the Joint European Torus (JET), culminating in the first tokamak discharges in deuterium-tritium fuelled mixture. The experiments were undertaken within limits imposed by restrictions on vessel activation and tritium usage. The objectives were: (i) to produce more than one megawatt of fusion power in a controlled way; (ii) to validate transport codes and provide a basis for accurately predicting the performance of deuterium-tritium plasmas from measurements made in deuterium plasmas; (iii) to determine tritium retention in the torus systems and to establish the effectiveness of discharge cleaning techniques for tritium removal; (iv) to demonstrate the technology related to tritium usage; and (v) to establish safe procedures for handling tritium in compliance with the regulatory requirements. A single-null X-point magnetic configuration, diverted onto the upper carbon target, with reversed toroidal magnetic field was chosen. Deuterium plasmas were heated by high power, long duration deuterium neutral beams from fourteen sources and fuelled also by up to two neutral beam sources injecting tritium. The results from three of these high performance hot ion H-mode discharges are described: a high performance pure deuterium discharge; a deuterium-tritium discharge with a 1% mixture of tritium fed to one neutral beam source; and a deuterium-tritium discharge with 100% tritium fed to two neutral beam sources. The TRANSP code was used to check the internal consistency of the measured data and to determine the origin of the measured neutron fluxes. In the best deuterium-tritium discharge, the tritium concentration was about 11% at the time of peak performance, when the total neutron emission rate was 6.0 × 10¹⁷ neutrons/s. The integrated total neutron yield over the high power phase, which lasted about 2 s, was 7.2 × 10¹⁷ neutrons, with an accuracy of ±7%. The actual fusion amplification factor, Q_DT was about 0.15

Recognition of Membrane-Bound Fusion-Peptide/MPER Complexes by the HIV-1 Neutralizing 2F5 Antibody : Implications for Anti-2F5 Immunogenicity

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Erresistentzia entrenamendu metodo ezberdinen eragin fisiologikoak

Errebisio bibliografiko honen bitartez erresistentziaren entrenamendurako erabiltzen diren metodo nagusien eragin fisiologikoak ezagutu nahi dira.Lana metodo ezberdinen aurkezpen eta sailkapen batekin hasiko da. Gero metodo jarraien errendimenduko eraginak ikusiko dira, eragin fisiologikoekin batera. Berdina egingo da metodo interbalikoarekin eta sprint metodoarekin. Jarraian erresistentzia entrenamenduaren periodizaziorako modelo ezberdinak ikusiko dira, bakoitzak dituen onura eta arazoekin. Seinale molekularren funtzionamenduaren azalpen labur bat egingo da jarraian, egokitzapen prozesuekin duen lotura handia dela eta. Bukatzeko, lanaren ondorioa nagusiak eta bertatik ateratako gomendio praktikoak ere eskuragarri dituzue.