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Contribution: This article features a systematic literature review with the objective of presenting a study that reflects the current scenario of research on the cognitive load theory (CLT) in the domain of teaching and learning computer programming. Background: Computer programming is a highly cognitive skill, requiring mastering multiple competencies, and recognized as being difficult to learn, for this reason, the cognitive load (CL) in the learner’s working memory emerged as an influential concept, making CLT one of the most common theories in computing education research. Research Questions: What are the approaches that relate CLT to teaching and learning computer programming? What CLT-related concepts are covered? What evidence is reported with respect to this context? Methodology: Following a formal protocol, a survey was performed for papers linking CLT to teaching and learning programming published between 2010 and 2020. The selection of papers was based on a set of criteria established to drive the selection process, including alignment with the research questions and paper quality assessment. Findings: The approaches applied in the papers are based on measuring the CL; through instructional design based on the development or use of resources or tools, a range of different pedagogy strategies and the CLT concepts. With respect to the concepts, the subjective measurement technique and worked example effect are the most commonly deployed. As far as the evidence reported, the better part is related to the worked example effect and measuring CLs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is intended to supplant legacy (optical) bar code scanning technology found in many logistic and retail applications. RFID is distinguished by inexpensive, low power and compact form factor tags, whose longevity and efficacy are predicated on using passive communication techniques and on-tag power harvesting. Such tags employ backscatter modulation, which does not require any active RF components. As a result, backscatter has become an attractive design choice for short-range communications in power constrained wireless sensor networking scenarios. The purpose of this work is two-fold. First, it aims to expose backscatter communication as an emerging topic to a communication systems-theoretic audience. Since backscatter modulation and on-tag power harvesting efficiency are coupled, it is necessary to re-examine notions of power and spectral efficiency from an energy-constraint perspective; this leads to novel coded modulation schemes for future RFID systems. Further, we investigate RFID MIMO systems where the channel fading encountered has different statistics than the classical Rayleigh fading model. In turn,the trade off between diversity order and spatial multiplexing gains are distinct from wide-area MIMO. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Delay tolerant networks (DTNs) is a network evolved from mobile networks. Differing from the traditional network, which has a stable end‐to‐end transmission path, DTNs are sparse and intermittently connected mobile ad hoc network, which are widely used in harsh environments, such as battlefields, seabed, space communication networks, and so on. In DTNs, intermittent connectivity, partitioned network, long delays and node mobility characteristics make the network fail to communicate frequently, therefore, how to successfully forward the message is of extreme importance. Up to now, almost all the traditional models in DTNs use the store‐carry‐forward method. This paper proposes a novel clustered DTN routing model based on sensing node relationship strength. The routing mechanism takes advantage of the number of other nodes encountered by the nodes in the process of movement and the changes in the number of nodes to calculate the strength of the relationship between nodes, and clusters DTN routing according to the strength of the relationship between nodes. Moreover, the relationship between nodes in a cluster and other clusters is used to transmit messages between clusters, and messages are transmitted within clusters according to the strength of the relationship between nodes. Simulation results show that the routing mechanism not only increases the success rate of message transmission, but also reduces the transmission delay of messages and improves network performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the crucial role of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in the surveillance and administration of critical infrastructures (CIs), contributing to their reliability, security, and operational efficiency. It starts by detailing the international significance and structural aspects of these infrastructures, mentions the market tension in recent years in the gradual development of wireless networks for industrial applications, and proceeds to categorize WSNs and examine the protocols and standards of WSNs in demanding environments like critical infrastructures, drawing on the recent literature. This review concentrates on the protocols and standards utilized in WSNs for critical infrastructures, and it concludes by identifying a notable gap in the literature concerning quality standards for equipment used in such infrastructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a growing technology that remotely connects multiple devices (ranging across many fields and applications) over the Internet. The scalability of an IoT network mandates a reliable transport infrastructure. Traditional transport control protocol (TCP) control protocol is unsuitable for such domain, mainly due to energy and power consumption reasons. A lighter version of TCP, light weight IP (lwIP) provides a promising solution for current and projected future scalable IoT infrastructures. However, the original lwIP is just a simple mapping of the protocol, without insight into the IoT specific requirements. This paper examines the lwIP congestion control mechanism and addresses its shortcomings. In particular, a detailed examination is devoted to the various metrics such as retransmission time‐outs and its back‐off epochs, the congestion window behaviour and progress in the absence (and presence) of congestion. In particular, we propose a set of novel algorithms to address both the IoT constraints nature (light‐weight) as well as keeping up with scalability in IoT network size and performance. A detailed simulation study has been conducted to endorse the viability of our proposed set of algorithms for next‐generation IoT networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the diversity-multiplexing-gain tradeoff (DMT) of wireless relay networks under the half-duplex constraint. It is often unclear what penalty if any, is imposed by the half-duplex constraint on the DMT of such networks. We study two classes of networks; the first class, called KPP(I) networks, is the class of networks with the relays organized in K parallel paths between the source and the destination. While we assume that there is no direct source-destination path, the K relaying paths can interfere with each other. The second class, termed as layered networks, is comprised of relays organized in layers, where links exist only between adjacent layers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2014, an Irish parliament white paper called for greater addressing of sport-related concussions (SRCs) in Ireland, requesting the adoption of the Concussion in Sport Group's (CISGs) guidelines and greater consistency in SRC return to play (RTP) management. Ten years later, it is unclear how these requests have been addressed. Recently, the United Kingdom's government centralised guidelines to one SRC document for all grassroots sports. This study aimed to investigate all publicly available SRC guidance in Irish sports and national governing bodies (NGBs) to determine if centralised guidelines are warranted. Sport Ireland and the Irish Federation of Sports were searched for all recognised NGBs and sports in Ireland. Websites were searched for any information pertaining to SRCs and data were extracted and collated in Microsoft Excel. In total, 15 of 83 sports and/or NGBs included SRC guidance, nine of which provided RTP protocols. Various iterations of the CISGs guidance and tools were implemented. Several sports with a documented SRC risk had no guidelines present. The findings indicate disjointed and outdated guidance across Irish sport. Additionally, there are sports with a documented concussion risk that have no SRC guidance available. This study provides support for centralised guidelines to be adopted in Irish grassroots sports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The future connectivity landscape, and notably, the 5G wireless systems will feature Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC). The coupling of high reliability and low latency requirements in URLLC use cases makes the wireless access design very challenging, in terms of both the protocol design and of the associated transmission techniques. This paper aims to provide a broad perspective on the fundamental tradeoffs in URLLC, as well as the principles used in building access protocols. Two specific technologies are considered in the context of URLLC: massive MIMO and multi-connectivity, also termed interface diversity. This paper also touches on the importance of the proper statistical methodology for designing and assessing extremely high-reliability levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In one of the several manifestations, the future cellular networks are required to accommodate a massive number of devices, several orders of magnitude compared to today’s networks. At the same time, the future cellular networks will have to fulfill stringent latency constraints. To that end, one problem that is posed as a potential showstopper is extreme congestion for requesting uplink scheduling over the physical random access channel (PRACH). Indeed, such congestion drags along scheduling delay problems. In this paper, the use of self-organized device-to-device (D2D) clustering is advocated for mitigating PRACH congestion. To this end, this paper proposes two D2D clustering schemes, namely, random-based clustering and channel-gain-based clustering. Accordingly, this paper sheds light on random access within the proposed D2D clustering schemes and presents a case study based on a stochastic geometry framework. For the sake of objective evaluation, the D2D clustering is benchmarked by the conventional scheduling request procedure. Accordingly, this paper offers insights into useful scenarios that minimize the scheduling delay for each clustering scheme. Finally, this paper discusses the implementation algorithm and some potential implementation issues and remedies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Industry 5.0" is the latest industrial revolution. A variety of cutting-edge technologies, including artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), and others, come together to form it. Billions of devices are connected for high-speed data transfer, especially in a 5G-enabled industrial environment for information collection and processing. Most of the issues, such as access control mechanism, time to fetch the data from different devices, and protocols used, may not be applicable in the future as these protocols are based upon a centralized mechanism. This centralized mechanism may have a single point of failure along with the computational overhead. Thus, there is a need for an efficient decentralized access control mechanism for device-to-device (D2D) communication in various industrial sectors, for example, sensors in different regions may collect and process the data for making intelligent decisions. In such an environment, reliability, security, and privacy are major concerns as most of the solutions are based upon a centralized control mechanism. To mitigate the aforementioned issues, this paper provides the opportunities for and highlights some of the most impressive initiatives that help to curve the future. This new era will bring about significant changes in the way businesses operate, allowing them to become more cost-effective, more efficient, and produce higher-quality goods and services. As sensors are getting more accurate, cheaper, and have lower time responses, 5G networks are being integrated, and more industrial equipment and machinery are becoming available; hence, various sectors, including the manufacturing sector, are going through a significant period of transition right now. Additionally, the emergence of the cloud enables modern production models that use the cloud (both internal and external services), networks, and systems to leverage the cloud's low cost, scalability, increased computational power, real-time communication, and data transfer capabilities to create much smarter and more autonomous systems. We discuss the ways in which decentralized networks that make use of protocols help to achieve decentralization and how network meshes can grow to make things more secure, reliable, and cohere with these technologies, which are not going away anytime soon. We emphasize the significance of new design in regard to cybersecurity, data integrity, and storage by using straightforward examples that have the potential to lead to the excellence of distributed systems. This groundbreaking paper delves deep into the world of industrial automation and explores the possibilities to adopt blockchain for developing solutions for smart cities, smart homes, healthcare, smart agriculture, autonomous vehicles, and supply chain management within Industry 5.0. With an in-depth examination of various consensus mechanisms, readers gain a comprehensive understanding of the latest developments in this field. The paper also explores the current issues and challenges associated with blockchain adaptation for industrial automation and provides a thorough comparison of the available consensus, enabling end customers to select the most suitable one based on its unique advantages. Case studies highlight how to enable the adoption of blockchain in Industry 5.0 solutions effectively and efficiently, offering valuable insights into the potential challenges that lie ahead, particularly for smart industrial applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the problem of communication protocols between leaders and its followers for motion planning in an initially partially known environment. In this setting, the leader observes the environment information to satisfy its own local objective and and the follower completes its own local objective by estimating the states of the leader and communicating with the leader to update its knowledge about the environment when it is necessary, where the local objectives can be expressed in temporal logic. A verifier construction is built first to contain all possible communication protocols between the leaders and the followers. Then, a two‐step synthesis procedure is proposed to capture all feasible communication protocol that satisfy the local objectives for the leader and follower, respectively. In the first step, a sub‐verifier is synthesized to satisfy the objective of the follower. In the second step, based on the obtained sub‐verifier, an iterative algorithm is proposed to extract communication protocols such that the objectives of the leader and follower are satisfied, respectively. A running example is provided to illustrate the proposed procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although several years have passed since its first introduction, the significance of Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) remains evident, particularly in challenging environments where traditional networks face operational limitations such as disrupted communication or high latency. This survey paper aims to explore the diverse array of applications where DTN technologies have proven successful, with a focus on emerging and novel application paradigms. In particular, we focus on the contributions of DTN in the Future Internet, including its contribution to space applications, smart cities and the Internet of Things, but also to underwater communications. We also discuss its potential to be used jointly with information-centric networks to change the internet communication paradigm in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To obtain reliable results from conflicting data in mobile crowdsensing, numerous truth discovery protocols have been proposed in the past decade. However, most of them do not consider the data privacy of entities involved (e.g., workers and servers), and several existing privacy-preserving truth discovery protocols either provide limited privacy protection or have heavy computation and communication overheads due to iterative computation and transmission over large ciphertexts. In this paper, we aim to propose privacy-preserving and lightweight truth discovery protocols to tackle the above problems. Specifically, we carefully design an anonymization protocol named AnonymTD to delink workers from their data, where workers’ data are computed and transmitted without complicated encryption. To further reduce each worker's overheads in the scenarios where workers are willing to share their weights, we resort to the perturbation technology to propose a more lightweight truth discovery protocol named PerturbTD. Based on workers’ perturbed data, two cloud servers in PerturbTD complete most of the workload of truth discovery together, which avoids the frequent involvement of workers. The theoretical analysis and the comparative experiments in this paper demonstrate that our two protocols can achieve our security goals with low computation and communication overheads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the sample-data-based consensus problem of multiagent systems with time-varying delay and packet losses. To distinguish the time delays caused by network-induced time-delay and packet losses, the switched system is utilized. A lower gain controller is designed based on the solution of a parametric algebraic Riccati equation. The Lyapunov stability theory is utilized to obtain the limitations on the frequency and the duration of packet losses which guarantees the consensus of multiagent systems. On the other hand, we theoretically prove that refined time-delay function can reduce the conservatism. A simulation example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been much recent interest in private information retrieval (PIR) in models where a database is stored across several servers using coding techniques from distributed storage, rather than being a simply replicated. In particular, a recent breakthrough result of Fazelli, Vardy, and Yaakobi introduces the notion of a PIR code and a PIR array code, and uses this notion to produce efficient PIR protocols. In this paper, we are interested in designing PIR array codes. We consider the case when we have $m$ servers, with each server storing a fraction $(1/s)$ of the bits of the database; here $s$ is a fixed rational number with $s > 1$. A PIR array code with the $k$ -PIR property enables a $k$ -server PIR protocol (with $k\leq m$) to be emulated on $m$ servers, with the overall storage requirements of the protocol being reduced. The communication complexity of a PIR protocol reduces as $k$ grows, so the virtual server rate, defined to be $k/m$ , is an important parameter. We study the maximum virtual server rate of a PIR array code with the $k$ -PIR property. We present upper bounds on the achievable virtual server rate, some constructions, and ideas how to obtain the PIR array codes with the highest possible virtual server rate. In particular, we present constructions that asymptotically meet our upper bounds and the exact largest virtual server rate is obtained when $1 < s \leq 2$. A $k$ -PIR code (and similarly a $k$ -PIR array code) is also a locally repairable code with symbol availability $k-1$. Such a code ensures $k$ parallel reads for each information symbol. So the virtual server rate is very closely related to the symbol availability of the code when used as a locally repairable code. The results of this paper are discussed also in this context where subspace codes also have an important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how much the rate region of the two-user Gaussian interference channel can be enlarged by allowing the two source nodes to cooperate. Two cooperative transmission schemes are proposed, based on dirty-paper coding and the assumption that the radio bandwidth is partitioned into two parts, and each part is utilized by one source node. The achievable rate regions and the outage performance of these two schemes are compared with the simplified Han-Kobayashi scheme, which is an efficient coding scheme for the interference channel. Simulation results show that in some channel realizations, the rate region of the Han-Kobayashi scheme is a subset of the rate regions of our two proposed cooperative transmission schemes. Furthermore, a significant gain in outage performance can be obtained, as the cooperative schemes have twice the diversity order of the simplified Han-Kobayashi scheme. While both cooperative schemes are able to yield large diversity gain, one of them can be implemented by simple decoder. Besides, it has an efficient algorithm for maximizing its weighted sum rate, and can be extended easily to the multi-channel case. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we consider a cooperative simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) network with one source–destination pair and multiple energy harvesting relays. How to efficiently use these relays has been addressed in conventional cooperative networks, and this paper investigates the impact of SWIPT on the performance of such multirelay cooperative networks. In particular, the main contribution of this paper is that a closed-form expression of the outage probability achieved by the multirelay cooperative protocol is obtained, as well as its approximation at high SNR. In addition, the performance of the cooperative network with the SWIPT relays is compared with that in conventional systems with self-powered relays. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Contribution: A systematic literature review on the empirical evidence regarding the usage of programming languages for learning purposes is presented. The review analyzes different methods and tools at different educational levels and with different objectives. Background: Learning programming has gained relevance in the last decade. This is due to the massive presence of programmable elements ranging from computers to toys. Because of this, the interest of researchers on this topic has increased. Questions, such as what to use, in what educational stages to use it, the effectiveness of the method, and the focal objectives for learning programming are questions that do not have obvious answers. Research Questions: 1) What empirical evidence exists on the use of educational programming languages (EPLs)? 2) In what context is the research performed? 3) How is effectiveness reported in the literature after applying EPLs? 4) What pedagogical goals are achieved by using EPLs? Methodology: Following a formal protocol, automated searches were performed for primary studies from 2007 to 2018. A total of 62 studies were identified, of which 29 were selected and analyzed since they include some type of empirical evidence. Findings: After performing the evaluation, the results support the need for better approaches with empirical evidence when reporting research on the usage of EPLs. Some research opportunities are identified which concerns the used programming languages, the areas or stages of their application, or the need to have more empirical evidence in general and more studies in non-WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the robust containment control problem of multiagent systems with heterogeneous uncertainty and nonlinearity while the nonlinear parts have to satisfy the Lipschitz condition. In this paper, both input time-delay and data transmission time-delay between the agents are considered simultaneously and communication topology of the multiagent systems may switch in the steady-state condition. Under the mentioned conditions, the objective of this paper is to make all the followers’ states converge to the convex hull shaped by the leaders’ states with an expected exponential rate. To this end, an appropriate smooth protocol is proposed. Then, a Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional composed of five terms is proposed and the stability condition is denoted by two linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). In addition to the stability assurance, solving the LMIs would obtain the suitable gains for the protocol. Finally, some numerical simulations are given to verify the theoretical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intelligent radio is a novel emerging paradigm catching on in many practical applications, in order to provide context awareness techniques, able to learn by the environment conditions applying machine learning frameworks. The channel state information (CSI) prediction is one of the main challenges that an intelligent radio has to face with. This paper deals with the CSI prediction in the case of a buffer aided relaying communication scheme with adaptive link selection previously proposed in the literature where a direct source-destination link is not available and with both links affected by an independent fading. In particular, the CSI prediction has been reduced here to a time series prediction problem, performed by involving the usage of the recurrent neural networks. Finally, the validation of the effectiveness of the proposed intelligent radio buffer-aided relaying scheme with adaptive link selection approach has been pursued by presenting performance comparisons with the previously proposed scheme under the assumption of an ideal and actual CSI estimations, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By means of a close reading of Edgar Allan Poe's The Man of the Crowd and The Murders of the Rue Morgue, this paper reconstructs the figure of the detective, showing his centrality within the following sociological problems: (a) the relationship between metropolis and identity, an identity caught in its fragmentation and disintegration; (b) the implications of nervous life, a state which is associated with both the advent of technologies and the modern oscillations between sensitivity and insensitivity; (c) the functions and value assumed by the media, now understood as instruments of survival and as places of social bonding; d) the conflicts between talent and habituation, as well as between creativity and protocols, in a founding dialectic between distinction and uniformity; e) the methods and procedures of media knowledge, suspended between the dispersion of minutiae and the affirmation of successive states of consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a method for controlling the voltage of inverter-based Microgrids by proposing a new scale-free distributed cooperative controller. The main contribution of this paper is that the proposed distributed cooperative controller is scale-free where is independent of any information about the communication system and the number of distributed generators, as such it works for any Microgrids with any size. Moreover, the communication network is modeled by a general time-varying graph which enhances the resilience of the proposed protocol against communication link failure, data packet loss, and arbitrarily fast plug and play operation in the presence of arbitrarily finite communication delays as the protocol does not require the knowledge of the upper bound on the delay. The stability analysis of the proposed protocol is provided. The proposed method is simulated on the CIGRE medium voltage Microgrid test system. The simulation results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed scale-free distributed nonlinear protocol for regulating voltage of Microgrids in the presence of communication failures, data packet loss, noise, and degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers secret-key generation between several agents and a base station that observe independent and identically distributed realizations of correlated random variables. Each agent wishes to generate the longest possible individual key with the base station by means of public communication. All keys must be jointly kept secret from all external entities. In this many-to-one secret-key generation setting, it can be shown that the agents can take advantage of a collective protocol to increase the sum rate of their generated keys. However, when each agent is only interested in maximizing its own secret-key rate, agents may be unwilling to participate in a collective protocol. Furthermore, when such a collective protocol is employed, how to fairly allocate individual key rates arises as a valid issue. This paper studies the tension between cooperation and self-interest with a game-theoretic treatment. This paper establishes that cooperation is in the best interest of all individualistic agents and that there exist individual secret-key rate allocations that incentivize the agents to follow the protocol. In addition, an explicit coding scheme that achieves such allocations is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-time dynamic workload consists of tasks that can arbitrarily join and leave the system at run-time. To avoid incurring deadline misses, tasks that request to join the system must pass an admission test, which has to cope with potential scheduling transients originated by the residual effect of the tasks that previously left the system. This phenomenon may require some tasks to suffer an admission delay before being accepted for execution. This paper focuses on uniprocessor earliest-deadline first (EDF) scheduling with constrained deadlines and explicitly considers methods for handling scheduling transients in the presence of dynamic real-time workload. A generalized analysis framework is first presented to overcome several limitations of the existing approaches (including the support for overlapping transients), and is then used to derive methods for computing bounds on the admission delays incurred by tasks. Building on such results, an on-line protocol is proposed to handle the admission control of a dynamic workload, which also comes with a variant that can execute in polynomial time to favor its practical application. Furthermore, the paper shows how the presented analysis can be used off-line for analyzing mode-changes among static task sets. Experimental results are finally presented to evaluate the proposed algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the consensus problem of general linear dynamic multiagent systems with stochastic sampling. In this paper, the sampling intervals randomly switch between two different values. The communication topology between agents is fixed and directed. Full- and reduced-order observers are designed based on neighbor agents’ relative output information. The algorithms to construct such observers are also provided. By using the estimated states of the agents, the observer-based consensus protocol with stochastic sampling are presented. Sufficient conditions to ensure consensus in mean square are derived by using Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, simulations are given to examine the effectiveness of the proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things is a rapidly evolving technology in which interconnected computing devices and sensors share data over the network to decipher different problems and deliver new services. For example, IoT is the key enabling technology for smart homes. Smart home technology provides many facilities to users like temperature monitoring, smoke detection, automatic light control, smart locks, etc. However, it also opens the door to new set of security and privacy issues, for example, the private data of users can be accessed by taking control over surveillance devices or activating false fire alarms, etc. These challenges make smart homes feeble to various types of security attacks and people are reluctant to adopt this technology due to the security issues. In this survey paper, we throw light on IoT, how IoT is growing, objects and their specifications, the layered structure of the IoT environment, and various security challenges for each layer that occur in the smart home. This paper not only presents the challenges and issues that emerge in IoT-based smart homes but also presents some solutions that would help to overcome these security challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely acknowledged that the success of deep learning is built upon large-scale training data and tremendous computing power. However, the data and computing power are not always available for many real-world applications. In this paper, we address the machine learning problem where it lacks training data and limits computing power. Specifically, we investigate domain adaptation which is able to transfer knowledge from one labeled source domain to an unlabeled target domain, so that we do not need much training data from the target domain. At the same time, we consider the situation that the running environment is confined, e.g., in edge computing the end device has very limited running resources. Technically, we present the Faster Domain Adaptation (FDA) protocol and further report two paradigms of FDA: early stopping and amid skipping. The former accelerates domain adaptation by multiple early exit points. The latter speeds up the adaptation by wisely skip several amid neural network blocks. Extensive experiments on standard benchmarks verify that our method is able to achieve the comparable and even better accuracy but employ much less computing resources. To the best of our knowledge, there are very few works which investigated accelerating knowledge adaptation in the community. This work is expected to inspire the topic for more discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A specific class of nonlinear systems, admitting finite-duration attractors (FDAs), is introduced in this paper, and used for consensus of multiagent systems (MASs). The advantage is that one can obtain a closed-form solution for the settling time function of the presented nonlinear systems. Such a system exhibits a two-phase convergence process, and its settling time function takes values over a finite duration. However, the duration width changes with respect to the initial condition. The FDA-based consensus protocol is shown to make the MAS undertaken achieve finite-duration convergence. With illustrative examples, the perfect consensus property is verified for MASs with or without a leader agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consensusability problems of general linear multiagent systems considering directed topologies are explored from a frequency domain perspective in this paper. By investigating the properties of Laplacian spectra, a consensus criterion is established based on the stability of several complex weighted closed-loop systems. Furthermore, for single-input multiagent systems, frequency domain consensusability criteria are proposed on the basis of the stability margins, which depend on the $ {\mathcal {H}}_{\infty }$ norm of the complementary sensitivity function determined by the agents’ unstable poles. The corresponding design procedure is also developed. A numerical example is also presented to validate the proposed consensusability results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a single-hop wireless sensor network in which each sensor node has an individual elastic data stream to transmit to each other node. We refer to this traffic pattern as unicast in this paper. The network has multiple slotted channels available for the data transmissions. To guarantee successful unicast within a bounded delay, we consider deterministic schemes that pre-assign each node a periodic schedule sequence to schedule transmitting and receiving at each time slot. The sequence period should be minimized since it upper bounds the unicast delay. We have investigated both synchronous TDMA sequences and asynchronous sequences. Since accurate time synchronization is difficult to achieve in sensor networks, we mainly present analysis and design for asynchronous sequences. In this paper, for a group-based channel assignment, we present a lower bound on the common period and propose a sequence construction method by which the period can achieve the same order as the lower bound. We also analyze optimal transmitting and receiving probabilities for two random schemes and compare their frequency utilization efficiency. Finally, unicast delay and energy consumption performance are compared by simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the low-SNR regime performance of a scalar complex $K$ -user interference channel with the Gaussian noise. The finite bandwidth case is considered, where the low-SNR regime is approached by letting the input power go to zero, while the bandwidth is small and fixed. We show that for all $\delta >0$ , there exists a set of channel coefficients with non-zero measure (probability), in which the wideband slope per user satisfies $ \mathcal {S}_{0}< {\scriptstyle {}^{\scriptstyle 2}}\hspace{-0.224em}/\hspace{-0.112em}{\scriptstyle K}+\delta $. This is quite contrary to the large bandwidth case, where a slope of 1 per user is achievable with probability 1. We also develop an interference alignment scheme for the finite bandwidth case that shows some gain in wideband slope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a protocol that enables an unlimited number of Wi-Fi users to position themselves within a meter-level accuracy and navigate indoors using time-delay-based Wi-Fi measurements. The proposed protocol, called collaborative time of arrival, is broadcast-based and relies on cooperation between the network sensors that support IEEE 802.11 fine-timing measurements (FTMs) capabilities, which are enabled in state-of-the-art Wi-Fi chipsets. The clients can estimate and track their position by passively listening to timing measurements that are exchanged between the FTM-sensors. The passive nature of the clients’ operation enables them to maintain their privacy by not exposing their presence to the network. This paper outlines the principles of the protocol and the mathematical background of the position estimation algorithms. Both theoretical analysis of the expected positioning accuracy, as well as real-life system performance examples, are provided. The protocol’s performance analysis is based on a publicly available database of real network measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers a multiple-access system with multiple-packet reception (MPR) capability $\gamma $ , i.e., a packet can be successfully received as long as it overlaps with $\gamma -1$ or fewer other packets at any instant during its lifetime. To efficiently utilize the MPR capability, this paper generalizes $p$ -persistent carrier-sense multiple access (CSMA) to consider that a user with carrier sensing capability $c$ adopts the transmission probability $p_{n}$ if this user has sensed $n$ ongoing transmissions for $n=0,1,\ldots ,c-1$. This paper aims to model the characteristics of such CSMA and to design transmission probabilities for achieving maximum saturation throughput. To this end, we first formulate such CSMA as a parameterized Markov decision process (MDP) and use the long-run average performance to evaluate the saturation throughput. Second, by observing that the exact values of optimal transmission probabilities are in general infeasible to find, we modify this MDP to establish an upper bound on the maximum throughput, and modify this MDP again to propose a heuristic design with near-optimal performance. Simulations with respect to a wide range of configurations are provided to validate our study. The throughput performance under more general models and the robustness of our design are also investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel estimation at millimeter-wave frequencies, both in single-user setting and in multi-user setting, is tackled in this paper. Using a subspace approach, we develop a protocol enabling the estimation of the right (respectively, left) singular vectors at the transmitter (respectively, receiver) side; then, we adapt the projection approximation subspace tracking with deflation and the orthogonal Oja algorithms to our framework and obtain two-channel estimation algorithms. We also present an alternative algorithm based on the least squares approach. The hybrid analog/digital nature of the beamformer is also explicitly taken into account at the algorithm design stage. In order to limit the system complexity, a fixed analog beamformer is used at both sides of the communication links. The obtained numerical results, showing the accuracy in the estimation of the channel matrix dominant singular vectors, the system achievable spectral efficiency, and the system bit error rate, prove that the proposed algorithms are effective and that they compare favorably, in terms of the performance-complexity tradeoff, with respect to several competing alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uplink transmission is an issue for visible light communications due to the unpleasant irradiance from the source light when placed close to the users. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes the use of relays to lower the required source optical power. A popular multi-carrier modulation scheme, termed direct-current biased optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, is employed to achieve high spectral efficiency. In addition, both amplitude-and-forward (AF) and decode-and-forward (DF) protocols are used. The theoretical models of AF and DF protocols are also obtained and verified by simulations. To minimize the source optical power while satisfying reliable communications, this paper formulates the associated optimization problems for AF and DF protocols. Exhaustive search is first used to obtain the optimal configuration for the system. As exhaustive search requires high computation efforts and can be time-consuming, two low-complexity suboptimal designs for AF and DF protocols are then proposed, and the proposed suboptimal designs can approximate the performance of exhaustive search in high signal-to-noise ratio regions. Numerical and experimental results indicate that when compared with the counterpart without a relay, the proposed relay-assisted system requires much lower source optical power under the constraints of reliable transmissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-simulation of heterogeneous systems allows for in-depth analysis of various aspects of power systems’ operation while staying within the environments of the simulation tools that are best fit to represent their respective domains. Equipped with a proprietary co-simulation platform, the paper focuses on the issue of power-conjugate coupling between parts of power grids modeled in transient stability and electromagnetic transient simulation tools. The problems of co-simulation stability and precision in presence of delays are tackled by means of designing a proper coupling interface. It is shown that two established interface methods – the V-I method and the Transmission Line Interface – are special cases of a generalized interface framework proposed in the paper. Moreover, a new interface algorithm is described by parametrizing the generalized framework. Analytical tools are also formulated to aid in the analysis of interface stability and precision via the concepts of passivity and transparency. Simulation results of benchmark systems of various complexity demonstrate the application of the developed power coupling interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parasites are responsible for the most neglected tropical diseases, affecting over a billion people worldwide (WHO, 2015) and accounting for billions of cases a year and responsible for several millions of deaths. Research on extracellular vesicles (EVs) has increased in recent years and demonstrated that EVs shed by pathogenic parasites interact with host cells playing an important role in the parasite's survival, such as facilitation of infection, immunomodulation, parasite adaptation to the host environment and the transfer of drug resistance factors. Thus, EVs released by parasites mediate parasite‐parasite and parasite‐host intercellular communication. In addition, they are being explored as biomarkers of asymptomatic infections and disease prognosis after drug treatment. However, most current protocols used for the isolation, size determination, quantification and characterization of molecular cargo of EVs lack greater rigor, standardization, and adequate quality controls to certify the enrichment or purity of the ensuing bioproducts. We are now initiating major guidelines based on the evolution of collective knowledge in recent years. The main points covered in this position paper are methods for the isolation and molecular characterization of EVs obtained from parasite‐infected cell cultures, experimental animals, and patients. The guideline also includes a discussion of suggested protocols and functional assays in host cells [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the distributed consensus controller design approaches for one-sided Lipschitz nonlinear multiagents by employing relative state feedback. A new treatment for one-sided Lipschitz nonlinearity is rendered from the consensus control point of view. By employing the quadratic inner-boundedness and the one-sided Lipschitz constraints, a sufficient condition for asymptotic consensus of nonlinear systems under strongly connected communication topologies is provided. Further, a robust consensus protocol design scheme for the nonlinear multiagents is derived by ensuring the ${L_{2}}$ stability of the consensus error system. Furthermore, a novel robust consensus control scheme against amplitude-bounded perturbations is developed that guarantees asymptotic convergence of the consensus error into a compact set. Extensions to the proposed methodologies for the leader-following consensus for a spanning tree communication topology with the leader as the root are addressed. In contrast to the conventional consensus control methodologies, this paper is less conservative and can be applied to a broader class of nonlinear multiagent systems. Moreover, the proposed consensus control approach is less conservative for robustness against disturbances owing to its ability to handle amplitude-bounded disturbances and due to the relaxation of a balanced communication topology. A numerical simulation study is provided for the consensus control of eight mobile agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrical power system monitoring, protection, operation, and control schemes are undergoing significant changes toward the next generation fully automated, resilient, and self-healing grids. At present, there still exists a lack of available user-friendly tools for the synchronized measurement technology supported application design. This paper presents a synchro-measurement application development framework (SADF) to promote a simplified design and thorough validation of synchro-measurement (IEEE Standard C37.118.2-2011) supported user-defined applications under realistic conditions. The proposed SADF supports online receiving of a phasor measurement unit (PMU) or phasor data concentrator (PDC) provided data stream and enables simultaneous use of processed machine-readable synchro-measurements in advanced user-defined applications. This paper fills the scientific gap between the IEEE Standard C37.118.2-2011 specifications and its implementation by proposing a novel robust communication technique and efficient synchro-measurement data parsing methodology. As a proof of concept, the proposed SADF is implemented as a novel open-source MATLAB library. Combining this library with MATLAB’s signal processing and visualization functions allows mastering the design and validation of complex wide-area monitoring, protection, and control applications, as well as PMU/PDC performance and compliance verification. Finally, this paper verifies the proposed library against the standard specifications, assesses its interoperability and performance via a cyber-physical simulation platform, and presents online voltage magnitude monitoring as an example application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantum key distribution (QKD) relies on the laws of physics to establish a symmetric binary key between remote parties. A QKD link involves the realization of a quantum channel for the transmission of quantum key material encoded in certain photon properties, as well as a public channel for verification of the exchanged key material. This paper deals with the mutual dependence of these channels and analyzes the impact of performance of both channels on the overall key material establishment process. This paper presents measurement data obtained under laboratory conditions as well as the results obtained by establishing a virtual QKD link. Despite the common beliefs that increased quantum bit error rate implies a larger amount of traffic on the public channel, our measurements prove the opposite. The obtained data clearly show that the public channel has a major impact on the overall performance of the QKD link. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]