Alternative Direction Research Articles

Enhancement of Vital Signals for UWB Through-Wall Radar Using Low-Rank and Block-Sparse Matrix Decomposition

Ultra-wideband (UWB) vital detection radar plays an important role in post-disaster search and rescue, but the vital signal acquired in practice is often submerged in noise. In this paper, an advanced signal processing algorithm based on low-rank block-sparse representation is proposed to enhance the vital signal in life detection radar applications. The preprocessed echo signal can be decomposed into low-rank and block-sparse parts. The alternate direction method (ADM) is employed to obtain the block-sparse part containing the desired vital signal. We solve the subproblems involved in the ADM method using the Douglas/Peaceman–Rachford (DR) monotone operator splitting method. The projection method is applied to accelerate the calculation. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms existing methods in terms of output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

Co-pyrolysis of saw dust and oily sludge with waste-heat utilization of steel slag on rotary kiln simulated engineering practice

Pyrolysis of oily sludge (OS) possesses actual problems of high viscosity and high energy consumption in industry. This paper introduced saw dust (SD) to achieve physical viscosity reduction of OS, and then completed OS pyrolysis via steel slag (SS) with sufficient waste heat to replace external heat sources. The rotation of rotary kilns reactor with fins inside were utilized for pyrolysis, which exhibited excellent heat transfer effect for SS heating as validated by discrete element analysis (DEM) simulation. Temperature program and fixed temperature pyrolysis were respectively investigated and the latter one obtained higher yield of oil and gas. Especially SD addition increased the yield and quality of calorific value products (pyrolysis oil and gas). SS not only provided heat source but a lot had catalytic effect on pyrolysis, in which the [O] compounds provided by metal oxides could destroy the stability of chemical bond and deepen the cracking reaction. The energy equilibrium was calculated by heat capacity and reaction energy barrier. Finally, the pyrolytic residue was utilized as soil remediation agent by evaluating Ryegrass growth. Trace FeOx promoted photosynthesis and cellular respiration in plants, while excessive FeOx led to difficulty in respiration and decay of roots. Therefore, this new approach provides an alternative direction for collaborative treatment of OS, SD, and SS with co-benefits from three feedstocks to save energy and produce high-quality products of gas and oil.

Codon language embeddings provide strong signals for use in protein engineering

Protein representations from deep language models have yielded state-of-the-art performance across many tasks in computational protein engineering. In recent years, progress has primarily focused on parameter count, with recent models’ capacities surpassing the size of the very datasets they were trained on. Here we propose an alternative direction. We show that large language models trained on codons, instead of amino acid sequences, provide high-quality representations that outperform comparable state-of-the-art models across a variety of tasks. In some tasks, such as species recognition, prediction of protein and transcript abundance or melting point estimation, we show that a language model trained on codons outperforms every other published protein language model, including some that contain over 50 times more parameters. These results indicate that, in addition to commonly studied scale and model complexity, the information content of biological data provides an orthogonal direction to improve the power of machine learning in biology.

Emergent seesaw oscillations during cellular directional decision-making

Motile cells inside living tissues often encounter junctions, where their path branches into several alternative directions of migration. We present a theoretical model of cellular polarization for a cell migrating along a one-dimensional line, arriving at a symmetric Y junction and extending protrusions along the different paths that originate at the junction. The model predicts the spontaneous emergence of deterministic oscillations of growth and cellular polarization between competing protrusions during the directional decision-making process. The oscillations are modified by cellular noise but remain a dominant feature that affects the time it takes the cell to migrate across the junction. These predictions are confirmed experimentally for two different cell types (non-cancerous endothelial and cancerous glioma cells) migrating on a patterned network of thin adhesive lanes with junctions.

Catalytic Gold Nanoparticle Assembly Programmed by DNAzyme Circuits.

Assembled gold nanoparticle (AuNP) superstructures can generate unique physicochemical characteristics and be used in various applications, thus becoming an attractive research field. Recently, several DNA-assisted gold nanoparticle assembly methods have been rigorously developed that typically require a non-catalytic equimolar molecular assembly to guarantee the designed assembly. Although efficient and accurate, exploring such non-catalytic nanoparticle assemblies in the complex cellular milieu under low trigger concentrations remains challenging. Therefore, developing a catalytic method that facilitates gold nanoparticle assemblies with relatively low DNA trigger concentrations is desirable. In this report, a catalytic method to program gold nanoparticle assemblies by DNAzyme circuits is presented, where only a small number of DNA triggers are able to induce the production of a large number of the desired nanoparticle assemblies. The feasibility of using logic DNAzyme circuits to control catalytic nanoparticle assemblies is experimentally verified. Additionally, catalytic AuNP assembly systems are established with cascading and feedback functions. The work provides an alternative research direction to enrich the tool library of nanoparticle assembly and their application in biosensing and nanomedicine.

Sparse-view X-ray CT based on a box-constrained nonlinear weighted anisotropic TV regularization.

Sparse-view computed tomography (CT) is an important way to reduce the negative effect of radiation exposure in medical imaging by skipping some X-ray projections. However, due to violating the Nyquist/Shannon sampling criterion, there are severe streaking artifacts in the reconstructed CT images that could mislead diagnosis. Noting the ill-posedness nature of the corresponding inverse problem in a sparse-view CT, minimizing an energy functional composed by an image fidelity term together with properly chosen regularization terms is widely used to reconstruct a medical meaningful attenuation image. In this paper, we propose a regularization, called the box-constrained nonlinear weighted anisotropic total variation (box-constrained NWATV), and minimize the regularization term accompanying the least square fitting using an alternative direction method of multipliers (ADMM) type method. The proposed method is validated through the Shepp-Logan phantom model, alongisde the actual walnut X-ray projections provided by Finnish Inverse Problems Society and the human lung images. The experimental results show that the reconstruction speed of the proposed method is significantly accelerated compared to the existing $ L_1/L_2 $ regularization method. Precisely, the central processing unit (CPU) time is reduced more than 8 times.

Convergence of Bregman Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers for Nonseparable Nonconvex Objective with Linear Constraints

Convergence of Bregman Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers for Nonseparable Nonconvex Objective with Linear Constraints

Conduction band photonic trapping via band gap reversal of brookite quantum dots using controlled graphitization for tuning a multi-exciton photoswitchable high-performance semiconductor.

Brookite exists as the metastable phase of titania and often mediates the transformation of anatase to rutile. The photocatalytic competence of brookite relative to polymorphs anatase and rutile has generally been considered structurally and energetically unfavourable for reasons that remain largely unknown and unchallenged. However, the process of phase transformation and performance related cooperativity among all three polymorphs has recently unlocked alternative directions for exploring brookite photovoltaics. Here, we demonstrate the programmable re-configuration of anatase to quantum confined reduced graphene (rGO)-brookite and show it is entirely modulated by surface-driven effects. Key components to this mechanism suggest that the self-assembly of rGO-brookite quantum dots is defect driven through pathways that favour a direct-to-indirect band gap reversal resulting from the graphitization of brookite. The accompaniment of new bandgap characteristics under quantum confinement introduce new hybridized energy states at the graphitic carbon-brookite juncture by modulation of the intrinsic sp2 character to extrinsic sp3 clusters intermediate to graphene quantum dots (GQDs) and graphene oxide quantum dots (GOQDs). Evidenced by the intercalation of photochromic/fluorescent carbazole and anthracene moieties within the rGO framework by self-assembly, we show that the acquired fluorescence and luminescence properties of rGO-brookite are multi-emissive and reversibly quenchable under light excitation and from solvent polarity differences. Further, tuning the excitonic response of rGO-brookite by modulation of the photoluminescence (PL) signal intensity signifies coordinated interaction between localised carbazole and benz(a)anthracene moities which can undergo further structural refinement to adapt more optimally to both internal and external energy waves. Distinguishable by a large red-shift in the photoluminescent emission peak at λ479 nm in the NIR region, we infer that a photoelectron sink driven by the quantum confinement of a narrow band gap of 0.78 eV formed from the orbital overlap of unoccupied interfacial sites promotes strong e-h+ coupling in the hybridized defect structure imposing a high charge separation by hindering e-h+ recombination. Modulation of interlayer spacing between rGO sheets and the synergy of complexation between intercalated carbazole/benz(a)nthracene can be adapted to achieve rapid photodegradation characteristics for DSSC applications.

The Cluster Analysis by Using Nonparametric Cubic B-Spline Modeling for Longitudinal Data

Longitudinal data is becoming increasingly common, especially in the medical and economic fields, and various methods have been analyzed and developed to analyze this type of data.
 In this research, the focus was on compiling and analyzing this data, as cluster analysis plays an important role in identifying and grouping co-expressed subfiles over time and employing them on the nonparametric smoothing cubic B-spline model, which is characterized by providing continuous first and second derivatives, resulting in a smoother curve with fewer abrupt changes in slope. It is also more flexible and can pick up on more complex patterns and fluctuations in the data.
 The longitudinal balanced data profile was compiled into subgroups by penalizing the pairwise distances between the coefficients of the cubic B-spline model using one of the common penalize functions, the Minimax Concave Penalty function (MCP). This method, in turn, works to determine the number of clusters through one of the model selection criteria, Bayesian information criteria (BIC), and we used optimization methods to solve their equations. Therefore, we applied the alternative direction method of the ADMM multiplier algorithm to reach approximate solutions to find the estimators of the nonparametric model using R statistical software.Longitudinally balanced data were generated in the simulation study, as the number of subjects was 60 and the number of repeats (time) was 10 for each subject. The simulation was iterated 100 times, and it showed that employing the MCP partial methods on the cubic model can group profiles into clusters, which is the aim of this paper.
 
 Paper type: Research paper.

Do We Need Free Money? On the Debate about Universal Basic Income

In this article, the author proposes that instead of asking whether a universal basic income is a chance for Russia, we should think about another question: do we need it?
 The idea of a universal basic income (UBI), understood as an unconditional monthly cash payment provided to everyone and proclaimed as a response to the problem of poverty and technological unemployment in the era of digitalisation and robotisation, is the subject of discussion of the results of a collective study conducted under the leadership of a prominent specialist in the field of labour economics, level and quality of life of the population V. N. Bobkova. Having considered the main theoretical and methodological provisions of UBI, its advantages and disadvantages, having analysed country experiments on the introduction of UBI, interviewing experts and the population about the prospects for introducing UBI in Russia, having analysed the macroeconomic consequences based on an expert simulation dynamic model, the researchers answered affirmatively to the question posed “Universal basic income: a chance for Russia?” and believe that the transition to UBI in the country can be carried out gradually, through various transitional forms.
 First, the main arguments made in favour of introducing a UBI are false. The prediction that jobs will disappear in the future due to technological change is wildly exaggerated. There are doubts that UBI will be fair and can combat poverty and inequality. There is little reason to believe that a UBI is a better alternative to the current welfare system. Secondly, no one can accurately answer what the consequences of implementing UBI will be. Conclusions about its benefits are based on the results of country experiments and microsimulation modelling. However, these approaches suffer from a number of shortcomings and remain suggestive rather than evidence-based. This article raises the question of whether it would be better to wait for other countries to try UBI first to better understand its advantages and disadvantages. Thirdly, the author argues that the introduction of a UBI is not the only way to solve problems in the social security system and the labour market, and suggests alternative directions for socio-economic policy.

Stop trying to predict elections only with twitter – There are other data sources and technical issues to be improved

Since the popularization of social media (SM) platforms, researchers have been trying to use their data to predict electoral results. Previous surveys point out that the most used approach is based on volume and sentiment analysis of posts on Twitter. However, they are almost unanimous in presenting that the results are not better than chance. In this context, this study aims to investigate the feasibility of predicting electoral results based only on Twitter, discover the main issues, and draw guidelines for future alternative directions. For this, we reviewed the evolution of election polling and predictions, including the “polling crises” of 1936 and 1948, and their similarities with current approaches. We also built on the official SM platforms' documentation and on our experience collecting and analyzing large-scale data from many SM platforms. Lastly, we analyzed nine reviews on predicting elections with SM data from 2013 to 2021. We observed that, contrary to initial expectations, most of the current research with Twitter has been unable to solve many of the challenges encountered since initial studies, and also shares many of the characteristics of unsuccessful straw polls performed before 1936. We illustrate that by highlighting the impracticability of polling over Twitter due to several biases and technical barriers, the need for external data, the high dependency on the arbitrary decisions of researchers, and the constant change in platforms' scenarios, that may invalidate specific models. Lastly, we indicate some of the possible future directions, such as a focus on creating repeatable processes; the use of SM data as part of statistical models, instead of polling; diversifying the input data sources, including multiple SM platforms and non-SM data such as polls and economic indicators; using machine learning for regression of the vote share, rather than for sentiment analysis; and dealing with the uncertainty of the highly divergent polling results.

Alternative directions of coal supply to Poland as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian war

Alternative directions of coal supply to Poland as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian war

Arah Kebijakan dalam Penataan Kawasan Sempadan Rel Kereta Api di Kecamatan Labuhan Ratu Berdasarkan Rencana Tata Ruang Wilayah (RTRW) Kota Bandar Lampung Tahun 2021-2041

The research conducted aims to implement policies regarding the arrangement of railroad border areas, especially settlements located in Labuhan Ratu District based on Regional Regulation Number 4 of 2021-2041 concerning the Regional Spatial Plan (RTRW) of Bandar Lampung City. The research method used is descriptive qualitative. The research was conducted along the railroad tracks in Labuhan Ratu Subdistrict. The data collection stage was carried out using field observation methods and interviews with resource persons both local residents and related parties. The results showed that the existence of settlements has become a problem in itself both for the safety of train travel and the security and quality of life of the community. This happens because the existing policies have not been implemented optimally, so there is a need for alternative policies in structuring residential areas located on the railroad border. his research provides a theoretical contribution in making alternative policy directions in structuring residential areas on the railroad border, especially in Labuhan Ratu District, Bandar Lampung City.

Robust adaptive algorithm for widely-linear Hammerstein system and its application

The Hammerstein model is a crucial model frequently employed in the field of signal processing. This paper focuses on the widely-linear (WL) complex-valued adaptive filtering and proposes a WL Hammerstein system model. Firstly, a cost function which minimizes the complex correntropic loss criterion is constructed. Subsequently, by extending the alternate direction method of multipliers (ADMM) optimization and non-convex projection method to the WL model, and leveraging the special structure of the autocorrelation matrix in the WL Hammerstein system, a robust recursive adaptive filtering algorithm for the WL Hammerstein system is proposed, along with its simplified version. More importantly, the performance analysis is studied, in which the convergence performance and the mean-square performance are provided. Simulations about system identification and stereophonic acoustic echo cancelation (SAEC) are carried out to validate the theoretical analysis and demonstrate the superior performance of the algorithms in this paper.

Arduino Obstacle Avoiding + Voice Control + Bluetooth Control Robot

The project is design to build an obstacle avoidance robotic vehicle using ultrasonic sensors for its movement. A microcontroller (ATmega328) is used to achieve the desired operation. A robot is a machine that can perform task automatically or with guidance. The project proposes robotic vehicle that has an intelligence built in it such that it directs itself whenever an obstacle comes in its path. This robotic vehicle is built, using a micro-controller of AT mega 328family. An ultrasonic sensor is used to detect any obstacle ahead of it and sends a command to the micro-controller. Depending on the input signal received, the micro-controller redirects the robot to move in an alternate direction by actuating the motors which are interfaced to it through a motor driver. Some of the project is built with the IR sensors has its own application so in our project those application is not compactable so we are using ultrasonic sensor

An ADMM-based parallel algorithm for solving traffic assignment problem with elastic demand

Efficiently solving the user equilibrium traffic assignment problem with elastic demand (UE-TAPED) for transportation networks is a critical problem for transportation studies. Most existing UE-TAPED algorithms are designed using a sequential computing scheme, which cannot take advantage of advanced parallel computing power. Therefore, this study focuses on model decomposition and parallelization, proposing an origin-based formulation for UE-TAPED and proving an equivalent reformulation of the original problem. Furthermore, the alternative direction method of multipliers (ADMM) is employed to decompose the original problem into independent link-based subproblems, which can solve large-scale problems with small storage space. In addition, to enhance the efficiency of our algorithm, the parallel computing technology with optimal parallel computing schedule is implemented to solve the link-based subproblems. Numerical experiments are performed to validate the computation efficiency of the proposed parallel algorithm.

Intelligent-Reflecting-Surface-Enhanced Cell-Free Symbiotic Radio Systems

This paper considers a novel intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) assisted cell-free symbiotic radio (SR) system, where an IRS is employed to facilitate the transmission from all the base stations (BSs) to the primary receivers (PRs), i.e., the primary transmission, and simultaneously, to send messages to the Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, i.e., the secondary transmission. We aim to minimize the bit error rate (BER) of the IRS symbols by jointly optimizing the transmit beamformers at all the BSs and the IRS phase shifts. To solve this non-convex problem, we propose a plenty-based algorithm by using the multidimensional complex quadratic transform (MCQT) and the consensus alternative direction method of multipliers (ADMM) methods, and obtain a high-performance solution. Besides, the convergence of the proposed algorithm is analyzed. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and show that the proposed algorithm outperforms two baselines under different setups.

Encoding of continuous perceptual choices in human early visual cortex.

Research on the neural mechanisms of perceptual decision-making has typically focused on simple categorical choices, say between two alternative motion directions. Studies on such discrete alternatives have often suggested that choices are encoded either in a motor-based or in an abstract, categorical format in regions beyond sensory cortex. In this study, we used motion stimuli that could vary anywhere between 0° and 360° to assess how the brain encodes choices for features that span the full sensory continuum. We employed a combination of neuroimaging and encoding models based on Gaussian process regression to assess how either stimuli or choices were encoded in brain responses. We found that single-voxel tuning patterns could be used to reconstruct the trial-by-trial physical direction of motion as well as the participants' continuous choices. Importantly, these continuous choice signals were primarily observed in early visual areas. The tuning properties in this region generalized between choice encoding and stimulus encoding, even for reports that reflected pure guessing. We found only little information related to the decision outcome in regions beyond visual cortex, such as parietal cortex, possibly because our task did not involve differential motor preparation. This could suggest that decisions for continuous stimuli take can place already in sensory brain regions, potentially using similar mechanisms to the sensory recruitment in visual working memory.

Unimodular Waveform Design for the DFRC System with Constrained Communication QoS

In this study, we investigated two waveform design problems for a dual-functional radar communication (DFRC) system, taking into consideration different constrained communication quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. Our objective was to minimize the mean-square error (MSE) of radar beampattern matching as the cost function. To this end, the multi-user interference (MUI) energy constraint and constructive interference (CI) constraint were, respectively, formulated to ensure the communication QoS. It is important to note that we designed a strict per-user MUI energy constraint at each sampling moment to achieve more accurate control over communication performance. Additionally, we introduced a constant-modulus constraint to optimize the efficiency of the radio frequency (RF) amplifier. To tackle the nonconvex waveform design problems encountered, we employed the alternative direction methods of multipliers (ADMM) technique. This allowed us to decompose the original problem into two solvable subproblems, which were then solved using the majorization–minimization (MM) method and geometrical structure. Finally, we obtained extensive simulation results which demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed algorithm.

A study on dislocation of the centre of rotation in nasomaxillary complex growth and development

ABSTRACT Purpose This study aimed to detect the centre of spiral similarity (CS), an improvement of the centre of rotation when the jaw shows standard growth, and to evaluate and examine the dislocation of CS depending on the skeletal type, sex and age. Materials and Methods This study included 107 patients aged 5–15 years (62 females and 45 males) examined at Osaka Dental University Hospital’s Department of Orthodontics for the primary complaint of malocclusion. For each patient, lateral cephalometric radiographs were taken before and after treatment. Skeletal types were classified into three groups (Class I, II and III) according to the McNamara analysis, and degrees of cervical vertebral maturation were classified into two groups (under 11 and 11 or over). We calculated CS using our previously reported method, derived the projective CS (pCS) to evaluate the dislocation of CS and compared pCS between skeletal groups. Results The CS of Class I was located approximately 17–21 mm anterior and 4–8 mm inferior to the sella. Significant differences in pCS were found between Classes I and III. Furthermore, the sign of pCS showed an opposite trend depending on sex. Conclusion The CS of ‘Class I and under 11’ is located near the spheno-ethmoidal synchondrosis, while that of ‘Class III and under 11’ was away from there in alternate directions for males and females. Our results provide insights into the trends that require different treatment strategies based on sex or other personal characteristics in orthodontics.