Attaining Fairness in Communication for Omniscience

This paper studies how to attain fairness in communication for omniscience that models the multi-terminal compress sensing problem and the coded cooperative data exchange problem where a set of users exchange their observations of a discrete multiple random source to attain omniscience—the state that all users recover the entire source. The optimal rate region containing all source coding rate vectors that achieve omniscience with the minimum sum rate is shown to coincide with the core (the solution set) of a coalitional game. Two game-theoretic fairness solutions are studied: the Shapley value and the egalitarian solution. It is shown that the Shapley value assigns each user the source coding rate measured by their remaining information of the multiple source given the common randomness that is shared by all users, while the egalitarian solution simply distributes the rates as evenly as possible in the core. To avoid the exponentially growing complexity of obtaining the Shapley value, a polynomial-time approximation method is proposed which utilizes the fact that the Shapley value is the mean value over all extreme points in the core. In addition, a steepest descent algorithm is proposed that converges in polynomial time on the fractional egalitarian solution in the core, which can be implemented by network coding schemes. Finally, it is shown that the game can be decomposed into subgames so that both the Shapley value and the egalitarian solution can be obtained within each subgame in a distributed manner with reduced complexity.

Experimental Research of Modulation-Coding Schemes Influence on Size of the DRM Digital Radio Broadcasting Service Area in the VHF Band. Part 2

The article presents the results of measurements of the parameters of the digital radio broadcasting DRM signal quality in the experimental zone of St. Petersburg in order to determine the influence of the transmission modes laid down in the DRM standard on the size of the service area.

Examining the Use of Personal Pronouns in Political Speeches by Tun Dr. Mahathir and President Trump

Personal pronouns are often used to the point they often get overlooked. Unlike content words, they do not convey meaning but portray the perception of the speaker (Nakaggwe, 2012). Looking deeper into this, personal pronouns have the power to include or exclude a person or people of the subject (Khafaga, 2021), and it is crucial to master them especially in the political context. However, cultural differences exist in the use of personal pronouns since culture affects the way a person communicates and interprets information (Gocheco, 2012). For this reason, this qualitative research attempts to identify the use of personal pronouns, specifically those that demonstrate inclusiveness and exclusiveness, in the collectivistic Malaysian and individualistic American cultures, and compare the similarities and differences in the use of personal pronouns in speeches given by Tun Dr. Mahathir who represents the collectivistic Malaysian culture and Mr. Trump who represents the individualistic American culture. The AntConc software was used to determine the speech profiles and identify the personal pronouns based on the coding schemes and guidelines. It was found that the most popular personal pronoun used in their speeches is we, while the least popular are me and the subject singular you. They was used more frequently by Tun Dr. Mahathir to indirectly address the audience, while Mr. Trump opted to directly convey his message by using the plural you. The results have practical implications for speech writing and political persuasion and negotiation skills.

To #medbikini or not to #medbikini: Potentially Unprofessional Behavior on Social Media for Healthcare Professionals – The Devil is in the Details (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Social media (SM) presence among healthcare professionals (HCPs) is ubiquitous and largely beneficial for their personal and professional lives. New standards are forming in the context of e-professionalism, which are loosening the predefined older and “offline” terms. With these benefits also come dangers, with exposure to evaluation on all levels from peers, superiors and the general public, as witnessed in the #medbikini affair. The “devils in the details” of e-professionalism boundaries are explored in this paper. OBJECTIVE Objectives of this study are: a) to develop a new coding scheme for the assessment of unprofessional behavior on Facebook (FB) of medical/dental students and faculty, b) to compare reliability between the old and new coding schemes, c) to compare gender-based differences for the assessment of the professional content on FB, d) to validate the new coding scheme, and e) to assess the level of and to characterize online professionalism on publicly available FB profiles of medical/dental students and faculty. METHODS A search was performed via a new FB account using systematic probabilistic sample of students and faculty in the University of Zagreb School of Medicine and School of Dental Medicine. Each profile was subsequently assessed with regard to professionalism based on previously published criteria, and compared using the “new coding scheme”, developed for this study. RESULTS Inter-coder reliability (ICR) shows an increase when “new coding matrix” was used for the comparison of gender-based coding results. Results show an increase in the gender-based agreement of the final codes for the category professionalism, from 85% in the 1st phase to 96.2% in the 2nd phase. Final results of the 2nd phase show there was almost no difference between women and men for coding “potentially unprofessional” content (2.9% vs. 2.6%), nor for coding “unprofessional” content (4.6% vs. 4.9%). For the definitive results, significant differences between students and faculty were identified regarding the existence of identifiable FB accounts (49.2% vs. 20.2%; χ21=30.73, P<.001) and affiliation of the school was revealed (93.7% vs. 65.2%, χ21=20.1, P<.001). In professionalism variable, students had less “potentially objectionable” content than faculty (2.9% vs. 4.2%), however more “unprofessional” content (5.8% vs. 0%). CONCLUSIONS “New coding matrix” for assessing professionalism of HCPs on FB is a validated and a more objective instrument. Gender of coders did not affect results for coding “unprofessional” nor “potentially objectionable” content using the newly developed methodology and criteria. This research emphasizes the role that context plays in perception of “unprofessional” and “potentially unprofessional/objectionable” content, and provides insight into the existence of different sets of rules for online and offline interaction, that marks behavior as e-(un)professional. The level of e-professionalism on FB profiles available for public viewing of medical/dental students and faculty has shown a high level of understanding of e-professionalism.

Developing Behavioral Coding to Understand Family Communication Breakdown in Dementia Care

Communication breakdown is a challenge for family caregivers of persons living with dementia. We adapted established theory and scales for computer-assisted behavioral coding to characterize caregiver communication for a secondary analysis. We developed verbal, nonverbal, and breakdown coding schemes and established reliability (κ > .85). Within the 221 family caregiving videos analyzed, 55% of exchanges were interactive, 30% were silence, 4% consisted of talking to self or others, and 8% included a breakdown. An average of 2.4 ( SD = 1.9) breakdowns occurred per observation and were successfully resolved 85% of the time, with 31% being resolved most successfully following only one flag and repair strategy. Caregivers were the primary speakers (67%); their communication preceded most breakdown (65%), and they primarily initiated the repairs after a breakdown (70%). Common repair strategies included clarifications (31%), asking questions (24%), and repeating information (24%). Associations between communication strategies and repair success will provide evidence for caregiver training.

Relative Weights of Temporal Envelope Cues in Different Frequency Regions for Mandarin Vowel, Consonant, and Lexical Tone Recognition

Objectives: Mandarin-speaking users of cochlear implants (CI) perform poorer than their English counterpart. This may be because present CI speech coding schemes are largely based on English. This study aims to evaluate the relative contributions of temporal envelope (E) cues to Mandarin phoneme (including vowel, and consonant) and lexical tone recognition to provide information for speech coding schemes specific to Mandarin.Design: Eleven normal hearing subjects were studied using acoustic temporal E cues that were extracted from 30 continuous frequency bands between 80 and 7,562 Hz using the Hilbert transform and divided into five frequency regions. Percent-correct recognition scores were obtained with acoustic E cues presented in three, four, and five frequency regions and their relative weights calculated using the least-square approach.Results: For stimuli with three, four, and five frequency regions, percent-correct scores for vowel recognition using E cues were 50.43–84.82%, 76.27–95.24%, and 96.58%, respectively; for consonant recognition 35.49–63.77%, 67.75–78.87%, and 87.87%; for lexical tone recognition 60.80–97.15%, 73.16–96.87%, and 96.73%. For frequency region 1 to frequency region 5, the mean weights in vowel recognition were 0.17, 0.31, 0.22, 0.18, and 0.12, respectively; in consonant recognition 0.10, 0.16, 0.18, 0.23, and 0.33; in lexical tone recognition 0.38, 0.18, 0.14, 0.16, and 0.14.Conclusion: Regions that contributed most for vowel recognition was Region 2 (502–1,022 Hz) that contains first formant (F1) information; Region 5 (3,856–7,562 Hz) contributed most to consonant recognition; Region 1 (80–502 Hz) that contains fundamental frequency (F0) information contributed most to lexical tone recognition.

Spectral efficiency analysis of two-user Downlink PD-NOMA with LTE modulation and coding schemes

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is a promising user multiplexing technique for future wireless networks that allows increasing their spectral efficiency (SE). Power-Domain NOMA (PD-NOMA) is one of the most perspective techniques in the NOMA group. It makes it possible to perform the transmission of information symbols of several users within the same time-frequency resource segment (RS) without a spreading code. Many research works show the high efficiency of PD-NOMA compared to the orthogonal multiple access (OMA). However, these results are obtained analytically using Shannon’s formula and not taking into account the real performance of existing modulation and coding schemes (MCS). The issue is that it is impossible to obtain the achievable practical performance of PD-NOMA systems in this way. We obtain the SE in RS of a PD-NOMA system with Long Term Evolution (LTE) MCS’s and compare it with OMA. As a result, we conclude that PD-NOMA gains the system SE when the multiplexed user’s signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) outreaches the threshold of the highest performing MCS provided for the transmission by a MCS table.

Wireless Sensor Networks for Enabling Smart Production Lines in Industry 4.0

With the deployment of data-driven assembly and production factories, challenges arise in sensor data acquisition and gathering. Different wireless technologies are currently used for transferring data, each with different advantages and constraints. In this paper, we present a hybrid network architecture for providing Quality of Service (QoS) in an industrial environment where guaranteed minimal data rates and maximal latency are of utmost importance for controlling devices and processes. The location of the access points (APs) is determined during the initial network-planning action, together with physical parameters such as frequency, transmit power, and modulation and coding schemes. Instead of performing network-planning just once before the network rollout, the network is monitored continuously by adding telemetry data to the frame header of all data streams, and the network is automatically reconfigured in real-time if the requirements are not met. By not using maximum transmit powers during the initial roll-out, more APs are needed, but coverage is guaranteed when new obstructions such as metallic racks or machinery are added. It is found that decreasing the transmit power by 6 dB gives the best trade-off between the number of required APs and network robustness. The proposed architecture is validated via simulations and via a proof-of-concept setup.

Transitioning from pandemic to normalcy: what police departments can learn from the rank-and-file

PurposeAfter more than 18 months of life during a pandemic, much of the world is beginning to transition back to some semblance of normalcy. As that happens, institutions – including policing – need to acknowledge changes that had been made during the pandemic and decide what modifications and innovations, if any, to continue moving forward.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use semi-structured interviews and focus groups of police personnel in the United States (US) and Canada. The sample includes police officers and frontline supervisors (n = 20). The authors conduct qualitative analysis using deductive and inductive coding schemes.FindingsThe sample identified four areas of adaptation during the pandemic: 1) safety measures, 2) personnel reallocation, 3) impacts on training and 4) innovation and role adjustments. These areas of adaptation prompted several recommendations for transitioning police agencies out of the pandemic.Originality/valueA growing number of studies are addressing police responses to the pandemic. Virtually all are quantitative in nature, including all studies investigating the perceptions of police personnel. The body of perceptual studies is extraordinarily small and primarily focuses on police executives, ignoring the views of the rank-and-file who are doing the work of street-level police business. This is the first study to delve into the perceptions of this group, and does so using a qualitative approach that permits a richer understanding of the nuances of perception.

Hidden Hypergraphs, Error-Correcting Codes, and Critical Learning in Hopfield Networks

In 1943, McCulloch and Pitts introduced a discrete recurrent neural network as a model for computation in brains. The work inspired breakthroughs such as the first computer design and the theory of finite automata. We focus on learning in Hopfield networks, a special case with symmetric weights and fixed-point attractor dynamics. Specifically, we explore minimum energy flow (MEF) as a scalable convex objective for determining network parameters. We catalog various properties of MEF, such as biological plausibility, and them compare to classical approaches in the theory of learning. Trained Hopfield networks can perform unsupervised clustering and define novel error-correcting coding schemes. They also efficiently find hidden structures (cliques) in graph theory. We extend this known connection from graphs to hypergraphs and discover n-node networks with robust storage of 2Ω(n1−ϵ) memories for any ϵ>0. In the case of graphs, we also determine a critical ratio of training samples at which networks generalize completely.