Swallowing Semen: 14 Things to Know About Safety, Benefits, More
Despite its reputation for being a rich source of protein, you would likely have to swallow gallons of semen to see any dietary health benefits. That said, swallowing may have some health benefits. Here's what you should know.
Semen evaluation in heroin and methadone addicts - PubMed
We studied 32 heroin and methadone addicts, divided into 4 groups according to the type of drugs used: 5 heroin-dependent, 10 taking methadone plus heroin more or less constantly, 10 taking methadone plus heroin occasionally, and 7 taking methadone only. 93% of the heroin addicts and 65% of those ta …
In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.
Smart. Funny. Fearless."It's pretty safe to say that Spy was the most influential magazine of the 1980s. It might have remade New York's cultural landscape; it definitely changed the whole tone of magazine journalism. It was cruel, brilliant, beautifully written and perfectly designed, and feared by all. There's no magazine I know of that's so continually referenced, held up as a benchmark, and whose demise is so lamented" --Dave Eggers. "It's a piece of garbage" --Donald Trump.
[1908.06720] Quantum algorithms for Second-Order Cone Programming and Support Vector Machines
We present a quantum interior-point method (IPM) for second-order cone programming (SOCP) that runs in time $\widetilde{O} \left( n\sqrt{r} \frac{ζκ}{δ^2} \log...
Max-Min Fairness in IRS-Aided Multi-Cell MISO Systems With Joint Transmit and Reflective Beamforming | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore
This paper investigates an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-aided multi-cell multiple-input single-output (MISO) network with a set of multi-antenna base stations (BSs) each communicating with multiple single-antenna users, in which an IRS is dedicatedly deployed for assisting the wireless transmission and suppressing the inter-cell interference. Under this setup, we jointly optimize the coordinated transmit beamforming vectors at the BSs and the reflective beamforming vector (with both reflecting phases and amplitudes) at the IRS, for the purpose of maximizing the minimum weighted signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at the users, subject to the individual maximum transmit power constraints at the BSs and the reflection constraints at the IRS. To solve the non-convex min-weighted-SINR maximization problem, we first present an exact-alternating-optimization approach to optimize the transmit and reflective beamforming vectors in an alternating manner, in which the transmit and reflective beamforming optimization subproblems are solved exactly in each iteration by using the techniques of second-order-cone program (SOCP) and semi-definite relaxation (SDR), respectively. However, the exact-alternating-optimization approach has high computational complexity, and may lead to compromised performance due to the uncertainty of randomization in SDR. To avoid these drawbacks, we further propose an inexact-alternating-optimization approach, in which the transmit and reflective beamforming optimization subproblems are solved inexactly in each iteration based on the principle of successive convex approximation (SCA). In addition, to further reduce the computational complexity, we propose a low-complexity inexact-alternating-optimization design, in which the reflective beamforming optimization subproblem is solved more inexactly. Via numerical results, it is shown that the proposed three designs achieve significantly increased min-weighted-SINR values, as compared with benchmark schemes without the IRS or with random reflective beamforming. It is also shown that the inexact-alternating-optimization design outperforms the exact-alternating-optimization one in terms of both the achieved min-weighted-SINR value and the computational complexity, while the low-complexity inexact-alternating-optimization design has much lower computational complexity with slightly compromised performance. Furthermore, we show that our proposed design can be applied to the scenario with unit-amplitude reflection constraints, with a negligible performance loss.
In this paper, a novel framework for guaranteeing ultra-reliable millimeter wave (mmW) communications using multiple artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) is proposed. The use of multiple AI-powered RISs allows changing the propagation direction of the signals transmitted from a mmW access point (AP) thereby improving coverage particularly for non-line-of-sight (NLoS) areas. However, due to the possibility of highly stochastic blockage over mmW links, designing an intelligent controller to jointly optimize the mmW AP beam and RIS phase shifts is a daunting task. In this regard, first, a parametric risk-sensitive episodic return is proposed to maximize the expected bitrate and mitigate the risk of mmW link blockage. Then, a closed-form approximation of the policy gradient of the risk-sensitive episodic return is analytically derived. Next, the problem of joint beamforming for mmW AP and phase shift control for mmW RISs is modeled as an identical payoff stochastic game within a cooperative multi-agent environment, in which the agents are the mmW AP and the RISs. Two centralized and distributed controllers are proposed to control the policies of the mmW AP and RISs. To directly find a near optimal solution, the parametric functional-form policies for the controllers are modeled using deep recurrent neural networks (RNNs). The deep RNN-based controllers are then trained based on the derived closed-form gradient of the risk-sensitive episodic return. It is proved that the gradient update algorithm converges to the same locally optimal parameters as the deep RNN-based centralized and distributed controllers. Simulation results show that the error between the policies of the optimal and the RNN-based controllers is less than 1.5%. Moreover, the variance of the achievable rates resulting from the deep RNN-based controllers is 60% less than the variance of the risk-averse baseline.
Joint Trajectory and Passive Beamforming Design for Intelligent Reflecting Surface-Aided UAV Communications: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach - NASA/ADS
In this paper, the intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication system is studied, where an UAV is deployed to serve the user equipments (UEs) with the assistance of multiple IRSs mounted on several buildings to enhance the communication quality between UAV and UEs. We aim to maximize the overall weighted data rate and geographical fairness of all the UEs via jointly optimizing the UAV's trajectory and the phase shifts of reflecting elements of IRSs. Since the system is complex and the environment is dynamic, it is challenging to derive low-complexity algorithms by using conventional optimization methods. To address this issue, we first propose a deep Q-network (DQN)-based low-complex solution by discretizing the trajectory and phase shift, which is suitable for practical systems with discrete phase-shift control. Furthermore, we propose a deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG)-based solution to tackle the case with continuous trajectory and phase shift design. The experimental results prove that the proposed solutions achieve better performance compared to other traditional benchmarks.
Joint Trajectory and Passive Beamforming Design for Intelligent Reflecting Surface-Aided UAV Communications: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach | Papers With Code
Joint User Scheduling, Phase Shift Control, and Beamforming Optimization in Intelligent Reflecting Surface-Aided Systems | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore
In this paper, we formulate a joint uplink scheduling, phase shift control, and beamforming optimization problem in intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-aided systems. We consider maximizing the aggregate throughput and achieving the proportional fairness as objectives. We propose a deep reinforcement learning-based user scheduling, phase shift control, beamforming optimization (DUPB) algorithm to solve the joint problem. The proposed DUPB algorithm applies the neural combinatorial optimization (NCO) technique to solve the user scheduling subproblem, in which a stochastic user scheduling policy is learned by deep neural networks with attention mechanism. Curriculum learning with deep deterministic policy gradient (CL-DDPG) is used in the proposed DUPB algorithm to jointly optimize the phase shift control and beamforming vectors. The knowledge on the hidden convexity of the joint problem is exploited to facilitate the policy learning in CL-DDPG. Simulation results show that, with the maximum aggregate throughput as the objective, the proposed DUPB algorithm achieves an aggregate throughput that is higher than the alternating optimization (AO)-based algorithms. Moreover, the throughput fairness among the users is improved when proportional fairness is used as the objective. The proposed DUPB algorithm outperforms the AO-based algorithms in terms of runtime when the number of reflecting elements is large.
Considerations for the future development of virtual technology as a rehabilitation tool - PMC
Virtual environments (VE) are a powerful tool for various forms of rehabilitation. Coupling VE with high-speed networking [Tele-Immersion] that approaches speeds of 100 Gb/sec can greatly expand its influence in rehabilitation. Accordingly, these new ...
In this paper, a novel framework for guaranteeing ultra-reliable millimeter wave (mmW) communications using multiple artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) is proposed. The use of multiple AI-powered RISs allows changing the propagation direction of the signals transmitted from a mmW access point (AP) thereby improving coverage particularly for non-line-of-sight (NLoS) areas. However, due to the possibility of highly stochastic blockage over mmW links, designing an intelligent controller to jointly optimize the mmW AP beam and RIS phase shifts is a daunting task. In this regard, first, a parametric risk-sensitive episodic return is proposed to maximize the expected bitrate and mitigate the risk of mmW link blockage. Then, a closed-form approximation of the policy gradient of the risk-sensitive episodic return is analytically derived. Next, the problem of joint beamforming for mmW AP and phase shift control for mmW RISs is modeled as an identical payoff stochastic game within a cooperative multi-agent environment, in which the agents are the mmW AP and the RISs. Two centralized and distributed controllers are proposed to control the policies of the mmW AP and RISs. To directly find a near optimal solution, the parametric functional-form policies for the controllers are modeled using deep recurrent neural networks (RNNs). The deep RNN-based controllers are then trained based on the derived closed-form gradient of the risk-sensitive episodic return. It is proved that the gradient update algorithm converges to the same locally optimal parameters as the deep RNN-based centralized and distributed controllers. Simulation results show that the error between the policies of the optimal and the RNN-based controllers is less than 1.5%. Moreover, the variance of the achievable rates resulting from the deep RNN-based controllers is 60% less than the variance of the risk-averse baseline.
In this paper, a novel framework for guaranteeing ultra-reliable millimeter wave (mmW) communications using multiple artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) is proposed. The use of multiple AI-powered RISs allows changing the propagation direction of the signals transmitted from a mmW access point (AP) thereby improving coverage particularly for non-line-of-sight (NLoS) areas. However, due to the possibility of highly stochastic blockage over mmW links, designing an intelligent controller to jointly optimize the mmW AP beam and RIS phase shifts is a daunting task. In this regard, first, a parametric risk-sensitive episodic return is proposed to maximize the expected bitrate and mitigate the risk of mmW link blockage. Then, a closed-form approximation of the policy gradient of the risk-sensitive episodic return is analytically derived. Next, the problem of joint beamforming for mmW AP and phase shift control for mmW RISs is modeled as an identical payoff stochastic game within a cooperative multi-agent environment, in which the agents are the mmW AP and the RISs. Two centralized and distributed controllers are proposed to control the policies of the mmW AP and RISs. To directly find a near optimal solution, the parametric functional-form policies for the controllers are modeled using deep recurrent neural networks (RNNs). The deep RNN-based controllers are then trained based on the derived closed-form gradient of the risk-sensitive episodic return. It is proved that the gradient update algorithm converges to the same locally optimal parameters as the deep RNN-based centralized and distributed controllers. Simulation results show that the error between the policies of the optimal and the RNN-based controllers is less than 1.5%. Moreover, the variance of the achievable rates resulting from the deep RNN-based controllers is 60% less than the variance of the risk-averse baseline.
Wireless Network Accurately and Inexpensively Monitors Patients' Breathing
A couple years ago we saw wireless technology that would allow us to see through walls. Now, the same team of researchers, from the University of Utah, is putting that motion detection technology to work monitoring breathing patterns. So not only can the network see through your bedroom wall, it can hear you breathing.