The superior spectral efficiency (SE) and user fairness feature of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) systems are achieved by exploiting user clustering (UC) more efficiently. However, a random UC ...certainly results in a suboptimal solution while an exhaustive search method comes at the cost of high complexity, especially for systems of medium-to-large size. To address this problem, we develop two efficient unsupervised machine learning based UC algorithms, namely k-means++ and improved k-means++, to effectively cluster users into disjoint clusters in cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CFmMIMO) system. Adopting full-pilot zero-forcing at access points (APs) to comprehensively assess the system performance, we formulate the sum SE optimization problem taking into account power constraints at APs, necessary conditions for implementing successive interference cancellation, and required SE constraints at user equipments. The formulated optimization problem is highly non-convex, and thus, it is difficult to obtain the global optimal solution. Therefore, we develop a simple yet efficient iterative algorithm for its solution. In addition, the performance of collocated massive MIMO-NOMA (COmMIMO-NOMA) system is also characterized. Numerical results are provided to show the superior performance of the proposed UC algorithms compared to baseline schemes. The effectiveness of applying NOMA in CFmMIMO and COmMIMO systems is also validated.
This article points out the need for postlesson affordance-based reflective discussions as the traditional outcome-based approach does not allow high levels of reflection to take place. After ...introducing the iceberg of reflection, it proposes a theoretical ground for discussions on the premise of learning affordances. Identifying the learning opportunities and factors of inhibition, teachers can holistically assess their teaching practices and orient the direction of future lessons. The article also suggests that postlesson affordance-based discussions should channel more diverse stakeholders with teacher-student discussions, peer discussions, and self-discussions based on the four lenses of critical reflection. Teachers can also invite different stakeholders in a joint discussion so that different voices can triangulate and complement each other. Acknowledging the importance of differential learning and teaching, the author recommends how teachers can hold discussions in different classroom contexts to foster language emergence and empower learners.
In 5G networks, a massive number of connections of high data rate services, e.g., video streaming services, certainly make the networks deteriorated because of extreme traffic congestion at the ...backhaul links of macro base stations (MBSs). Although ultra-dense networks (UDNs) have been considered as a promising architecture to stimulate the 5G networks, the congestion problem hampers the UDNs to provide mobile users (MUs), i.e., represented by device-to-device (D2D) pairs and shared downlink resource users (SUs), with high video delivery capacity. In this paper, we propose a social-aware caching and resource sharing (SCS) strategy for video streaming services in 5G UDNs. Particularly, we formulate the SCS problem by taking into account the social relationship of each D2D pair, the available storage of femtocell base stations (FBSs) and transmitters (TXs) of D2D pairs, the target signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) of SUs, and the popularity of videos. The SCS problem is then solved for 1) optimal number of caching copies of each video and optimal caching placements in the FBSs and 2) optimal resource sharing allocation between the SUs and the D2D pairs for D2D communications. This way, the workload at the backhaul links of the MBSs can be reduced. Simultaneously, an arbitrary MU can retrieve the videos alternately from the MBSs, FBSs, and TXs at high cache-hit ratio and maximum delivery capacity. Simulation results are analyzed to show the benefits of the proposed SCS strategy compared to other conventional schemes.
This is the first time in Vietnam that people have undergone “social distancing” to minimize the spreading of infectious disease, COVID-19. These deliberate preemptive strategies may have profound ...impacts on the mental health of the population. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the psychological impacts of COVID-19 on Vietnamese people and associated factors. We conducted a cross-sectional study during a one-week social distancing and isolation from April 7 to 14, 2020, in Vietnam. A snowball sampling technique was carried out to recruit participants. Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) was utilized to assess the psychological impacts of the COVID-19. Of all participants, 233 (16.4%) reported low level of PTSS; 76 (5.3%) rated as moderate, and 77 (5.4%) reported extreme psychological conditions. Being female, above 44 years old, or having a higher number of children in the family were positively associated with a higher level of psychological distress. Being self-employed/unemployed/retired was associated with a higher score of intrusion and hyperarousal subscale. Individuals who have a history of touching objects with the possibility of spreading coronavirus (utensils) were related to a higher level of avoidance. There were relatively high rates of participants suffering from PTSS during the first national lockdown related to COVID-19. Comprehensive strategies for the screen of psychological problems and to support high-risk groups are critical, especially females, middle-aged adults and the elderly, affected laborers, and health care professionals.
PurposeRisks are considered a significant obstacle to Green Building (GB) development and have recently received significant attention from both construction practitioners and academics. This study ...aimed to identify critical GB risks and explore the relationship between participants' characteristics and risk assessment.Design/methodology/approachFirstly, a list of GB risks was developed based on a comprehensive literature review and interviewing GB experts. After that, a survey of 207 construction professionals was then conducted to validate these GB risk factors. Finally, this research adopted the ANOVA test and hierarchical regression analysis to examine the relationship between participants' characteristics and risk assessment.FindingsThe results provided a list of GB risks classified and evaluated according to the GB project life cycle and, thus, may serve as a helpful reference for GB practitioners. Notably, the ANOVA analysis revealed that risk assessment negatively correlates with participants' GB experience, while their industry experience does not affect risk assessment. Furthermore, the hierarchical regression analysis proved that participant roles do not moderate the association between risk assessment and GB experience.Originality/valueThis study contributed to GB literature by implementing empirical research on GB risks in a developing country. The results implied the essential role of professionals with rich GB experience in risk management in GB projects. Furthermore, this research could help construction practitioners understand GB risks adequately and thereby have better risk-management strategies for future GB projects.
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•PAT is a key control tool for Continuous Manufacturing of solid dosage forms supporting real time release.•Tableting process is controlled by 2 PAT probes: blend uniformity in the ...press feeder and content uniformity of tablets.•The NIRS method allow a 100% on-line control of tablets at a speed up to 70,000 tablets per hour.•Chemometric solutions have been evaluated to monitor the tableting process: qualitative and quantitative approaches.•The quantitative approach was optimized in order to obtain a robust calibration.
The use of Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) as a fast and non-destructive technique was employed for the control and monitoring of the tableting step during a continuous manufacturing process.
Two NIRS methods were optimized in order to in-line control the blend uniformity in the tablet feed frame and the API concentration of freshly pressed tablets prior the ejection. The novelty of this work first lies in the acquisition speed of NIR spectra reaching up to 70,000 tablets/h. Partial Least Square (PLS) regression was used as chemometric tool for the computation that resulted in excellent predictive calibration results. A coefficient of correlation (r) value of 0.99 was obtained for both probes. The root mean square error of calibration (RMSEC) and the root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) were respectively 1.8% and 1.8% for active content in the tablet feeder and 2.2% and 2.3% for the tablet content. In addition, calibration performance and robustness of the methods were evaluated. Moreover several qualitative methods were proposed to monitor the tableting process in different stages of development (single wavelength, Principal Component Analysis, and Independent Component Analysis). In early phase development, the requirement/quality of the input material is not established yet; hence the use of a qualitative approach allows to confirm the suitability of the PAT methodology for in-process material monitoring & control. Later, the qualitative approach constitutes the foundation for the quantitative approach when input materials are fixed and larger production size occurs. The proposed strategy is a performant PAT tool for continuous manufacturing and a step forward to real time release.
A Quang Nam coastline, located in the central of Vietnam, has been strongly affected by severe erosion and accretion due to climate change and human activities. Thus, understanding the causes and ...mechanisms of coastal morphology changes is essential to offer optimal coastal management and protection solutions. In this research, the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) technique developed by the United States Geological Survey was adopted to calculate rate-of-change statistics from multiple historical coastline positions of Quang Nam province extracted from satellite images, i.e., Landsat and Sentinel images from 1990 to 2019. The coastal dynamic was digitized, visualized, and compared by two statistical parameters provided in DSAS, namely End Point Rate (EPR) and Linear Regression Rate (LRR). The final results reveal that the Quang Nam coast experienced remarkable phenomena of erosion and accumulation over the past three decades. The total number of erosional and accretional transects obtained from the EPR results are 401 and 414, with annual change rates of −1.7 and 0.77 m/year, respectively. The LRR parameter was also considered and illustrated a significant correlation with the EPR, as the obtained R2 value of 0.96. The lowest value of EPR over the period 1990–2019 is −42.4 m/year, highlighting the most significant erosion at the north of Cua Dai estuary, whereas coastline advance is recorded in the south segment. As a result, this study’s outcomes provide helpful information for better and sustainable coastal management in Quang Nam province of Vietnam.
Palladium, a near-infrared plasmonic material has been recognized for its use in photothermal therapy as an alternative to gold nanomaterials. However, its potential application has not been explored ...well in biomedical applications. In the present study, palladium nanoparticles were synthesized and the surface of the particles was successfully modified with chitosan oligosaccharide (COS), which improved the biocompatibility of the particles. More importantly, the particles were functionalized with RGD peptide, which improves particle accumulation in MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells and results in enhanced photothermal therapeutic effects under an 808-nm laser. The RGD peptide-linked, COS-coated palladium nanoparticles (Pd@COS-RGD) have good biocompatibility, water dispersity, and colloidal and physiological stability. They destroy the tumor effectively under 808-nm laser illumination at 2 W cm
power density. Further, Pd@COS-RGD gives good amplitude of photoacoustic signals, which facilitates the imaging of tumor tissues using a non-invasive photoacoustic tomography system. Finally, the fabricated Pd@COS-RGD acts as an ideal nanotheranostic agent for enhanced imaging and therapy of tumors using a non-invasive near-infrared laser.
Supervised contrastive learning (SCL) has recently emerged as an alternative to conventional machine learning and deep neural networks. In this study, we propose an SCL model with data augmentation ...techniques using phase-resolved partial discharge (PRPD) in gas-insulated switchgear (GIS). To increase the fault data for training, we employ Gaussian noise adding, Gaussian noise scaling, random cropping, and phase shifting for supervised contrastive loss. The performance of the proposed SCL was verified by four types of faults in the GIS and on-site noise using an on-line ultra-high-frequency (UHF) partial discharge (PD) monitoring system. The experimental results show that the proposed SCL achieves a classification accuracy of 97.28% and outperforms the other algorithms, including support vector machines (SVM), multilayer perceptron (MLP), and convolution neural networks (CNNs) in terms of classification accuracy, by 6.8%, 4.28%, 2.04%, respectively.
This study synthesized cellulose-g-poly(acrylic acid) with high water absorbency using the cellulose extracted from pineapple leaves. The synthesis experiment used a novel combination of ethylene ...glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) and azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) as the cross-linker and the initiator, respectively. Experimental results showed that the concentrations of AIBN and EGDMA had significant effects on the structure and the water absorbency of the cross-linked materials. The cellulose-g-poly(acrylic acid) synthesized with 0.5 wt% AIBN and 0.5 wt% EGDMA had an excellent swelling capacity of 1900 g/g in distilled water, significantly larger than previously reported ones. Compared with poly(acrylic acid), the cross-linked product demonstrated an absorbency improvement of 1.65 times in distilled water and 1.27 times in 8.6 ppm NaCl solution that was the highest salinity level in Ben Tre, Vietnam, in March 2020. Therefore, the obtained product showed high potential for agricultural applications, especially in coastal regions facing a growing thread of saltwater intrusion.
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