Energy Efficient Switch Policy for Small Cells

Switch policy is essential for small cells to properly serve variable number of users in an energy efficient way.However,frequently switching small cell base stations(SBSs) may increase the network operating cost,especially when there is an nonnegligible start-up energy cost.To this end,by observing the variety of user number,we focus on the design of a switch policy which minimize the cumulative energy consumption.A given user transmission rate is guaranteed and the capability of SBSs are limited as well.According to the knowledge on user number variety,we classify the energy consumption problem into two cases.In complete information case,to minimize the cumulative energy consumption,an offline solution is proposed according to critical segments.A heuristic algorithm for incomplete information case(HAIIC) is proposed by tracking the difference of cumulative energy consumption.The upper bound of the Energy Consumption Ratio(ECR) for HAIIC is derived as well.In addition,a practical Q-learning based probabilistic policy is proposed.Simulation results show that the proposed HAIIC algorithm is able to save energy efficiently.

Altered small-world,functional brain networks in patients with lower back pain

In this study, we aimed to investigate the functional network changes that occur in patients with lower back pain(LBP). We also investigated the link between LBP and the small-world properties of functional networks within the brain. Functional MRI(fMRI) was performed on 20 individuals with LBP and 17 age and gender-matched normal controls during the resting state. The severity of the pain in the individuals with LBP ranged from 5 to 8 on a 0–10 scale, with 0 indicating no pain. Network-based statistics were performed to investigate the differences between the brain networks of individuals with LBP and those of normal controls. Several small-world parameters of brain networks were calculated, including the clustering coefficient, characteristic path length, local efficiency, and global efficiency. These criteria reflect the overall network efficiency. The brain networks in the individuals with LBP due to herniation of a lumbar disc demonstrated a significantly longer characteristic path length as well as a lower clustering coefficient, global efficiency, and local efficiency compared to those in control subjects. We found that LBP patients tended to have unstable and inefficient brain networks when compared with healthy controls. In addition, LBP individuals showed significantly decreased functional connectivity in the anterior cingulate cortex, middle cingulate cortex, post cingulate cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, occipital gyrus, postcentral gyrus, precentral gyrus, supplementary motor area, thalamus, fusiform, caudate, and cerebellum. We believe that these regions may be involved in the pathophysiology of lower back pain.

Study of preferred background luminance in watching computer screen in children

Background In recent years,computers have been intensively used at home.In contrast to paper-based books and documents,computer screen is self-illuminated with larger screen-background luminance difference,which greatly induces visual discomfort.To compensate for that,one effective solution is to offer an additional background luminance.In this study,we investigated whether and to what extent additional background lighting is needed in looking at a computer display comfortably.Methods In this study,60 healthy children aged from 9 to 12 years and 58 adults aged from 21 to 39 years participated in the experiments.They were asked to choose their most preferred background luminance intensities at three screen luminance levels.The data were analyzed by Matlab （R2012b） and SPSS 20.0.Results Both children and adult participants selected a non-dark background as their comfortable lighting condition when watching a computer display （children：t （59）=22.0,P 〈0.01,adults：t （57）=15.5,P 〈0.01）.Comparatively,children preferred brighter background in general （F （1,116）=7.0,P 〈0.01）.More importantly,participants＇ preferred background luminance levels were linearly correlated with screen luminance intensities （children：slope=0.97,R2=0.98; adults：slope=0.38,R2=1.00）.Conclusion These results indicate that varying background luminance to maintain screen-background luminance ratio is beneficial to human visual comfort.