No abstract

No abstract

BackgroundImpulse control and related disorders (ICRDs) are clinically complications in Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, the clinical characteristics of ICRDs in Chinese PD patients were rarely reported. We aimed to explore the prevalence and the clinical profile of ICRDs in Chinese patients with PD.Methods142 Chinese PD patients were consecutively enrolled. The symptoms of ICRDs were assessed with the Questionnaire for Impulsive-Compulsive Disorders. The clinical characteristics of patients with ICRDs and without ICRDs were compared.ResultsICRDs were present in 31% of our patients. The most common ICRDs were compulsive medication use (11.3%) and punding (9.2%); the least frequent were walkabout (1.4%). Variables independently associated with ICRDs were earlier onset of the disease (≤55 years), severe cognitive impairment (MMSE 10–20), the dose of dopamine agonist (>1 mg/d) and dyskinesia.ConclusionsICRDs was commonly found in Chinese PD patients. Earlier onset of the disease, the dose of dopamine agonist, severe cognitive impairment and dyskinesia are independent factors associated with ICRDs. Our results will be benefit for clinicians to assess the risk of developing ICRDs before delivering dopaminergic medication.

On Nov. 4 2008, the Federal Communications Commission adopted rules for unlicensed use of television white spaces. The IEEE 802.22 Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRAN) standard is the first IEEE standard utilizing cognitive radio (CR) technology to exploit the television white space. A decision engine that is able to respond to the changes in the radio environment is necessary to efficiently exploit underutilized spectrum resources and avoid interfering with the licensed systems (e.g., TV services). This paper discusses the development of a case-based reasoning cognitive engine (CBR-CE) for the IEEE 802.22 WRAN applications. The performance of the CBR-CE is evaluated under various radio scenarios and compared to that of several multi objective search based algorithms, including the hill climbing search (HCS) and the genetic algorithm (GA). The simulation results show that the developed CBR-CE can achieve comparable utility with faster adaptation than the search based cognitive engines after appropriate training / learning. The learning process of the CBR is also simulated and discussed.

No abstract

Compact fiber-to-chip light coupling with low loss and large bandwidth, SMF-to-chip edge coupler in particular, is extensively demanded in integrated photonics. The inescapable challenge of edge coupler is the difficulty and complexity in fabrication and packaging. During the past decades, metamaterials have manifested marvelous talent in integrated photonics. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an ultracompact edge coupler via metamaterial for SMF with a mode field diameter of 10 μm, which is fully based on silicon-on-insulator material and a CMOS compatible fabrication process. In this work, we theoretically analyze the coupling performance and the fabrication difficulty. The experimental results show that this metamaterial-based coupler possesses low coupling loss and broad bandwidth simultaneously with the coupling length of only 90 μm. At 1550 nm, the coupling losses are 2.22/2.53 dB/facet for the fundamental TE/TM mode, while the minimum average loss could reach 1.81 dB/facet. The measured bandwidth with a loss below 3 dB is as broad as 120 nm, covering the entire C/L band. Moreover, this prominently eased fabrication process potentially exhibits significant superiority in both research and industrial applications.

No abstract

No abstract