To reduce mutual coupling of a two-level nested array (TLNA) with an even number of sensors, we propose an improved array configuration that exhibits all the good properties of the prototype optimal configuration under the constraint of a fixed number of sensors N and achieves reduction of mutual coupling. Compared with the prototype optimal TLNA (POTLNA), which inner level and outer level both have N/2 sensors, those of the improved optimal TLNA (IOTLNA) are N/2-1 and N/2+1. It is proved that the physical aperture and uniform degrees of freedom (uDOFs) of IOTLNA are the same as those of POTLNA, and the number of sensor pairs with small separations of IOTLNA is reduced. We also construct an improved optimal second-order super nested array (SNA) by using the IOTLNA as the parent nested array, termed IOTLNA-SNA, which has the same physical aperture and the same uDOFs, as well as the IOTLNA. Numerical simulations demonstrate the better performance of the improved array configurations.

For the frequency-division-duplex (FDD)-based massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, channel state information (CSI) feedback plays a critical role. Although deep learning has been used to compress the CSI feedback, some issues like truncation and noise still need further investigation. Facing these practical concerns, we propose an improved model (called CsiNet-Plus), which includes a truncation process and a channel noise process. Simulation results demonstrate that the CsiNet-Plus outperforms the existing CsiNet. The performance interchangeability between truncated decimal digits and the signal-to-noise-ratio helps support flexible configuration.

For the three-user X channel, its degree of freedom (DoF) 9/5 has been shown achievable theoretically through asymptotic model with infinite resources, which is impractical. In this article, we explore the propagation delay (PD) feature among different links to maximize the achievable DoF with the minimum cost. Since perfect interference alignment (IA) is impossible for 9 messages within 5 time-slots, at least one extra time-slot should be utilized. By the cyclic polynomial approach, we propose a scheme with the maximum achievable DoF of 5/3 for 10 messages within 6 time-slots. Feasibility conditions in the Euclidean space are also deduced, which demonstrates a quite wide range of node arrangements.

This letter solves the energy efficiency optimization problem for the simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) systems with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), multiple input single output (MISO) and power-splitting structures, where each user may have different individual quality of service (QoS) requirements about information and energy. Nonlinear energy harvesting model is used. Alternate optimization approach is adopted to find the solution, which shows a fast convergence behavior. Simulation results show the proposed scheme has higher energy efficiency than existing dual-layer iteration and throughput maximization methods.

Microblogs are a rising social network with distinguishing features such as simplicity and convenience and has already attracted a large number of users and triggered massive information explosion concerning individuals' own statuses and opinions. While sentiment analysis of the messages in microblogs is of great value, most of present studies are on English microblogs and few are on Chinese microblogs. Compared to English, Chinese has its unique expression style, such as no spaces or other word delimiters. Furthermore, Chinese short text also has its own properties. Thus we are inspired to explore effective features for sentiment classification of Chinese short text. In this paper, we propose to study user-related sentiment classification of Chinese microblogs in terms of the statistical and semantic characteristics, and deisgn the corresponding features: ratio of positive words and negative words (PNR), position feature (POS), collocation of verbs (COL), auxiliary words (AU). Then we employ an SVM-based method to classify the sentiment. Experiments show that the features we design is effective in recognizing the sentiment of messages in microblogs.

In a wireless ad hoc network (MANET), nodes can form a centerless, self-organizing, multi-hop dynamic network without any centralized control function, while hidden and exposed terminals seriously affect the network performance. Meanwhile, the wireless network node is evolving from single communication function to jointly providing a self precise positioning function, especially in indoor environments where GPS cannot work well. However, the existing medium access control (MAC) protocols only deal with collision control for data transmission without positioning function. In this paper, we propose a MAC protocol based on 802.11 standard to enable a node with self-positioning function, which is further used to solve hidden and exposed terminal problems. The location of a network node is obtained through exchanging of MAC frames jointly using a time of arrival (TOA) algorithm. Then, nodes use the location information to calculate the interference range, and judge whether they can transmit concurrently. Simulation shows that the positioning function of the proposed MAC protocol works well, and the corresponding MAC protocol can achieve higher throughput, lower average end-to-end delay and lower packet loss rate than that without self-localization function.

In recent years, researchers have tried to create unhindered human-computer interaction by giving virtual agents human-like conversational skills. Predicting backchannel feedback for agent listeners has become a novel research hot-spot. The main goal of this paper is to identify appropriate features and methods for backchannel prediction in Mandarin conversations. Firstly, multimodal Mandarin conversations are recorded for the analysis of backchannel behaviors. In order to eliminate individual difference in the original face-to-face conversations, more backchannels from different listeners are gathered together. These data confirm that backchannels occurring in the speakers' pauses form a vast majority in Mandarin conversations. Both prosodic and visual features are used in backchannel prediction. Four types of models based on the speakers' pauses are built by using support vector machine classifiers. An evaluation of the pause-based prediction model has shown relatively high accuracy in consideration of the optional nature of backchannel feedback. Finally, the results of the subjective evaluation validate that the conversations performed between humans and virtual listeners using backchannels predicted by the proposed models is more unhindered compared to other backchannel prediction methods.

In this paper, we propose a boundary-aware superpixel segmentation method, which could quickly and exactly extract superpixel with a non-iteration framework. The basic idea is to construct a minimum spanning tree (MST) based on structure edge to measure the local similarity among pixels, and then label each pixel as the index with shortest path seeds. Intuitively, we first construct MST on the original pixels with boundary feature to calculate the similarity of adjacent pixels. Then the geodesic distance between pixels can be exactly obtained based on two-round tree recursions. We determinate pixel label as the shortest path seed index. Experimental results on BSD500 segmentation benchmark demonstrate the proposed method obtains best performance compared with seven state-of-the-art methods. Especially for the low density situation, our method can obtain the boundary-aware oversegmentation region.

Along with the fast development of blue economy, wireless communication in oceans has received extensive attention in recent years, and opportunistic networks without any aid from fixed infrastructure or centralized management are expected to play an important role in such highly dynamic environments. Here, link prediction can help nodes to select proper links for data forwarding to reduce transmission failure. The existing prediction schemes are mainly based on analytical models with no adaptability, and consider relatively simple and small terrestrial wireless networks. In this paper, we propose a new link prediction algorithm based on machine learning, which is composed of an extractor of convolutional layers and an estimator of long short-term memory to extract useful representations of time-series data and identify effective long-term dependencies. The experiments manifest that the proposed scheme is more effective and flexible compared with the other link prediction schemes.

The effect of the hidden terminal (HT) over multi-hop cascaded wireless networks with the omni-directional full-duplex relays will cause data collision. We allocate the frequency band among different hops in an orthogonal way based on link grouping strategy to avoid this HT problem. In order to maximize the achievable rate, an optimal frequency allocation scheme is proposed by boundary alignment. Performance analyses are provided and further validated by the simulation results.

This letter proposes a fast superpixel segmentation method based on boundary sampling and interpolation. The basic idea is as follow: instead of labeling local region pixels, we estimate superpixel boundary by interpolating candidate boundary pixel from a down-sampling image segmentation. On the one hand, there exists high spatial redundancy within each local region, which could be discarded. On the other hand, we estimate the labels of candidate boundary pixels via sampling superpixel boundary within corresponding neighbour. Benefiting from the reduction of candidate pixel distance calculation, the proposed method significantly accelerates superpixel segmentation. Experiments on BSD500 benchmark demonstrate that our method needs half the time compared with the state-of-the-arts while almost no accuracy reduction.

To improve the performance of underwater acoustic communications, this letter proposes a polar coding scheme with adaptive channel equalization, which can reduce the amount of feedback information. Furthermore, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mechanism is provided to mitigate the impact of estimation errors. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the turbo equalization in bit error rate. Computational complexity analysis is also provided for comparison.

Interference alignment (IA) in temporal domain is important in the case of single-antenna vehicle communications. In this paper, perfect cyclic IA based on propagation delay is extended to the K×2 X channels with two receivers and arbitrary transmitters K≥2, which achieves the maximal multiplexing gain by obtaining the theoretical degree of freedom of 2K/(K+1). We deduce the alignment and separability conditions, and propose a general scheme which is flexible in setting the index of time-slot for IA at the receiver side. Furthermore, the feasibility of the proposed scheme in the two-/three- Euclidean space is analyzed and demonstrated.

Compared with the unicast scenario, X channels with multicast messaging can support richer transmission scenarios. The transmission efficiency of the wireless multicast X channel is an important and open problem. This article studies the degrees of freedom of a propagation-delay based multicast X channel with two transmitters and arbitrary receivers, where each transmitter sends K different messages and each receiver desires K - 1 of them from each transmitter. The cyclic polynomial approach is adopted for modeling and analysis. The DoF upper bound is analyzed and shown to be unreachable. Then a suboptimal scheme with one extra time-slot cycle is proposed, which uses the cyclic interference alignment method and achieves a DoF of K - 1. Finally, the feasibility conditions in the Euclidean space are derived and the potential applications are demonstrated for underwater acoustic and terrestrial radio communications.

To obtain a full picture of potential applications for propagation-delay based X channels, it is important to obtain all feasible schemes of cyclic interference alignment including the encoder, channel instance, and decoder. However, when the dimension goes larger, theoretical analysis about this issue will become tedious and even impossible. In this letter, we propose a computer-aided solution by searching the channel space and the scheduling space, which can find all feasible schemes in details. Examples are given for some typical X channels. Computational complexity is further analyzed.

Underwater acoustic channels (UWA) are usually sparse, which can be exploited for adaptive equalization to improve the system performance. For the shallow UWA channels, based on the proportional minimum symbol error rate (PMSER) criterion, the adaptive equalization framework requires the sparsity selection. Since the sparsity of the L0 norm is stronger than that of the L1, we choose it to achieve better convergence. However, because the L0 norm leads to NP-hard problems, it is difficult to find an efficient solution. In order to solve this problem, we choose the Gaussian function to approximate the L0 norm. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme obtains better performance than the L1 based counterpart.

This letter proposes a new superpixel segmentation algorithm based on global similarity and contour region transformation. The basic idea is that pixels surrounded by the same contour are more likely to belong to the same object region, which could be easily clustered into the same superpixel. To this end, we use contour scanning to estimate the global similarity between pixels and corresponded centers. In addition, we introduce pixel's gradient information of contour transform map to enhance the pixel's global similarity to overcome the missing contours in blurred region. Benefited from our global similarity, the proposed method could adherent with blurred and low contrast boundaries. A large number of experiments on BSDS500 and VOC2012 datasets show that the proposed algorithm performs better than traditional SLIC.

Device-to-device (D2D) content delivery reduces the energy consumption of frequent content retrieval in future content-centric cellular networks based on proximal content delivery. Compared with unicast, multicast may be more efficient since it serves the content requests of multiple users simultaneously. The serving efficiency mainly depends on the selection of multicast transmitter, which has not been well addressed. In this letter, we consider the match degree between the multicast content of transmitter and the required content of receiver based on social relationship between transceivers. By integrating the effects of communication environments and match degree into the selection procedure, a multicast UE selection scheme is proposed to improve the number of benefited receivers from D2D multicast. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can efficiently improve the performance of D2D multicast content delivery under different communication environments.

In underwater acoustic communication systems based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), taking clipping to reduce the peak-to-average power ratio leads to nonlinear distortion of the signal, making the receiver unable to recover the faded signal accurately. In this letter, an Aquila optimizer-based convolutional attention block stacked network (AO-CABNet) is proposed to replace the receiver to improve the ability to recover the original signal. Simulation results show that the AO method has better optimization capability to quickly obtain the optimal parameters of the network model, and the proposed AO-CABNet structure outperforms existing schemes.

This letter proposes a scheme for the backward transmission of the propagation-delay based three-user X channel, which is reciprocal to the forward transmission. The given scheme successfully delivers 10 expected messages in 6 time-slots by cyclic interference alignment without loss of degrees of freedom, which supports efficient bidirectional transmission between the two ends of the three-user X channel.