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This paper presents a new turbo decision feedback equalizer and decoder (TDFED) for the orthogonal time-frequency space (OTFS) system of underwater mobile acoustic communications where the communication channel suffers from severe multipath and Doppler effects simultaneously. The proposed TDFED employs a set of feedforward and feedback filters in the time domain instead of the common approach that employs a normalized least mean square equalizer in the delay-Doppler domain. The receiver also utilizes low-complexity improved proportionate normalized least mean square channel estimation in the delay-Doppler domain. Practical OTFS modulation schemes are designed for acoustic transmission at a center frequency of 115 kHz and a symbol rate of 11.5 ksps (kilo-symbols-per-second). Several lake experiments in mobile communication scenarios are conducted to evaluate the proposed OTFS in comparison to the single-carrier coherent modulation (SCCM) and the orthogonal frequency division modulation (OFDM) schemes. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed OTFS receiver effectively reduces the accuracy requirements of the Doppler compensation algorithm compared to the SCCM and OFDM schemes. The proposed TDFED algorithm achieves a much better bit error rate against long-multipath fading and severe Doppler shift than the existing delay-Doppler domain equalizers. 

This paper investigates the impact of mobility on underwater acoustic communication networks in which the propagation delay is comparable to or larger than the packet duration. An underwater acoustic wireless network, consisting of static and mobile nodes, is studied for its link-layer channel utilization. Synchronous and asynchronous media access control (MAC) protocols are employed with ALOHA, TDMA (time-division multiple access), and artificial intelligence (AI) agent nodes. The simulation results of a multi-node network show that the asynchronous MAC protocols achieve up to 6.66× higher channel utilization than synchronous protocols by allowing time slots to be shorter than the maximum propagation delay among nodes and permitting asynchronous transmission time. The high mobility of a few mobile nodes also favors asynchronous protocols and increases the overall channel utilization. However, node mobility causes more difficulties for the AI node to learn the environment, which may be ineffective to achieve higher gains in channel utilization. 

e present a sample of 305 QSO candidates having |b| < 30◦, the majority with GALEX magnitudes NUV < 18.75. To generate this sample, we apply UV-IR color selection criteria to photometric data from the Ultraviolet GAlactic Plane Survey (UVGAPS) as part of GALEX-CAUSE, the Million Quasars Catalog, Gaia DR2, and Pan-STARRS DR1. 165 of these 305 candidate UV-bright AGN (54%) have published spectroscopic redshifts from 45 different surveys, confirming them as AGN. We further obtained low-dispersion, optical, longslit spectra with the APO 3.5-m, MDM 2.4-m, and MDM 1.3-m telescopes for 84 of the candidates, and confirm 86% (N = 72) as AGN, generally with z < 0.6. These sources fill a gap in the Galactic latitude coverage of the available samples of known UV-bright QSO background probes. Along with a description of the confirmed QSO properties, we provide the fully-reduced, flux and wavelength-calibrated spectra of 84 low-latitude QSOs through the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes. Future HST/COS spectroscopy of these low-Galactic-latitude QSOs has the potential to transform our view of the Milky Way and Local Group circumgalactic medium. 

The formation of isothermal ω phase precipitates and its influence on subsequent fine-scale α precipitation is investigated in a metastable β-titanium alloy, Ti-10V-2Fe-3Al. Atom-probe tomography and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy reveal that the rejection of Al, a potent α stabilizer, from the growing isothermal ω precipitates at 330°C, aids in the formation of α precipitates. Additionally, the presence of α/ω and α/β interfaces conclusively establish that these α precipitates form at the β/ω interface. Interestingly, the local Al pile-up at this interface results in a substantially higher than equilibrium Al content within the α precipitates at the early stages of formation. This can be rationalized based on a novel three-phase β+ω+α metastable equilibrium at a lower annealing temperature (330°C, below the ω solvus). Subsequent annealing at a higher temperature (600°C, above the ω solvus), dissolves the ω precipitates and re-establishes the two-phase β+α equilibrium in concurrence with solution thermodynamic predictions. 

A finite horizon nonlinear optimal control problem is considered for which the associated Hamiltonian satisfies a uniform semiconcavity property with respect to its state and costate variables. It is shown that the value function for this optimal control problem is equivalent to the value of a min-max game, provided the time horizon considered is sufficiently short. This further reduces to maximization of a linear functional over a convex set. It is further proposed that the min-max game can be relaxed to a type of stat (stationary) game, in which no time horizon constraint is involved.