142 research outputs found
Energy efficient distributed receiver based cooperative medium access control protocol for wireless sensor networks.
M.Sc.Eng. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2013.Wireless sensor networks are battery operated computing and sensing devices that collaborate to
achieve a common goal for a specific application. They are formed by a cluster of sensor nodes
where each sensor node is composed of a single chip with embedded memory (microprocessor), a
transceiver for transmission and reception (resulting in the most energy consumption), a sensor device
for event detection and a power source to keep the node alive. Due to the environmental nature
of their application, it is not feasible to change or charge the power source once a sensor node is deployed.
The main design objective in WSNs (Wireless Sensor Networks) is to define effective and
efficient strategies to conserve energy for the nodes in the network. With regard to the transceiver,
the highest consumer of energy in a sensor node, the factors contributing to energy consumption in
wireless sensor networks include idle listening, where nodes keep listening on the channel with no
data to receive; ovehearing, where nodes hears or intercept data that is meant for a different node;
and collision, which occurs at the sink node when it receives data from different nodes at the same
time. These factors all arise during transmission or reception of data in the Transceiver module in
wireless sensor networks.
A MAC (Medium Access Control) protocol is one of the techniques that enables successful operation
while minimizing the energy consumption in the network. Its task is to avoid collision,
reduce overhearing and to reduce idle listening by properly managing the state of each node in the
network. The aim, when designing a MAC protocol for WSNs is to achieve a balance amongst
minimum energy consumption, minimum latency, maximum fault-tolerance and providing QoS
(Quality of Service).
To carefully achieve this balance, this dissertation has proposed, designed, simulated and analyzed
a new cooperative MAC scheme with an overhearing avoidance technique with the aim of
minimizing energy consumption by attempting to minimize the overhearing in the WSN. The new
MAC protocol for WSNs supports the cooperative diversity and overhearing communications in
order to reduce the effects of energy consumption thus increase the network lifetime, providing improved
communication reliability and further mitigating the effects of multipath fading in WSNs.
The MAC scheme in this work focuses on cooperation with overhearing avoidance and reducing
transmissions in case of link failures in order to minimize energy consumption. The cooperative
MAC scheme presented herein uses the standard IEEE 802.15.4 scheme as its base physical
model. It introduces cooperation, overhearing avoidance, receiver based relay node selection and a Markov-based channel state estimation. The performance analysis of the developed Energy Efficient
Distributed Receiver based MAC (E2DRCMAC) protocol for WSNs shows an improvement
from the standard IEEE 802.15.4 MAC layer with regard to the energy consumption, throughput,
reliability of message delivery, bit error rates, system capacity, packet delay, packet error rates, and
packet delivery ratios
Joint transceiver design and power optimization for wireless sensor networks in underground mines
Avec les grands dĂ©veloppements des technologies de communication sans fil, les rĂ©seaux de capteurs sans fil (WSN) ont attirĂ© beaucoup dâattention dans le monde entier au cours de la derniĂšre dĂ©cennie. Les rĂ©seaux de capteurs sans fil sont maintenant utilisĂ©s pour a surveillance sanitaire, la gestion des catastrophes, la dĂ©fense, les tĂ©lĂ©communications, etc. De tels rĂ©seaux sont utilisĂ©s dans de nombreuses applications industrielles et commerciales comme la surveillance des processus industriels et de lâenvironnement, etc. Un rĂ©seau WSN est une collection de transducteurs spĂ©cialisĂ©s connus sous le nom de noeuds de capteurs avec une liaison de communication distribuĂ©e de maniĂšre alĂ©atoire dans tous les emplacements pour surveiller les paramĂštres. Chaque noeud de capteur est Ă©quipĂ© dâun transducteur, dâun processeur de signal, dâune unitĂ© dâalimentation et dâun Ă©metteur-rĂ©cepteur. Les WSN sont maintenant largement utilisĂ©s dans lâindustrie miniĂšre souterraine pour surveiller certains paramĂštres environnementaux, comme la quantitĂ© de gaz, dâeau, la tempĂ©rature, lâhumiditĂ©, le niveau dâoxygĂšne, de poussiĂšre, etc. Dans le cas de la surveillance de lâenvironnement, un WSN peut ĂȘtre remplacĂ© de maniĂšre Ă©quivalente par un rĂ©seau Ă relais Ă entrĂ©es et sorties multiples (MIMO). Les rĂ©seaux de relais multisauts ont attirĂ© un intĂ©rĂȘt de recherche important ces derniers temps grĂące Ă leur capacitĂ© Ă augmenter la portĂ©e de la couverture. La liaison de communication rĂ©seau dâune source vers une destination est mise en oeuvre en utilisant un schĂ©ma dâamplification/transmission (AF) ou de dĂ©codage/transfert (DF). Le relais AF reçoit des informations du relais prĂ©cĂ©dent et amplifie simplement le signal reçu, puis il le transmet au relais suivant. Dâautre part, le relais DF dĂ©code dâabord le signal reçu, puis il le transmet au relais suivant au deuxiĂšme Ă©tage sâil peut parfaitement dĂ©coder le signal entrant. En raison de la simplicitĂ© analytique, dans cette thĂšse, nous considĂ©rons le schĂ©ma de relais AF et les rĂ©sultats de ce travail peuvent Ă©galement ĂȘtre dĂ©veloppĂ©s pour le relais DF. La conception dâun Ă©metteur/rĂ©cepteur pour le relais MIMO multisauts est trĂšs difficile. Car Ă lâĂ©tape de relais L, il y a 2L canaux possibles. Donc, pour un rĂ©seau Ă grande Ă©chelle, il nâest pas Ă©conomique dâenvoyer un signal par tous les liens possibles. Au lieu de cela, nous pouvons trouver le meilleur chemin de la source Ă la destination qui donne le rapport signal sur bruit (SNR) de bout en bout le plus Ă©levĂ©. Nous pouvons minimiser la fonction objectif dâerreur quadratique moyenne (MSE) ou de taux dâerreur binaire (BER) en envoyant le signal utilisant le chemin sĂ©lectionnĂ©. Lâensemble de relais dans le chemin reste actif et le reste des relais sâĂ©teint, ce qui permet dâĂ©conomiser de lâĂ©nergie afin dâamĂ©liorer la durĂ©e de vie du rĂ©seau. Le meilleur chemin de transmission de signal a Ă©tĂ© Ă©tudiĂ© dans la littĂ©rature pour un relais MIMO Ă deux bonds mais est plus complexe pour un ...With the great developments in wireless communication technologies, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have gained attention worldwide in the past decade and are now being used in health monitoring, disaster management, defense, telecommunications, etc. Such networks are used in many industrial and consumer applications such as industrial process and environment monitoring, among others. A WSN network is a collection of specialized transducers known as sensor nodes with a communication link distributed randomly in any locations to monitor environmental parameters such as water level, and temperature. Each sensor node is equipped with a transducer, a signal processor, a power unit, and a transceiver. WSNs are now being widely used in the underground mining industry to monitor environmental parameters, including the amount of gas, water, temperature, humidity, oxygen level, dust, etc. The WSN for environment monitoring can be equivalently replaced by a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay network. Multi-hop relay networks have attracted significant research interest in recent years for their capability in increasing the coverage range. The network communication link from a source to a destination is implemented using the amplify-and-forward (AF) or decode-and-forward (DF) schemes. The AF relay receives information from the previous relay and simply amplifies the received signal and then forwards it to the next relay. On the other hand, the DF relay first decodes the received signal and then forwards it to the next relay in the second stage if it can perfectly decode the incoming signal. For analytical simplicity, in this thesis, we consider the AF relaying scheme and the results of this work can also be developed for the DF relay. The transceiver design for multi-hop MIMO relay is very challenging. This is because at the L-th relay stage, there are 2L possible channels. So, for a large scale network, it is not economical to send the signal through all possible links. Instead, we can find the best path from source-to-destination that gives the highest end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We can minimize the mean square error (MSE) or bit error rate (BER) objective function by sending the signal using the selected path. The set of relay in the path remains active and the rest of the relays are turned off which can save power to enhance network life-time. The best path signal transmission has been carried out in the literature for 2-hop MIMO relay and for multiple relaying it becomes very complex. In the first part of this thesis, we propose an optimal best path finding algorithm at perfect channel state information (CSI). We consider a parallel multi-hop multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) AF relay system where a linear minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) receiver is used at the destination. We simplify the parallel network into equivalent series multi-hop MIMO relay link using best relaying, where the best relay ..
Performance enhancement of wireless communication systems through QoS optimisation
Providing quality of service (QoS) in a communication network is essential but challenging, especially when the complexities of wireless and mobile networks are added. The issues of how to achieve the intended performances, such as reliability and efficiency, at the minimal resource cost for wireless communications and networking have not been fully addressed. In this dissertation, we have investigated different data transmission schemes in different wireless communication systems such as wireless sensor network, device-to-device communications and vehicular networks. We have focused on cooperative communications through relaying and proposed a method to maximise the QoS performance by finding optimum transmission schemes. Furthermore, the performance trade-offs that we have identified show that both cooperative and non-cooperative transmission schemes could have advantages as well as disadvantages in offering QoS. In the analytical approach, we have derived the closed-form expressions of the outage probability, throughput and energy efficiency for different transmission schemes in wireless and mobile networks, in addition to applying other QoS metrics such as packet delivery ratio, packet loss rate and average end-to-end delay. We have shown that multi-hop relaying through cooperative communications can outperform non-cooperative transmission schemes in many cases. Furthermore, we have also analysed the optimum required transmission power for different transmission ranges to obtain the maximum energy efficiency or maximum achievable data rate with the minimum outage probability and bit error rate in cellular network. The proposed analytical and modelling approaches are used in wireless sensor networks, device-to-device communications and vehicular networks. The results generated have suggested an adaptive transmission strategy where the system can decide when and how each of transmission schemes should be adopted to achieve the best performance in varied conditions. In addition, the system can also choose proper transmitting power levels under the changing transmission distance to increase and maintain the network reliability and system efficiency accordingly. Consequently, these functions will lead to the optimized QoS in a given network
Analysis and Ad-hoc Networking Solutions for Cooperative Relaying Systems
Users of mobile networks are increasingly demanding higher data rates from
their service providers. To cater to this demand, various signal processing
and networking algorithms have been proposed. Amongst them the multiple
input multiple output (MIMO) scheme of wireless communications is one of
the most promising options. However, due to certain physical restrictions,
e.g., size, it is not possible for many devices to have multiple antennas
on them. Also, most of the devices currently in use are single-antenna
devices. Such devices can make use of the MIMO scheme by employing
cooperative MIMO methods. This involves nearby nodes utilizing the antennas
of each other to form virtual antenna arrays (VAAs). Nodes with limited
communication ranges can further employ multi-hopping to be able to
communicate with far away nodes. However, an ad-hoc communications scheme
with cooperative MIMO multi-hopping can be challenging to implement because
of its de-centralized nature and lack of a centralized controling entity
such as a base-station. This thesis looks at methods to alleviate the
problems faced by such networks.In the first part of this thesis, we look,
analytically, at the relaying scheme under consideration and derive closed
form expressions for certain performance measures (signal to noise ratio
(SNR), symbol error rate (SER), bit error rate (BER), and capacity) for the
co-located and cooperative multiple antenna schemes in different relaying
configurations (amplify-and-forward and decode-and-forward) and different
antenna configurations (single input single output (SISO), single input
multiple output (SIMO) and MIMO). These expressions show the importance of
reducing the number of hops in multi-hop communications to achieve a better
performance. We can also see the impact of different antenna configurations
and different transmit powers on the number of hops through these
simplified expressions.We also look at the impact of synchronization errors
on the cooperative MIMO communications scheme and derive a lower bound of
the SINR and an expression for the BER in the high SNR regime. These
expressions can help the network designers to ensure that the quality of
service (QoS) is satisfied even in the worst-case scenarios. In the second
part of the thesis we present some algorithms developed by us to help the
set-up and functioning of cluster-based ad-hoc networks that employ
cooperative relaying. We present a clustering algorithm that takes into
account the battery status of nodes in order to ensure a longer network
life-time. We also present a routing mechanism that is tailored for use in
cooperative MIMO multi-hop relaying. The benefits of both schemes are shown
through simulations.A method to handle data in ad-hoc networks using
distributed hash tables (DHTs) is also presented. Moreover, we also present
a physical layer security mechanism for multi-hop relaying. We also analyze
the physical layer security mechanism for the cooperative MIMO scheme. This
analysis shows that the cooperative MIMO scheme is more beneficial than
co-located MIMO in terms of the information theoretic limits of the
physical layer security.ï»żNutzer mobiler Netzwerke fordern zunehmend höhere Datenraten von ihren
Dienstleistern. Um diesem Bedarf gerecht zu werden, wurden verschiedene
Signalverarbeitungsalgorithmen entwickelt. Dabei ist das "Multiple input
multiple output" (MIMO)-Verfahren fĂŒr die drahtlose Kommunikation eine der
vielversprechendsten Techniken. Jedoch ist aufgrund bestimmter
physikalischer BeschrĂ€nkungen, wie zum Beispiel die BaugröĂe, die
Verwendung von mehreren Antennen fĂŒr viele EndgerĂ€te nicht möglich. Dennoch
können solche Ein-Antennen-GerÀte durch den Einsatz kooperativer
MIMO-Verfahren von den Vorteilen des MIMO-Prinzips profitieren.
Dabei schlieĂen sich naheliegende Knoten zusammen um ein sogenanntes
virtuelles Antennen-Array zu bilden. Weiterhin können Knoten mit
beschrÀnktem Kommunikationsbereich durch mehrere Hops mit weiter
entfernten Knoten kommunizieren. Allerdings stellt der Aufbau eines solchen
Ad-hoc-Netzwerks mit kooperativen MIMO-FÀhigkeiten aufgrund der dezentralen
Natur und das Fehlen einer zentral-steuernden Einheit, wie einer
Basisstation, eine groĂe Herausforderung dar. Diese Arbeit befasst sich mit
den Problemstellungen dieser Netzwerke und bietet verschiedene
LösungsansÀtze.Im ersten Teil dieser Arbeit werden analytisch in
sich geschlossene AusdrĂŒcke fĂŒr ein kooperatives
Relaying-System bezĂŒglicher verschiedener Metriken, wie das
Signal-Rausch-VerhÀltnis, die Symbolfehlerrate, die Bitfehlerrate und die
KapazitÀt, hergeleitet. Dabei werden die "Amplify-and forward" und
"Decode-and-forward" Relaying-Protokolle, sowie unterschiedliche
Mehrantennen-Konfigurationen, wie "Single input single output" (SISO),
"Single input multiple output" (SIMO) und MIMO betrachtet. Diese AusdrĂŒcke
zeigen die Bedeutung der Reduzierung der Hop-Anzahl in Mehr-Hop-Systemen,
um eine höhere Leistung zu erzielen. Zudem werden die Auswirkungen
verschiedener Antennen-Konfigurationen und Sendeleistungen auf die Anzahl
der Hops analysiert.  Weiterhin wird der Einfluss von
Synchronisationsfehlern auf das kooperative MIMO-Verfahren herausgestellt
und daraus eine untere Grenze fĂŒr das
Signal-zu-Interferenz-und-Rausch-VerhĂ€ltnis, sowie ein Ausdruck fĂŒr die
Bitfehlerrate bei hohem Signal-Rausch-VerhÀltnis entwickelt.
Diese ZusammenhÀnge sollen Netzwerk-Designern helfen die QualitÀt des
Services auch in den Worst-Case-Szenarien sicherzustellen.
Im zweiten Teil der Arbeit werden einige innovative
Algorithmen vorgestellt, die die Einrichtung und die Funktionsweise von
Cluster-basierten Ad-hoc-Netzwerken, die kooperative Relays verwenden,
erleichtern und verbessern. Darunter befinden sich ein
Clustering-Algorithmus, der den Batteriestatus der Knoten berĂŒcksichtigt,
um eine lÀngere Lebensdauer des Netzwerks zu gewÀhrleisten und ein
Routing-Mechanismus, der auf den Einsatz in kooperativen MIMO
Mehr-Hop-Systemen zugeschnitten ist. Die Vorteile beider Algorithmen werden
durch Simulationen veranschaulicht.
Eine Methode, die Daten in Ad-hoc-Netzwerken mit verteilten Hash-Tabellen
behandelt wird ebenfalls vorgestellt. DarĂŒber hinaus wird auch
ein Sicherheitsmechanismus fĂŒr die physikalische Schicht in
Multi-Hop-Systemen und kooperativen MIMO-Systemen prÀsentiert. Eine Analyse
zeigt, dass das kooperative MIMO-Verfahren deutliche Vorteile gegenĂŒber dem
konventionellen MIMO-Verfahren hinsichtlich der informationstheoretischen
Grenzen der Sicherheit auf der physikalischen Schicht aufweist
Practical packet combining for use with cooperative and non-cooperative ARQ schemes in wireless sensor networks
Although it is envisaged that advances in technology will follow a "Moores Law" trend for many years to come, one of the aims of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is to reduce the size of the nodes as much as possible. The issue of limited resources on current devices may therefore not improve much with future designs as a result. There is a pressing need, therefore, for simple, efficient protocols and algorithms that can maximise the use of available resources in an energy efficient manner.
In this thesis an improved packet combining scheme useful on low power, resource-constrained sensor networks is developed. The algorithm is applicable in areas where
currently only more complex combining approaches are used. These include cooperative communications and hybrid-ARQ schemes which have been shown to be of major benefit for wireless communications. Using the packet combining scheme developed in this thesis more than an 85% reduction in energy costs are possible over previous, similar approaches. Both simulated and practical experiments are developed in which the algorithm is shown to offer up to approximately 2.5 dB reduction in the required Signal-to-Noise ratio (SNR) for a particular Packet Error Rate (PER). This is a welcome result as complex schemes, such as maximal-ratio combining, are not implementable on many of the resource constrained devices under consideration.
A motivational side study on the transitional region is also carried out in this thesis. This region has been shown to be somewhat of a problem for WSNs. It is characterised
by variable packet reception rate caused by a combination of fading and manufacturing variances in the radio receivers. Experiments are carried out to determine whether
or not a spread-spectrum architecture has any effect on the size of this region, as has been suggested in previous work. It is shown that, for the particular setup tested, the
transitional region still has significant extent even when employing a spread-spectrum architecture. This result further motivates the need for the packet combining scheme
developed as it is precisely in zones such as the transitional region that packet combining will be of most benefit
Cooperative routing for collision minimization in wireless sensor networks
Cooperative communication has gained much interest due to its ability to exploit the
broadcasting nature of the wireless medium to mitigate multipath fading. There has
been considerable amount of research on how cooperative transmission can improve the
performance of the network by focusing on the physical layer issues. During the past few
years, the researchers have started to take into consideration cooperative transmission in
routing and there has been a growing interest in designing and evaluating cooperative
routing protocols. Most of the existing cooperative routing algorithms are designed to
reduce the energy consumption; however, packet collision minimization using cooperative
routing has not been addressed yet. This dissertation presents an optimization framework
to minimize collision probability using cooperative routing in wireless sensor networks.
More specifically, we develop a mathematical model and formulate the problem as a
large-scale Mixed Integer Non-Linear Programming problem. We also propose a solution
based on the branch and bound algorithm augmented with reducing the search space
(branch and bound space reduction). The proposed strategy builds up the optimal routes
from each source to the sink node by providing the best set of hops in each route, the best
set of relays, and the optimal power allocation for the cooperative transmission links. To
reduce the computational complexity, we propose two near optimal cooperative routing
algorithms. In the first near optimal algorithm, we solve the problem by decoupling the
optimal power allocation scheme from optimal route selection. Therefore, the problem is formulated by an Integer Non-Linear Programming, which is solved using a branch
and bound space reduced method. In the second near optimal algorithm, the cooperative
routing problem is solved by decoupling the transmission power and the relay node se-
lection from the route selection. After solving the routing problems, the power allocation
is applied in the selected route. Simulation results show the algorithms can significantly
reduce the collision probability compared with existing cooperative routing schemes
Cooperative diversity architecture for wireless networks
The burgeoning demand for wireless networks necessitates reliable and energy-efficient communication architectures that are robust to the impairments of the wireless medium. Cooperative communication emerges as an appropriate technique that mitigates the severe effects of channel impairments through the use of cooperative diversity. Notwithstanding the fact that cooperative diversity is a very suitable technique to provide robust and reliable communication, the realization of cooperation idea precipitates many technical challenges that are associated with the overhaul of the wireless network design. This dissertation proposes a cooperative diversity architecture for wireless networks, that spans the physical, medium access and routing layers with parameters (jointly) optimized for overall system performance, taking into account the cost of cooperation in each layer. First, we present a new cooperative MAC protocol, COMAC, that enables cooperation of multiple relays in a distributed fashion. Through the proposed protocol, we investigate and demonstrate at what rate and for which scenarios cooperation brings benefits in terms of throughput and energy-efficiency. Our results demonstrate that cooperation initiation has a significant cost on both the throughput and energy-efficiency, which have been often disregarded in the literature. We next study the energy minimal joint cooperator selection and power assignment problem under transmit power constraints such that the cooperative transmissions satisfy an average bit error rate (BER) target. We derive the average BER of the cooperative system and we propose a simple yet close approximation to facilitate cooperator selection methods with closed form power assignment solutions. We formulate the joint cooperator selection and power assignment problem, we present the optimal solution (O-CSPA) and we also propose a distributed implementation (D-CSPA). Our results demonstrate that smart cooperator selection is essential, as it provides efficient resource allocation with reduced overhead leading to improved system performance. Our implementation and simulations of D-CSPA algorithm in COMAC protocol demonstrate that our distributed algorithm causes minimal overhead, yields improved throughput and reduced delay, while reducing the energy consumption. Finally, we propose a cooperative routing framework and a cross-layer architecture, RECOMAC, for wireless ad hoc networks. The RECOMAC architecture facilitates formation of cooperative sets on the fly in a decentralized and distributed fashion, requiring no overhead for relay selection and actuation, and resulting in opportunistically formed cooperative links that provide robust and reliable end-to-end communication, without the need for establishing a prior non-cooperative route, unlike existing schemes. The results demonstrate that under wireless channel impairments, such as fading and path loss, our cooperative forwarding framework and cross-layer architecture, RECOMAC significantly improve the system performance, in terms of throughput and delay, as compared to non-cooperative conventional layered network architecture with AODV routing over IEEE 802.11 MAC
System design and performance analysis of wireless body area networks
One key solution to provide affordable and proactive healthcare facilities to overcome the fast world population growth and a shortage of medical professionals is through health monitoring systems capable of early disease detection and real-time data transmission leading to considerable improvements in the quality of human life. Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are proposed as promising approaches to providing better mobility and flexibility experience than traditional wired medical systems by using low-power, miniaturised sensors inside, around, or off the human body and are employed to monitor physiological signals. However, the design of reliable and energy efficient in-body communication systems is still a major research challenge since implant devices are characterised by strict requirements on size, energy consumption and safety. Moreover, there is still no agreement regarding QoS support in WBANs.
The first part of this work concentrates on the design and performance evaluation of WBAN communication systems involving the âin-body to in-bodyâ and âin-body to on-bodyâ scenarios. The essential step is to derive the statistical WBAN path loss (PL) models, which characterise the signal propagation energy loss transmitting via intra-body region. Moreover, from the point of view of human body safety evaluation, the obtained specific absorption rate (SAR) values are compared with the latest Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.15.6 Task Group technical standard and the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) safety guidelines. Link budget analysis is then presented using a range of energy-efficient modulation schemes, and the results are given including the transmission distance, data rate and transmitting power in individual sections. On the other hand, major quality of service (QoS) support challenges in WBANs are discussed and investigated. To achieve higher lifetime and lower network energy consumption, different data routing protocol methods, including incremental relaying and the two-relay based routing technique are taken into account. A set of key QoS metrics for linear mathematical models is given along with the related subjective functions. The incremental relaying routing protocol promises significant enhancements in in-body WBAN network lifetime by minimising the overall communication distance while the two-relay based routing method achieves better performance in terms of emergency data transmission and high traffic condition, QoS-aware WBANs design. Moreover, to handle real-time high data transmission applications such as capsule endoscope image transmission, a flexible QoS-aware wireless body area sensor networks (WBASNs) model is proposed and evaluated that can bring novel solutions for a realistic multi-user hospital environment regarding information packet collision probability, manageable numbers of sensor nodes and a wide range of data rates
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