Source and channel coding using Fountain codes

The invention of Fountain codes is a major advance in the field of error correcting codes. The goal of this work is to study and develop algorithms for source and channel coding using a family of Fountain codes known as Raptor codes. From an asymptotic point of view, the best currently known sum-product decoding algorithm for non binary alphabets has a high complexity that limits its use in practice. For binary channels, sum-product decoding algorithms have been extensively studied and are known to perform well. In the first part of this work, we develop a decoding algorithm for binary codes on non-binary channels based on a combination of sum-product and maximum-likelihood decoding. We apply this algorithm to Raptor codes on both symmetric and non-symmetric channels. Our algorithm shows the best performance in terms of complexity and error rate per symbol for blocks of finite length for symmetric channels. Then, we examine the performance of Raptor codes under sum-product decoding when the transmission is taking place on piecewise stationary memoryless channels and on channels with memory corrupted by noise. We develop algorithms for joint estimation and detection while simultaneously employing expectation maximization to estimate the noise, and sum-product algorithm to correct errors. We also develop a hard decision algorithm for Raptor codes on piecewise stationary memoryless channels. Finally, we generalize our joint LT estimation-decoding algorithms for Markov-modulated channels. In the third part of this work, we develop compression algorithms using Raptor codes. More specifically we introduce a lossless text compression algorithm, obtaining in this way competitive results compared to the existing classical approaches. Moreover, we propose distributed source coding algorithms based on the paradigm proposed by Slepian and Wolf

Best Arm Identification Based Beam Acquisition in Stationary and Abruptly Changing Environments

We study the initial beam acquisition problem in millimeter wave (mm-wave) networks from the perspective of best arm identification in multi-armed bandits (MABs). For the stationary environment, we propose a novel algorithm called concurrent beam exploration, CBE, in which multiple beams are grouped based on the beam indices and are simultaneously activated to detect the presence of the user. The best beam is then identified using a Hamming decoding strategy. For the case of orthogonal and highly directional thin beams, we characterize the performance of CBE in terms of the probability of missed detection and false alarm in a beam group (BG). Leveraging this, we derive the probability of beam selection error and prove that CBE outperforms the state-of-the-art strategies in this metric. Then, for the abruptly changing environments, e.g., in the case of moving blockages, we characterize the performance of the classical sequential halving (SH) algorithm. In particular, we derive the conditions on the distribution of the change for which the beam selection error is exponentially bounded. In case the change is restricted to a subset of the beams, we devise a strategy called K-sequential halving and exhaustive search, K-SHES, that leads to an improved bound for the beam selection error as compared to SH. This policy is particularly useful when a near-optimal beam becomes optimal during the beam-selection procedure due to abruptly changing channel conditions. Finally, we demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed scheme by employing it in a tandem beam refinement and data transmission scheme

Neural network mechanisms of working memory interference

[eng] Our ability to memorize is at the core of our cognitive abilities. How could we effectively make decisions without considering memories of previous experiences? Broadly, our memories can be divided in two categories: long-term and short-term memories. Sometimes, short-term memory is also called working memory and throughout this thesis I will use both terms interchangeably. As the names suggest, long-term memory is the memory you use when you remember concepts for a long time, such as your name or age, while short-term memory is the system you engage while choosing between different wines at the liquor store. As your attention jumps from one bottle to another, you need to hold in memory characteristics of previous ones to pick your favourite. By the time you pick your favourite bottle, you might remember the prices or grape types of the other bottles, but you are likely to forget all of those details an hour later at home, opening the wine in front of your guests. The overall goal of this thesis is to study the neural mechanisms that underlie working memory interference, as reflected in quantitative, systematic behavioral biases. Ultimately, the goal of each chapter, even when focused exclusively on behavioral experiments, is to nail down plausible neural mechanisms that can produce specific behavioral and neurophysiological findings. To this end, we use the bump-attractor model as our working hypothesis, with which we often contrast the synaptic working memory model. The work performed during this thesis is described here in 3 main chapters, encapsulation 5 broad goals: In Chapter 4.1, we aim at testing behavioral predictions of a bump-attractor (1) network when used to store multiple items. Moreover, we connected two of such networks aiming to model feature-binding through selectivity synchronization (2). In Chapter 4.2, we aim to clarify the mechanisms of working memory interference from previous memories (3), the so-called serial biases. These biases provide an excellent opportunity to contrast activity-based and activity-silent mechanisms because both mechanisms have been proposed to be the underlying cause of those biases. In Chapter 4.3, armed with the same techniques used to seek evidence for activity-silent mechanisms, we test a prediction of the bump-attractor model with short-term plasticity (4). Finally, in light of the results from aim 4 and simple computer simulations, we reinterpret previous studies claiming evidence for activity-silent mechanisms (5)

Unsupervised Learning on Monocular Videos for 3D Human Pose Estimation

In the presence of annotated data, deep human pose estimation networks yield impressive performance. Nevertheless, annotating new data is extremely time-consuming, particularly in real-world conditions. Here, we address this by leveraging contrastive self-supervised (CSS) learning to extract rich latent vectors from single-view videos. Instead of simply treating the latent features of nearby frames as positive pairs and those of temporally-distant ones as negative pairs as in other CSS approaches, we explicitly disentangle each latent vector into a time-variant component and a time-invariant one. We then show that applying CSS only to the time-variant features, while also reconstructing the input and encouraging a gradual transition between nearby and away features, yields a rich latent space, well-suited for human pose estimation. Our approach outperforms other unsupervised single-view methods and matches the performance of multi-view techniques

Research and developments of Dirac video codec

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University.In digital video compression, apart from storage, successful transmission of the compressed video data over the bandwidth limited erroneous channels is another important issue. To enable a video codec for broadcasting application, it is required to implement the corresponding coding tools (e.g. error-resilient coding, rate control etc.). They are normally non-normative parts of a video codec and hence their specifications are not defined in the standard. In Dirac as well, the original codec is optimized for storage purpose only and so, several non-normative part of the encoding tools are still required in order to be able to use in other types of application. Being the "Research and Developments of the Dirac Video Codec" as the research title, phase I of the project is mainly focused on the error-resilient transmission over a noisy channel. The error-resilient coding method used here is a simple and low complex coding scheme which provides the error-resilient transmission of the compressed video bitstream of Dirac video encoder over the packet erasure wired network. The scheme combines source and channel coding approach where error-resilient source coding is achieved by data partitioning in the wavelet transformed domain and channel coding is achieved through the application of either Rate-Compatible Punctured Convolutional (RCPC) Code or Turbo Code (TC) using un-equal error protection between header plus MV and data. The scheme is designed mainly for the packet-erasure channel, i.e. targeted for the Internet broadcasting application. But, for a bandwidth limited channel, it is still required to limit the amount of bits generated from the encoder depending on the available bandwidth in addition to the error-resilient coding. So, in the 2nd phase of the project, a rate control algorithm is presented. The algorithm is based upon the Quality Factor (QF) optimization method where QF of the encoded video is adaptively changing in order to achieve average bitrate which is constant over each Group of Picture (GOP). A relation between the bitrate, R and the QF, which is called Rate-QF (R-QF) model is derived in order to estimate the optimum QF of the current encoding frame for a given target bitrate, R. In some applications like video conferencing, real-time encoding and decoding with minimum delay is crucial, but, the ability to do real-time encoding/decoding is largely determined by the complexity of the encoder/decoder. As we all know that motion estimation process inside the encoder is the most time consuming stage. So, reducing the complexity of the motion estimation stage will certainly give one step closer to the real-time application. So, as a partial contribution toward realtime application, in the final phase of the research, a fast Motion Estimation (ME) strategy is designed and implemented. It is the combination of modified adaptive search plus semi-hierarchical way of motion estimation. The same strategy was implemented in both Dirac and H.264 in order to investigate its performance on different codecs. Together with this fast ME strategy, a method which is called partial cost function calculation in order to further reduce down the computational load of the cost function calculation was presented. The calculation is based upon the pre-defined set of patterns which were chosen in such a way that they have as much maximum coverage as possible over the whole block. In summary, this research work has contributed to the error-resilient transmission of compressed bitstreams of Dirac video encoder over a bandwidth limited error prone channel. In addition to this, the final phase of the research has partially contributed toward the real-time application of the Dirac video codec by implementing a fast motion estimation strategy together with partial cost function calculation idea.BBC R&D and Brunel University

희소인지를 이용한 전송기술 연구

학위논문 (박사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 : 공과대학 전기·정보공학부, 2019. 2. 심병효.The new wave of the technology revolution, named the fifth wireless systems, is changing our daily life dramatically. These days, unprecedented services and applications such as driverless vehicles and drone-based deliveries, smart cities and factories, remote medical diagnosis and surgery, and artificial intelligence-based personalized assistants are emerging. Communication mechanisms associated with these new applications and services are way different from traditional communications in terms of latency, energy efficiency, reliability, flexibility, and connection density. Since the current radio access mechanism cannot support these diverse services and applications, a new approach to deal with these relentless changes should be introduced. This compressed sensing (CS) paradigm is very attractive alternative to the conventional information processing operations including sampling, sensing, compression, estimation, and detection. To apply the CS techniques to wireless communication systems, there are a number of things to know and also several issues to be considered. In the last decade, CS techniques have spread rapidly in many applications such as medical imaging, machine learning, radar detection, seismology, computer science, statistics, and many others. Also, various wireless communication applications exploiting the sparsity of a target signal have been studied. Notable examples include channel estimation, interference cancellation, angle estimation, spectrum sensing, and symbol detection. The distinct feature of this work, in contrast to the conventional approaches exploiting naturally acquired sparsity, is to exploit intentionally designed sparsity to improve the quality of the communication systems. In the first part of the dissertation, we study the mapping data information into the sparse signal in downlink systems. We propose an approach, called sparse vector coding (SVC), suited for the short packet transmission. In SVC, since the data information is mapped to the position of sparse vector, whole data packet can be decoded by idenitifying nonzero positions of the sparse vector. From our simulations, we show that the packet error rate of SVC outperforms the conventional channel coding schemes at the URLLC regime. Moreover, we discuss the SVC transmission for the massive MTC access by overlapping multiple SVC-based packets into the same resources. Using the spare vector overlapping and multiuser CS decoding scheme, SVC-based transmission provides robustness against the co-channel interference and also provide comparable performance than other non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) schemes. By using the fact that SVC only identifies the support of sparse vector, we extend the SVC transmission without pilot transmission, called pilot-less SVC. Instead of using the support, we further exploit the magnitude of sparse vector for delivering additional information. This scheme is referred to as enhanced SVC. The key idea behind the proposed E-SVC transmission scheme is to transform the small information into a sparse vector and map the side-information into a magnitude of the sparse vector. Metaphorically, E-SVC can be thought as a standing a few poles to the empty table. As long as the number of poles is small enough and the measurements contains enough information to find out the marked cell positions, accurate recovery of E-SVC packet can be guaranteed. In the second part of this dissertation, we turn our attention to make sparsification of the non-sparse signal, especially for the pilot transmission and channel estimation. Unlike the conventional scheme where the pilot signal is transmitted without modification, the pilot signals are sent after the beamforming in the proposed technique. This work is motivated by the observation that the pilot overhead must scale linearly with the number of taps in CIR vector and the number of transmit antennas so that the conventional pilot transmission is not an appropriate option for the IoT devices. Primary goal of the proposed scheme is to minimize the nonzero entries of a time-domain channel vector by the help of multiple antennas at the basestation. To do so, we apply the time-domain sparse precoding, where each precoded channel propagates via fewer tap than the original channel vector. The received channel vector of beamformed pilots can be jointly estimated by the sparse recovery algorithm.5세대 무선통신 시스템의 새로운 기술 혁신은 무인 차량 및 항공기, 스마트 도시 및 공장, 원격 의료 진단 및 수술, 인공 지능 기반 맟춤형 지원과 같은 전례 없는 서비스 및 응용프로그램으로 부상하고 있다. 이러한 새로운 애플리케이션 및 서비스와 관련된 통신 방식은 대기 시간, 에너지 효율성, 신뢰성, 유연성 및 연결 밀도 측면에서 기존 통신과 매우 다르다. 현재의 무선 액세스 방식을 비롯한 종래의 접근법은 이러한 요구 사항을 만족할 수 없기 때문에 최근에 sparse processing과 같은 새로운 접근 방법이 연구되고 있다. 이 새로운 접근 방법은 표본 추출, 감지, 압축, 평가 및 탐지를 포함한 기존의 정보 처리에 대한 효율적인 대체기술로 활용되고 있다. 지난 10년 동안 compressed sensing (CS)기법은 의료영상, 기계학습, 탐지, 컴퓨터 과학, 통계 및 기타 여러 분야에서 빠르게 확산되었다. 또한, 신호의 희소성(sparsity)를 이용하는 CS 기법은 다양한 무선 통신이 연구되었다. 주목할만한 예로는 채널 추정, 간섭 제거, 각도 추정, 및 스펙트럼 감지가 있으며 현재까지 연구는 주어진 신호가 가지고 있는 본래의 희소성에 주목하였으나 본 논문에서는 기존의 접근 방법과 달리 인위적으로 설계된 희소성을 이용하여 통신 시스템의 성능을 향상시키는 방법을 제안한다. 우선 본 논문은 다운링크 전송에서 희소 신호 매핑을 통한 데이터 전송 방법을 제안하며 짧은 패킷 (short packet) 전송에 적합한 CS 접근법을 활용하는 기술을 제안한다. 제안하는 기술인 희소벡터코딩 (sparse vector coding, SVC)은 데이터 정보가 인공적인 희소벡터의 nonzero element의 위치에 매핑하여 전송된 데이터 패킷은 희소벡터의 0이 아닌 위치를 식별함으로 원신호 복원이 가능하다. 분석과 시뮬레이션을 통해 제안하는 SVC 기법의 패킷 오류률은 ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC) 서비스를 지원을 위해 사용되는 채널코딩방식보다 우수한 성능을 보여준다. 또한, 본 논문은 SVC기술을 다음의 세가지 영역으로 확장하였다. 첫째로, 여러 개의 SVC 기반 패킷을 동일한 자원에 겹치게 전송함으로 상향링크에서 대규모 전송을 지원하는 방법을 제안한다. 중첩된 희소벡터를 다중사용자 CS 디코딩 방식을 사용하여 채널 간섭에 강인한 성능을 제공하고 비직교 다중 접속 (NOMA) 방식과 유사한 성능을 제공한다. 둘째로, SVC 기술이 희소 벡터의 support만을 식별한다는 사실을 이용하여 파일럿 전송이 필요없는 pilotless-SVC 전송 방법을 제안한다. 채널 정보가 없는 경우에도 희소 벡터의 support의 크기는 채널의 크기에 비례하기 때문에 pilot없이 복원이 가능하다. 셋째로, 희소벡터의 support의 크기에 추가 정보를 전송함으로 복원 성능을 향상 시키는 enhanced SVC (E-SVC)를 제안한다. 제안된 E-SVC 전송 방식의 핵심 아디디어는 짧은 패킷을 전송되는 정보를 희소 벡터로 변환하고 정보 복원을 보조하는 추가 정보를 희소 벡터의 크기 (magnitude)로 매핑하는 것이다. 마지막으로, SVC 기술을 파일럿 전송에 활용하는 방법을 제안한다. 특히, 채널 추정을 위해 채널 임펄스 응답의 신호를 희소화하는 프리코딩 기법을 제안한다. 파일럿 신호을 프로코딩 없이 전송되는 기존의 방식과 달리, 제안된 기술에서는 파일럿 신호를 빔포밍하여 전송한다. 제안된 기법은 기지국에서 다중 안테나를 활용하여 채널 응답의 0이 아닌 요소를 최소화하는 시간 영역 희소 프리코딩을 적용하였다. 이를 통해 더 적확한 채널 추정을 가능하며 더 적은 파일럿 오버헤드로 채널 추정이 가능하다.Abstract i Contents iv List of Tables viii List of Figures ix 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1.1 Three Key Services in 5G systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.1.2 Sparse Processing in Wireless Communications . . . . . . . . 4 1.2 Contributions and Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.3 Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2 Sparse Vector Coding for Downlink Ultra-reliable and Low Latency Communications 12 2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2.2 URLLC Service Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.2.1 Latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.2.2 Ultra-High Reliability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.2.3 Coexistence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.3 URLLC Physical Layer in 5G NR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.3.1 Packet Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2.3.2 Frame Structure and Latency-sensitive Scheduling Schemes . 20 2.3.3 Solutions to the Coexistence Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 2.4 Short-sized Packet in LTE-Advanced Downlink . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 2.5 Sparse Vector Coding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.5.1 SVC Encoding and Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.5.2 SVC Decoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 2.5.3 Identification of False Alarm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 2.6 SVC Performance Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 2.7 Implementation Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 2.7.1 Codebook Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 2.7.2 High-order Modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 2.7.3 Diversity Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 2.7.4 SVC without Pilot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 2.7.5 Threshold to Prevent False Alarm Event . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 2.8 Simulations and Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 2.8.1 Simulation Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 2.8.2 Simulation Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 2.9 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 3 Sparse Vector Coding for Uplink Massive Machine-type Communications 59 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 3.2 Uplink NOMA transmission for mMTC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 3.3 Sparse Vector Coding based NOMA for mMTC . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 3.3.1 System Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 3.3.2 Joint Multiuser Decoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 3.4 Simulations and Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 3.4.1 Simulation Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 3.4.2 Simulation Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 3.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 4 Pilot-less Sparse Vector Coding for Short Packet Transmission 72 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 4.2 Pilot-less Sparse Vector Coding Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 4.2.1 SVC Processing with Pilot Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 4.2.2 Pilot-less SVC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 4.2.3 PL-SVC Decoding in Multiple Basestation Antennas . . . . . 78 4.3 Simulations and Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 4.3.1 Simulation Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 4.3.2 Simulation Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 4.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 5 Joint Analog and Quantized Feedback via Sparse Vector Coding 84 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 5.2 System Model for Joint Spase Vector Coding . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 5.3 Sparse Recovery Algorithm and Performance Analysis . . . . . . . . 90 5.4 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 5.4.1 Linear Interpolation of Sensing Information . . . . . . . . . . 96 5.4.2 Linear Combined Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 5.4.3 One-shot Packet Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 5.5 Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 5.5.1 Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 5.5.2 Results and Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 5.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 6 Sparse Beamforming for Enhanced Mobile Broadband Communications 101 6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 6.1.1 Increase the number of transmit antennas . . . . . . . . . . . 102 6.1.2 2D active antenna system (AAS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 6.1.3 3D channel environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 6.1.4 RS transmission for CSI acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 6.2 System Design and Standardization of FD-MIMO Systems . . . . . . 107 6.2.1 Deployment scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 6.2.2 Antenna configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 6.2.3 TXRU architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 6.2.4 New CSI-RS transmission strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 6.2.5 CSI feedback mechanisms for FD-MIMO systems . . . . . . 114 6.3 System Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 6.3.1 Basic System Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 6.3.2 Beamformed Pilot Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 6.4 Sparsification of Pilot Beamforming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 6.4.1 Time-domain System Model without Pilot Beamforming . . . 119 6.4.2 Pilot Beamforming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 6.5 Channel Estimation of Beamformed Pilots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 6.5.1 Recovery using Multiple Measurement Vector . . . . . . . . . 124 6.5.2 MSE Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 6.6 Simulations and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 6.6.1 Simulation Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 6.6.2 Simulation Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 6.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 7 Conclusion 136 7.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 7.2 Future Research Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Abstract (In Korean) 152Docto

Clustering of Preferred Directions During Brain-Computer Interface Usage

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are proving to be viable clinical interventions for sufferers of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, amputations, and spinal cord injuries. To improve the viability of BCIs, it will help to have a thorough understanding of how the brain controls them. Neural activity during usage of certain BCIs behaves in a surprising and seemingly counterintuitive manner – the preferred directions (PDs) of neurons cluster together. We trained monkeys to reach to targets in a center-out task either using their arm or a BCI. We found that neurons’ PDs cluster similarly during training of the BCI decoder and usage of the BCI, but remain relatively unclustered when the monkeys use their arms. Modulation depths increase upon usage of the BCI, and narrowness of tuning tends to either increase or decrease rather than staying the same. In addition, the cluster direction can be predicted from per-target performance. A model where two neurons’ PDs approach one another reveals how much modulation depths have to increase to maintain controllability. This thesis concludes with considerations of why this clustering might occur, and whether or not it benefits BCI control

Optimal Power Allocation in MIMO wire-tap channels

Projecte Finl de Carrera fet en col.laboració amb Università La Sapienza di Roma.English: Study of a methodology that, without the use of cryptography, limits the possible "intelligence" present at the eavesdropper and increases the level of secrecy on a wireless environment using MIMO systems.Castellano: Estudio de una metodologia que, sin hacer uso de la criptografia, permite limitar la posible "inteligencia" del espia, con la finalidad de aumentar la confidencialidad en comunicacines wireless con sistemas MIMOCatalà: Estudi d'una metodologia que, sense fer ús de la criptografia, permet limitar la possible "intel.ligència" de l'espia per tal d'augmentar la confidencialitat en comunicacions wireless amb sistemes MIMO