Iterative Detection of Diagonal Block Space Time Trellis Codes, TCM and Reversible Variable Length Codes for Transmission over Rayleigh Fading Channels

Iterative detection of Diagonal Block Space Time Trellis Codes (DBSTTCs), Trellis Coded Modulation (TCM) and Reversible Variable Length Codes (RVLCs) is proposed. With the aid of efficient iterative decoding, the proposed scheme is capable of providing full transmit diversity and a near channel capacity performance. The performance of the proposed scheme was evaluated when communicating over uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channels. Explicitly, significant iteration gains were achieved by the proposed scheme, which was capable of performing within 2~dB from the channel capacity

Probing the limits to microRNA-mediated control of gene expression

According to the `ceRNA hypothesis', microRNAs (miRNAs) may act as mediators of an effective positive interaction between long coding or non-coding RNA molecules, carrying significant potential implications for a variety of biological processes. Here, inspired by recent work providing a quantitative description of small regulatory elements as information-conveying channels, we characterize the effectiveness of miRNA-mediated regulation in terms of the optimal information flow achievable between modulator (transcription factors) and target nodes (long RNAs). Our findings show that, while a sufficiently large degree of target derepression is needed to activate miRNA-mediated transmission, (a) in case of differential mechanisms of complex processing and/or transcriptional capabilities, regulation by a post-transcriptional miRNA-channel can outperform that achieved through direct transcriptional control; moreover, (b) in the presence of large populations of weakly interacting miRNA molecules the extra noise coming from titration disappears, allowing the miRNA-channel to process information as effectively as the direct channel. These observations establish the limits of miRNA-mediated post-transcriptional cross-talk and suggest that, besides providing a degree of noise buffering, this type of control may be effectively employed in cells both as a failsafe mechanism and as a preferential fine tuner of gene expression, pointing to the specific situations in which each of these functionalities is maximized.Comment: 16 page

Coexistence of critical sensitivity and subcritical specificity can yield optimal population coding

The vicinity of phase transitions selectively amplifies weak stimuli, yielding optimal sensitivity to distinguish external input. Along with this enhanced sensitivity, enhanced levels of fluctuations at criticality reduce the specificity of the response. Given that the specificity of the response is largely compromised when the sensitivity is maximal, the overall benefit of criticality for signal processing remains questionable. Here it is shown that this impasse can be solved by heterogeneous systems incorporating functional diversity, in which critical and subcritical components coexist. The subnetwork of critical elements has optimal sensitivity, and the subnetwork of subcritical elements has enhanced specificity. Combining segregated features extracted from the different subgroups, the resulting collective response can maximise the tradeoff between sensitivity and specificity measured by the dynamic-range-to-noise-ratio. Although numerous benefits can be observed when the entire system is critical, our results highlight that optimal performance is obtained when only a small subset of the system is at criticality.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Satisfiability, sequence niches, and molecular codes in cellular signaling

Biological information processing as implemented by regulatory and signaling networks in living cells requires sufficient specificity of molecular interaction to distinguish signals from one another, but much of regulation and signaling involves somewhat fuzzy and promiscuous recognition of molecular sequences and structures, which can leave systems vulnerable to crosstalk. This paper examines a simple computational model of protein-protein interactions which reveals both a sharp onset of crosstalk and a fragmentation of the neutral network of viable solutions as more proteins compete for regions of sequence space, revealing intrinsic limits to reliable signaling in the face of promiscuity. These results suggest connections to both phase transitions in constraint satisfaction problems and coding theory bounds on the size of communication codes

On Galois-Division Multiple Access Systems: Figures of Merit and Performance Evaluation

A new approach to multiple access based on finite field transforms is investigated. These schemes, termed Galois-Division Multiple Access (GDMA), offer compact bandwidth requirements. A new digital transform, the Finite Field Hartley Transform (FFHT) requires to deal with fields of characteristic p, p \neq 2. A binary-to-p-ary (p \neq 2) mapping based on the opportunistic secondary channel is introduced. This allows the use of GDMA in conjunction with available digital systems. The performance of GDMA is also evaluated.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. In: XIX Simposio Brasileiro de Telecomunicacoes, 2001, Fortaleza, CE, Brazi

Design guidelines for spatial modulation

A new class of low-complexity, yet energyefficient Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) transmission techniques, namely the family of Spatial Modulation (SM) aided MIMOs (SM-MIMO) has emerged. These systems are capable of exploiting the spatial dimensions (i.e. the antenna indices) as an additional dimension invoked for transmitting information, apart from the traditional Amplitude and Phase Modulation (APM). SM is capable of efficiently operating in diverse MIMO configurations in the context of future communication systems. It constitutes a promising transmission candidate for large-scale MIMO design and for the indoor optical wireless communication whilst relying on a single-Radio Frequency (RF) chain. Moreover, SM may also be viewed as an entirely new hybrid modulation scheme, which is still in its infancy. This paper aims for providing a general survey of the SM design framework as well as of its intrinsic limits. In particular, we focus our attention on the associated transceiver design, on spatial constellation optimization, on link adaptation techniques, on distributed/ cooperative protocol design issues, and on their meritorious variants