41,166 research outputs found
A General Upper Bound on the Size of Constant-Weight Conflict-Avoiding Codes
Conflict-avoiding codes are used in the multiple-access collision channel
without feedback. The number of codewords in a conflict-avoiding code is the
number of potential users that can be supported in the system. In this paper, a
new upper bound on the size of conflict-avoiding codes is proved. This upper
bound is general in the sense that it is applicable to all code lengths and all
Hamming weights. Several existing constructions for conflict-avoiding codes,
which are known to be optimal for Hamming weights equal to four and five, are
shown to be optimal for all Hamming weights in general.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur
Partition Information and its Transmission over Boolean Multi-Access Channels
In this paper, we propose a novel partition reservation system to study the
partition information and its transmission over a noise-free Boolean
multi-access channel. The objective of transmission is not message restoration,
but to partition active users into distinct groups so that they can,
subsequently, transmit their messages without collision. We first calculate (by
mutual information) the amount of information needed for the partitioning
without channel effects, and then propose two different coding schemes to
obtain achievable transmission rates over the channel. The first one is the
brute force method, where the codebook design is based on centralized source
coding; the second method uses random coding where the codebook is generated
randomly and optimal Bayesian decoding is employed to reconstruct the
partition. Both methods shed light on the internal structure of the partition
problem. A novel hypergraph formulation is proposed for the random coding
scheme, which intuitively describes the information in terms of a strong
coloring of a hypergraph induced by a sequence of channel operations and
interactions between active users. An extended Fibonacci structure is found for
a simple, but non-trivial, case with two active users. A comparison between
these methods and group testing is conducted to demonstrate the uniqueness of
our problem.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, major revisio
Effects of energy storage systems grid code requirements on interface protection performances in low voltage networks
The ever-growing penetration of local generation in distribution networks and the large diffusion of energy storage systems (ESSs) foreseen in the near future are bound to affect the effectiveness of interface protection systems (IPSs), with negative impact on the safety of medium voltage (MV) and low voltage (LV) systems. With the scope of preserving the main network stability, international and national grid connection codes have been updated recently. Consequently, distributed generators (DGs) and storage units are increasingly called to provide stabilizing functions according to local voltage and frequency. This can be achieved by suitably controlling the electronic power converters interfacing small-scale generators and storage units to the network. The paper focuses on the regulating functions required to storage units by grid codes currently in force in the European area. Indeed, even if such regulating actions would enable local units in participating to network stability under normal steady-state operating conditions,
it is shown through dynamic simulations that they may increase the risk of unintentional islanding occurrence. This means that dangerous operating conditions may arise in LV networks in case dispersed generators and storage systems are present, even if all the end-users are compliant with currently applied connection standards
Code Design Principles for Ultra-Reliable Random Access with Preassigned Patterns
We study medium access control layer random access under the assumption that the receiver can perform successive interference cancellation, without feedback. During recent years, a number of protocols with impressive error performance have been suggested for this channel model. However, the random nature of these protocols causes an error floor which limits their usability when targeting ultra-reliable communications. In very recent works by Paolini et al. and Boyd et. al., it was shown that if each user employs predetermined combinatorial access patterns, this error floor disappears. In this paper, we develop code design criteria for deterministic random access protocols in the ultra-reliability region, and build codes based on these principles. The suggested design methods are supported by simulations.Peer reviewe
Evidence of continued injecting drug use after attaining sustained treatment-induced clearance of the hepatitis C virus: implications for reinfection
Background:
People who inject drugs (PWID) are at the greatest risk of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, yet are often denied immediate treatment due to fears of on-going risk behaviour. Our principal objective was to examine evidence of continued injecting drug use among PWID following successful treatment for HCV and attainment of a sustained viral response (SVR).
Methods:
PWID who attained SVR between 1992 and June 2012 were selected from the National Scottish Hepatitis C Clinical Database. Hospitalisation and mortality records were sourced for these patients using record linkage techniques. Our primary outcome variable was any hospitalisation or death, which was indicative of injecting drugs post-SVR.
Results:
The cohort comprised 1170 PWID (mean age at SVR 39.6y; 76% male). The Kaplan Meier estimate of incurring the primary outcome after three years of SVR was 10.59% (95% CI, 8.75–12.79) After adjusting for confounding, the risk of an injection related hospital episode or death post-SVR was significantly increased with advancing year of SVR: AHR:1.07 per year (95% CI, 1.01–1.14), having a pre-SVR acute alcohol intoxication-related hospital episode: AHR:1.83 (95% CI, 1.29–2.60), and having a pre-SVR opiate or injection-related hospital episode: AHR:2.59 (95% CI, 1.84–3.64).
Conclusion:
Despite attaining the optimal treatment outcome, these data indicate that an increasing significant minority of PWID continue to inject post-SVR at an intensity which leads to either hospitalisation or death and increased risk of reinfection
Reliable Physical Layer Network Coding
When two or more users in a wireless network transmit simultaneously, their
electromagnetic signals are linearly superimposed on the channel. As a result,
a receiver that is interested in one of these signals sees the others as
unwanted interference. This property of the wireless medium is typically viewed
as a hindrance to reliable communication over a network. However, using a
recently developed coding strategy, interference can in fact be harnessed for
network coding. In a wired network, (linear) network coding refers to each
intermediate node taking its received packets, computing a linear combination
over a finite field, and forwarding the outcome towards the destinations. Then,
given an appropriate set of linear combinations, a destination can solve for
its desired packets. For certain topologies, this strategy can attain
significantly higher throughputs over routing-based strategies. Reliable
physical layer network coding takes this idea one step further: using
judiciously chosen linear error-correcting codes, intermediate nodes in a
wireless network can directly recover linear combinations of the packets from
the observed noisy superpositions of transmitted signals. Starting with some
simple examples, this survey explores the core ideas behind this new technique
and the possibilities it offers for communication over interference-limited
wireless networks.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, survey paper to appear in Proceedings of the
IEE
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