Efficient multi-standard cognitive radios on FPGAs

Cognitive radios that support multiple standards and modify operation depending on environmental conditions are becoming more important as the demand for higher bandwidth and efficient spectrum use increases. Traditional implementations in custom ASICs cannot support such flexibility, with standards changing at a faster pace, while software baseband implementations fail to achieve the performance required. Hence, FPGAs offer an ideal platform bringing together flexibility, performance, and efficiency. This work explores the possible techniques for designing multi-standard radios on FPGAs, and explores how partial reconfiguration can be leveraged in a way that is amenable for domain experts with minimal FPGA knowledge

Shaping spectral leakage for IEEE 802.11 p vehicular communications

IEEE 802.11p is a recently defined standard for the physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) layers for Dedicated Short-Range Communications. Four Spectrum Emission Masks (SEMs) are specified in 802.11p that are much more stringent than those for current 802.11 systems. In addition, the guard interval in 802.11p has been lengthened by reducing the bandwidth to support vehicular communication (VC) channels, and this results in a narrowing of the frequency guard. This raises a significant challenge for filtering the spectrum of 802.11p signals to meet the specifications of the SEMs. We investigate state of the art pulse shaping and filtering techniques for 802.11p, before proposing a new method of shaping the 802.11p spectral leakage to meet the most stringent, class D, SEM specification. The proposed method, performed at baseband to relax the strict constraints of the radio frequency (RF) front-end, allows 802.11p systems to be implemented using commercial off-the- shelf (COTS) 802.11a RF hardware, resulting in reduced total system cost

Approximation of Rough Functions

For given $p\in\lbrack1,\infty]$ and $g\in L^{p}\mathbb{(R)}$, we establish the existence and uniqueness of solutions $f\in L^{p}(\mathbb{R)}$, to the equation $$f(x)-af(bx)=g(x),$$ where $a\in\mathbb{R}$, $b\in\mathbb{R} \setminus \{0\}$, and $\left\vert a\right\vert \neq\left\vert b\right\vert ^{1/p}$. Solutions include well-known nowhere differentiable functions such as those of Bolzano, Weierstrass, Hardy, and many others. Connections and consequences in the theory of fractal interpolation, approximation theory, and Fourier analysis are established.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure

On the non-existence of an R-labeling

We present a family of Eulerian posets which does not have any R-labeling. The result uses a structure theorem for R-labelings of the butterfly poset.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. To appear in the journal Orde

Repeated supra-maximal sprint cycling with and without sodium bicarbonate supplementation induces endothelial microparticle release

Under normal homeostatic conditions, the endothelium releases microparticles (MP), which are known to increase under stressful conditions and in disease states. CD105 (endoglin) and CD106 (vascular cell adhesion molecule-1) are expressed on the surface of endothelial cells and increased expression in response to stress may be observed. A randomised-controlled double-blinded study aimed to examine the use of endothelial microparticles as a marker for the state of one’s endothelium, as well as whether maintaining acid-base homeostasis affects the release of these MP. This study tested seven healthy male volunteers, who completed a strenuous cycling protocol, with venous blood analysed for CD105+ and CD106+ MP by flow cytometry at regular intervals. Prior to each trial participants consumed either 0.3 g·kg-1 body mass of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3), or 0.045 g·kg-1 body mass of sodium chloride (NaCl). A significant rise in endothelial CD105+MP and CD106+MP (p < 0.05) was observed at 90 minutes post exercise. A significant trend was shown for these MP to return to resting levels 180 minutes post exercise in both groups. No significance was found between experimental groups, suggesting that maintaining acid-base variables closer to basal levels has little effect upon the endothelial stress response for this particular exercise mode. In conclusion, strenuous exercise is accompanied by MP release and the endothelium is able to rapidly recover in healthy individuals, whilst maintaining acid-base homeostasis does not attenuate the MP release from the endothelium after exercise

Implications of a pre-exercise alkalosis-mediated attenuation of HSP72 on its response to a subsequent bout of exercise

The aim of this study was to investigate if a pre-exercise alkalosis-mediated attenuation of HSP72 had any effect on the response of the same stress protein after a subsequent exercise. Seven physically active males [25.0 ± 6.5 years, 182.1 ± 6.0 cm, 74.0 ± 8.3 kg, peak aerobic power (PPO) 316 ± 46 W] performed a repeated sprint exercise (EXB1) following a dose of 0.3 g kg⁻¹ body mass of sodium bicarbonate (BICARB), or a placebo of 0.045 g kg⁻¹ body mass of sodium chloride (PLAC). Participants then completed a 90-min intermittent cycling protocol (EXB2). Monocyte expressed HSP72 was significantly attenuated after EXB1 in BICARB compared to PLAC, however, there was no difference in the HSP72 response to the subsequent EXB2 between conditions. Furthermore there was no difference between conditions for measures of oxidative stress (protein carbonyl and HSP32). These findings confirm the sensitivity of the HSP72 response to exercise-induced changes in acid–base status in vivo, but suggest that the attenuated response has little effect upon subsequent stress in the same day

Mind over chatter: plastic up-regulation of the fMRI alertness network by EEG neurofeedback

EEG neurofeedback (NFB) is a brain-computer interface (BCI) approach used to shape brain oscillations by means of real-time feedback from the electroencephalogram (EEG), which is known to reflect neural activity across cortical networks. Although NFB is being evaluated as a novel tool for treating brain disorders, evidence is scarce on the mechanism of its impact on brain function. In this study with 34 healthy participants, we examined whether, during the performance of an attentional auditory oddball task, the functional connectivity strength of distinct fMRI networks would be plastically altered after a 30-min NFB session of alpha-band reduction (n=17) versus a sham-feedback condition (n=17). Our results reveal that compared to sham, NFB induced a specific increase of functional connectivity within the alertness/salience network (dorsal anterior and mid cingulate), which was detectable 30 minutes after termination of training. Crucially, these effects were significantly correlated with reduced mind-wandering &#x27;on-task&#x27; and were coupled to NFB-mediated resting state reductions in the alpha-band (8-12 Hz). No such relationships were evident for the sham condition. Although group default-mode network (DMN) connectivity was not significantly altered following NFB, we observed a positive association between modulations of resting alpha amplitude and precuneal connectivity, both correlating positively with frequency of mind-wandering. Our findings demonstrate a temporally direct, plastic impact of NFB on large-scale brain functional networks, and provide promising neurobehavioral evidence supporting its use as a noninvasive tool to modulate brain function in health and disease

BIOAVAILABILITY AND CV COMPONENT COMPARISON IN A CROSSOVER

Two medication formulations are compared using noncompartmental pharmacokinetic (PK) variables. However, more than the ratio of mean effects is of interest. A difference in formulation coeficients of varication (CV), within- or between-subject, is sought. The experimental design chosen is a 2 sequence crossover design of the form ABBA and BAAB, where A and B are two medication formulations. A mixed linear model is defined that contains random effects for subjects and for subject by formulation interactions. The model has fixed effects for the average formulation effects and period effects. The 2 formulations are assumed to have different error terms. The average formulation effect ratios and within-subject CVs may be compared by usual methods. An approximate Z-statistic is computed to compare the between-subject CVs. This statistic assumes a correlation of the 2 between-subject CV estimates. In addition, a tractable variance ratio is defined to indicate the extent to which the average effects ratio is applicable to each subject

LSST Science Data Quality Analysis Subsystem Design

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have a Science Data Quality Analysis (SDQA) subsystem for vetting its unprecedented volume of astronomical image data. The SDQA subsystem inhabits three basic realms: image processing, graphical-user-interface (GUI) tools, and alarms/reporting. During pipeline image processing, SDQA data are computed for the images and astronomical sources extracted from the images, and utilized to grade the images and sources. Alarms are automatically sent, if necessary, to initiate swift response to problems found. Both SDQA data and machine-determined grades are stored in a database. At the end of a data-processing interval, e.g., nightly processing or data-release reprocessing, automatic SDQA reports are generated from SDQA data and grades queried from the database. The SDQA reports summarize the science data quality and provide feedback to telescope, camera, facility, observation-scheduling and data-processing personnel. During operations, GUI tools facilitate visualization of image and SDQA data in a variety of ways that allow a small SDQA-operations team of humans to quickly and easily perform manual SDQA on a substantial fraction of LSST data products, and possibly reassign SDQA grades as a result of the visual inspection