Sensitive White Space Detection with Spectral Covariance Sensing

This paper proposes a novel, highly effective spectrum sensing algorithm for cognitive radio and whitespace applications. The proposed spectral covariance sensing (SCS) algorithm exploits the different statistical correlations of the received signal and noise in the frequency domain. Test statistics are computed from the covariance matrix of a partial spectrogram and compared with a decision threshold to determine whether a primary signal or arbitrary type is present or not. This detector is analyzed theoretically and verified through realistic open-source simulations using actual digital television signals captured in the US. Compared to the state of the art in the literature, SCS improves sensitivity by 3 dB for the same dwell time, which is a very significant improvement for this application. Further, it is shown that SCS is highly robust to noise uncertainty, whereas many other spectrum sensors are not

Improved tests for forecast comparisons in the presence of instabilities

Of interest is comparing the out-of-sample forecasting performance of two competing models in the presence of possible instabilities. To that effect, we suggest using simple structural change tests, sup-Wald and UDmax for changes in the mean of the loss differences. It is shown that Giacomini and Rossi (2010) tests have undesirable power properties, power that can be low and non-increasing as the alternative becomes further from the null hypothesis. On the contrary, our statistics are shown to have higher monotonic power, especially the UDmax version. We use their empirical examples to show the practical relevance of the issues raised

End-of-Sample Cointegration Breakdown Tests

This paper introduces tests for cointegration breakdown that may occur over a relatively short time period, such as at the end of the sample. The breakdown may be due to a shift in the cointegrating vector or due to a shift in the errors from being I(0) to being I(1). Tests are introduced based on the post-breakdown sum of squared residuals and the post-breakdown sum of squared reverse partial sums of residuals. Critical values are provided using a parametric subsampling method. The regressors in the model are taken to be arbitrary linear combinations of deterministic, stationary, and integrated random variables. The tests are asymptotically valid when the number of observations in the breakdown period, m, is fixed and finite as the total sample size, T+m, goes to infinity. The tests are asymptotically valid under weak conditions. Simulation results indicate that the tests work well in the scenarios considered. Use of the tests is illustrated by testing for interest rate parity breakdown during the Asian financial crisis of 1997.Cointegration, Least squares estimator, Model breakdown, Parameter change test, Structural change

Duality for Finite Multiple Harmonic q-Series

We define two finite q-analogs of certain multiple harmonic series with an arbitrary number of free parameters, and prove identities for these q-analogs, expressing them in terms of multiply nested sums involving the Gaussian binomial coefficients. Special cases of these identities--for example, with all parameters equal to 1--have occurred in the literature. The special case with only one parameter reduces to an identity for the divisor generating function, which has received some attention in connection with problems in sorting theory. The general case can be viewed as a duality result, reminiscent of the duality relation for the ordinary multiple zeta function.Comment: 12 pages AMSLaTeX. Submitted for publication October 26, 2003; revised September 14, 2004. New title reflects change in emphasis and new section devoted to connections with inverse pairs and Hoffman duality. References added and typos correcte

The Optimum Position of Water Heat Transfer Coils Downstream of a Radial Swirler in a 20kW Heater

A 76mm outlet diameter radial swirler with 8mm vane depth was investigated in a 140mm combustor diameter condensing 20 kW ultra-low NOx boiler. The aim was to show that small turbulent flames could achieve compact ultra-low NOx water heating. Low NOx was achieved using lean well mixed low flame temperature combustion with a 0.7 equivalence ratio (Ø). Thermal NOx formation was also minimised by cooling the flame downstream of the swirler outlet. A water cooled heat transfer coil was traversed into the flame to determine how close to the swirler exit the heat transfer could occur, without a major increase in the combustion inefficiency. This was shown to be 70mm from the radial swirler throat outlet. Rapid fuel and air mixing was achieved using fuel injection through the wall of the 76mm swirler outlet throat, assisted by a 41mm diameter outlet orifice at the exit of the 76mm internal diameter wall fuel injector. This created swirling flow with higher axial velocities and a more concentrated high turbulence region downstream of the orifice outlet. A 4 mb burner pressure loss was used, which is typical of domestic forced draught combustion systems. The air inlet temperature was 400K, which is typical of reverse air flow cooled combustion chambers at domestic water heater conditions. The strong swirling flow interaction with the heat exchanger coil give an 89% thermal efficiency with the front of the coil 70mm from the swirler outlet. The emissions measurements showed that the combustion inefficiency was below 0.1%, the CO/CO2 ratio <0.001 and the NOx emissions were 5ppm at 0% oxygen with the heat exchanger at 70mm from the radial swirler outlet. This design easily met the 2018 EU legislation for eco-design of domestic water heaters

Influence of Fuel Injection Location in a Small Radial Swirler Low NOₓ Combustor for Micro Gas Turbine Applications

The influence of fuel injection location in a low NOₓ (1) micro-gas turbine [MGT] in the ∼50kWe (kW electric) size range was investigated, for NG and propane, to extend the power turn down using a pilot fuel injector. The low NOx main combustor (1) was a radial swirler with vane passage fuel injection and had ultra-low NOₓ emissions of 3ppm at 15% O2 at 1800K with natural gas, NG at a combustion intensity of 11.2 MW/m2bara (MW thermal). This was a 40mm diameter outlet eight bladed radial swirler in a 76mm diameter combustor, investigated at 740K air temperature at atmospheric pressure. However, power turn down was poor and the present work was undertaken to determine the optimum position of pilot fuel injection that would enable leaner mixtures to be burned at low powers. Central injection of pilot fuel was investigated using 8 radial outward holes. This was compared with pilot fuel injected at the 76mm wall just downstream of the 40mm swirler outlet. It was show that the central injection pilot was poor with a worse weak extinction than for radial passage fuel injection. The 76mm outlet wall injection was much more successful as a pilot fuel location and had a weak extinction of 0.18Ø compared with 0.34Ø for vane passage fuel injection. NOₓ emissions were higher for wall fuel injection, but were still relatively low at 16ppm at 15% oxygen for natural gas. This indicates that wall fuel injection could be combined with vane passage fuel injection to improve the micro-gas turbine low NOₓ performance across the power range

Learning-Based Adaptive User Selection in Millimeter Wave Hybrid Beamforming Systems

We consider a multi-user hybrid beamforming system, where the multiplexing gain is limited by the small number of RF chains employed at the base station (BS). To allow greater freedom for maximizing the multiplexing gain, it is better if the BS selects and serves some of the users at each scheduling instant, rather than serving all the users all the time. We adopt a two-timescale protocol that takes into account the mmWave characteristics, where at the long timescale an analog beam is chosen for each user, and at the short timescale users are selected for transmission based on the chosen analog beams. The goal of the user selection is to maximize the traditional Proportional Fair (PF) metric. However, this maximization is non-trivial due to interference between the analog beams for selected users. We first define a greedy algorithm and a "top-k" algorithm, and then propose a machine learning (ML)-based user selection algorithm to provide an efficient trade-off between the PF performance and the computation time. Throughout simulations, we analyze the performance of the ML-based algorithms under various metrics, and show that it gives an efficient trade-off in performance as compared to counterparts.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 202

Quantum electrodynamics in modern optics and photonics: tutorial

One of the key frameworks for developing the theory of light–matter interactions in modern optics and photonics is quantum electrodynamics (QED). Contrasting with semiclassical theory, which depicts electromagnetic radiation as a classical wave, QED representations of quantized light fully embrace the concept of the photon. This tutorial review is a broad guide to cutting-edge applications of QED, providing an outline of its underlying foundation and an examination of its role in photon science. Alongside the full quantum methods, it is shown how significant distinctions can be drawn when compared to semiclassical approaches. Clear advantages in outcome arise in the predictive capacity and physical insights afforded by QED methods, which favors its adoption over other formulations of radiation–matter interaction

Mechanisms of light energy harvesting in dendrimers and hyperbranched polymers

Since their earliest synthesis, much interest has arisen in the use of dendritic and structurally allied forms of polymer for light energy harvesting, especially as organic adjuncts for solar energy devices. With the facility to accommodate a proliferation of antenna chromophores, such materials can capture and channel light energy with a high degree of efficiency, each polymer unit potentially delivering the energy of one photon-or more, when optical nonlinearity is involved. To ensure the highest efficiency of operation, it is essential to understand the processes responsible for photon capture and channelling of the resulting electronic excitation. Highlighting the latest theoretical advances, this paper reviews the principal mechanisms, which prove to involve a complex interplay of structural, spectroscopic and electrodynamic properties. Designing materials with the capacity to capture and control light energy facilitates applications that now extend from solar energy to medical photonics. © 2011 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Effect of shell thickness on exciton and biexciton binding energy of a ZnSe/ZnS core/shell quantum dot

The exciton and biexciton binding energy have been studied for a ZnSe/ZnS core/shell quantum dot using WKB (Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin) approximation. The exciton binding energy increases for small shell thickness and for large thickness, the binding energy again starts decreasing. A similar result is obtained for biexcitons where for thicker shells, the biexciton attains antibonding.Comment: 5 Figure