A Hybrid Approach to Joint Estimation of Channel and Antenna impedance

This paper considers a hybrid approach to joint estimation of channel information and antenna impedance, for single-input, single-output channels. Based on observation of training sequences via synchronously switched load at the receiver, we derive joint maximum a posteriori and maximum-likelihood (MAP/ML) estimators for channel and impedance over multiple packets. We investigate important properties of these estimators, e.g., bias and efficiency. We also explore the performance of these estimators through numerical examples.Comment: 6 pages, two columns, 6 figures. References update

Settlement Selection: a Critical Consideration for a New National Spatial Strategy Plan: Applying Population and Daytime Working Population Data to a Centrality Spreadsheet Model to Inform and Evidence Base for Gateway and Hub Selection.

This Dissertation examines both Central Statistics Office (CSO) published and unpublished demographic evidence from the 2011 and previous censuses, so as to evaluate the 2002 National Spatial Strategy’s (NSS) selection of Gateways and Hub settlements. On its own, population is an incomplete measure of size. However, when used with emerging employment data, a robust methodological time-dynamic centrality model may be constructed based on population and Daytime Working Population (DWP) behaviour and other related and relevant investigations. The Model compares unpublished 2002 data of the NSS Plan with similar 2011 census for all large and medium-sized Irish settlements of 5,000 and over in population. The selected methodological approach analyses the group of eighty-five settlements comprising Ireland’s five cities and eighty Band 1 and 2 towns as at the 2011 census. A series of criteria are examined including rank order, population growth and DWP. The central question of the dissertation is: how may population and employment data analysis inform the optimal demographic and economic selection of growth centres in a re-configured National Spatial Strategy? The 2011 census outcome forms the half-way point in the eighteen-year life of the 2002-2020 NSS. Emerging evidence points to a mixed performance in the growth of its twenty-three nominated settlements including population decline in one case, Sligo. Consistent with many criticisms, vide Hughes PhD (2010), at its Appendix 5, PP. 235-236, that study found that too many growth centres were selected and that the central NSS strategy of balanced regional development ought to be replaced by one of centripetal agglomeration, with a policy focus to concentrate mainly on Ireland’s provincial cities together with a small number of other mainly mono-centric locations, wherein such settlements then become the ‘central place’ economic cores of their respective regions. A number of strategic conversations with senior academics and practitioners also complement the thrust of the quantitative findings of this research

Demography is Destiny: Strategic Planning and Housing in Ireland

The approach to this demographic-based paper on housing comprises a demand-led perspective to spatial planning and housing provision. The principal arguments are that end-use demand is driven by demographic growth and that successful planning is predicated on sustainable market-led implementation. Accordingly, the thrust and direction of Ireland’s National Planning Framework (NPF) must be driven by rational responses to population projections, its growthdriver of job creation, and anticipating the primary locations of future employment and for city-led end-use demand. Since 2006 Ireland’s potential to invest in capital formation has been handicapped by state economic constraints. In the intervening decade its Fixed Capital Formation, or Gross Domestic Fixed Capital Formation (GDFCF), collapsed from 24 per cent of GDP to low single-digit figures of circa 3 per cent in 2013. Despite its recovery to date, the building industry continues to be under-funded and undercapitalised. A ‘normal’ national (public and private) capital spend is about 12 per cent of GDP, about twice the current annual level of output.2 There is emerging evidence of a slow, albeit sustained, recovery path. However, current housing output is still only a fraction of the 96,000-unit output achieved at its 2006 peak, and is insufficient to meet current demand. This paper argues that future growth in inward migration will respond to the overall growth in the labour force; for example, to augment Ireland’s chronic building industry labour requirement;3 to provide the necessary healthcare personnel, for the growth in population and especially for the projected increase in its older-age cohorts; and in response to the opportunities arising from new types of ‘work’. It is contended that a repeat of the significant precedent of demographic growth, averaging nearly 80,000 per annum in the 10 years to April 2009, must again be anticipated during the period of the NPF to 2040. Should the current growth trend, which commenced in 2015, continue to gain momentum as Ireland’s economic recovery strengthens, Ireland will need to be prepared for much higher levels of population increases than those narrow variations conservatively projected in the NPF. For many years, the National Economic and Social Council (2004) and others have pointed to the threat to Ireland’s future competitiveness unless adequate, affordable accommodation can be provided, especially in those areas where employment growth is occurring. As so much of that growth is city-based, the argument for city-led growth is well grounded. This paper argues for the provision of adequate housing supply to cater for the return of such demographic growth. It also contrasts where the state’s stock of housing is located as against where it should be located, having regard to the geography of both current and likely future employment and the need to reduce average commute distances and times

Defying the IRA?

This book examines the grass-roots relationship between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the civilian population during the Irish Revolution. It is primarily concerned with the attempts of the militant revolutionaries to discourage, stifle, and punish dissent among the local populations in which they operated, and the actions or inactions by which dissent was expressed or implied. Focusing on the period of guerilla war against British rule from c. 1917 to 1922, it uncovers the acts of ‘everyday’ violence, threat, and harm that characterized much of the revolutionary activity of this period

Recent Demographic Growth in Ireland: Implications for Future Spatial Planning and Housing Provision.

The recent publication of Ireland’s Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government’s ‘non-statutory’ Planning Policy Statement (PPS) of end January 2015, heralds the prospect of the replacement of the National Spatial Strategy (2002-2020) with a National Planning Framework (NPF). The PPS emphasises that future Planning Strategy should be both evidence-based and plan-led. As a contribution to such aspirations, this Paper presents a demographic approach applied to the spatial context for current housing needs and points to compelling reasons for developing Ireland’s cities whilst curtailing the ongoing proliferation of villages, small towns and one-off housing, and for services provision, infrastructural priorities and related policy issues