Waveforms and channel coding for 5G

Abstract. The fifth generation (5G) communication systems are required to perform significantly better than the existing fourth generation (4G) systems in data rate, capacity, coverage, latency, energy consumption and cost. Hence, 5G needs to achieve considerable enhancements in the areas of bandwidth, spectral, energy, and signaling efficiencies and cost per bit. The new radio access technology (RAT) of 5G physical layer needs to utilize an efficient waveform to meet the demands of 5G. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is considered as a baseline for up to 30 GHz. However, a major drawback of OFDM systems is their large peak to average power ratio (PAPR). Here in this thesis, a simple selective-mapping (SLM) technique using scrambling is proposed to reduce the PAPR of OFDM signals. This technique selects symbol sequences with high PAPR and scrambles them until a PAPR sequence below a specific threshold is generated. The computational complexity of the proposed scheme is considerably lower than that of the traditional SLM. Also, performance of the system is investigated through simulations and more than 4.5 dB PAPR reduction is achieved. In addition, performance of single carrier waveforms is analyzed in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems as an alternative to OFDM. Performance of a single carrier massive MIMO system is presented for both uplink and downlink with single user and multiple user cases and the effect of pre-coding on the PAPR is studied. A variety of channel configurations were investigated such as correlated channels, practical channels and the channels with errors in channel estimate. Furthermore, the candidate coding schemes are investigated for the new RAT in the 5G standard corresponding the activities in the third generation partnership project (3GPP). The schemes are evaluated in terms of block error rate (BLER), bit error rate (BER), computational complexity, and flexibility. These parameters comprise a suitable set to assess the performance of different services and applications. Turbo, low density parity check (LDPC), and polar codes are considered as the candidate schemes. These are investigated in terms of obtaining suitable rates, block lengths by proper design for a fair comparison. The simulations have been carried out in order to obtain BLER / BER performance for various code rates and block lengths, in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. Although polar codes perform well at short block lengths, LDPC has a relatively good performance at all the block lengths and code rates. In addition, complexity of the LDPC codes is relatively low. Furthermore, BLER/BER performances of the coding schemes in Rayleigh fading channels are investigated and found that the fading channel performance follows a similar trend as the performance in the AWGN channel

Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 317/319 Scientific Prospectus: Pacific Equatorial Age Transect

As the world's largest ocean, the Pacific is intricately linked to major changes in the global climate system. Throughout the Cenozoic, Pacific plate motion has had a northward component. Thus, the Pacific is unique in that the thick sediment bulge of biogenic-rich deposits from the currently narrowly focused zone of equatorial upwelling is slowly moving away from the Equator. Hence, older sections are not deeply buried and can be recovered by drilling. Previous drilling in this area during Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Legs 138 and 199 was remarkably successful in giving us new insights into the workings of the climate and carbon system, productivity changes across the zone of divergence, time-dependent calcium carbonate dissolution, bio- and magnetostratigraphy, the location of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), and evolutionary patterns for times of climatic change and upheaval. Together with older Deep Sea Drilling Project drilling in the eastern equatorial Pacific, both legs also helped to delineate the position of the paleoequator and variations in sediment thickness from ~150°W to 110°W.The Pacific equatorial age transect (PEAT) science program is based on Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Proposal 626 and consists of Expeditions 317 and 319, grouped into one science program. The goal is to recover a continuous Cenozoic record of the equatorial Pacific by drilling at the paleoposition of the Equator at successive crustal ages on the Pacific plate. Records collected from Expeditions 317 and 319 are to be joined with records of previous drilling during ODP Legs 138 and 199 to make a complete equatorial Pacific record from 0 to 55 Ma. Previously, ODP Legs 138 and 199 were designed as transects across the paleoequator in order to study the changing patterns of sediment deposition across equatorial regions at critical time intervals. As we have gained more information about the past movement of plates and when in Earth's history "critical" climate events took place, it becomes possible to drill an age transect ("flow-line") along the position of the Pacific paleoequator. The goal of this transect is to target important time slices where calcareous sediments have been best preserved and the sedimentary archive will allow us to reconstruct past climatic and tectonic conditions. Leg 199 enhanced our understanding of extreme changes of the calcium carbonate compensation depth (CCD) across major geological boundaries during the last 55 m.y. A very shallow CCD during most of the Paleogene makes it difficult to obtain well-preserved sediments during these stratigraphic intervals, but the strategy of site locations for the current two expeditions is designed to occupy the most promising sites and to obtain a unique sedimentary biogenic sediment archive for time periods just after the Paleocene/Eocene boundary event, Eocene cooling, the Eocene–Oligocene transition, the "one cold pole" Oligocene, the Oligocene–Miocene transition, and the Miocene. These new cores and data will significantly contribute to the objectives of the IODP Extreme Climates Initiative and will provide material that the previous legs were not able to recover.For logistical reasons, the PEAT science program is composed of two expeditions but is being implemented as a single science program to best achieve the overall objectives of Proposal 626. Participants on both expeditions (as well as approved shore-based scientists) will comprise a single science party with equal access to data and materials from both cruises. Sampling aboard the ship will be minimal, and the bulk of the sampling will be completed postcruise.The operational plan is to occupy eight sites along the age transect with the goal of recovering as complete a sedimentary succession as possible. This will probably require three holes to be cored at each site with wireline logging operations in one hole. Basement will be tagged in at least one of the holes. Expedition 317 will be directed primarily to sample the Neogene sites (proposed Sites PEAT-2C, 6C, and 7C, in priority order). The second expedition (319) will primarily sample the Paleogene sites (proposed Sites PEAT-1C, 3C, 4C, and possibly 5C, in priority order)

Final Year Project Allocations for Undergraduate Engineering Students in TNE Programs

Final year project allocations become a challenging task, particularly, in the case of a large number of undergraduate students enthusiast to get a project of their interest and/or to work with a supervisor of their choice. The problem is challenging as the interest of all the students should be matched while keeping the staff workload in balance. It becomes a matching problem with the constraints of staff workload, student preferences, and staff skillset. Particularly, in the Transnational Education (TNE) programs, the physical availability (or lack of it) of the staff plays an important part in the student project selections which gives an additional challenge to the allocation problem. Authors provide a review of different final year project allocation methods currently in practice and discuss their strengths and weaknesses with respect to the constraints highlighted. Authors finally conclude by discussing an algorithm which can work effectively and efficiently in the context of project allocations for TNE programs

TRUSTED SERVICE COMPOSITION FOR DISTRIBUTED REAL-TIME AND EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

poster abstractDistributed real-time and embedded (DRE) software systems are expected to provide high quality-of-service (QoS) attributes, e.g., scalability, reliability, and security, in conjunction with correct functionality built atop of infrastructure with limited capabilities. Given the many complex and conflicting QoS and functional attributes of DRE systems, a major challenge in developing such software systems is to guaranteeing it trustworthiness, i.e., the degree of confidence that the system adheres to its specification. Current state-of-the-art methods use service orientation to compose systems from reusable and trusted services, and validate the trustworthiness of the end system using runtime evidences. The major shortcoming of this approach is that trust is considered an afterthought (i.e., not an integral part of the software development lifecycle). Trustworthiness of a system should be evaluated based on the trustworthiness of different properties of the system, including its functionality and QoS attributes. Our research extends current state-of-the-art methods for developing trusted DRE systems by considering development time factors of the composition (e.g., properties of individual services, interaction patterns, and compatibility with other services). It is a major research challenge to evaluate the composition of trustworthiness for different system properties with different composition patterns. Our current and future research work to address this challenge includes identifying trust composition operators for different types of compositions, deriving a formal model of trust composition, and validating our approach with a case study using a distributed tracking system

TRUSTED SERVICE REPRESENTATION AND SELECTION FOR GENERATING DISTRIBUTED REAL-TIME AND EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

poster abstractToday’s enterprise distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems are created from reusable software components and services. This approach is promising because of its economic advantages (e.g., maximizing reuse of existing business-logic). It, however, is plagued by the challenge of selecting a subset of software components and services from those that are readily available because the selection process can be both costly and time-consuming, and the description of available services is often ambiguous and easy to misinterpret. Moreover, there is always the chance that a selected service does not adhere to its promises. This implies that trust, which we de-fine as the degree of confidence that a software component or service ad-heres to its specification, plays an important role in this selection process. We call this process trusted selection. Current state-of-the-art methods use multi-level contracts made up of four levels (i.e., syntax, semantics, synchronization and Quality of Service (QoS)) to facilitate service and component selection. This method, however, does not take trust into account thereby making it hard to support trusted selection. Our research therefore improves upon state-of-the-art in multi-level specification by incorporating trust contract into it. We incorporate trust into the multi-level specification by representing trust using subjective logic, which evaluates trust using a tuple of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty. Our current results show our trust-enabled multi-level specification reduces mis-interpretation, mismatch, and misuse of selected services

Less sensitive oxygen-rich organic peroxides containing geminal hydroperoxy groups

Tetranitratoethane (C2H2N4O12), which has an oxygen content of 70.1% was synthesized by nitration of monomeric glyoxal using N2O5 and purified by sublimation. Single crystals could be grown from CH2Cl2/pentane and were used to determine the structure by X-ray diffraction. Several energetic parameters and values were also established

Less sensitive oxygen-rich organic peroxides containing geminal hydroperoxy groups

Tetranitratoethane (C2H2N4O12), which has an oxygen content of 70.1% was synthesized by nitration of monomeric glyoxal using N2O5 and purified by sublimation. Single crystals could be grown from CH2Cl2/pentane and were used to determine the structure by X-ray diffraction. Several energetic parameters and values were also established

Reciprocal action of casein kinase Iε on core planar polarity proteins regulates clustering and asymmetric localisation

The conserved core planar polarity pathway is essential for coordinating polarised cell behaviours and the formation of polarised structures such as cilia and hairs. Core planar polarity proteins localise asymmetrically to opposite cell ends and form intercellular complexes that link the polarity of neighbouring cells. This asymmetric segregation is regulated by phosphorylation through poorly understood mechanisms. We show that loss of phosphorylation of the core protein Strabismus in the Drosophila pupal wing increases its stability and promotes its clustering at intercellular junctions, and that Prickle negatively regulates Strabismus phosphorylation. Additionally, loss of phosphorylation of Dishevelled – which normally localises to opposite cell edges to Strabismus – reduces its stability at junctions. Moreover, both phosphorylation events are independently mediated by Casein Kinase Iε. We conclude that Casein Kinase Iε phosphorylation acts as a switch, promoting Strabismus mobility and Dishevelled immobility, thus enhancing sorting of these proteins to opposite cell edges

A quality enhancement green strategy for broiler meat by application of turmeric (Curcuma longa) powder as litter amendment to affect microbes, ammonia emission, pH and moisture

 In multi-cultural Sri Lankan conditions, poultry meat is paramount importance in ensuring food security and improving nutrition. Issues as contact dermatitis and ammonia emission in broiler industry which caused by diminished litter parameters cause reduction of meat quality, profits and environmental conditions. Therefore use of Turmeric (Curcuma longa) (TM) powder as an antiseptic litter amendment at several application levels to enhance litter parameters with microbial demolition was attempted. Three months old broiler litter (2 kg) sample was taken and initial pH and moisture was determined. Turmeric was used to mix at levels of 0%, 1%, 3%, 5% and 8% (w/w). After mixing, 150 g of mixed litter was placed in container for each level of the 4 replicates, incubated for 5h and analyzed for Total Plate Count (TPC), Yeast and Mold Count (YMC), total Nematode Count (NC), ammonia emission, pH and moisture. Significant reduction (p <0.05) of total bacteria was seen (20%, 46%, 95% and 96%) when 1%, 3%, 5% and 8% applications of TM. The YMC reduction was also significant (p <0.05) (34%, 41%, 55% and 65%). Total nematode reduction (p <0.05) was 22%, 45%, 62.5% and 70%. A significant (p <0.05) pH reduction with increment of TM also seen (0.1, 2, 3 and 3%). Moisture (%) was increased (p <0.05) (6, 0.78, 19 and 1%). Ammonia emission was significantly decreased (p <0.05) by increased TM (64, 68, 73 and 84%) against control. It was concluded that the bacterial, fungal, nematode counts, pH and Ammonia emission of broiler litter can be significantly reduced with the application of 8% (w/w) of turmeric powder