High-Precision Channel Estimation for Sub-Noise Self-Interference Cancellation

Self-interference cancellation plays a crucial role in achieving reliable full-duplex communications. In general, it is essential to cancel the self-interference signal below the thermal noise level, which necessitates accurate reconstruction of the self-interference signal. In this paper, we propose a high-precision channel estimation method specifically designed for sub-noise self-interference cancellation. Exploiting the fact that all transmitted symbols are known to their respective receivers, our method utilizes all transmitted symbols for self-interference channel estimation. Through analytical derivations and numerical simulations, we validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results demonstrate the superior performance of our approach in achieving sub-noise self-interference cancellation

Dynamic NOMA-Based Computation Offloading in Vehicular Platoons

Both the mobile edge computing (MEC) based and fog computing (FC) aided Internet of Vehicles (IoV) constitute promising paradigms of meeting the demands of low-latency pervasive computing. To this end, we construct a dynamic NOMA-based computation offloading scheme for vehicular platoons on highways, where the vehicles can offload their computing tasks to other platoon members. To cope with the rapidly fluctuating channel quality, we divide the timeline into successive time slots according to the channel's coherence time. Robust computing and offloading decisions are made for each time slot after taking the channel estimation errors into account. Considering a certain time slot, we first analytically characterize both the locally computed source data and the offloaded source data as well as the energy consumption of every vehicle in the platoons. We then formulate the problem of minimizing the long-term energy consumption by optimizing the allocation of both the communication and computing resources. To solve the problem formulated, we design an online algorithm based on the classic Lyapunov optimization method and block successive upper bound minimization (BSUM) method. Finally, the numerical simulation results characterize the performance of our algorithm and demonstrate its advantages both over the local computing scheme and the orthogonal multiple access (OMA)-based offloading scheme.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure

Temperature-dependent performance of amorphous silicon photovoltaic/thermal systems in the long term operation

The influences of temperature on the performance of amorphous silicon (a-Si) solar cells and photovoltaic (PV) systems are extensively studied in the literature. The benefit from thermal annealing effect at a higher temperature than ambient has been demonstrated, which makes a-Si cells a promising material for photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) system. However, the temperature-dependent performance of a-Si PV/T system in the long term operation has rarely been reported. The temperature effect will be more complicated than that on a single cell or PV system. Particularly, the exergetic efficiency and mechanical behavior of the PV/T system at different temperatures are unknown. To fill the above knowledge gap, two identical a-Si PV/T systems are developed. One operates at a water inlet temperature of 60 °C with an a-Si cell temperature of up to 70 °C. The other operates at an inlet temperature of 30 °C. Long-term outdoor tests from December 2017 to June 2019 have been conducted. Results indicate that the difference in the electrical efficiency between the two systems is 0.47% in the initial stage, and it gradually narrows to only 0.13% over time. The overall exergy efficiency at 60 °C generally exceeds that at 30 °C, which proves the superiority of the a-Si PV/T operating at medium temperature. Besides, the long-term operation at 60 °C has not led to a lower level of reliability

Modified p-y curves for monopile foundation with different length-to-diameter ratio

The soil reaction of the monopile foundation subjected to lateral loading in offshore wind turbines is typically assessed relying on p-y curves advocated by API. However, this method is inadequate for gradually increasing monopile diameters and significantly underestimates the lateral soil confinement. In the present works, a 3D pile-soil interaction finite element model was first established, considering the soil suction and strain hardening characteristics for the normally consolidated clay in China’s sea. Modifications to the p-y curves in API were accomplished in the comparative process between the lateral soil resistance-displacement curves retrieved from the finite element model and the representative expression. Furthermore, the prediction accuracy for the corrected p-y curves has been proved by forecasting the monopile lateral bearing capacity with varying length-to-diameter ratios, which also demonstrates that the modified p-y curves could successfully reflect the lateral soil confinement of the normally consolidated clay and flexible piles. It also provides an approach to assess the deformation response and horizontal ultimate bearing capacity of monopiles with different length-to-diameter ratios

Screening for CCNF Mutations in a Chinese Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Cohort

Previous research has identified CCNF mutations in familial (FALS) and sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (SALS), as well as in frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The aim of our study was to measure the frequency of CCNF mutations in a Chinese population. In total, 78 FALS patients, 581 SALS patients and 584 controls were included. We found 19 missense mutations, nine synonymous mutations and two intron variants. According to the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) standards and guidelines for the interpretation of sequence variants, eight variants were judged to be pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants. The frequency of such variants was 2.56% in FALS and 1.03% in SALS. In conclusion, CCNF mutations are common in FALS and SALS patients of Chinese origin, and further study is still needed

Feasibility of an innovative amorphous silicon photovoltaic/thermal system for medium temperature applications

Medium temperature photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) systems have immense potential in the applications of absorption cooling, thermoelectric generation, and organic Rankine cycle power generation, etc. Amorphous silicon (a-Si) cells are promising in such applications regarding the low temperature coefficient, thermal annealing effect, thin film and avoidance of large thermal stress and breakdown at fluctuating temperatures. However, experimental study on the a-Si PV/T system is rarely reported. So far the feasibility of medium temperature PV/T systems using a-Si cells has not been demonstrated. In this study, the design and construction of an innovative a-Si PV/T system of stainless steel substrate are presented. Long-term outdoor performance of the system operating at medium temperature has been monitored in the past 15 months. The average electrical efficiency was 5.65%, 5.41% and 5.30% at the initial, intermediate and final phases of the long-test test, accompanied with a daily average thermal efficiency from about 21% to 31% in the non-heating season. The thermal and electrical performance of the system at 60 °C, 70 °C and 80 °C are also analyzed and compared. Moreover, a distributed parameter model with experimental validation is developed for an inside view of the heat transfer and power generation and to predict the system performance in various conditions. Technically, medium temperature operation has not resulted in interruption or observable deformation of the a-Si PV/T system during the period. The technical and thermodynamic feasibility of the a-Si PV/T system at medium operating temperature is demonstrated by the experimental and simulation results

Decode-and-Forward Short-Packet Relaying in the Internet of Things: Timely Status Updates

In this paper, a decode-and-forward (DF) short-packet relaying model is developed to achieve timely status updates for intelligent monitoring within the Internet of Things (IoT), where the status updates generated at an IoT device are delivered to a remote server with the aid of a relay in both half-duplex (HD) and full-duplex (FD) modes. To characterise the data freshness of status updates, we exploit the age of information (AoI) as a metric, which is defined as the time elapsed since the generation of the latest successfully decoded status update. The average AoI is formulated and minimised for both HD-DF and FD-DF relaying IoT networks in finite blocklength regime. For the HD-DF relaying, we introduce a perfect approximation of the average AoI to solve the problem of average AoI minimisation with the optimal blocklengths in two phases. For the FD-DF relaying, we propose an iterative algorithm to solve the problem of average AoI minimisation by optimising the relay’s transmit power and the blocklength. Illustrative numerical results not only substantiate the validity of our proposed algorithms, but also provide useful references for the IoT monitoring network design, specifically for the transmit power thresholds at the IoT device and the relay