Designing Power-Efficient Modulation Formats for Noncoherent Optical Systems

We optimize modulation formats for the additive white Gaussian noise channel with a nonnegative input constraint, also known as the intensity-modulated direct detection channel, with and without confining them to a lattice structure. Our optimization criteria are the average electrical and optical power. The nonnegativity input signal constraint is translated into a conical constraint in signal space, and modulation formats are designed by sphere packing inside this cone. Some remarkably dense packings are found, which yield more power-efficient modulation formats than previously known. For example, at a spectral efficiency of 1 bit/s/Hz, the obtained modulation format offers a 0.86 dB average electrical power gain and 0.43 dB average optical power gain over the previously best known modulation formats to achieve a symbol error rate of 10^-6. This modulation turns out to have a lattice-based structure. At a spectral efficiency of 3/2 bits/s/Hz and to achieve a symbol error rate of 10^-6, the modulation format obtained for optimizing the average electrical power offers a 0.58 dB average electrical power gain over the best lattice-based modulation and 2.55 dB gain over the best previously known format. However, the modulation format optimized for average optical power offers a 0.46 dB average optical power gain over the best lattice-based modulation and 1.35 dB gain over the best previously known format.Comment: Submitted to Globecom 201

Power efficient subcarrier modulation for intensity modulated channels

We compare formats for optical intensity modulation limited by thermal noise with the assumption of having ideal devices. At the same bitrate and bandwidth, a hitherto unknown format turns out to be more power efficient than known formats. This new modulation, which is a hybrid between on-off keying and phase-shift keying, belongs to the subcarrier modulation family. At asymptotically high signal-to-noise ratios, this hybrid scheme has a 1.2 dB average electrical power gain and 0.6 dB average optical power gain compared to OOK, while it has a 3.0 dB average electrical power gain and 2.1 dB average optical power gain compared to subcarrier QPSK

Optimizing Constellations for Single-Subcarrier Intensity-Modulated Optical Systems

We optimize modulation formats for the additive white Gaussian noise channel with nonnegative input, also known as the intensity-modulated direct-detection channel, with and without confining them to a lattice structure. Our optimization criteria are the average electrical, average optical, and peak power. The nonnegative constraint on the input to the channel is translated into a conical constraint in signal space, and modulation formats are designed by sphere packing inside this cone. Some dense packings are found, which yield more power-efficient modulation formats than previously known. For example, at a spectral efficiency of 1.5 bit/s/Hz, the modulation format optimized for average electrical power has a 2.55 dB average electrical power gain over the best known format to achieve a symbol error rate of 10^-6. The corresponding gains for formats optimized for average and peak optical power are 1.35 and 1.72 dB, respectively. Using modulation formats optimized for peak power in average-power limited systems results in a smaller power penalty than when using formats optimized for average power in peak-power limited systems. We also evaluate the modulation formats in terms of their mutual information to predict their performance in the presence of capacity-achieving error- correcting codes, and finally show numerically and analytically that the optimal modulation formats for reliable transmission in the wideband regime have only one nonzero point.Comment: submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, June 201

Androgen receptor-beta mRNA levels in different tissues in breeding and post-breeding male and female sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Androgens induce male characters by activating androgen receptors (AR). Previous quantitative studies on AR in fishes have been limited to few tissues and/or a single season/reproductive state. The aim of this investigation was to study the possible role of AR-beta expression levels in the control of male traits in the three-spined stickleback. To that end, AR-beta expression levels in major tissues in breeding and post-breeding male and female sticklebacks were examined.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>AR-beta mRNA levels were quantified in ten tissues; eye, liver, axial muscle, heart, brain, intestine, ovary, testis, kidney and pectoral muscle in six breeding and post-breeding males and females using reverse transcription quantitative PCR.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Breeding in contrast to post-breeding males built nests and showed secondary sexual characters (e.g. kidney hypertrophy) and elevated androgen levels. Post-breeding females had lower ovarian weights and testosterone levels than breeding females. AR-beta was expressed in all studied tissues in both sexes and reproductive states with the highest expression in the gonads and in the kidneys. The kidney is an androgen target organ in sticklebacks, from which breeding males produce the protein spiggin, which is used in nest-building. There was also high AR-beta expression in the intestine, an organ that appears to take over hyperosmo-regulation in fresh water when the kidney hypertrophies in mature males and largely loses this function. The only tissue that showed effects of sex or reproductive state on AR-beta mRNA levels was the kidneys, where post-breeding males displayed higher AR-beta mRNA levels than breeding males.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results indicate that changes in AR-beta mRNA levels play no or little role in changes in androgen dependent traits in the male stickleback.</p

Experimental Demonstration of an Optimized 16-ary Four-Dimensional Modulation Format Using Optical OFDM

We experimentally demonstrate the best known 16-ary 4-d modulation format at 24.8 Gb/s using coherent optical OFDM, achieving 0.58 dB OSNR gain over PDM-QPSK at a SER of 10−2. With 7% overhead optimal codes, a 0.38 dB gain is theoretically achievable

Characterization of antibodies for quantitative determination of spiggin protein levels in male and female three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus)

Spiggin is an adhesive glycoprotein produced in the kidney of sticklebacks during the breeding season and is subsequently secreted into the urinary bladder from where it is employed for nest building. Since the production of the protein has been shown to be under androgenic control, spiggin has been suggested to be a useful biomarker for androgenic substances in the environment. In this study, two polyclonal spiggin antibodies based on synthetic peptides and one polyclonal antibody directed against native spiggin have been characterized. The antibodies ability to identify spiggin was investigated by quantitative immunoassay. For both peptide antibodies the quantification range was determined to be between 1 and 80 ng spiggin and determination of renal spiggin levels from immature and mature males displayed a 15-fold increase in total spiggin content of the kidney resulting in a 6-fold increase in male kidney weight due to hypertrophy. The kidney somatic index (KSI) was found to correlate well with the total renal spiggin content and therefore it appears that KSI in sticklebacks could be used as an initial method to identify substances displaying androgenic effects. Furthermore, western blot analysis revealed that the polyclonal antibodies recognize different spiggin isoforms and that spiggin can be detected in the urinary bladder and kidney of both males and female sticklebacks. In order to develop a quantitative detection method for native spiggin it is necessary to produce a standard that can be used in a bioassay. Due to the adhesive and polymerization characteristics of spiggin the protein is difficult to use as a standard in bioassays. So far spiggin has been shown to exist in at least 14 isoforms, all of which contain polymerization domains. To overcome the solubility problem we have produced recombinant spiggin gamma, with only one polymerization domain, that can be expressed in E. coli. Western blot analysis demonstrated that the polyclonal antibodies were able to detect recombinant spiggin gamma protein in bacterial cell lysate, suggesting that it may be developed into a useful source of standard spiggin to be used for quantitative determination of androgen induced spiggin production in sticklebacks

Experimental comparison of modulation formats in IM/DD links

We present an experimental comparison of modulation formats for optical intensity modulated links with direct detection. Specifically, we compare OOK, QPSK on an electrical subcarrier and a new modulation format named OOPSK. The OOPSK modulation format is shown to have better sensitivity than the other modulation formats, in agreement with theoretical predictions. The impact of propagation in multimode fiber is also studied and the results show that all modulation formats have similar sensitivity penalties, with respect to the fibre length

Stochastic Backpropagation for Coherent Optical Communications

We present stochastic backpropagation, a novel maximum a posteriori detection method for coherent optical communication. The proposed detector is shown to outperform conventional backpropagation in a scenario where nonlinear phase noise is the dominant impairment

CMA Misconvergence in Coherent Optical Communication for Signals Generated from a Single PRBS

In the experimental study of modulators for coherent optical communications, it is common to generate multilevel signals using a single pseudo-random binary sequence. This simple experimental realization leads to symbol correlation. When modulators are studied in combination with adaptive receiver algorithms that rely on independent data, misconvergence may result. In this contribution, we investigate the impact of such correlation on a standard blind equalization method and provide guidelines to avoid misconvergence. Our results indicate that care needs to be taken when using a single PRBS sequence and that decorrelation delays must be chosen appropriately. We present simulation and theoretical results for 16-QAM, and show how our results can be applied to other multi-level constellations