Cognitive Interference Alignment for Spectral Coexistence

Interference Alignment (IA) has been widely recognized as a promising interference mitigation technique since it can achieve the optimal degrees of freedom in certain interference limited channels. In the context of Cognitive Radio (CR) networks, this technique allows the coexistence of two heterogeneous wireless systems in an underlay cognitive mode. The main concept behind this technique is the alignment of the interference on a signal subspace in such a way that it can be filtered out at the non-intended receiver by sacrificing some signal dimensions. This chapter starts with an overview of IA principle, Degree of Freedom (DoF) concept, and the classification of existing IA techniques. Furthermore, this chapter includes a discussion about IA applications in CR networks.Moreover, a generic system model is presented for allowing the coexistence of two heterogeneous networks using IA approach while relevant precoding and filtering processes are described. In addition, two important practical applications of the IA technique are presented along with the numerical results for underlay spectral coexistence of (i) femtocell-macrocell systems, and (ii) monobeam-multibeam satellite systems. More specifically, an uplink IA scheme is investigated in order to mitigate the interference of femtocell User Terminals (UTs) towards the macrocell Base Station (BS) in the spatial domain and the interference of multibeam satellite terminals towards the monobeam satellite in the frequency domain

Interference alignment for spectral coexistence of heterogeneous networks

The coexistence of heterogeneous networks within the same spectrum for enhancing the spectrum efficiency has attracted large interest lately in the research community. Furthermore, the research interest towards the deployment of small cells and multibeam satellites is increasing due to high capacity, easier deployment and higher energy efficiency. However, due to the scarcity of available spectrum and the requirement of additional spectrum for these systems, small cells need to coexist with macrocells and multibeam satellites need to coexist with monobeam satellites within the same spectrum. In this context, this contribution investigates an underlay spectral coexistence mechanism which exploits an interference alignment (IA) technique in order to mitigate the interference of cognitive transmitters towards the primary receivers in a normal uplink mode. More specifically, three types of IA techniques, namely static, uncoordinated and coordinated are investigated. The performance of the IA technique is evaluated and compared with primary only, resource division and no-mitigation techniques in terms of sum-rate capacity, primary to secondary rate ratio and primary rate protection ratio. It is shown that the coordinated IA technique perfectly protects the primary rate in both terrestrial and satellite coexistence scenarios

Cohort profile. the ESC-EORP chronic ischemic cardiovascular disease long-term (CICD LT) registry

The European Society of cardiology (ESC) EURObservational Research Programme (EORP) Chronic Ischemic Cardiovascular Disease registry Long Term (CICD) aims to study the clinical profile, treatment modalities and outcomes of patients diagnosed with CICD in a contemporary environment in order to assess whether these patients at high cardiovascular risk are treated according to ESC guidelines on prevention or on stable coronary disease and to determine mid and long term outcomes and their determinants in this population