信頼性の高い大容量公共用移動通信システムを実現するためのソフトウェア無線およびコグニティブ無線に関する研究

Public safety mobile wireless communication systems (PMCSs) are widely used by public safety personnel, such as firefighters and police, as well as local governments. PMCSs are crucial to protect safety and security of communities. Conventional PMCSs effectively cover underpopulated areas as well as urban areas by employing long-zone scheme. Since the PMCSs can cover areas that are not covered by commercial cellule systems, they play the important role as the only communication tool. Moreover, the conventional PMCSs have enhanced robustness and reliability. The conventional PMCSs can keep their services even if backbone lines are cut off. In contrast, short-zone scheme systems cannot offer stable and wide service area without backbone line connection. For example, the Great East Japan Earthquake in Japan, police mobile communication systems had kept their functions while cellular phones became disabled. PMCSs are required to be quite high robustness and reliability in order to save human life. Recently, conventional PMCSs are required to realize further expansion of service areas and high speed transmission although they have stably provided users with wide service areas so far. Nowadays, in order to solve complicated public affair quickly, more stable service areas and broadband communication are required. Compared with conventional PMCSs in urban areas, commercial wireless mobile communication systems (CWMCSs) such as cellular systems supply stable service areas and broadband communication in times of peace. In accordance with development of wireless technology, PMCSs need to keep pace with CWMCSs. However, conventional PMCSs can hardly realize further stable service areas and high speed transmission because of large-zone scheme. In terms of realization of further stable service areas, no-service areas cannot be eliminated easily. This is because no-service areas are mostly attributed to shadowing; in large-zone scheme, a no-service area that must essentially be covered by a certain base station is seldom covered by other neighboring base stations. Although new allocation of base stations is fundamental answer to solve no-service area problem in PMCSs, building new base stations of PMCSs that are not used for a commercial purpose is restricted by national and local budget. Realization of high speed transmission of PMCSs is also difficult because of large-zone scheme. To realize high speed transmission, increase of transmit power or shrinking of service area coverage is required to compensate Signal to Noise Power Ratio (SNR) deterioration caused by expanding bandwidth. Increase of transmission power of mobile station used in large-zone scheme systems is almost impossible because transmission power of mobile station is originally high. Thus, shrinking of service areas is necessary for high speed communication. Currently, to realize high speed transmission, next generation broadband PMCSs (BPMCSs) employing short-or middle-zone scheme are being developed. In the 3GPP, it is considered that the Long Term Evolution (LTE) is used for communication of public safety. In Japan, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) has researched and developed Public Broadband Wireless Communication System (PBWCS), which employs 200MHz as carrier frequency. The PBWCS has already been equipped in national police agency in Japan. However, we consider that the conventional narrowband PMCSs (NPM-CSs) are not replaced with the BPMCSs completely. This is because the BPMCSs cannot cover all the areas that the conventional NPM-CSs have covered. Moreover, there are problems of robustness and reliability when accidents happen. Hence, users of PMCSs will utilize both of NPMCSs and BPMCSs in accordance with the situation. In this case, users equipping several terminals feel inconvenient and also radio resources are not used effectively. The best solution to realize optimal PMCSs is employing heterogeneous cognitive radio (HCR) for PMCSs. By applying the HCR to PMCSs, service areas expansion and high speed transmission in PM-CSs will be realized effectively. We propose an integrated system combining NPMCSs with CWMCSs and BPMCSs to make communication quality of the PMCSs improve. The proposed HCR recognizes communication conditions of several systems and then provides PMCS\u27s users with optimal communication quality. Although software defined radio techniques (SDR) are ideal to operate cognitive radio more flexibly, we deal with HCR mainly to realize combined systems in this thesis. We study advantages, problems, and their solution to realize the HCR for PMCSs. Firstly, we research service area expansion of NPMCSs using HCR. The proposed HCR is utilized for stabilization of NPMCS\u27s service area. If communication quality of a NPMCS deteriorates owing to shadowing, the proposed HCR terminal obtains a part of NPMCS\u27s data called subsidiary information (SI) from CWMCSs or BPMCSs. The proposed HCR terminal can improve PMCS\u27s bit error rate (BER) performance by combining the SI with received signals of the NPMCS and then decoding the combined signals using forward error correction (FEC). Since convolutional codes are often used in FEC of NPMCSs, we consider BER improvement methods of the convolutional code. We derive modified Viterbi algorithm from maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) of the combined signals. Moreover, we introduce the distance spectrum to evaluate characteristics of the convolutional codes. The distance spectrum is used for estimating improvement of BER performances. Next, we consider synchronization methods to realize the proposed HCR. In the HCR, there are two types of synchronization method; one is the self-synchronization method to synchronize each system itself. The other is the co-synchronization method to combine different systems. In this thesis, we consider self-synchronization methods of NPMCSs mainly. This is because the HCR aims to improve communication quality of NPMCSs equipping conventional self-synchronization methods that are not probably available in low SNR environments. In this environment, since NPMCSs can hardly obtain their self-synchronization alone, powerful self-synchronization methods using HCR techniques are required. We propose two synchronization methods that are utilization of global portioning system (GPS) signals and utilization of the SI, respectively. The synchronization methods utilizing GPS signals can acquire timing synchronization. To obtain timing synchronization, the proposed HCR acquires accurate time and own location using the GPS signals. The HCR also gets the location of base stations and the frame timing by making the SI convey their information. Since the HCR can know accurate time and distance between the base station and the HCR, synchronization timing can be calculated. However, in GPS based method, preciseness of timing synchronization may be deteriorated by measurement error of GPS signals, diffraction caused by mountains, and propagation delay caused by reection. For this reason, we consider a mitigation method of the timing error and then evaluate BER performances using computer simulation. Moreover, we propose a SI based synchronization method that can obtain timing synchronization without GPS signals. The proposed method is employed when a NPMCS uses differential coded π/4 shift QPSK as the modulation scheme. The notable feature of the proposed method is to convey the phase rotation of the π/4 shift QPSK as the SI. The HCR can forecast PMCS\u27s envelopes from the obtained SI and then obtain the timing synchronization by correlating the forecasted envelopes with real received envelopes. Since the proposed method can also be used for co-synchronization and BER improvement, CWMCS\u27s resource consumption to convey the SI is suppressed. Finally, we consider HCRs combining several PMCSs. In this thesis, the combination of NPMCSs and the combination of a NPMCS and a BPMCS are researched. In the combination of NPMCSs, we consider that several PMCSs are integrated by SDR. In the combination of a NPMCS and a BPMCS, we propose site diversity based on HCR to improve uplink communication quality of the BPMCS. In this diversity, since uplink interference must be avoided, we employ combination of the adaptive array and HCR techniques. Moreover, we propose information compression methods for narrow band backbone lines so that received data can be conveyed to head office with little BER deterioration. PMCSs will have played an important role to ensure social safety. In the thesis, we consider the one of the next generation PMCSs employing SDR and HCR. Using this research, we can obtain a direction of optimal PMCSs. The next step that we need to perform is to apply our proposed method to actual radio systems. We must continue this research so that high reliable and compact PMCSs can be realized.電気通信大学201

Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide type 1 receptor signaling evokes long-lasting nociceptive behaviors through the activation of spinal astrocytes in mice

AbstractIntrathecal (i.t.) administration of pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) induces long-lasting nociceptive behaviors for more than 60 min in mice, while the involvement of PACAP type1 receptor (PAC1-R) has not been clarified yet. The present study investigated signaling mechanisms of the PACAP-induced prolonged nociceptive behaviors. Single i.t. injection of a selective PAC1-R agonist, maxadilan (Max), mimicked nociceptive behaviors in a dose-dependent manner similar to PACAP. Pre- or post-treatment of a selective PAC1-R antagonist, max.d.4, significantly inhibited the nociceptive behaviors by PACAP or Max. Coadministration of a protein kinase A inhibitor, Rp-8-Br-cAMPS, a mitogen-activated protein kinase/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) kinase inhibitor, PD98059 or a c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) inhibitor, SP600125, significantly inhibited the nociceptive behaviors by Max. Immunohistochemistry and immunoblotting analysis revealed that spinal administration of Max-induced ERK phosphorylation and JNK phosphorylation, and also augmented an astrocyte marker, glial fibrillary acidic protein in mouse spinal cord. Furthermore, an astroglial toxin, l-α-aminoadipate, significantly attenuated the development of the nociceptive behaviors and ERK phosphorylation by Max. These results suggest that the activation of spinal PAC1-R induces long-lasting nociception through the interaction of neurons and astrocytes

Factors in glucocorticoid regimens associated with treatment response and relapses of IgG4-related disease: a multicentre study

Glucocorticoids (GC) are effective for treating IgG4-related disease (IgG4-RD); however, relapse is often observed. We conducted a retrospective multicentre study to investigate risk factors in GC regimens associated with relapses of IgG4-RD. Data on 166 patients with definitive IgG4-RD diagnosis were collected from 12 institutions. Comprehensive surveillance of clinical backgrounds and GC regimens as well as multivariate analysis of factors associated with treatment responses and relapses was performed. To determine the initial maximal GC dose, the patients were stratified into three groups depending on the initial prednisolone (PSL) dosage: 0.7 mg/kg/day. The multivariate analysis extracted the disease duration and reduction speed of initial GC dose. Patients treated with initial GC 0.7 mg/kg/day of PSL showed higher relapse rates than those treated with 0.4–0.69 mg/kg/day. The relapse rates were significantly higher in patients with fast reduction of the initial dose (>0.4 mg/day) than in patients with slow reduction (<0.4 mg/day). To avoid relapse, 0.4–0.69 mg/kg/day of initial PSL with slow reduction speed (<0.4 mg/day) is needed in the early treatment of IgG4-RD

Comparison of performance of the 2016 ACR-EULAR classification criteria for primary Sjögren\u27s syndrome with other sets of criteria in Japanese patients

Objectives To compare the performance of the new 2016 American College of Rheumatology (ACR)-European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) classification criteria for primary Sjögren\u27s syndrome (SS) with 1999 revised Japanese Ministry of Health criteria for diagnosis of SS (JPN), 2002 American-European Consensus Group classification criteria for SS (AECG) and 2012 ACR classification criteria for SS (ACR) in Japanese patients.Methods The study subjects were 499 patients with primary SS (pSS) or suspected pSS who were followed up in June 2012 at 10 hospitals in Japan. All patients had been assessed for all four criteria of JPN (pathology, oral, ocular, anti-SS-A/SS-B antibodies). The clinical diagnosis by the physician in charge was set as the ‘gold standard’.Results pSS was diagnosed in 302 patients and ruled out in 197 patients by the physician in charge. The sensitivity of the ACR-EULAR criteria in the diagnosis of pSS (95.4%) was higher than those of the JPN, AECG and ACR (82.1%, 89.4% and 79.1%, respectively), while the specificity of the ACR-EULAR (72.1%) was lower than those of the three sets (90.9%, 84.3% and 84.8%, respectively). The differences of sensitivities and specificities between the ACR-EULAR and other three sets of criteria were statistically significant (p<0.001). Eight out of 302 patients with pSS and 11 cases out of 197 non-pSS cases satisfied only the ACR-EULAR criteria, compared with none of the other three sets.Conclusions The ACR-EULAR criteria had significantly higher sensitivity and lower specificity in diagnosis of pSS, compared with the currently available three sets of criteria

ADAMTS-1: A metalloproteinase-disintegrin essential for normal growth, fertility, and organ morphology and function

金沢大学医薬保健研究域医学系A disintegrin and metalloproteinase (ADAM) represents a protein family possessing both metalloproteinase and disintegrin domains. ADAMTS-1, an ADAM family member cloned from cachexigenic colon adenocarcinoma, is unusual in that it contains thrombospondin type I motifs and anchors to the extracellular matrix. To elucidate the biological role of ADAMTS-1, we developed ADAMTS-1-null mice by gene targeting. Targeted disruption of the mouse ADAMTS-1 gene resulted in growth retardation with adipose tissue malformation. Impaired female fertilization accompanied by histological changes in the uterus and ovaries also resulted. Furthermore, ADAMTS-1(-/-) mice demonstrated enlarged renal calices with fibrotic changes from the ureteropelvic junction through the ureter, and abnormal adrenal medullary architecture without capillary formation. ADAMTS-1 thus appears necessary for normal growth, fertility, and organ morphology and function. Moreover, the resemblance of the renal phenotype to human ureteropelvic junction obstruction may provide a clue to the pathogenesis of this common congenital disease

Hydrogen traps in ion-irradiated F82H steel observed by NRA

Characteristics of irradiation-induced trapping of hydrogen were investigated for quantitative evaluation of tritium retention in F82H steel. Before and after irradiation of 0.8-MeV 4He or 0.3-MeV H ions, deuterium depth profiles near the surface of a disk sample were observed by nuclear reaction analysis under continuous exposure of deuterium plasma. One type of trap, with a trapping energy of 0.66 eV, was observed after each irradiation. The ratio of trap production rate to atomic displacement was 0.0046 and 0.0014 for He and H irradiation, respectively. Annihilation occurred around 600 K for H irradiation but was not observed even at 691 K for He irradiation. Traps are likely to be interstitial-like sites associated with dislocation loops. This study also indicates that helium plays a role in inhibiting trap annihilation. In addition, the deuterium diffusion coefficient in non-irradiated F82H was determined by a time-lag permeation experiment