Suppressed carrier full-spectrum combining

A technique to accomplish full spectrum arraying where all the telemetry power is put into the subcarrier sidebands (suppressed carrier) is described. The matched filter needed in each antenna prior to cross correlation for deriving the coherence delay and phase offsets is an open loop version of the telemetry phase lock loop provided in the Advanced Digital Receiver. In analogy with a Costas loop telemetry receiver, a squaring loss is derived, and a signal to noise ratio for the cross correlation loop phase is presented

Stigma Dynamics:Russia and the Crisis of Liberal Ordering

The concepts of stigma and stigmatization have recently made inroads into IR. However, scholarship on stigmatization has primarily focused on discrete instances of stigmatization and stigma management for the purposes of comparison. Less has been written about how the dynamics of stigmatization processes can alter over time as actors change stigma-management tactics and stigmatization varies in intensity, and the effect this may have on social norms. To that end, this article introduces a distinction between direct and diffuse forms of stigmatization that, when combined with different forms of stigma management, lead to changes in stigma dynamics over time. It applies this distinction to Russian stigma management vis-à-vis liberal international order, specifically the norms of democracy and human rights that constitute a “normal” for states to aspire to, any deviance from which requires stigma management. By outlining the interactive process of Russia's stigma management in relation to these norms since the end of the Cold War, and the degrees of direct and diffuse stigmatization of Russia by the norms’ promoters, the article also seeks to make a contribution to work on the crisis of liberal international order, aligning itself with contributions focused on the co-constitution of order through processes of ordering. The article proposes that stigmatization is a constitutive mechanism of liberal ordering and that some of the explanation for the supposed crisis of liberal order is the alteration of international stigma dynamics

Stigmatisation in international relations: Russia, the West and international society from the Cold War to Crimea

This study analyses the effect of stigmatisation – the process of marking certain actors, behaviours or attributes as deviant in order to reinforce the norms of a social order – on Russian-Western relations from 1991 to 2016 and the broader normative fabric of post-Cold War international society. Building on the stigma literature in Sociology and recent applications of stigma theory in International Relations, stigmatisation is conceptualised as a relational process central to how international politics works, most notably in terms of what it means to be a ‘normal’ state. The study makes two overall contributions. First, to the literature on Russian-Western relations, it provides a critical-theoretical, relational account of the co-constitutive relationship between the two that goes beyond the blame game of much recent work. Second, to the literature on international society and international norms, it provides an account of the contestation that takes place over norms to shape expectations of ‘normality’ in international society. In the process, it also offers to the IR stigma literature a sociological conceptualisation of stigmatisation that challenges structural, psychological conceptualisations. The study adopts a fourfold definition of the components of stigmatisation (stereotyping, labelling, separation and status loss), and a fourfold definition of stigma management strategies (stigma recognition, stigma evasion, stigma rejection, counter-stigmatisation). It uses these foundations to analyse Russian-Western relations in respect of four norms of state behaviour deemed central to contemporary international society: (liberal) democracy, human rights, non-aggression, (liberal) capitalism. It gauges how stigmatisation and stigma management work in relation to each norm, and what that says about the norm’s importance in contemporary international relations. In conclusion, the study considers the extent to which stigmatisation in Russian-Western relations has made international society ‘hang together’, that is whether Western stigmatisation of Russian behaviour and Russian stigma management has served to strengthen or weaken international society’s norms

When Stigmatization Fails:Russia and Aggression in Ukraine

Why does stigmatization sometimes fail? The literature on stigma in international relations has done an excellent job of pointing to the role successful stigmatization processes play in the construction and maintenance of normative hierarchies, but there has been far less exploration of the conditions under which they may fail in this purpose and the potential consequences for international security and society. This article contributes such an exploration by focusing on the attempted stigma imposition on Russia following its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and support for the insurgency in eastern Ukraine. While Russia was stigmatized as an aggressor by a significant part of international society, including through diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions, this failed to deter further Russian aggression, as demonstrated by its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and thus to reinforce the norm of territorial integrity. The article investigates the reasons for this failure, locating them both in insufficient stigma imposition—the difficulty in building and maintaining a committed “audience of normals” and to impose strong enough status loss and material costs—and to some extent in Russia's counter-stigmatizing stigma management. In conclusion, it considers what could in theory be done differently for stigma imposition to “work,” and calls for further research on the connections between stigma and emotion, as a core under-researched factor in the stigma literature

Using Fractional Clock-Period Delays in Telemetry Arraying

A set of special digital all-pass finite-impulse- response (FIR) filters produces phase shifts equivalent to delays that equal fractions of the sampling or clock period of a telemetry-data-processing system. These filters have been used to enhance the arraying of telemetry signals that have been received at multiple ground stations from spacecraft (see figure). Somewhat more specifically, these filters have been used to align, in the time domain, the telemetry-data sequences received by the various antennas, in order to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio of the composite telemetric signal obtained by summing the signals received by the antennas. The term arraying in this context denotes a method of enhanced reception of telemetry signals in which several antennas are used to track a single spacecraft. Each antenna receives a signal that comprises a sum of telemetry data plus noise, and these sum data are sent to an arraying combiner for processing. Correlation is the means used to align the set of data from one antenna with that from another antenna. After the data from all the antennas have been aligned in the time domain, they are all added together, sample by sample

Algorithm for Aligning an Array of Receiving Radio Antennas

A digital-signal-processing algorithm (somewhat arbitrarily) called SUMPLE has been devised as a means of aligning the outputs of multiple receiving radio antennas in a large array for the purpose of receiving a weak signal transmitted by a single distant source. As used here, aligning signifies adjusting the delays and phases of the outputs from the various antennas so that their relatively weak replicas of the desired signal can be added coherently to increase the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for improved reception, as though one had a single larger antenna. The method was devised to enhance spacecraft-tracking and telemetry operations in NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN); the method could also be useful in such other applications as both satellite and terrestrial radio communications and radio astronomy. Heretofore, most commonly, alignment has been effected by a process that involves correlation of signals in pairs. This approach necessitates the use of a large amount of hardware most notably, the N(N - 1)/2 correlators needed to process signals from all possible pairs of N antennas. Moreover, because the incoming signals typically have low SNRs, the delay and phase adjustments are poorly determined from the pairwise correlations. SUMPLE also involves correlations, but the correlations are not performed in pairs. Instead, in a partly iterative process, each signal is appropriately weighted and then correlated with a composite signal equal to the sum of the other signals (see Figure 1). One benefit of this approach is that only N correlators are needed; in an array of N much greater than 1 antennas, this results in a significant reduction of the amount of hardware. Another benefit is that once the array achieves coherence, the correlation SNR is N - 1 times that of a pair of antennas

Gender in eSports research : a literature review

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Media (re)presentation of a black woman esports player : The case of Chiquita Evans in the NBA 2K League

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Masculinities and gender-based violence in South Africa

This thesis explores the connections between masculinities and gender-based violence in South Africa. With an emphasis on why masculinities matter in development, and how men`s active participation and engagement in development is crucial for achieving gender equality. I claim that deconstructing the idea of masculinity can help decrease the prevalence of gender-based violence, especially in South Africa.B-D