Very deep spectroscopy of the bright Saturn Nebula NGC 7009 - II. Analysis of the rich optical recombination spectrum

[Abridged] We present a critical analysis of the rich optical recombination spectrum of NGC 7009, in the context of the bi-abundance nebular model proposed by Liu et al. (2000). The observed relative intensities are compared with the theoretical predictions based on high quality effective recombination coefficients, now available for the recombination line spectrum of a number of heavy element ions. The possibility of plasma diagnostics using the optical recombination lines (ORLs) of heavy element ions is discussed in detail. Plasma diagnostics based on the N II and O II recombination spectra both yield electron temperatures close to 1000 K, which is lower than those derived from the collisionally excited line (CEL) ratios by nearly one order of magnitude. The very low temperatures yielded by the O II and N II ORLs indicate that they originate from very cold regions. The C^{2+}/H^+, N^{2+}/H^+, O^{2+}/H^+ and Ne^{2+}/H^+ ionic abundance ratios derived from ORLs are consistently higher, by about a factor of 5, than the corresponding values derived from CELs. In calculating the ORL ionic abundance ratios, we have used the newly available high quality effective recombination coefficients, and adopted an electron temperature of 1000 K, as given by the ORL diagnostics and as a consequence presumably representing the physical conditions prevailing in the regions where the heavy element ORLs arise. A comparison of the results of plasma diagnostics and abundance determinations for NGC 7009 points to the existence of "cold", metal-rich (i.e. H-deficient) inclusions embedded in the hot, diffuse ionized gas, first postulated by Liu et al. (2000).Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS (50 pages of main text; 13 pages of appendix; in total 55 figures and 28 tables

On Random Linear Network Coding for Butterfly Network

Random linear network coding is a feasible encoding tool for network coding, specially for the non-coherent network, and its performance is important in theory and application. In this letter, we study the performance of random linear network coding for the well-known butterfly network by analyzing the failure probabilities. We determine the failure probabilities of random linear network coding for the well-known butterfly network and the butterfly network with channel failure probability p.Comment: This paper was submitted to IEEE Communications Letter

Linear Network Error Correction Multicast/Broadcast/Dispersion/Generic Codes

In the practical network communications, many internal nodes in the network are required to not only transmit messages but decode source messages. For different applications, four important classes of linear network codes in network coding theory, i.e., linear multicast, linear broadcast, linear dispersion, and generic network codes, have been studied extensively. More generally, when channels of communication networks are noisy, information transmission and error correction have to be under consideration simultaneously, and thus these four classes of linear network codes are generalized to linear network error correction (LNEC) coding, and we say them LNEC multicast, broadcast, dispersion, and generic codes, respectively. Furthermore, in order to characterize their efficiency of information transmission and error correction, we propose the (weakly, strongly) extended Singleton bounds for them, and define the corresponding optimal codes, i.e., LNEC multicast/broadcast/dispersion/generic MDS codes, which satisfy the corresponding Singleton bounds with equality. The existences of such MDS codes are discussed in detail by algebraic methods and the constructive algorithms are also proposed.Comment: Single column, 38 pages. Submitted for possible publicatio

Distributed Storage Schemes over Unidirectional Ring Networks

In this paper, we study distributed storage problems over unidirectional ring networks. A lower bound on the reconstructing bandwidth to recover total original data for each user is proposed, and it is achievable for arbitrary parameters. If a distributed storage scheme can achieve this lower bound with equality for each user, we say it an optimal reconstructing distributed storage scheme (ORDSS). Furthermore, the repair problem for a failed storage node in ORDSSes is under consideration and a tight lower bound on the repair bandwidth for each storage node is obtained. Particularly, we indicate the fact that for any ORDSS, every storage node can be repaired with repair bandwidth achieving the lower bound with equality. In addition, we present an efficient approach to construct ORDSSes for arbitrary parameters by using the concept of Euclidean division. Finally, we take an example to characterize the above approach.Comment: two columns, 5 pages, 8 figures, and submitted to the ISIT 201

Repairable Threshold Secret Sharing Schemes

In this paper, we propose a class of threshold secret sharing schemes with repairing function between shares without the help of the dealer, that we called repairable threshold secret sharing schemes. Specifically, if a share fails, such as broken or lost, it will be repaired just by some other shares. A construction of such repairable threshold secret sharing schemes is designed by applying linearized polynomials and regenerating codes in distributed storage systems. In addition, a new repairing rate is introduced to characterize the performance and efficiency of the repairing function. Then an achievable upper bound on the repairing rate is derived, which implies the optimality of the repair and describes the security between different shares. Under this optimality of the repair, we further discuss traditional information rate and also indicate its optimality, that can describe the efficiency of secret sharing schemes in the aspect of storage. Finally, by applying the minimum bandwidth regenerating (MBR) codes, our construction designs repairable threshold secret sharing schemes achieving both optimal repairing and information rates simultaneously.Comment: One column and 17 pages, submitted for publicatio

On the Optimality of Secure Network Coding

In network communications, information transmission often encounters wiretapping attacks. Secure network coding is introduced to prevent information from being leaked to adversaries. The investigation of performance bounds on the numbers of source symbols and random symbols are two fundamental research problems. For an important case that each wiretap-set with cardinality not larger than $r$, Cai and Yeung proposed a coding scheme, which is optimal in the senses of maximizing the number of source symbols and at the same time minimizing the number of random symbols. In this letter, we further study achievable lower bound on the number of random key and show that it just depends on the security constraint, and particularly, is independent to the information amount for transmission. This implies that when the number of transmitted source message changes, we can't reduce the number of random key to keep the same security level. We further give an intuitive interpretation on our result. In addition, a similar construction of secure linear network codes is proposed, which achieves this lower bound on the number of random key no matter how much information is transmitted. At last, we also extend our result to imperfect security case.Comment: Accepted for publication in the IEEE Communications Letters. One column,10 page

Very Large Telescope deep echelle spectroscopy of Galactic planetary nebulae NGC 6153, M 1-42 and Hf 2-2

We present deep spectroscopy of three Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe) with large abundance discrepancy factors (ADFs): NGC6153, M1-42 and Hf2-2. The spectra were obtained with VLT/UVES and cover the whole optical range (3040-11,000 A) with a spectral resolution of ~20,000. For all three PNe, several hundred emission lines were detected and identified, with more than 70 per cent of them as permitted lines. Most of these permitted lines are excited by recombination. Numerous weak optical recombination lines (ORLs) of O II, C II, N II and Ne II were detected in the spectra and accurate fluxes measured. Line flux tables were compiled and ready for use by the community of nebular astrophysics. These ORLs were critically analyzed using the effective recombination coefficients recently calculated for the optical recombination spectrum of N II and O II under the physical conditions of photoionized gaseous nebulae. Plasma diagnostics based on the heavy element ORLs were carried out using the new atomic data. Elemental abundances derived from the ORLs were systematically higher than those derived from the collisionally excited lines (CELs) by a factor of ~10, 22 and 80 for NGC6153, M1-42 and Hf2-2, respectively. The electron temperatures derived from the heavy element ORLs are systematically lower than those derived from the CELs. These ORL versus CEL abundance and temperature discrepancies, previously observed in the three PNe through deep spectroscopy with medium to low spectral resolution, are thus confirmed by our analysis of the deep echelle spectra using the new atomic data.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 31 pages, including 15 figures and 14 table

Variable-Rate Linear Network Error Correction MDS Codes

In network communication, the source often transmits messages at several different information rates within a session. How to deal with information transmission and network error correction simultaneously under different rates is introduced in this paper as a variable-rate network error correction problem. Apparently, linear network error correction MDS codes are expected to be used for these different rates. For this purpose, designing a linear network error correction MDS code based on the existing results for each information rate is an efficient solution. In order to solve the problem more efficiently, we present the concept of variable-rate linear network error correction MDS codes, that is, these linear network error correction MDS codes of different rates have the same local encoding kernel at each internal node. Further, we propose an approach to construct such a family of variable-rate network MDS codes and give an algorithm for efficient implementation. This approach saves the storage space for each internal node, and resources and time for the transmission on networks. Moreover, the performance of our proposed algorithm is analyzed, including the field size, the time complexity, the encoding complexity at the source node, and the decoding methods. Finally, a random method is introduced for constructing variable-rate network MDS codes and we obtain a lower bound on the success probability of this random method, which shows that this probability will approach to one as the base field size goes to infinity.Comment: Single column, 34 pages, submitted for publication. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1311.7466, arXiv:1011.137

Small Field Size for Secure Network Coding

In network coding, information transmission often encounters wiretapping attacks. Secure network coding is introduced to prevent information from being leaked to adversaries. For secure linear network codes (SLNCs), the required field size is a very important index, because it largely determines the computational and space complexities of a SLNC, and it is also very important for the process of secure network coding from theoretical research to practical application. In this letter, we further discuss the required field size of SLNCs, and obtain a new lower bound. This bound shows that the field size of SLNCs can be reduced further, and much smaller than the known results for almost all cases.Comment: Accepted for publication in the IEEE Communications Letters. One column,10 page

Construction of Network Error Correction Codes in Packet Networks

Recently, network error correction coding (NEC) has been studied extensively. Several bounds in classical coding theory have been extended to network error correction coding, especially the Singleton bound. In this paper, following the research line using the extended global encoding kernels proposed in \cite{zhang-correction}, the refined Singleton bound of NEC can be proved more explicitly. Moreover, we give a constructive proof of the attainability of this bound and indicate that the required field size for the existence of network maximum distance separable (MDS) codes can become smaller further. By this proof, an algorithm is proposed to construct general linear network error correction codes including the linear network error correction MDS codes. Finally, we study the error correction capability of random linear network error correction coding. Motivated partly by the performance analysis of random linear network coding \cite{Ho-etc-random}, we evaluate the different failure probabilities defined in this paper in order to analyze the performance of random linear network error correction coding. Several upper bounds on these probabilities are obtained and they show that these probabilities will approach to zero as the size of the base field goes to infinity. Using these upper bounds, we slightly improve on the probability mass function of the minimum distance of random linear network error correction codes in \cite{zhang-random}, as well as the upper bound on the field size required for the existence of linear network error correction codes with degradation at most $d$.Comment: 14 pages, submitted in 4 Nov. 201