A Simplified Scheme of Estimation and Cancellation of Companding Noise for Companded Multicarrier Transmission Systems

Nonlinear companding transform is an efficient method to reduce the high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of multicarrier transmission systems. However, the introduced companding noise greatly degrades the bit-error-rate (BER) performance of the companded multicarrier systems. In this paper, a simplified but effective scheme of estimation and cancellation of companding noise for the companded multicarrier transmission system is proposed. By expressing the companded signals as the summation of original signals added with a companding noise component, and subtracting this estimated companding noise from the received signals, the BER performance of the overall system can be significantly improved. Simulation results well confirm the great advantages of the proposed scheme over other conventional decompanding or no decompanding schemes under various situations

International intermediaries: A systematic literature review and research agenda

Intermediaries such as trading companies, agents and merchants have played a key role in international business for centuries. Despite the growing importance of understanding the phenomenon of intermediaries, there are misperceptions and confusions regarding the concept and value of intermediaries, which result in disconnected and fragmented research findings. This study – based on an analysis of 101 articles published between 1985 and 2021 – aims to synthesise the conceptual developments and provide a more integrated understanding of both sourcing and trading intermediaries whose activities extend across national borders. The findings help to pave the way for further academic research by highlighting what we currently know and do not know about intermediaries, outlining the theoretically grounded research agenda for each of the three identified themes: (1) What are intermediaries? (2) When should intermediaries be used? and (3) How do intermediaries work and develop? The study shows that despite decades of research on this topic, the literature to date has been limited and scattered. Researchers are encouraged to consider the role of intermediaries in a bigger picture where intermediated exchanges exist not only in dyadic relationships, but also in triads or even in broader webs of networks

The effects of surface finish and grain size on the strength of sintered silicon carbide

The effects of surface treatment and microstructure, especially abnormal grain growth, on the strength of sintered SiC were studied. The surfaces of sintered SiC were treated with 400, 800 and 1200 grit diamond wheels. Grain growth was induced by increasing the sintering times at 2050 C. The beta to alpha transformation occurred during the sintering of beta-phase starting materials and was often accompanied by abnormal grain growth. The overall strength distributions were established using Weibull statistics. The strength of the sintered SiC is limited by extrinsic surface flaws in normal-sintered specimens. The finer the surface finish and grain size, the higher the strength. But the strength of abnormal sintering specimens is limited by the abnormally grown large tabular grains. The Weibull modulus increases with decreasing grain size and decreasing grit size for grinding

Cerenkov Line Emission as a Possible Mechanism of X-ray Lines in Gamma-ray Bursts

The recent discoveries of X-ray lines in the afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) provide significant clues to the nature of GRB progenitors and central environments. However, the iron line interpretation by fluorescence or recombination mechanism requires a large amount of iron material. We argue that the very strong iron line could be attributed to an alternative mechanism: Cerenkov line emission since relativistic electrons and dense medium exist near GRB sites. Therefore, the broad iron lines are expected, and line intensity will be nearly independent of the iron abundance, the medium with the anomalously high Fe abundance is not required.Comment: 4 pages, revised version accepted for the publication in ApJ

A nonlinear mechanism of charge qubit decoherence in a lossy cavity: the quasi normal mode approach

In the viewpoint of quasi normal modes, we describe a novel decoherence mechanism of charge qubit of Josephson Junctions (JJ) in a lossy micro-cavity, which can appear in the realistic experiment for quantum computation based on JJ qubit. We show that the nonlinear coupling of a charge qubit to quantum cavity field can result in an additional dissipation of resonant mode due to its effective interaction between those non-resonant modes and a resonant mode, which is induced by the charge qubit itself. We calculate the characterized time of the novel decoherence by making use of the system plus bath method.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figur