Space time transceiver design over multipath fading channels

Imperial Users onl

Nonparametric inference of doubly stochastic Poisson process data via the kernel method

Doubly stochastic Poisson processes, also known as the Cox processes, frequently occur in various scientific fields. In this article, motivated primarily by analyzing Cox process data in biophysics, we propose a nonparametric kernel-based inference method. We conduct a detailed study, including an asymptotic analysis, of the proposed method, and provide guidelines for its practical use, introducing a fast and stable regression method for bandwidth selection. We apply our method to real photon arrival data from recent single-molecule biophysical experiments, investigating proteins' conformational dynamics. Our result shows that conformational fluctuation is widely present in protein systems, and that the fluctuation covers a broad range of time scales, highlighting the dynamic and complex nature of proteins' structure.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOAS352 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

The Myth of the City Image in Contemporary Chinese Society

In the past three decades, China\u27s cities have experienced rapid urbanization in a transitional political and economic environment; correspondingly, the city image has become one of the most important symbols of the progress in Chinese development. Within the Chinese mainstream media, the transformation of the city image has long been heralded as a successful microcosm of Chinese political and economic reforms. However, the social reality behind the prosperous facade of the city\u27s image is that city leaders are reshaping urban spaces to cater to the needs of the dominant class, multinational corporations, and global capitalism. Moreover, the construction of the city\u27s image obfuscates the widening gap between rich and poor, class conflicts, and the reconstitution of capitalist class power. I hypothesize that the idea of the contemporary city image is a myth, and intend to reveal the meanings and connotations which the myth conceals. More specifically, I conduct a case study of the 2008 Beijing Olympic campaign by comparing the representation of the city image offered by mainstream and alternative media sources. I examine how the mainstream media helped to construct the myth in accordance with government directives and how it was contested within the alternative media. In this way, I explore the power relations and class struggle behind the myth from a social justice perspective

Developing a Scale to Measure Destination Gender

Whether they depict the rugged landscape of the American West or the seductive charm of a South Asian beach, photographs and their accompanying text are powerful drivers of tourism demand. But what lies behind our response to such tourism tropes? Rosen College researchers have produced a new study which reappraises destination marketing through a gender-based lens. Led by Dr. Tingting Zhang, the study has developed and validated a cross-cultural scale to determine ‘destination gender’, or whether a location should be thought of as having masculine or feminine gender traits and appeal

Development of novel low pH Magnesium Silicate Hydrate (M-S-H) cement systems for encapsulation of problematic nuclear wastes

There are more than 100,000 tonnes of nuclear waste currently stored in the UK, waiting for final disposal. Composite cements consisting of Portland cement (PC) and blast furnace slag (BFS) have a good track record in encapsulation of a range of nuclear wastes. However, the pH of this system is relatively high (~13.3) for encapsulating wastes that containing trace levels of aluminium, as this can react under high pH conditions. The aim of this research was to develop novel cement systems with lower pH (~10) for encapsulating wastes containing aluminium metal and Magnox swarf. The hydration of magnesium oxide to form brucite produces a pH around 10 and this is a favourable pH for aluminium passivation. A range of reactive fillers were investigated and silica fume (SF) found to be the most suitable to achieve the desired pH. Identification of the hydrated phases in MgO/SF samples showed that magnesium silicate hydrate (M-S-H) gel is the main hydration product. Brucite (Mg(OH)2) also forms in the early stages of hydration but then reacts with SF to produce additional M-S-H gel. The system has been improved by addition of sodium hexameta-phosphate (Na-HMP) as a dispersant, magnesium carbonate to control the early pH and sand to minimise the drying shrinkage. The physical, chemical and mechanical properties of the improved MgO/ SF system have been investigated and compared with the control PC/BFS system. Magnox swarf and aluminium 1050 (Al) supplied by National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) were used as metal wastes. These metals were encapsulated in the control PC/ BFS system and the optimised MgO/ SF system. The interaction between the metals and the two cement systems has been investigated by monitoring H2 generation, studying the microstructure by SEM and the crystalline phases by XRD. Al strips were firmly bound into the optimised MgO/ SF system and no H2 gas was detected during the test period. The corrosion of Al is very limited in the optimised MgO/SF system compared to the control system. Magnox swarf was found to show similar corrosion behaviour when encapsulated in both the control system and the optimised MgO/SF system. The M-S-H gel forming cement system developed in this research is novel and may have potential for encapsulating certain types of problematic legacy wastes generated from the nuclear industry