<p>Future wireless communication systems will utilize the spatial properties of the wireless channel to improve the spectral efficiency and thus increase capacity. This is realized by deploying multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver. Utilizing the spatial properties of the channel demands channel models that properly reflect these characteristics. Due to the unpredictable nature of the wireless channel, a common approach is to model its effects in a statistical fashion. A few large world wide cooperations, like the 3GPP or WINNER projects, have developed channel models intended for reference and standardization use. These models are partly based on bulk parameters which describe the characteristics of the channel over larger areas of several wavelengths. These parameters include shadow fading, angle spread, and delay spread among others, and are within the WINNER project called large scale (LS) parameters. Considering the variations of these parameters, it is likely that they are correlated between closely located areas. Therefore it is of key interest to model their correlation properties instead of randomizing them independently for each new simulation. In multi-cell scenarios, when considering macro diversity or evaluation other properties such as interference and/or handover schemes, the intra site correlation of the shadow fading parameters should be taken into account for proper simulations. Neglecting this correlation the interference could be over/under estimated, hence the system capacity can be over/under estimated. Further, reliable estimations of the interference levels will increase the frequency reuse, and may even permit reuse within the same cell, on spatially separated links. The thesis focuses on modelling the statistics and variations of these parameters to increase accuracy of channel models. Previous studies have looked at the autocorrelation properties of the shadow fading in outdoor environments and found it to follow an exponential decay. This means that an first order autoregressive function would be sufficient to model this effect. Research of the angular spread parameter is more scarce, and therefor this issue is studied herein. In addition to the autocorrelation properties the intra-site correlation between the different large scale parameters is of interest. It is herein found that the shadow fading is negatively correlated with angle spreads, while the angle spread at the base station and the angle spread at the mobile show positive correlation. Finally, the inter site correlation between one mobile and multiple base stations is studied as a function of the angular separation between the links. For closely located base station, ie with small angular separation as seen from the mobile, substantial inter-site correlation is found. It is further seen that the correlation of the shadow fading is more prominent than the correlation of angle spread.</p>

Thesis (M.S.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Jeffrey P. Chanton, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Oceanography. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 16, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis is deriving from a telemedicine project "TeleCare" of constructing soft- ware for remote medical diagnosis between the doctor and the patient. The software has to fix the problem of managing local and remote media information. This thesis presents a telecommunication framework for synchronizing multiple media chan- nels, following research methodology, from problem description, iterative and incre- mental development to prototype finalization. For the framework, I have described the framework requirements and corresponding architecture design and implemen- tation. From the evaluation result of "TeleCare" software developed above it, I can conclude the framework has reached the problem.

A central feature of wireless networks is multiple users sharing a common medium. Cellular systems are among the most common examples of such networks. The main phenomenon resulting from this inter-user interaction is interference, and thus analyzing interference networks is critical to determine the capacity of wireless networks. The capacity region of an interference network is defined as the set of rates that the users can simultaneously achieve while ensuring arbitrarily small probability of decoding error. It is an inherently hard problem to find the capacity region of interference networks. Even the capacity region of a general 2-user interference channel is a prominent open problem in information theory. This work's goal is to derive achievable regions that are improved over known results, and when possible, capacity theorems, for K user interference networks. Another multiuser channel that is commonly found in wireless systems is a broadcast channel. Broadcast channels stand side by side with Interference channels as the two of the most important channels for which capacity results are still not completely known. In this work we develop inner and outer bounds on the capacity region of fading broadcast channels, using which we find a part of the capacity region under some conditions. In summary, this work first presents coding arguments for new achievable rate regions and, where possible, capacity results for K-user interference networks. Second, it provides inner and outer-bounds for a class of fading broadcast channels. / text

The transient receptor potential channels, ankyrin 1 (TRPA1) and vanilloid 1 (TRPV1), are non-selective cation-permeable channels that have retained their function as chemical sensors since their first appearance in metazoan species several hundred million years ago. In vertebrates, TRP channels have evolved multiple functions which make it difficult to understand exactly how they transmit signals to the brain that are interpreted very differently. For example, TRPA1 and TRPV1 are sensitive to various chemicals and activation of these channels produce sensations with opposing effects. Pain is felt when TRPV1 is activated by spider toxins, but activation by plant cannabidiol results in a pain-relieving sensation. Similarly, TRPA1 activation by delta-tetrahydrocannabinol is reported to relieve symptoms of pain, but TRPA1 activation by the active ingredient in wasabi results in a repulsive or noxious sensation. Much of what we know about TRPA1 and TRPV1 comes from the use of plant products or exposure to substances that cause or alleviate pain and inflammation. In this study, whole-cell voltage clamp recordings of heterologously expressed human TRPA1 and human TRPV1 were tested for sensitivity to a hallucinogenic plant compound, salvinorin A and an arthropod-defensive compound, para-benzoquinone. Neither compound has yet been reported to activate TRP channels but both are known to be involved in pain and inflammation signaling in humans. I show that the arthropod compound, para-benzoquinone, activates and desensitizes TRPA1 in a cysteine-dependent manner, but activation of TRPV1 is not dependent on cysteine reactivity. Although salvinorin A is known to be a potent agonist of the kappa-opioid and cannabinoid receptors, here I show that it also acts as a highly potent agonist of both TRPA1 and TRPV1. Its interaction with TRP channels may contribute to its antinociceptive effects in behavioral studies with animals that are reported to be independent of opioid signaling.

Voltage clamp fluorometry (VCF) was first developed in the mid 1990s by Isacoff and his colleagues. In this approach fluorophores are attached to substituted cysteine residues that are engineered by site-directed mutagenesis. Changes in the dielectric environment of the fluorophore report local transitions that are associated with electrically-related and electrically-silent transitions. VCF provides a powerful technique to observe real time reports of ion channel gating conformations. It has proven to be a useful technique because it adds insight that is not available using other techniques. X-ray crystallography studies give a predominantly static picture of the channel, while patch clamping of channels gives information only about residues that effect ionic current flow. Similarly, gating current provides insight only about residues that are charged and move across the membrane electric field. In this thesis we examined the structural rearrangements of the Shaker channel and the effect of 4-AP on channel gating. We also examined for the first time the structural rearrangements of the Kv1.5 gating and the how the channel responds to depolarization pulses. This work is instrumental in the examination of the potassium channel gating.

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Channel Theory is a recently developed mathematical model of information flow, based on ideas emanating from situation theory. Channel theory addreses a number of important properties of information flow, such as context-dependence, modularity of information, and the possibility of error. This thesis is concerned with the use of channel theory as a formal framework for various constructs relating to conditional sentences. In particular,the main concern is to obtain logics for reasoning about conditionals,generics and default properties within the channel theoretic framework.