The introduction of new schemes that are based on the communication among nodes has motivated the use of composite fading models due to the fact that the nodes experience different multipath fading and shadowing statistics, which subsequently determines the required statistics for the performance analysis of different transceivers. The end-to-end signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) statistics plays an essential role in the determination of the performance of cascaded digital communication systems. In this thesis, a closed-form expression for the probability density function (PDF) of the end-end SNR for independent but not necessarily identically distributed (i.n.i.d.) cascaded generalized-K (GK) composite fading channels is derived. The developed PDF expression in terms of the Meijer-G function allows the derivation of subsequent performance metrics, applicable to different modulation schemes, including outage probability, bit error rate for coherent as well as non-coherent systems, and average channel capacity that provides insights into the performance of a digital communication system operating in N cascaded GK composite fading environment. Another line of research that was motivated by the introduction of composite fading channels is the error performance. Error performance is one of the main performance measures and derivation of its closed-form expression has proved to be quite involved for certain systems. Hence, in this thesis, a unified closed-form expression, applicable to different binary modulation schemes, for the bit error rate of dual-branch selection diversity based systems undergoing i.n.i.d. GK fading is derived in terms of the extended generalized bivariate Meijer G-function.

The low power regime has attracted various researchers in the information theory and communication communities to understand the performance limits of wireless systems. Indeed, the energy consumption is becoming one of the major limiting factors in wireless systems. As such, energy-efficient wireless systems are of major importance to the next generation wireless systems designers. The capacity is a metric that measures the performance limit of a wireless system. The study of the ergodic capacity of some fading channels in the low power regime is the main subject of this thesis. In our study, we consider that the receiver has always a full knowledge of the channel state information. However, we assume that the transmitter has possibly imperfect knowledge of the channel state information, i.e. he knows either perfectly the channel or only an estimated version of the channel. Both radio frequency and free space optical communication channel models are considered. The main contribution of this work is the explicit characterization of how the capacity scales as function of the signal-to-noise ratio in the low power regime. This allows us to characterize the gain due to the perfect knowledge compared to no knowledge of the channel state information at the transmitter. In particular, we show that the gain increases logarithmically for radio frequency communication. However, the gain increases as log2(Pavg) or log4(Pavg) for free-space optical communication, where Pavg is the average power constraint imposed to the input. Furthermore, we characterize the capacity of cascaded fading channels and we applied the result to Rayleigh-product fading channel and to a free-space optical link over gamma-gamma atmospheric turbulence in the presence of pointing errors. Finally, we study the capacity of Nakagami-m fading channel under quality of service constraints, namely the effective capacity. We have shown that the effective capacity converges to Shannon capacity in the very low power regime.

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This dissertation outlines work accomplished in the pursuit of this degree. This report is also designed to be a general introduction to the concepts and techniques of small-scale radio channel modeling. At the present time, there does not exist a comprehensive introduction and overview of basic concepts in this field. Furthermore, as the wireless industry continues to mature and develop technology, the need is now greater than ever for more sophisticated channel modeling research. Each chapter of this preliminary report is, in itself, a stand-alone topic in channel modeling theory. Culled from original reports and journal papers, each chapter makes a unique contribution to the field of channel modeling. Original contributions in this report include: 1. joint characterization of time-varying, space-varying, and frequency-varying channels under the rubric of duality 2. rules and definitions for constructing channel models that solve Maxwell's equations 3. overview of probability density functions that describe random small-scale fading 4. techniques for modeling a small-scale radio channel using an angle spectrum 5. overview of techniques for describing fading statistics in wireless channels 6. results from a wideband spatio-temporal measurement campaign Together, the chapters provide a cohesive overview of basic principles. The discussion of the wideband spatio-temporal measurement campaign at 1920 MHz makes an excellent case study in applied channel modeling and ties together much of the theory developed in this dissertation. / Ph. D.

Ad hoc networking research has received considerable attention in recent years as it represents the next phase of networking evolution. Efficient and reliable routing of data from the source to destination with minimal power consumption remains the crux of the research problem. Fading mechanisms inherent in wireless communications can impact the packet routing mechanisms in these types of networks. In this thesis, we develop a mathematical framework for evaluating several network diversity schemes that take advantage of the random nature of fading to provide/ enhance the network performance. The efficacy of these different network diversity mechanisms are examined in slow-fading, frequency non-selective Rice and Nakagami-m multipath fading channels. Performance metrics such as the end-to-end outage probability and the end-to-end average symbol error rate are studied in the analysis of these types of networks with the proposed network diversity schemes. Numerical results reveal that the proposed schemes can offer significant power efficiency improvement in a variety of operating scenarios of practical interest. / Master of Science

A má nutrição precoce gera efeitos deletérios graves no crescimento, no comportamento e nas capacidades cognitivas de ratos e crianças, sendo que a desnutrição proteica é a principal insuficiência nutricional que pode ser examinada individualmente em estudos experimentais. O objetivo deste estudo foi estabelecer discriminações condicionais em ratos, comparando-se animais controles com animais desnutridos e que passaram por recuperação nutricional, bem como testar três modificações no procedimento de Feliciano (2007). Como modificações foram empregadas um maior número de reversões da discriminação simples, antes do treino de discriminação condicional e os procedimentos de fading e correção de tentativas. No Experimento 1, foram testados o procedimento de fading e as reversões da discriminação. No Experimento 2, as reversões foram testadas junto com o procedimento de correção, mas não foram empregados animais previamente desnutridos. Por fim, no Experimento 3 os animais só passaram pela discriminação condicional e pela correção. Ao final das reversões os animais controles e desnutridos apresentaram a mesma velocidade de aprendizagem. Ao término da vigência do procedimento de fading não houve manutenção do desempenho característico da aprendizagem sem erros, indicando que o procedimento de fading utilizado não foi eficiente. A correção de tentativas facilitou a aprendizagem da discriminação simples e melhorou o desempenho dos animais. Não ocorreu curva de aprendizagem para a discriminação condicional nos três experimentos. Ainda assim, ao final do treino os animais submetidos ao procedimento de correção de tentativas apresentaram melhor desempenho do que os animais submetidos apenas ao fading, ou do que o dos animais não submetidos a qualquer dos procedimentos. Entre os fatores apontados como responsáveis pela não aprendizagem da discriminação condicional, destacam-se a programação da contingência, a disposição espacial aleatória dos estímulos de escolha e a existência de mais de duas alternativas para a resposta de escolha. / Early malnutrition leads to serious deleterious effects on growth, behavior and cognitive abilities of rats and children. Protein malnutrition is the main nutritional failure that can be examined individually in experimental studies. The aim of this study was to establish conditional discriminations in rats by comparing control animals with early malnourished animals which have received nutritional recovery and to test three changes in the procedure used by Feliciano (2007). As changes were employed a greater number of simple discrimination reversals, before the conditional discrimination training and the the procedures of fading correction. In experiment 1, we tested the procedure of fading and the discrimination reversals. In the experiment 2, the discrimination reversals were tested along with the correction procedure, but preveiously malnourished animals were not used. Finally, in experiment 3 the animals were tested only in the conditional discrimination with or without the correction procedure. At the end of reversals control and malnourished rats showed the same learning speed. At the end of the duration of the fading procedure the performance characteristics of learning without errors was not maintained, indicating that the fading procedure was not used efficiently. Correction facilitated the learning of simple discrimination and improved animal performance. There was no learning curve for the conditional discrimination in all experiments, yet at the end of training the performance of the animals subjected to correction procedure was better than the performance of rats subjected only to fading, or that of animals not submitted to any procedures. Among the factors that have prevented the learning of the conditional discrimination by the rats, we highlight the programmed contingency, the random spatial arrangement of the choice stimuli and the existence of more than two alternatives for the responses.

A literatura internacional ao investigar a durabilidade dos efeitos do Ensino Infantil se deparou com um eventual fenômeno de decaimento de tais efeitos, chamado de facing-out. Utilizando dados longitudinais coletados na cidade de Sertãozinho buscamos investigar e documentar tal fenômeno para a realidade nacional. Encontramos evidências de decaimento do benefício do EI especialmente sobre a proficiência de matemática. Além disso, mostramos que a estrutura da base de dados utilizada para fazer tal mensuração pode gerar resultados sobrestimados, especialmente se tal base contiver alto grau de seletividade. Por fim, indicamos que a qualidade das instituições de educação na primeira infância pode ser um dos determinantes da durabilidade do efeito encontrado, uma vez que crianças que frequentaram a maior parte do EI em escolas públicas estão mais sujeitas a este fênomeno. / The international literature while investigating the long term effects of early childhood education identified a decrease phenomenon of such effects, called fading-out. Using longitudinal data collected in the city of Sertãozinho our goal was to investigate and document this phenomenon for Brazilians\' reality. We found evidence of the decrease of early childhood education benefits, especially in Math proficiency. Furthermore, we show that the structure of the database used to make such measurements can generate results that overestimate the phenomenon, especially if those databases contain a high degree of selectivity. Finally, we indicate that the quality of the early childhood schoolscan be an important determinant of the effects\' durability, since children who attended most of the early childhood education in public schools are more prone to this phenomenon.

A fixed terrestrial wireless system such as the Microwave Multi-channel Distribution Service (MMDS) can be used as the ``last mile' to provide a high speed Internet connection from a base station to a home in a rural or suburban residential area. Such a broadband wireless system works very well under line-of-sight transmission. It works quite well even if the line-of-sight is obstructed with a large number of trees. However, when trees obstruct the line-of-sight, under conditions of wind, the user may experience loss of the RF signal from time to time. This is especially true under gusty conditions. As part of this research a high precision DSP-based measuring system is devised to accurately measure and characterize the distortions caused by tree foliage on the RF line-of-sight signal. The approach is to digitally generate a signal composed of several tones, up-convert the signal to 2.5 GHz and send it through tree foliage to a receiver where the signal is down-converted and sampled for a duration of five seconds. The samples collected are processed using Matlab to compute the temporal amplitude and phase variations of the tones. The measurement system provides estimates of the amplitude and phase of the receive tones with a time resolution of 3.2 ms. The standard deviation of the amplitude estimates is 0.3\% of the actual amplitude of the tones and the standard deviation of the phase estimates is 0.23 degree. This accuracy is obtained when the signal-to-noise ratio of the receive signal is greater than 20 dB. Measurement in the field with tree foliage in the line-of-sight shows that the swaying of the branches in the wind can cause rapid signal fading. This research determines the type of fade, the depth and duration of the fade, as well as the fading rate.