The scarce and overpopulated radio spectrum is going to present a major barrier to the growth and development of future wireless networks. As such, spectrum sharing seems to be inevitable to accommodate the exploding demand for high data rate applications. A major challenge to realizing the potential advantages of spectrum sharing is interference management. This thesis deals with interference management techniques in noncooperative networks. In specific, interference alignment is used as a powerful technique for interference management. We use the degrees of freedom (DoF) as the figure of merit to evaluate the performance improvement due to the interference management schemes. This dissertation is organized in two parts. In the first part, we consider the K-user multiple input multiple output (MIMO) Gaussian interference channel (IC) with M antennas at each transmitter and N antennas at each receiver. This channel models the interaction between K transmitter-receiver pairs sharing the same spectrum for data communication. It is assumed that the channel coefficients are constant and are available at all nodes prior to data transmission. A new cooperative upper-bound on the DoF of this channel is developed which outperforms the known bounds. Also, a new achievable transmission scheme is provided based on the idea of interference alignment. It is shown that the achievable DoF meets the upper-bound when the number of users is greater than a certain threshold, and thus it reveals the channel DoF. In the second part, we consider communication over MIMO interference and X channels in a fast fading environment. It is assumed that the transmitters obtain the channel state information (CSI) after a finite delay which is greater than the coherence time of the channel. In other words, the CSI at the transmitters becomes outdated prior to being exploited for the current transmission. New transmission schemes are proposed which exploit the knowledge of the past CSI at the transmitters to retrospectively align interference in the subsequent channel uses. The proposed transmission schemes offer DoF gain compared to having no CSI at transmitters. The achievable DoF results are the best known results for these channels. Simple cooperative upper-bounds are developed to prove the tightness of our achievable results for some network configurations.

En els sistemes de comunicacions on el transmissor disposa de certa informació sobre l'estat del canal (CSI), es possible dissenyar esquemes lineals de precodificació que assignin la potència de manera òptima induint guanys considerables, sigui en termes de capacitat, sigui en termes de la fiabilitat de l'enllaç de comunicacions. A la pràctica, aquest coneixement del canal mai és perfecte i, per tant, el senyal transmès es veurà degradat degut al desajust entre la informació que el transmissor disposi del canal i el seu estat real.En aquest context, aquesta tesi estudia dos problemes diferents però alhora estretament relacionats: el disseny d'un esquema pràctic de seguiment del canal en transmissió per canals variants en temps, i el disseny d'esquemes lineals de precodificació que siguin robustos a la incertesa del canal. La primera part de la tesi proposa el disseny d'un esquema de seguiment de canal que, mitjançant un enllaç de retorn de baixa capacitat, proporcioni al transmissor una informació acurada sobre el seu estat. Històricament, aquest tipus d'esquemes han rebut fortes crítiques degut a la gran quantitat d'informació que és necessari transmetre des del receptor cap el transmissor. Aquesta tesi, doncs, posa especial èmfasi en el disseny d'aquest canal de retorn. La solució que es proposa, basada en el filtre de Kalman, utilitza un esquema que recorda al transmissor DPCM. Les variacions del canal són tractades mitjançant dos predictors lineals idèntics situats en el transmissor i en el receptor, i un canal de retorn que assisteix el transmissor amb l'error de predicció. L'interès d'aquest esquema diferencial és que permet seguir les variacions del canal amb només dos o quatre bits per coeficient complex, fins i tot en canals ràpidament variants.La resta de la tesi cobreix el segon objectiu, l'estudi de diferents esquemes d'assignació de potències quan el coneixement del canal en transmissió no és perfecte. El problema es planteja per a un sistema MIMO OFDM com a formulació més general, incloent els casos d'una sola antena, de l'esquema beamforming i del canal multiplicatiu com a casos particulars.Primerament s'ha plantejat l'optimització dels criteris de mínim error quadràtic mig (MMSE) i mínima BER sense codificar. La innovació en el treball presentat a la tesi, respecte a altres treballs que segueixen els mateixos criteris de disseny, ha estat la formulació Bayesiana del problema per al disseny dels algoritmes robustos.La tesi continua amb el plantejament d'estratègies robustes d'assignació de potència destinades a minimitzar la BER codificada. Per aquesta tasca s'han utilitzat criteris de teoria de la informació. Possiblement una de les principals contribucions d'aquesta tesi ha estat el plantejament del cut-off rate com a paràmetre de disseny. Aquest criteri s'introdueix com alternativa a la capacitat de canal o a la informació mutual per al disseny del transmissor quan s'inclou codificació de canal. La ultima part de la tesi proposa un interleaver adaptatiu de baixa complexitat que, utilitzant el coneixement del canal disponible en el transmissor, assigna estratègicament els bits no només per combatre les ràfegues d'errors, sinó també per lluitar contra els esvaïments que puguin presentar les diferents portadores del canal per a una realització concreta. El disseny d'aquest interleaver, anomenat "interleaver RCPC" està basat en els codis Rate-Compatible Punctured Convolutional Codes. Com s'il·lustra a partir del resultats numèrics, l'ús d'aquest interleaver millora les prestacions dels algoritmes quan es comparen amb les que s'obtindrien si s'utilitzes un interleaver de bloc o un interleaver pseudo-aleatori. / When the transmitter of a communication system disposes of some Channel State Information (CSI), it is possible to design linear precoders that optimally allocate the power inducing high gains either in terms of capacity or in terms of reliable communications. In practical scenarios, this channel knowledge is not perfect and thus the transmitted signal suffers from the mismatch between the CSI at the transmitter and the real channel.In that context, this thesis deals with two different, but related, topics: the design of a feasible transmitter channel tracker for time varying channels, and the design of optimal linear precoders robust to imperfect channel estimates.The first part of the thesis proposes the design of a channel tracker that provides an accurate CSI at the transmitter by means of a low capacity feedback link. Historically, those schemes have been criticized because of the large amount of information to be transmitted from the receiver to the transmitter. This thesis focuses, thus, the attention in an accurate design of the return link. The proposed solution is based on the Kalman filter and follows a scheme that reminds the well known DPCM transmitter. The channel variability is processed by two identical linear predictors located at the transmitter and at the receiver, and a feedback link that assists the transmitter with the prediction error. The interest of this differential scheme is that allows to track the channel variations with only two or four bits per complex channel coefficient even in fast time-varying channels.The rest of the thesis covers the second topic, studying different robust power allocation algorithms when the CSI is not perfectly known at the transmitter. For the sake of generality, the problem is formulated for the general MIMO OFDM case, encompassing the single antenna transmission, the beamforming schemes and the frequency-flat fading channels as particular cases. First, the minimum MSE and the minimum uncoded BER parameters are chosen to be optimized, evaluating the performance of the algorithms in terms of uncoded BER. The basic novelty with respect to previous works that considers the same strategies of design is the proposal of a Bayesian approach for the design of the robust algorithms.Next the study is extended by proposing robust power allocation strategies focused on the minimization of the coded BER. For this purpose, information-theoretic criteria are used. Probably, one of the main contributions in the thesis is the proposal of the cut-off rate as a parameter of design whose maximization is directly related to the coded BER. This criterion is introduced as an alternative to the channel capacity and the mutual information for the design of optimal transceivers in the presence of any channel coding stage. The last part of the thesis proposes a low complexity adaptive interleaver that, making use of the CSI available at the transmitter, reallocates the bits not only to combat the bursty channel errors but also to combat the specific distribution of the faded subcarriers as a function of the channel response. The design of this interleaver, named as "RCPC interleaver", is based on the Rate-Compatible Punctured Convolutional Codes. As shown by numerical results, the use of this interleaver improves the performance of the algorithms when they are compared with the classical block interleavers and pseudo-random interleavers.

The high deployment and maintenance costs of last mile wireline networks (i.e., DSL and cable networks) have urged service providers to search for new cost-effective solutions to provide broadband connectivity. Broadband wireless access (BWA) networks, which offer a wide coverage area and high transmission rates in addition to their fast and low-cost deployment, have emerged as an alternative to last mile wireline networks. Therefore, BWA networks are expected to be deployed in areas with different terrain profiles (e.g., urban, suburban, rural) where wireless communication faces different channel impairments. This fact necessitates the adoption of various transmission technologies that combat the channel impairments of each profile. Implementation scenarios of BWA networks considered in this thesis are multicarrier-based direct transmission and single carrier-based cooperative transmission scenarios. The performance of these transmission technologies highly depends on how resources are allocated. In this thesis, we focus on the development of practical resource allocation schemes for the mentioned BWA networks implementation scenarios. In order to develop practical schemes, the imperfection of channel state information (CSI) and computational power limitations are among considered practical implementation issues. The design of efficient resource allocation schemes at the MAC layer heavily relies on the CSI reported from the PHY layer as a measure of the wireless channel condition. The channel estimation error and feedback delay renders the reported CSI erroneous. The inaccuracy in CSI propagates to higher layers, resulting in performance degradation. Although this effect is intuitive, a quantitative measure of this degradation is necessary for the design of practical resource allocation schemes. An approach to the evaluation of the ergodic mutual information that reflects this degradation is developed for single carrier, multicarrier, direct, and cooperative scenarios with inaccurate CSI. Given the CSI estimates and estimation error statistics, the presented evaluation of ergodic mutual information can be used in resource allocation and in assessing the severity of estimation error on performance degradation. A point-to-multipoint (PMP) network that employs orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) is considered as one of the most common implementation scenarios of BWA networks. Replacing wireline networks requires not only providing the last mile connectivity to subscribers but also supporting their diverse services with stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements. Therefore, the resource allocation problem (i.e., subcarriers, rate and power allocation) is modeled as a network utility maximization (NUM) one that captures the characteristics of this implementation scenario. A dual decomposition-based resource allocation scheme that takes into consideration the diversity of service requirements and inaccuracy of the CSI estimation is developed. Numerical evaluations and simulations are conducted to validate our theoretical claims that the scheme maximizes resource utilization, coordinates with the call admission controller to guarantee QoS, and accounts for CSI inaccuracy. Cooperation has recently received great attention from the research community and industry because of its low cost and fast deployment in addition to the performance improvement it brings to BWA networks. In cooperative scenarios, subscribers cooperate to relay each other's signals. For this implementation scenario of BWA networks, a robust and constrained Kalman filter-based power allocation scheme is proposed to minimize power consumption and guarantee bit error probability (BEP) requirements. The proposed scheme is robust to CSI inaccuracy, responsive to changes in BEP requirements, and optimal in allocating resources. In summary, research results presented in this thesis contribute to the development of practical resource allocation schemes for BWA networks.

The high deployment and maintenance costs of last mile wireline networks (i.e., DSL and cable networks) have urged service providers to search for new cost-effective solutions to provide broadband connectivity. Broadband wireless access (BWA) networks, which offer a wide coverage area and high transmission rates in addition to their fast and low-cost deployment, have emerged as an alternative to last mile wireline networks. Therefore, BWA networks are expected to be deployed in areas with different terrain profiles (e.g., urban, suburban, rural) where wireless communication faces different channel impairments. This fact necessitates the adoption of various transmission technologies that combat the channel impairments of each profile. Implementation scenarios of BWA networks considered in this thesis are multicarrier-based direct transmission and single carrier-based cooperative transmission scenarios. The performance of these transmission technologies highly depends on how resources are allocated. In this thesis, we focus on the development of practical resource allocation schemes for the mentioned BWA networks implementation scenarios. In order to develop practical schemes, the imperfection of channel state information (CSI) and computational power limitations are among considered practical implementation issues. The design of efficient resource allocation schemes at the MAC layer heavily relies on the CSI reported from the PHY layer as a measure of the wireless channel condition. The channel estimation error and feedback delay renders the reported CSI erroneous. The inaccuracy in CSI propagates to higher layers, resulting in performance degradation. Although this effect is intuitive, a quantitative measure of this degradation is necessary for the design of practical resource allocation schemes. An approach to the evaluation of the ergodic mutual information that reflects this degradation is developed for single carrier, multicarrier, direct, and cooperative scenarios with inaccurate CSI. Given the CSI estimates and estimation error statistics, the presented evaluation of ergodic mutual information can be used in resource allocation and in assessing the severity of estimation error on performance degradation. A point-to-multipoint (PMP) network that employs orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) is considered as one of the most common implementation scenarios of BWA networks. Replacing wireline networks requires not only providing the last mile connectivity to subscribers but also supporting their diverse services with stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements. Therefore, the resource allocation problem (i.e., subcarriers, rate and power allocation) is modeled as a network utility maximization (NUM) one that captures the characteristics of this implementation scenario. A dual decomposition-based resource allocation scheme that takes into consideration the diversity of service requirements and inaccuracy of the CSI estimation is developed. Numerical evaluations and simulations are conducted to validate our theoretical claims that the scheme maximizes resource utilization, coordinates with the call admission controller to guarantee QoS, and accounts for CSI inaccuracy. Cooperation has recently received great attention from the research community and industry because of its low cost and fast deployment in addition to the performance improvement it brings to BWA networks. In cooperative scenarios, subscribers cooperate to relay each other's signals. For this implementation scenario of BWA networks, a robust and constrained Kalman filter-based power allocation scheme is proposed to minimize power consumption and guarantee bit error probability (BEP) requirements. The proposed scheme is robust to CSI inaccuracy, responsive to changes in BEP requirements, and optimal in allocating resources. In summary, research results presented in this thesis contribute to the development of practical resource allocation schemes for BWA networks.

With the growth of multimedia services, it is essential to find new transmission schemes to support higher data rates in wireless networks. In this thesis, we study networks in which the Channel State Information (CSI) is only available at the destination. We focus on the analysis of three different network setups. For each case, we propose a transmission scheme which maximizes the average performance of the network. The first scenario, which is studied in Chapter 2, is a multi-hop network in which the channel gain of each hop changes quasi-statically from one transmission block to the other. Our main motivation to study this network is the recent advances in deployment of relay nodes in wireless networks (e.g., LTE-A and IEEE 802.16j). In this setup, we assume that all nodes are equipped with a single antenna and the relay nodes are not capable of data buffering over multiple transmission blocks. The proposed transmission scheme is based on infinite-layer coding at all nodes (the source and all relays) in conjunction with the Decode-and-Forward DF relaying. The objective is to maximize the statistical average of the received rate per channel use at the destination. To find the optimal parameters of this code, we first formulate the problem for a two-hop scenario and describe the code design algorithm for this two-hop setting. The optimality of infinite-layer DF coding is also discussed for the case of two-hop networks. The result is then generalized to multi-hop scenarios. To show the superiority of the proposed scheme, we also evaluate the achievable average received rate of infinite-layer DF coding and compare it with the performance of previously known schemes. The second scenario, studied in Chapter 3, is a single-hop network in which both nodes are equipped with multiple antennas, while the channel gain changes quasi-statically and the CSI is not available at the source. The main reason for selecting this network setup is to study the transmission of video signals (compressed using a scalable video coding technique, e.g., SVC H.264/AVC) over a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) link. In this setup, although scalable video coding techniques compress the video signal into layers with different importance (for video reconstruction), the source cannot adapt the number of transmitted layers to the capacity of the channel (since it does not have the CSI in each time slot). An alternative approach is to always transmit all layers of the compressed video signal, but use unequal error protection for different layers. With this motivation, we focus on the design of multilayer codes for a MIMO link in which the destination is only able to perform successive decoding (not joint-decoding). In this chapter, we introduce a design rule for construction of multilayer codes for MIMO systems. We also propose a algorithm that uses this design rule to determine the parameters of the multilayer code. The performance analysis of the proposed scheme is also discussed in this chapter. In the two previous scenarios, the ambiguity of the source regarding the channel state comes from the fact that the channel gains randomly change in each transmission block and there is no feedback to notify the source about the current state of the channel. Apart from these, there are some scenarios in which the channel state is unknown at the source, even though the channel gain is fixed and the source knows its value. The third scenario of this thesis presents an example of such network setups. More precisely, in Chapter 4, we study a multiple access network with K users and one Access Point (AP), where all nodes are equipped with multiple antennas. To access the network, each user independently decides whether to transmit in a time slot or not (no coordination between users). Considering a two-user random access network, we first derive the optimal value of network average Degrees of Freedom (DoF) (introduced in Section 4.1). Generalizing the result to multiuser networks, we propose an upper-bound for the network average DoF of a K-user random access network. This upper-bound is then analyzed for different network configurations to identify the network classes in which the proposed upper-bound is tight. It is also shown that simple single-stream data transmission achieves the upper-bound in most network settings. However, for some network configurations, we need to apply multi-stream data transmission in conjunction with interference alignment to reach the upper-bound. Some illustrative examples are also presented in this chapter.

<p>This thesis comprises two parts: the first part presents channel-adaptive techniques to achieve high spectral efficiency in a single user multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system; the second part exhibits a programmable and reconfigurable software-defined-radio orkbench(SDR-WB) in the Matlab/Octave environment that accommodates a variety of wireless applications.</p><p>In an attempt to achieve high spectral efficiency, an adaptive modulation technique is applied at the transmitter to vary the data rate depending on the channel state information (CSI). To further enhance the spectral efficiency, adaptive power allocation schemes are applied in the spatial domain to adjust the power on every transmit antenna. We analyze several power control schemes subject to a peak power constraint to maximize the spectral efficiency given an instantaneous target bit-error-rate (BER). A novel power allocation trategy is proposed to achieve high spectral efficiency with relatively low complexity. In addition, adaptive techniques that switch across different MIMO schemes enables even higher spectral efficiency by choosing the scheme with the highest spectral efficiency. We propose a new method to switch between spatial multiplexing with zero-forcing (ZF) detection and orthogonal space-time block coding (OSTBC). This is done by exploiting closed form expressions of the spectral efficiencies--discrete rate spectral efficiency--and finding the crossing points of the two curves. The proposed adaptation scheme adds limited complexity to the transmitter since it requires only statistical information of the channel, which does not change as time evolves.</p><p>Software Defined Radio (SDR) has received more and more interest recently as a promising multi-band multi-standard solution for transceiver design. In order to support as many wireless applications as possible, we build up a programmable and reconfigurable workbench, namely SDR-WB, in Matlab/Octave environment. The workbench is functionally modularized into generic blocks to facilitate fast development and verification of new algorithms and architectures. The modulation formats that are currently supported by the SDR-WB are MIMO, Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), MIMO-OFDM, DS-CDMA and Filtered Multitone (FMT).</p>

Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka vilken funktion och betydelse kroppen har i första säsongen av CSI: Crime Scenen Investigation (CBS, 2000-). Detta eftersom det kan ge en ökad förståelse för de föreställningar som omgärdar kroppen i vår kultur idag. Författaren gör närläsningar av analysobjektet som relateras till relevant litteratur, såväl som tidigare praktiker och representationer av kroppslighet. I den första delen undersöker författaren vilken roll kroppen spelar i utredningsarbetets sökande efter en säker sanning. Författaren konstaterar att utredarna använder sig av en kroppslig utredningsteknik och att kroppen dessutom ses som en privilegierad form av bevis, vars tillgänglighet ökar med hjälp av obduktionsförfarandet och olika teknologiska hjälpmedel. Vidare ifrågasätter författaren hur långsökta slutsatser om individen dras från kroppen. Till sist föreslår författaren att tron på säker kunskap känns betryggande i en tid då kroppen ses som föränderlig och där begrepp som verklighet och sanning blivit flytande. I den andra delen undersöker författaren hotfull kroppslighet och hur dessa hot eventuellt neutraliseras. Författaren drar här fyra huvudsakliga slutsatser: 1. Den uppstyckade kroppen är skrämmande eftersom den uppfattas som gränsöverskridande och utredarnas ihopsamlande av kroppsdelar är ett sätt att återskapa de ursprungliga gränserna. 2. Döden är ytterligare en gränsöverskridande praktik som dessutom innebär kroppens totala förintelse, utredningsarbetet är en kamp mot döden som strävar efter att återupprätta livet. 3. Utredarnas förhållande till den döda kroppen är synnerligen komplext eftersom de bör förbli objektiva, men samtidigt inte får riskera att objektifiera den döda kroppen. 4. Själva filmmediet kan ses som ett hot mot kroppen genom sitt fragmenterande bildspråk, men också som ett försvar mot döden genom förmågan att skildra rörelse.

With the growth of multimedia services, it is essential to find new transmission schemes to support higher data rates in wireless networks. In this thesis, we study networks in which the Channel State Information (CSI) is only available at the destination. We focus on the analysis of three different network setups. For each case, we propose a transmission scheme which maximizes the average performance of the network. The first scenario, which is studied in Chapter 2, is a multi-hop network in which the channel gain of each hop changes quasi-statically from one transmission block to the other. Our main motivation to study this network is the recent advances in deployment of relay nodes in wireless networks (e.g., LTE-A and IEEE 802.16j). In this setup, we assume that all nodes are equipped with a single antenna and the relay nodes are not capable of data buffering over multiple transmission blocks. The proposed transmission scheme is based on infinite-layer coding at all nodes (the source and all relays) in conjunction with the Decode-and-Forward DF relaying. The objective is to maximize the statistical average of the received rate per channel use at the destination. To find the optimal parameters of this code, we first formulate the problem for a two-hop scenario and describe the code design algorithm for this two-hop setting. The optimality of infinite-layer DF coding is also discussed for the case of two-hop networks. The result is then generalized to multi-hop scenarios. To show the superiority of the proposed scheme, we also evaluate the achievable average received rate of infinite-layer DF coding and compare it with the performance of previously known schemes. The second scenario, studied in Chapter 3, is a single-hop network in which both nodes are equipped with multiple antennas, while the channel gain changes quasi-statically and the CSI is not available at the source. The main reason for selecting this network setup is to study the transmission of video signals (compressed using a scalable video coding technique, e.g., SVC H.264/AVC) over a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) link. In this setup, although scalable video coding techniques compress the video signal into layers with different importance (for video reconstruction), the source cannot adapt the number of transmitted layers to the capacity of the channel (since it does not have the CSI in each time slot). An alternative approach is to always transmit all layers of the compressed video signal, but use unequal error protection for different layers. With this motivation, we focus on the design of multilayer codes for a MIMO link in which the destination is only able to perform successive decoding (not joint-decoding). In this chapter, we introduce a design rule for construction of multilayer codes for MIMO systems. We also propose a algorithm that uses this design rule to determine the parameters of the multilayer code. The performance analysis of the proposed scheme is also discussed in this chapter. In the two previous scenarios, the ambiguity of the source regarding the channel state comes from the fact that the channel gains randomly change in each transmission block and there is no feedback to notify the source about the current state of the channel. Apart from these, there are some scenarios in which the channel state is unknown at the source, even though the channel gain is fixed and the source knows its value. The third scenario of this thesis presents an example of such network setups. More precisely, in Chapter 4, we study a multiple access network with K users and one Access Point (AP), where all nodes are equipped with multiple antennas. To access the network, each user independently decides whether to transmit in a time slot or not (no coordination between users). Considering a two-user random access network, we first derive the optimal value of network average Degrees of Freedom (DoF) (introduced in Section 4.1). Generalizing the result to multiuser networks, we propose an upper-bound for the network average DoF of a K-user random access network. This upper-bound is then analyzed for different network configurations to identify the network classes in which the proposed upper-bound is tight. It is also shown that simple single-stream data transmission achieves the upper-bound in most network settings. However, for some network configurations, we need to apply multi-stream data transmission in conjunction with interference alignment to reach the upper-bound. Some illustrative examples are also presented in this chapter.

The scarce and overpopulated radio spectrum is going to present a major barrier to the growth and development of future wireless networks. As such, spectrum sharing seems to be inevitable to accommodate the exploding demand for high data rate applications. A major challenge to realizing the potential advantages of spectrum sharing is interference management. This thesis deals with interference management techniques in noncooperative networks. In specific, interference alignment is used as a powerful technique for interference management. We use the degrees of freedom (DoF) as the figure of merit to evaluate the performance improvement due to the interference management schemes. This dissertation is organized in two parts. In the first part, we consider the K-user multiple input multiple output (MIMO) Gaussian interference channel (IC) with M antennas at each transmitter and N antennas at each receiver. This channel models the interaction between K transmitter-receiver pairs sharing the same spectrum for data communication. It is assumed that the channel coefficients are constant and are available at all nodes prior to data transmission. A new cooperative upper-bound on the DoF of this channel is developed which outperforms the known bounds. Also, a new achievable transmission scheme is provided based on the idea of interference alignment. It is shown that the achievable DoF meets the upper-bound when the number of users is greater than a certain threshold, and thus it reveals the channel DoF. In the second part, we consider communication over MIMO interference and X channels in a fast fading environment. It is assumed that the transmitters obtain the channel state information (CSI) after a finite delay which is greater than the coherence time of the channel. In other words, the CSI at the transmitters becomes outdated prior to being exploited for the current transmission. New transmission schemes are proposed which exploit the knowledge of the past CSI at the transmitters to retrospectively align interference in the subsequent channel uses. The proposed transmission schemes offer DoF gain compared to having no CSI at transmitters. The achievable DoF results are the best known results for these channels. Simple cooperative upper-bounds are developed to prove the tightness of our achievable results for some network configurations.

We consider two broad categories of incentives by which a manufacturer can motivate its retailers to provide high customer satisfaction: 1) manufacturer assistance that reduces the retailer's cost of providing customer satisfaction (CS assistance); and 2) customer satisfaction index (CSI) bonus. We show that if a retailer has a long-term orientation, CS assistance is a more effective coordination mechanism that induces the retailer to expend more effort at customer satisfaction. However if the retailer has a short-term orientation, CSI bonus is a more effective coordination mechanism. We then show that a long-term retailed is more valuable to a manufacturer than a short-term oriented one. Finally, we show that the use of CSI incentives results in greater profits for both the manufacturer and the retailer.