Thesis (D.Ed.) in Educational Leadership--University of Maine, 2006. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-171).

Includes bibliographical references

This thesis examines the challenges in creating a fully integrated optical receiver. Due to the nature of silicon, 850nm light exhibits a poor impulse response when directed at an on-die photodiode. Using a modified decision feedback equalizer with an infinite impulse response filter in the feedback path allows to eliminate the long tail of post-cursor ISI that is generated by the photodiode. Due to silicide depositions over the photodiodes, making them opaque, the receiver was tested using an electrical cable with similar frequency roll-off as that of a photodiode. A data rate of 3.7 Gbps was achieved and only limited by the amount of input reflections at the transimpedance amplifier. The receiver occupies an area of 0.23 mm^2 and consumes 51.3mW.

This thesis examines the challenges in creating a fully integrated optical receiver. Due to the nature of silicon, 850nm light exhibits a poor impulse response when directed at an on-die photodiode. Using a modified decision feedback equalizer with an infinite impulse response filter in the feedback path allows to eliminate the long tail of post-cursor ISI that is generated by the photodiode. Due to silicide depositions over the photodiodes, making them opaque, the receiver was tested using an electrical cable with similar frequency roll-off as that of a photodiode. A data rate of 3.7 Gbps was achieved and only limited by the amount of input reflections at the transimpedance amplifier. The receiver occupies an area of 0.23 mm^2 and consumes 51.3mW.

This dissertation provides an empirical test of the effects of fiscal decentralization and horizontal fiscal equalization on economic growth and examines the potential trade-off between horizontal fiscal equalization and economic growth in both China and India. Chapter II examines the effects of both fiscal decentralization and horizontal fiscal equalization on economic growth in China, particularly the effect of the Tax Sharing System reform enacted in 1994. Compared with previous studies, using more complete data providing better measures and more econometrically sophisticated instrumental variable procedures, we find that there is no substantial evidence of a trade-off between horizontal fiscal equalization and growth. The 1994 Tax Sharing System reform has positively contributed to both economic growth and horizontal fiscal equalization. In addition, we find that fiscal decentralization (FD) has a non-linear effect on growth. For values of FD less than 21, fiscal decentralization has a negative effect on growth, but for values greater than 21, fiscal decentralization has a positive effect on growth. Chapter III examines the effects of both fiscal decentralization and horizontal fiscal equalization on economic growth in India, particularly the effects of the 1991 economic reforms. Using state-wide data covering the period from 1980 through 2005, we find that fiscal decentralization has a negative effect on economic growth initially but that, beyond a certain value of fiscal decentralization, the effect on growth becomes positive. However, further decentralization could have a negative effect on horizontal fiscal equalization. These results are robust. In the meanwhile, there is no evidence of a trade-off between horizontal fiscal equalization and economic growth; instead, there is evidence of a positive effect of economic growth on equalization. In addition, the 1991 economic reform has contributed to economic growth. A comparative study of China and India has shown that the degree of fiscal decentralization in both countries is far from the point where its effect on economic growth becomes positive. Despite the dangers of widening disparities in terms of interregional fiscal resource distribution from further decentralization, no substantial evidence shows a trade-off between horizontal fiscal equalization and growth in either country. An in-depth and more thorough going fiscal decentralization with greater emphasis on equalization of fiscal disparities are required in order to effect sustainable economic growth as well as social harmony in these two Asian countries.

This project focusses on the design of a high speed passive delay line for use in a Feed Forward Equalizer (FFE). The FFE is used to equalize a 20 Gbp/s throughput PAM-4 signal after transmission through a 20-inch FR4 backplane channel. Inductor electromagnetic simulations are used to design an inductor for use in the passive delay line and a lumped element inductor model is presented. Measurement results show performance of the delay line at 10 GSym/s.

The objective of the proposed research is to devise high-performance and low-complexity signal-detection algorithms for communication systems over fading channels. They include channel equalization to combat intersymbol interference (ISI) and multiple input multiple output (MIMO) signal detection to deal with multiple access interference (MAI) from other transmit antennas. As the demand for higher data-rate and more efficiency wireless communications increases, signal detection becomes more challenging. We propose novel transmission and iterative signal-detection techniques based on energy spreading transform (EST). Different from the existing iterative methods based on the turbo principle, the proposed schemes are independent of channel coding. EST is an orthonormal that spreads a symbol energy over the symbol block in time and frequency for channel equalization; space and time for MIMO signal detection with flat fading channels; and space, time, and frequency for MIMO signal detection with frequency-selective fading channels. Due to the spreading, EST obtains diversity in the available domains for the specific application and increases the reliability of the feedback signal. Moreover, it enables iterative signal detection that has near interference-free performance only at the complexity of linear detectors. Either a hard or soft decision can be fed back to the interference-cancellation stage at the subsequent iteration. The soft-decision scheme prevents error propagation of the hard-decision scheme for a low SNR and improves the performance. We analyze the performance of the proposed techniques. Analytical and simulation results show that these schemes perform very close to the interference-free systems.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--York University, 1998. Graduate Programme in Education. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-116). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL:http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ27388.

The main objectives of Integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) are increased data rate and improved spectral efficiency. In this paper we propose the transmission scheme for the physical layer to be coded Quadrature Amplitude Modulation-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (QAM OFDM) which enables high data rates and spectrum efficiency. However in high mobility scenarios, the channel is time-varying the receiver design is more challenging. In this paper pilot-assisted channel estimation is used at the receiver, with turbo coding to enhance the performance; while the effect of inter symbol interference (ISI) is mitigated by cyclic prefix. The focus of this paper is to evaluate the performance of OFDM with QAM over an aeronautical channel. The M-QAM with OFDM provides a higher data rate than QPSK hence it is chosen in this paper. The implementation is done using Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) and the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). This paper considers how the performance of Coded QAM OFDM can be enhanced using equalization to compensate for inter symbol interference, and using turbo coding for error correction.