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Cochannel interference (CCI) is a major impairment in narrowband cellular systems. To increase the spectral efficiency of the narrowband systems, identical carrier frequencies are reused in distant cells. The interference rejection capability of the receiver determines this frequency reuse and is therefore critical. In this thesis, we propose an improved demodulation scheme, employing high-resolution frequency estimation techniques, for continuous phase modulated (CPM) signals in presence of CCI. Minimum shift keying (MSK), which is a special case of CPM, is a very popular modulation format around the world. Frequency detectors, such as the limiter-discriminator permit the non-coherent demodulation of MSK signals. High-resolution frequency estimation appears as a very attractive alternative to the conventional non-coherent frequency detectors. The frequency estimation methods that we have studied are based on autoregressive modeling. The contributions of this thesis include the implementation of various demodulation schemes employing parametric frequency estimation. The use of the Viterbi algorithm as a non-linear equalization technique to mitigate intersymbol interference is considered. We verified that the model-based sequence estimation schemes outperform the conventional non-coherent receivers for MSK with AWGN, flat fading, and CCI. Demodulator diversity is also investigated as a way to combat interference. An improved technique combining the proposed model-based receiver and the conventional coherent receiver is implemented and simulated in presence of CCI. / Master of Science

Co-channel interference limits the capacity of cellular systems, reduces the throughput of wireless local area networks, and is the major hurdle in deployment of high altitude communication platforms. It is also a problem for systems operating in unlicensed bands such as the 2.4 GHz ISM band and for narrowband systems that have been overlaid with spread spectrum systems. In this work we have developed model-based techniques for the demodulation of co-channel MSK signals. It is shown that MSK signals can be written in the linear model form, hence a minimum variance unbiased (MVU) estimator exists that satisfies the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) with equality. This framework allows us to derive the best estimators for a single-user and a two-user case. These concepts can also be extended to wideband signals and it is shown that the MVU estimator for Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum signals is in fact a decorrelator-based multiuser detector. However, this simple linear representation does not always exist for continuous phase modulations. Furthermore, these linear estimators require perfect channel state information and phase synchronization at the receiver, which is not always implemented in wireless communication systems. To overcome these shortcomings of the linear estimation techniques, we employed an autoregressive modeling approach. It is well known that the AR model can accurately represent peaks in the spectrum and therefore can be used as a general FM demodulator. It does not require knowledge of the exact signal model or phase synchronization at the receiver. Since it is a non-coherent reception technique, its performance is compared to that of the limiter discriminator. Simulation results have shown that model-based demodulators can give significant gains for certain phase and frequency offsets between the desired signal and an interferer. / Master of Science

Yes / Objectives: Unlike the technological advances in cross-sectional imaging, the adoption of CR and DR has been relatively overlooked in terms of the additional radiographer skills and competences required for optimal practice. Furthermore, projection radiography is often referred to as basic, plain or other words suggesting simplicity or entry-level skill requirements. Radiographers’ professional identity is connected with the discourse expressed via the language used in daily practice and consequently, if the perception of projection radiography is regarded as simple practice not requiring much reflection or complex decision-making, apathy and carelessness may arise. The purpose of this narrative review was to raise projection radiography from its longstanding lowly place and re-position it as a specialist imaging field. Key findings: Danish pre-registration radiography curricula contain little mention of projection radiography and a low proportion (n ¼ 17/144; 11.8%) of Danish radiography students chose to focus on projection radiography within publicly available BSc. theses between 2016 and 2020 as compared to topics related to CT and MRI (n ¼ 60/144; 41.7%). Conclusion: By changing how we as the profession perceive the role and position of projection radiography, we can start to rebuild its lost prestige and demand a greater, more detailed and clinically relevant educational offering from academic partners. For this to commence, the language and terminology we use to describe ourselves and tasks undertaken must reflect the complexity of the profession. Implications for practice: Regardless of imaging modality, every patient should be assured that a radiographer with expertise in acquiring images of diagnostic quality undertakes their examination. Reclaiming the prestige of projection radiography may lead students and radiographers to recognize projection radiography as a demanding specialist field for the benefit of the patients.

ITC/USA 2007 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Third Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2007 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The accuracy of channel estimation plays a crucial role in the demodulation of data symbols sent across an unknown wireless medium. In this work a new analytical expression for the channel estimation error of a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) system is obtained when the wireless medium is continuously changing in the temporal domain. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate our findings. Space-time (ST) coding using Continuous Phase Modulation (CPM) has spectral advantages relative to linear modulations. In spite of the spectral benefits, Space-Time Trellis Codes (STTC) using the CPM implementation of Minimum Shift Keying (MSK) scheme has inherent inphase and quadrature interference, when the received complex baseband signal is the input into the matchfilter to remove the shaped sinusoid pulses. In this paper a novel optimum transmitting and detecting structure for STTC-MSK is proposed. Treating the Alamouti scheme as an outer code, each STTC MSK waveform frame is immediately followed by the orthogonal conjugate waveform frame at the transmit side. At the receiver first orthogonal wave forming is applied, then a new time-variant yet simple trellis structure of the STTC-MSK signals is developed. This STTC-MSK detector is absolutely guaranteed to be I/Q interference-free and still keeps a smaller computation load compared with STTC-QPSK. Simulations are made over quasi-static AWGN fading channel. It is shown that our detector for ST-MSK has solved the I/Q interference problem and has around 2.8 dB gain compared with the Alamouti Scheme and 3.8 dB gain for bit error rate at 5 X 10^(-3) in a 2 by 1 Multiple Input Single Output system.

Ingeniera Civil / En la primera parte de este estudio se generan curvas de fragilidad para estructuras de albañilería a partir de datos de daños observados (empíricas) por medio de la correlación entre la intensidad MSK-64, que ha sido estimada para grandes terremotos chilenos, y parámetros obtenidos de registros sísmicos. Con ese objetivo, en una primera etapa se realiza un estudio bibliográfico para recopilar información reportada de la intensidad MSK-64 para terremotos chilenos como son Algarrobo 1985 (Mw=8.0), Punitaqui 1997 (Mw=7.1), Tarapacá 2005 (Mw=7.8), Tocopilla 2007 (Mw=7.7), el Maule 2010 (Mw=8.8), Iquique 2014 (Mw=8.2) e Illapel 2015 (Mw=8.3). En base a la revisión bibliográfica, se confecciona una base de datos de las intensidades MSK por localidad y en caso de ser posible se las asocia a una estación sísmica que haya registrado el terremoto; es decir, que se encuentre en un radio razonable de la localidad donde se conozca la intensidad MSK. Conforme a esta base de datos, se correlaciona la intensidad MSK y los parámetros sísmicos obtenidos del registro sísmico de dichas estaciones. Finalmente, se utiliza la definición de grados de daño de la Intensidad MSK-64 asociada a diversas categorías de estructuras de albañilería para determinar las curvas de fragilidad empíricas asociadas a las diversas clases de albañilería contempladas en la MSK-64. En una segunda parte de este trabajo, se busca establecer un nuevo indicador de daño a partir de la respuesta máxima de desplazamiento de un modelo de un grado de libertad no-lineal. Es decir, se determina un indicador que permita estimar la intensidad MSK-64 a partir de registros sísmicos. Teniendo en cuenta que la respuesta sísmica de un oscilador de un GDL no-lineal depende del registro sísmico, del periodo natural de la estructura, de la razón de amortiguamiento, de la resistencia y su curva histerética. En particular, se fija el periodo natural en 0,18 seg (típico para albañilería), la razón de amortiguamiento se estima como una curva dependiente del PGA del registro (asociado a diversos niveles de disipación del suelo y del movimiento), se utilizan tres resistencias características (40%g, 60%g y 80%g) y se analizan diversas curvas histeréticas (elasto-plástica perfecta, Takeda y modelo Gamma), escogiendo para el post-proceso la curva Gamma que captura en forma simplificada la respuesta de una estructura de albañilería. A partir de los resultados obtenidos con el modelo no-lineal, para tres resistencias características, se determina una correlación entre las respuestas máximas obtenidas para los registros y su respectiva intensidad MSK-64. De esta forma se generan tres indicadores de la intensidad MSK-64 que se detallan como: 1) basados en curvas ajustadas manualmente de los resultados, 2) a partir de un ajuste con algoritmos genéticos (RNA) y 3) a través de un ajuste multinomial. En general, los indicadores permiten una estimación de la intensidad, aún presentando una dispersión significativa. Siendo el indicador a través del ajuste multinomial el que presenta una representación más fiable de la intensidad MSK-64, observándose que sus resultados son un poco mejores que los que se obtienen de la correlación de la intensidad MSK-64 con el PGA (parámetro sísmico que muestra menor dispersión respecto a la IMSK-64).

ITC/USA 2012 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Eighth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2012 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / We propose a spectrally-efficient multiple-access technique that is particularly suitable for aeronautical telemetry applications involving serial streaming of data from multiple test articles to a ground station. Unlike conventional frequency-division multiple access, we assign overlapping frequency bands to different users with a minimum carrier separation corresponding to the symbol rate. We utilize multiuser detection strategies at the ground station to separate the transmissions from different test articles. As shown by the simulation results, the proposed scheme is robust to large frequency offsets due to oscillator offsets and Doppler shifts commonly encounters in aeronautical telemetry applications.

In this thesis, symbol timing recovery in MSK signals is investigated making use of matched filtering. A decision-directed symbol synchronizer cascaded with an MLSE receiver is proposed for fine timing. Correlation (matched filter) method is used to recover the timing epoch from the tentative decisions obtained from the Viterbi algorithm. The fractional delays are acquired using interpolation and an iterative maximum search process. In order to investigate the tracking performance of the proposed symbol synchronizer, a study is carried out on three possible optimum timing phase criteria: (i) Mazo criterion, (ii) the minimum squared ISI criterion (msISI), and (iii) the minimum BER criterion. Moreover, a discussion is given about the timing sensitivity of the MLSE receiver. The performance of the symbol synchronizer is assessed by computer simulations. It is observed that the proposed synchronizer tracks the variations of the channels almost the same as the msISI criterion. The proposed method eliminates the cycle slips very succesfully and is robust to frequency-selective multipath fading channel conditions even in moderate signal-to-noise ratios.

<p>Musculoskeletal degradation and musculoskeletal injuries place a substantial burden on the healthcare system. Advancing the understanding and prevention of the injury potential associated with these injuries in various demographics as well as advancing performance optimization requires knowledge of the loading distribution among the various musculoskeletal tissues at the joints. Accurate muscle force estimates are needed for characterizing these distributions due to their influence on the loading of the system. This dissertation discusses</p> <p>the development and validation of a physiologically-driven skeletal muscle force model that is suitable for application on an individualized level. The derivation of the skeletal muscle force model began with dimensional analysis and a selection of critical parameters that define muscle force generation. One of the key parameters included was measured muscle voltage using electromyography sensors. This provided the model with the ability to be easily used</p> <p>in application-based studies. It also incorporated the muscle force-length, force-velocity, and force-frequency curves, providing an even stronger physiological basis to the model. Validation was performed by multiple studies using experimental data from subjects conducting exercises chosen to target specific muscles of interest. Data was collected from a Vicon Vero motion capture system, an instrumented Bertec treadmill, and Delsys Trigno electromyography sensors. The first study analyzed the ankle joint of seventeen subjects using the two Newton-Euler equations of rigid body motion and the skeletal muscle force model. The average percent error across all subjects was 8.2% and ranged from 4.2% to 15.5%. The second study analyzed the sensitivity of two sets of parameters within the model. The first was conducted on a set of observed and fitted constants from the dimensionless pi terms and aimed to identify which, if any, could be excluded from an optimization routine. Results indicated that only two of the nine constant parameters needed to be optimized. The second sensitivity analysis focused on the anatomical kinematic parameters in order to identify the impact that the incorporation of MRI scans for subject-specific anatomical models would have on the accuracy of the model’s output. Results demonstrated sensitivity to the muscle insertion points, suggesting that the use of MRI scans could increase the accuracy of the model. The third study was a case study focused on evaluating the assumption of a constant within the skeletal muscle force model remaining constant over time. Results indicated that the collection of maximum EMG recordings for these studies may not have been controlled to a desirable level and that the inclusion of specialized equipment for maximum EMG recordings would likely validate this assumption. The final study analyzed the</p> <p>knee joint of ten subjects in a similar fashion to that of the ankle joint. The goal was to observe the model’s performance on a more anatomically complex joint. The average percent error across all subjects was 20.6%, approximately two times higher than the ankle joint.</p> <p>However, the majority of the error associated with this study came from the deviation in calculated moments about an axis of much smaller importance and magnitude than the primary flexion/extension axis. When errors were excluded from this axis, the average percent error for all subjects was 8.8%, almost identical to that of the ankle joint application. These findings as a whole indicate that the model has predictive ability and is capable of providing reasonable estimates of both muscle forces and surrounding musculoskeletal tissue loading. Therefore, the model could be used in various biomechanical advancements and applications in injury prevention, performance optimization, tissue engineering, prosthetic design, and more.</p>

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