O melanoma malígno está entre os cânceres que mais têm aumentado nas últimas décadas representando um grande desafio terapêutico. Quando diagnosticado precocemente, as chances de cura por excisão cirúrgica com margens de segurança adequadas são altas. Entretanto, casos avançados de melanoma são resistentes às formas atuais de terapia; assim, um dos maiores desafios para a pesquisa em melanoma é a identificação de alvos moleculares para o desenvolvimento de novas estratégias de tratamento. A capacidade de impedir o desenvolvimento de um tumor depende do melhor entendimento das vias celulares e moleculares que operam no microambiente tumoral. Uma inflamação crônica e persistente contribui para o desenvolvimento do câncer, e mesmo tumores que não são epidemiologicamente ligados a patógenos, são caracterizados pela presença de componentes inflamatórios em seu microambiente. O Sistema Calicreínas-Cininas (SCC) é responsável por uma série de efeitos biológicos, como vasodilatação, modulação da dor e inflamação, contração/relaxamento da musculatura lisa e efeitos sobre a proliferação celular. A participação do receptor B1 de cininas é bem relacionada a processos inflamatórios; contudo, a relação entre o SCC e câncer ainda é pouco descrita na literatura. Com relação ao melanoma, não existem na literatura, estudos que relacionam a participação do SCC e essa patologia. Portanto, a identificação de mecanismos genéticos e de vias de sinalização que levam à formação e progressão tumoral é de extrema importância para um desenho racional de terapias. Assim, o objetivo desse trabalho foi estudar a participação do receptor B1 de cininas no desenvolvimento de melanoma. Primeiramente realizou-se ensaios in vitro com células de melanoma murino, B16F10, verificando-se a presença dos componentes do SCC nesta linhagem celular, bem como a capacidade de migração das células quando estimuladas com o agonista e antagonista do receptor B1. Posteriormente, induziu-se melanoma em animais selvagens e knockout para o receptor B1 e verificou-se expressão de citocinas, vias de proliferação e apoptose e vascularização nesses tumores a partir técnicas de PCR, western blotting e análise histológica. Observou-se que células B16F10 estimuladas com o agonista do receptor B1, diminuem a capacidade de migração. Tumores desenvolvidos em animais knockout para o receptor B1, possuem uma menor expressão gênica desse receptor quando comparados com tumores desenvolvidos em animais selvagens e apresentam vias de proliferação celular mais ativadas, além de uma vascularização irregular. Considerando esses resultados, sugerimos que o receptor B1 de cininas contribui para o impedimento da progressão tumoral, podendo, futuramente, ser um alvo terapêutico para o tratamento de melanoma. / Malignant melanoma is between the cancer types that most have been increased in the last decades, representing a therapeutic challenge. When it is early detected, chances of cure through surgical excisions with secure margins are high. However, advanced cases of melanoma are resistant to all types of therapies; thus, one of the most challenges for research in melanoma is the identification of molecular targets to further develop new strategies of treatment. The ability to blockade the development of a tumor depends on a better understanding of cellular and molecular pathways that operate in the tumor microenvironment. A chronic and persistent inflammation contributes to cancer development, and, even tumors that are not epidemiologically linked to pathogens present inflammatory components in their microenvironment. The Kallicrein-Kinin System (KKS) is responsible for several biological effects, like, vasodilatation, modulation of pain and inflammation, contraction/relaxation of smooth muscles and cell proliferation. The kinin B1 receptor is well related to inflammatory processes, however, the involvement of the KKS in cancer development is, yet, not well described in the literature. Regarding to melanoma, studies relating the involvement of the KKS in melanoma development is still not available. This way, identification of genetic mechanisms and signaling pathways that drive melanoma formation and progression is extremely important for designing rational therapies in the future. Thus, the aim of this study was evaluate the participation of the kinin B1 receptor in melanoma progression. First, in vitro assays with murine melanoma cells, B16F10, were performed to verify the presence of the KKS components in this cell lineage, as well as the capacity of migration when these cells are stimulated with the B1 receptor agonist and antagonist. Then, melanoma was induced in wild type and B1 receptor knockout mice and the expression of cytokines, proliferation and apoptosis pathways and vascularization were studied by PCR, western blotting and histological analyses. We observed that B16F10 cells stimulated with the B1 receptor agonist had their capacity of migration decreased. Tumors developed in B1 receptor knockout mice showed a lower expression of this gene comparing to the tumors developed in wild type animals, also presenting higher activation of proliferation pathways and abnormal vessels. Considering these results, we suggest that the kinin B1 receptor contributes to blockade, at least in part, the tumor progression which can, in the future, become a therapeutic target for melanoma treatment.

With a wide range of potential applications, the machine type communication (MTC) is gaining a tremendous interest among mobile network operators, system designers, MTC specialist companies, and research institutes. The idea of having electronic devices and systems automatically connected to each other without human intervention is one of the most significant objectives for future wireless communications. Low data rate transmission and the requirement for low energy consumption are two typical characteristics for MTC applications. In terms of supporting low cots MTC devices, industrial standards will be more efficient if designers can re-use many features of existing radio access technologies. This will yield a cost effective solution to support MTC in future communication systems. This thesis investigates efficient MTC waveform and receiver designs for superior signal transmission quality with low operational costs. In terms of the downlink receiver design, this thesis proposes a novel virtual carrier (VC) receiver system for MTC receivers, which aims to reduce the maximum bandwidth to improve the data processing efficiency and cost-efficiency by using analogue filters to extract only sub-carriers of interest. For the VC receiver systems, we thus reduce the sampling rate in order to reduce the number of subsequent processing operations, which significantly reduces the analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) cost and power consumption while providing high signal to interference noise ratio (SINR) and low bit to error rate (BER) to support low data rate MTC devices. Our theoretical equations account for the interference effect of aliasing on the sub-carrier location, and this helps the system designer to evaluate what kind of filters and receiver sampling rate can be used to balance the energy cost and detection performance. In terms of the uplink waveform design, considering the enhanced number of MTC devices in the future communication systems, i.e. the fifth generation (5G) communications, the same tight synchronisation as used in today appears not to be cost-effective or even possible. Synchronisation signals, which aim to provide a perfect time or frequency synchronisation in the current fourth generation (4G) communication systems (known as the long-term evolution, LTE), is much more costly for low data rate MTC transmissions. The system bandwidth will be significantly reduced if a base station tries to synchronise all received signals among hundreds or thousands MTC devices in one transmission time period. In terms of relaxing the synchronisation requirements, this thesis compares and analyses the side-lobe reduction performance for several candidate multi-carrier waveforms to avoid these problems. We also propose the infinite impulse response universal filtered multi-carrier (UFMC) system and the overlap and add UFMC system, which significantly reduce the processing complexity compared with the state of the art UFMC techniques. This thesis derives closed-form expressions for the interference caused by time offsets between adjacent unsynchronised MTC users. Our analytical equations can be used in both simple and complex time-offset transmission scenarios, and enable the system designer to evaluate the SINR, the theoretical Shannon capacity and the BER performance.

Abstract The demand in mobile broadband communications is increasing dramatically. It is expected that 1000 times more mobile-network capacity will be needed within 10 years. Multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) antenna configuration and spatial multiplexing are among the essential techniques for reaching the targets. This creates motivation for study of advanced receivers for combating inter-antenna interference (IAI) and inter-symbol interference (ISI). While various receiver structures have been extensively considered for MIMO receivers, the emphasis has been on those operating in downlink orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDM) systems, wherein ISI is not a problem. Advanced receiver structures for single-carrier frequency-division multiple access (SC-FDMA) uplink systems were studied and analysed. Various receivers were compared via MATLAB simulations, with the objective being to gain solid understanding of how they perform in different channel environments. An efficient combination of IAI and ISI equalisation for SC-FDMA receivers is proposed. The proposed receiver architecture is shown to be a considerable improvement over the conventional linear minimum mean-square error (LMMSE) receiver. Several MIMO detector algorithms and their performance–complexity characteristics are presented. The K-best algorithm with a list size of 8 is shown to be the best option for practical MIMO detector implementation of this receiver in the 4x4 MIMO 64-level quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) scenario. The second objective involved examining the implementation aspects of the 8-best receiver to achieve good understanding of the complexity of various implementation architectures. It emerged that avoiding the sorting operation in the 8-best list sphere detector (LSD) tree-search algorithm implementation is not recommendable in the 4x4 MIMO 64-QAM scenario. Several field-programmable gate array (FPGA) implementations were carried out, with a range of high-level synthesis (HLS) tools. It is shown that HLS tools have improved significantly and are especially favourable for prototyping of large designs. Additionally, the importance of FPGA technology selection is addressed. Smaller silicon technology should be exploited if base-station baseband processing power consumption is to be minimised. The potential performance or complexity-related gain with the latest FPGAs should be taken into account in comparison of the performance–complexity characteristics of the algorithms. Differences of a few tens of per cent in estimated complexity or performance between two algorithms are often below the threshold of what can be gained or lost in the practical implementation process. / Tiivistelmä Tiheään asuttujen kaupunkien uudet langattomat palvelut tarvitsevat tietoliikenneverkkoja, jotka mahdollistavat suuremman tiedonsiirtonopeuden ja kapasiteetin kuin sen, jonka nykyiset mobiiliverkot voivat tarjota. On arveltu, että mobiiliverkkojen kapasiteetin tarve tuhatkertaistuu seuraavan kymmenen vuoden aikana. Tuhatkertainen kapasiteetti on arvioitu saavutettavan kasvattamalla kolmea eri osa-aluetta kymmenkertaiseksi: taajuusspektrin määrä, spektrin käytön tehokkuus sekä tukiasematiheys. Tämä väitöskirja keskittyy spektrin käytön tehokkuuden kasvattamiseen. Moniantennitoteutus (multiple-input multiple-output, MIMO) on siinä välttämätön. MIMO-tekniikkaa hyödyntävien solukkojärjestelmien tukiasemavastaanottimissa tarvitaan melko monimutkainen kanavakorjain sekä ilmaisin, joiden algoritmien optimointi ja toteutus ymmärretään vielä sangen puutteellisesti. Väitöskirjatutkimuksen päätavoitteena on tutkia edistyksellisiä vastaanotinrakenteita, joilla saavutetaan LTE-A-standardin tavoitetiedonsiirtonopeus kohtuullisella kompleksisuudella. Työssä keskitytään ns. nousevaan siirtosuuntaan (uplink) eli päätelaitteesta tukiasemaan tapahtuvaan tiedonsiirtoon, jossa käytetään yhden kantoaallon taajuusjakomonikäyttötekniikkaa (single-carrier frequency-division multiple-access, SC-FDMA) ortognaalisen taajuusjakomonikäytön (orthogonal frequency division multiple access, OFDMA) sijaan. Eri vastaanotinrakenteita ja näiden ilmaisinalgoritmeja vertaillaan tietokonesimuloinnein MATLAB-ympäristössä. Väitöskirjassa ehdotetaan kaksiosaista vastaanotinrakennetta, jossa antennien välinen keskinäishäiriö (inter antenna interference, IAI) ja symbolien välinen keskinäisvaikutus (intersymbol interference, ISI) poistetaan kahdessa eri vaiheessa. Tietokoneimulaatiot osoittavat ko. rakenteen parantavan suorituskykyä huomattavasti perinteiseen lineaariseen keskineliövirheen minimoivaan (linear minimum mean square error, LMMSE) vastaanottimeen verrattuna. Nk. K parasta polkua valitsevan MIMO-ilmaisinalgoritmin listan koolla kahdeksan todetaan tarjoavan 4x4 MIMO 64-tasoisen kvadratuuriamplitudimodulaation (quadrature amplitude modulation, QAM) ympäristössä parhaan kompromissin suorituskyvyn ja kompleksisuuden suhteen. Käytännön toteutettavuuden kannalta keskitytään ohjelmoitavaan digitaalipiiritoteutukseen (field-programmable gate array, FGPA) ja ns. korkean tason synteesi (high-level synthesis, HLS) -työkalujen käyttöön vastaanottimen suunnittelussa. K parasta polkua valitsevan MIMO-ilmaisinalgoritmin arkkitehtuurivertailut osoittavat, että sinänsä vaativaa lajittelualgoritmia ei aina kannata yrittää välttää kirjallisuudessa aikaisemmin ehdotetulla ratkaisulla. Useita eri HLS työkaluja käytetään FPGA toteutuksissa ja todetaan että työkalut ovat kehittyneet huomattavasti viimeisen kahdeksan vuoden aikana. Lisäksi todetaan, että 16 nm viivanleveyden piireillä voidaan saavuttaa noin 15 % suurempi ilmaisunopeus ja 60 % pienempi tehonkulutus verrattuna 28 nm viivanleveyttä käyttäviin piireihin. Erityisesti potentiaali tehonkulutuksen minimoiseksi kannattaa hyödyntää, mikäli signaalinkäsittely näyttelee merkittävää roolia vastaanottimen kokonaistehonkulutuksessa. Kokonaisuutena todetaan, että toteutukseen liittyvät valinnat sekä vaikutus lopputulokseen, tulisi ottaa huomioon jo algoritmien valinnassa. Pieni ero kahden eri algoritmin suorituskyvyn välillä häviää helposti toteutusvaiheen ratkaisujen vaikutusten alle.

Cette thèse a été préparée à l'IMT atlantique dans le contexte du projet FITNESS. Ce projet Européen vise à moderniser les radios PMR (Professional Mobile Radio), utilisées par les services de sûretés. L'objectif est de développer un nouveau récepteur compatible avec les 4 normes européennes, tout en ajoutant de nouvelles fonctionnalités. Les contributions de cette thèse à FITNESS concernent la rétrocompatibilité du nouveau récepteur avec les standards actuels. Un filtre de sélection de canal de fréquence centrale reconfigurable a été utilisé pour gérer cette interopérabilité. Toutefois on notera que sa bande passante est trop large et que plusieurs canaux de communications insuffisamment atténués serons présents au niveau des convertisseurs. Pour relâcher les contraintes de linéarité et les marges de numérisation, nous proposons de rendre le récepteur conscient de son environnement spectral.L'intérêt de cette méthode a été développé dans une première partie de la thèse. Une méthode de détection aveugle basée sur les propriétés cyclostationnaires du signal de communication a été proposée. Nous utilisons ensuite cet outil pour détecter la présence d'harmoniques indésirables créés lors d'un fonctionnement en régime non linéaire du récepteur. Nous montrons qu'il est ainsi possible de détecter très tôt le mode de fonctionnement du récepteur. Enfin, basé sur les deux études précédentes nous proposons une méthode permettant d'adapter automatiquement les paramètres de la chaine analogique. Cette preuve de concept basé sur une boucle de rétroaction permet une amélioration significative du taux d'erreur binaire tout en relâchant les contraintes au niveau analogique. / This thesis was prepared at IMT Atlantique, in the context of the FITNESS project. This European project aims to modernize PMR (Professional Mobile Radio) radios, used by security services. The objective is to develop a new receiver compatible with the 4 European standards, while adding new features. The contributions of this thesis to FITNESS concern the backwards compatibility of the new receiver with current standards. A reconfigurable central frequency channel selection filter was used to manage this interoperability. However, it should be noted that its bandwidth is too large and that several insufficiently attenuated communication channels are present at the A/D converters input. To relax linearity constraints and digitization margins, we propose to make the receiver aware of its spectral environment.The interest of this method has been developed in a first part of this document. A method for blind detection based on the cyclostationary properties of the communication signal has been proposed. We then use this tool to detect the presence of unwanted harmonics created during non-linear operation of the receiver. We show that it is possible to detect the operating mode of the receiver before the useful signal degradation. Finally, based on the two previous studies, we propose a method to automatically adapt the parameters of the analog receiver. This proof of concept based on a feedback loop allows a significant improvement in the bit error rate while relaxing constraints at the analog level.

The emphasis of this research was to evaluate the beliefs about respite among caregivers of the clients associated with Inland Caregiver Resource Center. The caregivers of the elderly and those who suffer from Alzheimer’s and dementia, or suffer from traumatic brain injury that was organic in nature were the population of interest. These caregivers were unpaid persons who help to keep those with such conditions at home as long as possible. This study used an exploratory pilot survey instrument to assess the perception of benefit of respite used as seen from the view of the caregiver. The primary theory used to support this project was Abraham H. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Data analysis used standard statistical methodology. The benefit to the profession of social work was seen in the addition of knowledge to the fast growing field of organizational respite services. The results of the research indicated that when respite was seen as beneficial the caregiver was more able to complete activities while using respite, the caregiver believed the person or agency who cared for their loved one was professional and trusting, and the care receiver was treaded well and was more easier to care for after being cared for by another person or agency.

Many disorders found in humans are caused by abnormalities in DNA. Genetic testing of DNA provides a way for clinicians to identify disease-causing mutations in patients. Once patients with potentially disease-causing mutations are identified, they can be enrolled in treatment or preventative programs to improve the patients' long term quality of life. Array-based comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) provides a high- resolution, genome-wide method for detecting chromosomal abnormalities. Using computer software, chromosome abnormalities, or copy number variations (CNVs) can be identified from aCGH data. The development of a software tool to analyze the performance of CGH microarrays is of great benefit to clinical laboratories. Calibration of parameters used in aCGH software tools can maximize the performance of these arrays in a clinical setting. According to the American College of Medical Genetics, the validation of a clinical chromosomal microarray platform should be performed by testing a large number (200-300) of well-characterized cases, each with unique CNVs located throughout the genome. Because of the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment of 1988 and the lack of an FDA approved whole genome chromosomal microarray platform the ultimate responsibility for validating the performance characteristics of this technology falls to the clinical laboratory performing the testing. To facilitate this task, we have established a computational analytical validation procedure for CGH microarrays that is comprehensive, efficient, and low cost. This validation uses a higher resolution microarray to validate a lower resolution microarray with a receiver operating characteristic (ROC)-based analysis. From the results we are able to estimate an optimal log2 threshold range for determining the presence or absence (calling) of CNVs.

Microcalcification (MC) detection is an important component of breast cancer diagnosis. However, visual analysis of mammograms is a difficult task for radiologists. Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) technology helps in identifying lesions and assists the radiologist in making his final decision. This work is a part of a CAD project carried out at the Imaging Science Research Division (ISRD), Digital Medical Imaging Program, Moffitt Cancer Research Center, Tampa, FL. A CAD system had been previously developed to perform the following tasks: (a) pre-processing, (b) segmentation and (c) feature extraction of mammogram images. Ten features covering spatial, and morphological domains were extracted from the mammograms and the samples were classified as Microcalcification (MC) or False alarm (False Positive microcalcification/ FP) based on a binary truth file obtained from a radiologist's initial investigation. The main focus of this work was two-fold: (a) to analyze these features, select the most significant features among them and study their impact on classification accuracy and (b) to implement and compare two machine-learning algorithms, Neural Networks (NNs) and Support Vector Machines (SVMs) and evaluate their performances with these features. The NN was based on the Standard Back Propagation (SBP) algorithm. The SVM was implemented using polynomial, linear and Radial Basis Function (RBF) kernels. A detailed statistical analysis of the input features was performed. Feature selection was done using Stepwise Forward Selection (SFS) method. Training and testing of the classifiers was carried out using various training methods. Classifier evaluation was first performed with all the ten features in the model. Subsequently, only the features from SFS were used in the model to study their effect on classifier performance. Accuracy assessment was done to evaluate classifier performance. Detailed statistical analysis showed that the given dataset showed poor discrimination between classes and proved a very difficult pattern recognition problem. The SVM performed better than the NN in most cases, especially on unseen data. No significant improvement in classifier performance was noted with feature selection. However, with SFS, the NN showed improved performance on unseen data. The training time taken by the SVM was several magnitudes less than the NN. Classifiers were compared on the basis of their accuracy and parameters like sensitivity and specificity. Free Receiver Operating Curves (FROCs) were used for evaluation of classifier performance. The highest accuracy observed was about 93% on training data and 76% for testing data with the SVM using Leave One Out (LOO) Cross Validation (CV) training. Sensitivity was 81% and 46% on training and testing data respectively for a threshold of 0.7. The NN trained using the 'single test' method showed the highest accuracy of 86% on training data and 70% on testing data with respective sensitivity of 84% and 50%. Threshold in this case was -0.2. However, FROC analyses showed overall superiority of SVM especially on unseen data. Both spatial and morphological domain features were significant in our model. Features were selected based on their significance in the model. However, when tested with the NN and SVM, this feature selection procedure did not show significant improvement in classifier performance. It was interesting to note that the model with interactions between these selected variables showed excellent testing sensitivity with the NN classifier (about 81%). Recent research has shown SVMs outperform NNs in classification tasks. SVMs show distinct advantages such as better generalization, increased speed of learning, ability to find a global optimum and ability to deal with linearly non-separable data. Thus, though NNs are more widely known and used, SVMs are expected to gain popularity in practical applications. Our findings show that the SVM outperforms the NN. However, its performance depends largely on the nature of data used.

Solar power tower technology can achieve higher temperatures than the most common commercial technology using parabolic troughs. In order to take advantage of higher temperatures, new power cycles are needed for generating power at higher efficiencies. Supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2) power cycle is one of the alternatives that have been proposed for the future concentrated solar power (CSP) plants due to its high efficiency. On the other hand, carbon dioxide can also be a replacement for current heat transfer fluids (HTFs), i.e. oil, molten salt, and steam. The main disadvantages of the current HTFs are maximum operating temperature limit, required freeze protection units, and complex control systems. However, the main challenge about utilizing s-CO2 as the HTF is to design a receiver that can operate at high operating pressure (about 20 MPa) while maintaining excellent thermal performance. The existing tubular and windowed receivers are not suitable for this application; therefore, an innovative design is required to provide appropriate performance as well as mechanical strength. This research investigates the application of s-CO2 in solar power tower plants. First, a computationally efficient method is developed for designing the heliostat field in a solar power tower plant. Then, an innovative numerical approach is introduced to distribute the heat flux uniformly on the receiver surface. Next, different power cycles utilizing s-CO2 as the working fluid are analyzed. It is shown that including an appropriate bottoming cycle can further increase the power cycle efficiency. In the next step, a thermal receiver is designed based on compact heat exchanger (CHE) technology utilizing s-CO2 as the HTF. Finally, a 3MWth cavity receiver is designed using the CHE receivers as individual panels receiving solar flux from the heliostat field. Convective and radiative heat transfer models are employed to calculate bulk fluid and surface temperatures. The receiver efficiency is obtained as 80%, which can be further improved by optimizing the geometry of the cavity.

GPS has become very popular in recent years. It is used in wide range of applications including aircraft navigation, search and rescue, space borne attitude and position determination and cellular network synchronization. Each application places demands on GPS for various levels of accuracy, integrity, system availability and continuity of service. Radio frequency interference (RFI) which results from many sources such as TV/FM harmonics, radar or mobile satellite systems, presents a challenge to the use of GPS. It can affect all the service performance indices mentioned above. To improve the accuracy of GPS positioning, a continuously operating reference station (CORS) network can be used. A CORS network provides all the enabled GPS users in an area with corrections to the fundamental measurements, producing more precise positioning. A threat to these networks is a threat to all high-accuracy GPS users. It is therefore necessary to monitor the quality of the received signal with the objective of promptly detecting the presence of RFI and providing a timely warning of the degradation of system accuracy, thereby boosting the integrity of GPS. This research was focused on four main tasks: a) Detection. The focus here is on a power spectral density fluctuation detection technique, in which statistical inference is used to detect narrowband continuous-wave (CW) interference in the GPS signal band after being captured by the RF front-end. An optimal detector algorithm is proposed. At this optimal point, for a fixed Detection Threshold (DT), probability of false alarm becomes minimal and for a fixed probability of false alarm, we can achieve the minimum value for the detection threshold. Experiments show that at this point we have the minimum computational load. This theoretical result is supported by real experiments. Finally this algorithm is employed to detect a real GPS interference signal generated by a TV transmitter in Sydney. b) Characterization. In the characterization section, using the GNSS signal structure and the baseband signal processing inside the GNSS receiver, a closed formula is derived for the received signal quality in terms of effective carrier to noise ratio ( ). This formula is tested and proved by calculating the C/No using the I and Q data from a software GPS receiver. For pulsed CW, a similar analysis is done to characterize the effect of parameters such as pulse repetition period (PRP) and also duty cycle on the received signal quality. Considering this characterization and the commonality between the GPS C/A code and Galileo signal as a basis to build up a common term for satellite availability, the probability of satellite availability in the presence of CW interference is defined and for the two currently available satellite navigation systems (GPS L1 signal and Galileo signal (GIOVE-A BOC(1, 1) in the E1/L1 band)) it is shown that they can be considered as alternatives to each other in the presence of different RFI frequencies as their availability in the presence of CW RFI is different in terms of RFI frequency. c) Mitigation. The last section of the research presents a new concept of ?Satellite Exclusion Zone?. In this technique, using our previously developed characterization techniques, and considering the fact that RFI has different effects on different satellite signals at different times depending on satellite Doppler frequency, the idea of excluding the most vulnerable satellite signal from positioning calculations is proposed. Using real data and real interference, the effectiveness of this technique is proven and its performance analyzed. d) Hardware implementation. The above detection technique is implemented using the UNSW FPGA receiver board called NAMURU.

The aim of this thesis is to develop procedures for the modelling and inversion of teleseismic P and S waveforms which are as flexible as possible. This flexibility is necessary in order to obtain accurate source depth and mechanism estimates for small to moderate size events, such as those that are relevant in the context of monitoring the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). ¶ The main challenge for extending source depth and mechanism inversion methods to smaller events is to ensure that sufficiently accurate synthetic seismograms are available for comparison with observed records. An accurate phase-adaptive reflectivity method has therefore been developed, against which the performance of less computationally intensive approximations can be judged. The standard reflectivity method has been modified to allow for different crustal and upper mantle structures at the source and receiver, and the full effects of reverberations and conversions in these structures can be allowed for. Core reflections and refractions can also be included; these phases can become important at certain distance ranges. A slowness bundle approach has been developed, where a restricted slowness integration about the geometric slowness for the direct wave is undertaken at each frequency, allowing accurate results to be obtained whilst avoiding the expense of a full reflectivity technique. ¶ Inversion using the neighbourhood algorithm (NA) is performed for source depth, mechanism and time function, by modelling direct P and S and their surface reflections (pP, sP and pS, sS) at teleseismic distances. Both SV and SH data are exploited in the inversion, in addition to P data, in order to obtain improved constraints on the source mechanism, including any isotropic component. Good results are obtained using a simple generalised ray scheme, however, the use of a flexible derivative-free inversion method means that more accurate synthetics are able to be used in the inversion where appropriate. The NA makes use of only the rank of the data misfits, so that it is possible to employ any suitable misfit criterion. In the few cases where control on the source mechanism is limited, good depth resolution is still usually obtained. ¶The structures near the source and receiver play an important role in shaping the detail of the teleseismic waveforms. Although reasonable results can be achieved with simple synthetics and a standard velocity model, significant improvement can be made by modifying the representation of structure near the source and receiver. In the case of sub-oceanic events it is important to allow for the effects of water reverberations. The crustal structure near the receiver can also have quite a large influence on the waveforms through reverberations and conversions. This is exploited in receiver function inversion, which is again accomplished using the NA approach.