The number of mobile wireless devices on the market has increased substantially over the last decade. The frequency spectrum has become crowded due to the number of devices demanding radio traffic and new modulation schemes have been developed to accommodate the number of users. These new modulation schemes have caused very poor efficiencies in power amplifiers for wireless transmission systems due to high peak-to-average power ratios (PAPR). This thesis first presents the issue with classical power amplifiers in modern modulation systems. A brief overview of current attempts to mitigate this issue is provided. A new RF power amplifier topology is then presented with supporting simulations. The presented amplifier topology utilizes the concept of negative conductance and load modulation. The amplifier operates in two stages, a low power stage and a high power stage. A negative conductance amplifier is utilized during peak power transmission to modulate the load presented to the input amplifier. This topology is shown to greatly improve the power added efficiency of power amplifiers in systems with high PAPR.

This thesis studies regression discontinuity designs with the use of additional covariates for estimation of the average treatment effect. We prove asymptotic normality of the covariate-adjusted estimator under sufficient regularity conditions. In the case of a high-dimensional setting with a large number of covariates depending on the number of observations, we discuss a Lasso-based selection approach as well as alternatives based on calculated correlation thresholds. We present simulation results on those alternative selection strategies.:1. Introduction 2. Preliminaries 3. Regression Discontinuity Designs 4. Setup and Notation 5. Computing the Bias 6. Asymptotic Behavior 7. Asymptotic Normality of the Estimator 8. Including Potentially Many Covariates 9. Simulations 10. Conclusion

Multivariate control charts are used to monitor a process when more than one quality variable associated with the process is being observed. The multivariate exponentially weighted moving average (MEWMA) control chart is one of the most commonly recommended tools for multivariate process monitoring. The standard practice, when using the MEWMA control chart, is to take samples of fixed size at regular sampling intervals for each variable. In the first part of this dissertation, MEWMA control charts based on sequential sampling schemes with two possible stages are investigated. When sequential sampling with two possible stages is used, observations at a sampling point are taken in two groups, and the number of groups actually taken is a random variable that depends on the data. The basic idea is that sampling starts with a small initial group of observations, and no additional sampling is done at this point if there is no indication of a problem with the process. But if there is some indication of a problem with the process then an additional group of observations is taken at this sampling point. The performance of the sequential sampling (SS) MEWMA control chart is compared to the performance of standard control charts. It is shown that that the SS MEWMA chart is substantially more efficient in detecting changes in the process mean vector than standard control charts that do not use sequential sampling. Also the situation is considered where different variables may have different measurement costs. MEWMA control charts with unequal sample sizes based on differing measurement costs are investigated in order to improve the performance of process monitoring. Sequential sampling plans are applied to MEWMA control charts with unequal sample sizes and compared to the standard MEWMA control charts with a fixed sample size. The steady-state average time to signal (SSATS) is computed using simulation and compared for some selected sets of sample sizes. When different variables have significantly different measurement costs, using unequal sample sizes can be more cost effective than using the same fixed sample size for each variable. In the second part of this dissertation, control chart methods are proposed for process monitoring when the quality of a process or product is characterized by a linear function. In the historical analysis of Phase I data, methods including the use of a bivariate <i>T</i>² chart to check for stability of the regression coefficients in conjunction with a univariate Shewhart chart to check for stability of the variation about the regression line are recommended. The use of three univariate control charts in Phase II is recommended. These three charts are used to monitor the <i>Y</i>-intercept, the slope, and the variance of the deviations about the regression line, respectively. A simulation study shows that this type of Phase II method can detect sustained shifts in the parameters better than competing methods in terms of average run length (ARL) performance. The monitoring of linear profiles is also related to the control charting of regression-adjusted variables and other methods. / Ph. D.

Generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) control charts are investigated for two types of statistical process monitoring (SPC) problems. The first part of this dissertation considers the problem of monitoring a normally distributed process variable when a special cause may produce a time varying linear drift in the mean. The design and application of a GLR control chart for drift detection is investigated. The GLR drift chart does not require specification of any tuning parameters by the practitioner, and has the advantage that, at the time of the signal, estimates of both the change point and the drift rate are immediately available. An equation is provided to accurately approximate the control limit. The performance of the GLR drift chart is compared to other control charts such as a standard CUSUM chart and a CUSCORE chart designed for drift detection. We also compare the GLR chart designed for drift detection to the GLR chart designed for sustained shift detection since both of them require only a control limit to be specified. In terms of the expected time for detection and in terms of the bias and mean squared error of the change-point estimators, the GLR drift chart has better performance for a wide range of drift rates relative to the GLR shift chart when the out-of-control process is truly a linear drift. The second part of the dissertation considers the problem of monitoring a linear functional relationship between a response variable and one or more explanatory variables (a linear profile). The design and application of GLR control charts for this problem are investigated. The likelihood ratio test of the GLR chart is generalized over the regression coefficients, the variance of the error term, and the possible change-point. The performance of the GLR chart is compared to various existing control charts. We show that the overall performance of the GLR chart is much better than other options in detecting a wide range of shift sizes. The existing control charts designed for certain shifts that may be of particular interest have several chart parameters that need to be specified by the user, which makes the design of such control charts more difficult. The GLR chart is very simple to design, as it is invariant to the choice of design matrix and the values of in-control parameters. Therefore there is only one design parameter (the control limit) that needs to be specified. Especially, the GLR chart can be constructed based on the sample size of n=1 at each sampling point, whereas other charts cannot be applied. Another advantage of the GLR chart is its built-in diagnostic aids that provide estimates of both the change-point and the values of linear profile parameters. / Ph. D.

This dissertation investigates the effects of autocorrelation on the performances of various sampling plans for control charts in detecting special causes that may produce sustained or transient shifts in the process mean and/or variance. Observations from the process are modeled as a first-order autoregressive process plus a random error. Combinations of two Shewhart control charts and combinations of two exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control charts based on both the original observations and on the process residuals are considered. Three types of sampling plans are investigated: samples of n = 1, samples of n > 1 observations taken together at one sampling point, or samples of n > 1 observations taken at different times. In comparing these sampling plans it is assumed that the sampling rate in terms of the number of observations per unit time is fixed, so taking samples of n = 1 allows more frequent plotting. The best overall performance of sampling plans for control charts in detecting both sustained and transient shifts in the process is obtained by taking samples of n = 1 and using an EWMA chart combination with a observations chart for mean and a residuals chart for variance. The Shewhart chart combination with the best overall performance, though inferior to the EWMA chart combination, is based on samples of n > 1 taken at different times and with a observations chart for mean and a residuals chart for variance. / Ph. D.

The generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) control charts are studied for monitoring a process proportion of defective or nonconforming items. The type of process change considered is an abrupt sustained increase in the process proportion, which implies deterioration of the process quality. The objective is to effectively detect a wide range of shift sizes. For the first part of this research, we assume samples are collected using rational subgrouping with sample size n>1, and the binomial GLR statistic is constructed based on a moving window of past sample statistics that follow a binomial distribution. Steady state performance is evaluated for the binomial GLR chart and the other widely used binomial charts. We find that in terms of the overall performance, the binomial GLR chart is at least as good as the other charts. In addition, since it has only two charting parameters that both can be easily obtained based on the approach we propose, less effort is required to design the binomial GLR chart for practical applications. The second part of this research develops a Bernoulli GLR chart to monitor processes based on the continuous inspection, in which case samples of size n=1 are observed. A constant upper bound is imposed on the estimate of the process shift, preventing the corresponding Bernoulli GLR statistic from being undefined. Performance comparisons between the Bernoulli GLR chart and the other charts show that the Bernoulli GLR chart has better overall performance than its competitors, especially for detecting small shifts. / Ph. D.

Bandlimited optical intensity channels, arising in applications such as indoor infrared communications and visible light communications (VLC), require that all signals satisfy a bandwidth constraint as well as average, peak and non-negative amplitude constraints. However, the signaling designed for conventional radio frequency (RF) electrical channels cannot be applied directly, since they take energy constraints into consideration instead of amplitude constraints. In addition, conventional transmission techniques optimized for broad-band optical channels such as fiber optics, terrestrial/satellite-to-satellite free-space optical (FSO) communications are typically not bandwidth efficient. In this thesis, a two-dimensional signal space for bandlimited optical intensity channels is presented. A novel feature of this model is that the non-negativity and peak amplitude constraints are relaxed. The signal space parameterizes the likelihood of a negative or peak amplitude excursions in the output. Although the intensity channel only supports non-negative amplitudes, the impact of clipping on system performance is shown to be negligible if the likelihood of negative amplitude excursion is small enough. For a given signal space, a tractable approximation approach using a finite series is applied to accurately compute the likelihood of clipping under average and peak optical power constraints. The uncoded asymptotic optical power and spectral efficiencies using two-dimensional lattice constellations are computed. The Monte-Carlo (MC) simulation results show that for a given average or peak optical power, schemes designed in the presented signal space haver higher spectral efficiency than M-ary pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) using previously established techniques. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

On a group level, satisfaction with botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT) treatment in neurological indications is high. However, it is well known that a relevant amount of patients may not respond as expected. The aim of this study is to evaluate the BoNT treatment outcome on an individual level using a statistical single-case analysis as an adjunct to traditional group statistics. The course of the daily perceived severity of symptoms across a BoNT cycle was analyzed in 20 cervical dystonia (CD) and 15 hemifacial spasm (HFS) patients. A parametric single-case autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) time series analysis was used to detect individual responsiveness to BoNT treatment. Overall, both CD and HFS patients significantly responded to BoNT treatment with a gradual worsening of symptom intensities towards BoNT reinjection. However, only 8/20 CD patients (40%) and 5/15 HFS patients (33.3%) displayed the expected U-shaped curve of BoNT efficacy across a single treatment cycle. CD (but not HFS) patients who followed the expected outcome course had longer BoNT injection intervals, showed a better match to objective symptom assessments, and were characterized by a stronger certainty to control their somatic symptoms (i.e., internal medical locus of control). In addition to standard evaluation procedures, patients should be identified who do not follow the mean course-of-treatment effect. Thus, the ARIMA single-case time series analysis seems to be an appropriate addition to clinical treatment studies in order to detect individual courses of subjective symptom intensities.

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