La présente recherche vise à mieux comprendre, dans le contexte universitaire béninois, s’il peut exister un lien qualitatif entre TIC et rendement académique afin de pouvoir mettre les TIC à contribution pour améliorer significativement les mauvais résultats des apprenants, notamment au premier cycle universitaire. Cette étude est tout particulièrement importante dans notre contexte où les TIC font de plus en plus leur apparition en pédagogie universitaire et où les étudiants recourent aux TIC dans leur pratique plus que les formateurs dans la leur. Le cadre de référence retenu pour la recherche est structuré autour des concepts de l’apprentissage assisté par les TIC, de motivation en éducation et de rendement académique. Pour atteindre notre objectif de recherche, nous avons opté pour une démarche mixte : quantitative et qualitative. Il s’agit d’une étude descriptive/explicative. Nous avons mené une enquête par questionnaires auprès de 156 étudiants et 15 enseignants et fait des entrevues avec 11 étudiants et 6 enseignants. Les principaux résultats sont présentés sous forme d’articles respectivement en ce qui a trait à l’impact des TIC sur la motivation et la réussite, aux usages des TIC les plus fréquemment rencontrés chez les apprenants, et à la place des TIC dans la pratique pédagogique des enseignants de la faculté de droit de l’Université d’Abomey-Calavi. Plus précisément, il ressort des résultats que la majorité des participants ont une perception en général positive du potentiel motivationnel des TIC pour l’apprentissage. Cependant, sur une cote maximale de 7 (correspond très fortement), la perception des répondants relativement à l’impact positif de l’utilisation des TIC sur le rendement académique tourne autour d’une cote moyenne de 4 (correspond assez). D’où, une perception en général mitigée du lien entre l’apprentissage assisté par les TIC et la réussite. Le croisement des résultats des données quantitatives avec ceux de l’analyse qualitative induit, sur ce point, une perception positive prononcée des rapports entre TIC et rendement. Les résultats montrent également que les usages des TIC les plus fréquents chez ces apprenants sont le courriel (en tête), suivi de la recherche et du traitement de texte, avec une fréquence moyenne d’ « une fois par semaine ». Tous ces constats n’accréditent pas véritablement un usage académique des TIC. Chez les enseignants, les résultats ont montré aussi qu’il n’y a pas encore de réelles applications des TIC en situation d’enseignement : ils font plutôt un usage personnel des TIC et pas encore véritablement pédagogique. La conséquence logique de ces résultats est qu’il n’existe pas encore un lien qualitatif direct entre TIC et rendement académique en contexte universitaire béninois. / This study attempted to determine whether a qualitative relationship existed between information and communication technologies (ICT) and academic performance in universities in Benin. The aim was to understand how ICT may be used to significantly improve inadequate student grades, particularly in bachelor programs. This study is particularly relevant at a time when ICT are increasingly part of university life, and when students use ICT more than their professors do. The research framework is therefore structured around the concepts of teaching and learning with ICT, motivation in education, and academic performance. To achieve our objectives, we used a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach to conduct a descriptive and explicative study. We administered a survey questionnaire to 156 students and 15 professors and held interviews with 11 students and 6 professors. The main results are presented in articles on the impact of ICT on motivation and academic success, the most frequent uses of ICT by students, and the role of ICT in the teaching practices of law professors at the Université d’Abomey-Calavi, Benin. More precisely, the results show that most of the participants had an overall positive perception of the motivational potential of ICT for teaching and learning. Nevertheless, out of a maximum score of 7 (very strong), respondents rated their perception of the positive impact of ICT use on academic performance at 4 (moderate) on average. Hence, their perception of the relationship between learning with ICT and success was generally middling. Crossing the results of the quantitative data with the results of the qualitative analysis concerning this aspect revealed a pronounced positive perception of the relationship between ICT and performance. Results also show that the most frequent uses of ICT by students are email (heading the list), followed by research and word processing, at once a week on average. These uses do not really amount to ICT for academic purposes. Among professors, results also showed that ICT are not yet being fully applied to teaching practices. They are used more for personal than for pedagogical purposes. The conclusion is that we have not yet found a direct qualitative relationship between ICT and academic performance in universities in Benin.

No description available.

L’usage des technologies dans les organisations publiques des pays africains tels que le Gabon, traduit le désir d’innover dans le travail pour améliorer la qualité des services destinés aux usagers et pour rendre aussi plus efficace les processus de travail. La littérature fait état d’un certain nombre d’apports, mais aussi de nombreux revers que ces innovations technologiques peuvent avoir tant sur le plan organisationnel que socio-professionnel des entreprises occidentales. L’impact de ces mutations technologiques dans l’Administration publique au Gabon n’a pas encore été étudié du point de vue de la psychologie du travail et des organisations. L’objectif de cette thèse est d’appréhender l’impact des technologies sur les facteurs de qualité vie au travail (QVT) ; et sur le bien-être et la santé psychologique dans un grand établissement ministériel. Dans cette perspective, deux études (mixant des approches qualitatives d’analyse et de compréhension de l’activité et quantitatives de mesure de la QVT et du bien-être) sont réalisées : avant et après l’informatisation du Ministère sur une population de 91 cadres fonctionnaires. La première étude (T1) met en lumière la situation socioprofessionnelle et psychosociale des cadres fonctionnaires avant l’implémentation des technologies. À ce titre, les entretiens semi-directifs révèlent que les cadres fonctionnaires exercent les activités selon la nature leurs fonctions. Les observations montrent que les conditions d’organisation du travail apparaissent particulièrement rigides et hiérarchisées. La présence et la prégnance de la « culture clanique » déterminent également les modalités de collaboration et d’échange au travail ; cela se caractérise notamment par des relations de travail de type communautaire où l’appartenance ethnique et/ou régionale joue un rôle prépondérant. Par ailleurs, les analyses sur la QVT indiquent que les cadres fonctionnaires présentent un niveau de bien-être psychologique relativement faible, mais perçoivent néanmoins positivement leurs différentes situations de travail. La seconde étude (T2) présente la situation socioprofessionnelle et psychosociale des cadres fonctionnaires six mois après l’implémentation des technologies. Nos analyses montrent que l’arrivée des technologies a engendré de profondes réorganisations sur le travail, réclamant des réajustements d’ordres socioprofessionnels, collectifs (collaboration et coordination plus importantes), organisationnels (marges de manœuvre et initiatives accrues) et personnels (efficacité, réactivité et rapidité dans l’exercice des tâches administratives). Les observations soulignent que les cadres fonctionnaires, confrontés à plusieurs contradictions révélées par l’analyse de leur système d’activité, mettent en place de nouvelles modalités d’action plus souples et flexibles. Les études statistiques indiquent que les technologies influencent plutôt positivement leur bien-être psychologique. Les dispositifs affectent aussi positivement la latitude décisionnelle des cadres fonctionnaires, mais engendrent paradoxalement une demande psychologique relativement élevée. Pour autant, les cadres fonctionnaires perçoivent positivement leurs situations de travail en contexte technologique. La culture nationale (clanique) qui perdure avec l’arrivée des outils, semble jouer un rôle médiateur, voire modérateur dans l’usage et les impacts des TIC sur le bien-être psychologique et la santé au travail des cadres fonctionnaires. En définitive, ces travaux de thèse apportent les clés de réflexion et d’analyse sur les liens entre la digitalisation de l’activité administrative et les concepts QVT, de bien-être et de santé dans les organisations publiques des pays en voie de développement africains tels que le Gabon. / The use of technology in public organizations in some African countries such as Gabon reflects a desire to improve quality of service for users and to make work processes more effective. Literature presents evidences that technological innovations in Western companies bring some advantages on both organizational and socio-professional levels, but also numerous negative impacts. The impact of technological change on occupational and organizational psychology in Public Administration in Gabon has not been studied yet. This thesis seeks to understand the impact of technologies on the Work-Related Quality of Life (WRQoL) factors and on psychological health and well-being in a larger governmental department. In this perspective, two studies (involving a mix of qualitative approaches with analysis and comprehension of their occupations, and of quantitative approaches with the measurement of the QWL and well-being), based on 91 senior civil servants, have been conducted, before and after the Ministry was computerised.The first study (T1) highlights the senior civil servants’ socio-professional and psychosocial conditions prior to the implementation of new technologies. As such, semi-structured interviews show that senior civil servants do their jobs depending on the nature of their positions. Findings reveal particularly inflexible and hierarchical organisational conditions. The presence and the pregnance of the «clannish culture » also determine working arrangements and communicating, which is mainly characterized by community-based working relationships and where ethnicity and regional belonging play a major role. Furthermore, QWL survey data show a relatively low level of psychological well-being in senior civil servants even though they feel positively about their various work situations.The second study (T2) describes senior civil servants’ socio-professional and psychosocial status six months following the implementation of new technologies. Our analyses show that the introduction of new technologies has led to big changes in work organisation, such as restructuring on the socio-professional, collective (a better collaboration and coordination), organizational (enhanced flexibility and initiatives) and personal (efficiency, reactivity and rapidity in carrying out administrative tasks) levels. Findings underline that senior civil servants set up new, more flexible plans of action when facing the inconsistencies revealed by the study. Statistical studies show that new technologies have a fairly positive impact on their psychological well-being. Devices also positively affect senior civil servants’ flexibility in decision-making, but paradoxically lead to a relatively high psychological demand. Yet, senior civil servants see their working conditions as positive in the technological context. The national (clannish) culture, which persists even after the introduction of technological tools, seems to play a mediating and even moderating role in the use and the impacts of ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) on senior civil servants’ psychological well-being and occupational health.To conclude, this thesis work provides key elements of reflection and analysis on the links between digitization of administrative activity and the concepts of QWL, well-being and health in public organizations of African developing countries such as Gabon.

[Abstract]: Research has suggested that, despite support through policy and resource provision,information and communications technologies (ICTs) have made little impact on the practiceof education and that limited teacher preparation for the use of ICTs represents a partialexplanation. The purpose of this study was to investigate what form of professionaleducation might be effective in preparing pre-service teachers to integrate ICTs into theirteaching. Self-efficacy beliefs about teaching with computers were identified as a potentiallysignificant source of influence on teachers' use of ICTs for teaching. It was proposed thatinteractive multimedia using a problem-based learning design (IMM-PBL) should be aneffective tool for increasing self-efficacy. Principles for the design of IMM-PBL were derivedfrom the relevant literature.An IMM-PBL package was designed and developed for delivery in a web browser formatusing content relevant to the integration of ICTs into teaching. Interviews with and sampleresponses prepared by computer-using teachers provided the basis for ensuring therelevance of content.The completed materials were evaluated in use with a group of 24 final year pre-serviceteachers in a Queensland university. Participants in the trials reported that the materialswere engaging and assisted their learning about integrating computers in their teaching. Astatistically significant increase in self-efficacy for teaching with computers was found forusers who had initially low self-efficacy for teaching with computers.The principles proposed for IMM-PBL design were found to offer a practical basis for thedevelopment of effective learning materials. With further development, IMM-PBL promisesto be a powerful and flexible approach to supporting learning for teachers and otherprofessionals.

La présente recherche vise à mieux comprendre, dans le contexte universitaire béninois, s’il peut exister un lien qualitatif entre TIC et rendement académique afin de pouvoir mettre les TIC à contribution pour améliorer significativement les mauvais résultats des apprenants, notamment au premier cycle universitaire. Cette étude est tout particulièrement importante dans notre contexte où les TIC font de plus en plus leur apparition en pédagogie universitaire et où les étudiants recourent aux TIC dans leur pratique plus que les formateurs dans la leur. Le cadre de référence retenu pour la recherche est structuré autour des concepts de l’apprentissage assisté par les TIC, de motivation en éducation et de rendement académique. Pour atteindre notre objectif de recherche, nous avons opté pour une démarche mixte : quantitative et qualitative. Il s’agit d’une étude descriptive/explicative. Nous avons mené une enquête par questionnaires auprès de 156 étudiants et 15 enseignants et fait des entrevues avec 11 étudiants et 6 enseignants. Les principaux résultats sont présentés sous forme d’articles respectivement en ce qui a trait à l’impact des TIC sur la motivation et la réussite, aux usages des TIC les plus fréquemment rencontrés chez les apprenants, et à la place des TIC dans la pratique pédagogique des enseignants de la faculté de droit de l’Université d’Abomey-Calavi. Plus précisément, il ressort des résultats que la majorité des participants ont une perception en général positive du potentiel motivationnel des TIC pour l’apprentissage. Cependant, sur une cote maximale de 7 (correspond très fortement), la perception des répondants relativement à l’impact positif de l’utilisation des TIC sur le rendement académique tourne autour d’une cote moyenne de 4 (correspond assez). D’où, une perception en général mitigée du lien entre l’apprentissage assisté par les TIC et la réussite. Le croisement des résultats des données quantitatives avec ceux de l’analyse qualitative induit, sur ce point, une perception positive prononcée des rapports entre TIC et rendement. Les résultats montrent également que les usages des TIC les plus fréquents chez ces apprenants sont le courriel (en tête), suivi de la recherche et du traitement de texte, avec une fréquence moyenne d’ « une fois par semaine ». Tous ces constats n’accréditent pas véritablement un usage académique des TIC. Chez les enseignants, les résultats ont montré aussi qu’il n’y a pas encore de réelles applications des TIC en situation d’enseignement : ils font plutôt un usage personnel des TIC et pas encore véritablement pédagogique. La conséquence logique de ces résultats est qu’il n’existe pas encore un lien qualitatif direct entre TIC et rendement académique en contexte universitaire béninois. / This study attempted to determine whether a qualitative relationship existed between information and communication technologies (ICT) and academic performance in universities in Benin. The aim was to understand how ICT may be used to significantly improve inadequate student grades, particularly in bachelor programs. This study is particularly relevant at a time when ICT are increasingly part of university life, and when students use ICT more than their professors do. The research framework is therefore structured around the concepts of teaching and learning with ICT, motivation in education, and academic performance. To achieve our objectives, we used a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach to conduct a descriptive and explicative study. We administered a survey questionnaire to 156 students and 15 professors and held interviews with 11 students and 6 professors. The main results are presented in articles on the impact of ICT on motivation and academic success, the most frequent uses of ICT by students, and the role of ICT in the teaching practices of law professors at the Université d’Abomey-Calavi, Benin. More precisely, the results show that most of the participants had an overall positive perception of the motivational potential of ICT for teaching and learning. Nevertheless, out of a maximum score of 7 (very strong), respondents rated their perception of the positive impact of ICT use on academic performance at 4 (moderate) on average. Hence, their perception of the relationship between learning with ICT and success was generally middling. Crossing the results of the quantitative data with the results of the qualitative analysis concerning this aspect revealed a pronounced positive perception of the relationship between ICT and performance. Results also show that the most frequent uses of ICT by students are email (heading the list), followed by research and word processing, at once a week on average. These uses do not really amount to ICT for academic purposes. Among professors, results also showed that ICT are not yet being fully applied to teaching practices. They are used more for personal than for pedagogical purposes. The conclusion is that we have not yet found a direct qualitative relationship between ICT and academic performance in universities in Benin.

In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in deployment and usage of realtime network applications, such as Voice-over-IP, video calls/video conferencing, live network seminars, and networked gaming. The continued increase in the popularity of realtime applications requires a more intense focus on the provision of strict guarantees for Quality of Service (QoS) parameters such as delay, jitter and packet loss in access networks. At the same time, wireless networking technologies have become increasingly popular with a wide array of devices such as laptop computers, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and cellular phones being sold with built-in WiFi and WiMAX interfaces. For realtime applications to be popular over wireless networks, simple, robust and effective QoS mechanisms suited for a variety of heterogeneous wireless networks must be devised. Implementing the same QoS mechanisms across multiple neighbouring networks aids seamless handover by ensuring that a flow will be treated in the same way, both before and after handover. To provide guaranteed QoS, an access network should limit load using an admission control algorithm. In this research, we propose a method to provide effective admission control for variable bit rate realtime flows, based on the Central Limit Theorem. Our objective is to estimate the percentage of packets that will be delayed beyond a predefined delay threshold, based on the mean and variance of all the flows in the system. Any flow that will increase the percentage of delayed packets beyond an acceptable threshold can then be rejected. Using simulations we have shown that the proposed method provides a very effective control of the total system load, guaranteeing the QoS for a set of accepted flows with negligible reductions in the system throughput. To ensure that flow data is transmitted according to the QoS requirements of a flow, a scheduling algorithm must handle data intelligently. We propose methods to allow more efficient scheduling by utilising existing Medium Access Control mechanisms to exchange flow information. We also propose a method to determine the delay-dependent "value" of a packet based on the QoS requirements of the flow. Using this value in scheduling is shown to increase the number of packets sent before a predetermined deadline. We propose a measure of fairness in scheduling that is calculated according to how well each flow's QoS requirements are met. We then introduce a novel scheduling paradigm, Delay Loss Controlled-Earliest Deadline First (DLC-EDF), which is shown to provide better QoS for all flows compared to other scheduling mechanisms studied. We then study the performance of our admission control and scheduling methods working together, and propose a feedback mechanism that allows the admission control threshold to be tuned to maximise the efficient usage of available bandwidth in the network, while ensuring that the QoS requirements of all realtime flows are met. We also examine heterogeneous/vertical handover, providing an overview of the technologies supporting seamless handover. The issues studied in this area include a method of using the Signal to Noise Ratio to trigger handover in heterogeneous networks and QoS Mapping between heterogeneous networks. Our proposed method of QoS mapping establishes the minimum set of QoS parameters applicable to individual flows, and then maps these parameters into system parameter formats for both 802.11e and 802.16e networks.

Multipath propagation and mobility in wireless communication systems give rise to variations in the amplitude and phase of the transmitted signal, commonly referred to as fading. Many wireless applications are affected by slowly varying fading, where the channel is non-ergodic, leading to non-reliable transmission during bad channel realizations. These communication scenarios are well modeled by the block-fading channel, where the reliability is quantatively characterized by the outage probability. This thesis focuses on the analysis and design of adaptive transmission schemes to improve the outage performance of both single- and multiple-antenna transmission over the block-fading channel, especially for the cases where discrete input constellations are used. Firstly, a new lower bound on the outage probability of non-adaptive transmission is proposed, providing an efficient tool for evaluating the performance of non-adaptive transmission. The lower bound, together with its asymptotic analysis, is essential for efficiently designing the adaptive transmission schemes considered in the thesis. Secondly, new power allocation rules are derived to minimize the outage probability of fixed-rate transmission over block-fading channels. Asymptotic outage analysis for the resulting schemes is performed, revealing important system design criteria. Furthermore, the thesis proposes novel suboptimal power allocation rules, which enjoy low-complexity while suffering minimal losses as compared to the optimal solution. Thus, these schemes facilitate power adaptation in low-cost devices. Thirdly, the thesis considers incremental-redundancy automatic-repeat-request (INR-ARQ) strategies, which perform adaptive transmission based on receiver feedback. In particular, the thesis concentrates on multi-bit feedback, which has been shown to yield significant gains in performance compared to conventional single-bit ARQ schemes. The thesis proposes a new information-theoretic framework for multi-bit feedback INR-ARQ, whereby the receiver feeds back a quantized version of the accumulated mutual information. Within this framework, the thesis presents an asymptotic analysis which yields the large gains in outage performance offered by multi-bit feedback. Furthermore, the thesis proposes practical design rules, which further illustrates the benefits of multi-bit feedback in INR-ARQ systems. In short, the thesis studies the outage performance of transmission over block-fading channels. Outage analysis is performed for non-adaptive and adaptive transmission. Improvements for the existing adaptive schemes are also proposed, leading to either lower complexity requirements or better outage performance. Still, further research is needed to bring the benefits offered by adaptive transmission into practical systems. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2010

Opportunistic communication techniques have shown to provide significant performance improvements in centralised random access wireless networks. The key mechanism of opportunistic communication is to send back-to-back data packets whenever the channel quality is deemed "good". Recently there have been attempts to introduce opportunistic communication techniques in distributed wireless networks such as wireless ad hoc networks. In line of this research, we propose a new paradigm of medium access control, called Channel MAC based on the channel randomness and opportunistic communication principles. Scheduling in Channel MAC depends on the instance at which the channel quality improves beyond a threshold, while neighbouring nodes are deemed to be silent. Once a node starts transmitting, it will keep transmitting until the channel becomes "bad". We derive an analytical throughput equation of the proposed MAC in a multiple access environment and validate it by simulations. It is observed that Channel MAC outperforms IEEE 802.11 for all probabilities of good channel condition and all numbers of nodes. For higher number of nodes, Channel MAC achieves higher throughput at lower probabilities of good channel condition increasing the operating range. Furthermore, the total throughput of the network grows with increasing number of nodes considering negligible propagation delay in the network. A scalable channel prediction scheme is required to implement the practical Channel MAC protocol in practice. We propose a mean-value based channel prediction scheme, which provides prediction with enough accuracy to be used in the Channel MAC protocol. NS2 simulation result shows that the Channel MAC protocol outperforms the IEEE 802.11 in throughput due to its channel diversity mechanism in spite of the prediction errors and packet collisions. Next, we extend the Channel MAC protocol to support multi-rate communications. At present, two prominent multi-rate mechanisms, Opportunistic Auto Rate (OAR) and Receiver Based Auto Rate (RBAR) are unable to adapt to short term changes in channel conditions during transmission as well as to use optimum power and throughput during packet transmissions. On the other hand, using channel predictions, each source-destinations pair in Channel MAC can fully utilise the non-fade durations. We combine the scheduling of Channel MAC and the rate adaptive transmission based on the channel state information to design the 'Rate Adaptive Channel MAC' protocol. However, to implement the Rate adaptive Channel MAC, we need to use a channel prediction scheme to identify transmission opportunities as well as auto rate adaptation mechanism to select rates and number of packets to transmit during those times. For channel prediction, we apply the scheme proposed for the practical implementation of Channel MAC. We propose a "safety margin" based technique to provide auto rate adaptation. Simulation results show that a significant performance improvement can be achieved by Rate adaptive Channel MAC as compared to existing rate adaptive protocols such as OAR.

Opportunistic communication techniques have shown to provide significant performance improvements in centralised random access wireless networks. The key mechanism of opportunistic communication is to send back-to-back data packets whenever the channel quality is deemed "good". Recently there have been attempts to introduce opportunistic communication techniques in distributed wireless networks such as wireless ad hoc networks. In line of this research, we propose a new paradigm of medium access control, called Channel MAC based on the channel randomness and opportunistic communication principles. Scheduling in Channel MAC depends on the instance at which the channel quality improves beyond a threshold, while neighbouring nodes are deemed to be silent. Once a node starts transmitting, it will keep transmitting until the channel becomes "bad". We derive an analytical throughput equation of the proposed MAC in a multiple access environment and validate it by simulations. It is observed that Channel MAC outperforms IEEE 802.11 for all probabilities of good channel condition and all numbers of nodes. For higher number of nodes, Channel MAC achieves higher throughput at lower probabilities of good channel condition increasing the operating range. Furthermore, the total throughput of the network grows with increasing number of nodes considering negligible propagation delay in the network. A scalable channel prediction scheme is required to implement the practical Channel MAC protocol in practice. We propose a mean-value based channel prediction scheme, which provides prediction with enough accuracy to be used in the Channel MAC protocol. NS2 simulation result shows that the Channel MAC protocol outperforms the IEEE 802.11 in throughput due to its channel diversity mechanism in spite of the prediction errors and packet collisions. Next, we extend the Channel MAC protocol to support multi-rate communications. At present, two prominent multi-rate mechanisms, Opportunistic Auto Rate (OAR) and Receiver Based Auto Rate (RBAR) are unable to adapt to short term changes in channel conditions during transmission as well as to use optimum power and throughput during packet transmissions. On the other hand, using channel predictions, each source-destinations pair in Channel MAC can fully utilise the non-fade durations. We combine the scheduling of Channel MAC and the rate adaptive transmission based on the channel state information to design the 'Rate Adaptive Channel MAC' protocol. However, to implement the Rate adaptive Channel MAC, we need to use a channel prediction scheme to identify transmission opportunities as well as auto rate adaptation mechanism to select rates and number of packets to transmit during those times. For channel prediction, we apply the scheme proposed for the practical implementation of Channel MAC. We propose a "safety margin" based technique to provide auto rate adaptation. Simulation results show that a significant performance improvement can be achieved by Rate adaptive Channel MAC as compared to existing rate adaptive protocols such as OAR.

Multipath propagation and mobility in wireless communication systems give rise to variations in the amplitude and phase of the transmitted signal, commonly referred to as fading. Many wireless applications are affected by slowly varying fading, where the channel is non-ergodic, leading to non-reliable transmission during bad channel realizations. These communication scenarios are well modeled by the block-fading channel, where the reliability is quantatively characterized by the outage probability. This thesis focuses on the analysis and design of adaptive transmission schemes to improve the outage performance of both single- and multiple-antenna transmission over the block-fading channel, especially for the cases where discrete input constellations are used. Firstly, a new lower bound on the outage probability of non-adaptive transmission is proposed, providing an efficient tool for evaluating the performance of non-adaptive transmission. The lower bound, together with its asymptotic analysis, is essential for efficiently designing the adaptive transmission schemes considered in the thesis. Secondly, new power allocation rules are derived to minimize the outage probability of fixed-rate transmission over block-fading channels. Asymptotic outage analysis for the resulting schemes is performed, revealing important system design criteria. Furthermore, the thesis proposes novel suboptimal power allocation rules, which enjoy low-complexity while suffering minimal losses as compared to the optimal solution. Thus, these schemes facilitate power adaptation in low-cost devices. Thirdly, the thesis considers incremental-redundancy automatic-repeat-request (INR-ARQ) strategies, which perform adaptive transmission based on receiver feedback. In particular, the thesis concentrates on multi-bit feedback, which has been shown to yield significant gains in performance compared to conventional single-bit ARQ schemes. The thesis proposes a new information-theoretic framework for multi-bit feedback INR-ARQ, whereby the receiver feeds back a quantized version of the accumulated mutual information. Within this framework, the thesis presents an asymptotic analysis which yields the large gains in outage performance offered by multi-bit feedback. Furthermore, the thesis proposes practical design rules, which further illustrates the benefits of multi-bit feedback in INR-ARQ systems. In short, the thesis studies the outage performance of transmission over block-fading channels. Outage analysis is performed for non-adaptive and adaptive transmission. Improvements for the existing adaptive schemes are also proposed, leading to either lower complexity requirements or better outage performance. Still, further research is needed to bring the benefits offered by adaptive transmission into practical systems. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2010