Probabilistic-Write/Copy-Select (PWCS) is a novel synchronization scheme suggested by Nicholas Mc Guire which avoids expensive atomic operations for synchronizing access to shared objects. Instead, PWCS makes inconsistencies detectable and recoverable. It builds on the assumption that, for typical workloads, the probability for data races is very small. Mc Guire describes PWCS for multiple readers but only one writer of a shared data structure. In this paper, we report on the formal analysis of the PWCS protocol using a continuous-time Markov chain model and probabilistic model checking techniques. Besides the original PWCS protocol, we also considered a variant with multiple writers. The results were obtained by the model checker PRISM and served to identify scenarios in which the use of the PWCS protocol is justified by guarantees on the probability of data races. Moreover, the analysis showed several other quantitative properties of the PWCS protocol.

Nowadays, our daily live concerns the usage of Information Technology, increasingly. As a result, a huge amount of data has to be processed which is outsourced from local devices to data centers. Due to fluctuating demands these are not fully utilized all the time and consume a significant amount of energy while idling. A common approach to avoid unnecessary idle times is to consolidate running services on a subset of machines and switch off the remaining ones. Unfortunately, the services on a single machine interfere with each other due to the competition for shared resources such as caches after the consolidation, which leads to a degradation of performance. Hence, data centers have to trade off between reducing the energy consumption and certain performance criteria defined in the Service Level Agreement. In order to make the trade off in advance, it is necessary to characterize services and quantify the impact to each other after a potential consolidation. Our approach is to use random variables for characterization, which includes the fluctuations of the resource consumptions. Furthermore, we would like to model the interference of services to provide a probability of exceeding a certain performance criterion.

Sweden has ca. 2 million single family houses (SFH) housing 52% of the population and representing 44.6% of the overall heated floor area. SFHs account for 39.5% of the total heating demand in Sweden. Energy consumption in older SFHs is much higher than in new ones. SFHs built in the 1960s consume ca. 170% of the annual heating energy demand of SFH built in the 2010s. This study aims to explore the energy savings potential in existing SFHs built between 1960 and 1975 in Sweden through refurbishment of elements of the building envelope and analyze their energy and costefficiency of these measures. Furthermore, it aims to study the effects of variations in climate in Sweden on the energy and cost efficiency of these measures. A hypothetical un-refurbished SFH was modeled and defined using energy simulation tool IDA-ICE based on statistical data and relevant literature reviews. Variations in climate between regions of Sweden were analyzed and 4 suitable locations were suggested to place the hypothetical model in. Suitable building envelope refurbishmentmeasures were selected for the elements of the building envelope. These measures were (a) adding extra insulation to the outer side of external wall (b) replacing and insulating the slab on ground (c) insulating the cold attic on top the existing horizontal slab, and (d) replacing the exiting external doors and windows. Suggested U-values for renovated SFHs from Boverket were used as a goal for the suggested refurbishment measures to reach. Energy performance simulations were performed to estimate savings potential in energy used for heating purposes for the un-refurbished building and each of the suggested measures. Life cycle cost (LCC) study using UPV* method was performed over a lifespan of 30 years. The results of the energy performance simulation showed energy savings potential in all the suggested measures, ranging from ca. 6% to ca. 20% with the measure of replacing the external doors and windows had the most savings potential. The study highlighted rate of improvement in U-values, surface area within which heat losses are occurring, status of thermal bridges, and differences in temperature between air and soil as factors effecting the energy savings potential. The results showed no significant effects of changing locations on the savings potential. LCC analysis showed that the measure of adding extra insulation in the cold attic is the most cost-efficient. It also showed that higher heating demands in colder climate led to more significant role for the energy savings potential in determining the cost efficiency, while the initial costs played a bigger role in warmer climate. The study also showed that choosing materials and products with longer lifespan in addition to having a good energy savings potential may lead to a change in results on the cost-efficiency analysis. The study concludes with highlighting the energy savings potential in building envelope refurbishment and the importance of including both and energy and cost efficiency perspectives when choosing refurbishment measures for existing SFH.

In the last few years, Sweden has felt rising energy prices leading to more harsh living for single houses. In the years 2021–2022, both Europe and Sweden witnessed record-high electricity prices and experts predicted an increase in the coming years. As a result of this, homeowners began to improve their energy efficiency in their homes. Therefore, this study will aim to answer the question “How does the final price of detached houses differentiate between Gothenburg and Luleå due to their energy efficiency?”. The hypothesis for the work is that a positive relationship between sales price and energy efficiency occurs. That Gothenburg will have a larger effect than Luleå. To answer the question a quantitative method is applied using the hedonic pricing model with two multiple regressions, one for each cross-section. The time series is from 2020–2023. The variables used are sale price as a dependent variable and a series of eight independent variables. The regression results show a positive relationship between energy efficiency measures and final price in both cross sections. Furthermore, the results are significant for Luleå and insignificant for Gothenburg. Regarding Luleå energy efficient ventilation and heating has a statistical significance on sale price. Meanwhile, house size and plots of land are significant for Gothenburg. These results are both in line with previous research but also contradict them. The thesis is unique because the analysis is made between two different energy pricing areas in Sweden. / Under de senaste åren har Sverige påverkats av stigande energipriser. Detta har resulterat i en mer pressad situation för småhusägare runt om i landet. Under åren 2021–2022 upplevde Sverige och Europa rekordhöga energipriser och experter förutspår en fortsatt ökning under de kommande åren. Med detta i åtanke har småhusägare börjat energieffektivisera sina hem. Således kommer denna uppsats besvara problemformuleringen “Hur skiljer sig slutpriset på småhus mellan Göteborg och Luleå av energieffektivisering?". Hypotesen för arbetet är att finna ett positivt samband mellan slutpris och energieffektivisering. Där till att inverkan i Göteborg är större än i Luleå. För att besvara frågeställningen appliceras en kvantitativ metod tillsammans med den hedoniska prismodellen. Modellen använder två multipla regressioner, en för vardera tvärsnitt. Tidsserien är mellan år 2020–2023. Den beroende variabeln är slutpris och förklaras med hjälp av åtta oberoende variabler. Regressionsresultaten visar ett positivt samband mellan energieffektiviserande åtgärder och slutpris i båda kommunerna. Dock är koefficienterna signifikanta i Luleå och icke signifikanta i Göteborg. För Luleå är energieffektiv ventilation och energieffektiva uppvärmningssystem statistiskt fastställda. Medan för Göteborg påvisar boarea och tomtstorlek signifikans. Resultaten ligger både i linje med tidigare forskning men motsäger även dem. Uppsatsen är unik då analysen genomförs mellan två olika energiområden i Sverige.

Sewer and oil pipeline spillage issues have become major causes of pollution in urban and rural areas usually caused by blockages in the water storage and drainage system, and oil spillage of underground oil pipelines. An effective way of avoiding this problem will be by deploying some mechanism to monitor these installations at each point in time and reporting unusual liquid activity to the relevant authorities for prompt action to avoid a flooding or spillage occurrence. This research work presents a low cost energy efficient liquid level monitoring technique using Radio Frequency Identification Technology. Passive UHF RFID tags have been designed, modelled and optimized. A simple rectangular tag, the P-shaped tag and S-shaped tag with UHF band frequency of operation (850-950 MHz) has been designed and modelled. Detailed parametric analysis of the rectangular tag is made and the optimised design results analysed and presented in HFSS and Matlab. The optimised rectangular tag designs are then deployed as level sensors in a gully pot. Identical tags were deployed to detect 4 distinct levels in alternate positions and a few inches in seperation distance within the gully pot height (Low, Mid, High and Ultra high). The radiation characteristic of tag sensors in deployment as modelled on HFSS is observed to show consistent performance with application requirements. An in-manhole chamber antenna for an underground communication system is analysed, designed, deployed and measured. The antenna covers dual-band impedance bandwidths (i.e. 824 to 960 MHz, and 1710 to 2170 MHz). The results show that the antenna prototype exhibits sufficient impedance bandwidth, suitable radiation characteristics, and adequate gains for the required underground wireless sensor applications. Finally, a Linearly Shifted Quadrifilar Helical Antenna (LSQHA) designed using Genetic Algorithm optimisation technique for adoption as an RFID reader antenna is proposed and investigated. The new antenna confirms coverage of the RFID bandwidth 860-960 MHz with acceptable power gain of 13.1 dBi. / Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) and National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA).

We compare LDPC block and LDPC convolutional codes with respect to their decoding performance under low decoding latencies. Protograph based regular LDPC codes are considered with rather small lifting factors. LDPC block and convolutional codes are decoded using belief propagation. For LDPC convolutional codes, a sliding window decoder with different window sizes is applied to continuously decode the input symbols. We show the required Eb/N0 to achieve a bit error rate of 10 -5 for the LDPC block and LDPC convolutional codes for the decoding latency of up to approximately 550 information bits. It has been observed that LDPC convolutional codes perform better than the block codes from which they are derived even at low latency. We demonstrate the trade off between complexity and performance in terms of lifting factor and window size for a fixed value of latency. Furthermore, the two codes are also compared in terms of their complexity as a function of Eb/N0. Convolutional codes with Viterbi decoding are also compared with the two above mentioned codes.

There has been a huge rise in interest in the design of energy efficient wireless sensor networks (WSN) and body area networks (BAN) with the advent of many new applications over the last few decades. The number of sensor nodes in these applications has also increased tremendously in the order of few hundreds in recent years. A typical sensor node in a WSN consists of circuits like RF transceivers, micro-controllers or DSP, ADCs, sensors, and power supply circuits. The RF transmitter and receiver circuits mainly the frequency synthesizers(synthesis of RF carrier and local oscillator signals in transceivers) consume a significant percentage of its total power due to its high frequency of operation. A charge-pump phase locked loop (CP-PLL) is the most commonly used frequency synthesizer architecture in these applications. The growing demands of WSN applications, such as low power consumption larger number of sensor nodes, single chip solution, and longer duration operation presents several design challenges for these transmitter and frequency synthesizer circuits in these applications and a few are listed below, Low power frequency synthesizer and transmitter designs with better spectral performance is essential for an energy efficient operation of these applications. The spurious tones in the frequency synthesizer output will mix the interference signals from nearby sensor nodes and from other interference sources present nearby ,to degrade the wireless transmitter and receiver performance[1]. With the increased density of sensor nodes (more number of in-band interference sources) and degraded performance of analog circuits in the nano-meter CMOS process technologies, the spur reduction techniques are essential to improve the performance of frequency synthesizers in these applications. A single chip solution of sensor nodes with its analog and digital circuits integrated on the same die is preferred for its low power, low cost, and reduced size implementation. However, the parasitic interactions between these analog and digital sub-systems integrated on a common substrate, degrade the spectral performance of frequency synthesizers in these implementations[2]. Therefore, techniques to improve the mixed signal integration performance of these circuits are in great demand. In this thesis, we present a custom designed energy efficient 2.4 GHz BFSK/ASK transmitter architecture using a low power frequency synthesizer design technique taking advantage of the CMOS technology scaling benefits. Furthermore, a few design guidelinesandsolutionstoimprovethespectralperformanceoffrequency synthesizer circuits and in-turn the performance of transmitters are also presented. The target application being short distance, low power, and battery operated wireless communication applications. The contributions in this thesis are, Spectral performance improvement techniques The CP mismatch current is a dominant source of reference spurs in the nano-meter CMOS PLL implementations due to its worsened channel length modulation effect [3]. In this work, we present a CP mismatch current calibration technique using an adaptive body bias tuning of its PMOS transistors. Chip prototype of 2.4 GHzCP-PLLwith the proposed CP calibration technique was fabricated in UMC 0.13 µm CMOS process. Measurements show a CP mismatch current of less than 0.3 µA(0.55 %) using the proposed calibration technique over the VCO control voltage range 0.3 to 1 V. The closed loop PLL measurements using the proposed technique exhibited a 9dB reduction in the reference spur levels across the PLL output frequency range 2.4 -2.5 GHz. The parasitic interactions between analog and digital circuits through the common substrate severely affects the performance of CP-PLLs. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate the effect of periodic switching noise generated from the digital buffers on the performance of charge-pump PLLs. The sensitivity of PLL performance metrics such as output spur level, phase noise, and output jitter are monitored against the variations in the properties of a noise injector digital signal. Measurements from a 500 MHz CP-PLL shows that the pulsed noise injection with the duty cycle of noise injector signal reduced from 50% to 20%, resulted in a 12.53 dB reduction in its output spur level and a 107 ps reduction in its Pk-Pk deterministic period jitter performance. Low power circuit techniques A low power frequency synthesizer design using a digital frequency multiplication technique is presented. The proposed frequency multiply by 3 digital edge combiner design having a very few logic gates, demonstrated a significant reduction in the power consumption of frequency synthesizer circuits, with an acceptable spectral performance suitable for these relaxed performance applications. A few design guidelines and techniques to further improve its spectral performance are also discussed and validated through simulations. Chip prototypes of 2.4 GHz CP-PLLs with and without digital frequency multiplier circuits are fabricated in UMC 0.13 µm CMOS process. The 2.4 GHz CP-PLL using the proposed digital frequency multiplication technique (10.7 mW) consumed a much reduced power compared to a conventional implementation(20.3 mW). A custom designed, energy efficient 2.4 GHz BFSK/ASK transmitter architecture using the proposed low power frequency synthesizer design technique is presented. The transmitter uses a class-D power amplifier to drive the 50Ω antenna load. Spur reduction techniques in frequency synthesizers are also used to improve the spectral performance of the transmitter. A chip prototype of the proposed transmitter architecture was implemented in UMC0.13 µm CMOS process. The transmitter consume14 mA current from a 1.3V supply voltage and achieve improved energy efficiencies of 0.91 nJ/bit and 6.1 nJ/bit for ASK and BFSK modulations with data rates 20Mb/s & 3Mb/s respectively.

We compare LDPC block and LDPC convolutional codes with respect to their decoding performance under low decoding latencies. Protograph based regular LDPC codes are considered with rather small lifting factors. LDPC block and convolutional codes are decoded using belief propagation. For LDPC convolutional codes, a sliding window decoder with different window sizes is applied to continuously decode the input symbols. We show the required Eb/N0 to achieve a bit error rate of 10 -5 for the LDPC block and LDPC convolutional codes for the decoding latency of up to approximately 550 information bits. It has been observed that LDPC convolutional codes perform better than the block codes from which they are derived even at low latency. We demonstrate the trade off between complexity and performance in terms of lifting factor and window size for a fixed value of latency. Furthermore, the two codes are also compared in terms of their complexity as a function of Eb/N0. Convolutional codes with Viterbi decoding are also compared with the two above mentioned codes.

Communications receivers that rely on 1-bit analogto-digital conversion are advantageous in terms of hardware complexity and power dissipation. Performance limitations due to the 1-bit quantization can be tackled with oversampling. This paper considers the oversampling gain from an information-theoretic perspective by analyzing the channel capacity with 1-bit quantization and oversampling at the receiver for the particular case of AWGN channels. This includes a numerical computation of the capacity and optimal transmit symbol constellations, as well as the derivation of closed-form expressions for large oversampling ratios and for high signal-to-noise ratios of the channel.

We consider the problem of secure communications in a Gaussian two-way relay network where two nodes exchange confidential messages only via an untrusted relay. The relay is assumed to be honest but curious, i.e., an eavesdropper that conforms to the system rules and applies the intended relaying scheme. We analyze the achievable secrecy rates by applying network coding on the physical layer or the network layer and compare the results in terms of complexity, overhead, and efficiency. Further, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the respective approaches.