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The spatial modulation (SM) concept combines, in a novel fashion, digital modulation and multiple antenna transmission for low complexity and spectrally efficient data transmission. The idea considers the transmit antenna array as a spatial constellation diagram with the transmit antennas as the constellation points. To this extent, SM maps a sequence of bits onto a signal constellation point and onto a spatial constellation point. The information is conveyed by detecting the transmitting antenna (the spatial constellation point) in addition to the signal constellation point. In this manner, inter-channel interference is avoided entirely since transmission is restricted to a single antenna at any transmission instance. However, encoding binary information in the spatial domain means that the number of transmit antennas must be a power of two. To address this constraint, fractional bit encoded spatial modulation (FBE—SM) is proposed. FBE–SMuses the theory of modulus conversion to facilitate fractional bit rates over time. In particular, it allows each transmitter to use an arbitrary number of transmit antennas. Furthermore, the application of SM in a multi-user, interference limited scenario has never been considered. To this extent, the average bit error rate (ABER) of SM is characterised in the interference limited scenario. The ABER performance is first analysed for the interference-unaware detector. An interference-aware detector is then proposed and compared with the cost and complexity equivalent detector for a single–input multiple–output (SIMO) system. The application of SM with an interference-aware detector results in coding gains for the system. Another area of interest involves using SM for relaying systems. The aptitude of SM to replace or supplement traditional relaying networks is analysed and its performance is compared with present solutions. The application of SM to a fixed relaying system, termed dual-hop spatial modulation (Dh-SM), is shown to have an advantage in terms of the source to destination ABER when compared to the classical decode and forward (DF) relaying scheme. In addition, the application of SM to a relaying system employing distributed relaying nodes is considered and its performance relative to Dh-SM is presented. While significant theoretical work has been done in analysing the performance of SM, the implementation of SM in a practical system has never been shown. In this thesis, the performance evaluation of SM in a practical testbed scenario is presented for the first time. To this extent, the empirical results validate the theoretical work presented in the literature.

Background Infection with Campylobacter is thought to account for about 5% - 14% of all food and waterborne diarrhoea cases worldwide. By international standards, New Zealand has extremely high rates of campylobacteriosis which are thought to be the highest reported rates worldwide. The incidence has been steadily increasing since 1980 (when the disease became notifiable), reaching a peak of cases in 2003 (396/100,000). Although different surveillance systems complicate international comparisons, New Zealand's particularly high rate still lacks a conclusive explanation. Aims This study investigates the geographical distribution of campylobacteriosis in New Zealand and the relative importance of factors assumed to be affecting the distribution of this disease, including those related to climate, landuse, water and food. The approach aims to explain why certain areas might increase the probability of becoming infected. Methodology A Geographical Information System (GIS) is used to visualise the disease rate, investigate potential disease clustering and identify outliers. Hierarchical regression, including the analysis of residuals, is applied to analyse the variables in their complex interrelation and to investigate whether there is statistical evidence explaining the geographical variation in campylobacteriosis. This study is undertaken at the territorial local authority level, as all required data are available at this spatial scale and covers the period 1997 to 2005. Results and conclusion There is a large geographical variation in campylobacteriosis across New Zealand, ranging from an average annual rate of 97/100,000 to 526/100,000 per territorial local authority (TLA). Generally, there is statistical evidence for global and local clustering of the disease rate. There are upper and lower outliers of campylobacteriosis in New Zealand; however, higher rates primarily appear in the South Island. The hierarchical modelling confirms statistical significance for some of the environmental and sociodemographic variables. The final model explains about 58% of the variation in campylobacteriosis, and the residuals reflect this variation relatively accurately in approximately 75% of all TLAs. Although the evaluation of the results is confronted with a number of challenges, it is concluded that socioeconomic and demographic factors are crucial factors in explaining the observed spatial patterns in the notification data.

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