ITC/USA 2011 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Seventh Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2011 / Bally's Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada / This paper proposes a telemetering method consisting of delayed frame time diversity (DFTD) as the inner code and Reed-Solomon (RS) code as the outer code. DFTD is used to transmit a real-time frame together with a time-delayed frame which was saved in the memory during a defined period. The RS code is serially concatenated with DFTD. This method was applied to the design of telemetry units that have been used for over ten flight tests. The data results of the flight test for four cases with no applied code, with DFTD only, with the RS code only, and with both DFTD and the RS code are used to compare the number of error frames. The results also show that the proposed method is very useful and applicable to telemetry applications in a communication environment with a deep fade.

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Formalized epidemiological field investigations were conducted to compare and contrast the transmission dynamics of EHV-1 neurological disease among horses stabled at Churchill Downs Racetrack, Louisville, Kentucky and of EHV-1 respiratory illness among horses stabled in the student barn at Murray State University. Differences were assessed by means of statistical and mathematical modeling techniques applied to survey and biological data collected over the course of the respective disease events. Regression methods applied to survey data enabled the construction of a statistical model to predict a date of onset of illness for horses within each equine cohort. Comparisons of the epidemic curves revealed that the Murray State University outbreak was 4.5 times longer (9 weeks versus 14 days) than the Churchill Downs Racetrack event. Survival analysis was used to explore the relationship between time to infection for each equine cohort. Horses stabled in the affected barn at Churchill Downs racetrack had a 3.02 times greater daily risk (p < 0.001) for contracting EHV-1 infection relative to horses stabled in the student barn at Murray State University. Estimates of the basic R0 number, calculated using mathematical formulae that incorporated the duration of the infectious period for neuropathogenic and nonneuropathogenic strains of EHV-1, were 10.25 and 2.94 for the Churchill Downs racetrack and Murray State University outbreaks, respectively. The generation time for the Churchill Downs outbreak was 6.1 times shorter (0.39 days versus 2.38 days) than for the Murray State University event. An assessment of the temporal occurrence of symptomatic infection is similar for each event and suggests that the appearance of clinical illness is constant over the course of an outbreak. A Reed-Frost model was constructed for each EHV-1 event where values of the transmission parameters (q, p and k) were estimated by fitting a model that most closely matched the observed profile of EHV-1 cases. The value of prophylactic vaccination on the spread of EHV-1 was assessed by making adjustments to these fitted models for varying levels of herd immunity. The results indicate that the prevention of EHV-1 neurological illness requires a higher level of herd immunity than EHV-1 respiratory illness.

Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) consists of artificially replenishing groundwater to facilitate reuse and/or the associated environmental benefits. Meanwhile, soil aquifer treatment (SAT) is a process of geo-purification designed and operated to improve the quality of the infiltrating water and is thus a type of MAR. SAT consists of a basin operating under rotation of drying and wetting periods. Often, SAT involves water of impaired quality applied onto soil and consequently it implies various risks of health, geochemical and physical nature with difficult or irreversible remediation. To study the effect of pre-treatment on SAT a pilot plant including conventional activated sludge (CAS), a membrane bioreactor (MBR), tertiary and secondary vertical flow reed beds (VFRB) and SAT soil columns. The sludge retention time (SRT) in the CAS and MBR processes was changed every 6 months to look at the impact of SRT on SAT. Each unit and treatment train effluent was characterised to determine the impact of effluent quality on SAT performance. This study showed that tertiary VFRB, especially when fed with MBR effluent, was the best option for SAT and irrigation reuse as it provided the best compliance with reuse standards and the best fertilisation potential. However, long-term clogging occurred in SAT after tertiary VFRB, suggesting the need for a longer resting period or shorter wetting period. This study also highlighted the importance of total suspended solids (TSS) content for SAT removal mechanisms and infiltration rate. In particular, SAT fed with high TSS content effluent was susceptible to temperature variation. Hence the duration of wetting and flooding periods should be adapted according to the season. Further, variation in SRT only indirectly affected pollutants removal by the system including CAS treatment set up at 6 d SRT where the N compounds balance was favourable to an autotrophic N removal.

M.Ing. (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) / In this study, the problem of correcting burst of adjacent deletions by adapting product codes was investigated. The first step in any digital transmission is to establish synchronization between the sending and receiving nodes. This initial synchronization ensures that the receiver samples the information bits at the correct interval. Unfortunately synchronization is not guaranteed to last for the entire duration of data transmission. Though synchronization errors rarely occur, it has disastrous effects at the receiving end of transmission. These synchronization errors are modelled as either insertions or deletions in the transmitted data. In the best case scenario, these errors are restricted to single bit errors. In the worst case scenario, these errors lead to bursts of bits being incorrect. If these synchronization errors are not detected and corrected, it can cause a shift in the transmitted sequence which in turn leads to loss of synchronization. When a signal is subjected to synchronization errors it is difficult accurately recover the original data signal. In addition to the loss of synchronization, the information transmitted over the channel is also subjected to noise. This noise in the channel causes inversion errors within the signal. The objective of this dissertation is to investigate if an error correction scheme can be designed that has the ability to detect and correct adjacent bursts of deletions and random inversion errors. This error correction scheme needed to make use of a product code matrix structure. This product matrix needed to incorporate both an error correction and synchronization technique. The chosen error correcting techniques were Hamming and Reed-Solomon codes. The chosen synchronization techniques for this project were the marker technique or an adaptation of the Hamming code technique. In order to find an effective model, combinations of these models were simulated and compared. From the research obtained and analyzed in this document it was found that, depending on the desired performance, complexity and code rate, an error correction scheme can be used in the efficient correction of bursts of adjacent deletions by adapting product codes.

Masters Report A report submitted in ful llment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (50/50) in the Centre for Telecommunication Access and Services (CeTAS) School of Electrical and Information Engineering Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment February 2017 / Bounded distance decoding of Reed Solomon (RS) codes involves nding a unique codeword if there is at least one codeword within the given distance. A corrupted message having errors that is less than or equal to half the minimum distance cor- responds to a unique codeword, and therefore will decode errors correctly using the minimum distance decoder. However, increasing the decoding radius to be slightly higher than half of the minimum distance may result in multiple codewords within the Hamming sphere. The list decoding and syndrome extension methods provide a maximum error correcting capability whereby the radius of the Hamming ball can be extended for low rate RS codes. In this research, we study the probability of having unique codewords for (7; k) RS codes when the decoding radius is increased from the error correcting capability t to t + 1. Simulation results show a signi cant e ect of the code rates on the probability of having unique codewords. It also shows that the probability of having unique codeword for low rate codes is close to one. / MT2017

A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in the Centre for Telecommunication Access and Services, School of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2016 / Reed-Solomon codes are very popular codes used in the field of forward error correction due to their correcting capabilities. Thus, a lot of research has been done dedicated to the development of decoding algorithms for this class of code. [Abbreviated Abstract. Open document to view full version]

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2017-05-25T12:10:45Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Elcio Kondo_.pdf: 2605139 bytes, checksum: bc6eb6e69a381723f69fbce90af22fab (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-25T12:10:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Elcio Kondo_.pdf: 2605139 bytes, checksum: bc6eb6e69a381723f69fbce90af22fab (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-01-11 / Nenhuma / Atualmente vários equipamentos eletrônicos são equipados com memórias NAND Flash para armazenar dados. Essas memórias são controladas através de um circuito integrado com um controlador de memória, que internamente possui um sistema para garantir a integridade das informações armazenadas, os quais são conhecidos por Error Correction Codes (ECC). Os ECCs são códigos capazes de detectar e corrigir erros através de bits redundantes adicionados à informação. Normalmente, os códigos ECC são implementados em hardware dentro do controlador de memória NAND Flash. Neste trabalho comparou-se alguns códigos de ECC utilizados pela indústria, para as comparações utilizou-se os códigos ECC: Hamming, BCH (Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem) e Reed- Solomon. Sistematicamente realizou-se comparações entre os ECCs selecionados e escolheu-se os dois mais apropriados (BCH e Hamming), os quais foram implementados em linguagem VHDL, o que possibilitou identificar o código com melhor vantagem econômica no uso em memórias NAND Flash. / Nowadays several electronic equipment are using NAND Flash memories to store data. These memories are controlled by an integrated circuit with an memory controller embedded that internally has a system to ensure the integrity of the stored information, that are known as Error Correction Codes (ECC). The ECCs are codes that can detect and correct errors by redundant bits added to information. Usually the ECC codes are implemented on NAND Flash memory controller as a hardware block. On this text ECC codes used by industry, the Hamming code, BCH (Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem) and Reed-solomon codes were compared.Systemically compare between selected ECCs were done and selected two codes (BCH and Hamming), which were described in VHDL language and allowed to identify the best code with better economical advantage for NAND Flash memories.

Originality is an important social and cultural value. In pop music its influence is comprehensive: it shapes the economics of an industry through copyright law, and the temperament of musical culture through its place as keystone of the prevailing Romantic tradition. The concept extends beyond issues of artistic and technical innovation: a point of origin is fundamental to the stories we tell about pop. What these stories tell us about ourselves and the way we use music, though, may be more complex than the orthodoxy allows; while the moderns from Eliot and Frye through Barthes and Foucault have sliced and diced originality in text, its interrogation in popular music is overdue. This study seeks to address the social and cultural context, the implications for individual identity and the issues of creative intention, status, popularity and profitability that come into play at those moments when the cultural honours of “originality” are conferred. Working from archival and textual resources, the research explores the entry of “black music” into pop culture with the Fisk University Jubilee Singers, who can be seen both as the source of several cultural streams which remain influential in popular music, and as the source of a popular mythology which has become detached from historical fact. It then proceeds to three case studies. The problem of what it means to start something new is developed in the story of Elvis Presley and the foundation myth of rock & roll. The professional use of originality is interrogated in the work of the Beatles, a foursome with a strong claim to be the greatest plagiarists, if not the greatest originators in pop. And the artistic idea of originality and its contingencies are addressed through the case of Lou Reed and the changing status of his album Metal Machine Music. A final chapter assesses the conclusions which can be made from these explorations, and the implications for future research.

Many studies measuring the occurrence of pharmaceuticals, understanding their environmental fate and the risk they pose to surface water resources have been published. However, very little is known about the relevant transformation products which result from the wide range of biotic and abiotic degradation processes that these compounds undergo in sewers, storage tanks, during engineered treatment and in the environment. Thus, the present study primarily investigated the degradation of the steroid progesterone (P4) in natural systems (rivers), with a focus on the identification and characterisation of transformation products. Initial work focussed on assessing the removal of selected compounds (Diclofenac, Fluoxetine, Propranolol and P4) from reed beds, with identification of transformation products in a field site being attempted. However, it was determined that concentrations of parent compounds and products would be too low to work with in the field, and a laboratory study was designed which focussed on P4. Focus on P4 was based on literature evidence of its rapid biodegradability relative to the other model compounds and its usage patterns globally. River water sampling for the laboratory-based degradation study was carried out at 1 km downstream of four south east England sewage works (Blackbirds, Chesham, High Wycombe and Maple Lodge) effluent discharge points. Suspected P4 transformation products were initially identified from predictions by the EAWAG Biocatalysis Biodegradation Database (EAWAG BBD) and from a literature review. At a later stage of the present work, a replacement model for EAWAG BBD (enviPath) which became available, was used to predict P4 degradation and results were compared. Samples were analysed using low resolution and accurate-mass time-of-flight mass spectrometers. Three degradation studies were conducted. Sampling for all studies was carried out at the same time in the year to minimize temporal variability in conditions and allow for effective comparison of results. Androgenic and progesterone yeast screens were carried out to assess the biological activity of transformation products.