Com o aumento da concorrência sofrido pelas operadoras de telecomunicações frente à entrada de diversas empresas de outros ramos no mercado de comunicação, como, por exemplo, os Provedores de Serviço de Internet (ISPs - Internet Service Providers) através da oferta de serviços de voz sobre IP, tais operadoras viram-se obrigadas a diversificar sua oferta de serviços para gerar novas fontes de receita. Por possuírem ampla infra-estrutura instalada, as operadoras de telecomunicações passaram a oferecer, também, serviço de TV aos usuários, através de suas redes (convergentes) de telefonia e dados já existentes, o chamado IPTV. O objetivo deste trabalho foi possibilitar, neste cenário, que estas empresas consigam oferecer, além dos serviços convencionais de TV (e.g., transmissões lineares dos conteúdos nos canais de TV), serviços diferenciados empregando-se a mesma infra-estrutura. O foco deste trabalho é a oferta do serviço de apresentação deslocada no tempo dos conteúdos transmitidos linearmente nos canais de TV, sem a necessidade de configuração prévia por parte do usuário. Desta maneira, dá-se maior flexibilidade ao usuário, possibilitando-o assistir aos conteúdos que lhe interessam, no horário mais conveniente, sem ter que se preocupar com isso antecipadamente (i.e., sem a necessidade de configurar algum equipamento para gravar o conteúdo ou saber antecipadamente quais programas lhe interessam). Para isso foram pesquisadas e analisadas tanto tecnologias de transmissão e distribuição de conteúdos, como também o paradigma peer-to-peer, muito utilizado atualmente no compartilhamento de arquivos na Internet. A partir daí, foi concebida uma arquitetura capaz de oferecer tanto o serviço tradicional de transmissão linear de TV, quanto de apresentar vídeos deslocados no tempo (i.e., vídeos cuja transmissão linear já foi iniciada ou até concluída, a partir de qualquer posição já transmitida), combinando-se técnicas de multidifusão de dados, armazenamento distribuído e protocolos peer-to-peer. Desta maneira, obteve-se uma solução eficiente, utilizando-se os recursos disponíveis em todo o sistema, incluindo recursos ociosos dos usuários finais, para auxiliar no armazenamento e distribuição dos conteúdos deslocados no tempo. Finalmente, um protótipo foi desenvolvido como prova de conceito da arquitetura proposta neste trabalho, e, juntamente com os testes realizados, comprovam a viabilidade de se utilizar redes P2P para a distribuição dos conteúdos para a apresentação deslocada no tempo. / Telecommunication companies are suffering from the increasing offer of cheap and reliable voice over IP services, being forced to diversify their services looking for new revenue possibilities. Since these companies have a vast infrastructure, they are now providing TV services through the same telephony and data infrastructure, using their IP networks to offer IPTV. The goal of the present work is to allow, in this scenario, that such companies offer, additionally to the traditional TV services (e.g., the linear transmissions of the TV channels), differentiated services through the same infrastructure. The focus of the present work is, therefore, the offering of the time-shift service, allowing users to watch linear transmitted contents, time-shifted, without the need for any in-advance configuration. This approach gives more flexibility to the users, allowing them to choose the most appropriate time to watch some content without having to specify their interests in advance (i.e., without configuring some equipment to record the content or knowing in advance which programs will interest themselves). To achieve this goal, technologies for content transmission and distribution, as well as the peer-to-peer paradigm for file sharing were studied, resulting in the development of an architecture capable of offering the traditional linear transmissions service as well as the possibility of time-shift, combining multicast, distributed caching and peer-to-peer technologies. Accordingly, an efficient solution was envisioned, making use of all available resources in the system, including idle resources in the user equipments, to help in the caching and distribution of the time-shifted contents. Finally, a prototype was developed as a proof-of-concept for the designed architecture, which together with the performed tests, shows the viability of utilizing P2P networks in the distribution of time-shifted contents.

It is well known that multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver are imperative for reliable and high data-rate communication over wireless channels. However, these systems essentially need multiple radio frequency (RF) chains owing to multiple antennas, and hence pose challenges for applications with limited form-factor. Antenna Selection (AS) techniques alleviate this problem by using only a subset of the total available antennas and hence require only a few RF chains compared to the number of antennas. These systems operate in a closed-loop scenario, where the information fed back from the receiver is used for the transmit antenna subset selection. In contrast to this, a novel open-loop technique known as spatial modulation (SM) was recently proposed that uses a single RF-chain at the transmitter and achieves a higher spectral efficiency compared to single-input and AS based systems. The work in the thesis mainly focuses on the following aspects of SM system: Study of Mutual Information in SM systems operating in open-loop and closed-loop scenarios: We study the achievable mutual information in the SM system operating with finite and Gaussian input alphabet, and compare the results with that of the SIMO and AS based systems. Reduced-complexity maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding algorithms for SM systems: We propose ML-optimal sphere decoders for SM systems with arbitrary number of transmit antennas. Furthermore, a reduced-complexity ML detector is also proposed whose computational complexity is lowest among the known existing detectors in the literature. Transmit diversity techniques for SM systems: The conventional SM system achieves a transmit diversity order of one. We propose a complex interleaved orthogonal design baaed SM scheme that achieves a transit diversity order of two, while offering symbol-by- symbol ML decodability. Transmit antenna subset selection algorithms for SM systems: The SM system is considered in the closed-loop scenario, where only a subset of the total number of transmit antennas is chosen based on the information fed back by the receiver. Specifically, the Euclidean distance and capacity optimized antenna selection algorithms are studied in comparison with the conventional AS based systems. SM system operating in dispersive channels: The SM system operating in a dispersive channel with the aid of zero-padding is studied. It is shown that the SM system achieves full receive-diversity and multipath-diversity with ML decoding, but offers a decoding complexity that is exponential in the number of multipaths. Furthermore, a reduced complexity linear receiver is proposed that achieves achieves full multipath as well as receive-diversity, while offering a decoding complexity order same as that of the SM system operating in a frequency-flat channel.

The master’s thesis analyzes different methods of comparing structures in terms of thermal stability in summer. An important part is the evaluation of the results accuracy and computational models of these methods. In conclusion it describes the influence of building envelope on the thermal stability of the internal environment in the summer, which are important design parameters and how to optimize the design of wall.

This Mater's thesis deals with the evaluation of pulse wave velocity using multi-channel whole-body impedance cardiography. Data were taken from the group of healthy volunteers whose impedance changes were measured during rest, respiratory maneuvers, tilt and stress exercise. The result of this measurement are values of peaks of pulse wave time shifts towards R-wave. The velocity values towards the thorax electrodes were recalculated on the basis of knowledge about the pulse wave time shifts and the distances from the heart to the scanned locations, which were measured using the arterial segment's lengths.