Interference cancellation schemes for MIMO MC-CDM in fading channels

A novel interference cancellation (IC) scheme for MIMO MC-CDM systems is proposed. It is shown that the existing IC schemes are suboptimum and their performance can be improved by utilising some special properties of the residual interference after interference cancellation.

“Hegemony Protected by the Armour of Coercion”: Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest and the State

This article argues that Dashiell Hammett's 1929 novel Red Harvest is best understood in the context of the consolidation and expansion of the US state following the First World War and the Russian Revolution. It also argues that Hammett's novel constitutes a highly significant articulation of theoretical debates about the nature of political authority and state power in the modern era and speaks about the transition of one state formation to another. Insofar as Red Harvest explores the way in which the state's coercive and ethical character are bound up together, this article argues that Hammett's novel draws upon an understanding of political authority and state power primarily derived from Gramsci, via Marx. Gramsci insists that control cannot be maintained through force alone (and his conception of hegemony, in turn, suggests a power bloc that can become fragmented and disunited in a war of position). In the same way, Red Harvest traces the transformation of the “economic-corporate” state into the expanded or “ethical” State but crucially any ethical dimension, as Gramsci notes, is always beholden to the needs of the capitalist economy. As such, the apparently arbitrary bloodshed in the novel is conceived as a relatively minor realignment in the ranks of the capitalist classes – certainly less serious than the miners' strike that prefigures the novel. What makes this realignment significant is that it calls attention to the state both as repressive and as a site of conflict and compromise. Here, the work performed by the Continental Op and by the crime novel in general – simultaneously buttressing and, to some extent, contesting the power of the state – needs to be understood as part of the process by which the state is consistently enacting hegemony (albeit protected by the armour of coercion). The article concludes by pointing out that while Gramsci is perhaps too willing to dwell upon the state's expanded reach, Red Harvest is more interested in examining possible “cracks and fissures” in the state formation, even if the critique it ultimately offers goes nowhere and yields nothing.

Resolution of a taxonomic conundrum: an ultrastructural and molecular description of the life cycle of Pleistophora mulleri (Pfeiffer 1895; Georgevitch 1929)

The classification of a microsporidian parasite observed in the abdominal muscles of amphipod hosts has been repeatedly revised but still remains inconclusive. This parasite has variable spore numbers within a sporophorous vesicle and has been assigned to the genera Glugea, Pleistophora, Stempellia, and Thelohania. We used electron microscopy and molecular evidence to resolve the previous taxonomic confusion and confirm its identification as Pleistophora mulleri. The life cycle of P. mulleri is described from the freshwater amphipod host Gammarus duebeni celticus. Infection appeared as white tubular masses within the abdominal muscle of the host. Light and transmission electron microscope examination revealed the presence of an active microsporidian infection that was diffuse within the muscle block with no evidence of xenoma formation. Paucinucleate merogonial plasmodia were surrounded by an amorphous coat immediately external to the plasmalemma. The amorphous coat developed into a merontogenetic sporophorous vesicle that was present throughout sporulation. Sporogony was polysporous resulting in uninucleate spores, with a bipartite polaroplast, an anisofilar polar filament and a large posterior vacuole. SSU rDNA analysis supported the ultrastructural evidence clearly placing this parasite within the genus Pleistophora. This paper indicates that Pleistophora species are not restricted to vertebrate hosts.