Nonlinear measures of QT interval series: novel indices of cardiac repolarization lability: MEDqthr and LLEqthr

In this study, we investigated nonlinear measures of chaos of QT interval time series in 28 normal control subjects, 36 patients with panic disorder and 18 patients with major depression in supine and standing postures. We obtained the minimum embedding dimension (MED) and the largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE) of instantaneous heart rate (HR) and QT interval series. MED quantifies the system's complexity and LLE predictability. There was a significantly lower MED and a significantly increased LLE of QT interval time series in patients. Most importantly, nonlinear indices of QT/HR time series, MEDqthr (MED of QT/HR) and LLEqthr (LLE of QT/HR), were highly significantly different between controls and both patient groups in either posture. Results remained the same even after adjusting for age. The increased LLE of QT interval time, series in patients with anxiety and depression is in line with our previous findings of higher QTvi (QT variability index, a log ratio of QT variability corrected for mean QT squared divided by heart rate variability corrected for mean heart rate squared) in these patients, using linear techniques. Increased LLEqthr (LLE of QT/HR) may be a more sensitive tool to study cardiac repolarization and a valuable addition to the time domain measures such as QTvi. This is especially important in light of the finding that LLEqthr correlated poorly and nonsignificantly with QTvi. These findings suggest an increase in relative cardiac sympathetic activity and a decrease in certain aspects of cardiac vagal function in patients with anxiety as well as depression. The lack of correlation between QTvi and LLEqthr suggests that this nonlinear index is a valuable addition to the linear measures. These findings may also help to explain the higher incidence of cardiovascular mortality in patients with anxiety and depressive disorders. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Performance analysis of TCM with generalized selection combining on Rayleigh fading channels

We derive the computational cutoff rate, R-o, for coherent trellis-coded modulation (TCM) schemes on independent indentically distributed (i.i.d.) Rayleigh fading channels with (K, L) generalized selection combining (GSC) diversity, which combines the K paths with the largest instantaneous signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) among the L available diversity paths. The cutoff rate is shown to be a simple function of the moment generating function (MGF) of the SNR at the output of the (K, L) GSC receiver. We also derive the union bound on the bit error probability of TCM schemes with (K, L) GSC in the form of a simple, finite integral. The effectiveness of this bound is verified through simulations.

Transaction-based QoS management in a Hybrid Wireless Superstore Environment

Hybrid wireless networks are extensively used in the superstores, market places, malls, etc. and provide high QoS (Quality of Service) to the end-users has become a challenging task. In this paper, we propose a policy-based transaction-aware QoS management architecture in a hybrid wireless superstore environment. The proposed scheme operates at the transaction level, for the downlink QoS management. We derive a policy for the estimation of QoS parameters, like, delay, jitter, bandwidth, availability, packet loss for every transaction before scheduling on the downlink. We also propose a QoS monitor which monitors the specified QoS and automatically adjusts the QoS according to the requirement. The proposed scheme has been simulated in hybrid wireless superstore environment and tested for various superstore transactions. The results shows that the policy-based transaction QoS management is enhance the performance and utilize network resources efficiently at the peak time of the superstore business.

Interference Alignment as a Tool in Network Coding as Applied to Distributed Storage

In this paper, we outline an approach to the task of designing network codes in a non-multicast setting. Our approach makes use of the concept of interference alignment. As an example, we consider the distributed storage problem where the data is stored across the network in n nodes and where a data collector can recover the data by connecting to any k of the n nodes and where furthermore, upon failure of a node, a new node can replicate the data stored in the failed node while minimizing the repair bandwidth.

Comparative Analysis of Pilot-Assisted Distributed Cophasing Approaches in Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper compares and analyzes the performance of distributed cophasing techniques for uplink transmission over wireless sensor networks. We focus on a time-division duplexing approach, and exploit the channel reciprocity to reduce the channel feedback requirement. We consider periodic broadcast of known pilot symbols by the fusion center (FC), and maximum likelihood estimation of the channel by the sensor nodes for the subsequent uplink cophasing transmission. We assume carrier and phase synchronization across the participating nodes for analytical tractability. We study binary signaling over frequency-flat fading channels, and quantify the system performance such as the expected gains in the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the average probability of error at the FC, as a function of the number of sensor nodes and the pilot overhead. Our results show that a modest amount of accumulated pilot SNR is sufficient to realize a large fraction of the maximum possible beamforming gain. We also investigate the performance gains obtained by censoring transmission at the sensors based on the estimated channel state, and the benefits obtained by using maximum ratio transmission (MRT) and truncated channel inversion (TCI) at the sensors in addition to cophasing transmission. Simulation results corroborate the theoretical expressions and show the relative performance benefits offered by the various schemes.

Explicit Codes Uniformly Reducing Repair Bandwidth in Distributed Storage

A distributed storage setting is considered where a file of size B is to be stored across n storage nodes. A data collector should be able to reconstruct the entire data by downloading the symbols stored in any k nodes. When a node fails, it is replaced by a new node by downloading data from some of the existing nodes. The amount of download is termed as repair bandwidth. One way to implement such a system is to store one fragment of an (n, k) MDS code in each node, in which case the repair bandwidth is B. Since repair of a failed node consumes network bandwidth, codes reducing repair bandwidth are of great interest. Most of the recent work in this area focuses on reducing the repair bandwidth of a set of k nodes which store the data in uncoded form, while the reduction in the repair bandwidth of the remaining nodes is only marginal. In this paper, we present an explicit code which reduces the repair bandwidth for all the nodes to approximately B/2. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first explicit code which reduces the repair bandwidth of all the nodes for all feasible values of the system parameters.

Explicit and Optimal Codes for Distributed Storage

In the distributed storage coding problem we consider, data is stored across n nodes in a network, each capable of storing � symbols. It is required that the complete data can be reconstructed by downloading data from any k nodes. There is also the key additional requirement that a failed node be regenerated by connecting to any d nodes and downloading �symbols from each of them. Our goal is to minimize the repair bandwidth d�. In this paper we provide explicit constructions for several parameter sets of interest.

On the Compressibility of non-Abelian-Group Sources in a Distributed Source Coding Setting

We consider the problem of compression of a non-Abelian source.This is motivated by the problem of distributed function computation,where it is known that if one is only interested in computing a function of several sources, then one can often improve upon the compression rate required by the Slepian-Wolf bound. Let G be a non-Abelian group having center Z(G). We show here that it is impossible to compress a source with symbols drawn from G when Z(G) is trivial if one employs a homomorphic encoder and a typical-set decoder.We provide achievable upper bounds on the minimum rate required to compress a non-Abelian group with non-trivial center. Also, in a two source setting, we provide achievable upper bounds for compression of any non-Abelian group, using a non-homomorphic encoder.

DMT of Wireless Networks: An overview

The e�cient operation of single-source, single-sink wireless network is considered with the diversity-multiplexing gain tradeo� (DMT) as the measure of performance. Whereas in the case of a point-to-point MIMO channel the DMT is determined by the fading statistics, in the case of a network, the DMT is additionally, a function of the time schedule according to which the network is operated, as well as the protocol that dictates the mode of operation of the intermediate relays.In general, it is only possible at present, to provide upper bounds on the DMT of the network in terms of the DMT of the MIMO channel appearing across cuts in the network. This paper presents a tutorial overview on the DMT of half-duplex multi-hop wireless networks that also attempts to identify where possible, codes that achieve the DMT.For example, it is shown how one can construct codes that achieve the DMT of a network under a given schedule and either an amplify-and-forward or decode-and-forward protocol. Also contained in the paper,are discussions on the DMT of the multiple-access channel as well as the impact of feedback on the DMT of a MIMO channel.