Effects of Near-Fault Ground Shaking on Sliding Systems

A numerical study is presented for a rigid block supported through a frictional contact surface on a horizontal or an inclined plane, and subjected to horizontal or slope-parallel excitation. The latter is described with idealized pulses and near-fault seismic records strongly influenced by forward-directivity or fling-step effects (from Northridge, Kobe, Kocaeli, Chi-Chi, Aegion). In addition to the well known dependence of the resulting block slippage on variables such as the peak base velocity, the peak base acceleration, and the critical acceleration ratio, our study has consistently and repeatedly revealed a profound sensitivity of both maximum and residual slippage: (1) on the sequence and even the details of the pulses contained in the excitation and (2) on the direction (+ or ?) in which the shaking of the inclined plane is imposed. By contrast, the slippage is not affected to any measurable degree by even the strongest vertical components of the accelerograms. Moreover, the slippage from a specific record may often be poorly correlated with its Arias intensity. These findings may contradict some of the prevailing beliefs that emanate from statistical correlation studies. The upper-bound sliding displacements from near-fault excitations may substantially exceed the values obtained from some of the currently available design charts.     

Differential regulation of beta3-adrenoceptors in gut and adipose tissue of genetically obese (ob/ob) C57BL/6J-mice

Stimulation of alpha-adrenoceptors on ventricular cardiomyocytes isolated from adult rat hearts leads to cellular alkalization, increases of creatine phosphate concentration, RNA mass, and protein synthesis. This study investigated whether the increase of creatine phosphate concentrations is causally linked to the hypertrophic response of cardiomyocytes under alpha-adrenoceptor stimulation. Cellular alkalization achieved with phenylephrine (10 microM), an alpha-adrenoceptor agonist, was abolished in the presence of the sodium-proton-exchange (NHE)-inhibitor HOE 694 (1 microM). HOE 694 inhibited also the alpha-adrenoceptor-mediated increase in cellular creatine phosphate and the increase in cellular RNA mass. The phenylephrine-induced stimulation of protein synthesis (determined by incorporation of 14C-phenylalanine) was reduced by one-third when HOE 694 was present. beta-Guanidinopropionic acid was added to cardiomyocytes to reduce cellular creatine phosphate concentrations. In these cultures, alpha-adrenoceptor stimulation activated NHE, but creatine phosphate concentrations were not increased. Protein synthesis was augmented to the same extent as in control cultures, but total RNA mass did not increase. From these results we conclude that alpha-adrenoceptor stimulation causes the increase in protein synthesis via activation of NHE, but independent of the concomitant increase in creatine phosphate contents. The effect of alpha-adrenoceptor stimulation on total RNA mass (translational capacity) is also caused by NHE activation, but depends on the changes in creatine phosphate contents as well.     

Optimal Joint Detection/Estimation in Fading Channels With Polynomial Complexity

The problem of sequence detection in frequency-nonselective/time-selective fading channels, when channel state information (CSI) is not available at the transmitter and receiver, is considered in this paper. The traditional belief is that exact maximum-likelihood sequence detection (MLSD) of an uncoded sequence over this channel has exponential complexity in the channel coherence time. Thus, for slowly varying channels, i.e., channels having coherence time on the order of the sequence length, the complexity appears to be exponential in the sequence length. In the first part of this work, it is shown that exact MLSD can be computed with only polynomial worst case complexity in the sequence length regardless of the operating signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for equal-energy signal constellations. By establishing a relationship between the aforementioned complexity and the rank of the correlation matrix of the fading process, an understanding of how complexity of the optimal MLSD receiver varies as the channel dynamics change is provided. In the second part of this paper, the problem of decoding turbo-like codes in frequency-nonselective/time-selective fading channels without receiver CSI is examined. Using arguments similar to the ones used for the MLSD case, it is shown that the exact symbol-by-symbol soft-decision metrics (SbSSDMs) implied by the min-sum algorithm can be evaluated with polynomial worst case complexity in the sequence length regardless of SNR for equal-energy signal constellations. Finally, by simplifying some key steps in the polynomial-complexity algorithm, a family of fast, approximate algorithms is derived, which yield near-optimal performance     

Call Admission Control in Satellite Networks under Rain Fading

A new call admission control scheme for satellite networks operating at frequencies above 10 GHz is proposed. The major factor impairing the link performance at these frequencies is rain attenuation, a physical phenomenon exhibiting both spatial and temporal variation. Exploiting the predictability of the satellite channel, a new call is accepted provided that there are sufficient resources for existing and new users to guarantee QoS. The performance of the proposed scheme is investigated using Markov chain analysis. Finally, the upper bound of the call blocking probability is determined.     

Capacity and coding for the block-independent noncoherent AWGN channel

Communication over the noncoherent additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel is considered, where the transmitted signal undergoes a phase rotation, unknown to the transmitter and the receiver. The effects of phase dynamics are explicitly taken into account by considering a block-independent model for the phase process: the unknown phase is constant for a block of N complex symbols and independent from block to block. In the first part of the paper, the capacity-achieving input distribution is characterized. In particular, it is shown that the maximizing density has circular symmetry, is discrete in amplitude with infinite number of mass points, and always has a mass point at zero. Furthermore, asymptotic expressions and bounds for the capacity are derived. Based on these results, the capacity is evaluated through numerical optimizations for unconstrained and modulation-constrained input distributions. In the second part of this paper, inspired by the capacity results, two classes of coding and modulation schemes are proposed for fast and moderate phase dynamics. In the case of fast phase dynamics (i.e., small N), optimized modulation alphabets are designed having exponential complexity with N at the demodulator. In the case of moderate phase dynamics (i.e., moderate values of N), specially designed modulation alphabets are utilized that have linear complexity with N. These alphabets are used together with optimized irregular low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. Simulation results show that these codes can achieve close-to-capacity performance with moderate complexity, and outperform the best known codes so far.     

Sequence error probability lower bounds for joint detection and estimation

A commonly used lower bound on the probability of error of joint detection and estimation (JDE) algorithms is derived under the assumption that estimation is performed using the transmitted sequence, in a genie-aided fashion. Although it seems reasonable that this genie-aided receiver performs better than the original receiver, a proof of this fact is not available in the literature. In this letter, the validity of this bound is established for a general class of JDE algorithms, as well as for an important special case when the maximum-likelihood sequence detection criterion is used. The results are then extended to a well-known suboptimal JDE algorithm, namely, the T-algorithm. It is shown, however, that the technique used to prove this bound is not sufficient for establishing the validity of the bound for the M-algorithm and the per-survivor processing algorithm.     

Effects of neutral endopeptidase inhibition and combined angiotensin converting enzyme and neutral endopeptidase inhibition on angiotensin and bradykinin peptides in rats

The respective roles of apoptosis and accidental cell death after thermal injury were evaluated in normal human epidermal keratinocytes. By coupling the LIVE/DEAD fluorescence viability assay with the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end-labeling (TUNEL) method and ultrastructural morphology, these two processes could be distinguished. Cells were grown on glass coverslips with a microgrid pattern so that the results of several staining procedures performed sequentially could be visualized in the same cells after heating at temperatures of up to 72 degrees C for 1 second. After exposure to temperatures of 58 to 59 degrees C, cells died predominantly by apoptosis; viable cells became TUNEL positive, indicating degradation of DNA. After exposure to temperatures of 60 to 66 degrees C, both TUNEL-positive viable cells and TUNEL-positive nonviable cells were observed, indicating that apoptosis and accidental cell death were occurring simultaneously. Cells died almost immediately after exposure to temperatures above 72 degrees C, presumably from heat fixation. The fluorescent mitochondrial probe MitoTracker Orange indicated that cells undergoing apoptosis became TUNEL positive before loss of mitochondrial function. Nucleosomal fragmentation of DNA analyzed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and gel electrophoresis occurred after exposure to temperatures of 58 to 59 degrees C. The characteristic morphological findings of cells undergoing apoptosis, by transmission electron microscopy, included cellular shrinkage, cytoplasmic budding, and relatively intact mitochondria. Depending on temperature and time of exposure, normal human epidermal keratinocytes may die by apoptosis, accidental cell death, or heat fixation.     

Capacity-achieving codes for finite-state channels with maximum-likelihood decoding

Codes on sparse graphs have been shown to achieve remarkable performance in point-to-point channels with low decoding complexity. Most of the results in this area are based on experimental evidence and/or approximate analysis. The question of whether codes on sparse graphs can achieve the capacity of noisy channels with iterative decoding is still open, and has only been conclusively and positively answered for the binary erasure channel. On the other hand, codes on sparse graphs have been proven to achieve the capacity of memoryless, binary-input, output-symmetric channels with finite graphical complexity per information bit when maximum likelihood (ML) decoding is performed. In this paper, we consider transmission over finite-state channels (FSCs). We derive upper bounds on the average error probability of code ensembles with ML decoding. Based on these bounds we show that codes on sparse graphs can achieve the symmetric information rate (SIR) of FSCs, which is the maximum achievable rate with independently and uniformly distributed input sequences. In order to achieve rates beyond the SIR, we consider a simple quantization scheme that when applied to ensembles of codes on sparse graphs induces a Markov distribution on the transmitted sequence. By deriving average error probability bounds for these quantized code ensembles, we prove that they can achieve the information rates corresponding to the induced Markov distribution, and thus approach the FSC capacity.     

Secure communications in local multipoint distribution service (LMDS) networks

The transmission of confidential information over LMDS networks is investigated in the present paper from an information-theoretic standpoint. The major factor impairing the link performance at these networks is rain attenuation, a physical phenomenon exhibiting both spatial and temporal variation. Based on an accurate channel modeling, analytical expressions of the probability of non-zero secrecy capacity and the outage probability for this type of networks are provided, giving for the first time an information-theoretic approach of the problem of secure transmission for LMDS networks. Useful conclusions are drawn through extended numerical results suggesting the increase of operational frequency and the use of more directional antennas to improve security in transmission of confidential messages for this type of networks.