There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

We will review some of the major results in random graphs and some of the more challenging open problems. We will cover algorithmic and structural questions. We will touch on newer models, including those related to the WWW.

Random graphs

This paper presents an overview of the theory and currently known techniques for multi-cell MIMO (multiple input multiple output) cooperation in wireless networks. In dense networks where interference emerges as the key capacity-limiting factor, multi-cell cooperation can dramatically improve the system performance. Remarkably, such techniques literally exploit inter-cell interference by allowing the user data to be jointly processed by several interfering base stations, thus mimicking the benefits of a large virtual MIMO array. Multi-cell MIMO cooperation concepts are examined from different perspectives, including an examination of the fundamental information-theoretic limits, a review of the coding and signal processing algorithmic developments, and, going beyond that, consideration of very practical issues related to scalability and system-level integration. A few promising and quite fundamental research avenues are also suggested.

/pdf/multi-cell-mimo-cooperative-networks-a-new-look-at-1e6uuxtyow.pdf

Multi-Cell MIMO Cooperative Networks: A New Look at Interference

Most of the signal processing that we will study in this course involves local operations on a signal, namely transforming the signal by applying linear combinations of values in the neighborhood of each sample point. You are familiar with such operations from Calculus, namely, taking derivatives and you are also familiar with this from optics namely blurring a signal. We will be looking at sampled signals only. Let's start with a few basic examples. Local difference Suppose we have a 1D image and we take the local difference of intensities, DI(x) = 1 2 (I(x + 1) − I(x − 1)) which give a discrete approximation to a partial derivative. (We compute this for each x in the image.) What is the effect of such a transformation? One key idea is that such a derivative would be useful for marking positions where the intensity changes. Such a change is called an edge. It is important to detect edges in images because they often mark locations at which object properties change. These can include changes in illumination along a surface due to a shadow boundary, or a material (pigment) change, or a change in depth as when one object ends and another begins. The computational problem of finding intensity edges in images is called edge detection. We could look for positions at which DI(x) has a large negative or positive value. Large positive values indicate an edge that goes from low to high intensity, and large negative values indicate an edge that goes from high to low intensity. Example Suppose the image consists of a single (slightly sloped) edge:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/5/31307/01456462.pdf

Linear systems

The diffraction tomography theorem is adapted to one-dimensional length measurement. The resulting spectral interferometry technique is described and the first length measurements using this technique on a model eye and on a human eye in vivo are presented.

Measurement of intraocular distances by backscattering spectral interferometry

Fiber-optic communication systems are nowadays facing serious challenges due to the fast growing demand on capacity from various new applications and services. It is now well recognized that nonlinear effects limit the spectral efficiency and transmission reach of modern fiber-optic communications. Nonlinearity compensation is therefore widely believed to be of paramount importance for increasing the capacity of future optical networks. Recently, there has been steadily growing interest in the application of a powerful mathematical tool—the nonlinear Fourier transform (NFT)—in the development of fundamentally novel nonlinearity mitigation tools for fiber-optic channels. It has been recognized that, within this paradigm, the nonlinear crosstalk due to the Kerr effect is effectively absent, and fiber nonlinearity due to the Kerr effect can enter as a constructive element rather than a degrading factor. The novelty and the mathematical complexity of the NFT, the versatility of the proposed system designs, and the lack of a unified vision of an optimal NFT-type communication system, however, constitute significant difficulties for communication researchers. In this paper, we therefore survey the existing approaches in a common framework and review the progress in this area with a focus on practical implementation aspects. First, an overview of existing key algorithms for the efficacious computation of the direct and inverse NFT is given, and the issues of accuracy and numerical complexity are elucidated. We then describe different approaches for the utilization of the NFT in practical transmission schemes. After that we discuss the differences, advantages, and challenges of various recently emerged system designs employing the NFT, as well as the spectral efficiency estimates available up-to-date. With many practical implementation aspects still being open, our mini-review is aimed at helping researchers assess the perspectives, understand the bottlenecks, and envision the development paths in the upcoming NFT-based transmission technologies.

Nonlinear Fourier transform for optical data processing and transmission: advances and perspectives

Coordinated multi-point (CoMP) is a new class of transmission schemes for interference reduction in the next generation of mobile networks. We have implemented and tested a distributed CoMP transmission approach in the downlink of an LTE-Advanced trial system operating in real time over 20 MHz bandwidth. Enabling features such as network synchronization, celland user-specific pilots, feedback of multicell channel state information and synchronous data exchange between the base stations have been implemented. Interferencelimited transmission experiments have been conducted using optimum combining with interference-aware link adaptation and cross-wise interference cancellation between the cells. The benefits of CoMP transmission have been studied over multi-cell channels recorded in an urban macro-cell scenario.

Coordinated Multipoint Trials in the Downlink

The nonlinear Fourier transform, which is also known as the forward scattering transform, decomposes a periodic signal into nonlinearly interacting waves. In contrast to the common Fourier transform, these waves no longer have to be sinusoidal. Physically relevant waveforms are often available for the analysis instead. The details of the transform depend on the waveforms underlying the analysis, which in turn are specified through the implicit assumption that the signal is governed by a certain evolution equation. For example, water waves generated by the Korteweg–de Vries equation can be expressed in terms of cnoidal waves. Light waves in optical fiber governed by the nonlinear Schrodinger equation (NSE) are another example. Nonlinear analogs of classic problems such as spectral analysis and filtering arise in many applications, with information transmission in optical fiber, as proposed by Yousefi and Kschischang, being a very recent one. The nonlinear Fourier transform is eminently suited to address them—at least from a theoretical point of view. Although numerical algorithms are available for computing the transform, a fast nonlinear Fourier transform that is similarly effective as the fast Fourier transform is for computing the common Fourier transform has not been available so far. The goal of this paper is to address this problem. Two fast numerical methods for computing the nonlinear Fourier transform with respect to the NSE are presented. The first method achieves a runtime of $O(D^{2})$ floating point operations, where $D$ is the number of sample points. The second method applies only to the case where the NSE is defocusing, but it achieves an $O(D\log ^{2}D)$ runtime. Extensions of the results to other evolution equations are discussed as well.

Fast Numerical Nonlinear Fourier Transforms

The nonlinear Fourier transform, which is also known as the forward scattering transform, decomposes a periodic signal into nonlinearly interacting waves. In contrast to the common Fourier transform, these waves no longer have to be sinusoidal. Physically relevant waveforms are often available for the analysis instead. The details of the transform depend on the waveforms underlying the analysis, which in turn are specified through the implicit assumption that the signal is governed by a certain evolution equation. For example, water waves generated by the Korteweg-de Vries equation can be expressed in terms of cnoidal waves. Light waves in optical fiber governed by the nonlinear Schrodinger equation (NSE) are another example. Nonlinear analogs of classic problems such as spectral analysis and filtering arise in many applications, with information transmission in optical fiber, as proposed by Yousefi and Kschischang, being a very recent one. The nonlinear Fourier transform is eminently suited to address them -- at least from a theoretical point of view. Although numerical algorithms are available for computing the transform, a "fast" nonlinear Fourier transform that is similarly effective as the fast Fourier transform is for computing the common Fourier transform has not been available so far. The goal of this paper is to address this problem. Two fast numerical methods for computing the nonlinear Fourier transform with respect to the NSE are presented. The first method achieves a runtime of $O(D^2)$ floating point operations, where $D$ is the number of sample points. The second method applies only to the case where the NSE is defocusing, but it achieves an $O(D\log^2D)$ runtime. Extensions of the results to other evolution equations are discussed as well.

The conventional Fourier transform was originally developed in order to solve the heat equation, which is a standard example for a linear evolution equation. Nonlinear Fourier transforms (NFTs)1 are generalizations of the conventional Fourier transform that can be used to solve certain nonlinear evolution equations in a similar way (Ablowitz et al. 1974). An important difference to the conventional Fourier transform is that NFTs are equationspecific. The Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation (Gardner et al. 1967) and the nonlinear Schroedinger equation (NSE) (Shabat and Zakharov 1972) are two popular examples for nonlinear evolution equations that can be solved using appropriate NFTs.

/pdf/fnft-a-software-library-for-computing-nonlinear-fourier-2o5xl6xdyt.pdf

Sander Wahls

Papers

Nonlinear Fourier transform for optical data processing and transmission: advances and perspectives

Coordinated Multipoint Trials in the Downlink

Fast Numerical Nonlinear Fourier Transforms

Fast Numerical Nonlinear Fourier Transforms

FNFT: A Software Library for Computing Nonlinear Fourier Transforms