Northumbria University

About: Northumbria University is a education organization based out in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Context (language use) & Population. The organization has 5624 authors who have published 17423 publications receiving 381949 citations. The organization is also known as: University of Northumbria at Newcastle.

MDMA polydrug users show process-specific central executive impairments coupled with impaired social and emotional judgement processes

Abstract: In recent years working memory deficits have been reported in users of MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, ecstasy). The current study aimed to assess the impact of MDMA use on three separate central executive processes (set shifting, inhibition and memory updating) and also on "prefrontal" mediated social and emotional judgement processes. Fifteen polydrug ecstasy users and 15 polydrug non-ecstasy user controls completed a general drug use questionnaire, the Brixton Spatial Anticipation task (set shifting), Backward Digit Span procedure (memory updating), Inhibition of Return (inhibition), an emotional intelligence scale, the Tromso Social Intelligence Scale and the Dysexecutive Questionnaire (DEX). Compared with MDMA-free polydrug controls, MDMA polydrug users showed impairments in set shifting and memory updating, and also in social and emotional judgement processes. The latter two deficits remained significant after controlling for other drug use. These data lend further support to the proposal that cognitive processes mediated by the prefrontal cortex may be impaired by recreational ecstasy use.

Subcarrier intensity modulated free-space optical communication systems

Abstract: This thesis investigates and analyses the performance of terrestrial free-space optical communication (FSO) system based on the phase shift keying pre-modulated subcarrier intensity modulation (SIM) The results are theoretically and experimentally compared with the classical On-Off keying (OOK) modulated FSO system in the presence of atmospheric turbulence The performance analysis is based on the bit error rate (BER) and outage probability metrics Optical signal traversing the atmospheric channel suffers attenuation due to scattering and absorption of the signal by aerosols, fog, atmospheric gases and precipitation In the event of thick fog, the atmospheric attenuation coefficient exceeds 100 dB/km, this potentially limits the achievable FSO link length to less than 1 kilometre But even in clear atmospheric conditions when signal absorption and scattering are less severe with a combined attenuation coefficient of less than 1 dB/km, the atmospheric turbulence significantly impairs the achievable error rate, the outage probability and the available link margin of a terrestrial FSO communication system The effect of atmospheric turbulence on the symbol detection of an OOK based terrestrial FSO system is presented analytically and experimentally verified It was found that atmospheric turbulence induced channel fading will require the OOK threshold detector to have the knowledge of the channel fading strength and noise levels if the detection error is to be reduced to its barest minimum This poses a serious design difficulty that can be circumvented by employing phase shift keying (PSK) pre-modulated SIM The results of the analysis and experiments showed that for a binary PSK-SIM based FSO system, the symbol detection threshold level does not require the knowledge of the channel fading strength or noise level As such, the threshold level is fixed at the zero mark in the presence or absence of atmospheric turbulence Also for the full and seamless integration of FSO into the access network, a study of SIM-FSO performance becomes compelling because existing networks already contain subcarrier-like signals such as radio over fibre and cable television signals The use of multiple subcarrier signals as a means of increasing the throughput/capacity is also investigated and the effect of optical source nonlinearity is found to result in intermodulation distortion The intermodulation distortion can impose a BER floor of up to 10-4 on the system error performance In addition, spatial diversity and subcarrier delay diversity techniques are studied as means of ameliorating the effect of atmospheric turbulence on the error and outage performance of SIM-FSO systems The three spatial diversity linear combining techniques analysed are maximum ratio combining, equal gain combining and selection combining The system performance based on each of these combining techniques is presented and compared under different strengths of atmospheric turbulence The results predicted that achieving a 4 km SIM-FSO link length with no diversity technique will require about 12 dB of power more than using a 4 × 4 transmitter/receiver array system with the same data rate in a weak turbulent atmospheric channel On the other hand, retransmitting the delayed copy of the data once on a different subcarrier frequency was found to result in a gain of up to 45 dB in weak atmospheric turbulence channel

Critical discourse studies in context and cognition

Abstract: Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) is an exciting research enterprise in which scholars are concerned with the discursive reproduction of power and inequality. However, researchers in CDS are increasingly recognising the need to investigate the cognitive dimensions of discourse and context if they want to fully account for any connection between language, legitimisation and social action. This book presents a collection of papers in CDS concerned with various ideological discourses. Analyses are firmly rooted in linguistics and cognition constitutes a major focus of attention. The chapters, which are written by prominent researchers in CDS, come from a broad range of theoretical perspectives spanning pragmatics, cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics. The book is essential reading for anyone working at the cutting edge of CDS and especially for those wishing to explore the central place that cognition must surely hold in the relationship between discourse and society.