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Pseudomonas spp. are the most commonly found bacteria in food-processing environments due to properties such as a high growth rate at low temperatures, a high tolerance of antimicrobial agents, and biofilm formation. In this study, a set of Pseudomonas isolates originating from cleaned and disinfected surfaces in a salmon processing facility were screened for biofilm formation at 12 °C. A high variation in biofilm formation between the isolates was observed. Selected isolates, in both planktonic and biofilm states, were tested for resistance/tolerance to a commonly used disinfectant (peracetic acid-based) and antibiotic florfenicol. Most isolates showed a much higher tolerance in the biofilm state than in the planktonic state. In a multi-species biofilm experiment with five Pseudomonas strains with and without a Listeria monocytogenes strain, the Pseudomonas biofilm appeared to aid the survival of L. monocytogenes cells after disinfection, underscoring the importance of controlling the bacterial load in food-processing environments.

Physical layer security is an emerging security area that achieves perfect secrecy data transmission between intended network nodes, while malicious nodes that eavesdrop the communication obtain zero information. The so-called secrecy capacity can be improved using friendly jammers that introduce extra interference to the eavesdroppers. We investigate the interaction between the source that transmits the useful data and friendly jammers who assist the source by “masking” the eavesdropper. To obtain distributed solution, we introduce a game theoretic approach. The game is defined such that the source pays the jammers to interfere the eavesdropper, therefore, increasing the secrecy capacity. The friendly jammers charge the source with a certain price for the jamming, and there is a tradeoff for the price. If too low, the profit of the jammers is low; and if too high, the source would not buy the “service” (jamming power) or would buy it from other jammers. To analyze the game outcome, we investigate a Stackelburg type of game and construct a distributed algorithm. Our analysis and simulation results show the effectiveness of friendly jamming and the tradeoff for setting the price. The distributed game solution is shown to have similar performances to those of the centralized one.

We consider a wireless relay network with Rayleigh fading channels and apply distributed space-time coding (DSTC) in amplify-and-forward (AF) mode. It is assumed that the relays have statistical channel state information (CSI) of the local source-relay channels, while the destination has full instantaneous CSI of the channels. It turns out that, combined with the minimum SNR based power allocation in the relays, AF DSTC results in a new opportunistic relaying scheme, in which the best relay is selected to retransmit the source's signal. Furthermore, we have derived the optimum power allocation between two cooperative transmission phases by maximizing the average received SNR at the destination. Next, assuming M-PSK and M-QAM modulations, we analyze the performance of cooperative diversity wireless networks using AF opportunistic relaying. We also derive an approximate formula for the symbol error rate (SER) of AF DSTC. Assuming the use of full-diversity space-time codes, we derive two power allocation strategies minimizing the approximate SER expressions, for constrained transmit power. Our analytical results have been confirmed by simulation results, using full-rate, full-diversity distributed space-time codes.

We propose double-differential (DD) modulation for the amplify-and-forward protocol over Nakagami-m fading channels with carrier offsets. We propose an emulated maximum ratio combining (EMRC) decoder, which could be used by the double-differential receiver in the absence of exact channel knowledge. Approximate bit error rate (BER) analysis is performed for the proposed double-differential modulation-based cooperative communication system. The proposed double-differential system is immune to random carrier offsets, whereas the conventional single-differential modulation-based cooperative system breaks down. In addition, the proposed scheme is able to perform better than the same rate training-based cooperative system which utilizes training data for finding estimates of carrier offsets and channel gains.

The problem of synchronous multiuser receiver design in the case of direct-sequence single-antenna code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) uplink networks is studied over frequency selective fading channels. An exact expression for the bit error rate (BER) is derived in the case of BPSK signaling. Moreover, an algorithm is proposed for finding the finite impulse response (FIR) receiver filters with block memory such that the exact BER of the active users is minimized. Several properties of the minimum BER FIR filters with block memory are identified. The algorithm performance is found for scenarios with different channel qualities, spreading code lengths, receiver block memory size, near-far effects, and channel mismatch. For the BPSK constellation, the proposed FIR receiver structure with block memory has significant better BER with respect to Eb/N0 and near-far resistance than the corresponding minimum mean square error (MMSE) filters with block memory.

Analytical expressions for the symbol error rate (SER) of MIMO systems are important from both design and analysis point of views. This paper derives exact and easy to evaluate analytical expression for the SER of an orthogonal space-time block coded (OSTBC) MIMO system with spatially correlated antennas, in which the channel signal propagation suffers from a degenerative effect known as a keyhole. These expressions are valid for complex valued correlations between antenna elements. Numerical results obtained by simulations are presented to confirm the validity of the analytical SER expressions for several multilevel modulation schemes. Subsequently, a procedure for designing a linear precoder which exploits the knowledge of the channel correlation matrix at the transmitter to enhance the performance of the above system is given. To this end, the exact SER expression is minimized by using a gradient descent algorithm. To demonstrate the performance improvements achievable with the proposed precoder, numerical results obtained in several design examples are presented and compared.

This paper addresses the problem of base station coordination and cooperation in wireless networks with multiple base stations. We present a distributed approach to downlink multibase beamforming, which allows for the multiplexing of M user terminals, randomly located in a network with N base stations. In particular, we detail a low-complexity scheduling algorithm, which can be employed with different objective functions, exemplified here by two approaches: (1) maximizing the sum rate of the network; and (2) maximizing the number of users served, given a statistical constraint on the received rate per user. The optimizations are based on locally available information at each base station. Results show that our approaches yield significant gains, when compared to schemes that do not allow cooperation between cells. These gains are obtained without the extensive signaling overhead required in previously known multicell MIMO processing.

Physical layer security is an emerging security area that achieves perfect secrecy data transmission between intended network nodes, while malicious nodes that eavesdrop the communication obtain zero information. The so-called secrecy capacity can be improved using friendly jammers that introduce extra interference to the eavesdroppers. We investigate the interaction between the source that transmits the useful data and friendly jammers who assist the source by "masking" the eavesdropper. To obtain distributed solution, we introduce a game theoretic approach. The game is defined such that the source pays the jammers to interfere the eavesdropper, therefore, increasing the secrecy capacity. The friendly jammers charge the source with a certain price for the jamming, and there is a tradeoff for the price. If too low, the profit of the jammers is low; and if too high, the source would not buy the "service" (jamming power) or would buy it from other jammers. To analyze the game outcome, we investigate a Stackelburg type of game and construct a distributed algorithm. Our analysis and simulation results show the effectiveness of friendly jamming and the tradeoff for setting the price. The distributed game solution is shown to have similar performances to those of the centralized one.

Analytical expressions for the symbol error rate (SER) of MIMO systems are important from both design and analysis point of views. This paper derives exact and easy to evaluate analytical expression for the SER of an orthogonal space-time block coded (OSTBC) MIMO system with spatially correlated antennas, in which the channel signal propagation suffers from a degenerative effect known as a keyhole. These expressions are valid for complex valued correlations between antenna elements. Numerical results obtained by simulations are presented to confirm the validity of the analytical SER expressions for several multilevel modulation schemes. Subsequently, a procedure for designing a linear precoder which exploits the knowledge of the channel correlation matrix at the transmitter to enhance the performance of the above system is given. To this end, the exact SER expression is minimized by using a gradient descent algorithm. To demonstrate the performance improvements achievable with the proposed precoder, numerical results obtained in several design examples are presented and compared.

Abstract The problem of synchronous multiuser receiver design in the case of direct-sequence single-antenna code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) uplink networks is studied over frequency selective fading channels. An exact expression for the bit error rate (BER) is derived in the case of BPSK signaling. Moreover, an algorithm is proposed for finding the finite impulse response (FIR) receiver filters with block memory such that the exact BER of the active users is minimized. Several properties of the minimum BER FIR filters with block memory are identified. The algorithm performance is found for scenarios with different channel qualities, spreading code lengths, receiver block memory size, near-far effects, and channel mismatch. For the BPSK constellation, the proposed FIR receiver structure with block memory has significant better BER with respect to and near-far resistance than the corresponding minimum mean square error (MMSE) filters with block memory.