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This paper proposes a joint design of probabilistic constellation shaping (PCS) and precoding to enhance the sum-rate performance of multi-user visible light communications (VLC) broadcast channels subject to signal amplitude constraint. In the proposed design, the transmission probabilities of bipolar $M$-pulse amplitude modulation ($M$-PAM) symbols for each user and the transmit precoding matrix are jointly optimized to improve the sum-rate performance. The joint design problem is shown to be a complex non-convex problem due to the non-convexity of the objective function. To tackle the problem, the firefly algorithm (FA), a nature-inspired heuristic optimization approach, is employed to solve a local optima to the original non-convex optimization problem. The FA-based approach, however, suffers from high computational complexity. Therefore, we propose a low-complexity design based on zero-forcing (ZF) precoding, which is solved using an alternating optimization (AO) approach. Simulation results reveal that the proposed joint design with PCS significantly improves the sum-rate performance compared to the conventional design with uniform signaling. Some insights into the optimal symbol distributions of the two joint design approaches are also provided.

There has been an increasing interest in physical layer security (PLS), which, compared with conventional cryptography, offers a unique approach to guaranteeing information confidentiality against eavesdroppers. In this paper, we study a joint design of adaptive $M$-ary pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) and precoding, which aims to optimize wiretap visible-light channels' secrecy capacity and bit error rate (BER) performances. The proposed design is motivated by higher-order modulation, which results in better secrecy capacity at the expense of a higher BER. On the other hand, a proper precoding design, which can manipulate the received signal quality at the legitimate user and the eavesdropper, can also enhance secrecy performance and influence the BER. A reward function that considers the secrecy capacity and the BERs of the legitimate user's (Bob) and the eavesdropper's (Eve) channels is introduced and maximized. Due to the non-linearity and complexity of the reward function, it is challenging to solve the optical design using classical optimization techniques. Therefore, reinforcement learning-based designs using Q-learning and Deep Q-learning are proposed to maximize the reward function. Simulation results verify that compared with the baseline designs, the proposed joint designs achieve better reward values while maintaining the BER of Bob's channel (Eve's channel) well below (above) the pre-FEC (forward error correction) BER threshold.

This paper studies energy-efficient precoding designs for multi-user visible light communication (VLC) systems from the perspective of physical layer security where users' messages must be kept mutually confidential. For such systems, we first derive a lower bound on the achievable secrecy rate of each user. Next, the total power consumption for illumination and data transmission is thoroughly analyzed. We then tackle the problem of maximizing energy efficiency, given that each user's secrecy rate satisfies a certain threshold. The design problem is shown to be non-convex fractional programming, which renders finding the optimal solution computationally prohibitive. Our aim in this paper is, therefore, to find sub-optimal yet low complexity solutions. For this purpose, the traditional Dinkelbach algorithm is first employed to reformulate the original problem to a non-fractional parameterized one. Two different approaches based on the convex-concave procedure (CCCP) and Semidefinite Relaxation (SDR) are utilized to solve the non-convex parameterized problem. In addition, to further reduce the complexity, we investigate a design using the zero-forcing (ZF) technique. Numerical results are conducted to show the feasibility, convergence, and performance of the proposed algorithms depending on different parameters of the system.

This study aims to understand users' perceptions of using the Dialogflow framework and verify the relationships among service awareness, task-technology fit, output quality, and TAM variables. Generalized Structured Component Analysis was employed to experiment with six hypotheses. Two hundred twenty-seven participants were recruited through the purposive non-random sampling technique. Google Forms was utilized as a medium to develop and distribute survey questionnaires to subjects of interest. The experimental results indicated that perceived ease of use and usefulness had a statistically significant and positive influence on behavioral intention. Awareness of service and output quality was considered reliable predictors of perceived usefulness. Also, perceived task-technology fit positively affected perceived ease of use. The model specification accounted for 50.04% of the total variation. The findings can be leveraged to reinforce TAM in future research in a comparative academic context to validate the hypothesis. Several practitioner recommendations and the study's limitations have been presented.

This study investigated the effects of variables influencing the intention to use the COVID-19 tracker. Experiment results from 224 individuals revealed that performance expectations, trust, and privacy all have an impact on app usage intention. However, social impact, effort expectation, and facilitating conditions were not shown to be statistically significant. The conceptual model explained 60.07 percent of the amount of variation, suggesting that software developers, service providers, and policymakers should consider performance expectations, trust, and privacy as viable factors to encourage citizens to use the app

In this paper, an energy-efficient precoding scheme is designed for multi-user visible light communication (VLC) systems in the context of physical layer security, where users' messages are kept mutually confidential. The design problem is shown to be non-convex fractional programming, therefore Dinkelbach algorithm and convex-concave procedure (CCCP) based on the first-order Taylor approximation are utilized to tackle the problem. Numerical results are performed to show the convergence behaviors and the performance of the proposed solution for different parameter settings.

This letter studies joint transmit beamforming and antenna selection at a secondary base station (BS) with multiple primary users (PUs) in an underlay cognitive radio multiple-input single-output broadcast channel. The objective is to maximize the sum rate subject to the secondary BS transmit power, minimum required rates for secondary users, and PUs' interference power constraints. The utility function of interest is nonconcave and the involved constraints are nonconvex, so this problem is hard to solve. Nevertheless, we propose a new iterative algorithm that finds local optima at the least. We use an inner approximation method to construct and solve a simple convex quadratic program of moderate dimension at each iteration of the proposed algorithm. Simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm converges quickly and outperforms existing approaches., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures

Full-duplex (FD) systems have emerged as an es- sential enabling technology to further increase the data rate of wireless communication systems. The key idea of FD is to serve multiple users over the same bandwidth with a base station (BS) that can simultaneously transmit and receive the signals. The most challenging issue in designing an FD system is to address both the harmful effects of residual self-interference caused by the transmit-to-receive antennas at the BS as well as the co- channel interference from an uplink user (ULU) to a downlink user (DLU). An efficient solution to these problems is to assign the ULUs/DLUs in different groups/slots, with each user served in multiple groups. Hence, this paper studies the joint design of transmit beamformers, ULUs/DLUs group assignment, and time allocation for each group. The specific aim is to maximize the sum rate under the ULU/DLU minimum throughput constraints. The utility function of interest is a difficult nonconcave problem, and the involved constraints are also nonconvex, and so this is a computationally troublesome problem. To solve this optimization problem, we propose a new path-following algorithm for compu- tational solutions to arrive at least the local optima. Each iteration involves only a simple convex quadratic program. We prove that the proposed algorithm iteratively improves the objective while guaranteeing convergence. Simulation results confirm the fast convergence of the proposed algorithm with substantial performance improvements over existing approaches., Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures. To appear in IEEE ACCESS, 2017. The MATLAB codes for this paper can be downloaded from: https://sites.google.com/site/nvdinh0811/publications