Two-way Node Popularity Model for Directed and Bipartite Networks

There has been extensive research on community detection in directed and bipartite networks. However, these studies often fail to consider the popularity of nodes in different communities, which is a common phenomenon in real-world networks. To address this issue, we propose a new probabilistic framework called the Two-Way Node Popularity Model (TNPM). The TNPM also accommodates edges from different distributions within a general sub-Gaussian family. We introduce the Delete-One-Method (DOM) for model fitting and community structure identification, and provide a comprehensive theoretical analysis with novel technical skills dealing with sub-Gaussian generalization. Additionally, we propose the Two-Stage Divided Cosine Algorithm (TSDC) to handle large-scale networks more efficiently. Our proposed methods offer multi-folded advantages in terms of estimation accuracy and computational efficiency, as demonstrated through extensive numerical studies. We apply our methods to two real-world applications, uncovering interesting findings.

DoF Analysis and Beamforming Design for Active IRS-aided Multi-user MIMO Wireless Communication in Rank-deficient Channels

Due to its ability of significantly improving data rate, intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) will be a potential crucial technique for the future generation wireless networks like 6G. In this paper, we will focus on the analysis of degree of freedom (DoF) in IRS-aided multi-user MIMO network. Firstly, the DoF upper bound of IRS-aided single-user MIMO network, i.e., the achievable maximum DoF of such a system, is derived, and the corresponding results are extended to the case of IRS-aided multiuser MIMO by using the matrix rank inequalities. In particular, in serious rank-deficient, also called low-rank, channels like line-of-sight (LoS), the network DoF may doubles over no-IRS with the help of IRS. To verify the rate performance gain from augmented DoF, three closed-form beamforming methods, null-space projection plus maximize transmit power and maximize receive power (NSP-MTP-MRP), Schmidt orthogonalization plus minimum mean square error (SO-MMSE) and two-layer leakage plus MMSE (TLL-MMSE) are proposed to achieve the maximum DoF. Simulation results shows that IRS does make a dramatic rate enhancement. For example, in a serious deficient channel, the sum-rate of the proposed TLL-MMSE aided by IRS is about twice that of no IRS. This means that IRS may achieve a significant DoF improvement in such a channel.

Hybrid Precoding with Per-Beam Timing Advance for Asynchronous Cell-free mmWave Massive MIMO-OFDM Systems

Cell-free massive multiple-input-multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) is regarded as one of the promising technologies for next-generation wireless networks. However, due to its distributed architecture, geographically separated access points (APs) jointly serve a large number of user-equipments (UEs), there will inevitably be a discrepancies in the arrival time of transmitted signals. In this paper, we investigate millimeter-wave (mmWave) CF-mMIMO orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems with asynchronous reception in a wide area coverage scenario, where asynchronous timing offsets may extend far beyond the cyclic prefix (CP) range. A comprehensive asynchronous beam-domain signal transmission model is presented for mmWave CF-mMIMO-OFDM systems in both downlink and uplink, incorporating phase offset, inter-carrier interference (ICI) and inter-symbol interference (ISI). To address the issue of asynchronous reception, we propose a novel per-beam timing advance (PBTA) hybrid precoding architecture and analyze the spectral efficiency (SE) in the beam domain for downlink and uplink asynchronous receptions. Both scalable centralized and distributed implementations are taken into account, and the asynchronous delay phase is utilized to design precoding/combining vectors. Furthermore, we formulate the sum rate maximization problem and develop two low-complexity joint beam selection and UE association algorithms considering the impact of asynchronous timing offset exceeding the CP range. Simulation results demonstrate that the performance will be severely limited by ICI and ISI, and our proposed PBTA hybrid precoding architecture effectively mitigates asynchronous interference compared to the nearest AAU/UE-based timing-advance scheme. Additionally, numerical results show that our proposed low-complexity joint beam selection and UE association algorithms achieve superior SE performance.

Generative Semantic Communications with Foundation Models: Perception-Error Analysis and Semantic-Aware Power Allocation

Generative foundation models can revolutionize the design of semantic communication (SemCom) systems allowing high fidelity exchange of semantic information at ultra low rates. In this work, a generative SemCom framework with pretrained foundation models is proposed, where both uncoded forward-with-error and coded discard-with-error schemes are developed for the semantic decoder. To characterize the impact of transmission reliability on the perceptual quality of the regenerated signal, their mathematical relationship is analyzed from a rate-distortion-perception perspective, which is proved to be non-decreasing. The semantic values are defined to measure the semantic information of multimodal semantic features accordingly. We also investigate semantic-aware power allocation problems aiming at power consumption minimization for ultra low rate and high fidelity SemComs. To solve these problems, two semantic-aware power allocation methods are proposed by leveraging the non-decreasing property of the perception-error relationship. Numerically, perception-error functions and semantic values of semantic data streams under both schemes for image tasks are obtained based on the Kodak dataset. Simulation results show that our proposed semanticaware method significantly outperforms conventional approaches, particularly in the channel-coded case (up to 90% power saving).

Large Generative Model-assisted Talking-face Semantic Communication System

The rapid development of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) continually unveils the potential of Semantic Communication (SemCom). However, current talking-face SemCom systems still encounter challenges such as low bandwidth utilization, semantic ambiguity, and diminished Quality of Experience (QoE). This study introduces a Large Generative Model-assisted Talking-face Semantic Communication (LGM-TSC) System tailored for the talking-face video communication. Firstly, we introduce a Generative Semantic Extractor (GSE) at the transmitter based on the FunASR model to convert semantically sparse talking-face videos into texts with high information density. Secondly, we establish a private Knowledge Base (KB) based on the Large Language Model (LLM) for semantic disambiguation and correction, complemented by a joint knowledge base-semantic-channel coding scheme. Finally, at the receiver, we propose a Generative Semantic Reconstructor (GSR) that utilizes BERT-VITS2 and SadTalker models to transform text back into a high-QoE talking-face video matching the user's timbre. Simulation results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed LGM-TSC system.

Enhanced channel estimation for near-field IRS-aided multi-user MIMO system via deep residual network

In this paper, channel estimation (CE) of intelligent reflecting surface aided near-field (NF) multi-user communication is investigated. Initially, the least square (LS) estimator and minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimator for the estimated channel are designed, and their mean square errors (MSEs) are derived. Subsequently, to fully harness the potential of deep residual networks (DRNs) in denoising, the above CE problem is reconceptualized as a denoising task, and a DRN-driven NF CE (DRN-NFCE) framework is proposed, and the Cram$\acute{e}$r-Rao lower bound (CRLB) is derived to serve as a benchmark for performance evaluation. In addition, to effectively capture and leverage these diverse channel features, a federated learning (FL) based global DRN-NFCE network, namely FL-DRN-NFCE, is constructed through collaborative training and joint optimization of single region DRN-NFCE (SR-DRN-NFCE) networks in different user regions. Here, users are divided into multiple regions. Correspondingly, a user region classifier based on convolutional neural network is designed to achieve the goal of matching datasets from different user regions to the corresponding SR-DRN-NFCE network. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed FL-DRN-NFCE framework outperforms LS, MMSE, and no residual connections in terms of MSE, and the proposed FL-DRN-NFCE method has higher CE accuracy over the SR-DRN-NFCE method.

Performance Analysis of Local Partial MMSE Precoding Based User-Centric Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems and Deployment Optimization

Cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, leveraging tight cooperation among wireless access points, exhibit remarkable signal enhancement and interference suppression capabilities, demonstrating significant performance advantages over traditional cellular networks. This paper investigates the performance and deployment optimization of a user-centric scalable cell-free massive MIMO system with imperfect channel information over correlated Rayleigh fading channels. Based on the large-dimensional random matrix theory, this paper presents the deterministic equivalent of the ergodic sum rate for this system when applying the local partial minimum mean square error (LP-MMSE) precoding method, along with its derivative with respect to the channel correlation matrix. Furthermore, utilizing the derivative of the ergodic sum rate, this paper designs a Barzilai-Borwein based gradient descent method to improve system deployment. Simulation experiments demonstrate that under various parameter settings and large-scale antenna configurations, the deterministic equivalent of the ergodic sum rate accurately approximates the Monte Carlo ergodic sum rate of the system. Furthermore, the deployment optimization algorithm effectively enhances the ergodic sum rate of this system by optimizing the positions of access points.

Enhanced DOA Estimation via Hybrid Massive MIMO Receive Array with Switches-based Sparse Architecture

Hybrid massive arrays have been widely used in direction of arrival (DOA) estimation for it can provide larger aperture with lower hardware complexity. However, as the signals received by a hybrid array are compressed by the phase shifter network or the switch network, the degree of freedom (DOF) or spatial resolution of hybrid array is lower than fully-digital (FD) array with same number of antennas. Therefore, we develop a novel sparse hybrid array called switches-based sparse hybrid array (SW-SHA) which by combining nested array and switches-based hybrid array to achieve a huge improvement on DOF over traditional hybrid arrays. Simulations of the spatial spectrums verify that SW-SHA can accurately solve the problem of DOA estimation with the number of signal sources much larger than the number of RF chains. Finally, to further improve the accuracy of DOA estimation for SW-SHA, MMV-SW-SHA is proposed by transforming the single-snapshot co-array signal into MMV form. The simulation results also show that MMV-SW-SHA has better performance than SW-SHA when signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is low.

Addressing the Mutual Interference in Uplink ISAC Receivers: A Projection Method

Dual function radar and communication (DFRC) is a promising research direction within integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), improving hardware and spectrum efficiency by merging sensing and communication (S&C) functionalities into a shared platform. However, the DFRC receiver (DFRC-R) is tasked with both uplink communication signal detection and simultaneously target-related parameter estimation from the echoes, leading to issues with mutual interference. In this paper, a projection-based scheme is proposed to equivalently transform the joint signal detection and target estimation problem into a joint signal detection process across multiple snapshots. Compared with conventional successive interference cancellation (SIC) schemes, our proposed approach achieves a higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and a higher ergodic rate when the radar signal is non-negligible. Nonetheless, it introduces an ill-conditioned signal detection problem, which is addressed using a non-linear detector. By jointly processing an increased number of snapshots, the proposed scheme can achieve high S&C performance simultaneously.

Augmenting Channel Simulator and Semi- Supervised Learning for Efficient Indoor Positioning

This work aims to tackle the labor-intensive and resource-consuming task of indoor positioning by proposing an efficient approach. The proposed approach involves the introduction of a semi-supervised learning (SSL) with a biased teacher (SSLB) algorithm, which effectively utilizes both labeled and unlabeled channel data. To reduce measurement expenses, unlabeled data is generated using an updated channel simulator (UCHS), and then weighted by adaptive confidence values to simplify the tuning of hyperparameters. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed strategy achieves superior performance while minimizing measurement overhead and training expense compared to existing benchmarks, offering a valuable and practical solution for indoor positioning.