1. A method for site diversity combining, comprising the steps of:
receiving a transmitted signal at at least two receive sites, the transmitted signal includes coded symbols;
translating, at a first receive site of the at least two receive sites, sampled symbol values from the coded symbols of the transmitted signal into a stream of first soft-decision values from the transmitted signal, the first soft-decision values being first log likelihood ratio values;
translating, at at least one other receive site of the at least two receive sites, sampled symbol values from the coded symbols of the transmitted signal into a stream of second soft-decision values from the transmitted signal, wherein the second soft-decision values are second log likelihood ratio values;
connecting to the at least one other receive site of the at least two receive sites that provides data for the stream of second soft-decision values from the transmitted signal;
digitally synchronizing the stream of first soft-decision values and the stream of second soft-decision values; and
combining the first soft-decision values and the second soft-decision values into combined soft-decision values for each coded symbol of the transmitted signal.
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:
separating the receive sites far enough to decorrelate weather phenomena between the receive sites.
3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:
connecting the receive sites via a ground link.
4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:
sending the sampled symbol values of coded symbols via a ground link between the receive sites.
5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:
sending the soft-decision values via a ground link between the receive sites.
6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:
transmitting the signal using bandwidth efficient modulation.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the combining step averages the first log likelihood ratio values for a coded symbol of the transmitted signal with the second log likelihood ratio values for the coded symbol of the transmitted signal to provide the combined soft-decision values for the each coded symbol of the transmitted signal.
8. The method of claim 7, further comprising the step of:
decoding data from the transmitted signal using the combined soft-decision values for the each coded symbol of the transmitted to signal to produce a set of decoded bit values from the coded symbol of the transmitted signal, the combined soft-decision values being averaged combined log likelihood ratio values.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the data for the stream of second soft-decision values include the second soft-decision values.
10. A method for site diversity combining, comprising the steps of:
receiving, at a first receiver located at a first receive site, a modulated carrier signal transmitting a coded symbol;
receiving, at a second receiver located at a second receive site, the modulated carrier signal transmitting the coded symbol, wherein at least one of the first and second receive sites is connected via at least one ground link;
producing, using a first demodulator, a first sampled symbol value from the coded symbol;
producing, using a second demodulator, a second sampled symbol value from the coded symbol;
translating, using a first soft-decision computation module, the first sampled symbol value into a first set of soft-decision values for the coded symbol;
translating, using a second soft-decision computation module, the second sampled symbol value into a second set of soft-decision values for the coded symbol that are digitally synchronized with the first set of soft-decision values, wherein the first soft-decision computation module and the second soft-decision computation module are at a same receive site and sampled symbol values are sent between the first and second receive sites via the at least one ground link; and
combining, using a soft-decision combining module, the first set of soft-decision values and the second set of soft-decision values to produce a set of combined soft-decision values for the coded symbol, wherein data is sent from at least one of the first and second receive sites to the soft-decision combining module via the ground link so that the first set of soft-decision values and the second set of soft-decision values are provided to the soft-decision combining module.
11. A method of claim 10, further comprising:
producing a set of decoded bit values for the coded symbol using a decoder connected to the soft-decision combining module.
12. A method of claim 10, wherein the first sampled symbol value is a pair I,Q of values, wherein I is an in-phase value and Q is a quadrature value determining the location of the coded symbol in a phase plane.
13. A method of claim 10, wherein the first soft-decision computation module translates an I,Q pair of the first sampled symbol value from the coded symbol into the first set of soft-decision values that are n-bit representations of the likelihood of each bit of a bit mapping for a modulation scheme of the modulated carrier signal transmitting the coded symbol.
14. A method for site diversity combining, comprising:
transmitting, using a transmitter that is located on a satellite, a coded symbol via a modulated carrier signal, using a bit mapping of coded symbols to a modulation scheme, over a combined link comprising at least two links, including a first link and a second link;
connecting, via the first link, a first receive site to the transmitter, the first receive site including a first receiver that receives the modulated carrier signal and a first demodulator that demodulates the modulated carrier signal and produces a first sampled symbol value I,Q pair from the coded symbol;
connecting, via the second link, a second receive site to the transmitter, the second receive site including a second receiver that receives the modulated carrier signal and a second demodulator that demodulates the modulated carrier signal and produces a second sampled symbol value I,Q pair from the coded symbol, wherein the first receive site and the second receive site are separated from each other by a distance that allows decorrelation of weather phenomena;
the first receive site and the second receive site being connected via a ground link to provide the first sampled symbol value I,Q pair and the second sampled symbol value I,Q pair to a joint soft-decision computation module to compute a combined soft-decision output value for the coded symbol; and
receiving, by a decoder that is connected to the joint soft-decision computation module, the combined soft-decision output value and producing a set of decoded bit values for the coded symbol.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein the transmitter uses bandwidth efficient modulation; and the modulation scheme is chosen from quadrature amplitude modulation, quadrature phase shift keying, binary phase shift keying, and amplitude phase keying.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
We claim:
1. Modified human ciliary neurotrophic factor having the modification Cys17Ala, Gln63Arg, and a deletion of the terminal 15 amino acid residues.
2. An isolated nucleic acid molecule encoding the modified human ciliary neurotrophic factor of claim 1.
3. A recombinant DNA molecule of claim 2, operatively linked to an expression control sequence.
4. A host cell transformed with the recombinant DNA molecule of claim 3.
5. A method for producing a modified ciliary neurotrophic factor molecule comprising: (a) growing a recombinant host cell containing the DNA molecule of claim 3, so that the DNA molecule is expressed by the host cell to produce the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor molecule and (b) isolating the expressed, modified ciliary neurotrophic factor molecule.
6. The method according to claim 5, wherein said host cell is a eukaryotic cell.
7. The method according to claim 5, wherein said host cell is a prokaryotic cell.
8. A composition comprising the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor molecule of claim 1, and a carrier.
9. A method of treating a disease or disorder of the nervous system comprising administering the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor of claim 1.
10. The method according to claim 9, wherein said disease or disorder is a degenerative disease.
11. The method according to claim 9, wherein said disease or disorder involves the spinal cord, motor neurons, cholinergic neurons or cells of the hippocampus.
12. The method according to claim 9, in which the disease or disorder of the nervous system comprises damage to the nervous system caused by an event selected from the group consisting of trauma, surgery, infarction, infection, malignancy and exposure to a toxic agent.
13. The method according to claim 9, wherein said disease or disorder involves muscle atrophy.
14. A method of protecting striatal neurons from degeneration comprising treating said striatal neurons with an effective amount of the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor of claim 1.
15. A method of treating Huntington’s disease comprising direct administration to the central nervous system of the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor of claim 1.
16. A method of inducing weight loss in a mammal comprising administration of the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor of claim 1.
17. The method of claim 16, wherein the mammal is a human.
18. The method claim 17, used in the treatment of morbid obesity or obesity of a genetically determined origin.
19. A method of preventing the occurrence of gestational or adult onset diabetes in a human comprising administration of the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor of claim 1.
20. A method of treating gestational or adult onset diabetes in a human comprising administration of the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor of claim 1.
21. The method according to any one of claims 15 to 20, wherein said administration is via a route of delivery selected from the group consisting of intravenous, subcutaneous, intramuscular, intrathecal, intracerebroventricular and intraparenchymal.
22. The method according to any one of claims 15 to 20, wherein said administration is via implantation of cells that release the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor.