Articles of manufacture, apparatuses, and methods for processing communications between a control unit and a channel subsystem in an inputoutput processing system are disclosed. A specific example embodiment is directed to the computation of the SIR in a system, such as the 3GPP system, where PCCPCH data is multiplexed with SCH data in the downlink from the base station. An occlusion device is also described which comprises an embolic element and a polymeric pre-formed component.