Blood pressure evaluation using sphygmomanometry assisted by arterial pulse waveform detection by fiber Bragg grating pulse device

We report a blood pressure evaluation methodology by recording the radial arterial pulse waveform in real time using a fiber Bragg grating pulse device (FBGPD). Here, the pressure responses of the arterial pulse in the form of beat-to-beat pulse amplitude and arterial diametrical variations are monitored. Particularly, the unique signatures of pulse pressure variations have been recorded in the arterial pulse waveform, which indicate the systolic and diastolic blood pressure while the patient is subjected to the sphygmomanometric blood pressure examination. The proposed method of blood pressure evaluation using FBGPD has been validated with the auscultatory method of detecting the acoustic pulses (Korotkoff sounds) by an electronic stethoscope. (C) 2013 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)

Device Fabrication of insoluble donor-acceptor-donor structured molecule by pulsed laser deposition- A comparative study using different laser source

Many of the conducting polymers though having good material property are not solution processable. Hence an alternate method of fabrication of film by pulsed laser deposition, was explored in this work. PDTCPA, a donor-acceptor-donor type of polymer having absorption from 900 nm to 300 nm was deposited by both UV and IR laser to understand the effect of deposition parameters on the film quality. It was observed that the laser ablation of PDTCPA doesn't alter its chemical structure hence retaining the chemical integrity of the polymer. Microscopic studies of the ablated film shows that the IR laser ablated films were particulate in nature while UV laser ablated films are deposited as smooth continuous layer. The morphology of the film influences its electrical characteristics as current-voltage characteristic of these films shows that films deposited by UV laser are p rectifying while those by IR laser are more of resistor in nature.

Electrical switching in amorphous Si-Te-Ge thin films: Impact of input energy on crystallization process and switching parameters

Electrical switching studies on amorphous Si15Te74Ge11 thin film devices show interesting changes in the switching behavior with changes in the input energy supplied; the input energy determines the extent of crystallization in the active volume, which is reflected in the value of SET resistances. This in turn, determines the trend exhibited by switching voltage (V-t) for different input conditions. The results obtained are analyzed on the basis of the amount of Joule heat generated, which determines the temperature of the active volume. Depending on the final temperature, devices are rendered either in the intermediate state with a resistance of 5*10(2) Omega or the ON state with a resistance of 5*10(1) Omega. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Wide Voltage Input Receiver with Hysteresis Characteristic to Reduce Input Signal Noise Effect

In this paper, an input receiver with a hysteresis characteristic that can work at voltage levels between 0.9 V and 5 V is proposed. The input receiver can be used as a wide voltage range Schmitt trigger also. At the same time, reliable circuit operation is ensured. According to the research findings, this is the first time a wide voltage range Schmitt trigger is being reported. The proposed circuit is compared with previously reported input receivers, and it is shown that the circuit has better noise immunity. The proposed input receiver ends the need for a separate Schmitt trigger and input buffer. The frequency of operation is also higher than that of the previously reported receiver. The circuit is simulated using HSPICE at 035-mu m standard thin oxide technology. Monte Carlo analysis is conducted at different process conditions, showing that the proposed circuit works well for different process conditions at different voltage levels of operation. A noise impulse of (V-CC/2) magnitude is added to the input voltage to show that the receiver receives the correct logic level even in the presence of noise. Here, V-CC is the fixed voltage supply of 3.3 V.

Maximum likelihood algorithms for joint estimation of synchronisation impairments and channel in multiple input multiple output-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system

Maximum likelihood (ML) algorithms, for the joint estimation of synchronisation impairments and channel in multiple input multiple output-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) system, are investigated in this work. A system model that takes into account the effects of carrier frequency offset, sampling frequency offset, symbol timing error and channel impulse response is formulated. Cramer-Rao lower bounds for the estimation of continuous parameters are derived, which show the coupling effect among different impairments and the significance of the joint estimation. The authors propose an ML algorithm for the estimation of synchronisation impairments and channel together, using the grid search method. To reduce the complexity of the joint grid search in the ML algorithm, a modified ML (MML) algorithm with multiple one-dimensional searches is also proposed. Further, a stage-wise ML (SML) algorithm using existing algorithms, which estimate less number of parameters, is also proposed. Performance of the estimation algorithms is studied through numerical simulations and it is found that the proposed ML and MML algorithms exhibit better performance than SML algorithm.

Design Of Start-up Power Circuit For Control Power Supplies With Wide Input Voltage Variation

This paper presents the design of a start up power circuit for a control power supply (CPS) which feeds power to the sub-systems of High Power Converters (HPC). The sub-systems such as gate drive card, annunciation card, protection and delay card etc; needs to be provided power for the operation of a HPC. The control power supply (CPS) is designed to operate over a wide range of input voltage from 90Vac to 270Vac. The CPS output supplies power at a desired voltage of Vout =24V to the auxiliary sub-systems of the HPC. During the starting, the power supply to the control circuitry of CPS in turn, is obtained using a separate start-up power supply. This paper discusses the various design issues of the start-up power circuit to ensure that start-up and shut down of the CPS occurs reliably. The CPS also maintains the power factor close to unity and low total harmonic distortion in input current. The paper also provides design details of gate drive circuits employed for the CPS as well as the design of on-board power supply for the CPS. Index terms: control power supply, start-up power supply, DSFC, pre-regulator

A Reduced Device-Count Hybrid Multilevel Inverter Topology with single DC Source and Improved Fault Tolerance

A new hybrid multilevel power converter topology is presented in this paper. The proposed power converter topology uses only one DC source and floating capacitors charged to asymmetrical voltage levels, are used for generating different voltage levels. The SVPWM based control strategy used in this converter maintains the capacitor voltages at the required levels in the entire modulation range including the over-modulation region. For the voltage levels: nine and above, the number of components required in the proposed topology is significantly lower, compared to the conventional multilevel inverter topologies. The number of capacitors required in this topology reduces drastically compared to the conventional flying capacitor topology, when the number of levels in the inverter output increases. This topology has better fault tolerance, as it is capable of operating with reduced number of levels, in the entire modulation range, in the event of any failure in the H-bridges. The transient as well as the steady state performance of the nine-level version of the proposed topology is experimentally verified in the entire modulation range including the over-modulation region.

Achievable rate region of gaussian broadcast channel with finite input alphabet and quantized output

In this paper, we study the achievable rate region of two-user Gaussian broadcast channel (GBC) when the messages to be transmitted to both the users take values from finite signal sets and the received signal is quantized at both the users. We refer to this channel as quantized broadcast channel (QBC). We first observe that the capacity region defined for a GBC does not carry over as such to QBC. Also, we show that the optimal decoding scheme for GBC (i.e., high SNR user doing successive decoding and low SNR user decoding its message alone) is not optimal for QBC. We then propose an achievable rate region for QBC based on two different schemes. We present achievable rate region results for the case of uniform quantization at the receivers. We find that rotation of one of the user's input alphabet with respect to the other user's alphabet marginally enlarges the achievable rate region of QBC when almost equal powers are allotted to both the users.

Organic device electrode fabricated by aluminum in nanopowder and bulk form and effect on device properties

Schottky barrier devices of metal/semiconductor/metal structure were fabricated using organic semiconductor polyaniline (PANI) and aluminium thin film cathode. Aluminium contacts were made by thermal evaporation technique using two different forms of metals (bulk and nanopowder). The structure and surface morphology of these films were investigated by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Grain size of the as-deposited films obtained by Scherrer's method, modified Williamson-Hall method, and SEM were found to be different. Current-voltage (I-V) characteristic of Schottky barrier device structure indicates that the calculated current density (J) for device fabricated from aluminium nanopowder is more than that from aluminium in bulk form.

Optimum steering input determination and path-tracking of all-wheel steer vehicles on uneven terrains based on constrained optimization

In this paper we propose a framework for optimum steering input determination of all-wheel steer vehicles (AWSV) on rough terrains. The framework computes the steering input which minimizes the tracking error for a given trajectory. Unlike previous methodologies of computing steering inputs of car-like vehicles, the proposed methodology depends explicitly on the vehicle dynamics and can be extended to vehicle having arbitrary number of steering inputs. A fully generic framework has been used to derive the vehicle dynamics and a non-linear programming based constrained optimization approach has been used to compute the steering input considering the instantaneous vehicle dynamics, no-slip and contact constraints of the vehicle. All Wheel steer Vehicles have a special parallel steering ability where the instantaneous centre of rotation (ICR) is at infinity. The proposed framework automatically enables the vehicle to choose between parallel steer and normal operation depending on the error with respect to the desired trajectory. The efficacy of the proposed framework is proved by extensive uneven terrain simulations, for trajectories with continuous or discontinuous velocity profile.

Vertically aligned ZnO nanorods on flexible substrates for multifunctional device applications: Easy and cost-effective route

Zinc oxide nanorods (ZnO NRs) have been synthesized on flexible substrates by adopting a new and novel three-step process. The as-grown ZnO NRs are vertically aligned and have excellent chemical stoichiometry between its constituents. The transmission electron microscopic studies show that these NR structures are single crystalline and grown along the < 001 > direction. The optical studies show that these nanostructures have a direct optical band gap of about 3.34 eV. Therefore, the proposed methodology for the synthesis of vertically aligned NRs on flexible sheets launches a new route in the development of low-cost flexible devices. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Low-Cost Cloud-Based Design of Smart Rural Energy Device in Microgrid: Perspective India An Energy-On-Demand Service for Rural India

In this paper we present a combination of technologies to provide an Energy-on-Demand (EoD) service to enable low cost innovation suitable for microgrid networks. The system is designed around the low cost and simple Rural Energy Device (RED) Box which in combination with Short Message Service (SMS) communication methodology serves as an elementary proxy for Smart meters which are typically used in urban settings. Further, customer behavior and familiarity in using such devices based on mobile experience has been incorporated into the design philosophy. Customers are incentivized to interact with the system thus providing valuable behavioral and usage data to the Utility Service Provider (USP). Data that is collected over time can be used by the USP for analytics envisioned by using remote computing services known as cloud computing service. Cloud computing allows for a sharing of computational resources at the virtual level across several networks. The customer-system interaction is facilitated by a third party Telecom Service provider (TSP). The approximate cost of the RED Box is envisaged to be under USD 10 on production scale.

Effect of Input Source Energy on SASW Evaluation of Cement Concrete Pavement

A series of spectral analyses of surface waves (SASW) tests were conducted on a cement concrete pavement by dropping steel balls of four different values of diameter (D) varying between 25.4 and 76.2 mm. These tests were performed (1) by using different combinations of source to nearest receiver distance (S) and receiver spacing (X), and (2) for two different heights (H) of fall, namely, 0.25 and 0.50 m. The values of the maximum wavelength (lambda(max)) and minimum wavelength (lambda(min)) associated with the combined dispersion curve, corresponding to a particular combination of D and H, were noted to increase almost linearly with an increase in the magnitude of the input source energy (E). A continuous increase in strength and duration of the signals was noted to occur with an increase in the magnitude of D. Based on statistical analysis, two regression equations have been proposed to determine lambda(max) and lambda(min) for different values of source energy. It is concluded that the SASW technique is capable of producing nearly a unique dispersion curve irrespective of (1) diameters and heights of fall of the dropping masses used for producing the vibration, and (2) the spacing between different receivers. The results presented in this paper can be used to provide guidelines for deciding about the input source energy based on the required exploration zone of the pavement. (C) 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Specroelectrochemical, Switching Kinetics, and Chronoamperometric Studies of Dibenzyl Derivative of Poly(3,4-propylenedioxythiophene) Thin-Film-Based Electrochromic Device

The dibenzyl derivative of poly(3,4-propylenedioxythiophene) (PProDOT-Bz(2)) thin film is deposited onto ITO-coated glass substrate by electropolymerization technique. The electropolymerization of ProDOT-Bz(2) is carried out by a three-electrode electrochemical cell. The cyclic voltammogram shows the redox properties of electrochemically prepared films deposited at different scan rates. The thin films prepared were characterized for its morphological properties to study the homogeniety. Classic six-layer structure of PProDOT-Bz(2) electrochromic device using this material was fabricated and reported for the first and its characterizations such as spectroelectrochemical, switching kinetics, and chronoamperometric studies are performed. The color contrast of the thin film and the device achieved are 64 and 40%, respectively, at lambda(max) (628 nm). The switching time is recorded and the observed values are 5 s from the coloring state to the bleaching state and vice versa. The chronoamperometry shows that the device performed up to 400 cycles, and it is capable of working up to 35 cycles without any degradation. (C) 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Quantitative Strain and Compositional Studies of InxGa1-xAs Epilayer in a GaAs-based pHEMT Device Structure by TEM Techniques

In GaAs-based pseudomorphic high-electron mobility transistor device structures, strain and composition of the InxGa1 (-) As-x channel layer are very important as they influence the electronic properties of these devices. In this context, transmission electron microscopy techniques such as (002) dark-field imaging, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) imaging, scanning transmission electron microscopy-high angle annular dark field (STEM-HAADF) imaging and selected area diffraction, are useful. A quantitative comparative study using these techniques is relevant for assessing the merits and limitations of the respective techniques. In this article, we have investigated strain and composition of the InxGa1 (-) As-x layer with the mentioned techniques and compared the results. The HRTEM images were investigated with strain state analysis. The indium content in this layer was quantified by HAADF imaging and correlated with STEM simulations. The studies showed that the InxGa1 (-) As-x channel layer was pseudomorphically grown leading to tetragonal strain along the 001] growth direction and that the average indium content (x) in the epilayer is similar to 0.12. We found consistency in the results obtained using various methods of analysis.