Human genome studies and intellectual property rights: Whither national interests?

India has been acknowledged as a large reservoir of nature's random mutation, an original 'rich' source of knowledge in the context of international genome studies. Human genome knowledge and the possible understanding of the basis of uniqueness of each individual in chemical terms has presented a number of inescapable challenges to our own jurisprudence philosophies and our ethical sensibilities.

Intra and Inter-Molecular Communications Through Protein Structure Network

Communication within and across proteins is crucial for the biological functioning of proteins. Experiments such as mutational studies on proteins provide important information on the amino acids, which are crucial for their function. However, the protein structures are complex and it is unlikely that the entire responsibility of the function rests on only a few amino acids. A large fraction of the protein is expected to participate in its function at some level or other. Thus, it is relevant to consider the protein structures as a completely connected network and then deduce the properties, which are related to the global network features. In this direction, our laboratory has been engaged in representing the protein structure as a network of non-covalent connections and we have investigated a variety of problems in structural biology, such as the identification of functional and folding clusters, determinants of quaternary association and characterization of the network properties of protein structures. We have also addressed a few important issues related to protein dynamics, such as the process of oligomerization in multimers, mechanism on protein folding, and ligand induced communications (allosteric effect). In this review we highlight some of the investigations which we have carried out in the recent past. A review on protein structure graphs was presented earlier, in which the focus was on the graphs and graph spectral properties and their implementation in the study of protein structure graphs/networks (PSN). In this article, we briefly summarize the relevant parts of the methodology and the focus is on the advancement brought out in the understanding of protein structure-function relationships through structure networks. The investigations of structural/biological problems are divided into two parts, in which the first part deals with the analysis of PSNs based on static structures obtained from x-ray crystallography. The second part highlights the changes in the network, associated with biological functions, which are deduced from the network analysis on the structures obtained from molecular dynamics simulations.

Soft condensed matter -A special issue of solid state communications -Foreword

It is a policy of Solid State Communications’ Executive Editorial Board to organize special issues from time to time on topics of current interests. The present issue focuses on soft condensed matter, a rapidly developing and diverse area of importance not only for the basic science, but also for its potential applications. The ten articles in this issue are intended to give the readers a snapshot of some latest developments in soft condensed matter, mainly from the point of view of basic science. As the special issues are intended for a broad audience, most articles are short reviews that introduce the readers to the relevant topics. Hence this special issue can be especially helpful to readers who might not be specialists in this area but would like to have a quick grasp on some of the interesting research directions.

Elliptic slot antenna for broadband wireless communications

This paper presents the design of a broadband antenna suitable for wireless communications operating over the frequency range of 3.1-10.6 GHz. Parametric studies on the effect of stub and elliptic slot have been carried out to arrive at optimum dimensions to achieve enhanced bandwidth of the proposed antenna. An experimental antenna has been designed and tested to validate the proposed design. Measured return loss characteristics have been compared against the simulation results. Simulated radiation patterns at 3.1 GHz, 6.85 GHz and 10.6 GHz have also been presented in this paper.

Advances in base- and mobile-station aided cooperative wireless communications : An overview

In recent years, there has been an upsurge of research interest in cooperative wireless communications in both academia and industry. This article presents a simple overview of the pivotal topics in both mobile station (MS)- and base station (BS)- assisted cooperation in the context of cellular radio systems. Owing to the ever-increasing amount of literature in this particular field, this article is by no means exhaustive, but is intended to serve as a roadmap by assembling a representative sample of recent results and to stimulate further research. The emphasis is initially on relay-base cooperation, relying on network coding, followed by the design of cross-layer cooperative protocols conceived for MS cooperation and the concept of coalition network element (CNE)-assisted BS cooperation. Then, a range of complexity and backhaul traffic reduction techniques that have been proposed for BS cooperation are reviewed. A more detailed discussion is provided in the context of MS cooperation concerning the pros and cons of dispensing with high-complexity, power-hungry channel estimation. Finally, generalized design guidelines, conceived for cooperative wireless communications, are presented.