BER Analysis of Uplink OFDMA in the Presence of Carrier Frequency and Timing Offsets on Rician Fading Channels

In orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) on the uplink, the carrier frequency offsets (CFOs) and/or timing offsets (TOs) of other users with respect to a desired user can cause multiuser interference (MUI). Analytically evaluating the effect of these CFO/TO-induced MUI on the bit error rate (BER) performance is of interest. In this paper, we analyze the BER performance of uplink OFDMA in the presence of CFOs and TOs on Rician fading channels. A multicluster multipath channel model that is typical in indoor/ultrawideband and underwater acoustic channels is considered. Analytical BER expressions that quantify the degradation in BER due to the combined effect of both CFOs and TOs in uplink OFDMA with M-state quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) are derived. Analytical and simulation BER results are shown to match very well. The derived BER expressions are shown to accurately quantify the performance degradation due to nonzero CFOs and TOs, which can serve as a useful tool in OFDMA system design.

A novel free floating accelerometer force balance system for shock tunnel applications

In order to overcome the interference of the model mounting system with the external aerodynamics of the body during shock tunnel testing, a new free floating internally mountable balance system that ensures unrestrained model motion during testing has been designed, fabricated and tested. Minimal friction ball bearings are used for ensuring the free floating condition of the model during tunnel testing. The drag force acting on a blunt leading edge flat plate at hypersonic Mach number has been measured using the new balance system. Finite element model (FEM) and CFD are exhaustively used in the design as well as for calibrating the new balance system. The experimentally measured drag force on the blunt leading edge flat plate at stagnation enthalpy of 0.7 and 1.2 MJ/kg and nominal Mach number of 5.75 matches well with FEM results. The concept can also be extended for measuring all the three fundamental aerodynamic forces in short duration test facilities like free piston driven shock tunnels.

A Long Memory Process Based Parametric Modeling and Recognition of PD Signal

We address the problem of recognition and retrieval of relatively weak industrial signal such as Partial Discharges (PD) buried in excessive noise. The major bottleneck being the recognition and suppression of stochastic pulsive interference (PI) which has similar time-frequency characteristics as PD pulse. Therefore conventional frequency based DSP techniques are not useful in retrieving PD pulses. We employ statistical signal modeling based on combination of long-memory process and probabilistic principal component analysis (PPCA). An parametric analysis of the signal is exercised for extracting the features of desired pules. We incorporate a wavelet based bootstrap method for obtaining the noise training vectors from observed data. The procedure adopted in this work is completely different from the research work reported in the literature, which is generally based on deserved signal frequency and noise frequency.

Enhancing Speedup in Network Processing Applications by Exploiting Instruction Reuse with Flow Aggregation

Instruction reuse is a microarchitectural technique that improves the execution time of a program by removing redundant computations at run-time. Although this is the job of an optimizing compiler, they do not succeed many a time due to limited knowledge of run-time data. In this paper we examine instruction reuse of integer ALU and load instructions in network processing applications. Specifically, this paper attempts to answer the following questions: (1) How much of instruction reuse is inherent in network processing applications?, (2) Can reuse be improved by reducing interference in the reuse buffer?, (3) What characteristics of network applications can be exploited to improve reuse?, and (4) What is the effect of reuse on resource contention and memory accesses? We propose an aggregation scheme that combines the high-level concept of network traffic i.e. "flows" with a low level microarchitectural feature of programs i.e. repetition of instructions and data along with an architecture that exploits temporal locality in incoming packet data to improve reuse. We find that for the benchmarks considered, 1% to 50% of instructions are reused while the speedup achieved varies between 1% and 24%. As a side effect, instruction reuse reduces memory traffic and can therefore be considered as a scheme for low power.

Effect of power line filter on MOV clamping voltage

Metal oxide varistors (MOV) are popularly used to protect offline electronic equipment against power line transients. The offline switched mode power supplies (SMPS) use power line filters and MOVs in the front-end. The power line filter is used to reduce the conducted noise emission into the power line and the MOVs connected before this line filter and the MOVs connected before this line filter to clamp line transients to safer levels thereby protecting the SMPS. Because of the presence of 'X' capacitors at the input of line filter the MOV clamping voltage is increased. This paper presents one such case and gives theoretical and experimental results. An approximate method to predetermine the magnitude of such clamping voltages is also presented.

Pressure induced phase transition in metallic LaB6: A Raman study

We report high pressure Raman studies on single crystals of metallic LaB6 upto a pressure of 16.$ GPa. Raman spectra shows three lines at 680 cm(-1) (T-2g), 1120 cm(-1) (E-g) and 1258 cm(-1) (A(1g)), associated with the internal modes of B-6 molecule. The T-2g mode shows an asymmetric Fano line shape, arising from the interference between the phonon line and the electronic continuum. The line is fitted with I(omega) = I-0(q + epsilon(2))/(I + epsilon(2)) where epsilon = (omega - omega(0))/Gamma, omega(0) is the phonon frequency renormalised due to electron-phonon self energy corrections, Tis the width parameter proportional to the square of the matrix element of the electron-phonon interaction potential. The parameter a signifies the strength of interference. Most interestingly our pressure data for the T-2g mode shows a significant change in the slope of the mode frequency with pressure d omega(0)/dP and Gamma at 9.5 GPa. This clearly indicates that LaB6 undergoes a subtle phase transition at 9.5 GPa within the metallic phase.

External-cavity semiconductor laser sensor

The spectral characteristics of a diode laser are significantly affected due to interference caused between the laser diode output and the optical feedback in the external-cavity. This optical feedback effect is of practical use for linewidth reduction, tuning or for sensing applications. A sensor based on this effect is attractive due to its simplicity, low cost and compactness. This optical sensor has been used so far, in different configuration such as for sensing displacement induced by different parameters. In this paper we report a compact optical sensor consisting of a semiconductor laser coupled to an external cavity. Theoretical analysis of the self- mixing interference for optical sensing applications is given for moderate optical feedback case. A comparison is made with our experimental observations. Experimental results are in good agreement with the simulated power modulation based on self-mixing interference theory. Displacements as small as 10-4 nm have been measured using this sensor. The developed sensor showed a fringe sensitivity of one fringe per 400nm displacement for reflector distance of around 10cms. The sensor has also been tested for magnetic field and temperature induced displacement measurements.

Fatigue crack growth studies on lug joints

Pin loaded lug joints fitted with different types of pins are analysed in the presence of cracks at pin-plate interface. An algorithm for finite element contact stress analysis of joints developed earlier to deal with varying partial contact/separation at the pin-plate interface using a marching solution is used in the present analysis. Stress Intensity Factors (SIF) at the crack tips are evaluated using Modified Crack Closure Integral (MCCI) method within the realm of Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) assumptions. A comparison of fatigue crack growth lives between interference and push fit pin joints is carried out using these SIF's. Results from a finite element analysis on a push fit pin joint are used to fit experimental fatigue crack growth data.

Unzipping and binding of small interfering RNA with single walled carbon nanotube: A platform for small interfering RNA delivery

In an effort to design efficient platform for siRNA delivery, we combine all atom classical and quantum simulations to study the binding of small interfering RNA (siRNA) by pristine single wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT). Our results show that siRNA strongly binds to SWCNT surface via unzipping its base-pairs and the propensity of unzipping increases with the increase in the diameter of the SWCNTs. The unzipping and subsequent wrapping events are initiated and driven by van der Waals interactions between the aromatic rings of siRNA nucleobases and the SWCNT surface. However, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of double strand DNA (dsDNA) of the same sequence show that the dsDNA undergoes much less unzipping and wrapping on the SWCNT in the simulation time scale of 70 ns. This interesting difference is due to smaller interaction energy of thymidine of dsDNA with the SWCNT compared to that of uridine of siRNA, as calculated by dispersion corrected density functional theory (DFT) methods. After the optimal binding of siRNA to SWCNT, the complex is very stable which serves as one of the major mechanisms of siRNA delivery for biomedical applications. Since siRNA has to undergo unwinding process with the effect of RNA-induced silencing complex, our proposed delivery mechanism by SWCNT possesses potential advantages in achieving RNA interference. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3682780]

Efficiency enhancement in DSSC using metal nanoparticles: A size dependent study

The photoelectrode of Eosin-Y sensitised DSSC was modified by incorporating Au-nanoparticles to enhance the power conversion efficiency via scattering from surface plasmon polaritons. Size dependence of Au nanoparticle on conversion efficiency was performed in DSSC for the first time by varying the particle size from 20 to 94 nm. It was found that, the conversion efficiency is highly dependent on the size of the Au nanoparticles. For larger particles (>50 nm), the efficiency was found to be increased due to constructive interference between the transmitted and scattered waves from the Au nanoparticle while for smaller particles, the efficiency decreases due to destructive interference. Also a reduction in the V-oc was observed in general, due to the negative shifting of the TiO2 Fermi level on the adsorption of Au nanoparticle. This shift was negligible for larger particles. When 94 nm size particles were employed the conversion efficiency was doubled from 0.74% to 1.52%. This study points towards the application of the scattering effect of metal nanoparticle to enhance the conversion efficiency in DSSCs. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Low temperature charge transport and microwave absorption of carbon coated iron nanoparticles-polymer composite films

In this paper, the low temperature electrical conductivity and microwave absorption properties of carbon coated iron nanoparticles-polyvinyl chloride composite films are investigated for different filler fractions. The filler particles are prepared by the pyrolysis of ferrocene at 980 degrees C and embedded in polyvinyl chloride matrix. The high resolution transmission electron micrographs of the filler material have shown a 5 nm thin layer graphitic carbon covering over iron particles. The room temperature electrical conductivity of the composite film changes by 10 orders of magnitude with the increase of filler concentration. A percolation threshold of 2.2 and an electromagnetic interference shielding efficiency (EMI SE) of similar to 18.6 dB in 26.5-40 GHz range are observed for 50 wt% loading. The charge transport follows three dimensional variable range hopping conduction. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Lead ion sensor with electrodes modified by imidazole-functionalized polyaniline

Glassy carbon electrodes (GCE) and carbon paste electrodes (CPE) were modified with imidazole functionalized polyaniline with the aim to develop a sensor for lead (II) in both acidic and basic aqueous solution. The electrodes were characterized by cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse adsorptive stripping voltammetry. The limit of detections obtained with glassy carbon electrode and carbon paste electrode are 20 ng mL(-1) and 2 ng mL(-1) of lead ion, respectively. An interference study was carried out with Cd(II), As(III), Hg(II) and Co(II) ions. Cd(II) ions interfere significantly (peak overlap) and As(III) has a depressing effect on the lead signal. The influence of pH was investigated indicating that bare and modified GCE and CPE show optimum response at pH 4.0 +/- 0.05.

Involvement of Src family of kinases and cAMP phosphodiesterase in the luteinizing hormone/chorionic gonadotropin receptor-mediated signaling in the corpus luteum of monkey

Background: In higher primates, during non-pregnant cycles, it is indisputable that circulating LH is essential for maintenance of corpus luteum (CL) function. On the other hand, during pregnancy, CL function gets rescued by the LH analogue, chorionic gonadotropin (CG). The molecular mechanisms involved in the control of luteal function during spontaneous luteolysis and rescue processes are not completely understood. Emerging evidence suggests that LH/CGR activation triggers proliferation and transformation of target cells by various signaling molecules as evident from studies demonstrating participation of Src family of tyrosine kinases (SFKs) and MAP kinases in hCG-mediated actions in Leydig cells. Since circulating LH concentration does not vary during luteal regression, it was hypothesized that decreased responsiveness of luteal cells to LH might occur due to changes in LH/CGR expression dynamics, modulation of SFKs or interference with steroid biosynthesis. Methods: Since, maintenance of structure and function of CL is dependent on the presence of functional LH/CGR its expression dynamics as well as mRNA and protein expressions of SFKs were determined throughout the luteal phase. Employing well characterized luteolysis and CL rescue animal models, activities of SFKs, cAMP phosphodiesterase (cAMP-PDE) and expression of SR-B1 (a membrane receptor associated with trafficking of cholesterol ester) were examined. Also, studies were carried out to investigate the mechanisms responsible for decline in progesterone biosynthesis in CL during the latter part of the non-pregnant cycle. Results and discussion: The decreased responsiveness of CL to LH during late luteal phase could not be accounted for by changes in LH/CGR mRNA levels, its transcript variants or protein. Results obtained employing model systems depicting different functional states of CL revealed increased activity of SFKs pSrc (Y-416)] and PDE as well as decreased expression of SR-B1correlating with initiation of spontaneous luteolysis. However, CG, by virtue of its heroic efforts, perhaps by inhibition of SFKs and PDE activation, prevents CL from undergoing regression during pregnancy. Conclusions: The results indicated participation of activated Src and increased activity of cAMP-PDE in the control of luteal function in vivo. That the exogenous hCG treatment caused decreased activation of Src and cAMP-PDE activity with increased circulating progesterone might explain the transient CL rescue that occurs during early pregnancy.

Conflict-Free Coloring for Rectangle Ranges Using O(n.382) Colors

Given a set of points P ⊆ R2, a conflict-free coloring of P w.r.t. rectangle ranges is an assignment of colors to points of P, such that each nonempty axisparallel rectangle T in the plane contains a point whose color is distinct from all other points in P ∩ T . This notion has been the subject of recent interest and is motivated by frequency assignment in wireless cellular networks: one naturally would like to minimize the number of frequencies (colors) assigned to base stations (points) such that within any range (for instance, rectangle), there is no interference. We show that any set of n points in R2 can be conflict-free colored with O(nβ∗+o(1)) colors in expected polynomial time, where β∗ = 3−√5 2 < 0.382.

Charge transport in functionalized multi-wall carbon nanotube-Nafion composite

The charge transport in sulfonated multi-wall carbon nanotube (sMWNT)-Nafion composite is reported. The scanning electron microscope images of the composite, at 1 and 10 wt % of sMWNT, show that the nanotubes are well dispersed in polymer matrix, with conductivity values of 0.005 and 3.2 S/cm, respectively; and the percolation threshold is nearly 0.42 wt. %. The exponent (∼0.25) of the temperature dependence of conductivity in both samples indicates Mott's variable range hopping (VRH) transport. The conductance in 1 wt. % sample increases by three orders of magnitude at high electric-fields, consistent with VRH model. The negative magnetoresistance in 10 wt. % sample is attributed to the forward interference scattering mechanism in VRH transport. The ac conductance in 1 wt. % sample is expressed by σ(ω)∝ωs, and the temperature dependence of s follows the correlated barrier hopping model.