A New Receiver for a Digital Passband System with CPSK Modulation: The STTS-CPSK Receiver

671-677Telecommunications industry is expanding vastly with huge infrastructure requiring huge sums of money for investment1,2. Reliability of the system3,4, efficient utilization of resources1,2, and safety of the users and the environment are paramount towards providing high quality efficient telecom services at affordable prices1,2. This paper deals with an important scientific investigation for the development of the STTS-CPSK receiver for pass band applications5,6 . This is a new receiver being developed with the inspiration from the previously developed STTS-MF receiver for baseband applications. This is carried out considering transmission of p-q signals (p-q signals represent correlated digital signals) through AWGN channel. Performance-comparison studies of the conventional STS-CPSK receiver and the new STTS-CPSK receiver are carried out for a wide range of signal and system parameters 0.0 ≤ p,q ≤ 1.0 and-10 dB ≤ SNR ≤ 10 dB. Performance superiority of the STTS-CPSK receiver is established for 0.0 ≤ p,q ≤ 1.0, -2 dB ≤ SNR ≤ 10 dB, and illustrated. Thus, this work has important implications towards efficient utilization of bandwidth, and also in greening of communication technologies which is highly needed. The latter is because the performance-improvement, achieved in case of STTS-CPSK receiver, can be translated into an equivalent advantage of EMF-reduction appropriately

Needs assessment for research use of high- throughput sequencing at a large academic medical center

Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) methods are driving profound changes in biomedical research, with a growing impact on patient care. Many academic medical centers are evaluating potential models to prepare for the rapid increase in NGS information needs. This study sought to investigate (1) how and where sequencing data is generated and analyzed, (2) research objectives and goals for NGS, (3) workforce capacity and unmet needs, (4) storage capacity and unmet needs, (5) available and anticipated funding resources, and (6) future challenges. As a precursor to informed decision making at our institution, we undertook a systematic needs assessment of investigators using survey methods. We recruited 331 investigators from over 60 departments and divisions at the University of Pittsburgh Schools of Health Sciences and had 140 respondents, or a 42% response rate. Results suggest that both sequencing and analysis bottlenecks currently exist. Significant educational needs were identified, including both investigator-focused needs, such as selection of NGS methods suitable for specific research objectives, and program-focused needs, such as support for training an analytic workforce. The absence of centralized infrastructure was identified as an important institutional gap. Key principles for organizations managing this change were formulated based on the survey responses. This needs assessment provides an in-depth case study which may be useful to other academic medical centers as they identify and plan for future needs

Simple top-down preparation of magnetic Bi0.9_{0.9}Gd0.1_{0.1}Fe1−x_{1-x}Tix_xO3_3 nanoparticles by ultrasonication of multiferroic bulk material

We present a simple technique to synthesize ultrafine nanoparticles directly from bulk multiferroic perovskite powder. The starting materials, which were ceramic pellets of the nominal compositions of Bi$_{0.9}$Gd$_{0.1}$Fe$_{1-x}$Ti$_x$O$_3$ (x = 0.00-0.20), were prepared initially by a solid state reaction technique, then ground into micrometer-sized powders and mixed with isopropanol or water in an ultrasonic bath. The particle size was studied as a function of sonication time with transmission electron microscopic imaging and electron diffraction that confirmed the formation of a large fraction of single-crystalline nanoparticles with a mean size of 11-13 nm. A significant improvement in the magnetic behavior of Bi$_{0.9}$Gd$_{0.1}$Fe$_{1-x}$Ti$_x$O$_3$ nanoparticles compared to their bulk counterparts was observed at room temperature. This sonication technique may be considered as a simple and promising route to prepare ultrafine nanoparticles for functional applications.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Medical applicant general practice experience and career aspirations: a questionnaire study

Background: Increasing access to general practice work experience placements for school students is a strategy for improving general practice recruitment, despite limited evidence and concerns surrounding equity of access to general practice experiences. Aims: To examine the association between undertaking general practice experience and the perceptions of general practice as an appealing future career among prospective medical applicants. To identify socioeconomic factors associated with obtaining general practice experience. Design & setting: Cross-sectional questionnaire study in the UK. Method: Participants were UK residents aged ≥16 years and seriously considering applying to study medicine in 2019/2020. They were invited to take part via the University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT). Questionnaire data were analysed using a linear regression of general practice appeal on general practice experience, adjusting for career motivations and demographics, and a logistic regression of general practice experience on measures of social capital and demographics. Results: Of 6391 responders, 4031 were in their last year of school. General practice experience predicted general practice appeal after adjusting for career motivation and demographics (b = 0.37, standard error [SE] = 0.06, P<0.00001). General practice experience was more common among students at private (odds ratio [OR] = 1.65, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.31 to 2.08, P<0.0001) or grammar schools (OR = 1.33, 95% CI = 1.02 to 1.72, P = 0.03) and in the highest socioeconomic group (OR = 1.62, 95% CI = 1.28 to 2.05, P<0.0001), and less likely among students of ‘other’ ethnicity (OR = 0.37, 95% CI = 0.20 to 0.67, P = 0.0011). Conclusion: Having general practice experience prior to medical school was associated with finding general practice appealing, which supports its utility in recruitment. Applicants from more deprived backgrounds were less likely to have had a general practice experience, possibly through lack of accessible opportunities

A New Receiver for a Passband System with CFSK Modulation: The STTS-CFSK Receiver

692-699A new receiver, named STTS-CFSK receiver, for passband with CFSK modulation, is developed. This new receiver uses correlations in the transmitted digital signals wisely, while assuming the correlation parameters p and q known at the receiver. The conventional receiver, the STS-CFSK receiver, does not take these correlations into consideration. Both the receivers are evaluated and compared, by extensive simulation based experimentation. Performance of the STTS-CFSK receiver is found to be superior to that of the STS-CFSK receiver, for SNR > 0 dB. Usefulness of this work for ‘Greening of Communication Technology’ is explaine

New Receivers in Digital Communications, Performance Evaluation and Comparisons

618-629Recently developed STTS-MF receiver by the authors in1,2 (referred as TTS-MF receiver in1,2) performs better than the traditional Matched Filter based receiver (referred as STS-MF receiver in1,2), but only when the SNR (expressed in dB) is positive. In this paper, we introduce a new receiver, the CTTS-MF receiver, and demonstrate that it performs better than both STTS-MF and STS-MF receivers, for both positive and negative SNR (expressed in dB) values, for the correlated digital signals known as, the p-q signals. Comparisons and relative advantages of the CTTS-MF and the STTS-MF receivers are illustrated by extensive simulation study with baseband communications as example domain

Analysis of the performance-improvement due to a new receiver for baseband telecommunications, and development of a fast predictive model

577-587An extensive simulation study of the TTS-MF receiver (reported in1­­) is performed in order to investigate the dependence of the achieved performance-improvement over the classical receiver, for p-q signals, for an extensive range of signal parameters p,q and SNR. Results obtained show an interesting dependence of the performance-improvement on the sum p+q, which we term in this paper as the “p+<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">q statistic”. This important discovery is made use of to develop fast prediction-models for the performance-improvement, as closed form functions of one parameter of the signal which is the p+q statistic at a given SNR. These models are then tested and evaluated extensively, for accuracy, in a systematic way. Such fast prediction-models are highly useful for telecom design, operation, maintenance and enhancement. </span

First Order Correlations in Simulated and Real Digital Traffic: Importance, Study & Analysis

159-171<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">p-q <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">signals are defined in1,2 as digital signals with first order correlations, they can be generated using parameters <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">p and q. The TTS-MF receiver, developed in1,2, was demonstrated to perform better than the traditional Matched Filter based receiver (STS-MF receiver), in terms of the Bit Error Rate (BER), for positive values of SNR, when the signals are of p-q type. In3, it was demonstrated that the improvement of the TTS-MF receiver over the STS-MF receiver (measured as PRBER), is highly dependent on p + q and the SNR. In this paper, it is demonstrated that practical and statistical digital signals passing through pre-processors and wireless fading channels indeed behave like correlated p-q signals with respect to the applicability of the TTS-MF receiver, with p + q that is quite distant from 1.0. This research thus conclusively lays the required ground and foundation for a new generation of receivers which can deal with practical digital signals, in baseband as well as pass-band communications. </span