Algorithm-circuit co-design for detecting symptomatic patterns in biological signals

The advancement in scaled Silicon technology has accelerated the development of a wide range of applications in various fields including medical technology. It has immensely contributed to finding solutions for monitoring general health as well as alleviating intractable disorders in the form of implantable and wearable systems. This necessitates the development of energy efficient and functionally efficacious systems. This thesis has explored the algorithm-circuit co-design approach for developing an energy efficient epileptic seizure detection processor which could be used for implantable epilepsy prosthesis. Novel wavelet transform based algorithms are proposed for accurate detection of epileptic seizures. Energy efficient techniques at circuit level such as power and clock gating are utilized along with error resiliency at algorithm level to implement these algorithms in TSMC $65$nm bulk-Si technology. Furthermore, the methodology is extended to develop a generic pattern detection system, which could be used for health monitoring. The wavelet transform along with mathematical metrics and Mel cepstrum are used to develop an algorithm which can detect generic patterns in biological audio signals. The application of algorithm-circuit co-design methodology helps in practically implementing this system into a low power design. Using approximation of coefficients and multiplier-less implementation, the Mel cepstrum algorithm is modified to optimize the hardware cost without losing its functional efficacy. The system is user-specific and scalable for detecting various patterns in biological signals. The methodologies mentioned in this thesis are intended towards development of user-scalable, energy efficient and highly efficacious systems for detection of patterns in variety of biological signals

Computerized Optimum Dimensioning of Prestressed Homogenous Steel I-Beam

The economy of a prestressed steel beam can be realized only when relevant parameters of optimum magnitude are chosen. The present work aims at finding out the optimum dimensions of a simply supported, laterally unsupported, prestressed steel I-beam for a given span and load carrying capacity. Iterative calculations involved in analysis were performed with the help of a ‘C’ program developed by the authors in Turbo ‘C’ Environment. It was observed that the ratio of top fiber stress at working loads to the permissible stress is more than 0.9 for all the span lengths for the finalized cross-sections. This means that the cross-section is being effectively utilized. Deflection increases slowly for an increase in the load carrying capacity beyond 16kN/m. This means that pre-stressed steel beams are ideal for structures subjected to total load greater than 16kN/m. For a given load carrying capacity and span, e/D ratio has to be in between 0.45 to 0.7 for optimum utilization of the available cross section.The economy of a prestressed steel beam can be realized only when relevant parameters of optimum magnitude are chosen. The present work aims at finding out the optimum dimensions of a simply supported, laterally unsupported, prestressed steel I-beam for a given span and load carrying capacity. The span of the beam was limited to 12 m while the load carrying capacity was limited to 100 kN/m for this study. A straight tendon configuration over the whole span is considered and the losses occurring in the tendon are neglected. The safety of various sets of dimensions ranging from the minimum dimensions of I-section in IS-Hand Book-1 to their maximum dimensions for different pre-stressing forces and eccentricities are checked. The set with minimum cross sectional area is chosen. Iterative calculations involved in analysis were performed with the help of a ‘C’ program developed by the authors in Turbo ‘C’ Environment. It was observed that the ratio of top fiber stress at working loads to the permissible stress is more than 0.9 for all the spans for the finalized cross-sections. This means that the cross-section is being effectively utilized. For a given load carrying capacity and span, eccentricity to depth ratio has to be in between 0.45 to 0.7 for optimum utilization of the available cross section. It is also observed that the maximum pre-stressing force equal to 0.25 times the permissible bending compressive stress can be applied

Management of Coal Fly Ash in Remediation Process

The present research relates to class of adsorbents obtained by systematic biopolymer modification of cenospheres transfigured from coal fly ash (CFA): an immense waste by-product of coal based thermal power plant, method of preparation thereof and their use in wastewater treatment contaminated by tanneries, distilleries, cosmetics, textiles, plastics, pulp and paper industries, paints, electroplating and food processing industries effluents. Removal percentage of disperse dyes had better correlated with Langmuir isotherm, tested among Freundlich, Temkin and Redlich-Peterson isotherm which indicated saturated monolayer attachment of dye molecules onto the surface of adsorbent with maximum capacity 500.4 and 500.0 mg/g for Disperse Orange 25 (DO) and Disperse Blue 79:1 (DB) dyes, respectively. The uptake rate of dye molecules followed pseudo-second order kinetics in all cases. Recovery of dye molecules was completed best in three cycles with acetic acid for CFA and cenospheres, with Di-chloromethane for CNAC and in four cycles with non-polar solvent (chloroform) for zeolite and CNCH nanocomposite. The used adsorbents could easily be dumped into landfill with in concrete pit liming, or can also be used in brick making to minimize the environmental risk

Standardization of Homoeopathic Drug Ruta graveolens L.

Ruta graveolens L. is a small, strong scented perennial herb belonging to family Rutaceae. It is having a broad sphere of action & hence a potential drug in homoeopathy. It has antihysteric, emmenagogic, ophthalmic, vermifuge, carminative, antiepileptic, revulsive, anthelmentic, abortive, spasmolytic properties. It has both curative and injurious on the fibrous and bony tissues, especially in the vicinity of joints. In the present paper, the pharmacognostic and physio-chemical investigations on the leaves and stem of the plant have been presented. Morphological and anatomical characters of leaf and stem are studied in detailed. Physio-chemical parameters of raw drug viz., moisture content, ash values, extractives values, as well as quantitative estimation of various phytochemicals have been studied

Response of Composite Panels with Conductive Coatings Submitted to Emulated Lightning Strikes

RÉSUMÉ De nouvelles méthodes de conception et de fabrication pour obtenir des matériaux conducteurs électriquement sont régulièrement développées. L’évaluation de la performance d'un matériau conducteur pour la protection contre la foudre (LCF) repose habituellement sur des essais et des analyses approfondis nécessitant l'accès à une infrastructure imposante. Cela peut entraîner des retards considérables dans le programme de recherche et / ou des dépenses déraisonnablement élevées. Cependant, lors de recherche exploratoire portant sur le développement de matériaux conducteurs pour LCF, il n'est financièrement pas viable ou techniquement productif de passer à travers la gamme complète de tests de foudre standardisés qui produisent des résultats binaires «go no-go». Le temps nécessaire pour de telles études approfondies est également difficile à justifier. Une étape de pré-qualification est donc souhaitable car elle peut servir de mécanisme de rétroaction pour améliorer la préparation/conception de matériaux avancés avant qu'ils ne soient soumis à des tests à grande échelle plus dispendieux et longs. Il est donc nécessaire de développer des équipements abordables et de nouveaux protocoles de test / analyse qui permettent une évaluation préliminaire mais holistique de nouveaux matériaux pour LCF. Cette nécessité est la principale motivation de cette thèse de doctorat. Le premier objectif de cette thèse porte sur la conception de montages expérimentaux à faible coût en divisant le test de foudre standard en deux parties distinctes. Un nouveau circuit d'émulateur d'impulsions capable de produire une amplitude de crête de 40 kA a été conçu et fabriqué, tandis que des alimentations commerciales pouvant produire jusqu'à 500 A DC ont été utilisées pour tester les matériaux LSP contre des courants continus. Cet arrangement réduit la complexité et maximise la sécurité des circuits respectifs, menant à une meilleure rentabilité. Les émulateurs ont également été conçus avec une grande flexibilité afin d’accommoder des échantillons avec une large gamme de conductivités et pour reproduire diverses formes d'ondes. Les signaux d'onde émulés ici sont conformes aux normes SAE. Le deuxième objectif porte sur la caractérisation et l'analyse des matériaux conducteurs. Différents matériaux conducteurs, chacun avec leurs propres méthodes de fabrication, ont été étudiés comme revêtements pour LCF de l'avion.----------ABSTRACT New design and manufacturing schemes to produce electrically conductive materials are regularly devised. The evolution of an electrically conductive material into a solution for lightning strike protection (LSP) relies on extensive testing and analysis requiring access to heavy infrastructure. This can lead to substantial delays in the research program and/or unreasonably high expenses. However, when exploring such conducting materials for LSP, neither is it financially viable nor technically productive to put them through the full battery of sophisticated lightning tests utilizing standard protocols that yield binary “go - no go” results. The time spent on such extensive studies is also difficult to justify. A pre-qualification program is thus desired. Such a program, if designed appropriately, can also serve as a feedback mechanism to improve on the materials’ technology readiness before they are subjected to full-scale tests. There is a need to develop low-cost equipment and associated test/analysis protocols that allow for a preliminary but holistic evaluation of new materials for LSP, which serves as the motivation for this PhD thesis. The first objective of this thesis relating to the establishment of low-cost test equipment was achieved by dividing the standard lightning test into two separate parts of reduced severity. A new impulse emulator circuit capable of producing a 40 kA peak amplitude was designed and transformed into a physical structure, while commercial power supplies that could produce up to 500 A DC were used to test the LSP materials against continuous currents. This arrangement lowers complexity and safety demands on the respective circuits, hence leading to costeffectiveness. The emulators were also designed with a flexibility to both accommodate samples with a wide range of conductivities, and reproduce current waveforms with chosen test parameters, leading to wider application. The emulated lightning waveforms were shown to conform to SAE standards. The second objective concerns testing and analysis of conductive materials. Different conducting materials, each with their own manufacturing methods, were investigated as coatings for aircraft LSP. These included different metals (silver, tin and copper-tin) and hybrid materials (silvercarbon and silver-conducting polymer)

Traditional Plants Used for the Treatment of Ear Problems in Beed District of Maharashtra

The present paper focuses on the botanicals used in the treatment of of ear problems in Beed District of Maharashtra. The author gathered important information of such a 10 plants belonging to 08 different families. An ethnobotanica! Survey was carried out in the district and information was collected about the plants, which are used to cure different problems of Ear like Earache, Pus Formation in the ear, listening problem etc. All the species included in this paper are wildly grown. This traditional knowledge is very valuable source for the further research and discovery of new pharmaceutical drugs. For each plant species scientific name, family, local name, parts used and mode of administration for the treatment of ear problem are provided

Annotation and BAC/PAC localization of nonredundant ESTs from drought-stressed seedlings of anindica rice

To decipher the genes associated with drought stress response and to identify novel genes in rice, we utilized 1540 high-quality expressed sequence tags (ESTs) for functional annotation and mapping to rice genomic sequences. These ESTs were generated earlier by 3'-end single-pass sequencing of 2000 cDNA clones from normalized cDNA libraries constructed from drought-stressed seedlings of anindica rice. A rice UniGene set of 1025 transcripts was constructed from this collection through the BLASTN algorithm. Putative functions of 559 nonredundant ESTs were identified by BLAST similarity search against public databases. Putative functions were assigned at a stringency E value of 10-6 in BLASTN and BLASTX algorithms. To understand the gene structure and function further, we have utilized the publicly available finished and unfinished rice BAC/PAC (BAC, bacterial artificial chromosome; PAC, P1 artificial chromosome) sequences for similarity search using the BLASTN algorithm. Further, 603 nonredundant ESTs have been mapped to BAC/PAC clones. BAC clones were assigned by a homology of above 95% identity along 90% of EST sequence length in the aligned region. In all, 700 ESTs showed rice EST hits in GenBank. Of the 325 novel ESTs, 128 were localized to BAC clones. In addition, 127 ESTs with identified putative functions but with no homology in IRGSP (International Rice Genome Sequencing Program) BAC/PAC sequences were mapped to the Chinese WGS (whole genome shotgun contigs) draft sequence of the rice genome. Functional annotation uncovered about a hundred candidate ESTs associated with abiotic stress in rice andArabidopsis that were previously reported based on microarray analysis and other studies. This study is a major effort in identifying genes associated with drought stress response and will serve as a resource to rice geneticists and molecular biologists

Identification of stress-responsive genes in an indica rice (Oryza sativa L.) using ESTs generated from drought-stressed seedlings

The impacts of drought on plant growth and development limit cereal crop production worldwide. Rice (Oryza sativa) productivity and production is severely affected due to recurrent droughts in almost all agroecological zones. With the advent of molecular and genomic technologies, emphasis is now placed on understanding the mechanisms of genetic control of the drought-stress response. In order to identify genes associated with water-stress response in rice, ESTs generated from a normalized cDNA library, constructed from drought-stressed leaf tissue of an indica cultivar, Nagina 22 were used. Analysis of 7794 cDNA sequences led to the identification of 5815 rice ESTs. Of these, 334 exhibited no significant sequence homology with any rice ESTs or full-length cDNAs in public databases, indicating that these transcripts are enriched during drought stress. Analysis of these 5815 ESTs led to the identification of 1677 unique sequences. To characterize this drought transcriptome further and to identify candidate genes associated with the drought-stress response, the rice data were compared with those for abiotic stress-induced sequences obtained from expression profiling studies in Arabidopsis, barley, maize, and rice. This comparative analysis identified 589 putative stress-responsive genes (SRGs) that are shared by these diverse plant species. Further, the identified leaf SRGs were compared to expression profiles for a drought-stressed rice panicle library to identify common sequences. Significantly, 125 genes were found to be expressed under drought stress in both tissues. The functional classification of these 125 genes showed that a majority of them are associated with cellular metabolism, signal transduction, and transcriptional regulation

Evaluation and Quantification of Anionic Surfactant in the Gomti River at Lucknow City, India

In this paper, an attempt has been made to check the level of surfactants particularly in drinking water, which can lead to toxicity in human body system. In this study, a total of 10 locations were selected to enumerate the concentration of surfactants and other physicochemical parameters with metals in the flowing water of river during pre-monsoon 2019. Analyzed result showed that the concentration of surfactants was significantly high and other parameters were also high. It was also found that river at the vicinity of town areas or midstream in the Lucknow city contained high amount of an anionic surfactants due to the nonpoint sources generated by human activities, low concentration was found in upstream, and average concentration was found in downstream, showing natural degradation of surfactants. The values of other parameters were higher than the prescribed limit, which is the serious problem for human being