Class of Recursive Wideband Digital Differentiators and Integrators

New designs of recursive digital differentiators are obtained by optimizing a general fourth-order recursive digital filter over different Nyquist bands. In addition, another design of recursive digital differentiator is also obtained by optimizing the specified pole-zero locations of existing recursive digital differentiator of second-order system. Further, new designs of recursive digital integrators are obtained by inverting the transfer functions of designed recursive digital differentiators with suitable modifications. Thereafter, the zero-reflection approach is discussed and then applied to improve the phase responses of designed recursive digital differentiators and integrators. The beauty of finally obtained recursive digital differentiators and integrators is that they have nearly linear phase responses over wideband and also provide the choice of suitable recursive digital differentiator and integrator according to the importance of accuracy, bandwidth and the system simplicity

An SOA-Based Framework of Computational Offloading for Mobile Cloud Computing

Mobile Computing is a technology that allows transmission of audio, video, and other types of data via a computer or any other wireless-enabled device without having to be connected to a fixed physical link. Despite increasing usage of mobile computing, exploiting its full potential is difficult due to its inherent problems such as resource scarcity, connection instability, and limited computational power. In particular, the advent of connecting mobile devices to the internet offers the possibility of offloading computation and data intensive tasks from mobile devices to remote cloud servers for efficient execution. This proposed thesis develops an algorithm that uses an objective function to adaptively decide strategies for computational offloading according to changing context information. By following the style of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), the proposed framework brings cloud computing to mobile devices for mobile applications to benefit from remote execution of tasks in the cloud. This research discusses the algorithm and framework, along with the results of the experiments with a newly developed system for self-driving vehicles and points out the anticipated advantages of Adaptive Computational Offloading

Studies on Some Bioactive Heterocyclic Moieties

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Does abortion reduce self-esteem and life satisfaction?

PurposeThis study aims to assess the effects of obtaining an abortion versus being denied an abortion on self-esteem and life satisfaction.MethodsWe present the first 2.5 years of a 5-year longitudinal telephone-interview study that follows 956 women who sought an abortion from 30 facilities across the USA. We examine the self-esteem and life satisfaction trajectories of women who sought and received abortions just under the facility's gestational age limit, of women who sought and received abortions in their first trimester of pregnancy, and of women who sought abortions just beyond the facility gestational limit and were denied an abortion. We use adjusted mixed effects linear regression analyses to assess whether the trajectories of women who sought and obtained an abortion differ from those who were denied one.ResultsWomen denied an abortion initially reported lower self-esteem and life satisfaction than women who sought and obtained an abortion. For all study groups, except those who obtained first trimester abortions, self-esteem and life satisfaction improved over time. The initially lower levels of self-esteem and life satisfaction among women denied an abortion improved more rapidly reaching similar levels as those obtaining abortions at 6 months to one year after abortion seeking. For women obtaining first trimester abortions, initially higher levels of life satisfaction remained steady over time.ConclusionsThere is no evidence that abortion harms women's self-esteem or life satisfaction in the short term

Estimating the proportion of Medicaid-eligible pregnant women in Louisiana who do not get abortions when Medicaid does not cover abortion.

BackgroundTo estimate the proportion of pregnant women in Louisiana who do not obtain abortions because Medicaid does not cover abortion.MethodsTwo hundred sixty nine women presenting at first prenatal visits in Southern Louisiana, 2015-2017, completed self-administered iPad surveys and structured interviews. Women reporting having considered abortion were asked whether Medicaid not paying for abortion was a reason they had not had an abortion. Using study data and published estimates of births, abortions, and Medicaid-covered births in Louisiana, we projected the proportion of Medicaid births that would instead be abortions if Medicaid covered abortion in Louisiana.Results28% considered abortion. Among women with Medicaid, 7.2% [95% CI 4.1-12.3] reported Medicaid not paying as a reason they did not have an abortion. Existing estimates suggest 10% of Louisiana pregnancies end in abortion. If Medicaid covered abortion, this would increase to 14% [95% CI 12, 16]. 29% [95% CI 19, 41] of Medicaid eligible pregnant women who would have an abortion with Medicaid coverage, instead give birth.ConclusionsFor a substantial proportion of pregnant women in Louisiana, the lack of Medicaid funding remains an insurmountable barrier to obtaining an abortion. Forty years after the Hyde Amendment was passed, lack of Medicaid funding for abortion continues to have substantial impacts on women's ability to obtain abortions

BRST Quantization of Unimodular Gravity

We study the quantization of two versions of unimodular gravity, namely fully diffeomorphism-invariant unimodular gravity and unimodular gravity with fixed metric determinant, utilizing standard path integral approach. We derive the BRST symmetry of effective actions corresponding to several relevant gauge conditions. We observe that for some gauge conditions, the restricted gauge structure may complicate the formulation and effective actions, in particular, if the chosen gauge conditions involve the canonical momentum conjugate to the induced metric on the spatial hypersurface. The BRST symmetry is extended further to the finite field-dependent BRST transformation, in order to establish the mapping between different gauge conditions in each of the two versions of unimodular gravity.Peer reviewe