High Performance Power Spectrum Analysis Using a FPGA Based Reconfigurable Computing Platform

Power-spectrum analysis is an important tool providing critical information about a signal. The range of applications includes communication-systems to DNA-sequencing. If there is interference present on a transmitted signal, it could be due to a natural cause or superimposed forcefully. In the latter case, its early detection and analysis becomes important. In such situations having a small observation window, a quick look at power-spectrum can reveal a great deal of information, including frequency and source of interference. In this paper, we present our design of a FPGA based reconfigurable platform for high performance power-spectrum analysis. This allows for the real-time data-acquisition and processing of samples of the incoming signal in a small time frame. The processing consists of computation of power, its average and peak, over a set of input values. This platform sustains simultaneous data streams on each of the four input channels.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Published in the Proceedings of the IEEE International conference on Reconfigurable Computing and FPGAs (ReConFig 2006). Article also available at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4100006&isnumber=409995

Stress and infertility: a review

Most of the couples suffering from infertility report it to be the most stressful and depressing period of their life. Stress can be a contributor to infertility and can adversely affect the treatment success, Recent scientific evidence suggest that psychological therapy, especially mind body therapy to counter stress can significantly improve pregnancy rates in women undergoing ART. Yoga is an ideal mind body therapy that is indigenous and one that can be effectively applied in the Indian scenario to optimize the psychological milieu of the sub fertile undergoing treatment. Infertility and ART from well-structured government run IVF centres can greatly reduce the financial burden of the infertile couple and further reduce their stress levels. Thus stress reducing strategies and low cost infertility treatment facility offer to be the ideal combination to fulfill the dreams of parenthood for the suffering sub fertile couples in India

Stem Cell Antigen CD34 In Native And Engineered Form Alter Its Binding Ability To Stromal Cells And Ligands: A Classical Example Of Clinical Benefits Of Therapeutic Genetic Engineering Of Stem Cells In Transplantation

CD34 is a highly glycosylated surface-expressed sialomucin and, because it is present on hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), has demonstrated immense clinical utility in their enumeration in aphaeresis products, immunoaffinity purification for transplantation, and disease monitoring. The success of CD34 based reagents in identifying hematopoietic progenitors led to the assumption that CD34 is expressed on cells with regenerative potential and is sufficient for hematopoietic reconstitution in marrow-ablated recipients. However, its role has not been identified in substantial detail. 

With the advent of the fact that CD34 binds adapter protein like CRK-L in cytosol and CD34 knock out studies identified a a signaling role, CD34 antigen has been proposed to play a signaling function. Since it is a sialomucin, a member of the group adhesion molecules, we attempted to identify a role by over-expreesing its gene in cell lines. We report here that CD34 and engineered forms (Ser306 & Tyr318) significantly regulates adhesion to stromal cells, like mesenchymal stem cells and bone marrow ligands. These enhance binding of cells overexpressing CD34 by upregulating integrins and we therefore propose that such cells may effectively potentiate the success of transplantation through greater homing if they are used for transfusion

A study to screen infertile couples for psychological problems by using the perceived stress scale, brief COPE scale and hospital anxiety and depression scale

Background: Infertility refers to the biological inability of a couple to contribute towards conception, or the state of a woman, who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term. Though infertility is not only a disease per se it embraces a wide spectrum, but its treatment also affects all aspects of people’s lives. Aim of the study was to screen infertile couples for psychological problems, and to identify various psychological problems and factors associated with these problems.Methods: It was a cross-sectional study with total of 270 consecutive couples (patients) either of them diagnosed with infertility. All the patients who were found to have anxiety and depression score above seven were then interviewed by the psychiatrist for anxiety and depression.Results: Mean age of the males and females was 32.2 years and 29.7 years, respectively. Duration of marriage was less than five years in 37% couples while it was more than ten years in 19.6% couples. The major cause of infertility was identified in about two-thirds of the cases (64.1%). Prevalence of anxiety was observed in 49.6% females and 45.6% of males. Prevalence of depression was significantly higher among females (41.9%) as compared to males (37%).Conclusions: The present study has endeavored to draw attention to the interrelation of anxiety and depression among infertile couples. Apart from searching for the gynecological causes of infertility; psychological morbidity should be considered as a serious concern affecting these women.