Study of transition metal ion doped mullite by positron annihilation techniques

Mullite, an extremely useful ceramic material, is doped with transition metal ions. The changes in the electronic properties of these doped materials have been studied by positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy as well as Doppler broadened line shape analysis. The results on the positron annihilation parameters are characteristic of ionic size, oxidation state and the d-electron configuration of the respective transition metals doped in the parent lattice of the mullite. These results, along with the resistivity measurements are suggestive of transition of the parent mullite from an insulator to a semimetal in the modified structure.     

An Embedding Based IR Model for Disaster Situations

Twitter (http://twitter.com) is one of the most popular social networking platforms. Twitter users can easily broadcast disaster-specific information, which, if effectively mined, can assist in relief operations. However, the brevity and informal nature of tweets pose a challenge to Information Retrieval (IR) researchers. In this paper, we successfully use word embedding techniques to improve ranking for ad-hoc queries on microblog data. Our experiments with the ‘Social Media for Emergency Relief and Preparedness’ (SMERP) dataset provided at an ECIR 2017 workshop show that these techniques outperform conventional term-matching based IR models. In addition, we show that, for the SMERP task, our word embedding based method is more effective if the embeddings are generated from the disaster specific SMERP data, than when they are trained on the large social media collection provided for the TREC (http://trec.nist.gov/) 2011 Microblog track dataset.     

The Reaction Mass Biped: Geometric Mechanics and Control

Inverted Pendulum based reduced order models offer many valuable insights into the much harder problem of bipedal locomotion. While they help in understanding leg behavior during walking, they fail to capture the natural balancing ability of humans that stems from the variable rotational inertia on the torso. In an attempt to overcome this limitation, the proposed work introduces a Reaction Mass Biped (RMB). It is a generalization of the previously introduced Reaction Mass Pendulum (RMP), which is a multi-body inverted pendulum model with an extensible leg and a variable rotational inertia torso. The dynamical model for the RMB is hybrid in nature, with the roles of stance leg and swing leg switching after each cycle. It is derived using a variational mechanics approach, and is therefore coordinate-free. The RMB model has thirteen degrees of freedom, all of which are considered to be actuated. A set of desired state trajectories that can enable bipedal walking in straight and curved paths are generated. A control scheme is then designed for asymptotically tracking this set of trajectories with an almost global domain-of-attraction. Numerical simulation results confirm the stability of this tracking control scheme for different walking paths of the RMB. Additionally, a discrete dynamical model is also provided along-with an appropriate Geometric Variational Integrator (GVI). In contrast to non-variational integrators, GVIs can better preserve energy terms for conservative mechanical systems and stability properties (achieved through energy-like lyapunov functions) for actuated systems.     

Dual‐band multifunctional metasurface for absorption and polarization conversion

In this paper, a multifunctional metasurface capable of switching between an absorber and a polarization converter is presented. The active metasurface comprises diamond‐shaped unit cells embedded with PIN diodes. The characteristic of the design lies in its capability of exhibiting multifunctionality at the same frequency of operation. The structure behaves as an absorber and linear polarization converter around 15 and 17 GHz when the PIN diode is switched ON and OFF, respectively. The working principle is demonstrated with the help of simulated results. Finally, the design is fabricated and measured, and it is seen that the results are in accordance with that of the simulated ones, establishing the concept behind switchability of absorber and polarization converter.     

Biometric-based cryptography for digital content protection without any key storage

Multimedia Tools and Applications - The traditional digital data security mechanisms follow either cryptography or authentication. The primary point of contention with these mechanisms remains...     

A thirty Year old conjecture about promise problems

Even, Selman, and Yacobi (Even et al. in Inf Control 61(2):159–173, 1984, Selman and Yacobi in Proceedings of the 8th international colloquium on automata, languages, and programming, volume 140 of lecture notes in computer science. Springer, Berlin, pp 502–509, 1982) formulated a conjecture that in current terminology asserts that there do not exist disjoint NP-pairs all of whose separators are NP-hard via Turing reductions. In this paper, we consider a variant of this conjecture—there do not exist disjoint NP-pairs all of whose separators are NP-hard via bounded-truth-table reductions. We provide evidence for this conjecture. We also observe that if the original conjecture holds, then some of the known probabilistic public-key cryptosystems are not NP-hard to crack.     

Gain enhancement of slot antenna using zero‐index metamaterial superstrate

This article presents a technique to enhance the broadside gain of a CPW fed slot antenna using a single layer metamaterial (MTM) superstrate. A finite array of 3 3 ring unit cell has been designed on both sides of a dielectric substrate to form the MTM superstrate. The gain enhancement is obtained using the zero‐index property of the metamaterial. The broadside gain enhancement for the proposed antenna is 7.4 dB more in comparison to that of the reference slot antenna. The proposed MTM superstrate loaded antenna provides a minimum overall thickness in the context of using ZIM superstrate for gain enhancement of antennas reported in earlier literatures. The overall thickness of the MTM loaded antenna is 0.13λ₀, where λ₀ is the free‐space wavelength at the resonance frequency of the antenna. Also, a high efficiency of about 93.2% is obtained in this case. The loading of the MTM superstrate produces a minimal effect on the cross polarization performance of the proposed slot antenna.     

Miniaturization of a patch antenna using circular reactive impedance substrate

In this article, to construct a reactive impedance substrate, unit ring is designed and proposed with radial and concentric mode analysis. A cylindrical substrate backed with a PEC plane and circular metallic elements on the top is used for achieving reactive surface impedance behavior. In this aspect, three unit rings structure with different ring elements are designed and simulated to realize the reflection phase characteristics. Afterwards, a probe‐fed circular patch antenna is miniaturized by stacking the three‐ring circular reactive impedance surface. The fundamental resonance frequency of the proposed antenna is reduced by about 30% with an improvement in impedance bandwidth by 121.6%. An improved front‐to‐back ratio as well as an acceptable co‐pol and cross‐pol isolation is exhibited in both E‐plane and H‐plane at the resonance frequency. In addition of miniaturization, dual band behavior has also been observed in the proposed design. Both resonance phenomena have been explained by circuit model representation and surface current distribution analysis. Improved radiation efficiency at 81.5% has been measured for the proposed antenna configuration.     

LSB split capacitor SAR ADC with 99.2% switching energy reduction

A highly energy efficient capacitor switching technique in a successive approximation register (SAR) analog to digital converter (ADC) for biomedical applications is presented. The proposed scheme based on new switching method, which combine the LSB split capacitive technique and monotonic method can reduce the average switching energy by 99.2% compared to the conventional SAR architecture. Besides reducing energy in each comparison cycle, the suggested method also achieves an 8× reduction in total capacitance used in the digital to analog converter over the conventional one with the same resolution. The proposed ADC can find application in biomedical engineering systems and other fields which low power consumption is needed.     

Isolation and chemical composition of surface-active material from human lung lavage

Surface-active material (SF) was isolated from human lung lavage fluid collected at autopsy employing differential and sucrose density gradient centrifugation. The isolated material showed well-defined electron microscopic structure, consisting of clearly preserved, closely packed vesicles with limiting membranes and inclusion bodies. It showed a very high degree of alkaline phosphatase specific activity and was devoid of other subcellular contaminants. The isolated material also showed a high phospholipid/protein ratio and increasing surface activity when monitored at different stages of purification. It contained 68.5% phosphatidylcholine, 11.5% phosphatidylglycerol and relatively smaller amounts of phosphatidylethanolamine and other individual phospholipid (PL) classes. In addition, cholesterol, unesterified fatty acids, triacylglycerols and other neutral lipids were found. Saturated fatty acids, particularly palmitic acid (16∶0), predominated in the major PL fractions. However, various fatty acids of which oleic acid (18∶1) constituted a large proportion also are present. Chemical analysis of the material showed that besides lipids and proteins, nucleic acids, sialic acid, hexose, amino sugars, nitrogen and phosphorus were present. The delipidated material showed the presence of three to four proteins as characterized by sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS)-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and gel permeation chromatography on Sephadex G-200 resolved two well-separated peaks. The first fraction contained serum-associated 68 kDa protein, while the second fraction had two apoproteins with molecular weights of 34 kDa and 10 kDa. These two proteins were associated with the SF and they, as well as the whole surface-active material, strongly reacted with the antibody directed against the whole SF in a double-diffusion immunoprecipitation assay. The first Sephadex fraction containing a 68 kDa protein did not produce any precipitation line when reacted against antisera.