Structural characterisation and determination of prebiotic activity of purified xylo-oligosaccharides obtained from Bengal gram husk (Cicer arietinum L.) and wheat bran (Triticum aestivum)

Water extractable polysaccharides (WEPs) were isolated from Bengal gram husk and wheat bran. These WEP were subjected to driselase enzyme hydrolysis to obtain oligosaccharide mixtures, which were purified successively on Biogel P-2 and high performance liquid chromatographies. The molecular weight and structural features of the purified oligosaccharides were deduced using ESI-MS and ¹H NMR, respectively. The prebiotic properties of these purified oligosaccharides were studied by using Bifidobacterium adolescentis NDRI 236. Increase in dry cell mass (0.7–0.9 mg/ml) and decrease in pH (<5.8) due to production of short chain fatty acid (SCFA) indicated oligosaccharide fermentation. Acetate was the chief SCFA produced and its amount varied from 97.2% to 100%. The activities of xylanase (257–470 mU/ml), xylopyranosidase (53–60 mU/ml) and arabinofuranosidase (60–70 mU/ml) in the culture broth indicated the breakdown of xylo-oligosaccharides and their subsequent utilisation by the bacterium for its growth.     

Efficacy of mycosynthesised AgNPs from Earliella scabrosa as an in vitro antibacterial and wound healing agent

The silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) with their unique chemical and physical properties are proving as a new therapeutical agent. In the present study, the AgNPs synthesised from an aqueous extract of a macrofungus, Earliella scabrosa, were characterised by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X‐ray analysis (EDX), high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy, X‐ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and further evaluate for its in vitro antibacterial and wound healing efficacy. The mycosynthesised AgNPs exhibited the surface plasmon resonance peak at 410 nm with good stability over a period of a month. The FESEM and EDX analyses revealed the spherical‐shaped AgNPs of an average size of 20 nm and the presence of elemental Ag, respectively. The XRD pattern showed the crystalline nature of AgNPs. The FTIR spectra confirmed the conversion of Ag⁺ ions to AgNPs due to reduction by biomolecules of macrofungus extract. The mycosynthesised AgNPs showed effective antibacterial activity against two Gram‐positive bacteria, namely Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus, and two Gram‐negative bacteria Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The pathogens were highly sensitive to AgNPs, whereas less sensitive to AgNO₃. The mycosynthesised AgNPs showed significant wound healing potential with 68.58% of wound closure.Inspec keywords: surface plasmon resonance, wounds, X‐ray diffraction, nanoparticles, molecular biophysics, nanomedicine, antibacterial activity, biomedical materials, reduction (chemical), silver, microorganisms, X‐ray chemical analysis, nanofabrication, transmission electron microscopy, particle size, field emission scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectraOther keywords: high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy, healing efficacy, mycosynthesised AgNPs, spherical‐shaped AgNPs, wound healing agent, in vitro antibacterial efficacy, Earliella scabrosa, silver nanoparticles, physical properties, chemical properties, therapeutical agent, aqueous extract, macrofungus, field emission scanning electron microscopy, FESEM, energy dispersive X‐ray analysis, EDX, X‐ray diffraction, XRD, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, FTIR spectroscopy, surface plasmon resonance peak, crystalline nature, biomolecules, Gram‐positive bacteria, Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Gram‐negative bacteria, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, pathogens, wound closure, Ag     

Low Complexity Antenna Selection Scheme for Multicarrier MIMO Broadcast Communication

A low complexity antenna selection scheme for multicarrier MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) broadcast systems is proposed in this paper. Under special condition of single user in the system or when the number of subcarrier is only one, the system reduces to conventional MIMO-OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) system or MIMO-BC (Broadcast Channel) system respectively. By analysing sub-optimal antenna selection schemes developed earlier for single user MIMO-OFDM systems and single carrier MIMO-BC systems, one can see many similarities which can be extended to multicarrier MIMO broadcast systems. The proposed method exploits these similarities to obtain a low complexity system design with acceptable performance. The performance of the proposed scheme is studied via extensive simulation, and the computational complexity involved is compared to the conventional scheme. A selection gain of approximately 0.5 b/s/Hz is shown to be achievable using only two out of three antennas, and the proposed scheme is able to achieve up to 90% of the gain. This is achieved at a complexity that is significantly lower than the conventional methods, hence the practical implementation of the proposed scheme can be justified.     

Significance of knowledge sources for a text-to-speech system for Indian languages

This paper discusses the significance of segmental and prosodic knowledge sources for developing a text-to-speech system for Indian languages. Acoustic parameters such as linear prediction coefficients, formants, pitch and gain are prestored for the basic speech sound units corresponding to the orthographic characters of Hindi. The parameters are concatenated based on the input text. These parameters are modified by stored knowledge sources corresponding to coarticulation, duration and intonation. The coarticulation rules specify the pattern of joining the basic units. The duration rules modify the inherent duration of the basic units based on the linguistic context in which the units occur. The intonation rules specify the overall pitch contour for the utterance (declination or rising contour), fall-rise patterns, resetting phenomena and inherent fundamental frequency of vowels. Appropriate pauses between syntactic units are specified to enhance intelligibility and naturalness.     

A two-dimensional multipath channel estimator for CDMA systems with timing-offset errors

This letter proposes a two-dimensional pilot-aided channel estimator for multicarrier and single carrier cyclic prefix assisted code division multiple access systems in the presence of timing-offset errors. Using optimal training sequences with special cyclic correlation properties can minimize the timing offset errors. Optimal and binary sub-optimal training sequences are designed in this context. Both theoretic analysis and simulation studies demonstrate significant performance improvement for the proposed method over conventional frequency domain channel estimation methods.     

Enhancing Data Rates of TH-UWB Systems Using M-ary OPPM-BPSM Modulation Scheme: A System Perspective

This paper proposes and studies a combined modulation scheme for time hopping ultra wideband (TH-UWB) radio system based on orthogonal pulse position modulation (OPPM) and biorthogonal pulse shape modulation (BPSM). The proposed scheme offers a high data rate with satisfactory system performance by using high-level multi-dimensional modulation schemes. It allows one to increase the number of orthogonal pulses in each pulse position and, consequently, be able to adopt shorter pulse repetition intervals than those used in conventional M-ary OPPM or M-ary biorthogonal PPM (BPPM) modulation schemes. The performance is analyzed by using characteristic function and Gaussian approximation in additive white Gaussian and multipath scenarios, respectively. The proposed scheme reduces multiple access interference considerably in multi-user environments. Finally, simulation results are provided to validate the theoretical results.     

Receive antenna selection for MIMO-SM systems with linear MMSE receivers in the presence of unknown interference

In this paper, a novel receive antenna subset selection technique is proposed for multiple input multiple output spatial multiplexing (MIMO-SM) systems with linear minimum mean square error (MMSE) receivers in the presence of unknown co-channel interference. This antenna selection technique is directly implemented based on training sample sequence by utilizing backward greedy algorithm (BGA) under the least squares (LS) criterion. In the case of practical implementation. Diagonal loading (DL) technique is incorporated into the selection process to insure robustness of antenna selection given limited training sample support. Simulation results show that the proposed antenna selection technique is able to retain the diversity order of a full complexity system in the presence of unknown multiple access interference (MAI)     

An Efficient VLSI Architecture for the Computation of 1-D Discrete Wavelet Transform

This paper presents a new architecture for VLSI implementation of the one dimensional Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). The architecture uses single filter for generation of both the DWT coefficients and scaling function for orthogonal wavelets as opposed to the conventional two filter approach. For multilevel decomposition, the fold back architecture principle, which interleaves the decimated scaling function back into the filter for subsequent levels, is applied. Limited use of memory in the design enables efficient implementation of the DWT computation in VLSI.     

Handling interference in self-organizing femtocell networks through frequency-polarization diversity

The next generation heterogeneous networks are expected to offer higher data-rate and better QoS to the customers by leveraging smaller cells like femtocells and making use of orthogonal frequency division multiple access. However, uncoordinated dense deployment of femtocells in macrocell network pose unique challenges involving cross-tier interference and resource management which results in significant degradation of the system performance. As part of addressing these challenges for the successful integration of both technologies, this paper proposes the deployment of a self-organizing femtocell network that employs an opportunistic smart frequency reuse technique –cross polarized complementary frequency allocation (CPCFA). It exploits the frequency and polarization diversity to mitigate interference in two-tier femto-macro networks. In this work, a strategy combining the adoption of reverse frequency allocation and orthogonal polarized transmission is analyzed as a potential solution for maximizing spectral efficiency and minimizing interference in the existing heterogeneous networks. Focus of the current work is on downlink transmission where the traffic is high and the deployment of femtocell is more beneficial. The results of analytic and simulation studies prove that CPCFA increases the scope for an easily implementable, remarkable opportunity in the context of two-tier femto-macro network that can substantially increase the system capacity as well as cell coverage without additional network complexities.     

Analysis of heterogeneous satellite networks with multi‐user detectors

In this work, a heterogeneous network, where both terrestrial‐ and multiple spot beam‐based geosynchronous satellite networks use the same sub‐channel, is investigated. Moreover, the satellite uses same sub‐channel to serve users across all spot beams. Apart from inter spot beam interference, satellite users also receive strong interfering signal from the terrestrial base station. The satellite receivers manage the inter system interference (ie, interference from terrestrial network) while the inter spot beam interference is mitigated through precoding at the gateway. To be specific, the following interference‐aware detectors are used to mitigate the inter system interference: successive interference canceller (SIC) and joint decoder (JD). The proposed decoders are shown to achieve better data rate and bit error rate (BER) than the interference ignorant decoder at moderate to strong interference levels. Although JD and SIC achieve same sum rate at moderate and strong interference levels, JD is shown to allow the terrestrial user achieve higher data rate than SIC.