Technologies-Nanotechnology

Language Translation

2008-07-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

Now the world has became like a village.But the only problem is the lack of a perfect global language.Although English is the most popular global language many people in non English countries do not feel comfortable with English.So if you want to communicate with them then we have to translate the words into their language.This is must for the business people to popular their products in international market.
India is a country with many languages.So to communicate with all Indians we have to translate into many languages.India translation needs many translations like Punjabi translation,Hindi translation.Persian countries need Farsi translation,Pakistan needs Urdu translation,Saudi Arabia needs Arabic translation.These are only some examples of translation.Every person feels comfortable with his mother tongue first.So the translation of products into local language will definitely increases the sales of every company.

Digital Signal Processing

2008-07-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

DSP, or Digital Signal Processing, as the term suggests, is the processing of signals by digital means. A signal in this context can mean a number of different things. A signal here means an electrical signal carried by a wire or telephone line, or perhaps by a radio wave. More generally, however, a signal is a stream of information representing anything from stock prices to data from a remote-sensing satellite.
Analog and digital signals
In many cases, the signal is initially in the form of an analog electrical voltage or current, produced for example by a microphone or some other type of transducer. In some situations the data is already in digital form - such as the output from the readout system of a CD (compact disc) player. An analog signal must be converted into digital (i.e. numerical) form before DSP techniques can be applied. An analog electrical voltage signal, for example, can be digitized using an integrated electronic circuit (IC) device called an analog-to-digital converter or ADC. This generates a digital output in the form of a binary number whose value represents the electrical voltage input to the device.

SEMANTIC EVOLUTION

2008-06-12T01:50:00.001-07:00

Semantic evolution is a form of adaptation. Before we develop concepts for semantic evolution, we give a set of basic definitions for adaptation.
1. Adaptation definition
Adaptation of a software system (S) is caused by change (dE) from an old environment (E) to a new environment (E.), and results in a new system (S.) that ideally meets the needs of its new environment (E.). Adaptation involves three tasks:

· Ability to recognize dE.
· Ability to determine the change ds to be made to the system S according to dE.
· Ability to effect the change in order to generate the new system S.

Adaptability then refers to the ability of the system to make adaptation.
2. Semantic evolution
System S evolves semantically when the evolved system S. responds differently to the same input or accepts a different set of inputs. In this application domain, the inputs are the commands sent to the ES by EC and the responses are those strings received by EC from ES.

Remotely Controlled Embedded Systems

2008-06-10T19:24:00.000-07:00

Evolution of a software system is a natural process. In many systems evolution occurs during the working phase of their lifecycles. Such systems need to be designed to evolve, i.e., adaptable. Semantically adaptable systems are of particular interest to industry as such systems adapt themselves to environmental change with little or no intervention from their developers. Research in embedded systems is now becoming widespread but developing semantically adaptable embedded systems presents challenges of its own. Embedded systems usually have a restricted hardware configuration, hence techniques developed for other types of systems cannot be directly applied to embedded systems. This paper briefly presents the work done in semantic adaptation of embedded systems, using remotely controlled embedded systems as an application. In this domain, an embedded system is connected to an external controller via a communication link such as ethernet, serial, radio frequency, etc., and receives commands from, and sends responses to, the external controller. Techniques for semantic evolution in this application domain give a glimpse of the complexity involved in tackling the problem of semantic evolution in embedded systems. The techniques developed in this paper were validated by applying them in a real embedded system - a test instrument used for testing cell phones.

ASYMMETRIC DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER LINE TECHNOLOGY

2008-06-05T04:55:00.000-07:00

Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) uses existing twisted pair telephone lines to create access paths for high-speed data communications and transmits at speeds up to 8.1Mbps to a subscriber. This exciting technology is in the process of overcoming the technology limits of the public telephone network by enabling the delivery of high speed Internet access to the vast majority of subscribers’ homes at a very affordable cost. ADSL can literally transform the existing public information network from one limited to voice, text, and low-resolution graphics to a powerful, ubiquitous system capable of bringing multimedia, including full motion video, to every home this century. New broadband cabling will take decades to reach all prospective subscribers. Success of these new services will depend on reaching as many subscribers as possible during the first few years. By bringing movies, television, video catalogs, remote CD-ROMs, corporate LANs, and the Internet into homes and small businesses, ADSL will make these markets viable and profitable for telephone companies and application suppliers alike.

ADSL technology is asymmetric. It allows more bandwidth downstream---from an NSP's central office to the customer site---than upstream from the subscriber to the central office. This asymmetry combined with always-on access (which eliminates call setup), makes ADSL ideal for Internet/intranet surfing, video-on-demand, and remote LAN access. Users of these applications typically download much more information than they send. ADSL transmits more than 6 Mbps to a subscriber and as much as 640 kbps more in both directions (shown below). Such rates expand existing access capacity by a factor of 50 or more without new cabling.

WORKING OF ARTIFICIAL VISION SYSTEM:

2008-06-02T11:21:00.000-07:00

The main parts of this system are miniature video camera, a signal processor, and the brain implants. The tiny pinhole camera, mounted on a pair of eyeglasses, captures the scene in front of the wearer and sends it to a small computer on the patient's belt. The processor translates the image into a series of signals that the brain can understand, and then sends the information to the brain implant that is placed in patient’s visual cortex. And, if everything goes according to plan, the brain will "see" the image Light enters the camera, which then sends the image to a wireless wallet-sized computer for processing. The computer transmits this information to an infrared LED screen on the goggles. The goggles reflect an infrared image into the eye and on to the retinal chip, stimulating photodiodes on the chip. The photodiodes mimic the retinal cells by converting light into electrical signals, which are then transmitted by cells in the inner retina via nerve pulses to the brain. The goggles are transparent so if the user still has some vision, they can match that with the new information - the device would cover about 10° of the wearer’s field of vision.

ARTIFICIAL VISION

2008-06-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

Blindness is more feared by the public than any other ailment. Artificial vision for the blind was once the stuff of science fiction. But now, a limited form of artificial vision is a reality .Now we are at the beginning of the end of blindness with this type of technology. In an effort to illuminate the perpetually dark world of the blind, researchers are turning to technology. They are investigating several electronic-based strategies designed to bypass various defects or missing links along the brain's image processing pathway and provide some form of artificial sight.
HOW TO CREATE ARTIFICIAL VISION
The current path that scientists are taking to create artificial vision received a jolt in 1988, when Dr. Mark Humayun demonstrated that a blind person could be made to see light by stimulating the nerve ganglia behind the retina with an electrical current. This test proved that the nerves behind the retina still functioned even when the retina had degenerated. Based on this information, scientists set out to create a device that could translate images and electrical pulses that could restore vision. Today, such a device is very close to be available to the millions of people who have lost their vision to retinal disease. In fact, there are at least two silicon microchip devices that are being developed. The concept for both devices is similar, with each being:
Small enough to be implanted in the eye
Supplied with a continuous source of power
Biocompatible with the surrounding eye tissue

SMART SENSOR FOR LABELING

2008-05-26T03:30:00.000-07:00

In keeping pace with the fast emerging global trends, we have introduced stickers (self-adhesive) labeling machines, suitable for almost all sizes and types of containers.
The sticker labeling machines are the first of their king in India. The sticker labeling machine eliminates most of the disadvantages of the wet glue labeling machines. The sticker labeling machine are 100% user friendly, virtually maintenance free, do not require any data input/retrieval for label size and coding impression. The sticker labeling machines have built-in no bottle-no label system, production counter and synchronized on-line speed control system. The machines are compatible for any contact coding and inkjet coding system.
The machine settings are easy, and can be made by the operating staff with out much fuss. More over this sticker labeling machines will have speeds ranging from 50 to 400 labels per minute. In the following pages, we are going to describe the methods for proper setting and trouble shooting.
APPLICATIONS:
These can label nearly up to 400 containers per minute.
These sensors are very compact and can be fixed any where, it is of size 200mm-400mm.
These are controlled and sensed by simple photodiodes.
These sensors can label top, bottom, top/bottom, front/back, side and wrap around.
These sensors can label with width 8mm and maximum 90-180mm. These can handle up to outer diameter 400mm max and inner diameter 70/76mm
At last many of the systems were introduced by various companies but we introduce a smart technique for the sensor by which the labeling of the container makes task easier and effective. This smart sensor is very co-friendly and above all since its construction is very simple it is inexpensive. So this labeling sensor will be of very good use to the pharmaceutical industries which manufacture their chemicals and pack them in the containers which are to be labeled.

CHARACTER RECOGNITION METHODS

2008-05-24T04:23:00.000-07:00

1 Template Matching and Correlation Techniques

In 1929 Tausheck obtained a patent on OCR in Germany and this is the first conceived idea of an OCR. Their approach was, what is referred to as template matching in the literature. The template matching process can be roughly divided into two sub processes, i.e. superimposing an input shape on a template and measuring the degree of coincidence between the input shape and the template. The template, which matches most closely with the unknown, provides recognition. The two-dimensional template matching is very sensitive to noise and difficult to adapt to a different font. A variation of template matching approach is to test only selected pixels and employ a decision tree for further analysis. Peephole method is one of the simplest methods based on selected pixels matching approach. In this approach, the main difficulty lies in selecting the invariant discriminating set of pixels for the alphabet. Moreover, from an Artificial Intelligence perspective, template matching has been ruled out as an explanation for human performance [1, 2].

2 Features Derived from the Statistical Distribution of Points

This technique is based on matching on feature planes or spaces, which are distributed on an n-dimensional plane where n is the number of features. This approach is referred to as statistical or decision theoretic approach. Unlike template matching where an input character is directly compared with a standard set of stored prototypes. Many samples of a pattern are used for collecting statistics. This phase is known as the training phase. The objective is to expose the system to natural variants of a character. Recognition process uses this statistics for identifying an unknown character. The objective is to expose the system to natural variants of a character. The recognition process uses this statistics for partitioning the feature space. For instance, in the K-L expansion one of the first attempt in statistical feature extraction, orthogonal vectors are generated from a data set. For the vectors, the covariance matrix is constructed and its eigenvectors are solved which form the coordinates of the given pattern space. Initially, the correlation was pixel-based which led to large number of covariance matrices. This approach was further refined to the use of class-based correlation instead of pixel-based one which led to compact space size. However, this approach was very sensitive to noise and variation in stroke thickness. To make the approach tolerant to variation and noise, a tree structure was used for making a decision and multiple prototypes were stored for each class. Researchers for classification have used the Fourier series expansions, Walsh, Haar, and Hadamard series expansion.

3 Geometrical and Topological Features

The classifier is expected to recognize the natural variants of a character but discriminate between similar looking characters such as ‘k’ – ‘ph’, ‘p’ - ‘Sh’ etc. This is a contradicting requirement which makes the classification task challenging. The structural approach has the capability of meeting this requirement. The multiple prototypes are stored for each class, to take care of the natural variants of the character. However, a large number of prototypes for the same class are required to cover the natural variants when the prototypes are generated automatically. In contrast, the descriptions may be handcrafted and a suitable matching strategy incorporating expected variations is relied upon to yield the true class. The matching strategies include dynamic programming, test for isomorphism, inexact matching, relaxation techniques and multiple to-one matching. Rocha have used a conceptual model of variations and noise along with multiple to one mapping. Yet another class of structural approach is to use a phrase structured grammar for prototype descriptions and parse the unknown pattern syntactically using the grammar. Here the terminal symbols of the grammar are the primitives of strokes and non-terminals represent the pattern-classes. The production rules give the spatial relationships of the constituent primitives.

4 Hybrid Approach

The statistical approach and structural approach both have their advantages and shortcomings. The statistical features are more tolerant to noise (provided the sample space over which training has been performed is representative and realistic) than structural descriptions. Whereas, the variation due to font or writing style can be more easily abstracted in structural descriptions. Two approaches are complimentary in terms of their strengths and have been combined. The primitives have to be ultimately classified using a statistical approach. Combine the approaches by mapping variable length, unordered sets of geometrical shapes to fixed length numerical vectors. This approach, the hybrid approach, has been used for omni font, variable size character recognition systems.
5 Neural Networks
In the beginning, character recognition was regarded as a problem, which could be easily solved. But the problem turned out to be more challenging than the expectations of most of the researchers in this field. The challenge still exists and an unconstrained document recognition system matching human performance is still nowhere in the sight. The performance of a system deteriorates very rapidly with deterioration in the quality of the input or with the introduction of new fonts handwriting. In other words, the systems do not adapt to the changed environment easily. Training phase aims at exposing the system to a large number of fonts and their natural variants. The neural networks are based on the theory of learning from the known inputs. A back propagation neural network is composed of several layers of interconnected elements. Each element computes an output, which is a function of weighted sum of its inputs. The weights are modified until a desired output is obtained. The neural networks have been employed for character recognition with varying degree of success. The neural networks are employed for integrating the results of the classifiers by adjusting weights to obtain desired output. The main weakness of the systems based on neural networks is their poor capability for generality. There is always a chance of under training or over training the system. Besides this, a neural network does not provide structural description, which is vital from artificial intelligence viewpoint. The neural network approach has solved the problem of character classification no more than the earlier described approaches. The recent research results call for the use of multiple features and intelligent ways of combining them. The combination of potentially conflicting decisions by multiple classifiers should take advantage of the strength of the individual classifier, avoid their weaknesses and improve the classification accuracy. The intersection and union of decision regions are the two most obvious methods for classification combination.

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2008-05-24T04:12:00.000-07:00

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ULTRA WIDEBAND COMMUNICATIONS APPLICATIONS

2008-05-23T01:13:00.000-07:00

The trade-off between data rate and range in UWB systems holds great promise for a wide variety of applications in military, civilian, and commercial sectors. The FCC categorizes UWB applications as either radar, imaging, or communications devices. Radar is considered
one of the most powerful applications of UWB technology. The fine positioning characteristics of narrow UWB pulses enables them to offer high-resolution radar (within centimeters) for military and civilian applications. Also, because of the very wide frequency spectrum band, UWB signals can easily penetrate various obstacles. This property makes UWB-based ground-penetrating radar (GPR) a useful asset for rescue
and disaster recovery teams for detecting survivors buried under rubble in disaster situations.
In the commercial sector, such radar systems can be used on construction sites to locate pipes, studs, and electrical wiring. The same technology under different regulations can be used for various types of medical imaging, such as remote heart monitoring systems. In addition, UWB radar is used in the automotive industry for collision avoidance systems.
Moreover, the low transmission power of UWB pulses makes them ideal candidates for covert military communications. UWB pulses are extremely difficult to detect or intercept; therefore, unauthorized parties will not get access to secure military information. Also, because UWB devices have simpler transceiver circuitry than narrow band transceivers, they can be manufactured in small sizes at a lower price than narrow band systems. Small and inexpensive UWB transceivers are excellent candidates for
wireless sensor network applications for both military and civilian use. Such sensor networks are used to detect a physical phenomenon in an
inaccessible area and transfer the information to a destination.
A military application could be the detection of biological agents or enemy tracking on the battlefield. Civilian applications might include habitat monitoring, environment observation, health monitoring, and home automation.
The precise location-finding ability of UWB systems can be used in inventory control and asset management applications, such as tagging
and identification systems—for example, RFID tags. Also, the good performance of UWB devices in multi path channels can provide accurate geo location capability for indoor and obscured environments where GPS receivers won’t work. The high-data-rate capability of UWB systems for short distances has numerous applications for home networking and multimedia-rich communications in the form of WPAN applications. UWB systems could replace cables connecting camcorders and VCRs, as well as other consumer electronics applications, such as laptops, DVDs, digital cameras, and portable HDTV monitors. No other available wireless technologies—such as Blue tooth or 802.11a/b—are capable of transferring streaming video.

ADVANTAGES OF ULTRA WIDEBAND COMMUNICATIONS

2008-05-23T01:09:00.000-07:00

The nature of the short-duration pulses used in UWB technology offers several advantages over narrowband communications systems. In this
section, we discuss some of the key benefits that UWB brings to wireless communications.

5.1 Ability to share the frequency spectrum.

The FCC’s (Federal Communications Commission) power requirement of –41.3dBm/MHz, 5 equal to 75 nano watts/MHz for UWB systems, puts them in the category of unintentional radiators, such as TVs and computer monitors. Such power restriction
allows UWB systems to reside below the noise floor of a typical narrow band receiver and enables UWB signals to coexist with current radio services with minimal or no interference. However, this all depends on the type of modulation used for data transfer in a UWB system.
Some modulation schemes generate undesirable discrete spectral lines in their PSD, which can both increase the chance of interference to other systems and increase the vulnerability of the UWB system to interference from other radio services. Figure 1–6 illustrates the general idea of UWB’s coexistence with narrow band and wide band technologies.

5.2. Large channel capacity

One of the major advantages of the large bandwidth for UWB pulses is improved channel capacity. Channel capacity, or data rate, is defined as the maximum amount of data that can be transmitted per second over a communication channel. The large channel capacity of UWB communication systems is evident from Hartley-Shannon’s capacity formula:
where C represents the maximum channel capacity, B is the bandwidth, and SNR is the signal-to-noise power ratio. As shown in Equation 1–5, channel capacity C linearly increases with bandwidth B. Therefore, having
several gigahertz of bandwidth available for UWB signals, a data rate of gigabits per second (Gbps) can be expected. However, due to the FCC’s current power limitation on UWB transmissions, such a high data rate is
available only for short ranges, up to 10 meters. This makes UWB systems perfect candidates for short-range, high-data-rate wireless applications
such as wireless personal area networks (WPANs). The trade-off between the range and the data rate makes UWB technology ideal for a wide array of applications in military, civil, and commercial sectors.

5.3. Ability to work with low signal to noise ratios

The Hartley-Shannon formula for maximum capacity (Equation 1–5) also indicates that the channel capacity is only logarithmically dependent on signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Therefore, UWB communications systems
are capable of working in harsh communication channels with low SNRs and still offer a large channel capacity as a result of their large BW.

5.4 Low probability of intercept and detection.
Because of their low average transmission power, as discussed in previous sections, UWB communications systems have an inherent immunity to detection and intercept. With such low transmission power, the eavesdropper has to be very close to the transmitter (about 1 meter) to be able to detect the transmitted information. In addition, UWB pulses are time modulated with codes unique to each transmitter/receiver pair. The time modulation of extremely narrow pulses adds more security to UWB transmission, because detecting picoseconds pulses without knowing when they will arrive is next to impossible. Therefore, UWB systems hold
significant promise of achieving highly secure, low probability of intercept and detection (LPI/D) communications that is a critical need for military operations.

5.5 Resistance to jamming

Unlike the well-defined narrow band frequency spectrum, the UWB spectrum covers a vast range of frequencies from near DC to several gigahertz and offers high processing gain for the UWB signals. Processing gain (PG) is a measure of a radio system’s resistance to jamming and is defined as the ratio of the RF bandwidth to the information bandwidth of a signal

INTRODUCTION TO ULTRA WIDEBAND COMMUNICATIONS

2008-05-23T01:07:00.000-07:00

Ultra-wideband communications is fundamentally different from all other communication techniques because it employs extremely narrow RF pulses to communicate between transmitters and receivers. Utilizing
short-duration pulses as the building blocks for communications directly generates a very wide bandwidth and offers several advantages, such as
large throughput, covertness, robustness to jamming, and coexistence with current radio services .

2. HISTORY AND BACKGROUND

Ultra-wideband communications is not a new technology; in fact, it was first employed by Guglielmo Marconi in 1901 to transmit Morse code sequences across the Atlantic Ocean using spark gap radio transmitters. However, the benefit of a large bandwidth and the capability of implementing multi-user systems provided by electromagnetic pulses were never considered at that time.
Approximately fifty years after Marconi, modern pulse-based transmission gained momentum in military applications in the form of impulse radars. From the 1960s to the 1990s, this technology was restricted to military and Department of Defense (DoD) applications
under classified programs such as highly secure communications. However, the recent advancement in micro processing and fast switching in semiconductor technology has made UWB ready for commercial applications.
Therefore, it is more appropriate to consider UWB as a new name for a long-existing technology.

Wireless Charging of Mobile

2008-05-23T01:00:00.000-07:00

With the mobile phones becoming a basic part of life, the recharging of batteries has become a big problem and with the prospect of mobile devices being equipped with additional peripheral devices like cameras, this problem worsens. As already mentioned, this paper suggests a novel method to charge the mobile phones on the move. The main principle in this proposal is to convert the incoming microwave energy to D.C through the rectenna, and use this voltage to charge the battery of the mobile.

A RECTifying anTENNA; rectifies received microwaves into DC current. A rectenna comprises of a mesh of dipoles and diodes for absorbing microwave energy from a transmitter and converting it into electric power. Its elements are usually arranged in a mesh pattern, giving it a distinct appearance from most antennae. A simple rectenna can be constructed from a schottky diode placed between antenna dipoles Rectennae are highly efficient at converting microwave energy to electricity. In laboratory environments, efficiencies above 90% have been observed with regularity.

The transmitter can be any one of the high frequency oscillators such as Klystrons, Traveling Wave Tubes, and Magnetrons. In our proposal the use of magnetron as the high frequency oscillator is explained. Magnetrons are preferred because they are highly stable.

Applications of Digital Image Processing

2008-05-20T19:19:00.000-07:00

Applications of digital image processing in general are infinite. There are hardly any areas where image processing is not necessary. However major applications in medicine, space are discussed briefly:

Medical:
In 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered that x-rays could pass through substantial amounts of matter. Medicine was revolutionized by the ability to look inside the living human body. Medical x-ray systems spread throughout the world in only a few years. In spite of its obvious success, medical x-ray imaging was limited by four problems until DSP and related techniques came along in the 1970s. First, overlapping structures in the body can hide behind each other. For example, portions of the heart might not be visible behind the ribs. Second, it is not always possible to distinguish between similar tissues. For example, it may be able to separate bone from soft tissue, but not distinguish a tumor from the liver. Third, x-ray images show anatomy, the body's structure, and not physiology, the body's operation. The x-ray image of a living person looks exactly like the x-ray image of a dead one! Fourth, x-ray exposure can cause cancer, requiring it to be used sparingly and only with proper justification.
Space:
Sometimes, we face a situation so as to make the most out of a bad picture. This is frequently the case with images taken from unmanned satellites and space exploration vehicles. DIP can improve the quality of images taken under extremely unfavorable conditions in several ways: brightness and contrast adjustment, edge detection, noise reduction, focus adjustment, motion blur reduction, etc. Images that have spatial distortion, such as encountered when a flat image is taken of a spherical planet, can also be warped into a correct representation. Many individual images can also be combined into a single database, allowing the information to be displayed in unique ways. For example, a video sequence simulating an aerial flight over the surface of a distant planet.

Commercial Imaging Products:The large information content in images is a problem for systems sold in mass quantity to the general public. Commercial systems must be cheap, and this doesn't mesh well with large memories and high data transfer rates. One answer to this dilemma is image compression. Just as with voice signals, images contain a tremendous amount of redundant information, and can be run through algorithms that reduce the number of bits needed to represent them. Television and other moving pictures are especially suitable for compression, since most of the image remain the same from frame-to-frame. Commercial imaging products that take advantage of this technology include: video telephones, computer programs that display moving pictures, and digital television

Digital Image Processing

2008-05-20T19:17:00.000-07:00

Digital image processing is electronic data processing on a 2-D array of numbers. The array is a numeric representation of an image. An image processing system consists of a source of image data, a processing element and a destination for the processed results.

Steps and Tools:
After obtaining the digitized image by the process of digitization the image is sent for image processing. Image processing operations can be roughly divided into three major categories, Image Compression, Image Enhancement and Restoration, and Measurement Extraction.

Image Compression:
As a result of digitization of an average size document at a medium resolution and color depth, a huge file of average size of about 20-50MB is produced. The quality of such an image is high, but the transmission time, the computational burden and the hardware requirements are simply enormous. Also the bandwidth of the transmission line required to transmit the information would be very large. Thus image compression is necessary. Some of the major compression techniques which can be used when transmitting or storing digital images are GIF(Graphics Interchage Format), PNG(Portable Network Graphics), JBIG(Joint Bilevel Group) and JPEG(Joint Photographers Expert Group). Various new techniques are also being devised for quick transmission and efficient compression.

CT scan working

2008-05-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

Inside the CT scanner is a rotating gantry that has an x-ray tube mounted on one side and an arc-shaped detector mounted on the opposite side. An x-ray beam is emitted in a fan shape as the rotating frame spins the x-ray tube and detector around the patient. Each time the x-ray tube and detector make a 360-degree rotation and the x-ray passes through the patient's body, the image of a thin section is acquired. During each rotation the detector records about 1,000 images (profiles) of the expanded x-ray beam. A dedicated computer into a two-dimensional image of the section that was scanned then reconstructs each profile. Multiple computers are typically used to control the entire CT system.
When computer reassembles the image slices, the result is a very detailed, multidimensional view of the body's interior.
A relatively new technique, spiral (helical) CT has improved the accuracy of CT for many diseases. A new vascular imaging technique, called spiral CT-Angiography is non-invasive and less expensive than conventional angiography and allows doctors to see blood vessels without the need for more invasive procedures.
The term "spiral CT" comes from the shape of the path taken by the x-ray beam during scanning. The examination table advances at a constant rate through the scanner gantry while the x-ray tube rotates continuously around the patient, tracing a spiral path through the patient. This spiral path gathers continuous data with no gaps between images.With spiral CT, refinements in detector technology support faster, higher-quality image acquisition with less radiation exposure. The current spiral CT scans are called multidetector CT and are most commonly four- or 16-slice systems. CT scanners with 64 detectors are now available. These instruments should provide either faster scanning or higher resolution images. Using 16-slice scanner systems the radiologist can acquire 32 image slices per second. A spiral scan can usually be obtained during a single breath hold. This allows scanning of the chest or abdomen in 10 seconds or less. Such speed is beneficial in all patients but especially in elderly, pediatric or critically ill patients, populations in whom the length of scanning was often problematic. The multidetector CT also allows applications like CT angiography to be more successful

COMPUTERIZED AXIAL TOMOGRAPHY

2008-05-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

. It is a technique using x-rays or ultrasound waves to produce an image of interior parts of the body.
Its is also a medical imaging method employing tomography where digital processing is used to generate a three-dimensional image of the internals of an object from a large series of two-dimensional X-ray images taken around a single axis of rotation.
CT imaging is particularly useful because it can show several types of tissue –lung, bone, soft tissue and blood vessels—with great clarity. Using specialized equipment and expertise to create and interpret CT scans of the body, radiologists can more easily diagnose problems such as cancers, cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, trauma and muskuloskeletal disorders. Imaging anatomical information from a cross-sectional plane of the body, each image generated by a computer synthesis of x-ray transmission data obtained in many different directions in a given plane. Developed by British electronics engineer Godfrey Hounsfield, CT has revolutionized diagnostic medicine. Hounsfield linked x-ray sensors to a computer and worked out a mathematical technique called algebraic reconstruction for assembling images from transmission data. Subsequently, the speed and accuracy of machines has improved many times over. CT scans reveal both bone and soft tissues, including organs, muscles, and tumors. Image tones can be adjusted to highlight tissues of similar density, and, through graphics software, the data from multiple cross-sections can be assembled into 3-D images. CT aids diagnosis and surgery or other treatment, including radiation therapy in which effective dosage is highly dependent on the precise density, size, and location of a tumor. Because it provides detailed, cross- sectional views of all types of tissue
About the machine:
The CT scanner is a large, square machine with a hole in the center. The patient lies still on a table that can move up or down and slide into and out from the center of the hole. Within the machine an X-ray tube on a rotating gantry moves around the patient's body to produce the images, making clicking and whirring noises as the table moves. In many ways CT scanning works very much like other X-ray examinations. Very small, controlled amounts of x-ray radiations are passed through the body and different tissues absorb radiation at different rates. With plain radiology, an image of the inside of the body is captured when special film is exposed to the absorbed x-rays. With CT the film is replaced by an array of detectors that measure the x-ray profile.

Spintronic quantum gates

2008-05-18T10:36:00.001-07:00

5. Spintronic quantum gates
The idea of using a single electron or nuclear spin to encode a qubit, and then utilizing this to realize a universal quantum gate, has taken hold. The motivation for this is the realization that spin coherence times in solids are much larger than charge coherence times. Charge coherence times in semiconductors tend to saturate to about 1 ns as the temperature is lowered. This is presumably due to coupling to zero point motion of phonons, which cannot be eliminated by lowering the temperature. On the other hand, electron spin coherence times of 100 ns in GaAs at 5 K have already been reported and much higher coherence times are expected for nuclear spins in
silicon. Therefore, spin is obviously the preferred vehicle to encode qubits in solids.
Using spin to carry out all optical quantum computing has also appeared as a viable and intriguing idea. The advantage of the all-optical scheme over the electronic scheme is that we do not have to read single electron spins electrically to read a qubit. Electrical read out is extremely difficult, although some schemes have been proposed for this purpose. Recently, some experimental progress has been made in this direction, but reading a single qubit in the solid state still remains elusive. The difficult part is that electrical read out requires making contacts to individual quantum dots, which is an engineering challenge. In contrast, optical read out does not require contacts. The qubit is read out using a quantum jump technique, which requires monitoring the fluorescence from a quantum dot. Recently, it has been verified experimentally that the spin state of an electron in a quantum dot can be read by circularly polarized light. Therefore, optical read out appears to be a more practical approach.

SPINTRONICS

2008-05-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

The visionary who first thought of using the spin polarization of a single electron to encode a binary bit of information has never been identified conclusively. Folklore has it that Feynman mentioned this notion in casual conversations (circa 1985), but to this author’s knowledge there did not exist concrete schemes for implementing spintronic logic gates till the mid 1990s. Encoding information in spin may have certain advantages.
First, there is the possibility of lower power dissipation in switching logic gates. In charge based devices, such as metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors, switching between logic 0 and logic 1 is accomplished by moving charges into and out of the transistor channel. Motion of charges is induced by creating a potential gradient (or electric field). The associated potential energy is ultimately dissipated as heat and irretrievably lost. In the case of spin, we do not have to move charges. In order to switch a bit from 0 to 1, or vice versa, we merely have to toggle the spin. This may require much less energy. Second, spin does not couple easily to stray electric fields (unless there is strong spin-orbit interaction in the host

material). Therefore, spin is likely to be relatively immune to noise. Finally, it is possible that spin devices may be faster. If we do not have to move electrons around, we will not be limited by the transit time of charges. Instead, we will be limited by the spin flip time, which could be smaller.

CONFIGURATION OF TACTILE SENSING SYSTEM

2008-05-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

This system uses conductive plasterer as a sensor, which has a property that its conductivity changes as a function of the pressure applied. Fig 1 shows the configuration of the system. The conductive elastomer is mounted on 8*8 force sensing sites for the measurement of pressure distribution on the object. These force sensing sites are connected through PC add on data acquisition card. Stepper motor is used to apply specific amount of pressure for the proper identification of the objects. Hardware for scanning the matrix and related signal conditioning is designed along with the stepper motor interface circuitry. Once the image of the object is acquired through the Tactile Sensing System, then it is further processed using Image Processing concepts for the proper identification and inferring other properties of the objects. Tactile data for the object identification is acquired using Row-Scanning technique. After the removal of noise from this tactile data, it passes to the different modules of the system for further processing.
TACTILE DATA PROCESSING

The main modules of this system are pre-processing, data acquisition, matrix representation, graphical representation, edge detection and moments calculations for generating a feature vector. Tactile image acquisition involves conversion of the pressure image into an array of numbers that can be manipulated by the computer. In this system, a tactile sensor is used to obtain the pressure data of the object and this data is further acquired with the help of data acquisition and data input/output card, which are interfaced with the computer. The pre-processing module involves in the removal of the noise, which is essential for acquiring the image of the object under consideration. The image is analyzed by a set of numerical features to remove redundancy from the data and reduce its dimensions. Invariant moments are calculated in this module, which are required by the next module to the artificial neural for the identification of the object independent to scale, rotation and position.

TACTILE SENSING SYSTEM USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK

2008-05-17T19:59:00.000-07:00

Of the many sensing operations performed by human beings, the one that is probably the most likely to be taken for granted is that of touch. Touch is not only complimentary to vision, but it offers many powerful sensing capabilities. Tactile sensing is another name of touch sensing, which deals with the acquisition of information about the object simply by touching that object. Touch sensing gives the information about the object like shape, hardness, surface details and height of the object, etc.
Tactile sensing is required when an intelligent robot wants to perform delicate assembly operations. During this assembly operation an industrial robot must be capable of recognizing parts, determining their position, orientation and sensing any problem encountered during the assembly from the interface of the parts. Keeping all these things in mind, a Tactile Sensing System is developed which uses image processing techniques for pre-processing and analysis along with ANN’s for object identification. Classification of the object independent of translation, scale and rotation is a difficult task. The concept of Artificial Neural Network is used in this system for the proper identification of the object, irrespective of their size, position and orientation.

Applications of Speech Recognition

2008-05-16T05:12:00.000-07:00

The specific use of speech recognition technology will depend on the application. Some target applications that are good candidates for integrating speech recognition include:

Games and Edutainment

Speech recognition offers game and edutainment developers the potential to bring their applications to a new level of play. With games, for example, traditional computer-based characters could evolve into characters that the user can actually talk to.
While speech recognition enhances the realism and fun in many computer games, it also provides a useful alternative to keyboard-based control, and voice commands provide new freedom for the user in any sort of application, from entertainment to office productivity.

Data Entry

Applications that require users to keyboard paper-based data into the computer (such as database front-ends and spreadsheets) are good candidates for a speech recognition application. Reading data directly to the computer is much easier for most users and can significantly speed up data entry.
While speech recognition technology cannot effectively be used to enter names, it can enter numbers or items selected from a small (less than 100 items) list. Some recognizers can even handle spelling fairly well. If an application has fields with mutually exclusive data types (for example, one field allows "male" or "female", another is for age, and a third is for city), the speech recognition engine can process the command and automatically determine which field to fill in.

Document Editing

This is a scenario in which one or both modes of speech recognition could be used to dramatically improve productivity. Dictation would allow users to dictate entire documents without typing. Command and control would allow users to modify formatting or change views without using the mouse or keyboard. For example, a word processor might provide commands like "bold", "italic", "change to Times New Roman font", "use bullet list text style," and "use 18 point type." A paint package might have "select eraser" or "choose a wider brush."

SPEECH RECOGNITION

2008-05-16T05:05:00.000-07:00

One of the most important inventions of the nineteenth century was the telephone. Then at the midpoint of twentieth century, the invention of the digital computer amplified the power of our minds, enabled us to think and work more efficiently and made us more imaginative then we could ever have imagined .now several new technologies have empowered us to teach computers to talk to us in our native languages and to listen to us when we speak(recognition); haltingly computers have begun to understand what we say. Having given our computers both oral and aural abilities, we have been able to produce innumerable computer applications that further enhance our productivity. Such capabilities enable us to route phone calls automatically and to obtain and update computer based information by telephone, using a group of activities collectively referred to as Voice Processing.

SPEECH TECHNOLOGY

Three primary speech technologies are used in voice processing applications: stored speech, text-to – speech and speech recognition . Stored speech involves the production of computer speech from an actual human voice that is stored in a
computer’s memory and used in any of several ways. Speech can also be synthesized from plain text in a process known as text-to – speech which also enables voice processing applications to read from textual database. Speech recognition is the process of deriving either a textual transcription or some form of meaning from a spoken input.
Speech analysis can be thought of as that part of voice processing that converts human speech to digital forms suitable for transmission or storage by computers. Speech synthesis functions are essentially the inverse of speech analysis – they reconvert speech data from a digital form to one that’s similar to the original recording and suitable for playback.Speech analysis processes can also be referred to as a digital speech encoding ( or simply coding) and speech synthesis can be referred to as Speech decoding

Wireless Application Testing

2008-05-16T04:58:00.000-07:00

Wireless applications are booming in the modern PDA and cell phone market. Standalone applications and value-added extensions of existing applications are both excellent ways to attract customers and increase the value of the hardware. Many companies use these applications as a way to retain customers and improve customer experience and satisfaction.Testing these applications has continued to be a road block for many developers. Difficulty insecuring all platforms, and testing the many disparate configurations is cumbersome and time consuming.
2.TYPES OF TESTING:
a) Functional Testing
A set of functional tests will be developed based on client documentation. Functional tests verify that the application performs the tasks correctly and accurately as explained in the client documentation. Dedicated QA Engineers will write test cases for each component of functionality and execute those tests. Tests will be clearly defined prior to execution, with an emphasis on actions and expected corresponding behaviors.
b) Compatibility Testing

The wireless market has a myriad of devices available. The differences in each device can be extensive. Each device can have a different operating system, support different technologies, and have different hardware. Presenting a similar end-user experience on each device is challenging. Generally, each platform requires a separate version of the application, and in some cases, the same platform may have different versions for each different device. This often happens when developing applications for cell phones. Different screen sizes/resolutions and differences in other physical hardware often make it necessary to have different versions for each platform.