Neelakanta, Perambur S.

This research refers to a proof-of-concept study concerning the development of a
noninvasive blood-glucose monitoring system. The biosensor being considered is a
microwave-based transducer (that can be rendered compatible for ISM band of 2450
MHz and hence Zigbee™ and/or BluetoothTM compliant). The goal of this study is
tailored to develop eventually a unit for home-based healthcare and/or personalized
wellness monitoring of diabetic patients. This pilot effort is expected to culminate in
future in a wireless hyper/hypoglycemic risk-alert system and possible automatic insulin
infusion pump activation efforts.
The thesis addressed thereof provides details on the fundamentals of sensing
glucose content noninvasively across a finger. The underlying principle of biosensing
refers to detecting the change in the dielectric property of blood with differential changes
in the glucose influx in the finger by sensing microwave (such as 2450 MHz) absorption
and/or reflection so as to assay the glucose content of interest. Preliminary experimental
and theoretical results are presented and discussed.

The research addressed and deliberated in this thesis refers to CMOS VLSI design approach of a Bluetooth™ receiver front-end. The performance outcome o f the design is verified with ADS™ RF simulation tool. Essentially the thesis offers an outline on the Bluetooth™ technology and its RF front-end component requirements. The relevant specifications of the
designed front-end blocks are identified and are in concurrence with CMOS technology based
topologies. For each block identified, both circuit parameters and device characteristics are chosen as
per available design formulations and empirical results in open literature. Specifically,
the topology sections designed include antenna input matching, transmit/receive switch,
necessary filters, low noise amplifier, mixer and phase lock loop units. The numerical
TM, (designed) circuit parameters are duly addressed in appropriate ADS simulation tools
and performance evaluations are conducted. Observed results including any deviations
are identified and reported. The thesis concludes with a summary and indicates direction
for future work.

This thesis addresses a passive, economical strategy towards enhancing the security
feature of conventional plastic cards by embedding a set of electromagnetic (EM)
material that emulates an invisible "watermarking". It is an overlay strategy to prevailing
security measures.
Proposed method consists of incorporating (embedding) a set of metallic (foil-like) sheet
of high-mu material or high-conductivity metal, or a conducting-fiber interwoven fabric.
The test card when exposed to a suitable excitation of high frequency EM excitation
(with or without superimposing a static magnetic field), the plastic part yields a distinct
path-reluctance to the EM energy when compared to the embedded EM material section.
Sensing the resulting EM reaction with an appropriate circuit, delivers an output signal
depicting the presence of the embedded "watermarking" and any encoded signature in it.
The underlying concept is theoretically analyzed, relevant card-reading methods are
suggested and prototype (experimental) results are presented.

This study is a focused effort on elucidating the performance aspects of modern,
handheld wireless devices and associated mobile network services. Specifically addressed
thereof are: (i) Assessing the performance details on certain hardware sections of smart
handheld devices and (ii) determining the performance profile of market penetration
considerations vis-à-vis provisioning mobile networks. To meet the scope of this research,
the projected efforts are exercised in compiling relevant literature and deciding the said
hardware and technoeconomic performance issues. Hence, written in two parts, Part A is
devoted to hardware performance details of smart, handheld devices relevant to (a) delay
issues in PCB layouts; (b) crosstalk problems at the baseband level (audio/multimedia) using
EMI concepts and (c) ascertaining non-catastrophic EMP/EMI effects at the RF-sections so
as to implement protection strategies via compensating networks. Part B is concerned with the technoeconomics of wireless networks in supporting mobile (handheld devices).
Correspondingly, two market related considerations versus service performance details are
considered. The first one refers to deducing a relative performance index that includes
technology (mobile speed) details plus economics profiles of the users in the service area.
The second task refers to elucidating a performance index of such services in terms of
hedonic pricing heuristics.
The theoretical aspects of the test studies as above are supplemented with
experimental and/or simulation details as appropriate. Hence, the efficacy of performance
details are discussed in real-world applications.
Lastly, possible research items for future studies are identified as open-questions.

The present research is a targeted endeavor to study the underlying characteristics and novel applications of millimeter (mm) wave through terahertz (THz) spectrum of electromagnetic (EM) energy. Focused thereof are the following specific tasks broadly considered pertinent to the said EM spectral range: (i) To elucidate the material characteristics vis-à-vis the interaction with EM energy at the test frequencies; (ii) to identify biomedical applications based on the material characteristics studied and applied to biomedia; and (iii) to model the wireless communication channels supporting EM waves at the test frequency bands of interest. Commensurate with the scope as above, the objectives of the research are as follows:

The research efforts refer to tracking homologus loci in the chromosomes of a pair of a species. The purpose is to infer the extent of maximum syntenic correlation when an exhaustive set of orthologs of the species are searched. Relevant bioinformatic analyses use comparative mapping of conserved synteny via Oxford grid. In medical diagnostic efforts, deducing such synteny correlation can help screening chromosomal aberration in genetic disorder pathology. Objectively, the present study addresses: (i) Cytogenetic framework of syntenic correlation and, (ii) applying information-theoretics to determine entropy-dictated synteny across an exhaustive set of orthologs of the test pairs of species.

The focus of this research is concerned with performing forecasting in technoeconomic contexts using a set of certain novel artificial neural networks (ANNs). Relevant efforts in general, entail the task of quantitatively estimating the details about the likelihood of future events (or unknown outcomes/effects) based on past and current information on the observed events (or known causes). Commensurate with the scope and objectives of the research, the specific topics addressed are as follows:
A review on various methods adopted in technoeconomic forecasting and identified are econometric projections that can be used for forecasting via artificial neural network (ANN)-based simulations Developing and testing a compatible version of ANN designed to support a dynamic sigmoidal (squashing) function that morphs to the stochastical trends of the ANN input. As such, the network architecture gets pruned for reduced complexity across the span of iterative training schedule leading to the realization of a constructive artificial neural-network (CANN). Formulating a training schedule on an ANN with sparsely-sampled data via sparsity removal with cardinality enhancement procedure (through Nyquist sampling) and invoking statistical bootstrapping technique of resampling applied on the cardinality-improved subset so as to obtain an enhanced number of pseudoreplicates required as an adequate ensemble for robust training of the test ANN: The training and prediction exercises on the test ANN corresponds to optimally elucidating output predictions in the context of the technoeconomics framework of the power generation considered Prescribing a cone-of-error to alleviate over- or under-predictions toward prudently interpreting the results obtained; and, squeezing the cone-of-error to get a final cone-of-forecast rendering the forecast estimation/inference to be more precise Designing an ANN-based fuzzy inference engine (FIE) to ascertain the ex ante forecast details based on sparse sets of ex post data gathered in technoeconomic contexts - Involved thereof a novel method of .fusing fuzzy considerations and data sparsity.Lastly, summarizing the results with essential conclusions and identifying possible research items for future efforts identified as open-questions.

This thesis addresses studies on cost-functions developed on the basis of maximum entropy principle, for applications in artificial neural network (ANN) optimization endeavors. The maximization of entropy refers to maximizing Shannon information pertinent to the difference in the output and the teacher value of an ANN. Apart from the Shannon format of the negative entropy formulation a set of Csiszar family functions are also considered. The error-measures obtained, via these maximum entropy formulations are adopted as cost-functions in the training and prediction schedules of a test perceptron. A comparative study is done on the performance of these cost-functions in facilitating the test network towards optimization so as to predict a standard teacher function sin (.). The study is also extended to predict a parameter (such as cell delay variation) in a practical ATM telecommunication system. Concluding remarks and scope for an extended study are also indicated.

ATM multiplexing, (which is essentially a statistical multiplexing process with priority constraints) leads to a departure pattern of cells on the trunk (or bearer) line, characterized by the profiles of incoming traffics at the multiplexer. Such profiles are decided by the bit-rate variations and workload fluctuations of the associated sources, namely voice, data and video of the cells. Bit rate statistics of incoming traffic with priority constraints decide the clustered and/or non-clustered epochs of cells on the multiplexed fine. If the incoming traffic is delay-sensitive, it gets the priority in the multiplexing strategy and the associated cells inbiting no clusters; whereas, the non-isochronous traffics (facing low priority flow service) induce stagnation in the queue and pose eventually a clustered structure of cells on the trunk line. Workload fluctuation is largely application-dependent. The corresponding teletraffic statistics would also show deviations in the performance from the mean-field regime. In essence, the cell-stream departing from ATM multiplexer would exhibit statistics of deviations. In the present study, the associated delay parameter is considered and modeled under constant and variable bit rate conditions for fluctuating workloads. Mean-field theory is applied in modeling constant bit rate traffics. For variable and bursty rate transmissions, it is shown that the delay is governed by a non-homogeneous compound Poisson process. Relevant statistical bounds are established via large-deviation theory. Determination of the bounds of ATM cell-delay variations is important in developing call admission control algorithms.

This thesis addresses a method to deduce the statistical bounds associated with the cell-transfer delay variations (CDVs) encountered by the cells of MPEG traffic, transmitted in the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks. This study focuses on: (1) Estimating CDV arising from multiplexing/switching for both constant bit rate (CBR) and variable bit rate (VBR) traffics via priority allocation based simulations. (2) Developing an information-theoretics based technique to get an insight of the combined BER-induced and multiplexing/switching-induced CDVs in ATM networks. Algorithms pertinent to CDV statistics are derived and the lower and upper bounds of the statistics are obtained via simulations in respect of CBR and VBR traffics. Ascertaining these bounds is useful in the cell admission control (CAC) strategies adopted in ATM transmissions. Inferential remarks indicating the effects of traffic parameters (such as bandwidth, burstiness etc.) on the values of the statistical bounds are presented, and scope for further work are presented.