Outage performance of dual‐hop relaying systems over extended generalized‐K fading channels

The outage performance of the amplify‐and‐forward relaying strategies over mutually uncorrelated extended generalized‐K fading channels is addressed in this paper. The attention is dedicated to the analyses of the noise‐limited and also interference‐limited environment. The new analytical expression for outage probability of observed relaying system in the presence of thermal noise is derived using the method for approximating equivalent signal‐to‐noise ratio. In addition, the outage performance is studied for the dual‐hop system when only the single dominant co‐channel interference is inherent at the relay and destination node. The correctness of the proposed mathematical derivations is verified by simulations. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seasonal variations of cytosolic antioxidant enzyme activities in the liver and white muscle of thinlip gray mullet (Liza ramada Risso) from the Adriatic Sea

The activity of cytosolic antioxidative defence enzymes in the liver and white muscle of thinlip gray mullet (Liza ramada Risso) were compared in winter and spring in the Adriatic Sea. Activity of antioxidative enzymes is functionally organized due to metabolic demands: analyses of variance and correlation analysis revealed tissue- and seasonal- specific organization of antioxidative enzymes. In winter GST activity increased in both tissues compared with spring. At the same time decreased GSH-Px and GR activities were observed and this effect was more pronounced in liver then in white muscle. From correlation analyses it is concluded that the antioxidative components correlate, but the composition of the antioxidative defence system is different in respect to season and tissue. This means that the antioxidative defence system reorganizes its structure due to oxidative demands and to protect the tissues against reactive oxygen species and to establish homeostasis. Discriminant analyses separated groups according to the complete organization of individual components of the system very well and identified individual components (CAT, GST and GR) which contribute most to the differences. Statistical differences were observed between enzyme activities in tissues (liver and muscle) in both winter and spring, and between seasons (winter and spring) for liver tissue only. Since environmental parameters, such as temperature and oxygen concentration in the sea differ with season, we conclude that in this species the tissues examined expressed their antioxidative defence systems in different ways in respect of external/environmental conditions. We propose that tissue- and seasonal- specific levels of antioxidant enzyme activities should be considered in the interpretation of data from future biomonitoring field studies, especially in relation to low temperature.     

An approximation of filtered signal envelope with phase noise incoherent optical systems

We examine the approximation of the probability density of a filtered signal envelope in the presence of phase noise. The probability density function (pdf) is of practical interest, especially for the performance evaluation of coherent optical systems employing envelope detection. We consider a few possibilities for approximate pdf construction, and develop simple, yet very accurate, expressions to describe the envelope of a filtered signal influenced by phase noise. To check the accuracy, we use the approximation for performance evaluation of a coherent optical frequency-shift keying (FSK) receiver, and compare the results with those obtained from existing methods     

Calderón problem for connections

In this paper, we consider the problem of identifying a connection ? on a vector bundle up to gauge equivalence from the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map of the connection Laplacian ?*? over conformally transversally anisotropic (CTA) manifolds. This was proved in [9 Dos Santos Ferreira, D., Kenig, C., Salo, M., Uhlmann, G. (2009). Limiting Carleman weights and anisotropic inverse problems. Invent. Math. 178:119–171.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]] for line bundles in the case of the transversal manifold being simple—we generalize this result to the case where the transversal manifold only has an injective ray transform. Moreover, the construction of suitable Gaussian beam solutions on vector bundles is given for the case of the connection Laplacian and a potential, following the works of [11 Dos Santos Ferreira, D., Kurylev, Y., Lassas, M., Salo, M. (2016). The Calderón problem in transversally anisotropic geometries. J. Eur. Math. Soc., 18:2579–2626.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]]. This in turn enables us to construct the Complex Geometrical Optics (CGO) solutions and prove our main uniqueness result. We also reduce the problem to a new non-abelian X-ray transform for the case of simple transversal manifolds and higher rank vector bundles. Finally, we prove the recovery of a flat connection in general from the DN map, up to gauge equivalence, using an argument relating the Cauchy data of the connection Laplacian and the holonomy.     

Chemical composition and antimicrobial activity of Satureja kitaibelii essential oil against pathogenic microbial strains

Plant species Satureja kitaibelii Wierzb. ex Heuff. is used as a spice and as a natural preservative for food and herbal tea, owing to its characteristic scent and flavor as well as high antimicrobial activity. In the present study, the antimicrobial activity of isolated essential oil of S. kitaibelii was tested against a panel of 30 pathogenic microorganisms (foodborne microbes, selected multiresistant bacterial isolates from the patient wounds and dermatophyte isolates). Limonene (15.54%), p-cymene (9.99%), and borneol (8.91%) appeared as the main components in 44 identified compounds representing 98.44% of the oil. Essential oil of S. kitaibelii showed significant activity against a wide spectrum of foodborne microbes (MIC=0.18-25.5 microg mL(-1)) and multiresistant bacterial isolates (MIC=6.25-50.0 microg mL(-1)), as well as against dermatophyte strains (MIC=12.5-50.0 microg mL(-1)). These results demonstrate that S. kitaibelii essential oil could be used as a natural potential antimicrobial agent against pathogenic strains in the treatment of foodborne disease, wound and skin infections.     

Performance of PSK signal transmitted over satellite channel

The authors determine the bit error rate of a digital satellite system with phase modulation when at the input of the satellite only Gaussian noise is added, while at the input of the earth station they assume both Gaussian noise and an interference approximated by the sum of n sinusoidal signals     

Deoxyribozyme-based ligase logic gates and their initial circuits

A complete set (YES, NOT, AND, and ANDNOT) of molecular scale logic gates based on ligase deoxyribozymes was constructed. The activity of these gates was visualized through the formation of cascades with downstream phosphodieseterase YES gates, which performed fluorogenic cleavage.     

Theoretical scrutinization of nine benzoic acid dimers: Stability and energy decomposition analysis

Aromatic carboxylic acids are able to form diverse dimers and multimers due to their hydrogen bond donor and acceptor cites, as well as the aromatic rings. In this work, we examine nine benzoic acid dimers stabilized by hydrogen bonding and stacking interactions. Interacting quantum atoms methodology revealed that dominant attractive interactions in all of them, including hydrogen bonded systems, are due to exchange-correlation. Coulomb interactions are significant only in the most stable dimer with a double hydrogen bond, although the corresponding energy term is almost two times lower compared to the nonclassical one. Since interacting quantum atoms approach treats monomers binding by considering electronic energy only, in order to examine dissociation kinetics we performed density functional theory-based molecular dynamics simulations of selected stacked dimers: in 40% of the studied systems at 300 K thermal energy was sufficient to overpower barrier for dissociation within 1 ps, which resulted in the separation of the monomers, whereas 20% of them remained in the stacked position even after 5 ps. These results highlight the importance of noncovalent interactions, particularly weak stacking interactions, on the structure and dynamics of carboxylic acids and their derivatives.     

Electronic and Vibrational Spectroscopy of 1‐Methylthymine and its Water Clusters: The Dark State Survives Hydration

Electronic and vibrational gas phase spectra of 1‐methylthymine (1MT) and 1‐methyluracil (1MU) and their clusters with water are presented. Mass selective IR/UV double resonance spectra confirm the formation of pyrimidine‐water clusters and are compared to calculated vibrational spectra obtained from ab initio calculations. In contrast to Y. He, C. Wu, W. Kong; J. Phys. Chem. A, 2004 , 108, 94 we are able to detect 1MT/1MU and their water clusters via resonant two‐photon delayed ionization under careful control of the applied water‐vapor pressure. The long‐living dark electronic state of 1MT and 1MU detected by delayed ionization, survives hydration and the photostability of 1MT/1MU cannot be attributed solely to hydration. Oxygen coexpansions and crossed‐beam experiments indicate that the triplet state population is probably small compared to the ¹nπ* and/or hot electronic ground state population. Ab initio theory shows that solvation of 1MT by water does not lead to a substantial modification of the electronic relaxation and quenching of the ¹nπ* state. Relaxation pathways via ¹ππ*¹–nπ*¹ and ¹ππ *–S₀ conical intersections and barriers have been identified, but are not significantly altered by hydration.     

Performance Analysis of System with Micro- and Macrodiversity Reception in Correlated Gamma Shadowed Rician Fading Channels

In this paper, the performance of wireless system employing microdiversity to mitigate the effects of short-term fading and macrodiversity to reduce long-term fading (shadowing) effects is studied. The system model assumes implementation of maximal-ratio combining (MRC) at the microlevel and selection combining (SC) at the macrolevel. The received signal envelope follows a Rician distribution and it also suffers gamma shadowing. Novel expressions for the probability density function (PDF), cumulative distribution function (CDF), and moment-generating function (MGF) of the output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are obtained. Several useful performance criteria, such as the moments of the output SNR and outage probability are analytically derived. Moreover, the average bit error probability (ABEP) for noncoherent binary differential phase-shift keying (BDPSK) is calculated using the MGF based approach while the ABEP for coherent binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) is studied by averaging the conditional bit error probability over the PDF. Numerical results are graphically presented to show the effects of various system parameters to the system performance, as well as the enhancement due to use of the combination of micro- and macrodiversity. Some of numerical results are complemented by equivalent computer simulated results which validate the accuracy of the proposed analysis. The agreement between the Rician-gamma and Rician-lognormal fading model is also established.