Cartan automorphisms and Vogan superdiagrams

The real forms of complex semisimple Lie algebras are characterized by Cartan involutions and Vogan diagrams. We extend these notions to the Cartan automorphisms and Vogan superdiagrams, and show that they characterize the real forms of complex contragredient Lie superalgebras.     

Is Curcumin the Answer to Future Chemotherapy Cocktail?

The rise in cancer cases in recent years is an alarming situation worldwide. Despite the tremendous research and invention of new cancer therapies, the clinical outcomes are not always reassuring. Cancer cells could develop several evasive mechanisms for their survivability and render therapeutic failure. The continuous use of conventional cancer therapies leads to chemoresistance, and a higher dose of treatment results in even greater toxicities among cancer patients. Therefore, the search for an alternative treatment modality is crucial to break this viscous cycle. This paper explores the suitability of curcumin combination treatment with other cancer therapies to curb cancer growth. We provide a critical insight to the mechanisms of action of curcumin, its role in combination therapy in various cancers, along with the molecular targets involved. Curcumin combination treatments were found to enhance anticancer effects, mediated by the multitargeting of several signalling pathways by curcumin and the co-administered cancer therapies. The preclinical and clinical evidence in curcumin combination therapy is critically analysed, and the future research direction of curcumin combination therapy is discussed.     

The burning rate’s effect on the flame length of weak fire whirls

This paper discusses why the visibly-determined flame length of a weak fire whirl increases as compared with the corresponding pool fire without spin. Here, a fire whirl is called weak when the pure aerodynamic effect of flow circulation has a negligible influence on the flame length. Split cylinders were used to apply a flow circulation to a 3-cm-diameter methane burner flame and a 3-cm-diameter ethanol pool fire. After applying the flow circulation, the flame length of the ethanol pool fire increased about three times, while little change was observed in the flame length of the methane burner flame. The difference is explained by the fact that the burning rate of the methane burner flame was fixed constant, whereas that of the ethanol pool fire increased due to the increased heat input to the fuel surface caused by a change in flame shape pushed toward the fuel surface. The experimental observations thus demonstrate that the burning-rate effect can significantly increase the flame length even under a weak circulation condition. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted to understand the detailed flow structure of a fire whirl. An analytical model was then developed based on the experimental observations and CFD calculations; the predicted relationship between the flame height and the burning rate agreed with experimental data.     

Turbo decoding for robust multiuser detection in impulsive noisechannels

A more robust version of the nonlinear M-decorrelating detector through iterative (turbo) decoding is proposed. The turbo code performance in the linear decorrelating detector is also studied. Simulation results indicate that combined nonlinear signal processing and turbo decoding can achieve highly robust performance in impulsive noise     

A detailed analysis of cross-phase modulation effects on OOK and dpsk optical WDM transmission systems in the presence of GVD,SPM, and ASE noise

A performance analysis is carried out to evaluate the effect of cross-phase modulation (XPM) on a dispersion-managed 20 Gb/s optical wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) transmission system using either the on-off keying (OOK) or the different-phase-shifting keying (DPSK) modulation, in the presence of the group-velocity dispersion (GVD), self-phase modulation (SPM), and amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). It is found that to achieve a bit error rate (BER) of 10⁻⁹ at a distance of 160 km, a 1.0 dB XPM power penalty is incurred for input channel power of 3 dBm in the OOK transmission and 7 dBm in the DPSK transmission. The power penalty increases with input channel powers and is inversely proportional and exhibits oscillations with respect to the channel separation. The oscillation is evenly spaced for the DPSK but not for the OOK and suggests the presence of optimum separation values. The XPM penalty decreases when a high dispersion fiber is used and increases linearly with increasing dispersion slope. Small residual dispersion can reduce the penalty of nonlinear effects.     

A fully-integrated 5 Gbit/s CMOS clock and data recovery circuit

A fully-integrated 5 Gb/s PLL-based clock and data recovery circuit based on a linear half-rate phase detector (PD) architecture is presented. Data retiming performed by the linear PD provides practically no systematic offset for the operating frequency of interest. The circuit was designed in a 0.18 μm CMOS process and occupies an active area of 0.2 × 0.32 mm². The CDR exhibits an RMS jitter of ± 1.2 ps and a peak-to-peak jitter of 5 ps. The power dissipation is 97 mW from a 1.8 V supply.     

Tunable GHz Repetitive ps Pulse InGaN Laser

Using sinusoidal waveform, an InGaN laser unit which incorporated a 50-Omega impedance-matching unit was used to generate <70-ps pulses with a repetition frequency ranging from 800MHz to 3.0 GHz. At 1.0 GHz, the pulses with a pulsewidth of 31ps and a peak power of >450 mW were obtained using +27dBm of RF power. Tuning characteristics of this gain-switching laser were studied     

Recent advances in the application of cellulose derivatives for removal of contaminants from aquatic environments

Cellulose - Inappropriate discharge of industrial wastewater and household effluent has led to an accumulation of hazardous organic substances, oil and grease, heavy metal ions, dyes, and leftover...