Signal masking for chaotic optical communication using external-cavity diode lasers

Amplitude modulation is used to encode a message into the output of a chaotic laser-diode optical transmitter, and decoding of the message by use of a synchronized chaotic laser-diode receiver is demonstrated experimentally. The chaotic carrier is shown to effectively mask the transmitted message.     

Biocalorimetry as a process analytical technology process analyser; robust in-line monitoring and control of aerobic fed-batch cultures of crabtree-negative yeast cells

Control of bioprocesses requires reliable and robust on- or in-line monitoring tools providing real-time information on process dynamics. Heat generation related to metabolic activity of living systems is currently gaining importance in bioprocess industry due to its non-invasive and essentially instantaneous characteristics. This study deals with monitoring and control of pure aerobic fed-batch cultures of three Crabtree-negative yeast strains, Kluyveromyces marxianus, Candida utilis and Pichia pastoris, based on in-line measured, metabolic heat flow signals. A high resolution biocalorimeter (BioRC1) was developed from a standard bench-scale heat flow calorimeter (RC1). The BioRC1 was equipped with in-line (dielectric spectroscopy, pH probe and dissolved oxygen probe) and at-line (exit gas analyser) sensors to characterise the growth behaviour of the yeast cells. Both metabolic heat flow and biomass profiles exhibited similar behaviour proving the significance of employing heat flow signal as a key-parameter for the system under investigation. A simple estimator for biomass concentration and specific growth rate was formulated based on heat flow values. In order to evaluate the potential of calorimetry as a reliable and powerful process monitoring tool, the robustness, reliability as well as the broad applicability of the developed estimators was assessed through comparison with off-line measurement techniques and showed promising results for general applicability with a wide range of bioprocesses.     

A comprehensive study on sedimentation rate and sediment age of Satopanth Tal Garhwal Himalaya,using 210Pb and 137Cs techniques

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - Radionuclides dating have been applied in the chronological series of sediment core recovered from Satopanth Tal to estimate the sedimentation...     

Nullified time-of-flight lead-lag in synchronization of chaotic external-cavity laser diodes

Synchronization of three chaotic diode lasers is effected in a transmitter-mediator-receiver configuration. The transmitter laser's output is bidirectionally coupled to the mediator laser to achieve anticipating synchronization in their output intensities. The mediator laser's output is unidirectionally coupled to the receiver laser to achieve lag synchronization in their output intensities. This combination of lead and lag synchronization nullifies the time-of-flight lead-lag in synchronization between the transmitter and receiver lasers. This approach provides a means of eliminating time-of-flight delays in the synchronization of remote transmitters and receivers.     

Cascaded synchronization of external-cavity laser diodes

An experimental demonstration of optical synchronization of a chain of chaotic external-cavity laser diodes is reported for what is believed to be the first time. The experiment is performed in the low-frequency-fluctuation regime.     

Two-photon excited fluorescence from biological aerosol particles

We used a 40 MHz mode-locked 524 nm laser source to evaluate the utility of sub-picosecond excitation of fluorescence from 2-photon absorption in biological aerosols. Individual particles of biological composition, as well as other calibration particles, suspended in an inlet air flow were illuminated and measured as they passed through an optical chamber. To our knowledge, this was the first demonstration of 2-photon excited fluorescence from micron-sized particles composed of micro-organisms. We also observed a high fluorescence signal at visible wavelengths, which was not present with single-photon excitation.     

Dynamical regimes and intracavity propagation delay in external cavity semiconductor diode lasers

The open shell molecules with even number of electrons have π ² or \({\pi ^{2}_{g}}\) ground-state electronic configuration. Several homonuclear diatomic molecules like O₂, S₂, B₂ have \({\pi ^{2}_{g}}\) ground state in the \(D_{\infty h}\) point group and heteronuclear diatomic radicals like PH, NH, SO have π ² ground state in the \(C_{\infty v}\) point group. We have computed and presented here the rate coefficient of these open shell molecules (O₂, S₂, B₂) and radicals (PH, NH, SO) from the results of our previous studies using a well-established ab-initio formalism: the R-matrix method. The rate coefficients for elastic and electron-excited processes are studied over a wide electron temperature range.     

Imidazole-containing farnesyltransferase inhibitors: 3D quantitative structure–activity relationships and molecular docking

One of the most promising anticancer and recent antimalarial targets is the heterodimeric zinc-containing protein farnesyltransferase (FT). In this work, we studied a highly diverse series of 192 Abbott-initiated imidazole-containing compounds and their FT inhibitory activities using 3D-QSAR and docking, in order to gain understanding of the interaction of these inhibitors with FT to aid development of a rational strategy for further lead optimization. We report several highly significant and predictive CoMFA and CoMSIA models. The best model, composed of CoMFA steric and electrostatic fields combined with CoMSIA hydrophobic and H-bond acceptor fields, had r ² = 0.878, q ² = 0.630, and r _pred² = 0.614. Docking studies on the statistical outliers revealed that some of them had a different binding mode in the FT active site based on steric bulk and available active site space, explaining why the predicted activities differed from the experimental activities. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Glycogen synthase kinase-3 inhibition by 3-anilino-4-phenylmaleimides: insights from 3D-QSAR and docking

Glycogen synthase kinase-3, a serine/threonine kinase, has been implicated in a wide variety of pathological conditions such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, bipolar disorder, malaria and cancer. Herein we report 3D-QSAR analyses using CoMFA and CoMSIA and molecular docking studies on 3-anilino-4-phenylmaleimides as GSK-3α inhibitors, in order to better understand the mechanism of action and structure-activity relationship of these compounds. Comparison of the active site residues of GSK-3α and GSK-3β isoforms shows that all the key amino acids involved in polar interactions with the maleimides for the β isoform are the same in the α isoform, except that Asp133 in the β isoform is replaced by Glu196 in the α isoform. We prepared a homology model for GSK-3α, and showed that the change from Asp to Glu should not affect maleimide binding significantly. Docking studies revealed the binding poses of three subclasses of these ligands, namely anilino, N-methylanilino and indoline derivatives, within the active site of the β isoform, and helped to explain the difference in their inhibitory activity.     

Experimental demonstration of anticipating synchronization in chaotic semiconductor lasers with optical feedback

We report the first experimental observation of anticipating chaotic synchronization in an optical system using two diode lasers as transmitter and receiver. The transmitter laser is rendered chaotic by application of an optical feedback in an external-cavity configuration. It is found that the anticipation time does not depend on the external-cavity round trip time of the transmitter.