Is It The Right Path To Pursue PhD Research?

PhD research is the highest level of academic research conducted in universities and institutes throughout the World. The methods used to conduct Ph.D. research are sound and the data that results from the research must be unique. There are many techniques has been created such as scientific methodologies have been created to ensure the soundness and uniqueness of doctoral research and to secure continuity in research results. The most often employed methodologies are quantitative methods, qualitative methods, comparative methods and clinical trials.

The world is producing a large number of PhD holders and their number is increasing every year. Therefore in this era how can a normal PhD holder can survive? World’s most population countries India and China producing more than 40,000 PhD every year. Most of the PhD has completed their research in a short duration which results in the quality of the graduates is not consistent. And Most of the PhD remains unemployed.

In our research whenever we think of doing the research we always think of  doing something innovative  which can change the world but when we come for real implementation of the idea we found only few things have done in our PhD research. The few things which done usually during PhD seems to be unique. What should we do? And, how to do? It depends on one’s circumstances but the research should contribute something new in the specific domain. 

Silicon Mentor is a place where many new researchers are working together to make something innovative and unique. These young researchers help the research students to pursue their research with some of the unique methodologies. Silicon Mentor have Expertise in different Domain such as Computer vision , Biomedical Research, Digital Signal Processing, Machine Learning , Low Power VLSI , Mixed Signal VLSI , FPGA implementation.

ROLE OF EEG IN BRAIN TO COMPUTER INTERFACE

Brain has always been a mystery for us. We have reached moon, Everest and where not, but brain is yet to be understood completely.  We invented machines, robots to make our life simpler, but it would become simpler if we could do all those tasks just by thinking and transmitting signals from one brain to another with the help of signal processing!! That day is not far away, thanks to BCI (Brain Computer interface).

BCI is direct communication pathway between brain and an external device.  In 1924, Hans Berger was first to discover electric activity in human brain that gave an edge to the signal processing to enter into the biology.  After analyzing the interrelation between EEG’s with brain diseases, a new possibility of research of human brain through EEG opened up.

Some of the advantages EEG Signals has in BCI are that it’s non-invasive, portable and cost effective. One need not cut open the brain. Rhythmic activity in brain is influenced by level of alertness and mental state which is exploited while measuring EEG’s. Since signals are read from the surface, it also makes it prone to noise and results in poor signal resolution, blur and dispersion of the electromagnetic waves created by neurons. Still the cost and the fact that artifacts can be removed, make it top choice for BCI. However, recently using advanced functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and EEG, control of the flight of virtual helicopter was demonstrated using EEG’s.

BCI is a promising technology for people suffering from paralyses. It can be used to restore mobility in paralyzed limbs. By 2000, researchers had created a thought-translation device for completely paralyzed patients which allowed patients to select characters based on their thoughts. By 2008, researchers from Belgium, Spain and Switzerland created BCI that controlled a motorized wheel chair with high accuracy but it was not perfect.

Neuro gaming is another field where using BCI, a player interacts with the console without using controller. Music and scenery is adjusted according to the mood of player judge by his EEG, heart rate and cognitive state. This allows game play to be more realistic.

Undoubtedly, BCI-EEG is a prominent technology in the signal processing domain and will bring transformation in the field of medicine and our lives.

Interplay Between Biology and Technology

We know that biology is the study of life and living organisms with their evolution, function and growth and technology is the collection of the techniques, processes and methods used in the production of any goods such as scientific investigation.  Biology mainly is an investigation to human health related processes. In today’s world, human birth rate is more than the death rate and it is only due to the merging of biology and technology because technology processes the human biology in a better and safer way. So, biotechnology (biology + technology) is the use of living things in any technical application or use of the technical things in particular application of human life. People have used biotechnology in many fields such as food production, agriculture, medicine, genetic engineering and in industries to make chemicals, textiles, papers and Biofuels. 

About biotechnology, we can say that it is the combination of human technology with human intelligence. Biomedical technology is also the part of biotechnology in which technology plays main role as medicine to check and enhance human health with or without the help of a doctor. Our body parts, which are the part of biological study, are tested by the technical equipment using different biomedical signals (i.e. electrocardiogram, electroencephalogram, electrooculography, carotid pulse, phonocardiogram, and speech signals) that are generated by our body. Nanotechnology (Nano Science + Technology) also play a vital role in developing medicines and equipment which increase the human health rate.

Today’s bio-technical devices (healthcare devices) are easily available in the market due to their low cost and effectiveness in measurement of every health related problems. According to the healthcare device indications, our body can be checked up by the doctor when required otherwise we can take required medicines to overcome our body issues. In these days, problems in the human health are increasing due to pollution and low nutrient food. Only due to the advancement in the biotechnology, average age of human living is increased that makes biotechnology more important in the lives of people.

An Edge to VLSI Implementation of Digital Signal Processing Algorithms

The implementation of digital signal processing algorithms and availability of the digital systems have become more widespread since last two decades due to easy availability of digital systems. Earlier analog processors were used to perform the signal processing due to unavailability of digital processors.

The digital signal processing became feasible to be performed in real time in the recent times due to hardware implementation of the algorithms developed in signal processing. It is all because of the requirement of higher level computations in the signal processing especially for the real time applications.

The demands for the high level computation systems combined with the performance of the VLSI architectures which led to the development of VLSI Digital signal processors such as TMS320(1982) and DSP56001(1987). The developers are left with enormous specific architectures of DSP with the ease in development of VLSI designs.

The most common and usually employable DSP techniques are the FFT computing, FIR and IIR digital filters. These techniques require the three basic operations i.e. multiplication, storage and addition and these operations can easily be performed with the VLSI oriented architectures for Digital signal processing architectures. 

The architectures developed through the VLSI implementation for DSP applications generally make use of parallel processing, multiprocessing, array processors, RISC i.e. Reduced instruction set and  pipelining for the very high processing.

The architectures developed for the Digital signal processing applications are tested and brought to the real time implementation through VLSI only. The most commonly and preferably used hardware for the implementation of DSP algorithms in VLSI is the FPGA. FPGA implementation of the digital signal processing algorithms makes it possible to develop a VLSI architecture for the high computation processing and multiprocessing at the real time.