Advances in Communication and Computing

The present volume is a compilation of research work in computation, communication, vision sciences, device design, fabrication, upcoming materials and related process design, etc. It is derived out of selected manuscripts submitted to the 2014 National Workshop on Advances in Communication and Computing (WACC 2014), Assam Engineering College, Guwahati, Assam, India which is emerging out to be a premier platform for discussion and dissemination of knowhow in this part of the world. The papers included in the volume are indicative of the recent thrust in computation, communications and emerging technologies. Certain recent advances in ZnO nanostructures for alternate energy generation provide emerging insights into an area that has promises for the energy sector including conservation and green technology. Similarly, scholarly contributions have focused on malware detection and related issues. Several contributions have focused on biomedical aspects including contributions related to cancer detection using active learning, application of clinical information in MECG using sample and channel convolution matrices for better diagnostic decision, etc. Some other works have focused on the DCT-domain linear regression of ECG signals, SVD Analysis on reduced 3-lead ECG data, the quantification of diagnostic information on ECG signal, a compressed sensing approach with application in MRI, learning aided image de-noising for medical applications, etc. Some works have dealt with application of audio fingerprinting for multi-lingual Indian song retrieval, semi-automatic approach to segmentation and the marking of pitch contours for prosodic analysis, semiautomatic syllable labeling for Assamese language, stressed speech recognition, handwriting recognition in Assamese script, speaker verification considering the effect of session variability and the block matching for motion estimation, etc. The primary objective of the present volume is to prepare a document for dissemination of and discussion on emerging areas of research in computation and communication as aimed by WACC 2014. We hope that the volume will serve as a reference book for researchers in these areas.

Prof. P.K. Bora (PhD, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) is currently a Professor in the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, IIT Guwahati, India. His research interests include image processing, computer vision and application of signal processing techniques to process physiological and communication signals. He has guided 7 PhD students and over 50 Master’s students. He has co-authored over 100 research papers in journals and conference proceedings.

Dr. S.R.M. Prasanna is currently Professor in the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati, India. He was Associate Professor from August 2007 to April 2012 and Assistant Professor from August 2004 to August 2007 in the same department. He obtained PhD from IIT Madras, MTech from NITK Surathkal and BE from SSIT Tumkur (Bangalore University) in 2004, 1997 and 1994, respectively. His teaching interests include signal processing and speech processing, and research interests include speech and handwriting processing. He has supervised 5 PhD Theses in the speech processing area. He has over 100 publications to his credit in different conferences and journals. He successfully executed several funded projects in the speech processing area.

Dr. Kandarpa Kumar Sarma, currently Associate Professor in the Department of Electronics and Communication Technology, Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, India, has over 17 years of professional experience. He has been into teaching UG/PG level electronics courses including soft computing, mobile communication, pattern recognition, digital signal and image processing. He obtained M.Tech in Signal Processing in 2005 and subsequently completed PhD in the area of Mobile Communication both from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, Assam, India. He has authored seven books, several book chapters, several peer-reviewed research papers in international conference proceedings and journals. His areas of interest are soft-computation and its applications, knowledge aided system design, MIMO, mobile communication, antenna design, speech processing, document image analysis and signal processing applications in high energy physics, neuro-computing and computational models for social-science applications. He is senior member IEEE (USA), Fellow IETE (India), Member International Neural Network Society (INNS, USA), Life Member ISTE (India) and Life Member CSI (India). He serves as an Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Intelligent System Design and Computing (IJISDC, UK), guest editor of several international journals, reviewer of over thirty international journals and reviewer/TPC member of over hundred international conferences.

Dr. Navajit Saikia is presently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering at Assam Engineering College, Guwahati, India. He completed his M.Tech and PhD from IIT Guwahati. Communications and signal processing are the two areas of his teaching interests. He is also looking after the training and placement activities of the college. His research interests include signal processing, image processing, speech processing, information security, etc. He has published several research papers in journals and conference proceedings.