Radio physics and electronics

3-10

Authors: А.М. Linkova

Subject and Purpose. Precipitation is the main source of agricultural land moisture. The knowledge of its amount, especially during the growing season, is important information to justify necessary agronomic and land reclamation measures. The purpose of this work is to solve by regularization the inverse problem of double-frequency sensing of precipitation in the microwave range with the signal attenuation considered and analyze the influence of radar cross-section (RCS) calculation errors and the total signal attenuation measuring precision on the rain intensity retrieval results. Methods and Methodology. Numerical simulation is used in double frequency retrievals to solve the integral scattering equation by regularization methods. Results. Numerical simulation has been performed for the rain intensity retrieval with a uniform spatial profile of rain intensity in the range 1…20 mm/h. Direct and inverse iterative procedures were used for having the signal attenuation at 0.82 and 3.2 cm operating wavelengths. It has been shown that the direct iterative procedure is less effective than the inverse one. Thus, when the rain intensity exceeds 20 mm/h or when it is within 10…20 mm/h and a rain spatial extent goes over 500 m, the direct iteration scheme causes significant errors in the rain intensity retrieval. Conclusion. The analysis of the results has shown that the use of the inverse iterative procedure makes it possible to retrieve a uniform-profile rain intensity with a 25 % error for rains with a 20 mm/h intensity and a 4 km spatial extent and ± 20 % errors in the total signal attenuation and specific RCS calculated.

18-23

Authors: O.V. Sytnik

Subject and Purpose. Smoke, fog, avalanches, debris of collapsed structures and other optically opaque obstacles in both natural and man-made disasters make optical sensors useless for detecting victims. Electromagnetic waves of the decimeter range penetrate well almost all obstacles, reflect from the trapped people and return to the radar receiver. Due to the breathing and heartbeat, the human-reflected sounding signals get the Doppler phase modulation, which is an information signal. These information signals and their properties provide the subject matter for the present research with the aim to create optimal methods and algorithms of random event processing for the prompt location of survivors by rescuers. Method and Methodology. The method of stochastic analysis of the fluctuation Doppler spectra of reflected sounding signals shows that the information signals have properties of conditional Markov processes. Results. The problem of optimal nonlinear filtering of conditional Markov processes entering the radar signal processing unit has been examined closely. An optimal adaptive filter has been proposed to reduce the masking effect of interferences caused by non-stationary noises and sounding signal reflections from stationary objects. The optimality criterion is the minimum mean square error function whose current value is evaluated in real time during the filtering process as the statistics is accumulated. The filter coefficients are calculated by the recurrent, steepest descent algorithm. The real-time work is carried out through the use of fast Fourier transform algorithms. Conclusion. The structure of the optimal adaptive filter to be built into the radar signal processing unit has been developed. Real radar signals have shown that the optimal filtering during the signal processing in systems designed for detecting live people by their breathing and heartbeat facilitates the interpretation of the observed signals. Some spectra of real signals generated by human breathing and heartbeat are presented.

30-37

Authors: Z.E. Eremenko, V.A. Pashynska, K.S. Kuznetsova, O.I. Shubnyi, N.I. Sklyar, A.V. Martynov

Subject and Purpose. This study focuses on the original waveguide-differential dielectrometer designed for complex permittivity measurements of high-loss liquids in the microwave range towards the determination of pharmaceutical ingredient concentrations in water solutions at room temperature. The suitability of the device and effectiveness of the dielectrometry method are tested on such pharmaceutical ingredients as lincomycin and levofloxacin over a wide range of concentrations. Methods and Methodology. The main idea of the method consists in that the complex propagation coefficients of the HE11 wave are obtained from the amplitude and phase shift differences acquired by the wave after it has passed through the two measuring cells of the waveguide-differential dielectrometer. Results. We have shown that the proposed dielectometry method allows a real-time determination of pharmaceutical ingredient concentrations in water solution by measuring the wave attenuation and phase shift differences. We have found that unless concentrations of pharmaceutical ingredients are low, few free water molecules in water solution are bound to the pharmaceutical ingredients. The number of free water molecules in solution decreases as the concentration of pharmaceutical ingredients rises. Conclusion. The current study confirms that the dielectometry method and the device developed provide effective determination of pharmaceutical ingredient concentrations in water solutions.

46-53

Authors: V.A. Kashpur, O.V. Khorunzhaya, D.A. Pesina

Subject and Purpose. The elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of action of biomolecules is necessary for the development of state-of-the-art means of diagnosing and treatment. Dielectric studies in the millimeter wave range are effective for puzzling out the nature of the interaction of biomolecules with a surrounding aqueous solvent. Flavin mononucleotide (FMN), which can kill microorganisms and destroy cancer cells, is of particular interest. The aim of the work is to recognize hydration effects (changes in the state of water molecules) in FMN solutions. Methods and Methodology. The complex dielectric permittivity (CDP) is measured in the EHF range. Knowing the difference between the CDP of FMN solution and the CDP of water we find the difference, D es , between the effective dielectric permittivities in terms of the Debye theory of polar liquids. Since the relaxation time of dipoles of bound water is one or two orders of magnitude longer than that of free water, the amount of the difference D es characterizes the hydration of biomolecules. At low concentrations, this difference is proportional to the number of bound water molecules. Results. It has been shown that approximately18 water molecules are bound to the FMN molecule. Groups of atoms as the most probable hydration centers (primarily due to the hydrogen bonds) have been indicated. As the pH decreases, the number of water molecules bound to the Flavin mononucleotide increases to 21. The study of the FMN–DNA solution has shown that one nucleotide accounts for 25–26 bound water molecules in total. However, composing hydration numbers assumes a quantity of components less than 20. An assumption is made that the additional components are due to the cooperative nature of the hydration, leading to the fact that even if some solvent molecules do not come into a direct contact with hydration centers, they are under the influence of biomolecules all the same. Conclusion. Extremely-high-frequency dielectrometry is an effective method of research into the interaction of biomolecules with a water-ionic solvent. A FMN hydration model has been proposed, which indicates probable hydration centers and tells a measure of their effect on the solvent. It has been found that the FMN with DNA interaction increases the number of bound water molecules per one nucleotide of the DNA. The obtained results have been compared to the existing models of the DNA with FMN interaction.