Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad&nbsp;(IIT Palakkad or IIT PKD) is a public autonomous&nbsp;engineering&nbsp;and&nbsp;research&nbsp;institute located in&nbsp;Palakkad,&nbsp;Kerala. It was&nbsp;one of the five new&nbsp;IITs&nbsp;proposed in the&nbsp;2014 Union budget of India. The campus was inaugurated on 3 August 2015. The institute has 94 faculty, 978 students, and 63 non-teaching staffs.

IT Palakkad currently offers four-year Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) and two years MS programmes in 8 different engineering disciplines including&nbsp;Computer Science, Electrical, Mechanical, Civil among others.

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IIT Palakkad

A mechanically coupled array technique to enable a fully differential operation of single-crystal silicon thermal-piezoresistive resonators (TPRs) has been demonstrated to alleviate resistive feedthrough issues often seen in TPRs, therefore, featuring clear resonance behavior with decent signal-to-feedthrough ratio. The proposed thermal-piezoresistive dual-II-BARs exhibits feedthrough reduction of more than 67 dB, and no spurious mode, is found within a wide frequency span. The resonator array together with board-level sustaining circuitry also works as a thermal-piezoresistive oscillator (TPO) and demonstrated its performances for real-time mass sensing. Finally, the proposed TPO mass sensor possesses several key features, including real-time monitoring, fast response time, and most importantly, excellent mass resolution of only 83 fg extracted from the measured TPO's Allan deviation. [2017-0085]. © 1992-2012 IEEE.

World University root node

Department of Electrical Engineering

Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems

Thermal-Piezoresistive SOI-MEMS Oscillators Based on a Fully Differential Mechanically Coupled Resonator Array for Mass Sensing Applications

Active noise control in a non-linear spatial region is a challenging problem, especially for low-frequency noise control applications. The investigation of the existing literature reveals that this problem is tackled by systems with multiple sensors and loudspeakers with a centralised processor. However, the use of centralised techniques is bulky, computationally expensive and lacks scalability. Therefore, the authors propose a distributed learning approach for noise cancellation using a diffusion collaborative strategy. The proposed Legendre-functional link network diffusion filtered s least mean square (FsLMS) algorithm is compared with the standard multi-channel FsLMS algorithm. For different non-linear scenarios, the performance of the proposed method is evaluated in terms of noise reduction performance and computational complexity. It is demonstrated that the proposed method offers significant improvement in noise mitigation performance and computational load as compared with its centralised multi-channel counterpart.

IET Signal Processing

On distributed non-linear active noise control using diffusion collaborative learning strategy

In this paper, we propose a new automated quality-aware electrocardiogram (ECG) heat classification method for effective diagnosis of ECG arrhythmias under unsupervised healthcare environments. The proposed method consists of three major stages: 1) the ECG signal quality assessment ({''}acceptable{''} or ``unacceptable{''}) based on our previous modified complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition and temporal features; 2) the ECG signal reconstruction and R-peak detection; and 3) the ECG beat classification including the ECG beat extraction, beat alignment, and normalized cross-correlation-based beat classification. The accuracy and robustness of the proposed method are evaluated using different normal and abnormal ECG signals taken from the standard MIT-BIH arrhythmia database. Evaluation results show that the proposed quality-aware ECG beat classification method can significantly achieve false alarm reduction ranging from 24\% to 93\% under noisy ECG recordings. The R-peak detector achieves the average Se = 99.67\% and positive predictivity (Pp) = 93.10\% and the average sensitivity (Se) = 99.65\% and Pp = 98.88\% without and with denoising approaches, respectively. Results further showed that the proposed ECG beat extraction approach can improve the classification accuracy by preserving the QRS complex portion and suppressing the background noises under acceptable level of noises. The quality-aware ECG beat classification methods achieve higher kappa values for the classification accuracies which can be consistent as compared with the heartbeat classification methods without the ECG quality assessment process.

IEEE Sensors Journal

A new automated signal quality-aware ECG beat classification method for unsupervised ECG diagnosis environments

Biological Sciences and Engineering

Nature

Indian researchers must resist predatory open-access journals

Resistance of Aspergillus fumigatus conidia to desiccation and their capacity to reach the alveoli are partly due to the presence of a hydrophobic layer composed of a protein from the hydrophobin family, called RodA, which covers the conidial surface. In A. fumigatus there are seven hydrophobins (RodA–RodG) belonging to class I and III. Most of them have never been studied. We constructed single and multiple hydrophobin-deletion mutants until the generation of a hydrophobin-free mutant. The phenotype, immunogenicity, and virulence of the mutants were studied. RODA is the most expressed hydrophobin in sporulating cultures, whereas RODB is upregulated in biofilm conditions and in vivo. Only RodA, however, is responsible for rodlet formation, sporulation, conidial hydrophobicity, resistance to physical insult or anionic dyes, and immunological inertia of the conidia. None of the hydrophobin plays a role in biofilm formation or its hydrophobicity. RodA is the only needed hydrophobin in A. fumigatus, conditioning the structure, permeability, hydrophobicity, and immune-inertia of the cell wall surface in conidia. Moreover, the defect of rodlets on the conidial cell wall surface impacts on the drug sensitivity of the fungus. © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Fulltext

Journal of Fungi

Role of hydrophobins in aspergillus fumigatus

The power distribution networks can be classified as active/passive and stiff/weak based on the nature of loads and network impedances. As an alternative to the conventional iron- and-copper based passive transformer, a solid state transformer (SST) can be used for interfacing such distribution networks to the medium voltage AC grids. Although the power architectures of SST for distribution grids are studied in detail, the control schemes for SST considering the nature of network is yet to be explored. In this paper, the control aspects for the popular three-stage cascaded multilevel solid state transformer (CMSST) are studied for the following grid scenarios: (i) SST interfacing two stiff grids, (ii) SST interfacing a stiff grid and a weak grid, and (iii) SST interfacing a stiff grid with a passive network. In this context, an average model of the CMSST is developed by replacing the basic switching cell (H-bridge) with its equivalent average model. It is shown that the control aspects are network specific and are not interchangeable. © 2017 IEEE.

2017 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies - Asia: Smart Grid for Smart Community, ISGT-Asia 2017

Solid state transformer control aspects for various smart grid scenarios

Difficulties in the grinding of Ti-6Al-4V originate from the three basic properties: poor thermal conductivity, high chemical reactivity and low volume specific heat of the material. Under severe grinding conditions, all these factors together lead to the accelerated wheel loading and redeposition of chips over the work surface. Redeposition and wheel loading have a significant effect on the surface finish, grinding forces, power consumption and wheel life. In this study, water-based Al2O3 nanofluid as metalworking fluid is applied during the surface grinding of Ti-6Al-4V under minimum quantity lubrication mode after dressing the wheel with different dressing overlap ratios. The severity of the redeposition over the work surface was observed by measuring various surface profiles taken perpendicular to the grinding direction at several locations on the ground surface. The nanofluid application was able to prevent redeposition over work surface that became evident from the measured surface finish parameters that results along the grinding direction. Coefficient of friction was estimated On-Machine using the measured forces for different wheel work speed ratios, depth of cut and dressing overlap ratios. The results showed the effectiveness of nanofluid in reducing friction at high material removal rate (i.e. high depth of cut and high speed ratio) conditions when compared to the dry environment. From the measured forces variation with respect to the number of passes, it became evident that, nanofluid application delayed the frequency of wheel loading and grit fracturing cycle, which leads to the increase in the wheel life. © 2016, © IMechE 2016.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part B: Journal of Engineering Manufacture

Influence of nanofluid application on wheel wear, coefficient of friction and redeposition phenomenon in surface grinding of Ti-6Al-4V

Functionally gradient materials (FGM) are special composites which are having potential applications in aerospace, automotive, marine, electronic, and medical etc. In FGMs, properties changes in direction by gradually varying composition of various elements for a specific requirement. Hence FGMs are used in most of the applications to improve the efficiency and performance. Applications of FGMs are widely explored in many applications however there are few fields yet to be explored. FGM made cylindrical shells are being used in structural applications. The stress distribution of FGM made cylindrical shell for given load conditions have to be analyzed. Hence in this work, modeling and structural analysis have been carried out on a graded cylindrical shell with varying elemental composition from inner surface to the outer surface. Distribution of volume fraction of the elements is calculated using power law for cylindrical shell modeling. Static structural analysis of cylindrical shell which is exposed to internal pressure performed and results are verified with analytical solutions. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd.

Materials Today: Proceedings

Modeling and analysis of functionally graded cylindrical shell

This study presents the outcome of an experimental evaluation of a structure isolated by flat sliding bearing with nonlinear restoring springs. The composite device of flat sliding bearing with nonlinear stiffening springs, which has been proposed recently, has the following advantages: (i) its behavior is similar to that of flat sliding bearing for minor to moderate level of shaking, (ii) for high intensity shaking, the device reduces the peak bearing displacement in comparison to the flat sliding bearing, and (iii) the device minimizes the bearing residual displacement irrespective of intensity of shaking. The experimental study conducted with a steel moment-resisting frame demonstrates that the device is quite effective in reducing the peak and residual bearing displacements. Further, it is found that other parameters such as peak inter-story drift and peak horizontal floor acceleration are not significantly affected by addition of restoring springs. Hence, the proposed system is an ideal candidate for a cost-effective base isolation system. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd

Department of Civil Engineering

Engineering Structures

Seismic response control of a structure isolated by flat sliding bearing and nonlinear restoring spring: Experimental study for performance evaluation

Slight and moderate amounts of deterioration caused by alkali silica reaction (ASR)/delayed ettringite formation (DEF)-induced expansion in reinforced concrete specimens do not markedly or detrimentally affect its structural load-carrying capacity. However, effects of severe (late-stage) ASR/DEF deterioration on the load-carrying capacity of structures is not known. A large-scale reinforced concrete C-beam specimen with heavy ASR/DEF deterioration is load tested in the laboratory. A comparison of the force-deformation results of the severely deteriorated specimen with the undamaged control specimen, and slightly and moderately ASR/DEF-deteriorated specimens, shows that there is no reduction in the load-carrying capacity. The mode of failure of the specimen is a brittle joint-shear failure similar to the other C-beam specimens. However, a reduction in the ductility of the heavily deteriorated specimen is observed. Postfailure examination shows a significant degree of corrosion in the longitudinal and transverse reinforcement. Significant bulging and complete debonding of the lapped transverse U-bars in the specimen knee-joint caused considerable loss in confinement of the softened concrete, resulting in an embrittled performance and sudden early loss of load in the heavily damaged specimen. It is not known how further corrosion in conjunction with severe ASR/DEF deterioration could affect the future behavior of the structure. © 2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.