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

Grain size control of any engineering metal is very important in the hot upsetting process. Generally, the grain size directly controls the mechanical properties and performance of the material. Al-B4C composite finds extensive applications in nuclear industries, defense, and electronic industries. Therefore, the aim of this work is to study the dynamic recrystallization (DRX) behavior of Al-4 wt % B4C composite during the hot upsetting test. Experimental work was performed on sintered Al-4 wt % B4C preforms at various initial relative density (IRD) values of 80%, 85%, and 90%, and over the temperature range of 300-500 C and strain rates range of 0.1-0.3 s1. The DRXed grain size of Al-4 wt % B4C preforms for IRDes, and temperatures and strain rates were evaluated by using an optical microscope. The activation energy (Q) and Zener-Hollomon parameter of sintered Al-4 wt % B4C preforms were calculated for various deformation conditions and IRDes. The mathematical models of DRX were developed as a function of Zener-Hollomon parameter for various IRDes to predict the DRXed grain size. It was found that the DRXed grain size decreases with increasing Zener-Hollomon parameter. Verification tests were done between the measured and predicted DRXed grain size for various IRDes, and absolute and mean absolute error was found to be 9.92% and 8.58%, respectively. Copyright © 2018 by ASME.

World University root node

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology, Transactions of the ASME

Microstructure Modeling of Dynamically Recrystallized Grain Size of Sintered Al-4 wt % B4C Composite during Hot Upsetting

This article presents work carried out on a small, 4-stroke, SI engine, incorporated with an ultrasonic atomizer-based fueling system. A disc-type ultrasonic atomizer having good atomization characteristics was incorporated in the air intake path of a single cylinder, two-wheeler engine, replacing the conventional carburetor. This new fueling system was introduced with the aim of reducing the engine fuel consumption, while looking for a possible reduction in exhaust emissions. An electronic control mechanism was devised to change the atomization rate, in order to set the desired equivalence ratio for optimum engine operation. Test results indicate a significant improvement in fuel consumption and brake thermal efficiency, with a good control over the equivalence ratio. The system also allows engine operation at equivalence ratios as low as 0.5 and hence could be adopted for ultra-lean engines. This atomizer fueling system allows the use of closed loop lambda control which is required for meeting stringent automotive emission norms. Copyright © 2018 SAE International.

SAE International Journal of Engines

Fueling an Engine by Ultrasonic Atomization and Its Control

We study the parameterized complexity of various graph theoretic problems in the dynamic framework where the input graph is being updated by a sequence of edge additions and deletions. Vertex subset problems on graphs typically deal with finding a subset of vertices having certain properties. In real world applications, the graph under consideration often changes over time and due to this dynamics, the solution at hand might lose the desired properties. The goal in the area of dynamic graph algorithms is to efficiently maintain a solution under these changes. Recomputing a new solution on the new graph is an expensive task especially when the number of modifications made to the graph is significantly smaller than the size of the graph. In the context of parameterized algorithms, two natural parameters are the size k of the symmetric difference of the edge sets of the two graphs (on n vertices) and the size r of the symmetric difference of the two solutions. We study the DynamicΠ -Deletion problem which is the dynamic variant of the classical Π -Deletion problem and show NP-hardness, fixed-parameter tractability and kernelization results. For specific cases of DynamicΠ -Deletion such as Dynamic Vertex Cover and Dynamic Feedback Vertex Set, we describe improved algorithms and linear kernels. Specifically, we show that Dynamic Vertex Cover has a deterministic algorithm with 1. 0822 knO ( 1 ) running time and Dynamic Feedback Vertex Set has a randomized algorithm with 1. 6667 knO ( 1 ) running time. We also show that Dynamic Connected Feedback Vertex Set can be solved in 2 O ( k )nO ( 1 ) time. For each of Dynamic Connected Vertex Cover, Dynamic Dominating Set and Dynamic Connected Dominating Set, we describe an algorithm with 2 knO ( 1 ) running time and show that this is the optimal running time (up to polynomial factors) assuming the Set Cover Conjecture. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Fulltext

Algorithmica

Dynamic Parameterized Problems

The progress in melanoma immunotherapy highlights the importance of immunotherapy for cancer treatment. Although the concept of immunotherapy emerged in the beginning of the twentieth century, the end of the century signaled the start of modern immunotherapy, which has recently allowed a staggering progress in the field of cancer immunotherapy. Currently, there is a wide variety of immunotherapeutic approaches and critical improvements are continually being made. Among different immunotherapeutic strategies, therapies based on the blockade of immune checkpoint molecules have shown unparalleled efficacy in late-stage cancer patients. Pre-clinical research using ex vivo and in vivo approaches demonstrates the promise of numerous novel strategies for the immunotherapy of cancer. © 2017, L. Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Wroclaw, Poland.

Biological Sciences and Engineering

Archivum Immunologiae et Therapiae Experimentalis

Immunotherapy as an Option for Cancer Treatment

Removal of toxic byproducts such as bromate (BrO3-) from drinking water is a vital process. Two-dimensional (2D) titanium carbide also known as MXene (Ti3C2TX) was proven a promising candidate for efficient reduction of metal ions. Herein, we report for the first time the simple method for efficient reduction of toxic bromate to bromide in water using 2D Ti3C2TX nanosheets. In this reduction, the Ti-C active layer of Ti3C2TX was oxidized and formed TiO2 nanocrystals, while bromate reduced to bromide via a self-reaction process. Reduction performance of the Ti3C2TX nanosheets was evaluated with respect to the concentration of MXene, time, pH and temperature. The MXene showed excellent reduction of bromate (∼321.8 mg BrO3-/g Ti3C2TX) within 50 min, at pH 7 and 25 °C. Furthermore, MXene nanosheets exhibited excellent sequestration performance toward bromate in comparison with other similar materials. The high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis confirmed the reduction of bromate and subsequent oxidation of MXene to form TiO2 nanocrystals and Br-. This makes them attractive reductant materials for the efficient removal of other toxic oxides present in water systems.

ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering

Reductive Sequestration of Toxic Bromate from Drinking Water using Lamellar Two-Dimensional Ti3C2TX (MXene)

Antimicrobial agents and corrosion inhibitors are widely used as biocides in the oil and gas industry to disinfect water and inhibit excessive biofilm formation caused mainly by sulfate reducing bacteria (SRBs). However, traditional biocides may induce bacterial resistance and/or be detrimental to environment by forming harmful disinfection byproducts. In this first systematic study, we synthesized a "green" and highly stable biocide formulations composed of ZnO-interlinked chitosan (Ch) nanoparticles (CZNCs) and evaluated their antimicrobial activity against mixed SRBs culture isolated from real oil field sludge. SEM, TEM, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and FTIR suggested the formation of stable nanocomposites with strong interaction between ZnO and Ch nanoparticles. Synthesized nanocomposites showed highly stable behaviors in the high salt concentrations of inject seawater. The inhibition of SRBs activity was concentration-dependent and more than 73% and 43% inhibition of sulfate reduction and total organic carbon (TOC) removal, respectively, was observed at 250 $\mu$g/mL CZNCs at 10% initial ZnO loading. Biocompatibility and environmental impact of the nanocomposite was evaluated by analyzing their potential toxicity in vivo using the zebrafish embryos. Neither mortality nor teratogenic effects were observed on zebrafish embryos using the acute toxicity assay. The hypothetical LC50 for the CZNCs was much higher than 250 $\mu$g/mL. It is expected that the new nanocomposite can contribute to the development of "green" biocides for oil/gas industries that will be eco-friendly and will have no adverse impact on the environment.

"green" ZnO-Interlinked Chitosan Nanoparticles for the Efficient Inhibition of Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria in Inject Seawater

The success of intravenous immunoglobulin immunotherapy in autoimmune diseases has inspired the development of novel Fc-based therapeutics, in particular, multimerized polyvalent Fc molecules. A new study reports that a recombinant IgG1 Fc hexamer alleviates acute and chronic autoimmune diseases in mice. © 2018 Macmillan Publishers Ltd., part of Springer Nature.

Nature Reviews Rheumatology

Multimerized IgG1 Fc molecule as an anti-inflammatory agent

Antibiotic discovery has experienced a severe slowdown in terms of discovery of new candidates. In vitro screening methods using phospholipids to model the bacterial membrane provide a route to identify molecules that specifically disrupt bacterial membranes causing cell death. Thanks to the electrically insulating properties of the major component of the cell membrane, phospholipids, electronic devices are highly suitable transducers of membrane disruption. The organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) is a highly sensitive ion-to-electron converter. Here, the OECT is used as a transducer of the permeability of a lipid monolayer (ML) at a liquid:liquid interface, designed to read out changes in ion flux caused by compounds that interact with, and disrupt, lipid assembly. This concept is illustrated using the well-documented antibiotic Polymixin B and the highly sensitive quantitation of permeability of the lipid ML induced by two novel recently described antibacterial amine-based oligothioetheramides is shown, highlighting molecular scale differences in their disruption capabilities. It is anticipated that this platform has the potential to play a role in front-line antimicrobial compound design and characterization thanks to the compatibility of semiconductor microfabrication technology with high-throughput readouts. © 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Department of Chemistry

Advanced Materials

Biomimetic Electronic Devices for Measuring Bacterial Membrane Disruption

Results of our study on ultrafast electron transfer (eT) dynamics from coumarins (coumarin-1, coumarin-480, and coumarin-153) incarcerated within octa acid (OA) capsules as electron donors to methyl viologen dissolved in water as acceptor are presented. Upon photoexcitation, coumarin inside the OA capsule transfers an electron to the acceptor electrostatically attached to the capsule leading to a long-lived radical-ion pair separated by the OA capsular wall. This charge-separated state returns to the neutral ground state via back electron transfer on the nanosecond time scale. This system allows for ultrafast electron transfer processes through a molecular wall from the apolar capsular interior to the highly polar (aqueous) environment on the femtosecond time scale. Employing femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy, distinct rates of both forward (1-25 ps) and backward eT (700-1200 ps) processes were measured. Further understanding of the energetics is provided using Rehm-Weller analysis for the investigated photoinduced eT reactions. The results provide the rates of the eT across a molecular wall, akin to an isotropic solution, depending on the standard free energy of the reaction. The insights from this work could be utilized in the future design of efficient electron transfer processes across interfaces separating apolar and polar environments. © 2017 American Chemical Society.

Journal of Physical Chemistry B

Ultrafast Electron Transfer across a Nanocapsular Wall: Coumarins as Donors, Viologen as Acceptor, and Octa Acid Capsule as the Mediator

State estimation of nonlinear stochastic system in the setting of event-based (EB) measurements is quite challenging, because the measurements are not available at each sampling period, but are available only when a certain pre-specified event occurs. Recently, a nonlinear EB state estimator using Sequential Monte-Carlo approach is proposed in [21], where the authors obtained a EB state estimator for a given threshold. In this work, the results of [21] are extended as follows. Firstly, an empirical relation between the EB threshold and the average communication rate is obtained. Then, the performance of the estimator is evaluated by comparing the approximate error covariance matrix with the posterior Cramér-Rao bound. In addition, the computational complexity is addressed using the equivalent flop measure. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated using two simulation examples. © 2017 IEEE.