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

Advances in pervasive and ubiquitous computing have resulted in the development of sensors that can be easily deployed in the natural habitat of a human to acquire activity related data. However, inferring meaningful activity information from sensor data is still a challenging problem. This paper addresses the problem of inferring activities that are simultaneously performed by multiple residents in a smart home or single resident performing multiple activities concurrently. The paper formulates this problem as learning multiple activity labels from a sequence of sensor data. It investigates the suitability of multi-label learning algorithms inspired by decision trees as a proposed solution to the problem. The results obtained from the experiments on four benchmarking multi-resident activity datasets clearly indicate the superiority of decision tree ensemble (random forests) based approaches for multi-label learning.

World University root node

Department of Data Science

Proceedings - 2015 International Conference on Intelligent Environments, IE 2015

Multi-label Learning for Activity Recognition

We compute the drag on a circular and liquid microdomain diffusing in a two-dimensional fluid lipid bilayer membrane surrounded by a fluid above and below. Under the assumptions that the liquids are incompressible and the flow is of low Reynolds number, Stokes' equations describe the flow in the two-dimensional membrane as well as in the surrounding three-dimensional fluid. The expression for the drag force on the liquid domain involves Fredholm integral equations of the second kind, which we numerically solve using discrete collocation method based on Chebyshev polynomials. We observe that when the domain is more viscous than the surrounding membrane (including the rigid domain case), the drag force is almost independent of the viscosity contrast between the domain and the surrounding membrane, as also observed earlier in experiments by other researchers. The mobility also varies logarithmically with Boussinesq number β for large β. On the other hand, for a less viscous domain the dimensionless drag force reduces with increasing viscosity contrast, and a significant change in the drag force, from that when there is no viscosity contrast or when the domain is rigid, has been observed. Further, the logarithmic behaviour of the mobility no longer holds for less viscous domains. Our method of computing the drag force and diffusion coefficient is valid for arbitrary viscosity contrast between the domain and membrane and any domain size (subject to β ≥ 5). © 2015 Cambridge University Press.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Journal of Fluid Mechanics

Drag force on a liquid domain moving inside a membrane sheet surrounded by aqueous medium

A combined experimental and quantum-chemical study of a series of homometallic metallaheteroboranes [(Cp∗M)2E6B2H2] (M = Rh or RuH; E = S or Se; Cp∗ = η5-C5Me5), which are analogues of 1,3-bishomocubane, is reported. The thermolysis of nido-[(Cp∗Rh)2B3H7] (1) in the presence of S or Se powder in toluene yielded bishomocubane clusters [(Cp∗Rh)2(μ-E)2(μ3-E)4B2H2], (3: E = S; 4: E = Se). In a similar fashion, the treatment of nido-[(Cp∗RuH)2B3H7] (2) with S or Se powder in p-xylene yielded [(Cp∗Ru)2(μ-E)2(μ3-E)4B2H2] (5: E = S; 6: E = Se) and [(Cp∗Ru)2(μ3-Se)(μ4-Se)B3H5] (7). One of the noteworthy features of 3-6 is the presence of an electron-precise trichalcogenoborato ligand. All of the compounds have been characterized by mass spectrometry; IR spectroscopy; and 1H, 11B and 13C NMR spectroscopy. The structures of 3, 4, 6 and 7 were established unequivocally by X-ray crystallographic analysis. Quantum-chemical calculations by DFT methods for 3, 4 and 6 showed reasonable agreement with the experimentally observed structural parameters. The large HOMO-LUMO gaps are consistent with the high stabilities of these complexes. Copyright © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Department of Chemistry

European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry

Electron‐Precise 1, 3‐Bishomocubanes–A Combined Experimental and Theoretical Study

Studies on binary drop collisions have been performed in literature to understand the physical phenomena which occur during the process. They also have applications of interest in modelling engines for example, where collision and coalescence are likely to be prevalent due to the dense nature of the sprays and the low droplet-droplet distance. In the present study, the collision behavior of two immiscible liquid drops namely a water drop and an n-Heptane drop of varying drop size ratios has been investigated experimentally. Experiments were performed at an atmospheric environment of 298 K and 101.325 kPa. Two mono-disperse droplet streams generated by piezoelectric droplet stream generators were used for the collision study. Collision outcomes were studied for size ratio of 1, at different Weber-numbers for non-dimensional impact-parameter B.The results from the experiments describe the boundaries of collision outcomes namely encapsulation and separation as a function of the impact parameter B and relative velocity Ur © 2015 International Conference on Liquid Atomization and Spray Systems. All rights reserved.

ICLASS 2015 - 13th International Conference on Liquid Atomization and Spray Systems

Encapsulation and separation in collision between immiscible liquid drops

Dendritic cells (DCs) are known to regulate the functions of various immune cells. Reciprocal signaling by these immune cells also "educate" the DCs and determine the quality of the ensuing immune responses. Recently, we demonstrated that human DCs undergo maturation upon interaction with activated B cells to acquire unique abilities to promote polarization of Th2 cells. © 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Biological Sciences and Engineering

Fulltext

OncoImmunology

B cells drive Th2 responses by instructing human dendritic cell maturation

A number of allergens from eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) have been previously identified. In this study, we could detect IgE reactivity of two allergic subjects' sera towards two protein bands of molecular mass of about 35 and 15. kDa. As IgE were reactive to both raw and cooked eggplant extracts, a heat-stable nature of these novel allergens is apparent. © 2015 European Federation of Immunological Societies.

Immunology Letters

IgE response to two new allergen proteins of Solanum melongena L. (eggplant)

A fraction of antibodies from healthy immune repertoires binds to heme and acquires the ability to recognize multiple antigens. The mechanism and functional consequences of heme-mediated antigen binding promiscuity (polyreactivity) are not understood. Here, we used SPE7, a mouse monoclonal IgE specific for dinitrophenyl that has been thoroughly characterized at the molecular level, as a model antibody to elucidate the mechanism and functional consequences of heme-mediated polyreactivity. We first demonstrate that exposure of SPE7 to heme results in a substantial increase in its antigen binding polyreactivity. Comparison of the binding kinetics and thermodynamics of interaction of native and heme-bound SPE7 indicates that the binding of heme to SPE7 confers binding affinities in the low nanomolar range toward several antigens but has no influence on the mechanism of recognition of dinitrophenyl. In vitro cellular assays further demonstrate that heme-bound SPE7 does not promote the degranulation of basophils in the presence of new target antigens, while degranulation is observed in the presence of dinitrophenyl. Molecular docking and fluorescence spectroscopy revealed binding of heme to the variable region of SPE7 at a distance from the conventional binding site for dinitrophenyl, explaining the extension of binding polyreactivity without abrogation of the interaction with its cognate antigen. In addition, our data suggest that heme, when bound to IgE, is solvent-exposed and may serve as an interfacial cofactor mediating binding to diverse proteins. This study contributes to the understanding of the mechanisms of heme-induced antibody polyreactivity. It also paves the way toward the delineation of the functional impact of polyreactivity and cross-reactivity of IgE. © 2015 American Chemical Society.

Biochemistry

Mechanism and functional implications of the heme-induced binding promiscuity of IgE

Reports unraveling the beneficial effects of Viscum album (VA) preparations as complementary therapies for cancer have increasingly revealed the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms, which encompass cytotoxic properties, induction of apoptosis, inhibition of angiogenesis and several other immunomodulatory mechanisms. In addition to their propitious relevance to cancer therapy, VA preparations are also relevant for the treatment of several inflammatory pathologies. In view of the intricate association of inflammation and cancer and the fact that several anti-tumor phytotherapeutics exert potent anti-inflammatory effects, we believe that an anti-inflammatory effect is responsible for the therapeutic benefits of VA preparations. One of the underlying molecular mechanisms of this inflammatory response is the selective down-regulation of the cyclo-oxygenase (COX)-2-mediated cytokine-induced secretion of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2). This inhibitory action has been associated with reduced expression of COX-2, without modulating COX-1 expression. This mechanism is associated with VA-induced destabilization of COX-2 mRNA, thereby depleting the functional COX-2 mRNA available for protein synthesis and for subsequent induction of secretion of PGE2. Together, these results demonstrate a novel anti-inflammatory mechanism of action of VA preparation, wherein VAQUSpez an anti-inflammatory effect by inhibiting cytokine-induced PGE2 via selective inhibition of COX-2 and destabilization of COX-2 mRNA. © 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Translational Research in Biomedicine

Dissecting the anti-inflammatory effects of viscum album: Inhibition of cytokine-induced expression of cyclo-oxygenase-2 and secretion of prostaglandin E2

Erratum: Mechanism and functional implications of the heme-induced binding promiscuity of IgE (Biochemitry (2015) 54:11 (2061-2072) DOI: 10.1021/bi501507m)

Basophils are the rare granulocytes and play an important role in the polarization of Th2 responses and protection against helminth parasites. In addition, basophils contribute to the pathogenesis of several diseases such as asthma, chronic allergy and lupus. Notably, Th17 cells are also implicated in the pathogenesis of these diseases suggesting that basophils support the activation and expansion of this subset of CD4+ T cells. Therefore, we explored whether basophils promote the expansion of human Th17 cells. We show that basophils lack the capacity to expand Th17 cells and to induce the secretion of Th17 cytokines either directly or indirectly via antigen presenting cells such as monocytes. As human basophils lack HLA-DR and co-stimulatory molecules, their inability to confer T cell receptor- and co-stimulatory molecule-mediated signals to CD4+ T cells might explain the lack of Th17 responses when memory CD4+ T cells were co-cultured with basophils. © 2014 American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics.