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

World University root node

Department of Physics

Journal of Theoretical Biology

Corrigendum to Zero-order ultrasensitivity: A study of criticality and fluctuations under the total quasi-steady state approximation in the linear noise regime [J. Theor. Biol. 344 (2014) 1-11]

Erratum to "Zero-order ultrasensitivity: A study of criticality and fluctuations under the total quasi-steady state approximation in the linear noise regime" [J. Theor. Biol. 344 (2014) 1-11]

Shock-wave boundary layer interaction (SWBLI) and associated changes in wall properties for ramp induced flow breakdown have been considered in the present studies. A two dimensional finite volume based CFD solver has been developed and implemented successfully to study the SWBLI. Pressure measurements are invariantly considered in the literature for qualitative prediction of various SWBLI parameters. Hence efforts are made herewith to understand the laminar boundary layer separation in the presence of ramp induced shock wave through surface heat transfer rates, wall skin friction coefficient and wall pressure distributions. Effect of variation of freestream and wall properties along with geometric changes is considered in present studies. It has been observed from present limited investigations that ratio of wall temperature to freestream stagnation temperature is the governing parameter for SWBLI instead of the individual temperatures. Increase in Mach number is found to suppress the upstream influence which results in decrease in extent of separation. Efforts are also made to study the effect of leading edge bluntness on the SWBLI. These studies are found useful to confirm the earlier reported experimental observations regarding turbulent re-attachment. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

Shock wave boundary layer interactions in hypersonic flows

It is with great pleasure that we bring out the twin Special Issues on Combustion in the International Journal of Advances in Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics (AEAM).

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS

Preface

Given an undirected simple graph G, a subset T of vertices is an r-clique transversal if it has at least one vertex from every r-clique in G. I.e. T is an r-clique transversal if G-S is K r -free. r-clique transversals generalize vertex covers as a vertex cover is a set of vertices whose deletion results in a graph that is K 2-free. Perfect graphs are a well-studied class of graphs on which a minimum vertex cover can be obtained in polynomial time. However, the problem of finding a minimum r-clique transversal is NP-hard even for r=3. As any induced odd length cycle in a perfect graph is a triangle, a triangle-free perfect graph is bipartite. I.e. in perfect graphs, a 3-clique transversal is an odd cycle transversal. In this work, we describe an(r+1/2) -approximation algorithm for r-clique transversal on weighted perfect graphs improving on the straightforward r-approximation algorithm. We then show that 3-Clique Transversal is APX-hard on perfect graphs and it is NP-hard to approximate it within any constant factor better than 4/3 assuming the unique games conjecture. We also show intractability results in the parameterized complexity framework. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)

LP approaches to improved approximation for clique transversal in perfect graphs

We report a simple method for decorating carboxyl functionalized few-layer graphene with titania (TiO2) nanoparticles by sonication and stirring under room temperature. The nanocomposites showed a remarkable improvement in visible light driven photocatalysis. From Raman and XRD analysis the number of layers of graphene was found to be 3. The TiO2 decorated few-layer graphene (FLG) sheets were characterized by electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy, XRD and UV-vis spectroscopy. Titania nanoparticles were uniformly decorated on FLG matrix. The incorporation of titania on FLG enhanced the visible light photocatalytic activity of titania, lowered the electron hole recombination and improved the electron hole mobility. The enhanced life time of the charge carriers was confirmed from the photocurrent measurements. Compared to bare TiO2 nanoparticles the FLG-TiO2 nanocomposites exhibited rapid degradation of Rhodamine B (Rhd B) under solar radiation. It was found that adsorption of dye molecules and the rate of degradation have been greatly enhanced in the FLG decorated with TiO2. The rapid degradation of Rhd B using carboxyl functionalized FLG-TiO2 within 8min under solar radiation and 20min under 30W UV tube with very low concentration (0.01wt.%) of the photocatalyst is the highlight of the present report. The mechanism of degradation and charge separation ability of the nanocomposite are also explored. {\textcopyright} 2014 Elsevier Inc.

Biological Sciences and Engineering

Journal of Colloid and Interface Science

Synthesis of nanotitania decorated few-layer graphene for enhanced visible light driven photocatalysis

Aging process can affect T cell and antibody response to vaccination and an age-related decline in the expression of CD62L on CD8+ T-lymphocyte is one of the important factors that contribute. A recent report demonstrated that percentage of CD3+CD8+CD62L+ cells and CD8+ T-lymphocyte microRNA-92a levels significantly decline with the age and were positively correlated. These results suggested that the age-related attrition of human naïve T cells could be connected to a reduced microRNA-92a in T-lymphocytes and downregulation of the microRNA-92a level might indicate exhaustion of naïve T-cells due to alteration of the immunologic condition with aging. Further studies are necessary to evaluate whether targeting microRNA-92a as microRNA mimics could be one of the therapeutic strategies in improving vaccine response in elderly. © 2014 Landes Bioscience.

Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics

An age-related decline of CD62L and vaccine response: A role of microRNA 92a?

Autophagy is one of the major immune mechanisms engaged to clear intracellular infectious agents. However, several pathogens have evolved strategies to evade autophagy. Here, we demonstrated that Mycobacteria, Shigella, and Listeria but not Klebsiella, Staphylococcus, and Escherichia inhibit IFNG-induced autophagy in macrophages by evoking selective and robust activation of WNT and SHH pathways via MTOR. Utilization of gain- or loss-of-function analyses as well as mir155-null macrophages emphasized the role of MTOR-responsive epigenetic modifications in the induction of Mir155 and Mir31. Importantly, cellular levels of PP2A, a phosphatase, were regulated by Mir155 and Mir31 to fine-tune autophagy. Diminished expression of PP2A led to inhibition of GSK3B, thus facilitating the prolonged activation of WNT and SHH signaling pathways. Sustained WNT and SHH signaling effectuated the expression of anti-inflammatory lipoxygenases, which in tandem inhibited IFNG-induced JAK-STAT signaling and contributed to evasion of autophagy. Altogether, these results established a role for new host factors and inhibitory mechanisms employed by the pathogens to limit autophagy, which could be targeted for therapeutic interventions. © 2014 Landes Bioscience.

Autophagy

Selective inhibition of IFNG-induced autophagy by Mir155- and Mir31-responsive WNT5A and SHH signaling

Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

GM-CSF along with IL-4 but not alone is indispensable for the differentiation of human dendritic cells from monocytes

Background. Systemic sclerosis (SSc, scleroderma) is a disorder characterized by fibrosis of skin and visceral organs. Pathogenesis of scleroderma is complex and is incompletely understood as yet. Autoantibodies in SSc represent a serologic hallmark which have clinical relevance, with diagnostic and prognostic potential. Objectives. To study distribution of clinical manifestations and to identify frequency of autoantibodies among subtypes of scleroderma patients from Western India. Methodology. One hundred and ten scleroderma patients were clinically classified according to the American College of Rheumatology/European League Against Rheumatism (ACR/EULAR) criteria. All these patients were in active stage of disease. Clinical manifestations were recorded at the time of presentation. Autoantibodies were tested in them by indirect immunofluorescence test and ELISA. Immunoglobulin levels were estimated by nephelometer. These parameters were further correlated with clinical presentation of the disease. Results. Scleroderma patients had M: F ratio of 1: 10 where mean age at evaluation was 34.7 ± 10.7 years and a mean disease duration was 43.7 ± 35 months. Clinical subtypes showed that 45 patients (40.9%) had diffused cutaneous (dcSSc) lesions, 32 patients (29.1%) had limited cutaneous (lcSSc) lesions, and 33 patients (30%) had other autoimmune overlaps. The overall frequency of ANA in SSc patients studied was 85.5%. The frequency of anti-Scl70, anti-centromere, anti-endothelial cell antibodies (AECA), and anti-keratinocyte antibodies (AKA) was 62.7%, 22.7%, 30%, and 40.9%, respectively. Anti-Scl70 antibodies were significantly high (75.6% versus 46.9%) among dcSSc patients (P < 0.0115) whereas anti-centromere antibodies were significantly high (9% versus 38%) among lcSSc patients when these two subtypes were compared (P < 0.0044). Conclusion. This study supports that there are geoepidemiological variations among scleroderma patients for their clinical presentation, autoantibody profile, and immune parameters across the country. © 2014 Vandana Pradhan et al.