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

In Aspergillus fumigatus, the conidial surface contains dihydroxynaphthalene (DHN)-melanin. Six-clustered gene products have been identified that mediate sequential catalysis of DHN-melanin biosynthesis. Melanin thus produced is known to be a virulence factor, protecting the fungus from the host defense mechanisms. In the present study, individual deletion of the genes involved in the initial three steps of melanin biosynthesis resulted in an altered conidial surface with masked surface rodlet layer, leaky cell wall allowing the deposition of proteins on the cell surface and exposing the otherwise-masked cell wall polysaccharides at the surface. Melanin as such was immunologically inert; however, deletion mutant conidia with modified surfaces could activate human dendritic cells and the subsequent cytokine production in contrast to the wild-type conidia. Cell surface defects were rectified in the conidia mutated in downstream melanin biosynthetic pathway, and maximum immune inertness was observed upon synthesis of vermelone onward. These observations suggest that although melanin as such is an immunologically inert material, it confers virulence by facilitating proper formation of the A. fumigatus conidial surface. © 2014, American Society for Microbiology.

Biological Sciences and Engineering

World University root node

Fulltext

Infection and Immunity

Surface structure characterization of Aspergillus fumigatus conidia mutated in the melanin synthesis pathway and their human cellular immune response

CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) are critical for immune homeostasis and tolerance. However, because of their capacity to suppress antigen presenting cells (APC), T and B cells, Tregs could also inhibit protective immune responses to viruses and vaccines. Several viruses have been shown to exploit Tregs to evade immune response. By modulating APC and in particular by weakening the functions of dendritic cells such as their ability to secrete polarizing cytokines and expression of co-stimulatory molecules, viruses could support differentiation and expansion of Tregs. Of note, as a proof of concept, depletion of Tregs significantly enhanced the protective immune response to viruses and vaccines suggesting that Tregs are viable targets to enhance immunogenicity of vaccines. As Treg depletion or inhibition of their functions could lead to deleterious autoimmune and inflammatory disorders, any Treg-based approach for vaccination should not aim at depletion of Tregs and inhibition of their functions should be transient. Recent studies have targeted the interaction between CCR4 expressed on Tregs and its ligands CCL22 and CCL17 to inhibit transiently the recruitment of Tregs at the site of immunization. Importantly, use of CCR4 antagonists as 'molecular adjuvants' in vivo in experimental models, amplified cellular and humoral immune responses when injected in combination with various vaccine antigens. The significant adjuvant activity observed in diverse models without noticeable side effects provided strong evidence that CCR4 is a sustainable target for rational adjuvant design. © 2013 Indian Virological Society.

Indian Journal of Virology

Regulatory T cells as adjuvant target for enhancing the viral disease vaccine efficacy

Thermal properties are of great interest in modern electronic devices and nanostructures. Calculating these properties is straightforward when the device is made from a pure material, but problems arise when alloys are used. Specifically, only approximate band structures can be computed for random alloys and most often the virtual crystal approximation (VCA) is used. Unfolding methods [Boykin, Kharche, Klimeck, and Korkusinski, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 19, 036203 (2007)10.1088/0953-8984/19/3/036203] have proven very useful for tight-binding calculations of alloy electronic structure without the problems in the VCA, and the mathematical analogy between tight-binding and valence-force-field approaches to the phonon problem suggests they be employed here as well. However, there are some differences in the physics of the two problems requiring modifications to the electronic-structure approach. We therefore derive a phonon alloy band-structure (vibrational-mode) approach based on our tight-binding electronic-structure method, modifying the band-determination method to accommodate the different physical situation. Using the method, we study In(x)Ga(1-x)As alloys and find very good agreement with available experiments. © 2014 American Physical Society.

Department of Electrical Engineering

Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics

Brillouin zone unfolding method for effective phonon spectra

Narrowband active noise control (ANC) systems are used to mitigate periodic or nearly periodic noises produced by large scale cutting machines, engines, turbines, compressors etc. These systems employ a non acoustic sensor such as accelerometer for identifying the frequencies present in the input noise signal. These frequency values are used by the cosine wave generator to synthesize the input waveform. However, when the frequencies sensed by the tachometer are different from the actual frequencies it results in the problem of frequency mismatch (FM). In this paper through simulations degradation in the performance of conventional narrowband ANC system is observed even in the presence of FM of about 1 %. Hence, a new method using functional link artificial neural network (FLANN) is proposed which outperforms the conventional method in the presence of less to high FM. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed ANC system. © 2014 IEEE.

2014 International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and …

Development of a novel narrowband active noise controller in presence of sensor error

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the most widespread health problems with unpredictable and life-threatening consequences. The electrocardiogram (ECG) is commonly recorded for computer-aided CVD diagnosis, human emotion recognition and person authentication systems. For effective detection and diagnosis of cardiac diseases, the ECG signals are continuously recorded, processed, stored, and transmitted via wire/wireless communication networks. But long-term continuous cardiac monitoring system generates huge volume of ECG data daily. Therefore, a reliable and efficient ECG signal compression method is highly demanded to meet the real-time constraints including limited channel capacity, memory and battery-power of remote cardiac monitoring, ECG record management and telecardiology systems. In such scenarios, the main objective of the ECG signal compression is to reduce the data rate for effective transmission and/or storage purposes without significantly distorting the clinical features of different kinds of PQRST morphologies contained in the recorded ECG signal. Numerous ECG compression methods have been proposed by exploiting the intra-beat correlation, inter-beat correlation and intra-channel correlation of the ECG signals. This paper presents a prospective review of wavelet-based ECG compression methods and their performances based upon findings obtained from various experiments conducted using both clean and noisy ECG signals. This paper briefly describes different kinds of compression techniques used in the one-dimensional wavelet-based ECG compression methods. Then, the performance of each of the wavelet-based compression methods is tested and validated using the standard MIT-BIH arrhythmia databases and performance metrics. The pros and cons of different wavelet-based compression methods are demonstrated based upon the experimental results. Finally, various practical issues involved in the validation procedures, reconstructed signal quality assessment, and performance comparisons are highlighted by considering the future research studies based on the recent powerful digital signal processing techniques and computing platform. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Biomedical Signal Processing and Control

Wavelet-based electrocardiogram signal compression methods and their performances: A prospective review

A radio frequency microelectromechanical system (RF MEMS)-based true-time-delay (TTD) phase shifter is one of the key components in a modern electronically steerable phased array for satellite communication, radar systems, and high precision instrumentation. The phase shifter controls the signal phase in order to steer the direction of the beam [3]. RF microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology provides a superior performance in terms of low loss, low power consumption, and excellent linearity compared to other technologies. MEMS-based digital phase shifters provide a large phase shift and low sensitivity to electrical noise with a high tuning ratio compared to analog versions. This chapter describes different types of TTD phase shifters utilizing MEMS switches and MEMS varactors. A gold-based surface micromachining process is used to develop different kinds of MEMS phase shifters on alumina (εr = 9.8) substrates. All phase shifters are implemented using coplanar waveguide (CPW) transmission lines and actuated by electrostatic actuations. These include the analog-type distributed MEMS transmission line (DMTL) phase shifter using push-pull actuation, a 5-bit DMTL phase shifter using MEMS bridge and a fixed capacitor, 5-bit switched line phase shifter using DC-contact MEMS switches and a 2-bit and 5-bit phase shifter using MEMS SP4T and SPDT switches. This chapter includes details on the design, development, and characterization of MEMS phase shifters. Furthermore, all experimental results are validated with a circuit analysis and full-wave EM simulation. © 2014, Springer India.

Springer Tracts in Mechanical Engineering

RF MEMS true-time-delay phase shifter

In this article, we consider a receding horizon control of discrete-time state-dependent jump linear systems, a particular kind of stochastic switching systems, subject to possibly unbounded random disturbances and probabilistic state constraints. Due to the nature of the dynamical system and the constraints, we consider a one-step receding horizon. Using inverse cumulative distribution function, we convert the probabilistic state constraints to deterministic constraints, and obtain a tractable deterministic receding horizon control problem. We consider the receding horizon control law to have a linear state-feedback and an admissible offset term. We ensure mean square boundedness of the state variable via solving linear matrix inequalities off-line, and solve the receding horizon control problem on-line with control offset terms. We illustrate the overall approach applied on a macroeconomic system. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Systems and Control Letters

On control of discrete-time state-dependent jump linear systems with probabilistic constraints: A receding horizon approach

Department of Mechanical Engineering

International Journal of Precision Technology 4 (3/4)

An investigation into the application of Al2O3nanofluid-based minimum quantity lubrication technique for grinding of Ti-6Al-4V

Increasing demand for precision miniaturised components made of hard and brittle materials can no longer meet the requirements by conventional machining and advanced machining processes. To facilitate high precision machining, vibration is introduced in any of workpiece, tool and working medium, which is called Vibration Assisted Machining (VAM). In this review, the advancements of VAM in conventional machining as well as in advanced machining are presented. In detail, general overview, classifications, basic kinematics of 1-D and 2-D VAM, chip formation and instrumental implementation issues of VAM, are discussed. In addition to this the reasons for improvements in machining process and promising areas to be explored in VAM are summarized. © 2014 The Authors.

Procedia Engineering

Vibration assisted conventional and advanced machining: A review

By modifying the tetrahedrality (the strength of the three body interactions) in the well-known Stillinger-Weber model for silicon, we study the diffusivity of a series of model liquids as a function of tetrahedrality and temperature at fixed pressure. Previous work has shown that at constant temperature, the diffusivity exhibits a maximum as a function of tetrahedrality, which we refer to as the diffusivity anomaly, in analogy with the well-known anomaly in water upon variation of pressure at constant temperature. We explore to what extent the structural and thermodynamic changes accompanying changes in the interaction potential can help rationalize the diffusivity anomaly, by employing the Rosenfeld relation between diffusivity and the excess entropy (over the ideal gas reference value), and the pair correlation entropy, which provides an approximation to the excess entropy in terms of the pair correlation function. We find that in the modified Stillinger-Weber liquids, the Rosenfeld relation works well above the melting temperatures but exhibits deviations below, with the deviations becoming smaller for smaller tetrahedrality. Further we find that both the excess entropy and the pair correlation entropy at constant temperature go through maxima as a function of the tetrahedrality, thus demonstrating the close relationship between structural, thermodynamic, and dynamical anomalies in the modified Stillinger-Weber liquids. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.