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

This paper presents frequency reconfigurable RF MEMS phase shifter using distributed MEMS transmission line (DMTL) theory. The insertion phase of the circuit is controlled by torsional MEMS actuators. Bridge actuation mechanism followed by capacitance variation is the main source of the band tuning in this study. Two stages of actuation mechanisms (push and pull) are used to obtain differential phase shift over the band of interest. A constant resolution of 11.25° is obtained within a wide spectrum of 10-35 GHz. Measurement results show that a single bit phase shifter demonstrates return loss of better than 18 dB, worst case insertion loss of 1 dB and maximum phase error of 0.7° over the band of interest. Finally, push-pull tuning is verified on the complete 5-bit phase shifter with the same set of actuation voltages in different bands for 180° phase shifter. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported frequency reconfigurable wide band phase shifter with constant resolution. © 2014 IEEE.

Department of Electrical Engineering

World University root node

IEEE MTT-S International Microwave and RF Conference 2014, IMaRC 2014 - Collocated with Intemational Symposium on Microwaves, ISM 2014

10-35-GHz frequency reconfigurable RF MEMS 5-bit DMTL phase shifter uses push-pull actuation based toggle mechanism

With the increasing deployment of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) there has been a demand for power efficient, reliable, Wireless network based Distributed Computing system (WDC). The fading nature of the wireless channel offer several challenges to WDC over traditional distributed computing system. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) based wireless communication systems offer several advantages and are increasingly replacing single carrier communication systems. In this paper we propose resource allocation for OFDMA based wireless distributed computing system. The performance of the proposed system is analyzed using computer simulation. © 2014 IEEE.

Souvenir of the 2014 IEEE International Advance Computing Conference, IACC 2014

Resource and subcarriers allocation for OFDMA based wireless distributed computing system

Biological Sciences and Engineering

Clinical and Experimental Immunology

Intravenous immunoglobulin and immune response

Fulltext

Nature Reviews Immunology

IVIG pluripotency and the concept of Fc-sialylation: Challenges to the scientist

Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) is a heterogeneous antibody deficiency condition with alterations in T cell regulation and function, dendritic and B-cell compartment and represents the most frequent cause of symptomatic primary immunodeficiency. We addressed whether CVID is associated with abnormalities in the polymorphonuclear neutrophil (PMN) compartment, an important component of innate immunity and plays a key role in host defenses against invading microorganisms. We used flow cytometry to examine PMN phenotypic and functional abnormalities in CVID patients, using whole-blood conditions in order to avoid artifacts due to isolation procedures. We demonstrated that PMN from CVID patients displays, at resting state, a decreased expression of CD15, CD11b and CD16b, which might be related to an abnormality in neutrophil maturation. In addition, these neutrophils exhibit a decrease in degranulation, phagocytosis and reactive oxygen species production, as well as an increased death by apoptosis. These PMN abnormalities observed in CVID patients could result in an increased risk for recurrent bacterial infections. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Immunologic Research

Defective functions of polymorphonuclear neutrophils in patients with common variable immunodeficiency

Arthritis and Rheumatology

Interferon-α inhibition by intravenous immunoglobulin is independent of modulation of the plasmacytoid dendritic cell population in the circulation: Comment on the article by Wiedeman et al

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.

VirusDisease

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

Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS) is an acute, autoimmune inflammatory disorder of peripheral nervous system characterized by a severe functional motor weakness. Treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) is one of the approved and preferred therapeutic strategies for GBS. However, the mechanisms underlying the therapeutic benefit with IVIg in GBS are not completely understood. In the present study, we observed that GBS patients have increased frequencies of Th1 and Th17 cells, but reduced number of Foxp3+ regulatory T cells (Treg cells) with defective functions. We show that IVIg treatment in GBS patients results in a marked reduction in the frequency of Th1 and Th17 cells with a concomitant expansion of Treg cells. Importantly, IVIg-expanded Treg cells exhibited an increased T cell suppressive function. Together our results demonstrate that therapeutic benefit of IVIg in GBS patients implicates the reciprocal regulation of Th1/Th17 and Treg cells. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Intravenous immunoglobulin exerts reciprocal regulation of Th1/Th17 cells and regulatory T cells in Guillain–Barré syndrome patients

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Analysis of edge cracked semicircular disk (ECSD) under mixed-mode loading

Proceedings of ICEM

Analysis of obliquely oriented edge cracked semicircular ring (OECSR)