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.

&nbsp;

IIT Palakkad

Department of Civil Engineering

World University root node

Indian Geotechnical Journal

Dynamic response of block foundations resting on soil–rock and rock–rock system under vertical excitation

Department of Chemistry

CHEMICAL COMMUNICATIONS

Chloride sensing via suppression of excited state intramolecular proton transfer in squaramides (vol 49, pg 1633, 2013)

A new design strategy is described for chloride ion sensors based on suppression of excited state intramolecular proton transfer in squaramides as a fluorescence “turn on” mechanism. © 2013 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Chemical Communications

Chloride sensing via suppression of excited state intramolecular proton transfer in squaramides

With the objective of investigating the direct conversion of inorganic carbonates such as CaCO3 to hydrocarbons, assisted by transition metal ions, we have carried out studies on CaCO3 in an intimate admixture with iron oxides (FeCaCO) with a wide range of Fe/Ca mole ratios (x), prepared by co-precipitation. The hydrogen reduction of FeCaCO at 673 K gives up to 23% yield of the hydrocarbons CH4, C2H4, C2H6 and C3H8, leaving solid iron residues in the form of iron metal, oxides and carbide particles. The yield of hydrocarbons increases with x and the conversion of hydrocarbons occurs through the formation of CO. While the total yield of hydrocarbons obtained by us is comparable to that in the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, the selectivity for C 2-C3 hydrocarbons reported here is noteworthy. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2013.

Fulltext

RSC Advances

Direct conversion of calcium carbonate to C1-C3 hydrocarbons

We recently reported that levulinate (4-ketopentanoate) is converted in the liver to 4-hydroxypentanoate, a drug of abuse, and that the formation of 4-hydroxypentanoate is stimulated by ethanol oxidation. We also identified 3 parallel β-oxidation pathways by which levulinate and 4-hydroxypentanoate are catabolized to propionyl-CoA and acetyl-CoA. We now report that levulinate forms three seven-carbon cyclical CoA esters by processes starting with the elongation of levulinyl-CoA by acetyl-CoA to 3,6-diketoheptanoyl-CoA. The latter γ-diketo CoA ester undergoes two parallel cyclization processes. One process yields a mixture of tautomers, i.e., cyclopentenyl- and cyclopentadienyl-acyl-CoAs. The second cyclization process yields a methyl-pyrrolyl-acetyl-CoA containing a nitrogen atom derived from the ε-nitrogen of lysine but without carbons from lysine. The cyclic CoA esters were identified in rat livers perfused with levulinate and in livers and brains from rats gavaged with calcium levulinate ± ethanol. Lastly, 3,6-diketoheptanoyl-CoA, like 2,5-diketohexane, pyrrolates free lysine and, presumably, lysine residues from proteins. This may represent a new pathway for protein pyrrolation. The cyclic CoA esters and related pyrrolation processes may play a role in the toxic effects of 4-hydroxypentanoate. © 2012 American Chemical Society.

Chemical Research in Toxicology

Metabolomics and mass isotopomer analysis as a strategy for pathway discovery: Pyrrolyl and cyclopentenyl derivatives of the pro-drug of abuse, levulinate

Sirt5, localized in the mitochondria, is a member of sirtuin family of NAD +dependent deacetylases. Sirt5 was shown to deacetylate and activate carbamoyl phosphate synthase 1. Most recently, Sirt5 was reported to be the predominant protein desuccinylase and demalonylase in the mitochondria because the ablation of Sirt5 enhanced the global succinylation and malonylation of mitochondrial proteins, including many metabolic enzymes. In order to determine the physiological role of Sirt5 in metabolic homeostasis, we generated a germline Sirt5 deficient (Sirt5-/-) mouse model and performed a thorough metabolic characterization of this mouse line. Although a global protein hypersuccinylation and elevated serum ammonia during fasting were observed in our Sirt5-/-mouse model, Sirt5 deficiency did not lead to any overt metabolic abnormalities under either chow or high fat diet conditions. These observations suggest that Sirt5 is likely to be dispensable for the metabolic homeostasis under the basal conditions.

Scientific Reports

Metabolic characterization of a Sirt5 deficient mouse model

A new nonlinear disturbance observer-based tracking control scheme for an underwater manipulator is presented in this paper. This observer overcomes the disadvantages of existing disturbance observers, which are designed or analyzed by the linear system techniques. It can be applied in underwater manipulator systems for various purposes such as payload compensation, interaction effects compensation, underwater current or external disturbance compensation, and independent system control. The performance of the proposed tracking control scheme is demonstrated numerically by the payload compensation and interaction effects compensation for a two degrees of freedom vertical underwater manipulator. © 2013 Taylor & Francis and The Robotics Society of Japan.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Advanced Robotics

A nonregressor nonlinear disturbance observer-based adaptive control scheme for an underwater manipulator

This paper presents a new tracking control scheme for an underwater vehicle-manipulator system (UVMS). The proposed task space passivity based controller is not only used to track the given desired path but also allows the use of the self-motion of the vehicle to perform power efficient trajectory because of its kinematically redundant nature. In the proposed scheme, the primary task is to track the given end-effector task space trajectory despite of the system associated with external disturbances, system uncertainties and internal noises. The secondary task as the energy savings requirement, the vehicle motion is controlled and to be aligned with the estimated underwater current orientation. The performance and effectiveness of the proposed coordinated control motion of the UVMS is demonstrated numerically and confirmed with the specified UVMS tasks. Simulation results show that the required control inputs for the given tracking task are reduced, and the UVMS can successfully track the given desired spatial trajectory.

Indian Journal of Marine Sciences

Task space trajectory tracking control of an underwater vehicle-manipulator system under ocean currents

Biological Sciences and Engineering

Arthritis and Rheumatism

Dual role of CpG-stimulated B cells in the regulation of dendritic cells: Comment on the article by Berggren et al

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most aggressive human neoplasms with extremely poor prognosis and a low survival rate. Immunosuppressive cell populations, e.g. regulatory T cells (Treg), appear to be important in PDAC, contributing to patient's poor prognosis. Therefore, we investigated the PDAC microenvironment with a focus on conventional and regulatory T cells in view of their potential therapeutic importance. We found that tumors from the murine Panc02 orthotopic model of PDAC were infiltrated with high numbers of Treg. Remarkably, these cells exhibited the effector/memory phenotype, suggesting their enhanced suppressive activity and higher proliferation capacity. Although we observed a steady increase in transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) levels in the tumors, treatment with a specific inhibitor of TGF-β receptor I kinase failed to abrogate Treg accumulation. A CCR4 antagonist did not affect Treg percentage in the tumor either. However, intense Treg cell division in the tumor microenvironment was demonstrated, suggesting local proliferation as a major mechanism of Treg accumulation in PDAC. Notably, this accumulation was reduced by low-dose gemcitabine administration, resulting in a modestly increased survival of PDAC mice. Our results provide an insight into mechanisms of immunosuppression in PDAC, suggesting an important role for proliferative expansion of effector/memory Treg. Low-dose gemcitabine therapy selectively depletes Treg, providing a basis for new modalities of PDAC therapy. What's new? Regulatory T cells (Treg) appear to contribute to poor prognosis in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), suggesting that Treg cells are key therapeutic targets. In this investigation, tumors from an orthotopic PDAC mouse model were found to be infiltrated with large numbers of Treg cells, elevated proliferation of which was a major mechanism for Treg accumulation in tumors. This accumulation was reduced by low-dose gemcitabine, which was further found to improve survival in tumor-bearing mice. Selective depletion of Treg cells with low-dose gemcitabine could be a basis for new approaches to pancreatic carcinoma therapy. Copyright © 2012 UICC.