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

Biological Sciences and Engineering

Journal of Rheumatology

Enhancement of the affinity of glucocorticoid receptors as a mechanism underlying the steroid-sparing effect of intravenous immunoglobulin

New England Journal of Medicine

Desensitization of HLA-incompatible kidney recipients [4]

CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) are known to inhibit immune responses to antigens. Since, the process of antigen uptake by dendritic cells (DC) is central to induction of immune responses, we analyzed the effect of Tregs on the expression of endocytic receptors on DC and its repercussion on antigen uptake. Our results demonstrate that Tregs down-regulate the expression and uptake of antigens via C-type lectin-like receptors CD206 and DC-SIGN, restrain the pinocytosis process of DC and augment the expression of FcγRIIB, an inhibitory Fcγ receptor the engagement of which by IgG-bound antigens leads to inhibition of DC activation. Our results thus provide an additional insight on the pertinence of strategies aimed at blocking Treg functions towards improved vaccination protocols. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.

Vaccine

CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cell-mediated changes in the expression of endocytic receptors and endocytosis process of human dendritic cells

Background: TH17 cells play a critical role in the pathogenesis of several autoimmune and allergic diseases. Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg), a therapeutic preparation of polyclonal IgG that is increasingly used in the treatment of diverse autoimmune and allergic diseases, might target T H17 cells to exert therapeutic effects. Objective: We sought to examine whether IVIg interferes with the development and function of human TH17 cells. Methods: TH17 cells were differentiated from naive human CD4+ T cells in the presence of TGF-β and IL-21. TH17 cells were amplified by stimulating memory CD4+ T cells in the presence of IL-1β and IL-6. The effect of IVIg was examined on the differentiation and amplification of TH17 cells, expression of the TH17 lineage-specific transcription factor retinoic acid-related orphan receptor C, secretion of TH17 effector cytokines, and phosphorylation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3, a transcription factor that plays an important role in TH17 cell development and function. Results: IVIg inhibits the differentiation and amplification of human TH17 cells, as well as the production of their effector cytokines IL-17A, IL-17F, IL-21, and CCL20. The inhibitory effects of IVIg on TH17 cells are F(ab′)2 dependent and involve interference with the expression of retinoic acid-related orphan receptor C and activation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3. Also, IVIg significantly enhanced forkhead box protein 3-positive regulatory T cells among the memory CD4+ T cells. Conclusion: These results reveal a novel mechanism of action of IVIg in achieving a therapeutic effect in autoimmune and allergic diseases, in which TH17 cells play a key modulatory role in sustaining the chronic inflammatory response. Our results also suggest a reciprocal regulation of TH17 and regulatory T-cell populations by IVIg. © 2010 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

Inhibition of differentiation, amplification, and function of human T H17 cells by intravenous immunoglobulin

The main objective of this paper is to examine the influence of discrete and randomly distributed geofiber reinforcement on the integrity of clay-based landfill covers subjected to differential settlements in a geotechnical centrifuge. A series of centrifuge tests was performed on model clay-based landfill covers with and without geofiber reinforcement at 40 gravities. A hydraulic-based differential settlement simulator was used to induce continuous differential settlements with a distortion level up to 0.125. The type and moist-compacted conditions of the soil barrier and fiber content were held constant, and the thickness of the soil barrier and the fiber type are varied. The performance of the soil barrier with and without geofiber reinforcement having an overburden pressure equivalent to that of landfill covers was monitored by measuring water breakthrough at the onset of differential settlement. With an increase in the thickness of the geofiber-reinforced soil barrier, and with the provision of an overburden equivalent to that of landfill cover, the integrity of the geofiber-reinforced soil barrier was found to be retained, even after inducing a distortion level of 0.125. Analysis and interpretation of the test results indicate the significant potential for geofiber reinforcement to decrease and to retard soil crack potential in a discrete and randomly distributed soil barrier reinforced with geofibers, while retaining its hydraulic performance. © 2011 Thomas Telford Ltd.

Department of Civil Engineering

Geosynthetics International

Influence of randomly distributed geofibers on the integrity of clay-based landfill covers: A centrifuge study

Indian geotechnical conference

Experimental Studies on the Response of a Clay Barrier of Landfill Covers To Differential Settlements

This paper explores to relate total fatigue damage and frequency of vibration resulting from excitation of a cantilever beam. From recent studies on damage mechanics, it is found that the magnitude of total fatigue damage of a component not only depends on the induced dynamic strain but also on the severity of vibrations. The Hybrid I-kaz method provides a two dimensional graphical representation of the measured strain and vibration signal. Hybrid I-kaz parameter (Zh) provides a measure for the degree of data scattering and thus incorporating strain-vibration effects into the relation between frequency and total fatigue damage. The comparative study is implemented using strain-life approach, and Hybrid Integrated kurtosis based algorithm for Z notch filter technique (Hybrid I-kaz). Two sets of the experiments are conducted, considering the frequencies near first mode and second mode of the beam. The pattern obtained by frequency variation with the Hybrid kurtosis parameter is useful in finding hybrid kurtosis parameter at any given frequency of vibration. It is found that the total fatigue damage is varying linearly with the hybrid kurtosis parameter. This relation is proved to be useful in predicting fatigue damage of a beam at any frequency of vibration.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

15th National Conference on Machines and Mechanisms, NaCoMM 2011

Vibration based fatigue damage assessment of cantilever beams

The current scenario of depleting resources has lead to a major thrust in developing and applying highly sustainable solutions to construction industry. Therefore, it has become essential to devise designs based on materials that cost the least for the transportation network and at the same time have a minimum environmental impact. Though there are a few modern material solutions that may meet these criteria, like the use of steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) for pavement constructions, a proper evaluation of the performance and impact of utilization of such materials is lacking. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) offer the means to evaluate the sustainability, and have been used in this paper to provide frameworks analysing Asphalt, Jointed Plain concrete (JPC) and Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete pavements. In this work, asphalt, JPC and SFRC pavement sections have been designed as per the respective IRC guidelines so as to get equivalent designs for the given traffic loading, environmental and material conditions. Subsequently, LCCA is done as per the procedure provided in the Federal Highway Administration’s Interim Technical bulletin and LCA is done by using the process approach for each of the pavements. The assessment indicates where sustainable practices can be directed to so as to minimize environmental impacts in the initial stage of the pavement life cycle. The paper also discusses the limitations and difficulties of carrying out life cycle assessment and life cycle cost analysis for highways in India.&nbsp;

Environmental Sciences and Sustainable Engineering Centre (ESSENCE)

Sustainability assessment of steel fibre reinforced concrete pavements

Department of Physics

Raman Research Institute, Bangalore.

Organization of Sterols in Model Membranes

This paper studies the problem of constructing robust classifiers when the training is plagued with uncertainty. The problem is posed as a Chance-Constrained Program (CCP) which ensures that the uncertain data points are classified correctly with high probability. Unfortunately such a CCP turns out to be intractable. The key novelty is in employing Bernstein bounding schemes to relax the CCP as a convex second order cone program whose solution is guaranteed to satisfy the probabilistic constraint. Prior to this work, only the Chebyshev based relaxations were exploited in learning algorithms. Bernstein bounds employ richer partial information and hence can be far less conservative than Chebyshev bounds. Due to this efficient modeling of uncertainty, the resulting classifiers achieve higher classification margins and hence better generalization. Methodologies for classifying uncertain test data points and error measures for evaluating classifiers robust to uncertain data are discussed. Experimental results on synthetic and real-world datasets show that the proposed classifiers are better equipped to handle data uncertainty and outperform state-of-the-art in many cases. {\textcopyright} 2010 Springer and Mathematical Optimization Society.