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

Acquired hemophilia is a rare bleeding disorder characterized by the spontaneous occurrence of inhibitory antibodies against endogenous factor VIII (FVIII). IgG from some patients with acquired hemophilia hydrolyze FVIII. Because of the complex etiology of the disease, no clinical parameter, including the presence of FVIII-hydrolyzing IgG, has been associated with patient's survival or death. Here, we demonstrate the presence of anti-FIX antibodies in acquired hemophilia patients. IgG from some patients were found to hydrolyze FIX. In most cases, IgG-mediated FIX-hydrolysis resulted in FIX activation. IgG-mediated hydrolysis of FIX thus led to the significant generation of activated FIX in 25 of 65 patients. Based on the estimated kinetic parameters, patients' IgG activated up to 0.3nM FIX in 24 hours, an amount that restored thrombin generation in vitro provided the presence of more than or equal to 3% residual FVIII activity in plasma. This work identifies proteolytic IgG as novel molecules able to activate FIX under pathologic conditions. IgG-mediated FIX activation is a prevalent phenomenon among acquired hemophilia patients. The presence of FIXactivating IgG may partly compensate for the antibody-mediated inhibition of endogenous FVIII in restoring thrombin generation. This clinical trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT00213473. © 2011 by The American Society of Hematology.

World University root node

Biological Sciences and Engineering

Fulltext

Blood

Proteolytic antibodies activate factor IX in patients with acquired hemophilia

Background: Polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) play a key role in host defences against invading microorganisms but can also potentiate detrimental inflammatory reactions in case of excessive or misdirected responses. Intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIg) are used to treat patients with immune deficiencies and, at higher doses, in autoimmune, allergic and systemic inflammatory disorders. Methodology/Principal Findings: We used flow cytometry to examine the effects of IVIg on PMN functions and survival, using whole-blood conditions in order to avoid artifacts due to isolation procedures. IVIg at low concentrations induced PMN activation, as reflected by decreased L-selectin and increased CD11b expression at the PMN surface, oxidative burst enhancement, and prolonged cell survival. In contrast, IVIg at higher concentrations inhibited LPS-induced CD11b degranulation and oxidative burst priming, and counteracted LPS-induced PMN lifespan prolongation. Conclusions/Significance: IVIg appears to have differential, concentration-dependent effects on PMN, possibly supporting the use of IVIg as either an anti-microbial or an anti-inflammatory agent. © 2011 Casulli et al.

PLoS ONE

A differential concentration-dependent effect of IVIg on neutrophil functions: Relevance for anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory mechanisms

Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is a therapeutic compound prepared from pools of plasma obtained from several thousand healthy blood donors. For more than 20 years, IVIG has been used in the treatment of a wide range of primary and secondary immunodeficiencies. IVIG now represents a standard therapeutic option for most antibody deficiencies. Routinely, IVIG is used in patients with X-linked agammaglobulinaemia (XLA), common variable immunodeficiency (CVID), X-linked hyper-IgM, severe combined immunodeficiency, Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, and selective IgG class deficiency. In addition, IVIG is used extensively in the treatment of a wide variety of autoimmune disorders. IVIG is administered at distinct doses in the two clinical settings: whereas immunodeficient patients are treated with replacement levels of IVIG, patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases are administered with very high doses of IVIG. Several lines of experimental evidence gathered in the recent years suggest that the therapeutic beneficial effect of IVIG in immunodeficiencies reflects an active role for IVIG, rather than a mere passive transfer of antibodies. © 2011 The Authors. Clinical and Experimental Immunology © 2011 British Society for Immunology.

Clinical and Experimental Immunology

Intravenous immunoglobulins in immunodeficiencies: More than mere replacement therapy

Despite their increasing use in autoimmune, inflammatory, and allergic conditions, the mechanism of action of i.v. Igs (IVIg) is poorly understood. On the basis of the critical role of invariant NKT (iNKT) cells in allergic airway inflammation (AAI) and their constitutive expression of the low-affinity IgG receptor FcγRIIIA, we surmised that IVIg targets iNKT cells to exert their anti-inflammatory effect. We found that IVIg treatment significantly inhibited AAI in OVA-sensitized C57BL/6 mice and downregulated α-galactosylceramide- induced iNKT cell activation and cytokine production. Allergic responses were restored in iNKT cell-deficient mice by transferring iNKT cells from PBS- but not from IVIg-treated mice, suggesting that IVIg acts directly on activated iNKT cells that have a critical role in AAI. The inhibitory effects of IVIg on both iNKT cell activation/function and OVA-driven AAI were lost in FcγRIIIA-/- mice. Our data unravel an FcγRIIIA-dependent inhibitory effect of IVIg on activated iNKT cells that confers protection in AAI. Copyright © 2011 by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc.

Journal of Immunology

Cutting edge: Intravenous Ig inhibits invariant NKT cell-mediated allergic airway inflammation through FcγRIIIA-dependent mechanisms

In this work nickel based hardfacing alloy (Colmonoy 5) was deposited on 316L (N) stainless steel substrate to study the effects of aging treatment on coating microstructure, wear and corrosion properties. Coatings, deposited through plasma transferred arc (PTA) welding process, were aged at 923K for 5000h. Microstructural characterization studies carried out by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed the coarsening of dendrites and precipitation of Cr23C6 particles in the aged coating. The wear behavior of the as deposited and aged coatings was compared in room temperature (RT) and high temperature (823K) under dry sliding wear condition (pin-on-disc configuration). At RT, aged coating experienced more wear loss when compared to as-deposited. At high temperature, the wear loss was almost same with similar operating wear mechanisms (tribo-oxidation) for both as-deposited and aged coating. From pitting corrosion studies, it was found that aged coatings are more prone to pitting when compared to the as-deposited coatings. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Wear

Influence of aging treatment on microstructure, wear and corrosion behavior of a nickel base hardfaced coating

In the present study, Ni-based Colmonoy 5 was deposited on Type 316L (N) stainless steel. The deposit was aged at 580 and 650°C for 5,000 h to study the influence of aging on sliding wear resistance. The aged deposits show more wear loss due to reduced hardness. However, the reduced hardness after aging was not reflected on wear test at 550°C irrespective of sliding distance. This is due to stability of microstructure as well as the generation of oxide layer during high temperature tests. Subsequently, an empirical relation was developed based on outcome experimental data using full factorial design of experiments in terms of hardness (H), test temperature (T) and sliding distance (D). Based on the empirical relation, it was found that the test temperatures (T) play a predominant role on wear loss than hardness (H) and sliding distance (D). Further, the developed relationships were validated using analysis of variance (ANOVA). © 2011 Indian Institute of Metals.

Transactions of the Indian Institute of Metals

A study on influence of aging treatment on sliding wear resistance of a nickel based hardfacing alloy

We revisit a ν-driven r-process mechanism in the He shell of a core-collapse supernova, finding that it could succeed in early stars of metallicity Z10 -3Z, at relatively low temperatures and neutron densities, producing A 130 and 195 abundance peaks over ∼10-20s. The mechanism is sensitive to the ν emission model and to ν oscillations. We discuss the implications of an r process that could alter interpretations of abundance data from metal-poor stars, and point out the need for further calculations that include effects of the supernova shock. © 2011 American Physical Society.

Department of Physics

Physical Review Letters

Long, cold, early r process? Neutrino-induced nucleosynthesis in he shells revisited

Distributed multimedia application over IP network is an evolving paradigm for the researcher in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). There are several applications of this technology -video conferencing, teleteaching and any collaborative application. Maintaining the satisfactory Quality of Service [1] and synchronization is a big challenge to the researchers in this field. In this paper, we extend our previous work [2] by ensur-ing multistream multipoint synchronization as an issue, involving the play out process of two streams (audio and video that were generated at the same time and bear temporal relationship ) at different receivers at the same time and maintaining the temporal relationship between them to achieve fairness among the receivers. In this paper, we propose a distributed algorithm for achieving multi-stream multipoint synchronization and we also model the algorithm with Stochastic Petri Nets and verify its correctness. {\textcopyright} 2011 Springer-Verlag.

Department of Data Science

Communications in Computer and Information Science

A Petri Net based model for multipoint multistream synchronization in multimedia conferencing

In this paper, we consider the problem of modelling the average delay experienced by an application packets of variable length in a single cell IEEE 802.11 DCF wireless local area network. The packet arrival process at each node i is assumed to be a stationary and independent increment random process with mean ai and second moment ai (2). The packet lengths at node i are assumed to be i.i.d random variables Pi with finite mean and second moment. A closed form expression has been derived for the same. We assume the input arrival process across queues to be uncorrelated Poison processes. As the nodes share a single channel, they have to contend with one another for a successful transmission. The mean delay for a packet has been approximated by modelling the system as a 1-limited Random Polling system with zero switchover times. Extensive simulations are conducted to verify the analytical results. © 2011 IEEE.

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

2011 National Conference on Communications, NCC 2011

Application delay modelling for variable length packets in single cell IEEE 802.11 WLANs

In this paper, we consider the problem of extracting structured data from web pages taking into account both the content of individual attributes as well as the structure of pages and sites. We use Markov Logic Networks (MLNs) to capture both content and structural features in a single unified framework and this enables us to perform more accurate inference. MLNs allow us to model a wide range of rich structural features like proximity, precedence, alignment and contiguity, using first-order clauses. We show that inference in our information extraction scenario reduces to solving an instance of the maximum weight subgraph problem. We develop specialized procedures for solving the maximum subgraph variants that are far more efficient than previously proposed inference methods for MLNs that solve variants of MAX-SAT. Experiments with real-life datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our MLN-based approach compared to existing state-of-the-art extraction methods. Copyright 2011 ACM.