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 work presents the use of osmotic microbial fuel cell (OsMFC), for the first time, to concentrate nutrients and recover water and energy from source separated urine. Four sets of concentration of fresh urine as feed and NaCl as draw were examined: 10% fresh urine vs 0.25 M NaCl; 10% fresh urine vs 2 M NaCl; fresh urine vs 0.25 M NaCl; and fresh urine vs 2 M NaCl. A maximum water flux of 14.27 LMH was attained when 10% of fresh urine and 2 M of NaCl were used as feed and draw solutions, respectively. Additionally, OsMFC concentrates ~99% of TOC, TN, NH4+, and 100% of PO43− and NO3− from urine at the feed side. Polarization studies indicate that the power generation in OsMFC is related to the rate of change of conductivity and the initial conductivity of the anolyte. The maximum (0.12187 W m−3) and minimum power densities (5.3372 × 10−4 W m−3) were obtained for the conditions of fresh urine vs 0.25 M NaCl and 10% fresh urine vs 0.25 M NaCl, respectively. The study shows that OsMFC is an effective pretreatment process to concentrate nutrients from urine by recovering water and energy, simultaneously. © Elsevier Ltd

Department of Civil Engineering

World University root node

Chemosphere

Concentrating nutrients and recovering water and energy from source separated urine using osmotic microbial fuel cell

The dynamics of small, yet heavy, identical particles in turbulence exhibits singularities, called caustics, that lead to large fluctuations in the spatial particle-number density, and in collision velocities. For large particle inertia, the fluid velocity at the particle position is essentially a white-noise signal and caustic formation is analogous to Kramers escape. Here we show that caustic formation at small particle inertia is different. Caustics tend to form in the vicinity of particle trajectories that experience a specific history of fluid-velocity gradients, characterized by low vorticity and a violent strain exceeding a large threshold. We develop a theory that explains our findings in terms of an optimal path to caustic formation that is approached in the small inertia limit. © 2021 authors.

Department of Physics

Physical Review Fluids

Paths to caustic formation in turbulent aerosols

The dynamics and deformation of red blood cells (RBCs) in microcirculation affect the flow resistance and transport properties of whole blood. One of the key properties that can alter RBC dynamics in flow is the contrast λ (or ratio) of viscosities between RBC cytosol and blood plasma. Here, we study the dependence of RBC shape and dynamics on the viscosity contrast in tube flow, using mesoscopic hydrodynamics simulations. State diagrams of different RBC dynamical states, including tumbling cells, parachutes, and tank-treading slippers, are constructed for various viscosity contrasts and wide ranges of flow rates and tube diameters (or RBC confinements). Despite similarities in the classification of RBC behavior for different viscosity contrasts, there are notable differences in the corresponding state diagrams. In particular, the region of parachutes is significantly larger for λ = 1 in comparison to λ = 5. Furthermore, the viscosity contrast strongly affects the tumbling-to-slipper transition, thus modifying the regions of occurrence of these states as a function of flow rate and RBC confinement. Also, an increase in cytosol viscosity leads to a reduction in membrane tension induced by flow stresses. Physical mechanisms that determine these differences in RBC dynamical states as a function of λ are discussed. © Copyright © 2021 Dasanna, Mauer, Gompper and Fedosov.

Fulltext

Frontiers in Physics

Importance of Viscosity Contrast for the Motion of Erythrocytes in Microcapillaries

Background: Chorea-acanthocytosis (ChAc) is a rare hereditary neurodegenerative disease with deformed red blood cells (RBCs), so-called acanthocytes, as a typical marker of the disease. Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) was recently proposed as a diagnostic biomarker. To date, there is no treatment option for affected patients, but promising therapy candidates, such as dasatinib, a Lyn-kinase inhibitor, have been identified. Methods: RBCs of two ChAc patients during and after dasatinib treatment were characterized by the ESR, clinical hematology parameters and the 3D shape classification in stasis based on an artificial neural network. Furthermore, mathematical modeling was performed to understand the contribution of cell morphology and cell rigidity to the ESR. Microfluidic measurements were used to compare the RBC rigidity between ChAc patients and healthy controls. Results: The mechano-morphological characterization of RBCs from two ChAc patients in an off-label treatment with dasatinib revealed differences in the ESR and the acanthocyte count during and after the treatment period, which could not directly be related to each other. Clinical hematology parameters were in the normal range. Mathematical modeling indicated that RBC rigidity is more important for delayed ESR than cell shape. Microfluidic experiments confirmed a higher rigidity in the normocytes of ChAc patients compared to healthy controls. Conclusions: The results increase our understanding of the role of acanthocytes and their associated properties in the ESR, but the data are too sparse to answer the question of whether the ESR is a suitable biomarker for treatment success, whereas a correlation between hematological and neuronal phenotype is still subject to verification. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Biomolecules

The erythrocyte sedimentation rate and its relation to cell shape and rigidity of red blood cells from chorea-acanthocytosis patients in an off-label treatment with dasatinib

The article discusses the structure and model of a robotic system for the rehabilitation of the lower limbs based on a passive orthosis in the form of a serial RRRR mechanism and an active parallel 3-PRRR mechanism. Effective numerical methods and algorithms were developed and tested that made it possible to determine the minimum geometric parameters of the active parallel mechanism that ensure the movement of the passive orthosis within the workspace under clinical data when simulating walking. The structure is proposed. The basis parameters for the rehabilitation system design are investigated. To implement the developed methods, an effective algorithm, software package, and visualization system for exported three-dimensional workspaces in STL format were synthesized. The results of mathematical modeling and analysis of the results are given. © 2021, CISM International Centre for Mechanical Sciences.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

CISM International Centre for Mechanical Sciences, Courses and Lectures

Determination of the Geometric Parameters of a Parallel-Serial Rehabilitation Robot Based on Clinical Data

This paper focuses its attention on the mechanical design of autonomous agricultural robots used for the purpose of harvesting fruits in plantations. The paper analysis the present mechanical designs, identifies the research gaps and proposes a novel design of a fruit plucking robot. A design consisting of a four wheeled mobile base, a manipulator and an end-effector has been proposed. An open-chain rotary-rotary-prismatic (RRP) manipulator attached to the mobile base and having two additional active rotary joints at the end-effector at the free-end has been designed. A hose has been provided to transfer fruits from the tree to the basket. The chassis of the mobile base is equipped with four solid rubber power (motorized) wheels controlled by skid steering method and a detachable basket for collecting fruits. A counterweight mechanism has been designed to provide static stability. The paper addresses the issues present in the current mechanical designs with a brief discussion on the system architecture. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Mechanisms and Machine Science

A Novel Design for an Autonomous Mobile Agricultural Fruit Harvesting Robot

Response surface methodology (RSM) is used for mathematical modeling of friction stir welding parameters for joining AA6061 composite material. Characteristics of joints were examined through response characteristics such as ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and microhardness (HV) using RSM. Microstructure examination was carried out using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and electron backscattered diffraction, and results exhibit variation in the grain size diameter. Specifically, lower nugget exhibits fine grains with maximum hardness compared to middle nugget and upper nugget. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results indicate good match between actual values and predicted values with R2 of 0.91 and 0.96, respectively, for UTS and HV, and better joint efficiency of 90% is obtained. © 2021, The Indian Institute of Metals - IIM.

Transactions of the Indian Institute of Metals

Analysis of the Effect of Friction Stir Welding Parameters on Characteristics of AA6061 Composites using Response Surface Methodology

The paper deals with sampling and reconstruction of vector valued functions in a shift invariant space with multiple generators. Unlike the case of a shift invariant space with multiple generators in L2(R) , when the dimension of the vectors is the same as the number of generators, Z turns out to be a stable set of sampling. A sampling formula for reconstructing a function from its samples at integer points is derived and the problem of sampling on a perturbed set of integers is discussed. An illustration of sampling and reconstruction of a function in L2(R, R2) on a finite interval is given using Matlab. © 2020, Forum D'Analystes, Chennai.

Department of Mathematics

Journal of Analysis

Shift invariant spaces in L2(R, Cm) with m generators

arXiv preprint arXiv:2108.

Distinguishing Phases via Non-Markovian Dynamics of Entanglement in Topological Quantum Codes under Parallel Magnetic Field

The 3d transition metal-catalyzed enantioselective C-H functionalization provides a sustainable strategy for the construction of chiral molecules. A better understanding of the catalytic nature of the reactions and the factors controlling the enantioselectivity is important for rational design of more efficient systems. Herein, the mechanisms of Ni-catalyzed enantioselective C-H cyclization of imidazoles are investigated by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Both the π-allyl nickel(ii)-promoted σ-complex-assisted metathesis (σ-CAM) and the nickel(0)-catalyzed oxidative addition (OA) mechanisms are disfavored. In addition to the typically proposed ligand-to-ligand hydrogen transfer (LLHT) mechanism, the reaction can also proceed via an unconventional σ-CAM mechanism that involves hydrogen transfer from the JoSPOphos ligand to the alkene through P-H oxidative addition/migratory insertion, C(sp2)-H activation via σ-CAM, and C-C reductive elimination. Importantly, computational results based on this new mechanism can indeed reproduce the experimentally observed enantioselectivities. Further, the catalytic activity of the π-allyl nickel(ii) complex can be rationalized by the regeneration of the active nickel(0) catalyst via a stepwise hydrogen transfer, which was confirmed by experimental studies. The calculations reveal several significant roles of the secondary phosphine oxide (SPO) unit in JoSPOphos during the reaction. The improved mechanistic understanding will enable design of novel enantioselective C-H transformations. This journal is © 2021 The Royal Society of Chemistry.