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

World University root node

Department of Civil Engineering

International Conference on Environmental Chemistry and Engineering (ICECE-20)

Wastewater treatment coupled with defluoridation using microbial fuel cell

To meet rising demands for agricultural products, existing agricultural lands must either produce more or expand in area. Yield gaps (YGs)—the difference between current and potential yield of agricultural systems—indicate the ability to increase output while holding land area constant. Here, we assess YGs in global grazed-only permanent pasture lands using a climate binning approach. We create a snapshot of circa 2000 empirical yields for meat and milk production from cattle, sheep, and goats by sorting pastures into climate bins defined by total annual precipitation and growing degree-days. We then estimate YGs from intra-bin yield comparisons. We evaluate YG patterns across three FAO definitions of grazed livestock agroecosystems (arid, humid, and temperate), and groups of animal production systems that vary in animal types and animal products. For all subcategories of grazed-only permanent pasture assessed, we find potential to increase productivity several-fold over current levels. However, because productivity of grazed pasture systems is generally low, even large relative increases in yield translated to small absolute gains in global protein production. In our dataset, milk-focused production systems were found to be seven times as productive as meat-focused production systems regardless of animal type, while cattle were four times as productive as sheep and goats regardless of animal output type. Sustainable intensification of pasture is most promising for local development, where large relative increases in production can substantially increase incomes or “spare” large amounts of land for other uses. Our results motivate the need for further studies to target agroecological and economic limitations on productivity to improve YG estimates and identify sustainable pathways toward intensification. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Environmental Sciences and Sustainable Engineering Centre (ESSENCE)

Global Change Biology

Assessment of yield gaps on global grazed-only permanent pasture using climate binning

Adhesion interactions mediated by multiple bond types are relevant for many biological and soft matter systems, including the adhesion of biological cells and functionalized colloidal particles to various substrates. To elucidate advantages and disadvantages of multiple bond populations for the stability of heterogeneous adhesion clusters of receptor-ligand pairs, a theoretical model for a homogeneous parallel adhesion bond cluster under constant loading is extended to several bond types. The stability of the entire cluster can be tuned by changing densities of different bond populations as well as their extensional rigidity and binding properties. In particular, bond extensional rigidities determine the distribution of total load to be shared between different subpopulations. Under a gradual increase of the total load, the rupture of a heterogeneous adhesion cluster can be thought of as a multistep discrete process, in which one of the bond subpopulations ruptures first, followed by similar rupture steps of other subpopulations or by immediate detachment of the remaining cluster. This rupture behavior is qualitatively independent of involved bond types, such as slip and catch bonds. Interestingly, an optimal stability is generally achieved when the total cluster load is shared such that loads on distinct bond populations are equal to their individual critical rupture forces. We also show that cluster heterogeneity can drastically affect cluster lifetime. © 2020 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.

Department of Physics

Physical Review Research

Stability of heterogeneous parallel-bond adhesion clusters under load

Malaria parasites invade healthy red blood cells (RBCs) during the blood stage of the disease. Even though parasites initially adhere to RBCs with a random orientation, they need to align their apex toward the membrane in order to start the invasion process. Using hydrodynamic simulations of a RBC and parasite, where both interact through discrete stochastic bonds, we show that parasite alignment is governed by the combination of RBC membrane deformability and dynamics of adhesion bonds. The stochastic nature of bond-based interactions facilitates a diffusive-like re-orientation of the parasite at the RBC membrane, while RBC deformation aids in the establishment of apex-membrane contact through partial parasite wrapping by the membrane. This bond-based model for parasite adhesion quantitatively captures alignment times measured experimentally and demonstrates that alignment times increase drastically with increasing rigidity of the RBC membrane. Our results suggest that the alignment process is mediated simply by passive parasite adhesion. © Hillringhaus et al.

eLife

Stochastic bond dynamics facilitates alignment of malaria parasite at erythrocyte membrane upon invasion

The relative $\alpha$-entropy is the R{\'{e}}nyi analog of relative entropy and arises prominently in information-theoretic problems. Recent information geometric investigations on this quantity have enabled the generalization of the Cram{\'{e}}r-Rao inequality, which provides a lower bound for the variance of an estimator of an escort of the underlying parametric probability distribution. However, this framework remains unexamined in the Bayesian framework. In this paper, we propose a general Riemannian metric based on relative $\alpha$-entropy to obtain a generalized Bayesian Cram{\'{e}}r-Rao inequality. This establishes a lower bound for the variance of an unbiased estimator for the $\alpha$-escort distribution starting from an unbiased estimator for the underlying distribution. We show that in the limiting case when the entropy order approaches unity, this framework reduces to the conventional Bayesian Cram{\'{e}}r-Rao inequality. Further, in the absence of priors, the same framework yields the deterministic Cram{\'{e}}r-Rao inequality.

Department of Mathematics

2020 54th Annual Conference on Information Sciences and Systems, CISS 2020

Generalized Bayesian Cram{\'{e}}r-Rao Inequality via Information Geometry of Relative $\alpha$-Entropy

Friction hydro-pillar processing (FHPP) is a novel technique that involves solid-state joining of an external plug onto a substrate by plastic deformation. A systematic investigation on material flow during FHPP is required but rarely reported. The present work reports a coupled theoretical and a three-dimensional X-ray computer tomography-based experimental study using a Ti-alloy as a tracer material to realise the material flow during FHPP of a AISI 4140 steel substrate. The cumulative results showed that the central portion of the plug deformed in a series of layer-wise shear planes. However, the plasticised material towards the outer area of the plug flowed through the clearance between the plug and the substrate with excess volume moving out as flash. © 2019, © 2019 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. Published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Institute.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Science and Technology of Welding and Joining

Material flow during friction hydro-pillar processing

Stationary shoulder friction stir welding (SSFSW) is a new variant of the conventional FSW with rotation of only the tool probe to reduce the rate of heat generation along the tool–workpiece interface and hence, weld joint residual stresses. Studies on the evolution of residual stresses in SSFSW are rare as the process is new. A detailed investigation on the evolution of welding-induced residual stress is reported here for SSFSW and the conventional FSW of four different aluminum alloys. A finite element method–based numerical model, JWRIAN-Hybrid, is used for the three-dimensional heat transfer and thermo-mechanical stress analyses. The computed results are validated extensively with the corresponding experimentally measured results. The results show approximately 10% to 20% reduction in the peak residual stresses in SSFSW under identical welding conditions. © 2019, Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature.

International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology

Probing residual stresses in stationary shoulder friction stir welding process

As the automotive industry is moving towards electric and self-driving vehicles, how to ensure the high degree of reliability for electronic control systems (ECS) has emerged as a serious concern. Temperature plays a vital role in the reliability of ECS because vehicles are subjected to high chip temperature due to harsh operating conditions and high integrated circuit (IC) on-chip power density. In this paper, we study the problem on how to optimize the lifetime reliability and guarantee the chip's peak temperature of ECS by judiciously allocating the application to ECS. We first propose a simple mathematical programming based thermal aware approach, assuming temperature can reach a stable status immediately. We then present a genetic algorithm approach based on effective and computationally efficient methods for peak temperature identification and system-wide lifetime reliability calculation, by taking advantage of the periodicity of vehicle applications. Our experimental results, based on both synthetic test cases and practical benchmarks demonstrate the significant improvement in lifetime reliability and CPU time for automotive ECS achieved by our proposed algorithms compared to the state-of-the-art results. © 2020 IEEE.

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Computer Design: VLSI in Computers and Processors

Thermal Aware Lifetime Reliability Optimization for Automotive Distributed Computing Applications

Piles installed in row(s) are used as an effective technique to improve the stability of soil slopes. The analysis of pile-stabilized slopes require a reliable prediction of lateral resistance offered by the piles. In this work, an analytical solution is developed to estimate the lateral resistance offered by the stabilizing piles in sand and c − ϕ soil slopes considering soil arching phenomenon. The soil arching in both horizontal direction (between the neighboring piles) and vertical direction (in the active wedge in front of the pile row) are studied and their effects are incorporated in the proposed model. The shape of soil arch is assumed to be circular and principal stress trajectories are defined separately for both modes of arching. Experimental and numerical studies found in literature were used to validate the proposed method. A detailed parametric analysis was performed to study the influence of pile diameter, center-to-center spacing, slope angle and angle of internal friction on the lateral pile resistance. © 2020 Techno-Press, Ltd.

Geomechanics and Engineering

Estimation of lateral pile resistance incorporating soil arching in pile-stabilized slopes

In recent years, the popularity of nickel-based super alloys has been on the rise due to their widespread application in oil and gas, aerospace and automobile, marine and biomedical industries. The unique combination of superior mechanical and chemical properties like hardness, strength, temperature and corrosion resistance is responsible for the extensive application of these alloys. However, these properties pose challenges during the conventional machining of nickel-based super alloys. The low thermal conductivity and high work-hardening characteristics of Inconel 718 make it difficult to machine. To overcome the aforementioned problem, a hybrid non-contact electrical discharge and arc-machining process has been employed. In this process, an additional DC power supply is employed in conjunction with the normal EDM-pulsed power supply. Furthermore, the selection of proper electrode material plays an important role in defining the machining performance. In this study, in order to select a suitable electrode material for the newly developed process, several experimental investigations have been conducted with three different electrode materials, namely brass, copper (Cu) and copper tungsten (CuW). The results have shown that, for all the current settings, brass electrode provides the highest material removal rate (MRR), followed by Cu and CuW electrodes. However, CuW exhibited the lowest electrode wear rate (EWR). Moreover, the average surface roughness and surface characteristics of the electrodes after machining were investigated as well. Based on all the performance parameters, CuW appears to be the best choice for the hybrid process to machine Inconel 718. © 2019, Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature.