Giving to Talent

Transcription

Giving to Talent

Science and Engineering Research Board
Department of Science and Technology
Govt. of India
Department of Biotechnology
Govt. of India
Indo-US Science and Technology Forum
Giving
Wings
to Talent
Khorana Program for Scholars
S.N. Bose Scholars Program
Viterbi-India Program
Student Symposium
22 August 2015
New Delhi, India
Giving
Wings
to Talent
Student Symposium
Indo-U.S. Science & Technology Forum
Fulbright House, 12 Hailey Road, New Delhi-110 001
www.iusstf.org
Foreword
It has been unambiguously demonstrated that
providing students and young scientists with
an exposure to cutting-edge scientific research
experiences at a formative stage not only broadens
their intellectual horizons but also leads to increased
engagements in scientific and technological research
careers. To address the need for human resource
development and capacity building in science and
technology, the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology
Forum (IUSSTF) is committed to nurture contacts
between students of science and technology from
India and the United States.
IUSSTF has been proactive in developing and
implementing innovative programs that enable young
students from institutions across the country to spend
varying periods of time at premier US institutions as
student interns. The Khorana Program for Scholars,
S.N. Bose Scholars Program and the Viterbi-India
Program are notable IUSSTF initiatives in this context.
We are grateful for the funding and guidance we
receive for these programs from the Department of
Biotechnology (DBT), Govt. of India, Department of
Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India and the
Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB). I
would also take this opportunity to extend my thanks
to Prof. Raghu Raghavendra (University of Southern
California) and Prof. Aseem Ansari (University of
Wisconsin-Madison) for their support in making these
programs such a success!
The purpose of these initiatives is to enable young
students to generate new insights and refine their
perspectives under the guidance of able faculty
mentors. It gives me great pleasure to bring to you
this compendium of projects pursued by the student
interns of 2015. I congratulate the team at IUSSTF
for having worked ceaselessly to plan and implement
these programs - making them one of the most sought
after in their genre!
Your feedback will help us to redouble our efforts
to improve our work and serve the cause of S&T
cooperation in the most effective manner.
Rajiv Sharma
Executive Director, IUSSTF
Contents
Khorana Program for Scholars
Amrutha V | Spreading of Pathogenic α-Synuclein Across the Nervous System in Drosophila Model of Parkinsons Disease
12
Anil Kiran Chokkalla | A Novel Polyamide Based Artificial Transcription Factor to Alleviate Transcriptional Inhibition of Frataxin in Friedreich’s Ataxia
13
Anjali Priya | Study the Effect of Ubiquitin Carboxyl Terminal Hydrolase 1 (UCHL1) Over-Expression in Ovarian Cancer
14
Anukriti Mathur | Role of Human Fcγ Receptors in SLE Pathogenesis
15
Anupallavi Srinivasamani | MiR23a Cluster : A Potential regulator of NK Cell Biology
16
Apurva Gajwani | Vitamin C Degeneration in Microwave Heating of Broccoli
17
Charul Agrawal | Database of Identified Poly and Mono ADP-Ribosylated Proteins
18
Chiti Arvind | An Account of the Nesting Behaviour of the Greater Ani (Crotophaga Major)
19
Debalina Datta | Computational Design of Chlorophyll Bound to Water Soluble Chlorophyll-Binding Protein (WSCP) with ProtCAD
20
Debayan De Bakshi | Effect of Mammalian-Target-of-Rapamycin (MTOR) on Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
21
Dileep Kishore | Wildtype Flux Prediction from RB-Tnseq Data
22
Jyotsna Misra | Structural Studies of the Yeast Spindle Pole Body
23
Kaivalya Molugu | Structural Understanding of Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor (AHR), a Potential Drug Target for Cancer
24
Kalki Kukreja | Characterizing the Ribosome Association of Yeast Protein Stf2 During Acute Stress
25
Kanmani Chandra Rajan | Cloning Different Fusion Proteins with Degrons, Expression and Study of Their Degradation by FtsH
26
Karen Thulasi Devendrakumar | Transgenic Corn Expressing Oleosin and Wrinkled1 Transcription Factor- A System for
27
Kaustav Bera | Micro Pillar Embedded Channels for Probing Adhesion and Deformability of Red Blood Cells
28
Increased Oil Production in Corn Leaves
Kshitij Agarwal | Identification and Differentiation in Human Hand Gripping Patterns Using EMG and Tactile Sensing
29
Navneet Singh | Structure/Function Analysis of TraR, An RNA Polymerase Regulator
30
Naveen Gangadharan | Multi Modal Mechanical Ventilator
31
Priya Chittur | Nonspecific Binding of RNAP to Single Stranded Ends of Cy3/Cy5 –Labeled λPR Promoter DNA
32
Reshma Jamal | Identification of Liver Specific Roles for FXR and SHP
33
Ranjan Mukherjee | Selection of High Affinity Nucleic Acids to Counter Influenza Virus
34
Ritu Roy Chowdhury | Investigating the Role of Inhibitory Interneurons in Information Processing in the Mouse Visual Cortex (V1)
35
Shravanti Krishna Suresh | Spatial Evolution of Antigenic Sites in Human Influenza Viruses - H3N2
36
Saakshi Parolia | Partial Replacement of Wheat with Ancient Gluten-Free Grains for Naan Formulation (Traditional Indian Bread)
37
Saranya Giridharan | Engineering E. Coli for Production of Succinate by Soybean Wastes
38
Shreya Nahata | Investigating the Role of Mitochondrial DNA Reduction in the Induction of Cancer Stem-Like Cells in
39
Shreya Gupta | In Vitro Blood Brain Barrier to Study Cancer Invasion Mechanism and Characterisation of
40
Swaathi Ratna S | Semi Automated Backbone Assignment – SPARKY
41
Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Penetration Properties of Anti-Cancer Drugs
Sruti Devendran | Exploration of Morphological Characters in Malvaceae
42
Urvi Nikhil Shroff | Role of Macula Densa Cells in Nephron Remodelling and Repair
43
Vaibhav Dnyandev Phad | Light Delivery Modeling and Simulations in a 3D Monte Carlo Simulation Platform in Optogenetics.
44
Vaishali Yadav | Study the Pattern of CamKII Protein Synthesis Associated with LTM
45
Vaishali Balachandran | Role of Human Annexin A1 Protein in Wound Healing
46
Vikramjit Lahiri | An In-Vivo Methylcap Sequencing Method in Drosophila
47
S.N. Bose Scholars Program
Aashiq Muhamed | Dynamic Modelling an Energy Kite
52
Aashish Bhardwaj | Stiffness Reduction Due to Waviness in Lattice Members of Micro-Lattices
53
Abhishek Kumar | Insight into Supercavity Physics
54
Aditi Chatterjee | Understanding the Kinetics of Isotopic Exchange Between Propane and Water When Exposed to
55
Aditi Raghunathan | Globally Consistent Estimators for Learning Under Indirect Supervision
56
Akshat Jain | Hybrid Objects
57
Aishwarya Mahant Kumar Rath | Predicting Mean Velocity Profiles in Combined Fluid Porous Layer Systems.
58
Apoorva Joshi | Hardware and Design of a Visualization and Analysis Lab for Medical Imaging Applications
59
Alok Sharma | Electrostatics Modelling & Compressive Sensing
60
Arjun Vijeta | Chemoselective Active of sp3 vs sp3 C–H Bonds with Pd(II)
61
Different Catalysts and Temperature for a Range of Time
Aprameya Ganesh Prasad | SPION Modification of Drug Loaded Nanoparticles for Theranostic Applications
62
Ayush Tomar | Visual Topic Networks in Social Networks
63
Ashish Daga | Characterization of Two Phase Slug Flow Through a Heated Microchannel
64
Apala Chaudri | Study of Telomerase Repeat Factors
65
Bhagyashree Prabhune | Topology Optimization of 3D Compliant Mechanisms
66
Brinda Kuthanazhi | Graphene Based Electrode Material for Supercapacitors
67
Chandrachur Bhattacharya | Simulation of Combustion Instability for On-Line Control by Instability Detection Using Stsa
68
Ishan Manjani | Countering the Effect of Ageing in 3D Face Recognition
69
Jatindeep Singh | Detection of SNP Using RNA Sequencing
70
Kazi Ranjibul Islam | Subdiffusion in Strongly Disorderder Noisy Environment
71
Koushik Chatterjee | Searching for ULXs in Hst Imaged Galaxies
72
Kalind Baraya | Analytical Modelling of Closed-Loop Pulsating Heat Pipes
73
Kartikeya Singh Sangwan | Geochemical Analysis of Oceanic Sediments of Site U1359 from the Continental Rise Off Wilkes Land, East Antarctica
74
Khyathi Raghavi Chandu | Automatic Classification of Medical Abstracts for Evidence Based Medicine
75
Lois Thomas | A Study on Monsoon and Premonsoon Atmospheric Boundary Layer (Using Sounding Analysis and 2D Baby EULAG Model)
76
Partha Pratim Dutta | IGC3: A Fully Electronic Microfabricated Gas Chromatograph with Capacitive Detectors for Indoor Pollutants
77
Phalguni Shah | Two Earthworm Models
78
Poulami Chakraborty | Smartphone Application for Community Engagement and to Analyse Social Practices
79
Priyanga Ganesan | Quantitative Analysis of Trapping Stochastic Movers
80
Pranav Gupta | Automatically Mapping Datasets to a Large Real-World Ontology
81
Ramudu Kolisetty | Implementation and Parallelization of Multi-Fractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis(DFA) Algorithm Using Matlab.
82
Rajath Kantharaj | On the Effective Thermal Conductivity of Granular Material Packings
83
Rishav Roy | Controlling Lateral Inertial Migration Rate of Particles in Microchannels
84
Ravi Srivastava | Late-Stage Diazirination of Drug-Like Molecules
85
Robin Singh | Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers: Next-Generation Arrays for Acoustic Imaging
86
Rishav Choudhary | Hydrogen Production by Water Thermolysis Using MIEC Membranes
87
Satyanarayana | NDN Link Layer Reliability Protocol
88
Samprit Ghosh | L-functions of the Picard Family of Curves
89
Shalini Gupta | MD Simulations of a de Novo Designed Single Site Zn2+ Transporter
90
Shaurya Garg | Analytic Modelling of 2 Dof Landing Gear System in Terms of Distance Travelled Parallel to the Ground
91
Shelly Aggarwal | Laser –Micro Machined Bulk PZT Ultrasonic Traveling Wave Motor
92
Shashwat Kumar Singh | Earthquake Relocation in the Middle Atlas: Apparently-Deep Events Resolved to be Shallow
93
Sidhyansh Saxena | Methods and Apparatus for a Survivor Search System Using One or More Drones
94
Shristi Singh | Spreading of Miscible Sessile Drops
95
Shilpa Vijay | Experimental Characterization of Permeability in 3-D Printed Porous Cylinders
96
Soumya Kamal Kanungo | Saturation Absorption Spectroscopy
97
Sooraj Ben K.R. | Inorganic Hole Conductor Cui -Based Perovskite Solar Cells
98
Shruthi Tiruchirapalli Kumar Raj | Porous Silicon Carbide from Silica Aerogels Crosslinked with Aromatic Triisocyanates
99
Soumya Wadhwa | Predicting the Number of Triangles in Similarity-Based Graphs using Node-Sampling
100
Soumya Ranjan Sahoo | Navier-Stokes/Darcy Coupling on Complex Geometries
101
Subrata Singha | Fluid Saturation Change and Pressure Change Estimation from Time-Lapse Seismic Data
102
Srishti Bhutani | Analytical Evaluation of Unreinforced Masonry Stability
103
Suman Ghosh | Appliance Reader: A Wearable, Crowd-sourced, Vision-based System to Make Appliances Accessible
104
Ujash Shah | Numerical Simulation of Waves in Stratified Seas to Validate Cloaking
105
Vivek Pandey | Simple & Low Energy Consuming Synthesis of Naphthoxazines and Their Properties
106
Venkatachalam Avadiappan | Model for Variable Temperature Heat Integration
107
Viterbi-India Program
Aakanksha Naik | Exploring the Effectiveness of Query Expansion Techniques in Improving Language Understanding for Virtual Humans
112
Adarsh Amarendra Tadimari | Using Trailers to Predict Movie Revenues
113
Aditi Gupta | Automatically Mapping Datasets to a Large Real Word Ontology
114
Aditya Chandrasekar | Modeling Topics in Scientific Literature using HMM and LDA
115
Ankit Goyal | A Multimodal Approach to Continuous Emotion Prediction in Movies
116
Atharva Girish Wazurkar | Low Power Digital to Analog Converter in 28nm Technology for Fine Grained Programmable Delay Element
117
Avisek Lahiri | Large Scale Video Event Classification
118
Biswajit Paria | Feature Learning in Clinical Time Series using Deep Learning
119
Jayashree Mohan | Analyzing Single-Phase Downloads over Random Duration Links in Mobile Networks
120
Kushal Dilipkumar Salecha | Smart Grids
121
Megha Arora | Understanding the Impact of Demographics on Sociability
122
Mehak Gupta | Evidence of Non-Linear Manifold in fMRI data
123
Prakhar Kumar | Neuromorphic Circuits- Neural Network Simulations
124
Rucha Sanjay Vaidya | Usage of DTN for Ebola Monitoring and Response
125
Sagar Kashinath Honnungar | Target Detection Via Low-Rank Tensor Completion
126
Saurav Prakash | Reducing Complexity for Signal Processing on Graphs
127
Tathagata Srimani | Electronics and Optoelectronics of a novel Transition Metal Dichalcogenide
128
Vikranth Reddy Dwaracherla | Developing a Stereo Vision Algorithm
129
Department of Biotechnology
Govt. of India
The Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India, IndoUS Science and Technology Forum and WINStep Forward
are partnering to support the prestigious Khorana Program for
Scholars named in honor of Dr. Har Gobind Khorana, who won the
Nobel Prize in 1968 for his work at the interface of Chemistry and
Biology while he was a member of the University of WisconsinMadison faculty.
The Khorana Program for Scholars is envisaged to
•
•
•
•
Provide encouragement to young scholars to undertake R&D
Enable students to carry out research at a premier University in
the United States
Transform research into societal benefits
Build a seamless scientific community between India and the
United States
Eligibility
Pre-final year B.Tech, M.Tech, M.Sc., M.B.B.S, and B. Pharm
students currently enrolled in recognized institutions of higher
education in India in the areas of Biotechnology (broadly defined,
including agricultural, health, fundamental biological and biomedical
sciences) are eligible to apply. Students pursuing PhD are NOT
eligible to apply.
Scholarship includes
•
•
•
Stipend
Airfare
Health Insurance
More information is available at
http://www.iusstf.org/story/53-50-Khorana-Program.html
Amrutha V
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal
Spreading of Pathogenic
α-Synuclein Across the
Nervous System in Drosophila
Model of Parkinsons Disease
Mentor
Barry Ganetzky
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic and
progressive movement disorder, meaning that
symptoms continue and worsen over time. It
involves the malfunction and death of vital
nerve cells in the brain, called neurons. Some
of these dying neurons produce dopamine, a
chemical that sends messages to the part of the
brain that controls movement and coordination.
α-Synuclein (α-Syn) is a major component of
protein aggregates known as Lewy bodies,
which are hallmarks of synucleinopathies
such as Parkinson’s disease. It has been
shown
that
in
Huntington’s
disease,
another neurodegenerative disease, protein
aggregates spread from one type of neuron to
other types in a spatiotemporal manner. In this
project we investigated to see whether such
spreading phenomenon happens in Drosophila
model of Parkinson’s disease. This is studied
by specifically tagging mutant A53Tα-Syn with
an HA tag and expressing it in fluorescently
labeled subset of dopaminergic neurons in the
posterior region of the fly brain. The spreading
is monitored by imaging fly brain using confocal
microscopy and co-localization techniques at
different age points.
12
Indo-US Science & Technology Forum
Anil Kiran Chokkalla
Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, Chennai
A Novel Polyamide Based Artificial
Transcription Factor to Alleviate
Transcriptional Inhibition of Frataxin
in Friedreich’s Ataxia
Mentor
Aseem Z Ansari
The neurodegenerative disorder Friedreich’s
ataxia (FRDA) is caused by hyper-expansion
of GAA repeats in the first intron of a nuclear
gene that encodes the essential mitochondrial
protein frataxin. This protein is involved in
various processes related to iron homeostasis
and metabolism. Normal frataxin alleles have
6-34 repeats whereas FRDA patients have 661,700 repeats. These intronic repeats adopt
unusual secondary structure and interfere
with transcriptional machinery leading to
transcriptional repression of frataxin. The
present study aims to relieve this transcriptional
inhibition by employing a novel polyamide
based artificial transcription factor. Polyamides
are cell permeable small molecules that can be
programmed to recognize a broad repertoire
of DNA sequences. The polyamide used
here is rationally designed to bind to (GAA)3
consensus sequence and is conjugated to a
ligand that can recruit chromatin remodeler.
Results demonstrate that this modularly
assembled artificial transcription factor caused
6-fold activation of frataxin in in vitro cell culture
system.
Giving Wings to Talent | Student Symposium
13
Anjali Priya
Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi
Study the Effect of Ubiquitin
Carboxyl Terminal Hydrolase
1 (UCHL1) Over-Expression in
Ovarian Cancer
Mentor
Sumegha Mitra
Indiana University School of Medicine, Bloomington
Ovarian cancer is the most lethal of
all the gynaecological malignancies
and is the fifth leading cause of
death among women in United
States. Poor patient prognosis
and detection in advanced stages
because of confounding symptoms
in early stages attributes to the
ovarian cancer related deaths.
UCHL1 has been implicated with
many cancers like lung cancer,
nasopharyngeal
carcinoma,
hepatocellular
carcinoma
and
colon cancers. It regulates cellular
functions like cell cycle, DNA
repair and cell-cell communication.
UCHL1 is a deubiquitinating
enzyme that removes or edits the
poly or mono ubiquitin chains from
the ubiquitinated proteins. However,
the role of UCHL1 in ovarian cancer
remains unknown. In the present
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study, we investigated the effect of
UCHL1 overexpression in ovarian
cancer cellular proliferation. We
studied the expression of UCHL1 in
three different ovarian cancer cell
lines HeyA8, IGROV1 and SKOV3ip
and the effect of UCHL1 overexpression in ovarian cancer cell
HeyA8. HeyA8 ovarian cancer cells
were transfected with mammalian
expression vector pCMV6XL5
containing full length UCHL1 protein
sequence. UCHL1 overexpression
was validated by Western blotting.
UCHL1 over-expressed HeyA8
cells demonstrated significantly
reduced proliferation in MTT assay
on Day 1 and Day 3 suggesting a
tumor suppressive effect of UCHL1
over-expression in HeyA8 ovarian
cancer cells. Further studies are
needed to confirm these results.
Anukriti Mathur
Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani
Role of Human Fcγ
Receptors in SLE
Pathogenesis
Mentor
Tanya N. Mayadas
Harvard Medical School, Boston
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a
multisystem autoimmune disorder with high
levels of circulating autoantibodies and
immune complexes. Fγc receptors are proteins
expressed on the surface of immune cells,
which recognize immune complexes and
eliminate the invading pathogens. Mayadas
lab reported that Mac-1 deficient mice having
hFcγRIIA developed more lupus nephritis
than hFcγRIIAIIIB mice. To extend the work
in the same light, I worked on what role does
hFcγRIIIB has in SLE pathogenesis. Our lab
had IIIB+γ-/- Mac1-/- mice and passive transfer
of human SLE serum model was carried
(Rosetti et al.2012). The FACS and proteinuria
result showed that neutrophil infiltration and
albumin leakage respectively in IIIB+γ-/- Mac1/- were low as compared to IIA+ IIIB+γ-/- &
IIA+γ-/-Mac1-/- mice. Thus based on various
previous reports and present findings we can
conclude that human FcγRIIIB does not play
any role in SLE pathogenesis. We also did an
adoptive transfer of bone marrow neutrophils
from IIA+γ-/-Mac1-/- mice into WT mice to
determine whether Mac1 on neutrophils versus
other leukocytes is playing a role in our SLE
model. The data was in-conclusive and would
be repeated with changes in near future. There
were other projects and experiments in which I
contributed during my stay.
15
Anupallavi Srinivasamani
University of Pune
MiR23a Cluster : A
Potential regulator of NK
Cell Biology
Mentor
Subramaniam Malarkannan
Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
Natural killer (NK) cells are a
subset of lymphocytes responsible
for
eliciting
innate
immune
responses
against
malignant
transformation and viral infection.
There exist an intricate network of
post- transcriptional regulation of
the development, maturation and
function of NK cells mediated by
microRNAs (miRNAs). miRNAs
are endogenous, non-coding and
small (~22 ribonucleotides) RNAs
that regulate the translation of its
target mRNAs in various cell types.
The function of miR23a cluster
constituting three mature miRNAsmiR23a, miR27a and miR24-2
has been previously implicated in
acting downstream of an essential
hematopoietic (myeloid) lineage
specific transcription factor (TF)
PU.1 in B cells. PU.1 is a member
of the Ets family of TFs that plays
a role in the early stages of NK
cell development by shaping the
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hematopoietic lineage specification
in Common Lymphoid Progenitors
(CLPs). mRNAs of essential effector
molecules in NK cells - Perforin
(Prf1) and Granzyme B (GzmB1)
were shown to be the target of
the miR23a cluster. Hence, this
cluster is seminal in the regulatory
mechanisms that exist in NK cells.
Our objective is to elucidate the
phenotype and functional changes
in the NK cells when this cluster is
knocked out. The results indicate
towards a possible decrease in
NK cell precursor cells in the bone
marrow of miR23a−/− mouse. The
decrease in NK cell number in the
miR23a−/− mice is accompanied
with a decrease in IFN-γ production
and an altered cytotoxicity profile.
Further research is being carried
out to validate the above results
and to decode the gene expression
profile in the miR23a−/− NK cells
by microarray analysis.
Apurva Gajwani
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
Vitamin C Degeneration
in Microwave Heating of
Broccoli
Mentor
Ashim. K. Datta
Cornell University, Ithaca
Broccoli is a common vegetable for most
families, not only because of the taste but also
because of the components with nutritional
value and components that contribute to health
(e.g. vitamin C and glucosinolates). However,
as these components are temperature
sensitive, they may deteriorate during cooking.
From this point of view low and moderate
temperatures are requested for cooking.
Furthermore, the changes in quality depend on
the local moisture content and temperature in
the product rather than the average moisture
content. With dynamic distributed models the
quality and moisture content during the cooking
process can be predicted. These models
are also essential to optimize the product
quality. To predict and to optimize the quality
it is necessary to know the concentration
and temperature profiles in the product as a
function of time. It is here that mathematical
modeling complemented with experimentation
can contribute to and provide a level of
understanding in ways that are impossible to
achieve through experiments alone. Therefore,
the main aim of this work is to develop a
fundamentals-based model to understand
cooking of a piece of broccoli having a floret
and a stalk as a material for microwave drying.
17
Charul Agrawal
Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
Database of Identified Poly
and Mono ADP-Ribosylated
Proteins
Mentor
Anthony Leung
Johns’ Hopkins University, Baltimore
Poly(ADP-ribose)
polymerase
(PARP) is a family of enzymes
with 17 members which regulate
post translational modification of
proteins by attaching a single ADP
ribose unit (MARylation) or a chain
of ADP ribose (PARylation) which
can be branched or un-branched.
These modifications have been
implicated in DNA repair, circadian
rhythms, cell cycle regulation,
RNA processing, transcription
regulation and various other cellular
processes. Under Dr. Leung, I have
attempted to identify all the proteins
which are known to be modified
by PARPs. Different approaches
have been used till date to identify
various proteins being modified
including
immunoprecipitation,
immunoblotting, autoradiography,
gel
electrophoresis,
mass-
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spectrometry. Many techniques
simply prove protein association
with PARPs and cannot be used as
proofs of protein modification. Some
techniques like mass spectrometry
and mutational studies also identify
sites of modification. Our database
contains detailed information on
the techniques used to identify
PARylation or MARylation of a
particular protein also including the
particulars of drugs used in different
works.The results of this study i.e.
the database we have created will
be used to develop the first ever
online tool characterizing poly and
mono ADP ribosylation. We are
certain that our database will find
application in homology studies,
cross-referencing of experimental
results, planning assays for further
experimentation, etc.
Chiti Arvind
Mount Carmel College, Bangalore
An Account of the Nesting
Behaviour of the Greater
Ani (Crotophaga Major)
Mentor
Christina Riehl
Harvard University, Panama
The Greater Ani (Crotophagine
major) is a neotropical cuckoo of the
Cuculidae family. They range from
eastern Panama through northern
Argentina. Not much is known
about the incubation patterns of
the Greater Anis. They are distinct
from their cuckoo counterparts
as they nest communally instead
of characteristically being brood
parasites. This could be because
high nest predation rate may favour
multiple brooding and more renesting attempts. An Ani nesting
group might consist of 2 or more
monogamous pairs which lay their
eggs in a single nest and take turns
in nest building, incubation, nest
defence and parental care. During
egg laying, a female tosses out the
all eggs from a nest prior to laying
her first egg. Egg- tossing ceases
when all laying females have at
least laid one egg. A female lays an
egg every alternate day. Incubation
lasts for a period of 11-12 days.
Chicks on hatching are altricial, but
open their eyes and become mobile
shortly after hatching. This study
aims to monitor the time spent by
an individual at the nest during the
laying and post-laying period along
with its relation to maintenance
of nest temperature. This is
accompanied by characterizing their
nest activities during the period of
incubation. The study site included
areas around Barro Colorado Island
(in the Panama Canal) and the
surrounding peninsulas comprising
the Barro Colorado Natural History
Monument operated by the
Smithsonian Tropical Research
Institute. Experimental set up was
done at bird nests situated on the
shoreline buy using Thermochron
iButtons attached to Ani eggs which
served as temperature analoggers.
Nest behaviour was monitored for
a period of 6-7 hours by setting up
video recording cameras at close
proximity to the nest. This project
aims to explore the Greater Ani’s
unique nesting behaviour and
provide inputs for further research
in this direction.
19
Debalina Datta
University of Hyderabad
Computational Design of
Chlorophyll Bound to Water
Soluble Chlorophyll-Binding
Protein (WSCP) with ProtCAD
Mentor
Vikas Nanda
Rutgers University, New Jersey
Natural selection has provided
photosynthetic organisms with
a highly efficient and dynamic
apparatus called photosystem for
capturing incoming solar light. The
key to the photosystem functionality
held by organised light absorbing
pigments (primarily chlorophylls
(Chls) and bacteriochlorophylls
(BChls)) in densely packed arrays
within light-harvesting complexes
(LHCs) and reaction centres at
specific geometries. One of the
model systems used to study
pigment-protein
interaction
is
water soluble chlorophyll-binding
proteins (WSCP). Here, we used
computational protein designing
software ProtCAD to mimic the
conformation
of
experimental
structure of Chlorophyll bound
WSCP. This involves defining all
20
the amino acid residues along with
the chlorophyll into ProtCAD library,
which includes Vander Waals
atom types, defining connectivities
between the atoms of the residues
and calculating the atomic charges
on each atom.. After adding the
degrees of freedom, conformation
sampling produced the optimal
alignments of the chlorophyll bound
to protein. The energetically most
stable conformation was compared
to the experimental crystal structure
of WSCP bound Chlorophyll.
Further calculations can be done to
modify the native protein sequence
for increasing the electrostatic
properties in an effort to enhance
the rates of electromagnetic
resonance energy transfer, and
take a step towards devising an
artificial photosynthetic system.
Debayan De Bakshi
Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore
Effect of Mammalian-Target-ofRapamycin (MTOR) on
Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
Mentor
Vincent Cryns
The mammalian - Target-ofRapamycin (mTOR) pathway is
a plethora of intricately woven
intracellular
and
extracellular
signals which exhibit complex
control over the processes of cell
metabolism, growth, proliferation
and survival. The central axis of the
PI3K-Akt-mTOR signalling pathway
has been proven to be a hotbed of
mutations in a multitude of cancers.
My main objective is to ascertain
whether mTOR mutations increase
Triple-Negative-Breast-Cancer
sensitivity toward mTOR inhibitors
in-vitro and have an effect on levels
of an anti-apoptotic molecular
chaperone called αB crystallin,
which has a role in metastasis.
We have selected MDA-MB-231,
MDA-MB-468 and GILM 2 TripleNegative-Breast-Cancer cell-lines,
which exhibit no prior known mTOR
mutations, as our in-vitro models
keeping in mind the variation of αB
crystallin expression. Two common
mTOR mutations, S2215Y and
R2505P, were selected via literature
review and our objective was to
engineer the aforementioned celllines to express these mutations.
We followed a dual approach of cotransfection using Lipofectamine
with a selection marker and stable
transfection using viral-cloning
techniques. The engineered cell
lines were analysed via Western
Blot for the overexpression of
specific proteins upstream (Akt) and
downstream (S6Kinase and 4EBP1) of mTOR to observe the effect
of this hyper-mutation. Moreover,
we analysed the sensitivity of
these activated mutants to different
mTOR-inhibitors via MTS-viability
assays,
Crystal-Violet-survival
assays and verified with Western
Blots the changed levels of the
earlier mentioned proteins posttreatment. The mechanism of
cell death as apoptosis may be
confirmed via Annexin-V-Flow
Cytometry
and
Caspase-3Immunoblotting.
21
Dileep Kishore
Indian Institute of Technology-Madras
Wildtype Flux Prediction
from RB-Tnseq Data
Mentor
Jennifer Reed
RB-Tnseq is a powerful approach to
annotate gene function in bacteria and other
microorganisms. In this technique, DNA bar
coded transposons are used to generate large
bacterial mutant populations with the aim that
each mutant strain in the population carries a
single transposon insertion containing a unique
DNA bar code at a unique location. Relative
abundance of each mutant strain changes
depending on the impact of the underlying
gene mutation on the fitness of that strain.
Computational modeling of metabolic networks
has been useful in studying microbial metabolism
and developing tools for many applications like
metabolic engineering, drug discovery and
adaptive evolution studies. We hypothesize
that incorporating more experimental data into
a model will improve the predictive capability of
the model. Earlier studies have shown that the
reaction flux distribution of an organism after
perturbations (gene deletions) were found to
be very close to the wildtype flux distribution.
Hence, we propose a reverse approach where
a better quantitative estimate of the wildtype
reaction flux distribution is one that is closest
to the flux distributions of the large number of
experimentally measured knockout mutants
from the RB-Tnseq database.
22
Jyotsna Misra
Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida
Structural Studies of the
Yeast Spindle Pole Body
Mentor
Dr. Mark Seeger
The spindle pole body (SPB) is the microtubule
organizing centre of budding yeast, which is
similar to the centrosomes present in eukaryotes.
The spindle pole body is a cylindrical organelle
which is embedded in the nuclear envelope
and consists of three plaques: an outer plaque
that faces the cytoplasm, an inner plaque that
faces the nucleoplasm and a central plaque
that interacts with the nuclear membrane. Spc
42, Spc 110, Spc 29, calmodulin are the main
proteins which constitute the central plaque of
the spindle pole body. The structures of these
proteins and how they interact with each other
are unknown. Spc 42 is an essential coiled coil
protein that forms the central core of the SPB.
Under Dr. Mark Seeger’s guidance at University
of Wisconsin (Department of Biochemistry), my
aim was to determine the oligomerization state
of C–terminus of Spc 42 protein using X- ray
crystallography.
23
Kaivalya Molugu
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Structural Understanding of
Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor
(AHR), a Potential Drug Target
for Cancer
Mentor
Yongna Xing
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) is a cytosolic
transcription factor that mediates cellular
responses to diverse environmental chemicals
and endogenous metabolites. It has been shown
to play an important role in toxicity response,
and normal immune and cardiovascular
functions, with important implication for
cancer and autoimmune diseases. Increasing
experimental data provides substantial support
for an association between abnormal AHR
function and cancer, implicating that AHR
might be a potential drug-interfering target.
Determining the structure of AHR may provide
useful insights into this potential. However, the
structure of AHR has not yet been determined
completely due to various problems associated
with its stability and solubility during the process
of crystallization to determine its structure.
We attempt to tackle this problem by
expressing AHR along with another protein
called ARNT (Aryl hydrocarbon Receptor
Nuclear Translocator protein), with which
AHR dimerises in vivo. We hypothesize that
the AHR-ARNT dimer complex will be more
stable and better soluble making it a better
candidate for crystallization and elucidation of
the structure of AHR.
24
Kalki Kukreja
Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
Characterizing the Ribosome
Association of Yeast Protein
Stf2 During Acute Stress
Mentor
Yinuo Julia Wang
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
Ribosomes
are
universally
conserved
macromolecular
machines that carry out proteins
synthesis. Increasing evidence
indicates heterogeneity in ribosome
composition from organisms across
all kingdoms of life. A proteomic
study of yeast ribosomes identified
translation machinery associated
(TMA) proteins bound to a subset
of ribosomes that could potentially
modulate their function under
certain conditions. During glucose
starvation, our stress model
system which causes pervasive
and dramatic changes in the
transcriptome and the translatome
of budding yeast Saccharomyces
cerevisiae, the expression of
one of the TMA proteins, TMA10
increases amidst a global decrease
in ribosomal protein levels. We
have discovered a new ribosomeassociated protein, Stf2, a paralog
of TMA10, which specifically binds
to ribosomes following acute
starvation. Though TMA10 and Stf2
share 65 percent sequence identity
and 81 percent similarity, but
intriguingly they behave differently in
the context of ribosome association.
While TMA10 is constitutively
associated to ribosomes, Stf2 gets
inducibly associated to ribosomes
in acute glucose starvation. We
created several mutations in STF2
to find out the amino acid residues
responsible for this difference in
the two proteins. We performed
quantitative western blots on
sucrose gradient fractions of
strains bearing both mutant and
endogenous STF2 to measure
perturbations in mutant STF2
association with ribosomes in rich
medium and glucose starvation.
Work is ongoing to identify the
necessary residues for its inducible
ribosome association and the
functional consequences thereof for
translational adaptation to stress.
25
Kanmani Chandra Rajan
Anna University, Chennai
Cloning Different Fusion
Proteins with Degrons,
Expression and Study of Their
Degradation by FtsH
Mentor
Heedeok Hong
Michigan State University, East Lansing
In general, there is less understanding of
membrane proteins comparing the huge
knowledge base of cytosolic proteins and
research in Dr. Heedeok Hong’s lab is an effort
to understand the working of membrane protein
degradation machinery using FtsH as a model.
Degrons (or Degradation tags) are recognition
motifs in proteins, which direct the selective
starting point of degradation. In this study,
my objective is to clone different constructs
of fusion proteins with degrons in pBAD/HisA
expression vector, express and study the
degradation of these protein constructs by
FtsH which is a membrane integrated ATPdependent E.coli protease. My work also
involves creating unstable mutants of proteins
that would be used as substrates for studying
FtsH. At the end of this work, we would be able
to understand the role of various degrons in
initiating degradation of the constructed fusion
proteins and also the influence of stability of
the substrate over its degradation by FtsH.
26
Karen Thulasi Devendrakumar
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore
Transgenic Corn Expressing Oleosin
and Wrinkled1 Transcription
Factor- A System for Increased Oil
Production in Corn Leaves
Mentor
Mariam Sticklen
Corn is the major crop in USA- for both food
and fuel. It is used for the production of the
biofuel ethanol. For ethanol production only
the cellulosic matter in corn is used but if oil is
produced in the vegetative tissues in the leaves
too then the corn stover can be used for both
oil and biofuel (ethanol) production. Research
has shown that oil is produced in leaves but it
is being degraded. Thus we needed to find a
way to prevent that degradation Thus in Dr.
Sticklen’s lab I worked on creating transgenic
corn containing Arabidopsis thaliana- dgat and
pdat, sesame oleosin gene and wri1 gene. The
genes are equipped with strong promotersrice actin and CaMV35s promoters. The genes
pdat and dgat (diacylglycerol acyltransferase
(DGAT) and phospholipid: diacylglycerol
acyltransferase (PDAT)) have a role in the
biosynthetic pathway for triglyceride production
and introducing gene constructs with strong
promoters leads to an increase in oil production.
The most important gene being used is the
oleosin which protects the oil from the action
of lipases. The Wri1 is a transcription factor
which up-regulates the transcription of proteins
involved in oil biosynthesis there causing oil
accumulation. The transgenic plants show an
increased level of oil production and improved
oil stability.
27
Kaustav Bera
Micro Pillar Embedded Channels
for Probing Adhesion and
Deformability of Red Blood Cells
Mentor
Umut Gurkan
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland
At Case Biomanufacturing and Microfabrication
Laboratory (CASE-BML), a number of novel
micro-engineered devices are being developed
for disease monitoring and diagnosis. My
summer research at CASE-BML was focused
at developing a micro engineered device
encompassing endothelial protein coated
micropillar arrays inside a microfluidic channel
for probing red blood cell deformability
and adhesion. During this internship I was
involved in: (1) fabrication of the devices
using photolithography, soft lithography, and
reactive ion etching, (2) performing validation
experiments with microbeads, (2) surface
immobilization of endothelial proteins, and
(4) running adhesion and deformability
experiments with clinical blood samples from
patients with sickle cell. The potential use of
the microchip as a point of care diagnostic
device was also investigated.
28
Kshitij Agarwal
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, UP
Identification and Differentiation
in Human Hand Gripping Patterns
Using EMG and Tactile Sensing
Mentor
Nitish V. Thakor
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
It has been noticed that several
commercially available upper limb
prosthesis are lacking the ability
to grip different objects effectively
if only electromyography (EMG)
controlling
mechanisms
are
applied. In this study we have
looked into variability of shape, size
and weight of an object and the
type of grip on the EMG patterns
from forearm muscles. Objects
such as a book, pen, pliers, screw
driver, tape and ruler were chosen
because they are different in shape
and size and are also involved
in daily activities. Our hypothesis
is that different objects will show
different EMG patterns as the force
required for that grip is different for
each object. Also for each object
different combinations of muscles
can be used as shape, size and
geometry of objects is different thus
allowing for differentiation of the
EMG signals. These EMG patterns
were then analysed, compared and
classified into different categories
and we were able to get a
differentiated EMG signal based on
the different objects. We have also
identify different pressure points on
human hand while holding different
objects. This study has shown
that different objects produce
unique EMG signals and those
EMG signals can then be used
as a classifier for gripping various
objects by a prosthesis.
29
Navneet Singh
GGS Indraprastha University, Delhi
Structure/Function
Analysis of TraR, An RNA
Polymerase Regulator
Mentor
Richard L. Gourse
Prokaryotic gene expression regulation has
been well studied at the level of transcription
initiation in Escherichia coli. Transcription
initiation is controlled by DNA binding factors
and/or factors that directly bind RNA polymerase.
TraR, encoded on the conjugational plasmid
F’, regulates RNA polymerase activity and can
up-regulate or down-regulate gene expression
depending on the promoter. The secondary
structure of TraR is predicted to consist of a
long helical structure at the N-terminal end
that may protrude into the secondary channel
of RNA polymerase and thereby modulate its
activity. In order to elucidate the molecular
mechanism by which TraR modulates
transcription initiation, we undertook this study
to identify the amino acid residues within TraR
that are critical for its structure/function. We
constructed six independent mutations via sitedirected mutagenesis and tested them further
to understand the impact of these mutations on
TraR’s structure and function in vivo.
30
Naveen Gangadharan
Christian Medical College, Vellore
Multi Modal Mechanical
Ventilator
Mentor
John G. Webster
Working in the Medow’s Lab, UW
Hospital, the goal is to design and
implement a prototype of Multi-Modal
Mechanical Ventilator, capable of
switching from the Conventionalmode
of
Ventilation(CV)
to
the
High-Frequency-mode
of
Ventilation(HFV), delivering high
frequency, low pressure, smaller
gas volumes to mitigate pressure
induced lung injury, without much
increase in the carbon dioxide
concentration.
The
existing
conventional mode of ventilation
delivers huge volumes of gases
continuously at high pressures to
the patient that, over time, it can
cause volutrauma and barotrauma
that can be dangerous to the lungs
and hence in such cases the doctors
prefer to switch the patient to a
different high frequency machine
that delivers small volumes to
prevent this risk, but to maintain
the same ventilation volume,
working at a higher frequency. But,
during the transition time between
disconnecting the conventional
machine and connecting the
patient to the high frequency
machine, there is a build-up of CO2
concentration in the patient. So, the
project aims at incorporating both
these modes of ventilation in the
same machine thereby reducing the
transition time and controlling the
CO2 build-up and also ensuring that
there is no ventilator induced lung
injury by using low pressure, small
gas volumes. A micro-controller
based control method is employed
to regulate the flow valves and
amplifier to automatically and
adaptively change the frequency,
gas volume and pressure so that it
is able to switch from conventional
to high frequency mode working at
the resonant frequency at which the
ventilation tidal volume is high with
minimum pressure cost.
31
Priya Chittur
Nonspecific Binding of RNAP
to Single Stranded Ends
of Cy3/Cy5 –Labeled λPR
Promoter DNA
Mentor
M. Thomas Record
Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) and
protein-induced fluorescence enhancement
(PIFE) are techniques used to study the
dynamics of macromolecules through the
observation of fluorophore emission. Cyanine
dyes are particularly amenable to both PIFE
and FRET studies and hence are prevalent
in the study of RNA polymerase (RNAP)promoter DNA interactions during transcription
initiation. However, the location of the dye
within the DNA and its orientational freedom
are integral in determining the dynamics that
can be observed. Previous data from the lab
suggested that during PCR-based amplification
of DNA containing internally located Cy3 or
Cy5 dye, the DNA polymerase would not read
past the dye, resulting in single stranded ends
on the amplified molecules. Further FRET
experiments at 2°C had also suggested that
these ends may be a hindrance by causing
nonspecific binding to RNAP.
We collected stop-flow and equilibrium
fluorescence data for E.coli RNAP and Cy3/
Cy5-labeled λPR promoter DNA and attempted
to vary the sequences and lengths of the dyecontaining primers to better understand their
role in nonspecific RNAP binding and DNA
wrapping.
32
Reshma Jamal
Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Hyderabad
Identification of
Liver Specific Roles for
FXR and SHP
Mentor
Sayeepriyadharshini Anakk
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Liver diseases have been increasingly
threatening in today’s world. Most of the liver
diseases are due to impaired bile acid synthesis.
Bile acid homeostasis is tightly regulated
by two nuclear receptors FXR (farnesoid
X receptor) and SHP ( small heterodimer
partner).Contrary to the study of whole body
knockout of these receptors, we wanted to
study the effect of bile acid synthesis and its
transport and enterohepatic circulation by
knocking out FXR and SHP specifically in liver
and study its pathological outcomes. We found
FXR and SHP knockout mice showed impaired
bile acid synthesis, cholestasis and liver injury
like bile duct inflammation, fibrosis, steatosis
and increased hepatocyte proliferation.
33
Ranjan Mukherjee
Selection of High Affinity
Nucleic Acids to Counter
Influenza Virus
Mentor
Aseem Z. Ansari
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Selection of high affinity nucleic acids, known
as ‘aptamers’, targeting toxins, pathogens and
tumour cells is an upcoming promising technique
to develop effective therapy or diagnostic tool
for the diseases caused by them. I have been
working under Dr. Aseem Ansari at University
of Wisconsin-Madison to develop such
aptamers against influenza or ‘flu’ virus using
engineered flu virus- Haemagluttinin protein
designed by Dr. Raghavan Varadarajan’s lab
at IISc Bangalore. Though there are vaccines
available for the seasonal flu but they are
effective only for about a year as the outer
protein structure of the flu virus changes within
a year, which the vaccine induced antibodies
target. So developing aptamers against this
engineered protein constructed from the
relatively conserved or non-changing regions
of the Haemagluttinin protein, which the virus
uses to enter respiratory tract cells, can enable
us to block viral entry or degrade the virus,
irrespective of annual variations in virus strains
and so provide protection for longer term. Also
these aptamers can be used as diagnostic
sensors to detect flu virus strains.
34
Ritu Roy Chowdhury
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali
Investigating the Role of
Inhibitory Interneurons in
Information Processing in the
Mouse Visual Cortex (V1)
Mentor
Mriganka Sur
The landmark experiments by Hubel and
Wiesel showed how complex representations
could be constructed from simple features of
a stimulus along the visual pathway. How this
sensory information gets processed in the
cortical layers of the primary visual cortex (V1)
is an important question in neuroscience. A
diverse population of inhibitory interneurons
in the primary visual cortex (V1) are known
to play crucial roles in the cortical circuits that
reliably process this information. Our aim in
this study was to understand how inhibition by
two classes of inhibitory interneurons namely,
Parvalbumin (PV) and Somatostatin (SOM)
control reliable coding.
In order to answer this question, our approach
was to first identify regions that provide input
to SOM interneurons in V1. Next, we saw what
effect silencing these inhibitory interneurons
had on the response properties of layer 2/3
excitatory neurons to natural scene stimuli. To
this end, we performed two-photon calcium
imaging in head-fixed awake SOM-Cre/PV-Cre
mice that express designer GPCRs (hM4Di),
which causes neuronal silencing on application
of an inert ligand (Clozapine-N-Oxide).
Altogether, our results reveal the importance of
inhibition on reliable coding and also indicate
presence of local and inter-areal inputs to
SOM interneurons in V1 that could play a role
in response modulation and integration of
sensory information, in the context of visual
processing.
35
Shravanti Krishna Suresh
Spatial Evolution of
Antigenic Sites in Human
Influenza Viruses - H3N2
Mentor
Kaja Abbas
Virginia Tech., Blacksburg
The objectives of the study were to determine
the origin, evolutionary dynamics and
migration patterns of human influenza A
H3N2 virus. The substitutions causing large
antigenic changes in H3N2 evolution have
recently been identified. Despite multiple
lineages and genotypes that were detected by
previous studies, the migration dynamics of the
H3N2 virus is unclear. By drawing maximum
likelihood trees, the evolutionary relationships
were determined. The origin of the virus was
determined using Bayesian Phylogeography
framework. The animation of the viral dispersal
was then visualized using Google Earth after
the appropriate conversion of the annotated
MCC trees. Using Bayesian Phylogeography
framework we showed that the H3N2 virus may
have originated from. Demographic patterns
give us the inference that the virus may have
evolved into multiple diverse lineages due
to faster acquisition of mutations that seem
to occur in a more punctuated manner when
compared to other viruses. Our analyses
indicate that the dissemination of the virus
occurs in a rapid manner which when visualised
on a global scale can extend its scope towards
better prevention strategies if employed at the
origin of outbreak.
36
Saakshi Parolia
Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Partial Replacement of Wheat
with Ancient Gluten-Free
Grains for Naan Formulation
(Traditional Indian Bread)
Mentor
Kurt Rosentrater
Iowa State University, Ames
Wheat is a staple for most bread formulations
but there are rising concerns with its gluten
content and nutritional value lost to its
processing. The primary objective of the
research was to develop a fortified gluten free
alternative to the wheat based naan bread.
The research also aimed to study the effect of
substitution by quinoa and teff on the chemical
and physical properties of naan bread. For
the same substitution rates, quinoa and teff
substituted breads were compared on the
basis of color, water activity, density, texture,
nutrient composition and sensory acceptance.
Results showed that the gluten content of
each flour mix had a significant effect on the
different parameters measured. Protein, fat
and ash content was highest in naan made
with 100% quinoa, while that made with 100%
teff had the highest fiber and second highest
ash content. L* value recorded was highest
for 25% quinoa which was even higher than
the control made with 100% all-purpose flour.
Texture profile analysis done on staling naans
also revealed additional information on starch
degradation and estimated shelf life. Fortifying
wheat with different flours changed the physical
and chemical properties of the final product
predominantly.
37
Saranya Giridharan
R V College of Engineering, Bangalore
Engineering E. Coli for
Production of Succinate by
Soybean Wastes
Mentor
George N Bennett
Rice University, Houston
Succinic acid has been considered an
important specialty chemical that can be
produced by microorganisms. However,
the placement of this molecule on the US
Department of Energy (DOE) list of twelve
platform chemicals from biomass has been
generated widespread attention toward
biobased succinate manufacturing. Escherichia
coli strains HL27659k and HL27659k-pKK313
were examined for succinate production under
aerobic conditions using galactose, sucrose,
raffinose, stachyose and mixtures of these
sugars extracted from soybean meal and soy
solubles. Under Dr. George N Bennett guidance
at Rice University, I worked on adaptation of
these two strains in varying mixtures of soy
hydrolysate : LB media and corresponding
glycerol stocks are maintained for future studies
of these mutants for succinic acid production.
The presence of higher concentration of
galactose, led to the construction of strains
by knocking out of genes responsible for
repression of gal operon expression and
glucose intake for higher conversion of carbon
source into succinate. In future studies these
strains are subjected to clonetegration of gal
operon into E.coli chromosome and verified
for efficient use of carbon source present in
the soybean meal to produce succinate by
fermentation.
38
Shreya Nahata
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Uttarakhand
Investigating the Role of Mitochondrial
DNA Reduction in the Induction of Cancer
Stem-Like Cells in Esophageal Squamous
Cell Carcinoma
Mentor
Narayan G. Avadhani
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Recent study from our laboratory showed that
reducing mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) copy number
in human mammary cancer cell lines resulted
in epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT).
Interestingly, mtDNA copy number reduction
resulted in the formation of breast cancer stemlike cells [Guha et al 2013]. Based on this exciting
finding, our goal was to investigate if mtDNA copy
number reduction in esophageal cancer cells
(TE11) induced cancer stemlike cells, similar to
mammary epithelial cells.
We used parental and ethidium bromide treated
mtDNA- depleted TE11 cells for our experiments.
Interestingly, both of these formed a high
population of non-adherent “floater” cells similar
to mammary epithelial cells where the formation of
similar “floater” cell population expressing cancer
stem cell markers was reported by our lab. We
cultured these cells and conducted various gene
expression analysis studies. We observed that
expression of various cancer stem cell markers
like ALDH1, and CD44 were highly up-regulated
in the floater cells formed by the mtDNA- depleted
TE11 cells compared to adherent cell population.
These results were indicative of the role of mtDNA
reduction in the induction of cancer stem-like cells
in esophageal cancer cells. Floater cells from both
parental and mtDNA-depleted TE11 cells were
also tested for their ability to form spheroids and
their stemness and self-renewal potential needs to
be investigated further in successive generations.
39
Shreya Gupta
Indian Institute of Technology, Varanasi
In Vitro Blood Brain Barrier to Study Cancer
Invasion Mechanism and Characterisation of
Penetration Properties of Anti-Cancer Drugs
Mentor
Aaron Baker
University of Texas, Austin
Cancer metastasise occur when cancer
spreads from one part to other mainly through
blood. Breast cancer most commonly spreads
to the bone, lungs, liver, and brain. The main
obstacle to the drug delivery into the brain is the
existence of blood brain barrier (BBB). The aim
was to develop in vitro BBB to study the cancer
invasion mechanism and characterisation of
penetration properties of anti-cancer drugs.
The model was built on neuro-probe chamber
to replicate in vivo BBB model. The shear
stress was provided by the high throughput
cone and plate device. The experiments were
conducted to calculate permeability of in vitro
BBB and study cancer invasion with static and
dynamic conditions.
40
Swaathi Ratna S
Semi Automated Backbone
Assignment – SPARKY
Mentor
Hesamaddin Dashti
University of Wisconsin- Madison
The National Magnetic Resonance Facility at
Madison (NMRFAM) is an NMR spectrometer
facility where studies on metabolomics,
nucleic acids, large protein molecules and
other biomolecules are being carried out. The
investigation and analysis of the spectroscopic
data is done with the help of many software
tools. NMRFAM-SPARKY is one such software
that is used in the chemical shift assignment
and structure determination of proteins.
Chemical shift assignment (backbone and side
chain assignments) for proteins is carried out
using SPARKY. While side chain assignment
is automated, backbone assignment which is
the first stage of the process is done manually.
Backbone assignment involves matching
resonances from at least two different 3D
spectra (eg. HNCACB, CBCACONH, HNCA,
HNCOCA etc.) in a sequential manner, in order
to establish the right protein sequence. This is
essential for further studies on the structure and
folding of proteins. As the protein size becomes
larger, the assignment process becomes
cumbersome. So a new extension package
that could make the backbone assignment
a lot simpler and less time consuming was
developed. It is semi automated because
there are stages in the process where human
intellect is essential and decisions cannot be
taken by the computer.
41
Sruti Devendran
National Institute of Technology, Calicut
Exploration of
Morphological Characters
in Malvaceae
Mentor
Surangi Punyasena
Exploration of the morphological characters
is important because they serve as a token
for identifying the plant species. Malvaceae
is chosen because it is palynologically
heterogeneous. The range of variation in
characters is very wide. A systemic analysis of
these features will help in understanding the
relationship between phylogenetic evolution
and the character evolution of these features.
The character matrix is built by scoring for
each of the observed character for the images.
The character matrix and the phylogenetic
tree of the species is imported in R, and
comparative analysis is done. The statistical
tests indicate that all the characters show a
significant phylogenetic signal. It also indicates
that position of the apertures show a stronger
phylogenetic signal (p=0.764) and the evolution
of Porate features does not show a significant
phylogenetic signal. Features in these images
can be used to built machine learning algorithm
to automate pollen identification processes.
Most of the pollen grains are influenced by
strong selective forces involved in various
reproductive processes, helping us to find the
effect of climate change on the plant species.
42
Urvi Nikhil Shroff
Savitribai Phule Pune University
Role of Macula Densa Cells
in Nephron Remodelling
and Repair
Mentor
Janos Peti-Peterdi
University of Southern California, Los Angeles
The Juxtaglomerular Apparatus (JGA),
which consists of the Macula Densa
(MD) cell plaque, juxtaglomerular cells
and extraglomerular mesangial cells, is a
microscopic structure which controls fluid
and salt balance in the body via the ReninAngiotensin system and tubular glomerular
feedback. This was considered to be the
function of the MD cells. However, we have
recently identified a rather unconventional
role of the MD cells- nephron repair and
remodelling. To study this role of MD cells,
we established two transgenic mouse
models- nNOS mTmG and NG2 Tomato.
NG2 Tomato mice were stimulated under
No Salt conditions and Enalapril (ACE
inhibitor) for 2 weeks. Frozen sections of
kidney tissue were prepared for both control
and treated mice and then multi photon
microscopy was performed to observe the
fluorescent cells.
It was observed that upon induction there
is a significant increase in the number
of Renin+ cells as well as NG2+ cells.
After treatment, we observed a 5-fold
increase in the renal interstitial density
of NG2+ cells (from 5.9±1.1 in control
to 30.2±4.5 cells per field after No Salt
diet and ACE inhibitor treatment), as well
as the migration of NG2+ cells towards
the MD and into the glomerular parietal
layer and mesangium. Co-localization of
endogenous NG2-Tomato fluorescence
with immunofluorescence of renin revealed
a significant increase in the proportion
of NG2+ renin-expressing cells from
22.0%±6.6 to 70.6%±7.4 (p<0.05) after No
Salt diet and ACE inhibitor treatment. Our
results suggest that NG2+ pericytes may
be an important progenitor cell population
in the kidney. In response to MD-derived
(from nNOS) paracrine factors, NG2+ cells
from the renal interstitium proliferate and
migrate towards the MD along the afferent
arteriole and via the vascular pole into the
glomerular mesangium and parietal layer.
We also attempted to establish a MD
cell line by isolating the cortical tissue
of the kidneys of nNOS mTmG mice and
performing FACS. The GFP+ cells were
sorted and immortalised using hTERT and
cultured in MMDD1 medium. Since there
are both Tomato+ and GFP+ cells, these
cells need to be resorted to establish a pure
MD cell line.
In conclusion, MD cells play new important
roles in the maintenance and remodelling
of the glomerulus and the renal interstitium
in health and disease.
43
Vaibhav Dnyandev Phad
Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad
Light Delivery Modeling and
Simulations in a 3D Monte
Carlo Simulation Platform in
Optogenetics.
Mentor
Kevin Eliceiri
Optogenetics is a rapidly emerging technique
that can use a combination of genetics and optical
approaches to control the behavior of individual
neurons in living tissue. Due the rapid adoption
of these techniques by the neuroscience
community there is great need for improved
technologies to improve its use in biological
system. One particular need is improvement
for how the optogenetic light penetrates the
brain tissue. OptogenSIM is a 3D open-source
simulation platform for optimizing light delivery
design in optogenetic design developed at
LOCI at UW-Madison, which integrates a voxelbased 3D Monte Carlo model, generic optical
properties models of brain tissues, and a welldefined 3D mouse brain tissue atlas.
However, some typical light delivery approaches
are not fully established or implemented in this
tool so far, such as the defocused Gaussian
light source. There are some light beam
models available but there is disagreement
and discrepancies in the models. Hence, a
model validation and development are needed.
In addition, it is not clear how significantly the
light delivery parameters or boundary conditions
can affect the light distribution in the brain tissue.
Resolving the foregoing questions, we are
providing a more practical solution and
instructions for light delivery design.
44
Vaishali Yadav
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai
Study the Pattern of
CamKII Protein Synthesis
Associated with LTM
Mentor
Sam Kunes
Harvard University, Cambridge
Pattern of protein synthesis is related to
the formation of a specific memory. We
studied the expression pattern of Calcium/
Calmodulin-dependent kinase II (CamKII)
protein in Drosophila Melanogaster. CamKII
is synthesized at the synapses and is required
for memory formation. We aimed at looking at
the differences in the expression of CamKII
protein between trained and naïve animals.
For studying the effect of training on CamKII
expression, we expressed EYFP::CamKII
fusion protein in the Kenyon cells and in the
Mushroom Body Output Neurons (MBON)
separately in Drosophila. Further, we know
that let-7 miRNA expression in Drosophila is
regulated by neural activity, so we expressed
let-7 miRNA hairpin in the Kenyon cells and
EYFP::CamKII fusion protein in the MBON in
Drosophila and looked at the changes in the
expression of the fusion protein in MBON. We
hypothesize that if the hairpin could translocate
from the Kenyon cells to the MBON, there
would be a down regulation of CamKII fusion
protein there. With a similar hypothesis, we
expressed CamKII fusion protein in the Kenyon
cells and the hairpin in the dopaminergic
neurons in Drosophila. Along with this we also
generated flies expressing the hairpin in the
Kenyon cells and CamKII fusion protein in the
projection neurons and study the expression of
fusion protein in both the cases.
45
Vaishali Balachandran
SASTRA University, Thanjavur
Role of Human Annexin A1
Protein in Wound Healing
Mentor
William Bement
All cells are subjected to chemically or
mechanically challenging environments. In
case of exercise, accidents etc., there is a high
possibility of cell membrane damage. Single
cell wound healing is a process of membrane
repair which prevents the cell from oozing out
its contents. The importance of this process
has been implicated in diseases like muscular
dystrophy, where genetic mutations lead to
improper membrane repair thereby imparting
fragility to the muscle cell. One of the proteins
that seems to be involved in membrane repair
is hAnnexin A1 (hANXA1) whose function is
to bring/hold together membrane structures
composed of phospholipids. The membrane
binding ability of this protein is shown to be
calcium dependent. But the exact mechanism
of action to promote membrane repair is still
unknown. At Dr.Bement’s lab, we intend to
understand the role of Annexin A1 in wound
healing in frog oocytes.
46
Vikramjit Lahiri
University of Calcutta, Kolkata
An In-Vivo Methylcap
Sequencing Method in
Drosophila
Mentor
Laura Buttitta
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Chromatin structure plays a very important role in
the regulation of gene expression in eukaryotes.
Actively transcribed genes exhibit open chromatin
states at their regulatory regions, which are
consequently accessible to enzymes and proteins
that facilitate transcription. Sparsely transcribed
genes exhibit closed chromatin states where
regulatory elements are inaccessible. Mapping
the chromatin accessibility landscape can
therefore give information about the potential gene
expression profile for each tissue or cell type during
development. My project involved developing a
new in vivo method for mapping chromatin states
by “MethylCapture” Sequencing. I used transgenic
Drosophila melanogaster transiently expressing
low levels of the bacterial methyltransferase M.
SssI in dorsal wing precursor cells. The hypothesis
was that open chromatin would allow M. SssI to
methylate DNA while closed chromatin would be
inaccessible to the enzyme. Cell cycle genes,
according to available data, undergo a change
in chromatin conformation as the prospective
dorsal wing cells go from a mitotic state in the
third instar larva to a post-mitotic state in the late
pupa. I examined the methylation profiles of the
regulatory regions of two cell cycle genes – Cyclin
E and String – along with control genes. I used
methylation sensitive restriction digestion followed
by PCR and selective enrichment of methylated
DNA regions by affinity binding (“MethylCapture”)
followed by Real Time PCR. My results thus far
validate the technique, but suggest that chromatin
accessibility may not be the only factor determining
the level of genomic methylation in this assay.
47
Science and Engineering Research Board
Department of Science and Technology
Govt. of India
To nurture future innovators and thought leaders, the Science &
Engineering Board, Department of Science and Technology,
Govt. of India, the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum
and WINStep Forward have partnered to develop a dynamic
and transformative student exchange program between premier
institutions in India and the United States.
The S. N. Bose Scholars Program is named in honor of Satyendra
Nath Bose (1894 - 1974), a visionary Indian physicist best known
for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s. The class
of particles that obey Bose-Einstein statistics, Bosons, was named
after him.
The S. N. Bose Scholars Program is envisaged to
•
•
•
•
provide an opportunity to Indian students to experience world-class
research facilities in leading U.S. institutions;
encourage and motivate students to take up research as a career;
pave the way for the next generation of pioneers and innovators in
science and technology to interact with each other, and;
build long-term R&D linkages and collaborations cutting across
boundaries around the globe.
Eligibility
•
•
Indian citizens currently pursuing a Bachelors or Masters’ degree at a
recognized institution of higher education and learning in India.
Open to students of Atmospheric and Earth Sciences; Chemical
Sciences; Engineering Sciences; Mathematical and Computational
Sciences; and, Physical Sciences.
Scholarship includes
•
•
•
Stipend
Health Insurance
Air-fare
http://www.iusstf.org/story/53-74-For-Indian-Students.html
Aashiq Muhamed
Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
Dynamic Modelling an
Energy Kite
Mentor
Sanjiva Lele
Stanford University, California
Conventional turbines have grown taller,
heavier and have become expensive and
complex to construct. Energy kites have
received increased attention in recent years,
owing to their lower costs and aerodynamics
that can access stronger winds. While traction
power kites have been explored several times
in literature, airborne wind turbines have had
fewer mentions. This project aims to investigate
a five degree of freedom model for a tethered
kite with an airborne wind turbine, developing
on the ideas of Loyd (1980) and seeking to
answer critical questions on the required
control surfaces, trajectory optimisation and
power generation.
52
Aashish Bhardwaj
Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar
Stiffness Reduction Due
to Waviness in Lattice
Members of Micro-Lattices
Mentor
Dennis Kochmann
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
For the new way of material development for
lightweight structures, the hierarchical design
structures are stressed upon to develop even
large scale structures and utilizing the improved
properties.
To predict the behaviour at macro level it is
necessary to fully understand the mechanics
at the fundamental level which in this case
are micro-lattices with bars as the building
elements.
The project is based on the effect of waviness
in the bars on the stiffness that is present due to
imperfections or machine vibrations in making
of micro level architecture. The simulations
based project gives an insight into the
percentage reduction in axial stiffness of lattice
members which have to be taken care of, at
the fundamental level to cater to the properties
required at bulk level. The Finite Element
method is used to descritize the geometry and
calculate the axial stiffness.
53
Abhishek Kumar
National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur
Insight into Supercavity
Physics
Mentor
Jiarong Hong
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Drag/skin friction reduction on the surface
of marine vehicles through supercavitation,
is one such area of modern interest with
vast potential applications. Supercavitation
refers to a condition in which an underwater
moving vehicle is enveloped by a continuous
gaseous cavity. There is a dramatic decrease
in hydrodynamic drag due to minimization of
surface area exposed to liquid. Various ongoing
studies on supercavitation are being carried
out at specially constructed water tunnels.
In the project, the comparison of trends of air
entrainment for two experimental models (FCM
& CCM ) were reported and physical insights
into the underlying factors were provided. This
comparison is of significant importance because
we need to understand the difference in cavity
formation and collapse patterns. It might also
provide some insight into the suitability of
FCM/ CCM in conducting specific ventilated
supercavitation studies.
Underwater noise limits military effectiveness
of naval systems. Noise in supercavity is
another such area which has not been dealt in
much detail, yet is of considerable importance.
Acoustic characteristics associated with different
types of supercavity closure models will provide
us more insight into their behaviour in practical
conditions, and also provide a base for deducing
noise reduction techniques for the safety of the
high speed supercavitating vehicles.
54
Aditi Chatterjee
Understanding the Kinetics of Isotopic Exchange Between
Propane and Water When Exposed to Different Catalysts
and Temperature for a Range of Time
Mentor
John Eiler
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
The aim of the project was to understand the
kinetic constraints of the isotopic exchange
between propane and water under a range of
conditions by performing experiments and mass
spectrometric measurements. The samples
were prepared with different catalysts each
time, and subjected to various temperature.
Then they were allowed to react for a specific
range of time. The mass spectrometric data,
plots of reaction progress showed that the rate
of reaction varied with the position of the atoms
in the molecule.
55
Aditi Raghunathan
Indian institute of Technology Madras, Chennai
Globally Consistent
Estimators for Learning
Under Indirect Supervision
Mentor
Percy Liang
Stanford University, California
In several machine learning applications,
we are required to estimate the parameters
of a distribution that we do not have access
to directly. Commonly referred to as direct
supervision - learning under this setting
of partial/hidden variables has difficulties
associated with it - the heuristics employed
in practice are not guaranteed to give the
best solution. A central question is to provide
methods that are computationally efficient and
guaranteed to obtain the best possible solution.
My work was directed towards the same, and
we came up with a simple estimator that is
based on spectral decomposition of matrices
and simple inversion to retrieve globally
opimal parameters for a class of indirect
supervisions. We also precisely characterised
the linear algebraic interactions between
the different entities involved that allow the
efficient estimation. We are currently running
experiments to investigate the applicability of
this theoretically powerful approach to solve
real world problem, with increased accuracy
and lesser computation compared to other
standard approaches.
56
Akshat Jain
Panjab University, Chandigarh
Hybrid Objects
Mentor
Pattie Maes
Hybrid Objects is a platform for interaction with
everyday objects. It combines physical objects
with the benefits of a flexible augmented user
interface.
This platform allows you to create Augmented
Reality content with HTML tools, create
Augmented Reality without any knowledge
about 3D programming, connect the
functionality of objects with a simple drag
and drop paradigm and program your objects
with Arduino. Every object that you build with
this platform, will be compatible and can be
connected with any other object ever built with
the Hybrid Objects platform.
The possible use cases would be in smart
homes of the future where one could program
the physical objects around them and thus
modify their behaviour according to our
needs. It especially eases the human effort
for multiple physical interactions at the same
time, which could be done digitally. The entire
platform uses Web standards and there are no
proprietary protocols. Hybrid Objects uses the
same technologies all your favourite webpages
use to communicate. All data about interfaces
and connections are stored within the objects
themselves.
57
Aishwarya Mahant Kumar Rath
Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat
Predicting Mean Velocity
Profiles in Combined Fluid
Porous Layer Systems.
Mentor
Mitul Luhar
The project deals with predicting the
mean velocity profiles in combined
fluid porous layer systems. The
motivation of such a project is due
to the transport phenomena in
structures composed by a porous
layer and an adjacent fluid. This
transport phenomena is encountered
in a wide range of industrial
applications. Some of them are
filtration process, storage of nuclear
waste, environmental flow i.e. sea
and river beds, Heat Exchangers,
Bio inspired Design such as Bird
Feathers are porous etc.
Hence, there were different
approaches dealing with the
momentum transport at the fluid
and porous interface but the
appropriate boundary conditions
are not known. There are number
of models proposed for the
momentum transport at the fluid
porous interface. One among them
is the simplest BJ model.
The model provides a semi
empirical slip boundary condition
at the interface. Another alternative
model was proposed using the
Brinkman equation in the porous
58
layer. More complicated model were
with the stress boundary condition
which introduces interfacial jump
condition at the interface. Using the
numerical solution of such models
the velocity profiles were predicted
which matched the Experimental
profiles. Another Experimental
setup was done by replacing the
porous medium by transparent glass
beads with different permeabilities.
The prediction of the velocity
profile was done for different glass
beads and different fluid heights.
It was observed by analysis of the
transition layer that the averaged
horizontal velocity components
decrease drastically within rather
a small layer. This layer below the
permeable interface represents the
transition zone, referred to as the
Brinkman layer. Below the interface
there exists a critical point above
this point the velocity increases
monotonically whereas below it
the velocity fluctuates randomly.
This Agreement is found by the
numerical results predicted, which
matched the experimental results,
and illustrated the velocity profiles.
Indo-US Science & Technology Forum Student Symposium
Apoorva Joshi
Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore
Hardware and Design of a
Visualization and Analysis Lab for
Medical Imaging Applications
Mentor
Milan Sonka
University of Iowa, Iowa City
My goal during the internship was
to work on the hardware setup and
design of the Visualization and
Analysis Lab. As conceptualized,
the lab comprises three main
components namely (a) a 3D
display wall, (b) a 10-camera
tracking system and (c) individual
visualization stations for better
tracking and data analysis. Tracking
in the present case implies that
the system shall allow tracking of
the user’s head and react to head
motion by adjusting the rendering
of scenes accordingly, to facilitate
immersion in virtual scenes. In
addition, input devices are to be
tracked, too, enabling 3D interaction
and editing of visualized and
analyzed 3D and higher-D (image)
data. Efficient tracking is said to be
done when the 10 cameras in the
system are synchronized with each
other and whole system is, in turn,
synchronized with the visualization
workstations.
During the limited period of my
internship, my primary objective
was to understand how the
synchronization works and create
a suitable design for the same.
This
involved
programming
microcontrollers,
testing
the
visualization software and writing
appropriate user interfaces. Time
constraints made me focus on
accomplishing the following:
•
Understanding the synchronization
at both levels of camera systems
•
Designing a layout for the 10
camera system for maximum
coverage
•
Testing the visualization software
•
Determining timing and delay
parameters of the camera systems
•
Assembling and program a
microcontroller board for several
crucial experiments to get more
information about sampling rates
of the visualization workstations
•
Documenting a proposed design
for the user interface detailing the
system requirements, components
needed etc.
It is expected that completing
the above tasks would provide
the necessary platform to further
build upon and complete during
establishment of the lab at a later
stage.
59
Alok Sharma
Delhi University
Electrostatics Modelling
& Compressive Sensing
Mentor
Julie Mitchell
I had the pleasure of doing two projects while I
was part of the SN Bose Scholars Program. My
first project was modelling and calculating the
electrostatic potentials near a protein in sa little
time as possible. Me and my mentor worked
towards implementing an algorithm whose
complexity was of the order of O(n*log(n))
compared to the previously implemented
O(n*n) complexity. Using the new algorithm
we were able to reduce the computation times
exponentially without losing a lot of precision.
Our algorithm produced values which correlated
highly (>95%) with the actual values.
My second project was on building a predictive
model which could take as input, a given
set (matrix) of drug and target interactions
and from that table, it could predict future
interactions if a new drug or target with some
missing information is added to the table. We
developed a number of techniques for this
but two of them have shown promise and we
are currently working on getting even better
predictions. If we achieve what we are aiming
for, it could be a great breakthrough in the road
to drug discovery.
60
Arjun Vijeta
Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, Pune
Chemoselective Active of
sp3 vs sp3 C–H Bonds
with Pd(II)
Mentor
Marisa C. Kozlowski
Transition metals involvement has eased the
way to synthesis C-C and C-X(O,N,S) bonds,
which is highly useful in Natural product
synthesis, biological active compounds and
materials. Reporting one of the uncommon
CSP3-CSP3 bond formation reaction with
Pd(OAc)2 without involving any directing group
for chelation of Pd complex. Optimisation of
reaction solvent and oxidant is achieved by
High through put Screening and HPLC analysis.
Catalytic Pd(OAc)2 proceeded the reaction
on involving other additives but product yield
decreases. In this report, CSP3 active product
is exclusively obtained, rather than CSP2
activated product even after the presence of
nitrile and ester group to provide chelation
to Pd(OAc)2. Double C-H bond activation
of Pd(OAc)2 is remarkably selective for
terminal methyl group of alkyl arenes solvent.
Mechanistic studies indicate the intermediate of
an ethyl cyano phenyl acetate dimer, obtained
from oxidation with Pd(OAc)2, led to product
formation. The examined reaction establishes
the participation of common reaction solvents
(e.g., toluene) in C−H activation chemistry.
61
Aprameya Ganesh Prasad
National Institute of Technology, Surathkal
SPION Modification of Drug
Loaded Nanoparticles for
Theranostic Applications
Mentor
Yoon Yeo
Purdue University, West Lafayette
The project focused on synthesis of
SPION-modified drug loaded NPs.
Paclitaxel (PTX) was chosen as a
model drug. The NPs were made of
PLGA and were surface-modified
with polydopamine and PEG (PLGApD-PEG NPs).The hypothesis of
SPION modification of drug loaded
NPs is the concept of theranostics.
Using this approach, simultaneous
diagnostic and therapeutic potential
of the NPs can be realized. The
drug-loaded PLGA NPs were
modified in two ways. In the first
set of experiments, both SPIONs
and PTX were encapsulated in
PLGA-pD-PEG NPs and named
as IO/PTX@PLGA-pD-PEG NPs.
In the second set of experiments,
PTX-loaded NPs were surfacedecorated with SPIONs and PEG
via polydopamine, named as
PTX@PLGA-pD/IO-pD-PEG NPs.
62
PTX loaded in PLGA-pD-PEG NPs,
called PTX@PLGA-pD-PEG NPs
served as a control group. All the
synthesized nanoparticles were
approximately 150-200 nm in size
with a spherical morphology. It
was observed that the IO/PTX@
PLGA-pD-PEG NPs inhibited drug
loading making it a poor choice
for a theranostic vector. The drug
loading in IO/PTX@PLGA-pDPEG NPs was determined to be
1-1.2% compared to 1.5-2% in the
PTX@PLGA-pD-PEG NP control
group.
PTX@PLGA-pD/IO-pDPEG NPs were better candidates
for achieving targeted delivery of
the drug. On the other hand, it was
found that surface modification by
iron oxide resulted in a sustained
release. This could be ascribed to
a probable barrier effect.
Ayush Tomar
Delhi Technological University, New Delhi
Visual Topic Networks in
Social Networks
Mentor
Juergen Pfeffer
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh
Building better user relationship models in
social networks has been an important topic
of research. Similar users on social networks
tend to share similar content. Images shared
by Twitter users is an interesting way to
represent user profiles and suggest new
connections. The motivation of this project is
to build relation model between Twitter users
based on images, tweet and user properties,
to measure closeness between users, which
could be used to suggest new connections and
enrich existing image data set on Twitter with
new tags and image labels. The extensively
labelled image data set thus generated could
have many applications in image classification,
advertising and sentiment analysis. The project
combines ideas from digital image processing,
machine learning and Social Network Analysis.
63
Ashish Daga
Characterization of Two
Phase Slug Flow Through a
Heated Microchannel
Mentor
Suresh Garimella and Justin Weibel
Slug flow is a commonly encountered flow
regime in micro-channels due to the influence
of surface tension and vapor confinement at
small length scales. Owing to difficulties in
generating a well-controlled and repeatable
slug flow regime in a diabatic situation,
numerical models which govern two phase slug
flows have been verified against experimental
benchmarks with difficulty. Creating a setup
which can provide accurate, repeatable and
controllable experimental data on slug flows
is the main motivation behind the project.
The main objective of the project is to obtain
repeatable and controllable slug flow regimes
by vapor injection into a saturated liquid
stream and measure thermal properties such
as pressure and temperature along high speed
visualization aimed at capturing the influence
of uniform heat transfer on bubble growth. The
facility developed is capable of degassing the
fluid, filtering and single phase liquid boiling
visualization also.
64
Apala Chaudri
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Study of Telomerase
Repeat Factors
Mentor
Taekjp Ha
The Ha Lab uses sophisticated
physical techniques to study the nanolevel processes of life. The technique
I worked on this summer is called
SiMPull: Single molecule pull-down
experiments. The technique involves
drilling and ‘Pegylation’ of slides as
a first step which basically means
passivating the surface of the quarts
slides with PEG (polyethylene glycol)
molecules. After this, flow-chambers
are constructed on the slides using
double-sided tape. Through the flow
chambers, NeutrAvidin and then
antibody solutions are flown through of
required concentrations. NeutrAvidin
sticks to the PEG while the biotinylated
antibody sticks to another binding
domain of the NeutrAvidin molecule
(one molecule of NeutrAvidin can bind
up to 4 molecules of biotin). After this,
cell lysates containing the desired
fluorescent-protein tagged protein
molecules are flown through the
channels; these are the proteins we
want to study. The proteins expressed
inthe lysate bind specifically to the
antibody on the surface and can be
imaged under the singlemolecule
fluorescence microscope to shed
light on protein-protein interactions.
If the proteinbinding to the antibody
forms a complex with others inside
the cells, it will “pull-down” those
with it on the slide. These can be
studied using the TIR (Total internal
reflection) microscope and analyzed
using MATLAB to reveal whether the
proteins show specific binding and
how manymolecules are there in the
complex.
I worked with a special class of
proteins which were expressed in and
extracted from humanosteosarcoma
(bone cancer) cells. These are the
TRF( Telomerase repeat factors)constituents
ofthe
Shelterin
proteins that protect the telomere of
mammalian chromosome and the
ORC (OriginReplication Complex)
proteins- which have important roles in
DNA replication andheterochromatin
assembly.
The association of Orc1 and Trf2
proteins was established previously
in a paper; SiMPullexperiments
verify that. Further, through our
experiments we show that OrcA
and Trf1 proteinsinteract too. FRET
measurements were also done to
see whether the Orc1/A proteins bind
to GQuadruplexes,structures typical
of Trf proteins. They also showed
positive results. Studies likethese can
in the long run shed light on the way
telomeres work and how that is related
tosenescence in cells and also cancer.
65
Bhagyashree Prabhune
College of Engineering, Pune
Topology Optimization of
3D Compliant Mechanisms
Mentor
Krishnan Suresh
Compliant mechanisms are popular
in mechanical design for numerous
reasons: they are easy to fabricate,
have lower weights than their rigidbody counterparts, exhibit low wear
and low friction, and have a builtin restoring force. They are often
preferred over their rigid-body
counterparts in various applications
including
micro-electromechanical-systems
(MEMS),
surgery. The design of compliant
mechanism becomes complicated
due to their non-linear behavior.
However topology optimization
can be effectively used for design
of complaint mechanisms. It is a
mathematical technique which
involves structural optimization
by step by step material removal
obeying the constraints, boundary
conditions
at each step. The
66
objective was to design a compliant
mechanism with maximum flexibility,
minimum stiffness and volume
occupied by the mechanism. The
project involved design of compliant
mechanism using the topology
obtained from PareTo software
which was developed in the lab,
making necessary changes on the
basis of knowledge of compliant
mechanisms,
dimensional
synthesis and FEA analysis using
commercial software packages
along with actual manufacturing
using rapid prototyping. It has been
seen that topology optimization
greatly aids in design process by
taking us closer to the optimized
mechanism design with maximum
flexibility and minimizing the
material cost, giving us two was
benefit.
Brinda Kuthanazhi
Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram
Graphene Based
Electrode Material for
Supercapacitors
Mentor
Timothy S Fisher
Supercapacitors also known as
ultra-capacitors are electrochemical
energy storage devices which fill
the gap between conventional
capacitors and batteries. Along
with fast power delivery and long
life cycle and more importantly
flexibility added to these features,
supercapacitor is a promising
candidate for energy storage in next
generation portable and wearable
electronic devices.
During this project, we synthesized
3D graphene petals on a cotton
cloth, a viable candidate for
supercapacitor electrode material,
using
plasma
CVD.
These
samples were characterized and
electrochemical
measurements
done to study the energy storage
efficiency and performance of the
supercapacitor. The samples were
cut into small pieces of ~2.5 cm2
and characterized using Cyclic
voltammetry,
Electrochemical
Impedance Spectroscopy and
galvanostatic charge discharge.
The CV measurements are done
in a three electrode set up at
various scan rates. A pseudo
rectangular curve was obtained
showing a capacitive behaviour.
An increase in volumetric specific
capacitance
was
observed
in some of the samples as
compared to the control cotton
cloth. Electrochemical impedance
spectroscopy
measurements
were also carried out in each of
the samples. Equivalent series
resistance was found out from the
Nyquist plots. The values were
found to be small which would
mean the material could act as
a good current collector as well.
Coating psuedocapacitive layers
on this and thereby drastically
increasing the capacitance is a
possible and promising future
step for study. This would add
an important milestone in scaling
up of production of commercially
viable supercapacitors.
67
Chandrachur Bhattacharya
Jadavpur University, West Bengal
Simulation of Combustion
Instability for On-Line Control by
Instability Detection Using Stsa
Mentor
Asok Ray
Pennsylvania State University, State College
Stricter pollution regulations and the
need for high efficiency of burning
with lower emissions dictates
that we use combustion systems
where the mixture be lean globally
to ensure complete oxidation of
all the fuel. However, these lean
regimes are highly prone to thermodiffusive instability due to the high
concentration difference between
fuel and air. Also, thermo-acoustic
instability is a phenomenon observed
when the heat release rate and the
natural frequency of the combustor
geometry become equal giving rise
to high value of pressure oscillations.
This can structurally damage the
combustor and create a loud audible
noise. The effect of both these
instabilities is the possibility of flame
blow-out which means direct loss of
power of the engines.
Previous means of detecting and
controlling this instability has the
inherent problem that the detection
can occur only once the instability
has already reached a large value
amplitude. Thus, even with a control
action eventually imposed to control
it, the combustor has already had to
face the instability or often the flame
68
has already blown out. Thus there
comes a necessity to be able to predict
or detect the onset of instability before
the instability reaches its full value,
and a suitable control mechanism to
do an online control during the engine
run-time.
We have devised a new using Symbolic
Time Series Analysis (STSA) to detect
combustion instability at its onset itself
from the time series data of variables
such as pressure and thus be able
to have a preventive control versus
previous curative control. However, it
is not technically feasible to conduct
extensive experiments, especially
in the highly dangerous unstable
regimes. Thus there was a need to
have a numeric method to accurately
simulate the combustor dynamics
and physics and also a means to
simulate a control mechanism to
fine-tune the control logic under
extensive conditions. For accurate
understanding of the physics and to
apply a suitable control algorithm, we
must be able to simulate all regimes.
We have prepared a novel CFD
model that accounts for more complex
physics as well as realistic geometry.
Ishan Manjani
Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi
Countering the Effect
of Ageing in 3D Face
Recognition
Mentor
Kevin W. Bowyer
University of Notre Dame, Indiana
2D face recognition systems have been shown
to be affected by ageing of a person. For
example, if I get myself enrolled in a system
which recognizes me by face and try to get
access after a few days, or weeks it would
work just fine. But if I try to get access after say
five years the face matching would be poor,
and access may not be granted. The reason
is that the system is trying to match a picture
of my face(called the source) to one taken five
years ago (called the target). Over this period,
my face may have changed due to for example
weight loss or gain, ageing, wrinkles etc.
In case of 3D face recognition there have been
no reports stating that the recognition gets
poorer as the time lapse between the target
and the source scan increases. My research
examines this property for 3D face recognition
using scans having very high time lapse
between them.
69
Jatindeep Singh
Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar
Detection of SNP Using
RNA Sequencing
Mentor
Sreeram Kannan
University of Washington, Seattle
Detection of SNPs (Single-nucleotide polymorphism) in a Genome for detection of Cancer
Cells with the help of RNA and DNA reads.
Cancer leads to a change in genome (DNA)
of the organism. If we are able to differentiate
between a healthy cell and a cancer cell we
would be able to understand the places where
the SNP takes place and try to revert back the
changes made at the point of SNP. As most of
the SNPs take place in the exon region of DNA
it is easier to detect a SNP using RNA reads
as RNA is formed from different exons regions.
RNA reads were matched and linked with the
reference genome with the help of Abundance
Estimator Algorithms. Probability of SNPS
is calculated for each nucleotite position and
hence decision is taken on presence of SNP. As
the computation was very large an optimizing
algorithm was developed and calculations
were mostly performed on servers. The task
assigned also required integrating various
softwares already present with the algorithms
developed on python.
70
Kazi Ranjibul Islam
Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, Kolkata
Subdiffusion in Strongly
Disorderder Noisy
Environment
Mentor
Mikhail D Lukin
Harvard University, Cambridge
My main work is on how the dynamics of a
quantum particle changes in presence of
disorder and noise. Specially I have focused
on the effect of noise to a strongly localized
system. Is the localized state stable to noise?
Our intuition tells this time dependent noise
will couple the localized states. But what is the
nature of this new transport? To investigate this
I work with a system of one particle in a lattice
with nearest neighbour hopping and on site
disorder and noise. We started with numerical
simulation of the problem and tried to see
the phase diagram of this two dimensional
coupling space of disorder and noise. What
we found is very interesting. As we tune
disorder and noise,system undergoes phase
transition(in a loosly sense) among four states
ballistics,localized,diffusion and subdiffusion.
We saw in that phase diagram that localized
phase is not stable in presence of noise. So we
did some analytics on this and what we found
out is more interesting. We saw in presence
of small noise particle undergoes a transition
from localized to subdiffusive region and as we
increase noise it eventually goes to diffusion.
If I say technically, first order in hopping gives
high density of bottlenecks which means
system will be trapped and it takes a long time
to come out of that. But if we wait long system
will eventually goes to diffusion.
71
Koushik Chatterjee
Searching for ULXs in Hst
Imaged Galaxies
Mentor
Philip Kaaret
University of Iowa, Iowa City
We report on a new XMM Newton Observation
of 11 galaxies from August 2013 - January
2014. The aim of this study is to present an
X-ray analysis of the new X-ray Sources
observed. We have found 18 X-ray sources
from our sample of galaxies, all of which are
associated with their concerned galaxy. Five of
these sources presented with enough counts to
perform spectral fitting. We note the presence
of a proposed galaxy cluster (XMM J205206.0691316) with an intra-cluster temperature of
3.6+0.4 keV, located in the same region of
the sky as the sample galaxy PGC 65603.
Alongside this, we note the presence of an
ULX with luminosity (6.3+0.3) x 1039 erg s^(1), situated in the PGC 65603 galaxy, with
another weaker X-ray source, both with power
law = 2.0. We also report on the identification
of a possible Quasi-soft source (QSS) (XMM
J174709.9-643812) in the galaxy PGC 60849,
whose blackbody temperature is 0.166+0.015
keV.
72
Kalind Baraya
Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati
Analytical Modelling of
Closed-Loop Pulsating Heat
Pipes
Mentor
John Pfotenhauer
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The aim of the project was to simulate the
dynamics of a pulsating heat pipe in form of
an analytical model. The simulation should
produce the experimental results, that is, it
should behave in a similar manner as the actual
PHP would work if subjected to comparable
initial and boundary conditions. The PHP
consists of a hollow tube with fluid inside it,
which exists in both liquid and vapor phase.
It is assumed that the vapor “slugs” and liquid
“plugs” are uniformly distributed throughout
the tube. It is also assumed that the slugs and
plugs behavior is akin to spring–mass–damper
system. To test the above hypothesis, a
dynamic model of the above system is made in
software called EES. The model was improved
by making it more and more similar to practical
situation by including heat and mass transfer,
evaporation and condensation, film boiling,
etc. It should be noted that all the previous
researchers have used the approach of springmass-damper systems to study the dynamics
of a PHP because this is the finest approach to
gain a physical insight into how the PHP works,
which can help us to further improve the heat
transfer capabilities of a PHP.
73
Kartikeya Singh Sangwan
Delhi University
Geochemical Analysis of Oceanic Sediments
of Site U1359 from the Continental Rise Off
Wilkes Land, East Antarctica
Mentor
W. Berry Lyons
Ohio State University, Columbus
Antarctic Ice sheet is broadly divided into two
parts EAIS (East Antarctic Ice Sheet) and
WAIS (West Antarctic Ice Sheet). The Wilkes
Land sector of EAIS is prone to sudden climate
changes as it is marine based. The present
work deals with the Miocene sediments of site
U1359 which is present off the coast of Wilkes
Land. The main objective is to understand the
dynamic behavior of EAIS at Wilkes Land sector
and also the geochemical characterization of
the sediments of site U1359.
In the context of sourcing of the sediments,
two distinct geological environments can be
considered, namely, the Proterozoic/Archean
hinterland and the dominantly Palaeozoic
terrain to the east, including the Ross
Orogen and the Trans Antarctic Mountains.
The sediment supply in the area is complex,
comprises multiple sourcing and long distance
transportation. Trace elements and major
elements analysis of sediments conducted
using ICP-OES and ICP-MS Facilities at the
Ohio State University will allow to understand
their geochemical constraint which will aid in
characterization of the sediments. The pattern
of distribution is dependent on the ice retreat
and advance stages as well as on different
depositional processes. Hence, any variability
in the characteristics of trace elements will
also allow to infer sedimentological processes
operated for sediment supply.
74
Khyathi Raghavi Chandu
Automatic Classification
of Medical Abstracts for
Evidence Based Medicine
Mentor
Ani Nenkova
Evidence based medicine is a protocol for
coalescing assorted clinical expertise and
systematically searching through them for
optimal evidence. The US National Library
of Medicine (NLM) maintains bibliographic
database of biomedical literature. Automatic
classification of biomedical text into labels
under exclusive set of union of PICO labels
and 5 NLM categories (total of 8 classes), to
serve evidence based medicine is the aim of
the project. We used Support Vector Machines
(SVM) and Support Vector Regression (SVR)
to implement this. The disparity between
segments in NLM structured abstracts
(multiple sentences) and real testing data
initiated an idea of choice of classifiers with
4 combinations from training and testing, on
segments and sentences. Results are better
when trained on segments. Integrating the
results of 8 One vs Rest classifier proved better
than 8 way classifier. A hierarchical classifier
showed improvement of 3 classes over a
base class. For compact yet comprehensive
representation, statistically significant features
are extracted by binomial and z-tests, (still
on-going). Unstructured abstracts are used
as to generate brown clusters and contextual
word2vec features, with the idea of using them
as triggering or similarity features respectively
in the case of absence of the feature itself.
75
Lois Thomas
Savitribai Phule Pune University
A Study on Monsoon and Premonsoon
Atmospheric Boundary Layer (Using Sounding
Analysis and 2D Baby EULAG Model)
Mentor
Wojciech W. Grabowski
National Centre for Atmospheric Research, Boulder
Atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) plays an
important role in determining weather. Monsoon
and pre-monsoon are marked by notable
changes in ABL. The main aim of the study was
to understand the contrasting properties of ABL
during monsoon and premonsoon seasons of
India.
1. Sounding Analysis : With the help of parcel
model, radiosonde soundings (CAIPEEX,
IITM, Pune) were analyzed to study different
thermodynamic parameters. The following
properties of ABL could be identified-Deeper
and drier pre-monsoon ABL, lower level
monsoon cloud base, different growth pattern
of monsoon and pre-monsoon Cumulative
CAPE and parcel buoyancy growing negatively
below the cloud base and positively above it.
2. 2D babyEULAG model : One sounding
from each of the two cases were used in 2D
version of babyEULAG model developed by
Dr. Grabowski. It was provided with a bubble
as an initial localized perturbation. The model
run results are-A well mixed pre-monsoon
boundary layer in one hour, spreading of
monsoon clouds and rain over more range
of heights and near surface vertical velocity
fluctuations in pre-monsoon.
Sounding analysis as well as the 2D model
helped in studying monsoon and pre-monsoon
contrasts of Atmospheric Boundary Layer.
76
Partha Pratim Dutta
Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur
IGC3: A Fully Electronic Microfabricated
Gas Chromatograph with Capacitive
Detectors for Indoor Pollutants
Mentor
Yogesh Gianchandani
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
The work reports a full micro gas
chromatograph (µGC) in which all the
components are lithographically microfabricated and electronically interfaced. All
components include a bi-directional Knudsen
pump, a pre-concentrator, separation columns,
and capacitive gas detectors, form a complete
µGC system with a footprint of ≈8×10 cm2.
The system uses room air as carrier gas.
All the fluidic components of the system
are fabricated by a common three-mask
lithographic process. The preliminary system
has experimentally demonstrated sampling,
separation, and detection of 12 chemicals with
1-10 ppm concentrations. This set of chemicals
represents a variety of common indoor air
pollutants, among which benzene, toluene,
and xylenes (BTX) are of particular concern.
The calculated detection limit is expected
to reach as low as 20 ppb. My portion of the
project dealt with the assembly of all these
iGC3 components followed by their testing,
standardization of results and performance
analysis.
77
Phalguni Shah
UM-DAE Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, Mumbai
Two Earthworm Models
Mentor
Lionel Levine
We aim to study a discrete model of an
earthworm tunneling through soil. The
earthworm performs simple random walk
on an innite lattice, each vertex of which is
occupied by soil or air. There are two variants
of the model: the `strong’ earthworm, when
encountered by soil, can push an arbitrarily
large column of soil to form an air pocket. A
heuristic argument predicts that for n steps
taken, the earthworm would create 78 n34 air
pockets. We plan to confirm this conjecture by
simulation, and supply a proof if possible. The
other variant is a `weak’ earthworm, that can
only push a single cell of soil. If it encounters a
larger column of soil, the move fails. We wish
to investigate the critical soil density for the
earthworm to get trapped, on increasing lattice
sizes.
78
Poulami Chakraborty
Smartphone Application for
Community Engagement and
to Analyse Social Practices
Mentor
John M. Carroll
Pennsylvania State University, State College
There is, at present, a widespread adoption of
social media and smart phones for interacting
with trending stories as well as sharing and
connecting with friends. This produces a wealth
of social media content. These technology
and data opens up opportunities to enhance
community life. Prior research has focused on
methods for extracting meaningful events from
social media content and visualizing patterns. In
this project, we endeavoured to enrich people’s
experiences for information interactions at
a regional arts festival that attracted over
100,000 visitors through a mobile collaborative
application integrated with location awareness
features. We leveraged algorithmic and
human computational approaches to amplify
the interactions and experience of the
event. Furthermore, the data extracted and
aggregated were used to develop visualization
of people’s involvement and interaction during
the festival. People’s reaction to their personal
(ego) network and the whole network will help
to generate new insights in social network
analysis and also characterize people’s social
practices in community events.
79
Priyanga Ganesan
National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar
Quantitative Analysis
of Trapping Stochastic
Movers
Mentor
Jeffrey Schenker
The capture of individual animals in lure baited
traps can help us in understanding the dispersal
of animals and estimating their population
densities. My summer work is a part of a bigger
research project that aims at interpreting
trap data for estimating populations. In our
study, we developed a mathematical model
for predicting the catch in a trap depending
on certain parameters such as mobility and
duration of movement. MATLAB simulations of
random walkers were used to find a function
that translates the catch probability of this
insect motion into the catch probability of
Brownian movers. We found that our random
walk model could be well approximated by
Brownian motion for small time scales after renormalizing the trap radius. Converting catch
numbers into accurate measurements of insect
density can be very useful for the detection and
management of invasive species and allow pest
managers to take better decisions regarding the
necessity and frequency of insecticide sprays.
We hope that outcomes of the project will offer
societal benefit via improved pest control that
also minimizes damage to the environment.
80
Pranav Gupta
Automatically Mapping
Datasets to a Large RealWorld Ontology
Mentor
Craig Knoblock
I worked on a project called Karma. Karma
is an information integration tool that allows
users to quickly and easily integrate data from
a variety of data sources. With data being
present in different formats ( such as excel files,
csv formats, JSON objects ), Karma has the
capability to extract and combine information
automatically.
My project aimed at the semantic typing
module of Karma. With massive data sets
flooding the structured data space on the web,
a system is needed which can automatically
predict the type of data uploaded. Semantic
Typing Module aims to do that. This not only
makes the things faster but also reduces the
effort which is required in manual assignment.
For E.g.: - If a database is uploaded, then the
system should automatically assign class type
( e.g.: student ), data property ( e.g.: name )
and the corresponding semantic label ( e.g.:
student_name )
For this automatic assignment of class type, data
property and the semantic label, it is important
to train the system beforehand. Schema.org fits
perfectly in this situation. Schema.org currently
contains over 25 terabytes of data. Today all
markup is performed manually which is neither
cost nor time efficient. Karma automates this
process.
81
Ramudu Kolisetty
Birla Institute of Science and Technology, Hyderabad
Implementation and Parallelization of
Multi-Fractal Detrended Fluctuation
Analysis(DFA) Algorithm Using Matlab.
Mentor
Paul Bogdan
Detrended
Fluctuation
Analysis
(DFA)
technique has become a widely used method
for determination and understanding of fractal
scaling properties in time series data. In recent
times, it had been applied to diverse fields
like DNA sequence, heart rate dynamics,
economics time series such as exchange rate,
long-time weather records etc to detect the
reliably long range correlation in the data.
The project involves implementation of
generalized Multi-fractal Detrended Fluctuation
Analysis (DFA) in matlab and analysis on
sample time series to evaluate Hurst exponents.
In parallelization of algorithm, pipelined multithreading approach was followed to execute the
data analysis independently of others. Further
parallelization effort has to be evaluated by
comparing the execution time of the code after
parallelization to sequential execution time.
82
Rajath Kantharaj
Birla Institute of Science and Technology, Pilani
On the Effective Thermal
Conductivity of Granular
Material Packings
Mentor
Timothy S. Fisher
In this study, we attempted to characterize the
thermal properties of granular material packings
by quantifying a key thermal parameter, the
effective thermal conductivity. This parameter
describes the overall thermal conductivity i.e.,
of the packing on a macro-scale accounting
for different modes of heat transfer e.g.,
heat conduction through granular materials
in contact, conduction in the air space in the
interstice. It is likely that you will find studies, both
theoretical and experimental, on the thermal
conductivity of suspensions, or particulate
composites but not granular material packings
per se, in the literature. The project involves
two phases: (1) details of setting up of the uniaxial strain device for thermal measurements
on the granular material packing i.e., setting
up of the temperature controller, procedure
for approximate strain measurements, volume
fraction measurements, a mention of slots
for thermocouple on the aluminum plate for
a more robust measurement, discussions on
the experimental procedure, trial experiments
(2) the design of a Couette Cell for studying
the effect of shear on the effective thermal
conductivity of granular material packing.
Phase two basically paves a way to test the
hypothesis that effective thermal conductivity
of the packing increases, owing to an increase
in the number of face-face contact as a result
of shearing.
83
Rishav Roy
Controlling Lateral Inertial
Migration Rate of Particles
in Microchannels
Mentor
Dino Di Carlo
University of California, Los Angeles
Studying kinetics of reactions, washing
and labelling cells, solid-phase chemistry,
molecular assembly, are some members of the
broad spectrum of applications of mediating
millisecond or sub-millisecond biological and
chemical reactions. Controlling lateral migration
of particles across different solutions can give
us the power to achieve the aforementioned
objectives. A device, Rapid Inertial Solution
Exchange (RInSE), was proposed by Gossett
et al. (2012). It employs only hydrodynamic
lift forces to manipulate the lateral position of
particles within a micro channel. This does
not require any auxiliary device for inducing
additional forces, hence resulting in a device
with significantly small footprint. This project
deals with further improving the performance
parameters by suggesting a new model.
Experiments were performed on a RInSE
device proposed by Dudani et al. (2014) and our
proposed device. RInSE lacked uniformity as
the trajectories of particles were widely spaced
out. Our proposed device addresses this issue,
giving the freedom to choose migration rates
depending on flow rates, and adds a couple
more advantages. Particles migrate faster,
hence we can study those reactions which
take place on a time scale even smaller than
what can be resolved by RInSE. The other
noticeable feature was higher axial speeds of
particles implying a higher throughput.
84
Ravi Srivastava
Late-Stage Diazirination of
Drug-Like Molecules
Mentor
Uttam K. Tambar
University of Texas, Texas.
As a Bose Scholar in Prof. Tambar’s
lab, I was given the opportunity to
work on Late-Stage Diazirination
of Drug-Like Molecules. Diazirines
are ideal photo cross linking
structures, because they present
a minimal structure perturbation to
the drug candidate and are easily
converted in the presence of light
into reactive intermediates that
can covalently bind to the drug
candidate’s target in the cell. We
focused on the coupling of 3-chloro3-phenyldiazirines with Indole and
N,N-dimethylaniline to synthesise
diazirine containing probe after
analysing that Bromine containing
phenyldiazirines are less stable
and get decomposed easily. We
did variations in reaction condition
by using mild inorganic bases,
changing the solvent, moderate
temperature variations etc. to get
the desired target material.
Though some results were very
promising as analysed by NMR,
Mass and IR Spectroscopy but
none of them were our target
material. Thus, eight weeks
being an extremely short time to
arrive at a constructive result, I
unfortunately could not observe the
desired final diazirine containing
drug-like molecule. Had this
happened, it could have been a
major breakthrough to attach drugs
with their target material without
changing their chemical properties.
Also, we could have studied the
mechanism by which that particular
drug works on the affected cell.
However, my work contributed to
the initial progress of the project by
yielding new information.
85
Robin Singh
Capacitive Micromachined
Ultrasonic Transducers:
Next-Generation Arrays for
Acoustic Imaging
Mentor
Butrus Khuri Yakub
Stanford University, California.
Piezoelectric materials have dominated
the ultrasound transducer technology.
Recently, Capacitive Micro-machined
Ultrasonic Transducers (CMUTs) have
emerged as an alternative technology
offering advantages such as wide
bandwidth, ease of fabricating large
arrays with different geometries,
and potential for integration with
electronics. In the past decade,
various articles have demonstrated the
viability of CMUTs for ultrasound and
photo-acoustic imaging.
Ultrasound imaging provides the
anatomic information which is used
for needle guidance during biopsies.
However, it does not assist much
with cancer staging due to lack of
reliable contrast mechanisms. Novel
imaging strategies are needed to
visualize cancer with high sensitivity
and molecular information. This
necessitates the use of dual modality
of imaging (ultrasound and photoacoustic) on the same platform.
Photoacoustic imaging along with
ultrasound provides optical contrast
on molecular metrics making it easier
to visualize cancerous tissues in the
organ with better contrast.
86
The aim of the project was to generate
a simulated environment to perform
the dual modality. With the help of
mathematical, computer simulation
and design tools, an optimized
platform was generated to analyze
the medical images. Various existing
ultrasound and acoustic tools like
FIELD-II, FOCUS and K-wave
MATLAB, are capable of simulating
various geometries of CMUTs and
performing beam forming which form
the base to re-construct the ultrasound
and photo-acoustic images. Beam
forming algorithms like ash, classic
phased array, delay & sum etc. are
used to focus ultrasound at different
locations and depth of tissues. Quality
of the ultrasound images largely
depends on the type of beam forming
algorithm used. Thus, various beamforming algorithms are implemented
in simulation environment to obtain the
best dual images. At the end, it was
possible to code our own customized
ultrasound and photo acoustic
MATLAB toolbox with capability to
simulate 3D images based on different
CMUT transducer aperture and image
re-construction algorithms.
Rishav Choudhary
Hydrogen Production by
Water Thermolysis Using
MIEC Membranes
Mentor
Ahmed F. Ghoniem
In
the
current
hydrocarbon
economy, petroleum, natural gas
and other fossil derived products
are the main fuels on which
transportation and industries are
dependent. Apart from being nonrenewable sources of energy, these
fuels produce carbon dioxide on
burning which contributes greatly
to global warming. A hydrogen
economy can help to solve this
negative impact of hydrocarbon
economy. Hydrogen burns without
producing carbon dioxide and
engines using liquefied hydrogen
as fuel are more efficient than
conventional internal combustion
engines. The main difficulty in
realizing a Hydrogen economy is the
difficulty encountered in economic
production of Hydrogen on a large
scale. Although electrolysis offers a
viable solution, the costs incurred
by maintenance and electricity
consumption are high.
Mixed Ion Electron Conducting
(MIEC)
membranes,
having
perovskite structure, have the
capacity to selectively allow
Oxygen to permeate through them.
This property can be utilized to
split water at high temperatures
in order to generate high purity
Hydrogen. The reactors utilizing
MIEC membranes are simple, i.e.
devoid of moving parts or electronic
circuits. Thus, they require lesser
maintenance. This has made
them an attractive prospect for
Hydrogen production. The aim of
this study was to use dense LCF-91
membranes to find out to the rate
of Hydrogen production by water
thermolysis. The impact of use of
fuel gases on the sweep side on the
production rate was also studied.
The effect of addition of a porous
layer on the dense membrane was
also studied experimentally, and an
expression was derived analytically
to support the observations.
Stability studies were carried out to
find out the viability of using porous
layers in the long run. The results
obtained show a massive increase
in Hydrogen production rate with
porous layers.
87
Satyanarayana
Indian institute of Technology, Guwahati
NDN Link Layer Reliability
Protocol
Mentor
Lixia Zhang
University of California, Los Angeles
The current internet architecture is
designed in 1970s, when the only
successful model of communication
is telephony, but the way people
use the web changed a lot in
recent days. The current internet
architecture have a lot of security
related issues. To redesign the
internet architecture, NSF recently
funded 5 future internet architecture
projects. One of those projects is
Named Data Networking, which is
a data centric model, and is resilient
to security attacks. I involved and
helped in the development of NDN,
as a part of my summer project.
In NDN, data delivery reliability
must be assured at the application
level. However, loss recovery at
the application level can be a lot
88
more expensive compared to doing
retransmission right at the point
where a packet get lost, because
the delay between two adjacent
nodes can be measured more
accurately, and the delay variation
is smaller. On the other hand, the
network protocol must not insist on
delivery every packet reliably at the
cost of excessive delay. The goal of
this project is to design a best effort
loss detection and recovery scheme
for NDN architecture. Once a packet
is detected lost between 2 adjacent
nodes, the sending node will try quick
retransmission for up to n times. We
want to find a proper value of n so
that most losses can be recovered
quickly without the network injecting
unduly long delays.
Samprit Ghosh
Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
L-functions of the Picard
Family of Curves
Mentor
Jerome W. Homan
Lousiana State University, Baton Rouge
Let C be a smooth projective algebraic curve
over Q. Then the L-function of C is conjectured
to have analytic continuation on the entire
complex plane. Deligne conjectured that the
value of the L-function evaluated at critical points
is an algebraic number times the determinant of
the real period matrix associated with C. The
periods of such curves are also expressible
in terms of hypergeometric functions. In this
paper we initially look at Picard family of genus
3 curves. We com- pute the local Lp-factors
and Zeta functions for a bunch of prime p’s.
We verify Deligne’s conjecture for certain
genus 2 and genus 3 curves. We also explore
period matrices expressible as hypergeometric
functions. Eventually we examine Gaussian
hypergeometric functions where we come up
with an apparently new result.
89
Shalini Gupta
MD Simulations of a de
Novo Designed Single Site
Zn2+ Transporter
Mentor
William DeGrado and Michael Grabe
University of California, San Francisco
Protein structure and its relation to
protein function have been areas
of active research over the years.
The de novo design of functional
proteins is a challenge that tests our
understanding of this field. Over the
past few years, water-soluble and
catalytically active proteins have
been designed, but de novo design
of membrane proteins remains to
be explored. This work focusses
on the study of a set of designed,
membrane proteins that have been
shown experimentally to function
as Zn2+ transporters.
The transporters studied are
homotetramers of 26-33 amino
acid peptides that form membrane
spanning
four-helix
bundles.
Common to the design of these
transporters is the central EXXH
motif that comprises the (4Glu4His)
di-Zn2+ binding site. Two main
90
conformations have been explored:
a symmetric coiled-coil structure
(closed) and an off-symmetry flared
structure (open).
Molecular
Dynamics
(MD)
simulations were used to study the
stability of the designed structures
within a lipid bilayer. The model
structure was embedded into
a
homogenous
1-palmitoyl-2oleoylphosphatidylcholine (POPC)
bilayer and the Zn2+ bound and
unbound states were simulated
for over 100 ns. Root mean
square deviations of the binding
site residues were calculated
and hydration of the pore of the
transporter was studied. In attempt
to determine the free-energy profile
for Zn2+ transport across the
membrane, umbrella sampling with
one of the Zn2+ ions at different
positions is being carried out.
Shaurya Garg
PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh
Analytic Modelling of 2 Dof
Landing Gear System in Terms
of Distance Travelled Parallel
to the Ground
Mentor
Rakesh Kapania
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg
The undercarriage beneath an aircraft
constituted by tyres and struts is known as
‘Landing Gear’. Two main types of landing
gears which exist are ‘Nose-type’ and ‘Tail-type’
landing gears. But nose type landing gears are
more preferable. The different purposes of a
landing gear are namely energy absorption
at landing, braking and taxi control. But in our
case, we will specifically focus on its application
involved in landing. The most commonly used
strut for landing gears is ‘Oleo Strut’ which is
a hydro-pneumatic shock absorbing strut in
which the pneumatic component provides
elasticity and the hydraulic (oil) part provides
damping.
Our system is a 2 dof system spring mass
damper system. In which one part represents
the tyre and the other the strut. The major
external forces acting on them are the frictional
force, weight of the aircraft and the lift force
on the aircraft. Therefore, after we obtain the
governing, we solve them analytically so that
we end up obtaining the response in terms
of the distance travelled by the aircraft along
the ground. Further, we have been working
on quantifying uncertainty in damping in more
complex system of landing gears which would
be a 6 dof system.
91
Shelly Aggarwal
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai
Laser –Micro Machined
Bulk PZT Ultrasonic
Traveling Wave Motor
Mentor
Amit Lal
The traveling wave ultrasonic motor is
considered for use in haptic devices,
microscopes and cameras. We demonstrate
a traveling wave ultrasonic motor from PZT
cantilever beam by creating an effect of
travelling wave from its in plane and out of plane
bending mode. Piezoelectric actuators are
electro-mechanical energy transducers; they
transform electrical energy into motion using
inverse piezoelectric effect. Bulk PZT actuators
are micro machines to defined 12 beams in
a circular pattern by laser-cutting through a
PZT-4 plate while also defining arbitrary 2D
electrode patterns on top and bottom surface
of the beam by using a commercial laser
cutting tool. PZT motor of different length 4mm,
3 mm and 2.5 mm long, 0.45 mm wide and 0.5
mm thick were characterized by placing a rotor
connected to ball bearing at centre of motor.
The experimental results demonstrate that
prototypes achieves maximum speed of 500
rpm at an applied voltage 25 Vp-p sinusoidal
signal of 30 kHz for 2.5 mm length motor.
The direction of rotation can be controlled by
switching between electrodes.
92
Shashwat Kumar Singh
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata
Earthquake Relocation in the
Middle Atlas: Apparently-Deep
Events Resolved to be Shallow
Mentor
Maximiliano J. Bezada Vierma
The occurrence of intermediate depth seismicity
in intracontinental settings is rare, but it has been
postulated with various degrees of certainty in
several regions. One such region is the Middle
Atlas of Morocco. In the last twenty years, more
than a dozen intermediate depth earthquakes
were reported in this region by Spain’s National
Geographic Institute (IGN). The apparent deep
nature of these events is hard to reconcile
with well-established geophysical evidence of
a thin lithosphere under the Middle Atlas. We
relocate 4 events with IGN-reported depths
greater than 80 km that were recorded by a
relatively dense temporary deployment; using
a recent regional 3D velocity model obtained
through tele-seismic body and surface wave
tomography. The relocation procedure uses a
grid-search approach to minimize the mean
normalized misfit, where each travel-time misfit
is normalized by the estimated pick uncertainty.
We find that our observed arrivals are much
better fit by shallow (<5 km) depths than the
reported depths of >80 km. We propose that
these shallow foci earthquakes are the result
of regional crustal deformation of this region
caused by the present convergence between
Africa and Eurasian Plate. This study is an
example of how local earthquake locations
can be significantly improved by using a wellconstrained 3-D velocity model and a dense
local seismic array.
93
Sidhyansh Saxena
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Methods and Apparatus for a
Survivor Search System Using
One or More Drones
Mentor
Ashutosh Sabharwal
Rice University, Houston
One of the most important and critical factors
while searching for survivors during a disaster
or calamity is time. To maximize the chances
of survival one needs to find the location and
vital statistics of the survivors as swiftly as
possible allowing the rescue forces to plan and
allocate resources appropriately. In this paper
we demonstrate a system that can use one or
more drones to assist in survivor search. One
of the key contribution of the system is that
the drones can operate autonomously or as
a coordinated group to locates the survivors,
measure their vital signs without requiring
them to come in contact with the survivors, and
conveys the measured vital signs, location and
images (still or video) to the rescuers or mission
operators. The drones can use one or more
sensing or imaging modalities to find physically
accessible and inaccessible survivors from
long distances. To increase the overall search
time with limited battery, the drone can switch
from one sensing modality to another, or use
the cloud computing back end to off load some
of the computing tasks.
94
Shristi Singh
National Institute of Technology, Warangal
Spreading of Miscible
Sessile Drops
Mentor
Gerald Fuller
Stanford University, California.
The spreading of sessile drops
represents a classical problem in
interfacial fluid mechanics. Under
the action of gravity or capillary
forces, drops have been measured
to spread with well-known power law
dependencies on time as they adjust
their shapes and contact angles.
Tanner’s law, which describes the
spreading of a drop under the action
of capillary forces is a prominent
example. Similarly, a sessile drop
that finds itself immersed beneath
a second fluid in which it is miscible
spreads spontaneously as the
resulting interfacial tension between
the two liquids diminishes in time.
This problem, which does not appear
to have been previously addressed,
is the subject of this study.
As time evolves, dissolution of the
two initially distinct, homogeneous
liquids into one another causes the
interfacial tension to diminish and
the liquid-liquid interface to blur.
Concurrently at the contact line,
the two miscible liquids compete
to wet the solid interface relative to
their surface energies and surface
tensions. Possible density differences
between the two miscible liquids can
influence the spreading phenomena
as well. Gradients in interfacial
tension over the liquid-liquid
interface, created by drop movement
and dissolution at different rates and
in different directions, will lead to
Marangoni stresses that accelerate
the spreading of the miscible sessile
drop.
Miscible liquid pairs such as
(Drop
Liquid-Ambient
Liquid)
Corn
Syrup-Water,
GlycerolWater, Glycerol-Ethanol, GlycerolIsopropanol, Tricresyl PhosphateEthanol, Tricresyl PhosphateIsopropanol, and silicone oils
(viscosities varying from 1 to 10,000
cSt) were studied. The observed
shape evolution and dynamics of
sessile drops spreading into miscible
environments is qualitatively different
than those observed for liquidimmiscible environment systems. In
addition to a spreading contact line,
there exists a portion of the drop that
is elevated above the liquid-substrate
interface and, in some cases, extends
beyond the contact line, as depicted
in the figure.
We have found in the miscible liquid
pairs studied to date that miscible
sessile drops also spread with power
law dependencies on time, R ~ tn with
n≈ 0.4 - 0.5, which is independent of
the initial drop volume.
95
Shilpa Vijay
Experimental Characterization
of Permeability in 3-D Printed
Porous Cylinders
Mentor
Mitul Luhar
Research has suggested that flow through
porous media has a significant impact on flow
and can improve the efficiency of a fluid based
system by achieving reduction in drag forces and
hence reducing losses by skin friction. However,
there exists no systematic way to vary the
porosity and permeability of a porous structure.
The present research attempts to utilize the 3D
printing technology to systematically vary the
porosity and the geometry of the material and
experimentally characterize it for permeability.
Twelve different cylindrical porous samples
of varying geometry spanning a wide range
of porosity were manufactured using the 3-D
printer and were experimentally tested in a
constant head permeameter apparatus. Non
linear relationship between superficial velocity
and pressure gradient was observed indicating
the influence of inertial effects. Challenges
faced were existence of air bubbles in constant
head permeameter apparatus which affected
the permeability values. The results were
compared with the Carman Kozeny equation
which predicts permeability for packed solid
beds and it was found that the results are
slightly offset indicating the existence of a
different relationship. Future work involves
identifying the relationship between porosity
and permeability in a single equation.
96
Soumya Kamal Kanungo
National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneshwar
Saturation Absorption
Spectroscopy
Mentor
James P. Shaffer
University of Oklahoma, Norman
Saturation absorption spectroscopy
is a technique to nullify the effect
of Doppler Broadening in transition
lines in atoms. Especially when
the transition levels are close by
(like hyperfine splitings), individual
absorption peaks are not resolved
due to broadening caused by the
doppler effect. The measurement
of absorption is made on atoms
in vapor cell. Since at room
temperature the velocities of
atoms are given by maxwellian
distribution, atoms with different
velocities see different frequency
in their frames for a given light
frequency. Hence the width in the
velocity profile transforms into
the width in absorption profile.
The reason being, even when the
frequency is off-resonance for
a particular transition, we would
find atoms with certain velocity for
which the transition is possible.
Thus, the broadening occurs
and we can say that a particular
frequency gets absorbed by
particles of a particular velocity
class. Saturation absorption uses
two counter propagating beams to
counter this effect. One is the pump
beam(higher intensity) and the
probe beam(lower intensity). The
pump beam is required to saturate
the absorption for a population with
certain velocity. Since the probe
beam is travelling the other way, it
interacts with a certain population
whose velocity is just opposite but
same in magnitude. It also gets
absorbed. But as we scan the
frequencies slowly, there would be
a frequency which would interact
with population with zero velocity.
Now the pump and probe interact
with the same population. But the
pump saturates the absorption and
allows the probe beam to pass
through without getting absorbed.
This only happens if they interact
with the same population and that
is possible when the frequency is
very close to resonance. So the
linewidth obtained is free from any
doppler effect and is very close
to natural linewidth. Saturation
absorption spectroscopy is basic to
experiments in quantum optics.
97
Sooraj Ben K.R.
Indian Institute of Science Education And Research, Thiruvananthapuram
Inorganic Hole Conductor
Cui -Based Perovskite
Solar Cells
Mentor
Prashant V. Kamat
University of Notre Dame
Organic-inorganic
lead
halide
perovskites have emerged as
efficient absorbers in solid state
solar cells known as Perovskite
solar cells, in the last few years.
Perovskite solar cells have become
a major competitor in the field of
photovoltaics, undergoing rapid
evolution in device architecture and
fabrication methods and reaching
power conversion efficiencies of
above 20%. Perovskite solar cells
are expected to be a possible
competitor in the photovoltaic
industry in the future owing to their
low costs and high power conversion
efficiencies. Stability, low cost and
high power conversion efficiency
are the factors which largely affects
the commercialisation of solar
cells. One of the drawbacks of the
current perovskite solar cells is
the usage of spiro- OMeTAD hole
conductor, which is currently more
expensive than gold and have a
low hole mobility and moreover,
being an organic compound,
it is expected to be less stable
during long term operation. In this
98
scenario, inorganic hole conductors
like copper iodide stand chance
as alternative hole conductors in
solid state perovskite solar cells.
CuI is much cheaper, likely to be
more stable than spiro-OMeTAD
and being transparent, can also be
used in inverted perovskite solar
cells. Christians et al. has reported
CuI hole conductor perovskite solar
cells with an efficiency of 6%. They
demonstrated that CuI is much
stable and a better hole conductor
than spiro-OMeTAD. However,
they followed a syringe injection
technique for CuI deposition which
is tedious and is difficult to scale
up. This project focuses on a much
simpler 2 step deposition of CuI
film, by first depositing metallic
Cu followed by conversion to CuI.
This method is simple, is expected
to produce more uniform films of
CuI and can be scaled up easily.
The project focuses on designing a
suitable strategy for cuI fabrication
in perovskite solar cells and
produce inorganic hole conductor
cells of high efficiency.
Shruthi Tiruchirapalli Kumar Raj
CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute, Karaikudi
Porous Silicon Carbide from
Silica Aerogels Crosslinked
with Aromatic Triisocyanates
Mentor
Nicholas Leventis
Missouri University of Science & Technology, Rolla
SiC, a bioinert, wide bandgap semiconductor
is used in a wide range of applications, from
an abrasive in the 1940’s to a semiconductor
material in today’s electronic devices. SiC
is also used in the large scale synthesis of
epitaxial graphene, the wonder material,
by graphitisation at elevated temperatures.
The synthesis procedure for SiC is usually
tedious and porosities of 30 v/v% are typically
considered high. Our synthesis route describes
the synthesis of highly porous SiC (89%) by
carbothermal reduction of 3D sol-gel silica
nanostructures cross-linked with an aromatic
isocyanate. The SiC obtained by pyrolysis of
X-Si at 1500ºC was found to be macroporous
with a surface area of 30 m2/g and having
particulate morphology. Thermogravimetric
analysis confirmed the high oxidation resistance
of as prepared SiC at elevated temperatures.
The skeletal density of as prepared SiC was
found to be 3.12 g/cm3 which matches closely
with pure SiC (3.2 g/cm3)
99
Soumya Wadhwa
Predicting the Number of
Triangles in Similarity-Based
Graphs using Node-Sampling
Mentor
Srinivasan Parthasarathy
Ohio State University, Columbus
Most real networks can be represented by
sparse graphs, and they tend to become
denser over time. Studying the evolution
of these networks is of immense interest to
researchers. An ideal way to do this is to obtain
real-world networks with time stamped edges,
and model them based on graph snapshots.
Unfortunately, complete temporal information
is rarely available for existing networks.
Additionally, data is often not in network form,
and consists of objects (or vectors). Such data
can be represented by graphs, and can be
studied using graph measures. In particular,
triangle counting in graphs is an important
algorithmic problem owing to its significant role
in exploratory data mining, graph mining and
statistical data analysis. In our work, we seek to
make the process of counting triangles faster,
using node-sampling techniques, as similaritybased graphs get denser. We propose a
scheme to estimate triangle counts in larger
graphs by observing it on a series of smaller
graphs. Using a triangle counting algorithm as
a black box, we implement our method on 10
real-world data sets. We show that this method
predicts triangle counts with low errors, and
results in considerably less computational time.
100
Soumya Ranjan Sahoo
National Institute of Technology, Rourkela
Navier-Stokes/Darcy
Coupling on Complex
Geometries
Mentor
Dominik Schillinger
We present the coupling of NavierStokes/Darcy equations to model
the filtration of incompressible
fluid through porous media of
human liver. The Navier-Stokes
equations are used for the motion
of incompressible free fluids while
Darcy equations are adopted to
model the filtration process. These
equations are coupled through
suitably chosen conditions that
describe the fluid flow across
the surface of the porous media
through which the filtration occurs.
For our problem we have used
immersogeometric finite element
method. For the analysis we have
used PetIGA software. PetIGA,
a code framework which is used
to approximate the solution of
partial
differential
equations
using NURBS-based Galerkin
finite element method (FEM),
popularly known as iso-geometric
analysis (IGA). It is heavily based
on PETSc, the Portable, and
Extensible Toolkit for Scientific
Computation. PETSc is a collection
of a high-performance library for
the scalable solution of partial
differential equations. The solution
scheme is an immersed finite
element method, which is used for
the interaction of complex fluid and
immersed deformable structure. In
this method we can perform the
discretization for both the solid and
fluid independently. This method
has the capability of handling nonuniform and independent meshes
by applying the arbitrary boundary
condition on different domains.
The modeling and meshing of the
liver is performed by using Autocad
software.
101
Subrata Singha
Indian School of Mines Dhanbad
Fluid Saturation Change and
Pressure Change Estimation
from Time-Lapse Seismic Data
Mentor
Mrinal K. Sen
University of Texas, Austin
Pressure change along with
fluid-saturation changes creates
abnormal seismic response. It is
very difficult to separate these
two effects from seismic data. In
most time-lapse studies, seismic
differences between a baseline and
monitor surveys are analysed and
interpreted as either a pressure
effect or a fluid effect. Seismic
amplitude depends upon velocity
and density contrast across the
interface. It varies with angle of
incidence also. Rock physics
models establish the relations
between
seismic
parameters
with effective pressure and fluid
saturation. Using rock physics
model seismic parameters for a
particular rock can be calculated for
given fluid saturation and pressure.
So, seismic parameters are
affected due to change in pressure
and fluid saturation and change in
seismic parameters will change
the seismic amplitude. It is very
clear that pressure and saturation
change modify seismic amplitude
variation with angle. I worked with
synthetic time-lapse data. A twolayer model was considered and
it was assumed that there is no
change in effective pressure and
102
saturation during production and all
the changes are taking place in the
second layer. Seismic parameters
for the first layer were assumed
and fixed for both pre-production
and post-production model. For
the lower layer i.e. reservoir layer
seismic parameters for both preproduction and post-production
were calculated using rock physics
theories. After this I created
synthetic PP-reflection data using
AVA equations. Change in intercept
and gradients were calculated and
those are related to change in
pressure and saturation through
Landro’s equations. Using those
equations change in pressure and
saturation were computed. Though
saturation change was computed
correctly but pressure change
results were not good. So, I went for
the error contour plot and found that
there is high uncertainty in pressure
change estimation. So next I used
PP+PS reflection coefficients for
computing change in pressure and
saturation for the same model and
the results were better than the
previous one. Again I went for error
plot and found that uncertainty in
estimation was reduced.
Srishti Bhutani
National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra
Analytical Evaluation of
Unreinforced Masonry
Stability
Mentor
Arturo Schultz
Unreinforced Masonry (URM) construction
is one of the oldest types of construction.
Structures made from unreinforced masonry
are very much vulnerable to collapse in an
earthquake. A major portion of existing buildings
is made from unreinforced masonry material
and hence it is most important to investigate
its stability under various loading events. In
the scope of the project, an investigation was
done on the influence of lateral loads on the
critical(buckling) axial loads in unreinforced
masonry(URM) walls. A finite element analysis
model was developed through a software
named ABAQUS for a variety of solid and hollow
URM walls. The material was assumed to have
no tensile strength and to have linear elastic
response to compression stresses. Under the
project, finite element meshes were formulated
to represent the various cases of URM walls,
loading procedures were developed to simulate
the external compression and uniformly
distributed lateral loading(i.e. pressure) and
then finite element solutions were verified by
using a formula derived from an approximate
analytic solution. Agreement to a certain extent
was achieved between the results from earlier
developed formulae and results from ABAQUS
analysis.
103
Suman Ghosh
Jadavpur University, West Bengal
Appliance Reader: A Wearable,
Crowd-sourced, Vision-based System
to Make Appliances Accessible
Mentor
Jeffrey Bigham
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh
Visually impaired people have difficulty using
everyday appliances in unfamiliar setups.
ApplianceReader combines a wearable pointof-view camera with on-demand crowdsourcing
and computer vision to make appliance
interfaces accessible. The system sends preprocessed photos of the unseen appliance
interface to online crowd workers, who work in
parallel to quickly label and describe elements
of the interface in depth. During appliance
operation, the system takes in live video
stream from the wearable camera (eg. Google
Glass). Based on the task to be done, we use
object recognition and feature matching to find
targets within the live video stream. Computer
vision techniques are used to track the user’s
finger pointing at the controls. The system
then uses audio feedback to intuitively guide
the user’s finger from its current location to the
target location minimizing the number of turns
and backtracking. This enables blind users to
interactively explore and use appliances without
asking the crowd repetitively. ApplianceReader
broadly demonstrates the potential of hybrid
approaches that combine the reliability of
human knowledge and speed of automation to
effectively realize intelligent, interactive access
technology.
104
Ujash Shah
Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Goa
Numerical Simulation of
Waves in Stratified Seas to
Validate Cloaking
Mentor
A. Ardekani
Present work deals with numerical validation
of a cloaking phenomenon of floating objects
in stratified fluids. Sharp vertical variations in
fluid density, called ‘pycnoclines’, are caused
by temperature and/or salinity gradients and
ubiquitously occur in oceans. Internal waves,
formed in these gravity-stable stratified
environments, oscillate and propagate within
fluid medium. The invisibility cloaking of gravity
waves is achieved by utilizing a nonlinear
resonance concept that occurs between surface
and internal waves mediated by the bottom
topography. The purpose of present work is
to validate this phenomenon with the help of
Direct Numerical Simulation. A Numerical
Wave Tank is set-up using an open-source
flow solver called Gerris. The set-up has been
developed and tested to make it versatile for
testing the cloaking phenomenon. Preliminary
results on cloaking behavior are obtained for
potential flow. Further work is being continued
to include the effects of viscosity and internal
wave breaking on cloaking.
105
Vivek Pandey
Simple & Low Energy
Consuming Synthesis of
Naphthoxazines and Their
Properties
Mentor
Hatsuo Ishida
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland
Polymeric material development
involves developing new materials
or modifying existing materials
to overcome the shortcomings
of the conventional polymers.
Polybenzoxazines came as a new
polymer to overcome shortcomings
of phenolics but still requires
further research to eliminate
other disadvantages to make it
more industrial friendly. Elevated
temperature properties make it
applicable in aerospace fields
and combination of properties
like low dielectric constants and
loss factor makes it usable for
electronic packaging materials.
These resins can be attractive for
composite material manufacturing
and also for non-flammable
materials for the transportation
industry. The rich molecular design
flexibility of benzoxazine is useful
to obtain polymeric materials with
desired properties and application
requirements.
Incorporation
of
condensed
polynuclear aromatic structure,
such as naphthalene in a polymer,
106
can make it more thermally
stable and thus increase its char
yield. The resultant material is
a naphthoxazine rather than a
benzoxazine.
Four kinds of naphthoxazines were
synthesized and their thermal &
thermo-rheological
properties
were analysed. The most attractive
naphthoxazine was also selected.
Thus, a new polymer precursor
was developed that solved many
of the problems encountered in
the field by possessing significant
advantages for actual production
and applications, such as low
energy
consumption
because
of a short synthetic scheme and
room temperature reaction in the
entire preparation process. The
polymerization temperature of this
material is significantly lower than
ordinary benzoxazine monomers.
In these 3 months of the program,
we also prepared the first draft of
research paper for this new work.
Thus, to keep confidentiality of
the work before publication, this
abstract is incomplete.
Venkatachalam Avadiappan
Model for Variable
Temperature Heat
Integration
Mentor
Christos T Maravelias
The project is about building a model for
variable temperature heat integration which
involves the optimization of heat recovery
systems and process operating conditions in
order to minimize the energy consumption in
a process.
It is about how efficiently heat can be exchanged
between the hot and cold streams
Sometimes heat available with the hot streams
may not be sufficient to heat the cold streams
in that case, hot utility (steam) is needed. If
heat available with the hot streams is in excess
of the heat which can be exchanged with the
cold stream, then cold utility (cooling water) is
needed.
So far researchers have worked on models
with fixed temperature intervals and my project
is about extending it to the case of variable
temperature intervals
Constraints are written to construct the
temperature intervals based on the inlet
and outlet temperatures of the streams. The
temperature intervals spanned by the streams
are found and their corresponding heat duties
are calculated and the expanded transshipment
model is used to calculate the minimum utility
requirement. This model is further extended to
the case of multiple hot, cold utilities and the
case when flow rates are also variables.
107
The Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern
California (USC) and the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum
(IUSSTF) have partnered to support the Viterbi-India Program. This
program provides opportunities to Indian students to undertake
a research internship at the Viterbi School of Engineering each
summer for a period of 8 weeks.
The Viterbi-India Program is envisaged to
•
•
•
•
Provide an opportunity to the best and brightest Indian students
to gain exposure and access to world class research facilities in
the Viterbi School.
Promote research and capacity building in frontline areas of
engineering and technology.
Encourage outstanding students to take up research as a
career.
Pave the way for the next generation engineers from India to
interact with American peers, thus help building long-term R&D
linkages and collaborations.
Eligibility
•
•
Indian students currently pursuing a Bachelors or Masters
degree at recognized institutions of higher education in India.
Open to students of Electrical Engineering, Computer Sciences
and Computational Sciences.
Scholarship includes:
•
•
Stipend
Air-fare
http://www.iusstf.org/story/53-51-Viterbi-India-Program.html
Aakanksha Naik
Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani
Exploring the Effectiveness of Query
Expansion Techniques in Improving Language
Understanding for Virtual Humans
Mentor
Anton Leuski
The project focused on improving the accuracy
of NPCEditor, software developed by the
Natural Language Dialog group at Institute
of Creative Technologies with the help of
query expansion techniques. This software
uses a training set of question-answer pairs
in conjunction with cross-lingual information
retrieval techniques to develop a classifier
which can accurately retrieve answers to
new questions. But this approach has certain
issues. If the new questions use slightly
different vocabulary, then the retrieval process
might not be very accurate. Also, huge amount
of training data is required to get accurate
results which require considerable human
effort. Query expansion techniques can make
use of external knowledge sources such as
wikipedia to gain more information about the
questions in the training set, and store this
extra information along with the training data.
Using this extra information as well during the
training procedure can lead to more accurate
retrieval results.
112
Adarsh Amarendra Tadimari
Using Trailers to Predict
Movie Revenues
Mentor
Shrikanth Narayanan
Movie trailers are designed to get people
interested about the movie. The trailers could
be strong predictors of the initial success of a
movie, i.e. its opening weekend gross. Work
done so far is based on movie metadata
(actors, director, writers, MPAA rating, budget,
etc), critic reviews and social media content
(for example, rate of tweets on Twitter). On
preliminary investigation into use of content
for prediction, we find that inclusion of audio
and video features from the trailer of a movie
improves the explained variance in the
prediction of its opening weekend gross.
113
Aditi Gupta
Automatically Mapping
Datasets to a Large Real
Word Ontology
Mentor
Craig Knoblock
The project focused on improving the accuracy
of the semantic typing module of the data
integration tool ‘karma’. Schema.org, a
common web mark-up supported by Google,
Microsoft and Yahoo was used as our training
data. It supports data tuples in the form of Nquads consisting of subject, predicate, object
and the web page source. The task at hand
was to teach the system correct semantic
labels of different classes and data properties
so that based on the examples seen in the
past the system can correctly predict semantic
labels for the uploaded columns. Training
on up to 25 terabytes of data we conducted
different experiments to analyze the effect of
training on a limited dataset and the effect of
extending the training coverage. We observed
that training on limited amount of training tuples
performed no worse than training on the entire
dataset but drastically reduced the training
time. Also increasing the extent of coverage
of semantic labels displayed a counter effect
in the form of increased mis-prediction rate
when identifying the correct semantic label for
the column. Future work includes parallelizing
the training algorithm and training on more real
world ontologies.
114
Aditya Chandrasekar
Birla Institute of Technology, Hyderabad
Modeling Topics in
Scientific Literature using
HMM and LDA
Mentor
Prem Natarajan
The goal of the project is to model topics in the
ACL Anthology Reference Corpus, which is a
collection of 9834 scientific papers published
in journals and presented at conferences and
workshops related to computational linguistics.
We use two methods to do topic modeling on
this corpus: Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA)
and Hidden Markov Model based Latent
Dirichlet Allocation (HMM-LDA). Topic modeling
using these two techniques will be used in
automatically generating reading lists. Topic
modeling algorithms do not require any prior
annotations or labeling of the documents—the
topics emerge from the analysis of the original
texts. Topic modeling enables us to organize
and summarize electronic archives at a scale
that would be impossible by human annotation.
We also aim to group similar topics that have
been discovered by different techniques.
115
Ankit Goyal
A Multimodal Approach
to Continuous Emotion
Prediction in Movies
Mentor
Shrikant Narayanan
The project aimed to develop a system
which can dynamically predict the emotions
expressed in a movie clip. Such a system has
numerous applications like building emotion
based video recommendation system, studying
how emotion profile affects a movie’s gross etc.
We used a dataset consisting of 12 movie clips
of 30 minute each. Emotions in these movie
clips are annotated with arousal and valence
values between [-1,1] continuous in time scale.
We designed and tested features both from
audio and video modalities that could to used
to predict arousal and valence. From the audio
modality we used mfcc, chroma, compressibility
and harmonicity features and from the video
modality we used face histogram, video
compressibility, shot frequency, HOOF and
HSV histogram features. We analyzed how
audio and video modalities individually perform.
We also developed different fusion model
which used the complementary information
present in both the modalities and analyzed its
performance.
116
Atharva Girish Wazurkar
International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad
Low Power Digital to Analog Converter
in 28nm Technology for Fine Grained
Programmable Delay Element
Mentor :
Peter A. Beerel
Delay elements (DEs) are widely used in VLSI
systems to control the timing of various Delay
elements (DEs) are widely used in VLSI systems
to control the timing of various signals. In
modern technologies, PVT variations, dynamic
fluctuations, and transistor mismatches have
all become more severe, which has made the
post-silicon tunability of DEs critical. This has
led to resilient architectures of VLSI systems.
To avoid unnecessary margins, these delay
lines should be fine-grained providing the
precise timing needed. Although these DEs can
be used in delay-locked loops (DLLs), digitalcontrolled oscillators (DCOs), and others but
our main application is Blade, a timing violation
resilient asynchronous template, in which it will
be used as delay lines.
In this project we designed Low Power Digital
to analog Converter (DAC) in 28nm technology
for fine grained programmable DEs. For low
power DAC we proposed Gated Current mirror
cell which reduces static power dissipation
to nanowatts range.The gated current cell is
used in current steering based DAC which has
linear characteristics and very low glitches. The
output of DAC is connected to back body or
gate of pMOS which is connected to current
starving inverter to form delay element. The
obtained delay element has fine resolution of
0.4ps with linear characteristics.
117
Avisek Lahiri
Large Scale Video Event
Classification
Mentor
Ram Nevatia
Event recognition has been an important topic
in computer vision research due to its many
applications. However, most of the work has
focused on videos taken from a fixed camera,
known environments and basic events. Here,
we focus on classification of unconstrained,
web videos into much higher level activities. We
follow the approach of constructing fixed length
feature vectors from local feature descriptors
for classification using an SVM. Our key
contribution is the study of the utility of multi
scale Fisher Vector representation in improving
results compared to the conventional Bag-ofWords (BoW) approach. We perform tests on
the challenging NIST TRECVID Multimedia
Event Detection (MED) dataset, which
has thousand hours of unconstrained user
generated video. Multiscale representation
achieves better mAP performance compared
to entire video level features.
118
Biswajit Paria
Feature Learning in Clinical
Time Series using Deep
Learning
Mentor
Yan Liu
The current state of art AI systems for
automatic diagnosis are still too unstable
to be recommended for practical purposes.
There have been multiple approaches to
this problem using various machine learning
architectures. We attempt a solution to this
problem using Deep Learning. Deep Learning
is a new paradigm of machine learning that is
yet to be exploited fully. This project aims at
practical methods for automatic phenotyping
which is analogous to feature extraction in the
machine learning domain. The main reasons
behind using a deep learning setting are the
recent breakthroughs on benchmark datasets
by deep learning algorithms.
Our method involves feeding the medical
time series data into an auto-encoder based
deep network and extracting good features
to help classification of diseases. We analyze
the extracted features and try to interpret
them using decision trees. Interpretability of
features can help discover significant hidden
traits among diseases, leading to new forms
of medical diagnoses. We further plan to
extend the implementation to Recurrent Neural
Networks, which are a natural choice to time
series data.
119
Jayashree Mohan
Analyzing Single-Phase Downloads
over Random Duration Links in
Mobile Networks
Mentor
Bhaskar Krishnamachari
In the near-future, all cars will be equipped with
dedicated short range communication radios,
allowing them to talk to other cars on the road,
for safety as well as various infotainment
applications. The cellular industry is also
exploring the design of device to device (D2D)
communication schemes in order to improve
network capacity. A common challenging
problem in these domains is organizing efficient
communication between the radio-equipped
vehicles or devices which may encounter each
other for a random duration.
We consider a fundamental problem in this
domain i.e. to maximize the amount of useful
content downloaded by a client from a server
over an encounter that lasts a random amount
of time. Assuming that the distribution of link
duration is known or estimated a priori based on
historical as well as real-time measurements,
we propose a protocol called MERLIN
(Maximum Expected download over Random
LINks), a single-phase file request protocol
that is provably optimal. We have shown how
the optimal number of requests can be derived
mathematically, and through simulations
investigated how various parameters affect the
performance of MERLIN.
120
Kushal Dilipkumar Salecha
Smart Grids
Mentor
Viktor Prasanna
Demand Response (DR) is a widely used
and a promising method to minimize the
peak to average consumption ratio during
high demands. State of the heuristics have
been proposed and designed over the years
to solve similar problems. One such heuristic
was already developed by the team. But we
observe that the quality of solutions is not good
and we obtain large errors in certain cases
(errors as high as above 90 percentage). In this
paper we present a mathematical modelling
of the problem that helps us obtain optimal
solutions. We model the efficient customer
selection problem for load curtailment as a
simple Integer Linear Programming Problem
(ILP). Various solution techniques can be used
to solve this ILP and achieve desired load
curtailment. Approximate and randomized
algorithms cWe use an industry standard solver
to get optimal solutions. We further formulate a
theorem which shows how heuristic can give
really bad solutions. While our technique gives
exactly optimal solutions in less than a minute
in all most all cases.
121
Megha Arora
Understanding the Impact
of Demographics on
Sociability
Mentor
Kristina Lerman
Sociability is the preference for being with others
rather than being alone. Psychologists posit
a
relationship
between
socioeconomic
environment, cognitive factors and sociability.
In recent times, people have started using
Online Social Networks for their interactions.
Twitter is a popular platform for online social
interactions, as it enables people to interact
virtually through ‘user mentions’. We have tried
to understand the social interactions taking
place on Twitter by linking them to US census
tracts and understanding how demographics
impact these interactions. Our analysis
suggests that demographic, cognitive and
socioeconomic factors strongly correlate with
Sociability and these correlations are vividly
traceable in social interactions on Twitter.
122
Mehak Gupta
Evidence of Non-Linear
Manifold in fMRI data
Mentor
Richard M. Leahy,
fMRI is a modern non-invasive imaging
technology which can be used to identify
regions in the brain that get activated when
participants perform certain tasks. fMRI
measures time-series (15-minutes, 1200
samples) BOLD activity in the cortex. If there
is a redundancy in the acquired BOLD activity,
it can be represented in a lower dimensional
manifold (<<1200). The data we used was
fMRI data of left hemisphere of the subject. It
was standardized and was filtered using nonlocal means. Our study included reducing 1200
dimensional data to a lower dimensional space.
The data comprised of 10203 vertices with
Corpus Callosum removed. We used various
manifold learning techniques to reduce the
dimensionality of large dataset. A non-linear
combination of different networks might be
present in fMRI data which can be uncovered
using non-linear embedding. If there exists a
non-linear manifold in the fMRI data, non-linear
embedding will produce better and noise-free
representation of the BOLD data, which can
be used for parcellation and further analysis.
Techniques that were used comprised of
MultiDimensional Scaling, Locally Linear
Embedding and Isomap. Our results show
that Isomap outperforms other techniques and
indicates the existence of non-linear manifold
in fMRI.
123
Prakhar Kumar
Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani
Neuromorphic CircuitsNeural Network
Simulations
Mentor
Mike Chen
Neuromorphic circuits are those
circuits which try to emulate
the computational power of the
human brain. This means that the
hardware needs to be taught how
to learn like the human brain. For
our purpose we are implementing
a face recognition system, to which
face detection is a pre-requisite.
So we have tried to implement the
face detection part first. Before
translating it to hardware, it is
simulated using neural networks
on MATLAB. The neural network
architecture was decided keeping in
mind the hardware implementation
aspect. For this purpose, we tried to
combine two different architecturesconvolutional networks for better
learning and spiking networks
for power efficient hardware
implementation.
124
Convolutional Neural Networks
(CNNs): are hierarchical neural
networks where the parameters
consist of a set of trainable filters. It
has 3 basic layer types:
•C
onvolution
layer:
for
feature
extraction
•P
ooling layer: for down sampling data
to reduce the number of parameters.
•M
ulti layer perceptron: is the final
layer and used as a classifier.
Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs):
SNNs are biologically more
plausible models as compared to
others, since here the neurons use
spikes to communicate with each
other. As the synaptic potential
incoming to a particular neuron
increases above a certain threshold,
it spikes to a large potential followed
by a refractory period wherein no
spiking can occur.
Rucha Sanjay Vaidya
Usage of DTN for Ebola
Monitoring and Response
Mentor
John Wroclawski
The problem statement was to design a
communication network in the regions affected
by Ebola in Africa to transfer health care
related data. The current African Network
condition was found to be very poor in terms
of Internet connectivity. A network model was
developed for connecting the health-centres in
villages with the main city using Delay Tolerant
Networks(DTN) which have the capability of
handling partitioned networks effectively with
intermittent connectivity and allowing data
transfer even in the absence of connection.
A model was developed for file transfer using
DTN software and tested on the DETER
Testbed by varying number of nodes, patient
arrival distribution and memory constraints.
This model gave an insight into modeling
the Ebola Monitoring and Response Project
initiated by the World Bank.
125
Sagar Kashinath Honnungar
Target Detection Via LowRank Tensor Completion
Mentor
Urbashi Mitra
The problem of target detection is
pervasive across a number of domains,
from environmental to military, especially in
underwater applications, it is a challenging
task because of limitations of resources such
as power and sensing capabilities. However,
it is usually observed that the target signature
is present in many modalities. In chemical
plume detection, for example, the chemical
signature might be present in various ways
such as chemical concentration and drift
rate at a particular location. In this work, we
consider the problem of joint sensing of the
target signatures and detection of the source
by using these data simultaneously. We
designed a novel tensor based field model and
localization algorithm for detecting the location
of a target in a two-dimensional search space
by sampling multiple fields (measureable
quantities which are affected by the target
in the search region) simultaneously. These
multiple two-dimensional scalar fields together
are modelled as a third-order tensor. The
resulting tensor is sampled at some locations
and low-rank tensor approximation methods
are used to recover the target location. We
also showed that there is a gain in probability of
detection in our model where we use multiple
fields jointly as compared to using individual
fields separately.
126
Saurav Prakash
Reducing Complexity for
Signal Processing on
Graphs
Mentor
Salman Avestimehr
Recently, efforts have been made to
characterise the frequency domains
for signals residing on the nodes
of a weighted graph. The edge
weights capture data correlation:
greater an edge weight, smoother
the signal on the corresponding
nodes. Analogous to the classical
signal
processing,
frequency
can be defined for graphs. The
eigenvalues and eigenvectors of
the graph Laplacian define the
frequency domain for graph signals
on. An eigenvector associated with
a larger eigenvalue represents a
faster variation of graph signal.
Thus, one can define a cut-off
frequency for the bandlimited graph
signals that can be reconstructed
from a given set of samples (i.e.
graph nodes). The aim is to find an
optimal sampling set given a cut-off
frequency. As shown recently, this
can be computed exactly. However,
the complexity is polynomial in the
number of nodes. Recent work
have shown that graphs associated
with large, real datasets are sparse
in nature, i.e., where is the number
of edges. The aim of the project
was to develop an algorithm to
find an optimal sampling set with
complexity nearly linear in. We
came across a framework for
learning from labeled and unlabeled
data. The time complexity of
the algorithm derived from this
framework is nearly linear due
to recently developed numerical
techniques. The framework is
apparently closely related to the
bandlimited interpolation of graph
signals. In future, we want to
explore these connections in our
attempt to find an optimal sampling
set with reduced complexity.
127
Tathagata Srimani
Electronics and Optoelectronics
of a novel Transition Metal
Dichalcogenide
Mentor
Prof Chongwu Zhou
Semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs)
have attracted lot of
attention recently, because of their interesting
electronic, optical, and mechanical properties.
Among large numbers of TMDCs, monolayer
of tungsten diselenides (WSe2) is of particular
interest since it possesses a direct bandgap
and tunable charge transport behaviors, which
make it suitable for a variety of electronic and
optoelectronic applications. Direct synthesis
of large domains of monolayer WSe2 and
their growth mechanism studies are important
steps toward applications of WSe2. The work
was on systematical studies on Physical vapor
deposition(PVD) growth of monolayer and few
layer WSe2 flakes directly on silica substrates
with investigations on how growth parameters,
with emphasis on growth temperatures and
durations, affect the sizes, layer numbers,
and shapes of as-grown WSe2
flakes.
The WSe2 flakes were characterized using
optical microscopy, atomic force microscopy,
Raman spectroscopy, and photoluminescence
spectroscopy. These results deepen our
understandings on the vapor phase growth
mechanism of WSe2, and may benefit the
uses of these PVD-grown monolayer materials
in electronic and optoelectronics.
128
Vikranth Reddy Dwaracherla
Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
Developing a Stereo Vision
Algorithm
Mentor
Jay Kuo
We tried to develop a new stereo vision
algorithm which helps us in extracting 3D
information (disparity map) by taking 2D
images as input. Disparity is the shift in the
location of object from one image (left/right)
to another. Depth is inversely proportional to
disparity. Stereo Vision is inspired by the way
we see the world in 3D using left and right
eyes. In this algorithm, we start by defining a
measure of confidence for all possible disparity
values at each pixel of the image. Next, we
pick reliable pixels using measures such as
peak distinctiveness and thresholding on the
minimum cost to remove low textured and
occluded pixels respectively. This generates a
sparse disparity map. Now, using this sparse
disparity map of reliable pixels and Contour
guided Color Palette (CCP) segmentation, we
generate a dense disparity map. This can be
refined further by using energy minimization
algorithm. The disparity map gives us depth
information. It has applications in Robotics,
Object Recognition, etc.
129
Notes
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