Seminars

Abstract: It is widely recognized that conservation of natural capital is vital for sustainable development. Industrial societies are increasingly recognizing the need for shifting to more environmentally conscious activities. Consequently there is a need for modifying existing processes and developing new technologies that minimize environmental impact while providing stimulating economic value to businesses. Over the last few decades issues such as fossil fuel depletion and global warming have strongly motivated research on renewable energy technologies.

 Contents: Laboratory hazards and control measures. Causes of accidents. Accident reporting. Safety precautions in handling of chemicals gas cylinders and biosamples. Equipment safety. Types of personal protective equipment. Importance of housekeeping. Emergency response. Accident case studies. Findings of safety review.

Abstract: Particulate air pollutants (particulate matter; PM or aerosols) consist of material in solid or liquid phase suspended in the atmosphere. They may be either emitted into the atmosphere or formed within the atmosphere itself. Atmospheric pollution studies in urban industrialized areas are of increasing interest as it has been well established that in addition to their significant effect on Earth’s climate the fine aerosol particles originated from urban industrialized regions are directly related to adverse human health impact.

Abstract: A large class of amorphous or disordered materials ranging f rom “hard” bulk-metallic glasses to “soft” foams exhibit strain localisation when s ubject to a sufficiently large defor- mation. This particular phenomenon often leads to material failure and thus obtaining a microscopic understanding of this process becomes very imp ortant. In recent work we have studied the instability responsible for this process from a microscopic point of view using athermal quasi-static simulations of binary Lennard-Jon es glasses and continuum solid me- chanics.

Abstract : Pollination soil formation nitrogen cycling and disease regulation are examples of ecosystem services which form the very basis of all human activities. Despite their critical importance and global degradation most engineering decisions including those based on methods meant to enhance sustainability ignore these essential resources. Thus despite the growing interest in sustainability at corporations governments universities and among consumers making decisions without accounting for the goods and services that provide our life support could lead to perverse outcomes.

Abstract : Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is a meshless particle based Lagrangian numerical method that has been in development for the past three decades. Commensurate with the exponential growth in computational power SPH has been increasingly applied to solve problems of greater complexity in fluid mechanics solid mechanics interfacial flows astrophysics and in interdisciplinary problems like fluid-structure interaction granular flows fracture mechanics solidification etc.

Abstract : The constituents of an energized granular mixture tend to separate due to difference in their size and/or density. Segregation in spite of being an important and seemingly simple phenomenon is difficult to explain both because of the interplay of various parameters governing the segregation process and because granular materials do not have a well understood constitutive law.

Abstract : There has been a shift of focus towards diesel and lean burn engines for automobiles because of their higher fuel mileage. However NOx abatement is a challenging task under excess air conditions due to which alternate technologies for NOx reduction are in focus. One of these technologies is the NOx storage and reduction (NSR). It consists of two cyclic steps which occur on a lean NOx trap (LNT) catalyst: NOx storage during the fuel lean phase and NOx reduction/regeneration during the rich phase.

Abstract : Micron-size gas bubbles encapsulated by a nanometer layer of proteins lipids and other surfactants are injected into a patient’s body to improve ultrasound imaging. Currently two such contrast agentsOptison (GE Health Care) and Definity (Lantheus Medical Imaging)are approved by the Food and Drug Administration for echocardiography. They can also be functionalized for molecular imaging and conjugated with drugs for targeted delivery. For the past decade we have been performing experimental and analytical research on contrast microbubbles.

Abstract In the noisy cellular environment many mRNA and protein species occur at low integer molecular counts and hence are subject to large stochastic fluctuations in copy numbers over time. Far from being a hindrance signatures of protein/mRNA noise levels can be informative about the underlying gene network topology. In this talk I will present recently developed mathematical techniques that harness fluctuations in the levels of biochemical species for systems identification of gene regulatory networks.