ITBHUGlobal.org: The Chronicle: The Renaissance of IT-Cafeteria

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IT-Cafeteria has been highly revamped in last few weeks after Prof. S.K. Sharma took over as Chairman, IT-Cafeteria. IT-Cafeteria today, is just another mention in the long list of issues which have been made student/faculty/administration staff friendly/concerned by Prof. S.K. Sharma, who is very popular among the IT-BHU community.

The menu has grown by leaps and bounds taking into account the needs and choice of students while being in accordance with nutrition and cost factors and university rules and regulations. Now a days, eatables like ‘Bhelpuri’, ‘Chola Bhatura’, ‘Dosa’, ‘Spring Roll’, ‘Popcorn’ , ‘Candy’ and many others are also readily available apart from ‘Samosa’, ‘Pakoda’, ‘Rasgulla’ ,‘Lavang-Latta’ and ‘Tea/Coffee’ which have been served for long time in IT-Cafeteria since its conception. Worth mentioning in context, is the fact that for the first time at IT-Cafeteria, certain very specific private individuals of catering business and small shopkeepers of the city have been contracted to sell food items like Bakery Products, Amul Dairy Products, Pizza, Nescafe Drinks, Fruit Juices and Ice-creams on decided monetary terms. Students/Faculty/Administration Staff feel pleased to be served with multiplied number of food items and this has led to a similar multiplication factor in the number of individuals visiting IT-Cafeteria during their free hours between lectures and recess times.

ITBHUGlobal.org: The Chronicle: Prof. Sushil Kumar Sharma appointed as Dean of Students, BHU

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(Reported by Praharsh Sharma, B. Tech. Part-III, Department of Electronics Engineering, after meeting with Prof. S. K. Sharma. He can be contacted at Email: praharshsharmaster@gmail.com)

Prof. Sushil Kumar Sharma, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IT-BHU is the new Dean of Students, BHU. His term as Dean of Students, BHU commenced on Oct 16, 2008 and will be effective for three years or till the date of superannuation, whichever is earlier. He succeeds Prof. V. K. Kumra, Department of Geography, Faculty of Science who was the Dean of Students, BHU for the last three years. Prof. S. K. Sharma currently is also holding other responsibilities viz. Chairman, Student Affairs and Chairman, IT-Cafeteria.

After assuming office as the Dean of Students, Prof. S. K. Sharma has reportedly taken up various issues and student affairs as his first objectives during the term. Reforming of five IT-Hostels (Vivekananda Hostel, S.C. De Hostel, Limbdi Hostel, Vishwakarma Hostel and G.S.M.C.) is one of his initial projects which include empowering these hostels with solar water heaters and glamorous mess furniture made of steel. As told by him, converting a few hostels of Faculty of Science and Institute of Technology into model hostels (with facilities like photocopiers, barber shop and others) is one of his prime plans as Dean of Students. His other concerns include construction of OAT (Open Air Theatre) and establishment of SAC (Student Activity Centre) on the unused land behind the IT Extension Counter of State Bank of India, B.H.U. Branch which is a project worth Rs. 1.56 crores. He has also taken up relatively smaller developmental projects like sound proofing of a corner room at Limbdi Hostel for the students to practice Western Music. Apart from other such numerous plans, he is also actively taking up efficient utilization of funds allotted by the university for its students for issues like cultural activities and student festivals.

The promising policies and action plans of the new Dean of Students are being greatly sought after by the students, faculty and the alumni of the institute who believe that with Prof. S. K. Sharma as Dean of Students, the next three years will be monumental in the development of the university in relation to matters of student welfare. 

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About Prof. S.K. Sharma

 (Prof. S.K. Sharma)

Prof. S.K. Sharma is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He has B. Sc. and M. Sc. (Mechanical Engineering) both from IT-BHU, and PhD from IIT -Kharagpur and M.B.M./M.B.A. from BHU. His areas of interest are: Industrial and Production Engineering, Management, CAD/CAM, Manufacturing and Robotics.

Prof. S.K. Sharma can be contacted at: sks_itbhu@rediffmail.com

His profile can be viewed at the department website: http://itbhu.ac.in/mec/index.php/people/faculty.html

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ITBHUGlobal.org: The Chronicle: Restrictions on internet access at hostels

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(Reported by Praharsh Sharma, B. Tech. Part-III, Department of Electronics Engineering. Email: praharshsharmaster@gmail.com)

Gone are the days when IT-BHU students used to proudly boast of ‘24-hour Internet Connectivity’ on hostel rooms. For the uninitiated, it must be made known that IT-Directorate has issued a notification few months back, ordering restriction on Internet access by the students from hostel rooms for stipulated hours of the day. Reportedly, this has been done as a measure to curb untoward usage of the facility, promote extra-curricular activities and urge students to sleep timely in order to feel fresh for their next morning lectures.

(Students using Wi-Fi internet in hostel)

As told by the Director, the notification has been issued keeping in sight, recommendations for the same cause received from student-affairs-concerned officials like Coordinator, IT-Hostels (Prof. S.K. Srivastava) and Computer Centre In-charge (Mr. N. Prasad). Students, as added by the Director, have been reported by Computer Centre staff (monitoring the web-traffic, Internet usage and accessed content in the institute), to be found by misusing internet to view inappropriate content and downloading multimedia files like movies and songs. He further made it known that three alumni (one each from Department of Electrical Engineering, Department of Computer Science & Engineering and Department of Metallurgical Engineering)  who came down to the campus few weeks back for recruitment purpose, visited one of the hostels and strikingly spotted students misusing the facility of Internet Connectivity in rooms. In addition to these causes, as reported by the IT-Directorate, the action has been taken also because, students were observed to have made surfing internet all through the night till early morning, a common practice. This is supposed to have been initiating a hampering effect on the strength of students turning up for morning lectures. Also, the concern of President, IT-Gymkhana about the regularly declining number of students indulging in extra-curricular activities on a regular basis and daily sports was one of the several amounting causes for this restriction to occur.

As of the present situation, Internet Connectivity is laid down/put-off in two time slots – 04:30- 07:00 pm (which means just after class hours) and 00:00-06:00 am (sleeping hours) except Sunday when Internet Connectivity is available round the day. Thus, for most of the days, students cannot access Internet during the cut-down hours and this has led to debatable opinions amongst the IT-BHU Community. A big section of the students, though are agitated about being devoid of 24 hour Internet facility which they believe is a necessary asset in today’s scenario. Some of them argue that, this is hampering necessary routine usage like internship and career related surfing, mailing, searching information for academic needs etc. Also, this time of the year experiences heavy use of Internet by students pertaining to their Internship concerns. On the other side, as there is no statistical compilation available for number of students spending time on playgrounds in the evening, it is difficult to conclude on whether this reason for the restriction stands helped or not. About students’ sleeping hours at night, there is still no well pronounced effect of the restriction in the matter as Local Area Network (LAN) and tools like Direct Connect  operate independent of Internet Connectivity on a 24x7 basis. This is because; these are managed by student volunteers unlike Internet Connectivity which is under the control of Computer Centre, BHU.

ITBHUGlobal.org: The Chronicle: Prof. Virendra Singh appointed as Dean of Faculty

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(Reported by Praharsh Sharma, B. Tech. Part-III, Department of Electronics Engineering. Email: praharshsharmaster@gmail.com)

Prof. Virendra Singh, Department of Civil Engineering, IT-BHU is the new Dean of Faculty of Engineering and Technology, BHU. He assumed office on the afternoon of Dec 19, 2008. His term as Dean, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, BHU is effective from Dec 20, 2008, for three years or till the date of superannuation, whichever is earlier. He succeeds Prof. J. N. Sinha, Department of Electrical Engineering, who was the Dean, Faculty of Engineering and Technology for the last three years. Prof. Sinha’s term expired on Dec 19, 2008.

With the institute standing prone to a few influential and important issues in the current times (for instance, IT-BHU to IIT Conversion), the policies and action plans of the new Dean will be greatly sought after by the students, faculty and the alumni of the institute.  

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About Prof. Virendra Singh

 (Prof. Virendra Singh)

Prof. Virendra Singh is a Professor in the department of Civil Engineering. He has B. Tech. (Civil), M. Tech. (Geotechnical) both from IIT Kharagpur, and Ph.D. from IT-BHU. His areas of interest are: Pile Foundation and Shear Strength.

Prof. V. Singh can be contacted at: vsingh@bhu.ac.in

His profile can be viewed at the department website: http://www.itbhu.ac.in/civ/index.php/faculty.html

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ITBHUGlobal.org: The Chronicle: Upcoming campus seminars/conferences/workshops

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Below shown is the list of the upcoming seminars, conferences and workshops at our campus during January-march 2009. The list is extracted from the master list of seminars/conferences/workshops available on our university’s official website:

http://www.bhu.ac.in/seminar/seminar.htm

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ITBHUGlobal.org: The Chronicle: East Zone Inter-University Youth Festival (UNIFESTS 2008-09) - A report

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(Forwarded by Devender Singh Maun, 2^nd year Ceramics. Email: devender.maun@gmail.com)

National Youth Fest is the biggest Youth Festival of its kind, where large number of young delegates representing various universities of the country interacts and exhibits their cultural prowess. The 14th National Youth Festival will attempt at bringing the collective flavour of the diverse culture of our country on a uniform podium and highlights gradual transformation of an age-old civilization into a strong and prosperous nation.

The five-day East Zone Inter-university Youth Festival was organized at Ranchi University (RU) from 2^nd to 6^th December 2008. 500 students from 17 universities from different parts of the country swamped the premises.  Banaras Hindu University became the over-all champion in the cultural competition held for the past four days. Manipur University stood second at the fest.  The winners were honoured with mementoes and certificates of merit.

            (Team from IT-BHU)

IT played a vital role in BHU win with first in skit, first in quiz in which the team comprised of Avrial Srivastav (I yr Mechanical) , Nandit Pathak (II yr Ceramics) and Nitin Deepak Agarwal (II yr Mechanical, first in debate in which the team comprised of Aviral Srivastav (I yr Mechanical) and Nitin Deepak Agarawal (II yr Mechanical), second prize in western music which was performed by band in which Amrit Verma (III yr Material Science) and Gaurav Khumb (III yr Chemical) played guitar and Nandit Pathak (II yr Ceramic) was on drums with the lyrics written Jayantika Soni (II yr Electrical). Performing Arts and BHU also won the event championship in music and literary events. Many other prizes were grabbed in dance, music and fine art events by students from other faculties of BHU.

BHU team will now take part in the finals of National Youth Fest which is going to be organized by Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal during 19-23^rd January 2009. We wish best of luck to team.

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The Telegraph report on East Zone Inter-University Youth Festival at Ranchi University

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081207/jsp/jharkhand/story_10216488.jsp

Terror pledge finale to fest

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Students of Banaras Hindu University celebrate at the East Zone Inter-university Youth Festival in Ranchi on Saturday. Picture by Manik Bose

Ranchi, Dec. 6: The five-day East Zone Inter-university Youth Festival ended today with students resolving to become the torch-bearers of national integration.

The students also pledged to fight against terrorism, which is presently the biggest challenge for the country. They paid tribute to men who died fighting against the terrorists in Mumbai and remembered the family members of the terror victims.

Banaras Hindu University became the over-all champion in the cultural competition held for the past four days.

Manipur University stood second at the fest.

The winners were honoured with mementoes and certificates of merit.

“The responsibility of national unity and integration at this crucial juncture rests on the youth of the day,” said Sudhir Kumar Tripathi, the principal secretary to Governor Syed Sibtey Razi, who took over charge as Razi is away for a Haj pilgrimage to Mecca.

As many as 15 universities, including Visva-Bharati (Santiniketan), Kalyani University, Sambalpur University, Kashi Vidyapeeth, Ravishankar Shukla University (Jaipur), and ISM, Dhanbad, competed in the festival, along with state universities.

The youth festival helped students learn from each other about the cultural diversity of their competitors.

Former Ranchi University vice-chancellor Ram Dayal Munda advised the students to live up to their resolution taken on the final day of the festival.

“The most important work of the students is to spread the message of national integration among others living in their region,” Munda told the students of the various universities.

On the last day of the festival, the students of other universities were treated to paika (war) dance.

The students of Ranchi University also presented the Chhotanagpuri dance.

Ranchi University vice-chancellor A.A. Khan said that such youth festivals help the cause of national unity and integration, which is the need of the hour.

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Additional link:

Association of Indian Universities

http://www.aiuweb.org/youth/youthaffairs.asp

UNIFESTS 2008-09

No. IUYF/2008/
October 10, 2008

Sub: Inter-University Zonal & National Youth Festivals 2008-09 (UNIFESTS) to be organized with the financial assistance of Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports, GOI under National Integration Camp Scheme (NIC)

Dear Cultural Coordinator,

I am pleased to inform you that the following schedule has been finalized for organizing the Inter-University Zonal & National Youth Festivals for the session 2008-09:

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ITBHUGlobal.org: The Chronicle: KashiYatra '09 (23-26 Jan 2009) - Announcement

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(Forwarded by Devender Singh Maun, 2^nd year Ceramic.

Email: devender.maun@gmail.com)

27th Annual All India Cultural Festival of Institute of Technology – Banaras Hindu University, KashiYatra 2009 is scheduled to be held from the 23^rd to the 26^th of January 2009. Every year KashiYatra showcases Professional Nights, Crosswindz – All India Rock Festival, Mirage – Fashion Show, Fire n’ Ice – The Discotheque and a host of other competitive events which includes music, theatre, dance, literary, fine-arts events and a series of informal events. Over the years KashiYatra has witnessed remarkable participation from colleges spanning across the nation and has emerged as one of the largest events of its kind in India.

The Kavi Sammelan event hosts 6 Kavis and is a four hour long affair. Catering to a mature audience, the Kavi Sammelan offers excellent prospects as a forum to the mature audience of BHU.  Antarnaad is open sesame to a whole gamut of fun, thrill and excitement. Antarnaad has showcased the best of music artistes making packed stadiums sway to their tunes. Antarnaad is one of the most awaited nights of KashiYatra. It gathers the largest crowds of KashiYatra

Abhinav features the very best of the theatrical talent from colleges across the nation. Performances in Abhinav will make you laugh, make you cry and make everyone watch is awe as amazing acting and great direction breathe life into innovative storylines and make you believe the surreal. Natraj is the most crowd pulling competition of KashiYatra. Held at the jam packed indoor auditorium, Swatantrata Bhavan, Natraj spills out enthusiastic and thrilling performances.

Samvaad is a war of words featuring the ultimate showdown of the best of the best delighting with their speaking skills. Fire n’ Ice is the place to let your hair down and dance like no one’s watching. It is bewitching experience to see the spirited crowd groove, sway and gyrate like the souls possessed by the swanky rhythms of absolutely alluring music in a magnificent Dancing Arena. Held at the Open Air Theatre, the Final Cut has the notoriety of being the loudest night of KashiYatra. Toolika is for the aesthetically inclined featuring the confluence of stunning fine art by young artists all over the country. With a series of art events Toolika attracts a large number of visitors from students to Professors and art lovers; colour and creativity being the punch line.

For further info, visit the website: http://www.itbhu.ac.in/kashiyatra/

________________

 We have received following message from Anup Sheshadri, Convener of KashiYatra ’09:

This is Anup Sheshadri, Convener, Kashi Yatra '09. This email is to request for some kind of help and support from alumni side.

The budget requirement for the Kashi Yatra ’09 event is more than Rs. 15 lakhs, and we are expecting sponsorship worth just Rs. 3 to 4 lakhs. But as we have much better and sentimental alumni, we have better chance to show off this year.

It is my kind request to you all, to help us to make the event successful. Help of any amount will definitely be accepted and appreciated considering the sour situation. We are planning to have the names of the alumni or alumni chapters/batches who contribute in our Kashi Yatra '09 souvenir.

The procedure and other required details for transaction will be given soon.

Yours,

Convener, Anup Sheshadri (Mining 2009) anup.shesh@gmail.com

Co-Convener, Pulkit Bohra (Metallurgy 2009)  pulkitbohra@gmail.com

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ITBHUGlobal.org: The Chronicle: Student research Convention-Anveshan 2009 on Dec 15- 16- A Report

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The initial rounds of Anveshan2009 competition was held on our campus on 15-16 December, 2008. The competition resulted in selecting the entry for “Surface Computing” as the final entry for further zonal competition. Here is the report forwarded by Devender Singh Maun, 2^nd year Ceramic. Email: devender.maun@gmail.com.

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 Spirit of inquiry, creativity and innovativeness are some of the natural endowments bestowed upon human beings, which are the keys to transformation of life. These factors, when manifested in the form of research, open new frontiers of knowledge, which is instrumental for all forms of development.

 With a view to inculcating research culture in our higher education institutions, the Association of Indian Universities has taken a pioneering initiative to organize student research conventions for the aspiring researchers throughout the country. Anveshan, Student Research Convention enters its second year after its success in its debut endeavour this year. In an effort to gear up scientific research and innovation and their application to the welfare of the society, first phase of Anveshan was organized, which was aimed to select teams from universities to participate at zonal level.

In the first phase, all universities in the country organized a competition/exhibition of research projects at university level in which students from affiliated/constituent colleges, research institutions and university departments participated. Five successful projects (assessed from the competition at university level), one from each of the following group: Agriculture, Basic Sciences, Engineering & Technology, Health Sciences and Allied Subjects, Pharmacy, Nutrition, etc. and Social Sciences, Humanities, Commerce and Law (objective and result oriented projects) were evaluated by a group of venerated judges from different faculties. 52 projects from post graduate, under graduate and research scholar students were selected for the 2^nd round, which was poster and model presentation, based on their abstract. In 1^st round 18 projects were short listed on the basis of their models and posters. 17 teams finally took part in final round in which students gave presentations against a panel of judges. Projects were judged on the basis of Scientific Thoughts and Principles, Creativity, Thoroughness, Skill, Relevance, Cost Effectiveness, Cost Effectiveness and Teamwork.

Students from almost all the faculties took part in large number but students from IT were unassailable. Project by Anshul Agrawal and Ashish Rai on surface computing was peerless and was first overall followed by project of Devender Singh on microspheres was second but was not able to make it through to next round as only one project from each group was to be forwarded. Project on surface computing by fourth year students of Electronics Engineering was much valued and appreciated because of its applications and innovativeness.

The students whose projects will be selected will now compete at zonal level and about 15 projects from each zone will take part in the final stage at national level convention and successful projects will be promoted though proper incentives for career development in research.

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SURFACE COMPUTER-Multi-Touch Technology

(The following report is forwarded by Ashish Kumar Rai, 4^th year Electronics, who is part of the winning team. Email: mr.ashish.rai@gmail.com.)

“Computing is not about computers any more.  It’s about living!”

Computers have delved so deep into our lives and workplace that now we don’t use computers but live with it. They command not only our research interests but also our social interaction, games, studies etc. Truly, the computer is emerging as one of our best friend. We now need a much more natural and intuitive way of interacting with them.

A new type user interface is at the horizon and spreading like fire. Earlier computers used to have only command-line interface and when mouse arrived it re-defined the interaction of computer with human. A similar revolution is going to happen again. Mouse has only one pointing arrow and that too you have to correlate between the mouse and the screen. We had to live with it for 30 years - now the time is asking for a change. With the new technology you will be able to touch the screen and it will support multiple fingers at the same time - you can use your fingers, other persons can interact also at the same time. Thus you will be interacting with your intelligent surface now instead of a dumb screen - Welcome to Surface Computing!!

A myriad of different applications for multi-touch interfaces both exist and are being proposed. Among those which exist, the iphone’s use of multi-touch is most widely known.  For more diverse usage, companies like Microsoft and IBM are putting in millions of dollars of research every year. In India, however, there is little familiarity with the technology. Fortunately, the field is still in an early stage. The arrival of this technology is imminent and that makes it imperative for us not to be left behind.

We have also started work on Multi-touch technology and have achieved some success in our work.

We started with a small Shadow based multi-touch setup, nicknamed "Mini”. It worked using the visible light, already present in the room. As we placed our hand on the designed multi-touch screen, a shadow was cast in the image captured by the camera placed below. These touch shadows can be termed as blobs. Using image processing, the positions of shadow and their relative motion was detected. This information was used with multi-touch applications, like the one shown.

In the mean time came the opportunity to work with “Google” in form of GSOC (Google Summer Of Code). We proposed to develop a New TUIO Simulator for fast development and debugging of Multi-touch Applications. TUIO is a versatile protocol, designed specifically to meet the requirements of table-top tangible user interfaces. The project was approved and under the guidance from Google and NUI (Natural User Interface) group, the simulator named “QMTSim”, was successfully completed during the summers of 2008.

The designed simulator is a new Qt based fast and full featured simulator for Multi-Touch applications. (http://code.google.com/p/qmtsim/).

We then decided to go one step further and design a complete multi-touch surface (hardware) on our own. The result was a multi-touch desk as shown in the adjacent figure. The setup uses the “FTIR” (Frustrated Total Internal Reflection) phenomenon. This setup is based on infra-red light, instead of visible light to remove some of the shortcomings experienced with “Mini”. The setup was tested with a number of applications.

(www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp8SpXfChkY).

The designed setup is low cost as compared to contemporary multi-touch screens, much more durable, can sustain rough handling and can be easily scaled to larger sizes without much increase in cost. The work is still going on to further optimize its performance.

In our next phase of work, we plan to develop a Laser Light Plane based Multi-touch setup and a Low Cost LCD projector. We even plan to develop some user group specific applications’ oriented multi-touch software.  Sumit Pandey, Sushant Trivedi, Nishant Singh (all 4^th year Electronics) and Atul Aggarwal (4^th year Computer Science and Engineering) are working to develop multi-touch based CAD and teaching solutions (chemistry to start with). Amit Kumar Verma (4^th year Engineering Physics) is working on developing Low Cost LCD Projector.

As far as horizons for multi-touch are concerned, they are not limited by scope, but by our imagination and time. What we have learned is, “You name a field, whether it is the field of education; medical; architecture and designing; entertainment and games, and you can certainly think of a way to apply Multi-Touch for its improvement”.

We welcome suggestions, criticisms and ideas from everyone and anyone!!

We will also take this opportunity to call on the die-hard coders of our Institute to come and join us in the development of a full suite of applications which we will take to the level of commercialization.

_________________

Anshul Agarwal (agg.anshul@gmail.com)

Ashish Kumar Rai (mr.ashish.rai@gmail.com)

B. Tech. 4^th year

Electronics Engineering

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Additional links:

1) Anveshan 2009 website

http://210.212.145.132/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=202

2) TUIO websites:

http://tuio.lfsaw.de/

http://www.mtg.upf.edu/files/publications/07a830-GW2005-KNUI altenBoverBencinaConstanza.pdf

3) NUI website:

http://natural-ui.com/

4) QMTsim website:

http://code.google.com/p/qmtsim/wiki/QMTSimHelp

5) FTIR website

http://www.cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirsense/

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ITBHUGlobal.org: The Chronicle: Dr. Animesh Pathak (CSE 2003) gives inspirational speech to campus students

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Our alumnus, Animesh Pathak (CSE 2003) visited our Varanasi campus during Christmas vacation and interacted with faculty, students and administration on campus. He also gave speech to students about his life after graduation and his career plan. After the speech, he also interacted with students and answered their questions. His lecture on “IT-BHU and Beyond: Views of an Alumnus” was arranged on December 29 at Entrepreneurship Hall, Department of Chemical Engineering. About 175 students listened to him.

Here is the brief report about his speech:

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Report on Dr. Animesh Pathak’s visit to IT-BHU

(Animesh Pathak)

Animesh Pathak (CSE 2003 Batch) working as PostDoc at INRIA, Paris, France had flown down to India for a couple of weeks and dropped in the town during Dec 28 –30, 2008 primarily to visit the campus of his Alma Mater and its people. He travelled down to Varanasi from IIT-Kanpur where he delivered a talk on his research topic the previous day. During the short time of his visit to IT-BHU, he managed to hold meetings with many of the faculty members and students in order to attend to various pertaining issues in the near past and the present in the campus.

A lot has changed since the last time he visited the campus in December 2005.  He noticed that new big building in front of Rajputana Hostel after the Rajputana Grounds had new Lecture Theatres for the fresher students of the institute.  On the morning of the 28^th, he met the students of Theatre Group of the institute. While meeting the theatre students, he discussed with them the contemporary scenario of theatre at IT-BHU. The theatre group students are running their endeavors in close time to come viz. Abhivyakti 09, Kashiyatra 09, Spandan 09 and some other outstation cultural festivals. Animesh Pathak (Ex-Joint Secretary, Theatre Club and Ex- General Secretary, Cultural Wing, IT-Gymkhana) was happy to learn that students take up theatre activities these days in a professional and very interesting manner in spite of the little unconductive environment which was prevalent in the institute particularly during the last semester. Most importantly, he suggested probable solutions to major problems of the students and assured them of various alumni efforts in response to the enthusiasm and efforts of the students. He also interacted with the students of dance group whom he accidentally spotted practicing in the Dance Room, NCC/IEI Building as he crossed by.

Each year in the month of December, IT-BHU witnesses a Batch of alumni in the campus celebrating the Silver Jubilee of their year of Graduation. Animesh met alumni from ‘83 Batch including Mr. Rajiv Hukku and Mr. Vasudevan Raghavan. For the day, lunch was arranged for the alumni at Morvi Hostel and he met a host of alumni/students/faculty at the lunch. He interacted with student team of Kashiyatra ‘09 and Magnum Opus ‘09 who wanted to discuss important issues about the festival with him like sponsorship, contacts and marketing. He had scheduled meeting with the Website Management Group (group of students that manage the website of IT-BHU and look after issues like itbhu.ac.in e-mail domain, intranet and similar stuff). Animesh is involved in the management of WMG as Alumnus Advisor, and with the IT-BHU Global Alumni Association as Director, Web Affairs. In the evening he had dinner with the alumni of ‘83 batch.

The next day (Dec 29) Animesh had scheduled a couple of talks for the evening. He delivered the first talk on ‘Compiling Data-driven Macro programs for Networked Sensing Applications’ at the Batch of ‘98 Hall, Department of Computer Science and Engineering at 4-5 pm to the students of the department. Students also turned up in large numbers at the Entrepreneurship Hall, Department of Chemical Engineering for his second talk on 'IT-BHU and Beyond: Views of an Alumnus‘ at 5-7 pm. Central idea of the talk was about life at ITBHU – how one can possibly get great grades while still excelling at extra-curricular and about options after IT-BHU - Job, MS/PhD, MBA etc,  lessons learnt from his own life as well as lives of friends. He talked about various issues in relation to students’ career and academia. His most passionate advice to the soon to graduate technocrats in view of today’s market scene, was to consider post-graduate courses. He also iterated a number of times, the benefits of attending class lectures, sitting on front benches and asking questions to clear doubts. He narrated his experiences at IT-BHU, USC and INRIA to make students aware about the different situations and prospects after graduation viz. MBA, MS/ Ph. D and industry jobs.

Finally he talked about various alumni activities like IT-BHU Chronicle, www.itbhuglobal.org and Google/ Yahoo groups of immense potential and interest like itbhu-gradschool@googlegroups.com and itbhu@yahoogroups.com. At the end, students received the opportunity to clear their doubts by queries and questions. He chatted with all sorts of students for varied matters like Projects viz. Surface Computing, Internship for Comp. Sc. Part-III students, career opinion and guidance. He was also both surprised and pleased to see students who had had their primary education from ‘St. Michael's Convent School, Mankapur’, from where he has done his schooling. The talk was big inspiration for many students of IT-BHU.  He ended the day visiting M. Sengupta Memorial Hall (popularly known as G-11) to witness the theatre students practicing plays for upcoming cultural events.

Next morning (Dec 30, 2008), beginning the day early he yet again met host of students from IT-BHU Chronicle Student Team and ‘Pulse’ Team at the newly reformed IT-Cafeteria giving key-notes about the future plans and ways to execute them in time to show up. He met some faculty members and administration officials of the institute who he was happy to know were very positive in various developmental matters of the institute and offered/promised help on various grounds. He also spent time guiding the volunteers helping code the alumni information system at www.itbhuglobal.org . He was very happy to have spent time at the campus among students, alumni and faculty. In the afternoon around 2 pm, Animesh bided ‘Au Revoir’ to the campus and left for his home town Patna. The campus saw him off, eagerly awaiting his next visit. . .

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About Animesh Pathak:

Animesh Pathak is current working on Post-Doctorate Fellowship at INRIA, Paris.

About Dr. Animesh Pathak:

Education

*   PostDoc at INRIA, Paris, France (July 2008 to current)

* Ph. D in Computer Engineering, Ming Hsieh Department of EE-Systems, University of Southern California, Los   Angeles (2008)

* MS in Electrical Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles (2005)

* B. Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (2003)

Achievements :

* Best Teaching Assistant Award, Department of EE-Systems, USC, 2005.

*President Shankar Dayal Sharma Award for Outstanding Overall Achievement, Banaras Hindu University, 2003

*Outstanding Student Award, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, 2003

*Late Shyam Sunder Lal Razdan Memorial Gold Medal for securing highest percentage of marks in B. Tech. Part-IV   Examination, 2003

*Institute Gold Medal for securing highest grades, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University in 2000,   2001, 2002 and 2003.

* Scored 10 pointers for 4 consecutive semesters (Semester III, IV, V and VI).

* Best Student Award of ITBHU and BHU.

* Awarded IT Color in Theatre, 2002.

* Joint Secretary, Theatre Club, Cultural Wing, IT-Gymkhana for the session 2001-02.

* General Secretary, Cultural Wing, IT-Gymkhana for the session 2002-03

Web-links

Animesh’s blog: http://animeshpathak.blogspot.com/

Animesh’s home page: http://www.animeshpathak.in/

Website of IT-BHU, Varanasi: www.itbhu.ac.in

Website of USC: http://www.usc.edu/

Website of INRIA, France: http://www.inria.fr/rocquencourt/

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Feedback from the audience

Many students were ecstatic about hearing valuable experience from their alumnus. According to students, many of their doubts regarding career were cleared and some were saying that they would be devoting more time to studies.

Here is the feedback from students received by chronicle team:

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The seminar held today by Dr. Animesh Pathak was a motivating experience for me. I think such seminars by our alumni, held from time to time, help newcomers like us to get a clear picture of the job or research prospects that lay ahead after our academics. Dr. Pathak also told us how to be involved in extra curricular without messing up with the grades. So I think that if such an alumnus is willing to be a part of our faculty, then it would really benefit our institute

 Yours Faithfully,

Rohit Singh Chauhan,

Ceramic Engineering, M. Tech. IDD

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It was a great experience attending the workshop of such a personality of it-bhu. It gives us various tips for our life after it-bhu and also various web links (itbhuglobal and university list) which we were not aware of, now helps us to access vast network.

With regards,

Puneet Goyal

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It was excellent being with such a personality among us. Dr. Pathak proved to be a motivating force for the freshers like us. He helped enhancing our knowledge about the future prospectus after we leave this institute.

Nalin

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(Animesh Pathak delivering speech)	(Animesh Pathak, Dr. P. K. Mishra, Dr. S. K. Shukla)
(Students listening to Animesh Pathak)	(Animesh Pathak in conversation with students)

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