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(Note: This news item in Times of India was provided to the news agency by Praharsh Sharma, 4th year Electronics Engineering.)
Binay Singh, TNN 31 October 2009, 07:54pm IST
VARANASI: Two Indian institutions -the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IT-BHU) and Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani- are among the top-10 institutions worldwide in Google Summer of Code (GSoC)-2009.
The GSoC is a global programme that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source software projects. This annual programme awards stipends to hundreds of students who successfully complete a requested free software / open-source coding project during the summer.
"The students from IT-BHU and BITS Pilani have been recognised by the GSoC 2009 for writing code for various open source projects," said Praharsh Sharma, electronics engineering student of IT-BHU. According to him, the open source offers easy accessibility to software source code and, therefore, its design and development. The GSoC project was started in 2005 and the programme has brought together nearly 2,500 successful student participants and 2,500 mentors from 98 countries worldwide. The selected students get a sum of USD 4,500 or Rs 2 lakh for contributing to the Google repository of Open Source Code.
According to the IT-BHU Chronicle, as many as eight students of IT-BHU have been selected for the programme in 2009 while nine students have been selected from BITS Pilani. Sharma said so far, 12 students had been selected for the project-- one in 2007, three in 2008 and eight in 2009.
"As GSoC Student, I worked on the project 'Online Screenshot Annotator'. There can't be anything better to do during summers. I learned JavaScript and php. Besides enhancing my coding skills, it gave me insight to distributed development of software, like project documentation, and most importantly learned to make my code speak to others," said Shishir Mittal, the IT-BHU student selected in 2008. The other IT-BHU students selected in 2009 are Atul Aggarwal, Shashank Tyagi, Mahanth Gowda, Rahul Verma, Chandan Kumar, Gaurav Kejriwal, Ajay Chhatwal and Pushkal.
Through GSoC, accepted applicants are paired with a mentor or mentors from the participating projects, thus gaining exposure to real-world software development scenario and the opportunity for employment in areas related to their academic pursuits. The programme benefits everyone - students get an inspiring and meaningful summer job, mentoring organisations get help with their projects and the world gets more 'Open Source' software.
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International Conference on Separation Processes
ICSP-09 (October 20-22, 2009)
Centre of Advanced Studies
Department of Chemical Engineering & Technology
Institute of Technology
Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi – 221005, India
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The 1st International Conference on Separation Processes was organized by the Department during October 20-22, 2009. It was a follow up of the National conference on Separation in Process Industries organized by the Department in 2003. The conference attracted good participation from the entire premier institutions of India and abroad. Nearly all the IITs and NITs of the country in addition to prominent Universities have sent their delegates to the conference. Participants from USA, Canada, Thailand, Malaysia, Jordan & Islamic Republic of Iran have added the value to the event.
More than 200 delegates attended the conference. Seventy technical papers were presented under following categories viz. Adsorption, Extraction, Membrane Separation, Bio-separation and Miscellaneous. About a dozen invited/key note lectures were delivered by prominent researchers, academicians and personal from industries from India and abroad. Prof, Devang V. Khakhar, Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai delivered Prof. Gopal Tripathi University Memorial Lecture – 2009. Prominent invited speakers were Prof. Ram B. Gupta, auburn, USA, Prof. Kunal Karan, Queens, Canada, Prof. Nisheet Verma, IIT, Kanpur, Prof. A.B. Pandit, UICT, Mumbai, Prof. S. De, IIT, Kharagpur, Prof. Anil Anal, AIT, Bangkok, Thailand, Prof. Jit Kai Chin, University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus, Prof. S.J. Chopra, Chancellor, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun and Mr. C.P. Srivastava, CEO, Indo-Jordan Fertilizer Company, Amman, Jordan.
The conference was inaugurated by Prof. S.J. Chopra, Chancellor, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies. Mr. C.P. Srivastava, CEO, Indo-Jordan Fertilizer Company, Amman, Jordan was guest of honor during the inaugural function. The Rector, BHU has presided over the function. Other dignitaries present on the dais were Prof. S.N. Upadhyay, director, IT, Prof. Virendra Singh, Dean, Faculty of Engineering & Technology & Prof. K.K. Srivastava, Head, Chemical & chairman of the conference. The theme of the conference was presented by Dr. P.K. Mishra, Convener of the International conference on Separation Processes.
Conference Proceedings containing full papers were released by Prof. S.J. Chopra and Souvenir was released by Mr. C.P. Srivastava.
On the second day evening a cultural program was organized by the IT Gymkhana, where all the students showcased their talents and enthralled the audience.
Excellent feedback were received during the valedictory function from the out station participants. Everybody appreciated the hospitality of Varanasi.
An unanimous resolution was also passed during the Valedictory function to register an International society on Separation Processes having Head office at IT, BHU, Varanasi. The ad-hoc committee shall comprise of Prof. M. M. Sharma, Prof. Mashelkar, Prof. S.N. Upadhyay, Prof. K.K. Srivastava, Prof. ram B. Gupta, Prof. Anil Pandit, Prof. Nisheet Verma, Prof. S. De, Prof. Anil anal, Prof. Jit Kai Chin, Mr. C.P. Srivastava and Mr. Yogesh Upadhyaya. Dr. P.K. Mishra was nominated as Member Secretary.
Dr. P.K. Mishra
Associate Professor
Chemical engineering & Technology &
Convener, ICSP-09
Email: pkmishra.che@itbhu.ac.in
Department of Chemical Engineering & Technology, IT-BHU, Varanasi
http://www.itbhu.ac.in/che/
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Official website of ICSP-09
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Photos of the ICSP-09 event:
http://picasaweb.google.co.in/iipcell.bhu/InternationalConferenceOnSeparationProcesses09?feat=email#
Photo-1: On the stage from Left to Right-Prof. P. K. Mishra; Prof. Virendra Singh (Dean, IT-BHU), Mr. C. P. Srivastava (CEO, Indo-Jordan Fertilizer Company, Jordan), Prof. B. D. Singh (Rector, BHU), Prof. S. J. Chopra (Chancellor, University of Petroleum & Energy Studies), Prof. S. N. Upadhyay (Director, IT, BHU), Prof. K. K. Srivastava (Head, Chemical Engineering) & Dr. V. L. Yadav
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Photo-2; Prof. P. K. Mishra delivering Theme of the Conference
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Photo-3: Dignitaries in the audience from left Prof. B. D. Singh, Prof. Virendra Singh, Mr. C. P. Srivastava, Prof. S. N. Upadhyay, Prof. Anil Anal (AIT,
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Photo-4: Students in the audience
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News about ICSP-09 in Times of India
1) BHU to organise three-day ICSP
TNN 19 October 2009, 09:08pm IST
VARANASI: The department of Chemical Engineering, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (BHU), is going to organise a three-day international conference on separation processes (ICSP), starting on Tuesday.
Giving details of the programme, organising chairman and head of the department, Prof K. K. Srivastava, said the conference would explore the emerging challenges in development of eco-friendly and energy intensive separation process. It is expected to provide a new horizon to the national and international institutes and industries, he added.
The convener of the programme, Dr P K Mishra, said, "the conference would bring together the academicians, researchers, technology developers and the end users in various disciplines to share knowledge and exchange views on eco-friendly and cost-effective separation technologies."
The department of chemical engineering, IT, BHU, had also organised a national conference on separation processes in 2003.
A number of experts from IIT, Kanpur; IIT, Kharagapur and international experts from US, Canada, Malaysia, Iran and Thailand would participate in the programme. As many as 70 papers would also be presented in six technical sessions during the conference.
Dr S J Chopra, chancellor, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, would inaugurate the programme.
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2) Latest technology can test your milk, drive satellites into space
Naveen Kumar, TNN 22 October 2009, 09:55pm IST
VARANASI: The microfluidic technology will now drive the micro nano satellites into space, thereby saving much time and energy. Similarly, the technology based on separation process can be used to test the quality of dairy products through an apparatus called viscometer that separates various chemicals and ingredients in the milk.
While experts participating in the International Conference on Separation Processes (ICSP) at the Banaras Hindu University believe that the day is not far when microfluidic technology will give a a new dimension to researches in science and technology, micro nano satellites remain the prime attraction.
"As many as five researchers from different countries are involved in a project for developing small-scale reactors that will propel engines of micro nano satellites, using microfluidic technology," said Prof Jit Kai Chin, a senior researcher from Malaysia and one of the key members of the project, while talking to TOI on Thursday. "These satellites will be portable, easy to operate and also give quick results, saving time and energy," he claimed.
Similarly, the advent of viscometer to test the quality of dairy products is another interesting innovation that has attracted the scientists around the world. "The apparatus is especially useful for country like India, where reports of adulteration in dairy products are abundant," he said.
Saying that the apparatus that works on separation processes (microfluidic technology) can be a shot in the arm for people to test the quality of milk, he also emphasised on two basic physical properties-- temperature and viscosity-- that determine the quality of milk.
"The technology has opened a vista of explorations in various fields of science and is now widely used for cancer research and blood analysis in life sciences," said Prof Chin. It has also enabled the in depth understanding of multi-layered myelin (soft fluid material) that encloses neurons (nerve cells) in the brain. "The effort is on to know the details of the functioning of human brain and control its activity," he concluded.
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3) It's possible to free our food of toxic material
TNN 22 October 2009, 10:00pm IST
VARANASI: The bread that we eat could now be fortified with anti-oxidants, separating the toxic material that would also increase its shelf-life and delay bio-degradation besides making it a value-added product.
All this could be done with the help of eco-friendly extracts called 'biopolymers' through a process called 'encapsulation' that incorporates anti-oxidants and other useful ingredients in food items, believes Dr Anil Kumar Anal, assistant professor, department of food engineering and bioprocess technology, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand.
While talking to TOI on the concluding day of three-day international conference on separation processes (ICSP) at Banaras Hindu University on Thursday, the senior scientist said the process could be a shot in the arm for developing countries like India, as it would not only enrich the food products, but also turn out to be a viable option for ensuring solid waste management.
The extracts or additives (biopolymers) extracted from waste products are added via adsorption and toxic material are taken out while incorporating the useful ingredients (anti-oxidants) through a collective process called encapsulation, adds the food scientist, who hails from Nepal. The interesting point in the research is the use of waste products that can be easily recycled and reused to come up with such value-added products.
Similarly, he also says research is in progress to identify encapsulated bacteria that slows down the process of bio-degradation to increase the shelf-life of value-added food products.
Meanwhile, the three-day international conference on separation processes (ICSP) concluded at the Banaras Hindu University on Thursday.
According to Dr PK Mishra, convener, ICSP, the three-day programme witnessed consortia of researchers, academicians and experts to discuss the status of eco-friendly and energy intensive separation processes for industries.
A number of national and international experts participated in the programme. Over 50 papers were also presented. Department of chemical engineering and technology, Institute of Technology (IT)-BHU had organised the programme.
Director, IT-BHU, Prof SN Upadhyay, Dean Prof Virendra Singh, organising chairman Prof K K Srivastava and other senior faculty members were also present at the valedictory function.
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(Report forwarded by Dr. Chandan Upadhyay at the School of Material Science and Technology. Email: cupadhyay.mst@itbhu.ac.in)
The seminar ”Clear Coatable Conductors for Application in Displays” was delivered by Debasis Majumdar of Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY 14650, USA. The seminar was held at SMST Lecture Hall on Tuesday, November 3.
Dr. Majumdar was introduced by Dr. P. Maiti.
Dr. Majumdar talk was focused on Transparent, electrically conductive layers of metal oxides such as indium tin oxide (ITO), commonly used in the manufacturing of electro-optical display devices such as liquid crystal display devices (LCDs), electroluminescent display devices, photocells, solid-state image sensors, electrochromic windows, touchscreens, and the like.
The ITO coating(s) can function as transparent electrodes in these devices. The high cost of the fabrication methods and the low flexibility of such electrodes, attributed to the brittleness of the inorganic ITO layer as well as the glass substrate, limit the range of potential applications. As a result, there is a growing interest in making all-organic devices, comprising plastic resins as a flexible substrate and organic electroconductive polymer layers as an electrode. Such plastic electronics allow low-cost devices with new properties. Flexible plastic substrates can be provided with an electroconductive polymer layer by continuous coating methods and the resulting organic electrodes enable the “roll-to-roll” fabrication of electronic devices that are more flexible, lower cost, and lower weight.
In his talk he described the effort undertaken at Kodak for developing clear coatable conductors for application in flexible display devices, mainly touchscreens. The talk was focused on coatings based on commercially available polyethylenedioxythiophene (PEDOT) and their physical properties, characterization, patterning, and applications. After the talk there was an interaction session with students and faculty members.
A vote of thanks was proposed by Dr. R. Prakash, coordinator SMST.
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Additional Links
* Profile of Debasis Majumdar in LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/profile?authType=name&authToken=fTOS&locale=en_US&viewProfile=&key=6547277
* Eastman Kodak Company
* School of Material Science and Technology, IT-BHU, Varanasi
http://itbhu.ac.in/mst/default.shtml
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(Forwarded by Aviral Srivastava, B. Tech.-Part II, Mechanical Engineering. Email: avirals1@hotmail.com)
A one day seminar on "Higher Education: Global Perspectives and Indian Vision" was conducted on 12th October, 2009 at Senate Hall, Swatantrata Bhawan, BHU as a prequel to International BHU Alumni Meet 2009. The Chief Guest was Prof. B. M. Shukla, ex-Vice Chancellor of Gorakhpur University and former Minister to Russia.
Dr. P.K. Singh brought the seminar to a start by raising the question of the role of higher education in today’s context.
The first speaker, Dean, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Prof. Virendra Singh, highlighted the need of more universities in India, considering that many are denied education opportunities. He remarked that singly Cambridge lab alone has produced 9 Nobel laureates to date. Now that the world has shrunk to a global village, Indian universities should strive for a better system to improve the quality and outreach of Indian education. He envisioned that moral values, ethics and usefulness to society, which are the hallmarks of the Indian vision of education, will go a long way in promoting humanism, tolerance, progress, search for knowledge and search for truth.
The next speaker, Prof. Tripathi, acknowledged the need of the seminar and government initiative of inviting foreign universities to establish campuses in India. He suggested that one should seek opportunities to integrate Indian and western visions to improve delivery models of education as ancient wisdom and methodologies can go a long way in strengthening the western model.
Prof. Pandit made an impacting presentation on global education from a pharmaceutical perspective, emphasising the 4 key players in education: academicians, industry, government and professionals. He stressed that people must be sensitive to the ethical and social component of higher education.
Dr. Debashish Khan then made a presentation drawing parallels between science and spirituality. Emphasizing the element of faith in modern science and quoting several Nobel laureates, he highlighted the need to increase awareness towards the synthesis of science and spirituality.
Prof. M.K. Ghosh held everyone’s attention with his flamboyant style and crisp presentation. Getting straight to the point, he admitted that higher education was not getting its due status and raised the question, “What went wrong and what can be done?” Globalisation and information flow have transformed the higher education scenario in India with wide-reaching consequences in the economic, knowledge and societal fronts. Technological innovations and changing pattern of trade and competition have deeply impacted the economic situation in the country.
Exponential growth in knowledge and contemporary social issues like democracy norms, gender equality, RTI Act, Corporate social responsibility etc have also necessitated the reframing of Higher education policies. Speculating on the reasons of failure, he said that the lack of sincerity in monitoring and implementation and the lack of dynamic approach with changing requirement are likely causes. He suggested that higher education should include basic knowledge and understanding of commerce, economics, costing etc and advocated reframing of the curricula with respect to flexibility and continuous revision and introduction of new courses.
Dr. Mohan, from the Department of Civil Engineering, lamented that we were still following McCaulay’s education system which was designed to subjugate and enslave Indians and quoted McCaulay in this very context. He countered that why not enrich the Ancient Indian education system with elements of western model instead of the other way around! Praising Malviyaji’s vision and objectives for establishing Banaras Hindu University, he stressed the importance of Guru-Shishya parampara, character building, ethics and purpose of education and research in arts and sciences.
Director of IT-BHU, Prof. S. N. Upadhyay beautifully summarized the previous speakers and stated that India needed to overcome her complex of the Western civilization. He advocated using indigenous examples in teaching, quoting brilliant cases like the Samudra Manthan and yoke of a bullock cart!
The final speaker, coincidentally a teacher of Director himself, Chief Guest Prof. B. M. Shukla enamoured one and all with his anecdotes. Drawing on his wide array of experiences, he highlighted the deficiency of our regulatory bodies. Whereas 44 deemed universities were set up in India from 1947 to 2004, 49 were set up soon after in a span of just 5 years! He reminisced about the Indian freedom struggle and expressed disappointment that patriotism and the fire within were lacking in today’s generation. Acknowledging that Mahamana’s vision was both global and societal, he stated that 7 attributes were required at the global level: Vidya, Tap, Gyaan, Daan, Sheel, Dharma being among them.
Dr. S. K. Srivastava from the Department of Pharmaceutics brought the evening to a close with a poetic vote of thanks.
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About Conference
6th International Conference on Aperiodic Crystals
Liverpool, 13 – 18 September 2009
Sixth International Conference on Aperiodic Crystals (Aperiodic ‘09) was organized under the auspices of the Commission on Aperiodic Crystals of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr). This triennial series conference was earlier held as Aperiodic’94 at Les Diablerets, Aperiodic’97 at Alpe d’Huez, Aperiodic’2000 at Nijmegen, Aperiodic’03 at Belo Horizonte and Aperiodic’ 06 at Zao. The account of the conference Aperiodic- 2000 (Nijmegen, The Netherlands) was reported earlier (Current Sciences 79 (2000) 1637). In 1988, this conference series was known as ‘Modulated Structure, Polytypes and Quasicrystals’, (MOSPOQ) and it was organized in IT-BHU, by P. Ramachandra Rao (chair), S. Lele (co-chair) and D. Pandey (convener).
R. McGrath and U. Grimm (co-chairs) organized the Aperiodic’09 conference from 13-18 September 2009 in the Liverpool University (http://www.liv.ac.uk) at Liverpool, which was considered as a European Capital of Culture in 2008. About 110 participants attended from all over the country. Prof N.K. Mukhopadhyay, Professor, Department of Metallurgical Engineering, IT-BHU attended this conference along with his doctoral student T.P. Yadav. Prof Mukhopadhyay, being a member of the Aperiodic Commission of IUCr was invited to chair a technical session. He also delivered a talk on the phase transformation of quasicrystalline materials during high energy ball milling. The details of the conference and the abstract of the papers presented in the conference can be found at: http://www.aperiodic09.org/. There were about 100 papers presented in fifteen oral (44 papers) and two poster (45 papers) sessions including one tutorial (3 papers) sessions. The proceedings containing the selected papers after peer review will be published in the Journal of Physics Conference Series (open access). It is worth mentioning that there was an interesting public lecture delivered by Professor Sir Roger Penrose (UK) (shown in photo 1), who discovered the quasiperiodic tiling, now popularly known by his name as Penrorse Tiling. He elegantly demonstrated that how the simple sets of shapes that tile the plane without repetition, gaps and overlaps. Many explicit examples of aperiodic sets were presented in his talk, showing different types of symmetry.
The brochure on conference
The 90-page brochure on conference can be viewed here
aperiodic2009.pdfAperiodic Crystals
In 1994 the name of this conference series changed from ‘MOSPOQ’ to ‘Aperiodic Crystals’ encompassing issues associated to more general class of solids belonging or closely relating to aperiodic crystals. Aperiodic crystals are characterized by the discrete diffraction patterns which cannot be indexed with the conventional three indices but require additional ones. They occur in almost every type of solids including organic and inorganic compounds, minerals, metals and alloys, and even macromolecules. It is convenient to describe their structures in superspace (higher dimensional space), a conceptual environment, in which three-dimensional aperiodic crystals recover their periodicity. The inconvenience of adding extra dimensions is negligible concerning all the advantages resulting from the properties of periodicity (diffraction phenomena, Fourier transform, symmetry etc). The studies of aperiodic structures have greatly contributed to a better understanding of the physics and chemistry of atomic interactions in crystals and it opens up also the new perspectives for correlating the structural with the physical properties of complex materials.
In terms of atomic arrangements, the solids are generally classified into three major groups: (i) Periodic Crystals (ii) Aperiodic Crystals, (iii) Amorphous or glassy phase. The periodic crystals show the periodicity among the atomic arrangements (real space) as well as in the corresponding diffraction patterns (reciprocal space). The rotational symmetries in the diffraction patterns are restricted to 2 fold, 3-fold, 4 fold and 6 fold symmetries, where as the aperiodic crystals exhibit the aperiodicity (i.e., no periodicity but some regularity and order) among the atomic arrangements. The corresponding diffraction patterns are discrete like periodic crystals but not restricted to only those rotational symmetries unlike periodic solids, as indicated above. It is known that the amorphous/glassy phases consist of atoms in a random fashion and it does not show any discrete diffraction patterns. In short, “Aperiodic Crystal" is meant any solid having an essentially discrete diffraction diagram, and in which three-dimensional lattice periodicity can be considered to be absent. As an extension, this term will also include those crystals in which three-dimensional periodicity is too weak to describe significant correlations in the atomic configuration, but which can be properly described by crystallographic methods developed for actual aperiodic crystals.
Aperiodic crystals include modulated structures, polytypes, incommensurate misfit or composite crystals, and quasicrystals. Some of the aperiodic crystals also fall in the category of Complex Metallic Alloys (CMA). Lots of work is being done to understand the basis for synthesis, structure, and stability of these phases. Generally, this class of materials is hard, brittle and of high strength due to the restricted activities of dislocations as the structure is highly complicated. Attempts are also being made to use these materials in the form nanocrystals and nanocomposites. These materials can be applied for suitable coatings on soft substrate and also as suitable reinforcements in the composite materials. In addition to the mechanical properties, these materials also exhibit the unusual physical properties for which the efforts are being made to correlate their structures with the properties.
The unusual electronic and magnetic behaviors also have made these materials interesting for further research. In BHU, namely in the Department of Metallurgy and the School of Materials Science & Technology of IT-BHU, and in the Department of Physics, the research related to the Aperiodic Crystals is being actively pursued.
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Photo: 1: After the technical presentation discussion with Professor Sir Roger Penrose in the conference venue (second from left).
Photo2: Moving around the famous dock on river Mersey (Albert Dock area in Liverpool) which used to be the important centre for business transaction before World War II
Photo 3: Discussing with the Prof. Y. Ishi (Chairman of Int. Conf. quasicrystals (ICQ11) at the conference venue during the tea-break at Liverpool University.
Liverpool City
(Liverpool city)
(Photo: http://heavier-than-air.blogspot.com/2008/03/das-kapital.html)
Founded in 1207, Liverpool has a population of 435,000 (815,000 including suburban areas). There are a diverse population with a wide range of cultures and religions drawn from all over the world, owing to Liverpool’s importance as a port. The city is home to the oldest Black community in Britain, dating from the 1700s and the oldest Chinese community in Europe – the first residents of the city’s Chinatown arrived as seamen in the 1800s.
This importance of the ports on Mersey river at Liverpool has historically led to the city being considered ‘the second city of the Empire’ (Disraeli), ‘the New York of Europe’ (Illustrated London News, 1885) and the ‘pool of life’ (Jung). However, following severe bombing in the Second World War and hurried reconstruction efforts that were then rendered obsolete by modernization of the shipping system, trade went into a sharp decline starting in the 1970s. Today the city is back on an upward trend, being named ‘European Capital of Culture’ in 2008.
Liverpool was the centre in the 1960s of Merseybeat and since then has been home to a music scene. Many musicians, including Michael Jackson consider the city to be the spiritual home of contemporary pop music due to success of ‘The Beatles’, which started by four musicians and became very famous in 1960s.
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Prof. N.K. Mukhopadhyay
Department of Metallurgical Engineering
Institute of Technology
Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221 005, INDIA
Email: mukho_nk@rediffmail.com
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Abstract of the paper
Abstract of the Paper co-submitted by Prof. N. K. Mukhopadhyay at the Aperiodic 09 Conference at Liverpool, UK
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Additional Links:
* Official website of Aperiodic ’09 International Conference
* University of Liverpool, UK
http://www.liv.ac.uk/
(University of Liverpool, UK)
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Aperiodic Crystal-An article
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HONSHI/20080304/148429/
Reports Nikkei Electronics Asia -- March 2008
Better Electronics through R&D in Chemistry
Mar 4, 2008 17:09 Nikkei Electronics Asia
A recent discovery in basic chemistry research may pave the way to better electronics in the future. Researchers at Kansas State University have found that certain "aperiodic crystals" become ferroelastic when they change phases so they can be squeezed, opening the door to innovations in future displays, disk drives and other devices that use crystals.
Aperiodic Crystals "Behave Differently"
The researchers at Kansas State University, working with colleagues in France, showed that aperiodic materials, which lack a regularly repeating structure, don't necessarily operate like periodic crystals during phase transitions.
"There are all sorts of rules about what crystals can do during phase transitions," said Mark D Hollingsworth, Associate Professor of chemistry at Kansas State, who worked on the project. "For a long time, scientists have assumed that the norm applied for all sorts of substances."
But in looking at aperiodic crystals, the researchers found they behave differently. They looked at crystals that form a host-guest structure, notably urea molecules that form tunnels around nonadecane molecules to make a honeycomb-like structure. That structure takes the form of a double-helix, similar to the shape of DNA in genetics. In periodic host-guest crystals, the host molecules form the tunnels and the guest molecules inside form a structure that repeats regularly. But in aperiodic host-guest crystals, the host and guest structures don't match: the guest molecules protrude from the ends of the crystals, making the surface rough. This roughness makes it easier to attach new molecules to the ends of the crystals, which are shaped like long needles.
When the crystals transition from one phase to another, there are even more changes under different temperatures. The researchers looked at the guest molecules when they were moving rapidly inside their tunnel-like hosts at higher temperatures, and at extremely cold temperatures as molecules are becoming frozen in place. To examine the crystals, the scientists scattered neutrons from them and measured different reflections. One class of reflections, called satellite reflections, measures the interaction between the guest and host molecules. When the crystal was cooled to about -123oC, the satellite reflections showed a change in the interaction between the host and guest structures, but no noticeable changes to either the host or guest structures themselves.
Hollingsworth said this was a surprise to his team of researchers, because it didn't follow the normal rules about homogenous phase transitions and symmetry breaking. More research is needed to figure out the rules by which these aperiodic crystals function during phase transitions.
Applications in Displays
Hollingsworth said that the crystals are ferroelastic, meaning that the molecules within the crystals reorient when the crystals are squeezed. Closely related ferroelectric materials are important to technology applications, because the domains within such materials can be reoriented with electric fields to permit or prohibit polarized light to pass through, so there are potential applications in electronic displays.
But because their work still is in the research stage, Hollingsworth said they still must see whether the phases they have observed will actually have unusual properties that are useful. He also said he expects the same unusual phase transition behavior to occur in materials other than the urea-nonadecane crystals they used.
by Lori Valigra
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We requested students to tell our readers about their Summer Internship Experience. We are publishing below their experiences for internships in India during summer of 2009. We have randomly picked some of the students to tell their experience. We hope that their junior brothers will find the article useful.
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Praharsh Sharma (4th year-Electronics Engineering)
(Praharsh Sharma)
After Semester VI, I pursued Summer Internship with one of the world’s leading EDA (Electronic Design Automation) industries of the world viz. Cadence Design Systems (CDS) Inc. (http://www.cadence.com/), at their Noida SEZ (Noida Special Economic Zone) R&D Centre during May – July 2009 for a period of 8 weeks. I worked as a part of Mixed Signal (Custom IC) Division in Cadence Virtuoso Schematic Editor – Integration team (VSE-Integ), CDS India which works for Cadence Custom IC EDA tool Virtuoso used by leading Design Companies of the world for Circuit Simulation and associated tasks.
Why Industry Internship?
Industry Summer Internship after Semester VI is also a part of B. Tech. Curriculum and is subject to evaluation in Semester VII as a 2 credit combined course on Tour/Training Viva-Voce. Also it happens to be a practical pre-requisite for an Undergraduate student looking forward to be an Industry professional to pursue at least an 8 week Internship in a good company to procure the necessary industry experience that he/she needs to imbibe in him to conductively aspire for a great start to the career.
Internship application and procedure:
Industries have their own policy oriented and well defined procedure to offer Summer Internships which are often more difficult to crack as compared to Research Internships in the country. The rule of thumb is to keep submitting your candidature to the companies of one’s interest through HR and alumni. In due time, depending on the candidature, one gets to read/hear back from the companies which mostly test the candidate and suitability through variably 1-3 rounds of Interviews which are almost always telephonically accomplished.
Experience with Cadence:
It is a great experience, learning and fun to be with Cadence Design Systems. I availed rampant support, expert guidance and unparalleled encouragement at Cadence during my endeavor, without any of which my first industry experience would not have been that worthwhile and productive. It was an unforeseen and mammoth knowledge gaining experience for me during the course of work that I preformed with Cadence as Summer Intern.
Technical Learning:
Within the constraints of Industry Non-Disclosure Agreement, I would mention that the projects I carried out were technically based on Scripting Languages and Makefiles and were about EDA Test-Case regressions, Automated Report Generation and Script Based Analysis.
Firstly, I started off with the basics of Linux and Scripting Languages like Bash Shell, Bourne Shell, Perl, C Shell and introductory Tcl and later moved onto write small application utilities for dedicated tasks. I also had hands-on experience with CVS, GCOV and similar common industry code utilities. Finally I also worked with Makefiles and EDA test-cases.
Incentives:
Though I was not provided any accommodation or stipend for the internship as such but I availed all local travel and in house facilities. Cadence Design Systems provides world class in house facilities (gymnasium, sports, recreation, food, to/fro door pick-up/drop, cubicle, and consultancy) to its employees comparable to any company in the world.
Mentions of advice:
A good industry experience and pre-placement offer opportunities should be one’s foremost consideration while deciding between procured Internship offers rather than stipend as often (as in my case), companies spend as much on employee satisfaction and facilities as another company may offer as stipend during the two months. I chose summer Internship opportunity with Cadence over another equally good Industry Internship offer I had, based on my career vision and prospects.
Lastly, my words of advice to all brethren would be to extensively hunt for a good Summer Internship with time in hand as at almost all times, there is deep emphasis on and intense benefit from Summer Internship experience, work and contribution to the organisation during recruitment procedures.
In the month of August, I was recruited by Goldman Sachs Inc. as New Associate Programming Analyst (NAPA) and I felt the dire leap my Summer Internship experience and learning gave me in comparison to others during the selection procedure. An Industry Internship experience is not only about technical learning but more about the grooming from ‘a just another Senior Undergraduate Student’ to ‘a very near in future Industry professional’.
Best Wishes,
Praharsh Sharma
Senior Undergraduate (B. Tech. Part-IV),
Department of Electronics Engineering, IT-BHU, Varanasi.
Contact: praharshsharmaster@gmail.com
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Miss Akanksha Trigun (3rd year -Electronics Engineering)
I am currently a student of B. Tech. Part-III (Electronics Engineering) and I did Summer Internship at IISc Bangalore after completion of my Semester IV.
Email: aksbest@gmail.com
(Akanksha Trigun)
I applied for the annual Summer Research Fellowship offered by Indian Academy of Sciences. This scholarship is given to a very limited number of students of varied disciplines from all over the country. The academy is a joint facility of many reputed scientific institutions across the country. JNCASR, IISc, NCBS, BHU, NIOS are but a few to name its associates. Similar fellowships are also offered by JNCASR (Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research) and TIFR (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research) every year. I was offered fellowship by JNCASR too but I had to choose one.
About IAS Fellowship
The academy invites student applications and the selected students are assigned to reputed professors and scientists in reputed scientific institutions across the country according to the field of interest and idea of work given by the students. The scholarship is decent. It covers all the travel expenses. The accommodation is more than satisfactory and a stipend is also given. Daily shuttles are provided for transportation from and to the place of work. Apart from that, regular seminars and meetings are organized for IAS fellows to share experience.
About my work
I worked under Prof. S. B. Krupanidhi (Material Research Center, IISc, Bangalore). He is a landmark in the field of ferroelectric thin films. I worked on the various compositions of Thin Film Super-lattices deposited through Pulsed Laser Deposition Technique to find a highly efficient Ferroelectric composition which could be effectively used in SRAMs and DRAMs to enhance electronic memory.
About Indian Institute of Science and my work experience
Indian Institute of Science Bangalore is hailed as the top most scientific institute of the country and it has totally earned its reputation. Apart from anything else, the very aura of the place spells academic dedication. Being a part of an Undergraduate curriculum rarely gives one, the feel of serious science and research. India has been spending generously on education and once one gets a chance to be a part of such institutes, he/she gets to think that indeed, the taxpayers’ money is not all in vain. The greenery, the peace and the tranquil environment of the beautiful campus is quite relaxing. If one has grown up being ‘the little engineer’ of the house making designs out of motors and toy car batteries then IISc is the place for him/her to be at, as it is all about having original ideas and pursuing them. Apart from an enhanced access to international journals, best books and the best equipments, it is a different feeling for any curious student to stay all nights at lab and see his/her idea actually materializing in a machine.
IISc takes a limited number of students for training and mainly they come from the IAS and the JNCASR summer fellowships. Some students also contact individual professors in their field of interest and then it remains at the professor’s discretion to invite them for Internship or not. Generally, students going in for internship/training by individual approach do not get accommodation or stipend but as mentioned earlier, it is solely on professor’s discretion.
As a concluding thing, I would mention that after completing two years of engineering education, if one opts for summer training, it should preferably be in a scientific institute. This is the time when one is most undecided about what to be pursued next and also is a lot unaware of the various possibilities that exist in basic sciences and how much exciting can it really be. Meeting people working in different disciplines that one does not even know the existence of, surely makes one think out of the box. It is the best way to weigh the future prospects because information about MBA or Economics is commonplace and fancy but to know about future in science one needs to really be near it for a while.
(Akanksha at IISc, Bangalore campus)
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Additional Link
*“Summer Internship Experience-First Hand Report” in Chronicle August 2008 issue
http://www.itbhuglobal.org/chronicle/archives/2008/08/index-campus-view.php#003639
* Prof. S. B. Krupanidhi, Professor and chairman, Material Research Center, IISc, Bangalore.
http://mrc.iisc.ernet.in/Faculty/Regular/SBK/SBK_Profile.htm
* Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
http://www.iisc.ernet.in/
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We requested students to tell our readers about their Summer Internship Experience abroad. We are publishing below their experiences for the internship during summer of 2009. We have randomly picked some of the students to tell their experience. We hope that their junior brothers will find the article useful.
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Deep Jariwala (4th year Metallurgical Engineering)
Email: deep29jariwala@gmail.com
(Deep Jariwala at Prof. Ajayan’s Lab, Rice University)
I pursued my Summer Internship (both at the end of Second Year and Third Year) at Rice University, Houston Texas USA. I worked at the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, of George R. Brown School of Engineering, Rice University for duration of 8 weeks each year (May-July 2008 and 2009).
This internship was arranged in a rather unusual way. I had done some theoretical work in my field of interest (Carbon nano-materials) in my Department here at IT-BHU with Prof. G.V.S. Sastry. He was instrumental in getting me this opportunity as he communicated this work to Prof. P.M. Ajayan at Rice University who in turn got interested and called me over for the summer in 2008. Prof. Ajayan is one of the leading scientists in the field of Carbon nano-materials and is even credited with the discovery and initial work on carbon nano-tubes. Also Rice University is the so called ‘Mecca’ for advanced Carbon Materials notably because of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry going to Dr. Richard Smalley and Dr. Robert Curl of Rice University for their discovery of fullerenes (C60). I was fortunate enough to work in Prof. Ajayan’s group at Rice University for two summer periods. He has setup one of the most advanced nano-material synthesis and characterization labs which are very well equipped.
My project was on Graphene synthesis and nano-cutting of Graphene to make nanometer sized Electronic devices in 2008. Since Graphene (a single layer of graphite) is a zero band-gap Semiconductor with very high electron mobility, it has the potential to replace Silicon in future Electronics. Therefore to fabricate Graphene devices smaller than the current smallest size of Silicon devices, we developed a new nano-cutting technique using Nickel nano-particles which cut along specific crystallographic directions with atomic sharpness and regular shapes. In 2009, I was again called over by Prof. Ajayan and I worked on CVD growth of large area wafer scale Graphene and its doping to open up the band-gap. This research was essential in order to demonstrate that Graphene can be fabricated on industrial scale and that its band-gap can be tuned by doping.
I learnt a plethora of techniques during the two summers. I got a first-hand experience on instruments and techniques like XPS, AFM, SEM and Raman spectroscopy. Besides, there were a number of smaller techniques which I learnt like PVD, sputter and spin coating, plasma cutting, UV-Vis and FTIR spectroscopy techniques. It was an intellectually very rich experience and Houston is a wonderful city to be in. I couldn’t travel much as I was intensely involved with my project but I did manage to visit nearby cities and the famous Johnson space center of NASA.
I carried out my own air travel expenses in 2008 but the rest was reimbursed. In 2009 my internship was fully funded. Normally US universities do provide campus accommodation but at a hefty rent. Internships in the US are normally difficult to get primarily because of funding problems. Moreover USA is a very professional place and they are always on the look for highly skilled people. Another major factor is that two months is too less a time to do substantial research and therefore people are not ready to invest funds on international students who come over for such short times. However the best research is done in USA and it is the best environment to work in. Experience in USA will tremendously boost one’s chances of getting M.S. / Ph.D. positions at good US Universities. Most of the times, (like in my case) if one does good work in the summer months, the Professor offers the student to join his/her group as a Ph.D. student after B. Tech. /M. Tech. I managed to get one international publication in Advanced Materials (which is one of the leading journals in Materials Science) from my work in 2008 along with 2 other international conference proceedings. I have 3 more papers in pipeline from my other works in 2008 and 2009 at Rice University.
My advice to all those who want to go for higher studies abroad is, that if one can afford the cost and get the opportunity to work at a decent US university, he/she must go for it. It will definitely change his/her perspective towards research and higher studies and may as well change the shape of his/her career.
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* Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA.
* Prof. Ajayan’s Group
http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~rv4/Ajayan/
* Interview with Prof. P. M. Ajayan (Metallurgy 1984) by Yogesh K. Upadhyaya in Rediff.com
(Prof. P. M. Ajayan)
'Nanotech holds key to the future'
http://ia.rediff.com/money/2006/dec/15inter.htm
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Mahanth K. Gowda (4th year Computer Science and Engineering)
Email: mahanthg74@gmail.com
(Mahanth K. Gowda at INRIA, France))
I pursued my third year summer internship at the ARLES project group, INRIA Rocquencourt, Paris during May - July 2009. Animesh Pathak [1] (Alumnus ITBHU -CSE 2003 and PhD USC, LA 2008) who is a Researcher at INRIA notified us (the then CSE part-3 students) in December 2008 of an opening for a summer intern in his research group to work on wireless sensor networking. Since I was deeply interested in Distributed Computing, I followed up and after an Interview taken by him during his visit to IT-BHU during December 2008 I was finally selected for the internship.
Why Foreign Internships?
Let me first share my opinion on the most frequently asked question - Why Foreign Internships?. Foreign Internships generally give a new kind of exposure in conditions very different from one's own country. Living in a land with a different kind of culture, working on new previously unexplored areas or even in a new atmosphere will certainly increase the horizons of visualization and reasoning powers of an individual apart from enriching his knowledge. It can also be considered as an opportunity to gain first-hand experience on foreign educational systems for those wanting to pursue higher studies abroad. The reasons mentioned above along with a deep interest to work in the field of Distributed Computing, prompted me to consider the opportunity of INRIA internship with top priority.
INRIA and the ARLES Project Group
INRIA ([2] Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique, in English: National Institute for Research in Computer and Control Sciences) was established in 1967 at Rocquencourt near Paris. Today, it has 8 research centers spread over various cities in France. INRIA employs 3800 people. Among them are 1300 researchers, 1000 Ph.D. students and 500 post-doctorates. Under the supervision of the French Ministry of National Education, Advanced Instruction and Research and the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry; INRIA does research in both theoretical and Applied Computer Science. It has produced a number of widely used products like Scilab, TOM etc. Based on areas of research, INRIA is organized into several autonomous project groups. I was a part of the ARLES [3] project group with around 15 members lead by Valérie Issarny [4]. ARLES investigates solutions to architecture-based development of distributed systems. The main focus of the group is on definition of languages, methods, tools and supporting middle-ware infrastructures, which ease the development of distributed systems.
The atmosphere at INRIA is tailor made for research. One gets to interact with the most eminent of the researchers. Visitors, frequently invited from diverse fields, give enlightening talks on their areas of research. The office infrastructure equipped seminar rooms, review rooms, white-boards carved on most of the walls form an excellent and ideal atmosphere for research.
Specifics about my research experience
My work during the internship was on Heterogeneous Sensor Networking which was carried out under the guidance of Animesh Pathak. It consisted of two phases. Firstly, the focus was on the handling of run-time and data routing among heterogeneous sensor nodes consisting of Sun SPOTs, base stations and PCs (laptops and Desktops). Next, I worked on the extension of a framework for the compilation of a class of data driven macroprograms to support code generation for a target network consisting of heterogeneous nodes. Both the phases involved a lot of research survey, design and coding. The software platform I worked on was with J2SE and J2ME, and the hardware platform included Sun SPOT Sensors among others. The opportunity to work with real time sensors was really exciting.
I did a significant amount of writing also. Under the guidance and co-authorship of Animesh Pathak, a Demo paper entitled "Srijan: A Graphical Toolkit for Sensor Network Macroprogramming" was presented at ESEC/FSE 2009 [5], Netherlands. We also got a paper entitled "Supporting Heterogeneity in Data Driven Sensor Network Macroprogramming" accepted by the student symposium, HIPC 2009 [6], Kochi, India as a poster-only submission which will be presented in the coming December. In a nutshell, the work experience was a perfect sample of a research life.
Compensation Received/Monetary arrangements
I used to receive a compensation of around 1000 euros/month from EGIDE (Égide is an organization managing international exchange programmes for foreign grant-holder students and interns on courses in France or abroad), during my stay in Paris. This was enough not only for a decent living in Paris but also for touring the entire city. Without having any visa related restrictions in Europe, some of my friends had also toured nearby countries - Switzerland, Italy. Moreover, I was given free air tickets by INRIA for both onward and return journeys. So, at the end, I had roughly around 600 Euros still left in my pocket!
Accommodation and Living
I was accommodated at La Clairere (A hostel sort of a residential building) near INRIA where people from diverse backgrounds and regions used to live I met people from various parts of China, Africa (Tunisia, Algeria), Europe (France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy etc) and Americas (Brazil, US etc). I shared the dining hall, kitchen, TV room etc with them and even played a number of games like Table Tennis, Lawn Tennis and Football with them. For non-vegetarians, Europe is a paradise as far as food is concerned. Living a vegetarian in Europe is a bit hard according to many, but rather I didn't feel so with those delicious cakes, brownies, chocolates, pizzas, bland boiled vegetable soups, rice, hot French fries, eggs etc which made most part of my diet. I even used to cook occasionally whenever I missed Indian food. I got completely used to a living in a foreign land.
Applying Rules
The general applying principle for foreign internships according to me is based on the following rules.
* Know about various research areas of your field and choose the one(s) that interests you the most or the one(s) with a wide scope
* Look for universities and labs which do research on such areas.
* Make a list of Professors and Researchers in such universities and labs who do research on such areas.
* Mail your CV to these researchers with a good cover letter. Make sure to mention clearly in the cover letter, as to, how your research interests match with that of the researcher applying to. One can even include references to some of the work done by the researcher and exhibit how one has been following his work.
It would be a good idea to start the applying process early, like from October. This would be helpful not only in covering most of the important universities in your applying agenda, but also in fulfilling the formalities with passport and visa in a comfortable manner.
Ending Notes
To recapitulate, my internship gave me a perfect sample of research life academically and a complete exposure to a foreign life personally. A judiciously selected foreign internship should, give an individual, a strong exposure to new areas, broaden his perspectives and enrich his knowledge. The skills gained will certainly prove very beneficial in one's pursuit for opting research as a future career.
References
[1] http://www-rocq.inria.fr/who/Animesh.Pathak/
[2] www.inria.fr
[3] http://www-roc.inria.fr/arles/
[4] http://www-roc.inria.fr/arles/members/issarny.html
[5] http://www.esec-fse-2009.ewi.tudelft.nl
[6] http://hipc.org/hipc2009/
INRIA, France
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Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005, UP