Geek gazette spring 2015

Geek Gazette SPRING 2015 COVER STORY

Bioinformatics

BIG STORY Can we really trust AI?

TECHNICAL Inspecting Illusions

INTERVIEW Dr. R. Balasubramanian

ISSUE 13

CONTENTS TECHNICAL

PSHYCOLOGY

Inspecting Illusions

6

Biomimicry

13

INTERVIEWS

Hardwired for hope

5

MS and research.

10 How it’s done.

What’s in a name

23

A chat with Dr. 16 Balasubramanian

GEEK SPEAK The obscure amalgamation of the biology and technology has intrigued Geeks from all walks of life. The emergence of myriads of health-monitoring and diagnostic microchips, perpetual supply of research funds and also startups like DNAnexus and Xcode indicate how this field has enthralled the world. The manifestation of this concept has also flooded the theatres with flicks like the Surrogates and the Minority Report (GG recommendation) which have captured public imagination far and wide. So this issue, Geek Gazette ventures into this exciting field of biotechnology and bioinformatics to give our readers a glimpse of this domain.

The campus highlights consist of the interview of Dr. Balasubramanian (Head of the ICC), about the new Proxy System, Abhishek Majumdar and Harshal Priyadarshi talk about the art of pursuing research and bagging MS at your favourite Ivy College. Also check out the article about the new state-of-the-art Wind Simulation facility,installed in IIT Roorkee, which is the first of it's kind in Asia.

Coherent with this issue's theme, Project Files section covers an awesome BTP on Network based integration of gene expression and copy number profiles for tumour classification by Jitin Singla, 4th year B.Tech CSE. Daisy Bell, the comic strip, resurrects Freud himself to give you a taste of his famous psychoanalysis and also his not so famous personality. For the book-worms, we have the review of Cryptonomicon(considered as the bible for geeks) and for the movie buffs, we have reviewed Predestination (2014).

This time we have also tried to experiment with the design of the magazine, which is based majorly on illustrations. Hope you find it pleasing to the eye.

Other Featured articles span from the field of psychology to pure sciences leaving you baffled and longing for more. For the God loving we have the explanation of the Ontological argument, for the linguistics enthusiasts we take a look at Puns and Wordplay, for the terminator fans we explore the implications of rising I in AI, in short, we have enough to satisfy the geek in you. Go Ahead. Read On. Peace.

Follow us on Facebook at http://fb.com/geekgazette

#teamgeek

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY HEAD

PRESIDENT

VICE PRESIDENTS

Anand Bullusu

Kushal Saharan

Sandeep Pathry & Shivani Soni

EDITORIAL HEAD

NEWS HEAD

DESIGN HEAD

FINANCE HEAD

WEB HEAD

Karthik M.

Anirudh Goyal

Parag Nandi

Vaibhav Gupta

Amlan Baishya

EDITORIAL & NEWS

DESIGN

FINANCE

WEB

Aman Shrivastava

Lilly Kumari

Madhav Pathak

Asim Ashish

Dikshant Maheshwari

Vineet Arora

Ananya Tripathi

Jay Hitesh Bosamiya

Vivek Singh Holkar

Varun Joshi

Ashutosh Shukla

Priyanka Jain

Abhishek Singhal

Ashutosh Rungta

Shivansh Singh

Arpit Mishra

Rishabh Chhabra

Yash Gangrade

Harshvardhan

Soumya Agarwal

M. Nikhil

Richa Jain

Vashi Negi

Animesh Gupta

Vaishali Jain

Akashdeep Goel

P Kinnera Priya

Mohit Virli

Atharva Chandra

Nidhi San Walia

Aashaka Shah

Renju Kokkatt

Samar Singh

Nikita Javale

Tanvi Sharma

Jatin

Mohammad Saif Anwer

Parinishtha Yadav

Princi Vershwal

Team Page

Utkarsh Bajpai

Purujit Goyal

Siddhart Saravanakumar

Archit Umrao

Dvij Mankad

Tarannum Khan Kshitija Saharan Supriya Dube

04

Anurag Dhingra

Ashish Kumar

Aditya Prakash Vaibhav Raj Shakul Mittal Meet Vora

Aayush Agarwal

PSYCHOLOGY

Hardwired for Hope The optimism bias is an inherent trait in all of us. We tend to believe that we are at a lesser risk of having negative experiences than others. It was first recorded in a research on college students who believed that their own chances of getting a divorce or a drinking problem was less than the others, and that of getting a big house and a good job was greater than others.

Research shows that most of us spend less time mulling over negative outcomes than we do over positive ones. When we do contemplate defeat and heartache, we tend to focus on how these can be avoided.

The optimism bias drives us for the future, gives us hope that the future will be better than the present, and motivates us to

People want to be optimistic. The glass must be half full, not half empty. People want to be happy. Optimism keeps them happy.

T

“

“

he human brain works in strange ways. If something affects us even minimally our mind tends to keep a ‘record’ of it. We conveniently forget the little things that do not affect us. For example you are very less likely to remember your friend heading to the bathroom to take a bath, till the day he starts stinking, forcing you to ponder upon the same. The brain subconsciously filters out information that it considers useless, to keep track of the things that do matter. Our memories evolve with us. What might have been an insignificant moment at a certain time becomes precious later. Memories and emotions are bound to intertwine. We tend to see things as they suit us best.

The eye only sees what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

Our reality is solely our perception of things. Researchers at Stanford have found that computers are, infact, better judges of a person than his friends. The research involved analysing facebook ‘likes’ to judge a person on personality traits like openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. It is not surprising that we tend to be less critical of our friends than of others. Objectivity always suffers at the hands of emotions.

SPRING 2015

work for something. If nothing else, people want to be optimistic. The glass must be half full, not half empty. Infact, if you’re not optimistic enough, you’re probably reading one of the numerous self-help books available on the market.

Ever since psychologist Martin Seligman crafted the phrase "learned optimism" in 1991 and started offering optimism training, there's been a thriving industry in the kind of thought reform that supposedly overcomes negative thinking. The Bottom line: people want to be happy. Optimism keeps them happy.

However, too much optimism can be disastrous. People who are extremely optimistic tend to have short planning horizons and act in ways that are generally not considered wise. Overoptimists don’t plan for the downside.

But worry you shall not. The alternative to optimism is not pessimism, it’s realism. We don’t always need to dwell on the worst-case scenarios, just admit to ourselves that often, bad things do happen, and that if they happen to us, we must be prepared for them. Optimism training and the likes are no solution to our problems. We cannot, like little children, wish them away. The solution lies in a clear vision and commitment to action. Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. It has been said that the optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute. But you don’t need to be on either end of the spectrum to be successful or happy.

05

TECHNICAL

!!

Inspecting Illusions Most people in the world believe that the human brain is so difficult to understand, since it inherently is complex and is insanely rich in its ability to comprehend and think. We constantly try to emulate it and strive for Artificial Intelligence; but what if our creativity and very “human nature” were actually functions of our stupidity - the very fact that our brain just cannot really comprehend things? Maybe the harder task is Artificial Stupidity.

Of course, everyone has heard of optical illusions, but how many of us really think about why they occur or whether they have any purpose? If our brains were perfectly capable of understanding the information flowing in through our senses, there’d be no illusions, and we’d have a perfect understanding of the world. But these illusions are in fact very necessary for our survival, from an evolutionary standpoint. Pareidolia, or the assignment of meaning where none exists, such as seeing a man on the moon, exists as a biproduct of the neural pathways that get developed at an extremely young age. There is a massive advantage of instantaneously differentiating friend from foe, and wrongly identifying a foe as friend can be fatal.

But this kind of pareidolia isn’t limited to sight. Our other senses also are affected in such ways, though most don’t

06

notice this as easily. Satanic messages hidden in popular songs such as Hotel California or Stairway to Heaven are extremely popular and have even been used by some to proclaim that Satan exists. The messages though, can be merely attributed to the brain trying to make sense of gibberish, which is further made easier by the very helpful reversed lyrics.

But sound reversals are the mere beginning of these auditory illusions. We even seem to mishear some audio that should be obvious. A sound that’s continuously increasing in pitch should naturally fall off of our hearing range, but not the Shepard Tone.

Listening to the rising version of the tone, we can distinctly notice the constant increase in pitch whilst also realizing that it seems to remain the same. While we can identify changes in pitch easily we aren’t too great at absolute pitch, nor at recognizing the layered structure of the multiple pitches that are involved in this tone. But compare our speech recognition to that of the best computers algorithms, and you see which trait is more useful.

We also tend to ignore a lot of details as we try to go about our daily lives and this can lead to a whole other bunch of illusions. For example, count the number of F’s in the following sentence : “FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.” Is it really 3?

GEEK GAZETTE

TECHNICAL It’s actually 6. Our brains tend to ignore the word ‘OF’ in almost everything we read. The relative insignificance of that word in affecting the meaning of the sentence tends to make us move on to more relevant things - things that really matter.

Try to remember back to the time when you just finished your class 12. Seems like it just happened a short while ago, doesn’t it? This temporal illusion is also attributed to the way the brain filters out the unimportant and keeps only the things that we call “memorable”. Applying this kind of filtration system, we need to remember only a fraction of what is real and yet have memories that are of importance or affect our emotions.

Emotions can also alter our states of perception of the environment around us. We tend to project our feelings to the people around us. Our emotions are altered too, by the overall feel of the surroundings. And what affects our emotions, affects our bodies as well. The feeling of security and being taken care of has been found to improve the bodies natural healing rate. The illusion of taking a medicine sometimes is all we need to be cured, and that’s why doctors prescribe placebos.

information that is given to us. We make more data up and ignore some data, whichever might seem more necessary to the brain.

This leads us to have an altered perception of reality - a reality which is much more attuned to our beliefs. Those who can roll their tongues can easily notice the tactile illusion of feeling the finger move the wrong way when moving it over the rolled tongue.

Why? Because tongues are meant to stay straight, of course.

And of course our nose is at the front of our face. “What of it?”, says the brain and conveniently crops it out of our view when in fact, it is partially obstructing our vision. We have blind spots too, but the brain just merely fills in the gaps. What this leads to, is a perfect HD vision (ignoring correctional glasses).

Maybe we need to really learn from this amazing way that these processes work. Most of the fields of science and technology are producing so much more than ever before, and we only have limited human resources to handle this overflow. By filtering out the unnecessary and deducing the important, we might actually reach to a much better understanding of the world, or if not, at least build some realistic humanoid robots who trip, fall, and laugh at themselves.

We humans have a tendency to make the best of whatever

“ Campus Check “

A new state-of-the-art lab facility worth a whopping 9 crore has been set up beside Kasturba Bhawan. It is a windsimulation laboratory designed to create virtual tornados at wind speeds in excess of 135kmph – the first of it’s kind in Asia. Boasting as many as 110 fans over a 3mx3.5m grid, with a combined capacity of creating simulated intense environments for wind load testing of buildings.

Conceptualized in 2005 by Prof. Ajay Gairola after he was impressed by a similar facility in Miyazaki University in Japan, the lab has been under construction since 9th December, 2014 under the constant scrutiny of IAWE Chairman of TPU and has been built in less than 3 months. Expected to be fully functional any time now, the lab, in Prof. Gairola’s words, will provide students a new opportunity in wind engineering. One of the prime features of the lab is the fact that it can be accessed and fully controlled from anywhere in the world over an online control panel equipped with round the clock Video coverage of the lab through more than a dozen CCTV cameras. Prof. Gairola goes on to say “This lab is an experiment which will set a trend for remote accessibility of labs”.

SPRING 2015

Salient features of this lab 1. Largest cross-section 3X3.5m.

2. Can study unsteady flow.

3. It has remote accessibilities.

4. Reproducibility of history of wind velocities.

5. Has speed equal to 135-140 Kph. 6. Multi part Annual maintenance of around 25-30 lakh funded by MHRD under COEDMM. For more info visit www.coedmm.org

07

ELECTRONICS

Microfluidic Electronics

The most amazing part is that a small droplet is enough to keep the system cool for an hour.

08

GEEK GAZETTE

FEATURED SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

The Theory of Theism What do you get when a theist goes all mathematical about his beliefs? Ontological Arguments for the existence of God. Ontology is a philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence or reality. As atheists always throw science in the face of their counterparts, theists sat down and prayed “Oh God! We can’t counter these non-believer’s scientific arguments. Please do something so that we may prove that you exist.” Three months and 7 days later Anselm of Canterbury came out with his work Proslogion in which he gave the first Ontological argument for the existence of God. When it comes to proving that God exists and is actually watching you do nasty stuff, Alvin Plantiga’s argument using modal logic comes the closest to achieving the task. So, this is how the argument works :

“

“

Premise 1: It is possible that God exists.

Premise 2: If it is possible that God exists, then God exists in some possible worlds.

Premise 3: If God exists in some possible worlds, then God exists in all possible worlds.

Premise 4: If God exists in all possible worlds, then God exists in the actual world.

Premise 5: If God exists in the actual world, then God exists.

Bullshit, right? Well, not so much.

Absurd as it may seem, the logic when understood properly, is hard to refute and as a believer may say “It’s Divine”. So, lets break it down and analyse.

The first thing to look into, is the meaning of ‘Possible Worlds’. It is generally a way for philosophers to test an idea to see if its logical by questioning if it could exist in a possible world like our own. The most debatable part of the above argument is how God is defined. This is the point where people arguing about the validity of the argument actually start arguing. Now, there are three ways to define an entity for a modal logic Impossible : An entity that exists in no possible worlds. ex : A square circle.

Contingent : An entity that exists in some possible worlds. ex : A unicorn.

Necessary : An entity that exists in all possible worlds. ex : Numbers.

wisdom, power etc to the maximum extent hence being omnipresent, omniscient and omnipresent. He also must not possess any property that is not good to have like corruption, greed or imperfection. So the argument is that since being a necessity is a good property to have, God being a maximally great being must be necessary which is also written in the Bible (Colossians 1:16).

And if a being is considered necessary you can easily see the logical flow behind the premises of the argument, clearly proving that God, a maximally great being, exists.

At this point non-supporters of the argument come up with a reasonable logic that the argument only holds because God is by definition considered to be a necessity which is already assuming that he exists. It can be reasoned that the same argument can be used to prove the existence of anything that can be imagined like a unicorn by defining it to be necessity, disapproving the validity of the argument right away and sending thiests home empty handed.

Another point that comes up is that everything ordinary can not be defined as maximally great, because a maximally great unicorn does not m a k e m u c h s e n s e . A n y w a y, considering a unicorn to be maximally great it would, by logical construct, mean that it is God. So a maximally great unicorn when defined, will become God because it has all the properties that a God must have and thankfully form-changing is one of them.

When skeptics try to debunk the argument they mostly attack premise 1, as the following premises just follow modal logic and are uncontroversial, so the only way to disprove the argument is to logically show that it is impossible to have a maximally great being altogether.

So when asked if it feels convincing, I would say Not Really! But it does not matter if it feels convincing or not, when it boils down, the argument tends to be pretty logically coherent which is what it was designed for.

So a necessary entity is something that can not fail to exist in any possible world.

SPRING SPRING 2015 2015

09

INTERVIEW

MS and Research. How it's done.

Abhishek Majumdar B-Tech 4th year Electronics & Comm. Engg.

Harshal Priyadarshi B-tech 4th Year Electrical Engg.

Many students have thought about a career in research, or want to continue on for further studies abroad. While most seniors are helpful to figure out what to cram for job interviews, not a whole lot are there to give advice for how to go on a path for higher education. Noticing this, Geek Gazette decided to interview Abhishek Majumdar and Harshal Priyadarshi, to know what they did, in order to get into the universities that they wanted.

GG: Tell us something about your 4 years here at IITR. AM: 4 years, well umm, the 4 years here has taught me about my weaknesses. As time passes by, students here will recognize their weaknesses and strengths, and maybe also their true passion.

There are still a lot of 4th year people who haven’t found their passion yet, but if you keep exploring and are lucky, you will be able to find you real passion. Apart from that it’s been fun here!

Lot’s and lot’s of fun really. Spent a lot of time gaming and sleeping, yeah that’s how i passed the first three years haha.

HP: I’d like to identify myself as a geek. In the first two years, I was really into core electrical engineering. I didn’t have the exposure to other areas. So, first two years went into studying electrical engineering. After that, I was diverted towards Robotics. It happened because of Shristi; I presented a quadcopter over there. I got interested in robotics, mechanical part initially and then software part of robotics.

That’s how I entered into the field of robotics. Shristi helped a lot.

GG:To which all universities have you applied? In programmes have you got accepted?

which all

AM: I applied in the second phase, and I have applied for universities like University of California, San diego. UC Berkeley, Cornell, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania and Harvard’s data mining Program. I have got accepted by University of California, San Diego and I am still waiting for the other universities to reply. I am happy with UCSD as it suits my area of interest and is also ranked 7th in USA. HP: I applied for Masters in Robotics in most of the universities, I also applied to computer science in 2 or 3 universities. I applied to 10-11 universities totally and got admit from 5 universities. I got admitted into CMU, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, Delft University of technology, UCSD for Masters in Robotics Program. There are two options available after MS. One is academics – do a PhD, become a tenure track professor, other one is entrepreneurship – form or join a company. For academia, one should choose a research oriented program. For example, in CMU there are two programs in Robotics: MS in Robotics and Masters in Robotics System Development.

MRSD is a professional Masters course which is suited to students with entrepreneurial interest. I got accepted into that whereas MS in robotics is more research oriented program and it doesn’t have many Business courses. I’ll go with MRSD as CMU Robotics Institute ranks first in the world.

GG: When did you give GRE and TOEFL? How much should one score in each of these tests to get into a good university?

AM: I gave GRE twice and got a score of 325 in my second

10

GEEK GAZETTE

INTERVIEW attempt. 320+ is a good score and should suffice.

HP: I gave my GRE in September and TOEFL beforehand.

There is no such a score that can guarantee you an admission.

Aim for at least 320+ and for engineering streams, it is imperative to get 170/170 in quant section because that’s the section where we can score more than average. I got a 326.

169 in Quant and 157 in Verbal. For TOEFL, it is better if you get more than 26 in each section. Speaking section matters the most. 26+ in speaking section, your chances to get TAship increases. TOEFL does not matter much except for TAship.

AM: Well most universities require 3 letters of recommendations, two from the University you are in and one from somewhere else. I had a lot of close connections with the Professors I worked with and I have known them for a long time, so that’s how I got my recommendations. My research work in ISI Chennai, where I did my internship, also helped.

GG: Do you think it’s important to contact the professors abroad before applying in their Universities?

AM: Well I did not do that. People do mail the Profs, but apart from that there is a direct procedure of applying to Universities and that is how I did it. But yeah, contacting the professors does help.

HP: I’d suggest not to do that for MS programs and always do that while applying for PhD. If you get in touch with professors, they will assist in the application process and they’ll let you know the chances of you getting into the PhD program. You will working with the professors directly in the PhD program and it is always good to know them and get their consent. For MS, they don’t directly interact with you and there’s no reason to contact them. I never did.

GG: Any tips on drafting the SOP (statement of purpose) ?

AM: See universities clearly mention what they expect from a student. The grade sheet does not matter here, they primarily want to know what kind of person you are. They want to know about your life experiences and what to know as to who you are as a person. You have to write about your research work and as to why you like your area of research so much.

HP: If there is no world limit for SoP, I’d suggest explaining as much as possible but at the same time, SoP should be crisp and clear. Keep a format and a flow while writing: explain who you are, what you want to do, why you got into this particular field, what have you done in the same. Be specific and try to give as many examples as possible. At the end, try to explain why that particular university or (professor if you’re applying for PhD) is suitable for you and how you can contribute to the university. My Statement of Purpose was around 1700 words. Format of the resume for applying for higher studies is a bit different from Channeli format. Professors in US have their CVs on their website. That should give you an idea of structure you should follow. Keep it as short as possible and bullet out the highlights.

GG: Any pointers on letters of recommendation? (How many to get/who to get them from/how early to get them?)

SPRING 2015

HP: Usually, three LoRs are required. Try to get one recommendation letter from a foreign professor if you’ve done a foreign internship or place where you did your internship. That’ll be unique and it’ll add value to your application.

GG: What are the specific things to keep in mind while applying to a department different from one’s undergraduate department?

AM: Well, there must be bridge between your stream and your interest. I, being in ECE, can’t randomly just do MS or PhD in physics or chemistry. There has to be a link between your stream and what you want to do. And the BTP should also be able to reflect your area of interest, that is quite important. Like my BTP ( on EEG signal analysis) is able to show my area of interest, which is neurosciences and machine learning , and also includes signal processing which is related to my stream.

HP: Get yourself acquainted to field in which you’d like to do MS by doing online courses, institute electives. A lot of courses are available on Coursera, EDX at least for computer science. Nothing can beat your projects. Even if you’re doing online courses, it is the project that shows your inclination towards that particular field.

Say you’re doing MS in CSE from electrical background. You may not have the prerequisites but you can always complete those prerequisites there. They consider your application at par with others if not above.

11

DELIGHT

12

TECHNICAL

Biomimicry Contrary to popular self righteousness of us humans, we’re not the first ones to build, we’re not the first ones to process cellulose or optimize the packing space or to waterproof or try to heat and cool a structure. The concept of biomimicry looking to the natural world for inspiration, will become just one of the ways we design. After nearly 4 billion years, life on earth not just survives but thrives as a system. Biomimicry illustrates how organisms in the natural world can teach us how to be more efficient and sustainable engineers, chemists, architects and physicists.

With biomimicry, we apply nature’s wisdom as a guiding framework, work beyond the obvious to look deep into the biological systems to see how we can extract those solutions that nature has found and understand how they can be applied in real life. It aims at creating a resilient, adaptive, and thriving economy inspired by nature’s best strategies and based on nature's best practices.

Learning from these concepts, emulating the functional principles, and applying them to our world creates a win-win relationship: innovative, well-adjusted designs combined with zero-negative impact on the environment.

For all we know, it is likely that the smartphone screen we use on a daily basis was inspired by the wings of a butterfly. For engineers, it is about making dream into reality and diversity is the key to success.

Imagine a future aircraft cabin where everything is ecological, wherein the seats are self-cleanable inspired by hydrophobic lotus leaves, and some may even be able to repair themselves in case of impacts and most of them having different physical states which can change shape like limbs of living creatures..

With these cutting edge innovations, let us not forget the most important feature which needs more attention as of now, which is to make aircrafts lighter and stronger. Tooth enamel biomimicry inspires lighter and more fuel efficient planes and

SPRING 2015

spacecrafts. If engineers can incorporate tooth enamel’s wavy hierarchy, micro cracking mechanics and capacity to heal themselves, it could increase safety. Furthermore it offers potential for developing other biological type functions such as controlling temperature and distributing energy sources. Also aerial jams might also be avoided by learning the behavior of flying creatures in storms. So looking beyond just the shape one, can imagine what is inside the aircraft and make long strides forward in both capability and technology.

Who would have thought that giraffes are peaceful, leaf munching, carefree animals that have so much to teach us!

Elongated necks of giraffes evolved a unique mechanism to prevent lethal high blood pressure by automatic contraction of arteries. This can be used in the suits of fighter jet pilots as an acceleration suit compressing the body in specific areas to maintain blood circulation.

A penguin’s eyes have an external retinal liquid that filters out ultraviolet rays and blue light This same system can be incorporated in the goggles, lenses and masks of pilots.

If we were to just explain this broad area of engineering we can say that it is based on four keystones each of them integrating nature-centered steps: Definition-Observation-AbstractionTesting. Given the incredible diversity of life, researchers have a seemingly endless supply of organisms and adaptations from which to draw inspiration. Biomimicry has led to an amazing collection of technological advances.o. Assuming that humanity can preserve the biodiversity that drives biomimicry, the field promises to continue to generate innovative solutions.

In looking to the traits evolution had rigorously tested over millennia, biomimicry allowed engineers and scientists to “learn from our elders” and use nature’s successes to transform design and technology.

With so much to be learnt from nature, many opportunities are still waiting to be discovered.

13

BIG STORY

Can We Really Trust AI? Bots taking over the world - essentially the crux of many of the common sci-fi books and movies that we both love and enjoy.

Obviously, this cannot happen in the real world. Even if it can, we are far from such technology. Or is fact stranger than fiction?

In the extremely recent past, scientists at the University of Alberta designed an extremely powerful bot which has been shown to be much more powerful than humans, at a game which humans have been playing for centuries. Cepheus, the poker-playing-bot outshines virtually any human player that plays against it. You can try to beat it too, on its website. By trying out billions of different hands of poker against itself, it

14

has garnered an immensely powerful strategy which allows it to have a guaranteed long-run positive payout. On top of that, it does this in a game that is essentially just luck and probabilities, and is considered a fair game. Fair game, here, refers to the fact that each player has equal probability of winning.

Bots have been playing great chess and tic-tac-toe for a long time, and have even figured out the optimal solutions to games like checkers and connect-4. However, Cepheus is something that stands apart. The games that have been solved earlier are characterized by the fact that they are perfect information games. This means that each player knows all the events that

GEEK GAZETTE

BIG STORY have occurred in the game and can make their decision based on this. What is surprising is that an imperfect information game like poker can be solved by a computer.

Our world is filled with lack of perfect information. We humans have only begun to scratch the surface of what goes on in our world, and yet we have caused so much turmoil, that we add to its randomness. On top of that, we humans ourselves are quite unpredictable, even if we ignore the aspect of emotions. This is the sole reason that Cepheus has greater implications on our world than any other game playing bot till date.

In the recent past, we have been witnessing an ever rising string of attacks being carried out on the internet, many of which we might not even be aware of until weeks or months after they are carried out. Vulnerabilities like HeartBleed, ShellShock and FREAK have been around in our software for a long time now, and we have come to know about this only when a security researcher makes a responsible public disclosure. But what about the ones that have been lurking around, without us knowing about it? Can they even be fought against? By modelling the possible attacks after analyzing possible responses and actions, it might even be possible to create a tool that automatically comes up with a proper response whenever a new cyber attack seems to occur. Of course, it would require human interaction, but it would lead to much faster responses to such attacks.

War, cyber attacks, and terrorists are quite easily visualizable when thinking of a game playing bot, but the impact that bots like Cepheus have does not stop just here. Researchers are already collaborating with the creators of Cepheus to come up with better ways of tackling diseases such as diabetes. While we have a simplified understanding of the diabetes, the ways to treat it interact in extremely complex ways and often depend on many factors that might have happened earlier in the person’s life. With the lack of complete information, it was considered impossible to come up with a great strategy to treat the patients. What was done instead, was to apply what works for most people in the world. However, with the new learning based systems, we might even be able to make personalized decisions and come up with a close to optimal treatment for each patient.

In a world where we use bots to decide how to combat terrorists, beat diseases, improve negotiations and strengthen cyber security, it seems quite obvious that we’d be using them to make a lot more decisions in our lives. Deciding which restaurant to go to, which route to take to work, which movie to watch next and a lot more might be decided by recommendation systems which are a lot more powerful than they currently are.

But where is it that we draw the line? Do we let them become the president and decide our laws, for example? Most people who

SPRING 2015

are asked this question reply with a resounding no. Their idea is that they don’t want to be ruled over by a bot - even if it might make better decisions than any other human could. Their explanation - the bot is not human. We have an inner sense of trust in other members of our species. We trust them to make the “right” decisions for us. We fail to understand what was stated - that the bot is better at making the right decisions for us. Are we really that flawed? Or just that narcissistic?

Years of watching movies and reading books that show bots taking over the world has made us believe that by allowing bots to make decisions, they will decide to destroy humans. Sci-fi might show bots shooting people and killing them, but the fears here are even worse. By controlling us, we end up losing our freedom. However, we need to remember one thing - the bots may make decisions, but it is our decision whether to abide by them or not. We can use them to make recommendations, but then, we can then analyze by using our own logic and decide what course of action must be taken.

But are we even capable of understanding what is truly a good recommendation, and which isn’t? Our experience with Cepheus has shown that not only most players, but also some of the best poker players in the world fold on certain “bad” hands which Cepheus, through massive simulation and learning, has found to not be bad, and definitely not worth folding for. We cannot argue with hard facts about what has been shown to be empirically true (or even theoretically shown to be true), but we do this all the time, in our day to day lives.

Even when shown these results, most players still continue to keep their same strategy, which they’ve been using all along. So what is the point? If we don’t listen to the recommendations, are they even worth? The suggestions that AI can give might provide us with new directions to look in and might lead us to even better solutions that might not have been found any way otherwise.

We cannot directly decide whether AI is good or bad, or whether it wants to take over the world or not. As Eliezer Yudkowsky rightly put it, “By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.”

We need to accept and appreciate the fact that our word is going to be filled with more technology than ever before, and that it is going to control an even increasing segment of our lives. One thing is certain however, that we humans are not going to be obsolete, or replaced by bots too soon. Sentient AI, or artificial intelligence that can actually think like humans, such as the one shown in the movie The Machine, might not even be possible.

Humans might be fundamentally different. Though that might not be that easy to define, the ability to be extraordinary might be what sets us apart. We do indeed believe what Elbert Hubbard once said, “One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.”

15

INTERVIEW

A chat with Dr. Balasubramanian Dr. R. Balasubramanian (Computer Science and Engineering Department) can certainly be regarded as one of the favorite teachers among students in the institute. He is a recipient of the Outstanding Teacher Award in the year 2010 and is an extremely modest and inspiring person to talk to. He recently became the head of our Institute Computer Center. Despite his tight schedule, Geek Gazette had the pleasure of being able to interview him.

GG: Good evening, sir. First of all, Congratulations on becoming the head of ICC. Looking back at your 10 year stay at IIT R, how would you sum it up?

RB: Thank you very much. It’s excellent. When I had joined, facilities in the institute were not so good. It was the transition period from university to an IIT. Now, the teaching and research facilities, and students quality have significantly improved. To sum it up, things are too good.

GG: You’re known to be a favorite among students. What’s your secret/mantra?

16

RB: Innovation is the key point. Whether a concept is easy or hard, students are expecting interesting examples. Even in today’s class, I was discussing queues. I gave an example: Delhi railway station, input restricted queue and output restricted queue.

Students are happy. Whatever the doubts they have, they can post 24x7. Even if they’re posting questions 1:30, 2 in the night, I answer. Maybe I have to thank Mark Zuckerberg for that. Another thing I try to realize is that we all can make mistakes, and make sure that anything that happens in class doesn’t affect interaction outside.

GEEK GAZETTE

INTERVIEW GG: How’s the culture here different from abroad - leading to a placement hungry crowd here and research oriented crowd there?

RB: Money is not a problem in the Western countries. There’s concept called middle class family here. I find many brilliant and enthusiastic students, but they’re going for jobs due to their family background and peer pressure. Another thing is, in the Western Countries, they’re doing recent research at excellent facilities with sufficient funding . For example, in Computer Science, we still don’t have an ambient intelligence course whereas many universities have been having it for the last one or two years. Maybe if we keep more recent courses and give more fellowship for the research students, we can pull them. After M.Tech they can get a good job and salary.

Even after B.Tech, the placement is excellent. With the packages that are offered today, no one will come for research. Here we have the capability, but the problem is the lack of funding.

GG: The next question is on your current position. Comment on the things before you became the head.

RB: This is a tricky question, but I'll give you an answer. Things were not in order. Taking some sample cases from almost all the departments, we realized that faculty are unaware of the amenities that are available to them. For example, we have given faculty 5GB space, yet no one knew. There was people.iitr.ernet.in, and no one even knew. We have a VPN service as well, which was not known about. This is my first month, but I am trying my best to make things in order. For example, recently, I made a compact web URL http://faculty.iitr.ac.in/~username for faculty.

“

“

GG: What are the plans of Internet Superhighway Center? Any major changes that we’ll be seeing in the near future?

RB: First of all, this is ICC. There is no information superhighway centre; both are clubbed and called ICC. Institute Computer Centre. You’ll see the changes in the coming months. We’re planning to have fiber optic connections to all the faculty residences in IIT R and hostels.

That’s a major thing. Already seven out of eleven hostels have fiber optic connections. I’m also planning of a cloud campus, where everything can be interconnected.

and there was security breach. We have a proof for that. The proxy system was put in place to preclude such things from happening.

GG: We’ve kinda noticed this that Govind gets targeted for the first trial. Why is that?

RB: Maybe it’s because Govind is nearby. I can’t really comment on that. You have to ask this question to the previous head. I think it is just random chance.

GG: We’ve noticed “IIT” access points almost everywhere around the campus. That leads us to a conjecture that maybe there’s a WiFi enabled campus in plan. We’d like your comment on that.

RB: Yes, we are planning on WiFi enabled campus in the next financial year. It may take up to 1 year to be fully functional. You’ll be able to use your webmail account for logging in. The login system is done to prevent misuse by outsiders.

GG: Why isn’t there enough knowledge about facilities in IIT R? For example, one is VPN as you pointed out. We have a supercomputer cluster as well, but it seems largely unused.

RB: Not only now, even in the last 10 years of my stay at IIT Roorkee, some things aren’t publicized well. I have a plan. In the website, we’re planning to put everything: there’ll be a decent documentation of facilities, what is new, how to access them etc.

GG: Any advice to the students who want to pursue research?

RB: First, they have to identify what is their interest. There are several faculties who are doing an excellent research. So the motivation should come from them and then they have to approach the faculty. In fact, some of the B.Tech students are publishing papers. Find out the research area that you like. For example, in CS, you may be interested in Data Mining, Image Processing, Theoretical CS, etc; and in the math department there’s number theory, graph theory related to CS. Interest should come from you and we’re ready to help you. Good luck!

GG: Thank you sir for your valuable time. GG readers will surely love this piece. Wish you all the best in your future endeavours.

RB: The pleasure is all mine.

GG: Any idea why we even added the proxy system? Speeds were better without it. WebSense keeps popping up on our laptops all the time. Productivity seems to be lower with proxy system than without it.

RB: Many students are using unwanted sites. We have this proxy system to avoid that. I understand that a few genuine sites are blocked and speeds are low. We are identifying the issues and we’ll soon rectify that. In fact, I had a conversation with SAC secretary regarding this matter. I understand your concerns and I’ll take the necessary action. Initially, we’re testing the proxy system only on Govind bhawan and Rajendra bhawan. Another reason for the system is that some hackers are entering into our servers and attacking even Google through them. They were freely coming inside,

SPRING 2015

17

COVER STORY

Bioinformatics and venture capitalism

They say men of money never truly believe in friendship.

They are wrong...

$

$

$

18

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Hometel Ads

GEEK GAZETTE

HUMOR

PUNS AND WORDPLAY You drive past a Subway and notice a billboard in front which spells out “Lettuce Meat Olive your Eggspectations” and at that moment you appreciate each and every miniscule change that took place in our language from the beginning of time to make this pun possible.

English as we know it now has undergone rapid transformations and is obviously completely different from what it used to be even a few hundred years ago. Talking about the history of the language we must ponder upon the contributions of William Shakespeare as his works define what English is today. Many of us revere him but most of us are unaware of the fact that what Shakespeare wrote was considered absurd and nonsensical in his time.

Shakespeare coined various new words and used the slang of his age thus driving home a judgement of “vulgar and hostile” on his works by the reading enthusiasts of the 16th century . Who is to say whether the ‘ghetto’ language of today is in the mainstream a few decades from now?

The evolution of our languages in the right direction may be the very reason that puns exist. For example the moment after completing a very arduous math problem could be (and should be) called an

SPRING 2015

aftermath in the true sense of the word. Also we can’t definitely say that if it had evolved in a different direction wordplay wouldn’t be possible, instead the human tendency to joke around would have ensured that that wouldn’t happen. This particular tendency has widened the range of each and every language on the face of Earth. Taking English for an instance, the word ‘boo’ has given rise to an interesting connection between two festivities, namely Valentine’s day and Halloween as the word makes sense on both the days but for a loved one on 14th february and the sound made by a ghost on the last day of october. Just think of the humor this very simple connection can give birth to. And don’t even get us started on the word ‘bae’. Overused in each and every conversation now a days, the word has been a pivotal point or the punchline of hilarity in today’s era like the one we just read on Tumblr a few days ago; What do you call a loved one that controls you? Guantanamo Bae. To conclude here is another pun, “Any salad is a caesar salad if you stab it hard enough”. We must take a moment and thank William Shakespeare and the guy who thought ‘caesar’ would be a good name for a salad.

Have a good pun or a wordplay that will blow our minds? Send it to us at teamgeekgazette@gmail.com

21

SCIENCE

2 years

10 years

20 years

35 years

85 years

65 years

45 years

Into the search of the unknown In a world where technology and scientific research just keeps getting better, the want for immortality has driven people nuts.

The need for curing dreadful illnesses like cancer has slowly made path to one of the most controversial topics of the century: the idea of living longer. Stem cells are like the repair kit of our body; they can morph into any functional cell. It’s this characteristic that makes them so special and hence a ‘death curing’ tool. So yeah, stem cell research is one of the next big things in science.

Research in this field has been accelerated by the various funds given by billionaires, most of whom are the popular tech giants we know. Peter Thiel wants to live till he’s 120, while Sergey Brin wants to cure death. Larry Ellison, who lost his mother to cancer, says no one must go through such a painful death and is trying his best to cure cancer and attain a longer life. Each of these tech giants are associated with one or more medical research start ups. Peter Thiel’s investment, Methuselah Foundation, has a main research initiative called ‘Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence’ which is into making drugs that cure aging. Google Ventures’ head Bill Maris is sure that we can live till we’re 500. The Bloomberg market issue of April 2015 has his views as the cover story, and the title says ‘Google wants you to live forever’. Let's say that Google does achieve this.

Won't there be a tremendous rise in human population, exhausting our resources and making the earth not feasible to live on? Also, how will the want to live forever be priced?

Age related damage is caused due to various reasons like

22

programmed death of cells, excessive cell division, mutations in the mitochondria and so on. The number of stem cells in young people is much higher than older people and this causes a better and more efficient replacement mechanism in the younger people. Therefore, aging happens due to the decreasing number of stem cells. Amy Wagers of Harvard university, who did an experiment on mice, found out that the reason for aging in mice was a protein called GDF11. GDF11 is present more in young mice and its function is to keep the stem cells active. With lower levels of the protein the stem cells become dormant, which makes mice more prone to injuries and aging. When this protein was induced into the old mice, they aged in reverse as they were able to produce tissues more efficiently. Similar results were seen in the case of bees, whose life span increased significantly under the influence of a similar protein.

As days go on stem cell research just keeps getting better. The next generation might never have to see a person suffer from Alzheimer’s or cancer. We might just attain a longer lifespan and live till we’re 500 or maybe more. But then, a more dreadful disease could kill us, a disease previously unknown to mankind; we might land up in the 1900’s when Polio started, but with some different disease that our new body cannot fight. Maybe overpopulation due to lesser deaths will totally burn up our resources, causing all sorts of global issues. Will living such a long life really be worth? Won't that change our daily routines and the way we live life? For now all we could do is wait, see and contemplate.

GEEK GAZETTE

PSYCHOLOGY

What's in a name?

Have you ever wondered what would be the first thought of strangers when they hear your name? Or thought that the professor cut your marks just by seeing your name, though you are sure that he won't be able to put your name and face together? Is it true that your personality, or your future depends on astrology, the alignment of stars at the time you were born, etc, or are there other quite apparent factors behind this?

“

“

If we think about this hard enough, the way our society functions is a major contributor of the fact that a person with a particular name gets a particular personality associated with him. And once this happens, the entire world starts expecting the person to behave in that manner, subtly giving cues to the person about how he should act, which the person unknowingly accepts and acts accordingly.

Not only this, it is your parents who give you your name. Thus, in most cases, your name gives an insight to the expectations of your parents. And since your growing environment is most likely with your family, you start representing the attitude of your parents, thus, in a way, living up to your name!

In most cases, it has been observed that people prefer to have common names. The reason for this has been given by some as desire to conform to the society. Studies have shown that people with common names are more likely to be accepted by companies, as compared to those with uncommon names, having nearly the same resumes. On the other hand having a unique name means that your parents were willing to try out something new and too gets reflected in your personality.

SPRING 2015

Besides this, certain first and last names are regional, and the person’s socio-economic status might be deduced from them, and might harm their prospects for the future.

Another important, but usually ignored factor which has a role to play in your personality is the first letter of your name.In case your name begins with an 'A', then you can definitely relate to being the first one to give your presentations, speeches and what not in school, college and even in many workplaces.

Having to do all this blindly, without having someone else to follow or copy or improvise upon, seems a real big burden to you. And at times, especially during vivas, you start wishing your name to have just one extra 'N' or 'Pr' before it! And yet, this readies you for the time when you have to do things and take decisions for yourself. On the other hand, those with names starting with letters at the end of the alphabet, can be definitely assumed to be quite resourceful. Afterall, all the ideas have already been discussed and dealt with. So, how would you be able to present yourself uniquely? For, all those people in between, well, you have a win-win situation with you. Enjoy it!

In this case too, the society is responsible as it is the tendency of the people to follow the alphabetical order which is the causative factor.

There are many factors including but not restricted to those mentioned above, which are at work simultaneously to determine the character of an individual and how others perceive his character to be, based on his name. Also, the impact of these factors varies from one person to another.

23

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Mimetic Theory The idea for this article was conceived after tirelessly and mindlessly learning to code for some 5 hours and 42 minutes and thus falling into an existential crisis characterized by relentlessly listening to Jagjit Singh and Ghulam Ali, countered only by cursing the eager to help, persuasive and pretentious secondyear guy - who gave the impression that he knew more about life than Plato ever did – for his useless advice (Read “Coding kar, placement ho jaayega”).

One of the marks of genius is to notice something that is vitally important and seemingly obvious but has never before had been recognized as important. Operating on a pre-rational level, Mimesis forms the basis of most our aspirations and desires surreptitiously, coming to the fore only after an act of reflection if at all. Mimetic Theory was put forward by Rene Girard, a French polymath. According to his theory, human beings subconsciously imitate each other, and this gives rise to

24

conflicts and rivalries. If people desire the same things, they end up competing against each other which in turn leads to complications. This seemingly obvious but unnoticed human instinct has far reaching implications when extrapolated to varying degrees.

ACQUISITIVE MIMESIS The most prominent among the species of desire is acquisitive

GEEK GAZETTE

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Desire, which is similarly mimetic: an acquisitive gesture in one person stimulates a corresponding acquisitive desire in another for the same object. Acquisitive desires, subject to mimetic

Human beings subconciously imitate each other, and this gives rise to conflicts and rivalries

mirroring, will inevitably attach themselves to a single object within the same field of play and generate hostility. According to Girard the “mediator” or the provocateur of desire is of two types-An internal mediator is when the mediator is on the same plane as you are. This generally leads to friction between the two.

Whereas, an external mediator is when the mediator is too “distant” to be perceived as a real threat.

For Example, In between your conquest to marry Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Martin functions as an external mediator. If in some parallel universe you find your best friend courting her, the word best would soon be rendered irrelevant, followed closely by the word friend.

SCANDALPursuit and defense of an acquisitive desire mimetically reinforces the desire of the rival/model/obstacle and vice-versa, leading to an escalation of conflict unless something external to the conflict (like a taboo or a legal authority) intercedes or unless one of the rivals submits or dies. Girard calls this mimetic escalation scandal, after the Greek word skandalon, suggesting a “trap” or “snare.” A chief characteristic of scandal is that an attempt to escape a problem only makes the problem worse.

For Example, a guy looks likely to be the Bhawan Secretary of your Bhawan due to aggressive pact-making, plentiful chapos and indiscriminate handshakes. To counter this, the other party initiates a campaign of their own, creating an account by the name of XYZ in every canteen except Alpahar. In the end, both parties cannibalize each other thus gifting victory to the loner ghissu, who promised reliable notes and regular group study sessions.

SPRING 2015

METAPHYSICAL DESIREAccording to Girard, mimetic desire may grow to such a degree that a person may want to be the mediator. Metaphysical desire leads a person not just to rivalry with their mediator; actually, it leads to total obsession with and resentment of the mediator.

For, the mediator becomes the main obstacle in the satisfaction of the person’s metaphysical desire. Inasmuch as the person desires to be his mediator, such desire will never be satisfied.

For nobody can be someone else. Eventually, the person developing a metaphysical desire comes to appreciate that the main obstacle to be the mediator is the mediator himself. For example, the 2003 movie “Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon”. Period.

INHERENT SCARCITYWhen I obtain the object of my desire I eliminate the origin and sustainer of my desire thereby relegating myself to a state of simultaneous frustration and deliberation. As soon as I crop the mediator out of the picture, I purge myself from my obsession and the object loses its former lustre.

“The fun lies in the pursuit. If only I had someone to pursue!”

– The average Mechanical Engineering Guy SCAPEGOAT MECHANISMSince conflict has arisen mimetically therefore it must end mimetically. Girard in his theory, suggests that cultures, religions and traditions originated with a sense of collective repugnance towards an arbitrarily chosen “scapegoat”. To qualify as a scapegoat, one must not necessarily be weak or guilty. A scapegoat is someone who has few supporters, whose feeble and generally inaudible protests are crushed by a plethora of detractors. By blatantly accusing a scapegoat for all the hatred and conflict in a society people tend to unite through unanimous violence against the one blamed.

Due to the pacifying and uniting effect of the violence that ensued, the scapegoat is projected as a “sacred being”. Girard theorizes that scapegoating effects are at the heart of all cultural and religious forms by giving rise to a category called the sacred. Since scapegoating has proved to be allaying once, repetition of the event will be used to purge all further conflicts.

This gives rise to a sacred ritual.

25

FICTION

Am I me ?

26

GEEK GAZETTE

FICTION

I

knew in my gut it was never going to be an ordinary day.

Anyway, I like him, you know? He's a great person with lots of spirit.

I mean, I used to think I like him. Used to. I think.

I can't decide anymore.

He hurts me every time he lies to me.

Every time he passes off a heavy gauze bandage that goes all along his wrist as a slight nick. Such a tiny nick that it makes him wince bad when he thinks no one's looking.

Every time I find him in the closet, sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, knees drawn up to his shoulders, hiccupping from all the tears he'd probably shed, but he says that he'd been trying to remove something that accidentally fell into his eye.

Does he take me to be a fool? Maybe he does, but I'm not. A fool, that is.

I remember a previous conversation with him in such a situation, with him curled up on the bed, tears leaking out of his eyes.

You can't do that.

Can't I? Okay, look here. Helplessness is mortal and times pass. Let it out on a paper. Let it out in your words.

It has been longer than I can remember. I am a soldier fighting a mirror. Pen could be my sword.

“

“

I don't remember – I mean, I don't know - more about the incident than what he's told me. So I can't even try to help him more than this. He's served for the Army, lost friends, sustained injuries that can never be healed and returned broken.

Obviously.

I'm sorry, who just said that...?

Anyway, what he's actually going through is mind boggling to even contemplate let alone realise. If you haven't realized it already, I'll put it clearly. He has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and I guess the name is pretty self explanatory.

To realize you have the responsibility of an adult made of an unusual mold-Him, a family on hold, and military service to complete at an age not far from 20 is a daunting idea.

Very daunting indeed.

Who's that again? Never mind.

changes things.” But you know what I know?

Curious more about what he has to say than his identity at this point, I ask this voice what he knows.

You have to change them yourself. Like what you said earlier, anything that anyone else even tries to do might have an adverse effect on you.

I know now that this voice is him. The 'him' I've been talking about? The inner me is pumping a fist in the air because my reverse psychology is working. I realize I will regret this later but the words are out of my mouth before I can censor them I tell him there is a reason for everything.

Reason? He asks.

Their reason, her reason, his reason.

But not mine. Never mine.

The point here is that your temper is becoming shorter by the day.

You aren't any good at projecting a calm exterior. Detached-ness is definitely not your forte. Don't sweat it.

I smile. He's definitely nearing normal if he can mock me for so long without a panic attack, even if it might take a few more months or a year. It is here that I should probably mention that his group has been extremely helpful. They have pushed each other towards continued success and used their loss to speak and write for these who no longer could. They leveraged survivor guilt to push their lives forward.

Yeah. I feel better already but I think we need to visit another person anyway.

Why? I'm another person, isn't that enough?

Tell me, Mr. Another-Person, who are you?

Um... I'm John Tolkien? No, you're John Tolkien. That's not it.

I'm you. I don't know, I'm not sure.

See, I think we have Schizophrenia.

WHAT? No, we don't have Schizophrenia. I mean, I don't have Schizophrenia. We- I need more symptoms than talking to myself to diagnose us with Schizophrenia. You're a person too, remember?

You're Tolkien, not me. Remember this?

Wait, we're the same person, okay?

Oh, right. Damn.

Yeah. Damn

Rework is evitable. Every morning before facing the world, I face myself. And I think of all the people like you who say, “Time

SPRING 2015

27

PROJECT FILES

Network based integration of gene expression and copy number profiles for

TUMOUR CLASSIFICATION NAME :

Jitin Singla

BRANCH : Computer Science BATCH :

2015

In this edition, Geek Gazette brings you one of the prominent projects in the CSE department. Jitin Singla, currently a senior undergraduate student in CSE Department, had his interest in Biology. Nevertheless, he had pursued Computer Science courses with full dedication. His strong Computer Science background and his interest in biology led to a unique BTP – on bioinformatics. He’s been involved in various volunteer activities and events here in Campus and nearby village. Now, he is planning for PhD in Computational Biology at USC, Los Angeles.

He is doing his BTP under the guidance of Dr. Dhaval Patel (IITR) and Dr. Sriganesh Sihari (University of Queensland) and it deals with breast cancer stratification.

Millions of new cases of breast cancer are coming under limelight every year. So it’s really important that we have a deeper understanding about different types of breast cancer and identify relevant drug for these subtypes. Four basic subtypes for breast cancer are already known biologically. But

that’s not enough because we still see lot of variations in drug response and disease progression rates within these subtypes.

So, he is working on a simple computational technique that uses gene expression and genetic structural variations to stratify the breast cancer in 10 different clinically significant subtypes.

Bioinformatics and Computational biology have allowed convergence of the vast knowledge of computer science, statistics, physics, chemistry and biology, opening infinite possibilities and directions for these subjects to grow. Whether it is about studying human diseases like cancer or digging out the secrets of the genome or designing personalized medicines, all these efforts will have a huge impact not only on academia but industry and economy as well. Because as we are getting a deeper insight about genetic diseases we are realizing that personalized medicines are the future. We’re yet to witness the golden period of such interdisciplinary fields.

bechdel test As the gender inequality becomes more and more significant in today’s world and Emma Watson promotes #HeForShe further, one must wonder does sexism prevail in the geekdom? If your answer is not an obvious yes to this question prepared to be cut into infinitesimally small pieces by feminists. Once you recover from being chopped into substances smaller than your enthusiasm for studying, you might ask, how do we know sexism exists? Is there an indicator of the same? Be prepared for enlightenment because there is indeed one and it’s called the Bechdel Test.

The Bechdel Test is primarily applied to movies and is an indicator of gender portrayal in media. To pass the test a movie needs to satisfy three conditions. First, the movie should have at least two women characters. Second, these women should talk to each other and third, they should talk about something other than a man. Seems simple enough, doesn’t it? Two women talking to each and the point of

28

discussion not being men throughout the whole movie. Think about the most recent movie you saw and whether it satisfies this or not or well, leave it, and think about the last movie you watched which actually passes the Bechdel Test. Hard to find one? Don’t be surprised because a vast amount of geeky media actually fails this test.

To add to your apparent shock, let us list out a few famous movies which apparently fail this test too. Lord of the Rings, with a cast whose sheer number exceeds that of a small country, doesn’t succeed to pass the test. They have strong female characters like Arwen, Eowyn, and Galadriel but they never meet each other and hence the movie is unable to meet the second condition. Another movie in which the possessors of the XX chromosome do not talk to one another is The Social Network. There’s even a scene of doing the nasty in the bathroom but god forbid that the women talk to each other! Add to the ever growing list Avatar and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part two too as the former has

SCIENCE only one drawn out conversation between Neytiri and her mother and guess what they talk about in it? Jake Sully! The latter one comes across as a shock.

As the list of movies which do not satisfy these conditions grows there are indeed a few movies which pass this test, Toy Story 3 being one of them (#FaithInHumanityRestored?). If you can’t remember two women conversing in that absolute

gold of a movie, here’s a reason to go watch it again! Bechdel Test is obviously not an ironclad measure of well-rounded gender portrayal but one must agree it is an effective tool to indicate the huge sexism. As directors become more and more aware of this fact, we expect movies to take a turn for the good but till then whenever you see a typical one dimensional female character in a male driven comedy who lacks apparent depth make sure to condemn the discriminatory representation.

LINGUISTICS OF PHYSICS It has been considered for centuries that the language of Physics is Mathematics; but doesn't it seem contradictory that we do not iteratively investigate the philosophical validity of such a fundamental tool of this fascinating and ongoing journey of the human race? 'Our Physics' is that channel of our thoughts which we keep updated on the basis of new experiments and conceptualizations. Why? Because we have a faith - deep in our heart that Physics is something that will once disclose the 'Nature' of Nature. So we don't want to do something 'wrong' or 'unfaithful' with 'Our Physics'.(By 'Our Physics' I mean what we understand about Nature at this moment and 'Physics' is the whole or actual description or rather a complete 'feeling' of what, how and why Nature is .)

So all I feel is we should give just a chance to ourselves to explore this question: "Why can there not be any other language of 'Physics' and that of 'Our Physics'?" "Because if there would be such a language and it would have much more tuning with the rhythm of Nature then we are in a position to understand universe in a far better way - which would be having more 'feel' of nature in its each and every bit."

We have been using Mathematics as a language of Physics at such a large extent that Mathematics is interwoven in Physics.

By saying 'some other language' I do not mean to express the same form of laws in verbal language. Like 'Rate of change of momentum is equal to force' is also a mathematical formulation of some behaviour of Nature. Basically in our recent picture of Physics, we mainly deal with "Quantities" which form the basis of Mathematical Physics. We have been relating numbers with each and every practices of nature. By doing so at basic level, we formed quantities. After that for interactions between these quantities we formed mathematical relations between them and so on...But wait why did we do so? I think because we were unable to understand the nature in its actual form - so we put mathematical models. Which made us feel like we know everything about the part of the nature - in the scope of our mathematical model. Because we perhaps feel like ruling the system if we know its mathematical model. Because we numerically know each and every part of the system at each and every instant and we feel like everything is within our scope. We believe a theory to be faithful if it has proper mathematical models. But by doing so do we all the times do what we were meant by ourselves to do with Our Physics? I

think no. Because Physics is not just about describing what is exactly happening at each and every instant with each and every particle - but it is more about why this is happening and what is the 'feel' of Nature behind it. That actual sense of 'feel' of Nature is frequently lost in mathematical models.

By saying a new language of Our Physics I mean to deal with the nature of nature in some transcendental way - which is certainly not clear to me. I feel that it must be a 'quantityfree' Physics. There would be no magnitudes or measurements. We would be just observing the nature and we would be really understanding the nature somehow. We would be expressing our understanding in a complete qualitative way. Each and every bit of Physics will be with an essence of beauty of nature then. We will be free of abstract mathematical formulations - which mostly contribute little to actual understanding of nature. And I think that would be the most intuitive way of doing the things because I feel that Nature itself is non-numerical. It has tendencies, qualities, nature, consequences - but all in an intrinsic natural form- may be in the form of some transcendental indications of itself-which is unclear to us!

This would be complete different way of 'doing' Physics. Each & every field-line and each & every particle of Recent Physics may have complete different view in this form. Many things will have to be reformed or deformed. But none of the deeds will have to be undone. And once this transformation would have been made, we can get a very high pace in solving further mysteries of Universe.

Apparently Mathematics has been very useful to Our Physics.

Mathematics tries to hide our weakness. It is our strength only up to the instant we have a relative weakness. When you get actual feeling of the things- Mathematics become useless and insignificant for you. Yes, when we know nothing about what and how we can do - Mathematics is there to blindly help us. We explore those nebulas of knowledge - which we cannot directly reach by qualitative conceptualizations because of our weakness of brain - and using that knowledge we can understand qualitatively what, how and why the nature did? - But at an extent within some limits. Well, this is the only way to proceed until some new form of Physics based on some new intuitive language of Physics is discovered. But as I said before, We should at least try to find that exhilarating new form of Our Physics.

29

SPECULATIVE

People vs Scientists

Everybody has their own way of looking at things. Whether they are scientific or religious, they need not be logical for us to believe in.

30

GEEK GAZETTE

SPECULATIVE Philosophers and thinkers on the other hand differ a bit. They only seek out the truth instead of proclaiming it as the absolute.

Maybe people just hate being told what to believe and what not to believe in.

Now consider this, the educated class of people in the world know very well of the impacts of climate change. Yet we can’t care less. Most of us don’t use eco-friendly technology. What’s better, most of us don’t use dustbins to begin with. And the ones we keep at home are just for the sake of collecting waste at one place before you dump it in the open (away from your homes, please!). We have laws that prohibit industries from starting off until they satisfy the environmental clearance norms not because the government takes pleasure in troubling industrialists but because we have been eye-witnesses to their destructive methods. Yet no one abides in most cases - neither the government nor the people. And the scientists don’t really do anything about it even though they have the exact remedy technology. We know who carries the gender determining chromosome, yet we torture our women. When people can’t accept these simple truths, how do you expect them to believe physicists when they say nuclear power is the greenest option out there? God, it’s easier to believe in aliens and UFOs and the apocalypse, I tell you.

Well it appears the French thinker, Michel de Montaigne, had something to say about it back in the late 1500s- “We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn”.

Stanford University psychologist Leon Festinger too had an answer to a similar problem back in the 1950s. The two basically said the same thing, “A man with a conviction is a hard man to change”.

People can have a hard time digesting science news at times.

Maybe we should equip ourselves with Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit. This kit has some simple steps for us to follow in order to look past propaganda and falsity whenever we are fed with information. But no kit can be effective if people are unwilling to change. Needless to say, everybody has their own way of looking at things. Whether they are scientific or religious, they need not be logical for us to believe in. It’s like what Shashi Tharoor once said, “It’s okay to not agree on everything all the time, so long as you agree on the ground rules of how you will disagree.” Let’s hope you can do that!

“

“

And this brings us to Cognitive Dissonance, the discomfort we suffer when we hold two or more contradicting beliefs. The sort of thing that happens when you study extremely hard for an exam, give your best when you take only to find you’ve scored the lowest. You know you wrote the answers well but you also know numbers don’t lie. Draw an analogy to the scientific discoveries and imagine this: you spent your entire teenage life believing in a certain concept and one fine day, there’s a new theory in town; scientists had been working for decades upon it but unfortunately no one told you. So what do you do? You find every possible question you can to help disprove it. While it might not matter to your parents, it does to you because you spent many a days pondering over it. You are more emotionally attached to that concept than you parents are. Even after somehow coming to terms with the new facts, you hold on to the previous ones (just like the way people struggled to believe that the Earth was round even with all the photos taken from space floating around).

puzzle corner Some archeologists were on a dig, and found an ancient manuscript. It contained a seemingly random set of letters and numbers. However, they cannot seem to make sense of it, but think it’d be a fine challenge for you to figure out.

The manuscript: dppfj 7 bnajh mepbc 1 zoqhp 3 njrmz Send your answers to teamgeekgazette@gmail.com Visit us at: gg.ieeeiitr.com

SPRING 2015

31

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

geek Recommends PREDESTINATION

2014

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, Noah

“ If you are me then who am I? ” Predestination is a 2014 sci-fi film from the Spierig brothers collaborating with Ethan Hawke for a second time after Daybreakers (another sci-fi thriller released in 2009). Time travel is the central theme of the movie which revolves around two major characters introduced at the onset of the movie, The Bartender and The Unmarried Mother. The movie is based on the short story "—All You Zombies—" by the dean of sci-fi, Robert A. Heinlein.

The film begins with a Temporal Bureau agent carrying out his mission of travelling to the past and preventing the Fizzle Bomber from carrying out his plan to save the lives of hundreds of denizens of the world. The agent is able to contain the bomb’s explosion but suffers severe burns in the process and is unable to catch the bomber. He manages to grab his coordinate transformer field kit (the Temporal Bureau’s time machine) and return to his own time where the bureau’s doctors manage to save him but are forced to recreate his face into a striking likeness of Ethan Hawke who proceeds to go back in time and assume his role as The Bartender and meet up with his regular patron The Unmarried Mother and proceeds to strike up a conversation which ends up being the plot point which leads the movie forward.

The name of the movie is borrowed from the Predestination Paradox which is an often used trope in the

32

sci-fi genre. The paradox is a scenario in which an event A causes another event B in the future but through time travel, event A is in fact caused by event B. The film has a very well defined temporal causality loop centered around Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook and makes great use of it for character development involving events which force them to reconsider their concepts of gender and identity.

Predestination is certainly an enjoyable film and probably one of the greatest time travel based flicks of 2014, although Interstellar also used the concept of predestination as a major plot point but delved on the effects of the incidence on the world rather than talk about the concept itself. The movie refuses to delve into scientific explanations of events, choosing to rather accept them as known truths which are deemed too hard to understand for the characters in the movie.

Any talk about time travel movies is incomplete without mentioning Primer, the big daddy of all time travel mind-bogglers.

Although a cursory viewing of Primer will leave you dazed and confused, Predestination will take you in for a wild ride, not confusing you with technical jargon or complicated science but rather on the people in the movie and if you enjoy sci-fi or time travel movies such as Looper or The Time Machine (but probably not Hot Tub Time Machine) this is a must watch if not for the storyline itself but as fuel for your next peer group discussion on that totally awesome super cool sci-fi movie you recently watched.

GEEK GAZETTE

SCIENCE AND AND TECHNOLOGY TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE

geek Recommends CRYPTONOMICON 1999 Author: Neal Stephenson

Cryptonomicon is one of Neal Town Stephenson's best works till date and can be likened to a nerd's literary panacea. Stephenson is an American writer known primarily for his science fiction works in the post-cyberpunk genre with a penchant for explorations of society, mathematics, cryptography, currency, and the history of science. This book is huge (1116+ pages) and a delight for somebody who wants to indulge deep into the joy of reading. The plot is great mix of War (World War II), soldiers, code breaker, mathematics, computers, and technologies.

Cryptonomicon alternates between the 40s, where the infant science of cryptography is winning World War II for the allies, and the 90s, where an eclectic group of businessmen, hackers, and thieves are using the same science to create an Internet data haven.

“Can we determine whether any given statement is provable or non-provable? Is there some sort of mechanical process we can use to separate the provable statements from the non-provable ones? Binary code? It's all in the algorithms.”

Zooming across the world, this book is a story covering the better part of the century. The book "kicks out a prickly vibe”.

There are a hundred characters and crazy intersecting plot lines relayed in a breezy, spirited, and irreverent manner—something which we adore owing to our appetite of sense of humor. All of this resonates in the present-day story line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII heroes--

SPRING 2015

inimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe--team up to help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some gold once destined for Nazi coffers.

Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, a crypt analyst extraordinaire, and gung-ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. With other characters like Alan Turing (yes, the mathematician) and another genius German Mathematician, this book can give you chills if you're into STEM (science, tech, engineering, med); the same chills we get while reading holy Lord of the Rings. The level of detail in this book is such that you might be mistaken that the movie “The Imitation Game (2014)” starring Benedict Cumberbatch was inspired from just a couple of chapters of this book.

While the earlier part of the story is heavily laden with cryptology and obscure math, delving deeper into them will only make you realize the sheer importance and cloaked simplicity and beauty in spite of the veil of complexity. This steep learning levels out after the first few chapters and this is when the story picks up speed.

The level of research that must have gone in is discernable by the accuracy of events described. And for this reason it can be easily misconstrued as a nonfictional account of WW II. To add, the story is not all about mathematics. There are historical sketches. And code breaking. And the development of computers.

And economic theories. And geo-politics circa 1999. And the quest of personal privacy. A winner of many awards, it is a good read… good long one.

33

back side