P.I.N.G. Issue 14.1

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Dr Rajesh Ingle

Branch Counsellor Dear All,

It gives me immense pleasure to write this message for the new edition of PICT IEEE Student Branch’s (PISB)’s P.I.N.G. The Credenz edition of P.I.N.G. is always special for all of us. This year we have an interesting theme ‘Infinity and Perception’ for Credenz ‘18. According to a recent survey conducted by PISB’s P.I.N.G. Editorial team, both electronic and print versions of P.I.N.G. are well received and appreciated by the readers. It is a great contribution by PICT IEEE Student Branch, which provides an opportunity for all, including student members to showcase their talent, views and further strengthen IEEE activities. It is a great pleasure to serve PISB as a Counsellor. It is a really interesting, valuable and great learning experience to work at various levels in IEEE. As a counsellor at PICT IEEE Student Branch; as a Chair, Conference Committee at IEEE Pune Section; Vice Chair, IEEE India Council, IEEE Region 10 Students Activity Coordinator; and Member, MGA SAC, I am thankful to all the members of PICT IEEE Student Branch for their active support. In January 2018, I had an opportunity to attend IEEE Region 10 meeting at Yangon, Myanmar. I also got an opportunity to participate in IEEE Region 10 Annual General meeting which was held at Berjaya Langkawi Resort, Malaysia on 3th & 4th March. I also had an opportunity to organize R10 Sywl Congress at Bali, Inodnesia, 30th August to 2nd September, 2018. I would also like to mention the strong support from Mr R.S. Kothavale, Managing Trustee, SCTR; Mr Swastik Sirsikar, Secretary, SCTR; Dr P.T. Kulkarni, Principal PICT and all the students who worked at this level. We try our level best to create an environment where students keep updating themselves with the emerging trends, technology and innovations. At PISB, many events are conducted throughout the year and widely appreciated by students, acclaimed academicians and industry professionals alike. The events include IEEE Day, workshops, Special Interest Group (SIG) activities, Credenz and Credenz Tech Dayz. I thank all the authors for their contribution and interest. On behalf of IEEE R10 & IEEE Pune Section, I wish PISB as well as this newsletter all the success. I congratulate the P.I.N.G. team for their commendable efforts. Prof. Dr. Rajesh Ingle IEEE R10 (Asia Pacific) Student Activities Chair Vice Chair, IEEE India Council Dean and Professor, PICT


Flashback Shamli Singh, Ex-Editor, P.I.N.G.

M

y rendezvous with P.I.N.G. began in my first year at college (2013) when I saw a P.I.N.G. box put up, informing of something exciting about to happen. Subconsciously, I had already decided to be a part of the P.I.N.G. team some day. Soon some seniors persuaded me to join the PICT IEEE Student Branch (PISB) during the membership drive in February 2014.

nostalgia

wonderful job dividing the tasks amongst the team members and also motivated us to come up with a new feature for P.I.N.G. 11.0, Encomium – a tribute to an inventor. This was the time when we became a closely-knit team working towards one common goal – raising P.I.N.G. to a whole new level. Soon our role was elevated. I was named one of the lead Editors. Times like these can be very daunting as you must raise the bar with every Issue of P.I.N.G. and handling the new enthusiastic junior team added to it. Differences of opinion with the rest of the team over things like change in length of an article to fit the page, overhauling the magazine design and avoiding the slightest oversight while interacting with an industry personnel was a huge test of patience. But it was an excellent learning exercise for preparing us for the corporate world. We had the extraordinary opportunity to interview Padmashree Ms. Lila Poonawalla and the Issue 11.1 turned out to be an extremely successful release at the equally successful Credenz ’15. I still recollect all the mischiefs that would go on while working for P.I.N.G., as I write this flashback.

Commenced the preparation phase of Credenz ’14, when I finally got to engage in the P.I.N.G. process, which gave me ample opportunities to collaborate with the prodigious minds. It all began with the making of the P.I.N.G. box and we were the first team ever to make a rotating version of it. We were at constant loggerheads with the then design team over the design of the box, but together we could brainstorm into an idea that became a reality in two long weeks. Another feather in our cap was gathering a record number of articles, and I was psyched about my article finding a place in P.I.N.G. 10.1. Credenz Tech Dayz ’15 brought with it responsibilities multiplied manifold. But our seniors did a Pg 03

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The time I spent as a member of P.I.N.G. team has been remarkable. It brought an amazing transformation in me – from being an impulse-driven to a more circumspect person. I got the chance to work with some amazing people in both the senior and my own team and still share a candid relation with them. Every new P.I.N.G. team has managed to be a notch better than the previous one, and this is evident with every new release. I am confident that P.I.N.G. is in competent hands and can’t wait to see this new Issue of P.I.N.G., and wish the team all the best for future endeavours!

[Shamli Singh currently works as an Associate Software Engineer at Atos and was one of the Editors of P.I.N.G. 11.1]

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Tandem Solar Cells Reincarnating luminosity

S

ince the last three decades, crystalline silicon solar cells have been mostly used for the production of non-conventional power for commercial and domestic applications because of its abundant availability. A typical solar cell is responsible for producing about half a volt of energy today. Hence, the power output is not something a silicon-made solar wafer can boast of. A crystal growing process like Czochralski is adopted in which silicon ingots are prepared and sliced, using a diamond cutter. In this process, thin silicon wafers of diameter 3 to 4 inch size are prepared. After that, these wafers are polished with the help of standard lapping operation and polishing techniques. Hence, a lot of money is put into this process.

In 2009, a new development in the solar cell technology surfaced – tandem solar cells. Tandem junction-cell architecture promises better efficiency over single-junction designs due to the it’s ability to split the solar spectrum into multiple bands. Particular wavelengths can thus be put to use for different purposes by different devices. A tandem cell basically combines two different layers of sunlight-absorbing material in order to harvest a broader range of the sun’s energy, hence providing better efficiency. These tandem cells can be constructed from a dye-sensitized solar cell (DSCC) on the basis of thin-film semiconductor electrodes. DSCC is classified as a thin film solar cells based on a semiconductor produced between a photo-sensitized anode and an electrolyte, a photochemical system. Once light falls on the Perovskite it frees the electrons and holes within the Perovskite which are CREDENZ.INFO

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pansophy

then passed on to the respective electrodes by substances which hold the together giving rise to a current. Until recently, it was believed that using a material as unstable as Perovskite is not fit for an industry which demands solar cells to last for more than two decades with a constant stable output. But this new development is planning to change the way perovskite-based solar cells are perceived. In this development, the light-absorbing material methylammonium lead iodide has been replaced by a mixture of formamidinium, cesium and butylammonium along with some iodide being replaced by bromide which increased the solar cell’s light-absorbing capacity. Moreover, a material called spiro-OMeTAD, a commonly preferred hole extractor is replaced by undoped copper(I) thiocyanate protected by a scrim of reduced graphene oxide. This chemical is, surprisingly, 1000 times cheaper than spiro-OMeTAD and also preserves the efficiency the cell promises to deliver. These solar cells can also sustain under a protective coating of ethylene vinyl acetate, because of increased stability which helps it reinforce its resistance against temperature swings and also improves longevity. These advancements are now aiming to make companies reconsider the value of a Perovskite-based solar cell, with many ready to invest in their development and further research. With such incentives available, it is possible that the commercialisation of this technology might materialise by 2020, bringing a new type of solar cell into the market which is more efficient and cost-effective.

- Dr. K. C. Nandi Pune Institute of Computer Technology Pune

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Molecular Clock

editorial

Quantifying every moment

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recision has been one of the most coveted targets in every invention. It is the cornerstone of success within the industrial and medical device arenas. With thousands of mission-critical applications devised in quick succession every day, precision to the last decimal is an exigency as infinitesimal differences influence every outcome extensively. Time, the measure of indefinite continued progress, is a paramount aspect in such applications. With the symbolic invention of the atomic clock, accurate to within a second for millions of years, time now has elevated importance as a factor in the technological advances. From Global Positioning System (GPS) to high-speed mobile networks, unconventional concepts have evolved with the exactness of the measurement of time using atomicclocks. Atomic clocks are characterised by two physical values: accuracy and stability. These clocks base their function on the concept of sweeping a narrow band of microwave frequencies to transition maximum of Caesium-133 atoms to high states. When a frequency of exactly 9,192,631,770 oscillations is achieved, a second is clocked. Atomic clocks find a purpose in GPS satellites. The accuracy of satellite navigation systems depend on the synchronisation of these clocks — a mere difference of one microsecond can lead to a positioning error of 300 metres. By using a triangulation-like method of for positioning, ground receivers can pinpoint their own location.

for including power-hungry components and hence, face the fate of being impractical. As new use-cases of accurate clocks are uncovered every

day, the U.S. Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency initiated a project of manufacturing chip-scale atomic clocks. However, these clocks were undesirable in the consumer market owing to their hefty price tag of $1000. To curb the shortcomings of the traditional atomic clocks, researchers started investigating the possibility of developing a molecular clock. MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Terahertz Integrated Electronics Group, in a joint collaborative effort, have developed an on-chip clock which utilises the exposure to ultra-high frequencies. Ruonan Han, an associate professor at MIT along with his team probed the behaviour of molecules with a vision of including a gas cell attached to the corner of the chip of a smartphone running at atomic- grade accuracy. The researchers’ chip functions similar to an atomic clock.

Atomic clocks, however, are bulky and expensive. Ground receivers and smartphones use a much less accurate internal clock which relies on three satellite signals to navigate and may still calculate wrong locations. Additional satellite signals, while increasing accuracy, degrade the performance and speed of navigation. For instances involving weak signals, smartphones depend primarily on their clocks and accelerometers to determine their location. Atomic clocks are also notorious

The molecular clock relies on measuring the rotation of the molecules of carbonyl sulphide (COS) when exposed to certain frequencies. With a circuit continuously sweeping frequencies of electromagnetic waves along the cell, the molecules start to rotate. A receiver adjusts the clock frequency output to an accurate 231.060983 gigahertz, which matches the frequency measure to clock exactly one second. This matches the measurement of time obtained from atomic clocks. The chip, which consumes only 66

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milliwatts of power, uses a low-frequency input signal which is shaped into a higher frequency electromagnetic wave. This is done through custom metal structures developed by researchers that increase the efficacy of transistors. The spin of molecules is reliably constant enough to serve as a precise timing reference. This molecular clock averaged an error under one microsecond per hour, which is comparable to miniature atomic clocks. The molecular clocks have an edge over crystal-oscillator clocks present in smartphones as they are 10,000 times more stable. Molecular clocks are fully atomic and exploit the advantages of complementary metal-oxidesemiconductor (CMOS) integrated technology. These low-cost clocks can be included in all smartphones, making them economical. Even with multiple attempts being made, the process of successfully determining the location of an underwater object have been unfruitful for a long time. The use of molecular clocks in underwater sensing offers better prospects of determining the location of an object accurately, thereby opening up a vista of untrodden horizons. GPS applications use sonic waves which are shot towards the ocean floor and are captured by the sensors following the reflection from ocean floor. Inside each sensor, an attached atomic clock measures the signal delay to pinpoint the location on the ocean floor. Molecular clocks render the atomic clocks useless in such applications, where critical accuracy is required to make trivial decisions

This is a time and place, when an accurate internal clock for local navigation becomes quite essential With the Internet Protocol and packet networks now being established as platforms for new communication services, the importance of multitude of accurate timekeepers could not have been greater. IP has managed to encompass a myriad of packet protocols, algorithms, and methods designed to enable IP support to realtime services, including voice, video and real-time transactions. The support for real-time delivery without compromise on the quality of service is the need of the hour. Hence, being able to accurately measure the occurrence of these events in the network at packet-by-packet level is essential. High precision time measurements can be used to measure as little as 6.7 nanoseconds, the time taken between two packets. One nanosecond is one-billionth of a second. Hence, it is crucial to timestamp packets with nanosecond precision to understand the network packet-by-packet. The molecular clock could well be a force that can be reckoned as being indispensable when it comes to large-scale applications incorporating high precision time measurement. Researchers believe that chip-scale molecular clock can also be used for more efficient time-keeping in operations that require location precision but involve little to no GPS signals, such as underwater sensing or battlefield operations. In an era which requires all speedy applications and systems, such high-frequency molecular clocks will prove to be a blessing.

Battlefields are places of life and death. This is one use-case where an accurate internal clock for local navigation becomes quite essential. Soldiers themselves don’t have tracking equipment involving GPS attached to them anymore. With the new-age technology giving the ability of remotely triggering bombs on battlefields, soldiers use equipment that suppresses all signals in the area so the bombs won’t go off. With GPS signals cut off in the area, it becomes critical for soldiers to navigate correctly in such circumstances of danger. CREDENZ.INFO

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-The Editorial Board ISSUE 14.1

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Bridging the rift

interview

With Mr L. C. Singh A trailblazer in the IT industry, Mr. Lal Chandra Singh, has been a prominent figure in the field for the last 3 decades. He has an unmatchable passion for creating technology and is a firm believer in customer centric product design. On the basis of the years of experience that he gained working in the finacial sector, he went on to establish his own company, and achieved ground breaking success yet again. Aside from his illustrious industrial life, he also holds a keen interest for photography, filmmaking and philosophy.

Q

You started your journey with chemical engineering. What influenced you to join the IT industry?

A

Chemical engineering was a really generic field back then. There was no Computer Science in those days. But later on, as I witnessed the growth of the software industry, it looked quite fascinating.

Q A

How did Harvard business school inspire change in you?

I did business school when I was at TCS. Harvard was more of a networking event. My colleagues and I were learning more from each other than from class.

Q

Your contributions to different fields have been significant. How do you integrate the knowledge of so many domains into the work you do today?

A

It is important to learn that whatever you learn ultimately gets incorporated into your persona. When you are forming a vision of the future, everything comes into the play. Everything that I have learnt has played a siginificant role in my career. The exposure I got in the industry of finance, helped me build my own industry at TCS. And the experience that I gained gave me a lot of confidence, enough to start my own company. Pg 07

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Mr L. C. Singh Executive Vice chairperson, Nihilent Ltd.

“For me, becoming the most passionate learner of any new field is the most enjoyable thing in the world.”

Q A

When did you decide to start your own company?

I had a lot of fun in TCS, but it became so big in the technology side that products became secondary. So after TCS, the idea was that I could look into mid-sized companies. Zensar had 950 employees at the time. I thought I’ll join and transform it into something better. We did quite well in the market during the two years I was there. Then this opportunity came by, for me to start my own company, so naturally, I seized it. ISSUE 14.1

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Dactyl is a robot system created to solve the long pending problem of robots – handmovements. It has learnt everything from scratch, through simulation. A wide range of parameters such as mass and dimensions of the object, friction on both surfaces, actuator forces have been evaluated.

Q A

year, the market size was over two million pounds. And that’s what happens sometimes, you’re stipulating, sitting in your comfort zone and you don’t really know what the actual situation is in the field. After America, the U.K. became the largest profitable market.

Q A

I could not have done all that onmy own. He chose to send me there. I just diligently did what was asked of me. It was a huge learning experience working with him. And it was an unconventional market at that time. All that I learned over there gave us the confidence to experiment over here. That’s what we’re doing at Nihilent, looking for untapped new territories. Our lab I would say is a different kind of experiment, one of its kind. One that can provide valuable insight, that would otherwise be unattainable.

How did this opportunity come by?

One of my Harvard classmates offered the capital to start a company. We eventually started Nihilent in 2000. Last year, Nihilent was declared as Microsoft’s key AI partner. How did that come about?

We acquired a company in the US called GNet, which was an old partner with Microsoft in the AI space. Using that, we expanded worldwide, also brought it into the Indian market space and that’s how the partnership with Microsoft was extended.

Q

How will the newly established User Experience Lab help in the advancement of designing aspect of the IT industry?

A

User Experience Lab is basically where we bring in the end consumers and iteratively take inputs from them. The inputs that we receive from them are used in the design thinking process. That’s what design thinking is. That’s the central theme. We are using our patented frameworks MC3 and 14Signals to enhance it. We set up our first User Experience lab here in Pune, and we are replicating that in five other locations worldwide.

Q

User Experience Lab was inaugurated by Dr. F. C. Kohli. You have been associated with Dr. Kohli for a long time now. Is there any particular experience you would like to share?

A

In my opinion, he’s a living legend. He has such clarity of thought even at his age. Even today he serves as an inspiration to me. His vision, his intellect, his conviction was instrumental in building the IT industry. I still remember, in 1988, he told me to go to the U.K. to survey the size of the market. If the size was found to be less than 1 million pounds, we would close down the market in the U.K. and focus in America alone. But under his guidance, I made sure that by the end of the CREDENZ.INFO

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Q

In today’s age there are many companies that start and go down just as quickly. But Nihilent has been thriving for the past 18 years. What are some principles that Nihilent focuses on to maintain their position?

A

You need to understand that an idea is never good enough. You need to have the execution capability as well and one of the steps of execution is to continuously involve the consumer. Ask yourself, are your customers a part of the journey? If not then it’s just your intellectual capability getting emaciated. Developers spend their entire time creating a project, only to learn that it does not fit the proper user requirements optimally. Lesson number one for any entrepreneur is to verify your idea. Lesson two is to never burn out your resources. We should keep these two ideas intact. Everything else is peripheral to it.

Q A

What technology makes you excited or anxious?

Nothing keeps me anxious. Nothing should be there to keep you awake at night. Anxiety comes when you are thinking about a technology, but you are not a part of it. Tracking technology ISSUE 14.1

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Repture

is a system which converts potentially harmful carbon, phosphorus and nitrogen into renewable energy and materials and consumes almost no energy for thefiltering process. It utilizes carbon capture and nutrient retention techniques to radically reduce the adverse environmental effects during the land use of biosolids and reclaimed.

and creating passion around technology, that is what excites me. If you were a 19-year old entrepreneur today, how would you go about starting a company?

Q A

In my opinion there are alot of excellent opportunities to start companies today, because quite frankly, this is the most interesting time for technology. The kind of AI and robotics we have today is incredible. Despite that, it is my personal observation that when many entrepreneurs are asked the objective of their company, you hear that they want to be acquired by a company. Money cannot be the objective. If you are a real entrepreneur you should not even think about exiting. Think about the long run. That’s what I would do if I were a young entrepreneur starting out today.

Q

If you could go back to the beginning of your career right now, would you have changed anything?

A

We contributed to TCS for seventeen years and our impact was significant. And Dr. Kohli was there, prudent enough to advise us. But the environment in IT was very different at the time. When I was marketing in the U.K., I used to buy £20 phone cards and used those to make cold calls using public phone booths. The company was built under unimaginable conditions. Considering the restraints we functioned under, I would say I have no misgivings regarding the work we did back then.

projects. That will give you the progress that you’ve been looking for. Any philosophy you live by?

Q A

Personally, the thing that gives me the most pleasure is learning something new. For me, becoming the most passionate learner of any new field is the most enjoyable thing in the world.

Q A

What message would you like to give to our readers?

One message that I would like to give to everyone is, right now there is great on-going development and fantastic opportunities. With all the new technologies, we have developed instruments that can solve a lot of problems, problems that were essentially considered unsolvable. So go and identify the problems and think how the technology can be used to solve those problems. That is the very genesis of your company. There is a massive ocean of opportunity, for people from all the fields. And the entrepreneurs must bind them all together in one consolidated package, that’s how markets flourish.

Q

According to you, what changes can the Indian Govt. make to reduce the restrictions and make a more digital country?

A

In my opinion, there has been an adequate amount of digitalization. The government doesn’t need to make more efforts there. One of the prominent things that the government should do, is to provide a reserved quota for small, entrepreneurial companies, for government Pg 09

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We thank Mr. L. C. Singh for his valuable time and contribution to P.I.N.G. -The Editorial Board

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Ballerina

maven

Mystifying. Elegant. Graceful.

D

eath of ESB and Middleware: Ballerina

fundamentally a better way than ‘config over code’.

What is the need to develop a new language and name it after a dance form? The short answer is to get rid of of middleware and ESBs.

Ballerina is an open-source project initiated by WSO2 to foster the development of the programming language called Ballerina and its supporting technologies. Ballerina makes it easy to write cloud-native applications while maintaining reliability, scalability, observability, and security. Ballerina is not a product, but it will be used in the future as a component within products. Ballerina is not considered to be a Domain Specific Language; it is a general purpose, modern, concurrent and strongly typed programming language optimised for integration. Although it is a general purpose language, the designers state clearly that the primary domain is integration. At this moment, Ballerina comes along with an interpreter, but in the future, they have planned to compile the code to a binary form.

If you look at how an integration project is traditionally done, you do it with an ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) and middleware. An ESB is not an agile construct. You have to deploy the ESB. You have to get a bunch of adapters, which have their own life-cycle, to connect to different systems.

The logic is then deployed by the developers into the ESB. And if there are two endpoints which are changing, then the whole system breaks.

The founders of Ballerina felt that the needs that drove ESB adoption – that it’s the glue between endpoints – was going to become a bigger problem that had to be tackled. According to them, it is better to look at the integration domain and develop a common syntax for all use cases. When you do that, almost all of the afore mentioned problems – complicated adapters, management – are eliminated. You have moved everything into code. The ‘config over code’ approach used earlier, which requires deploying of the ESB and configuring using XML/YAML, used to face debugging and management issues. Now that everything is moved into code, we are finding that ‘code over config’ is CREDENZ.INFO

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The language is inspired by a variety of languages like the open source Go language developed by Google. However, Ballerina is an open source language and its supporting components like the runtime interpreter, the graphical frontends have been written in Java, which has been the main language for WSO2 products. Anyhow Ballerina is not limited only to the Java ecosystem. Ballerina provides an IDE (called composer) that runs in a web browser. The IDE allows textual, graphical and swagger editing of Ballerina programs. But despite all it’s advantages, Ballerina is still young and only implements a handful of integration patterns (EIP) and will take time to mature to completely replace ESBs. The main principle behind the existence of Ballerina is to stop the use of ESB and middleware, ironically invented by the same organisation (WSO2) who pioneers in providing ESB, Middleware and API management solutions.

Hunaid Husain Senior Software Engineer Nihilent Ltd., Cape Town, South Africa

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VO2’s Resurgence

philomath

Defying Wiedemamm-Franz law

I

magine a material that can harness excess heat from engines and use it to generate electricity. Imagine that the same material could coat windows to trap heat in the winter but let it go in the summer or the same material working in computer chips, switching itself on and off in less than ten-billionth of a second. Scientists have always searched for the perfect balance in the properties for conducting materials after the discovery of the first metals.

can conduct heat and vice-versa. Previous studies have shown that vanadium dioxide defies the Weidemann-Franz Law, and while it is not the only substance capable of breaking the law, it is the first that can do so near room temperature. Materials defying Weidemann-Franz Law require super-cold temperatures near absolute zero, making them impractical for everyday use. Vanadium dioxide’s surprising properties do not end there. It also falls into a class of materials called Mott insulators, which resist heat and current flow at low temperatures, but switch into conductors after they warm up. Vanadium dioxide is an insulator until it hits about 65.5°C, then it turns into an electrical conductor, but not a conductor of heat. As predicted, once the Vanadium dioxide is warmed up to their MIT point, the electrons begin to break away from their home atoms and start to move freely. When materials heat up, their electrons start to vibrate. In most solids, those vibrations are completely random. It’s usually a million particles quivering at different rates in different directions. Surprisingly, when vanadium dioxide’s electrons vibrate, they do so in a synchronised, fluid pattern.

Soon, they uncovered the secrets of Silicon as a semiconductor and engineered it as per their needs. Easy arrangements and configurations of Silicon served as a starting point for the development of contemporary technology and innovation. But there are far more possibilities that arise from vanadium dioxide’s almost unique ability to conduct electricity but not heat. A key characteristic of this compound is that it behaves as an insulator at room temperature but as a conductor at temperatures above 68°C.

Synchronised vibrations are fine for electrical conduction. A current is like a stream of electrons and as long as the stream keeps flowing in more or less the same direction—it doesn’t really matter how the electrons vibrate. A uniform vibration doesn’t allow the electrons to come in contact with each other, and hence, they are unable to transfer energy. The random motion of the electrons allows them to jump between millions of random configurations, knocking into each other and transferring heat in the process.

This behaviour of acting like a good conductor of electricity but not heat is known as the metal-insulator ortional to the ability to conduct heat. This logic holds true for innumerable substances. Weidemann-Franz Law that states - the more a substance can conduct electricity, the more it

The experiments showed that when vanadium dioxide switched from insulator to metal, its electrical conductivity increased by 100000% from what it was previously. Its thermal conductivity, on the other hand, was about a tenth of what the Weidemann-Franz Law predicted it would be. It is seen that for vanadium dioxide, the lat-

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Smart wristband has the ability to monitor the count of red blood cells (RBCs) in a living organism. Blood is fed through a channel that is thinner than human hair and has gold electrodes inside. A bluetooth module then transmits the result directly to an app on your smartphone thus helping you save money on expensive and bulky instruments. tice and on-site Coulomb repulsion also contribute to the insulator-to-metal transition at 65.5°C. The only drawback of this material is that its application MIT temperature - 68°C - is too low for some state-of-the-art electronic devices which should work seamlessly even at higher temperatures of 100°C. But it is seen that adding Germanium to VO2 film can lift the material’s phase change temperature to over 100°C. Furthermore, when doped with tungsten atoms, they were able to change the MIT temperature, and how effectively the metal phase conducted heat. Being able to precisely control those two properties opens the door to many possibilities. A coating on a window could be tuned to conduct heat away from the glass when the temperature rises above 27°C but could trap heat inside at any temperature below if the metal phase is given high heat conductivity. Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is a typical thermo-chromic material. Vanadium dioxide’s properties have been widely investigated as smart coatings for buildings fenestrations. For temperatures below the Tc, VO2 is a monoclinic phase with the transmittance of infrared (IR) radiation. On the contrary, the material is a tetragonal structure, which is reflective of IR radiation. This feature makes VO2 an amazing material for thermochromic smart coatings. VO2 smart coatings are usually used in two forms including flexible foils based on VO2 nanoparticles and VO2 based multilayer films.

cally stable phase of vanadium oxide but does not possess the thermochromic property. Therefore, the environmental stability of VO2 is a great challenge for practical applications as smart coatings. These obstacles must be overcome for practical applications and many efforts have been made to achieve this goal. Doping of proper ions can effectively reduce the phase transition temperature of VO2: cations larger than V4+, such as W6+, Mo6+ and Nb5+ and anions smaller than O2such as F-, have been utilized to reduce the Tc. Vanadium dioxide and other transition metal dioxides can be used in computer transistors. Vanadium dioxide changes from a conductor to an insulator in one ten-billionth of a second. These materials could trap heat from a warm engine, but harness their conductivity at high temperature to create electricity. This can help to achieve the goal of clean energy fuels.In a world where faster processing means better technology, being able to turn power on and off 100 times more quickly than the current silicon-based transistors in use today could dramatically improve computing. Working on this new material gives rise to a supersonic era for computers and computer components which will transform our lives at a pace never seen before.

However, for commercial application such as smart coatings on energy efficient fenestrations, there are still several obstacles severely limiting the relative applicability of VO2 smart coatings. The phase transition temperature (Tc) for pure bulk VO2 (68 °C) is too high to be applied on building fenestrations, while Tc around 40 °C is acceptable. For practical applications as smart coatings, VO2 must maintain excellent thermochromic performances during a long time period, at least ten years. However, VO2 will finally transform into the V2O5 phase in the real environment, which is the most thermodynamiCREDENZ.INFO

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Nirvi Vakharia Pune Institute of Computer Technology Pune

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Evo-X

philomath An electric maestro

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tarting with a long-term vision of ‘Revolutionizing Electric Mobility in India with a focus on developing Sustainable Technologies and Innovation’, our IIT Bombay Racing team began working on the electrical racing car ‘Evo-X’. Our team had decided to harvest the resources in research opportunities like self-developed BMS(Battery Management System), 3-D printed 10-inch titanium uprights, aerodynamics and well-established CAN(Controller Area Network) for communication. EVoX is the 6th electric car designed by IIT Bombay Racing Team. As compared to their previous car Orca, Evo-X is meant to be faster, easily serviceable, more reliable, robust and aesthetically more pleasing. To validate the concepts and theories before finalising the design, extensive testing was done for each sub-system. The major discoveries and innovations tha took place in the following sections: A.Aerodynamics: This is the first time our Racing team has designed the aerodynamics package on the car. The package can produce a downforce of 900N at 80 km/h. The optimised ratio of Cl/Cd resulted in a lap time reduction of 3.5 seconds according to the VD Model. Mesh independence was achieved to ensure the CFD model. B. The shift from 13-inch to 10-inch rims: A switch from 13-inch to 10-inch rims was made to enhance the performance of the car. This decreased the weight by about 1 kg per rim and wheel rotational inertia by about 55%. The rims chosen were 3-piece Keizer, 10 inch Al shells which were 7 inches in width, off-centred by 6 inches and 5 inches in the front and rear respectively. Orca’s heavier EN24 housing integrated rear hub has been replaced by single part Aluminium hub with thin WPS(liners for wear protection). Tolerances of bearing press fits were paid due attention to eliminate previously seen long-run reliability issues. A centre-lock has also been introduced in the wheel assembly to reduce weight, size and assembly time.

Data Acquisition(DAQ) System has been developed in-house to store the data collected from motor controller and 9 other sensors including the suspension, steering, throttle, brake position, and the RPM sensor which are mounted on the car. This data is periodically transmitted, wirelessly, and in real time from the car to the pit; the wireless transmission is possible because of the XBee Pro(838 MHz) RF Module. The sensor and motor-controller data are transmitted on the CAN bus working on 1 MHz and 500 KHz frequencies respectively. The MBED LPC 1768 micro-controller is used in the DAQ board which collects all the data from the bus and stores them in the SD card and finally sends the relevant data to the dashboard.

Apart from these innovative technologies, we used ‘Direct Metal Laser Sintering’ technique and became the first Indian Racing team to have designed a metal 3-D printed part in the car. The vision with which IIT-B had started this pilgrimage surely would make a great change in the history of electric cars.

Pratik Shirsath Design Engineer, IIT Bombay Racing Mumbai

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World’s Densest SSD

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Intel’s “Ruler”

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ith the exponential increase in the number of gigantic data centres, humongous costs are incurred in their building and maintenance. Traditional data centres have servers packed in racks, which may occupy a room in a building or the whole building. These data centres are built for effective power utilisation, better air conditioning systems and efficient heating and ventilation- the physical environment is rigorously controlled.

NAND to 3D NAND technology. Rather than a single layer of memory cells, multiple layers of memory cells are stacked. The best analogy to this would be the structure of a skyscraper. Just like how a large number of floors in a skyscraper allow for more population density in a smaller area or footprint; in 3D NAND, a stack of layers is used to create a die. Perpendicular to this stack of layers are pillars and at the intersection of each pillar and layer, a memory cell is created. Each pillar can have up to 64 memory cells and there can be a billion such pillars in a single die. Just like the parking space for skyscrapers is built below it rather than around the building, to reduce footprint; the control unit for the memory cell or CMOS lies beneath the 3D NAND array.

The semiconductor chip maker giant, Intel, has given us a technology worth remembering- ‘World’s densest solid state drive’. Intel has been able to construe and break new grounds with its new solid state drive, Intel SSD D5- P4326 which is only as big as a 12inch ruler and has the capacity of 32 terabytes. It is built using Intel’s 3D NAND technology. Intel has kept the Moore’s Law alive by leading the paradigm shift from 2D NAND technology to 3D NAND technology. In 2D NAND technology, the memory cells are placed in a side by side layout as many as can be fitted. To stay on the trajectory with the Moore’s Law, the chips are made smaller and smaller. But as all things end, there came a point of technological block wherein the size of the memory cells couldn’t be reduced any further.

This innovative technology has revolutionised the economics of storage. Intel achieved the exciting form factor with the dimensions of the SSD being 12 inches by 1.5 inches and the thickness of a third of an inch- the “ruler” SSD. This long and slim structure of the “ruler” SSD enables air to flow directly to the processors at the rear of the machinethus demanding only half the airflow compared to the traditional disks. Intel’s “long and skinny sticks” for storage is five percent of the size of the traditional 2.5-inch square SSD drive. More importantly, the densest SSD requires only one-tenth the power and one-twentieth the space in contrast to the power drawn by the traditional SSD. Cloud giants like Microsoft and IBM are already using Intel’s dense SSDs at their data centres. With so much to offer, this SSD is definitely the storage norm of the future.

Bhargavi Dharmendra Rakesh Pune Institute of Computer Technology Pune

This gave impetus to the radical shift from 2D CREDENZ.INFO

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ANN Using DNA

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Molecular Smart Potion

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s Michio Kaku has quoted: ‘Sitting on your shoulder is the most complicated object in the known Universe!’

The human brain is the most complex processor of information on the planet. This is because the brain contains about 100 billion miniscule cells called neurons, where each neuron is connected by ten thousand other neurons. Neurons are essentially electrically excitable cells in the nervous system that function to process and transmit information. A neuron consists of a cell body and an axon where it sends messages to other neurons and the dendritic tree where it receives messages from other neurons in the form of an impulse. The electrical impulse mostly arrives on the dendrites, gets processed into the cell body to then move along the axon. An axon functions merely as an electric cable which simply transmits the signal.

the neural network arrives at a result, which is indicated by only a few neurons who remain active according to the result of the preceding layer. Neural networks have extensively been made use of for designing new fonts, figuring out handwriting, detecting images and even predicting the stock market. Recently, a team of scientists at the California Institute of Technology has successfully created a DNAbased neural network capable of understanding molecular handwriting. The researchers demonstrated that bio-engineered strands of DNA could be used to process data by exploiting chemical reactions.

This process is really fast- the speed at which information travels in the brain can be estimated to reach about 268 miles/hr, which is simply incredible! Artificial Neural Networks were developed in the 40s to process information in a way similar to the working of neurons in the human brain. A typical neural network has anything from a few dozens to hundreds or even millions of artificial neurons called units arranged in a series of layers, each of which connects to the layers on either side. The neural network takes in information from the input units and finally, the processed information is given out through the output units– both being a set of artificial neurons. Between them, there exist multiple layers of neurons called the ‘hidden layers’ who are all interconnected with each other. The connection between a pair of neurons is marked by a ‘weight’ which may have a positive or negative value which determines how ‘active’ a neuron in the next layer will be! The neurons of the first layer select specific neurons from the next layer depending upon a certain algorithm that they rely on. This process continues until Pg 15

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This neural network, formed by carefully designed DNA sequences, can be used to carry out chemical reactions that lead to an accurate interpretation of molecular handwriting. A neural network is taught how to comprehend alphabets and numbers and it then stores it into its “memory”. Whenever a new set of information is fed to it, it maps that to the data it had perceived and grasped onto earlier, thus recognising the input data accurately. But on a molecular level,thevariations in handwriting are not distinguishable, unlike visual handwriting. A molecular number, for example, does not actually take the shape of a number. It is made up of ISSUE 14.1

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Weyl magnets are the heat based power sources used to generate electricity based on the anomalous Nernst effect. A magnetized piece of metal generates a voltage perpendicular to the temperature gradient across it and so the thin films can be used in various different shapes. Upto 8 microvolts can be generated per Kelvin.

20 unique DNA strands chosen from 100 molecules, each acting as a pixel in a 10 by 10 pattern. These DNA strands are then mixed in a test-tube. A ‘winner-takes-all’ strategy then comes into play. A DNA molecule, termed ‘Annihilator’, is used to choose a winner from a number of other molecules in the test-tube which compete to identify the input number. The Annihilator, staying true to its name, starts reacting with all the competing molecules to eat up those who fail to come near to the required result. Finally, a single molecule remains who has succeeded in deducing the number. The concentration of the victorious molecule increases, resulting in the emission of a fluorescent signal that indicates the network’s decision. Given a particular example of molecular handwriting, this neural network is successful in classifying it into nine categories, each representing one of the nine possible handwritten digits from 1 to 9. For building this type of a neural network, a process called the strand-displacement cascade is employed. This method uses single and partially double-stranded DNA molecules. The double-stranded molecules are double helices, which have a tail that sticks out. The single-stranded molecule holds on to the tail of the partially double-stranded one if their bases are complementary, keeping the other strand dangling and thus forming a connection. Here, the single-stranded molecule acts as the input while the dangling strand acts as the output. Eventually, a large number of DNA strands come together to constitute a DNA neural network.

Even though it faces the above challenges, this research is a pioneering breakthrough in programming artificial intelligence into synthetic biomolecular circuits. Artificially intelligent molecules could be the key to developing invisibility paint and disease-eradicating nanobots. These nanobots use DNA fragments as a building block which is arrayed in sheets that can be zipped up to deliver a drug to the required site in the body, without interacting with healthy cells. These nanobots have recently been used on mice to treat tumours which have yielded positive results. These biochemical systems, powered by AI, could have numerous applications in chemistry, medicine, and biological research. These systems have the potential to operate within cells, helping to answer fundamental biological questions and solving other mysteries. The creation of DNA based neural networks promises to provide a different perspective and approach to handling diseases and ailments that otherwise would have been extremely difficult and tedious to tackle. Establishing a connection between computer science and medicine, these systems are something that the world needs today. Not only will they play an imperative role in the creation of effective AI systems that work on a biomolecular level, but also might change the face of medicine altogether.

A major problem that this network faces is that the molecules get used up as they lose the ability to combine with a different DNA strand once a connection is established. Hence the network can be used only once and not repeatedly. Furthermore, this network is slower than traditional neural networks. Hence its commercialisation will take a while to see the light of day. CREDENZ.INFO

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Sensing Cities

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Smarter smart city

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magination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” -Albert Einstein What if roads of cities were driven on by driverless cars? What if sensors could relay real-time information about city conditions? Can today’s technology have applications in the creation of sustainable urban environments? The answer to all these questions lies within the concept of ‘Sensing Cities’.

their needs can help to alleviate urban problems. They aim to touch urban life in the 5 aspects of housing, energy, mobility, social services and shared public spaces. Sidewalk Labs aims to achieve the following milestones: Implementing driverless cars as they will navigate more precisely and obey traffic laws more consistently than human drivers. A self–contained thermal grid that would be used to re-circulate energy from non fossil fuel sources to form a thermo-regulatory system for buildings.

People have been trying to build ‘smart cities’ for hundreds of years. However, since cities are massively complex systems which encompass a large number of varied processes, actually implementing a perfectly planned model becomes exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. This forms the basis of the concept of sensing cities: the process of intense data gathering can truly enhance urban living. The idea is to solve the existing complexity by means of an extensive data collection system throughout cities using networks of underlying sensors. The aggregated data will be made available in data stores open to scrutiny by city officials and citizens. Rit Aggarwala of Toronto’s Quayside Sidewalk Labs asks the question “What do 21stcentury technologies enable us to do better?” Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs is answering this very question in Quayside, Toronto, Canada by implementing their big ‘Sensing City’ project on an underutilised and wasted 12-acre plot of land to transform it into one of the world’s most innovative city neighbourhoods. Their aim is to replace private cars with driverless shuttle buses, use traffic lights to track the flow of pedestrians, bicyclists as well as vehicles and train robots to transport mail and garbage via underground tunnels. They believe that working with the local community and tailoring technology to meet Pg 17

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Transporting garbage in underground tunnels to reduce street traffic and greenhousegas emissions could be done by “Trash Robots” programmed to sort and haul waste. Different kinds of sensors such as video sensors (cameras), noise sensors (microphones), gas sensors and meteorological sensors can be implemented throughout the city. They can be interconnected through various technologies such as cellular, WIFI, and WAVE thus enabling ISSUE 14.1

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Graphene gel has been found out by Researchers at the Tsinghua University in China that has dual properties – resilient and rigid when dry, but squidgy, stretchy and self-healing when wet. The process of making this gel involved mixing graphene sheets just a nanometer thick, with water and then adding polyacrylic acid to it, which has excellent fluid-absorbing properties. different parts of the city to be connected. Data collection through vehicular sensor networks (VSNs) is important for many applications, such as travel comfort, safety and urban sensing. Static and mobile sensors data can be gathered through the vehicles and they will be able to access roadside units (RSUs) while moving, and then send the data to a server in the cloud. The processing of the data in the centralised server helps in gathering information on real-time traffic information services, parking lots availability, geographical localisation services, pollution indicators, surveillance applications for city management, etc. Incorporating new sensing, computing, and control paradigms, for example, CPS, Industry 4.0, and MAS into the city’s daily activities. Sensors could be included on inhalers that monitor when people require relief from exacerbations of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). They will relay real-time data about the quantity of medication dispensed, the air temperature at the mouth and the location. Coupled with this will be real-time data from across the city at a granular level that captures the level of particulates in the air. This can help not only the city but also the patient and the health system. Data management and computational intelligence approaches for knowledge extraction from raw sensor streams would be implemented along with open hardware and software architectures to support complex sensor systems integration. The city will consist of two main layers: the digital layer and the physical layer. The physical layer will include the buildings, the public realm and the infrastructure while the digital layer will be interspersed with different types of sensors for different types of data collection. The digital layer would ensure that each passing footstep and bicycle tire would be accounted for and managed so as to create a single unified source of information about the happenings of the city.

Cities”, it leads to the rise of some very important questions such as: Who would be able to access the data? How will the ethical collection of data be ensured? What would such an arrangement mean for a citizen who doesn’t wish to be monitored? How will the privacy of citizens be ensured and what measures would be taken to prevent leakage of data? Sidewalk states that it will gather only that data that is required to solve the problem at hand. For example, to monitor pedestrian patterns, they will use a device which uses light from a laser to detect objects, a camera which stores only outlines or one that counts people who walk by but doesn’t store the images. This will ensure that they get the information that they need while at the same time nothing can be traced back to the individual, hence public privacy. They also plan to ask help of independent cyber-security experts to allow the better security of data. Despite all the measures that Sidewalk claims to be taking, they still need to prove themselves as a trustworthy brand that will safeguard the interests of the people of Toronto and not compromise their privacy. The project will go on floors only after they guarantee their methods of data protection and show Toronto the benefits of adopting such a new comprehensive system. As it often happens with any kind of new technology or idea, the concept of “Sensing Cities” is still hovering over clouds of doubt and skepticism. If implemented, it could pave the way for a new kind of innovation in the world of urban planning. After all, the present is a nexus of opportunities and possibilities, but the future is the convergence of imagination and reality.

- Sidhee Hande Pune Institute of Computer Technology Pune

Since data collection forms the basis of “Sensing CREDENZ.INFO

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Live Tags

philomath

Detachable IoT labels To take off beyond just connecting smartphones, smart-watches and other high-end devices, engineers have developed low-cost, battery-free, chip-less and printable sensors that can include everyday objects as a part of the Internet of Things. These are printable tags made up of metal which when attached to everyday objects, turn them into “smart” IoT devices.

LiveTag to create a paper-thin music player controller complete with a play/pause button, next track button and a sliding bar for tuning volume. The buttons and sliding bar each consist of at least one metal tag so when the user touches any of them, a signal is sent to a Wi-Fi device. LiveTags could also be used to control Wi-Fi connected music players when attached to a wall, couch armrests, or any other ordinary surfaces. These tags have multiple resonators which get detuned at a specific water level, hence serving as indicators. This data can be sent to the user’s smartphone, giving warnings to prevent dehydration. Various activities performed by patients – opening and closing of doors, picking up water bottles, etc., can be sent to the doctors who evaluate their recovery status. Hence patients don’t have to repeatedly travel to the clinic and get their health checkup done.

The metal tags are made from patterns of copper foil by printing them on thin, flexible, paper like substrates and are made to reflect Wi-Fi signals. These tags act as mirrors and work by reflecting radio signals from a Wi-Fi router. The touch of a user’s finger creates disturbances in the reflected Wi-Fi signals. The tags are attached to the surfaces of ordinary objects like water bottles, doors, etc. This makes those objects smart. Now, these connected devices can signal a Wi-Fi device upon user interaction. The tags can also be fashioned into thin keypads or smart home control panels using which Wi-Fi connected speakers, smart lights and other IoT appliances can be remotely operated. These tags can be redesigned to reflect Bluetooth, LTE or cellular signals by changing the type of material they are made of and the pattern in which they are printed.

Despite so many pros, there exist several limitations to this technology. LiveTags currently cannot work with a Wi-Fi receiver further than three feet away. If the water bottle, inside which these tags are pasted, is made of metal, then the signal is blocked, rendering the tags useless. The team aims to prosper as a way to make the tags using normal paper and ink printing, which would make them affordable for mass production. If brought into the local market, these tags might bring an end to the daily life problems that people face, hence making human life more convenient.

- Sanya Gulati Pune Institute of Computer Technology Pune

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Crypto-Anchors

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Unclonable Identification From headphones to footwear, from cardamom to bananas, almost everything has been duplicated. According to ‘Trade in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods: Mapping the Economic Impact’, the total value of imported fake goods worldwide, in 2013, was estimated to US$461 billion. These not only include Gucci bags and Polo T-shirts but also the things that are critical for health and safety. In 2008, certain batches of a blood thinning drug had only 50% of the active ingredient while the rest was over-sulphated chondroitin sulphate, a counterfeited substance.

IBM researcher Andreas Kind believes that the root of the problem is the very complex global supply chains comprised of many participants around the world. Also, e-commerce has made it easy for the fakes to make their way into legitimate platforms. Researchers have proposed a provenance database that would keep a permanent and unchangeable record of every movement and handover happening with the product as it is shipped across the world. The technologies like blockchain can be used to build a trusted version of such a provenance system. The blockchain has been proven to be the future of digital transactions, infusing trust, efficiency and transparency into supply chains. Companies like BlockVerify have proposed an anti-counterfeit solution based on the blockchain. But, as Andreas Kind says, “The blockchain alone cannot ensure the authenticity of the physical goods. Over this we need anchors, in the physical world, to link the crypCREDENZ.INFO

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tographic entries in these provenance databases”. Crypto-anchors are tamper-proof digital-fingerprints, embedded into products, which can extend the value of blockchain into the physical realm. These can authenticate a products origin and contents, ensuring that it matches the blockchain record. They can take many forms such as an edible shade of magnetic ink stamped on a malaria pill, which can be activated and viewed from a drop of water, and then scanned to verify the originality of the paper. “Crypto-anchors are highly secure because they are embedded in products and consist of cryptographic mechanisms that provide unclonable identification”, claims IBM Research. Some crypto-anchors would do more than authenticate physical goods. With the world’s smallest computer from IBM, smaller than a grain of salt, that can be embedded in objects, it would be possible to monitor, analyse, communicate and even act on data. IBM scientists have created a crypto-anchor that combines mobile-sensors outfitted with a special optical device and AI algorithms that learn and identify the optical structure and features of certain objects. It can also identify the presence of DNA sequences in minutes. These crypto-anchors can help verify products like liquids or expensive sheets. According to IBM Research, crypto-anchors will soon go from the lab to the marketplace to ensure that an electronic device contains authentic parts or that the right medicine was delivered to the right patient. Within the next 5 years, cryptographic anchors and blockchain technology will ensure a product authenticity from its point of origin to the hands of the customer.

- Sudhanshu Bhoi Pune Institute of Computer Technology Pune ISSUE 14.1

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Electron Ion Collider

philomath

The Next QCD Frontier

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ith the invention of bubble chambers and spark chambers, experimental particle physics discovered a large and ever-growing number of particles called hadrons. Such a large number of particles could not be fundamental. So, after further research and classification, scientists Murray Gell-Mann and George Zwieg, in 1963, went on to propose that the structure of the newly discovered particles (hadrons) could be explained by the existence of three ‘flavours’ of smaller particles, called Quarks. This formed the basis of what is now known as Quantum Chromo Dynamics, or QCD theory. QCD is the theory of the strong interaction between quarks and gluons, fundamental particles that make up composite hadrons. (In a layman’s term, Gluons are the ‘glue’ that holds the quarks together, forming protons and neutrons).

celerator built, and by extension the one that had the best chance of unravelling the secrets of the Universe. However, in recent times, newer techniques and projects have been suggested, which includes one such project called the Electron Ion Collider. The project suggested by the Brookhaven National Laboratory as well as Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, have proposed designs for an EIC. The designs proposed are of a particle accelerator which is designed to collide spin-polarized beams of high-intensity, high energy electrons and ions, in order to study the properties of nuclear matter in detail. Both the current proposals involve upgrading existing projects,facilities or designs to achieve the aforementioned functionality. Some experiments in nuclear physics let physicists “go back in time” to study matter as it existed in the very early universe. These experiments have revealed intriguing details of the “perfect liquid”, a primordial soup made of quarks and gluons.While existing nuclear physics facilities continue to provide important insight and fresh data—pushing the limits of discovery well beyond their initial designs. The Electron-Ion Collider would be a novel tool for exploring this inner microcosm dominated by gluons.

Until recently, the LHC was the largest particle ac-

The new facility is designed to have a versatile range of kinematics, beam polarisation and high luminosity beam species. These upgrades are required to precisely image the sea quarks and gluons in nucleons and nuclei. In simple terms, EIC would collide electrons with protons and nuclei to produce snapshots of those particles’ internal structure, like a CT scanner for atoms. The force that holds quarks together, known as the strong nuclear force (the strongest of the four known forces in the Universe), is carried by the gluons. This has earned the gluons the title of ‘The Glue That Holds Everything Together’. An EIC would reveal the arrangement of the gluons and quarks, thereby allowing us to study the strong nuclear force. This is why Electron-Ion Collider will be a discovery machine for unlocking the secrets of the ‘glue’ that binds the

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Since the theory’s conception more than 3 decades ago, a lot of experimental evidence has been gathered in support of QCD. Most of the experimental analysis is done by colliding fundamental or subatomic particles inside the particle accelerators such as the LHC situated in CERN, and using Deep Inelastic Scattering to probe inside the particles to gain an understanding of their structure, and the force that binds them together, known as ‘Strong Nuclear Force’.

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Spider silk

proves to be prolific in dissipating 70 percent of the energy of impacts and so they can be used to make impact-absorbing body armour. They have perceived applications in the field of vaccination, hearing aid microphones, and microsurgical techniques such as healing severe nerve injuries.

building blocks of visible matter in the universe. According to a suggested proposal by the Brookhaven National Laboratory, the EIC would be the only electron-nucleus collider operating in the world and would consist of two intersecting accelerators - one producing an intense beam of electrons and the other, a high-energy beam of protons or heavier atomic nuclei, which are steered into head-on collisions. This will be built by upgrading the existing Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider(RHIC). At Jefferson Lab, the JLEIC(Jefferson Lab Electron-Ion Collider) design employs new electron and ion collider ring complex with the 12 GeV upgraded CEBAF(now under construction). The machine designs are aimed at achieving: • Highly polarised( around 70%)electron and nucleon beams • Ion beams from deuteron to the heaviest nuclei(uranium). • High collision Luminosity(1033-34 cm-2s-1). • Possibilities of having more than one interaction region. With such a facility the EIC would be able to address the following fundamental questions: • Precise measurements to the contribution made to the proton spin by the intrinsic spin of the quarks and gluons. • The motion of quarks and gluons i.e. correlation between the spin of proton and the transverse motion of quarks in confined restraints. • The tomographic images of the proton with the groundbreaking luminosity and detector specifications. • QCD matter at extreme Gluon density. • Quark Hadronisation.

nents. Some of these advances could lead to energy-efficient accelerators, thereby dramatically shrinking the size and operating costs of future accelerators used across science and industry to make computer chips, design solar cells, produce radioisotopes,etc. The computers and smartphones we use every day depend on what we learned about the atom in the last century. All information technology and much of our economy today relies on understanding the electromagnetic force between the atomic nucleus and the electrons that orbit it. Somewhat similar, the science of the force holding particles together is well understood but we still know little about the microcosm within the protons and neutrons that make up the atomic nucleus. The RHIC revolutionised our understanding of hot, dense QCD matter through its discovery of the strongly-coupled quark gluon plasma. Conversely, unprecedented studies of nucleon and nucleus structure have been possible with the high luminosity fixed target experiments at Jefferson Laboratory using the CEBAF. The EIC promises to propel both the fields into the next QCD Frontier, by unravelling the three dimensional structure of sea quark. That’s why physicists feel that there is a need to build the Electron-Ion Collider to allow us to venture out further into the secrets of the Universe.

Beyond sparking scientific discoveries in a new frontier of fundamental physics, building the EIC will also trigger broader benefits for society. The EIC designs will push accelerator technology to its limits and will therefore require significant R&D. Research on the technologies needed to make the EIC a reality is already pushing the evolution of magnets and other particle accelerator compoCREDENZ.INFO

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Atomic Solid State Drive Making the most of matter

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philomath

one are the days when data centres comprised of energy inefficient and power hungry hard drives that spin, click, hum, buzz, develop into discs hotter than blue blazes, require fans and expensive cooling systems and still seem to crash unexpectedly. A group of researchers at the University of Alberta have developed a new data storage technique that stores ones and zeroes on hydrogen atoms. The resulting atomic-scale solid state drive (SSD) has the potential to eclipse the memory of conventional drives by a 1000 fold.

1950 called the IBM 350 Disk File. The IBM 350 drive had fifty 24 inch platters with a total capacity of a meagre 3.75 megabytes. The next 20 years saw an increase in the capacity of hard disk storage devices and a relative decrease in their sizes. The 1980s saw the advent of the minicomputer era which led to further ascending storage space and plummeting disk sizes combined with an increased usage of hard disk drives. Modern day computing has seen up to 14 terabytes of memory which can easily fit into your pockets.

The scientists were able to create an atomic structure stable at room temperature which is capable of storing an unparalleled 1.2 petabits per square inch, about 1000 times greater than current hard drives and solid state drives and 100 times greater than Blu-Rays. By tweaking a procedure, known as hydrogen lithography, this new technology enables one to store the entire iTunes library (about 45 million songs) in an area the size of a quarter dollar coin.

This new research intends to reach novel heights in data storage by exploiting atomic level microstructures to encode even larger amounts of information into even tinier spaces. Ultra-highdensity storage devices aren’t new either with marvelous breakthroughs in the field of molecular data storage. These devices have the capability to store close to 25 terabytes of data in a single molecule and even a single atom. However, these systems had to operate at cryogenic temperatures, near vacuum pressure, or both. Past efforts in atomic scale devices have been hampered by two constraints: precision and stability.

This astounding tiny scale is a testimonial to the incredible evolution of storage systems throughout history. Disk storage was first introduced by IBM for their then-new IBM 305 RAMAC computer in Pg 23

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Fog Computing is a decentralized computing structure where data and applications are stored in logical locations between the data source and cloud. This enables processing of the data where it is created, hence reducing the network latency and increasing efficiency. There is also a possibility to filter the data that gets uploaded to the cloud. required a lot of time and resources and thus were impractical to use for commercial purposes. In comparison, this latest technology is designed to work at room temperature and is (almost) incorruptible for over 500 years. This research is crucial since it opens up new avenues for the development of efficient atomic scale devices. Generally atomicscale storage devices use a procedure typically called as hydrogen lithography which is the technique of removing or replacing hydrogen atoms from hydrogen-passivated surfaces such as silicon. This enables one to engrave patterns into the lattice of the hydrogen passivated structures. By firing low energy electrons at a HydrogenSilicon bond, the hydrogen atoms can be removed, which leaves a vacant valence of the silicon atom known as dangling bonds. Like a conventional solid state drive, chains of dangling bonds can be used to store data. Because these chains are so minuscule, huge chunks of data can be stored in very small surface areas. As mentioned earlier, a complication being faced in hydrogen lithography is the precision. This procedure allows an extremely small margin of error so even small imperfections in the bond structure or removal of incorrect hydrogen atoms can render the structure inoperable. To counter this, the team from Alberta has developed a new technique namely hydrogen repassivation which paves the way for efficient and precise error correction in atomic structures.

Other methods of repassivation require massive amounts of time and resources. To demonstrate the applicability of their findings, the researchers used the new technology to create atomic memories of 8 bits and 192 bits respectively, in which they encoded the entire ASCII English alphabetic series and the theme song from Super Mario Brothers. The procedure also enabled the team to create dangling bonds with an information density of 1.7 bits per square nanometer. This is approximately equivalent to etching 350,000 letters across a single grain of rice. The team demonstrated that there were no changes in the atomic structure even after storing them for 3 days at room temperature. One drawback of the procedure is that writing speeds still seem to be inefficient and slow. Writing each 8 bit ASCII code takes between 10 and 120 seconds. This, unfortunately, is impractical for today’s customers. Nonetheless, since this technology involves the usage of silicon, it can be easily interfaced with existing semiconductor technologies. Although this technology is still incipient, the experiments have proven that it has practical applications. The researchers are convinced that this technology has the potential to revolutionise the storage industry and pave the way for a bright future of practical atomic scale devices. Quantum computers which operate on such atomic-scale memories will unarguably reduce power consumptions giving way to a promising future for the tech industry.

The procedure firstly instructs to attach a hydrogen atom to the end of an application tip to the silicon atom. By positioning the application tip over the required site, it is lowered and the hydrogen atom is transferred from the application tip to the silicon atom by means of voltage modulations. The device detects a current to signify a successful repassivation and then resets. The machine re-positions itself over the appropriate site if the needle is moved unintentionally by means of a feedback algorithm. The highlight of this procedure is that it is extremely efficient and fast.

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SEPTEMBER 2018

- Sarah M Naik Pune Institute of Computer Technology Pune ISSUE 14.1

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Unraveling the techie

colloquium

with Mr. Prasad Kulkarni

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pecialising in business analytics and managment, Mr. Prasad Kulkarni has been working with SAS for almost two decades now. In an exclusive interview with P.I.N.G., he talks about the importance of data at SAS and how the company is solving real-world problems using AI and Machine Learning.

made for myself and I am very happy and content with all the work that I was able to put in for the development of the company.

Q A

How has SAS served as a medium for you while developing your domain?

Exposure to databases helped me in achieving my dominance in business intelligence. SAS is a business analytics company where data is part of our day to day work. Other than databases, many other technologies that we work on provide us great opportunities to develop ourselves. In this field particularly, SAS has amazing technologies right from data wrangling, number crunching to data explorations, visualizations etc. It helped me tremendously to gain a deep insight into the domain of business intelligence or analytics which has been something I have been working on for the past couple of years now.

Q

SAS believes in ‘Augmenting human efforts with Artificial Intelligence’. How exactly is your team working towards achieving this?

A (Mr Prasad Kulkarni, Director- R&D SAS)

‘Do not pray for an easy life, pray to be a strong person’

Q A

How did you develop an interest in Computer Science?

My endeavour with computers began in 1989 when I had just started college. I had started my journey by programming 8085 microprocessors. This further boosted my liking for the subject and I started exploring more. Over the years, I have had various programming stints from assemblylevel programming to FORTRAN and PASCAL to C and Java. I believe this is the right choice that I Pg 25

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SAS has been at the forefront of applying AI to solve complex problems. Through our project, ‘Data For Good’, SAS was able to help in conserving endangered species in Namibia like lions and cheetahs. Image recognition techniques were used to identify footprints of these species. Another motive of image recognition is that static images are more powerful than dynamic images. Small changes in the production process can be detected using these images which serve as an indicator for possible defects that may exist. This intelligence was handed to the local tribes, who helped in bettering the complex identification of footprints, thereby making this intelligence faster and more accurate. In many such initiatives we are trying to achieve this goal of ours to bring technology closer to the people who will benefit immensely when they utilise it for their own good.

Q

With so many advancements happening in Machine Learning, how is SAS planning to

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Paper based bio-batteries containing a thin film of cellulose, the same starting material used to make paper, was laid over conductive carbon nanotubes.A hybrid of paper and engineered polymers; they are flexible, lightweight and have a much higher power-to-cost ratio; an excellent eco-friendly alternative to prevent the torment of e-waste.

stand out in comparison to other leading machine learning organisations?

A

SAS is a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Multimodal Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning (PAML) Platforms, Q3 2018. SAS machine learning tools address all of the steps necessary for both data scientists and business users alike to turn raw data into actionable insights. SAS Visual Data Mining and Machine Learning offer users a single platform to solve complex analytical problems. Combining data preparation, visualization, advanced analytics and model deployment, it unifies the entire machine learning process, from data access or transformation and preparation to scoring, in one environment. Running on the SAS Viya engine, SAS Visual Data Mining and Machine Learning include the latest statistical, machine learning, deep learning and text analysis algorithms that accelerate structured and unstructured data explorations, while also supporting popular open source languages.

Q A

Could you tell us about SAS’s initiatives to support various social causes?

SAS has an initiative called ‘Data For Good’ where SAS works with NGOs to solve social issues using SAS software. We at SAS R&D India have an initiative called ‘Muskaan’ which is a community that espouses the cause ‘Share a Smile’, organising and coordinating a variety of voluntary efforts. It engages the collective efforts of SAS R&D India employees in giving back to the society. We contribute in our own little way through food for charity, painting school walls, tree plantation, blood donation, providing specific type of aid, etc. There are many activities that we have involved ourselves in and the list is endless.

Q

SAS Research and Development, India is ranked 6th among India’s Great Mid-Size Workplaces in the year 2017, what did it require to achieve this feat?

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SEPTEMBER 2018

A

We moved up in the ranking this year. In 2018 we are ranked 3rd among India’s Great Mid-Size Workplaces. Our employees make us the best place to work. It’s been a long dedicated journey for us, something we continue to strive upon. To achieve such recognition, investment in people and culture is of utmost importance. Our CEO Dr Jim Goodnight says, “95 per cent of my assets drive out the gate every evening. It’s my job to maintain a work environment that keeps those people coming back every morning.” And we as part of SAS work in this direction and try to live up to this idea of the CEO. The world applauds people who work dedicatedly, selflessly and with passion and we feel we have been blessed with love pouring in from all corners of the world.

Q A

What advice would you leave our readers with?

I am always inspired by these 2 quotes - ‘Do not pray for an easy life, pray to be a strong person’ and ‘Labour is dignity. Never think of any work as small or big no matter what it is. Once you take up work, put your heart and head into it and you will succeed’. I would like to urge everyone to abide by these two teachings as it would definitely reflect on their personal and social well-being and it would help them scale greater heights – both professionally and personally.

We thank Mr. Prasad Kulkarni for his valuable time and contribution to P.I.N.G. -The Editorial Board

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Beyond the curve Desert Air

Even the aridest places on the Earth contains moisture in the air! So, the researchers of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley have made an extraction system for moisture which works even in bone-dry locations to provide clean and potable water. This system is based on Metal-Organic Frameworks, which eagerly absorbs and releases water and it can extract moisture with relative humidities as low as The test device was powered solely by sunlight and although it was a small proof-of-concept device, if scaled up its output would be equivalent to more than a quarter-litre of water per day per kilogram of MOF. It can even give output as high as three times if an optimal material is chosen. It is basically a powder made up of tiny crystals which catch water molecules when the temperature is decreased and releases them on increasing the temperature. This is put together in a box of two feet per side with a layer of MOF on the top, which is exposed to the air. In the night, when the temperature drops, water molecules are trapped in the MOF, then in the morning, due to the sun’s heat the water condenses in the box’s sides. This results in 3 ounces of water per pound of MOF.

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Soft Robot

Researchers have developed a soft robot with size on a millimetre scale, having micrometre scale features. These robots are multi-functional and can be used to access man-made or natural regions which are impossible to reach with the current models of tiny robots. This robot is made from 12 layers of silicone rubber using the laser micro-machining technique and for the micro-fluid channels, injection induced self folding technique has been made us of. This robot also has about 180 degrees of freedom such as motion, colour, structure, etc. which makes this robot very flexible. It enables an entirely new approach to endoscopy and microsurgery. Imagine a legion of tiny robots performing minimally invasive surgeries! They can manipulate and interact with the most delicate tissues of our body, without any human errors. They can also administer drugs, perform biopsies and clear clogged arteries inside the human body, without using expensive medical procedures. Someday this tiny robot could perform surgeries inside your body. Robot spiders have the potential to smoothly execute operations on an extremely minute level. In the realm of new soft robotic devices, this innovative approach can achieve similar levels of complexity and functionality as that of its rigid counterpart.

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Beyond the curve Ray Tracing

Ice-SAT 2

Ice-SAT2 is an ice, cloud and land elevation satellite which aims to measure the height of various features of the Earth, one laser pulse at a time at the rate of 10000 laser pulses per second. It will carry a photon counting laser altimeter to measure the elevation of ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice, in detail. It is a part of NASA’s Earth science research directed at investigating why and how the Earth’s cryosphere is changing as our planet gets warmer. To aid this research’s mission, an application program has been designed which engages people such as ice scientists, ecologists, hydrologists, the Navy and other organization members who can explore the uses of the data gathered by Ice-SAT2 in resource management, policy development and decision making for the benefit of society. The Application Program has drawn White Papers to describe how the satellite’s measurements can help improve decision making around specific environmental issues. Some of the white papers are: How can Ice-SAT2 contribute to the modelling of sensitive bird habitat in forests? The main objective of hypothesizing the applications of Ice-SAT2 is maximizing the use of data once the satellite is fully operational. Several interactive workshops, activities and mission programs are being designed so as to fully explore the opportunities that this unique satellite presents. CREDENZ.INFO

SEPTEMBER 2018

Engineers unveiled graphics chips for next-generation gaming computers. These chips enable games to become photo-realistic by making use of a technique called ray tracing. Ray tracing is a concept which imparts a life-like appearance to a virtual scene, with all the light and shadow appearing perfectly precise. This technique is far more difficult to execute than the current technique used in video games called Rasterization, which converts 3D objects into 2D and then a ‘Shader’ is used to make them appear 3D by imparting all the necessary shadow and lighting effects. Ray tracing, however, goes beyond that. It actually traces how light travels in a scene from any particular light source and hence is successful in generating accurate reflection, refraction, scattering and dispersion effects. This technique has been employed by leading companies like Microsoft and Nvidia in graphics cards for video games. So now, whenever you look into mirrors in such games, you will find a different reflection everytime you look from a different angle. However, greater computation costs and particular demands for architecture hampers the scope of these cards, as of now. This technology will be responsible to make the gaming world come as close as possible to the real world, making your gaming experience very “realistic”.

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Solar Parker Probe

panegyric

Outmanoeuvring Infinity

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he outer space in which the planets orbit seems to be an empty place with an ominous brittle silence. Perhaps it isn’t. It is full of matter conceived from the sun. The sun ejects various forms of radiations, but it predominantly generates a powerful magnetic field that rises above the surface in giant loops. In the mid-1950s, a scientist named Eugene Parker proposed a theory about supersonic solar wind. It elucidated the eccentric nature of tangled magnetic fields which were shaped like spiral loops. When the loops collide, it activates a flow of super-hot charged particles blasting out into space. These charged particles are called solar winds.

In an effect called the “Forbush Decrease”, the magnetically charged particles are ejected into space. When it propagates through the head of a living body in space, it interacts with the fluid inside the eye and makes a little light flash. If the astronauts are exposed to heavy radiations, they can suffer serious health problems. Fortunately, most of these radiations cannot enter through the hull of a space station and thus they are safe. Yet the main objective in front of scientists has been ascertaining the pattern of these winds for various space agencies like NASA and SpaceX. If astronauts leave earth’s magnetic field, these solar radiations would start affecting them. The formation of solar winds generally takes place at the surface of the sun, but it is not easy to track courtesy to the presence of corona. There’s a question that has been bemusing scientists for years - why is the corona blistering? The corona layer is basically made up of plasma state which is the fourth state of matter. The surface temperature of the sun is around 5000 degree Celsius but the temperature observed near corona layer is inconceivably high, up to 2 million degrees on Celsius scale.

As the sun has been a viable and a persistent source of energy to the planetary realm, there is a possibility that the solar wind might have interacted with the planetary magnetospheres and the atmosphere, which over the aeons may have contributed to the planet’s habitability. In gaps called coronal holes, the solar wind goes really fast at about 800 km per second. There is a strange phenomenon about these winds which can be surprisingly spotted by space cadets. While interviewing astronauts, many of them claimed to have seen an energetic particle when their eyes were shut.

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On Sunday, 13th August 2018, NASA took a step ahead on the journey towards the impassable mission, the mission of flying through the wispy edges of a corona, to get into the sun’s atmosphere. The satellite named ‘Solar Parker Probe’ was launched from the Delta 4 Heavy rocket and it will take around 3 months to reach that atmosphere. It would take 5 years to get even closer to the sun. It will revolve until it gets within 6.2 million kilometres from the sun’s surface, beating the previous record of Helios-B spacecraft. The temperature of the corona is very hot for any circumspect satellite to work. At its best, Solar Parker Probe will revolve around the sun at the speed of 760,000 kilometres per hour. It can absorb temperatures of 1400 degree Celsius and still be able to transmit data to investigate the mysterious phenomenon taking place.

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A spinning dumbbell, world’s fastest man-made rotor can be used to study the extreme conditions different materials can survive in and can also help in better understanding the world of quantum physics. This rotor,spinning at the rate of 60 billion revolutions per minute can function as two different instruments depending on the vibrations of the laser light and the dumbbell. When the Delta IV Heavy’s three RS-68 engines start to ignite, a little bit of unburned hydrogen burps out of the vehicle and starts floating around. Once all the engines are lit, the exhaust whooshes down into the flame trench and creates a fireball that chars the insulation on the boosters. When the Solar Parker Probe will reach the sun, it is expected to revolve around the galloping clouds ejected by the sun in an elliptical orbit. The first time it would pass near the sun, would be 3 months after its departure. Then it will take around 5 years of time to complete its orbit where it would attain its apogee state which would lie beyond Venus, thus gaining momentum and will again pass through its perigee stage which is most likely to take place on December 19th, 2024. The

report would elaborate the density and the pressure of the solar wind which would be constructive for them while deducing the pattern of solar winds. So, will the Solar Parker Probe melt? Indeed! The probe will get liquefied if it penetrates too deep in the corona. Fortunately, the temperature where Parker is flying will top out at just 1500 degrees Celsius. The probe is fitted with 11.5 cm thick carbon-composite shield which can withstand the temperature of up to 1100 degrees on the centigrade scale and yet would allow instruments to perform their operations at the room temperature. It would be in the super-hot conditions for very little time. For the rest of the time, it will revolve to cool down itself which will be followed by the process on the data which it would collect. Near its base, it is attached with the solar array wings. These arrays will power all the spacecraft’s systems, including suits of scientific instruments studying the solar wind and the sun’s corona as well as the Solar Array Cooling System (SACS) that will protect arrays from the extreme heat. Since the birth of mankind, humans are trying to decrypt the source which has kept fueling earth‘s Darwinian cycles. Infinity has been a curious thing for human race which humans could not touch, reach or perceive. The aim of this mission is not just to find out the variations in the patterns of the solar winds but to surmount a certain task which has kept humans intrigued for millennia; infinity. The success of this mission would definitely carry mankind to a different level of perceiving infinity.

spacecraft vehicle is attached with SWEAP (Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons) investigation technology which contains a set of instruments. This technology will detect the predominance of solar wind and the surrounding particles. For deducing this high-temperature generation of the Corona, the probe has a series of sensors across it with the wind field imager which would map the speed and energy of the particles. This delineated CREDENZ.INFO

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-The Editorial Board

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3 D Bionic Eye

philomath

Intelligent Photodiodes

S

ince we cannot alter reality, we have innovated the eyes which see verity. The way our eyes work has always been a fascinating topic among researchers worldwide. The retina located at the back of the eye contains light detecting cells known as photoreceptors. These cells convert signals into electrical energy which gets transmitted to the brain via several layers of retinal nerve cells. In various forms of blindness, the photoreceptors die leaving the other nerve cells intact.

With recent developments in technology, the research team at the University of Minnesota has created ‘Bionic Eyes’ which promise to provide artificial vision to visually impaired people who previously couldn’t see. A bionic eye is constructed from an array of stimulating electrodes. The array is placed onto the retina in the eye and fed signals from a digital camera. Digital cameras work by converting light at each pixel in their sensor arrays into electrical signals that report the brightness of the light. The type of bionic eye suitable for patients is dependent on the cause of their vision loss. Retinal bionic eye implants are placed into the eyeball itself and are only suitable for inherited types of retinal degeneration and age-related macular degeneration.

team countered this challenge by using a base ink of silver particles on the hemispherical surface. In addition to this, they used semiconducting polymer materials for copying the receptors onto the surface of the dome. The fluid thus remained static, not behaving like a runny liquid with the help of a specially developed in-house printer. Before bionic eyes, printing delicate receptors on a 3D surface was considered practically impossible. Electronics, as we know it, processes all information on a flat 2D surface. Currently, the prototype bionic eye takes about an hour for all the devices to get printed onto the hemisphere. It is an array of 3D photodiodes, which are capable of harnessing light energy into electrical energy, with an efficiency of 25%. The speed and scalability of the device will increase over time. Researchers plan to place multiple photodiodes on a single dome to help achieve this. Using a soft hemispherical material, the photodiodes, surgically implanted into an existing patients’ eye, would replace the retina. There is also scope for such devices to be customised. According to recent data published by the World Health Organization, about 252 million people live with some form of vision impairment. Healthcare prices continue to soar, with no possible long-term solution. A fully functioning bionic eye will have the capability to restore a recipient’s vision and will revolutionise the medical industry as it has been rightly said: “The world exists in your eyes”.

3D printing on a curved surface is a challenging task, as the ink stream has the propensity to flow on the exterior rather than being stable. The research Pg 31

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- Salil Apte Pune Institute of Computer Technology Pune

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PISB Office Bearers 2018-2019

Chairperson:

Rajat Paliwal

Vice Chairperson:

Mihir Baheti

Treasurer:

Stavan Shah

Vice Treasurer:

Hemang Pandit

Secretary:

Atharva Gomekar Chinmay Ingle Viram Shah

Joint Secretary:

Aman Goenka Amey Deshpande Mahima Hotchandani

P.I.N.G. Head:

Batul Merchant Kartik Sahasrabudhe Omkar Bhalerao Rutuja Patil

P.I.N.G. Team: Webmaster:

Harshavardhan Aagale Shubham Sundrani Siddhi Inamdar Vedang Mandhana Anurag Kallurwar Rameshwar Dhondge Shreyas Bhaskarwar

Web Team:

Dhairyasheel Sutar Evleen Singh Thakral Yakshit Jain

App Head:

Sabarinath S. Vishwa Iyer

App Team:

Amey Deshpande Aniket Patil Parth Shah

Programming Head:

Abizer Lokhandwala Ajay Sabale Akash Bachkar Ankit Kurani Faraz Saifullah Kedar Takwane Saurabh Awinashe Sayali Deshpande

PRO Team: Anmol Kumar Design Head: Himanshu Mithawala Mohit Agrawal Sanket Kokane Shivani Firke

Programming Team:

Ayush Gupta Neeraj Panse Omkar Patil Shubham Sundrani Soham Deshmukh Vedang Mandhana

Design Team:

WIE Chair:

Amulya Chetlapalli Purva Ekatpure

Secretary of Finance: Joint Secretary of Finance: VNL Head:

VNL Team: PRO Head:

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Mansi Mahajan Shubham Runwal Mihir Karkare Prathamesh Jadhav Rajat Pathak Sharveya Baxi Abhishek Vishwakarma Agnijeet Chaudhary Kritika Patade Rishabh Jain Tejas Shrivastava

Ashutosh Danwe Deepak Choudhary Isha Chidrawar Parth Shah Siddhi Inamdar SEPTEMBER 2018

WIE Secretary: ISSUE 14.1

Aditi Kulkarni Siddhi Inamdar CREDENZ.INFO


PISB Office Bearers 2018-2019

Senior Council: Aditi Sonar Ankit Hiware Archisa Shrivastava Chinmay Shimpi Eravatee Raje Nakul Thombare Shreya Kanhe Shreyas Umare Vaibhav Yende Akash Patil Chaitanya Rahalkar Dhaval Gujar Gaurav Kale Girish Haral Kush Teppalwar Lokesh Agrawal Mansi Vyas Monesh Bansal Mrugakshi Chidrawar Muskan Agrawal Nishit Chaudhari Omkar Bharamgunde Omkar Patil

Junior Council: Piyush Patil Prachi Kanakdande Prajwal Chandak Pranav Budhwant Revati Rajarshi Riya Wakharkar Rushil Palwe Sagar Barapatre Shivam Gor Shreyas Garsund Siddhesh Tundulwar Tejas Agrawal Toshal Agrawal

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