Experimental evidence from IIT Bombay supports new theory to explain how liquid sheets turn to mist

Scientists from IIT Bombay devise a method to grow nanographene on copper using atomic hydrogen at lower temperatures.

A study in IIT Bombay can help determine properties of substances at the molecular level

Researchers compare how the Greek and Indian mathematicians measured the surface area of a sphere

DNA is a very long ribbon-like polymer that contains the genetic code. Even though different cell types in our body (skin cells, muscle cells, brain cells, etc.) have exactly the same DNA, these cells function very differently. How is this achieved is not well understood. We now know that the fate of a cell is not just decided by the sequence of the DNA but also by the ‘state’ of its chromatin. Chromatin is a 3-dimensional active assembly of DNA bound by many proteins (a set of bio-polymer molecules). Chromatin can be assembled in multiple ways.

Self-assembly of bio-macromolecules into higher-order structures is a commonly observed feature in biology. Protein self-assembly in particular is associated with

Living organisms are composed of a variety of cells that form colonies with other cells, divide, migrate and in general respond to stimuli from the external environment. These functions are not only crucial for processes such as embryo shaping and wound healing, but also influence cancer growth and invasion.

We are working on the development of computational schemes for rational solvent design to select the optimal solvent (or design a new solvent) for the extraction of a pharmaceutical intermediate, synthesised using a biotransformation process. Molecular simulations have been employed to benchmark the properties of the molecules which are estimated using the quick though inherently approximate group contribution methods in the computer aided molecular design scheme.

In this work, we employ computationally efficient molecular simulation algorithms to study mixtures of molecular fluids. In literature, the traditionally employed simulation methods such as the Gibbs ensemble Monte Carlo technique require the knowledge of the phases in equilibrium a priori and computationally more expensive multi-box simulations.

In today’s world, images are ubiquitous, from the photographs we take, the videos we watch on youtube, and the images such as XRays, CT (Computed Tomography) or MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans acquired in a hospital to satellite images. These images form an important tool for visualisation or representation of data. Our group has been working on a variety of algorithms for processing such image data to improve their appearance and to make them more useful, which also includes acquiring them faster A few highlights of the work we have been engaged in are
presented here below:

While digital imaging has taken the world by storm, there are many trying situations when it is quite difficult to take pictures from a smartphone or a handheld camera. One of the scenarios where we may consider using a drone for imaging is to capture a panorama of an extensive building, or when an inspector wants to examine defects in, say, the iconic Worli Sea Bridge.

Computer systems affect diverse aspects of our lives today. From the mobile phones we use to the cars, trains and airplanes we ride and fly in, from the ATMs dispensing money to the EVMs used in elections, from the life-support systems in ICUs to railway signaling systems, (embedded) computer systems silently pervade our lives. Needless to say, software or hardware bugs in these systems can have wide ranging consequences, from mere inconvenience to even loss of lives.

Cloud computing is the concept of computing as a utility bringing the illusion of infinite computing power with a pay-as-you-use model of billing to the consumer. It is analogous to the concept of other utilities such as water and electricity, but applied to computing. Cloud computing services are segregated into three layers based on the abstractions they provide:

Our group specialises in the field of geophysical signal analysis. We have been working on implementation of novel signal analysis techniques such as wavelet transform, multifractal and empirical mode decomposition analyses to a variety of geophysical signals of diverse origins. These techniques help unravel the hidden information from the signals that cannot in general be possible to obtain with conventional signal analysis tools. The group maintains a library of all the software indigenously developed in Matlab, C, C++ and C# languages for the above techniques.

Shock waves are phenomena occurring in compressible fluids such as gases in which very large difference in pressure can occur over a very small distance. A shock wave can be thought of as a very thin front across which a large pressure increase exists, with the front moving rapidly in the fluid medium in which it is created. The sound waves generated when we speak are essentially very weak shock waves. When explosives go off, the shock wave generated as a consequence of the explosion is responsible for the damage that happens to the surroundings.

Vehicles that re-enter earth’s atmosphere from space come in at very high speeds that are classified as hypersonic speeds. The speed may well exceed more than ten times the local speed of sound. Such high speed flows generate a shock in front of the re-entry vehicle which affects the heat flux on its surface. The heat flux on the surface of the re-entry vehicle is an extremely important design parameter, and an accurate prediction of this parameter is a critical task.

For more than 2 millennia, science has progressed primarily by experimental observations and development of theories. These two methods work perfectly in conjunction with one another in developing our understanding of the physical world around us. In the past few decades, a third significant methodology employing powerful computers and computational science for simulations has greatly added to our scientific capability and understanding.

The smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method is a general-purpose numerical method that can be used to simulate a wide variety of problems. These problems range from astrophysics, incompressible and compressible fluid dynamics, to structural dynamics problems. SPH is a particle-based method and works by representing continuous fields using a collection of moving particles. The method does not depend on a fixed mesh and therefore works well for complex geometries, free-surface, and multi-physics problems.

India supports around 17.5% of the world’s population on a mere 2.4% of the Earth’s surface prone to global and regional climate change effects. Scientific research has largely focused on using models as inseparable components of climate studies. For a genuine understanding and realistic representation by which land surface processes influences climate, the role of land surface models (LSM) can never be overstated.

The road accident report (2014) published by the road transport and highways ministry, reports 6,672 deaths in accidents caused due to bad roads. Currently, road authorities manually monitor long stretches of roads at regular time intervals to ascertain the presence and locations of road anomalies. This is evidently a tedious process, which often leads to delayed road repairs, whose severity increases with time.