Our current question of philosophical enquiry is that how emotion, mostly empathy, plays a key role in moral cognition. The role of feelings in cognition is a subject of investigation in philosophy. The cognitive, aesthetical, ethical and psychological functions of feelings are discussed among others to underline our behavioural, cognitive, ethical and existential meaning. In the text books of philosophy moral cognition has often been considered a rational activity where one makes moral judgments based on a rational assessment.

Working in an institution of higher education, we worry about whether students are really ‘getting it’. Is our teaching effective in exciting students into learning about core concepts? Are they able to develop, apply and transfer the required concepts and skills to solve problems? In our research, we design and develop technology enhanced learning systems to promote students’ pan-domain thinking skills. We focus on engineering and science domains, using disciplinary content as a vehicle to develop the relevant thinking skills.

A general purpose circuit simulation packaged called SEQUEL has been developed at IIT Bombay. SEQUEL is particularly suitable for teaching coursesin electronics and power electronics. It has a graphical user interface (GUI) which allows the user to enter the circuit in a schematic form, set component values and simulation parameters, and view the simulation results. It also allows exporting of circuit schematics and the simulation plots so that they can be included in reports and presentations.

Did you know that many molecules have a ‘handedness’? That is, these molecules are distinguishable from their mirror image, like our left and right hand. But why should we care about it? It turns out that certain drugs and medicines may have their “mirror-twin” which could be toxic rather than medicinal! Through his theoretical contribution to quantum mechanics and ultrafast optics, Prof.

A novel theoretical framework for a magnetic field tunable radio frequency oscillator has been developed.The proposed device, when realised, would play a major role in  the nanoelectronics field, specifically as integrable clocks in futuristic logic circuits.

IIT Bombay and TIFR researchers demonstrate a method to turn heat into usable spin current

Undergraduate Student from IIT Bombay reveals the origin of the ‘chimera state’ in coupled oscillators

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: