Research News

Assessing the grading and rating system in any corporation is important for the management and the stakeholders, and the more efficient they are the easier it becomes to plan future trajectories. SRM University-AP is happy to announce that Dr Lakshman Rao Ayyagari, Assistant Professor of Commerce has researched extensively on this issue and published a paper titled, “The ignored tool “corporate governance rating”: An overview of the corporate world in the emerging market” in “Journal of Governance and Regulation.

According to Dr Ayyagari, this research work is like a grading pattern, we adopt to rate and rank various organizations on various parameters, accordingly “Corporate Governance Rating” is a tool to assess firms’ performance, but not widely used in assessment, recommended for its use, keeping in mind the interests of various stakeholders.

About the research:

The interest of the Stakeholders is to see the growth of their entities, also they benchmark their entities through business performance metrics or tools like Return on Equity, Return on Assets, Earnings Per Share, Gross Profit Margin, Employee Productivity, Sales Turnover, ratings given by prominent credit rating agencies such as ICRA, CRISIL, Standard and Poor etc. In addition to this, internal governance mechanisms, board of directors’ characteristics, their independence, transparency, concentration, and presence of employees in the ownership structure also influence financial and stock market performance. However, assessing the performance of entities through some of these limited angles is not always possible. One more criterion for assessing the performance of entities is “Corporate Governance Rating”. However, it is not widely used as a tool to assess a firm’s performance in the emerging markets. The present research paper is intended to address the scenario of Corporate Governance Rating in the Corporate World to assess a firm’s performance. With the help of majorly secondary sources of data conducted a study from 2003 to 2021 based on the CRISIL’s rating pattern. The findings showed the significance of Corporate Governance Rating for its adoption and future research in the development of rating mechanisms in India as well as in emerging markets.

This research can be recommended to regulatory bodies especially in India like SEBI for conducting thorough research in this area for a policy study and implementation.

Continue reading →

Dr Tarkeshwar Mahto, Assistant Professor, in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering has published a paper titled “Design and Implementation of Frequency Controller for Wind Energy-Based Hybrid Power System Using Quasi-Oppositional Harmonic Search Algorithm” in the reputed research journal, Energies.

An innovative union of fuzzy controller and proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller under the environment of fractional order (FO) calculus is described in the present study for an isolated hybrid power system (IHPS) in the context of load frequency control. The proposed controller is designated as FO-fuzzy PID (FO-F-PID) controller. The undertaken model of IHPS presented here involves different independent power-producing units, a wind energy-based generator, a diesel engine-based generator and a device for energy storage (such as a superconducting magnetic energy storage system). The selection of the system and controller gains was achieved through a unique quasi-oppositional harmony search (QOHS) algorithm. The QOHS algorithm is based on the basic harmony search (HS) algorithm, in which the combined concept of quasi-opposition initialization and HS algorithm fastens the profile of convergence for the algorithm. The competency and potency of the intended FO-F-PID controller were verified by comparing its performance with three different controllers (integer-order (IO)-fuzzy-PID (IO-F-PID) controller, FO-PID and IO-PID controller) in terms of deviation in frequency and power under distinct perturbations in load demand conditions. The obtained simulation results validate the cutting-edge functioning of the projected FO-F-PID controller over the IO-F-PID, FO-PID and IO-PID controllers under non-linear and linear functioning conditions. In addition, the intended FO-F-PID controller, considered a hybrid model, proved to be more robust against the mismatches in loading and the non-linearity in the form of rate constraint under the deviation in frequency and power front.

The research group believes that the study will boost the use of renewable energy utilization for fulfilling energy requirements in a more reliable and stable manner. In future, they plan to use the knowledge gained from the isolated systems to develop a Multi-Migrigrid system.

Collaborations:

1. Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bengaluru 560054, India
2. The Berkeley Education Alliance for Research in Singapore, The National University of Singapore, Singapore 138602, Singapore
3. Clean and Resilient Energy Systems (CARES) Lab, Texas A&M University, Galveston, TX 77553, USA;
4. Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, Taif University, Taif 21944, Saudi Arabia

Continue reading →

SRM University-AP organised its University Research Advisory Council Meeting on Monday, November 08, 2021. Dr V K Saraswat, Hon’ble Member, NITI AAYOG, chaired the meeting as the Chairman of the Council. Dr P Sathyanarayanan, President, SRM University-AP, Prof VS Rao, Vice-Chancellor, SRM University-AP, Prof D Narayana Rao, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, SRM University-AP, Dr Vinayak Kalluri, Registrar-in-Charge were among other dignitaries.

In his keynote speech, Dr V K Saraswat congratulated SRM University-AP for their remarkable progress as a university in the past two years. As a nascent university, SRMAP has already made its reputation as a progressive research university of the new era with numerous laurels to its credit. “India is going through a pedagogical shift in terms of policy and implementation. National Education Policy-2020 has sagaciously replaced the age-old redundant policy of 1968. It feels wonderful to note that SRM University-AP is already following NEP-2020 and its recommendations. NEP-2020 has provided extraordinary possibilities and opportunities to make the best use of human and natural resources in terms of education and research. NEP-2020 focuses on making India self-reliant as a nation. Hence NEP-2020 is to create job providers, no more job seekers”, said Dr Saraswat.

The suggestions and recommendations of NEP-2020 are curated to facilitate innovation and brilliance. The universities and educational institutions that are the cores of knowledge creation and dissemination are trusted with this responsibility of creating the leaders of tomorrow. In the twenty-first century, the focus should be on translational research of multidisciplinary nature. Industry-Academic relationships are needs of the hour. Dr Saraswat further proposed to develop Value Addition Centre in SRM University-AP to promote translational research. The centre will be strengthening the relationship between Industry and Academia to work on product engineering to deliver market relevant products. “Upscaling and upskilling are substantial in product engineering. We should further be focused on linking our curriculum to India’s glorious heritage. Our ancestors made tremendous progress in science, medicine, astrology, astronomy and other branches that the outside world knows very little about. It is now time to remember them and learn from them,” opined Dr Saraswat.

For any country that aspires to be among the best globally, knowledge generation should be given importance. For a country like India, with a population of 130 crores, unemployability is a curse. Following the recommendations of NEP-2020, focus should be put on Vocational Courses. It is vital that the students of this generation are aware of the science of engineering rather than science and engineering. Science of Engineering leads to the generation of knowledge, research with meaningful publications and recognition. Dr Saraswat further pointed out that liberal arts are an essential factor for holistic personality development in students.

India has an ambitious plan to make the country carbon neutral by the year 2070. Thus, encouragement is given on environment-friendly research. Thrust is given on the green environment, energy efficiency, alternate and unconventional sources of energy, use of renewable resources and recycle of industrial waste among others. Research should be cost-effective and environment friendly. The focus should be on reducing the carbon footprint in nature with proper planning on the use-storage and distribution of hydrogen in nature. India produces many academicians, scientists and engineers every year, but today India is more about theoretical research. It is now time not only to write papers but also to produce designs that are market relevant. SRMAP should take the initiative in this regard to deliver India able designer-engineers.

Dr V K Saraswat inaugurated two Centres of Excellence that SRM University-AP has recently established to promote translational research. SRM Amara Raja Centre for Energy Storage Devices is set up, in collaboration with Amara Raja Batteries Limited- Tirupati, with a commitment to application-oriented research in the renewable energy and e-mobility. Centre for pioneering studies in Gold & Silver will be working on flagship project with Titan Company Ltd (TANISHQ) to develop novel gold alloy for contemporary jewellery design. The centre also aims to work on projects in collaboration with Waman Hari Pethe & Sons, Mumbai and other jewellery manufacturers across India to produce high strength 22 Karat gold and develop tarnish free silver alloys.

Dr P Sathyanarayanan, President, SRM University-AP, shared his vision to make SRM University-AP as a new-age world-class research university. He agreed with Dr Saraswat and asserted that the management of SRMAP is ready to provide every help needed. “SRMAP encourages deep industry engagements, entrepreneurship along with technological education and advancement. To provide holistic education to students, SRMAP provides a strong emphasis on liberal arts,” said Dr Sathyanarayanan. Prof VS Rao, Vice-Chancellor, SRM University-AP, further elaborated on the extensive plan that SRMAP has to build a world-class university in the heart of Andhra Pradesh. The university has collaborative lineage with reputed names in education to provide best education to the students.

Prof D Narayana Rao, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, presented an overall roadmap of SRMAP’s progress in research so far and the way forward. The nascent university proudly houses 4500 students and 180 faculty with a few foreign nationals among them. Several DST- Inspire, DBT-Wellcome, Ramalingaswami and Ramanujan faculty are crowning the university with their exceptional research and teaching abilities. Stanford Research recognises the faculty of SRM University-AP among the world’s top 2% researchers. The university has published 678 papers in Scopus Indexed journals. The faculty are working on 38 projects with an outlay of 19.17 crores funded by the Government of India and Industry Giants.

The committee agreed that fundamental areas cannot be compromised while working on the challenges in the education sector. Good students and faculty are to be attracted in order to pursue qualitative research. High end teaching and research facilities are essential for higher studies organisations. In initial years, collaborations can be beneficial for networking and promoting qualitative deliverables. The committee advocated for design schools to promote brainstorming for qualitative research. Every institution should have 4 fundamental pillars of education-teaching, research, industry-academia relation, societal benefits. Teaching and research should go hand-in-hand. The weakness of the institutions todays is undergrads are not given enough exposure to the practical knowledge of equipment. Critical thinking among students along with project-based teaching are to be encouraged from the initial years of the undergraduate studies.

Prof B S Murthy, Director, IIT-Hyderabad, Dr K Satyanarayana, Director, IIT-Tirupati, Dr S Chandra Sekhar, Director, CSIR-IICT, Hyderabad, Dr Mahendra Dev, Director & Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, Prof M R Rao, Former Dean, Indian School of Business Hyderabad, Dr Tata Narasinga Rao, Director, International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy & New Materials (ARCI), Hyderabad, Prof P Appa Rao, Former Vice Chancellor, University of Hyderabad, Dr K Varaprasada Reddy, Chairman Emeritus, Shantha Biotech Ltd Hyderabad, Dr S R Rao, Vice President, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth Puducherry, Prof B P Sinha, ISI-Kolkata, Prof G P Das, Senior Professor, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata, Prof R Balasubramanian, The Institute of Mathematical Sciences Taramani, Chennai, Prof U B Desai, Chancellor, Anurag University, Hyderabad, Prof B V R Chowdari, Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Prof Kamanio Chattopadhyay, IISc, Bangalore also participated in the meeting.

Continue reading →

“Research is seeing what everybody else has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.”
– Albert Szent-Györgyi

“Fully Automated Quality Control of Rigid and Affine Registrations of T1w and T2w MRI in Big Data using Machine Learning” is the latest research paper published by Dr Sudhakar Tummala, Assistant Professor, Electronics and Communication Engineering, SRM University-AP in ‘Computers in Biology and Medicine Journal’ having an Impact Factor of 4.6.

Abstract of the paper:
Background: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based morphometry and relaxometry are proven methods for the structural assessment of the human brain in several neurological disorders. These procedures are generally based on T1-weighted (T1w) and/or T2-weighted (T2w) MRI scans, and rigid and affine registrations to a standard template(s) are essential steps in such studies. Therefore, a fully automatic quality control (QC) of these registrations is necessary for big data scenarios to ensure that they are suitable for subsequent processing.
Method: A supervised machine learning (ML) framework is proposed by computing similarity metrics such as normalized cross-correlation, normalized mutual information, and correlation ratio locally. We have used these as candidate features for cross-validation and testing of different ML classifiers. For 5-fold repeated stratified grid search cross-validation, 400 correctly aligned, 2000 randomly generated misaligned images were used from the human connectome project young adult (HCP-YA) dataset. To test the cross-validated models, the datasets from autism brain imaging data exchange (ABIDE I) and information eXtraction from images (IXI) were used.
Results: The ensemble classifiers, random forest, and AdaBoost yielded the best performance with F1 scores, balanced accuracies, and Matthews correlation coefficients in the range of 0.95-1.00 during cross-validation. The predictive accuracies reached 0.99 on Test set #1 (ABIDE I), 0.99 without and 0.96 with noise on Test set #2 (IXI, stratified w.r.t scanner vendor and field strength).
Conclusions: The cross-validated and tested ML models could be used for QC of both T1w and T2w rigid and affine registrations in large-scale MRI studies.

Medical imaging is basically a method to see inside the body non-invasively. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the medical imaging modalities to see inside the body. MRI works on the principles of nuclear magnetic resonance. T1-weighted (T1w) and T2-weighted (T2w) MRI can enable us to see the brain without opening the skull and to monitor brain structural changes that occur in several medical and neurological conditions. It is important to monitor these structural changes over time to understand the disease progression. For example, in Alzheimer’s disease, it is important to monitor the hippocampus (memory storage centre) Recently, due to the advances in computational power such as high-performance GPUs and the availability of publicly accessible big data MRI, scientists around the world now conducting big data research studies. In group-based big data studies, for fair comparison of the brain between healthy and diseased individuals, it is necessary that the brain MRI images are registered to a common coordinate system. Therefore, quality control (QC) of these registrations is necessary to ensure that they are suitable for further processing. Further, in big data studies that involve several thousands of images, manual QC is not feasible and hence there is a need for a fully automated QC mechanism at the pre-processing stage. Checking the quality of rigid and affine registrations is one such task.
The research group implemented a fully automated QC mechanism based on computing several quality metrics local to the image and trained several machine learning classifiers based on these locally computed quality measures. The trained classifiers include linear discriminant analysis, support vector machine, Gaussian naïve Bayes, random forest and adaptive boosting. The developed ML models generalize well to detect misaligned registrations across different MRI scanner vendors and field strengths and even under noisy image situations. Therefore, the classifiers could be employed in big data studies for fully automated QC of registrations, especially T1w and T2w MRI.
Big data MRI studies are generally conducted using a large number of subjects. The conclusions drawn based on big data analysis are more reliable and help to understand the disease mechanics better. The developed method can help to reduce the manual labour for various QC mechanisms required during the pre-processing stage.

This work is done in collaboration with
a. Prof Erik B Dam, Machine Learning Group, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
b. Prof Niels K Focke, Clinic for neurology, University Medical Centre, Göttingen, Germany.

In future, the idea is to implement the QC framework using sparse autoencoders in an unsupervised manner and also using Siamese neural networks via deep representation learning.

Continue reading →

“India is moving towards ‘technological self-reliance’ and will emerge as one of the ‘Top 3 scientific superpowers’ through Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP) 2020: A Transformative Science and Technology Agenda,” said Dr Sandeep Verma, Secretary of Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), in the thirteenth edition of University Distinguished Lecture Series conducted by SRM University-AP, Andhra Pradesh on October 30, 2021.

The objectives of the Distinguished Lecture were enumerated by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Prof D Narayana Rao. He further said that the STIP: 2020 will greatly enhance the scientific contributions of Universities, Institutions and National Laboratories. He said that Universities and Institutions are hubs for innovations.

Dr Verma, a recipient of one of the highest Indian awards in the field of Science, the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, is known for his contributions towards experimental medicine by working in the areas of bio-chemical interface. Prof Verma felt that the vision behind STIP: 2020 can only be executed through innovative, collaborative, and open science research that is best implemented in Universities and Educational Institutions like SRM University-AP.

Dr Verma elucidated that the primary idea behind STIP: 2020 is Inclusivity. STIP: 2020 will require an uninhibited and indiscriminate free flow of scientific and innovative ideas between all the people with a scientific interest from the Indian diaspora and from rural India, from all genders, from all age groups ignoring any disability physical or otherwise. “We can’t afford to leave anyone behind”, Dr Verma said referring to India’s quest to become a scientific and technological superpower. Prof Sandeep Verma said that the gross spending of the country on R & D increased 3 times during the last 8 years.

Appreciating the efforts made by SRM University-AP, Dr Verma emphasised the need to have the researchers coming out in the open, solving real-life problems and making every individual Indian life better. “It is our Scientific Social Responsibility to conduct such open forums for scientific communication and understanding,” he said, “As India prepares to grow towards technological self-reliance and indigenisation with the support of various schemes under Atmanirbhar Bharat and develop an ecosystem worthy of global benchmark, STIP: 2020 comes as a landmark innovation policy at this crucial juncture.”

Dr Verma ended his talk with the hopeful note that other Universities would follow the example of SRM University-AP and make such conscientious efforts towards innovation to make lives better. The lecture was attended by Dr S Chandrasekhar, Director, CSIR-IICT and over 2300 members from several premier institutions like IITs, NITs, IISERs, Universities and Institutions, CSIR, DST, DBT, DRDO, DAE, ISRO, NARL, MoES and several others from different parts of the country.

Prof V S Rao, Vice-Chancellor and Prof D Narayana Rao, Pro-Vice-Chancellor felicitated Prof Sandeep Verma and presented him with a memento.

Continue reading →

A research paper titled “First Principle Identification of 2D-MoS2 based Composite Electrodes for Efficient Supercapacitor Application” is published by Samadhan Kapse, PhD student, as First Author and Bennet Benny, BSc Physics Student, (Same Contributed First Author) in the Journal of energy storage, Elsevier having an Impact Factor of 6.583. The paper publication has been guided and supervised by Dr Pranab Mandal (Co-Author) and Prof Ranjit Thapa (Corresponding Author) from the Department of Physics, SRM University-AP.

1T Molybdenum disulfide (1T-MoS2) has been widely studied experimentally as an electrode for supercapacitors due to its excellent electrical and electrochemical properties. Whereas the capacitance value in MoS2 is limited due to the lower density of electrons near the Fermi level, and unable to fulfil the demand of industry i.e. quantum capacitance preferably higher than 300 μF/cm2. Here, we investigated the performance of 2H, 1T, and 1T’ phases of MoS2 in its pristine form and heterostructures with carbon-based structures as an electrode in the supercapacitors using density functional theory. Specifically, we reported that the underneath carbon nanotube (CNT) is responsible for the structural phase transition from 1T to 1T’ phase of MoS2 monolayer in 1T’-MoS2/CNT heterostructure. This is the main reason for a large density of states near the Fermi level of 1T’-MoS2/CNT that exhibits high quantum capacitance (CQ) of 500 μF/cm2 at a potential of 0.6 V. Also, we observed that the nitrogen doping and defects in the underneath carbon surface amplify the CQ of heterostructure for a wider range of electrode potential. Therefore, the 1T’-MoS2 /N doped CNT can be explored as an electrode for next-generation supercapacitors.

Today’s increasing demand for energy storage technologies is highly dependent on batteries, fuel cells, supercapacitors, etc. The supercapacitors are greatly efficient due to advantages such as high power density, wide operating temperature range, large charge-discharge cycles. The recent focus of researchers is to find promising electrode materials for supercapacitor application. Among all reported works, the MoS2 nanosheet is found to be a prime candidate for supercapacitors with a high power density as well as energy density. Therefore, it is important to understand the origin of capacitance in MoS2 and their composites to design promising electrodes for supercapacitors. Also, the identification of ideal MoS2 based composites for efficient supercapacitor application is a grand challenge using only experimental approaches.

Using density functional theory, we can identify the promising electrode materials for supercapacitor application based on various graphene, 2D metal chalcogenides and their heterostructures. The quantum capacitance (CQ) is the cost-effective method to estimate the performance of any low density of states materials such as graphene, MoS2, etc towards supercapacitors.

Continue reading →

Smart devices and Internet of Things (IoT) are growing in importance every day and so do our security concerns about using them for our financial transactions. As we carry the world with us through wearable technology, Dr Sriramulu Bojjagani, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science Engineering works towards making wearable devices more secure.

With a thriving interest in Cyber Security, Formal Verification Methods and Vulnerability Analysis and Penetration Testing, Dr Bojjagani has recently published his paper on “A Secure IoT-based Micro-payment Protocol for Wearable Devices” in Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications (PPNA), Springer.DOI: 10.1007/s12083-021-01242-y

Abstract:

Wearable devices are one of the parts of the essential cost of goods sold (COGS) in the wheel of the Internet of things (IoT), contributing towards a potential impact in the finance and banking sectors. There is a need for lightweight cryptography mechanisms for IoT devices because these are resource constraints. This paper introduces a novel approach to an IoT-based micro-payment protocol in a wearable device’s environment. This payment model uses “elliptic curve integrated encryption scheme (ECIES)” for encryption and decryption of the communicating messages between various entities. The proposed protocol allows the customer to buy the goods using a wearable device and send the mobile application’s confidential payment information. The application creates a secure session between the customer, banks, and merchant. The static security analysis and informal security methods indicate that the proposed protocol is withstanding the various security vulnerabilities involved in mobile payments. For logical verification of the correctness of security properties using the formal way of “Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN)” logic confirms the proposed protocol’s accuracy. The practical simulation and validation using the Scyther and Tamarin tool ensure the absence of security attacks in our scheme. Finally, the performance analysis based on cryptography features and computational overhead of related approaches specify that the proposed micro-payment protocol for wearable devices is secure and efficient.

Architecture for wearable devices:

The architecture for wearable devices is shown in Fig. 1. It consists of six types of entities, such as Issuer bank (IB), acquirer bank (AB), payment gateway (PG), a certification authority (CA), mobile terminal, and wearable sensing devices. The person using various wearable devices such as a smartwatch, smart wristband, smart glass, etc. In the architecture, a wearable device is connected to the mobile terminal through NFC. An app is running on a mobile device. Wearable devices are resource constraints because they have limited computing capabilities regarding battery, display, storage, and processing compared to a mobile terminal (smartphone). Hence, NFC is used to pair the wearable device and mobile terminal for transmitting public messages. Before conducting any transaction with the merchant, the customer and merchant should register their mobile numbers with the bank.

Fig. 1. Architecture for wearable devices

The customer can place an order with the merchant using the following steps and the complete messages flow in the proposed protocol is shown shown in the Figure.

● The customer places an order for an item through a wearable device.

● The request is transferred to the mobile app. The mobile app verifies the user authentication.

● After a successful authentication request, the app forwarded the request to the issuing bank for payment verification.

● The customer also sends a payment request for a deduction of the amount from his/her issuing bank.

● Once the bank validates the customer data in terms of sufficient funds available and user’s integrity. The issuing bank routes the transaction to the payment gateway through a secure network.

● In this step, the payment gateway verified the customer payment order and transferred it to the acquiring bank.

● If all the verifications are successful, then the transaction amount is then debited from the issuing bank and credited to the merchants’ acquiring bank.

Application demonstration:

As we know, most wearable devices run the Android operating system. The proposed framework developed as an Android application package (APK) file run in an Android wearable emulator, but we have operated in the Samsung Galaxy Note-2 device due to limits of the screen device and lack of environment. First, it needs to install the APK file and start running the app. Before running the app, some points need to be considered, such as the following:

● The company voice gateway provided for the service of an SMS gateway connected to Xeon server and assigned us a shortcode 56677.

● The payment gateway switch is used to communicate with the customer and merchant bank accounts.

● Two mobile numbers are registered with the banks and telecom operations, and it is used for SMS service.

● The deployed decryption web application on the Xeon server.

● HTTPS connection is used between voice gateway and Xeon server established Indian financial network (INFINET) link between server and bank.

We have not mentioned all the screenshots for the app from starting the login and authentication phase, but the protocol requires the essential information only shown in the screenshot. We didn’t mention the banks considered for implementing the micro-payment protocol for security and reputation reasons.

The proposed protocol action is as follows:

Step 1: The customer x runs a wearable application to enter Wearable-id, mobile number, pin and amount and sends an encrypted message to the Xeon server via short-code 56677. To encrypt the message, the customer may choose any one of the ECC curves as shown in Fig. 2.

Step 2: The SMS gateway receives the encrypted SMS, which is delivered to the server

Step 3: The server receives the encrypted SMS and executes the decryption application. Next, the user runs decryption activity and selects the P-224 private key. After decryption, the message is shown in Fig. 3.

Step 4: After the message is decrypted, the user presses the “Next” button to communicate with the payment gateway.

Step 5: Now, the merchant fills in the remaining fields of merchant UPI-id, mobile number, and purpose of payment and then selects any payment gateway as shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4: The merchant enters the details and sends to any payment server

Dr Bojjagani’s research will further refine the parameters of security in IoT enabling wearable devices to become smarter and safer.

• To make the proposed protocols more secure can add biometric-based authentication can be added.
• The future directions of the proposed framework fit only for micro-payments. In future, we have upgraded to credit card/debit card payments to enhance the proposed framework for macro-payments.

Continue reading →

Dr Nimai Mishra, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, SRM University-AP along with his team comprising of his PhD scholars Mr. Syed Akhil, Ms. V.G.Vasavi Dutt, and Mr Rahul Singh have published a research article titled “Surface-State-Mediated Interfacial Hole Transfer Dynamics Between CsPbBr3 Perovskite Nanocrystals and Phenothiazine Redox Couple” in The Journal of Physical Chemistry-C, published by The American Chemical Society with an impact factor of ~4.126.

Dr Mishra’s research interests lie in Semiconductor nanocrystals, Core/shell branched structures, Nanowires, Perovskite nanocrystals and Optoelectronic device fabrication. He studied the role of surface chemistry for improving excited state hole transfer from CsPbBr3 nanocrystals to an acceptor, potentially applicable for photocatalytic applications.

About the research:

Recently, caesium lead bromide (CsPbBr3) perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) gained enormous attention for designing photocatalytic reactions because of their photocatalytic properties. But the surface chemistry of nanocrystals is often ignored which dictate the excited state interactions of these semiconductor nanocrystals with the charge shuttling redox-active molecules. In this work, we have explored the impact of CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals with the three different surface chemistries on the excited state interactions with the standard hole acceptor phenothiazine molecule. From the steady PL-lifetime decay measurements we have calculated the photoinduced hole transfer (PHT). In the amine-free PNCs case, PHT is 6 times higher than the conventional amine capped ligands. Using the lifetime fast component (1) rate constants, we have calculated the hole transfer constant (kht) which is 3.942 × 108 s-1 and it is 4 times higher in amine-free ligands when compared with conventional amine ligands system.

According to Dr Nimai Mishra, the most important contribution of this research is that these results highlight the impact of surface chemistry on the excited state interactions of CsPbBr3 PNCs and conclude amine-free PNCs could be an ideal candidate for photocatalytic reactions.

Read the full paper: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpcc.1c07129

Continue reading →

Dr Anil K Suresh’s innovative research has been brought into the limelight by the revered weekly magazine Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), published by the American Chemical Society. Dr Anil K Suresh, Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, and his team from SRM University-AP recently developed a see-through transparent (with 85% above transmittance) biotemplate which they derived from the fish scale wastes to substitute the extensive usage of eco-unfriendly disposal plastic cuvettes for UV-Visible Spectroscopy measurements in the spectrum of 350-900 nm.

UV-Vis spectroscopy is a versatile analytical tool used to examine the nature of various synthetic, biological and clinical molecules for pharmaceutical and environmental applications. The team members demonstrated the practical on-biotemplate analysis of diverse analytes such as DNA, proteins, nanoparticles, organic dyes, bacteria, BSA assay and dye-degradations. Dr Anil K Suresh owns the copyrights for this pathbreaking invention by being granted an Indian patent. This work was published in the prestigious Journal “Green Chemistry” by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Read the full paper here.

Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), which is widely known to feature articles of the best professional and technical innovative research work and analysis in the fields of chemistry and chemical engineering, has acknowledged Dr Anil’s research by allowing it little room in their magazine in Volume 99, Issue 36 (Read the news here). C&EN includes information on recent news and research in chemistry and chemical engineering along with career and employment information, business and industry news, government and policy news, funding in these fields, and special reports.

“The magazine is very celebrated among researchers across the world. It is a great honour for my team and me to be featured in the magazine. This news magazine usually picks only top nature cell science publications among thousands, and My team and I are feeling great to be one of them,” said Dr Anil. Dr Anil further said that it would not be possible to carry out such prominent research work in a newly built establishment without the constant support from the management of SRM University-AP, Andhra Pradesh. He has profoundly thanked Dr P Sathyanarayanan, President; Prof V S Rao, Vice-Chancellor; Prof D Narayana Rao, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, for their kind help and cooperation.

The University Management congratulated Dr Anil K Suresh on his achievement. Dr Sathyanarayanan said, “It is indeed a proud moment for the university to be featured on C&EN. I compliment Dr Anil and his team on their tireless work.” “Dr Anil and his team have executed an extraordinary work towards a green environment which should be emphasised in international journals. The Team’s dedication towards their research is commendable,” said Prof V S Rao. Prof D Narayana Rao opined that Dr Anil K Suresh is one of the most talented young biologists in the nation. “I have personally known him for some time being and working with him for a few years. Dr Anil is devoted biologist and pride of the university,” asserted Prof D Narayana Rao.

Continue reading →

Dr Sumit Kumar, Assistant Professor from the Department of Management has recently published two papers in highly reputed Scopus indexed journals. The paper titled “Managing employees’ turnover: findings from AHP model” is published in the International Journal of Economics & Business Research and “Economic Prosperity and Environmental Sustainability: Role of Infrastructure Development” in the Indian Journal of Ecology.

Managing employees’ turnover: findings from AHP model is an attempt to compare and evaluate the relative significance of myriad HR issues leading to better management of the employee turnover problem. The research questions explored and examined in this study provided deeper insights and a better understanding of the problem of retaining and nurturing human capital and have relevant implications for scholars, policymakers, and retail organisations. An important theoretical contribution of the study is in enriching the literature on employee retention in the organised retail sector. The practical implications of this study mainly emanate from the results of this study and are related to practices of managing people at work. The findings of the study can be effectively used to design a robust retention policy.
Read the full paper here

The second paper titled Economic Prosperity and Environmental Sustainability: Role of Infrastructure Development is co-authored by A. Mishra, M. Sharma, and et. al. This pragmatic investigation strives to divulge the relationship between infrastructure expansion and environmental defilement in the Indian outlook by realistically exerting panel data of 10 Indian states, which contributes 70 per cent of the total national population. The precise outcome of the investigation demonstrates that some proxies of infrastructure improvement such as electric capacity, railways network, road network and telecommunication have linkage with the air quality index in India.

Dr Sumit Kumar is an Assistant Professor in the School of Entrepreneurship and Management Studies, SRM University AP, Andhra Pradesh, India. He has done his PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad in Marketing Management. He has eight years of rich experience in the industry, research, and academia. His research, interests focus on the areas of marketing and consumer behaviour, green products, private label brands (PLB), virtual retail environment and online retail. He has also presented papers at premier national and international conferences. He authored and co-authored several research articles in reputed international and national journals.

Continue reading →