C&EN features Dr Anil’s Research on sustainable biofilm
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.
- Published in Biology News, Faculty Achievements, News, Research News, Students Achievements
Impact of Surface Chemistry on the Excited State Interactions of CsPbBr3
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
- Published in Chemistry-news, News, Research News
Securing Online Payments made through Wearable Devices
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.
- Published in CSE NEWS, News, Research News
13 students placed at Optum UnitedHealth Group
The placement legacy of the CR&CS Department at SRM University-AP continues with more and more students from the Class of 2022 getting placed at their dream companies. Take heed to our students from Computer Science Engineering and, Electronics and Communications Engineering as they passionately talk about the support they have received from the Placement cell and faculty members in securing their Super Dream job offer at Optum UnitedHealth Group. Students explain the methods of preparing for the recruitment drive, role of curriculum and faculty of SRM AP in knowledge creation, approachability of CR&CS team during placement season, and their hopes and aspirations for the future.
Godavarthi Chandra Keerthi
It is a dream come true and I am looking forward to working in the company. With constant support and training from our placement department, I could prepare for the company-specific tests and regular practice from various sources helped me a lot. Coding skills were incorporated into our curriculum throughout the early years of our engineering programme, which aided us in laying a solid foundation. Our instructors mentored us regularly, which helped us recognise where we were lacking. We were exposed to many activities like workshops, hackathons, etc. Our doubts were clarified within no time and we could move forward with the next steps. I would advise my juniors to understand their strengths and limitations and focus on improving them. And I believe that consistent practice is the key to achieving whatever one desires. I aspire to see myself in a respectable position in future.
Harshini Thotakura
I am selected for Optum UHG, one of my dream companies to work in. The day I got the result mail, I and my parents were beyond happy. My placement preparation started in my 2nd year only. Competitive programming has already been included in the curriculum since then. Two months before the placement season, student-specific training and boot camps are organized by the CR&CS where I started developing in-depth knowledge in all the domains. Strategic advice and techniques by the CCC team helped me stay prepared for every round in the company process. Almost 100 companies lined up and the placement department never failed to help me in all possible ways they can. I suggest juniors simply follow the guidance of faculty members, develop interesting projects, attend workshops that will help in the future placement drives as companies mainly focus on practical knowledge. Learn from the rejections and believe in hard work. Finally, confidence matters more.
Kurapati Nikitha Chowdary
I am satisfied and feeling blissful for starting my career in a reputed company. I sincerely thank my university for showing me the path and guiding me to shape my career. Researching about Optum on online platforms like Glassdoor, LinkedIn and based on the company website reviews and requirements I prepared myself for the whole process. The opportunities provided by the Placement Department like the training classes, interactive sessions and mock interviews helped me to gain confidence and overcome the fear of facing the interview panel. Our instructors mentored us regularly, which helped us recognize where we were lacking. My suggestion to juniors is since we are all under the umbrella of SRM University-AP, we don’t have to search or worry about the opportunities. So the only thing is to start preparing early and constant practice will help them to achieve their dream. Always keep updating resume as per industry standards and company specifications.
Kothuru Sai Sandeepa
Choosing SRM-AP was one of my best choices ever. Everyone would have a dream to get placed in good company and prove themselves. To achieve that one needs the right platform. I never thought that a college would work at this best level to make students achieve what they wish for. I am very happy on receiving the offer from a good company like I always dreamt of. I am very happy and proud to say that SRM University-AP has made this happen. The faculty and the training given by them helped me to achieve this. I especially thank the CR&CS department for the guidance they gave. They are very approachable and are available at all times. I suggest my juniors and others make use of the resources provided by the University and make the best out of it. The faculty and the curriculum which the University gave us is the best and helped me to choose the right path. The University has also taught me to design my career. I am very thankful for all the support given by my college to help me achieve this success of getting placed at Optum, UnitedHealth Group.
Lakshmi Vallala
As I receive my offer from Optum, I must take the opportunity to thank SRMAP for supporting me secure a job during these times of crisis. I spent time coding and upskilling every day as a part of my preparation. The curriculum of SRMAP focuses on preparing an individual with domain knowledge. It also exposes us to an early coding culture. The Placement Department of SRMAP has been very prompt to discuss any requests from students. We were given orientation about all companies so that we could clarify doubts and attend company-specific training. We had numerous companies scheduled to visit us daily. These options helped me understand the role I fit in and the skills I needed to focus on. CCC training played a fundamental role in enhancing the quality of our skills. Mock interviews and group discussions helped us understand the process better and learn where we stood. To all the juniors and others looking to go down this path, remain high-spirited, confident and attend to your schedule till you achieve what suits you. My plans for the future include building my technical expertise in my domain and moving ahead with more responsibilities in life.
Navya Sri Mididodla
Getting placed in Optum UHG is like a dream which has come true for me. SRM AP is a great place for us to develop ourselves both personally and professionally. The intensive placement training we received from the CR&CS department helped us to sharpen our technical skills such as coding skills, OS, DSA, Networks. They have also provided us with the aptitude and interpersonal skills training which helped us to tackle the HR interview round. The faculty members and mentors are always ready to clear our doubts and continuously help us to improve our performance by conducting mock interviews by industry experts, group discussion sessions, etc… They encouraged us when we are in low spirits. SRM AP has done a great job in bringing many reputed companies such as Amazon, Paypal, Barclays, etc… for placement drive. All along the way my family and faculty have supported me in this stressful yet fruitful journey of placement drive. I would like to take this chance to thank SRM AP Management, the CR&CS department, Faculty and mentors for giving me the chance to fulfil my dream.
Nanduri Geeta Kiranmai
When I came to know that I received an offer in Optum UHG as a software engineer, it was like my dream come true moment. I am very happy that I got an opportunity to enter into a well-established company at the beginning of my professional career. I used to do a lot of coding on data structures and algorithms from my second year itself. The sessions taught by CCC and their regular practice links as Homeworks brushed up my fundamental concepts in programming. I used to maintain handwritten notes on all the core subjects in my bachelors, which helped me to revise the concepts a day before the interview. I was able to mention all the projects that I have mentioned in my resume.
One of the most important aspects of being an SRMite is a high standard curriculum which helped me in acquiring knowledge in all kinds of domains related to CSE. The curriculum made me establish a strong foundation that is required for industries at present.
The efforts of the Placements Department is not only appreciated by me but also by my family for their dedicated work towards all the students who enrolled in placement. Superset portal made the process of the recruitment drive simple and easy, the Opportunities provided by the Placements Department are so great that all the students get placed in dream jobs! The placement team came up with their online sessions for clearing the doubts of the students regarding the placements weekly which helped us a lot in this pandemic even though we didn’t have offline classes the process of placements went on smoothly.
I suggest to my juniors to get prepared with projects from the beginning itself so get ready for the placement by the starting of the fourth year with a good resume. I advise the students to pick a coding platform of their choice and do regular practice on it so that they develop logical and problem-solving skills
Sadhvika Nalluri
I am really happy about the offer at Optum because it was my first interview and I got placed right at that. I could perform well for theoretical questions in programming languages in which I am good in and also the coding part. I brushed through the concepts of OOPS, C, C++, DBMS and my academic projects. Most of the questions they asked in the interview were already in the curriculum and our faculty rally helped us a lot while studying and also clarified our doubts. The academic projects we have done were so much useful in the interview.
The CR&CS department gave us special classes to go through the concepts of major subjects that are required to crack the job. They also provided special classes in association with training institutes on communication skills and interview skills. They will respond to us immediately if there is an issue either in the interview or while writing the exam.
My message to juniors is that before I got this offer, I was rejected by so many companies without even qualifying prelims. There were some days when I got an invitation for the interview but could not attend as there was no invite link in the email. But I did not lose hope. So have patience and wait for your chance.
Sourish Mukherjee
This job offer from Optum is a dream come true for me. I can’t be happier since this is everything I expected from my first job. As soon as saw the job offer on our portal, I started to prepare for my logic and technical assessment. The coursework provided by CDC was very helpful and the domain training lessons provided by the college helped me do well in the assessments. After I received a call for the technical interview, I immediately started focusing on my projects and started brushing up on my technical knowledge based on my resume. The guidance of the esteemed faculty of SRM University-AP is a vital reason for my success. I thank them for building my resume and for all the knowledge they imparted to us, despite remotely working due to the pandemic. I consulted with my teammates and friends as well and as a result of all this and determination, I have been able to crack the final HR interview.
The mock interviews conducted by the CR&CS department helped me refine my answers and my personality as a suitable candidate. My father also helped me immensely to prepare for my interviews. I thank the CR&CS department for choosing reputed companies and giving me a chance to apply for this job opening and for ensuring the process is as smooth as possible. I would like to share a few words for my juniors and peers. Everyone will get a chance to prove themselves and reach their goal. Never lose hope and keep striving for your goals. Don’t feel sad if you get rejected. I was rejected by almost 30 companies but what I learnt in the process was to treat it as another stepping stone, an experience and an opportunity to get better and grab better opportunities that will come my way. I would like to wish the very best for all my peers and juniors, success in their professional and educational endeavours.
Tirumani Someswari Sai Rushitha
I’m very happy and excited as I could secure the super dream offer and I’m looking forward to proving my skills as a contributing member of the Organization. During the recruitment drives the guidance by the placement department was indeed helpful like the domain, technical training, and also the company-specific exams which assisted me to prepare accordingly. The curriculum of SRM AP is designed with the purpose that apart from the academics one can also enhance our communication and behavioural skills which are fairly important to crack the offer. The opportunities planned by the Placement department were numerous while we had plenty of mock interviews and also the sessions from industry experts so that we can brush up on our standards in shaping our career. The placement team has been undoubtedly approachable to resolve our queries and acquire feedback from students to improve the training and make it more effective. One thing I would like to share with my juniors and others is that we need to believe in ourselves, be confident, and go along with the training offered by the placement team consistently and we can obtain the offers as numerous companies line up during placements season.
- Published in CR&CS, CR&CS NEWS, CSE NEWS, ECE NEWS
World’s top 2% scientists by Stanford University include faculty from SRM University-AP
Dr Karthik Rajendran, and Dr Lakhveer Singh from the Department of Environmental Science and Dr Imran Pancha from the Department of Biological Sciences of SRM University-AP are enlisted on the global list of the top 2% of scientists, the data compiled by Stanford University.
Stanford University has identified Dr Imran Pancha as one of the 91 scientists who has excelled in research in the fields of biotechnology among all the universities in India. Dr Imran Pancha was recognised as one of the top 2% scientists in the world in the year 2020 also. Stanford University recognized 178 scientists who excelled in research in the field of energy, which includes Dr Karthik Rajendran and Dr Lakhveer Singh among the top 2 per cent of scientists. The quality of research work, its societal impact, number of publications, citations, are taken into consideration for this recognition.
University Vice-Chancellor Prof V S Rao and Pro-Vice-Chancellor Prof D Narayana Rao presented Certificates of Recognition to the three professors at a congratulatory function held at the university on Friday. “This is an admirable achievement that young faculty from a nascent University appear in the top 2% scientists of the world,” said Prof D Narayana Rao. Prof V S Rao Narayana Rao appreciated their talent and efforts. Prof Narayana Rao assured them that the university would provide the necessary comprehensive support for carrying out research in front-line and emerging areas. Prof Narayana Rao further said that he is very confident that many more faculty members of SRM University – AP, will receive such global recognition in the years to come.
- Published in Biology News, Departmental News, ENVS News, News
BSc Physics student contributes as the First Author for a research paper
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.
- Published in Departmental News, News, Physics News, Research News
Fully automated quality control of rigid and affine registrations of T1w and T2w MRI in Big Data using Machine Learning
“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.
- Published in Departmental News, ECE NEWS, News, Research News
Design and implementation of frequency controller for wind energy-based hybrid power system
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:
- Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bengaluru 560054, India
- The Berkeley Education Alliance for Research in Singapore, The National University of Singapore, Singapore 138602, Singapore
- Clean and Resilient Energy Systems (CARES) Lab, Texas A&M University, Galveston, TX 77553, USA;
- Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, Taif University, Taif 21944, Saudi Arabia
- Published in Departmental News, EEE NEWS, News, Research News
Dr Satheesh Ellipilli joins us as a Ramanujan Fellowship Faculty
SRM University-AP is honoured to host Dr Satheesh Ellipilli as a DST- Ramanujan Fellowship Faculty and facilitate his research for the next five years.
Ramanujan Fellowship is one of the most prestigious scientific fellowships that is offered to the Indian scientists working abroad. This fellowship is offered by Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) to encourage scientists of Indian origin to return and research in an Indian institute/University.
SERB offers the scientists Rs 1,35,000/- per month along with research grant of Rs 7,00,000/- per annum and Rs 60,000/- per annum for overhead charges.
Dr. Satheesh Ellipilli obtained his PhD from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher in The Ohio State University (Columbus, USA), Emory University (Atlanta, USA), and The University of Utah (Salt Lake City, USA).
Dr. Satheesh Ellipilli has extensive experience in the field of nucleic acid chemistry, particularly, focusing on utilization of RNA nanotechnology for cancer therapy using RNAi therapeutics in combination with small molecule drugs.
He has made numerous publications in some of the most renowned journals like Journal of Organic Chemistry, Journal of Controlled Release, Chemical Communications, Bioconjugate Chemistry, Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, and Chemical Review to name a few.
Having Dr Ellipilli with us for the duration of his fellowship is a golden learning opportunity and a pleasure to be the host institution for his work. We hope that our students and scholars develop stronger research ethics and acumen in his company.
- Published in Chemistry-news, Departmental News, News
Obtaining encrypted images with new Reversible Data Hiding scheme
SRM University-AP is pleased to announce that Dr V M Manikandan, Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, along with his research scholar Shaiju Panchikkil, published a paper titled, “A convolutional neural network model based reversible data hiding scheme in encrypted images with block-wise Arnold transform” in Optik Journal, Elsevier Publications.
The proposed scheme can be used for embedding electronic patient reports (EPR) in the medical image itself while transmitting, and at the receiver side the reports can be extracted along with the lossless recovery of the medical images.
About the Research:
Data hiding or information hiding is a well-explored way to secure some secret data by concealing it in a digital cover medium. The reversible data hiding (RDH) is a recent advancement in the field of data hiding in which the cover medium can be restored during the extraction of hidden messages at the receiver side. The RDH schemes are widely used in medical image transmission and cloud computing. Recently, research in the field of RDH in encrypted images got much attention to improve the efficiency parameters such as embedding rate and bit error rate without compromising the lossless recovery of the images. In this research paper, we propose a new RDH scheme in encrypted images which utilizes the Arnold scrambling technique for data hiding. A convolutional neural network (CNN) model is trained and used to extract the hidden message along with the recovery of the original image. The experimental study and result analysis of the proposed scheme are carried out on the USC-SIPI image dataset managed by the University of Southern California.
Dr Manikandan collaborated with Prof. Yu-Dong Zhang, Professor in School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, University of Leicester, UK collaborated for this research work. In the future, Dr Manikandan’s research will be more focussed on coming up with new reversible data hiding schemes in encrypted images with better embedding rate and bit error.
- Published in CSE NEWS, Departmental News, News, Research News