BA History to MS Computer Science: The interdisciplinary journey abroad
‘Fostering curiosity and nurturing inquisitiveness’ These have been the goals of the Department of History at SRM University-AP to which Deva Harshalai Nimmagadda, Class of 2021 of Bachelor of Arts in History, belongs.
The entire department and especially his beloved mentor, Dr Maanvender Singh, could not be more proud of him for securing a coveted position in the MS Program in Computer Science at Pace University, New York. Deva found a home for his desire to understand the past and progress towards future in SRM University-AP’s multidisciplinary courses which enabled him to learn more about cutting edge technology and innovative approach to history. This experience was instrumental in helping him achieve his place.
“During my course of studying BA History in SRM University-AP, I have realized that history will not equip you with the skills in only one field, but it also opens you up to diverse fields.” Deva said, “Thanks to the curriculum in SRM University-AP which enabled me to explore various fields like economics, Journalism, Data Science etc. Studying history will demand immense research work and it will refine your analytical skills and these are the skills you need to live in a Tech world. I would like to thank all my faculty for equipping me with such skills even during the pandemic. Today interestingly History major in my profile attracts various employers and projects as they believe in the analytical skill of a history major.”
Prof Singh, who is very fond of Deva Harshalai, spoke very highly about his student, “Deva always cultivated the best attributes a historian could possibly possess- the endless and untiring urge to quest for reason and answers, and the unique and insightful perspective to provide the most logical and comprehensive solution.” He added, “With these qualities in one’s possession one can achieve any ambition should they put their mind and efforts to it.”
“The right skill was cultivated in me, and the right attitude took root.” Deva said to inspire his juniors, “I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to call SRM University-AP my alma mater. I am who I am today because of it. I would advise all my juniors to commit to their education seriously and SRM University-AP will give you the experience and encouragement to obtain your dream career.” Deva would like to take advantage of this world capital and invest himself in research and development in the fields of Artificial Intelligence in future.
- Published in Departmental News, History Current Happenings, History News, News
Coveted Marquee offers up to ₹42.5 LPA chase our students
Purab Agarwal, Chaitanya Krishna Pasula, Srinivas Kalyan, Udayagiri Sathvik, Myneni Venkata Satyasai, Gunturu Abhijith from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and Vellampalli Medha V Subramahnya Aditya and Sai Jnaneswar Juvvisetty from the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering are excited about their placement with Marquee offers up to ₹42.5 LPA. These students from the most sought Engineering branches of SRM University-AP burned the midnight oil and have achieved the best!
Our placement team has thoroughly trained the students both in terms of technical expertise and soft skills, as the recruiters shortlist the best young talent who are passionate, devoted to learning, and bubbling with fresh and creative ideas. The talent and motivation of students, together with the intensive instruction they have received since the beginning of their BTech programme, have enabled them to excel in the recruitment drive. The CR&CS department feels that this is just the start of the placement season and that many more outstanding students are eager to demonstrate their abilities to obtain fantastic job offers from top-tier employers.
“I have gained a lot of knowledge from faculty members. All the questions asked in the interview were related to the curriculum of SRM AP”, says Udayagiri in enthusiasm. “The support extended by the placement department as training before the placement and during the placement was also very helpful to crack this interview. The sources or materials that were provided to me before the interview were very helpful to me to crack the interview”, he added.
Know more about our placement legacy at: https://srmap.edu.in/about/crcs/
- Published in CR&CS NEWS, CSE NEWS, ECE NEWS, News
Detection of diabetic retinopathy (DR) severity from fundus photographs
A research paper titled “Detection of Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) severity from fundus photographs: An Ensemble Approach using weighted average”, has been published by Dr Mahesh Kumar Morampudi, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, in the Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering.
Diabetic Retinopathy is a common diabetic disease that affects the retina and can result in blindness if not treated initially. Deep learning (DL) based models are proposed to detect the blood abnormalities in the retinal tissue due to diabetes mellitus obtained from fundus camera. The drawback of these models is the lack of performance. To address this, we propose to automate the process of detection of the severity of Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) using ensembles of pre-trained models, thus exploring the power of transfer learning in the field of automated diagnosis. Deep learning models perform well when the model is trained on a large amount of data. In this regard, we also put forth data augmentation and preprocessing techniques to generate synthetic images and to improve image quality. Extensive experimental results on publicly available databases illustrate that the proposed ensemble model achieves fair accuracy when compared to existing models. Thus, the proposed model shows good scope for deployment in real-time diagnosis.
Every year multiple people are diagnosed with diabetes. Diabetes is a chronic disease that affects several organs of the human body namely the eyes, kidneys, heart etc. Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is a situation induced by diabetes in which severe loss happens to the retinal blood vessels that can ultimately lead to blindness. Regular diabetic retinopathy screening is hence needed for detecting it in advance. In the present situation, a trained clinician or an ophthalmologist is required to identify diabetic retinopathy (DR) by the existence of lesions related to the vascular abnormalities induced by the disease. The ophthalmologist needs to evaluate and examine digital colour fundus images of the retina. So, it is a very tedious and sluggish process. He/She needs more time to diagnose DR. The diagnosis of the disease by any manual means seems to be tiresome and usually results in errors. To overcome this limitation, we propose a model to automate the process of detection of the severity of DR using ensembles of pre-trained models, thus exploring the power of transfer learning in the field of automated diagnosis.
The research group believes that the study helps ophthalmologists to identify diabetic retinopathy at its early stage accurately, as a result, the chance of losing the vision due to diabetic retinopathy can be reduced. The work is done in collaboration with Dr Mulagala Sandhya, Assistant professor, NIT-Warangal. In the future, Dr Mahesh Kumar plans to work on a project related to Privacy-preserving Biometric Authentication.
- Published in Computer Science News, Departmental News, News, Research News
Top 5% most cited author: Royal Society of Chemistry
SRM University-AP could not be more proud to announce that Dr S Mannathan, Head of Department of Chemistry has made it to the top 5% in the list of the Most Cited Authors by the Royal Society of Chemistry. It is inspiring to have a faculty member in our midst whose work has helped and facilitated the research of so many others.
Dr Mannathan obtained his doctorate from National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. His research interests primarily lie in Metal-catalyzed organic transformation reactions, Multicomponent reactions, and Asymmetric synthesis. His research followed by scientists all over the world leading him to become one of the top 5% authors in terms of citations
In the field of Transition Metal Complexes as Catalysts in Organic Reactions, he particularly leans towards ‘Nickel-and cobalt-catalyzed three-component coupling and reductive coupling reactions’, and ‘Palladium-catalyzed reductive arylation’. Similarly, in Asymmetric Synthesis, he favours research into ‘Asymmetric reductive Heck reaction for the synthesis of chiral indanones’, and ‘Synthesis of bicyclic tertiary alcohols and its related asymmetric version via reductive [3+2] cycloaddition reaction by using chiral cobalt complexes.’
About the top 5% most cited paper:
In this work, he reported the synthesis and application of a Zn-Bp-BTC MOF (Bp – 4,4′-bipyridine; BTC – 1,3,5-benzene tricarboxylic acid; MOF – metal organic framework) as a heterogeneous catalyst for mediating organic reactions. Initial reaction conditions were optimized for the Knoevenagel condensation reaction using Zn-Bp-BTC as a heterogeneous catalyst. Various factors such as the effect of solvent, temperature and catalyst loading were evaluated. Although the reaction proceeded at room temperature using methanol as the solvent, 60 °C offered the best yield in a shorter duration. Under optimized reaction conditions, a wide range of α,β-unsaturated dicyano compounds were prepared from the corresponding carbonyl precursor and malononitrile, the active methylene counterpart. A systematic investigation was also carried out to assess the role of the ligand and metal salt in the Knoevenagel condensation reaction. It was found that the Zn-Bp-BTC MOF catalyzed the reaction efficiently in comparison to its analogue Zn-BTC MOF and precursor Zn(NO 3 ) 2 ·6H 2 O. Finally, catalytic recycling and stability studies showed that the catalyst is able to mediate the reaction for up to five consecutive cycles without undergoing any significant chemical or morphological changes. Further, the catalyst was tested for its efficacy in a multicomponent reaction (MCR). An MCR with the Zn-Bp-BTC MOF as the catalyst afforded good yields and there was no reaction in the absence of the catalyst. Similarly, the catalyst was tested for its efficiency in benzimidazole synthesis.
Dr Mannathan did this research in collaboration with Dr. Kathiresan Murugavel, Scientist, Electro Organic Division, CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute (Govt of India), Karaikudi.
- Published in Chemistry-news, Departmental News, News, Research News