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Product designers have the responsibility of ensuring the product they design goes to production without any issues. There are various snippets of “knowledge” available in the form of historic production documents, shop floor records, case studies, etc., both offline and online, that can greatly help get an early insight into potential issues. However, a major drawback is the lack of identifying “knowledge” based on this due to their fragmented distribution. Now, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Mr. N. Madhusudanan, Prof. Amaresh Chakrabarti and Prof. B. Gurumoorthy, at the Centre for Product Design and Manufacturinghave developed a method for automatically recovering relevant information from document collections. They validated this methodology in the context of aircraft assembly.

A recent collaborative study by the Sigur Nature Trust, Masinagudi, with its partner organizations, has identified a network of elephant corridors in the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve using a combination of novel techniques in landscape ecology. The results of this study, led by Dr. J P Puyravaud of the Sigur Nature Trust, could not only help targeted efforts to protect endangered Asian elephants, but also help minimise the damage movements of elephants cause to human settlements and activities in the nearby regions.

Imagine you call a taxi using one of the numerous cab aggregating apps and you find a “ghost” driver - well actually, no driver at all! If you think it is a page out of a science fiction, think again as Autonomous Vehicles (AV) or self-driving vehicles are already in operation in some cities of the world on a small scale. Nutonomy, a Singapore-based startup, became the world’s first company to test a self-driving taxi service in Singapore on August 25, 2016. Just a few weeks later, on September 14, 2016, Uber, the biggest cab aggregator service, launched its first self-driving taxi fleet in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. You will hear more such news in the days to come as AVs are expected to replace conventional driver-driven vehicles by 2020 or sooner. A study by Business Insider estimates about 10 million self-driving cars to be on roads by 2020.

Distressingly dark facets of societies such as kidnapping, rape, thievery, slavery, and murder of members of one’s own species, are not unique to human communities. Monkeys, dolphins, mice, eagles, ants and many other members of the animal kingdom are known to exhibit various instances of such behaviour. Observation of such sinister acts is fascinating to researchers, who investigate further, speculating on the significance of such an act in the light of animal cognition and how they have evolved. The serendipitous discovery of ‘brood theft’ in a group of ants in the Ant Lab at IISER Kolkata, for instance, has Prof. Sumana Annagiri and her team conducting many experiments to figure out how do they do it and why.

Turmeric is a ubiquitous ingredient in home remedies for ailments ranging from infections to arthritis. A mixture of turmeric and milk (haldi-doodh) has been used as a traditional cure for bone fractures. Modern science has shown that curcumin, the primary component of turmeric, possesses anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. In recent times, researchers in the field of bone tissue engineering, who seek to engineer novel strategies for bone tissue regeneration, are exploring the documented benefits of curcumin on bone growth. Now, a new study by Prof. Kaushik Chatterjee and his group at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, shows that encapsulating curcumin in a restorable ‘scaffold’ enables sustained release of the chemical, and enhances bone repair. The study is an attempt to highlight the promise of phytochemicals, a class of molecules found in Indian spices, in bone tissue engineering.

In a recently published study, scientists at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, are addressing one of the biggest challenges faced by many appliances - wear and friction due to usage. Wear and friction affects the lifetime of industrial equipment, which directly correlates with the profitability of the business. The teams of researchers, led by Prof. M.S. Bobji at the Department of Mechanical Engineering are now experimenting with alumina based nanocomposite coating for wear resistance.

Organisms with single cell mostly reproduce asexually through cell division by splitting into two or more cells and yeasts are no exception. They divide by fission or budding, a process where new daughter cells ‘bud’ off after receiving half of the nucleus and some cytoplasm from the mother cell. A recent collaborative study by scientists at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), the Tata Memorial Centre, Advanced Centre for Treatment Research and Education in Cancer, Navi Mumbai and the Indian Institute of Technology – Bombay, has now thrown some insights into the mechanism of nuclear division in yeasts. The study, led by Prof. Kaustuv Sanyal from JNCASR and Prof. Raja Paul from IACS, has succeeded in generating a computational model that accurately predicts the nuclear division dynamics in two types of yeasts belonging to two phyla - Ascomycota and Basidiomycota.

When our body’s defensive immune responses end up injuring our own tissues and organs while fighting infections, it results in a clinical condition called sepsis. It is one of the leading causes of global mortality, with an estimated 90,000 deaths every year in India alone. Once it kicks off, sepsis or “septic shock”, commonly results in tissue damage, multiple organ failure and eventually death in high-risk patients. Fungal, viral and parasitic infections can all cause sepsis, with bacteria being the most common culprits. Conventionally, sepsis is treated using expensive antibiotics with poor shelf lives. Now, a new study by researchers at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, has proposed a cost-effective treatment for sepsis.

By sharing resources, mobile phone service providers can reduce call drop rates and make higher profits, is the conclusion of a study by researchers from the Indian Institute of Science and the University of Pennsylvania, USA. The research, though conducted a few years ago, assumes importance now, because the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recently allowed different service providers to share spectrum.

The inconsistency between spatial development of Bengaluru and its urban planning has skyrocketed the cost of city development, says a new study by Ms. N S Nalini, a researcher from the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru. Considering the example of the water supply system in the city, the study confirms that it is inefficient with an overpriced production and supply of water. The study also suggests that planning water supply based on the natural terrain of the city could minimize these costs.