<p>Shiv Nadar University is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, research-focused, and student-centric University offering a full range of academic programs at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, the University comprises of academic wings, sophisticated labs, international standard sports facilities, amphitheaters, auditorium, conference rooms and smart classrooms. The University&rsquo;s goal is to become internationally recognized for the quality of its research and creative endeavors and their applicability to improving quality of life, generating new insights and expanding the boundaries of human knowledge creativity. Committed to excellence in teaching, research and service, the University aims to serve the higher education needs of India and the world beyond.</p>

Shiv Nadar University

(SoNS) School of Natural Sciences

Proper bonding technique is investigated to achieve leakage-free surface-driven capillary flow in polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) microfluidic devices. SU-8-based silicon stamp is fabricated by maskless lithography. This stamp is used to produce PMMA microchannel structure by hot embossing lithography. A direct bonding technique is mainly employed for leakage-free sealing inside PMMA microfluidic devices. The effect of surface wettability on surface-driven capillary flow is also investigated in PMMA microfluidic devices. The separation of polystyrene microparticles in PMMA laboratory-on-a-chip systems is investigated with the reduction of separation time by air dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma processing of channel surfaces. This study is useful to fabricate the microfluidic laboratory-on-a-chip systems and to understand the surface-driven capillary flow. © 2015 World Scientific Publishing Company.

World University root node

Physics

Surface Review and Letters

Experimental studies of surface-driven capillary flow in PMMA microfluidic devices prepared by direct bonding technique and passive separation of microparticles in microfluidic laboratory-on-a-chip systems

Viral respiratory tract diseases pose serious public health problems. Our ability to predict and thus, be able to prepare for outbreaks is strained by the complex factors driving the prevalence and severity of these diseases. The abundance of diseases and transmission dynamics of strains are not only affected by external factors, such as weather, but also driven by interactions among viruses mediated by human behavior and immunity. To untangle the complex out-ofphase annual and biennial pattern of three common paramyxoviruses, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), Human Parainfluenza Virus (HPIV), and Human Metapneumovirus (hMPV), we adopt a theoretical approach that integrates ecological and immunological mechanisms of disease interactions. By estimating parameters from multiyear time series of laboratory-confirmed cases from the intermountain west region of the United States and using statistical inference, we show that models of immune-mediated interactions better explain the data than those based on ecological competition by convalescence. The strength of cross-protective immunity among viruses is correlated with their genetic distance in the phylogenetic tree of the paramyxovirus family. © 2015 PNAS.

Mathematics

Fulltext

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Cross-immunity between strains explains the dynamical pattern of paramyxoviruses

When a binary liquid is confined by a strongly repulsive wall, the local density is depleted near the wall and an interface similar to that between the liquid and its vapor is formed. This analogy suggests that the composition of the binary liquid near this interface should exhibit spatial modulation similar to that near a liquid-vapor interface even if the interactions of the wall with the two components of the liquid are the same. The Guggenheim adsorption relation quantifies the concentrations of two components of a binary mixture near a liquid-vapor interface and qualitatively states that the majority (minority) component enriches the interface for negative (positive) mixing energy if the surface tensions of the two components are not very different. From molecular dynamics simulations of binary mixtures with different compositions and interactions we find that the Guggenheim relation is qualitatively satisfied at wall-induced interfaces for systems with negative mixing energy at all state points considered. For systems with positive mixing energy, this relation is found to be qualitatively valid at low densities, while it is violated at state points with high density where correlations in the liquid are strong. This observation is validated by a calculation of the density profiles of the two components of the mixture using density functional theory with the Ramakrishnan-Yussouff free-energy functional. Possible reasons for the violation of the Guggenheim relation are discussed. ©2015 American Physical Society.

Physical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics

Spatial modulation of the composition of a binary liquid near a repulsive wall

We report the observation of spatially separated Kondo scattering and ferromagnetism in anatase Ta0.06Ti0.94O2 thin films as a function of thickness (10-200 nm). The Kondo behavior observed in thicker films is suppressed on decreasing thickness and vanishes below ∼25 nm. In 200 nm film, transport data could be fitted to a renormalization group theory for Kondo scattering though the carrier density in this system is lower by two orders of magnitude, the magnetic entity concentration is larger by a similar magnitude and there is strong electronic correlation compared to a conventional system such as Cu with magnetic impurities. However, ferromagnetism is observed at all thicknesses with magnetic moment per unit thickness decreasing beyond 10 nm film thickness. The simultaneous presence of Kondo and ferromagnetism is explained by the spatial variation of defects from the interface to surface which results in a dominantly ferromagnetic region closer to substrate-film interface while the Kondo scattering is dominant near the surface and decreasing towards the interface. This material system enables us to study the effect of neighboring presence of two competing magnetic phenomena and the possibility for tuning them.

Scientific Reports

Unexpected observation of spatially separated Kondo scattering and ferromagnetism in Ta alloyed anatase TiO2 thin films

In this paper we characterize for 0 &lt; p ≤ ∞, the closed subspaces of Hp that are invariant under multiplication by all powers of a finite Blaschke factor B, except the first power. Our result clearly generalizes the invariant subspace theorem obtained by Paulsen and Singh [18] which has proved to be the starting point of important work on constrained Nevanlinna- Pick interpolation. Our method of proof can also be readily adapted to the case where the subspace is invariant under all positive powers of B (z) : The two results are in the mould of the classical Lax-Halmos Theorem and can be said to be Lax-Halmos type results in the finite multiplicity case for two commuting shifts and for a single shift respectively. © 2015 University of Houston.

Houston Journal of Mathematics

Lax-Halmos type theorems on Hp spaces

Proton relay plays an important role in many biocatalytic pathways. In order to mimic such processes in the context of molecular switches, we developed coordination-coupled deprotonation (CCD) driven signaling and signal enhancement sequences. This was accomplished by using the zinc(ii)-initiated CCD of a hydrazone switch to instigate an acid catalyzed imine bond hydrolysis that separates a quencher from a fluorophore thus leading to emission amplification. Because CCD is a reversible process, we were able to show that the catalysis can be regulated and turned "on" and "off" using a metalation/demetalation cycle. This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Chemistry

Chemical Science

Regulating signal enhancement with coordination-coupled deprotonation of a hydrazone switch

One of the principal tools in the theoretical study of biological molecules is the method of molecular dynamic simulation. MD simulations have provided detailed information on the fluctuation and conformation changes of the system. It offers the prospects of detailed description of the dynamical structure with ion and water at molecular level. In this work, we have taken an oligomeric part of human telomeric DNA, d(TAGGGT), to form a tetrameric quadruplex structure and generate four modified complexes. For modification, we have taken locked nucleic acid. Here, we report the relative stability of these modified structures under K+ ion conditions and binding interaction between the strands as determined by MD simulation followed by energy calculation. MM-PBSA method is performed for the determination of most stable complex. In free energy calculation, different strands are taken as the ligand and receptor. The energetic study shows that a modified quadruplex, in which first two modified strands are bind with other two unmodified strands, is more stable than other complexes. The formation and stabilization of these quadruplexes have been shown to inhibit the activity of telomerase, thus establishing telomeric quadruplex as an attractive target for cancer therapeutic intervention. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Medicinal Chemistry Research

MD simulation of LNA-modified human telomeric G-quadruplexes: A free energy calculation

The possibility for the Jacobi equation to admit, in some cases, general solutions that are polynomials has been recently highlighted by Calogero and Yi, who termed them para-Jacobi polynomials. Such polynomials are used here to build seed functions of a Darboux-Bäcklund transformation for the trigonometric Darboux-Pöschl-Teller potential. As a result, one-step regular rational extensions of the latter depending both on an integer index n and on a continuously varying parameter λ are constructed. For each n value, the eigenstates of these extended potentials are associated with a novel family of λ-dependent polynomials, which are orthogonal on]-1,1[. © 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.

Journal of Mathematical Physics

Rational extensions of the trigonometric Darboux-Pöschl-Teller potential based on para-Jacobi polynomials

We investigate a 5d gauge theory on S1 with point interactions. The point interactions describe extra boundary conditions and provide three generations, the charged lepton mass hierarchy, the lepton flavor mixing and tiny degenerated neutrino masses after choosing suitable boundary conditions and parameters. The existence of the restriction in the flavor mixing, which appears from the configuration of the extra dimension, is one of the features of this model. Tiny Yukawa couplings for the neutrinos also appears without the see-saw mechanism nor symmetries in our model. The magnitude of CP violation in the leptons can be a prediction and is consistent with the current experimental data. © Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2015.

EPJ Web of Conferences

Realization of the lepton flavor structure from point interactions

We study a three-loop induced neutrino model with a global U(1) symmetry at TeV scale, in which we naturally accommodate a bosonic dark matter candidate. We discuss the allowed regions of masses and quartic couplings for charged scalar bosons as well as the dark matter mass on the analogy of the original Zee-Babu model, and show the difference between them. We also discuss that the possibility of the collider searches in a future like-sign electron liner collider could be promising. © 2015 The Authors.