National Institute of Technology, Meghalaya

About: National Institute of Technology, Meghalaya is a education organization based out in Shillong, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Control theory & Computer science. The organization has 503 authors who have published 1062 publications receiving 6818 citations. The organization is also known as: NIT Meghalaya & NITM.

An efficient hybrid meta-heuristic approach for cell formation problem

Abstract: The cellular manufacturing technology, an application of group technology in manufacturing, has been a widely studied combinatorial optimization problem where the entire production system is divided into many cells and part families. In this paper, a novel clonal selection algorithm (CSA) that uses a new affinity function and part assignment heuristic for solving a multi-objective cell formation problem is studied. The proposed CSA has been hybridized with genetic algorithm for generating feasible cell sequences that fulfill both mutual exhaustivity and exclusion properties of machine cells prior to the initial population generation. Additionally, a new part assignment heuristic function that maps parts to machine cells and a novel basic affinity function have been built into the proposed CSA so that it can act as the utility function to solve the multi-objective cell formation problem. This hybrid CSA (HCSA) has been presented and computational results have been obtained for the proposed scheme with a set of 52 benchmark instances collected from literature. The results presented herein demonstrate that overall proposed HCSA is much more promising in comparison with existing approaches available in recent literatures. Extensive statistical and convergence tests have been carried out to ratify the superiority of the proposed HCSA. The improvements can be attributed to the collaborative interactions in the CSA mechanism, the proposed hybridization for initial population generation and so forth.

Blockchain-Enabled Traceable, Transparent Transportation System for Blood Bank

Abstract: Electronic health records (EHR) and patient health records are an Internet-based health application which is sharable to authorized stakeholders such as doctors, specialist, and patients. One of the important record is blood and sharing the blood record in secured manner is a challenging issue. Blockchain-based blood bank system can resolve the need for individuals to access, trace, manage, share their health and blood-related information, which is immutable. The blockchain-based system provides a secured environment which acts as communication hub between donors, doctors, testing laboratories, and recipients or patients. This work proposes the design of a blockchain-based solution for the blood bank system. Information related to the blood is communicated securely to the intended users from the blood bank. Additionally, the traceability feature included in the proposed system monitors detailed information of blood transfer from excess stock to the nearest place. The system model is designed, implemented and validated using solidity language platform.

Surface characteristics enhancement of MWCNT alumina composites using multi-pass WEDM process

Abstract: Machining of ceramic composites in electrical discharge machining process is often associated with high roughness, unwanted surface and subsurface defects. This situation is generally not desired as it will reduce the life of the ceramic components fabricated in this machining process. Thus, an improvement towards enhancement of surface characteristics is desired. Multi-pass wire electrical discharge machining process can serve as an effective means of enhancing the surface characteristics in machining of ceramic composite. The current work utilizes the multi-pass concept to improve the surface properties of multi-walled carbon nanotubes filled alumina composites. A decreasing nature of surface roughness is observed with increase in the number of machining passes. A lesser appearance of unwanted debris and cracks is observed at the end of the final pass on the machined surface. The spalling effect is found to be more dominant at the initial first pass while melting and evaporation effect is more dominating in higher passes. Also, a better subsurface characteristic with lesser porous recast layer is observed with increase in the number of passes.

Non-enzymatic glycation of human serum albumin modulates its binding efficacy towards bioactive flavonoid chrysin: A detailed study using multi-spectroscopic and computational methods.

Abstract: The non-enzymatic glycation of plasma proteins by reducing sugars have important consequences on the conformational and functional properties of protein. The formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) is responsible for cell death and other pathological conditions. We have synthesized the glycated human serum albumin (gHSA) and characterized the same by using differential spectroscopic measurements. The aim of the present study is to determine the effect of glycation on the binding of human serum albumin (HSA) with bioactive flavonoid chrysin, which possesses anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant activities. The interaction of chrysin with HSA and gHSA was studied using multi-spectroscopic, molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation techniques. Chrysin quenched the intrinsic fluorescence of both HSA and gHSA by static quenching mechanism. The value of the binding constant (Kb) for the interaction of HSA-chrysin complex (4.779 ± 0.623 × 105 M-1 at 300 K) was found to be higher than that of gHSA-chrysin complex (2.206 ± 0.234 × 105 M-1 at 300 K). Hence, non-enzymatic glycation of HSA significantly reduced its binding affinity towards chrysin. The % α-helicity of HSA was found to get enhanced upon binding with chrysin, and minimal changes were observed for the gHSA-chrysin complex. Site marker probe studies indicated that chrysin binds to subdomain IIA and IIIA of both HSA and gHSA. The results from molecular docking and MD simulation studies correlated well with the experimental findings. Electrostatic interactions followed by hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interactions played major roles in the binding process. These observations may have some useful insights into the field of pharmaceutics.