Title : Grass-roots Innovations: Mining the Minds of Masses<img src='/prl-eng/images/red.gif'/>

Abstract

n the national eco-system of Innovation, main players are Public Innovations and Private innovations. Investment and guidance to Public Innovations is drawn from the Government. Over the years, these institutions have distanced themselves from the requirement of the general public and focused on the problems of the Industry and Government. Majority of the problems faced by the general public especially those in livelihood sector are not addressed by this category. Private Innovations are undertaken by corporate and other private investors with a view to promote their business and keep away from the problems of the masses. Monetary growth of business is possible with products of high cost, current technology, and for those customers who can afford to buy their products. Such innovations are driven by the need to improve upon their product based on perceived needs of the society. At times, they are found to aim at influencing the customer behavior and mostly they are not a result of customer needs. Thus, both the categories of Innovation eco system pay lip service to the masses of the nation resulting in their frustration, helplessness and anger. In such social scenario, a new category of Innovators emerges from these angry people and we may call them “Grass-roots Innovators”. Instead of actively voicing the problems – insurgency, they take a step forward to solve the problem- innovation. They are there everywhere, every house, every village and attempt to innovate continuously. Their innovation – solutions to the problems around them are generally affordable and appropriate. They follow the Gandhi an Mantra of “More from less for Many – a principle of MLM” which has been propounded by Dr R A Mashelkar. These grass-roots innovators attempt to find solutions to the local problems, using local resources and local technologies, thus making these creative solutions highly affordable. “Unmet Needs” of the villages are addressed by the creative villagers thereby reducing the pain of the people and enhancing the productivity. Dr Vergheese Kurien stated “India’s place in the Sun will come from the partnership between the wisdom of the rural people and the skill of its professionals.” Atma Nirbharata can be achieved when we focus our attention on the strengths of the villagers, leverage their creativity and traditional knowledge and add to what they have for attaining the national development goals. “Strengthen the Strengths should be our approach towards villages. Ultimate goal of any development plan should be happiness of masses. Can we achieve it? … ….

Title : Instrumentation of Radio Occultation Experiment for future Mars Mission

Abstract

Radio occultation is one of the major applications of radio science in space missions and played a central role in determining the vertical structures of planetary atmospheres. The radio occultation experiment is carried out with an orbiter, where the spacecraft transmits radio waves to a tracking station on the Earth in case of transmitter mode (and otherwise, in case of a receiver mode). The radio waves sequentially pass through the neutral atmosphere and planetary ionosphere before re-emerging in reverse sequence. When the trajectory of the spacecraft takes it behind the planet seen from Earth, there is occultation by the planet’s atmosphere. During an occultation event, the refractive index of the gases in the ionosphere and atmosphere alter the characteristics of the propagating radio wave. Radio occultation experiment rely on the extreme frequency stability of both the on-board radio wave source and the recording system at ground. In this talk, I will present the design, implementation and testing results of Single Frequency Transmitter using multiplier chain. The Dual Frequency Transmitter can also be designed using Phase Locked Loop (PLL) based frequency synthesizer. Using double down conversion method, Single Frequency Heterodyne Receiver has been designed, tested and in-phase and quadrature-phase outputs gives an idea of received frequency with appropriate power level. We found Design Verification Model (DVM) of both the configurations working satisfactorily in laboratory.

Title : Origin and evolution of nitrogen on planetary bodies in the inner solar system

Abstract

Knowledge of the origin of nitrogen on Earth is of particular importance to understanding the development of conditions favorable to the emergence of prebiotic molecules and the maintenance of life on rocky planets. However, the origin and timing of the accretion of nitrogen on Earth remains a subject of controversy. In this talk, I will present new data obtained by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) analyses of extraterrestrial melt inclusions. First, I will show that olivine-hosted melt inclusions in angrites and martian meteorites are key for constraining the source(s) and timing of nitrogen delivery to planetary bodies in the inner solar system. However, the effects of planetary formation processes (core formation, magma ocean crystallization and degassing) on the original elemental and isotopic composition of planetary mantles still need to be investigated.

Title : How well can we link meteorites to asteroids

Abstract

Asteroids are the remaining planetesimals that helped form the terrestrial and Jovian planets. Asteroids, which are the parent bodies of almost all meteorites, are almost entirely observed remotely using Earth- and space-based telescopes with only a few bodies studied up close by spacecraft missions. The chemical and isotopic compositions of meteorites can be determined with high precision in laboratories on Earth; however, remote observations of asteroids give geochemical information. In this seminar asteroid-meteorite relationship will be discussed.

Title : Boulder Fall Ejecta: Present Day Activity on Mars

Abstract

Boulder falls are an archives of recent surface activity on planetary bodies, especially on Mars. However, determining how recently they fell on Mars remains elusive. High-resolution images of Mars have revealed numerous boulder falls on the surface. Multitemporal MRO-HiRISE image analysis reveals that new tracks are characterized by a herringbone-like ejecta pattern at each boulder bounce that is termed as boulder fall ejecta (BFE). First systematic survey of BFE revealed a few thousands of tracks formed recently and they are spread globally. BFE longevity analysis reveals that these tracks likely formed in the last few decades. From numerous examples we also observed slope streaks originating from BFE tracks, providing comprehensive evidence favouring a dry origin theory. Our results revealed that on Mars it takes ∼2 to 4 Mars years (4–8 Earth years) for BFE to disappear, whereas on Earth BFE are rarely preserved. This recent study revealed that the Cerberus Fossae region adjacent to NASA's InSight lander landing site hosts nearly 30% of BFE, suggesting it is a currently active region on Mars. Thus, BFE can be used to recognize very recent surface processes on planetary surfaces.

Title : Nucleosynthetic heterogeneity in the early solar system: insights from Nd isotopes

Abstract

Isotopic variability from heterogeneous distribution of presolar dust in the solar protoplanetary disk is now well-established for a number of elements. Yet, significant uncertainty exists regarding the inventory of presolar dust populations that were initially present in the protosolar molecular cloud and their eventual aggregation into planets and planetesimals. In this talk, I will review what high precision Nd isotope measurements of meteorites and their components tell us about the diversity of nucleosynthetic components that contributed material to the nascent solar system and how they resulted in an apparent bifurcation of solar system materials into carbonaceous and non-carbonaceous suites.

Title : Precision Prediction of Higgs cross section and New Physics signals in B-decays

Abstract

In the first part of my talk, I will discuss precision predictions of Higgs production cross section via gluon fusion, with a veto imposed on additional jets using rapidity-dependent jet vetoes. These jet veto observables provide a tight veto at central rapidity, gradually transitioning to a loose veto at forward rapidities. I will present predictions for the Higgs+0-jet cross section using these rapidity-dependent jet vetoes at NNLL' + NNLO accuracy within the framework of Soft Collinear Effective Theory. In the second part, I will discuss the intriguing hints of lepton flavour universality violation that have accumulated in B-meson decays. In a recent re-analysis of 2018 Belle data, it was found that the lepton forward-backward asymmetry of B→ D* μν vs B→ D* eν decays is in tension with the SM prediction. I will present results of a global fit to b → c l ν data which show that a new physics scenario with scalar and tensor operators can significantly reduce this tension.