SIMULATING COVID-19 TRANSMISSION ON THE PARAMSHAKTI SUPERCOMPUTER

How do airborne diseases spread?

What happens when two people in close proximity talk?

How exactly does the air exchange take place?

To answer all these questions and many more on the spread of the COVID-19 pathogen,  Prof. Sandeep Saha of Aerospace Engineering, his students at the institute, and collaborators in CNRS, France, Imperial College, London, UK, and Princeton University, USA  have performed a high-end simulation to study the transmission patterns of the COVID-19 pathogen by using the Paramshaakti Supercomputer.

The Simulation

The study, which has now been published in The Journal Of Fluid Mechanics, observed airflow and exchange between two unmasked individuals at proximity having a face-to-face conversation, through fog flow visualization experiments and direct numerical simulations of colliding respiratory jets mimicking a short conversation.  It assesses the risk of transferring a high dose of the pathogen from an infected person to a susceptible person. 

According to Prof. Saha, the simulation tries to understand the spread of the virus in a post-vaccination scenario. He also pointed out that this is a crude estimation and that it has the potential for deeper and more complex research in the future.

What did the simulation reveal?

The study revealed that the vertical offset between the mouths of the speakers to be an important parameter governing the propagation and evolution of the respiratory jets.  A ‘blocking effect’ is observed at low offsets, which temporarily protects the susceptible speaker from the pathogen-loaded saliva droplets in the jet from the infected speaker. At large offsets, the interaction between the jets are minimum. In certain intermediate offsets, the jet entrainment and inhaled breath, assist the pathogen-containing jets to propagate towards the susceptible speaker’s mouth. The interaction of the respiratory jets, therefore, permits air exchange in a very short time to varying degrees depending upon the effectiveness of the blocking effect and jet entrainment.

Fighting the pandemic

The simulation was crucial in knowledge building about the spread of the virus. The results can be potentially used as part of public health guidelines to create awareness of the risks posed by unmasked conversations in close proximity. It reinforces the need for wearing masks as an effective means to minimize the spread of pathogens and thereby bringing down the infection rate. 

The future of the study

Prof. Saha and his team intend to bring in more complexity in the simulation. They aim to analyze more complicated situations and bring the study closer to reality. The inclusion of viral load metrics would add dynamism to the study.  He wants to further increase the scope of the study by exploring collaboration opportunities with epidemiologists and virologists.

Watch the simulation here.

Content Writer:- Arkaprabha Pal, Office of Alumni Affairs & Branding

Email: pal18arkaprabha@gmail.com

 

The CEO of romance from IIT Kharagpur

It’s not every day that you come across a Metallurgical Engineer leading the world’s largest dating app conglomerate. 

Sharmistha (Shar) Dubey ( B. Tech/ Metallurgy/1993)  was raised in Jamshedpur. She graduated in 1993 along with classmate Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet. With grit and determination she overcame all the challenges of being one of the handful female students on campus and finished her studies. After completing her studies she went back to Jamshedpur and worked in a steel company for a short while. She pursued a Masters from Ohio State University, USA and worked in several companies before joining Match Group in 2006. In her first job at an aerospace company in Philadelphia, she was the first foreigner and first woman who was hired and faced many challenges. She outworked and won over her colleagues with her hard work.

In 2017, Ms. Dubey was appointed the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Tinder. She led the launch of Tinder Gold, which resulted in it being the highest-gross non-gaming app globally. The following year she was appointed President of Match Group, and in 2019, she was welcomed into the board of directors. 

After being promoted to CEO of Match Group at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Dubey, with her excellent business leadership acumen, led the corporation to new heights powered by video dating services. Millions of people, more than ever before in the history of online dating, were using Match Group apps like Tinder, Match.com, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, PlentyOfFish, Ship, and OurTime to find love in the times of COVID. Ms. Dubey became the CEO of romance. This success prompted Fortive Corporation to appoint her to its board of directors in August 2020. Ms. Shar Dubey also won the Tech Leader of the Year award at Vogue Women Of The Year 2021.

Content Writer:- Arkaprabha Pal, Office of Alumni Affairs & Branding

Email: pal18arkaprabha@gmail.com

Picture Credits: Shar Dubey

The Relics of Being & Becoming – ‘Us’

The present is just a synoptic one on the IIT Kharagpur IKS calendar of 2022 based on the scientific realization of

  1. Being and Becoming (ontology of the Vedas as recognized by 1977 Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine),
  2. Yogakshema-complementarities of ascent and descent of human mind to and from Divinity (realized by the Scientific principles developed by International Experts like Abraham Maslow and Arnold Toynbee),
  3. The idea of Cosmic Matrix or Vedic Matarisvan (Idea of MATRIX forwarded by top International Experts namely Joseph Campbell, Marija Gimbutas, Rene Guenon, Mircae Eliade and many more Scientist like James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis on ‘Gaia’s Hypothesis, which is an accepted paradigm in Top Ecosystem sciences);
  4. The parable of the Unicorn as the Eka-Sringa Rishi (based on 100 top international experts driven work encoded in THE PENGUIN DICTIONARY OF SYMBOLS 1969);
  5. The Seven Sages and the Seven (Septuplet) Matrikas (works done by renowned scholars like Alice Boner, Padmashree Bettina Baumer and Stella Kramerisch);
  6. The embedding of the mention of ‘Shiva Sakha’ in the Rig Veda refuting the Aryan-Dravidian racial dialectics and the tone of Scientific racism (the discarded works of Eugenics and Biostatistics propagated by Charles Darwin and his cousin Francis Dalton and successor Karl Pearson rejected at the Nuremberg Trial of 1945-46;
  7. And the 1995 work intertwined with Racial Imperialism with a Colonial Hangover (rejected by the ‘Padmashree’ and award-winning Book of French Archaeologist Dr. Michel Danino entitledThe Invasion that Never Was’! FY: https://www.amazon.com/Invasion-That-Never-Was/dp/8185137226

Welcome to the IIT KGP IKS Calendar 2022!

The theme of this year’s Calendar challenges the Indian heritage of genetic influx attributed by the Caucasus Eurasia. The Calendar entitled “Recovery of the Foundations of Indian Knowledge Systems”, comprises of twelve evidence that substantiates the Recognitions of the Secret of Vedas and the Reinterpretation of the Indus Valley Civilization. Apart from the most actively debated topic, “The Rebuttal of the Aryan Invasion Myth” which has created a sensation among the historical custodians of the western civilization, the pages of different months are dedicated to the finding of paleo lithic horse fossils in the Sanpo-Brahmaputra river valley, the principle of subtle causation of the life principle or reincarnation, the non-linear and cyclic notions of the eons of time and cosmic symmetry, are unique evolution within the Indian subcontinent by the highest levels of adaptation-acceptance-and-altruism of the Vedic ‘Arya’ Rishis as opposed to the Colonial idea of ‘Arya’ that is based on racial arrogance, apartheid and aggression. These properties, as evident as the ‘Secret of the Veda’ and as embedded in the Indus Valley seals puts the Indus Valley Civilization (7000 – 2000 BCE) either concurrent with the Vedic Age or succeeding the Vedic age. These properties or ‘constructs’ are unique of the Indian paradigm for thousands of years, but the West has just realized the cyclic and non-linear constructs of time, space and causation in last hundred years by virtue of quantum physical and latest thermodynamic, ecological and environmental life-cycle analyses.

Today, the outputs of temporal evidence from the archaeo-astronomical planetarium software earmark the astral descriptions of constellation during times of oblation as evident in the Vedas to dates as early as 9000 BCE. These outputs are based on a 26000 cyclic return of earth’s axis and the positional view of the sky dome of any view taken at time T. It is called the science of ‘The Precession of the Equinox’.

The 20 years of research findings established that the coinage of ‘Aryan’ was an epithet and sobriquet given to the human beings, the evolving Anthropic principle, with higher Chakras representing superior branch of humanity like the Rishis or Gurus demarcated in our Vedic Upanishads and did not involve any foreign invasion by colonial aggressors. This is the basis of YOGA and KSHEMA as it has been accepted by the United Nations / UNESCO (2015) as world’s most powerful and universal intangible heritage of inner contemplative and gnostic pursuit.

STRUCTURE & INTENT

Every page in the Calendar is backed up by 20 + years of research, papers and documentation. The last 2013-19 years of progress under the Science and Heritage initiative (SandHI) is just one of many that happened with the IIT system to garner the sayings in the Calendar, having larger support publications and books. In January 2022 it delineates ‘India’s sacred landscape’ that is avoided in the Aryan Invasion theory, i.e. considering the subcontinent from the east to the west. In February 2022, it gives a small evidence of many about India’s long standing tradition of ‘Cyclic notions of Time’, ‘Non-linear progressions’ and ‘The Doctrine of causation leading to reincarnation’ that is unknown to Western paradigms. Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine (1966) had explained this in his books, as one of the many. There are also strong dialogues between Scientist Nikola Tesla, Herman HelmHOLTZ and Lord Kelvin and Swami Vivekananda on this, way back in 1893. Then are the works and dialogues between Tagore and Einstein (1930, Berlin) and Tagore and Heisenberg (1929, Kolkata).

In March 2022, the principle of causation is explained in light of semantics and semiotics of Indus valley seals that shows parity with knowledge systems, the Vedas or the Srutis hold. Great scholars like Arnold Toynbee, Gregory Bateson and Alice Boner have explained this.

In April 2022, the principle of Non-linear Dynamism is further explained in light of the six seasons (Sada Ritu) which the Aryan Sages used as a parable of cyclic progress in the Vedas and later, a characteristic only evident in the Indian Ecosystem and climatic spread, and not in the backdrop of western civilization or any Aryan migration from there. Scholars like Joseph Needham, Al Gore and others have supported it as well. From May – August 2022, the special features of the Aryan Civilization are disclosed, which are not evident in any Aryan Invasion Theories. Over 6 research papers and proceedings are evident in the backdrop. Works of Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell and others have reinforced this; in fact the entire Penguin Dictionary of Symbols is a living testimony of the science behind these pages.

Finally, from September – December 2022, the pages over the horrors as outcome of the Aryan Invasion Myth, as a mishandling by the West are portrayed, and especially when Heinrich Himmler had send a team to check Northern India and Tibet (1938) to trace the origin of Super Aryan race. Though the Calendar is the tip of the iceberg, it has shaken the roots of the myopic and subservient foundations of conservative pool of scholars, experts and scientist. Hence, it finally re-establishes the whole foundation of IKS on its proper roots.

The book titled ‘Complete Story of Civilization’ by Will Durant represents the Oriental Heritage of India, showing the progression of culture is from East to West & then a return to Asia is actually an extension of the Oriental Civilization, which is much older and original, with the primacy of the Indian Civilization. As Swami Vivekananda has said in the Parliament of World Religions (1893, Chicago) – May He who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heaven of the Christians, give strength to you to carry out your noble idea! The star arose in the East; it travelled steadily towards the West, sometimes dimmed and sometimes effulgent, till it made a circuit of the world; and now it is again rising on the very horizon of the East, the borders of the Sanpo (Brahmaputra river) a thousand fold more effulgent than it ever was before”.

Prof. Joy Sen, Chairman, Centre of Excellence for Indian Knowledge System (CoE-IKS) remarked – “Even though our nation has gained its independence 70 years back, unfortunately a large portion of the mind-set is driven by migration theories supporting the one-track arrow, the racial supremacy behind the migration evidences, and the support of genetic evidences that is forged to reinforce the arrow further. Therefore, migration-race-genetic triplet has continued to under-surface and galvanize the older Aryan Invasion theory or Myth, which has caused so much of damage to national mind-set and the solidarity of Indian culture and heritage, which is a few thousand years older to that of the West.”

IIT Kharagpur congratulates Prof. Joy Sen, Chairman, Centre of Excellence for Indian Knowledge System (CoE-IKS) and his entire team for bearing the torch of enlightenment discarding the idea of Indo-Aryan diaspora. The emergence of a fresh tide of more holistic and interdisciplinary scholarship and the paradigm expansion of human thought based on the Indian ethos have just been re-initiated.

Content Writer:- Poulami Mondal, Digital & Creative Media Executive (Creative Writer) under the guidance of Prof. Joy Sen, Chairperson, Centre of Excellence-Indian Knowledge System (CoE-IKS)

Email: poulami.mondal@iitkgp.ac.in, media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282007

In the Name of the Flower

Just like the flower she is named after, willowy and graceful, Nwe ni Kyaw walks in for her appointment with me on a bright November morning. I had requested a meeting with her to acquaint myself with this student from Myanmar who had just joined IIT Kharagpur as a doctoral research scholar in, ‘Image Processing and Machine Learning’ at the Dept. of Computer Science and Engg. So we get to chatting. Little had I known that the brief conversation would leave me in considerable appreciation of the spirit that was burning bright within a delicate exterior.

Born in 1988 in Shwebo, Myanmar in a Buddhist family of five, to a goldsmith father and a mother who traded in rice, Nwe Ni loved listening to music and playing badminton. She was enjoying a normal childhood when by a slight of fate, both her father as well as a younger sister were tragically taken away by death in rapid succession of one another. Her mother became the rock she never thought she had.

After passing the Matriculation Exam with a major in Chemistry, Nwe Ni shifted focus to studying Computers. Yet, the decision was not an easy one, for Shwebo did not have an institution specializing in computer studies. The choice was difficult. On one hand her mother needed her support to run the rice business but on the other hand, she felt her calling to be elsewhere; and that calling would essentially take her away from home and travel to unknown destinations. She decided to travel to the Monywa Computer University and study computers. After her Undergraduate and Graduate degrees from Monywa, she took to her filial piety and returned home to help her mother in the rice business. Two years passed.

In 2013, Nwe Ni passed the entrance exam for the position of a university teacher- a government job and was appointed a Tutor at the University of Computer Studies, Kengtung-East Shan State of Myanmar. Kengtung is a very cold mountain town inhabited by Shan people and Nwe Ni took a plane there. At Kengtung, she taught courses in Operation Research, System Analysis and Design and Database Management System to undergraduate students. Three years later she transferred to the Myanmar Institute of Information Technology (MIIT) in 2016.

While at MIIT, Nwe Ni’s life was again rudely shaken up by the demise of her mother, who had up until then supported her in her every life-decision. Recalling the event clearly wasn’t easy for Nwe Ni as tears streamed down her eyes as she still struggled to come to terms with this most intimate loss in her life. All the family she was left with now, was her elder brother Kyaw Kyaw Naing.

Nwe Ni’s first tryst with India came in 2018 when she attended the Faculty Development Program at International Institute of Information Technology- Bangalore, for a duration of 5 months. During this training, she studied Machine Learning, Database Management System, System Programming and Software Engineering. It was an educational as well as a cultural immersive experience to visit Bodh Gaya, the monuments in Agra and soak in the history and culture of Delhi. This experience opened up new avenues for Nwe Ni and soon after her return to Myanmar, she applied for the 1000 Fellowship Ph.D. for ASEAN students at IITs. She had applied to 3 other IITS but decided to choose IIT Kharagpur as soon as she received the offer letter. She wanted to return to India immediately but due to the shut-down in Myanmar Nwe Ni had no other alternative but to remain in her country and register as an international online student. Her status as an online student continued for a year until she took flight in October 2021 and reached IIT Kharagpur to start a fresh lease of life away from disruptive conditions back home.

Nwe Ni dotes on the education system in India and is acclimatizing to her hostel life at Sister Nivedita Hall of residence but reminisce of her home and country. She is slowly making friends with her hostel mates who is helping her acclimatize to life at IITKGP. She is unfailing in her expression of gratitude towards her mentor at CSE, Prof. Pabitra Mitra and to IITKGP for giving her a new beginning, where she is free to express her physical liberties as well as her aspirations for herself. “Ï hope to be able to pursue my career in academics and I want to be able to teach in India, Thailand, Singapore or any other ASEAN Countries”, she states.

I had almost lost track of time listening to Nwe Ni’s ‘story’ of herself. She needed to return to the General Software Lab and I had to resume my day’s work. So, I thanked her effusively for speaking to me and sharing with me a glimpse of her life thus far. I could say that recapitulating her journey was an emotional affair for herself, as she flashed a beaming smile at me along with the remnant tear-pearls in her eyes. It was a sight to behold. The sacred within the mundane, the assurance within the trepidation, the agony within the ecstasy of an apparently simple life led and a relentless, singular quest to immerse and emerge.

~Koushiki Mukherjee, Office of International Relations.

Forbes 30 Under 30 – Alumnus Prof. Srijan Kumar

IIT Kharagpur alumnus, Prof. Srijan Kumar has been included in Forbes 30 under 30 in Science,
Class of 2022!

Prof. Kumar is an Assistant Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a specialist in
AI, ML, and Data Science. In his attempt to make the internet a safer place he is involved in
developing Data Science and Machine Learning solutions to combat fraudsters, trolls, and other
malicious entities. His research has influenced Twitter’s Birdwatch platform. It is also
implemented by Flipkart.

An alumnus of the 2013 batch from the Computer Science and Engineering Department of the
Institute, Prof. Kumar went on to pursue his Masters and a Ph.D. from the University of
Maryland, College Park.

He said that he is ever grateful to the teachers at the Computer Science Department. He specially
conveyed his gratitude to his mentor Prof. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti. He also thanked Prof. Niloy
Ganguly and Prof. Animesh Mukherjee for introducing him to Machine Learning and Data
Science.

Content Writer:- Arkaprabha Pal, Office of Alumni Affairs & Branding

Email: pal18arkaprabha@gmail.com