Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) is a private university located in&nbsp;Tamil Nadu, India. Founded in 1984, as Vellore Engineering College, the institution offers 20 undergraduate, 34 postgraduate, four integrated and four research programs. It has campuses in Vellore, Amravati, Bhopal and Chennai.

VIT is one of the top ranked private universities in India according to NIRF, THE and QS Rankings.&nbsp;Govt. of India has recognized&nbsp;VIT, Vellore as an&nbsp;Institution of Eminence. This has allowed VIT to take independent quality initiatives and move up in world ranking.

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VIT University

School of Architecture

The multi-storied masonry “Gopuram” or the ceremonial entrance gateway, an ubiquitous structure in a South Indian temple, was a feature introduced circa 14thÂ c. AD in order to confer architectural status to structurally insignificant ancient shrines. The gopurams of the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai (1600 AD), the Ranganathaswamy Temple in Srirangam (17thÂ c. AD) and the Ekambareswar Temple in Kancheepuram (16thÂ c. AD), 52Â m, 72Â m and 59Â m tall, respectively, are representative of the highly evolved Dravidian temple architecture. The current research is an attempt to understand the structural behaviour of the gopuram with a focus on a centuries-old incomplete structure in the town of Thiruvellarai in Tamil Nadu. The paper presents outcomes of detailed field and laboratory investigations on the sub-structure, the superstructure and structural materials of the gopuram, that provide insight into the structural configuration of the gopuram. It then examines the structural response to gravity and lateral forces, throughÂ non-linear finite element models of the structure. One of the significant aspects studied is the role of the core masonry in the structural response of the multi-leaf masonry structure of the gopuram. In addition the role of floor diaphragms in the structural stability of the gopuram is investigated. The outcome of the study is expected to provide important insights to the reasons for structural distress and collapse of such structures, particularly the Vijayagopuram at Srikalahasti in Andhra Pradesh in South India that collapsed in May 2010. © 2019, RILEM.

World University root node

Department of Architecture

Vellore Campus

RILEM Bookseries

Structural Behaviour of Gopurams in South Indian Temples

The Rashtrapati Bhavan, the official residence of the President of India, is a Grade-I heritage structure. The reinforced concrete cantilever sunshades in this building are at a height of about 20 m above ground and span about two-kilometer along the perimeter of the building. In the late 1990s, some sunshades experienced corrosion and were repaired using polymer modified cementitious mortar. However, these repaired sunshades and others are now exhibiting severe corrosion and concrete spalling- posing a serious falling hazard for visitors and inhabitants. This paper presents a systematic evaluation of the concrete used in the sunshades and the assessment of corrosion and structural conditions of the sunshades. Concrete was found to be made of non-hydraulic lime and carbonated - indicating high probability of corrosion. Hence, about 200 sunshade locations from various parts of the building were visually and non-destructively assessed and distress-maps were developed. For this, an instrumented hammer was used on 15 test points per sunshade panel area (of about 1 × 2Â m size). Based on the impulse waveform patterns, estimated strengths and visible damage, the panels were classified into distress levels of negligible, moderate and severe. About 58 to 86% of the sunshades were found to be severely damaged. Also, service level load test was conducted (upto a load of 75Â kN) at a representative location, to assess the effect of corrosion on the load-deflection behaviour of the cantilever. The possible repair strategy and challenges associated with adopting conventional methods, are discussed in the paper. © 2019, RILEM.

Restoration of Reinforced Lime Concrete Sunshades of aÂ CenturyÂ OldÂ Heritage Building in New Delhi, India

Many countries over last few decades have worked on complete street planning and designing. As per various researches and organizations, the complete streets are the streets that are context sensitive and designed to accommodate all types of users, considering safety, accessibility and mobility for all types of users. The type of user for every street may vary due to the function and context of the street. Streets are not only the linear linkages but should be treated as 3D spaces. To have a context sensitive street it is equally important that the built mass along the street should be evaluated and designed accordingly. The proposed evaluation methodology will be done at overall level to study the street context, overall quality of services, detailed study for street design elements and measuring urban design qualities for pedestrians through which the study will go one step ahead and evaluated the importance of integrated approach for complete street planning and design. For the evaluation of the streets the selection of study area was on the basis of its context and function. The urban landuses identified are residential, commercial, intuitional and open spaces, which contributes about 85% of the land reservation in master plan. This paper aimed to present the quantitative and qualitative framework evolved to evaluate the street planning and design through identified streets to assess the completeness of the existing streets in Gurgaon. The method of evaluation will help to check the completeness of streets in terms of context, quality of services, street design elements and urban design quality for pedestrians. Through street evaluation the shortfalls can be prioritized and streets can be improved accordingly to become the complete street. The method will help to check the completeness of streets in Gurgaon and other cities with some variations for better cities and better streets. © BEIESP.

International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology

Complete street planning and design: A framework to develop quantitative and qualitative evaluation method

Ophthalmic Surgery, Lasers and Imaging Retina

Quantitative Comparison Between Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography and Fundus Fluorescein Angiography Images: Effect of Vessel Enhancement

The city of Pondicherry located on the Eastern coast of India is adorned with rich cultural heritage from the pre-historic to the modern colonial era. The monuments built during the French colonial rule still exist and are in use. A considerable effort in the field of cultural heritage preservation has been undertaken by the Government of Pondicherry, ably supported by organizations such as INTACH. Programmes such as Asia -Urbs helped in preserving the architectural heritage of Pondicherry. The collapse of La Mairie de Pondicherry on 29 November 2014 brought forth issues related to previous conservation efforts. An overall understanding of the structural typology, material deterioration and distress is essential in understanding the reasons for the collapse of La Mairie de Pondicherry and is crucial to ensure the structural health of similar structural typologies in Pondicherry and for developing an appropriate structural conservation protocol for these buildings.

Tekton A Journal of Architecture, Planning and Urban Design

Wall Morphology in Historic Buildings in Pondicherry

VIT Unitversity

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

Review and comparative study of single-stage inverters for a PV system

The treatment of nerve injuries has taken a new dimension with the development of tissue engineering techniques. Prior to tissue engineering, suturing and surgery were the only options for effective treatment. With the advent of tissue engineering, it is now possible to design a scaffold that matches the exact biological and mechanical properties of the tissue. This has led to substantial reduction in the complications posed by surgeries and suturing to the patients. New synthetic and natural polymers are being applied to test their efficiency in generating an ideal scaffold. Along with these, cells and growth factors are also being incorporated to increase the efficiency of a scaffold. Efforts are being made to devise a scaffold that is biodegradable, biocompatible, conducting and immunologically inert. The ultimate goal is to exactly mimic the extracellular matrix in our body, and to elicit a combination of biochemical, topographical and electrical cues via various polymers, cells and growth factors, using which nerve regeneration can efficiently occur. © 2017 Elsevier B.V.

Materials Science and Engineering: C

Biomaterials and cells for neural tissue engineering: Current choices

Code Analyzer is a metrics analysis tool which is used to find Total files, Total Lines, Code Lines, comment lines. White Space Lines, Average Line length, Number of blank and comment lines, Code ratio, comment ratio etc. All the above-mentioned metrics are calculated for the whole project, for the functions and classes of the project separately. Code Analyzer is a Java application for C, C++, Java, assembly, HTML, and user-defined software source metrics. It calculates metrics across multiple source trees as one coherent code set. It allows the exclusion of portions of included tree by individual file or by a subtree. It has a nice tree view of the project with flexible report capabilities. It is built around the Java tree display component, JTree. © 2017 IEEE.

Department of Digital Communications

School of Information Technology and Engineering

2017 International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICEI)

Analysis of LOC attributes using code analyzer and correlation methods

Urbanisation as a phenomenon has existed since long. By 2050 almost 70 $\backslash${\%} of world's population will live in cities, hence a demand for more efficient urban systems. With many trends coming up on the urbanisation front, from `liveable cities' to `inclusive urban growth', the latest concern is of `smart cities'. As an umbrella concept, smart cities have three subparts: human intelligence, collective intelligence and artificial intelligence (ICT), of which the latter is taking up the major limelight. While assessing India's urban conditions, it can be gauged out that there are various prerequisites before embedding ICT into the system. This paper attempts to redefine the smart city concept in Indian perspective reviewed through the lens of human + collective intelligence. Varanasi which has been proposed as one of the smart cities to be developed would be taken as a case study. Varanasi, being synonymous to living continuity of traditions and deep culture, possesses a legacy of institutions for learning and innovation. However, rapid and haphazard urbanisation has disturbed the delicate balance between the city's various facets thereby making it a living laboratory for carrying out the `smart' urban experiments. The paper takes up a holistic approach for evolving the smart city criteria and intends to define it on the basis of prioritisation models. The approach used in this paper for the purpose of analytics is `interpretive structural modelling (ISM)'.

From Poverty, Inequality to Smart City

Redefining and Exploring the Smart City Concept in Indian Perspective: Case Study of Varanasi

The functionality of stem cells is tightly regulated by cues from the niche, comprising both intrinsic and extrinsic cell signals. Besides chemical and growth factors, biophysical signals are important components of extrinsic signals that dictate the stem cell properties. The materials used in the fabrication of scaffolds provide the chemical cues whereas the shape of the scaffolds provides the biophysical cues. The effect of the chemical composition of the scaffolds on stem cell fate is well researched. Biophysical signals such as nanotopography, mechanical forces, stiffness of the matrix, and roughness of the biomaterial influence the fate of stem cells. However, not much is known about their role in signaling crosstalk, stem cell maintenance, and directed differentiation. Among the various techniques for scaffold design, nanotechnology has special significance. The role of nanoscale topography in scaffold design for the regulation of stem cell behavior has gained importance in regenerative medicine. Nanotechnology allows manipulation of highly advanced surfaces/scaffolds for optimal regulation of cellular behavior. Techniques such as electrospinning, soft lithography, microfluidics, carbon nanotubes, and nanostructured hydrogel are described in this review, along with their potential usage in regenerative medicine. We have also provided a brief insight into the potential signaling crosstalk that is triggered by nanomaterials that dictate a specific outcome of stem cells. This concise review compiles recent developments in nanoscale architecture and its importance in directing stem cell differentiation for prospective therapeutic applications. © 2016 The Author(s).