Information Pasteboard
Weekly reports of meetings at NAL, snippets of R&D activity, conference announcements and other features of popular interest
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Information Pasteboard |
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News and Events #IP 866, 27 Apr - 3 May 2009
On return to India in 1977, he worked as a Scientific Officer at Cryogenic Facility, IISc., Bangalore and was responsible for the setting up of state-of-the-art experimental facilities for materials property evaluation at liquid helium temperatures. From 1979 to 1981 he was a scientist at RRL, Trivandrum. There, he established experimental facilities for characterization and Non-destructive Evaluation (NDE) of novel composite materials. In 1982 he joined Composite Structures Laboratory of Structures Division, NAL which later became Advanced Composites Division (ACD). His major emphasis at that time was towards understanding of NDE of composite materials and structures. During the initial phase, studies were conducted on the use of Acoustic Emission (AE) techniques for studying the failure modes in composites. Ultrasonic NDE techniques were also established for the inspection of composite structures. However, these studies were restricted to coupon level. Further to this, the group took a major initiative in hardware development programmes related to primary aircraft composite components. To support this programme, he focused on setting up of the state-of-the-art Non-Destructive Evaluation facilities for composites to qualify LCA and SARAS parts. He also put forth an imaginative QA set-up taking advantage of the NDE successes and got this accredited to regulatory bodies. These efforts conferred on ACD the ability to develop certified airworthy composite structures. This brought ACD into the forefront of technology development with regard to NDE and the NDE group was considered as a “solution finder” for any of the NDE issues related to composites. He assumed the responsibility as the Head of the Division in January 2008. Dr. Madhava was an extremely pleasing and affable person with a good sense of humour. He had a natural flair for rendering complex technical details in simple language with consummate ease. His command over the english language was exceptional and this had a positive bearing on the day to day proceedings of the Division. He was the Management Representative for ISO accreditation for the Laboratory. He performed this task exceptionally well. Also, he served as DSC Member Secretary of Structures Division. He has about 95 publications for his credit. In his long tenure as the Chairman of the stores and purchase committee, he efficiently solved many issues with his cool and calm nature. His colleagues and close associates will remember him for his wit and sharp intellect. Director and staff of NAL wish him and his family a healthy, peaceful and prosperous future.. H.N.Sudheendra, G.N.Dayananda & H.V.Ramachandra, ACD Write-up on SNDE-09 Conducted on 27-04-2009 at ACD Seminar Hall Ph-II As part of Golden Jubilee year of National Aerospace Laboratories, Advanced Composites Division (ACD) of NAL organized a one day seminar on Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) : Advances in NDE for Composites (SNDE-09) on 27th April 2009. The seminar was inaugurated by Mr B.N. Misra, Executive Director (LCA & ASC), HAL, Bangalore Complex and was presided by Dr. A. R. Upadhya, Director NAL. In his inaugural address, Mr Misra, appreciated NAL for its contribution to LCA programme. Dr.A.R.Upadhya in his presidential address, assured HAL that NAL with the help of TAML, Bangalore will be able to support HAL in delivering LCA parts required for the future programmes. Dr. M.R. Madhava, Head ACD, who is superannuating on 30 April 2009, delivered the plenary talk on NDE of Composites. In his talk, he brought out clearly the important role played by NDE in qualifying LCA and SARAS components. After inaugural programme, two technical sessions were conducted, the first session was chaired by Mr M.Subba Rao, TAML, Bangalore and the second session was chaired by Dr.B.R.Somashekar, NALTECH, NAL, Bangalore. Six invited talks on current NDE techniques, such as, i) Acoustic wave based methods of SHM for composite structures ii)Emerging trends in NDE of composites iii) Guided ultrasonic wave techniques iv) Optical NDE methods v) Advanced NDE methods for spacecraft structural components vi) NADCAP road map – were delivered by the following eminent personalities: Prof.C.R.L. Murthy, Dept. of Aerospace Engg. IISc., Bangalore, Dr.J.Lahiri, ASL, Hyderabad, Prof. Krishnan Balasubramaniam, IIT-Madras, Chennai, Dr.Annamalai Pillai, VSSC, Trivandrum, Sri M.Venkateswara Rao, ISAC, Bangalore, Sri K.Chandran, CMD, HAL The interactive session "Way Forward" was chaired by Prof.C.R.L. Murthy, Dept. of Aerospace Engg. IISc., Bangalore. Around 50 NDE practitioners from NAL, HAL, IISc., ASL, ISAC, TAML, ADE, ADA participated in the seminar and also actively participated in the interactive sessions . This seminar provided forum for the participants to get exposed to advanced NDE techniques for composite applications. Also, it is hoped that the interactive session would lead to enhancing the capabilities of existing NDE set-up in reducing cost and time of inspection. #IP 865, 20-26 Apr 2009 The 39th anniversary of the Earth day (22nd April 2009) for logistic convenience jointly organized by NAL (CSIR) and C-MMACS, Bangalore, was a magnificent event with the sun shining brightly as the children from KV, NAL, nearby central schools and children of NAL and C-MMACS staff, started arriving at the registration desk at the Valluri auditorium, NAL as early as 8.30 am. The atmosphere was really green with about 300 school children adorning the green caps and having their welcome drink, while being introduced to NAL, watching the SARAS flight video and the excellent video of C-MMACS. They were given a small lesson at the outset by requesting them not to litter the empty tetra packs and put them into the dustbin. Dr. Goswami of C-MMACS welcomed the children and announced the topics to the three different categories for the painting competition held at the NAL canteen. Category 1 – 122 children ( Class V and below ) had to paint the “environment”, About 129 children constituted Category 2- ‘global warming”, a difficult task indeed as many children had difficulty in converting their theoretical knowledge into pictures. Category 3 – the most confident lot of nine , caricatured the “violent earth” beautifully, as usual making the job difficult for the judges. After the colourful 2-3 hrs of painting, the children were served lunch in batches and many volunteers were seen helping the children to eat. The children were then ferried to the auditorium for the afternoon session. The afternoon session had three excellent talks from Dr.E.V.S.Prakasa Rao, Scientist –in- charge, CIMAP, Regional centre, B’lore, Dr. Vinod Gaur, C-MMACS, B’lore and Dr.K.S. Rajam, Head, SED, NAL, Bangalore. Dr.Rao’s talk enthralled the children with the humorous cartoons loaded with message about the environment, degradation time for various materials, striking the right chord in the children’s mind about saving our earth from pollution. He began his talk with an introduction about the meaning of Earth Day and the need to celebrate it. Earth Day 2009, April 22. Definition of ‘Biovillage’ indicates concern for all living organisms in the village including human beings as well as natural resources such as soil, land, water and biodiversity. Dr.Gaur truly took the children on top of the world with his excellent opening slides of the universe in his talk entitled “The blue planet”. Dr. Gaur elaborated the effect of global warming and how we can prevent it. Dr. Rajam’s talk on solar energy was a hot topic as it was oozing with the advantages of using the solar energy. It enticed the children to save energy as “A watt saved is a watt generated’ with a little technical aspects thrown in for the brighter ones. The application of the NALSUN technology developed at NAL was also highlighted. Director Dr. A.R.Upadhya addressed the audience and spoke about how the responsibility of future clean environment rested on the children’s shoulders. He urged them to become leaders to protect the environment and educate their parents to keep the environment clean especially the staff quarters. Dr.Upadhya mentioned that each one of us must not be mere spectators but contribute our mite to a clean environment. The best of the best paintings were selected after a lot of pondering by the judges Mrs. Ravikala Nayak,, Mr.A.Sreedhar Murthy and Mr.Nagappa Badiger for C-MMAC and for NAL - Mrs Pushpa Dravid , Mr.Srinivas Achari and Mr. Krishnadeva Adiga from College of fine arts, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat.,Bangalore. Dr.M.N.Satyanarayana announced the prizes. Six prizes were given in each category, 3 from NAL and 3 from C-MMACS. The happiness of the children knew no bounds, when Dr.Upadhya generously announced additional 9 consolation prizes from NAL, 5 for category.1 and 4 for category 2 on the spot. The programme ended with vote of thanks by Mrs. Gomathy Sankaran, Group Head ,HRD. Dr Amitha Rani B E
#IP 864, 6 - 12 Apr 2009 Conference on “Scholarly Communication in India in the Age of Commons (Open Access) Open Access to the scientific literature means the removal of all barriers including copyright restrictions of publishers for providing free access to research output to wider population accessing scholarly work. In today's knowledge based Society the advent of Internet and widespread and easy access to scientific Information are facilitating research and innovation. Open Access is not only changing the nature of scholarly communication but even the way research is carried out. Indeed open access is becoming the bedrock on which the emerging global research is being built. OA has now reached the common mass to make research more visible, open and productive. The Information Center at NAL hosted an one day conference on “Scholarly communication in India in the Age of the Commons (Open Access)” in collaboration with Indian Academy of Sciences (IASc) and Center for Internet and Society (CIS) on 26th March 2009 at NAL to address the issues and problems facing this movement especially in the Indian context and find suitable solutions and steps to be taken at various levels. The response was overwhelming with more than 250 delegates from academic/research community, librarians ,IT professionals from corporate sector and publishing industry participated in this conference. The program commenced with a welcome address by Dr. I R N Goudar, Head of Information Center at NAL . After giving a brief background about the event he introduced the chief guest of the Inaugural function, Prof. N Mukunda, Vice President, IASc. Prof. Subbaiah Arunachalam, the main person for initiating this conference, briefed the audience about the theme and the program details. In his presidential remarks, Dr. A R Upadhya, Director NAL stressed on the point that “information should be made available to anyone, anywhere and at anytime”. The open access is transforming scholarly communication and has brought new opportunities and the challenges for scholars, researchers, publishers and the funding agencies He opined that it has been an established fact that the open access apart from increasing citations to publications, increases the visibility, enhances the institution’s prestige ,usage and the impact of researcher’s own findings. In this regard, he made a mention about the Institutional Repository, the second biggest in the country already set up at NAL few years back with nearly 3000 scholarly publications by its scientists. While appreciating NISCAIR’s effort, one of sister laboratories for making its publications OA, he called upon the other CSIR labs to follow suit . His advice to the professionals was ‘must chalk out a road map, action plan and move on”. The next item was the inauguration of the Digital Repository of Conferences/Seminars etc set up at ICAST. Dr. Poornima Narayana made a brief presentation about the repository’s salient features, its contents and the status. The repository covers all events held in the conferences/seminars/symposia, workshop, meetings, lectures, etc. hosted/organized by NAL. As on date ten events covering about 400 items have been archived enabled with search facility. She requested the chief guest Prof. N Mukunda to inaugurate the repository by clicking a mouse resulting in show-off important screen shots of the repository run through a Flash program which was applauded by the audience. The keynote address on “Journals, Open Access, Copyright and Repositories: Some viewpoints from an Academy” was delivered by Prof. N Mukunda. He gave a brief background about IASc’s efforts in making their inhouse publication “Pramana’, the first journal to become Open way back in 1998 and at present all the ten journals have been made Open on the Internet. He also mentioned that the Academy had signed the Berlin Agreement . He cited the examples of the renowned scientists’ Charles Darwin (whose draft proposal on origin of Species was kept for nearly 2 decades). He raised certain issues regarding the current journal crisis, like ‘Who pays the cost of research publication’ (Einstein Dilemma) and solutions to overcome these issues. He emphasized on the number of research publication and the difficulties to get the full text articles which are under the clutches of copyrights. Stressing the need for setting up of more Institutional Repositories as means of a prominent OA channel, he lauded the OA Movement and especially its advent in India, thanks to professionals like Prof Arunachalam (who was fondly referred to as “Mr. OA”). He further stated that the Academy intends to reach its estimate of >70,000 publications right from the Academy’s inception from 1934 till date. He concluded his speech saying ”Authors have more right than publishers”. After the tea break, Prof John Willinsky from Stanford University spoke on ‘Global and Local Support for Making Research and Scholarship Publicly Available’. He spoke on the implications of openness and research publication of openness. He expressed his pleasure being in India and Indian scientist’s promoting attitude towards OA. Quoting the example of Agropedia ,the open access online resource, emphasizing the fact that open access is part of the history of science and now it is a basic human right. He also spoke about the advantages of using PKP's Open Journals System for publishing journals. Dr D K Sahu, the next speaker from Medknow Publications spoke on ‘ Economics and Citation Impact of Open Access Journal Publishing in India: An Experience of Eight Years and Eighty Journals’ and provided ample data to show how open access for journals is a win-win all the way. He listed seven myths about open access and brought out the advantages of going open access admirably. Prof. Leslie Chan of University of Toronto was the third speaker of the conference on the topic ‘From Institutional Repositories to a Global Knowledge Commons’. He pointed out how OA enables peer to peer sharing networked information economy and highlighted the user driven innovations, dissemination of information through philanthropy. He cited the major advantages of adopting OA with examples and also a few harvesting archives in the world. Mr Sunil Abraham of CIS spoke on ‘Academic and Scholarly Communications in India: Copyrights Law Patent Law and PUPFIP’ covering issues on copyright, the rights of authors, and the tremendous weaknesses of a bill before the Indian Parliament. He explained the implications of Protection and Utilization of Public Funded Intellectual Property Bill (PUPFIP) which covers all research done in pursuance to government grants. The highlight of the conference was the panel discussion on ‘Scholarly Communication and Openness: Emerging Trends’ effectively moderated by Prof. P. Balaram, Director IIScThe panelists were Prof. Wiilinsky, Prof. Chan, Dr. Upadhya, Mr. N. V.Satyanarayana, CMD, Informatics and Prof. Subbaiah Arunachalam. While Prof Balarama opined that for authors, contribution in reputed and high impact journals is the main concern without getting into any legal problems like copyright, Mr. Satyanarayana spoke about the publishers’ attitude. Prof. Willinsky stressed the importance of IRs as the major OA channel and should be set up in every institution. Dr. Upadhya viewed that success of OA movement will depend on government policies and OA gives freedom for users than publishers and authors. He also opined that IRs are first hand information for providing scholarly communication. Prof Chan came out with various issues for policy makers in making publication OA. Prof. Arunachalam said that, National Knowledge Commission has to take initiatives to popularize OA implementation in the country. The conference ended with vote of thanks proposed by Dr. M N Satyanarayana, convener GJC, NAL. Dr. (Mrs) Poornima Narayana Recent issues of NAL Information Pasteboard Prev To
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Dr.M.R.Madhava, Head, Advanced Composites Division of National Aerospace Laboratories, retired on superannuation on 30 April 2009. Dr.Madhava obtained his B.E. (Electrical) Degree from Bangalore University in 1970, M.Tech. from IISc. in 1972 and Ph.D. from Bath University, UK in 1977. 
