-
8/14/2019 2008 Oct 22
1/7
Is not holding Illumination justified?Heres what you have to say.
t the time of writingAt h i s a r t i c l e , t h espectacle that was Illuminationhas been expunged from theaverage KGPian's calendar.Considering the scale, tempoand fervor that accompanied thecompetition in its glory years,t h e f a d i n g o u t o f t h i scompetition seems almost anticlimactic. As is probably
justified with an event of thismagnitude being consigned tothe pages of history, there have
b e e n m i x e dr e a c t i o n s a n dstrong opinionsfrom all quarters.Throughout itsl i f e t i m e ,Illumination has
been an epitomeo f t e a m w o r k ,testament to whata g r o u p o fstudents workingnights on end canachieve. To have itripped away fromt h e c a m p u s ,w h a t e v e r t h ereasons, leaves a
bad taste. Perhapswe should take this opportunityto look back and reflect on theevents that led us to this
juncture. The sequence of eventsis vague, and if we dig deep andanalyze, it seems hard todetermine where and whyexactly it all began. Irrespectiveof that, the question we need to
ask ourselves at this point is"Why now?" Why are the shoutsagainst Illumination louder andmore cohesive than ever?
It is because we finally haverealized that unless we stand upand shout, no one will hear us.The mindset on campus is notagainst Illumination as much asit is a protest against the curbson our freedom. Something thatwe students took for granted has
THESCHOLARSAVENUEIIT KHARAGPUROCTOBER 22 2008
been taken away from us, andwe don't like it.
Trust and transparency inthe student-administrationrelationship was something weall wished for. The open sessionwith the Dean was a first step.We need many more, if there isto be any hope of rescuingourselves from the state we are
in. Leaky toilets, over stuffedhalls of residence, non existentmedical facilities, an archaic
bureaucracy, localgundasbarging into halls; all these arerealities that we, as students ofth e premier sc ien ce an dtechnology institution in thecountry, have to contend with.Coupled with an administrationthat, so far, was seemingly
blissfully unaware of the part ithad to play in creating and
maintaining relationships withstudents, we seemingly hadreached the nadir. Post the opensession, do we see light at theend of the tunnel? Given pastexperience, it would be all tooeasy to put all that was said atthe meeting aside as emptyp r o m i s e s , b u t w e h o p eotherwise, both for the students'sake and the institute's. Wed e s e r v e a r e a c t i v e
1
Fading AwayFrom the Editorial Board
administration, one that is moresensitive to the needs of thestudents, and one that realizesthat the actions of a minority donot dictate the mentality of themajority. If the campus has tochange, then we want it tochange for the better. We needaction, and we need it now.
Could all this have been
avoided? Seemingly a rhetoricalquestion, but the student unrestthat we see now, the discontent
at all the thingswhich are not righton campus, was
bound to surfacesome time or theother. There's onlyso many frogs ins a m b h a r a n dsnakes in hostelsthat some of us canstomach, and onlyso many wrongprescriptions thatwe are willing torisk our lives over.The 11 pm rule andevents following it,combined with as e n s e t h a t t h e
students were being kept out ofthe loop, was the flash that wasneeded.
Make no mistake; this is aturning point in our Institute'schequered history. We are in aperiod of transition. Or so weare told. Change is afoot oncampus. We are told to bear withit, and watch as 50 years oftradition and spirit crumblesaround us. Are these ruins ofour own making? As is commonwith occurrences of thism a g n i t u d e , n e i t h e r t h eadministration nor the studentscan claim to be without fault.Whatever be the outcome, onething is for sure. These are nolonger the best days of our lives.
LehmanDown,
down andout!
-Page4
Formula SAEin KGP!
Exclusive
Satyajit Sahu
Not everything in life can be measured in terms of
wastage of resources. Illu is an integral part of a
KGPian's life, even decades after he has left the
hall corridors. It's beyond measurement.
Tushar Kumar
There are more pressing issues at hand that require
money and man-hours than Illu. Resources should
be guided into those, which include, among others,
poor living conditions and unhygienic food.
Delip Andra (Class of 1994)
Illu has a special place in every KGPians heart and something that brings the residents of a hall together to compete with the rest of the halls, fosters interaction, creativity,
social skill and competitive nature which is what KGPians are all about. I would be disheartened if ILLU is being discontinued.
Have your say @
iitkgp.minekey.com
ormula SAE is one of theFworld's most popularand challenging engineeringstudent design competitions.FSAE requires a team ofundergraduate students to
build a prototypical Formula-style race car from ground up ina year long process that
culminates in the FSAE eventsheld round the year. While IITMhas plans to compete in FSAEAustralasia later this year, IITDand IITB have participated theUS version of the same inMichigan. Delhi College ofE n g i n e e r i n g ( D C E ) h a sparticipated in the UK version.The race car is evaluated on itsperformance in the design,manufacturing cost, endurance,fuel economy and autocrossracing events, with awards foreach category.
Now, a group of enthusiastic3rd year students of theM e c h a n i c a l E n g i n e e r i n gDepartment are planning to putKGP on the racetrack as well. Ateam is being formed keepingFSAE 2009 in mind. Apart fromdesigning the car for the event,the team also plans to conductr e g u l a r w o r k s h o p s . T h eDirector , Prof . DamodarA c h a r y a h a s p r o m i s e dassistance from the institute.Interested students, especiallythe 1st and 2nd years, areadvised to keep an eye fornotices regarding team memberselections. Details of the eventc a n b e f o u n d a thttp://students.sae.org/competitions/formulaseries/
-
8/14/2019 2008 Oct 22
2/7
2 THE SCHOLARS AVENUE WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22 ND 2008N E W S A V E N U E
The Alumni Cell: Where Students ReachOut To Ex-students
magine yourself, ten years
Ii n t o t h e f u t u r e , a n
illustrious alumnus of theInstitute. If campus news wereto reach you, wouldn't yourather it was from yourperspective - the perspective of astudent?
A student group workingwith the Office of Dean, AlumniAffairs to bring the Alumnicloser to the Institute was on thecards for quite some time now.Under the guidance of Prof.Amit Patra, and with the help ofa few fifth year students theconcept, objective and goals of
the team were laid out. Theinvolvement of students inorganization of the Convocationand Alumni Meet in the past,along with the success of thestudents' placement committeegave support to the idea thatstudents can be entrusted withthe responsibility to representthe Institute.
At present the cell consists ofundergraduate students fromfifth to second year, whichincludes the VP, Gymkhana. Themembers are divided into three
specific teams, namely theLiterary Team for regular
commun ica t ion w ith th eAlumni, the Networking Teamto work on improving theAlumni Database and to keepthem updated about newInstitute Initiatives and theAction Team which shall helpconceptualize and organize theA l u m n i M e e t a n d t h eConvocation ceremony.
The Cell aims to keep theAlumni informed of all studenti n i t i a t i v e s , I n s t i t u t eannouncements, and also plansto provide an insight into
s t u d e n t p o t e n t i a l a n dachievements. This being thefirst year, the team has the extraresponsibility of chalking out aplan to facilitate a procedurewhich can absorb ideas forfurther improvement in future.
The team's work is currentlyfocused on the website, which isexpected to be up and runningin a week's time. Most of thework for the final website has
been handled by the students,including the structure, design,features and coding. Coming up
Revolting Labour Boycott
he Rani Laxmi Bai hallTof residence, in itstoddler years, witnessed its firstmajor controversy on the 29th ofSeptember with a protest staged
by the CITU and the AICTU, therespective trade union wings ofthe CPI and CPM. The bone ofcontention was apparently theexploitation of mess workersemployed in the private messes.
In our previous issue (The Caseof the Dead Frog, Sept. 21, 2008),we spoke of the HMC's decisiont o h a n d o v e r m e s sresponsibilities to private
contractors and we had givens u f f i c i e n t i n d i c a t i o n o fdissatisfaction brewing withinthe labour class and directedagainst the privatization.
We caught up with one of theagitators, who also happened to
be a retired General Secretary ofthe worker's union of IITKharagpur. The outsourcing
had a certain preconditionattached to it. As per the WestBengal Labour Commission'srequirements, no worker issupposed to work beyond an 8-hour shift and the wages per dayare fixed at Rs. 114. Simple termsa n d c o n d i t i o n s - n ocomplications! Allegedly themess contractor collected thesignatures of the mess workerson a blank sheet and then, witht h e a g r e e m e n t t h a t t h epreconditions were adequatelymet, he handed it over to theauthorities. The workers were
supposedly paid much less thanthe prescribed rate and weresubjected to strenuously highwork hours. Those who refusedto sign up were denied their duesalaries by the mess contractor.
Just prior to the Durga Pujav a c a t i o n , t h e w o r k e r s
he 44th Inter-IIT SportsTMeet took off with Aquaticsand Water Polo events from the
6th to the 9th of October. IITMadras was vested with theresponsibility of organizing themeet out of turn to coincide withits Golden Jubilee Celebrations.The first stage of the eventhowever concluded on a sorenote for the KGP contingent asthey swallowed the visiblydismal results compared to asplendid performance in thepreceding year. Chirag Fialokewas restricted to 5 individualevents (in which he scored awhopping 3 golds and 2 silvers)
due to the imposition of a newrule, which proved to be a banefor Kharagpur. The 9-1 and 10-2drubbing at the hands of IITK a n p u r a n d B o m b a yrespectively in the Water-Poloevent revealed the sordid tale ofan inexperienced contingentand highlighted necessity of
better coaches and trainingstandards.
with a networking website withthe necessary features and
f u n c t i o n a l i t i e s , w i t h n oreference to fall back on, is ahuge challenge. However, helpand support from the Dean'sside has led the team to achievegood progress.
The Cell endeavours tocreate a strong rapport with thealumni, so that both the Alumniand the Institute may reapnumerous benefits of workingt o g e t h e r . A m o n g m a n ypossibilities, the Cell may infuture work towards securinginternships for students. A large
section of the Institute's alumnibeing entrepreneurs, the Cell, ifsuccessful, may grow tosupplement the Training andPlacement section, thoughnever supplant it in matter ofinternships. However, this is notamong the primary aimsconcerning the Cell at present.
As we look forward to theupcoming website and otheractivities here's wishing TheAlumni Cell all success in itsattempt to bridge the gap
between (ex)IITians and theirInstitute.
Inter IITAquatics
Executive Editors?Inam, Robin Anil, Sheekha Verma, SreejaNag, Suvrat Bafna
Editors?Anup Bishnoi, Deepak Cherian,JS Deepthi, Mithun Madhusudan, Pranesh
Chaudhary, Srinath Sinha, Vinayak PathakAsst. Editors ?AVN Murthy, Bharat Bhat,Dheeraj Golla, Mayank Kedia, Pallavi Jayannavar, Siddharth Prabhu, SiddharthSingh, Suyash Bire
Reporters? Abhirajika A, Amiya A d w i t i y a , A r v i n d S o w m y a n ,Chidambaram A, Ratan J S, Tiyasa Mitra,Vijay, Sumeet Mohanty
Anuj Dayal, Arish
TEAM SCHOLSAVE
Send letters to the editor at:[email protected]
Web hosting provided by:
ONLINE NEWS
To read these articles online and to giveyour feedback on them, please visito u r w e b s i t e a twww.scholarsavenue.org. The websiteprovides the latest campus newsthrough our coverage of events as theyhappen.
assembled before the messmanager's office demandingtheir three months' pay,supplemented by a bonus forthe festive season. A bluntrefusal to meet their demandssparked off this demonstration.
The situation got violentwhen one female mess worker,who dropped her stand of
solidarity with the otherprotestors, was beaten up by hera g i t a t e d c o l l e a g u e s a n dsubsequently hospitalized. Thepolice immediately entered intothe scene to prevent furthermishaps. Their attempts at ap e a c e f u l s e t t l e m e n t b yarranging for a meeting
between the two parties werehowever let down by the messcontractor who did not turn up.
An ad-hoc arrangementwith Gokhale mess attended tothe food requirements of the
residents of RLB hall during theworker's strike which lasteduntil the Puja vacations.Apparently, the aggrievedparties have reached a mutualagreement during the holidayssubsequent to which the mess isfunctional again.
A welcome move to providestudents free transport to therailway station before and after
the holiday period was initiatedduring the past Autumn Break bythe Institute. The Registrar Dr DGunasekaran immediate lyapproved the use of two Institutebuses for the purpose whenrequested by the VP, PublicAffairs Chair and the UGRepresentative. The hourly to andfro pick-up facility expected tobecome a regular provision infuture not only ensures safe travelto the station at odd hours but alsosaves students from the exorbitantfares charged by the local taxis.
he Sports GC for theTs e s s i o n 2 0 0 8 - 0 9k i c k e d o f f w i t h R Pcomfortably clinching thegold in aquatics, followed byPatel bagging the TableTennis gold.
Patel and RP are jointlyleading the GC with 10points each, closely followedby LLR and Nehru with 6points apiece.
The Inter Hall SportsGC for girls, which wasscheduled to start on the14th of September, has beenpostponed to the nex tsemester.
GC Update
Institute Bus
-
8/14/2019 2008 Oct 22
3/7
SINGUR : A Wake-up Call
The 30 year old MarxistGovernment finally seemed to
have woken up to the changeddynamics of a globalized world.The change was all the more visiblewhen Mr. Ratan Tata announcedthe setting up of a small car factoryat Singur the very day Mr.Buddhadeb Bhattacharya wassworn in as Chief Minister on 18thMay, 2006. With a SEZ atNandigram also planned, Mr.Bhattacharya looked set to changethe image of West Bengal into aninvestor-friendly one.
Presently, Tata motors haspulled out of Singur forsaking itsRs. 1500 Crore investment. TheGovernment has accepted
victims, the most horrific beingthe rape and killing of an 18 year
old girl inside the factorypremises. The culmination ofthese events was the 'gherao' ofthe factory which forced theTatas to pull the plug. The recentevents are too fresh to bereiterated here.
I am telling my workers you have to change. If you fail to change, your company may fail."
"We are not fools to ignore the changes taking place in the World".
Quotes from a pro-reform Left front Chief Minister signaling a change on the horizon for West Bengal.
Compensation PackageThe initial compensation package was fixed as follows:
1. Rs. 8.70 Lakhs per Acre for the mono crop land
2. Rs. 12.76 Lakhs per Acre for the multi-crop land.
This Rs. 12.76 Lakhs, if put in a Fixed deposit at the current rateof interest, would earn Rs. 9,750 per month, ignoring inflation,which comfortably exceeds the income from any multi-crop land.The return drops to nearly Rs. 3,000 per month if inflation isaccounted at the rate of 6%. Such compensation also neglected theexpected increase in the value of the land post development. Mostof the small farmers are poorly skilled and the absence of arehabilitation package meant that unemployment was a very real
prospect for most of them.Cost of wooing the Tatas
The enormous subsidies and incentives provided by the stateGovt. has raised several eyebrows. A Rs. 200 crore loan at 1% rate ofinterest, VAT proceedings being handed back to the company asloan, Rs. 130 crore as compensation to farmers; all add up to astraightforward subsidy of Rs. 12 crore a year on the land purchase.These benefits are required to support the Nano project. But is thestate justified in using tax payer money for offering these enormousbenefits to a private venture?
Nandigram as a failed case offorced land acquisition; with a
dented image not just in the eyes ofthe industry but also the workersand farmers whom it claims torepresent.
So what went wrong?
The proposed 997 acres forthe Tata small car plant wasmostly fertile, multi-crop land,located in one of the mostagriculturally productiveregion s of West Ben ga l .Unwilling farmers standing tolose their only source of incomenaturally erupted in protest and
the state's ill-preparedness wasclear in the inept handling of the
crisis. The Government resortedto brute force to quell protests ,
involving both the state policeand CPI (M) cadres to coercepeople into accepting thecompensation package offered.Although forcible acquisition ofland for a public purpose is thestates legal right under theLand Acquisition Act (See LandAcquisition - A Legal Perspective),there were two major issues onwhich the Govt. was caught onthe wrong foot. (See Box)
These let Ms. MamataBanerjee to creep in and thecommunists ironically foundthemselves fighting on the sideof a capitalist business house.The agitation claimed its
While Singur is a particularcase in point, land acquisition hasn ev er been easy for th eG o v e r n m e n t . T h e L a n dAcquisition Act, formulated by theBritish way back in 1894 wasadapted in more or less the samefor after Independence andenables the state to expropriate anyprivate property forcefully for
'public purpose', with duemonetary compensation to theowners. The underlying logic liesin the principles of Utilitarianismand the consideration ofcommunity welfare over anindividual's right to property.
Unfortunately, the law isinherently imperialistic andsuccessive Governments have onlyworsened matters by taking fulladvantage of the ambiguity of the'Public Purpose' clause. Wheneverconflicts with the judiciary arose(See Box, R. L. Aurora vs. State ofU.P, 1962), the Govt. brought about
amendments (1962 and 1984)which only strengthened its arm.The term Public Purpose was
In an overzealous drive to copyChina's Special Economic Zones(SEZs) model, more than 500 SEZshave been sanctioned coveringaround 500,000 acres in total. Thishas meant widespread acquisitionof prime agricultural land for both
public and private sectorenterprises, often with meagrec o m p e n s a t i o n a n d n orehabilitation. Small farmers have
been the worst hit, with the landgoing in huge chunks to bigcorporate houses, a reversal of theLand Reforms era. Singur andNandigram were only waiting tohappen.
The Government seems to havewoken up to some of theseconcerns, going by the provisionsof th e Lan d Acquis i t ionAmendment Bill 2007. 'PublicPurpose' is redefined to includeonly defense purposes andinfrastructure projects. TheGovernment can now acquire land
for private companies only if 70%of the required land has already
been obtained by the companythrough direct negotiation with theland owners. The Rehabilitationand Resettlement Bill 2007 has also
been simultaneously tabled whichprovides for better compensationpackages for tribals, forest dwellersand land tenants taking intoaccount the intended use, futurevalue of land and a social impacta s s e s s m e n t . A l t e r n a t i v ee m p l o y m e n t a n d n o tcompensation is the key issue here
as simply handing out a lump sumof money does not serve thepurpose. The old adage aboutteaching a person to fish rather thangiving him a fish holds. Companiesand the Government shouldensure that all displaced people aregiven sufficient training to make aliving.
Where should the line be drawnbetween public good and privateprofit?
Should land acquisition solely bethe responsibility of corporate
houses or is state interventionnecessary?
Who does the state bear greaterresponsibility towards the farmerswho stand to lose their livelihood orthe private developers?
The basic question of SEZson prime agricultural land stillremains unanswered. The
S t a n d i n g C o m m i t t e e o nCommerce in its report on TheFunctioning of Special EconomicZ o n e s i n J u n e 2 0 0 7recommended the use of onlywaste barren land for SEZs; touse single-crop, rain-fed land inunavoidable situations and to
ban altogether the use of multi-crop, irrigated land. None ofthese have found any mention int h e a m e n d m e n t b i l l , a noversight that is too glaring toignore. Industrialists cannot be
blamed for will ing theirfactories to be placed at well-
connected places with abundantresources. It is the Government'sresponsibility to provide thenecessary infrastructure tomake it viable for SEZs to be setup on wastelands such as theThar Desert. Russia's Siberianindustrialization (without the
What needs to be done?slave labour) and the ShenzhenS E Z ( s e t u p o n c o a s t a lwasteland) are the paths to
follow.The Government's callous
a p p r o a c h t o w a r d s b a s i cinfrastructural development isthe major reason for the failureof the SEZ model in India, asopposed to its success in China.The people affected too have to
be taken into account. Sloganslike China was yesterday, India istoday will only remain theempty rhetoric that they areunless the present primevaloutlook changes. The corporateworld, by itself needs to followthe example of visionary
industrialist J R D Tata, who hadthe courage to set up base in a
barren land and convert it intot h e s p a r k l i n g , w e l l -a d m i n i s t e r e d c i t y o f
Jamshedpur. India needs moreof such visionaries. Let's hopethere are more.
The Land Acquisition Actdid not contemplate that theGovernment should be made a general agent for companies toacquire lands for them for their
private profit - Supreme Court
expanded to include companiesthat are engaged in or are planning toengage in any industry or work forpublic purpose''. With this, the state
could virtually classify anyacquisition of land to be in publicinterest. Since then, the courts have
been indecisive on the issue, withone judgement ruling that 'TheGovernment is the best judge indeciding whether acquisition is for apublic purpose or not '
In the eyesof the law
The SEZ Question
SingurKGP
FEATURESAV E N U ETHE SCHOLARS AVENUE WEDNESDAY , OCTOBER 22 ND 2008 3
-
8/14/2019 2008 Oct 22
4/7
-
8/14/2019 2008 Oct 22
5/7
6 T E C H AV E N U E THE SCHOLARS AVENUE WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22 ND 2008
Okay, well, Charles, you are a mathematician, you're always looking for the elegant solution. Human behavior is rarely, if ever,
elegant. The universe is full of these odd bumps and twists. You know, perhaps you need to make your equation less elegant, more
complicated; less precise, more descriptive. It's not going to be as pretty, but it might work a little bit better.
Larry Fleinhardt, in Numb3rs
hat is pattern? To theWbusinessman, a plot of theSENSEX is a pattern in theforthcoming share prices. To amathematician, the same plot is apart of a polynomial curve.Consider a case, when you are givenan image and told to point out theportions you find important.Different people will considerdifferent parts of the image to beimportant. On an average though,most people will have identify atleast one portion in common. Forexample, if the image contains BillGates in it; to people who know BillGates, that portion is important. Inother words, these persons willconsider the image to have lost adefining characteristic if Bill Gates issay, distorted in or completelydeleted from the image. To identifythese common portions ofimportance in an image is anintriguing field of research knownas Pattern Recognition in ImageProcessing.
Common processes like imageresizing and image compression(example, changing an image from
.bmp to .jpg format to save on space),tend to distort poor Bill Gates. If youchange the image size of 300x500 to300x300 using scaling in MS Paint,Bill Gates will look a lot thinner. TwoIsraeli scientists (Avidan andShamir) recently invented analgorithm, namedwhich protects these importantportions of the image whilereducing or increasing its size.
Seam Carving for Content AwareImage Resizing
Avidan and Shamir came upwith the idea that using an energyfunction one can more or lessidentify the important portions ofthe image. An image is representedas an array of pixels each of whichhas a position on the image and anintensity value between 0 and 255for the 3 basic colors; red, blue andgreen. Simple observation says thatmore the difference in theseintensity values for about pixels,more likely is an observer to noticethat portion of the image; i.e.,sudden changes in color are moreapparent than smooth changes incolor. This can be represented as asimple difference of the intensity
values (known as the energyfunction of the image). When animage is subject to seam carving, aleast energy path from top to bottomis removed, instead of just cutting acolumn. This will ensure that theleast noticeable connected path isremoved, and not the least energy
Seam Carving,
The fuzzy logic tool tries to breakup an image into rough portionsknown as segments (say, an imagewith a tree, grass and sky will have 3segments). The neural network isthen tuned to detect human featuressuch as skin color in the image.When the outputs of the segmentedimage and the output of the neuralnetwork are overlapped, themerged image gives a vague ideaabout where human beings may bepresent in the image. The results ofthis new method also show that like
humans other important objects canalso be similarly detected. The nextstep is to take the energy function,originally derived for seam carving,and add some extra energy to theportions of the image identified tohave higher content by the softcomputing methods, i.e., weight thehuman beings detected in theimage. This will ensure that theseportions are skipped when the leastenergy path is calculated andremoved. The results were betterthan seam carving and normalmethods like scaling. The man in theexample has little energy content.
Resizing methods such as scalingand seam carving therefore onlydistort his portion of the image, asshown. When the energy of the manis increased using the softcomputing tools, he is protectedfrom distortions during the resizingprocess. The result after imageresizing by 50 seams shows littledistortion.
column. When you remove thisconnected path, the importantobjects (assuming that energy is bestmetric to define pattern) are retainedin the image.
Relevant Research in IITKharagpur
thA team of five 4 yearundergraduate E&ECE students,with guidance from Dr. S. Barai(Associate Professor in CivilEngineering) have extended thisidea of seam carving to a moregeneral case. They assumed thatenergy is not the only metric todefine the content and pattern in the
image. Using tools learnt in thecourse by Dr. Barai (Soft computingTools in Engineering) , the teamdeveloped a fuzzy logic and neuralnetwork based image processor that
could vaguely detect human beingsin an image. Fuzzy logic and neuralnetworks are learning algorithmsthat try to imitate the human brainand perception. Since pattern is verysubjective and differs from person toperson, emulating the same to detectimportant portions in an image willgive a better idea as to which areas inthe image need more care during theresizing process.
TEAM MEMBERS
Sushil Subramanian
([email protected])Kundan Kumar
Bibhu Prasad Mishra([email protected])
Animesh Banerjee([email protected])
Debdutta Bhattacharya([email protected])
Errata
In the article "LHC - At World'sEnd?" (September 21 Issue,page 8), the answer to thequestion "How does the LHCplay a part in all this?" containsthe sentence " with a highenergy release at a temperature of1.9 K." 1.9 K is actually theoperational temperature of thesystem's magnets; the collisiontemperature itself would windup being several orders ofmagnitude higher.
Application and Future Prospects
The above method was published in a paper at theproceedings of the 2008 IEEE Conference on Softcomputing in
Industrial Applications. Remote areas requiring quick imageprocessing of photos with humans (criminal, medical etc.), mayrequire to transfer original images over low bandwidthconnections. Such image resizing methods will help in retainingpattern while simultaneously enabling size reduction.
The method may also be extended to videos, by consideringplanes in a space-time coordinate system as described Avidan andShamir in a recent paper.
Featuring a project done by students as a part of the Soft-
computing course that went on to be presented in an IEEE
conference.
Figures:Clockwise from left: Input image. Resizing by scaling.Resizing by seam carving. Resizing by seam carving after soft-
computing based pattern recognition
Content Aware Image Resizing
Research on Campus
-
8/14/2019 2008 Oct 22
6/7
7THE SCHOLARS AVENUE WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22 ND 2008 BHAATAV E N U E
Somewhere near Mongolia. Several groups of small furry tribalsgathered together in a cave and grooving with a hemp.
A little known college dorm room. A place far, far away. Haze. In atime far, far away. Haze. Slightly messy. Jack Kerouac's "On The Road"lying open on the table. Aldous Huxley's "Doors of Perception" on theshelf. In the air, haze. In the ether, a sharp E note slices through. Asharp intake. Silence. Exhalation. Shapeless figures. Several numbersof hairy mammals gathered together in a room and grooving with afloyd. And me.
J :"I feel I'm there!"
K :"... and Ihave become comfortably numb."
Strains of Floyd reverberate through the thick air.
J :"Floyd brings the down, dude... I move away."K :"... a world of our own"
Q :"Shapeless. Everything is just so right... like a dreamed up world."
M :"Utopia is the word, my friend... Utopia"
A bunch of people, hemmed in by a . Living under arbitraryrules and a heavily skewed gender ratio. Throw on a stressfulacademic session, remove quality distractions and you have a recipefor disillusionment.
G :"I detach.. float. No exams, no pressure. Just me... and what I see..."
J :"Falling circles. A whirlwind of colors."
K :"Yup.. Any color you like..."
Q :"It's a sad day for freedom..."
K:"Yes, the freedom. Must the show go on?"
And Pink Floyd was the cure. Like a burst of fresh air out of nowhere.Hitting all the right notes. Lifting. Lingering.
Me :"Let's start with their music..."
K : "Well... their songs are nebulous. A sort of ghostly feel to them. Andthey're simple. You get to concentrate on one thing at a time. And they lift youup to another plane. You flow with them. It's beyond explanation."
Q :"They let you use your own imagination.... your own interpretation of thelyrics which I think is their USP."
G :"But they get really weird sometimes... hard core psychedelic. Like theywere doing drugs or something."
M :"hihihihihihi... but there's more."
Me : "Keep talking...
K :"Yes... Floyd connected me to myself. The sense of loss. Childhood's end.The independence. Or theillusion of it. It was like wetore down one wall only toland up within another wall.
M :"Ya... I came here with allthese high hopes, thesedreams. Only to land upanother brick in a wall. It'ssociety maan... constantly
wall
wall
"Where has the feeling gone
"Daddy what else did you leave behind for me?
building walls. Ya know, and it forces us to fit into this [forms a rectangle withher fingers] ... this teeny weeny space. This confined, claustrophobic space, yaknow... and... and... I mean there's... there's no space to break out. You breakout. You get shot."
J : "Long Live Germany!"
K :"hahaha.. hihihihihi... haha"
M :"Hehe... I'm serious. It's like the Berlin Wall. The moment you try to getover it... there this insane spotlight that comes over you... blinds you.. tries tomake you forget where you're trying to go and that's what happens to most
people... they forget and they cramp themselves. I don't want to be that.
Q :"Me neither.
Me :"So where does Floyd come in?"
M :"Floyd? It's all there. Everywhere. You feel bad. You listen to Floyd. Youfeel good. You listen to Floyd. You want hope. You listen to Floyd...
K :"Hahaha... Floyd is hope...."
J : "More than hope... Floyd is like a caress... that you so badly want when youlook around and find nothing left. someone to go back to, rest your headagainst, and be told gently and softly, whispering quietly into your head, thatsooner or later, everything will be alright."
G :"Na... Not for me. I just lose myself... float off.. Release. It's like lifting thevalve on a pressure cooker.. You become so light.. you float like that notethere... like time's stopped." [closes eyes and drops head back... lolling]
J :"Floyd transcends explanation."
Q :"There's this something else about it you know, something I can't reallyput my finger on.
Q : "Floyd never tells you what is right or wrong. It never seems to judge. Youare you and I am I. Free to be what we are and want to be."
K :"Floyd says what I want to say. It's weird. It's like I'm singing it.
K :"See what I mean... we're all strangers here, all legends and all martyrs
of some sort. I find meaning in Floyd. Acceptance. Floyd says what you
want to hear but don't know how to say.... Shine on you craaaaaaaazy
diaaamond."
J :"... and something things that you want to hear but what no one says."
And there you have it. Detachment. Loss. Hope. Drift. Nebulous
and incorporeal. Ungraspable, yet identifiable. Pink Floyd.
K :"Will this ever end...
M :"It can't...
"All in all you're just another brick in the Wall"
"Remember when you were young, you shone likethe sun"
"find a way to understand the feelings of the few
"... so come on you stranger, you legend, youmartyr, and shine!
A Slip of TongueFloydian"As it burns, it smokes like incense and the smell of it makes them drunk, just as wine does, ... As more fruit is thrown on, they get more and more
intoxicated until they jump up and start singing and dancing.Herodotus, 450 B.C.
Greek Historian, on the practice of burning hemp seeds on hot stones
"After all, without Us and Them, and The Great Gig in the Sky - both of which he wrote - whatwould The Dark Side Of The Moon have been?
David Gilmour
Pink Floyd's legendary pianist Richard Wright passed away on September 15th , 2008,after a battle with cancer, bringing to close an unforgetable era in music history. Though, hemay not be part of the band anymore, the magic he wrought will continue to enchant people forthe times to come. After all, he never was, and never will be another brick in the wall.
-
8/14/2019 2008 Oct 22
7/7
THE SCHOLARS AVENUE WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 22 ND 20088 F E A T U R E S A V E N U E
Formula SAEcomes to KGP
While most final yearstudents were busy job-hunting,Suyash Katyayani was thinking
bigger. Fueled by the desire tomake learning better and easier,he took that leap of faith thattransferred him from thegrowing mob of job-seekers tothe rarified ranks of the job-makers. Katyayani, an IITKGPalumnus(2007) along withfellow students Ashish Kashikarand Manu Midha startedVidyaCenter, the newestoffering in the field of e-learning. It offers millions ofstudents and teachers a uniqueplatform to connect. Teachers
can tailor courses for very
specific niches of students andstudents can find teachersspecialising in very specifictopics. VidyaCenter had almost400 individual providers and 40institutes offering courses andthis number is steadily rising.With more students demandingpersonalised education, brighttimes lie ahead for VidyaCenter.
Nishant Sah, Lokesh Vermaand Manish Shankar, 2008M e c h a n i c a l E n g i n e e r i n ggraduates, have come up withTargetIIT, a startup with a visionto set the benchmark of onlineeducation in India. The missionis to provide IIT aspirants areliable source of education freeof cost. Their website, has aplethora of facilities whichinclude a forum where studentscan meet and discuss theird o u b t s , o n l i n e t e s t s o nindividual topics as well ascomplete syllabus, applications(e.g. flash based or javascripta n i m a t i o n s ) f o r b e t t e r
understanding of concepts,statistical analysis, etc. Theinbuilt networking capabilitieswill help students interact witheach other and find other like-minded students who arepreparing for IIT JEE. This isespecially useful for thestudents from smaller townswho lack the required exposurea s c o m p a r e d t o t h e i rc o u n t e r p a r t s i n c i t i e s .TargetIIT.com also aims to serveas a place where current or ex-students can register to help JEEaspirants.
pectra, the Fine Arts and Design group of IIT Kharagpur,Sconducted a workshop on 2D and 3D Animation on Sunday,28th September with six experts from WEBEL DQE Animation
Academy, Kolkata. DQ Entertainment is an award winningproducer for High-end 3D Animation, traditional 2D and DigitalFlash animation. The event was a grand success with a turn out ofabout 700 people - most of whom remained glued to their seatsfor the whole four hour duration. The organizers providedsoftware such as Maya 2008 for the eager participants, whofollowed the demonstrations on their laptops. The experts held apresentation on the traditional 2D animation process used intelevision followed by a look at industry-quality 3D animation.These were accompanied by demos made by the students of theacademy. The proceedings were topped off with an interactivequiz, and several DVDs of animated movies were distributed forprizes.
VidyaCenter.com TargetIIT.com
Animagic!Educational Startups
The Scholars Avenue is looking for talented First Year students with anose for news! Keep a lookout for notices at your local bulletin board.
