Thursday, January 20, 2011

Talk slides ...

The slides I have used in support of my talks last year, are available at the following links:


https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/legal_codes_2010.pdf
legal_codes_2010.pdf - 1.2 MB

https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/ml_ipr_cnc_uom_2010.pdf
ml_ipr_cnc_uom_2010.pdf - 497 KB

https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/legal_remedies_for_esi_and_pf_issues.pdf
legal_remedies_for_esi_and_pf_issues.pdf - 404 KB

The first two were under the auspices of the Department of Legal Studies, University of Madras, and the last was at DOMS, Anna University. The most significant constitutional challenge of the times is about having more open societies, where the citizens actively participate in governance. This theme is also elaborated at http://ramanraj.blogspot.com/2010/01/csx-v-sebi.html Various computer programs and codes help in achieving this, and the first talk takes a look at how legal codes have evolved historically. The other talks take a look at coding from various perspectives.

Older talks:

https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/calpp_ai_at_kec.pdf
calpp_ai_at_kec.pdf - 267.1 KB

https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/calpp_ai_sjce.pdf
calpp_ai_sjce.pdf - 472.7 KB

https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/calpp_nlsiu.pdf
calpp_nlsiu.pdf - 286.0 KB

https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/foss_licenses.pdf
foss_licenses.pdf - 274.8 KB

https://calpp.org/ramanraj/talks/tml_unicode.pdf
tml_unicode.pdf - 634.2 KB

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Research papers of Dr. G.N. Ramachandran

The University of Madras [UoM] has contributed two Nobel laureates to the world: Dr. Sir C.V. Raman and Dr Subramaniam Chandrasekar. Raman's disciple Dr. G.N. Ramachandran, was invited to establish the Department of Physics at the UoM in 1950. The research work by Dr. GNR, as he was called, is most remarkable. He proposed the triple helix structure of collagen, the 'ramachandran plot' to *validate* protein structures, 3D tomography using convolution method - the basic algorithm that made CT-Scans possible, by 1970s. Thereafter, he wrote a number of papers on Syad Nyaya - may be theory - that now passes as "fuzzy logic". He died in 2001, and most obituaries lamented that the Nobel missed this master.

His most outstanding research paper would be on "Three-dimensional Reconstruction from Radiographs and Electron Micrographs: Application of Convolutions instead of Fourier Transforms" now also available at http://www.pnas.org/content/68/9/2236.full.pdf This work with A.V. Lakshminarayanan was the starting point for the development of CAT scan technique in radiography and later, magnetic resonance imaging.

He helped to lay foundations for bio-physics, and this branch of science has grown leaps and bounds ever since, in the recent decades.

The last leg of his career was devoted to writing the papers on what passes as fuzzy logic today. The links to the GNR paper on BA-2 are from http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/currsci/51/00000685.pdf to *693.pdf He profoundly realised the role of computing in science, and he is the greatest computer scientist India has given to the world, in recent times.

We have not made optimum use of the research by this great scientist. As a first step, all the research papers published by him need to be collated and published online.

References:

[1] http://bioinfo.ernet.in/library/gnr/Gnrmain.htm
[2] http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/gnramachandran%20.htm
[3] http://www.ias.ac.in/j_archive/currsci/52/7/292-302/viewpage.html
[4] http://bioinfo.ernet.in/library/gnr/mat.html
[5] http://www.currentscience.ac.in/php/auth.php?authid=11647&author=Ramachandran,%20G.%20N.