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Weekly reports of meetings at NAL, snippets of R&D activity, conference announcements and other features of popular interest
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News and Events #IP 974 23 - 29 May 2011 International Forum for Aviation Research Director General, CSIR has approved proposal for CSIR-NAL to be a member of International Forum for Aviation Research (IFAR). The International Forum for Aviation Research connects and represents leading worldwide aerospace research organisations and responds to political, economic and public demands as an independent advisor. IFAR aims on focusing global research topics such as climate change, noise, efficient operations, security and safety by the development of an IFAR Road Map based on scientific and engineering competence. IFAR also aims at an International Aviation Road Map, specifically addressing the most important questions for a global air transport system. Therefore, IFAR interacts with the public, politics and industry, takes up the challenges identified by them and acts as an independent and politically neutral advisor. The idea of IFAR was born at the Berlin Summit 2008 where the key leaders of twelve international aeronautical research organisations met to address the question of “The Air Transport of the Future” in the context of climate changes. In this regard, the participants agreed that any research and strategy contributing to new solutions will have to reconcile with the increasing need for international mobility in a globalised work-sharing economy with the challenge of simultaneously developing new solutions to balance the climate effects of the accompanying world-wide air traffic growth. The next IFAR summit will be held on June 18-19, 2011 in Méry-sur-Oise near Paris in connection with the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget. #IP 973 16-22 May 2011 CSIR-NAL condoles the death of Dr B R Somashekar
Dr. Somashekar joined CSIR-NAL on 1 August 1962 and rose steadily to the position of Scientist-H. He served the Laboratories with distinction and deep commitment for over 35 years. He was appointed as the Head of the then Structures Division in 1972 at the young age of 35 years and occupied that position till his retirement in 1997 (except for a period of 3 years when he was on deputation as Counsellor for S&T in Germany during 1988-1991). Over the years he built up the Division to gain recognition as one of the best administered Divisions of CSIR-NAL. His sincere and persistent efforts resulted in the Division becoming a Centre for (i) finite element studies and (ii) advanced composite structure design and development, with many innovative developments and contributions for aerospace applications. The latter has established a pre-eminent position for the Laboratories as a pioneer in the country in this strategic area. Being a specialist in the area of Vibrations and Aeroelasticity, he encouraged establishment of national strengths in the area of ground and in-flight vibration testing as well as aeroelastic model testing. These capabilities have since served ISRO, DRDO and HAL in prestigious projects like LCA, Satellite Launch Vehicle Development and ALH, and CSIR-NAL’s own civil aircraft development programmes. During his tenure as Head, Structures Division he was instrumental in attracting many grant-in-aid and sponsored projects to the Division to build up expertise and facilities and also contribute to technology applications - a tradition continued by his followers in the Division. Dr. Somashekar played an equally effective role as Advisor to the Director, and helped in day-to-day management as well as in policy planning. His innate ability to quickly connect with people of all ranks helped in solving many knotty problems. He was deeply loved and respected by all section of the employees in the Laboratories. He also recognized, brought in and nurtured talent in the Division, and mentored many young scientists, helping them achieve their full potential. After his retirement in 1997 Dr. Somashekar served as the Managing Director of NALTECH from December 1999 till the end. During his tenure, he made NALTECH an effective enabler for maturing and transferring technologies developed in CSIR-NAL to industries, and also for providing technology related services to CSIR-NAL to implement its projects successfully. As a professional in the field of S&T and as an able administrator, Dr. Somashekar served ably in many prestigious forums of VSSC, ISAC, DRDO, ADA, AR&DB, DST, TIFAC, ISAMPE, CSIR Pensioners Association etc., and made valuable contributions to their objectives and goals. In recognition of his contributions, Dr Somashekar received some of the prestigious awards viz. (a) Biren Roy Trust Award – 1998, for outstanding contributions in AERONAUTICS; (b) Distinguished Alumni Award – 1992, Department of Aerospace, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (c) AR&DB Silver Jubilee Award, 1996 etc. In his death, CSIR-NAL has lost a close friend and a well wisher who till his last breath, was deeply committed to the glory of the organization he served so effectively. We at CSIR-NAL pray for the departed soul and convey our heart-felt condolences to the bereaved family. A.R.Upadhya, Director, CSIR-NAL #IP 972 9-15 May 2011 Acoustic Tests on two major ISRO satellites at ATF-NAL Acoustic tests on two major ISRO satellites, the GSAT-8 and the GSAT-12 were successfully completed at the Acoustic Test Facility at NAL during March and May 2011. Both the satellites are to be launched into geostationary orbits and carry communication payloads. The GSAT-8 is a high power Ku band satellite, with a lift off mass of 3,100 kg and was launched successfully by the Ariane-5 launcher of the European Space Agency on May 21, 2011. The GSAT-12 is a smaller satellite operating in the Extended C-band with a lift off mass of 1,400 kg. The GSAT-12 will be launched by the PSLV during July 2011. The GSAT-8 was subjected to an overall sound pressure level of 142.5 dB in the 1100 m3 reverberation chamber of ATF. The satellite was extensively instrumented for measurement of acceleration and strain at seventy critical locations. Data from all these locations was acquired during the 60 second acoustic test and analyzed. The satellite was “live” during the acoustic test with all payloads being powered by internal batteries. Health of the satellite was monitored during the acoustic test through telemetry. Acoustic tests on the GSAT-12 satellite were carried out at ATF during May 2011. The satellite was subjected to an overall sound pressure level of 147 dB. The satellite was instrumented similarly as in the GSAT-8 and all parameters monitored. Both the satellites successfully withstood the acoustic environments they were subjected to. The acoustic test facility was able to generate the specified acoustic levels within tolerances and carried out both the tests successfully.
#IP 971 2 - 8 May 2011 Training program on ‘Content Management Using Open Source Tool – “Drupal” The development of good number of internet resources for managing electronic information has come as a boon for library information professionals which was rather a challenge earlier. Well designed organization portals are needed for dissemination of the web resources to the user community effectively and efficiently. Integration of these open source or commercial web resources into a single window enhances the information dissemination through content management tools, such as Drupal, Joomla, OpenCMS, WordPress. To share the expertise and vast experience accrued in the use of Drupal, ICAST, CSIR-NAL organized a three-day hands-on training program entitled “Content Management Using Open Source Tool – Drupal” during April 19-21, 2011. Drupal is an open source platform-independent CMS (Content Management Software) tool; its features are simple, flexible, customizable, multi-platform, multi-lingual, web 2.0 compliant, with web-based administration and powerful report generation functionality, including well organized browse and search facilities. Nearly five thousand registered websites are currently using Drupal across the globe in various languages – a testimony to its robustness and maturity. The participants, about thirty in number, were from various CSIR laboratories and other institutions like ISRO, DRDO, Academic Institutions and even corporate sectors from different parts of the country. The Training Programme was inaugurated on April 19, 2011 by a well-attended morning function presided over by Dr. A. R. Upadhya, The Director of NAL in the presence of Mr. Shyam Chetty, the outstanding scientist, and Chairman of Library Advisory Committee, with a welcome address Dr. Poornima Narayana, Head, ICAST and Coordinator of the training program; she briefly gave an over view of the theme of the workshop. Mr. Shyam Chetty in his brief address appreciated the ICAST efforts in reaching out to user community at large through its invaluable resource collection as well as various value-added initiatives in implementing contemporary library automation software. He added that the ICAST is quick to adopt the latest tools and technologies to provide effective, versatile and efficient services. Further, he lauded ICAST’s efforts to reach the NAL scientists through various out-reach programs, especially in uploading documents to NAL’s Institutional Repository and its assistance in providing citations, citation analysis, h-index values and journal impact factor for publications in core journals. Two major ICAST initiatives, the Aerospace Portal AeroInfo, and “Union Catalogue of CSIR-DST Aerospace Serial Holdings”, were launched during the inaugural program. By deploying Drupal, ICAST designed the AeroInfo portal, the one-of-its kind portal in the country, which has multiple contents - links to aerospace sources, interactive discussion pages and many others. The invaluable inputs towards content creation in AeroInfo from Dr. L. Venkatakrishnan, Head, EAD, Dr. V. Mudakavi, Head, CTFD and Dr. G.K. Suryanarayana, Dy. Head, NTAF were duly acknowledged. Also, to meet the growing needs of the CSIR Scientists ICAST developed the dynamic “Union Catalogue of Journal Holdings” of sixty three CSIR-DST institutions to facilitate resource sharing among its users. This dynamically structured database has browse & search facilities, and has the added feature of on-line request for information from any of these sixty three institutions for faster access to the information resource. Dr. A R Upadhya in his presidential address was appreciative of the advances and developments of tools in library information technology in making available the vast information in a user-friendly environment. But he had a word of caution when he expressed his apprehension about the quick obsolescence of these tools and technologies; he opined that with the availability of a large number of open-source tools one has to be cautious in selecting the right tool for implementation keeping in mind the related issues like their features, adoptability, compatibility and cost. He expressed his happiness about the service-oriented initiatives of ICAST and its continuous strives to initiate innovative services by exploring open source software and CMS. In a lighter vein he drew the parallel of Drupal to the king Drupad from Mahabharata, whose daughter Draupadi, the queen of Pandavas, was the driving factor in the final victory of the latter; of course, the acronym Drupal has nothing to do with Drupad nor with Draupadi. He said, “I feel privileged to state that ICAST has been recognized as one of the most reputed and well-known information centers, both at the National and International levels”; he thanked the ICAST leadership and their tireless efforts in reaching to that position; he thanked them for adopting the Open Access Policies, and had a word of praise for the development of NAL Institutional Repository of its own publications, one of the top ranking repositories in the world. Mrs. K. P. Sudhalakshmi proposed vote of thanks. The three-day training program extensively covered the various aspects of Drupal software including its installation and configuration on both Windows and Linux platforms, various modules, themes & views, custom content creation, report generation, backup, to name a few. The resource experts Mr. B.S. Shivaram and Mrs. S. Jayashree along with their team members ensured that the participants organized in batches built their representative institutional web portal before the end of the training program. It was heartening to note the enthusiasm and dedication of each of the participants in successfully completing the web portal development task, a befitting reward to the dedicated experts who meticulously and untiringly imparted the training. The feedback from the participants was encouraging and had some observations and suggestions for improvements as well. Poornima Narayan
Photo and photo collage designed by Team Photography, KTMD, NAL New Head of Propulsion Division Congratulations Mr. Baburajan Thekkan. Mr. Baburajan Thekkan, NTAF Division received the First prize in “Science in Close-up” category and Second prize in “Science in Action” category in the National Scientific Photography-2009 competition. The same were received in the Awards ceremony held on April 9, 2011 at AIFAC, New Delhi conducted by Lights and Shades of Science, Under Ministry of Science and Technology. Our heartiest congratulations on this momentous occasion.
Congratulations Aruna. “The Most Cited Article 2006–2010” Award of The Current Opinion in Solid State and Materials Science journal was awarded to Ms. S. T. Aruna, of Surface Engineering Division and Prof. Alexander S. Mikoyan, Center for Molecularly Engineered Materials, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, USA for their paper entitled “Combustion Synthesis and Nanomaterials”, Vol. 12, Issue 3-4 (2008), pp. 44-50; Our heartiest congratulations on this achievement. SSBMT Indoor Finals In the forty-second SSBMT indoor finals held at National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur from April 3-5, 2011 CSIR-NAL bagged the following Trophies: Badminton Team event: Ms. Uma, ADK / Ms. Savithry, ADK - Winners Singles: Ms. Uma, ADK - Runner Carrom Team event: Mr. Srinivasa, ACD / Mr. Sadashiva, EAD - Runners Team event: Ms. Radha Ramani, ADK / Ms. Deepa, STTD - Runners Chess Mr. Prakash, C-CADD – Runner
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The news of the sudden passing away of our respected former colleague, Dr. B. R. Somashekar on the night of May 18, 2011 after a brief illness, has come as a great shock to all of us at CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories, and also to his innumerable friends and well wishers.
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