COLLOQUIA FROM AUGUST 2009 TILL DECEMBER 2009

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Dr. M.S. Valiathan
 Tuesday, August 4, 2009: Ayurvedic Biology - a new frontier

 Dr. M. S. Valiathan, is a cardiac surgeon and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeon. He received his initial medical education in India, and specialised training in cardiac surgery in UK and USA. His medical interest have spanned the field of paediatric cardiac surgery, tropical heart muscle disease and development of cardiovascular devices. He is former Director of the Sri Chitra Tirunal Institute of Medical Sciences, Thiruvananthapuram, and former Vice Chancellor of Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE). Dr. Valiathan is a Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering and a recipient of Indian National Science Academy's Shree Dhanwantari Prize in 1991. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour, in 2005.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009: Perceptions of Reality in Literature

Sitanshu Yasashchandra (b 1941) is a distinguished poet, researcher, editor and critic in Gujarati language and literature. He was the Vice-Chancellor of Saurastra University, Rajkot, Professor and Syndicate members of MS University, Baroda, and Visiting Professor at Sorbonne University, Paris. Author of several significant works of poetry, plays and literary criticism, he has been conferred with many awards including the Sahitya Akademi Award (1987), Kabir Samman, the National Harmony Award in 1996, and Padma Shree in 2006. He has extensively traveled within India and in Europe and USA giving talks and reading from his work at major Universities.
The poster announcing the talk is here

Tuesday, August 18, 2009: Making Computers Listen to You
Dr. K. Samudravijaya , TIFR

This Colloquium has been rescheduled to Tuesday, 15th September 2009

Tuesday, August 25, 2009: Terahertz Spectroscopy
Dr. S.S. Prabhu , TIFR, Mumbai

The new exciting field of TeraHertz Spectroscopy has emerged in recent years. New Developments in the generation, detection and propagation of this radiation are taking place and many new applications have made this field very exciting. We have developed this technology at TIFR and the talk will discuss the new challenges in the THz Science & Technology. Some of the novel ideas and applications which have made THz so popular will also be discussed.
Dr. Shriganesh Prabhu is with the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
 The poster announcing the talk is here

Tuesday, September 01, 2009: Spectroscopic signature of star formation at high redshift
Dr. Gargi Shaw , TIFR, Mumbai

Most of our quantitative information about the universe comes from spectroscopy. A detailed analysis of the observed spectrum at high redshift enables us to understand universe at a much younger age. Here the speaker will discuss how we can use molecular hydrogen spectroscopy to infer star formation at high redshift.
The poster announcing the talk is here

Tuesday, September 08, 2009: Neutrino - A new window to the Universe
Prof. N.K. Mondal , TIFR, Mumbai

Neutrinos, "the most tiny quantity of reality ever imagined by a human being", as quoted by its co-discoverer Fedrik Reines, never ceased to puzzle physicists. Introduced by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930 as a desperate remedy to save the "law of conservation of energy", It took twenty seven long years to find the first experimental evidence for its existence. India has a long tradition in neutrino physics, and the first ever cosmic ray produced neutrino was detected in an experiment in the deep mines of Kolar Gold Fields in 1965. India is again planning to setup an experiment called India-Based Neutrino Observatory (INO) to study some of the properties of neutrinos.

The poster announcing the talk is here and the slide presentation of the talk is here
 A few photographs of the talk can be viewed here

Tuesday, September 15, 2009: Making Computers Listen to You
by Dr. K. Samudravijaya
Can we teach machines to listen to humans? Would it not be nice if computers respond to spoken commands? Will it understand my mother tongue? Questions such as these will be addressed in this talk. The talk will be an overview of the physics of speech sounds, spectral analysis, pattern matching, techniques, challenges in developing a speech system and the current status of speech recognition technology.

Dr. K. Samudravijaya is a Scientific Officer at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
 The poster announcing the talk is here and the slide presentation he made is here A couple of photographs of the talk is here

Tuesday, September 22, 2009: Nuclear Energy: Energy Security & Climate Change
Dr. R. Chidambaram , Principal Scientific Advisor, Government of India
The poster announcing the talk is here
This talk has been rescheduled to a later date which will be announced soon

Tuesday, October 2,: Probing the Universe with QSO Absorption Line
Prof R. Srianand,, Inter University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics, Pune
The poster announcing the talk is here
and a few pictures of the talk can be viewed here

For a list of previous Colloquia click here



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