Design for the taste-makers: System oriented social innovation for improving the living condition of salt pan labourers

Context Imagine food without salt, the taste buds falling into deep unconsciousness due to the split subconscious confusion created to identify the taste of the food we consumed. The term tastemakers fit perfectly to the labourers who work in the salt pans to produce what gives taste to our food, Salt. The project aims to understand the ecosystem in and around the production of salt, use design thinking to flourish the living condition of the labourers working in these salt field, improve their working condition to care about their physical parts in the self-involved work culture of producing salt, understanding the socio-economic and cultural condition prevailing in it and build a self-sustainable model for the people involved in the ecosystem enabling a well-deserved return on their efforts. Using Co-design approach and participatory design approach as tools, NGO’s working in the area, the community leaders and the labourers working in the salt fields were involved in bringing design interventions. The target of this project is to not only make the profession of salt pan labour a respectful one but also to make this profession recognisable. This would ensure cultural sustainability and justifiable remuneration pertaining to the physical and mental efforts invested in the process of producing salt looking at the psycho-social, economic and work environment conditions. The idea was: To expose the family of the labourers to the multidimensional possibilities to identify and solve a problem To associate with them, to improve their work and living conditions To motivate the children of salt pan labourers to explore diverse professions for their means of livelihood To build a co-operative self-sustainable system that would bring the community together and work towards their social inclusion in and around the community. Methodology The entire ecosystem was understood by doing many field visits, Shadowing method and primary and secondary interviews of the academic experts working in this field, the Non-profit organisation associates working in these areas, labourers, labourer’s family members, landowners and the retailers as part of this applied design research project. 15 case studies which included literature, documentaries and blogs were explored to build a strong understanding. The location of visit was restricted to Morbi salt production areas in Gujarat, India. Co-Design and participatory design workshops were done with the available members of the community and NGO workers working for them to understand the hierarchy of the problems and the social outlook of the residents. Exchange tools and methodologies with the NGO workers helping them to build a social to Interactive workshops were done with the kids trying to understand their mental development and interest areas. Design tools like Affinity Mapping, Break the Paradigm, Method Cards were used to synthesize the findings to get insights to bring about design interventions. Observations & understandings Repeated visiting of the salt pan areas, shadowing their daily routine activities and living a few days of their life at their home, gave a clear understanding of the different layers of the conditions prevailing in the area. The caste and religious system coupled with the age- old stereotypes contributed a major role in the present condition of the labourers. The downtrodden living condition was due to a combination of socio economic and political reasons. A design intervention encompassing these factors would be necessary for bringing about a social change. Intense interview sessions with experts from social science background, socialites, faculties from labour institutes, social innovators, designers, social reformers, policy makers were done. This helped in building the topic case study as viewed by different perspectives and understanding the interlinks between the different factors that caused the prevailing condition. The problems that the designers figured out initially were as per the paradigm build due to their upbringing in a different context all together and be very much possible that the problems that they figured out might not be the real problems that the labourers are facing. The participatory workshop with the labour family and other stakeholders helped us to understand the true problems that were concerning to them. A clear hierarchy of the intensity of the problem could be mapped. During the Co-Design workshops the participants facilitated by the designers could themselves bring out creative solutions to the problems faced by them, thereby bringing a positive outlook towards their life. The involvement of stakeholders and users in the design process helps in in-time validation of designs and to understand the satisfaction and influence of the new design user. The interactive workshop with the kids living in 2 different contexts, one with the children who took formal education and other with ones who did not receive formal education, showed the difference in the perspectives of the outlook of children and gave a clear picture of the need for formal education for the children in the area, thereby facilitating us to bring about design interventions to build a sustainable future for next generations. Design interventions Looking at the scenario with a systemic approach helps to break the boundary of possibilities for bringing about intervention. It was understood that a single solution cannot bring a reformatory change in the condition of the salt pan labourer which was an outcome of socio-political and economical aspects with a historic background. Different levels and kinds of intervention would be required to bring about an upliftment in the condition of the salt pan labourers. Create a new business model: Avsar, a sustainable collaborative start-up between social reformers and the salt pan labour community. Looking at the contribution of small scale salt manufacturers against the large-scale manufacturers in the total quantity of salt production, it is necessary to look at the present scenario not from a profit-making lens but from a sustainable livelihood opportunity lens. Avsar is a business model build on these lines that would manage the systemic complexity and present a sustainable future scenario. Redesigning the playgroup: Gamification of the learning process created an interactive learning experience for the children helping them to learn healthy living habits and acquire basic knowledge. A playgroup which would infuse motivation in children of different age group would help build an active individual with a positive and responsible outlook towards community and society. Designing co-creation workshop models for organisations working independently in the social sectors: Co-design and participatory workshops give rich and meaningful insights into the condition and problems faced by the end-users. Methodising the process of organising a workshop and its activities would help the organisations working at grassroots levels to improve the efficiency of their efforts. Policy design for the governing authorities: Suggesting policies that would cater to different needs of the salt pan labour community and which would align to their economic condition to sustain for a longer run. These would contribute in the complex system to improve the living condition of the labourers working in the salt pan industry, the tastemakers, to align to Nelson Mandela’s dream in true sense “Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all”

Implications of the search for optical counterparts during the second part of the Advanced LIGO's and Advanced Virgo's third observing run: lessons learned for future follow-up observations

Joint multimessenger observations with gravitational waves and electromagnetic (EM) data offer new insights into the astrophysical studies of compact objects. The third Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo observing run began on 2019 April 1; during the 11 months of observation, there have been 14 compact binary systems candidates for which at least one component is potentially a neutron star. Although intensive follow-up campaigns involving tens of ground and space-based observatories searched for counterparts, no EM counterpart has been detected. Following on a previous study of the first six months of the campaign, we present in this paper the next five months of the campaign from 2019 October to 2020 March. We highlight two neutron star-black hole candidates (S191205ah and S200105ae), two binary neutron star candidates (S191213g and S200213t), and a binary merger with a possible neutron star and a 'MassGap' component, S200115j. Assuming that the gravitational-wave (GW) candidates are of astrophysical origin and their location was covered by optical telescopes, we derive possible constraints on the matter ejected during the events based on the non-detection of counterparts. We find that the follow-up observations during the second half of the third observing run did not meet the necessary sensitivity to constrain the source properties of the potential GW candidate. Consequently, we suggest that different strategies have to be used to allow a better usage of the available telescope time. We examine different choices for follow-up surveys to optimize sky localization coverage versus observational depth to understand the likelihood of counterpart detection

A community effort in SARS-CoV-2 drug discovery.

peer reviewedThe COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose a substantial threat to human lives and is likely to do so for years to come. Despite the availability of vaccines, searching for efficient small-molecule drugs that are widely available, including in low- and middle-income countries, is an ongoing challenge. In this work, we report the results of an open science community effort, the "Billion molecules against Covid-19 challenge", to identify small-molecule inhibitors against SARS-CoV-2 or relevant human receptors. Participating teams used a wide variety of computational methods to screen a minimum of 1 billion virtual molecules against 6 protein targets. Overall, 31 teams participated, and they suggested a total of 639,024 molecules, which were subsequently ranked to find 'consensus compounds'. The organizing team coordinated with various contract research organizations (CROs) and collaborating institutions to synthesize and test 878 compounds for biological activity against proteases (Nsp5, Nsp3, TMPRSS2), nucleocapsid N, RdRP (only the Nsp12 domain), and (alpha) spike protein S. Overall, 27 compounds with weak inhibition/binding were experimentally identified by binding-, cleavage-, and/or viral suppression assays and are presented here. Open science approaches such as the one presented here contribute to the knowledge base of future drug discovery efforts in finding better SARS-CoV-2 treatments.R-AGR-3826 - COVID19-14715687-CovScreen (01/06/2020 - 31/01/2021) - GLAAB Enric

Adaptation of central metabolite pools to variations in growth rate and cultivation conditions in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Background Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a well-known popular model system for basic biological studies and serves as a host organism for the heterologous production of commercially interesting small molecules and proteins. The central metabolism is at the core to provide building blocks and energy to support growth and survival in normal situations as well as during exogenous stresses and forced heterologous protein production. Here, we present a comprehensive study of intracellular central metabolite pool profiling when growing S. cerevisiae on different carbon sources in batch cultivations and at different growth rates in nutrient-limited glucose chemostats. The latest versions of absolute quantitative mass spectrometry-based metabolite profiling methodology were applied to cover glycolytic and pentose phosphate pathway metabolites, tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA), complete amino acid, and deoxy-/nucleoside phosphate pools. Results Glutamate, glutamine, alanine, and citrate were the four most abundant metabolites for most conditions tested. The amino acid is the dominant metabolite class even though a marked relative reduction compared to the other metabolite classes was observed for nitrogen and phosphate limited chemostats. Interestingly, glycolytic and pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) metabolites display the largest variation among the cultivation conditions while the nucleoside phosphate pools are more stable and vary within a closer concentration window. The overall trends for glucose and nitrogen-limited chemostats were increased metabolite pools with the increasing growth rate. Next, comparing the chosen chemostat reference growth rate (0.12 h−1, approximate one-fourth of maximal unlimited growth rate) illuminates an interesting pattern: almost all pools are lower in nitrogen and phosphate limited conditions compared to glucose limitation, except for the TCA metabolites citrate, isocitrate and α-ketoglutarate. Conclusions This study provides new knowledge-how the central metabolism is adapting to various cultivations conditions and growth rates which is essential for expanding our understanding of cellular metabolism and the development of improved phenotypes in metabolic engineering

Multiscale polymer composites : a review of the interlaminar fracture toughness improvement

Composite materials are prone to delamination as they are weaker in the thickness direction. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are introduced as a multiscale reinforcement into the fiber reinforced polymer composites to suppress the delamination phenomenon. This review paper presents the detailed progress made by the scientific and research community to-date in improving the Mode I and Mode II interlaminar fracture toughness (ILFT) by various methodologies including the effect of multiscale reinforcement. Methods of measuring the Mode I and Mode II fracture toughness of the composites along with the solutions to improve them are presented. The use of different methodologies and approaches along with their performance in enhancing the fracture toughness of the composites is summarized. The current state of polymer-fiber-nanotube composites and their future perspective are also deliberated.Published versio

Investigation Of Quasi Static Indentation On 3D Printed Honeycomb Based Truncated-pyramid Square Structure

This research work presents the experimental, and numerical investigation of the Quasi-static indentation behavior of 3D printed honeycomb-based truncated pyramid square Structures. The truncated pyramid square structure was selected for analysis because of its high load bearing capacity. The quasi-static indentation test was carried out in accordance with ASTM D7766/D7766M standards. Force versus displacement curves obtained from the experiments were discussed. By this research, the damage diameter created by the indenter were arbitrary and had no relationship with the material property. Computational simulation was performed to compare with the experimental test results.ASTAR (Agency for Sci., Tech. and Research, S’pore)Published versio

Out Of Plane Compressive Strength Of 3D Printed Vertical Pillared Corrugated Core Structure

Out of plane compressive strength of the two new type 3D printed sandwich core structure has been investigated. The test specimens were designed in Solidworks and manufactured in Projet 5500X 3D printing machine with the combination of pure ABS and Rubber (Visijet CR-WT & Visijet CF-BK) material for making the sandwich core panel. Two design smaples, each of 5 test specimen were carried out for flatwise compression test in accordance with ASTM standards C365/C365-M. The experimental results would indicate the ultimate flatwise compressive strength Fzfcu and flatwise compressive modulus Ezfc.ASTAR (Agency for Sci., Tech. and Research, S’pore)Published versio

A Versatile Suspended Lipid Membrane System for Probing Membrane Remodeling and Disruption

Artificial membrane systems can serve as models to investigate molecular mechanisms of different cellular processes, including transport, pore formation, and viral fusion. However, the current, such as SUVs, GUVs, and the supported lipid bilayers suffer from issues, namely high curvature, heterogeneity, and surface artefacts, respectively. Freestanding membranes provide a facile solution to these issues, but current systems developed by various groups use silicon or aluminum oxide wafers for fabrication that involves access to a dedicated nanolithography facility and high cost while conferring poor membrane stability. Here, we report the development, characterization and applications of an easy-to-fabricate suspended lipid bilayer (SULB) membrane platform leveraging commercial track-etched porous filters (PCTE) with defined microwell size. Our SULB system offers a platform to study the lipid composition-dependent structural and functional properties of membranes with exceptional stability. With dye entrapped in PCTE microwells by SULB, we show that sphingomyelin significantly augments the activity of pore-forming toxin, Cytolysin A (ClyA) and the pore formation induces lipid exchange between the bilayer leaflets. Further, we demonstrate high efficiency and rapid kinetics of membrane fusion by dengue virus in our SULB platform. Our suspended bilayer membrane mimetic offers a novel platform to investigate a large class of biomembrane interactions and processes