The tropic trapeze

Indian circus companies and performers remain largely absent within the historical narratives of theatre and performance in South Asia. The tropic trapeze: Circus in Colonial India project seeks to address key issues of gender, transculturalism and identity politics around the travelling circuses owned and operated by Indians around the 1870s to 1940s. The project starts with detailing the lives and travels of Indian performers in Europe and North America, who performed in different fairs and exhibitions, as well as Western Circus companies travelling to different parts of South Asia around the mid 19th Century. The initial chapters reflect on the entrepreneurship of Indian Circus owners in setting up companies owned by Indians and the initial logistical and aesthetic troubles. Female circus performers remain a strong presence in this project (specifically because the debates around the idea of female bodies operating in public spheres was largely absent when it came to circus unlike the theatre). Finally, the project reflects upon the global connections of the South Asian circus companies. In the concluding chapters, the role of animals and their representation is discussed along with the trading companies which arranged for the global transactions of these 'exotic creatures', namely the Hagenbeck Company from Hamburg

Algorithmic and Combinatorial Results on Fence Patrolling, Polygon Cutting and Geometric Spanners

The purpose of this dissertation is to study problems that lie at the intersection of geometry and computer science. We have studied and obtained several results from three different areas, namely–geometric spanners, polygon cutting, and fence patrolling. Specifically, we have designed and analyzed algorithms along with various combinatorial results in these three areas. For geometric spanners, we have obtained combinatorial results regarding lower bounds on worst case dilation of plane spanners. We also have studied low degree plane lattice spanners, both square and hexagonal, of low dilation. Next, for polygon cutting, we have designed and analyzed algorithms for cutting out polygon collections drawn on a piece of planar material using the three geometric models of saw, namely, line, ray and segment cuts. For fence patrolling, we have designed several strategies for robots patrolling both open and closed fences

Chemosensing in microorganisms to practical biosensors

Microorganisms like bacteria can sense concentration of chemo-attractants in its medium very accurately. They achieve this through interaction between the receptors on their cell surface and the chemo-attractant molecules (like sugar). But the physical processes like diffusion set some limits on the accuracy of detection which was discussed by Berg and Purcell in the late seventies. We have a re-look at their work in order to assess what insight it may offer towards making efficient, practical biosensors. We model the functioning of a typical biosensor as a reaction-diffusion process in a confined geometry. Using available data first we characterize the system by estimating the kinetic constants for the binding/unbinding reactions between the chemo-attractants and the receptors. Then we compute the binding flux for this system which Berg and Purcell had discussed. But unlike in microorganisms where the interval between successive measurements determines the efficiency of the nutrient searching process, it turns out that biosensors depend on long time properties like signal saturation time which we study in detail. We also develop a mean field description of the kinetics of the system.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure