Since late 1999, the Science Education Panel of the Academy has been planning and conducting several two-week duration All-India Refresher Courses for teachers at college and university levels, in several subjects. These are intended to help improve the quality of science teaching, and it has been possible to reach out to really motivated teachers from all over the country. Over a three-year period about 18 courses have been held, averaging 6 per year. The brief account of some recently held courses, given below, describe the topics covered, aspects of preparation, and the spread of places from where the participants were selected. Wherever possible, a summary of the report by the course co-ordinator is also included.

Theoretical Physics
University of Delhi, 1–15 Oct. 2002

No. of participants: 23

Topics covered: Classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and mathematical physics. The lectures in the forenoon were followed by tutorial sessions in the afternoons.

Resource Persons: R. Ramaswamy (JNU, Delhi); N. Mukunda (IISc, Bangalore); S. Rai Choudhury, Kamal Datta, Bikram Phookun, Ashok Goyal, and P. Das Gupta (all from Delhi University).

Teacher participants were from Badshahithaul (Tehri-Garhwal), Bangalore, Coimbatore, Dakshin Dinajpur, Delhi, Gaya, Jabalpur, Jalgaon, Kanhangad, Kurnool, Longowal, Madurai, Nagpur, Rajborasambar, Sikar).

This is the first Academy refresher course to be held in Delhi and the third in theoretical physics after Mavelikara (in Kerala) and Hyderabad. It was organized at St. Stephen’s College by S. Rai Choudhury with the help of Bikram Phookun.

Experimental Physics
IGCAR, Kalpakkam, 18–31 Oct. 2002

The teachers were from Aligarh, Amritsar, Bhilainagar. Bhubaneswar, Bilaspur, Changanacherry, Chennai,Dibrugarh, Goa, Kerala, Kolkata, Kurnool, Madurai, Mandya, Mumbai, Nagpur, Tirunelveli, Tuticorin, and Vadodara.

Extracts from the report by Course Co-ordinators (C.S. Sundar and Baldev Raj)

Since “Methods in experimental physics” is a broad area, and the individual requirements of various college laboratories are diverse, a coherent short-term course was considered appropriate that highlights the use of personal computers for data acquisition. The use of personal computers to collect analog data about physical systems, to convert this to digital form and to construct graphical models in approximately real time is an entirely appropriate educational use of the computer and provides experimentation with a powerful tool. Further, this provides the computer the same role as electronic instrumentation – except that it is more flexible..

In developing the technical programme for the Refresher Course, an interface box, designed by J. Jayapandian (IGCAR Materials Science Division) that uses the parallel port of a personal computer was put together.

This port, normally used for connecting to a printer, provides an elegant and inexpensive method for interaction of PC with peripheral components like ADC, DAC without any modification of the internal circuits of the computer. The interface circuit along with software, operating under LABVlEW, was designed such that it can be used for measurement and control of laboratory experiments. The application packages developed include: temperature measurement, light intensity measurement, RPM measurement, stepper motor drive, and waveform generation. Based on the above design, 30 units of the parallel port interface box were fabricated by Ms Micro Automation Systems, Velacheri, Chennai.

In addition a few experimental facilities were also set up that illustrate how a few simple physics experiments can be carried out in a college laboratory using this interface box. This involved apart from integration of the above mentioned basic packages, writing the necessary software for data acquisition and plotting and setting up of auxiliary experimental facilities such as furnaces, vacuum system etc.

The experimental packages developed include: thermal diffusivity measurement through a measurement of temperature increase following a light pulse; resistance measurement as a function of temperature (RT --200⁰ C) to illustrate the phase transition in Manganites; capacitance measurement versus temperature: phase transition in BaTiO₃ ; multi channel analyzer for nuclear counting experiments.

The scientific programme started with overview lectures cum demonstrations on PC architecture, interfacing standards, and the software (LABVIEW) to provide adequate background to appreciate the experiments and projects set up for the course. The course was structured such that it comprised of two lectures in the morning, project work/ experiments in the afternoon and an evening lecture.

Project work and Experiments (carried out in batches of 4, on a round-robin basis) Assembly and testing of the data acquisition card, thermal diffusivity through pulse transient, capacitance measurement of phase transition in BaTiO₃, resistivity measurement in manganites, and resistivity at low temperature

In addition the following experiments that can be set up in a college laboratory were included :

Chaos in a nonlinear circuit; measurement of the Johnson noise in a resistor: determination of the Boltzmann constant using Nyqvist relation optical absorption; colour centres; infrared spectroscopy;

measurement of the electron work function in W using the Richardson-Dushman equation :

shear interferometer (set up by J. Sethuraman, a teacher-participant)

Morning Lectures

Innovative design of sensors (B Saha); AC susceptibilty (T Geethakumary); fourier methods in optics (J Sethuraman); chaos in a nonlinear circuit (MC Valsakumar); Raman scattering (R.Kesavamoorthy); infrared spectroscopy (M Premila); high pressure experimentation (N Subramanian); positron annihilation (G Amarendra); neutrons as probes of materials (KR Rao); luminescence (K Govinda Rajan); Matlab & data analysis (HK Sahu); FFT using Matlab (Sanjith); .X-ray diffraction (VS Sastry); intensity correlation spectroscopy (BVR Tata); SQUIDs in ultrasensitive measurements (MP Janawadkar); lecture by participants (R Shankar, Chetan Panchal); electron microscopy (VS Raghunathan); ultrasonics (Anish Kumar); accelerator based experiments (KGM. Nair); thin films & SIMS (AK Tyagi)

Evening Lectures

Neutrinos: why detect them? MVN Murthy, IMSc, Chennai; Competition between energy & entropy: KPN Murthy. Quantum information & quantum computation: R Simon; saturable absorption spectroscopy: R Srinivasan; materials research issues & directions: Baldev Raj; activities of HBSCE: Pathare; reactor experiments: SM Lee.

A special evening session was held to provide clarifications on the hardware and software of the interface box based on its usage by the participants. The participants took back with them the interface box and CD's containing the requisite software LABVIEW, MATLAB, and softwares for data analysis such as curvefit, crystal structure analysis programme etc. In addition, write-ups on the interface box, soft wares, circuit diagrams and photocopies of the lecture notes were provided to the participants. From the viewpoints expressed at the feedback session, it appeared that the teacher participants were happy with the content and execution of the course. While not downgrading the effort, the participants felt that more time spent on project work /experiments would have made the whole exercise more useful. They also expressed their appreciation of the local arrangements and their treatment during their stay at Kalpakkam. A very good rapport was established between the teacher-participants and the course faculty, and on the whole it was a pleasant and useful experience.

Finally, what has been executed at the Kalpakkam Refresher Course is just the first attempt that exposes the college teachers to the merits of PC-based automation. In any exercise of this type, there is certainly scope for improvement both in the hardware and software. This can certainly come from the feed back based on its usage in a college laboratory

Spectroscopy, Chemical Reactions and Biology, Visva-Bharati Santiniketan/S.N. Bose Centre, Kolkata, 21 Nov. _7 Dec. 2002

No. of participants: 14

The teacher participants were from Aurangabad, Bangalore, Chaibasa, Durgapur, Gulbarga, Guwahati, Hailakandi, Hisua, Khurdu, Longowal, Murshidabad, Trivandrum, Vallabh Vidyanagar

Extracts from the Report by the Course Co-ordinator: S. Dattagupta

The refresher course was jointly organized by S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences (SNBNC), Kolkata and Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. In the first phase lectures were arranged in Visva-Bharati (21 November to 2 December). The venue was then moved to SNBNC (3_7 December).

In his inaugural lecture S. Dattagupta elaborated on the importance of such a course in present day science particularly when everything is becoming interdisciplinary. The role of basic sciences — physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology — in achieving deepest understanding of every natural phenomenon was aptly emphasized.

This course was organized with the following motivation: (a) The researchers who are fortunate enough to carry out competitive research with state-of-the-art instruments should share their understanding with participants. The sheer beauty and novelty of their modern research should help stimulate the participant's thought processes. (b) The discussion between speakers and participants should start some sort of collaboration where inter-diffusion of knowledge would be encouraged. (c) The participants will be able to incorporate the introduction of modern topics into the curricula of their respective institutions. (d) Lectures by various experts would demonstrate the strong inter-relationship between different branches of natural science. (e) The speakers, after free interaction with participants, who are also mind-trainers and science-doers, would be able to appreciate the modification (if necessary) of their research work suitable to the needs of our country.

All lectures were for 90 minutes each and there were four lectures every day. The lectures were scheduled such that the inter-relationship between theory, simulation and experiments was emphasized. S. Dattagupta (SNBNC) described at length various static and dynamic correlation functions and their relations to dielectric, rotational, NMR and electronic spectroscopies. Kankan Bhattacharyya (IACS) showed with explicit examples how absorption, emission and laser spectroscopy could be understood on the basis of the above correlation language. A Chakrabarti (SINP) emphasized the utility of various spectroscopic techniques in studying complex biological systems of protein folding, macromolecular self-assembly and biological membranes. P. Roy (Visva-Bharati) added a quantum flavour to spectroscopy and experimental observables. S. Roy (Bose Institute) demonstrated NMR on a real sample with his state-of-the art NMR machine whereas C. Mukhopadhyaya (University of Calcutta) explained the underlying theory of NMR. Guchait talked on gas-phase laser spectroscopy and electron-transfer, RK Mohanty (Viswa-Bharati) on the primary basis of rotational and vibrational spectral lines and S. Bhattacharyya (Viswa-Bharati) on the introduction to cell biology. S. Sengupta (SNBNC) spoke on liquid state and various correlation functions. R. Biswas (SNBNC) gave several lectures on reaction rate, solvation dynamics in normal liquids and super-critical fluids, and also on diffusion of ions and neutral solutes in liquids. Simulation results, experimental observations and theoretical predictions were presented and compared wherever data were available, and future directions were discussed.

Two special sessions were organized _ one conducted by A. Chakrabarti and Ranjit Biswas and the other one by P. Roy. The participants spoke about their experiences in the refresher course in a presentation for 10 minutes each in front of other participants and freely expressed their views.

No. of participants: 20

The teacher participants were from Anantapur, Bangalore, Belgaum, Chennai, Delhi, Gulbarga, Guwahati, Izatnagar, Madurai, Mumbai, Mysore, Nashik, Nirakarpur, Sagar, Santiniketan, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Visakapatnam.

Extracts from the report:

Every morning there were three lectures on various aspects of immunology while in the afternoon practical sessions were held. The first series of lectures were on basic immunology, followed by immunology in relation to various diseases.

To begin with, Sudha Gangal (Univ. of Pune) gave a comprehensive overview of the immune system. Kalpana Joshi (Univ. of Pune) talked about antigens, antibodies and their interactions. In the lecture on Bcell maturation and activation Milind Gore (Nat. Inst. of Virology) emphasized on acquisition of surface markers, B cell receptors (BCR) and other accessory molecules required for B cell activation, during B cell maturation in the bone marrow from early B cell stage to mature B cells. The importance of products of MHC (major histocompatibility complex) genes in antigen presentation and transplantation rejection was well brought out during the lecture on MHC by Narendra Joshi (CRI). T cell maturation and activation was covered by Bhaskar Saha (NCCS). The role of cytokines and chemokines which are key molecules in immune response, was elucidated by Smita Singhani (Univ. of Pune). The complement system plays an important role in innate immunity, humoral immunity and anaphylaxis. Complement activation is a cascade of events activated by antigen-antibody complex. As explained by Jyotsna Thakre (NIV) there are alternative pathways of complement activation as well. Madhuri Thakar (NARI) summed up different effector mechanisms of humoral as well as cellular immunity. Mouse monoclonal antibodies (Mabs) and their genetically engineered counterparts are in the forefront today, as they bridge the gap between laboratories and clinic. Shubha Chiplunkar (CRI) described the ingenious method of creating hybridomas, a source of getting unlimited amounts of monospecific antibodies reacting against a single antigenic epitope and the limitations of using mouse Mabs in the clinic, although they have proved to be extremely useful as diagnostic reagents. `Humanized' mouse Mabs have a bright future as therapeutic reagents in many diseases including cancer. Vaccines form a major part of studies in immunity. In fact, the science of immunology came into existence with the then permitted human experiments conducted using attenuated infectious agents or agents non-pathogenic to human to induce life long immunity, by great scientists like Jenner and Pasteur. Vaccination is perhaps the best way of preventing infections even today. MG Deo (Univ. of Pune) brought out the evolution in vaccinology beginning with use of whole cell live attenuated vaccines, inactivated vaccines, subunit vaccines, vectored vaccines, peptide vaccines, genetically engineered vaccines and naked DNA vaccines.

From here on the lectures were directed more towards applied immunology. These lectures were aimed at application of the knowledge of advances in immunology towards understanding the basic mechanisms in diseases having major immune component. Srikant Tripathy (NARI) talked about immune response to infectious agents with special reference to tuberculosis. Bhaskar Saha (NCCS) covered the topic of immunity in Leishmaniasis (Kala Azar), as an example of parasitic disease, commonly found in 6 states of India. Sharad Gangal (Thane) discussed with participants the different allergic manifestations with special reference to type I hypersensitivity. Inherited immunodeficiency diseases are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in children. Zeenath Currimbhoy (WCH) elegantly brought out the amalgamation of bedside observations and laboratory tests to understand the molecular lesions causing abnormalities in immune functions in the sick children. Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) caused by HIV infection has created a monster, a challenge for medical science and management today. Ramesh Paranjpe (NARI) apprised the participants with the clinical course of HIV infection, and the host and viral factors responsible for establishment of the disease.

These were followed by two lectures of clinical importance on autoimmunity by VR Joshi (PDHHRC) and on organ transplantation by Bharat Shah (PDHHRC). According to Shubha Chiplunkar (CRI) cancer cells can be regarded as altered self-cells that have escaped normal growth-regulatory mechanisms leading to uncontrolled proliferation and spread of clones of transformed cells. She discussed pros and cons of the concept of `immunosurveillance' as well as the recently proposed `danger model'. Camilla Rodrigues (PDHHRC) said that the goals of an immunology laboratory should be to improve the availability, accuracy and precision of the various tests and assure correct interpretation and significance in clinical medicine. She described basic principles of immunological procedures commonly used in laboratory medicine. Problems in their interpretation were also highlighted using SLE as an example. Mulherkar (CRI) described recombinant DNA technology and basic techniques involved in gene therapy such as obtaining a construct of a gene of interest with promoter sequences, to clone the gene in appropriate non-pathogenic vector, packaging of the vectored gene and transfection into target cells. In her lecture on genetically manipulated animal models, she also described transgenic and gene knockout animal models. Giving a brief introduction to human genome project (HGP), she said that the physical genome mapping has identified more than 50,000 sequence tagged sites (STSs) at specific locations, which can act as identifiable markers on the genome. Anand Rao (HNHRC) gave an overview of the global status of stem cell research.

Each participant received two books titled `Trends in immunology' and `A laboratory manual of immunology' (edited by Sudha Gangal and MG Deo) specially prepared for the course.

Practical Sessions

Practicals were conducted each afternoon wherever possible by the participants themselves. Experiments using HIV material, FCM and microinjection were set up as demos, while the rest were performed by participants individually or in batches. Protocols for many additional experiments were included in the laboratory manual. In some cases the exercise was given as a demonstration. Practicals began with Ouchtherlony gel diffusion technique, single radial immunodiffusion and rocket immunoelectro-phoresis.

Visits

During the course, half-day visits were arranged to the following three institutions in Pune engaged in research related to immunology: the National Institute of Virology, the National Centre for Cell Sciences, and the National AIDS Research Institute.

Interactive session

There was an interactive session for participants as almost all of them were college/university teachers and were involved in teaching of immunology. Chairing the session MG Deo said that although the state-of-the-art of immunology is much better in India at present, the thrust appears to be on research. Immunology is taught as a part of biotechnology at several centres started by the DBT. Immunology is also taught as a part of microbiology. However, since the discipline now pervades all branches of biological sciences including medicine, it needs to be taught in a more systematic way in science colleges both at the under-and post-graduate levels. The following observations were made during the interactive session.

(a) Immunology should be taught at UG level in combination with molecular biology. The two options suggested were: (a) immunology along with molecular biology should be offered as the third choice in B.Sc life science which currently offers, at many places, only zoology or botany, (b) immunology may be introduced as a special paper in M.Sc zoology and life sciences.

(b) UGC may be requested to include immunology as a special subject/ paper at UG/PG level.

(c) A one year PG diploma course in immunology may be introduced with full complement of theory and practicals.

(d) With the introduction of biotechnology, which provides better job opportunities, there is an exodus of students from subjects like microbiology and zoology to biotechnology. In the process, basic biological disciplines, which play a crucial role in fundamental discoveries, are progressively getting depleted of talent. If immunology and molecular biology are included as a part of pure biology science courses, this exodus may be curtailed.

(e)One of the problems in implementation of any new initiative in teaching of immunology is the shortage of trained teachers. Refresher Courses in Immunology should be conducted regularly for UG/PG teachers.

(f) Addition of immunology and molecular biology in basic science course will improve job opportunities for these graduates especially in pharmaceutical industries, in biomedical research and teaching.

(g) Teaching theory courses alone was not sufficient, practicals will have to be a part of UG / PG courses. At present, only a few serological techniques are being taught. Teaching institutions often lack minimum laboratory and animal facilities. Efforts should be made to provide at least a minimum infrastructure to UG/PG institutes to facilitate teaching of immunology.

No. of participants: 32

Topics covered: Coding theory, cryptography and discrete mathematics, finite fields, graph theory, role of randomness in cryptography, cyclotomic polynomials over finite fields.

The 32 teacher participants covered the cities of Adoor, Ahmedabad, Ambikapur, Amritsar, Bapatla, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Kolhapur, Ludhiana, Madurai, Meerut, Mumbai, Pachora, Panaji, Pune, Puttur, and Ranchi.

There were on each day three main theme lectures, namely coding theory, cryptography and discrete mathematics, one general lecture and a discussion session. Some lectures on finite fields were arranged as `finite fields' is a pre-requisite to understand algebraic coding theory. An hour was given everyday for library consultation.

RP Bambah (Panjab University) in his inaugural lecture talked on Kepler conjecture and Minkowski's conjecture. RL Karandikar (ISI, Delhi) gave two general lectures on "Role of randomness in cryptography". Starting from the very introduction of error correcting codes, Madhu Raka (Panjab University) discussed Hamming distance, sphere packing bounds, linear codes, generator matrix, parity check matrix, syndrome decoding, Hamming codes and codes built from mutually orthogonal Latin squares. Gurmeet Kaur (Panjab University) continued with cyclic codes, BCH Codes and idempotents of cyclic codes. LR Vermani (Kurukshetra) highlighted quadratic residue codes and their extended codes.

In cryptography, AK Bhandari (Panjab University) started from classic cryptosystem and block ciphers, described public key cryptosystem RSA and discrete log and Knapsack cryptosystems and in the end described the use of elliptic curves in cryptography. Amora Nongkynrih (TCS, Hyderabad) spoke on primality testing methods and described the recent paper of Maninder Aggarwal (IIT, Kanpur) on primality testing.

In discrete mathematics, VC Dumir (Panjab University) discussed pigeon hole principle, inclusion exclusion principle, recurrence relations and generating functions and gave a number of examples and applications of each of these.

RJ Hans-Gill (Panjab University) gave an introduction to graph theory including Eulerian graphs, Hamilton graphs and Chromatic number of graphs.

During discussion hours, the problem sets based on main lectures, which were given to all participants, were discussed.

In the second week participants were given some time to speak on their work. YS Pawar (Shivaji University, Kolhapur) gave a brief description of her work on lattice theory. Sumathi (Madurai), AK Venkatesh (Alliance Business Academy, Bangalore) and P Vijaya Saradhi (Bapatla Engg. College, Guntur) spoke on their work in graph theory. Vivek Kumar (IIT, Kanpur) spoke on numerical analysis.

No. of participants: 31

Topics covered: Vectors, tensors, wave physics, continuum mechanics ( theory of elasticity), spectral analysis

Resource Persons: SN Bhattacharya (India Met. Dept, Delhi), SK Nath (IIT, Kharagpur), Imtiyaz Parvez (C-MMACS, Bangalore), VK Gaur (C-MMACS, Bangalore), Anjan Bhattacharya (Tezpur University, Tezpur)

The teacher participants represented institutions from Bongaigaon, Guwahati, Jamugurihat, Konthoujam, Latur, Manipur, Nellore, Rourkela, Sibsagar, Tezpur and Titabar.
Extracts from the report by V.K. Gaur

The Refresher Course proved to be a rich experience for the faculty and participants alike. Participants showed extraordinary alertness and enthusiasm despite long hours of work each day, partly because of their identification of the subject with aspects of classical physics in a new setting, and partly because of their intimate experience of the earthquake

phenomena so commonly felt in northeastern India. Lecturers from Cotton College Guwahati took special pains to master computational programs for the determination of earthquake parameters from seismograms, which they plan to introduce as a regular part of their physics undergraduate exercises.

The course began with a keynote lecture on "Earthquake perspectives" by Saurabh Baruah (RRL, Jorhat). The whole of the first week was devoted to refreshing participants' understanding of the basic aspects of mathematical methods including wave physics and integral transforms which would be needed for the main course. All lectures and problem- solving and computational exercises during this week were delivered and conducted by the faculty of Physics and Mathematics departments of Tezpur University. This proved to be extremely effective in engendering a genuine interest in this enterprise amongst the University faculty, which, in turn, was turned to great advantage in drawing them easily to participate in various ways during the main course. Lectures and computational exercises over the next two weeks were delivered by 4 invited scientists with considerable help from the local faculty during the afternoons. There were two lectures each morning and the afternoons were devoted to problem-solving and computational exercises.

A photocopy of Peter Shearer's "Introduction to Seismology", donated by IIT Kharagpur, was given to each participant as well as a CD containing all the programmes they had studied and used for the determination of earthquake location, origin time, and magnitude. A copy each of the Scientific American series of Bruce Bolt's book "Earthquake and geological discovery", was sent to 11 college libraries of northeastern India from where the participants had come.

There was a deeply appreciative feeling widely voiced on several occasions that the Academy by this initiative had added a new dimension to the academic environment of the region, and that the course will, in turn, go much farther than initially imagined, in spurring new initiatives at college and university departments in northeastern India towards enriching teaching and research in physical sciences.

Topics covered :

a. Female reproduction: General organization of vertebrate ovary, follicular development and kinetics, reproductive cycles, fertilization, biology of mammalian blastocyst, differentiation of trophoblast cells, placental hormones, assisted conception.

b. Male reproduction: General organization of vertebrate testis, molecular basis of sperm motility and sperm capacitation

c. Neuroendocrine regulation of reproduction

d. Stress and reproductive toxicology

e. General topics such as aging and reproduction, why sexual reproduction, organizational concept of sexual behaviour.

Resource Persons: SK Saidapur (Karnatak University), HN Yajurvedi (Mysore University), K. Panchratna (Karnatak University, Dharwad), T. Shivanand-appa (CFTRI, Mysore), SA Nevagi, B.A. Shanbhag, S.P. Modak, (all of Karnatak University), Dharwad, S. Shivaji (CCMB, Hyderabad), NP Gramapurohit and R.S. Radder (Karnatak University, Dharwad), A. Jagannadha Rao (IISc, Bangalore), E. Vijayan (University of Pondicherry), PB Seshagiri (IISc, Bangalore) and AB. Shanbhag (Goa University).

The participants were from Dehra Dun, Dharwad, Hyderabad, Kamakhyanagar, Kolkata, Pudukkottai, Sirohi, Tiruchirappalli.

A total of 24 lectures were delivered during the course. All lectures were followed by good interactive sessions between the resource persons and participants. The participants also delivered seminars highlighting their research work. Handouts related to lectures and laboratory exercises were provided. Apart from lectures, laboratory exercises such as surgical techniques in rat, microsurgical technique in rat brain, ELISA for hormones, histochemical localization of steroid dehydrogenases, staging frog development, follicular kinetics of rat ovary, and comparative study of histology of ovary and testis in different vertebrate classes were conducted.

The participants were given a complimentary copy of the book "The essentials of contraceptive technology" (Population Information Program, Baltimore, 2001)