Department of History

Ashoka University is a private university located in Sonipat, Haryana, India, focusing on liberal arts and sciences. It was established in 2014.&nbsp;It is guided by an academic council of academics and scholars from around the world. The council sets the university&#39;s academic standard, advising on matters of curriculum, faculty hiring and research.&nbsp;

Ashoka University offers a full-time 3 (+ 1) year undergraduate programme. The University comprises of&nbsp;2500 plus students, with a mix of both national and international students.&nbsp; &nbsp;

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Ashoka University

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water reduction, converting solar energy into environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel, requires delicate design and synthesis of semiconductors with appropriate bandgaps, suitable energy levels of the frontier orbitals, and high intrinsic charge mobility. In this work, the synthesis of a novel bithiophene-bridged donor–acceptor-based 2D sp2-carbon-linked conjugated polymer (2D CCP) is demonstrated. The Knoevenagel polymerization between the electron-accepting building block 2,3,8,9,14,15-hexa(4-formylphenyl) diquinoxalino[2,3-a:2′,3′-c]phenazine (HATN-6CHO) and the first electron-donating linker 2,2′-([2,2′-bithiophene]-5,5′-diyl)diacetonitrile (ThDAN) provides the 2D CCP-HATNThDAN (2D CCP-Th). Compared with the corresponding biphenyl-bridged 2D CCP-HATN-BDAN (2D CCP-BD), the bithiophene-based 2D CCP-Th exhibits a wide light-harvesting range (up to 674 nm), a optical energy gap (2.04 eV), and highest energy occupied molecular orbital–lowest unoccupied molecular orbital distributions for facilitated charge transfer, which make 2D CCP-Th a promising candidate for PEC water reduction. As a result, 2D CCP-Th presents a superb H2-evolution photocurrent density up to ≈7.9 µA cm−2 at 0 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode, which is superior to the reported 2D covalent organic frameworks and most carbon nitride materials (0.09–6.0 µA cm−2). Density functional theory calculations identify the thiophene units and cyano substituents at the vinylene linkage as active sites for the evolution of H2.

World University root node

Other Publications

Thiophene-Bridged Donor–Acceptor sp2-Carbon-Linked 2D Conjugated Polymers as Photocathodes for Water Reduction

Background Quarantine often is an unpleasant experience. The aim of this study is to explore the degree of psychological distress in terms of-Depression, Anxiety and Stress among the adult population in India during the strict 21 days mandatory lockdown. We hypothesize that quantification of psychological impact of current situation will help us to modify the policies and implementation strategies. This assessment might also help in future to keep targeted services in place, to cope up with the psychological distress of the quarantined population. Method A cross sectional survey design was adopted to assess the psychological state of general population in India, during the COVID-19 mandatory lockdown period, with the help of a validated questionnaire. Findings The reported prevalence of depression was around 30.5%, which was the highest among the variables of psychological health. Anxiety was reported by 22.4%, followed by stress which was seen in 10.8% of respondents. In the third week the incidence of depression (37.8% versus 23.4%; p&lt;0.001), anxiety (26.6% versus 18.2%; p&lt;0.001) and stress (12.2% versus 9.3%; p&lt;0.045) was reported to be significantly higher as compared to second week. Interpretation Our results suggest a progressively detrimental impact of lockdown on various aspects of psychological health. We noticed around eight to ten fold increase in the prevalence of depression (30.5%) and anxiety (22.4%) during lockdown, as compared to baseline statistics in Indian population (3 1-3 6% for depressive disorders and 3 0-3 5% for anxiety disorders). © 2020 Pandey et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Fulltext

PLoS ONE

Psychological impact of mass quarantine on population during pandemics-The COVID-19 Lock-Down (COLD) study

In this paper, we put forth the problem of bequeathing cryptoassets. In this problem, a testator wishes to bequeath cryptoassets - e.g. secrets, static keys or cryptocurrency - to their heirs. Crucially, the testator should retain control of their assets before their passing. Additionally testator needs to maintain privacy, i.e. beneficiaries must not learn the bequest. Moreover, beneficiaries must not be able to determine whether they will inherit at all before testator's decease. We formally define the security goals of a cryptographic will (cryptowill) protocol and subsequently present schemes fulfilling the required security properties. © 2020 IEEE.

Proceedings - 5th IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops, Euro S and PW 2020

CryptoWills: How to Bequeath Cryptoassets

In ‘Colonialism, territory and pre-existing obligations,’ Cara Nine argues that Lea Ypi’s account of the wrongness of colonialism has a hole in it: Ypi leaves open the possibility of justified settler colonialism. Nine suggests that we can patch this hole by attaching value to existing political associations. But Nine’s solution has its own hole. Many political associations exist due to settler colonialism, and thus if we endorse the value of these associations we seem to endorse colonialism. In response, we could say that past colonial injustices have been remediated or superseded. Or, we could leave the hole open: colonialism is sometimes justified. I argue that, surprisingly, the second option is likely preferable, because it does not require us to say that the injustices of colonialism are gone, and because it points towards a better theory of colonialism’s wrongness than Ypi’s: cosmopolitan instrumentalism, according to which colonialism is wrong only when it is unjust according to one’s overall theory of cosmopolitan justice.

Department of Philosophy

Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy

Colonialism, injustices of the past, and the hole in Nine

The National Capital Region of Delhi in India is one of the most polluted urban areas in the world, and its intense pollution episodes are attributed to crop residue burning (CRB). However, existing studies are limited in time and pollutant type, and do not often control for non-biophysical factors. We used ground-measured pollutant levels and aerosol optical depth (AOD) data to understand the role of CRB in Delhi’s air pollution from 2015 to 2018. While the CRB peak in October–November is associated with pollution episodes, biophysical conditions in the April–May CRB period allow the pollutants to disperse. Elevation in SO2 and ozone is associated with CRB from more distant source areas than elevations in PM2.5 and PM10: gaseous molecules such as SO2 may travel further than particulate matter; and NO2 may convert to ozone during long-range transport. Pollution levels are very high in December–January despite low CRB in this period. Given the high contribution of biomass burning in this period in source apportionment studies, it is unclear whether the sharp elevation in pollutant levels with temperature drop in this period can be explained only with meteorological conditions, or whether there are unquantified sources contributing to pollutant load in December–January, such as small-scale CRB that is undetected by the MODIS active fire product or local burning for heat. There are limitations to the substitution of ground-measured pollutants with AOD in analyzing drivers of pollution since AOD, unlike ground-measured pollutants, is unable to identify fine-scale drivers such as construction. Further studies that use seasonal emissions inventories, particularly for waste and household burning for heat, are required to understand their contribution to pollution in December–January as they may have a disproportionate impact on pollution and human health. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd

Department of Environmental Studies

Environmental Research Letters

LETTER Temporal role of crop residue burning (CRB) in Delhi’s air pollution

Contributions to Indian Sociology

Comments: Axel Michaels’s article

Department of Biology

Current Opinion in Structural Biology

Editorial overview: Biophysical and computational methods

In this work, we demonstrate the first synthesis of vinylene-linked 2D CPs, namely, 2D poly(phenylenequinoxalinevinylene)s 2D-PPQV1 and 2D-PPQV2, via the Horner–Wadsworth–Emmons (HWE) reaction of C2-symmetric 1,4-bis(diethylphosphonomethyl)benzene or 4,4′-bis(diethylphosphonomethyl)biphenyl with C3-symmetric 2,3,8,9,14,15-hexa(4-formylphenyl)diquinoxalino[2,3-a:2′,3′-c]phenazine as monomers. Density functional theory (DFT) simulations unveil the crucial role of the initial reversible C−C single bond formation for the synthesis of crystalline 2D CPs. Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) studies and nitrogen adsorption-desorption measurements demonstrate the formation of proclaimed crystalline, dual-pore structures with surface areas of up to 440 m2 g−1. More importantly, the optoelectronic properties of the obtained 2D-PPQV1 (Eg=2.2 eV) and 2D-PPQV2 (Eg=2.2 eV) are compared with those of cyano-vinylene-linked 2D-CN-PPQV1 (Eg=2.4 eV) produced by the Knoevenagel reaction and imine-linked 2D COF analog (2D-C=N-PPQV1, Eg=2.3 eV), unambiguously proving the superior conjugation of the vinylene-linked 2D CPs using the HWE reaction.

Synthesis of Vinylene-Linked Two-Dimensional Conjugated Polymers via the Horner–Wadsworth–Emmons Reaction

There is a strong political opinion in India in favour of replacing caste based affirmative action with an economic class based one. We contribute to this debate by looking at the interaction of caste and wealth in school choice. We show that too rich and too poor parents behave in the same way irrespective of their caste identities—rich parents sending their children to private schools while poor parents choosing public schools for their children. The caste identity, we find, plays a role for the school choice decision made by the parents belonging to the economic middle class. Among the economic middle class parents, the ones from the privileged castes send their children to private schools, while the children of the parents from the disadvantaged castes are sent to public schools. The result is robust to alternative definitions of privileged and disadvantaged castes. For school quality choice, however, we find a monotonic relationship between wealth and school quality.

Department of Economics

Review of Development Economics

Class or caste? A study on the role of caste and wealth status in school choice decision

This paper explores the use of a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/mathematics/cumulants">cumulant</a> method to determine the zeros of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/mathematics/partition-function">partition functions</a> for continuous phase transitions going up to the second zero. Unlike a first-order transition, with a uniform density of zeros near the transition point, a continuous transition shows a power law dependence of the density with a nontrivial slope for the line of zeros. Different types of models and methods of generating cumulants are used as testing grounds for the method. These include exactly solvable DNA melting problem on hierarchical <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/mathematics/lattices">lattices</a>, heterogeneous DNA melting with randomness in sequence, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/mathematics/monte-carlo-simulation">Monte Carlo simulations</a> for the well-known <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/mathematics/square-lattice">square lattice</a> <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/physics-and-astronomy/ising-model">Ising model</a>. The method is applicable for zeros near the imaginary axis which control dynamical quantum phase transitions. In all cases, the method is found to provide the basic information about the transition, and most importantly, avoids root finding methods.