Devasahayam: The First Martyr For Jesus Christ In Travancore

Travancore was the first and foremost among the princely states of India to receive the message of Jesus Christ. According to tradition, St. Thomas the Apostle came to India in 52 A.D. He made many conversions along the west coast of India. It had to the beginning of the Christian Community in India from the early Christian era. He attained martyrdom in 72 A.D. At Calamina in St. Thomas mount, Madras. He was the first to be sacrificed for the sake of Christ in India. During the close of the second century A.D. The Gospel reached the people of southern most part of India, Travancore. Emperor Constantine deputed Theophilus to India in 354 A.D. To preach the Gospel. During this time the persecution of Christians in Persia seemed to have brought many Christian refugees to Malabar coast and after their arrival it strengthened the Christian community there. During the 4th century A.D. Thomas of Cana, a merchant from West Asia came to Malabar and converted many people. During the 6th century A.D. Theodore, a monk, visited India and reported the existence of a church and a few Christian groups at Mylapore and the monastery of St. Thomas in India. Joannes De Maringoly, Papal Legate who visited Malabar in 1348 has given evidence of the existence of a Latin Church at Quilon. Hosten noted many settlements from Karachi to Cape Comorin and from Cape Comorin to Mylapore. The Portuguese were the first European power to establish their power in India. Under the Portuguese, Christians experienced several changes in their general life and religion. Vas-co-da-gama reached Calicut on May 17, 1498. His arrival marked a new epoch in the history of Christianity in India. Many Syrian Catholics were brought into the Roman Catholic fold and made India, the most Catholic country in the East. Between 1535 to 1537 a group of Paravas were converted to Christianity by the Portuguese. In 1544 a group of fishermen were converted to Christian religion. St. Francis Xavier came to India in the year 1542. He is known as the second Apostle of India. He laid the foundation of Latin Christianity in Travancore. He could make many conversions. He is said to have baptized 30,000 people in South India. Roman Congregation of the propagation of Faith formed a Nemom Mission in 1622. The conversion of the Nairs was given much priority. As a result, several Nairs followed Christian faith particularly around Nemom about 8 k.m. South of Trivandrum. Ettuvitu pillaimars, the feudal chiefs began to persecute the Christians of the Nemom Mission. Martyr Devasahayam, belonged to the Nair community and was executed during the reign of Marthandavarma (1729-1758). It is an important chapter in the History of Christianity in South India in general, and of Travancore in particular.

Fault Diagnosis Methodologies for Automotive Engine Air Intake Path

On-board model based condition monitoring of an automotive spark ig- nition engine is still a challenging task for automotive industry. The diagnostic system aims to enhance fuel efficiency and to reduce harmful exhaust emissions. Among various subsystems of gasoline engine, air intake system holds prime impor- tance as it is responsible to ensure proper air and fuel proportions in combustion mixture. This subsystem exhibits highly nonlinear behavior due to its components like throttle body, intake manifold etc. Health monitoring of such nonlinear system cannot be performed by conventional diagnosis methods. That is why On-Board Diagnostic (OBD-II) standard kits do not have the provision to diagnose vari- ous air intake system faults. These faults include air leakages in intake manifold, clogged air filter, reduced throttle body efficiency and certain sensor faults. This manuscript presents a novel nonlinear health monitoring scheme based on sliding mode theory for on-board diagnostics of air intake system. Sliding mode theory is extensively used in fault diagnosis methodologies. Sliding mode observers based on nonlinear dynamics deliver robust platform for the estimation of un-measurable system variables. The estimation of such parameters can be exploited for fault diagnosis of dynamical systems. In this dissertation, second order sliding mode observers are designed for air intake system. The designed observers are used to estimate un-measurable and critical parameters/states. Five of the estimated crit- ical parameters are: frictional torque, combustion efficiency, volumetric efficiency, air filter discharge coefficient and throttle discharge coefficient. These parameters are estimated from a two state nonlinear model of gasoline engine based on inlet manifold pressure and rotational speed dynamics. These parameters are extremely helpful in engine modeling, controller design and fault diagnosis/prognosis. An- other contribution of this thesis is the development of virtual sensors for air intake system. Pressure dynamics are estimated from crankshaft sensor measurements and vice-versa. The outlined parameters and virtual sensors are used to moni- tor various functions of air intake system. These functions cannot be routinely sensed/monitored by any sensor. The estimation of afore-mentioned parameters has been conducted under healthy and faulty operating conditions to generate residuals. These residuals are evaluated to identify/classify any malfunction in air intake system. A detailed procedure for three fault diagnostic schemes have been discussed. These scheme require no extra sensor/hardware for their evaluation, only conventional on-board diagnostics (OBD) equipments are mandatory. The validation of novel estimation and diagnostic scheme is performed on production vehicle engine equipped with engine control unit compliant to OBD-II standards. It has been shown experimentally that the above discussed faults have been timely identified. The proposed fault diagnosis scheme has the potential for online im- plementation as it operates sample-by-sample on OBD-II measurements.