ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. R.K.Panda, Agriculture and Food engineering department for being a constant source of guidance. He has always been motivating me at critical points of the project.

I would like to thank Dr. B. C. Mal, Professor and Head, Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur for providing all the necessary facilities for the successful completion of my project. I also thank Prof. S.N. Panda, Prof. R.Singh, Prof. K.N.Tiwari, Prof.N.S.Raghuwanshi, Prof. M.K.Jha and Prof C.Chaterjee for their help and invigorating discussions.

I owe the warmest of thanks to my Parents, Mrs. Mythili Gopalan and Dr. A.K.S. Gopalan, who constantly supported me in all my endeavors and made sure the physical distance was not felt. I am grateful to my sister, Hema and her husband, Vijay for all the lighter moments during the period of this project. And I want to thank my niece, Ananya for being the light of my life. I owe a great deal to my family.

I thank all my wingmates and other close friends on campus for knocking sense into me on a regular basis. Heartfelt acknowledgements are due to Krishna and other friends back home too.

I am indebted to all who have been directly or indirectly involved in this project.

(A.G.Sudarshan)

May , 2006

P.S. Trauma is over. Thanks to the bold ones.