April 30, 2020 | Adamas University

Spotlight section on Biotechnology: Prospects and applications of Nanobiotechnology

Student Contributor: Animikha Ghosh (BTech Biotech, Semester IV)

Since the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), researchers and medical professionals worldwide are trying their best to combat this pandemic. This strain of virus shares 96% homology with bat betacoronaviruses and 95% similar genome with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) that causes another pandemic in 2002. The natural host for the virus is a bat and started in china. A recent study in 2019, warned that bats could cause the next coronavirus epidemic in China, due to their geographic proximity to the places having high population density.

There’s no particular medicine or vaccine known or discovered to date. Although some known broad-spectrum Antiviral drugs are used to treat COVID 19 now. In this crisis, Nanotechnology could give us some advantage in combating this pandemic. Nanoparticles have previously been used to treat influenza and tuberculosis. The basic idea of using nanoparticles in treating viruses is that the size of SARS-CoV-2 is structurally of similar scales of nanoparticles. Then, it could be possible to treat these nanoparticle bound viruses with exposure under an infrared light source for probable neutralization of these viruses inside the host body. The advantages of nanoparticles over drugs that it will not disrupt any other function such as the function of the immune system. The disadvantage of nanoparticles that they are pervasive. So to use them we need particles that are in good terms with body ecosystem and diet.

Iron-based Nanoparticles are used along with a combination of magnetic field exposure that could target specific organs such as lungs which is the most susceptible organ of viral infection. SARS-CoV-2 spreads mostly as small droplets of viral particles from breathing, talking, sneezing, coughing, that enters host cells through the routes of eyes, mouth, or nose and survive inside our body by attaching themselves to the flat surface at the kitchen, walls, posts, and other solid surfaces.

Pathogens can be made disabled by targeting them with nanoparticles before they can break into the host cells. So, that they cannot hold on to membranes and surfaces on the host cells. Researchers have shown various use of nanotechnology-enabled antimicrobial and antiviral strategies such as nanofiber-based facial respirators/masks, nano-based antimicrobial, and antiviral disinfectants, medical Cream and wound Dressing, detection kit, vaccine, etc, which already proven highly effective.

Recently masks and respirators are of high demand in the health care sector, especially nanofiber-based multi-layered facial respiratory masks. Nano-aerosols (colloid of fine solid particles or liquid droplets of sub-micron to nano-sizes), such as viral aerosols, could be lethal as they can go effectively through our lungs and work their way into our respiratory structures, doing the most noticeably terrible sort of harm.

25% of 0.3 micron sized viral-aerosols can be blocked using a conventional face mask, whereas a multi-layer nanofibre mask protects against suspended viral particles by blocking 80% of them and also blocks the viral-aerosols having a size less than 0.3 microns. These masks exhibit higher efficiency in improving the performances of various parameters like breathing proficiency, air filtration, porousness, antimicrobial properties and also prove comfortable and economically cheaper.

Now the key question is how effective are these nanotechnology-enabled facial masks to protect ourselves?

National Institute of Occupational safety and health (NIOSH) evaluated, tested, and approved that nanotechnology-enabled N95 is the most effective mask to avoid any form of transmission. It can capture tiny viral particles of very small size as 0.3 microns(a typical hair is 70 to 100 microns).

The difference between a technology-enabled N95, N99, and N100 lies in their ability to filtrate different sizes of particles. It also resists small particle aerosols, large droplets (only non-oil aerosols). Nanofibers are the best possible material available to make N95 masks, which not only increases the breathing surface area but also proves clinically fit to capture several naturally occurring nanoparticles (e.g., viruses), micron-sized particles (e.g., bacteria), and man-made particles (e.g., soot from diesel exhaust). This pandemic claim lives worldwide and production and supply of masks are the priority. In this aspect, many start-ups and companies with their R&Ds are coming to help medical professionals.

Attempts are made to decontaminated disposable N95 masks by using UV rays, vaporized hydrogen peroxide, and dry heat. Ethyl alcohol is not recommended as it degrades the materials. But one-time use of both N95 and other surgical masks hurts the atmosphere. So, it is essential to create reusable masks.

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has developed washable and reusable Nanofilters for face masks. The filter inside can be replaced and the mask is reusable after ethanol wash. These masks are based on Insulated Block Electrospinning (IBE) technology, in which nanofibers are intersected or aligned at 90 degrees to each other in a cross-shaped pattern.

Although the World health organization does not recommend wearing a face mask for the general public as there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that wearing a medical mask could protect healthy individuals from coronavirus infection and rather promotes social distancing. But it can surely be said that the nanobiotechnology-based antimicrobial technologies are of high potential and still a huge scope of research and job opportunities are available in this field.

In our department of biotechnology, in the School of life science & Biotechnology at Adamas University, we offer nanobiotechnology as a part of the BSc, BTech, and MSc biotechnology course curriculum. The nanobiotechnology syllabus is well supported with both theory and practical based courses, along with internship programs at various research laboratories and industries all around the country, which gives you in-depth knowledge in this subject and an understanding of how to use this technology to make new scientific innovations.

So, welcome to the Department of Biotechnology, to pursue your carrier in a promising subject like Nanobiotechnology, offered by the School of Life Science and Biotechnology at Adamas University.

Covid-19: A worldwide pandemic boosting the cyber security attacks

Introduction:

COVID-19 has a direct effect on human health. But how much passive effect it has over the entire world?

The effect of COVID-19 led the entire world in a state of lockdown. For the safety of the employees, all the sectors have moved to work from home facility. Even the sectors, where the facility of work from home may not have been considered from the past few decades, have now started implementing it as a necessity and leaning more towards the digital world. Every aspect of life has its pros and cons. Now the question is all about the future passive effect of COVID-19 in the digital world. The main motive behind this survey is about the industries adopting digital transformation as their Business Continuation Plan(BCP) or IT giants, pioneer in this digital era, both are facing a huge challenge concerning data security. The IT industries ensured adequate and updated digital security protocols in their infrastructure. But amid the ongoing nationwide lockdown, the organizations are engaging their associates in work from home facility, where associates are utilizing their personal infrastructure. Most of the time these facilities do not have adequate data security protocols and the organization is also not in a position to provide door to door support with an extensive data security infrastructure. This clears the way for malicious users to hack easily associates’ personal infrastructure and steal confidential data. In these circumstances, we shall conduct a survey and collect the stats, that our victory over COVID-19 is a real victory or pushing us into the next level of challenges for our future.

Some recorded Cyberattack(hacking) incidents using COVID-19 theme:

In a recent report by The Economic Times dated 27^th March 2020, the volume of cyberattacks has doubled in the past few days penetrating different corporate networks as suggested by PricewaterhouseCoopers’ cybersecurity team. India observed malware named AZORult, which was there for almost the last three years but recently it has been merged with files and apps belonging to the COVID-19 theme.

In a report by the India Today dated 24^th March 2020, the World Health Organization(WHO), frontline defense, for the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, has recently faced a cyberattack. A group of Elite hackers tried to break into the WHO’s internal email facility. But due to the active presence of the cybersecurity professionals in the organization, the attack has been nullified.

As claimed by WebARX, a web security company, over past few weeks, the attempts of website exploitations have increased in a considerable amount. The company has also claimed, in March 16^th , 2020 to April 08^th,2020 they got around 56 reports concerning cyberattacks.

Till March 30^th,2020, Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) division of FBI has encountered more than 1,200 complaints related to COVID-19 scams. In the past few weeks, hackers have engaged in phishing activities mimicking the actual websites used to raised funds for COVID-19 launched DDoS attacks against government agencies providing aid for COVID-19 deployed ransomware at medical facilities and created fake COVID-19 websites that silently download malware to victim devices.

As per the alert of CISA, USA, and NCSC, UK released on April 08^th, 2020, cybercriminal and advanced persistent threat (APT) groups are launching Phishing web applications, Malware distribution using the subject of coronavirus or COVID-19, Registration of new domain names containing wording related to coronavirus or COVID-19 for attracting and trapping a large number of internet users, and Attacks against newly deployed remote access and teleworking infrastructure.

As per the report of the Business Insider, India published on April 9^th, 2020, Microsoft has mapped cyberattacks such as phishing emails and found that 241 nations and territories have suffered at least one cybersecurity attack using the COVID-19 theme. Microsoft Threat Protection, the company’s suite of cybersecurity tools used to track and block threats also found roughly 60,000 mails with COVID-19 related malicious attachments or URLs are sent 2% of a day.

Figure 1: Describing Year wise cyberattack graph for January-March quarter

The Figure 1, portrays the cyberattack(hacker) trends for this year and past two years in the given duration of months.

Conclusion:

Many IT giants have released a virtual tracker as a part of their work from home facility to deal with these cyber-attacks(hackings) amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This will track the background network activities of their associates ensuring the protection of confidential organizational data from malicious users. They are even launching VPNs(Virtual Private Network), separating the associates with similar interests from the overall network traffic and restricting unauthorized access. These digital transformations happened very quickly without getting proper time for acclimatization. The non-IT firms are using many existing opensource software without knowing their security vulnerabilities. This software exposes the organizations to the malicious cyberattacks, during their confidential meeting or data sharing. We can draw a conclusion from the above study that, the whole world is not only fighting against the COVID-19 but also struggling with many passive problems influenced by this worldwide pandemic. These opportunist cyber criminals sneaking their way and achieving their goals by taking advantage of the COVID-19 outbreak, where people, Government and media are mainly focused for the health related issues. So, we need to be more conscious and alert while fighting with COVID-19 not only to defeat the disease but to protect ourselves from these passive threats into the digital world.

Co-Contributor: Ms. Sanjana Dutta, IT Analyst, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Kolkata, West Bengal, India.

Pharmacy as a career: Spotlight on New Arrivals

Pharmaceutical Technology/Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, and reviewing the safe, effective, and affordable use of drugs. This technological field presents us the knowledge about the composition of drugs based on their chemical, biological, and physical properties, manufacture and biological action of drugs along with the related adverse effects.

Why Pharmaceutical Technology?

Professional Growth: Known as a recession-proof career which gives rewarding salary and possibility for growth due to advanced technological innovations. It is perhaps the only career to expect growth even in pandemic situations like that due to COVID-19.

Trusted Profession: Pharmacists are continually ranked as some of the most noticeably trusted specialists because of the critical care and health-related services they provide.

Indian Pharmaceutical Industry – present scenario

The architect of Indian pharmaceuticals industry would be Acharya P.C.Ray, who founded Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Works Ltd., the first manufacturing facility within the country, in the year 1901. Over the past few decades due to technological advances, low cost R & D services, bulk drug availability, manufacturing & clinical trial facility as in line with FDA standard & skilled expert human assets turnsIndian pharmaceuticals industry is globally respected and is one of the most successful industries in India. It has contributed immensely to India’s healthcare outcomes and economy. World‐class capabilities and beneficial market conditions over the last few years have ensured that India continues to be certainly one of the maximum rewarding pharma markets in the world. India is a major producer of vaccines too.

Demand for skilled Pharma Manpower

The need of professional manpower within the pharmaceutical industry ranges extensively from R&D, Quality Control (QC), Quality Assurance (QA), Intellectual Property (IP), production to even sales and marketing.Pharmaceutical industry has the potential to attract a bigger range of competencies even at some point of global financial meltdown, as the industry is virtually recession proof.

Key functional areas

Hospital & Clinical Pharmacy

Hospital & Clinical Pharmacists are energetic, enthusiastic participants of the patient care team. They do wide range of capabilities starting from procurement of drugs to dispensing to the patients. Pharmacists are responsible for overseeing the optimal, safe and cost-effective medication therapy management using evidenced-based medicine to improve overall patient care in all patients.

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

The pharmaceutical industry is a complex, multi-factorial environment, but with the overall aim of discovering, developing and marketing safe and efficacious medicines, and it demands high standards and quality from its employees. Pharmaceutical industry needs manufacturing Pharmacist or approved Chemist to obtain license for manufacturing.

Regulatory Affairs

The quality of medicine brings therapeutic effectiveness. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the regulatory agency monitors the quality, safety & efficacy of pharmaceuticals globally.The entire process of pharmaceutical manufacturing includes procurement of raw materials, production or manufacturing, quality control to sales is regulated by drug control agencies of Central and respective State Government.

Pharmaceutical Marketing

Pharmaceutical marketing is different than the conventional marketing. Here, the real consumer is the patient, who has a little or no choice. That’s why the job is extra challenging & require special skill, training & know-how about medicines. Every day they have to deal with highly qualified doctors in one hand and the professional business man (often called drug trader in common terminology). This is a never saturating professional area and jobs are available always. The sales personal is called as medical representatives or business executives. They maybe promotedto GeneralManager of the organisation.

Pharmacovigilance

Pharmacovigilance is a great career option for Pharmacy graduates is primarily concerned with reporting and analysing of drug side effects.After a drug side effect is reported, the Pharmacovigilance professionals enter the event in relevant databases, follow up with the case to gather more information and forward these reports to regulatory authorities and other applicable bodies. The Pharmacovigilance professionals identify signals in data that may point towards a potential side effect and probe the case further.

Newer Opportunities/Functional areas

Nuclear Pharmacy

Nuclear pharmacists are also known as radiopharmacists. This is a specialty area of pharmacy practice involved with the preparation of nuclear medicine. The main objective is to improve and promote good healththroughthe protected and effective utilization of radioactive medications.

Forensic Pharmacy

Forensic pharmacy is the application of the drug sciences to legal matters. Forensic pharmacists are involved in legal research, administrative procedure and the criminal justice system. Pharmacists hold a number of positions with federal, local, and state governments.

Scientific Writing

This newer job prospect in pharmacy involves writing, editing, compiling and analyzing scientific data and information for commercial purposes/ scientific journal articles or as general media publications

Clinical Research Scientist

This job scope involves the design, planning, budgeting, execution, coordination, data collection, data interpretation and statistical optimization of all phases of clinical trials in accordance with the framework laid down by the regulatory authorities.

A Doctor gives life to the patient through medicine

A Pharmacist gives life to Medicines through his knowledge & skills

TELEWORKING: A New Trend in the Organizational Change Patterns, As A Result of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“The only constant in life is change” – Heraclitus

As the whole world has been tied down by the shackles of the COVID-19, every aspect of the human life around the world has almost come to a halt, including their work life. The immediate need of the hour for organizations is to bring change in working patterns and modes. So it is a
period of change, resistance, acceptance of effective alternatives and managing the stress coming out from organizational changes.
The bombardment of developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) provide novel and effective ways of working without limitations of time and place. Hence, the concept of teleworking has taken over the traditional work station concepts of working at the organizations. The concept of teleworking, given by Di Martino and Wirth, 1990: 530, define it as ‘work carried out in a location where, remote from central offices or production facilities, the worker has no personal contact with co-workers there, but is able to communicate with them using new technology’. Telework is seen as a way of increasing flexibility in work life, both from the organizational and individual perspective. One form of flexible work practice is Distance Working.

Benefits of Telework
The benefits of teleworking have been consistently cited in much empirical research and review articles (e.g. Mann et al., 2000; Montreuil and Lippel, 2003).

(1) Better balance of home and work life:
Employees are able to spend less time away from home and thus use the time which they might otherwise have wasted on travelling or being in the office, with their family or children. They can also cope better with mini domestic crises

(2) Increased flexibility:
Teleworkers can often (but not always) choose the hours they work, enabling them to work at times when they are more productive and can sit with the work uninterrupted. There is also the freedom and flexibility of being able to work from home for the employer as well, so as to gain
work even if there is difficulty getting to the office due to disability, rural home locations or ring responsibilities.

(3) Reduction in commuting:
The reduction in commuting has potential positive impacts on cost, time and stress and maybe that’s a primary reason for employees to choose telework.

(4) Reduced overheads for employer:
A recent experiment in teleworking at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) yielded savings of around 25 per cent (Loughran, 1998). Companies make these savings by reducing the need for expensive office space and overheads such as heating, electricity and wear and tear.

(5) Increased productivity:
Many popular literatures (e.g. Montreuil and Lippel, 2003) has shown higher productivity among teleworkers than other employess and this higher performance level is attributed to fewer interruptions, longer working hours and the flexibility when planning work schedules.
Problems of Telework A wide range of problems associated with teleworking have been documented. These include:

(1) Social isolation:
Social isolation is the most frequently noted disadvantage of teleworking. This lack of contact with coworkers at times results in poor cognitive and executive functioning, anxious and depressive cognitions.
(2) Presenteeism:
Presenteeism is not just about working long hours, but also working when sick; Many research results indicate a drop in absenteeism amongst teleworkers as employees may, for example, take a morning off when ill rather than a full day, return to work when not fully recovered—or take
no time off at all (Montreuil and Lippel, 2003). This problem of ‘presenteeism’, whereby people feel unable to take time off from work because of sickness, is, no doubt, a prolonged problem for
all employees in today’s job insecurity scenarios. (Clark, 1994).
(3) Blurring of boundaries:
The commute from home to work has traditionally allowed the transition between roles to occur (Hall, 1989, in Ellison, 1999). Many employees find commuting a useful break between home and work. Although many teleworkers attempt to develop spatial and temporal boundaries
between work and home life, by creating a room only used for work, working from home does blur the contour between the roles, not only for the teleworker but also for the family (Ellison, 1999).
(4) Irritation:
The main aspect is the irritation caused by being physically distant from the source of any problems. This social isolation can restrict the ability to sort out issues, leading to frustration, and prevent emotional support from fellow workers to help deal with the situations. Another cause of
irritation for the teleworkers seems to be the intrusion of family members into work time. This blurring of boundaries between work and home life, as other family members have difficulty in distinguishing the work role from the family role, may lead to feelings of frustration, anger and stress.
(5) Resentment:
Teleworkers both experience negative emotions due to the spillover of work into their family and leisure time which may also affect their levels of satisfaction with the organization. The ability to effectively manage time is a great source of stress for individuals working independently such as
teleworkers (Cooper, 2000).
(6)Stress:
However office-workers appeared to experience additional stress due to office politics and transport and, as mentioned earlier, studies do suggest that travelling to work increases stress levels (Hobbs and Armstrong, 1998). That office-workers have to commute to work on a daily basis is likely to increase negative emotions such as anger and hostility characteristically related to the stress of transport and travel; for example, in worrying about lost time whilst commuting, fear of being late for work etc. (Montreuil and Lippel, 2003).
(7) Loneliness:
Teleworkers emphasize unavailability of social support to talk things through which could produce other negative emotions such as feelings of insecurity and lack of confidence in their abilities. The lack of face-to-face communication and an increased use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) can bring down feelings of belonging, the affective bond with the organization.
(8) Enjoyment
Enjoyment can be linked to the comparative complexity of the tasks involved and the positive emotional impact appears to be based on feelings of pride; which is experienced when success is seen to be caused by internal factors (like own ability and/or efforts). The intrinsic rewards gained from their employment may motivate teleworkers, to some degree, to overcome negative emotions such as loneliness.

However, if telework is to be successful, its impact on psychological health and well-being and issues such as isolation, blurring of the home-work contours and emotional ‘spill-over’ are to be focused to minimize any potential negative impact on employees. Whilst some of the emotional impact appears to be positive, such as a reduction of travel-related stress or irritation caused by office interruptions, increased loneliness due to the isolation of working away from the office, more frustration due to lack of technical support, more guilt when calling in sick and more resentment regarding the impact that teleworking has on the home and family life. So utilizing the computer-mediated communication (CMC) channels, employees can go beyond these barriers of teleworking and reduce social distancing and enhance their mental health for the betterment of society as a whole.

References Used:
Di Martino, V. and L. Wirth (1990), ‘Telework: A New Way of Working and Living’, International Labour Review, 129, 5, 529–554.

Montreuil, S. and K. Lippel (2003), ‘Telework and Occupational Health: A Quebec Empirical Study and Regulatory Implications’, Safety Science, 41, 4, 339–358.

Clark, S. (1994), ‘Presentees: New Slaves of the Office Who Run on Fear’, The Sunday Times, 16 October.

Ellison, N.B. (1999), ‘Social Impacts: New Perspectives on Tele-Work’ Social Science Computer Review, 17, 3, 338–356.

Hobbs, D. and J. Armstrong (1998), ‘An Experimental Study of Social and Psychological Aspects of Teleworking’, Industrial Management & Data Systems, 98, 5, 214–218.

Thermoelectricity: A new way to turn waste heat into useful energy

Availability of sustainable energy to the world’s population is a vital societal problem of the 21^st century, as fossil fuel supply or any other non-renewable energy sources are decreasing and world energy demand is increasing. Reuse of waste heat might be one of the best solutions.

Thermoelectric (TE) phenomena enable the conversion between thermal and electrical energy and can offer a distinct method for heating and cooling materials. Therefore, this can be a potential solution to meet the ongoing energy challenge. Thus, TE materials can be used to provide efficient harvesting of electricity from the waste heat in case of power generation. Also, devices fabricated of TE materials, the TE devices are known to be a potential candidate to convert heat into electricity. Apart from power generation, one of the main applications of thermoelectric material lies in the field of solid state cooling. TE devices thus provide direct conversion of heat into electricity and vice versa and hold substantial potential for heat management, precise temperature control and energy harvesting from ever-present temperature gradient. TE devices also have many advantages like no moving parts, scalable and reliable. They can also be operated in hostile environment with minimal maintenance. Use of TE material is limited because of their low conversion efficiency.

Now a days, TE devices are used in niche applications for space missions, laboratory equipment and in medical applications, where energy availability, reliability, predictability and silent operation of the modules are more important than its cost and energy efficiency. The efficiency of a TE material is dictated by a dimensionless figure of merit ZT (which is explicitly related with the efficiency) is given by:ZT=(S²/rk)T; where T is the absolute temperature, S is the Seebeck Coefficient or thermoelectric power, r is electrical resistivity and k is the thermal conductivity of the material. Even though in principle there is no limitation to the maximum TE conversion efficiency apart from the Carnot limit, current TE material struggle to display high S, low r and k simultaneously due to the fact that these are interrelated material property. Nevertheless, the basic science involved in achieving good thermoelectric material is very rich and attracting researchers nowadays.

Advancement in Thermoelectric Materials:

A standard way to improve the TE properties is to modify its chemical composition either by synthesizing solid solutions or alloys or, alternatively, by preparing new chemical compounds. Advancement in TE study involves materials design and intricate tuning of structure–property relationships in complex solids. The advanced thermoelectric material must achieve certain minimum value of the related TE parameters to be potential TE material. However, materials with simple electronic band structure; i.e.; general metals are poor TE materials. Hence, early study on TE materials emphasizes in narrow band gap semiconductors.

Bi₂Te₃, Sb₂Te₃ and PbTe based systems are the conventional thermoelectric materials. However, improvement in ZT is negligible, over the last half century. Bi₂Te₃ based material shows ZT~0.6 under normal condition at room temperature. The best commercially available thermoelectric material is (Bi_1-xSb_x)₂(Se_1-yTe_y)₃ having ZT around 1. Highly doped Bi₂Te₃ based material show ZT~1.40. Whereas ZT=1.5 is obtained for PbTe at 773K. However, modification in chemical composition, introduction of nano-structure and quantum confinement can improve the TE properties.

Worldwide resurgence in activity promotes novel thermoelectric material with high ZT. These are basically PGEC (Phonon Glass Electron Crystal). However, effort also employed to enhance the ZT through reducing the dimension and synthesizing micro-nano compound bulk material.

Fig. 1.Phonon glass–electron crystal (PGEC) prototype.

PGEC material:
A theoretically ideal choice for best TE material is PGEC. PGEC possesses “glass-like” thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity similar as metal. An emblematic picture of the material is presented in Fig 1. The cage atoms form a regular periodic crystal lattice along which electrons (or holes) can move fairly freely, ideally approaching the so-called electron crystal. The central rattler atom is commonly bigger, heavier and more loosely bound compared with the cage atoms. These materials are cage like open structure. L is reduced significantly by introducing heavy atoms at the interstitial voids or cage of PGEC. Half-Heusler alloy and β-Zn4Sb3 alloy exhibit PGEC properties. Some typical PGEC materials are Skutterudites (viz. CoSb3) and clathrates (viz. Sr8Ga16Ge30).

i) Skutterdite materials:
PGEC thermoelectric material includes substitutionalskutterdite and field-type skutterdite. Thermal conductivity in substitution type materials are decreased by lattice defect, created due to solid solution. ZT value of Co4-xFexSb12, substitutionalskutteride increases with x and highest value obtained at x=0.65. Further, field types are doped by rare earth material in cubic structure. Phonon scattering by the doped material causes decrease in thermal conductivity. The doping element may vary in wide range. It may be single element, binary element or multi element. The vibration of the doping elements in the lattice cavity causes scattering of phonon with different frequency range.

ii) Clathrates:
In the clathrates material, guest cation vibrates and scattering of phonon causes decrease in thermal conductivity. Further, strong bonding effect increases the electrical conductivity. Hence these materials have high ZT values. A typical clathrates material is YbxBa8-xGa16Ge30 and MNiSn (M=Zr, Hf, Ti) is a half heuslar type clathrates material.

a) Oxides thermoelectric materials:
These materials are important to use at high temperature. High temperature stability, oxidation resistance, safety and long term durability made them attractive as high temperature thermoelectric material. Oxide thermoelectric material includes, cobalt oxides, perovskite compounds, transparent conductive oxides and novel oxides.

b) Low dimensional materials:
Quantum confinement causes due to decrease in the dimension of the material. Low dimensional materials may be classified as quantum well, quantum wire and quantum dot. Decrease in dimension modifies the S, σ and ρ. Further, Quantum confinement efficiently scatters phonon. Which in turn affect the ZT. Nano inclusion in bulk material is also used as better thermoelectric material than bulk one.

c) Phonon-liquid electron-crystal material (PLEC material):
Reducing the κ is one of the major challenges in recent TE research. Recently, it has been proposed that transverse phonon can be suppressed by liquid like diffusion in supersonic conductors. According to PLEC model, liquid do not propagate transverse modes which even leads to lower value of κL than in glass. It was first used to describe in Cu2Se. Cu ion moves freely (liquid like behavior) and scatter phonons strongly. Further, it has the excellent electrical properties which make it a good TE material.

Uses of Thermoelectric Materials:

Thermoelectric materials are used in niche cooling applications, for example to maintain very stable temperatures in lasers and optical detectors, and they are often found in office water coolers. They are also used in space exploration to convert heat from a radioactive material into electricity.

The current focus on energy sustainability and stricter legislation on the emissions of CO2 imposed on automobile manufacturers has sparked a great deal of interest in these fascinating materials.

Only about one third of the fuel energy is converted into mechanical energy in an internal combustion engine with the remainder lost as heat. A thermoelectric generator harvests waste heat from the exhaust gases, which are at a temperature of 300-500ºC, and turns this into electricity. State of the art modules generate about 1 kW, which can be used to power the electrical equipment in the car. This allows for a smaller alternator, which reduces the roll friction, leading to an increase in fuel efficiency and reduced CO2 emissions.

A “Day-Dream”:
All around our world, there are many sources of natural temperature differences, and if that could be tapped into electrical energy… by using thermoelectric phenomena… That may be the temperature difference between an attic and the outside air, or between the dessert sun on a hot day and the temperature 3-6 feet down (may be some kind of geo loops probably pretty easy to dig, in sand!), etc. Let us imagine that, harvesting energy would result in moderating temperature on each side. If that were to occur, it seems that a homeowner might simultaneously expect to get electricity and a cooler attic in the summer out of the deal. Then, there are ocean currents, carrying huge volume of cool or warm water into other ocean areas, and industrial processes that use lakes to cool down their systems could employ cooling/ energy recovery operations, too..

COVID-19 AND EMERGING GLOBAL CRISIS

Presently in the era of globalization when we all are living under one roof promoting peace and security for everyone so that the maximum benefit can be assured for all according to their capabilities, at the same time we are also bound to share the misfortune of each other and thus from various environment crisis to various pandemic which we have witnessed earlier to present crisis of COVID-19. Whole world is facing the health crisis which seems to be endless until and unless a permanent solution can be found. It has not only triggered the lives of the common people but also has affected the world economy, civil society and the international relations of the various countries; it has abruptly brought various policy changes in the world-wide. Every country is trying to alter its policies in such a way that it not only help them to maintain their social, economic and political relations but at the same time can avoid the spread of the virus.

Apart from the health crisis and death toll, around the world the economic activity is at standstill and we all are not able to estimate the turndown it will bring to the world economy and at the same time what permanent consequences it will have on humanity. Though it is too early to have a humanitarian crisis assessment but this is for sure that the poor of the poorest will be the worst affected, various refugee camps around the world and the third world countries are among them. The worst effected economies will try to amend laws; investment, manufacturing as well as treaties in such a way that they survive this deadlock but this is for sure that it will bring the fundamental change in the structure of the international relations. Under the effect of covid-19 we can very well see that the international cooperation is shrinking instead of expanding, as every national government is trying to tackle the crisis individually. Even in the visa-free Schengen Area of Europe, (it’s an area of 26 European countries, those have abolished their internal borders, for the free and unrestricted movement of people, in harmony with common rules for controlling external border security) where regional alliance had made such progress over the past few decades, countries are closing their borders due to pandemic. Internal and external migrants and their families are being affected by the pandemic where as developed nations like United States are expanding their immigration and traveling policies to block the entry of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico, US and Canada announced plans to suspend nonessential travel between them, not only this but they also have suspended all the flights to Italy, China, and South Korea in early march because of high number of COVID 19 cases was reported from these countries.

The nations like Philippines, Laos, Bangladesh, Vietnam, which mainly rely on foreign remittances to compliment their earnings, in addition to this nations like Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan etc who have most of their incomes from tourism will also be worst affected. Various internal migrants labor within the countries have not only lost their jobs but are also unable to reach back to their families exhausting all their savings, they were forced because of the circumstances to walk back on their foot for their hometowns without food and water with their family after the lockdown was declared; many meeting the fateful end of death on their way back home. More than three-quarters of all nonagricultural workers in Myanmar, Indonesia and Laos do not have formal jobs and lack of access to formal social insurance mechanisms. In places like New York, the streets have become the domain of people of color, as low-income workers who cannot afford to stay at home deliver groceries to prosperous citizens who can afford it, Poor households are more likely to rely on earnings from informal work arrangements, which tend them to have limited savings and lack of employment protection, health insurance or paid leave, making them highly vulnerable who have to wait for the donations made by the rich, big business houses, NGOs, trust etc for their survival.

we are on the verge of the risk of great depression where world is facing situation more or less like the post-WWII era, and global financial crisis of 2008-09 is to be arisen with its misbalanced economies leading to risk of mass unemployment, thus to overcome this extraordinary situation collective response from the world is needed to get through, as it was necessary in the 1940s. Apart from international solidity issue and economy slowdown the COVID 19 has also a major issue on curbing of people’s fundamental and constitutional rights (right to move freely in any part of country, right to hold peaceful religious and public gathering etc) in order to prevent the spread of the pandemic democratic governments are bound to act within the restrictions of the law, as by informally declaring a state of emergency, and to ask for the public’s understanding for their action as an responsible citizens.

After overcoming all these shortfalls the world has to look forward further than the stabilization stage, we must act to create a strong recovery system that can support job creation and hence can raise the consumption, and revamp, but not just revive our development process. Along with making over medical infrastructure strong, government also needs to strengthen the social insurance mechanism to deal with mass unemployment, sustainable investment across the globe is important for the recovery that is strong enough for the world to protect from the great depression. Requirement for the investment in physical, human and natural capital across the world and, in particular, in the large emerging market countries, where the bulk of investment, particularly in infrastructure, will take place and in this phase of investment growth should be accompanied by the innovation and sustainable growth where regional, gender, class and caste discrimination can be reduced. International collaboration and support can greatly enhance the efforts of individual countries.

Tackling the pandemic will require strong global cooperation on repression and the medical response, including treatment and vaccines. Developmental programs require greater government spending when revenues are declining, government need to pump more money in order to run the deficits budget. Private sectors have already proved their leadership in the phase of the COVID-19 crisis they will also have to play a important role hand in hand with the government for the recovery of employment, consumption, investment and innovation to drive economies forward. Developmental banks have to play a vital role in helping to take programmes to right direction and in catalyzing private finance.

International solidarity and leadership have never been more important, than today it’s very important that the clash of ideas between US and WHO, Australia and china over the controversy of spread of virus should be resolved as soon as possible. All the developed nations and international organizations should come hand in hand to deal the situation instead of playing blame game. It is high time to reconnect with the UN and the Sustainable Development Goals along with the support and potential of the international financial institutions. Also coalitions of cities and local governments to accelerate aspiration, knowledge and actions; and for global community and civil society to exert their pressure for an adequate response that delivers a sustainable and inclusive future. Only with this combined effort and solidarity will we be able to overcome the crisis and build a better world – strong, inclusive, sustainable and resilient.

UNDERSTANDING GENDER ISSUES IN ADVERTISEMENTS AND INDIAN MOVIES

Media plays a decisive role in the everyday life of youngsters not only because it conveys important facts and information but also because it is one the most important agencies of socialization and Gender Socialization. Media through its means of entertainment industry helps in the cultural upbringing of both men and women.

1.Depiction of men and women in Advertisements:

“Advertising is one of the major media that affect our daily life consciously and unconsciously and are responsible to play a significant role in shaping the society in a much broader perspective” (Mishra, 2015: 126).
Advertisements have mostly portrayed the binary categories of gender in traditional gender roles based on gender division of labour. It has helped to uphold and reinforce the patriarchal ideology inherent in Indian society. In one of the advertisement of Horlicks, the female protagonist is shown to uphold and practice the patriarchal ideal of domestic servitude. In order to maintain the socially constructed stereotypical role, she consumes the health drink which would help her to sustain the patriarchal ideology prevalent in Indian families.

2. Commodification of women in Indian movies:
Commodification is the process whereby an object/ human body loses its intrinsic value and becomes a market value to be used, bought and sold in the market for profit. Historically, men and women have been depicted in media in stereotypical gender roles which has facilitated and promoted gender division of labour in society. The way women and their
bodies were and are still projected obnoxiously through media mainly leads to the commodification where women’s bodies are treated as objects of sexual pleasure to titillate male desire and to promote ‘male gaze’.

Source: https://bollywoodjournalist.com/2013/08/23/dear-bollywood-stop-making-thosecrappy-item-numbers-first/, Google, 28-04-2020

Indian cinema is one of the major means of portrayal of Indian culture even in contemporary society. The changing scenario of modern India has been framed, shaped and expressed through Indian cinema. Due to the profound impact of Western neo-colonialism, even the racist ideals of women and femininity of western culture were expressed through Indian movies.

3.Valourization of socially constructed representation of men and women:

However, Indian media has also depicted domestic abuse for gender sensitization of the audience and have equally portrayed how women are treated as slaves to serve the male patriarch of their family. This conveys that women are projected in roles of domestic servitude which has reinforced the prevalence of patriarchal ideology and gender based
violence in movies (Movie Courtesy: Lajja).

Source: YouTube, Lajja Movie, 28-04-2020

Though the depiction of women in contemporary Indian movies has been progressive due to the improved status of women and feminist movement, yet issues of Toxic Femininity is being portrayed in movies like Gully Boy. Toxic Femininity motivates acceptance of aggression and domination silently which is highly valourized in society in the name of feminism.

While on one hand, media’s depiction of women and their obnoxious representation of their bodies has been rampant, issues of men and masculinity are also being projected through Indian media where socially constructed images of masculinity has been valourized in Indian
movies like Pyar Toh Hona Hi Tha. In one of the movie scenes, the male protagonist Ajay Devgan had to face humiliation and embarrassment from his family members due to the cutting of his moustache by the barber—- moustache being a socially constructed sign of „asli mard‟ or „macho man‟ has been valorized in Indian cinema.

Source: YouTube, Gully Boy, 28-04-2020

Moreover, media has mostly portrayed and continues to portray both men and women in socially constructed roles of masculinity and femininity which is socially acceptable by the audience. However, with the impact of feminist movement and empowerment of women, there has been rapid transformation in the projection of binary categories of gender with more
emphasis on Gender Inclusion (including Third Gender). Nevertheless, the objectification of women in media still continues to prevail and will prevail as long as patriarchy is not uprooted from where it has originated!

Superconductivity: A Mysterious State of Matter that controls the future of Medical diagnostics and Research

Introduction:

In 20-th century a major breakthrough in science came with the discovery of new state of matter, called the superconducting state. Generally materials are divided into three different classes based on their ability to conduct current. They are metals, insulators and semiconductors. Metals (Example: Copper, silver, gold) are good conductors, electrons are moving freely and carry electrical charge inside a conductor. Insulators (Example: rubber, glass, plastics) are bad conductors. Semiconductors are those whose conductivity lies in between metals and insulators. Superconductor are not belongs to any three above categories.

Metallic wires conduct current offer resistance to the flow of electrons. Inside conductor electrons suffer scattering from lattice defects, vibration of atoms in the crystals, and free paths of those electrons become truncated. This is what is called resistance of a wire and it depends on the metal itself. Due to this resistance we see heating effect in wires and energy loss. If one can make a zero resistance coil then we can forget about this heating effect. This dream came into reality in 1911 with the discovery of superconductivity. Professor Kamerlingh Onnes observed that on cooling mercury below 4.2 K its electrical resistance suddenly drops down to zero. The zero resistance state is named as superconducting state. The temperature at which the transition from normal state to superconducting state took place is called critical temperature Tc.

History behind the discovery of superconductors:

Professor Kamerlingh Onnes in his laboratory at University of Leiden had developed technology to liquefy gases like; oxygen, hydrogen to produce low temperature. He wants to study how conductivity of elements like mercury, lead would behave at this extreme low temperature. Finally in 1908 he succeeded in liquefying helium at temperature of 4.2 K, the lowest among all other gases. Discovery of liquid helium promotes the discovery of superconductivity in mercury in 1911. Even today many of us could not imagine how much cold 4.2 K is. In the beginning of 20-th century Professor Onnes made his laboratory equipped with unique cryogenic facility to investigate properties of matter at such extreme condition. He received the Nobel Prize in 1913 for his striking discovery.

Why should we learn Superconductivity?

Discovery of superconductors creates revolutions in science. It changes our understanding behind the microscopic source of electrical resistance in materials below T_C. So many unexpected observations associated with superconductivity create tremendous research interest in this field. Here I am mentioning few of them.

In 1914, Professor Onnes discovered once current induced in a superconducting ring persists for long time never degrading or dissipating.
Superconductivity observed in many metals, in alloys, in ceramics, allotropes of carbon etc., but it has not been observed in some good normal conductors like; cooper, silver, gold except at high pressure.
Superconductivity can be destroyed by application of strong magnetic field, called the critical field H_Ceven if the temperature of the sample is less than T
External magnetic field can never penetrate inside a superconductor. This is Meissner effect, discovered in 1933. Flux exclusion was also seen when a material first cooled to T_C and then the field is switched on.
When two superconductors are joined by a very thin insulating layer, tunnelling of superconducting electron pairs across the thin layer happens. This is called Josephson Effect, discovered in 1962.
Levitation is the magneto-mechanical phenomenon. Being a perfect diamagnet bulk of the superconductor is shielded from external magnetic field by appropriate surface current that causes a counter reacting magnetic field and superconductors are found to be levitate over a strong magnet.

Superconductors are neither conductors nor insulators. It is a unique state of a material. Zero electrical resistance and perfect diamagnetism defines the superconducting state.Theoretical understanding of superconducting phase has been reached after several years from the discovery. Meissner Effect describes that magnetic flux cannot penetrate inside the bulk of specimen was explained by two British Physicists; H. London and F. London in 1935. London equation described that magnetic flux lines does not abruptly stops at the surface rather enters into superconductor and exponentially die out within 50 nm to 500 nm. Finally quantum mechanical description of superconductivity came in 1957 by Barden, Cooper and Schrieffer. This is so called the BCS theory of superconductivity. BCS theory describes that supercurrent is not carried by a single electron rather by pair of electrons with opposite spin and momentum, called cooper pairs.

Applications of superconductors

Science from the discovery in 1911 thousands of material found as superconductors. Zero electrical resistance, perfect diamagnetism, persistent current are some of the key features that make them suitable for application in science and technology. Superconducting electromagnet can produce stable high magnetic field, used in particle accelerators, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) machine. Josephson Junctions are used in sensitive magnetometers based on SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device). But perhaps MRI is the best successful commercial application of superconductors in 20-th century.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

Application of superconductor in medical science was started around 1970 in Great Britain and United States of America. Once current is stored in superconducting coli it stays for ever and produces a steady strong magnetic field used in MRI machines. The MRI body scanner became an essential diagnosis tool for the doctors across the world.

How does it work???

Inside human body soft tissues, blood vessels, fat molecules contains a large percentage of water molecules that contains protons behaving as tiny magnet or like a compass needle. When a person is placed inside a MRI scanner those protons orient them in the direction of magnetic field. The typical field strength needed is 1 Tesla or more. However some of those protons going out of alignment by absorbing energy from radio waves at just right frequency generated by MRI machine. Radio frequency field is composed of short pulses. At the end of a short pulse those protons gradually realign with the static constant field. You may consider this as deflection in compass needle occurs every time when a weak magnet passes nearby. As proton in various parts of the body realign at different rates, different structure of the tissues can be identified and captured. In addition MRI can produce cross sectional view therefore various tissues and their associated disordered could be identified.

Advantages and Disadvantages of MRI Scanner:

MRI can take images of every parts of the body. It is less harm full because human cells are not exposed to any kind of ionizing radiation.
Perhaps the best possible technique to look inside our body without having any cut or open. There are other techniques also like; CT scans but MRI produces better image quality than others, hence most widely used for medical diagnostic.
MRI usually takes longer time for imaging. If a patient have pacemaker in his body then MRI scan is not advisable. Strong magnetic field and powerful radio frequency source causes some harmful effects in this case.

Future Prospects:

The initial problems of cryostat design were overcome and MRI technology is quite mature now. Long solenoid type magnets with uniform winding density are used to produce strong field. The strength of the magnetic field could be found from Ampere’s Law. Most of the high resolution MRI scanners are operated at field strength of 1.5 Tesla. Although 3 Tesla MRI are regularly used for diagnosis and 7 Tesla systems are mainly used for medical research. High field MRI scanner gives better signal to noise ratio and better resolution. With the advancement of superconducting technology we expect that more functionality could be incorporated and cost of the system could be reduced to make it more accessible for us.

Let’s talk about the importance of Plant and Agricultural Biotechnology: A lot more than just GM crops

Student contributors: Rudranil Samanta and Rumale Das (B.Tech, Biotechnology)

Nature is an artist which keeps on blissfully making new creatures with different size and shapes using different colors and qualities. On this planet, life exists in the form of 8.7 million species that live together under the guardianship of nature. All living beings are blessed to opt for the changes within themselves to survive in the available niche not only this but according to the environments, living objects undo the process of adaptation to compete and survive in a better possible way. So among all the existing creatures on the Earth, here is a discussion based on the plant system to explain the importance of plant and agricultural biotechnology in this modern world. The best possible character of a plant is supposed to be a good productive nutritious crop, high-quality yield capacity, disease resistance, stress tolerance power, and many more depending on what type of plant we are looking for. All plants will try to develop these characteristics within themselves for a better survival but this adaptation may take hundreds of years to fulfill the demand of the world. This is not a new phenomenon as we all are aware of the natural selection theory of Darwin. According to Darwin [he had] called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection (Charles Darwin). Now the role of biotechnology comes. Before starting the discussing let’s first understand what biotechnology is?

8.7 Million Species

Biotechnology is defined as a set of tools that uses living organisms (or parts of organisms) to make or modify a product, improve plants, trees or animals, or develop microorganisms for specific uses. And when this is focused on plant and agriculture system then it is termed as “Plant and Agricultural Biotechnology” which is used for crop improvement through biotechnology tools. This area of science and technology is introduced to students of Adamas University with the subject names as Plant & Forest Biotechnology (SBT43104) as well as Plant & Agricultural Biotechnology (SBT52101) during their B. Tech and M. Sc courses respectively, offered by Department of Biotechnology under the School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology. Our students learn that this subject deals with a specific area of Biotechnology incorporated with plant sciences and they also learn about the use of scientific tools and techniques including genetic engineering, molecular markers, molecular diagnosis vaccines and tissue culture to modify living organisms- like plants, microorganisms, animals. They also understand that we can also treat environmental problems with the help of plant systems and biotechnology.

Let’s talk about the need and importance of this field and let’s expand our knowledge in this direction to gain a better understanding that this area of science and technology is not all about genetically modified crops but it’s a lot more than that, what our students learn in our Adamas University.

Plant and Agricultural Biotechnology is the majority important to alter the genome sequence of crops and those crops can be termed as transgenic and genetically modified crops with good productivity and good food quality. Yes, these crops are called GM crops. Being a developing country, we know India is based and specifically known for its agriculture throughout the world, farmers are like God to us but these farmers face several challenges just to make good yield with high quality, which we may not be aware of. But actually, many Biotic and Abiotic factors are challenging our agriculture systems. Plant and Agriculture Biotechnology helps to face and overcome these problems so that good quality food can be available not only for our Nation but for the entire world. This is not a single field, it is a combination of different scientific fields of Agriculture like Plant Breeding, Plant Pathology, Agronomy, Entomology, horticulture, vegetable sciences with a combination of the biotechnological field including Genomics, Proteomics, Genetic Engineering, Bioprocess Engineering, Immunology, molecular biology, and microbial technology. Not only this but here we learn about statistical technologies as well as advanced computation technology with system biology. Hence it is such a vast field and we try to introduce our students what is the need of today especially in the Agriculture and how they can draw their future in this area as a Professor, an Agricultural Scientist, a Plant Biotechnologist, a Genetic Engineer and they can also be a Career Counsellor of this field.

However, Plant and Agricultural biotechnology offer a great platform in agriculture but this field is not limited to just agriculture only, it has a great scope in medical and pharmaceutical science as well. We can understand this by going through some current researches where Plant and Agricultural Biotechnology was used for vaccine production against coronavirus. Researchers in Spain used Plant Biotechnology to produce SARS-CoV-2 vaccines as per the report by International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) published by 15^th April 2020. They used a plant system “Nicotiana benthamiana” as a biofactory of thye vaccines, not only this but according to research, Queensland University of Technology successfully sequenced the Tobacco genome and now it is also used to develop a vaccine against COVID-19 reported by 8^th April 2020. A month back by March 18, 2020, Canadian biopharmaceutical company “Medicago” got reported to develop viable vaccines candidate for COVID-19 and they also used the properties of Plant-based technology.

So, it is a field full of challenges and excitement for the students. Our students not only learn the concepts but they enjoy different experiences in this field. We provide well-equipped laboratories having sophisticated instruments and hand-on practice for the students so that the concept and the principle of all techniques will not be limited to the theoretical knowledge only but they will be able to gain practical knowledge as well.

With the concluding note, we would say that Sir Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan had given a great contribution to our Nation with the dream to fight against hunger. Somewhere he could fulfill the dream but with a high rate of increasing population, good quality nutritious food is the requirement of today’s world. This field of science and technology can help us to build a better nation. You can be the next to help our Nation to fight against hunger and to develop such a technology that will be able to provide good quality nutritious food to everyone in an affordable way. Let’s dream together and work together to build a healthier nation.

Forecasting of Covid-19 using mathematical modeling & machine learning

The World Health organization has declared Covid-19 as a pandemic. As of April 29, an outbreak of Covid-19 has confirmed more than 3 million confirmed cases & more than 200,000 deaths worldwide. Various mathematical/statistical models have been developed to discuss the transmission dynamics. However, forecasting the future case in real time may not be accurate. We need to develop Artificial Intelligence (machine learning & deep learning) based mathematical/statistical models to overwhelm the constraint of epidemiological model approach.

Model Formulation:

Researchers follow few basic steps to construct any model. The steps are:

Define: First we need to define the problem. The model selection depends on the amount of data availability. It may also refer to the difficulty of choosing the characteristic model from a large set of the computation model for decision making.
Fit: Most essential part of the modeling. It captures the trajectory of the system with real time data.
Predict: Predictive modeling is a method using machine learning technique to predict an outcome or event.
Evaluate: Accuracy, precision & recall are three metrics to evaluate any model.

Last few weeks, we have observed various graphs/charts to predict the projected cases of Covid-19, but many of these models have been developed using data from previous research like SARS or MERS. Recently, researchers from MIT have developed a neural network using the data of Covid-19 to estimate the effective reproduction number. The effective reproduction number is one of the most important metric in epidemiology. It can be defined as “the average number of secondary cases per infectious case in a population made up of both susceptible and non-susceptible hosts.” The effective reproduction number is greater than one means epidemic has continued to spread exponentially & less than one indicates the point where we can flatten the curve & observe less infection.

Classical Epidemiological models predict the growth of disease, which groups total population into susceptible (S), exposed (E), infected (I) & recovered (R) populations. Recently, the SEIR model has extended by training a neural network to capture the transmission dynamics of Covid-19 [1]. The investigation relies on the surveillance data of Covid-19. The machine learning algorithm estimates the “infection plateau” for United States as somewhere between second-third week of April, 2020 (Figure 1). This projection of infected cases is similar to other predictions like Institute of Health metrics & Evaluation. The MIT model also suggests that quarantine policy & lock down policy are successful in getting the effective reproduction number less than one.

For healthcare system, it looks like promising news in terms of the number of confirmed cases, but it should not be considered as to start alleviating the control measures. Early termination of lock down could activate a catastrophic second wave with a sharper & rapid secondary peak.

Figure 1: The figure depicts the model forecasting of confirmed infected cases in United States (Source: Reference [1]).

Reference:

Dandekar, Raj, and George Barbastathis. “Quantifying the effect of quarantine control in Covid-19 .infectious spread using machine learning.” medRxiv(2020).