June 3, 2020 | Page 2 of 2 | Adamas University

Covid origins: the tipping point lies in habitat destruction

There is a lot of controversies regarding the origin of corona virus. Until and unless the international community agrees upon a new consensus we are left with any other explanation but to accept that the virus began its spread from a wet market in Wuhan of Hubei province in China. There is a different claim that the virus is manmade and its genetic sequence has been fiddled with in a lab. This different and almost conspiracy theory like notion about its origin might well be true. Even in a scenario where the virus has been proven to have a manmade origin we need to take the wet market explanation very seriously and here is why: it is not just about Covid alone!

In our recorded history there have been a handful of epidemics and pandemics which left humanity at loss. These epidemics and pandemics swept the world in waves after waves and have shown us their devastating capabilities. We as a species have fought it off, even after great loss, only to rise again, but this Covid is different in many aspect.

Firstly, this type of virus is not new- we have known corona-like virus for a long time. Only this time it has certain mutation which tuned it perfectly for human contagion. As any concerned person might infer that this virus were always present in bats. Then why didn’t it do any harm to them? Because bats have a biochemistry a little different than ours. Bats need a lot of energy in a very short span of time to fly- as a prerequisite for that to happen, their body is adapted to a lot more free radicals than human body can possibly handle. This is not very particularly unique to bats, every species harbours some virus that does not affect that particular species but is deadly to various other species. Even we humans act as safe house for various strains of influenza virus that doesn’t affect us at all.

The second question is why now? Why this mutation all of a sudden? Mutations can happen due to a lot of reasons- some of them are biochemical in nature, where as some are due to sudden changes in external factors like temperature fluctuation or exposure to radiation etc. the biochemical route of mutation is very well known and well managed through probabilistic balance in every nucleic acid strand that replicates. It is the external factors that jeopardizes the entire equilibrium. In the list of external factors most deadly ones are the manmade ones like global warming, high radiation etc.

For instance let us consider the vast virus pool buried under the permafrost. When those viruses come out due to global warming they are bombarded with radiation of much higher level than they are adapted to; credit goes to disasters like Fukushima or Chernobyl. In the meantime earth has lost much of the ozone layer width than the world before the previous ice age when the permafrost was formed. Global warming is also present to hinder with their biochemistry. As a result the statistical rate of their mutation increases rapidly. Remember that all changes in genome sequence do not make the virus deadly some even work against the virus itself, but as a law of evolution only those mutations survive which benefit in the replication of the virus.

Thirdly we need to consider the paradox of so many viruses making humans their targets. All existing viruses have a natural host like bats or something else. These host animals have a natural habitat. If that habitat is squeezed the virus has a less number of host to infect and it looks out for another host. In most of the cases this jump to a new host is futile as biochemistry of these two host is quite different. But it is a statistical jump towards survival that is like a never ending process in evolution.

So there is increased rate of mutation from global warming and increasing radiations. Then there is habitat destruction of wild animals that forces them to be crammed up in very small jungle patches. The present form of corona virus has similarities with bat’s genome sequence and pangolin’s genome sequence. It is unimaginable how the virus hopped from bats to pangolins, then to bats again and to humans finally. The process is probabilistic, there is no doubt about that; but we also have our fair share of blame to accept in tipping the natural balance towards our doom.

If we survive this, and we hope we will, there is a message from Mother Nature that we need to take note of. The message is: if we do not restore climatic conditions, restrict our nuclear activities and begin new habitat regeneration for wildlife there will be grave consequences in the form of corona or other viruses again and again. We may not like it but the next virus might be deadlier than this one too. We need to remember that life on earth is precious, and we are not to plunder it rather we are part of it. If we do not share the resources with other life forms we will not be part of life any longer. Life will go on here on this planet, only we will be fossils.

Exploring a New Dimension of Alcohol Use and its Impact During COVID-19 Days

The COVID-19 or most commonly the coronavirus is posing threat to the entire nation at large and the whole world is witnessing the downfall of economy since the outbreak of the pandemic. Not only the stock markets but also other manufacturers ; including small scale and medium scale enterprises are confronting tremendous losses and deprivations and being equally subjected to this pandemic threat. The liquor industry is one of those sectors which contribute and add a lot to the revenue of state governments. Except for few states such as Gujarat, Bihar, Nagaland, Mizoram, where the business is banned officially, the liquor industries in some states occupy a major place as a source of revenue. In India it has been discerned through news and reports that most of the state governments in India are enhancing their reliance on this liquor industry in order to pay their bills. The liquor industries provide more than twenty-percent of share of revenue in some state governments as reported by a study conducted by Jose Sebastian, Associate Professor, Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation.

How Covid-19 impacts the Liquor Industries?

Not only in India but across borders, the similar picture is in play where Foreign and local liquors are confronting severe challenges. The Ministry of Home affairs after 40 days of continual Lockdown laid down fresh guidelines for the state governments permitting them to open F.L Off shops under certain terms and conditions, but this relaxation was found to be detrimental on the opening up of shops because people were seen to be hugely violating the rule of social distancing on the day after such announcement. However in the alternative side, the state governments strictly imposed social distancing on the consumers who resort to such alcoholic beverages. Restaurants specially bar-cum ones, DJ-pubs and areas of natural attraction are the main sources of revenue from Liquor because individuals who are dipsomaniacs continue to visit such places reluctant to adhere to any rules or societal norms, yet some of the state governments brought smiles on the faces of the daily customers by opening the Foreign Liquor off-shops in the cities and hubs for a schedule time from eight in the morning till six in the evening with stringent restriction, social distancing, sobriety and proper ettiquecy. The Union Consumer Affairs was requested by the (ISWAI) International Spirits and Wine Associations of India to allow the F.L off shops to sell liquors for few hours during the day. The (CIBAC) Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverages Association also requested for the same before the concerned governments in order to tackle the huge losses. Number is just an excuse, people of different aged category are seen struggling and standing in the queue , which has reached approx. two kilometers. This shows the ultimate , inconceivable level of patience of the customers waiting for just one bottle since the dawn but at this juncture it is unfortunate to see the supply of stocks which are less in number as compared to the demand level; it is sad indeed to witness that the industries cannot meet the expectation level. Though dozens of people wasted enormous time anxiously waiting in the line to purchase their means of happiness.

United States of America was among the few nations that declared the beverage business as the most downturn collapse business in this historical pandemic era. During the downfall of economy, government in most of the countries sharply increased the rates of liquors to an extent of seventy-five percent. India has also witnessed an inflation in the rates of alcoholic beverages. Despite the hike in the price rate of alcoholic beverages, the Foreign and Local Liquor shops were recorded as the most visited places on the first day. As per the report published by Zee News, the central government strictly prohibited the sale of liquor due to outbreak of COVID-19 through the devise of lockdown causing a huge loss for all the state governments to the extent of rupees three hundred crore. This led to a ban on the states selling liquor hitting the returns of state government to tune of rupees seven hundred crores a day. States income from excise duty downturn to 10 percent for the banning of liquors. Uttarpradesh, Karanataka and Uttarakhand mark more than 20 percent of revenue from liquor, beside West Bengal, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand contributes to 15-20 percent revenue from excise duty on Liquor selling. According to the local reports some state governments in India started levying taxes on alcohol beverages as much of seventy-five percent higher thus raising the price-index of different brands of alcohol in different states. In Bangalore the leading manufacturers and sellers including Carlsberg, United Spirits, InBev etc. together formally requested the union and the state to permit them to sell beer through online shipping and other means of offline in the event if the Lockdown is extended. It has also been witnessed in some parts of Bengal that Ration card holders who are entitled to take benefits of the government scheme for purchasing the basic needs are selling their food items (wheat, rice, sugar) to others for the purpose of purchasing liquors. This will be one of the greatest illustration and heights of the pyramids that what can be the ultimatum of the consequences of the pandemic. Despite industries like automobiles, pharma, chemicals, electronics etc. are also getting affected by the epidemic yet the liquor industries occupied the major position in terms of losses and downturn. However with the rapid use of sanitizer as a preventive measure for combating the Covid-19 virus and in addition to the government directives, people are now found to be purchasing alcoholic content beverages for the purpose of using it as a sanitizer or making it as a solution for fighting against the coronavirus issue. In reality whether such alcoholic content beverages are serving the purpose of such sanitizer is matter of question.

Recommendations of World Health Organization

The World health Organization strongly recommended that Drinking Alcohol can make the consequence of catching coronavirus more easily and the situation might get worse even. The WHO also recommends that access to wine shops should be more restricted and the governments around the world should impose prohibitory orders for restricting the access in places of public amusement in order to combat the present situation. The organization also laid down certain guidelines that people associated with consumption of alcoholic beverages may contact the disease more frequently and the risk of surviving is very less if the alcoholic consumer is connected with smoking cigars. In regard to this present pandemic a fact-sheet was also published by WHO titled “dangerous myth that consuming high-strength alcohol can kill” the coronavirus.

Career in Criminal Law

One of the most coveted area and sphere of career in law is in the Criminal Law Field. There are various opportunities and options for someone who has pursued criminal law as his/her specialization. Some of them are as follows:

Criminal Lawyer: These individuals can work both independently and under someone. Although the job is hectic and taxing these lawyers once they gain a name in the market, it is held in high regard. One can either be public prosecutor or be defense lawyer. In private sector they may advise corporations on matters such as illegality, ethics and law compliance.

Legal Advisor: A person can become a legal advisor in the field of Criminal Law. They can work in firms where they can supply legal advisory services to clients.

Advocate: The individuals may be hired by the Government either state or central to represent them in court cases. To become a Government advocate, exams are conducted for recruitment at both the central level and state level.

Government Pleader: The individual appointed as the Government Pleader is supposed to draft and plead before the court of law on behalf of the Government.

Lecturer: This profession of being in the academia is considered to be highly respected which can be pursued by obtaining a criminal law specialization in the LLM degree.

Legal Associate: One can also opt for becoming an associate in a criminal law firm and thereby this opens yet another option for the students.

UPSC Exam: A person who has pursued Criminal Law may opt for Government conducted exams like UPSC and choose to become an IAS or IPS officer which also requires the implementation of law in the field that they are recruited in.

Judicial Service Exam: Specialization in Criminal Law has its own set of advantages. An individual for the same reason may opt for applying in the Government exams to become a Judge of the respective states. Although, for appearing in the judicial Service Exams, a specialization degree is not required and a candidate is eligible to appear for this exam after completing his LLB graduate degree course.

Researcher: One can also become a Research Fellow in various Universities and may also become a member of various national or international organizations, forensic laboratories and think tanks.

So to say, this are of law is not only interesting to study but also attractive to pursue as a career.

Artificial Intelligence: The Cynosure of all Eyes in the Education Sector

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become the latest buzzword in almost every sector. Nearly every sector ranging from health, finance, entertainment, retail, banking and many more are gaining from the effectiveness and the smart solutions that Artificial Intelligence provides. One of the sectors that is benefitting immensely from AI is the education sector. This sector is one of the most important sectors as it is the foundation on which a future of a nation is built.

There are mainly two types of methodologies for imparting education to the young learners: one is the traditional method of teaching and learning and other is the smart method of teaching and learning. With the rapid growth of network and infrastructure, the smart method of teaching and learning has gained popularity in the recent years. Let us dive deep in to the list of benefits that AI provides to those involved in the teaching-learning process.

Global learning: AI has busted the myth that teaching-learning process can be executed successfully in a physical classroom only. Today, with the advent of online courses, the youth and the students can learn any subject of their interest at any time and at any place. Gone are the days when learning could happen only in a fixed duration of the day. Now, it has become more flexible, efficient and user-friendly. Only what is needed is a computer with internet connection.
Rich content: In the traditional method of teaching and learning, the content of the subjects are limited to the textbooks only. On the other hand, in AI-assisted teaching and learning, the content of the subject is rich and vast as it is full of interactive tools of imparting knowledge. Review practice questions, summaries of topics, intelligent animations are to name a few among these tools. These intelligent animations give the learners a real feel of the concept that they are studying, thus resulting in ease of understanding.
Ease of administrative tasks: The educators have to spend a lot of time in evaluating their students’ performance, assessing their home-tasks and grading them. These tasks can be automated by AI easily and efficiently. Eventually, this will result in saving of time. This time can be utilized to focus on individual student’s weakness and honing their skills. People in administration can gain from AI which can automate their daily reporting and other jobs which require human intervention. They can utilize their time to come up with innovation and creative ventures for the benefit of the youth.
Personalized education: A single method of teaching cannot cater to every student with varying intelligence and skills. The solution is personalized education. This type of education system can be designed with the help of AI. Customization of courses as per students’ need will bring a lot of changes in their pace of understanding the course. The feedback system can be automated with AI which can then highlight the overall success of the course by sending the report to both teachers and students. Based on these reports, corrective action can be taken to improve the performance of the students.
Additional support from AI tutors: A student may be good in picking up new topics, but one may not be well-versed with the basic mathematics, writing and other basic subjects. These bunch of students can gain additional support by availing of the facility of additional support from AI tutors which is a form of automated learning. In this form of learning, recommendation systems, which is conceptualized on AI, may be provided for free learning resources. These systems can give suggestions to the learners based on their browsing preferences.
Course improvement: There might be some gaps in the delivery content of the educators at times. This may lead to non-uniform understanding of the concept by the students. To provide a uniform delivery of the content to the students and the same dissemination of information, the course can be put through an AI system for suggesting changes in the content delivery, if required. For instance: If a large number of students answer a question wrongly, then the system can alert the teacher and provide hints to such questions for future students of the course.
Role change of teachers: With the advent of expert systems and AI, the role of teacher may shift more towards that of a facilitator. Teachers will supplement AI lessons, provide hands-on experience to the students and help students struggling to learn the new concepts. The basic concepts can be learned from the automated AI systems and the deeper knowledge can be gained from the classes of the educators, thus helping both the teachers and the students.

Thus it is evident from the above list how robust and efficient the power of Artificial Intelligence is. The education sector, especially, can harness the power of AI to build the leaders of tomorrow and thus build a firm foundation for educating the society.

Fundamentals of Earthquake Engineering and Mitigation Techniques

Contributor : Tamal kanti Das, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, SOET, Adamas University

Generally any type of building structures whether it is Reinforced Concrete (RC) or Steel buildings are subjected to different type of loads during its design life. Normally these loads can be categorised by gravitational loads and lateral loads. Loads coming under the gravitational loads are – dead load (DL), imposed load (IL), snow load (SL), rain load (RL) etc. SL and RL are considered occasionally in special cases. Whereas, earthquake or seismic load (EL) and wind load (WL) are under the group of lateral or horizontal load. According to the latest design practice of building structures gravitational loads are considered as service loads under which buildings must perform (carry and transmit loads with acceptable deformation) in normal situation. But as per design it is also considered that during the design life of building structures , it will be under earthquake or seismic action at least once. In that situation building will be under the action of combined gravitational and lateral load. Therefore various Indian codal (Ref IS 456:2000, IS 1893:2002-part-1 and IS 875 etc) guidelines are available considering number of set or arrangement of loads by which load estimation can be done followed by analysis and design of any type of buildings. For RC, pre stressed concrete structures and in case of plastic design of steel structures different types of set of loads generally taken into consideration according to the limit state design (LSD) in association with partial factor of safety which is provided in IS 1893:2002-(part-1).

This section of discussion is focusing on RC buildings as majority of the buildings in our country are based on RC. Since the topic of discussion is based on earthquake thus first load combination is of paramount importance in this context. To built any building structures which is earthquake resistant IS 1893:2002 (part -1) guidelines need to be followed. Those are explained in the following sections.

General design concepts

Earthquake resistant design of building can be done by considering arbitrary and random ground movement at the base of building. As a result of this inertia forces generates in building structures which causes different degree of stresses based on intensity of ground motion at the base of structures. The inertia load develops in building structures governs by mass of building in a proportional manner. In this context and as per earthquake design philosophy, creation of building shall be done in such a way that structure can be able to resist any three types of shaking when buildings are subjected to seismic forces those are –

Minor, moderate and severe shaking. In case of minor shaking building subjected to earthquake does not damage any components of building whether it is structural as well as non-structural. Under moderate shaking structural and non-structural components of building will damage. When building subjected to severe shaking it may experience structural damage. But during severe shaking of building entire collapse of building will not occur. This type of severe design is quite unsatisfactory from the

Any type of earthquake resistant building can be designed and built based on only any one type of shaking concept. No building can be designed considering combination of three type of shaking. Also consideration of severe shaking design concept for all type of buildings irrespective of its importance is quite unsatisfactory from the economical aspect. Though this concept is satisfactory from the performance point of view.

Virtues of earthquake resistant building

There are four virtues or important and desirable characteristics which need to be incorporated in earthquake resistant building design so that it can perform under seismic action satisfactorily. Those four virtues are –

Adequate configuration – It ensure non detrimental effect on satisfactory performance of building under seismic action. Only it can be obtained by avoiding choices or preferences of architectural arrangements over functional requirements.
Stiffness – In each plan directions of a building structure must have minimum lateral stiffness. As we know that ground motion may occur in any direction. Thus to avoid discomfort to users of any building minimum stiffness must be provided in either direction of building plan.
Strength – Adoption of minimum strength parallel to the direction of ground base level (both plan directions) in building structures ensure satisfactory resistance against ground motion with lower intensity with no damage of building components.
Ductility – Materials which are to be used to built earthquake resistant building from the bottom to the roof level must have adequate ductile behaviour. So that under the ultimate stage or condition components undergo large extent of inelastic deformation before its failure.

Any building structures having these four characteristics perform well under seismic action. And building can be designated as earthquake resistant structure.

So far the discussion has been done in a qualitative manner which are no doubt need to be followed judiciously. But along with that quantitative approach also need to be taken into consideration which are discussed below.

Estimation of earthquake load

Before conducting design of any building it is mandatory to estimate all possible loads that are about to come on the structures during its design life. Thus as per IS code (IS 1893:2002 part-1) final effect of ground motion may be expressed in the form of “Design Base Shear”. This force depends on various factors those are – extent of hazard in site location which is termed as earthquake zone factor, adoption of importance factor that in turn drag down extent of damage under seismic action, response reduction factor depending on various building systems may subjected to lateral load, acceleration coefficient which depends on type of soil and natural period (obtained from height of building structures) as well as damping of structures and total weight of building by summing up seismic weight of all the building floors.

The obtained base shear shall be vertically distributed to various floor levels of building proportionately as mentioned in IS 1893:2002, cl-7.7.1.

Earthquake zone map of India

As per IS1893:1984, location of building was identified by seismic zone map which classified our entire country into five different zones i.e. I,II,III,IV and V with ascending order of seismic intensity respectively. But after tremendous earthquake disaster in Bhuj (Gujrat) in 2001 further revision has been done and Indian code came up with modified 2002 version of IS1893:2002. In this code zone I is straight away omitted and finally four zones (II,III,IV and V) are now indicated in the sketch of earthquake zone map of India.

Earthquake hazards

When earthquake occurs, it comes suddenly and release energy through ground motion. Thus seismic load induced in building structures. As a result of this building collapse. Due to this property damages, considerable amount of casualties, landslides, liquefaction etc.

Mitigation techniques

Conventional earthquake design process permit certain amount of deformation as well as fixed amount of damage in building structures. But now a days in advanced building structures designed and constructed with more satisfactory level of performance along with considerably higher safety compared to traditional concept.

In this section some important some of the techniques or control systems will be mentioned. Incorporation of such systems or techniques enhance the performance and safety levels of building structures when it will be under the action of environmental loads i.e. earthquake load. Following are the techniques which are found to be effective in building structures under seismic load :

Vibration control systems including base isolation techniques, dampers, active, semi-active and if required hybrid systems etc.

While constructing new or retrofitting structures expected to be affected or already affected by seismic force incorporation of base isolation found to be quite effective tools by providing sufficient integrity of superstructure through the reduction of story displacement. Use of different shapes of dampers in building structures now a days also enhance the performance level of structures in all aspects by means of absorbing or dissipating considerable amount of earthquake energy though plastic deformation of metal elements used as construction materials as per earthquake resistant design.

An overview of urbanisation and its role on COVID 19 spreading

Urbanisation has now become a universal phenomenon. Today more than fifty-five per cent of the world population is living in urban spaces which are going to climb up to 68 per cent by 2050. Urbanisation is the rise in the proportion of people in towns and cities. Urbanisation results from myraid forms of migration of people from rural to urban as well as urban to urban. Cities are the growth engine for the economy of a country. Benefitted by the massive influx of populations with attraction by the higher quantum of services and supported by the scale of economics, urban spaces are the has now become the pivotal point for human civilisation. Due to the high concentration of population, towns and cities are also vulnerable to different externalities. They are vulnerable to climate-induced phenomena, e.g. urban flood in Mumbai and Chennai, heatwave caused by urban heat island effect, health issues owing to poor air quality etc. Recently, spreading COVID-19 pandemic has put the urban population with a new experience. The pandemic results in a widespread lockdown across the globe. The economy of most countries has come to a halt as human movement is restricted to brack the chain of the virus. The urban densities are always higher than its rural counterpart. Higher density leads to a higher chance of contact among masses from their even higher spreading of diseases.

Global scenario of urban density and COVID 19

The global scenario shows that the outbreak of the pandemic is more in highly dense areas like towns and metropolitan and cosmopolitan cities. Human being carrier of the virus passes it to other humans in dense urban settings. Most of the major cities of the world have thus become the hub of the COVID 19. NewYork (USA), London (England), Paris (France), Milan (Italy), Madrid (Spain), Rio de Janerio (Brazil), Mumbai (India) etc. all the major urban agglomerations are the hotspot zones for coronavirus. High urban density is the primary cause for transmission of diseases. Unhindered intercountry transportation and communications are also enhancing the vulnerability of the progression of Corona diseases.

Urban Scenario in India and COVID 19

Indian scenario of the COVID 19 is in line with the global path regarding the disease spreading pattern in cities. Metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Surat etc. have become the spreading hub of the virus. As most of the cities of India are unplanned with many informal settlements like Dharavi in Mumbai, the coronavirus victims are increasing in leaves and bounds across the country through the cities. According to the estimation, based on the MOHFW that Mumbai, Delhi, and Ahmedabad accounts for more than 40 per cent cases corona positive cases in India. Cities of northern and western states are more affected by the spreading of the diseases. The cities are the economic hub and engine of the national economy. People in masses migrated in such cities to alter their future from rural belts of India. These pull factors have made cities of India more vulnerable to the pandemic as well. Cities and urban areas which are planned and appropriately regulated are less prone to the virus attack, for example, Chandigarh, Puducherry etc. The aftereffect of the disease results in lockdown, which trigged mass reverse migration of labourer from urban to rural areas which are rarely found in India.

The global picture of coronavirus shows that the higher count of the patients is mainly from urban areas. Hence it has become more of an urbanite disease even though the COVID 19 subsequently invaded into the rural areas as well. Even though its ubiquitous presence across space in the present time, the disease is going to be membered as one pandemic which hit the urban areas the most.

Quantized charge & Fractional charge: Few facts, findings and new ideas

The physical world around us is made up of different atoms and molecules which are the building blocks of the Universe. Molecules are the collection of atoms and atoms are consisting of neutral neutrons, negatively charged electrons, and an equal number of positively charged protons. Atoms are effectively charged neutral. However, any system possessing an unequal number of electrons and protons is referred to as the ionic system.

What is charge?

It is one of the most fundamental questions of nature. Like mass, charge is also a physical property. If we place an object in the gravitational field, due to “mass” it will experience force. In the same way, a charged particle experiences force in the electromagnetic field due to the presence of “charge” in it.

How to measure it?

Unlike mass, charge is known to be quantized. In the year 1909 Robert A. Millikan and Harvey Fletcher of Chicago University performed a simple but elegant experiment, which demonstrated that charge is quantized. This experiment is popularly known as the “Oil Drop Experiment” [1], which brought the Nobel Prize in Physics to Millikan in the year 1923. Since then it is believed that any amount of charge is nothing but the integer multiple of small units of charge, called the elementary charge, e, which is equal to Coulomb (SI unit of charge). Eventually, particles like electron and proton possess that amount of charge. During the last two decades Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre (SLAC), Stanford University, USA, has conducted various computer-automated experiments in search of fractionally charged particles, but no evidence of fractional charge has been detected yet. Thus, it’s well accepted that e is the smallest available independent charge in the physical world. However, the composite particles like neutrons and protons are made up of some elementary particles called ‘quarks’ having smaller charges, multiple of e/3. But isolated quarks have not been observed yet, they are only found within the composite particles such as neutron, proton, mesons, etc. Counter-intuitive theories related to independent fractional charges were also persisted. Laughlin had given such a proposal.

Figure 1: Millikan’s setup for the oil drop experiment, in the Ryerson Physical Laboratory at the University of Chicago.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment

The proposal:

In the year of 1982, Robert Laughlin [2] made a bold proposal about the existence of quasi-particles having fractional charge of e/3 inside tiny semiconductor devices to explain the phenomenon of Fractional Quantum Hall effect.

The evidence:

The proposal was counter-intuitive. There was no experimental evidence during that time in support of fractional charges. During one and a half-decade after Laughlin’s proposal various aspects of the theory had been experimentally verified but direct evidence of the quasi-particle with fractional charges was elusive. Finally, in September 1997, two groups [3,4] independently published two articles claiming the experimental observation of fractional charges in support of Laughlin’s theory. One of the groups, from Israel, published their article in Nature and the other one from France published it in Physical Review Letters. In the experiments, they have considered two-dimensional electron gas at the interface of two semiconductors to estimate the charge of the particles (quasiparticles). Interestingly, the technique resembles the process of predicting the size of the hailstones by listening to their hitting sounds on the tin or asbestos roof during a hailstorm. Just imagine, during a hailstorm, we are in a house having a tin or asbestos roof. Merely listening to the hitting sounds of the hailstones on the roof we can easily identify the size, e.g. comparatively larger stones will create louder crashes whereas small hailstones will generate soft pitter-patter, hard to identify in the continuous background noise. Likewise, the charge of the particles was estimated by monitoring the fluctuations of the current flowing through the circuit. Technically this method is known as “shot-noise theory”. The charge of the particles was estimated from the ratio of the mean square fluctuation in current to average current through the circuit. Moreover, they concluded that the particles flowing through the circuit are not electrons but particles (quasiparticles) with fractional charges nearly equal to e/3.

Conclusion:

Presently, the fractional charge is not a widely accepted fact. Direct evidence of such observation for other experiments is scanty. It may be due to our hindrance to pursuing such experimental arrangements. But, let us ignore the limitations of the fact, rather we may think at least in a phenomenological way that the sub-atomic particles can have fractional charges. Considering the fact, we can acquire some interesting concepts. For instance, we may think about continuously varying nuclear charges (Z) of atomic systems. However, we are accustomed to the integer values of the nuclear charges according to which the elements of the periodic table have been arranged e.g. for Z=1 it corresponds to a Hydrogen atom (₁H¹) or any one-electron ion, for Z=2 it’s a Helium (₂He⁴) or any two-electron ion and so on. If we gradually reduce the nuclear charge of Helium, then there should be a Z value for which the nucleus will no longer be able to hold the electrons! That amount of nuclear charge is referred to as Critical Nuclear Charge (Z_c). Applying Quantum Mechanics and considering Z as a real continuous variable one can estimate the Z_c value form a multi-electron system. For instance, the corresponding Z_c value for a two-electron system is 0.911 028 224 077 255 73, which was published in the year 2014 by a group in the journal Physical Review Letters and this is known to be the most accurate value of it till date [5]. Knowing the Z_cvalues for a many-electron system, is very useful to predict the stability of any multi-electron ionic systems. For example, Z_cis less than 1.0 for a two-electron system therefore, Z=1 is sufficient to hold two electrons to form a stable bound system and that’s why H^–ion exists in nature. Whereas, for three electron system Z_c =2.08, consequently He^– ion doesn’t exist in nature, but there are some controversies about the fact. Many other applications of this concept are there but they are beyond the scope of this article.

Despite the experimental condition nowadays, we hope this concept would soon be observed in the laboratories.

References:

[1] Milliken, R. A., The Electron: Its Isolation and Measurement and the Determination of Some of its Properties, Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. (1917).

[2] Laughlin, R. B., Phys. Rev. Lett. 50, 1395 (1982).

[3] de-Picciotto, R. et. al. Nature 389, 162–164 (1997).

[4] Saminadayar, L., Glattli, D. C., Jin, Y. & Etienne, B. Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 2526 (1997).

[5] C. S. Estienne et. al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 039902 (2014).

The Psychology of “Going Green”: Pro-Environmental Attitude and underlying Behavior

The Scottish-American naturalist and environmental-philosopher, John Muir had once said, “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks”. Throughout centuries, humans have sought and acquired much more than what was required to fulfil their need and greed. The pattern of human interaction with his environment is indeed a multilayered one, with each layer representing a different aspect of this interaction. In an attempt to understand this complex interdependency, several scientists and philosophers have studied human behavior in connection to his environment. In the past few decades, studying the principles of human interaction with environment has emerged as a new field named Environmental Psychology.

Come to think of it. What makes some people use private vehicles while others prefer public conveyance? Why do some people have a constant requirement of insulated environment while others do not need it at all? We live in an era of global climatic change that is already causing immense detrimental effects on our natural resources and environment. In the past few months, our world has seen several such instances, be it the pandemic COVID 19 that has already claimed millions of lives, or the recent super cyclone Aampun that caused immense destruction in the eastern part of our country or the wild fire that broke out in the forests of Uttarakhand. With more disasters we are facing, mitigating climate change is becoming more of a challenge. This environmental crisis is often viewed as an objective consequence of human indifference to nature’s wellbeing. In the last couple of decades, individual responsibility in mitigating these crises has been recurrently emphasized and pro-environmental attitude has received a lot of attention.

Defining Pro-Environmental Attitude

Pro-Environmental attitude often results into behavior that causes least damage to the environment while being more favourable to it. Such attitude often directly or indirectly influences action at individual level that facilitates mitigating climate change and global environmental damage. Proponents of social psychology opine that attitude and behavior are intricately intermingled. Attitude generally refers to the set of beliefs and emotion that can influence the behavior towards an idea, object or person. For instance, if a person fosters a negative attitude towards a psychiatric illness, the person is more likely to avoid or reject persons suffering from a psychiatric illness. Pro-environmental attitude therefore, constitutes some positive set of beliefs about the environment that can actually shape one’s behavior towards the environment. For instance, a person who believes in a “green” environment, will probably switch to organic food and reduce the use of plastic to the minimal.

In our everyday life, we are faced with innumerable such instances where a pro-environmental decision can be made. Be it the usage of plastic bags or throwing off excess food, we always have a choice. But how many among us think otherwise and make a pro-environmental choice? Regrettably, the count is quite low and that too limited to a narrow section of the society. Therefore the question arises, does knowledge play an important role in promoting pro-environmental behavior? Earlier studies on environmental knowledge advocated its’ potentiality to influence pro-environmental behavior.

Of course an individual will act proactively only if he/she is made aware of the problem. But more recent studies speak otherwise (Wiek, Withycombe, & Redman, 2011). Although environmental knowledge is instrumental in shaping behavior, it is found to be inadequate in promoting pro-environmental behavior.

Evidences suggest that knowledge can foster pro-environmental behavior only if it is assimilated with beliefs and emotions (Miranda et al., 2016). This belief and emotion related to the environment constitutes the pro-environmental attitude. It is the component of human mind that rather mediates the relationship between environmental knowledge and environment-friendly behavior.

What explains a Pro-environmental Behavior?

People display pro-environmental behavior when they hold a positive attitude towards the environment, if they get support from people around them and believe in their own abilities to implement their action (Ajzen, 1991). For instance, suppose one wants to reduce the plastic pollution and the government has also banned it. Moreover, the person genuinely feels that by doing so, he/she will be able to bring down the plastic pollution to a larger extent. Considering these factors, the person will make sincere efforts to reduce plastic use at an individual level as well. Another explanation can be that people are more prone to display a pro-environmental behavior when they feel morally obliged to do so. For instance, if a person becomes aware of the severe water crisis in some parts of our country and feels that it is also his/her responsibility to do something about it, a pro-environmental behavior (that is, judicious use of water) will result. A third explanation emphasizes on value orientation and ecological worldview. The ecological worldview is defined as “the propensity to take actions with pro-environmental intent” (Stern, 2000, p.411). Value orientation, on the other hand, includes three different values: Biospheric value that is linked to the nature and biosphere, Altruistic value that is associated with the wellbeing of others and Egoistic value that focuses on individuals’ wellbeing (Klockner, 2013). Thus, a person high on egoistic value will look for personal benefits only while a person high on biospheric value will be most conscious about global warming, climate change pollution and other environmental hazards.

“Going Green”: A Real Concern or a Popular Concern?

In the past few years, there has been growing evidences of increasing proneness to “green” and “sustainable” living. People are opting for organic food, green lodging and sustainable development. Contradictorily, people are also making choices that involve egoistic values. For instance, living in an insulated environment, cutting trees indiscriminately, wasting

enormous amount of food on a daily basis and the list goes on. What explains this dyadic behavior? Is opting for a sustainable development a real concern or simply because it is a popular idea? People do opt for organic food but waste it on a daily basis. Perhaps larger instances of such duality in behavior are the result of only following the popular trend and not an innate pro-environmental attitude. Such inclination has become more frequent owing to the sharp increase in digitization of information. Interestingly, this also explains why people fail to continue displaying a pro-environmental behavior for a long period of time.

Most people do not perceive it to be a personal responsibility to act in a manner that benefits the environment. Such behavior can be explained through the phenomena of diffusion of responsibility, wherein people refrain from taking actions in situations where large group of people are involved. For example, a person can believe that “Everyday there are thousands of vehicles commuting on the roads. What difference in air pollution will occur if I stop driving my own car?” Or, “Everyday thousands of gallons of water are being wasted. How does it matter if I only, stop wasting water?” Personal norm, in the form of feeling obliged, is therefore a key component in shaping one’s behavior.

Concluding remarks

There is still a lot of exploration that needs to be done to understand pro-environmental attitude and behavior. Until and unless human behavior underlying the destruction of environment is fully understood, “Going Green” will get reduced to mere words and popular trends. Earnestly, the future generation deserves a lot more than that.

References:

Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179–211.
de Miranda Coelho, J. A. P., Gouveia, V. V., de Souza, G. H. S., Milfont, T. L., & Barros, B. N. R. (2016). Emotions toward water consumption: Conservation and wastage. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología, 48(2), 117-126.
Klöckner, C. A. (2013). How Powerful are Moral Motivations in Environmental Protection?: An Integrated Model Framework. In Handbook of moral motivation(pp. 447-472). Brill Sense.
Stern, P. C. (2000). Toward a coherent theory of environmentally significant behavior. Journal of social issues, 56(3), 407-424.
Wiek, A., Withycombe, L., Redman, C., & Mills, S. B. (2011). Moving forward on competence in sustainability research and problem solving. Environment, 53(2), 3-13.
Image 1: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/motivating-eco-friendly-behaviors-depends-on-cultural-values.html

Image 2: https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/environment/world-earth-day-nine-ways-to-keep-the-planet-safe-64097

7 Must-haves in Every Programmer’s Toolkit

It is known to those in the computing field about the importance of the knowledge of programming languages and other useful computing tools for a successful career in Computer Science. It happens in many instances when the students who want to begin their career in Computer Science are searching for the list of tools that they should be conversant with. The list of useful tools which is given below, will enlighten and guide them to get an overview of the tools and jumpstart their careers.

SQL: SQL stands for Structured Query Language. It is one of the most essential tools that works in connection with the database. Different operations on data such as updation, deletion, fetching of data can be accomplished using SQL. Without database support, an application is incomplete. It is one of the pillars of application development. The learning of SQL begins with the understanding of basic keywords or commands such as select, update, insert and delete. Furthermore, the learner gains an understanding of writing complex queries called sub-queries, using joins and aggregate functions.
Python: Python is a powerful and versatile programming language, which is object-oriented and high-level. Python has numerous applications, ranging from accessing the file system, desktop GUI, to machine learning and deep neural network applications. What makes Python so famous is its simplicity, readability of code and ease of learning due to its English-like commands.
Text-editing software: It is very essential for every programmer to be well-conversant with at least one text editor. Notepad is one of the most common text-editing software. In addition to Notepad, there are a number of other text-editing software which are advanced and come with a lot more features like Sublime Text and Notepad++.
Integrated Development Environment (IDE): An IDE is a software suite that combines all the required developer tools into a single GUI. A single sophisticated interface for application development is the IDE. The IDE makes the application development more structured and organized. The programmer should be familiar with the various tools available in the IDE for writing, compiling and testing code in the programming language one is skilled in. Some of the IDEs available are Eclipse, NetBeans, MySQL Workbench, CodeBlocks, DevC++ and many others.
Linux Commands: Knowledge of Linux commands is essential as we may have to work in a Linux machine some time or the other. This knowledge helps to trace the activities running in our Linux machine and troubleshoot any technical issue with our running applications in a Linux machine. In addition, to get the essence of cross-platform compatibility, it is necessary to be skilled in Linux commands.
HTML, CSS and JavaScript: For Web application development, the knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript is essential and it eases our job of building a website.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for displaying documents in a web browser. It is used along with technologies such as CSS and JavaScript. HTML is equipped with simple mechanisms for text formatting, creating tables, links and lists, inserting images, audio and video, etc.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language which describes the presentation of a document coded in a markup language such as HTML. CSS is a keystone technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and JavaScript. Style Sheets allow web page designers to modify the appearance of their web pages in an efficient manner.

JavaScript is a programming language of the web. It is applied for adding dynamic behavior to the web page, request-response handling and storing data. It is used to handle regular expressions which is used to perform pattern matching, searching and replacing of strings. This can check the input data in a web page before it is sent to the server for processing.

Microsoft Office: Microsoft Office is developed by Microsoft which is a family of client and server software and services. The Microsoft Office suite of applications has a wide range of tools ranging from Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Outlook etc. Needless to say, these are useful tools for any kind of documentation work that the programmer has to do frequently.

Let us see what the applications of some of these tools are.

Microsoft Word: The Microsoft Word application is useful for creating project reports, CVs, questionnaires, surveys, tables and many other types of documents. The advanced formatting tools and user-friendly layout of this tool make it one of the most popular options for documentation. For programmers especially, they have to write the software requirement specification (SRS), feasibility reports etc. for the project they are working for. Knowing this tool makes them competent to create the necessary documents with perfect format and meaning.
Microsoft Excel: The Microsoft Excel application is useful for creating tables, charts for data representation and analysis, pivot tables and charts, macros to name a few. It can be used to store data in a table format with filtering, sorting, conditional formatting and data validation features.
Microsoft PowerPoint: The Microsoft PowerPoint application is useful for creating PowerPoint presentations for projects, meetings and seminars. It is one of the essential tools for creating powerful and customizable presentations and adding effectiveness to the presentations.