July 13, 2020 | Adamas University

The word ‘Covid-19’ created a history in human civilization. Everywhere in the world is its presence and its effect has shocked the mankind. Everything now has been disturbed from its track so also the Educational system. So keeping in view of this, Educators and the policy makers now think about the alternative ways of teaching and learning process. This alternative ways implies teaching through different web based apps. Various web based apps are now coming to help the teachers to continue their teaching. Ubiquitous Learning Environment (ULE) is one of them. This environment uses various ubiquitous devices i.e. Web Pads, Tablets, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and Smart Phones.

As, there is no concrete definition of u-learning due to speedy changes of learning environment, so researches gave their views in defining the term “u-learning”. A common definition of this learning is ‘anywhere and anytime learning”. One of the unique features of ULE is that it is very learner friendly. This learning environment is based on ubiquitous technology. The most noteworthy role of ubiquitous computing technology in this learning is to create a ubiquitous learning environment, which enables anyone to learn at any place at anytime.

Ubiquitous computing in education is both teacher and student whenever and where ever requires can access the teaching learning system. In this modern world of ULE teaching learning process is not restricted to any particular day or time rather it can be accessible at any time as per the need of the student. Both teacher and student will decide where to study and when to study. Ubiquitous computing comprises of the technologies human computer interaction, wireless sensor networks, context-based computing, mobile computing, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, distributed computing, natural user interface, physical computing, virtual reality etc.

Ubiquitous Computing can be described as a new arena of Information and Communication Technologies. The term “Ubiquitous Computing” was coined by Computer Scientist Mark Weiser. He described this system as a calm technology that recedes into the background of our lives. According to him, People and Environment with the help of various computational technologies can exchange anything at anytime from anywhere.

A student is learning, when he is acquiring knowledge through interaction and through active participation and through only passive recipient. Therefore, ‘learning by doing’ (Schank, 1995) is the best way for learning. Learning by doing teaches implicitly rather than explicitly but things that are learned implicitly need only be experienced in the proper way at the proper time. Thus, we need to allow students to be in an environment that is useful to their interests. However, this way of learning is difficult to apply without having a proper methodology to obtain learning information from the real situations. With the advancement and deployment of ubiquitous computing technologies, the process of learning from the environment becomes easier. This is when the technology allows the process of information sharing and communication to happen naturally, constantly and continuously throughout the day. In addition, it is also suggested that the computers used by the student would be able to supply students with information and relevant services when they need it, by automatically sensing the context data and smartly generating what is required (Cheng & Marsic, 2002).

Ubiquitous learning is also known as Context-aware Ubiquitous Learning because fast and speedy growth of wireless communication, sensing, and mobile technologies has facilitated the students to learn in such an environment that merges learning materials from both Real and Digital World. Ubiquitous Learning integrates high mobility into the learning environment. The communication between various types of ubiquitous devices and embedded computers in the environment allows learner to learn while they are moving.

Some of the features of this learning are –

Permanency: The information remains until the learners purposely eliminate it.
Accessibility: The information is always available whenever the learners need to apply it.
Immediacy: The information can be retrieved immediately by the learners whenever needed.
Interactivity: The learners can interact with peers, teachers, and experts efficiently and effectively through various types of media.
Context-awareness: The environment can adjust to the learners’ actual situation to offer sufficient information.

There are several advantages inherent in ubiquitous learning like –

It helps learners to enhance desirable learning outcomes.
It helps learners to improve literacy and numeric skills.
It assists learners to acknowledge their existing content based abilities
It can be used for independent and collaborative learning experiences
It helps learners to identify where they need assistance and support to overcome the situation
It helps to beat the digital divide
It helps to make learning informal
It helps learners to be more focused for longer periods

Conclusion:

Ubiquitous learning environment although is a new concept but acts as an integral part of teaching learning process especially at the time of crisis when one cannot have the access to go to attend the formal educational institution . It is a great support to the mainstream education. It requires some kind of expertise in the field of technology but everybody in today’s time should have that much of knowledge to continue through it. Hence it can be concluded that Ubiquitous learning environment is a new ray of hope and aspiration in present era of teaching learning process and everybody should accumulate it.

References:

Cheng, L. & Marsic, I. (2002). Piecewise Network Awareness Service for Wireless/Mobile Pervasive Computing. Mobile Networks and Applications (MONET), vol.17, no.4, pp.269- 278.

Schank, C. (1995). What We Learn When We Learn by Doing. Technical Report No. 60, Northwestern University, Institute for Learning Sciences. Retrieved on March 2, 2009 from http://cogprints.org/637/0/LearnbyDoing_Schank.html

Weiser, M. (1991). The computer of the 21st century. Scientific American, vol.265, no.3, pp.66-75.

One of the most efficient catalysts researched for industrial-scale catalysis are enzyme because of their multiple advantages lies in their controlling process to specificity along with their less eco-friendly nature. Due to the presence of all these characteristics in the industry, the handling cost reduces when they are used as biocatalysts in different biochemical processes.

The advantages of enzymes have been partially realized by pharmaceutical, fabrication, food, and beverage, industries. In other industries like natural gas conversion and biofuel production also It was proven the potential of enzymes. However, some disadvantages are also lines with enzymes in industries like the application of them at high-temperature processes or turbulent flow regimes due to their stability issues, use in toxic solvents. That is why concentrated techniques across different sectors are concentrating on identification and generation of robust, thermostable, biocatalysts appropriate for use in a wider range of industries. The under the mentioned table we have mention use of some enzyme in the industry:

Pharmaceuticals	Nitrile hydratase, monoamine oxidase, lipase, penicillin acylase, transaminase	To generate active pharmaceutical ingredients intermediates
Food Processing	Pectinase, amylase, isomerase, Trypsin, glucose papain.	starch to glucose production, generation of high fructose corn syrup, generation of prebiotics, debittering of fruit juice
Detergent	amylase, cellulase, Protease, lipase	removal of Stains, oils and fats removal, retention of color
Biofuels	Lipase, xylanase, cellulase	generation of fatty acid methyl esters, degradation of lignocellulosic material to produce bioethanol
Paper and Pulp	Lipase, xylanase, cellulase	Lignin Removal for better bleaching efficiency.

Application of enzymes in Industrial Catalysis

Pharmaceuticals Industry: For quite a long time, pharmaceutically active chemical productions are facilitated by the enzyme catalysis technique successfully at the industrial scale. Due to the presence of high regional, chemical, and stereo selectivities of the substrate to product conversion the enzyme catalysis became most appropriate in this sector. Product specificity is essential in a pharmaceutical method due to the streamlining of product synthesis ways followed by economic process improvement. Use of enzyme not only required here but also provide a higher production rate.

Fuel industry: Biofuel like bioalcohols, biosynthetic oils, biodiesel, and biogas considered as the supplement for fossil fuel and these have already proved its potentials. Thus to meet the global need demands are sky rocked throughout the world. Not only that production of economically feasible biofuel has double benefits it is better sustainable than the fossil one and better eco-friendly concerning the emission of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and particulate matter, etc. this production rises every year. Thus usage of enzymes also increases with that.

Bakery industry: Major of the application of enzymes found in the food industry since the mid 20^th century. Earlier, the enzyme used in these industries was mainly generated from animal and plant resources. Currently, they are derived from microbial fermentation. For example use of glucoamylase to produce better yields of glucose from starch. The process replaces the old acid hydrolysis method by reducing production cost. One enzyme used in food processing industries are protease, lipase, esterase, oxidoreductase, and isomerize, etc.

Dairy processing industry: Two major enzymes used in the dairy industry are catalase and lactase. Catalase used to remove excess H₂O₂which is due to kill pathogens in milk. Use of Lactase reduces the lactose content to prepare low lactose milk where milk flavor, sweetness and nutritional value all are increased.

Meat product processing: To improve the product quality in terms of taste, color, smell, etc, and increase the added value through by-products enzyme is used in the meat industry.

The industrial usage of enzyme accelerates due to the immobilized enzyme:

Advancement in enzyme immobilization, i.e., the add-on of the biocatalyst with a material having required chemical, physical, electrical, or mechanical properties, has shown that improvement in their activity and stability for a wide range of industrial conditions. In this field of application immobilized enzymes are quite novel and the process includes fewer processing steps.

Sometime, the benefits of immobilized enzymes must be huge to find betterment over the economics of free enzyme-catalyzed techniques which comes with a high capacity of reusability. Moreover, those must be associated with the proper function of an enzyme in the presence of an appropriate substrate.

Encapsulation or entrapment, carrier-bound attachment, and the formation of cross-linked enzyme aggregates these are the three main techniques currently used in the enzyme immobilization. Two main kinetic parameters need to find out for an immobilized enzyme to understand the efficiency of immobilization on the catalytic efficiency of the enzyme. They are maximal reaction velocity or Vmax and Michaelis constant or Km. the rate of enzyme –substrate-binding affinity and Vmax provides the rate of reaction at a specific moment. Low Km value suggests a better binding affinity between enzyme-substrate and higher suggests lesser binding affinity.

Assessment of environmental impact for enzyme implementation in the industry:

Environmental evaluation of immobilized enzyme is highly required while implementing them as biocatalyst as they are released into nature after a certain period in a bulk amount after usage. With is an aspect the life-cycle assessments and techno-economic analyses are highly important tools to assess these immobilized enzymes for commercial usage. life-cycle assessments or LCAs used to analyze the amount of energy and material used in the industry and the amount of waste and emission generated by the industry during the product formation. AS most of the cases use of enzyme positively related to the reduced usage of chemical inputs, energy, and waste streams. It is also noticed that the use of Immobilized enzyme-catalyzed technique decreased the environmental burden concerning the free enzyme-catalyzed processes. Techno-economic analyses or TEAs study the economic feasibility of the new process based on technology availability and process cost such as feedstocks, utilities, labor, and capital investments, etc.

This market is growing rapidly throughout the world. A biochemist is the most preferable candidate as an enzymologist in any of this industry. Thus it’s a golden opportunity to fix your target and enter into the specific path to achieve the goal.

Day: July 13, 2020

Positive Effect of COVID 19: Ubiquitous Learning Paradigm

Career in Biochemistry: as an Enzymologist