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MONKEYPOX – A THREATENING RECURRENCE OF A FORGOTTEN AILMENT

On 23^rd May 2022, the world stood alarmed once again, when the increasing number of cases of the rare Monkeypox infections were reported to stand at 131 from 18 non-endemic countries, although there has been no recent associated death.

The Monkeypox virus (MPXV) which belongs to the Orthopoxvirus genus of the Poxviridae family is made up of double-stranded DNA and is zoonotic in nature. Due to its maintenance in the wild animal population, it is far less sensitive to common eradication methods. Certain risk factors associated with MPXV infection include increase in geographical range and cessation of vaccination of the host. Environmental factors like increasing risk of animal-host transmission and frequency of contact with potential host may also contribute to viral transmission.

Back in 1958, the MPXV was first identified as a member of the Orthopoxvirus genus by the State Serum Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was isolated first from vesiculo-pustular lesions of infected cynomolgus macaques. In 1970, first human infection was detected in the remote area of Democratic Republic of Congo. 6 deaths were reported in 1996 along with 71 clinical cases. In 2003, first case of MPX in the USA was initiated by exotic pets imported from Ghana. Reemergence of MPXV occurred in 2017 in Nigeria after 39 years of no reported case. In 2018, 3 individual patients were diagnosed with MPX in the UK.

MPXV originated from progenitor pox virus and shares similarities with the variola virus. It has two origins, one of which is the West African variant, exhibiting lower virulence and are less transmissible to humans. The only few cases were reported from certain West African nations. The other strain originates from Central African which prohibits inflammatory cytokine production in infected patients by preventing T-cell receptor-mediated activation and hence is far more virulent.

Specimens for clinical diagnosis purposes include that from skin lesions and swabs. The dermis might exhibit papular lesions. Keratinocytes exhibit vasculitis and viral inclusions apart from spongiosis. Detection of immune responses to the presence of other OPXV makes serological testing unsuitable for MPXV diagnosis, although it may provide evidence of viral exposure. Injection of anti-poxvirus antibodies into unvaccinated infected individual may aid in diagnosis of MPX. All cases from Nigeria, Singapore, UK and Israel were identified as West African MPXV using PCR and genetic sequencing.

Direct or indirect contact with infected animals (live or dead), for e.g. hunting of small animals for food is the main cause for the transmission of virus in humans, while in animals, aerosol transmission has been detected. Due to increase in T-cell response and production of antiviral antibodies during the course of infection, the development of highly-sensitive diagnostic techniques may help cure patients faster.

The impact of the existing smallpox vaccine on MPXV infections will play an important role in the prevention of the disease, due to concerns regarding its adverse effects in an immunocompromised population. Till now, the Modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) has been found to confer protection against lethal doses of MPXV except for cases in which severely diminished T-cell protection has been observed in the primates.

Contrasting SARS-COV2 MPXV which spreads though aerosols and is more contagious, MPXV spreads though contact and is less contagious. Nevertheless, an extended chain of person-to-person transmission of monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of Congo is an indication of the potential of the virus to infect immunocompromised individuals, which may cause its evolution and independent maintenance in the human population. Groups of population including pregnant women and immunocompromised persons are at higher risk of getting infected. Due to diversity of taxa supporting MPXV replication, more species of animals are prone to the risk of viral infection. Although, there is a lack of information regarding the species causing the viral transmission, certain approaches may be useful in detecting and better understanding the origin, transmission and risk factors of MPXV. These include predictive risk modelling across different landscapes and scales, theoretical mathematical modelling studies, population genetic studies, ecologic risk mapping studies and surveys.

Know the Game: Augment your career with Skills, Competencies, and Expertise in the niche segment of Health Geo-Informatics

The WHO has taken pledge to help countries and partners in making informed public health choices more quickly and to spread geospatial knowledge throughout the organization by connecting maps, apps, data, and people. Because of this change in emphasis, organizations all around the world are depending more and more on location intelligence to make smarter public health decisions. Human services and health geoinformatics occupations are in greater demand than ever.

John Snow’s ground-breaking work serves as an example of the effectiveness of mapping and geographic systems in addressing the cholera pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) has a long history of analyzing spatial distribution and risk factor patterns, identifying, preventing, and controlling diseases, and enhancing the effectiveness of public health initiatives. Making timely and trustworthy judgments that have the potential to save many lives is made possible by using GIS to connect spatial representation and public health planning. To name a few, 15 of the 17 health-related SDGs rely on GIS, for example, by monitoring air, water quality, and sanitation, neglected tropical diseases (malaria, guinea worm, snake bites), Polio, as well as health emergencies. Geoinformatics is defined as an academic discipline or career of working with geographical data for better understanding and interpretation of human interaction with the earth’s surface. It encompasses several technologies, approaches, processes, and methods to interpret and discourse spatial questions that necessitate spatial sense to address it. ESRI comments that “Hundreds of thousands of organizations in virtually every field are using GIS to make maps that communicate, perform analysis, share information, and solve complex problems around the world. This is changing the way the world works.”

Figure 1. Geoinformatics – Future Science (Conceptualized and compiled by Dr. Anu Rai)

With its underlying capacity, Geoinformatics is emerging as a billion-dollar industry and offers lucrative opportunities to its professionals and trainers. In order to promote better public health planning and decision-making, geospatial technology, namely Health Geoinformatics, offers spatial representation of data. It is a niche segment of Geoinformatics and has significant uses in the fields of medicine and global health, but many nations currently limited or no access to these advantages in order to improve their health information systems. However, in post pandemic era, WHO and partner countries aggressively acknowledge and recommend the application of Geoinformatics in addressing public health issues. WHO has taken pledge to help countries and partners in making informed public health choices more quickly and to spread geospatial knowledge throughout the organization by connecting maps, apps, data, and people. The WHO GIS Centre for Health wants to have a direct and long-lasting influence on the public by increasing its engagement with partners. Supporting geospatial data and analytics to enhance adherence and stewardship with WHO Standard Operating Procedures for maps and Web GIS applications are a few examples of the specific services offered by WHO. The purpose of such services is to improve national, regional, and analytical data as well as the health information system in order to boost the Member States’ and Partners’ effective use of GIS. Because of this change in emphasis, organizations all around the world are depending more and more on location intelligence to make smarter public health decisions. Human services and health geoinformatics occupations are in greater demand than ever. In order to forecast and evaluate industry trends utilizing a range of data and pro-actively build solutions and messaging to address important issues, drivers, and challenges, health GIS analysts or public health solution managers work closely with teams in varied domains of public health, human services, hospitals, insurance, managed health care systems, and environmental health. Despite corporate and public jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities, GIS analysts are highly engaged in investigating, understanding, and developing new businesses in areas underserved or not currently served with GIS applications in the health and human services space. This creates a new field of opportunity for work with product development as a customer advocate for the requirements of the health and human services sector.

In my academic career as an educator of Geography and Geoinformatics, I have often noticed curiosity among youngsters about career opportunities with the Health Geography and Geoinformatics, irrespective of the discipline and domain of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees they hold. I would answer that if you are interested to play with the nuts and bolts of spatial health science, the Post Graduate Program on Geography and Geoinformatics is a good option for you. You may select diverse fields of Health Geoinformatics depending on the expertise of the domain varying from map making to app development. You can also opt for jobs in Public Health firms that include diverse skill-based jobs in the field of marketing development and testing and even entrepreneurship. Research-based course experience also opens huge job prospects in development and planning commission, scientists in HRD, and other research institutions in India and abroad. Application of neo-geographical tools, statistical algorithms, machine learning, multi-criterion decision-making techniques, computer-programming, SQLs, text-analytics and learning and practices of GIS and statistical packages that enable GI Scientists to solve the multifaceted real-life problem has opened extensive career opportunities to practitioners of geoinformatics in the field of public health data science as well. Health data scientists, data analysts, big data analysts, spatial data analysts, etc. are some of the lucrative jobs paying high salary packages to deserving candidates. So, if spatial logic of health attracts you, Health Geoinformatics is the best option to augment your career with skills, competencies, and expertise.

For such more examples you may also visit the sites of:

Potentiality of Corn Bio-Fuel in Indian Future Mobility

Corn is grown and appropriated not as a food but also put to use to generate ethanol, which can be used as fuel to operate internal combustion engines in order to avoid the usage of exhaustible resources. The price of the liquid fuels has been increasing gradually in India, it causes harmful emissions as well, and the effect can be noticed if we see the air quality index of different states. In order to search for an alternative, we need to shift our view towards bio-diesel which can be used as the substitute of the exhaustible resources and it produces less harmful gases. One of the potential resources for producing bio-diesel in India is corn, which is largely cultivated crop in Northern India. The total number of vehicles have been increased from 5.4 million to 210 million between 2005 and 2015 in India. Due to the uncontrolled mobility in urban areas, the environment has been affected from the exhaust gases so badly in many states. In few major metropolitan cities, the pollution level has crossed the permissible limit of PM2.5, which is set up by WHO. According to the WHO database, 14 out of 15 most polluted cities in the world, belongs to India only, Kanpur tops the list of the most polluted cities in the entire world with 173 micrograms per cubic meter and Delhi secures the sixth position with pollution level of 141 micrograms per cubic meter according to the PM2.5 database in 2016. Total 11% of the carbon emission is accounted from the transportation; it was 24% in 1971. The effective move, which was taken by the Indian government, was switching to CNG and India operates maximum buses on the road, fuelled by CNG. This country owns 11.75% of total natural gas operated vehicles and holds the third place, running behind China (23%) and Iran (17%). By 2030, India is aiming to be the third largest automobile manufacturing country after USA and China and this is the high time to impart innovations to this specific domain, which can cause less PM, CO₂, NO_xand SO_xemission. Biofuels have great future prospects in developing nations due to energy insecurity. Large agricultural sector can be a good support in order to produce biodiesels from crops. Shuit et. Al [3] stated that the fourth assessment report of IPCC concludes that the reason behind global warming for last 50 years, mostly due to emission of harmful CO₂, nitrous oxide and methane. Transportation has been identified as the major source of air pollution in megacities since last century. The bad effect of motorization leads more petroleum-based fuels to be used in road transport that directly affects the human health. On the basis of an analysis, which has been done by taking data of 50 countries and 35 urban areas that vehicle per capita has been increased at the same rate as income per capita. Countries like India, China and Pakistan where growth rate of passenger cars are double than that of income per capita. India has secured the place in top 10 among biggest emitters of atmospheric pollutants. Road fuel consumption is nearly doubled in every ten years since 1975. Biofuel can be used to meet the future needs of mobility and it can safeguard the environment and human health as it does not contain any sulphur or metals, which contribute to the acid rain by producing sulphuric acid. Peng et al. investigated different parameters and the limited data projected that exhaust emission in terms of total vapour phase hydrocarbons, total carbonyl compounds, total poly aromatic hydrocarbons etc. were lower when biodiesel was used. Global energy demand will be increased by 4.6%, almost 70% of it will be utilized in global emerging markets and developing economics. Global CO₂ emission is heading towards the second largest annual increase ever in 2021, coal demand is set exceed the demand of 2019 and approaching towards the 2014 peak. Utilization of natural gas is being increased by 3.1% in 202. Renewable sources retain the success in these days in power, industry, transport and heating sectors. A report named Net Zero by 2050: A road map for the global energy sector stated that 7 Gt of CO₂ has been emitted from global transport sector in 2019 and it is expected that it will be around 5.5 Gt by 2030 if we use the other environment friendly fuel and 0.7 Gt by 2050. As per the report published by Indian government on World Bio-Fuel Day named Bio-Fuels towards Atmanirbhar Bharat it is concluded that biodiesels can enhance India’s energy security and reduce petroleum dependency. Few potential resources have been identified in order to get bio fuel from the crops and government is implementing policies to spread the awareness among citizens. India aiming to produce 20% ethanol blended biofuel by 2030 and 3% contributor to global ethanol production. Therefore, many initiatives have been taken to produce bio-fuel at higher rate in India using different techniques and waste management strategies.

Apart from USA and Brazil, many countries have been producing bio-ethanol to meet the continuously increasing need. In India, per year 426 crore litres bio-ethanol is being produced from molasses-based distilleries and 258 crore from grain-based distilleries. It has been proposed to increase 760 crore and 740 crore respectively. Indian government has given emphasize on producing bio-ethanol from grains in last few years.

The world’s corn production capacity is near about 1.05 million thousand tons, whereas the USA tops the list of producing corn which is estimated at 360,252 thousand tons. In 2020, India has produced 30,250 thousand tons of corn. It was 5101 thousand tons in 1971 and it is growing at the rate of 4.67%. According to ICAR, India secures 4th in area and 7th in production among the maize producing countries. Corn production area has been increased to 9.2 million ha during 2018-2019. Average productivity has increased by 5.42 times from 547 kg/ha to 2965 kg/ha, productivity in India is almost half of the world.

Madhya Pradesh (15%) and Karnataka (15%) clench the first position in terms of highest cornfield area accompanied by Maharashtra (10%), Rajasthan (9%) and Uttar Pradesh (5%). Whereas Andhra Pradesh secures the top position in terms of corn production, it is as high as 12 tonne per ha. Looking at the statistics of corn production and the potentiality for bio-ethanol to be used as fuel, it is said that corn can be one of the major grain resources in India to produce ethanol. Chemical composition of corn revels that it contains 72% starch, 9.5% fiber,9.5% protein and 4.3% oil. It is investigated that 56 lbs of corn can produce 30.7 lbs of starch or 35 lbs of sweeteners or 21 lbs of polylactic acid polymers and can produce 2.87 gallons of ethanol. This ethanol can be used with diesel to improve the emission and it also fulfils the need of the alternative fuel in the automobile sector in India.

Ethanol production from corn: Farm to Fermentation

Corn has to undergo many processes to be considered ready for ethanol production. The first step is to remove the kernels from the cob, this process is known as postharvest where all the stones, soil, sticks, etc. are removed by means of scalpers. A huge bio-technical is associated followed by three steps –

Starch is to be converted to fermentable sugar by means of milling, liquefaction, and saccharification (enzyme-based).
Fermentation, where yeast helps these sugars to convert into ethanol.
Generated ethanol is taken out from other by-products using the distillation process.

Fig. 2: Schematic diagram of ethanol production from corn [icon courtesy: www.nounprojects.com]

Milling is the first step of the biotechnical process and it can be classified into two main categories namely wet milling and dry milling. The main purpose of the process is to break-down the starch into simple sugar components whereas the liquefaction process is done in order to make the simple sugar soft for an efficient enzymatic digestion. Indian government has paid attention to establish such plants to produce ethanol to be used with diesel to meet the demand. And, obviously corn can be the one of the resources for the same.

Better Emission

This is the need of the hour to replace authentic fuel in automobiles as it emits harmful components like CO, CO2, NO2 etc. Bio-fuel helps engine to perform and emit less pollutant. Many additives can be used to improve the performance in terms of power generation and speed. Manigadan S. et al. [12] investigated the emission characteristics of corn oil blended with methyl ester and oxygenated additives. In this study, BSFC and BP have been increased by 6.3% and 22.01% respectively. And, 16% reduction in NOx emission has been observed, Titanium di-oxide (TiO2) has been used as additive. But, many oxygenated nanoparticles like aluminium oxide etc. can be used to improve the performance, as well.

Career Prospects in Cyber security

Multinational companies are spending fortunes to protect and secure their systems, sensitive data, networks, and privacies from cybercriminals. After the pandemic, with proliferation of internet use and technology use, these cyber attacks become more refined and inventive, forcing the organizations to depend on the proficiency of the cybersecurity professionals.

As per CyberSeek report, around half million cybersecurity professionals are required to fulfill the gap. It is best time to become a cybersecurity professional because of this rising demand and small talent pool. There are some lucrative job opportunities available for those persons with relative technology focused skill. Even if someone does not have prior experience in cyber security domain, getting a job in this domain is possible. With the increase of frequency in cyber-attacks, almost all the organizations are recruiting to defend against these kinds of threats. There are various career paths available for the students who interested in making the career out of cyber security professional.

Like machine learning and data science, Cyber security career paths are also multidirectional as well as non-linear. Once someone enters the domain, his/her career can go in any direction. Along with that there are also feeder roles like risk analyst, software engineer, network administrator which can be used as a beginner level cyber security professional.

When anyone thinks of cybersecurity jobs, generally the first think comes into our mind is someone trying penetrate the networks or systems which is basically penetration testing or ethical hacking. But this notion is nothing but the tip of an iceberg. Cybersecurity is bigger than that. It contains various sub categories and specialization and all of these can be broadly categories in to two parts i.e., Infrastructure management and Security and Risk Management.

Infrastructure Security

Networking infrastructures are extremely important to multinational business organizations. Cybercriminals can readily access and exploit sensitive resources and information if they are not properly protected. Cybersecurity specialists must design, firewalls, virtual private networks, application security, and many more to mitigate security and data breaches.

Common job roles for the protection of infrastructure are given below:

Security Operations Center (SOC) analyst
Security infrastructure engineer
Cybersecurity engineer
Security architect
Cloud security engineer

Security and Risk Management

Security and risk management actually constitute ensuring that businesses follow security regulations and procedures, as well as undertaking risk assessment to determine security flaws in tangible infrastructure, business applications, and data. Penetration testing and compliance are useful roles in this niche. In fact, compliance has become so critical that some industries even have entire squad devoted entirely to data governance and privacy protection.

Common job roles for Security and Risk Management are given below:

Penetration tester
Data privacy and security analyst
Security compliance analyst
Information security analyst
Cyber Security Incident Response Analyst

Skill requirement for cybersecurity

Even though cybersecurity jobs may appear to be extremely specialized and computational-intensive, these skilled persons have the know-how of various different but interrelated domains. It is expected that these professionals have some specific skill sets in both hard skill sets which are scripting, system administration and networking and soft skill sets which are creative thinking and communication. Basically, one needs to constantly reinvent and learn upcoming technologies.

Technical Skills:

In terms of essential cybersecurity skills, Networking tops the list. If one wants to aspire to become a penetration tester or network security engineer, that person needs to fully grasp underlying mechanisms various networking protocols and principles.
Most network components and intrusion prevention systems run Linux as their operating system. Learning Linux helps to collect security data and perform security toughening.
System administration is indispensable for cyber security specialists. Can user, for example, dictate what happens after downloading malware on windows operating system or extract files from a pc without knowing the log in credentials?
To detect security loopholes in networks or security devices, it is necessary to have an outlook like a cybercriminal. White hat hackers try to safeguard data from both outside and inside threats by identifying vulnerabilities in systems that could be reduced. White hats are mainly utilized by the intended system’s owner and are handsomely compensated for their efforts. Their practice is not illegal since it is performed with the approval of the system owner.
To become a cybersecurity practitioner, you wouldn’t need to be an extremely skilled programmer, but you must handle situations with an algorithmic mindset. Scripting is a wonderful way to learn the underlying working principles of hardware and software.
Even though you wouldn’t want to become a programmer, it’s important to understand enough to read code.
To run malware analysis, cybersecurity professionals ought to be accustomed with all virtual machine platforms.

Soft Skills

Communication: You will need to invest a considerable amount of time training end users on how to set up their machines or implement security measures.
New security hazards emerge all the time, so you must be able to continuously acquire new skills and techniques.
On a regular basis, cybersecurity entails finding solutions to issues. If you really do not like to indulge in solving problems, a profession in cybersecurity is probably not just for you.

Top Cybersecurity Job roles: From beginner level to executive level

There are many high-paying, versatile full-time job vacancies in the industry. Due to the sheer world – wide scarcity of skilled talent pool, numerous recruiters are offering entry-level salaries ranging from Rs. ₹10L to ₹12L. Cybersecurity directors and chief information security officers (CISOs), for example, can obtain more than ₹90L per year.

Cybersecurity Analyst: Security Operations Centre (SOC) analyst concentrates on the front-line attack detection. Cybersecurity analysts work in dedicated security hubs and must be competent in a variety of areas such as log analysis, Wireshark, malware analysis, and programming. A SOC analyst’s primary responsibility is to monitor network data. This particular job role has the potential to be used as a fantastic launchpad for next level of the roles.
Penetration Tester: Penetration testers, also known as white hat hackers, are one of the most in-demand job positions in the cybersecurity industry. They are in charge of identifying and analyzing security flaws in organizational IT infrastructure along with that a penetration tester are asked to prepare a detailed report about their observations and procedures. Penetration testing is not a low-wage job rather it attracts one of the most handsome salaries in the industry.
Cybersecurity Engineer: Cybersecurity engineers, like software engineers, create technologies that protect computer architecture. Their commitment is to foresee network security loopholes, which necessitates the installation of firewalls, the use of encryption software, and the revamping of patches. A few years of experience and a strong command in various scripting languages are required to become a cybersecurity engineer.

New Era of Construction Engineering and Management

During the recent time of pandemic when the world is paused for almost all regular activities so is the situation for the academics and industries. The time demands new era construction engineering mangers to develop and run a system where employees can be engaged to their respective fields with all safety measures to maintain the pace of the project.

Here, a brief discussion is done on the importance and opportunities of Construction Engineering and Management for the next generation engineering graduates.

History:

It all started at the time when people used to live in the caves of jungles or forests. Then one or few of them observed nature and got an idea to build a house of leaves. That incident may be called as the first example of construction in the human history. As the time went past, new techniques were developed and the infrastructure of the society also improved to upgrade the living standard of the citizens.

In fact even few decades ago, if anyone is asked to call an engineer, he/she at first used to the think of a civil engineer or more specifically a construction engineer. Construction Engineering and Management is basically a part of Civil Engineering which requires technical and scientific knowledge with critical thinking. Sometimes it requires design and execution of new techniques to solve the critical problems and help to improve safety and efficiency in production.

Roles and Responsibility:

A construction engineer must be aware of rules and regulations, facts of different codes of practices, should be up to date with the latest safety measurement techniques. A good construction project manager increases the productivity of the organization by completing the project efficiently with in the time allocated. Construction Engineering and Management is a bridge between construction and execution of all the activities of the project and management of all the resources of it. An engineering manager may need to investigate the job site, check environmental regulations and other laws of the local administration and sometimes may work with the labors. A construction manager prepares report on the work progress, availability of the resources, and figure out appropriate solutions to critical problems. The position need to deals with the wide range of people like contractors, suppliers, environmental and govt. agencies. Apart from on-site jobs, a construction manager may take help of software to analyze and find out important facts of the project.

Generally the role of a construction project manager can be classified into the following three phases:

Pre-construction Phase: This phase consist of project planning and organizing. Before starting the execution process plan, schedule and budget allocation of materials, human, equipment should be done.
Construction Phase: During construction the optimum of all the resources will be used. So it requires close monitoring of construction manager. The engineering knowledge and skill of the construction manager is helpful during this phase of construction management. Constant communication is built among all the levels of employees in order to run this process smoothly.
Post Construction Phase: The construction engineering manager is the technical person who will prepare the project progress report and clarify it to the owners as well as to the other govt. institutions.

Scope and Opportunities:

The engineers placed in the construction projects can only understand the criticality of the challenges and determine the actual requirement of human resources as well as material resources. Based on the experience and/or knowledge, only construction engineering managers can solve various challenges in construction sites. In current situation where the pandemic hit society is struggling to run its regular life, the new age construction engineers can be a silver lining to all. They can propose and encourage government and other organizations to continue development woks and can create modern day infrastructure needs by using cutting edge technologies invented till date. The use of the modern techniques will serve the society in two way. One is by using modern equipment, projects can be completed quickly than usual time and will save huge amount of labor cost. On the other hand, it will create a new set of employment sector where new technicians will be required to operate modern equipment.

To avail all these pride and opportunities, one must have a valid degree or experience in civil/construction engineering. For the information of all aspirants, it must be mentioned that there are very few institutions who offer construction engineering & management in west Bengal. Adamas University is one of the prime university among them in the eastern zone of India with world class facilities where students from abroad comes to build their career. Here you will find a set of talented experienced faculties and all laboratory supports to pursue your dream into reality.

FUTURE OF ENGINEERING

What does engineering have in store for the future? Would engineers be able to find work in the upcoming post-COVID scenario, or will they first require any new skills to equip themselves with? How will core engineering be taught on the internet? – These are some of the slew of questions that haunts every aspiring student, educational institutions, instructors and also parents. The future is undoubtedly unpredictable, but it does not imply that it is doom and gloom.

In view of the post-pandemic scenario, in this article, a quick idea on an insight ‘Inside Engineering 2022’ has been provided. It encompasses of the upcoming post-COVID campusing scenario, online learning, the upcoming job market, and the need to shed light on the present system of Engineering education. This is always dependent on the branch that the student had pursued. For example, the global trend of economy, or the industrial professionals’ opinions, is that the manufacturing industry will increase first and mainly owing to the need for healthcare equipment. Second, everyone is now drifting towards online platforms for various reasons, therefore we may expect an increase in online platforms, e-commerce, and professional opportunities, particularly in data science and analytics. Because once all of the data is available online, there is a lot of room for different types of prediction. As a result, students are mostly getting enrolled in Computer Science-related programmes will be able to find work. However, this will be determined by their skill sets. Some of the frequent questions have been answered in the following section:

Can core engineering be taught effectively online?

Definitely not. However, there are a number of options for dealing with this issue. To begin, students need to have a basic comprehension of theoretical concepts. Second, students should be able to put these theoretical principles into practise, regardless of whether they learned them online or offline. So, after they’ve grasped the concept, they must figure out how to put it into practise. Using simulation software or virtual laboratories is one approach to keep their learning on track. There are various platforms that provide various kinds of training for mechanical and even aerospace engineers, but if the environment is favourable, they should begin looking for internship possibilities.

Can an insight be given on the impact of lockdown on educational institutions?
It is certainly not possible for each and every professor to have necessary infrastructure for online instruction. At the same time, there are other options to consider. For example, there are students who find it difficult to access to the internet in villages or who live in places where there are regular power outages. However, better evaluation techniques may be pursued that presently exists in various educational industries, which includes providing students with homework or taking viva over the phone. This will certainly require a good amount of work on the part of instructors. If they are unable to provide such assessment mechanisms, educational institutions may require students to enrol in any of the government of India’s online courses. Some well-known colleges, such as Adamas University and others, have partnered with Coursera, allowing students and staff members to enrol in online courses. It is also feasible for us to assess based on the outcomes of the courses. There are several chances available; how you utilize them is entirely up to you. There are probably 1% or fewer of pupils who do not have a smartphone. So, if we look at the possibilities on current platforms, we’ll be able to do a better job of evaluating them.

Is the trend to online learning beneficial? Or is it better to revert to our old habits?

It will certainly depend on the individual whether it is better or not. People, for example, use WhatsApp to communicate more effectively. People often use it to post hilarious movies or spread false information. Since a result, it will be determined by how we employ it, as anything created by man may be used or mistreated. The same is true with internet technology. There are also cyber laws to consider. When we first started using WhatsApp, there was no such thing as a sharing issue. However, the government has recently implemented stricter safeguards. As a result, it will be entirely dependent on the individual. In another scenario, suppose a student is taking a Coursera course and he requires to enhance his skills. So, after the questions are shown on Coursera or any other online course site, he can look up the answers using Google, but he won’t be able to demonstrate his ability in an interview. He has the option of using it for the good of society or for his own advantage. However, if he wants to misuse it, he may do so. However, if the rules take effect and the government enforces the internet cyber laws even more strictly, this will come to an end.

Overnight, the coronavirus had transformed the employment market. The global pandemic has had a major impact on the economy and job stability. It has a long-lasting, and game-changing consequences. Some industry, corporations, and employees have benefited from the worldwide epidemic of Covid-19. They were quarantined and worked from home since everyone was instructed to stay isolated, exactly as they had done for the preceding two years owing to the recent epidemic. As a result, a new teleworking revolution has begun, with increasing demand for computer-related jobs. Because everyone wants a secure virtual connection (with all services), this current epidemic has resulted in several mind-blowing discoveries, inventions, and other future ideas. As a consequence, computer jobs are and will always be a great way to stay safe, especially because many of them allow to work from home. Many huge organizations are on the lookout for new potential workers to give with the perks they deserve, such as health insurance, paid time off, and online jobs. Full-stack developers earn an average of $94,164 per year and have had the most increase in job vacancies of any profession in history, up 162 percent since 2016.To operate on both the front and back ends of technology, computer scientists need a diverse set of computing abilities. This reflects larger job market developments, in which organizations are giving technology roles to their employees quicker than they can find qualified people to fill them, resulting in a labour shortage. As a result, information technology professionals are in some of the strongest situations to enhance their pay and benefits.

Is it the Best Time to Study Electronics?

The rate of employment in the electronics sector is booming due to the steep growth of electronics industry in India. The past few years have witnessed a massive compound annual growth rate of more than 42%. The electronic markets around the world was valued at 1172 billion USD back in 2017 and is enlarging continuously. According to few reports the market for manufacturing semiconductors (consisting of machinery, substances, and solutions) is expected to enlarge from USD 440 bn in 2020 to USD 1 trillion by 2030. Reports indicated a prospect of about 80 bn dollars for the Indian semiconductor industry by 2030. A few articles also suggest massive growth for inventions and R & D in the Semiconductor production instruments–submodules, consumables and spares for the MSME industry in India. This year (2022) the semiconductor chip industry around the world is predicted to get as far as US$600 bn. In a recent conference Hon. PM (Shri. Narendra Modi) expected the consumption of semiconductor in India to go beyond $80 bn by 2026 and $110 bn by 2034. A few experts expect the global semiconductor industry to grow 10% in 2022 to over US$600 billion for the 1^st time in history. In the year 2021, the market for semiconductors in India was evaluated at $27 bn. This market is expected to grow at a sensible CAGR of 16% between 2019 and 2026. Experts predict this market to cross $64 bn by 2026. The current estimate of the semiconductor trade for the telecom industry is greater than 2 bn and is predicted to enlarge at a CAGR of 34% between 2021-2026. There is a budding occasion for India to give as far as $85 bn – $100 bn of the $550 bn – $600 bn annual global opportunity by 2030 (17% of the market need around the world).

Opportunities:

The central govt. approved ₹76,000 crore under the PLI project to boost the semiconductors and display manufacturing ecosphere in India. A large number of incentives are provided to design companies to design chips in India. The govt. of India has also launched the Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Electronic Components and Semiconductors (SPECS) and the Modified Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMC 2.0) Scheme. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) estimates a steep growth of 24%, 23%, and 20% market share in wireless communications, consumer electronics, and automotive electronics respectively. The government is also in conversation with semiconductor manufacturing giants of Taiwan like the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) or the United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) for developing the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem in India. The govt. is also in search of manufacturing sites along several cities in India. There has been an approval for $13 bn for allied sectors which contains ACC batteries, auto components, telecom and networking products, solar PV modules, and white goods. The PLI policies and the Make in India initiatives can aid the local procurement of semiconductor by over 17% by 2026. The 5G rollout in India is predicted to skyrocket the need for semiconductors manufacturing in India (as predicted by several telecom industries). The local production of semiconductors in India is presently low, India has a large capability to frame itself as a front runner supplier in the upcoming days provided that the talent/skill pool and resources are used precisely. The near future is expected to create opportunities for research and innovations in the semiconductor production submodules, consumer nondurables, and spares. India has also got an exceptional talent in the semiconductor design. Almost all best in the world semiconductor design firms have research and development units in India.

Threats:

The semiconductor global market is dominated by U.S. with almost 50% (worth $208 bn in 2020) of the market share. The U.S. counts the semiconductor as one of its top 5 exports with over 80% of the sales to overseas countries. The U.S. industry invests over 1/5^th of its total revenue for research and development of semiconductors. Along with the U.S. China is also a major manufacturer of semiconductors. China has largely increased its semiconductor chip sales with an annual growth rate of 30.6% capturing 9% of the global market share, leaving behind Taiwan and Europe. The war among Ukraine and Russia may lead to shortage of Neon and Hexafluorobutadiene gases from Ukraine disturbing the supply chain of semiconductors. These issues in the supply chain may also adversely affect the automobile sector. A report states that less than 10% of the India’s semiconductor components were sourced locally. In the last two years, the global chip shortage has caused a revenue loss above US $500 bn around the globe. The continuing talent scarcity will increase by the inclusion of increased semiconductor manufacturing amenity outside Taiwan, China, and South Korea. The loftier need for software skills needed to program and integrate chips into fast-growing markets will further worsen the shortfall.

Career growth in VLSI and Embedded System Design for B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering students after Pandemic

Learning areas of this course:

All students must learn advanced skills in high demand like VLSI and Embedded System Design and apply these skills to get a job. These transferable in-demand skills are so essential after post-pandemic. ECE offers new career opportunities to its engineers. All of our essential services are now projected to a new level. During a pandemic, we are shifting away from using offline platforms and toward online platforms. We are accustomed to using e-commerce to buy and sell goods or transfer funds via online platforms, and there is a large employment opportunity. Use of Embedded system design can be found in every industry, from medicine to manufacturing. An embedded system is a combination of hardware and software that performs a specific task within a specified time frame which means it should perform only one specific task. The main advantage of using an embedded system in an application is that it reduces the size and cost of the task while also improving its reliability and efficiency. Students studying Electronics and Communication Engineering will be able to find jobs in e-commerce by preparing themselves with the necessary skill sets.

Because of the pandemic, our demand for biomedical electronics has increased. We must develop more biomedical instruments and devices to ensure our survival in the healthcare system. There will be a huge opportunity to find work in the field of biomedical. Because these domains require knowledge of circuit theory, semiconductor device, analog circuits, digital circuits, and understanding of VLSI and Embedded System design, they are mostly open to students with an ECE background. As a result, they have more job opportunities.

Unique Aspects and strength of VLSI and Embedded System design:

Working in the core electronics industry is the dream of every ECE engineering students. VLSI and Embedded system design are two of the most important industries for an electronics engineer. However, in order to find work in these industries, one must be highly skilled, with a solid understanding of the fundamentals and a hands-on approach. The industry expects engineers to be familiar with industry standard EDA tools and fabrication but fabrication is beyond the scope of B.Tech course structure. Using Make in India, Digital India and Start-up India programme thrives to the Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) sector in India, many manufacturers are relocating to the country to establish their businesses. Making India a Semiconductor Hub for ESDM, the government invites applications for the Chips to Startup (C2S) Program. The Indian government has approved a comprehensive programme to develop an Integrated Circuit (IC)/ ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) design by using VLSI system design in the country. Many Start-ups and MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise) are now interested to progress in this field.

Every year, India spends billions of dollars to bring electronic consumer devices to the country. VLSI and Embedded systems play a significant role in consumer electronics. As a result, VLSI and embedded systems are emerging domains in India. There will be a significant skill gap in these areas. Every year, India invested billions of dollars to import electronic consumer devices. VLSI and Embedded systems are important in consumer service electronics. As a result, VLSI and embedded systems are growing in popularity in World. There will be a significant skill gap in these following areas.

SoC Desien
ASIC Design
Reusable IP Core(s) Design and Development
Application Oriented Working Prototype of ASICs and SoCs
ASIC and FPGA Research and Development

With the emerging rise in the VLSI industry our processing speed increases to Intel Pentium P5 processor to recent core i9 processor and our mobile phone processor become thinner (4nm) to make mobile phone energy efficient and provide better performance.

Every new process node is evaluated based on three key metrics: power, performance, and area (PPA). Designers strive to balance and improve the three areas, but cost and time-to-market (collectively PPACT) are taken into account when chipmakers choose between process node options.

Industry 4.0 jobs are available through VLSI and Embedded System design. Smart homes are built with IoT and Embedded system design technology and smart electronics appliances such as a smart refrigerator, air conditioner, TV, microwave, and washing machine that can be controlled remotely via smartphone. IoT and Embedded system design technology play an important role in healthcare.

Students having the following skills for companies like Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung, HCL Technologies, L&T etc.

Programming skills like Verilog/VHDL and
Exposure to VLSI Industry standard tools for ASIC and FPGA design
Embedded Programming skill like C, C++, Java, Embedded C++ and Python
Clear understanding of analog and digital circuit analysis and design.

If you want to work in technology, you must have certain skills. You must think like an engineer and learn engineering skills. Contrast “engineering labour” with “engineer.” If you believe you are an engineer, you must prove it before the rest of the world believes you. And proving it is difficult. However, believe me when I say that the VLSI Industry is in desperate need of Engineers. We have a demand, but no resources. We can find engineering labour but not engineers. It’s oversaturated for people who consider themselves engineers but perform engineering labour work. It has a bright future for those who are connected to technology and willing to learn on a regular basis. The future exists in all domains (analog – because world is analog, Digital – all computer works on binary, Mix-signal – because we are moving from integration of Real world and Computer world in form of AI, ML, AR-VR).

Future relocation area Memory that is fast and compact high-speed, low-power processor design. Every individual must now determine what skills they possess and where they can contribute and whether or not the industry is saturated will be determined by this.

Artificial Intelligence in Health Care: A New opportunity to build Career

In lockdown era of Covid-19 outbreak, creates a recession in different working sectors and numerous people lost their jobs in different areas. After pandemic, new job opportunities have been opened up. Among them, AI in health care is considered as one of the promising one. In the context of covid-19 pandemic there exist shortage of health care personnel and this not fulfilling the diagnosis response at the emergency stage. Integration of AI in health care can be considered as a promising option to overcome the shortage of health care personnel. Now question is that how a computer Engineer can incorporate AI in health care. The applications of AI into health care have been categorized into three groups.

Patient-oriented AI
Clinical oriented AI
Administration and operational Oriented AI

The Patient oriented AI system can directly improve the patient care. According to the report of UK Govt., if the AI-enabled symptoms checker is coupled with the telemedicine technology, reduced number of physicians visits in hospitals. Different Machine Learning and deep learning-based (ML/DL) algorithms have been considered to train the aforementioned AI-enabled symptoms checker system where the several symptoms of the common diseases have been considered as the training data.

Apart from this, several organizations adopted the chatbot system to improve the patient care. Chatbot is a software program that automatically chat with the patients through text or voice messages. A chatbot system, initially collects information from patients. After analyzing this information using different Computer vision techniques, provides the information regarding the present conditions of the disease as well as, what he will do. In some places, the chatbot systems are not capable of collecting the patients’ information, a wearable device can play an important role. These wearable devices sense the patient’s disease information through some sensors and AI-based methodologies provide the actual conditions of the disease. Another noteworthy fact is that AI can improve the accuracy in disease detection.

In developing countries like India, the doctor and patient are low and an individual clinician works nearly 14-18 hours in a day. Due to this extensive workload, clinicians may overlook the early sign of the disease. A computer aided diagnosis system (CAD) can assist doctors to detect these symptoms at the early stages. The researchers from University of Calcutta said that their implemented CAD system is capable of detecting lung nodules at early stages which may indicate lung cancer if it is detected at later stages.

Furthermore, AI can also increase the efficacy of the targeted therapy. AI is capable of identifying the accurate effected area of the abnormal tissue. By supervising the effected area through computers, a clinician can provide the drug to the patients.

Apart from the computer vision techniques, the natural language processing (NLP) also improves the clinical outcomes. In daily clinical practice, clinicians often required previous disease history, medications doses and the family history of the disease to prepare appropriate diagnose plan. In health sector, the data are stored in an unstructured manner i.e., the health sector-maintained paper-based work. Due to extensive workload these data may lost. The Electronic Medical Record or EMR is a software where the NLP techniques can store large number of clinical text data in a structured form. In present context, the existing EMR software is very costly. This necessitates the AI-based health care industry to implement a low cost and more accurate EMR tool for improved diagnosis procedures. The Norway based Globus.ai’s AI enabled EMR system shows that it fills clinical data 90% more faster than the human work. Another interesting application of AI in health care is robotic surgery. In this application, different computer algorithms have been automated for different surgeries. However, the general decisions are still taken by the surgeon.

Beside the clinical outcomes, AI can also improve the patient safety. It has been observed that, several patients suffer from adverse drug effects i.e., the drug is not suited for the patient body. Israel’s MedAware’s patient safety platform considered different ML algorithms to detect and reduce the risk of medication error.

This discussion reveals that to provide improved health care, participation of AI engineers in heal care industry become an inevitable option. This creates huge job opportunities to the engineers.

Why Study Forensic Science?

Forensic science is a branch of science that is involved in the study of legal evidence. This branch of knowledge has contributed immensely to crime investigation, criminal law, and also civil litigation.

In the words of fiction writer Chuck Palahniuk, forensic science and its central role in criminal investigations may be succinctly explained as, “Everything is a self-portrait. A diary. Your whole drug histories in a strand of your hair. Your fingernails. The forensic details. The lining of your stomach is a document. The calluses on your hand tell all your secrets. Your teeth give you away. Your accent. The wrinkles around your mouth and eyes. Everything you do shows your hand.” This is precisely what Forensic Science is, in a nutshell!

This kind of work requires a lot of patience and attention to detail. The personalities that are best suited for it are those who are calm under pressure, have excellent powers of observation, who are good at problem solving, who can cope with working long hours and also carrying out strict routines.

The study of forensic science is a subject that is not usually very well known to the general public. There are many reasons why one should consider studying this subject, including the diverse and high-level job opportunities that it offers. Forensics is about identifying patterns and solving mysteries. A career in forensic science can also often lead to more ground-breaking work within other fields such as psychology, law enforcement, engineering, and medicine. Forensic scientists also use their skills to solve crime cases. This can involve identifying the perpetrators of crimes through blood spatter analysis or DNA testing. For example, they might be able to match a fingerprint found at the scene of the crime with a suspect. Forensics is not limited to just fingerprints and DNA tests though; forensic investigators often use ballistics tests, ballistic identification and firearms fingerprinting to identify criminals.

If you have a natural curiosity, enjoy solving puzzles, and care about truth and justice, then you may want to consider a career in forensic science. Forensic science is the application of scientific knowledge to criminal investigations. Examples of research areas in forensic science include:

Fingerprinting
DNA profiling
Ballistics
Tool marks
Forensic engineering
Crime scene reconstruction

With its multidisciplinary approach, forensic science is the crucial contributor which aids fuse together all types of evidence in whatsoever type of inquiry. This entails applying the ideas and methodology of several scientific fields to legal issues. And here is an illustration of the many fields of Forensic Science- Forensic Toxicology, Forensic Psychology, Forensic Pathology, Forensic Odontology, Forensic Linguistics, Forensic Geology, Forensic Entomology, Forensic Engineering, Forensic DNA Analysis, Forensic Archaeology, Forensic Anthropology, Digital Forensics, Forensic Ballistics etc.

Therefore, Forensic science offers several fascinating employment prospects. You can specialise on a few topics or get active in them all. Also, because each investigation and crime scene are unique, your tasks will vary from day to day. One day you may be visiting a crime scene and collecting pictures, and the next you could be in the lab looking for linkages between suspects and illegal behaviour, you may be in court a few days later, presenting evidence to the jury! Based on your scientific discoveries, you will also be required to rebuild crime scenes. As a result, you’ll never have a dull day. This is not your typical office job, where you sit in the same position every day! Rather A fascinating job path!

In a world where you are automatically prejudiced towards the organisation for which you work, you are fully unbiased in this position! You must offer entirely unbiased scientific data, relying solely on science to establish the facts. If there is DNA evidence of a suspect at a crime scene, your role is to convey it as reality rather than opinion! And, well, the work itself is fantastic! How great is it that you work in a field that employs science to solve crimes?