Parul Institute of Architecture & Research

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Parul Institute of Architecture & Research

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POLYMER PATCH ENABLES REPAIR HEART DAMAGE WITHOUT STITCHES

Implanting a flexible polymer patch into rats showed improved conduction of electrical impulses across the heart scar tissue. The patch -- new technology enables to repair the tissues without the need for stitches, says scientists. The new technology shown to work in animal models reported the long lasting and significant advantage that it can be stuck onto the heart. "Heart attacks create a scar which slows and disrupts the conduction of electrical impulses across the heart. This leads to potentially fatal disturbances of the heart rhythm. Our electrically conducting polymer patch is designed to address this serious problem,” said Professor Sian Harding from Imperial College London.

Patch consists of 3 components:

The patch is made from three components: a film of chitosan, a polysaccharide found in crab shells that is often used as a food additive; polyaniline, a conducting polymer that is grown on top; and phytic acid, a substance found in plants which is added to the polyaniline to switch it to its conducting state. "Conducting polymers work when they are dry, but most become non-conducting in a very short time when placed in bodily fluids," said Dr Damia Mawad from University of New South Wales (UNSW in Australia.) The suture-less patch shown as stable and retains it conductivity in physiological conditions for more than 2 weeks, compared with the usual one day of other designs. Since stiches are required to attach, it is minimally invasive and less damaging to the heart. The patch is made to adhere to the heart tissue by shining a green laser on it. “We envisage heart attack patients eventually having patches attached as a bridge between the healthy and the scar tissue, to help prevent cardiac arrhythmia. However, our patch is at the very early stages of this research. This technology can now be used for basic research to gain insights into the interface between the material and tissue," said Mawad.

Montblanc Benefits UNICEF With New Pen Collection

Headquartered in New York City, the United Nations Children’s Fund, originally known as the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), was created in 1946 to help mothers and children in need. Montblanc has been collaborating with the organization for the past 13 years, raising over $10 million to benefit educational programs around the world.The new Montblanc for UNICEF collection of limited edition writing instruments, timepieces, accessories and leather goods is the latest demonstration of the company’s commitment to quality education. And to reinforce the universal nature of writing, the multi-cultural aspect of language is incorporated into the design of the Montblanc Meisterstück, Writing is a Gift pen collection. Six handwritten characters are evident on each pen: the first letter from each of six alphabets, including Roman, Hindi, Arabic and three Asian characters. On a timely note, the items from the Writing Is A Gift Collection sold between the first of this month and March 31, 2018, will benefit UNICEF.

“There is still much to be done to ensure that every child around the world has proper access to an education, a cause Montblanc has been proud to champion for the past 13 years,” explains Nicolas Baretzki, Montblanc CEO. “This new initiative gives individuals who are as passionate as we are about the written word the ability to own a Montblanc piece that carries true purpose, and by doing so, making a valuable contribution to the work of UNICEF in communities around the world where children are not always given the opportunity to learn to read and write. Writing is indeed a special gift that every child should enjoy.”

Blue Solitaire Edition.

The Montblanc Meisterstück, Writing is a Gift collection of writing instruments is notably inspired by the Rosetta Stone, which not only was a key to unlocking the meaning of hieroglyphs but also to understanding the culture of ancient human civilizations. The alphabet motif is interpreted through different design variations and as is usual with Montblanc’s limited editions, there are several interpretations within the collection.The Precious Resin Edition is crafted in polished black resin with platinum-coated fittings. The cap is engraved with the first letter of the six most used alphabets in the world alongside a single blue sapphire. The collection includes a Fountain Pen LeGrand, Rollerball LeGrand, Ballpoint Midsize, and in the smaller Fountain Pen Classique, Rollerball Classique and Ballpoint Classique.The Doué Classique Edition features a black resin barrel with a metal cap decorated with a mosaic of alphabet letters. It is available in a Fountain Pen Classique with a rhodium-coated Au 750 gold nib, a Roller Ball Classique and Ballpoint Classique, each featuring the six alphabet characters encircling the cap top, enhanced by a single sapphire in UNICEF blue. The Blue Solitaire Edition’s cap and barrel are adorned with an elegant pattern created from the alphabet letters, which are on a blue lacquer background embellished by fine silver-color lines and a 1.9mm sapphire set in the cap top. The Blue Solitaire Edition comes in a Fountain Pen LeGrand with a bicolor Au 750 gold handcrafted nib, as well as a Rollerball LeGrand and Ballpoint Midsize.Finally, the Skeleton 149 Edition takes the alphabet motif to new heights in a platinum-coated three-dimensional cutout of the six alphabet characters, allowing the blue resin beneath it to show through the intricate structure.

I think writing by hand should be a wave of the future rather than a thing of the past.

ROBOTIC AMBULANCE COMPLETES FIRST SOLO FLIGHT TEST

JERUSALEM An autonomous flying ambulance, launched by an Israeli company has successfully completed its first solo test flight. The newly developed ambulance likely replaces the helicopters to offer a potential solution for challenging search and rescue missions. Currently helicopters are offering the best transportation option in most cases. However, these vehicles need clear areas to land, and in the case of war zones, helicopters tend to attract enemy fire. Last month, the company flew the Cormorant on the craft's first solo flight over real terrain. The vehicle is designed to eventually carry people or equipment without a human pilot on board, according to 'Live Science' reports. Rather than using propellers or rotors to fly, the Cormorant uses ducted fans that are effectively shielded rotors, which means the aircraft does not need to worry about bumping into a wall and damaging the rotors. Another set of fans propels the vehicle forward. The vehicle is effectively a decision-making system that can figure out what to do if there is a problem in the inputs from the sensors, the company, Urban Aeronautics, said. If the Cormorant detects a potential issue, the drone's robotic brain can decide whether to go home, land and wait for more instructions, or try a different flight path.

How Can Hospitality Brands Maintain Brand Stability

Among the many inspiring folklores of cross-industry inspiration for customer delight lies the story of Ritz Carlton and Apple. When Steve Jobs was searching for ideas to deliver on exceptional guest experience, he didn’t hesitate to borrow from the anticipatory customer service model of Ritz Carlton and train his staff as per the hotel’s service standards. Even the prominent Apple Genius bar is inspired by the concierge station at the hotel that is the first point of communicating brand stability and building consumer trust in your services. Herein lies the most important lesson –  trends will come and go but exceptional service standards will never go out of style.  Though it sounds simple, maintaining a consistency in product, message, and service yet being relevant in the current environment is definitely an uphill task for hospitality.

The role of millennials

“We millennials have been advertised to our entire lives, and we can tell when somebody is just trying to sell us something”. The future of hospitality is in the hands of this new age traveler. Being born in a digitally connected world, he no longer considers free wireless connectivity in a hotel as a luxury.  He is a value seeker and searches for unique experiences instead of a to and fro trip to a destination.  However, once you have him hooked, he is more likely to remain loyal to you than any other generation. Being born to helicopter parents, he isn’t really sharing responsibilities at home and will want to club business travel with personal leisure. So the lines between business and leisure travel will blur with time.  With millennials contributing 22% of all travelers and 200 billion USD annual revenue, the  hospitality industry has to be quick to respond to the opportunities and risks posed by this new consumer segment

The balance between standardization and localization

Such content is a rich repository of information for a brand to evaluate its consistency at all its touchpoints and across geographical locations. A Starwood hotel in Chennai cannot afford to have its brand loyalist guest comment on the staff not greeting him while he walked down the hotel corridors. This standardization, whether in people, products or processes, is no more just desired from luxury hotel chains like Marriott and InterContinental Hotel Group but also in the budget segment like AirBnB and OYO rooms. This is where marketing and operations team have to align so that each employee understands his part in the brand delivery chain. The Hilton’s campaign depicting an iron-clad satisfaction guarantee inspiring staff to solve problems “on the spot” is a good illustration for the same.

However, isolation from the environment you operate in is never ideal. Today’s traveler expects a hospitality brand to be a part of the experience he expects from the destination. With expansion in the managed and franchise properties across locations, it is vital to maintaining this balance between standardization and local flavor. If you are traveling from India to China, you would probably want to see hotel listings in English or Hindi. If booking details are available to you in the translated version, you may expect that the host knows your language as well but that might not be true. To prevent such expectation performance mismatch, AirBnB shows listings in the local language with an optional translate button. Minute details like these go a long way in delivering a truly global experience.

A framework to leverage user based content

This is the generation of user based content and it is more of an opportunity than a threat for building your brand. 88% of people worldwide trust an online review as much as a personal recommendation. Fear of fake/dishonest reviews submitted by customers diluting your brand is valid. But the way to deal with it is to enable listening ports across the customer life cycle. Exceptional service standards have a contagious effect. If there’s enough zeal in employees to make a guest’s stay the best he ever had, the energy will pass on to him to share a positive review about you in his network.Assessment of guest needs through data intelligence, benchmarking processes against the best in the industry and reflecting on guest feedback to improve products/services, has to be a standard imbibed in the culture of the organization. A platform to derive actionable inputs from the plethora of content available about customers will aid the organization in this process. The next desired improvement in your service, a new product idea or brand pitch will not come from the million dollar consultant but the guest who knows the market better than anyone else. Serendipity is what the millennial seeks. The hospitality industry can turn this opportunity into revenue only when they know more about such travelers and can drive this traffic to directly interact with the hotel than shop around in the marketplace.Hospitality brands must not hesitate to learn continuously how they made their customers feel. Using this understanding to build a scalable yet reliable model is what will earn customer trust and brand stability. Making people happy is not an art but a part of your soul. Imbibe this across the service delivery chain – be it technology or management – and you will lead till the end of time.

Architecture News

How Working Remotely Is Helping Women Close the Gender Gap In Tech

It is no secret that I am a big advocate for remote teams. Since launching my startup in Bali, I have hired top talent from all over the world to help build Mailbird into what it is today. While many companies are starting to realize the benefits of remote work, it is still a work structure that has yet to be embraced by the masses. However, for women, the ability to work from home runs much deeper than a reduced commute time and increased productivity. Remote work is a chance for the tech industry to close its infamous gender gap. The Problem with the Gender Gap in Tech These days, everyone seems to have their own reasons for the gender imbalance in tech. Some argue that tech companies have male-centric cultures and as a result hire men over women regardless of skills and aptitude. Katharine Zaleski, a founder of PowerToFly, a remote work job site for women, has a different theory. She believes that the reason there aren't more women in tech is that companies are not giving women, especially mothers, the flexibility they need to pursue their career and raise a family at the same time.

Let’s Look At the Cold Hard Facts

The lack of flexibility in the workplace is not a new theory in the gender gap studies. According to Pew Research Center, 51 percent of women said being a working mother made it harder for them to advance their careers while only 16% percent of fathers felt the same way. The same study also found that 42 percent of mothers reduced their work hours to make time for their growing families while just 28% of fathers said the same. This claim is further supported by the National Center for Women & Information Technology. Their report found that as many as 56% of women leave their tech jobs mid-career. Another study by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee also found that one-third of women surveyed had left the tech industry because companies were not flexible enough to accommodate an adequate work-life balance. With statistics like these, I think it is safe to say the problem with the gender imbalance in tech does not lie within the lack of female candidates or male-centric office cultures. It lies with companies holding on to archaic working environments. By continuing to vouch for a structure that impacts a women's career prospects and financial well-being, it affects the economy as a whole. The fewer women in tech means more jobs will go unfulfilled and this will spur stagnation in innovation and global competitiveness.

The Solution: A Flexible Working Environment

The inclusion of women in the workforce has changed how we work. It has made women feel pressured into choosing between their careers or families. As a result, our working environments need to change, and remote work is a viable option. Companies need to adapt and change their structures to give employees a healthy work-life balance especially if they want to keep retention rates high. A 2017 study by professional recruiter Robert Walters and leading UK job board Jobsite found that remote working opportunities are top priorities for women in tech. 76% of women surveyed said that the chance to work remotely was necessary if companies wanted to retain long term staff. 

Use of Plastic Material in Road Construction

Plastic material is a synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids that are mountable. Plastics are typically organic polymers of high molecular mass. The use of plastic and related materials is increasing tremendously due to growth in population, urbanization and modern life style. Municipal solid waste in India contain 1-4 per cent by weight of plastic waste. India’s rate of recycling of plastic waste is the highest (60%) in the world as compared to other countries (China 10%, Europe 7%, Japan 12%, South Africa 16%, USA 10%). As a source of hazard to environment, plastic account for 16% of chlorine in the environment and have 54 carcinogens, polythene bags for disposal if burnt irresponsibly releases highly toxic gases like phosgene, carbon monoxide, chlorine, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, besides deadly dioxin. India generates 56 lakhtonnes of plastic waste annually, with Delhi accounting for a staggering 689.5 tonnes a day. "Total plastic waste which is collected and recycled in the country is estimated to be 9,205 tonnes per day (approximately 60% of total plastic waste) and 6,137 tonnes remain uncollected and littered. Wastes plastics are not disposed scientifically due to their non-biodegradability hence the disposal of waste plastic is now become a very big global problem. Recently these waste plastic material is used as additives in road construction. Generally bitumen is used as binder in road construction and binding capacity of this bitumen is low but when plastic waste is mixed with hot bitumen and the resulted mix is used for road construction increase binding capacity of bitumen. The use of this innovative technology will not only strengthen the road construction but also increase the road life as well as will help to improve the environment. Plastic roads would be a boon for India's hot and extremely humid climate, where temperatures frequently cross 50°C and torrential rains create havoc, leaving most of the roads with big potholes. Dr. R. Vasudevan, Dean and Head of the Chemistry Department of the Thiagarajar College of Engineering (TCE) The man behind this mission is known as Madurai's 'Plastic Road Man'.The first ever plastic road (60 feet long) was laid inside the TCE campus in 2002, followed by a 700 m road in Lenin Nagar, Kovilpatti, the same year. Officially, the industrial town of Salem was the first in the country to lay a 350 m road on an experimental basis using plastic tar technology in 2004.

Government Aims To Make India A Global Biotech Hub By 2020 Impacting the Biotech Ecosystem: 5th Foundation Day Of BIRAC Inaugurated

The Minister of State for Science and Technology & Earth Sciences, Mr. Y. S. Chowdary, has said that biotechnology will be the leader among the knowledge based industries of the 21st century. He said producing affordable products will be major issue for India. He called for efforts to set up a proper ecosystem with sustainable systems, particularly in hubs of rural India. The Minister was speaking after inaugurating the 5th Foundation Day of Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), Department of Bio-Technology at New Delhi today. Mr. Y. S. Chowdary, further said that – “Research and innovation has been one of the key areas emphasized by the Prime Minister. Globally, BIRAC has been hailed as one of the most effective government measures to create an enabling environment for research and development to flourish in a country. We aim to develop India into a global innovation hub by 2020 and BIRAC has paved the way to deliver on that mandate.” The 5th Foundation Day themed ‘Impacting the Biotech Innovation Ecosystem’ was presided over by and attended by a large number of dignitaries from the scientific and industry sectors both from within the country and oversees. BIRAC is a not-for-profit public sector enterprise, set up by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India which acts as an interface agency to support emerging biotech enterprises to undertake strategic research and innovation, to address nationally relevant product development needs. Through the course of five years, BIRAC has supported over 618 projects, 850 start-ups, entrepreneurs, biotech companies and organizations and 20 incubators across the country, resulting in over 66 products and technologies and 120 Intellectual property rights being generated. BIRAC supports entrepreneurs and start-ups at different stages of innovation – from the ideation stage to managing intellectual property rights and finally to the commercialization of products. Different initiatives of BIRAC target different stages of the innovation ecosystem from ideation stages to proof-of-concept and late stage validation to product development. BIRAC has 9 flagship schemes that are supported by funding from the Department of Biotechnology, and manages 7 collaboratively funded programs with international partners, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Nesta, the Wellcome Trust and USAID, among others. Social Innovation is a key focus for affordable and accessible product development. Dr. K. Vijay Raghavan, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology and Chairman, BIRAC said that Innovation and research must be directed toward addressing the most pressing problems of society. We’re proud that BIRAC and the Department of Biotechnology are spearheading this effort in the biotechnology domain. Since its inception in 2012, BIRAC has created nearly two dozen incubators across the country and supported over 350 start-ups. We firmly believe that social entrepreneurship is the key to creating an inclusive society and our government is committed to providing all the necessary support. The science and technology sector will play a key role in the government’s Start-Up India Action Plan. The DBT, in line with the Start-Up India Action Plan has undertaken a number of initiatives centered on the three pillars of an ideal innovation ecosystem – funding, mentoring and capacity building, and the infrastructure to translate scientific research into commercial products. To this end, BIRAC implements its mandate through a wide range of high impact initiatives, providing access to risk capital through targeted funding, facilitating technology transfer, and supporting intellectual property management and handholding schemes for biotech firms to make them globally competitive. Dr. Renu Swarup, Senior Adviser, Department of Biotechnology and Managing Director, BIRAC said that through initiatives such as Start-Up India and the Science and Technology for Harnessing Innovations or SATHI, the government is ushering in supportive policies and removing regulatory barriers to create an atmosphere of innovation and entrepreneurship in the country. The world as a whole stands to gain with Indian innovators stepping up and changing the way we address the grand challenges we face today. We are proud that BIRAC has created an enabling environment for the biotechnology industry to prosper. The BIRAC Foundation will be followed by the Grand Challenges India Meeting to be held from 21st to 24th March, 2017 which will have the participation of BMGF, Wellcome Trust, USAID and Grand Challenges Innovators from Brazil, Canada, Bangladesh, Korea, South Africa, Kenya, Switzerland.

POLYMER PATCH ENABLES REPAIR HEART DAMAGE WITHOUT STITCHES

Mplanting a flexible polymer patch into rats showed improved conduction of electrical impulses across the heart scar tissue. The patch -- new technology enables to repair the tissues without the need for stitches, says scientists. The new technology shown to work in animal models reported the long lasting and significant advantage that it can be stuck onto the heart. "Heart attacks create a scar which slows and disrupts the conduction of electrical impulses across the heart. This leads to potentially fatal disturbances of the heart rhythm. Our electrically conducting polymer patch is designed to address this serious problem,” said Professor Sian Harding from Imperial College London. Patch consists of 3 components: The patch is made from three components: a film of chitosan, a polysaccharide found in crab shells that is often used as a food additive; polyaniline, a conducting polymer that is grown on top; and phytic acid, a substance found in plants which is added to the polyaniline to switch it to its conducting state. "Conducting polymers work when they are dry, but most become non-conducting in a very short time when placed in bodily fluids," said Dr Damia Mawad from University of New South Wales  (UNSW in Australia. The suture-less patch shown as stable and retains it conductivity in physiological conditions for more than 2 weeks, compared with the usual one day of other designs. Since stiches are required to attach, it is minimally invasive and less damaging to the heart. The patch is made to adhere to the heart tissue by shining a green laser on it. “We envisage heart attack patients eventually having patches attached as a bridge between the healthy and the scar tissue, to help prevent cardiac arrhythmia. However, our patch is at the very early stages of this research. This technology can now be used for basic research to gain insights into the interface between the material and tissue," said Mawad.

Second 'Great Spot' found at Jupiter, cold and high up

CAPE CANAVERAL: Another "Great Spot'' has been found at Jupiter, this one cold and high up. Scientists reported Tuesday that the dark expanse is 15,000 miles (24,000 kilometers) across and 7,500 miles (12,000 kilometers) wide. It's in the upper atmosphere and much cooler than the hot surroundings, thus the name Great Cold Spot. And unlike the giant planet's familiar Great Red Spot, this newly discovered weather system is continually changing in shape and size. It's formed by the energy from Jupiter's polar auroras. A British-led team used a telescope in Chile to chart the temperature and density of Jupiter's atmosphere. When the researchers compared the data with thousands of images taken in years past by a telescope in Hawaii, the Great Cold Spot stood out. It could be thousands of years old. "The Great Cold Spot is much more volatile than the slowly changing Great Red Spot ... but it has reappeared for as long as we have data to search for it, for over 15 years,'' the University of Leicester's Tom Stallard, lead author of the study, said in a statement. tallard said Jupiter's upper atmosphere may hold other features. Scientists will be on the lookout for them while also studying the Great Cold Spot in greater detail, using ground telescopes as well as NASA's Juno spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter, he said. The study was published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Carbon nanotubes self-assemble into tiny transistors

Carbon nanotubes can be used to make very small electronic devices, but they are difficult to handle. University of Groningen scientists, together with colleagues from the University of Wuppertal and IBM Zurich, have developed a method to select semiconducting nanotubes from a solution and make them self-assemble on a circuit of gold electrodes. The results were published in the journal Advanced Materials on 5 April. The results look deceptively simple: a self-assembled transistor with nearly 100 percent purity and very high electron mobility. But it took ten years to get there. University of Groningen Professor of Photophysics and Optoelectronics Maria Antonietta Loi designed polymers which wrap themselves around specific carbon nanotubes in a solution of mixed tubes. Thiol side chains on the polymer bind the tubes to the gold electrodes, creating the resultant transistor.

Patent

'In our previous work, we learned a lot about how polymers attach to specific carbon nanotubes', Loi explains. These nanotubes can be depicted as a rolled sheet of graphene, the two-dimensional form of carbon. 'Depending on the way the sheets are rolled up, they have properties ranging from semiconductor to semi-metallic to metallic.' Only the semiconductor tubes can be used to fabricate transistors, but the production process always results in a mixture. 'We had the idea of using polymers with thiol side chains some time ago', says Loi. The idea was that as sulphur binds to metals, it will direct polymer-wrapped nanotubes towards gold electrodes. While Loi was working on the problem, IBM even patented the concept. 'But there was a big problem in the IBM work: the polymers with thiols also attached to metallic nanotubes and included them in the transistors, which ruined them.'

Solution

Loi's solution was to reduce the thiol content of the polymers, with the assistance of polymer chemists from the University of Wuppertal. 'What we have now shown is that this concept of bottom-up assembly works: by using polymers with a low concentration of thiols, we can selectively bring semiconducting nanotubes from a solution onto a circuit.' The sulphur-gold bond is strong, so the nanotubes are firmly fixed: enough even to stay there after sonication of the transistor in organic solvents. The production process is simple: metallic patterns are deposited on a carrier , which is then dipped into a solution of carbon nanotubes. The electrodes are spaced to achieve proper alignment: 'The tubes are some 500 nanometres long, and we placed the electrodes for the transistors at intervals of 300 nanometres. The next transistor is over 500 nanometres away.' The spacing limits the density of the transistors, but Loi is confident that this could be increased with clever engineering. Over the last years, we have created a library of polymers that select semiconducting nanotubes and developed a better understanding of how the structure and composition of the polymers influences which carbon nanotubes they select', says Loi. The result is a cheap and scalable production method for nanotube electronics. So what is the future for this technology? Loi: 'It is difficult to predict whether the industry will develop this idea, but we are working on improvements, and this will eventually bring the idea closer to the market.'

Next-generation steel and metal alloys are a step closer to reality, thanks to an international research project involving a University of Queensland scientist.

The work could overcome the problem of hydrogen alloy embrittlement that has led to catastrophic failures in major engineering and building projects. UQ Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis Director Professor Roger Wepf said the problem had been recognised for almost 140 years. "The current generation of these metals can suffer hydrogen embrittlement, where they become brittle and fracture due to the accidental introduction of hydrogen during manufacture and processing," he said. "A major example of alloy embrittlement occurred in 2013, when bolts in the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland bridge failed tests during construction." Professor Wepf said hydrogen was extremely volatile and diffused quickly. "Our research collaboration has, for the first time, localised and visualised hydrogen in steels and alloys," he said. "This is essential for the development of new alloys with greater endurance." "We have shown that it's possible to localise hydrogen at atomic resolution -- at the scale of a single atom -- or at a nanometre (less than one-billionth of a metre) scale by combining different technologies in a closed and protected workflow. "These include state-of-the-art cryo electron microscopy freezing techniques, low-temperature sample preparation in a cryo focused ion beam microscope, and inert cryo-transfer. 

Maharashtra Developing App for Black and Yellow Taxis: Fadnavis

The Maharashtra government is in the process of developing and launching a cab hailing app within three months for black and yellow taxis on the lines of those provided by private aggregators like Ola and Uber, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Friday. He was responding to a query raised by Leader of Opposition Dhananjay Munde, Hemant Takle (NCP) and others in the State Legislative Council in Mumbai. Raising the issue during the Question Hour, Takle said that after app-based cab aggregators came into the picture, the business of black and yellow taxi drivers has gone down considerably and he questioned if the government will take steps to ensure they survive the fierce competition. Responding to him, State Transport Minister Diwakar Raote said the government has brought an ordinance of City Taxi Service Control Rules and that suggestions of 6,000 people have taken into account on the issue. Leader of Opposition Dhananjay Munde said that Ola and Uber enable users to track locations besides providing easy services. "When will the government bring in such an App for black and yellow taxis ?" he questioned. To this, Fadnavis said, "the government is in the process of developing an electronic platform for black and yellow taxis similar to that of cab aggregators. It will provide services similar to those given by cab aggregators. This app will be launched in three months." Earlier, Kiran Pawaskar (NCP) pointed out that cab aggregators have survived across the world due to the low costs they charge customers, cleanliness and manners their cabs and drivers have and facilities of tracking they provide to customers. "On the other hand, black and yellow taxi drivers do not wear uniforms, do not behave properly and blatantly refuse to ferry customers. They do not provide proper service and hold people to ransom anytime. Will they be asked to adhere to rules," he questioned. Responding to Pawaskar, Raote had said that black and yellow taxi drivers will themselves have to deal with issues like mannerisms and cleanliness to increase business and survive competition and that taxi unions can help them with these issues. "Also, the government is mulling to provide AC services to customers of black and yellow taxi drivers who have taken a new car to bring them at par with Ola and Uber," Raote said.

New Arrival of Central Library

Transparent Touchpad Works Even When It's Bent and Stretched

A new transparent, flexible touchpad can sense the touch of a finger even when the material is stretched or bent, which could help engineers one day create advanced wearable touch screens, according to a new study. Increasingly, researchers around the world are developing flexible electronics, such as display screens, cameras, batteries and solar panels. These devices could one day be woven into clothing, prosthetic limbs or even human bodies, the researchers said. Previously, scientists developed flexible touch screens based on materials such as carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires that are only nanometers — billionths of a meter — wide. However, these devices typically struggled to operate well when they were stretched, which included the material's inability to distinguish between a touch from a finger and a stretch of the fabric itself. [Body Bioelectronics: 5 Technologies that Could Flex with You] Now researchers have developed a new, flexible touchpad that can tell the difference between a touch and a stretch. Moreover, the device is also transparent, which suggests that it could get combined with a flexible display to create a flexible touch screen. "This is the first time anyone has made a transparent, touch-sensitive electronic device that can detect touch while the device is being bent or stretched," said study senior author John Madden, an electrical engineer at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. The new device is made with a hydrogel, which is structurally similar to the materials from which soft contact lenses are made. "Often when people think of gels, they think they're soft and weak, like Jell-O, which is purposefully weak so you can chew it," Madden told Live Science. "But people have developed these extremely tough gels to replace cartilage, and some of these can stretch by a factor of 20 or more." By adding salt to the water-laden hydrogel, electrically charged ions can flow within the hydrogel and generate an electric field around it. When a finger comes near the hydrogel, it interacts with the electric field in a way that electrodes attached to the hydrogel can detect. These signals are readily distinguishable from those generated when the hydrogel is flexed, the researchers said. The scientists embedded the hydrogel in silicone rubber. They created a square transparent touchpad about 1.2 inches (3 centimeters) wide, with 16 buttons that are each about 0.2 inches (5 millimeters) wide. The array retained its sensing abilities even when it was bent or stretched, and it could withstand such common environmental contaminants as coffee spills, according to the study. The transparent pad could also detect multiple fingers simultaneously, which is necessary for a typical zoom function on a smartphone, the researchers said. The researchers note that the materials used to make their devices cost about $1 per 10.75 square feet (1 square meter) and are cheap to manufacture. "You can put these on pretty much anything," Madden said. "It opens up the opportunity to make wearable devices, or some sort of robotic skin, or putting it under a carpet to detect someone elderly falling." In the future, researchers can experiment with making touchpads that are more durable and stretchable, Madden said. The scientists detailed their findings online today (March 15) in the journal Science Advances.

Facebook, WhatsApp to be regulated, DoT tells Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Centre informed the Supreme Court on Wednesday that it would soon formulate a regulatory regime, similar to one existing for all telecom operators, for Over-The-Top (OTT) services like WhatsApp, Facebook, Skype, WeChat and Google Talk. The department of telecom's main argument was that OTTs use the network of telecom service providers to reach customers, offer App-based products as well as compete by offering messaging and telephone facilities, yet are not subjected to any regulatory mechanism.

This assertion came in response to WhatsApp's affidavit in the SC taking a stand that the petition filed by Karmanya Singh Sareen questioning its privacy policy was not maintainable as "OTT services are governed in some respect by the provisions of Information Technology Act, 2000 and are not subject to the same regulatory mechanism that is enforced on conventional voice and messaging services provided by telecom service providers".

With the privacy issue being strongly argued by the petitioner and the Centre converging on it, the bench referred the issue to a five-judge bench, despite opposition from OTT service providers. It fixed April 18 for hearing before the five-judge bench for fixing dates for final disposal of the petitions even as a request was made that it should not be heard during the summer vacation.

NASA plans to build Moon-orbiting spaceport

The period of exploration in the vicinity of the Moon will begin with the first integrated mission of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft. NASA is planning to establish a crewed spaceport near the Moon that could serve as a gateway to the lunar surface and deep space destinations including Mars. The area of space near the Moon offers a true deep space environment to gain experience for human missions that push farther into the solar system, access the lunar surface for robotic missions but with the ability to return to Earth if needed in days rather than weeks or months, NASA said. The period of exploration in the vicinity of the Moon will begin with the first integrated mission of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft, it said. The agency is looking to build a crew tended spaceport in lunar orbit within the first few missions that would serve as a gateway to deep space and the lunar surface. This deep space gateway would have a power bus, a small habitat to extend crew time, docking capability, an airlock, and serviced by logistics modules to enable research.

The propulsion system on the gateway mainly uses high power electric propulsion for station keeping and the ability to transfer among a family of orbits in the lunar vicinity.The three primary elements of the gateway, the power and propulsion bus and habitat module, and a small logistics module(s) would take advantage of the cargo capacity of SLS and crewed deep space capability of Orion.

An airlock can further augment the capabilities of the gateway and can fly on a subsequent exploration mission. "The gateway could move to support robotic or partner missions to the surface of the Moon, or to a high lunar orbit to support missions departing from the gateway to other destinations in the solar system," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA.

The second phase of missions will confirm that the agency's capabilities built for humans can perform long duration missions beyond the Moon. For those destinations farther into the solar system, including Mars, NASA envisions a deep space transport spacecraft. This spacecraft would be a reusable vehicle that uses electric and chemical propulsion and would be specifically designed for crewed missions to destinations such as Mars. The transport would take the crew out to their destination, return them back to the gateway, where it can be serviced and sent out again.

Next-generation steel and metal alloys are a step closer to reality, thanks to an international research project involving a University of Queensland scientist.

The work could overcome the problem of hydrogen alloy embrittlement that has led to catastrophic failures in major engineering and building projects. UQ Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis Director Professor Roger Wepf said the problem had been recognised for almost 140 years. "The current generation of these metals can suffer hydrogen embrittlement, where they become brittle and fracture due to the accidental introduction of hydrogen during manufacture and processing," he said. "A major example of alloy embrittlement occurred in 2013, when bolts in the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland bridge failed tests during construction." Professor Wepf said hydrogen was extremely volatile and diffused quickly. "Our research collaboration has, for the first time, localised and visualised hydrogen in steels and alloys," he said. "This is essential for the development of new alloys with greater endurance." "We have shown that it's possible to localise hydrogen at atomic resolution -- at the scale of a single atom -- or at a nanometre (less than one-billionth of a metre) scale by combining different technologies in a closed and protected workflow. "These include state-of-the-art cryo electron microscopy freezing techniques, low-temperature sample preparation in a cryo focused ion beam microscope, and inert cryo-transfer.

Last minute tips for JEE(Main)

With the Joint Entrance Exam (Main ) in just 5 days, students are geared up for the big day. The remaining days would be filled with panic and distraught among students, so it is essential to work level-headedly. Although, each year JEE(main) exams have a stiff competition, but self confidence is the key to sail through the storm. Here are few tips to excel your exams 

Do not start with new topics: There are chances that you have overlooked a few topics in the process of revision. However, it is recommended to not start anything new and clear doubts of already prepared topics, instead. There is a high possibility that starting with something new can confuse you and hence can lead to baffling the existing concepts.

Mock Tests are essential: With ongoing revisions, make sure to dedicate time in solving mock test papers. This not only helps in improving efficiency of attempting questions but helps in time management. Constant practice of mock tests takes you through the entire syllabus at least once in a day, hence allowing you to focus on every concept.

Try sticking to NCERT books: Stay focussed on the NCERT books and don't take up too many reference books. The major portion of the exam is covered from the NCERT. This forms the basic foundation for you, hence at this point of time it is vital to stick to NCERT study material and strengthen your concepts.

Keep your happiness at priority: Do not stress yourself unnecessarily. If you're well prepared and confident enough, make sure you don't panic. To stay stress free make sure you take out time for to rejuvenate yourself, take regular short breaks and try to do what you like. Listen to your favourite music, dance on your favourite number, and spend time with family. This will keep your mood uplifted and give positive vibes.

Stay Healthy to concentrate well: At this time your health plays a very important part in your success.Try to take a morning walk, it is a best way to start your day. No matter how stressed you're make sure to go outdoors once in a day. Prefer home cooked green veggies, and take small and regular interval. Get adequate sleep; ensure 6-7 hours of sleep every day.

Study Solo in your last days: This is not a very good time to prefer group studies; Group studies at the last minute can increase anxiety and pre-exam jitters. Take up controlled practice of mock tests.

Pro Tip: Not all sections carry equal weightage, Give time to the topics as per their weightage in the examination.

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