Traditional education system: its impact on socio-economic development in Mewat District, Haryana, India

Madarsa education is very common among the Muslims in India. Hundreds of thousands of Muslim children acquire their primary, and perhaps the only, formal education in these madarsas with a cursory knowledge of modern education. As a result they are lagging behind in science education and their representation and participation in the scientific activity of the country is woefully low. As such they are unable to earn sufficiently to lead a comfortable life and provide proper leadership to their community to face the challenges of the modern world. The purpose of the present study is to analyse whether madarsa education becomes a barrier in promoting modern and higher education and secondly how far these institutions helped improve socio-economic conditions of madarsa trained persons in the District of Mewat (Haryana). In the absence of secondary data, the present study is based on the primary data collected through both extensive and intensive field work. A total of 2,350 households were surveyed and information regarding demographic, socio-economic and environmental conditions of these households was collected. Such a varied nature of data was assigned weightage according to their importance and finally the composite score was calculated to find out the levels of the socio-economic conditions of madarsa trained persons

Privacy Vulnerabilities in the Practices of Repairing Broken Digital Artifacts in Bangladesh

This paper presents a study on the privacy concerns associated with the practice of repairing broken digital objects in Bangladesh. Historically, repair of old or broken technologies has received less attention in ICTD scholarship than design, development, or use. As a result, the potential privacy risks associated with repair practices have remained mostly unaddressed. This paper describes our three-month long ethnographic study that took place at ten major repair sites in Dhaka, Bangladesh. We show a variety of ways in which the privacy of an individual’s personal data may be compromised during the repair process. We also examine people’s perceptions around privacy in repair, and its connections with their broader social and cultural values. Finally, we discuss the challenges and opportunities for future research to strengthen the repair ecosystem in developing countries. Taken together, our findings contribute to the growing discourse around post-use cycles of technology

"ChatGPT, a Friend or Foe for Education?" Analyzing the User's Perspectives on the Latest AI Chatbot Via Reddit

Latest developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data gave rise to Artificial Intelligent agents like Open AI's ChatGPT, which has recently become the fastest growing application since Facebook and WhatsApp. ChatGPT has demonstrated its ability to impact students' classroom learning experience and exam outcomes. However, there is evidence that ChatGPT provides biased and erroneous information, yet students use ChatGPT in academic tasks. Therefore, an accurate understanding of ChatGPT user perception is crucial. This study has analyzed 247 Reddit top posts related to the educational use of ChatGPT from a prominent subreddit called "ChatGPT" for user perception analysis. Descriptive statistics, sentiment analysis using NLP techniques, and LDA topic modeling were used for analysis to gather a contextual understanding of the data. Results show that the majority of the users took a neutral viewpoint. However, there was more positive perception than negative regarding the usefulness of ChatGPT in education

Spatial pattern and land surface features associated with cloud-to-ground lightning in Bangladesh : an exploratory study

Severe weather events such as lightning appear to be a significant threat to humans and property in South Asia, an area known for intense convective activity directly related to the tropical climate of these areas. The current study was conducted in Bangladesh and examined the association between cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning and ground surface properties, with the aim of improving existing knowledge regarding this phenomenon. GLD360 data from 2015 to 2020 were used to describe the seasonal lightning climatology. Elevation, land use and land cover, vegetation and surface heat flux data were used to examine all land surface features possibly associated with CG lightning occurrence. Hot and cold spot spatial patterning was calculated using local indicators of spatial association. Results indicated a strong CG lightning seasonality. CG stroke density varied considerably across seasons with the pre-monsoon exhibiting the highest density. This was followed by occurrences in the monsoon season. The March–June period experienced 73% of the total observed. Elevation appeared to influence the post-monsoon CG stroke, however, its role in the other seasons was more difficult to define. The land cover/lightning index indicated that waterbodies and herbaceous wetlands had more influence than other land cover types, both during the day and at night, and it appeared that latent heat flux played a major role. The CG stroke hot and cold spot locations varied diurnally. The findings suggest that large-scale irrigation practices, especially during the pre-monsoon months, can influence the observed spatiotemporal pattern. The production of hotspot maps could be an initial step in the development of a reliable lightning monitoring system and play a part in increasing public awareness of this issue

Graphene Stuctures For Energy Storage Application

Energy storage devices are receiving extensive attention in recent years due to the increasing demand of energy. Super-capacitor is one of the energy storage devices with high specific power density and wide applications in electronic vehicles, commercial mobile electronics, and military devices. Carbon based materials are widely used in making Electrochemical Double Layer Capacitor (EDLC) or super-capacitor for their excellent porous nature along with their electron transport capability. By increasing the specific surface area of the porous carbon materials, specific capacitance of the super-capacitor can be significantly improved. Graphene, a newly discovered material, has been incorporated in making super-capacitor electrodes for its extraordinary electrical properties with highly conductive specific surface area. Recently, nanowire/graphene hybrids have been developed for the enhancement of super-capacitor performance; however, all previous efforts employed nanowires on graphene in a randomly distributed fashion, which limits the performance. Therefore, this thesis demonstrates a new approach by growing aligned nanowire on graphene aerogel to further improve the performance. This nanowire/graphene aerogel hybrid not only uses the high surface area of the graphene aerogel but also increases the specific surface area for electrode-electrolyte interaction. Therefore, this new nanowire/graphene aerogel hybrid electrode material could enhance the specific capacity. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) are used for materials characterization. Potentio-galvanostat and LCR meter are used for measuring electrical performance of the super-capacitor. The testing results have shown that with graphene/nanowire hybrid electrodes, the performance of the super-capacitor could be significantly improved

Graphene structures for energy storage application

Energy storage devices are receiving extensive attention in recent years due to the increasing demand of energy. Super-capacitor is one of the energy storage devices with high specific power density and wide applications in electronic vehicles, commercial mobile electronics, and military devices. Carbon based materials are widely used in making Electrochemical Double Layer Capacitor (EDLC) or super-capacitor for their excellent porous nature along with their electron transport capability. By increasing the specific surface area of the porous carbon materials, specific capacitance of the super-capacitor can be significantly improved. Graphene, a newly discovered material, has been incorporated in making super-capacitor electrodes for its extraordinary electrical properties with highly conductive specific surface area. Recently, nanowire/graphene hybrids have been developed for the enhancement of super-capacitor performance; however, all previous efforts employed nanowires on graphene in a randomly distributed fashion, which limits the performance. Therefore, this thesis demonstrates a new approach by growing aligned nanowire on graphene aerogel to further improve the performance. This nanowire/graphene aerogel hybrid not only uses the high surface area of the graphene aerogel but also increases the specific surface area for electrode-electrolyte interaction. Therefore, this new nanowire/graphene aerogel hybrid electrode material could enhance the specific capacity. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) are used for materials characterization. Potentio-galvanostat and LCR meter are used for measuring electrical performance of the super-capacitor. The testing results have shown that with graphene/nanowire hybrid electrodes, the performance of the super-capacitor could be significantly improved

Hybrid Nano-Structure For Enhanced Energy Storage Devices

The goal of this research is to develop electrode materials using various nano-structure hybrids for improved energy storage devices. Enhancing the performance of energy storage device has been gaining tremendous attention since it holds the key solution to advance renewable energy usage thus reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. The application of energy storage devices such as super-capacitor and Li-ion-battery has seen significant growth; however, it is still limited mainly by charge/discharge rate and energy density. One of the solutions is to use nano-structure materials, which offer higher power at high energy density and improved stability during the charge discharge cycling of ions in and out of the storage electrode material. In this research, carbon-based materials (e.g. porous carbon, graphene) in conjunction with metal oxides such as CeO2 nanoparticles/TiO2 nanowires are synthesized utilizing low temperature hydrothermal method for the fabrication of advanced electrode materials. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), and Fourier Transformation Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) were used for materials characterization. Poentio-galvanostat, battery analyzer, and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) were used for evaluating the electrochemical performance. The testing results have shown that a maximum 500% higher specific capacitance could be obtained using porous carbon/CeO2 instead of porous carbon for super-capacitor application and microwave exfoliated graphene oxide/TiO2 nanowire hybrid provides up to 80% increment of specific capacity compared to porous carbon anode for Li-ion-battery application