Creation of a Single National ID: Challenges & Opportunities for India

A National ID for all citizens and residents of India has long being considered a critical necessity, albeit the related projects have been in pilot mode for the past several years and no distinct road ahead seems to be coming out. The government has been focusing on inclusive growth and has launched several schemes at different levels to facilitate the same. However, monitoring the execution of these schemes and understanding clearly if the targeted citizens actually have got benefited, would demand for substantial granularity of information and doing away with information bottlenecks. Interestingly, proper execution of the National ID project by the government can prove to be useful for execution of various schemes and projects as well as in accessing multiple government and private sector services. This paper focuses on the need for a single national identity system in India and its proposed execution which may actually be linked to citizen life cycle. The other aspects covered and analyzed include current Indian scenario, challenges, existing identification systems and loopholes in the existing systems. Major challenges seem to be coming from enrolments, technology platform choice and strategic design, corresponding policy and legal frameworks. The paper also discusses about international scenario of single national id projects undertaken in 27 countries across the globe to understand current status, adoption and usage. To reinforce the need for national ID, the existing IDs were analysed based on a scoring model considering various dimensions. Primary research was conducted, based on which it was found none of the existing IDs was able to satisfy as a National ID based on the scoring model. The proposed road map has been discussed in length i.e technology platform, smart card technology, legal and administrative framework, business model based on Private-Public Partnership (PPP) considering the mammoth and diverse population. A ranking matrix may be created to come up with a composite score for all districts based on various dimensions. The execution may be planned to be executed without asking Indians to stand in queue for one more ID and accelerating towards a more secured society and more importantly ensuring better delivery of Government services to citizens.

After the Smoke Clears: Examining Curricular Approaches to Environmental Education in Bhopal, India

This article examines approaches to environmental education in Bhopal, India. It is an attempt to understand how much environmental education as a topic has been incorporated into formal curricula. An analysis of state and national syllabi indicates a focus on conventional, natural sciences approaches to the environment, thus neglecting the social science aspects of education for sustainable development across all grade levels. Environmental disasters are given a very general treatment with no contextual link to incidents like the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984. Social dimensions like environmental citizenship are also minimally mentioned. Finally, the article highlights the large gap between national educational policy frameworks and the actual incorporation of environmental education in state and national textbooks

Monte-Carlo simulation of localization dynamics of excitons in ZnO and CdZnO quantum well structures

Localization dynamics of excitons was studied for ZnO/MgZnO and CdZnO/MgZnO quantum wells (QW). The experimental photoluminescence (PL) and absorption data were compared with the results of Monte Carlo simulation in which the excitonic hopping was modeled. The temperature-dependent PL linewidth and Stokes shift were found to be in a qualitatively reasonable agreement with the hopping model, with accounting for an additional inhomogeneous broadening for the case of linewidth. The density of localized states used in the simulation for the CdZnO QW was consistent with the absorption spectrum taken at 5 K.Comment: 4 figures, to appear in J. Appl. Phy

An open toss problem

We discuss some particular cases of the following problem. Each of m persons tosses a coin. Those who get heads stay for the next round. Those who get tails are eliminated; however, if all persons get tails in a round, they move to the next round (as if each of them had got a head). The problem is to find the possibility that exactly one person is left after r rounds. All coins are considered identical but not necessarily fair

Unconventional machine learning of genome-wide human cancer data

Recent advances in high-throughput genomic technologies coupled with exponential increases in computer processing and memory have allowed us to interrogate the complex aberrant molecular underpinnings of human disease from a genome-wide perspective. While the deluge of genomic information is expected to increase, a bottleneck in conventional high-performance computing is rapidly approaching. Inspired in part by recent advances in physical quantum processors, we evaluated several unconventional machine learning (ML) strategies on actual human tumor data. Here we show for the first time the efficacy of multiple annealing-based ML algorithms for classification of high-dimensional, multi-omics human cancer data from the Cancer Genome Atlas. To assess algorithm performance, we compared these classifiers to a variety of standard ML methods. Our results indicate the feasibility of using annealing-based ML to provide competitive classification of human cancer types and associated molecular subtypes and superior performance with smaller training datasets, thus providing compelling empirical evidence for the potential future application of unconventional computing architectures in the biomedical sciences

Trastorn per dèficit d'atenció/hiperactivitat (TDAH) en gimnastes: resultats preliminars

És intrínsec a l’esport assolir el rendiment sense l’ajuda de substàncies que el millorin. Tanmateix, la prohibició de medicaments específics discrimina els competidors que pateixen determinades malalties. Per evitar aquestes desigualtats, l’Agència Mundial Antidopatge (AMA) aprovà unes normes internacionals per a les autoritzacions d’ús terapèutic (AUT). El tractament d’esportistes amb trastorn per dèficit d’atenció/hiperactivitat (TDAH) suposa un repte singular. Els estimulants, considerats un tractament de primera línea en el TDAH, estan prohibits a no ser que hagin estat provats prèviament fàrmacs alternatius i hagin resultat ineficaços. La prevalença mundial del TDAH és del 5,3%, tot i amb això no hi ha estudis de prevalença d’afectació d’aquesta malaltia en esportistes. Aquest article tracta el TDAH d’un equip masculí de gimnàstica, les repercussions en futures investigacions, utilitzant el qüestionari que es proposa per mesurar la prevalença d’aquest trastorn i els efectes en la conducta dels gimnastes, i unes consideracions ètiques

Quantitative Analysis of Alcohol, Sugar, and Tartaric Acid in Alcoholic Beverages Using Attenuated Total Reflectance Spectroscopy

Mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy in attenuated total reflectance (ATR) mode was used for quantifying ethanol, sucrose, and tartaric acid in alcoholic beverages. One hundred synthetic samples were prepared with different ethanol, sucrose, and tartaric acid concentrations. Experiments were carried out on Bio-Rad 175 C FTS using an ATR accessory. Spectra were recorded in the wavelength region 600–4000 cm −1 . Calibration was performed using partial least squares (PLS) algorithm. Commercially available alcoholic beverages (gin, rum, vodka, etc.) were experimented and concentration of ethanol in these samples was predicted using the developed calibration model. Chemical analysis of these commercial samples was carried out in order to compare the results. The agreement between ATR results with those of chemical analysis revealed good reliability and repeatability of the technique used

Carrier Transport in High Mobility InAs Nanowire Junctionless Transistors

Ability to understand and model the performance limits of nanowire transistors is the key to design of next generation devices. Here, we report studies on high-mobility junction-less gate-all-around nanowire field effect transistor with carrier mobility reaching 2000 cm2/V.s at room temperature. Temperature-dependent transport measurements reveal activated transport at low temperatures due to surface donors, while at room temperature the transport shows a diffusive behavior. From the conductivity data, the extracted value of sound velocity in InAs nanowires is found to be an order less than the bulk. This low sound velocity is attributed to the extended crystal defects that ubiquitously appear in these nanowires. Analyzing the temperature-dependent mobility data, we identify the key scattering mechanisms limiting the carrier transport in these nanowires. Finally, using these scattering models, we perform drift-diffusion based transport simulations of a nanowire field-effect transistor and compare the device performances with experimental measurements. Our device modeling provides insight into performance limits of InAs nanowire transistors and can be used as a predictive methodology for nanowire-based integrated circuits.Comment: 22 pages, 5 Figures, Nano Letter