Tutorial on Computing: Technological Advances, Social Implications, Ethical and Legal Issues

Computing and information technology have made significant advances. The use of computing and technology is a major aspect of our lives, and this use will only continue to increase in our lifetime. Electronic digital computers and high performance communication networks are central to contemporary information technology. The computing applications in a wide range of areas including business, communications, medical research, transportation, entertainments, and education are transforming local and global societies around the globe. The rapid changes in the fields of computing and information technology also make the study of ethics exciting and challenging, as nearly every day, the media report on a new invention, controversy, or court ruling. This tutorial will explore a broad overview on the scientific foundations, technological advances, social implications, and ethical and legal issues related to computing. It will provide the milestones in computing and in networking, social context of computing, professional and ethical responsibilities, philosophical frameworks, and social, ethical, historical, and political implications of computer and information technology. It will outline the impact of the tremendous growth of computer and information technology on people, ethics and law. Political and legal implications will become clear when we analyze how technology has outpaced the legal and political arenas

A Quintessence Problem in Self-interacting Brans-Dicke Theory

A quintessence scalar field in self-interacting Brans-Dicke theory is shown to give rise to a non-decelerated expansion of the present universe for open, flat and closed models. Along with providing a non-decelerating solution, it can potentially solve the flatness problem too.Comment: 8 Latex pages, No figure, Revtex styl

A Quintessence Problem in Brans-Dicke Theory with Varying Speed of Light

It is shown that minimally coupled scalar field in Brans-Dicke theory with varying speed of light can solve the quintessence problem and it is possible to have a non-decelerated expansion of the present universe with BD-theory for anisotropic models without any matter.Comment: 8 Latex pages, 6 figures, Revtex styl

Antioxidant compounds from marine seaweeds and their mechanism of action

Investigation of natural products has moved toward marine environments as they are a source of many biologically active agents. The natural antioxidant compounds isolated from seaweeds provide a valuable contribution to the innovation of new drugs for chronic diseases associated with oxidative stress. While the antioxidant activity and nutritional benefits of various seaweed products are well recognized, their proper utilization as antioxidants remains at initial stages that require further investigative studies. This review provides a detailed study of isolated antioxidant compounds from seaweeds and their major mechanism of action by focusing on the reports from 2015 to 2019. The report discusses various active antioxidant compounds, including phenolics (e.g., phlorotannins), polysaccharides, and pigments with proven benefits against oxidative stress-related diseases, especially carotenoids, from the aspect of benefits to human health

Deficiency of magnesium in maize (Zea mays L.) induced by high potassium level in a micaceous soil of Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, India

A field observation was undertaken in a farmer’s field sown with maize at Mukteshwar, Uttarakhand to record whether K rich micaceous soil can cause Mg deficiency. The crop was fertilized with nitrogen and phosphorus only. The visible effect of Mg-deficiency initiated after 20-25 days of maize sowing as interveinal chlorosis in older leaves along the margins running the full length of the leaves parallel to the veins. In later stage, necrosis of older leaves occurred particularly at the tip of the leaves. The leaf and soil sample collected at 45 days after sowing (DAS) revealed an extremely low content of Mg in soil (4.32 mg kg-1) and plant (0.11%). The soil analysis also revealed that the soil was acidic in nature (pH 5.07) with low cation exchange capacity (9.7 cmol kg-1). However, the soil was having a very high level of water soluble (18.2 mg kg-1), exchangeable (262.3 mg kg-1) and available K (280.5 mg kg-1), which has resulted in an imbalanced exchangeable K: Mg ratio (60.7:1) rendering reduced uptake of Mg by maize. Therefore, it was concluded from the study that magnesium deficiency can occur in maize in conditions like acidic, sandy, mica rich soils with high level of K combined with low Mg content, even without K fertilization. Hence, the farmers may use dolomitic lime and/or Mg-containing fertilizers to correct Mg deficiency under such conditions for sustainable agricultural production systems

Software projects effort estimation using “use case points” method in the context of Project Management Body of Knowledge

As a contribution to consider software projects to be risk investments, it is important the full standardization of either the planning methodology (as a subset of project management methodology) and the effort estimation method. We think there is important and abundant evidence backing the convenience of the join use of Project Management Body of Knowledge and “Use case points” method in software project planning and control. Software development teams should share information, as it is important to compare the “ex post” analysis of programming/budgeting estimations against project execution data with “real world” software projects. This comparative activity would include teams into a permanent improvement process.IV Workshop de Ingeniería de Software y Base de DatosRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Synthetic strategy of porous ZnO and CdS nanostructures doped ferroelectric liquid crystal and its optical behavior

A simple and scalable chemical approach has been proposed for the generation of 1-dimensional nanostructures of two most important inorganic materials such as zinc oxide and cadmium sulfide. By controlling the growth habit of the nanostructures with manipulated reaction conditions, the diameter and uniformity of the nanowires/nanorods were tailored. We studied extensively optical behavior and structural growth of CdS NWs and ZnO NRs doped ferroelectric liquid crystal Felix-017/100. Due to doping band gap has been changed and several blue shifts occurred in photoluminescence spectra because of nanoconfinement effect and mobility of charges

Using machine learning for intelligent shard sizing on the cloud

Sharding implementations use conservative approximations for determining the number of cloud instances required and the size of the shards to be stored on each of them. Conservative approximations are often inaccurate and result in overloaded deployments, which need reactive refinement. Reactive refinement results in demand for additional resources from an already overloaded system and is counterproductive. This paper proposes an algorithm that eliminates the need for conservative approximations and reduces the need for reactive refinement. A multiple linear regression based machine learning algorithm is used to predict the latency of requests for a given application deployed on a cloud machine. The predicted latency helps to decide accurately and with certainty if the capacity of the cloud machine will satisfy the service level agreement for effective operation of the application. Application of the proposed methods on a popular database schema on the cloud resulted in highly accurate predictions. The results of the deployment and the tests performed to establish the accuracy have been presented in detail and are shown to establish the authenticity of the claims

Implementing E-Commerce model for Agricultural Produce: A Research Roadmap

The advancement in technology and the increase in usage of Internet access has revolutionized the landscape of agriculture using E-Commerce. Several E-Commerce websites are operative in India to promote uniformity in agricultural marketing across the integrated markets by removing information asymmetry between buyers and sellers. Stakeholders are reluctant to utilize this new technology for trading agricultural produces in spite of close opportunities. Pricing mechanism of the online trading portals neither generates maximum revenue during high demand and less supply nor ensures minimum loss due to the decay or down selling of the products. Static pricing mechanism prevents the sellers from joining this online system, as it does not provide many benefits to an online customer. A continuous adjustable dynamic pricing mechanism that can adapt the market condition and quality degradation is crucial for maintaining the seller revenue and customer interest. This paper explains several existing dynamic pricing mechanisms and analyzes their relevance in the field of agro-marketing. In this paper, several research challenges on dynamic pricing approach of E-Commerce have been summarized. The factors like demand, supply, and freshness of the agri-products must +be considered for the development of a pricing mechanism in the dynamic environment of E-Commerce