Himalayan paradise or dumpster?

India faces major environmental challenges associated with waste generation and inadequate waste collection, transport, treatment and disposal. Current systems in India cannot cope with the volumes of waste generated by an increasing urban population, and this impacts on the environment and public health. Even in a small countryside town like Bir, Himachal Pradesh trash seems to have become an annoyance. This quaint small village over the last 5 years turned into a bustling tourist destination which brought in diverse communities from all of India and the world. While there was no waste management system in this village, the small community burnt and decomposed their trash. With a rising population the there is a rise in trash as well, turning the village into a potential dumping zone. The local government has failed to put a system in place and the community efforts are not impactful on a large scale. This thesis investigates the current problems of waste dumping in the small town Bir. The ethnographic research focus delves deep in the journey of trash in the village and its causal relationships. Through ethnographic visual study, in depth interviews with the diverse stakeholders of the village the multiple facets of this problem were understood. Through in depth analysis and synthesis it was concluded that the complex problem of trash in Bir comes from not just the irresponsible dumping of trash due to the lack of a system in place. It was also a lack of active synchronization between different stakeholders. While the activists of the community tried to deal with this problem through alternative living , the neutral locals ignored the problem. The governments shift of focus towards economizing sports and tourism left this problem to become colossal. This thesis focuses on creating design implications for several important stakeholders and for evolving pathways that help overcome this problem through synchronised efforts

Communication Patterns and Strategies in Software Development Communities of Practice

Some of the greatest challenges in the relatively new field of software development lie in the decidedly old technology of communication between humans. Software projects require sophisticated and varied communication skills because software developers work in a world of incomplete, imperfect information where teams evolve rapidly in response to evolving requirements and changing collaborators. While prescriptive models for software process such as Agile suggest ways of doing, in reality these codified practices must adapt to the complexities of a real workplace. Patterns, rather than rules of behavior within software process are more suitable to the varied and mutable nature of software development. Software development communities are also learning communities, attempting to sustain themselves through internal ambiguity and external changes. We study different types of software development communities to fulfill our goal of understanding how these communities implement and evolve different communication strategies to sustain themselves through change. We observe student software development projects, open source software development, and a professional, rigorously Agile software development community. We employ Wenger\u27s concept of Community of Practice to frame our understanding, especially focusing on the notions of identity, participation, reification, negotiation of meaning and trajectory of the participants of the software development communities. From these different sources, we identify the emergent themes of mentoring and knowledge management as critical for sustainable communities. Through our long running, immersive, participant observer, ethnographic study of the Agile software development community, we contribute both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the their communication practices and depict the evolving nature of their onboarding and mentoring strategies. We share our experience of implementing such an immersive industry ethnographic study. We employ a pattern language approach to capturing, analyzing and representing our results, thereby contributing and relating to the larger bodies of work in Scrum and Organizational Patterns. This work also informs our concurrent efforts to enhance our undergraduate computer science and software engineering curriculum, exposing students to the communication challenges of real software development and help them to develop skills to meet these challenges through practice in inquiry, critique and reflection

The Case for Kairos: The Importance of Moment and Manner in Software Engineering Communication

Students preparing for software engineering careers need to be proficient in the mechanics of communication and experienced in the basic communication genres common to the profession. We argue, however, that this is not enough: students must also be prepared for the inventive, in-the-moment nature of real project communication. Choosing the right moment and manner for inventive discourse is the essence of kairos, a long-standing concept in the field of rhetoric. We find similarities between the concept of kairos and the role of communication in agile software development methods. We argue for the need to address kairos in software engineering education. We present an approach, based on the concept of cognitive apprenticeship, that we have used in a team software project course with successful results. Finally, we pose two important challenges: how to evaluate kairotic awareness across a student\u27s academic career and beyond, and how to make software engineering instructors feel comfortable covering communication topics

On Quantum Gravity Tests with Composite Particles

Models of quantum gravity imply a fundamental revision of our description of position and momentum that manifests in modifications of the canonical commutation relations. Experimental tests of such modifications remain an outstanding challenge. These corrections scale with the mass of test particles, which motivates experiments using macroscopic composite particles. Here we consider a challenge to such tests, namely that quantum gravity corrections of canonical commutation relations are expected to be suppressed with increasing number of constituent particles. Since the precise scaling of this suppression is unknown, it needs to be bounded experimentally and explicitly incorporated into rigorous analyses of quantum gravity tests. We analyse this scaling based on concrete experiments involving macroscopic pendula and provide tight bounds that exceed those of current experiments based on quantum mechanical oscillators. Furthermore, we discuss possible experiments that promise even stronger bounds thus bringing rigorous and well-controlled tests of quantum gravity closer to reality.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure. Comments are welcome. Updated to published versio

Enhancement of lipase production by ethyl methane sulfonate mutagenesis of soil fungal isolate

Strain improvement through random mutagenesis is an extremely developed practice and it plays an important role in the economic growth of microbial agitation processes. The present study comprises of genetic improvement of fungus isolated from petrol pump soil by ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS) mutagenesis for increased production of extracellular lipase. Random mutagenesis was performed by incubating the spore suspension of fungus with EMS at a concentration of 5% (v/v) and 8% (v/v) for 30, 60 and 90 min, respectively. Control set was prepared by incubating the spore suspension with sterile distilled water. Control plate showed maximum number of fungal colonies whereas number of colonies was decreased as we increased exposure time of EMS from 30 to 90 min. The lipase activity of six mutagenic strains and wild strain was determined under submerged fermentation and solid state fermentation. Treated culture named as EMS5%-60min (obtained after 60 min exposure with 5% EMS) exhibited maximum activity (32.09 ± 1.84 IU/ml/min) in SmF as compared to wild strain (8.77 ± 3.52 IU/ml/min) and another treated strain named as EMS8%-90min (obtained after 90 min exposure with 8% EMS) exhibited maximum activity (7.99 ± 0.12 IU/g/min) in SSF as compared to wild strain (1.77 ± 0.71 IU/g/min). The activity of mutagenic strain i.e. EMS5%-60min was increased to 365.90% as compared to 100% activity of wild strain in SmF whereas activity of another mutagenic strain i.e. EMS8%-90min was increased to 451.41% as compared to 100% activity of wild strain in SSF

Parenting Dimensions and its Relationship with Problems among Children of Parents having Mental Illness

Background: Children having parents with a mental illness are in danger of emotional well-being issues. Specifically, the absence of a secure connection between the mother and the child can add to huge learning and developmental issues in the child. Objectives: To assess the parenting dimensions of families with one parent diagnosed with mental illness. To assess the relationship of parenting dimensions with cognitive, emotional, and behavioural problems among their children. Materials& Methods: The study was a cross-sectional comparative study. Using the consecutive sampling method,30parents diagnosed with eitherpsychotic disorders (F20-F29)or Bipolar Affective Disorder (F31)as per ICD-10forat least one year, attending the Psychiatry OPD of the Department of Psychiatry, Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh; the second parent (without any known psychiatric disorder) with GHQ score of less than 3were recruited for the study with their consent and the Socio-demographic and Clinical Data Sheet, Alabama Parenting Questionnaire and Pediatric Symptoms Checklist was administered on both parents. Ethical clearance was sought from the Institutional Ethics Committee. Data was analyzed using appropriate statistics with the help of SPSS 16. Result: There are indications of a lack of positive parenting in parents with mental illness and there is little involvement with children and measures to educate and create awareness in parents about healthy parenting and parenting styles is required. Conclusion: There is a need to enhance parenting practices so that child’s risk of getting emotional and behavioural problems and poor child-parent communication patterns can be addressed as a mental illness in parents can have different effects on children like the incidence of cognitive, emotional and behaviours problems. Keywords: Parenting dimensions, emotional behavioural problem, children, parents with mental illnes

Exploring the Factors Influencing the Selection of Traditional Travel Agencies: A Case of Banjarmasin, Indonesia

Highly developed online facilities by travel agents have grown drastically over the past years. Internet is taking over the businesses of traditional travel agents in their existing as well as emerging markets. Due to the dynamic and diverse nature of technology, the travellers are seeking to optimize their travel attitude in an effective manner while implicating several threats. Amidst all changes, this study investigated the attitude of Indonesian travellers visiting traditional travel agents. A self-administrated online survey was used to collect the data from local travellers of Banjarmasin, Indonesia. A sample of 277 respondents showed a significant relationship between the expertise of travel agents, handling capacity, technological adoption towards visiting traditional travel agents. Interestingly, the social interaction factor has no significant influence. Further, the analysis identified that secure transaction shows a partial mediating effect between travellers visiting traditional travel agents and their habitual selection behaviour. The results of the study indicate that Indonesian travellers have an overall positive attitude towards traditional travel agencies due to their expertise and handling capacity of travel services. An important finding reveals transactional security as a vital factor in habitual selection behaviour of Indonesian travellers. In future, there is a necessity for a holistic approach towards the understanding of both demand and supply perspectives of travel services

Awareness, Practice and Level of Anxiety using Coronavirus Anxiety Scale among the Indian Population regarding COVID -19 Pandemic

Abstract: The most important aspect of Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) involves the circulation of trustworthy and accurate information in the public health interest domain. Strict stringency measures such as nationwide lockdown impacted people's mental health. Hence, this study was planned to assess the knowledge, practice, and anxiety among the Indian population about the ongoing pandemic in the initial phase. Methods: A web-based cross-sectional study was conducted between August 1, 2020, to October 5, 2020. Coronavirus Anxiety Scale was used to determine dysfunctional anxiety. Results: Among 553 participants, 73.6% had overall good knowledge of COVID-19 with mean correct score of 6.9±1.1. Majority of participants (97%) wore mask regularly, and 93% of respondents regularly washed their hands with soap and water. Only 14 participants scored ?9 on CAS, suggesting probable cases of dysfunctional anxiety associated with the COVID-19 crisis. Conclusion: The knowledge and practices of citizens in a nation reflect their preparedness and ability to deal with a pandemic of such proportion. Good knowledge translates to good practices and therefore reduces anxiety among the population. It is deemed necessary that people's knowledge and habits, including the mental impact, be accessed at periodic intervals to track their adaptation to pandemics over time