Covid PDS Plus: An E-PDS & Healthcare Platform Towards Pandemic Restoration

During the COVID-19 crisis, millions of migrants daily-wage workers and homeless people around the world are facing food insecurity. This has forced migrants to travel to their hometowns during the pandemic thereby exposing them to greater health risks and also accelerating the risk of spread of virus. Anecdotal evidence demonstrates the importance of enforcing food security and distribution policies to tide the crisis. However, the effects of these policies on containing mobility during the crisis remain unknown. This paper presents a prototype of technology enabled e-PDS (pubic distribution system) and healthcare platform to connect different stakeholders i.e. people, government, NGOs

Rational Orbits around Charged Black Holes

We show that all eccentric timelike orbits in Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m spacetime can be classified using a taxonomy that draws upon an isomorphism between periodic orbits and the set of rational numbers. By virtue of the fact that the rationals are dense, the taxonomy can be used to approximate aperiodic orbits with periodic orbits. This may help reduce computational overhead for calculations in gravitational wave astronomy. Our dynamical systems approach enables us to study orbits for both charged and uncharged particles in spite of the fact that charged particle orbits around a charged black hole do not admit a simple one-dimensional effective potential description. Finally, we show that comparing periodic orbits in the RN and Schwarzschild geometries enables us to distinguish charged and uncharged spacetimes by looking only at the orbital dynamics.Comment: 16 pages, 21 figure

Need of a Better Start-up Ecosystem in India

India is the second most populated country in the world and it s one of the biggest economies too but looking at its population it s still underdeveloped India s per capita income increased by only a 1 annualized rate in three decades after its independence In 2018 its GDP growth rate was a mere 6 386 The majority of India s population is in the lower-middle-class category This economic condition demands a better ecosystem to uplift and encourages startups that will help reduce unemployment in India India has become a status-driven society where risk-taking and audacious behavior are not considered ideal If this situation continues India will soon become a nation of clerks and government servants With unemployment rising and competitive exams getting tougher it s getting hard for talent to get what it deserves The below article highlights the challenges faced by the Indian Startup Ecosystem and why we need i

DO TRANSPORTATION NETWORK COMPANIES AFFECT ROAD SAFETY OUTCOMES: A SPATIALLY DETAILED ANALYSIS IN SAN FRANCISCO

US traffic fatal deaths have steadily risen since 2010, with the past few years witnessing an unusual trend increase. To reverse such a dangerous trend, one must understand how and why road crashes occur and which factors are causing them. Emerging transportation technologies have shown the potential to improve mobility and safety. However, such technologies are not inherently beneficial and could worsen road safety if not effectively implemented. One such transportation technology that warrants investigation is the rise of ridesharing services, also called Transportation Network Companies (TNCs). The primary goal of the dissertation is to explore the statistical relationship between road safety outcomes and TNC service components like curbside pick-ups and drop-offs (PUDO) or through the TNC-involved vehicles miles traveled (VMT). It evaluates the relationship between TNC service components like PUDO and Tot TNC VMT with four main types of road crash frequency: the total number of road crashes, fatal and severe injury crashes, crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists, and crashes involving drink-driving using San Francisco (SF) county data. A fixed-effect Poisson Regression Model with a robust covariance matrix compares San Francisco (SF) county\u27s 2010 safety outcomes when TNCs were negligible to safety outcomes for the exact locations in 2016 for which spatially detailed TNC data is available. Dependent variables like Total Crashes, Fatal and Injury Crashes, Pedestrian and Bicyclist Crashes, Alcohol-involving (DUI) Crashes, and Property Damage Only (PDO) Crashes are evaluated using the model, controlling for vehicle speed, Total VMT, and TNC service components, namely TNC VMT and PUDO. We apply that model to 2010 and 2016 scenarios and counterfactual scenarios that estimate what would have occurred in 2016 without specific aspects of TNC operations. The results show that TNCs indirectly increased total crashes by 4% due to higher exposure and 7% due to changes in vehicle speeds. The direct effect of TNCs on crashes offsets these increases, reducing crashes by 14%, but this effect depends upon the model specification and is insignificant in other specifications tested. The results for other types of crashes are similar in direction but lower in significance. Overall, the results suggest that TNCs are a minor factor in road safety outcomes, at least within the limits of what we can measure with the available data. This finding is broadly consistent with past research on the topic. These results interest engineers, planners, and policymakers seeking to improve road safety. Those aiming to reduce traffic crashes would be well-advised to avoid getting distracted by TNCs in one direction or another and instead focus on known solutions, including road design, vehicle technology, and reducing exposure through reducing vehicle miles traveled

Heat losses in Ceramic Coated Diesel Engine

The energy produced due to combustion of fuel in an engine is partly converted into work and the rest is lost. The knowledge of how the energy is lost will help in finding means to reduce the same to improve the performance of the engine in terms of efficiency and power output. The elimination of, in cylinder heat transfer to either the coolant or the environment does not violet the second law of the thermodynamics and moreover according to the first law, has the potential of producing more work. Another advantage of this concept is that great reduction losses in parasitic losses due to the simplicity of the cooling system, thus increasing the brake power of the engine. The main purposes of the study are to calculate the heat losses at different engine loads and speeds with and without ceramic coated diesel engine. The result showed a reduction in heat losses to the coolant and increases in exhaust energy at all the loads levels. Keywords: Ceramic coating, Diesel engine, Heat losse

Visual graphics for human rights, social justice, democracy and the public good

The value of human rights in a democratic South Africa is constantly threatened and often waived for nefarious reasons. We contend that the use of visual graphics among incoming university visual art students provides a mode of engagement that helps to inculcate awareness of human rights, social responsibility, and the public good in South African higher education. Visual graphics, the subject of the research project which forms a key component of a Masters dissertation by one of the authors, provides an opportunity to counter a noticeable decline in the students’ response and sensitivity to the freedoms entrenched in the South African Bill of Rights. The article presents a study using an action research approach in the classroom between 2005–2010, in order to inculcate awareness of human rights among participating students and deepen their understanding of social responsibility. The method used involved an introduction to specific visual art curricular intervention projects which required incoming first-year students to develop visual responses to address selected human rights violations and, in their second year, to develop their visual voice in order to promote human rights advocacy through civic engagement. The critical outcomes impact positively on the use of graphic images in the curriculum as a visual methodology to re-insert the discourse of human rights as a basic tenet of constitutional democracy in higher education