Rashid's Blog: A Place for Inquisitive Souls

The mathematical sciences including engineering, statistics, computer science, physics, econometrics, psychometrics, epidemiology, and mathematics qua mathematics are increasingly being applied to advance our understanding of the causes, consequences, and alleviation of obesity.  These applications do not merely involve routine well-established approaches easily implemented in widely available commercial software. Rather, they increasingly involve computationally demanding tasks, use and in some cases development of novel analytic methods and software, new derivations, computer simulations, and unprecedented interdigitation of two or more existing techniques. Such advances at the interface of the mathematical sciences and obesity research require bilateral training and exposure for investigators in both disciplines. This course on the mathematical sciences in obesity research features some of the world’s finest scientists working in this domain to fill this unmet need by providing nine topic driven modules designed to bridge the disciplines.

For full details of the course, please refer to the application &…

by Jessie Roberts

Researchers at MIT have developed a wearable reading device called Sensory Fiction:

Sensory Fiction was inspired by two sci-fi visions of what media in the future will look like. The first is Neil Stephenson’s steampunk classic, The Diamond Age, a novel that features interactive books with built in AIs. (The book that is often seen as the fictional inspiration for many of today’s technologies, like the iPad and Siri.) The other is The Girl Who Was Plugged In, a 1974 novella by James Tiptree, Jr. about a future in which the desperate are allowed to pay to take over the bodies of attractive human vessels.

“You feel this story in your gut,” Hope says about The Girl Who Was Plugged In. “It is an amazing example of the power of fiction to make us feel and empathize with a protagonist. Because our imaginations…

A comparison of images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in November 2010 and May 2013 reveal the formation of a new gully channel on a crater-wall slope in the southern highlands of Mars.

This pair of before (left) and after (right) images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter documents formation of a new channel on a Martian slope between 2010 and 2013, likely resulting from activity of carbon-dioxide frost.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Gully or ravine landforms are common on Mars, particularly in the southern highlands. This pair of images shows that material flowing down from an alcove at the head of a gully broke out of an older route and eroded a new channel. The dates of the images are more than a full Martian year apart, so the observations did…

To generate 1MW(lay man sense,1000 EB units per hour) power you would require 4 acres land. This can cost you about 8 crores.  You can get incentives from Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. It can pay itself in about 7 yrs and remaining 15yrs it would be free or for profit.

• 1000 Units per hour,8 hrs of production = 8000 units
• Govt can procure for about Rs 6 per unit. Fixed price for 25 years. Need a 33kv substation near by
• 300 sunny days in a year
• Approximately generates income of Rs 1.2 crores/year.
• It works out to be IRR(Internal Rate of Return) 15% a year post tax

Further reading

• http://www.teda.in/pdf/tamilnadu_solar_energy_policy_2012.pdf
• http://cii.in/WebCMS/Upload/Draft%20Guidelines%20for%20Solar%20GBI_11%20kV%20Scheme-IREDA.pdf
• http://electronicsforu.com/electronicsforu/circuitarchives/view_article.asp?sno=1451&title%20=%20How+to+Set+up+a+Solar+Farm%3F&b_type=new&id=12335
• http://www.pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=78829