2020 ~ ARCHITA PODDAR

2020

How long the fear of virus will last, we wonder,

What should we do next, we often ponder,

Many questions, yet have no answers,

We all praying, not to get cough, feverish disaster;

Quarantine, isolation, conforming with respect,

Preventing contagious disease’s threat,

Tragic demise, intercepting not to neglect,

Divine intervention may start to protect;

I wonder if it’s a sign from the above!

His Power’s way teaching peace and love!

God may forfend, spreading infection,

He may flash unstoppable illumination;

Perhaps for taking rebirth or renewal

Hibernation and darkness are a must

For the spring flowers to bloom,

They must endure a harsh winter,I trust

Before rising, Sun must set

Caterpillar’s journey ‘to beget’

Into a butterfly, without regret,

Isolation? It’s Not; but a journey within,

To become our better version, we begin

Counting our blessings, hedging a bet

With gratitude, grace, est we forget

Like pearls set upon Coronet!

UNEMPLOYMENT AMONG B.TECH STUDENTS ~ RAJDEEP DAS

WHY AN INDIAN ENGINEERING FRESHER REMAIN UNEMPLOYED AFTER THE COMPLETION OF B.TECH IN INDIA

In various states of India for example west Bengal the curriculum of an engineering college is way backdated. They study age old technologies which have become obsolete in present day industry. So we can’t expect them student to do innovative stuffs on cloud computing or IoT based of the mere knowledge of transistors and p-n junction diodes. It is like a kid has just learned to draw a straight line and the parents are expecting him/her to produce a van Gog painting.

In most of the tier 3 private colleges in India the faculty, college infrastructure and the whole education environment is not good enough to produce a proper engineer. Students are more interested in college fests, weeds, porn, hook ups etc rather than taking interest in academics. In this kind of environment no innovations can be done. A bitter truth that we all have to admit.

Apart from the college activities the other big problem is the huge population. India doesn’t have that much industry/job opportunity yet to accommodate the huge amount engineers produce each year. Economy does play an important role behind the unemployment of these fresh engineers.

Not every student gets the opportunity to study in an IIT or in a NIT. 75%-80% engineering students belong from the private colleges under state universities.  So for the betterment of these unemployed and current engineering students the first thing that needs to be done is to reconstruct the academic system of the private colleges. Evidently a very hard task indeed.
     
                                                                                    

THE CURVES OF ILLUSION ~ ARCHITA PODDAR

THE CURVES OF ILLUSION

Well you may or may not like Abstract Art or may simply hate it or may not understand exactly what it is. But, since you have started reading this, I can assume that you are curious about this form of art and illusion.

ABSTRACT ART is a non-figurative and non-objective form of art. It has been with us in one form or another for almost a century now and has proved to be a self-renewing important tradition of creativity. It is just lines and different types of shapes which conveys some kind of emotion.Abstract Art is a passion. It is just a representation of a person's mind. It delivers thoughts, experiences and feelings of a person.I believe that the continuing interest in Abstract Art lies in it's ability to inspire our curiosity about the reaches of our imagination and the potential for us to create something unique.The more I attempt to make something real and unique as a painter, the more abstract it becomes. Slowly and steadily I had fallen in love with this paradox. I do enjoy playing with lines and different shapes to create the images I imagine and I want. I believe that the shapes and lines are a kind of joyous and mysterious language that is both personal as well as universal at the same time.

Abstraction creates a departure from reality. It creates an illusion. This departure allows a man to see with his mind which he cannot see physically with his eyes.

                                  ~ Archita Poddar

JEALOUS

    JEALOUS

     ~ RAJDEEP DAS

She came like a gentle breeze,

In a thunderstorm rainy day.

She came to two guys,

Both fighting with life's pain and rage.

She came to two guys,

One troubled for the abundant love,

The Other getting chocked,

In the raging wave of pain.

She held one's hand,

Felt nothing but cold dead touch.

The other's hand too

Got cold as much.

She laughed, she cursed,

She tried to help survive a guy.

 other one though burned like,

A candle to show her the way.

~ by ANWESA CHOUDHURY

PERSONAL

I am gonna buy me a dog

Cause I know

That I'll need a friend. 

Cause I need someone to cuddle. 

For whom loving, 

Isn't a hurdle

For whom life

Is as windy as the breeze. 

I am gonna buy me a house, 

With warmth

And dog biscuits and toys all around. 

Cause I know 

her wants are simple

There will be no fights

For matters so trifle

Whose love

Will bring my nerves to ease

I am gonna buy me a leash

With tender touch

And a silver collar on lease

Cause her touch , 

Is my resurrection

I am caged

In her affection. 

From her love, 

Smitten as I am, 

I will never be released.

LATEST TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT ~ RAJDEEP DAS

LEAP MOTION CONTROLLER

For decades, motion controls have held a persistent place in our visions of the future. We’ve watched the super heroes, mad scientists, and space cowboys of popular media control digital experiences with just a wave of their hands.

The user interface and the corresponding interaction modalities play an essential role in the human-computer relationship. Advanced multimodal interfaces present yet another step in this equation, providing users with the freedom and flexibility to choose the best input modality for specific tasks. Users generally prefer multimodal interaction when it is available and intuitive to use.

Gesture-based user interfaces, in combination with the latest technical advances that incorporate accurate yet affordable new types of input devices, provide realistic new opportunities for specific application areas (e.g., entertainment, learning, health, engineering), especially for users who are uncomfortable with more commonly used input devices and/or technology.

The Leap Motion Controller presents a milestone in consumer finger/object and gesture tracking input technology. The device itself was made publicly available in summer 2013, and therefore not much scientific work has been published yet. 

The Leap Motion Controller uses infrared (IR) imaging to determine the position of predefined objects in a limited space in real time. Technically, very few details are known about the precise nature of the algorithms used due to patent and trade secret restrictions. However, from inspection of the controller, it is clear that three separate IR LED emitters are used in conjunction with two IR cameras. Therefore, the controller can be categorized as an optical tracking system based on the stereo vision principle. According to the official information , the Leap software analyzes the objects observed in the device's field of view. It recognizes hands, fingers, and tools, reporting discrete positions, gestures, and motion. The controller's field of view is an inverted pyramid centered on the device. The effective range of the controller extends from approximately 25 to 600 milli-meters above the device (1 inch to 2 feet). The controller itself is accessed and programmed through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), with support for a variety of programming languages, ranging from C++ to Python. The positions of the recognized objects are acquired through these APIs. The Cartesian and spherical coordinate systems used to describe positions in the controller's sensory space are shown in the given figure. However, it should be noted that the sampling frequency is not stable, cannot be set, and varies significantly.

  

EYE TRIBE TECHNOLOGY

Eye tribe is the latest eye tracker that is discovered in 2013. It is the smallest eye tracker with the minimum dimensions of 20*1.9*1.9 cm. It does not require any power source and it is portable. It consists of camera and a high resolution infrared LED. It allows USB 3.0 to make run on all systems. It does not require any power source.

The Gaze point is the place where the user looks on the screen for a particular time. The eye tribe consists of tracker box where the user can theoretically tracked by the system. The size of the tracker box depends on the frame rate, with the higher frame rate offering a smaller tracking box.

The main components of the eye tribe tracker are a camera and a high resolution infrared LED that can be used via mobile or smart phone. The eye tracker uses infrared red light to work its tracking magic.

Technologies used:

Sampling rate	30 Hz and 60 Hz mode
Accuracy	0.5° (average)
Spatial resolution	0.1° (RMS)
Latency	< 20 ms at 60 Hz
Calibration	5, 9, 12 points
Operating range	45 cm – 75 cm
Tracking area	40 cm × 30 cm at 65 cm distance
Screen sizes	Up to 24 inches
API/SDK	C++, C# and Java included
Data output	Binocular gaze data
Dimensions	(W/H/D) 20 × 1.9 × 1.9 cm (7.9 × 0.75 × 0.75 inches)
Weight	70 g
Connection	USB 3.0 Superspeed

CRISPR

CRISPR(clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found within the genomes of prokaryoticorganisms such as bacteria and archaea.These sequences are derived from DNA fragments from viruses that have previously infected the prokaryote and are used to detect and destroy DNA from similar viruses during subsequent infections. Hence these sequences play a key role in the antiviral defense system of prokaryotes.

Cas9 (or "CRISPR-associated protein 9") is an enzyme that uses CRISPR sequences as a guide to recognize and cleave specific strands of DNA that are complementary to the CRISPR sequence. Cas9 enzymes together with CRISPR sequences form the basis of a technology known as CRISPR-Cas9 that can be used to edit genes within organisms. This editing process has a wide variety of applications including basic biological research, development of biotechnology products, and treatment of diseases

The CRISPR-Cas system is a prokaryotic immune system that confers resistance to foreign genetic elements such as those present within plasmids and phages that provides a form of acquired immunity. RNA harboring the spacer sequence helps Cas (CRISPR-associated) proteins recognize and cut foreign pathogenic DNA. Other RNA-guided Cas proteins cut foreign RNA. CRISPR are found in approximately 50% of sequenced bacterial genomes and nearly 90% of sequenced archaea.

FOREST SURVAILLANCE USING SENSORS

Forests are the very important part of our ecosystem. It helps to maintain a sustainable environment for all life forms. Engineers are trying to capture various kinds of data from various forests to predict the effect of pollution, manmade activities on the biotic components of the forests.

The latest example of such kind of activity is physicist and engineer TOPHER WHITE’s RAINFOREST CONNECTION technology. In this initiative he used old cell phones and electronic sensors which will capture various sounds from the forest then it will detect if any kind of illegal activity like poaching or hunting or deforestation is going on in that forest or not and send the information to the controlling authority.

The working principle of this system is very simple. In a forest the sound made by the animals or trees and the sound due to cutting of trees or gunshots or other man made activity is different in nature. So it can distinguish between these two kinds of sounds and send required data to the controlling authority.

The best thing about RAINFOREST CONNECTION is it uses old mobile phones. So it’s actually a contribution towards the goal of a less polluted nature. And it is called RAINFOREST CONNECTION because this initiative is first demonstrated in BORNEO RAIN FOREST.

SENSORY SUBSTITUION DEVICES:

The greatest and noble contribution of engineering and technology is in the field of medicine and medical sciences. And the latest breakthrough in this field is building devices which will help specially abled people to restore their lost sensory abilities. For example a New York based company BRAINPORT V1000 is developing a series of devices which will use the brain in a remarkable way. This company stated “While these devices were designed with the goal of restoring lost sensation, in the past decade they have begun to revise our understanding of brain organization and development .The idea that underlies sensory substitution is a radical one: that the brain is capable of processing perceptual information in much the same way, no matter which organ delivers it .”.

These devices capture information from the environment, interpret it into the form of touch and other senses and transmits it to the brain so that brain can process it and the specially abled person who is using that device get all the five senses.

These devices will be very much portable and people with sensory issues can easily use it on a daily basis. Moreover these devices can be a huge contribution to develop an advanced Artificial intelligence. As these devices collects data from environment in form of sense and interprets it this mechanism can be used to create an artificial brain thus making a humanoid closer to an actual human being.

~by SAMPRITI GHOSH

SCRIBBLES FROM THE PAST

by SAMPRITI GHOSH

HOBBIES