“Semester system has become a big concern for students of science courses in the colleges. They are being told to appear in the semester examination without any preparation or providing them any facility in this regard. DUSU fully oppose such kind of system”, Priya Dabas, Vice-President, DUSU told fachcha.com. Jitendra Choudhary too has already opposed such kind of imposition and demanded wider consultation in this regard.

The breakthrough, which is up to 90 percent accurate, will be a boon for paralysed patients who cannot speak and could help read anyone’s thoughts ultimately, reports the Telegraph.

“We were beside ourselves with excitement when it started working,” said Prof Bradley Greger, bioengineer at the Utah University who led the project. “It was just one of the moments when everything came together.

“We have been able to decode spoken words using only signals from the brain with a device that has promise for long-term use in paralysed patients who cannot speak.

“I would call it brain reading and we hope that in two or three years it will be available for use for paralysed patients.”

The breakthrough came when the team attached two button-sized grids of 16 tiny electrodes to an epileptic’s brain’s speech centres, says the journal of Neural Engineering.

The patient had part of his skull removed for another operation to treat his condition.

Using electrodes, the scientists recorded brain signals in a computer as the patient repeatedly read each of 10 words that might be useful to a paralysed person: yes, no, hot, cold, hungry, thirsty, hello, goodbye, more and less.

Then they got him to repeat the words to the computer and it was able to match the brain signals for each word 76 percent to 90 percent of the time.

The computer picked up the patient’s brain waves as he talked and did not use any voice recognition software.

Because just thinking a word is enough to produce the same brain signals, Prof Greger and his team believe that soon they will be able to have translation device and voice box that repeats the word you are thinking.

Besides, the brains of paralysed people are just as healthy and produce the same signals as those in physically-fit people – it is just they are blocked by injury from reaching the muscle.

Researchers said the method needs improvement, but could lead in a few years to clinical trials on paralysed people who cannot speak due to so-called “locked-in” syndrome.

“This is proof of concept,” Prof Greger said adding: “We’ve proven these signals can tell you what the person is saying well above chance.”

IANS

“This is the first time that any festival is being organized in Delhi University especially for foreign students”, Jasmine Patton, co-ordinator of FSF, told fachcha.com.

We have invited students from all nationalities to participate in the festival. The festival will be a forum to showcase the culture of various countries. The FSF includes paper reading session on world peace, costume competition, singing of national song of the respective countries and many more, she adds.

Foreign students from any college or department of Delhi University may participate in the festival. Interested candidate can visit www.gargicollege.in or call 011-26494544 for more details.

Amit Dasgupta, consul-general of India in Sydney, said it was in acknowledgement of the work being done by the university in providing a safe environment for Indian students.

Dasgupta said education and globalisation are both key in spreading messages against violence.

“Gandhi was born in India, but he belongs to each and every one of you,” Dasgupta said.

Dasgupta, Vice-Chancellor Fred Hilmer and New South Wales Treasurer Eric Roozendaal unveiled the sculpture at a ceremony attended by people from the Indian and other communities.

IANS

The services of these teachers will be regularised with effect from April 1, 2011, a state government spokesman said.

IANS

A study has found that examination results of those who used the social website while working, even if it was on in the background, were 20 percent lower than non-users.

Researchers now say the study weakens the theory that young people’s brains are better at multi-tasking, according to the Daily Mail.

Paul Kirschner, one of the authors of the study, said: “The problem is that most people have Facebook or other social networking sites, emails and maybe instant messaging constantly running in the background while they are carrying out other tasks.”

“Our study, and other previous work, suggests that while people may think constant task-switching allows them to get more done in less time, the reality is that it extends the amount of time needed to carry out tasks and leads to more mistakes.”

The research team studied 219 students aged between 19 and 54 at an American university.

Facebook users among them had a typical grade point average (GPA), a score from zero up to four, with an average of 3.06. Non-users had an average GPA of 3.82.

Those who did not use the site said they devoted more time to studying.

Three quarters of Facebook users said they didn’t believe spending time on the website affected their academic performance.

IANS

A school for the poor in Bihar, inspired by Rancho’s iconic school in Bollywood blockbuster “3 Idiots”, has been opened by a scientist to teach complex science theories through games and interactive workshops.

The school will be run by around 10 staff members, including retired teachers — Baidyanath Choudhary and Satya Narayan Singh — and CDRI’s deputy director Naibedya Chattopadhyay as patrons. While Sunil Kumar is the principal, Priyank Kumar, Kundan Sah and Sunil Sharma are teachers. The regular teachers will be paid a consolidated salary of Rs.1,000 per month.

Sudhir Kumar, a scientist working in the biotechnology laboratory of the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Pune, has set up a school in his native village of Mirzapur Chand in Bihar’s Begusarai district, about 110 km from Patna.

“Besides formal education up to Class 6, explanation of complex theories of science through fun and interactive workshops conducted by a panel of scientists will be part of the school’s curriculum,” Sudhir Kumar, an assistant professor at IIIT-Pune, told IANS.

The school, which opened Sunday, has a staggered fee structure — free of cost for the poor and different slabs for children with different economic backgrounds.

The governing body of the school will verify the family income of each student and will decide the fee accordingly. Richer parents will be charged more so that education of poor children can be subsidised.

“Education will be free for children belonging to families having no farm land or those of labourers, while kids of well-off parents such as landowners, businessmen, transport contractors, builders, government and private employees having regular income will be charged a monthly fee ranging from Rs. 50 to Rs. 100,” said Sunil Kumar, the principal of the school.

The school will be financially supported by a panel of scientists, including Naibedya Chattopadhyay, deputy director, Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow; Manavi Chatterjee, senior research fellow, Pharmacology Division, CDRI; and Tanaya De, former research fellow, Endocrinology Division, CDRI.

Besides them, international researchers who are extending support to the effort include Shawon Lahiri, Laussane University, Switzerland; Anchal Gussain, Chicago University; Rajiv Kumar Jain, Tartu University, Estonia; Ajay Kumar Srivastava, Seoul University, South Korea; and Elo Madissoon, a research fellow in Karolinska Institute. They will also conduct regular workshops in the school.

“Lectures would be organised with the help of guest faculty who are experts in different walks of life. Students can also interact with their teachers through video-conferencing,” said Kumar.

“The idea of having a school where poor children are encouraged to study science came to my mind many years back. Being a scientist, it is my responsibility to simplify the scientific theory so that they can be utilised by a layman and thus can be more useful for society,” said Kumar.

Initially, the school will enrol 50-100 students in the first batch. The number will increase later as per the infrastructure and availability of teachers.

“After Class 6, our focus will be to get the students admitted to high-end schools such as Sainik School, Tilaiya, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalay and Netarhat Vidyalay and avail scholarship schemes offered by the government for high school students,” he said, adding: “We are also planning to start classes up to 12th standard in this school”.

The classrooms would be equipped with projector screens, computers, internet and all the modern facilities and the children will be encouraged to participate in different activities such as art, music, dance and theatre, he said.

“Before the regular session begins in January next year, classes will be conducted specially for dropouts from September so that they can be registered with open schools,” said Satya Narayan Singh, one of the patrons of the school.

IANS

Even at 44, Milind makes women go weak in the knees owing to his Greek god looks and fit body.

However, he willingly backed out when he had to go underwater in Rio de Janeiro’s Teresopolis Farm to unlock weights hung under a sheet of fire. Even though the stunt may not have been too tough, it was the chilling six degrees temperature of water that held Milind back – and caused his elimination.

“I should have tried more especially because it was a swimming stunt. I could have done it easily,” he lamented after he lost.

Apart from Milind, funnyman Cyrus Broacha and former supermodel and actor Rahul Dev too had underperformed. However, they gave up much later than Milind, who withdrew from the stunt within less than three minutes.

The third season of “Fear Factor -Khatron Ke Khiladi” went on air on Colors Monday with Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra as the new host.

The 28-year-old actress sports a grungy look in the show, and seems to be trying a bit too hard to throw attitude to match up to action hero Akshay Kumar, who had hosted the past two seasons of the deadly show.

But her softness came through the tension for the safety of the 13 contestants on the show. But if sources are to be believed, she is supposed to be quite a whip-wielding dictator in Rio de Janeiro where all the stunts are being shot.

The ongoing season was earlier supposed to have cricketers as contestants but now it boasts of hot male celebrities like Dino Morea, Rahul Bose, Shabbir Ahluwalia, Karan Singh Grover, filmmaker Abhishek Kapoor, car racer Armaan Ebrahem and squash champion Ritwik Bhattacharya, apart from actor Manjot Singh, Cyrus and Rahul Dev. Each male celebrity is teamed up with one non celebrity female contestant.

“The CWG helipad at the Games village is almost complete and only a few finishing touches are being given to it, while the heliport at Rohini will be completed by mid-September,” PHHL Chairman and Managing Director R.K Tyagi said.

In 2009, the Delhi government and the civil aviation ministry had decided on building the heliport and the helipad.

“Both the facilities will be ready by mid-September and will serve the mega event. Choppers will be parked at Rohini and then fly people in and out of the the CWG village to other places,” Tyagi said.

PHHL has paid Rs.19.5 crore to acquire the 25-acre plot in Rohini. It is spending Rs.45 crore for building the chopper facility.

According to the company, the Rohini heliport would cover helicopter operations, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) and a training academy for pilots and technical staff.

“The Rohini heliport will be a state-of-the-art feeder hub centre. It will have helicopter maintenance facilities, parking facilities for other helicopter operators. A business centre will also come up,” Tyagi said about the added amenities at the port.

The helipad at the Games village would be exclusively used to transport athletes, VIPs and officials to 15 sporting venues, avoiding traffic jams in the city.

“The helipad would be used as a primary hub centre from where helicopters would operate during the day. In the evening, they would be back at the feeder hub centre at Rohini,” Tyagi added.

According to PHHL, the choppers would be using a separate flight corridor to ensure that the air traffic at the IGI airport is not disrupted.

Currently, the company plans to deploy two medium-size choppers with a capacity to carry 10 people each.

After the Games, PHHL expects the heliport to improve Delhi’s connectivity with the nearby cities and towns.

“The heliport will provide better connectivity, easy and convenience for chopper travel within this region. It will also promote travel and tourism and generate business opportunities,” Tyagi further added.

Heliports have become a part of many cities in the world, providing easy mobility. Currently, Safdarjung airport is being used by VVIPs for their chopper flights. But others such as corporate heads, who want to take a chopper flight, have had to wait for long at the IGI airport as priority is given to passenger aircraft.

IANS

In less than 24-hours of the announcement of the results of Delhi University Students Union’s (DUSU) polls, in which ABVP bagged three out of four posts including DUSU President, the jubilant Delhi BJP unit has reconstituted its team giving more importance to former ABVP leaders and former office bearers of the Delhi University Students Union.

Former DUSU President Nakul Bhardwaj has been elevated to head of BJP’s youth wing. Nakul contested last MLA election in Delhi but could not make it. Many former office bearers of the DUSU have been given important offices in the reconstituted team. These include Vijay Jolly, Ashish Sood, Narendra Tondon and others. Ashish Sood has been given charge of General Secretary along with Pravesh Verma and MLA Ramesh Bidhuri while the Vijay Jolly, a former MLA from Saket, has been given post of Vice President of Delhi BJP. Poonam Azad, wife of Kirti Azad, too has been included in the list of 10 Vice- Presidents. Narendra Tondon has been given post of Secretary in Delhi BJP unit.

It is notable that present BJP President Vijendra Gupta has himself been an office-bearer of DUSU and active leader of ABVP in the past. The ABVP, though denies any link with BJP openly and says that it is a separate outfit. Commenting about the new team Delhi BJP President Vijendra Gupta says that the team has been made more “youthful” with the changes.
‘Mahila Morcha’ (women’s wing) of the party will be headed by Shikha Roy.