A well being employee fumigates a slum space in Ahmedabad on July 31 to stop the unfold of the Chandipura virus, named after a small city in Maharashtra.
| Picture Credit score: Amit Dave/Reuters
Acute encephalitis outbreak in India linked to Chandipura virus
BETWEEN early June and August 15, the Union Ministry of Well being and Household Welfare reported 245 instances of acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) with 82 deaths (a case fatality price, or CFR, of 33 per cent), the WHO reported. Chandipura virus (CHPV) an infection has been confirmed in 64 of the 245 instances, 61 of them from Gujarat and three from Rajasthan. Thus far, no human-to-human transmission has been reported. CHPV is endemic in India, which sees common outbreaks. Nonetheless, the present outbreak is the biggest prior to now 20 years, the report mentioned.
CHPV is a member of the Rhabdoviridae household and is understood to trigger sporadic instances and outbreaks of AES in western, central, and southern components of India, particularly throughout the monsoon season. It’s transmitted by vectors resembling sandflies, mosquitoes, and ticks. The CFR from CHPV an infection is excessive (56-75 per cent, as reported in earlier outbreaks), and there’s no particular therapy or vaccine out there.
A complete of 43 districts in India have at present reported AES instances. In 2003, a big outbreak of AES was reported in Andhra Pradesh, with 329 suspected instances and 183 deaths; a examine means that this was as a result of CHPV.
In keeping with the WHO, the illness impacts principally youngsters underneath 15 and might current itself as a febrile sickness which will progress to convulsions, coma, and dying in some instances. In youngsters, it may possibly result in excessive mortality inside 48-72 hours of the onset of signs. Survival could be elevated with early entry to care and intensive supportive care, the WHO mentioned. To forestall additional unfold of CHPV, the WHO has advisable vector management and safety towards vector bites.
A sandfly, one of many vectors that transmits the Chandipura virus, the pathogen that causes acute encephalitis syndrome.
| Picture Credit score:
Google Photos
Extra export controls on quantum computing applied sciences
THE Bureau of Business and Safety (BIS) of the US Division of Commerce has revealed a brand new interim remaining rule (IFR) on superior semiconductor manufacturing and computing applied sciences, quantum computing particularly, to align its export management laws with these of its allies, together with Japan. This worldwide rule, which got here into impact on September 6, is a complement to the ultimate rule that the BIS revealed on October 25, 2023, titled “Implementation of Extra Export Controls: Sure Superior Computing and Semiconductor Manufacturing Gadgets; Supercomputer and Semiconductor Finish Use”. The purpose is “to guard U.S. nationwide safety pursuits by limiting the Individuals’s Republic of China’s navy modernization efforts and degrading its capacity to violate human rights”.
The next are a number of the particular gadgets included within the new IFR:
• Quantum computing gadgets: quantum computer systems, associated tools, parts, supplies, software program, and know-how that can be utilized within the improvement and upkeep of quantum computer systems.
• Superior semiconductor manufacturing tools: instruments and machines which are important for the manufacturing of superior semiconductor units.
• Gate-all-around field-effect transistor know-how: know-how that produces or develops high-performance computing chips that can be utilized in supercomputers.
• Additive manufacturing gadgets: tools, parts, and associated know-how and software program designed to provide metallic or metallic alloy parts.
The IFR has additionally established a brand new Licence Exception Applied Export Controls (IEC) in order that nations could meet the phrases of IEC by implementing equal nationwide controls, which might remove the necessity to submit licence purposes for these gadgets. India shouldn’t be one of many nations that may use this licence exception.
Within the wake of the US’ transfer, the Dutch authorities put in place on September 6 strict controls on export exterior the EU of the semiconductor manufacturing tools made by the Dutch multinational company ASML.
Additionally Learn | New IISc supercapacitor can retailer and in addition launch power
A photograph-chargeable supercapacitor confirmed a 3,000 per cent rise in capacitance underneath mild in contrast with the darkish.
| Picture Credit score:
Santilata Sahoo
Shining mild on a brand new supercapacitor
CAPACITORS are electrostatic units that retailer power as expenses on two metallic plates referred to as electrodes. Supercapacitors are upgraded variations of capacitors; they exploit electrochemical phenomena to retailer extra power. Now, researchers on the Division of Instrumentation and Utilized Physics (IAP), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), and collaborators have designed a supercapacitor that may be charged by shining mild on it, a press launch from the IISc mentioned. The event was reported in Journal of Supplies Chemistry A.
The electrodes of the brand new supercapacitor are manufactured from zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods grown immediately on fluorine doped tin oxide, which is clear. This permits mild to fall on the optically lively ZnO nanorods, which expenses the supercapacitor. Two electrolytes—a liquid and a semi-solid gel—had been used because the conducting medium between the electrodes.
The capability for storing expenses (capacitance) is inversely proportional to the gap between the electrodes. In electrostatic capacitors, it’s tough to take care of a small distance between electrodes. Nonetheless, in a supercapacitor the electrodes’ expenses entice the electrolyte’s oppositely charged ions, ensuing within the formation of a cost layer—referred to as an electrical double layer— simply atoms away from one another. This leads to the excessive capacitance of supercapacitors, mentioned Pankaj Chauhan of the group.
When the researchers shone UV mild on their supercapacitor, they observed a capacitance that was a number of instances greater than beforehand ever reported for supercapacitors. In addition they observed two uncommon properties. First, whereas capacitance typically decreases because the voltage will increase, they discovered that their supercapacitor’s capacitance underneath mild illumination truly elevated with rising voltage. It has been termed “necking behaviour”.
Second, the power saved inside a supercapacitor sometimes decreases when it’s charged sooner as a result of the ions within the electrolyte don’t transfer quick sufficient to reply to the elevated charging price. Nonetheless, with the liquid electrolyte, the crew discovered that the power saved within the supercapacitor elevated upon quick charging underneath UV mild. A.M. Rao, of Clemson College, US, and a co-author of the examine, mentioned that these findings may result in the event of concurrently fast-charging and energy-dense supercapacitors.
Supercapacitors, Abha Misra of the IAP mentioned, may doubtlessly substitute the photo voltaic cells utilized in avenue lights. They’ve excessive energy density, to allow them to launch cost extra rapidly than batteries. They can be used to energy chips in digital units like cell telephones. “We’ve got miniaturised supercapacitors to micron scale in order that they are often built-in together with these microelectronic chips,” Misra added.
