Customer Service in any Organization

Reading Time: 6 minutes

AUTHOR: SUKESH MATHUR

For any profit-based organization, it is often said, “Excellent customer service is the number one job in any company. It is the personality of the company and the reason customers come back. Without customers, there is no company.” This belief has helped many companies achieve success in their respective fields and in this blog I have discussed what really is Customer Service and share my experience of more than 30 years in the field.

So, product service is basically the provision of support (service) to the customer before, during, and after the purchase of the product. Whatever be the situation, the employees of the organization have to adjust themselves to the varying personalities of the customer to ensure success in the field of customer service and the overall success of the company. An organization that values customer service has to spend more resources on training employees/customers than an average organization.

Customer Service in any Organization

An important mantra that any organization should follow while training their employee is that they should believe in proactive customer service rather than reactive customer service. Proactive Customer Service refers to effective planning earlier to tackle all the situations customers put you in. Whereas, reactive customer service refers to acting spontaneously to the complaints of the customer. This often causes a panic situation in the company causing many extreme steps that could further affect the reputation of the organization. 

 

Role of Customer Service in any Business

Contrary to common misconception, Customer Service also plays a vital role in the overall sales process of the organization and generating revenue of the organization as in today’s industry a lot depends on the reputation of the company. Due to this perspective, customer service should be included as a part of the overall approach of the systematic improvement of the company. It is important to understand that even one good customer service provided can change the entire perception of the customer towards the company.

Customer Support doesn’t limit to just solving a client’s problems with the product. Once the customer buys the product from the organization, it is the organizations’ prime duty to help the customer that he/she uses the product right and cost-effective. To ensure this, the organization has to assist the customer in planning, installation, training, troubleshooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of the product.

 

Customer Complaint Registration Process

Customer Service may be provided by a person (eg. service or sales representative) or by automated means such as digital kiosks, web sites, and mobile applications.

In the case of a person, a service representative is assigned for taking the complaint directly from the customer. He is basically the point of contact with the consumer for the company. He takes complaints from the customer and assigns the same to the concerned service engineer. The service representative ensures continuous feedback to the customer on the status of his/her complaint until the resolution of the complaint and subsequent feedback to the company from the customer. This has been the go-to mode of customer service for many years but the disadvantage of the method is the time constraint and difficulty in communication between many layers. But these problems are now getting minimized with the help of Automated Customer Service.

One of the advantages of Automated means is an increased ability to provide 24 * 7 hours service, which highly compliments with customers’ needs. Also, customer service is becoming data-driven. So these automated methods could be really helpful. Some of the most popular types of Automated Customer Service are :

i) Artificial Intelligence

ii) Touch-Tone Phone

iii) Online Commerce (Websites)

 

i) Artificial Intelligence

AI customer service technologies can highly reduce the workload of customer service representatives as it solves minor and some major frequent issues easily. Customers can visually interact with the company’s model and solve their complaints at their own level with the help of proper technology.

Two of the most significant ways AI is augmenting customer service is through AI-augmented messaging and AI email tagging. AI-augmented messaging enables customer service agents to handle a big part of customer queries with the help of chatbot assistants.

Customer Service in any Organization

ii) Touch-Tone Phone

Touch- Tone Phone refers to the customer service dealt with an augmented machine voice that interacts with the customers. It usually involves IVR (Interactive Voice Response), the main menu, and uses the keypad as options to react according to customer’s needs. You might have come across them when you dial mobile connection customer service. (Press 1 for English, 2 for Hindi!)

Customer Service in any Organization

iii) Online Commerce

In the present era organizations are enhancing and maintaining personal experience using the advantages of online commerce. Online customers are invisible and not connected directly which makes it very difficult to effectively communicate with them. Also due to this invisibility, it makes it even more crucial for the organization to create a sense of personal human to human connection. Artificial means of service enables the companies to provide automated online assistants to customers through websites. These methods highly reduce the operating and training costs for the organizations.

 

Measurement of Customer Service Result

It is very important to keep in check the service provided by the company to the customers and hence Measurement of Customer Service Result is very crucial. Customer Service could be measured in the following ways:- 

i) First Response Time

ii) Restoration Time

i) First Response Time

This indicates how fast an organization responds to the complaints registered by the customer. To ensure minimum response time, an organization must have sufficient manpower for engineers and technicians. Without manpower, it is very difficult to maintain a good first response time which further affects the company.

ii) Restoration Time

Once the response is provided, restoration time is the time by which the customer complaint is completely resolved. To ensure minimum restoration time, the company must have Trained and Manpower and Sufficient stock of Spare Parts.

If the engineer gives a prompt response to the customer’s complaint but he is not well trained by the organization on the product, he/she would be unable to understand the customer complaint and act on it. Hence the restoration time sways away from the target time. Again if a response is given and the engineer is well trained, but if no spare parts are required to solve the complaint’s problem, the restoration time is affected. So have a proactive customer service, the organization should always be well prepared. I have seen all types of situations and it is very important to be in constant touch with time.

 

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

 This term is frequently used by the marketing team of the company. It is a measure of how products supplied and services rendered to the customer has achieved or crossed the customer expectations. Customer satisfaction is defined as the number of customers or percentage of total customers, whose reported experience with the company, its products, or its service index exceeds specified satisfaction goals.

In marketing, the managers found customer satisfaction measuring system very useful in managing and monitoring their business. It is observed as a key performance indicator within business and is also a part of the scorecard analysis of the company. 

In today’s competitive world, customer satisfaction is seen as a key differentiator and increasingly has become a key element of business strategy. In a nutshell, Customer Service or Product Service has been a key industry for the past many years and with the advancements in current technology, customer service will find a new path but the score would remain the same.

Customer Service in any Organization

Terrorism and Data Privacy

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Terrorism is very scary, especially when it happens close to home and not in some faraway place. Nobody likes to be afraid, and we were eager to make the fear go away. So we demanded more security. In the last decade, it’s become increasingly normal for civil liberties to be eroded and for government agencies to spy on citizens, to collect and store their personal information. Regardless of whether you’re a fan of right- or left-wing policies, this affects every one of us.

So we have to take a look at the data and ask ourselves honestly, “Has all of this actually made us safer?”

Terrorism and Data Privacy

The Beginning

After the attack of 9/11, the US government concluded that the law had not kept pace with technology. It created the Terrorist Surveillance Program initially to break communications linked to al-Qaeda. Officials were confident that if the program had been in place before 9/11, the hijackers could have been stopped. But soon the new powers were also used to prove guilt by association.

The FBI used immigration records to identify Arab and Muslim foreign nationals in the US. On this basis, 80,000 individuals were required to register, another 8,000 were called in for FBI interviews, and more than 5,000 locked up in preventive detention. Not one terrorist was found in this campaign.

Terrorism and Data Privacy

In 2013 Snowden leaked the document that reveals how the government sees and stores the private data of public. They showed how the NSA(National Security Agency) can demand information about users from companies like Microsoft or Google in addition to their daily collection of data from civilian internet traffic such as email content and contact lists. So, instead of focusing on criminals, governments are increasingly turning their attention to everyone. But if you are looking for a needle in a bundle of grass, adding more grass to the bundle isn’t going to make it any easier to find the needle.

Terrorism and Data Privacy

On the contrary, every recent success announced by the NSA has come from classic target surveillance. Despite high hopes, the NSA surveillance program has not stopped any major terror attack.

Apple Vs FBI

In early 2016, the FBI asked Apple to produce a backdoor program to disable the encryption of a terrorist’s iPhone. Apple publicly declined, not only because this tool could be used to permanently weaken the privacy of law-abiding citizens worldwide, but fearing to open the floodgates for governments requesting access to a technology used by billions of people, a fear shared by security experts and cryptographers. A few weeks later, the FBI revealed that they had hacked the phone themselves, basically admitting that they lied to the public about the need for a backdoor, which questions how trustworthy spy agencies are in the debate about privacy and security, especially considering that the NSA, for example, already has the capability to turn on your iPhone microphone or activate your laptop camera without you noticing. Concerns about this are often met with the argument,

                           If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”

But this reasoning depends on person to person because if a person wants to keep privacy about own life then it doesn’t mean he/she is doing anything wrong. Right now, we live in a democracy. But imagine the damage the wrong person could do with our data because data is the new treasure of the current world.

The Government uses this law for own benefits 

For example, following the November 2015 Paris attacks, France expanded its already extensive anti-terrorism laws by giving law enforcement greater powers to conduct house raids and place people under house arrest. Within weeks, evidence emerged that these powers were being used for unintended purposes, such as quashing climate change protests. The governments of Spain, Hungary, and Poland have introduced more restrictive laws on the freedom of assembly and speech.

If we talk about the FBI, then there is a case of former FBI director James Comey used this NSA data for his personal use.

 There is also a case of Cambridge data analytica.

Indian Cases related to Data privacy :

 Now if we talk about the case of India, this data privacy issue first come is light when aadhar card details were easily available. In Supreme court hearing Unique Identification Authority of India(UIDAI), the agency implementing aadhar repeatedly argued about Aadhaar that It will help against terrorism and banking fraud by ensuring that only “genuine” persons get access to mobiles, and banking services but in reality, the bank fraud cases were increased.

There is also a big question about how these aadhar card can be misused? Adhar card become more dangerous when other documents linked with aadhar. Imagine a third party hacker can access all your data like biometrics and bank account details then he can damage you in a bad way. 

None of this is effectively helping us fight terrorism. The motivation behind this might be good, even noble, but if we let our elected governments limit our personal freedom, the terrorists are winning.

Terrorism and Data Privacy

Then what is the Solution?

What’s worse, if we’re not careful, we might slowly move towards a surveillance state. The data is pretty clear: the erosion of rights, along with mass surveillance, hasn’t led to significant successes so far, but it has changed the nature of our society.

Terrorism is a complicated problem…

…without simple solutions.

No security apparatus can prevent a few guys from building a bomb in their basement. Creating master keys to enter millions of phones is not the same as searching for a single house. To take full advantage of this existing condition, we need better international cooperation and more effective security and foreign policies, better application of our present laws instead of new and stricter ones that undermine our freedom. We live in Democracy and we have our rights in our hands.

Keep reading, keep learning

TEAM CEV!

THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation’s Lifeline

Reading Time: 9 minutes

CAUTION: NO INTENTION FOR ANY DISORDER AND DEFAMATION OF ANYBODY. NO INTENTION FOR ANY ALLEGATIONS BUT TO BRING IN LIGHT THE STORIES OF UNSUNG HEROES, FEW WORDS IN THE HONOR OF THEIR DEDICATION AND DEBT TO ALL OF US.

In the world with such a little space for tolerance, harsh and fierce words of people, lets us talk of brotherhood, humanity, compassion, and sympathy.

The feeling of being safe and secure is the most treasured thing a country can give to its countrymen. There are many lines along which the topic can be introduced in the blog. Being a serious writer I would start with a concerned and serious note.

Also, I would like you to read the whole piece of writing to avoid any misleading.

Huuhhhh…

The world is following similar trends. If we look back, starting with 9/11, 13/11 to 26/11, from New Zealand’s Mosque attack to the latest 8 bombings on Churches in Sri Lanka and, the face of crime, threats and terror have turned ravage and the limit of barbarism and vulgarity have been crossed far-far away.

I can agree with you on the opinion that history has seen even more demolishing and barbaric human behaviour. But the question is of the present. What’s done is done nothing can change. But we can determine what happens to our future generation. Blaming the history is not going to affect us in any way but surely cogitating today, tomorrow can be made a little better than today.

Whatsoever, it seems so beautiful to me that it is human which commit such crimes and it is not the god but it is the human themselves who bring justice to the fellow victims. In this blog, we are going to talk optimistically about the institution and the group, the lifeline and proud of the nation, the Judicial System i.e. the Supreme Court of India.

Some professions are not just professions they are little more than that.

The blog aim is to share information, spread awareness and also breed appreciation and respect for the judges and lawyers among the readers. I would also point out some of the critical issues and concerns of our judicial system.

Also, I would like to share various sources of inspiration for the blog. I was motivated by the 2014 and 2016 speeches of former Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur, works of Justice Markandey Katju, reports and articles published on a website named daskhindia, the companion, prs legislative research, Wikipedia, etc. For statistical data, I have referred to the National Judicial Data grid (NJDG), e-courts and Dept of law and justice:

https://njdg.ecourts.gov.in/njdgnew/index.php

https://ecourts.gov.in/ecourts_home/

http://doj.gov.in/

and other government verified sources.

 

WHY…

If not them whom should we talk about. Not satisfied? Read till the end, I won’t need to answer it again.

HISTORY

The Supreme Court of India came into being on 28 January 1950. The first Chief Justice of India was H. J. Kania. The Supreme court is one of four pillars of Democracy and has a crucial role to play. The whole judiciary system of India had a fearless and unbiased history with very bold and appreciable justices: including the invalidation of candidature of Late Indira Gandhi G in 1975, 2G Spectrum case, recognition of transgender as the third gender in law, online ballot for NRIs, etc.

Throughout, the supreme court had played a major role in determining the course of the country after independence.

WHAT IS THE ISSUE THEN?

We are a country of 133.92 Million people. With as many as 10 religions, over a thousand communities which speak over 22 different scheduled languages on a landmass of 3.28 Million sq Km. Our country is amazingly diverse in terms of culture, religion and geography. We can never be tired, to take credit of being the biggest secular country on our earth.

For over decades since independence in 1947, this feeling of secularism and federalism have been nation binding forces and cause of our unity in diversity.

This survey report clearly speaks one thing very firmly that the common men have in themselves great secular feeling and the indifference of the religion is not the major cause of havoc.

THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation's Lifeline

Now consider some other numbers and ratios:

THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation's Lifeline

Above is a screenshot taken from the NJDG website which simply speaks tons of words about the condition of pending cases in all the courts (Supreme, high, and district courts), which sums up to 30.385 million cases closed in files waiting to be opened, heard and disposed off.

Now let us analyse more specifically. Considering the most spoken and heard quote about justice i.e. “JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED”, let us see how far this statement itself is justified in the context of Indian Judiciary.

Let us assume that we, the people of India are satisfied if we get justice in 3 years.

First for District and talukas courts:

THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation's Lifeline

40% of cases which account to a total of 3.087 million cases are 3- 30 years. Would it be fine for you to get justice for your loved one murdered after 3 years, illegally occupied your property after 5 years, etc? Of course not.

Now let us move to high courts if you not get satisfied by district courts.

THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation's Lifeline

Again situation critical. Cases between 3-30 years slots add up to 51 per cent. So, after fighting for 3-30 years in district court with a probability of 0.40 you have to fight for 3-30 years in the high court with a probability of 0.51.

THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation's Lifeline

Statewise performance of respective high courts:

THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation's Lifeline

And finally, if you approach the Supreme court then you would be somewhere between 26- 80 years of age if you had started fighting at 20 years of age.

Sadly you wouldn’t be relieved even then.

THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation's Lifeline

If you had filed your case on 1 May 2019, then your turn would come after the current 29 judges will pass judgement on 58,168 cases before yours.

Let us be optimist, you got justice from the Supreme court, but you would hardly be able to jump and scream out of joy, as you would have crossed your 40s.

Hey, don’t be stressed, have faith!!

WHERE THE HELL IS THE PROBLEM?

To blame for such a huge pendency of cases in various level courts of India greatly goes to one single fact. And it is the extreme shortage of judges at all levels.

A small team of 21,598 courageous judges (sanctioned strength till December 31, 2015) which includes 20,502 judges in lower courts, 1,065 high court judges and 31 Supreme Court judges, are serving a country of population 1.35 Billion, world’s 17 % human race.
This stats gives rise to 19 judges per 1 million countrymen.
THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation's Lifeline
Ideally, we would have been 50 judges per million and we are far short of figures.

How can we dream of becoming a superpower if our judiciary is so weak in comparison to other leading nations?

THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation's Lifeline

The graph displays the horrifying condition of the Indian judiciary. Well, you would say the data is of the year 2009. Unfortunately, “Nothing is Moving” said the former CJI TS Thakur. The graph shifts to 19 judges per million people in India in 2019 which in the year 2009 was 10.5.

JUDGES VACANCIES:

Currently, 12% of the sanctioned strength of the Supreme Court is vacant. The corresponding figure for High Courts is 26%, and for Lower Courts, it is 18%. Among large High Courts, vacant positions in Allahabad HC amount to 45%, followed by 32% in Punjab and Haryana HC.

Here is the press release statement of Ministry of Law & Justice of 1 May 2019 of the vacancies:

Vacancy (01.05.2019)

Trends in high courts:

THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation's Lifeline

Trends in district courts:

THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation's Lifeline

 

THE GREAT INDIAN JUDGE:

In 2016, compared to 2006, the number of cases disposed of increased approximately from 57,000 to 76,000 in Supreme Court; from 14.4 lakh cases to 16 lakh cases in High Courts and from 1.6 crore cases to 1.9 crore cases in subordinate courts.

An Indian judge disposes-off nearly 2500 cases each year which is equivalent to 7 cases a day. A case file can range from 50 pages to 100 pages hence summing up to 525 pages a day which in our perspective (engineering student) is equivalent to preparing for two end-semester paper a day. We, students, consider it as hell week, and these judges follow this routine round the year.

This is insane, surely we are harassing them.

Even if it doesn’t chatter your teeth then either you have taken your end sem exam quiet lightly or you haven’t read what is written above.

This is a one-month report card of high-courts of India. Nearly 1,000 high court judges were able to dispose of 1,31,125 (1.31 lakh) in last month of April 2019.

AVG OF 4.37 CASES PER DAY PER JUDGE.

THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation's Lifeline

 

WHAT IS THE WAY OUT?

It is very astounding to know that even at such an exponential rise of cases filed every day these handfuls no of judges are able to dispose of them as well as some of pending cases also.

Here is the report of their efforts:

THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation's Lifeline

THE SUPREME COURT : The Nation's Lifeline

In the past few years, we have seen the drop in the number of the pending case though marginally.

But at the cost of injustice to judges itself as no of increase in judges is still dangerously low.

There is no other way except to increase the number of judges for the sake of the welfare of victims as well as judges also.

Along with this, there are other contributing reasons also for the turmoil. Unawareness is also one of the issues. There are only a few students who dare to take streams other than science after they pass matriculation with flying colours and in this way a huge potential is diverted from delivering its service to the nation by giving justice to the people.

Parents don’t want to see their children pursuing a legal career because of impending danger and very poor and stressful environment.

At last the speech which provoked me, CJI T.S. Thakur speech excerpt:

“… It is not only in the name of a litigant or people languishing in jails but also in the name of development of the country, its progress that I beseech you to rise to the occasion and realise that it is not enough to criticise. You cannot shift the entire burden on the judiciary”.

 

CONCLUSION:

What have you heard people saying in a typical Indian dispute?

“I will see you the court”.

It is not just a mere statement said when people are angry but more importantly signifies their faith on Judicial System of India.

The people of India have deep faith in its judicial system and on the judges and will continue to have it. But the point is, serious and immediate actions are required for the survival of both.

I know well very this blog is not going to lead any kind of impact or healing for the situation at the ground level yet I was unable to find a single reason to not write it.

The writer is always ready to take any claims of faulty data and takes responsibility for the same and would feel pleased if followed by a question or arguments.

KEEP READING, KEEP LEARNING!!

TEAM CEV!

 

NUCLEAR FUSION: How much it takes to mimic a star ?

Reading Time: 10 minutes

The greatest stuff that matters more than anything else for humans is the source of energy to run his dear machines. In fact, he is far more hearty and concerned about food for his machines than himself. This hunger had led him to exploit coals, gas, petroleum and in some amount the nuclear and renewable sources to meet his ever-increasing needs. There is absolutely no doubt that the standard of living of each human on earth should be equal and magnificent, this comes on the cost of energy expenditure. The point of concern is that whatever ways he has devised has many issues associated with it, the limited amount and harmful effects on the environment are the most depressing. The coal mines and oil wells in the near future will definitely exhaust. Imagine where would we stand if we have no source of energy for our hungry electric motors, IC engines, etc. The production of energy in a conventional way is fast approaching to its ends along with it causing hostile climate changes, the scary nightmare for us.

Now just imagine the deployment of a source to meet the energy demand that tends to provide humans for thousands of years, in fact, millions of years of service and also has almost negligible effect on our environment, just imagine the peace and prosperity of humans on earth, there would be heaven, no wars, no one deprived.

And I am not just asking you to imagine instead believe it. This feat if humans establish than it would surely be his greatest achievement.

You have guessed it right the NUCLEAR FUSION, creating miniature stars on earth. Yes this seems impossible surely, we have been failing at it from tens of decades but this is the reason why human rules on earth because “he believes in believing and achieving”.NUCLEAR FUSION: How much it takes to mimic a star ?Basically, this blog intends to discuss the phenomenon of the nuclear furnace of the universe and endeavor required to mimic it on earth. We will discuss in somewhat detail the classical physics and the quantum physics behind the process, and what exactly we need to do to get the sun here on earth, the advantages and the work done and the reason for failure till now thereby quenching our thirst of curiosity regarding this topic.

THE PHYSICS OF NUCLEAR FUSION

Atoms are fundamental building blocks of matter, they comprise of a nucleus and the electrons orbiting around it. The nucleus, volume wise is very small, a grain in a room if compared but carries the 99.999% mass of the whole atom. The nucleus is made up of particles called hadrons the protons and neutrons. Refer to the standard model for particle classification.

Protons have unit positive electric charge and neutrons are neutral. Since the protons are very close thus electrostatic force must be repelling with huge magnitude, but we know nucleus do exist hence we can easily conclude that some stronger attracting force must be there to bind them together, the force should be enormous as well as very short range, otherwise there would be no discrete matter at all. These forces are named nuclear force and they are characteristics property of both protons and neutron.

So as result of work done by strong nuclear force against electrostatic repulsion, a large amount of energy is released when a nucleus is formed, this energy released from the formation of a nucleus is called binding energy. You can see that more the number of nucleons are there more the energy is released but this hold true only up to nucleus which contains less than 56 nucleons, as nuclear force gets weaker exponentially with increasing distance.

NUCLEAR FUSION: How much it takes to mimic a star ?

So we can analyze that to tap this enormous binding energy we have to synthesize nucleus, there are two techniques to make this happen:

  1. Either you make a naturally available bigger nucleus unstable by some process and forcing it to decay into daughter nuclei and hence releasing the corresponding binding energies of more stable daughters, this method is called the NUCLEAR FISSION, the concept behind current nuclear power plants.
  2. The other more difficult way is to force already highly stable smaller nuclei together to form an unstable nucleus which again decays into more stable nuclei and releasing significant binding energies, this method is called NUCLEAR FUSION, the concept behind future nuclear power plants.

The complication in the second case can easily be spotted. To make a bigger nucleus unstable is far easier than to force two smaller stable nuclei to form an unstable nucleus because nucleus greater than 56 atomic number are having less binding energy per nucleon hence firing it with a neutron or something can easily make it lose its stability. Whereas forcing two nuclei to fuse, is certainly a tedious job on earth at least. We have to overcome the great electrostatic force as they approach closer to form a new nucleus, but the unstable nucleus decay to products that will have much higher binding energy, as graph increases linearly till atomic number < 56.

WHAT QUANTUM SAYS?

Before I start this section let me make you one thing clear, strictly saying “NO ONE ON THIS EARTH IS ALLOWED TO ASK THE QUESTION WHY, WHEN PHYSICISTS ARE DESCRIBING HOW NATURE WORKS!!!”, we have to just follow through their theories because it is the way it is. We just have to check if their theories actually fit into the phenomenon or not, that is the aim.

Quantum description of nature is seriously very hard to understand and far harder to sing it to others. However weird and virtual quantum theory appears, it is the reason behind this technological era and also future “the quantum computers!”, won’t go off topic.

Quantum describe particle not as like definite point. Instead, it says that particles are mere disturbances in their corresponding field and describe them mathematically as wave function or probability functions. Classical mechanics strictly deny this process to occur as electrostatic force tends to infinity as distance tends to zero, but quantum says that it can happen, there is a probability. This is called the quantum tunneling effect.

Wikipedia says: “Quantum tunneling is the phenomenon where a particle passes through a potential barrier that is classically unsurmountable ”.

Schrodinger equations when solved and analyzed, it indicate that the nucleus has a probability that it can fuse with other nucleus and this probability goes on increasing as the kinetic energy of colliding nuclei increases. They explain it like the overlapping of the waveforms that represent the two nuclei.

Again you have to agree with this description because here is series of examples of the applications of quantum tunneling: nuclear fusion in stars, tunnel junction, tunnel diode, tunnel field-effect transistor, quantum conductivity, scanning tunneling microscope, quantum biology, etc.

PHENOMENON IN STARS

Nuclear fusion can be called the ultimate source of energy of the universe. Stars are powered by this and virtually all the atoms (elements) are produced in this process which is also called stellar nucleosynthesis. The type of fusion reaction followed depends on the mass of the star, the pressure, and temperature of its core.   

If we consider our own star the sun then it utilizes the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium at 14 million kelvin core temperature. 620 Million tons of hydrogen per second fuses to form 606 Million metric tons of helium each second. The net rate of mass-energy conversion is 4.26 million metric tons per second, which produces the equivalent of 38,460 septillion watts (3.846×1026W) per second, this really very hugeeeee!!!!!!

NUCLEAR FUSION: How much it takes to mimic a star ?

STAR MIMIC :

THE DEUTERIUM-TRITIUM REACTION:NUCLEAR FUSION: How much it takes to mimic a star ?

We are looking for this reaction because it is the most feasible and reactants are easily and abundantly available. Considering the fueling up of smaller atoms with kinetic energy to break the Coulomb barrier, scientists have chosen single proton species to bang together. The reaction deuterium-tritium seems to be a perfect choice.

NUCLEAR FUSION: How much it takes to mimic a star ?

The DT rate peaks at a lower temperature (about 70 keV, or 800 million Kelvin) and at a higher value than other reactions commonly considered for fusion energy on earth.

FUELS:

  1. Deuterium: 1 in 5000 of hydrogen in seawater is deuterium (a total of 10^15 tons). Viewed as a potential fuel for a fusion reactor, a gallon of seawater could produce as much energy as 300 gallons of gasoline.
  2. Tritium: is little problematic. It is radioactive with a half-life of about 10 years hence no source of tritium is present on earth. This is obtained from breeding lithium with is abundant. Sometimes I just remain awestruck by the efforts and adventures of humans, it has been planned to establish a mining factory on the moon and transport helium isotope to earth via rockets in the future.

INPUT AND OUTPUT ENERGY:

In this reaction, deuterium and tritium isotopes of hydrogen are first ionized to become bare nuclei. The calculated coulomb barrier is  0.1 MeV. After crossing this limit the immediate result of fusion is the unstable 5He nucleus, which immediately ejects a neutron with 14.1 MeV. The recoil energy of the remaining 4He nucleus is 3.5 MeV, so the total energy liberated is 17.6 MeV. This is many times more than what was needed to overcome the energy barrier hence the result is net energy output.

NUCLEAR FUSION: How much it takes to mimic a star ?

PROCESS STEPS:

  1. Stage one heating: once the atoms are heated above its ionization energy, its electrons get stripped away, leaving behind an ion.
  2. Stage two heating: continues until the Coulomb barrier is not reached. The result is an extremely hot cloud of ions and electrons. This is known as another state of matter, the plasma. The state is electrically and magnetically responsive due to separated charges. Many devices take advantage of this to control plasma.

Plasma is thus magnetically and electrically responsive. In bulk its modeling is done using the science of magnetohydrodynamics, this is the combination of the motion of fluid governing equation the Navier Stokes and electric and magnetic field behavior governing equations called Maxwell’s Equations.

Now the problem is how to confine the extremely hot plasma. There doesn’t exist any material which can stand firmly at 300 Million kelvin, that doesn’t degrade by the constant bombardment of high energy neutrons and other particles.

WHAT IS THE MECHANISM?

There are two famous approaches to do this:

1. MAGNETIC CONFINEMENT

2. INERTIAL CONFINEMENT

  1. Magnetic confinement: We know that plasma is charged with help of strong superconductor magnets they can be hanged up in the vacuum without actually touching the walls of the container. This concept is called magnet mirroring. 

 

ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), in Latin ITER, means”a way”, a prestigious organization having headquarters in France established in 2007, its members include India, US, Russia, China, Japan, Korea, and the Euratom. Its purpose is to research and demonstrate the technological and feasibility of fusion energy for peaceful purpose. The ITER employs a mega machine called tokamak. The stellarator is also one of this kind. Here is an awesome video to make the mega monster easy to understand:

2. Inertial confinement: Fusion is achieved by compressing and heating fuel pallet. Mega Intense laser beams rapidly heat inside surface of hohlraum. The fuel is compressed by rocket-like throw-off of the outer surface material. Finally, the fuel is ignited at a temperature of about 100,000,000 degrees Celsius. And the NUCLEAR FUSION occurs producing far more energy than taken by the laser system in the beginning.

NUCLEAR FUSION: How much it takes to mimic a star ?

Just as ITER pioneers the magnetic confinement the NIF (National Ignition Facility, California, US) leads the way in inertial confinement fusion. Here the short clip on that:

DISADVANTAGES:

  1. Tritium is radioactive and also difficult to retain completely. Hence some amount of tritium would be continually released. The health risk posed is much lower than that of most radioactive contaminants, because of tritium’s short half-life (12.32 years) and very low decay energy (~14.95 keV). It also doesn’t accumulate in the body (its biological half-life is 7-14 days).
  2. The cost involved is enormous in research, instead if we invest in proven technologies then it would be the sure shot. Investment in the nuclear fusion is billion-dollar dollar gamble surely.
  3. In my opinion just as human discovered vaccines which in turn increased the average human life and hence population on earth banged in numbers, in same way limitless energy would cause the steep rise in population, the economy would entirely be changed because markets would no more depend on the rates of oil.

ADVANTAGES:

  1. The half-life of the radioactive waste is quite less as compared to the fission wastes which have thousands of years as half-life more over less toxic than emissions from fossils fuel burning.
  2. The energy supply would be uninterrupted and provide service to humans for millions of years!
  3. No greenhouse gas emissions, no global warming and zero environmental concerns in any way round (air, water, and land).
  4. No hike in energy supply cost around the fiscal year.
  5. Those importance processes which are high energy intensive can be carried at low cost like desalination of seawater for the availability of fresh drinking water.

CONCLUSION:

Here is a quote from one of the greatest physicist of the 20-th century:

NUCLEAR FUSION: How much it takes to mimic a star ?

So, there is no doubt that it was the feats of our earlier scientists and engineers who led us to where we are today and it is we who will decide the future of human civilization, and we must be happy that we are putting the efforts at an incredible rate, and till then we have to make sure that we too at individual level are playing our assigned role in this universe of the “ALMIGHTY”.

“You have patience level 10 if you have read the whole article because it is quite lengthy although keeping it short has been tried “-Rahul

Thanks for your time and patience.

Keep reading, stay blessed!

TEAM CEV

Artificial Intelligence boon or curse?????

Reading Time: 3 minutes

This debate on whether artificial intelligence is good or bad would be among most brainstorming debate in CEV history. At one time we were with the idea that artificial intelligence is an ultimate tool for human to make an earth full of good things and in next moment we felt that it is the last human invention. Debate was held on Friday evening, 31 August.

Points followed for increased exploration in this field were-

Artificial Intelligence boon or curse?????

 

 

 

  1. Artificial intelligence is tool for humanity that can prove to be his most ingenious technological advancement and have potential to help us in sustaining our civilisation much longer.
  2. With the aid of their superhuman capability of enormous computation we can employ them to find solutions to compelling questions like how to cure  AIDS/HIV, how to reduce global warming, alternative for fossil fuels, substitute for plastics,how to reduce ozone layer depletion, etc.
  3. We can exploit this technology in those field where there is great risk of human life like space exploration missions, utility and power linemen, firefighters, miners, search and rescue and so on.
  4.  Now since they are non living things we can use them in crummy works which in many cases lead to social indifferences in our society like slaughterhouse workers, sanitation workers, personal transport drivers, embalmer, garbage collector, sewage cleaner, etc.
  5. Artificial intelligence can play its greatest role in pharmaceutical industry like new methods to treat cancer which are less painful, epidemic control, new medicines with fast cure capability and very less side effects which otherwise will require tedious human labor and time.
  6. Technological change may eliminate specific jobs, but it has always created more in the process, we had witnessed it in past.

Points that indicated that artificial intelligence is the greatest threat to human being ever-

Artificial Intelligence boon or curse?????

  1. These machines are now so advanced that they too have feelings, and in case they feel offended by humans they might declare war against us.
  2. These machines are not subject to ageing so a particular machine can increase its capabilities to tremendous extent.
  3. Another big problem is that it will erase all the job opportunity for the middle class people like car drivers, etc.
  4. Facebook artificial robots were made to shut down forcefully as they were found talking to each other in strange language that was not understood by humans. So, this give us glimpses of what they could be capable of in future. A chunk of  communication they had with them-Bob: i can i i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Alice: balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to

    Bob: you i everything else . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Conclusion: Currently in the world Artificial intelligence is still debated topic, there is no doubt that they have a great potential to serve human civilization and make life very convenient, like speech recognition, face recognition all these are features of it. Numerous tech-giants like Google, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook,  Pandora, Tesla are currently utilizing it for more user friendly services. But on the same time there have being events and prediction that uncontrolled and injudicious use will some day create danger for us, hence it should be taken care that artificial intelligence should be employed only in those field where their use are indispensable and that too under vigilant supervision.

Artificial Intelligence boon or curse?????

Minutes by-

Rahul, electrical engg.(2nd year), SVNIT.

(Images are copied randomly, objections are accepted!)

Why has our Education System Failed?

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Education has been a problem in our country and lack of it has been blamed for all sorts of evil for hundreds of years. The rate of progress is since colonial times is that we established IITs, IIMs, law schools and other institutions of excellence but to get admission is far more difficult as students now routinely score 90% marks so that even students with 90+ percentage find it difficult to get into the colleges of their choice. When a student is interested in science and technology related studies cannot, in most of the cases, be admitted into his desired college why?? A simple answer, many genius minds who are not interested in that field, study hard and reach the same but ultimately change their domain after their graduation which leads to another question why do they do such things??

Why has our Education System Failed?

Similarly, another simple answer, OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM as sometimes due to our great education system our parents force us to study hard and secure our future but are not concerned about what exactly an individual wants to do. In this matter parents cannot be completely blamed as they want their child to have a secure and a safe future, the only thing to be blamed is our education system where children are not guided properly (At an early age in secondary and primary) as what should they do in their future life. Some schools provide such great opportunities and education that many students educate with a goal and achieve that goal and rich to great highs in their life but what about other students who cannot afford such fees. Creating a few more schools or allowing hundreds of colleges and private universities to mushroom are not going to solve the crisis of education in India. And a crisis it is – we are in a country where people are spending their parent’s life savings and borrowed money on education – and even then not getting a standard education, and struggling to find employment of their choice. In this country, millions of students are the victim of an unrealistic, pointless, mindless rat race. The mind-numbing competition and rote learning do not only crush the creativity and originality of millions of Indian students every year, it also drives brilliant students to commit suicide. We also live in a country where the people see education as the means of climbing the social and economic ladder. If the education system is failing – then it is certainly not due to lack of demand for good education, or because a market for education does not exist.

Why has our Education System Failed?

 

Blog by:

Deep Jariwala.

3rd Year, Electronics and Communications, SVNIT.

 

Commercialization of Technology Innovation: Issues and Challenges

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Commercialization of Technology Innovation: Issues and ChallengesCEV was blessed to have Dr. Hemant Kumar Bulsara, Applied Mathematics and Humanities Department, SVNIT to give a talk on Commercialization of Technology Innovation: Issues and Challenges.

The audience was given knowledge about patent and how it has just become a protective mechanism for researchers and technologists rather than commercializing it and implement it among the greater good among the mass. Also, various case-studies were discussed and analyzed.

Commercialization of Technology Innovation: Issues and Challenges

Dr. Bulsara had a great interactive session. A pinch of humor and honesty was sprinkled throughout the discussion. The QnA session was also very interesting as it helped the audience visualize various problems from a very different point of view.

Commercialization of Technology Innovation: Issues and Challenges

 

Self Driving Vehicles: Good idea or a bad idea?

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Self Driving Vehicles: Good idea or a bad idea?

Laziness is the father of innovations”, beautifully quoted by Mr Stephen Shapiro, an American keynote speaker and businessman.

Consider an example of a human going for running some errands some miles away. “Walking would wear me out, so let me go on a bicycle. Well a bicycle is faster but efforts are still high, let me drop the idea of a bicycle. How about a two wheeler? No! It is hot out there and I hate dirt. Yes! I should use a car.” This type of laziness and comfort level is generally acceptable, but a lazy and luxury-oriented mind does not stop here. This is what it thinks, “Oh god! I am sleepy right now, how good it would be if someone would steer for me? Why to even sit in a car, I should learn teleportation. If only could I travel across the world with a blink of an eye?”

Well right now the first of the extreme desires of a human is starting to get fulfilled. An automatic car! Want to take a nap while driving? No problem. That is what a self driving car is all about. Okay, that is what a high amount of people think. The main aim of introducing autonomous car concept is not laziness or desires, but is to increase the safety measures of a car.

Safety is now the primary consideration for every vehicle manufacturer. As a customer, I would first have to predict if I could survive driving that car or not. “A little care and accidents become rare”, this is a famous road safety quote and a very essential one. According to survey, around 137,000 people died in India due to accidents in 2013 alone. This is more than the number of people killed in all our wars put together. According to Delhi Traffic Police reports, the major reason for accidents is a driver’s fault.

Self Driving Vehicles: Good idea or a bad idea?

A self driving car comes with sensors attached with the calls all around it. The sensors keep track of the objects around it, the distance of objects from the car, the speed with which they are approaching the vehicle etc and accordingly the vehicle decides the speed of car movement, the steering direction etc. This way the accidents can be prevented. This is what the computer aided vehicle (CAV) manufacturers claim.

Self Driving Vehicles: Good idea or a bad idea?

In India, the road traffic regulations are not much strict. People feel free to break some laws due to lower restrictions compared to other nations like USA, Canada, Germany and many more. These traffic jam costs the government around Rs 60000 crore a year due to fuel wastage, time delay etc. If everyone uses fully autonomous cars, there would be no traffic rules violations, no illegal road crossing, no traffic lights jump etc, so there will be smooth traffic flow and much time and money would be saved.

Productive use of driving time: “Time is money”. According to a Times of India survey, an average Indian spends about 18 days in a year behind the steering wheel. That is a lot of time wasted in driving. If one could use this time, much productivity could come out. Self driving cars could provide that too.

Self Driving Vehicles: Good idea or a bad idea?

Vehicle life and fuel efficiency: Human efficiency while driving is much less. Improper acceleration, deceleration, braking, gear shifts etc would wear out the car transmission parts. A computerized control would do a better task in these areas and hence a high vehicle life would result. This could also increase the fuel efficiency of the vehicle because of steady and identical aerodynamic effects on every car on the road.

Aid for elderly people and disables people: How many times have you wanted to go out in a car, but couldn’t due to lack of driving ability and no person to drive you there? There are no such problems if you have a self driving car. Self driving cars would facilitate the travel of elderly people and disabled people. With aging, reflexes and eyesight become weak. Self driving car would pose as a boon for them.

Self Driving Vehicles: Good idea or a bad idea?

Unemployment: But this is India; there are more people than it can feed. According to statistics, around 18 million people are unemployed in India. According to a case study, around 17 Million people are employed in road transport sector. If all the vehicles are replaced by driverless vehicles, unemployment would rise up to double of its current value. Not only drivers, but traffic police would be jobless. This poses a huge problem for India. “How can we allow such self driving vehicles when we already have a huge amount of unemployed people?” this statement was given by our current minister of road transport and highways, Mr Nitin Gadkari.

Fault in technology: Well, whatever the advantages discussed are based on an ideal driverless vehicle. But there is a potential for technology to go wrong. Driverless cars are based on programming and machine learning. Those codes are to be written by humans. There are possibilities of codes to have some bugs or glitches. Even if the vehicle performs well at first, it may happen that there are some bugs in the update the company provides. So there is a possibility of technology going wrong.

Privacy concerns are major these days. Threats for crimes and safety are increasing due to privacy leak these days. People can track you through GPS and follow you; they can have a track where you are and where you are headed to. And if a software drives your car, it becomes easier for the car to get hacked. Though the company would provide high security but software is always vulnerable to hack despite of all securities.

Self Driving Vehicles: Good idea or a bad idea?

Expensive: The most important aspect that would come in India’s way of self driving cars is cost. Software and hardware for self driving cars would cost a lot to the customer. The most sold car in India in July 2017 is Alto. It cost around Rs 2.8 lakh. This is what an average Indian wants to spend on cars. Most people want to have a car under Rs 8 lakh. Hence self driving car won’t have much market in its initial period.

Many more pros and cons can be listed in this subject, but the important ones that would affect the most are listed above. A self driving car has lots of pros and cons. To solve the unemployment problems, driverless technology can be used only as an aid to driver or an assistant to driver. But this won’t solve traffic problems. Hence if we try to eliminate one disadvantage, it would also eliminate one advantage too. So we cannot come to an absolute consensus with this topic of whether to have a driverless environment or to have the system as it is right now.

The Conditional And The Constitutional

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Everything in this world is mercurial,even “MY PRECIOUS”,”GOLLUM’S PRECIOUS”,”EVERYONE’S PRECIOUS”.

Everything is generally associated with two types of activities,the conditional and the constitutional.Conditional means an activity that is subjected to requirements being met.Constitutional means an activity relating to someone’s nature.

For example,water is liquid by nature.Hence,liquidity is its constitutional activity.However due to excess cold it becomes ice and freezes others.if heated,it changes to vapour and makes other warm or burns.Both of these are conditional activity.

when a living entity is conditioned,he has two kinds of activities:one is conditional and other is constitutional.As for protecting the body or abiding by the rules of society or state, and many other activities in connection to conditioned life,these are called conditional.Besides these,we understand body as the person and also use terms as ‘my body’,’my mind’,’my intelligence’.Nobody says ‘I am body’, ‘I am mind’…..This means that the speaker ‘I’ is somebody different from body.Across the globe,if the body has conscious principle,it is considered as a person.when the same body loses consciousness,nobody addresses that dead body as a person.Without realising the fact,we accept the constitutional position of all living being.This means we all accept that a living being is called ‘living’ when he possesses that conscious principle known as ‘Atman’.Accepting a Atman is accepting the living being as constitutional position of that living being.In other words,until the atomic soul,energy of the eternally existing,blissful,knowledgeable Supreme Lord,remains in the body,it is identified as a person.By the existence of that principle, ‘I’ remains and by the absence of that principle,’I’ do not remain, that is my nature.

SOUL IS ETERNAL,BODY IS NOT ETERNAL.THAT IS MY CONSTITUTIONAL POSITION.

whenever we embrace our conditional state,we move away from our constitutional state,that is reality.

 

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