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Topography

By
Syskool
-
1
Topography

Topography describes the physical features of an area of land. These features typically include natural formations such as mountains, rivers, lakes, and valleys. Man-made features such as roads, dams, and cities may also be included. Topography often records the various elevations of an area using a topographical map.

Topographical Features

Topography studies the elevation and location of landforms.

  • Landforms – Landforms studied in topography can include anything that physically impacts the area. Examples include mountains, hills, valleys, lakes, oceans, rivers, cities, dams, and roads.
  • Elevation – The elevation, or height, of mountains and other object, is recorded as part of topography. It is usually recorded in reference to sea level (the surface of the ocean).
  • Latitude – Latitude gives the north/south position of a location in reference from the equator. The equator is a horizontal line drawn in the middle of the Earth that is the same distance from the North Pole and the South Pole. The equator has a latitude of 0 degrees.
  • Longitude – Longitude gives the east/west position of a location. Longitude is generally measured in degrees from the Prime Meridian.

Read Also: Water Resources of India

Topographical Map

A topographical map is one that shows the physical features of the land. Besides just showing landforms such as mountains and rivers, the map also shows the elevation changes of the land. The Elevation is shown using contour lines.

When a contour line is drawn on a map it represents a given elevation. Every point on the map touching the line should be the same elevation. On some maps, numbers on the lines will let you know what the elevation is for that line.

Methods to Study

There are a number of ways that information is gathered to make topographical maps. They can be divided into two primary methods: direct survey and indirect survey.

Direct survey – A direct survey is when a person on the ground uses surveying equipment, such as levels and clinometers, to directly measure the location and elevation of the land. You have probably seen a surveyor along the road sometimes making measurements by looking through a leveling instrument sitting on a tall tripod.

Indirect survey – Remote areas may be mapped using indirect methods. These methods include satellite pictures, images taken from planes, radar, and sonar (underwater).

Also Read: The Ocean and The Sea: Forms and Benefits

Topography uses

Topography has a number of uses including:

  • Agriculture – Topography is often used in agriculture to determine how soil can be conserved and how water will flow over the land.
  • Environment – Data from topography can help to conserve the environment. By understanding the contour of the land, scientists can determine how water and the wind may cause erosion. They can help to establish conservation areas such as watersheds and wind blocks.
  • Weather – The topography of the land can have an impact on weather patterns. Meteorologists use information on mountains, valleys, oceans, and lakes to help predict the weather.
  • Military – Topography is also important to the military. Armies throughout history have used information on elevation, hills, water, and other landforms when planning their military strategy.

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Ecology

By
Syskool
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0
Ecology

Ecology is the study of environmental systems, or as it is sometimes called, the economy of nature. “Environment” usually means relating to the natural, versus human-made world; the “systems” means that ecology is, by its very nature, not interested in just the components of nature individually but especially in how the parts interact.

Must Read: Stanford Develops Plastic from Agricultural Waste

The subject matter of ecology is normally divided into following broad categories:

  • Physiological ecology– It deals with the response of single species to environmental conditions such as temperature or light.
  • Population ecology– It usually focuses on the abundance and distribution of individual species and the factors that cause such distribution;
  • Community ecology– It deals with the number of species found at a given location and their interactions; and
  • Ecosystems ecology– deals with the structure and function of the entire suite of microbes, plants, and animals, and their abiotic environment, and how the parts interact to generate the whole. This branch often focuses on the energy and nutrient flows of ecosystems, and when this approach is combined with computer analysis and simulation we often call it systems ecology.
  • Evolutionary ecology– It operates at the physiological or population level, is a rich and dynamic area of ecology focusing on attempting to understand how natural selection developed the structure and function of the organisms and ecosystems at any of these levels.

Read Also: Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve (ABR) Listed by UNESCO

It is usually considered from the perspective of the specific geographic environment that is being studied a moment: tropical rain forest, temperate grassland, arctic tundra, benthic marine, the entire biosphere, and so on. The subject matter of ecology is the entire natural world, including both the living and the non-living parts.

Biogeography focuses on the observed distribution of plants and animals and the reasons behind it. More recently ecology has included increasingly the human-dominated world of agriculture, grazing lands for domestic animals, cities, and even industrial parks.

Industrial ecology is a discipline that has recently been developed, especially in Europe, where the objective is to follow the energy and material use throughout the process of, e.g., making an automobile with the objective of attempting to improve the material and energy efficiency of manufacturing. For any of these levels or approaches there are some scientists that focus on theoretical ecology, which attempts to derive or apply theoretical or sometimes mathematical reasons and generalities for what is observed in nature, and empirical ecology, which is concerned principally with measurement. Applied ecology takes what is found from one or both of these approaches and uses it to protect or manage nature in some way. Related to this discipline is conservation biology. Plant, animal, and microbial ecology have obvious foci.

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Reasons to study ecology

There are usually four basic reasons given to study and as to why we might want to understand it:

  • First, since all of us live to some degree in a natural or at least partly natural ecosystem, then considerable pleasure can be derived by studying the environment around us. Just as one might learn to appreciate art better through an art history course so too might one appreciate more the nature around us with a better understanding.
  • Second, human economies are in large part based on the exploitation and management of nature. Applied ecology is used every day in forestry, fisheries, range management, agriculture, and so on to provide us with the food and fiber we need.
  • Third, human societies can often be understood very clearly from ecological perspectives as we study, for example, the population dynamics (demography) of our own species, the food and fossil energy flowing through our society.
  • Fourth, humans appear to be changing aspects of the global environment in many ways.

You May Also Love to Read: Minerals: India’s Mineral Resources

It can be very useful to help us understand what these changes are, what the implications might be for various ecosystems, and how we might intervene in either human economies or in nature to try to mitigate or otherwise alter these changes. There are many professional ecologists, who believe that these apparent changes from human activities have the potential to generate enormous harm to both natural ecosystems and human economies. Understanding, predicting and adapting to these issues could be the most important of all possible issue for humans to deal with.

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Water Pollution

By
Syskool
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1
Water Pollution

Water, the basic necessity of life, has its use in agriculture, household and industry; however due to disposal of domestic wastes and industrial effluents  and use of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture the problem of water pollution is now getting the much needed attention from the governments across the world.

The most common purposes of using water are for drinking, washing, cooking etc, for which pure and clean water is required. But the natural water we got through rain, snow, hail, etc gets polluted by natural processes like washing away of the decomposed vegetable and animal of water gas in the main stream of water and as well as by human activity.

Also Read: Startling Facts about Pollution

Types of Water Pollution

Polluted water contain various signs like it may have a bad taste or offensive smell, may have oil or grease floating on the surface or has an unpleasant colour that depends on the place of storage of storages, water pollution can be divided into five different types:

(i)                Ground Water Pollution

Major percentage of water, that is (> 90 %), is available in the form of ground water, means below the surface of the earth. The remaining is available in lakes, streams, rivers, ponds, etc. Only 2 % water is available as soil moisture that is essential for the plants to grow. The pores of the earthy materials acts as a filter for the water which collects on the surface and make it pure ground water. For this, well water is used for various domestic purposes in rural households.

This ground water is polluted due to the disposal of domestic and also the use of fertilizers and pesticides in farming techniques. Various harmful substances dissolve in rain water and pass through soil to enter the ground water and contaminate it.

(ii)             Surface Water Pollution

Any form of water present on the surface of earth is called the surface water. The surface water is in direct contact with the gases found in atmosphere of earth like CO2, CO, SO2, NOx, H2S etc. which acts like pollutant and pollutes surface water by dissolving in it. The surface water also gets polluted by industrial, municipal, agricultural and household wastes including decomposed plants and animal matter and radioactive materials.

(iii)           Lake Water Pollution

Lakes contain a large part of the water area on earth that can get contaminated in a number of ways. Organic wastes from hills and toxic effluents from urban areas flow into the lakes. Industries throw their wastes into the lakes nearby which polluted the lake water. Sewerage treatments plants discharge toxic organic matter into the lake. Also, dumping of huge amount of sediments and inorganic agricultural nutrients also pollutes the lake water.

(iv)            River Water Pollution

River water is polluted with industrial discharges such as that of paper, textile, rayon, fertilizers, pesticides, detergents, drug industries and refineries. People also through domestic sewages in the river that contaminates the river water. Polluted water-borne diseases such as dysentery, cholera, typhoid, jaundice, etc.

(v)              Sea Water Pollution

Sea Water is polluted through the discharge of urban sewage, split, plastics, flow of pesticides and toxic chemicals, radioactive wastes, sanitary and kitchen waste etc. Apart from these, the main cause of  the sea water pollution has been the spreading of oil which is called oil spill or oil slick. This happens when oil tankers open accidently in the sea, oil leakages from pipelines, or by discharge of oily wastes from tank washings.

In India, oil spill, means spreading of oil into sea, occurred in Bombay on 17th May, 1992 due to rupture of pipeline which damaged the marine life and ecosystem that surrounded it. It damaged fishery by making the fishes unable to respire by clogging their grill slits.

Must Read: Pollution- Definition, Aspects and Solution

Sources of Water Pollution

  1. Sewage and domestic wastes – These are human excreta, sewage slued, soaps and detergents, untreated municipal sewages, etc.
  2. Industrial effluents – They contain toxic and hazardous chemicals such as aldehydes, phenols, oils, greases, dyes, kerosene, acids, toxic metals such as Cd, Pb, Hg, etc. Chemicals like cadmium and mercury damages the kidneys and lead damages liver, kidneys, brains and nervous system. The polluted water with a PH level lower than 3 in dangerous for the aquatic life.
  3. Agricultural discharges – They include fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides etc.
  4. Siltation – The process of mixing soil or rock particles into water is called the siltation. The soil particles produce turbidity in water by mixing with it and hinders the free movement of growth and productivity. This problem is very common in hilly areas.
  5. Thermal pollutants – The thermal pollutants are sources that results in the increase of temperature of the flowing water and then adversely affects the aquatic life. The thermal power plants, nuclear plants and industries having cooling requirements contains the thermal pollutants. Municipal sewage also contain thermal units causing water pollution.
  6. Radioactive discharge – They include nuclear reactor wastages which enter into water through different sources like nuclear power plants, nuclear tests, nuclear wastes etc which emits the radiation that cause various water hazards.
  7. Polychlorinated biphenyis (PCBs) – these compounds are used as fluids in transformers and capacitors which cause skin diseases when come into the contact of atmosphere as they are resistant to oxidation. They have been recently added into the list of water pollutants.

Don’t Miss: Types of Pollution

Classification of Water Pollutants

Synthetic detergents: The are used in almost every household and form a major source of water pollution. Synthethic detergents that are used as cleaning agent consist of a surface active agent, technically called surfactant, that is usually sodium phosphate (polyphosphate) that is added to remove hardness.

Water polluted with surfactants create a number of problems; some important ones as follows:

  • They stabilize the colloidal impurities that do not heap to settle down.
  • They do not undergo biodegradation.
  • They prevent oxidation of organic compounds like phenol because they create an envelope around them, therefore, they create obstacles in treatment of waste water.
  • They generate stable foams in rivers.

Must Read: Solid Waste Management (SWM) : Growing for Solutions

Pesticides

These organic compounds are used, as generally understood, to protect plants from pests. These organic compounds, Pesticides, flow into lakes and rivers along with the rain water and create serious problems to aquatic as well as human life.

It is important to know that apart from being used in saving plants from pests, pesticides are also used to prevent the growth of weeds – Unwanted plants which grow along with the main plant.

Pesticides, in fact, are mild poisons. They are better called herbicides because weeds are a kind of plants and not pests and these chemicals are used to remove pests. Biocide is the general term used for pesticides and herbicides. Therefore, pesticides include herbicides (to kill weeds), insecticides (to kill insects), rodenticides (to kill rats), fungicides (for fungi or mould), etc.

Infectious agents/Disease Causing agents

The municipals waste water and the municipal sewage contain bacteria (pathogenic microbes) of micro- organisms that cause diseases. These bacteria contaminate the potable water and cause diseases in human and animals.

The sources of the municipal sewage and the municipal waste water are: hotels, restaurants, residential areas, slums and continuing faeces and urine of infected patients.

Don’t Miss: Iron Deficiency Diseases

Quantum Lithography: Surpassing Classical Resolution Limits

By
Kumar Prafull
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0

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Basics of Classical Lithography
  3. The Diffraction Limit and Rayleigh Criterion
  4. Motivation for Quantum Lithography
  5. NOON States and Phase Superresolution
  6. Quantum Interference and Multiphoton Absorption
  7. Quantum Entanglement in Lithographic Techniques
  8. Sub-Rayleigh Pattern Generation
  9. Theoretical Foundations of Quantum Lithography
  10. Experimental Implementations
  11. Quantum Lithography Using SPDC Sources
  12. Challenges in Photon Loss and Decoherence
  13. Sensitivity to Detector and Resist Technologies
  14. Quantum vs Classical Lithographic Efficiency
  15. Comparison with Super-Resolution Classical Techniques
  16. Adaptive Quantum Lithography
  17. Role of Quantum Metrology and Control
  18. Applications in Nanofabrication and Quantum Devices
  19. Future Directions and Scalability
  20. Conclusion

1. Introduction

Quantum lithography uses principles of quantum mechanics—specifically quantum entanglement and multiphoton interference—to create patterns with resolution beyond the classical diffraction limit. It offers a new path in nanoscale imaging and fabrication.

2. Basics of Classical Lithography

In classical lithography, light is used to project patterns onto a photosensitive substrate. The minimum resolvable feature size is limited by the diffraction of light, as described by the Rayleigh criterion.

3. The Diffraction Limit and Rayleigh Criterion

The Rayleigh limit sets the minimum resolvable distance \( d \) as:
\[
d = rac{\lambda}{2NA}
\]
where \( \lambda \) is the wavelength and \( NA \) is the numerical aperture. Quantum techniques aim to beat this limit.

4. Motivation for Quantum Lithography

Classical methods face barriers as feature sizes approach the atomic scale. Quantum lithography promises resolution enhancement by exploiting multiphoton processes and non-classical light states.

5. NOON States and Phase Superresolution

NOON states are entangled quantum states of the form:
\[
|\psi
angle = rac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|N, 0
angle + |0, N
angle)
\]
These allow phase sensitivity scaling as \( 1/N \), leading to narrower interference fringes and higher pattern resolution.

6. Quantum Interference and Multiphoton Absorption

High-resolution patterns are created by exploiting interference of entangled photons. Multiphoton absorption in the resist localizes exposure to interference maxima:
\[
I(x) \propto \cos^2(Nkx)
\]

7. Quantum Entanglement in Lithographic Techniques

Entangled photons exhibit correlations in position and momentum, allowing sub-wavelength positioning of exposure sites. This effect cannot be replicated by classical coherence.

8. Sub-Rayleigh Pattern Generation

Quantum lithography can create features with effective resolution of \( \lambda / (2N) \), where \( N \) is the photon number in the entangled state—potentially a dramatic improvement over classical approaches.

9. Theoretical Foundations of Quantum Lithography

The theory combines quantum optics, path-integral interference, and multiphoton detection models. Resolution gains stem from the nonlocal properties of quantum states across many paths.

10. Experimental Implementations

Proof-of-principle experiments have demonstrated superresolved interference fringes using:

  • SPDC-generated entangled photons
  • Coincidence-based detection
  • Two-photon resist materials

11. Quantum Lithography Using SPDC Sources

Spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) generates photon pairs with entanglement in polarization, momentum, or time. These pairs form the basis for early quantum lithography prototypes.

12. Challenges in Photon Loss and Decoherence

Quantum lithography is highly sensitive to:

  • Photon losses (which destroy entanglement)
  • Environmental decoherence
  • Detector inefficiency
    These reduce visibility and resolution.

13. Sensitivity to Detector and Resist Technologies

Multiphoton-sensitive resists and low-noise detectors are crucial. Materials must absorb and respond to entangled photons, which interact differently than classical fields.

14. Quantum vs Classical Lithographic Efficiency

Quantum lithography typically suffers from low efficiency due to:

  • Low brightness of entangled sources
  • Probabilistic nature of detection
    Ongoing research focuses on source engineering and integration with classical pre-patterning.

15. Comparison with Super-Resolution Classical Techniques

Techniques like STED, SIM, and PALM offer sub-diffraction resolution using nonlinearities or statistical reconstruction. Quantum lithography offers true quantum-limited resolution but faces greater engineering hurdles.

16. Adaptive Quantum Lithography

Adaptive methods use feedback and real-time measurement to dynamically optimize photon paths and phase conditions for targeted pattern enhancement.

17. Role of Quantum Metrology and Control

Precision in quantum lithography depends on:

  • Phase stability
  • Path length control
  • Mode purity
    Techniques from quantum metrology are employed to calibrate and maintain these parameters.

18. Applications in Nanofabrication and Quantum Devices

Potential applications include:

  • Quantum dot and qubit placement
  • Fabrication of quantum optical circuits
  • Ultra-dense data storage and biosensors

19. Future Directions and Scalability

  • Development of higher-order entangled sources
  • Parallelization and integration with lithography masks
  • Quantum photonic chips for scalable exposure systems

20. Conclusion

Quantum lithography demonstrates how quantum correlations can transcend classical limitations. While technical obstacles remain, its potential to revolutionize nanoscale patterning and device fabrication is profound.

.

The Prime Minister of India

By
Syskool
-
2

The Prime Minister of India is the most senior member of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. The prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. The Prime Minister of India is the presiding member and chairman of the cabinet and is responsible for bringing proposal of legislation. A Prime Minister of India is the official who is appointed to manage the Civil Service and execute the directives of the head of state.

The Prime Minister of India is appointed by the President to assist the latter in the administration of the affairs of the executive. The Prime Minister of India is the presiding and actual head of the government and head of the executive branch. The head of state’s official representative usually holds a largely ceremonial position, although often with reserve powers.

Must Read: Well Known Prime Ministers of India

The term prime minister in the sense that we know it originated in the 18th century in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister’s executive office is usually called the Office of the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister of India is expected to become a member of parliament within six months of beginning their tenure, if they are not a member already. They are expected to work with other ministers to ensure the passage of bills through the legislature.

Some specific ministries/department are not allocated to anyone in the cabinet but the prime minister himself. The Prime Minister of India is usually always in-charge of:

  • Appointments of the Cabinet
  • Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions
  • Ministry of Planning
  • Department of Atomic Energy and
  • Department of Space

Also Read: Prime Ministers of India – On a Timeline

The prime minister leads the functioning and exercise of authority of the Government. He is invited by the President in the Parliament as leader of the majority party to form a government at the federal level and exercise its powers. The prime minister nominates the members of their Council of Ministers to the president. They also work upon to decide a core group of Ministers as in-charge of the important functions and ministries of the Government.

The Prime Minister of India is responsible for aiding and advising the president in distribution of work of the Government. The prime minister, in consultation with the Cabinet, schedules and attends the sessions of the Houses of Parliament and is required to answer the question from the Members of Parliament to them as the in-charge of the portfolios.

The Prime Minister of India represents the country in various delegations, high level meetings and international organisations that require the attendance of the highest government office and also addresses to the nation on various issues of national or other importance.

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