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Now India has 100 million Net users
- The big news this week has been India's impressive performance in Internet use. Apparently in September 2011, India crossed the 100-million mark of users.
- 48 per cent used the Internet at least four or six times a week and 28 per cent used it daily. While cyber cafes remain an important area of access, the numbers are steadily falling. Access from home is at 37 per cent.
- about 92 million, would be from the cities, but the rest are from rural areas.
Focus on R&D in energy-efficiency
- The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) is working on an ambitious scheme to promote research and development in energy-efficient technology and products.
- Ajay Mathur, Director-General, BEE
- the development of energy-saving lights, fans, and air-conditioning and waste-heat recovery in industry held out great promise for India because of the potential to slow down the growth in energy consumption.
- He said BEE would soon come out with an incentive scheme for manufacturers to develop and market a cooling fan that consumed only 35 watts of power.
- The 30 million fans sold in India every year are of the standard 70-W version.
- Dr. Mathur said a cost-sharing model involving potential users, industry, and manufacturers of technology would help offset the difficulties in marketing more energy-efficient devices.
- Dr. Mathur said BEE had introduced a star-rating system for buildings to ensure better compliance with energy conservation norms.
- Dr. Mathur said BEE was getting States to adopt energy conservation norms for the construction of large commercial buildings.
- Rajasthan, Orissa, Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra, and Karnataka are in the process of framing the norms. The six major States that account for a sizeable chunk of the large commercial buildings are expected to adopt the norms by March 2012.
- He said the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) had been adopted in the construction of 700 large commercial buildings over the past five years.
- Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT) scheme for industries, which was expected to be notified soon, would provide energy-efficiency targets for more than 500 energy-intensive industrial units in India, including power stations.
Diabetics — beware of low sugars
- Hypoglycaemia is a condition in which blood sugar level falls below 70mg%. When blood sugar levels fall, there is an increase in counter-regulatory hormone levels to maintain the optimum blood glucose levels.
- In diabetics, hypoglycaemia is very common among the
•Elderly,
•Debilitated patients,
•Patients with infections,
•Patients with impaired kidney function,
•Patients on insulin therapy,
•After alcohol abuse (or) vigorous exercise
•The psychologically ill.
•Diabetics who fast for religious reasons or those with continuous vomiting are prone to hypoglycaemia. - It is more common in insulin-dependent diabetes than maturity onset diabetes (type II diabetes).
- It also can trigger angina, heart attacks, acute heart failure and/or cardiac rhythm disturbances.
- With the onset of hypoglycaemia, heart rate and systolic blood pressure increase with vigorous heart pumping activity owing to adrenaline release. This may result in such symptoms as sweating, palpitations, giddiness, restlessness and confusion. Some patients may experience intense hunger and lack of concentration.
- Dead in the bed syndrome due to nocturnal hypoglycaemia resulting in cardiac rhythm disturbances has been thought to be due to extreme hypoglycaemia, and fortunately this is very rare.
- Blood HbA1c level is a biochemical parameter to assess long-term glucose control. Hypoglycaemic episodes are more common if HbA1c level is < 7%. “Lower the better is no longer the rule.”
- Hypoglycemia or hypoglycæmia (not to be confused with hyperglycemia) is the medical term for a state produced by a lower than normal level of blood glucose. The term literally means "under-sweet blood"
- Try to recognise symptoms and prevent such episodes. Take sugar in water or juice immediately. Those who are travelling can take chocolates or peanut candy.
- If a diabetic wakes up in the middle of the night with hunger or sweating, the dosage of the medications needs to be readjusted, and it is better to consult the physician or diabetologist
- Those who are sick or whose intake of food is poor need to readjust the dose of medication.
- It is preferable to maintain HbA1C at 7%, particularly if one has associated coronary artery disease.
- Aggressive blood sugar lowering by diet or medicines is a thing of the past. Optimal blood sugar lowering is the aim, as hypoglycaemia is found to increase cardiovascular events and mortality.
Solar system had a fifth giant planet?
- It's known that our solar system has always had four giant planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus.
- Now, astronomers claim to have found evidence which suggests that the solar system might have a fifth giant planet, which was mysteriously knocked out into deep space.
- To reach this conclusion, the researchers ran 6,000 simulations of the solar system's birth
