Archives April 2013

As the training arm of HCL Infosystems, HCL Career Development Centre (CDC) carries forth a legacy of excellence spanning across more than three decades. HCL CDC is an initiative that enables individuals and organizations to benefit from HCL's deep expertise in the IT space. Information Technology has changed the way people work and play. The inventions across the hardware and software domains, to telecom and networking, have led to creation of a better, smarter world. And in doing so, have fueled tremendous growth opportunities for skilled IT professionals. The IT industry has great scope for people as it provides employment to technical and non-technical graduates and has the capability to generate incomes for professionals trained in various IT technologies.  As per a NASSCOM report, it is estimated that more...

In vitro fertilization involves clinicians collecting eggs from a woman's ovaries and allowing sperm to fertilize them outside of the womb. The fertilized eggs are then put back into the woman's womb in the hope that a successful pregnancy will follow. Arguably one of the most significant developments in reproductive medicine, it has been used for infertile couples the world over with more than a million babies born via the technique. Today, in vitro fertilization continues to be controversial in medical, legal, and moral terms, but it has gained wider social acceptance. The story begins with Chinese reproductive biologist Min Chueh Chang (1908-1991), who went to the United States to work with the eventual pioneer of the oral contraceptive pill Gregory Pincus after World War H. Pincus had claimed to have successfully used in vitro fertilization with rabbits in 1935. His claims were met with disbelief and neither scientist was more...

“Electrical fire would ...be drawn out of a cloud silently, before it could come near enough to strike." Benjamin Franklin, statesman and scientist American statesman and inventor Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was particularly interested in electricity and set up a small laboratory in his house to investigate its properties. His interest soon switched from electricity to lightning after he noticed similarities between the two. Many scientists had previously noticed a link, but none had managed to prove it. On a stormy night in 1752, he conducted a life- threatening experiment to demonstrate that lightning is the result of an electrical buildup. He constructed a kite that carried a metal spike and flew it into the thunderstorm. The kite had a key attached near the bottom of the ribbon and Franklin noticed that it sparked as he brought his knuckles close to it. Franklin had shown that lightning was a form of more...

The earliest example of a sharpened wooden pole, or spear, comes from Schdningen in Germany. There, eight spears were dated to 400,000 B.C.E. The ancient hominid hunters who sharpened each pole used a flint shaver to cut away the tip to form a point and then singed the tip in the fire to harden the wood, making it a more effective weapon. A similar technique was used by hunters in Lehringen near Bremen in Germany, where a complete spear was found embedded inside a mammoth skeleton, suggesting such spears were used mainly for hunting rather than warfare or self-defense. The need for food was so great that a mammoth would be attacked with only a flimsy spear, although its use would have been more to scare the mammoth in the direction of a trap or pit dug previously than to attack it directly. Around 60,000 B.C.E., Neanderthals living in rock more...

Once the Taj Mahal was one of the Seven  Wonders of the World. 'Still itis one of the most beautiful buildings of the world. One day with my uncle I wished to see the building. We saw the view of the in Mahal from the train at a distance. It looked grand and impressive. We went on a rickshaw. We saw the gate of the building. It was very high and beautiful. It is made of red stone. It is called Buland Darwaja. We now saw the Taj from there. It was a white building made of white marble. We went by paths made of marble slabs. Between these paths were cisterns and fountains. Fish of all colours leaped about in them. There we saw lawns and trees on both the sides, with high walls and buildings at the end. The Taj is built on a high terrace made of more...

Election is the process by which representatives are elected by the vote to form government. Hence elections are highly important for a nation. Our nation makes progress if the decided representatives are men of high moral character but if they are selfish and irresponsible, there is no one who can save the nation from its downfall. Elections are held after every fixed period of time to elect suitable representatives to carry on the government. In India they are held in every fifth year. Though I have seen many elections but I can't forget the election which were held in the year 2000 in my constituency. Different political parties took part in the elections. Preparations started a month in advance. The candidates of all the parties were busy in making promises to the public in order to win their favour. Apart from making promises they were also criticizing one another to more...

The dry dock was invented in Egypt by a Phoenician, some years after the death of Ptolemy IV Philopator, who reigned from 221 to 204 B.C.E. His method of launching a ship consisted of digging a trench under it close to the harbor, then making a channel from the sea to fill the excavated space with water. Dry docks continued to be used throughout antiquity. In Europe the first dry dock was commissioned in 1495 by King Henry VIII at Portsmouth, England. Dry docks are mainly used for the maintenance and repair of ships, and more rarely for their construction because the time required to build a ship is so long. While early dry docks were often used for launching ships, slipways are more frequently used in modern times. There are two types of dry docks: graving docks, where "graving" is the term for scouring aship's bottom, and floating dry more...

Egyptian tomb paintings from around 1420 B.C.E. depict a ship fitted with steering oars on either side of the stern and are thought to be the earliest evidence of the use of the rudder principle, by which water flowing past the boat's hull is redirected. The same technique was long used on Mediterranean cargo ships, but the Vikings preferred a single oar, mounted to the starboard side of the stern of their longboats. The oar could be easily lifted in shallow water but was not always effective in heavy seas, when it could be raised out of the water by the waves. A rudder is most efficient when mounted along the vessel's centerline, and in accordance with this Chinese vessels have been designed with hinged rudders on the stern since the first century B.C.E. There is no evidence of such a practice in Europe until some eleven centuries later, and more...

Today, when nearly every device is available in a portable, pocket-sized version, it is hard to imagine a time when a simple, handheld calculator was the stuff of science fiction. In the early 1960s, calculators were the size of modern-day desktop computers but not nearly as powerful. Personal calculators were nonexistent, and workplace desktop calculators were limited to four simple arithmetic functions. In the workplace, complex math was left to humans. In 1965, mathematicians and engineers at Texas Instruments (Tl) set to work shrinking calculators, using integrated circuit technology that had been invented in-house. By 1967, they had a battery- powered prototype capable of the four simple arithmetic functions on six-digit numbers. Dubbed "Cal-Tech," the calculator was the size of a large paperback book—4.25 x 6.15 x 1.75 inches (11 x 16 x 4cm)—and weighed nearly 3 pounds (1.3 kg)—hardly a "pocket calculator" and not commercially available or viable. Tl more...

The need for drinking water is as old as life on earth. For much of human evolution, springs, streams, rivers, and lakes provided a ready source of water, and early towns and cities eventually grew up around such important supplies. But as towns and cities got bigger, the difficulty of ensuring a dean supply increased because of greater pollution and more thirsty mouths to sate. Methods of purifying water have been around for centuries. Sand filtration was first described as a means to remove impurities in the seventeenth century and used a method borrowed from nature. The technique was adopted by individuals, but not set up as a municipal service until 1804. In that year, civil engineer Robert Thorn (1774- 1847) created the first water treatment plant in Paisley,- Scotland. The water was slowly filtered through sand and gravel before being transported by horse and cart. Three years later, this more...