Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (Science & Technology) – September 10, 2020

Data localisation laws refer to regulations that dictate how data on a nation’s citizens is collected, processed and stored inside the country.

• Among reasons supporting data localisation put out by the Justice Srikrishna Committee report last year, a few key ones are: Data localisation is critical for law enforcement.
• Access to data by Indian law agencies, in case of a breach or threat, cannot be dependent on the whims and fancies, nor on lengthy legal processes of another nation that hosts data generated in India.
• A key observation of the report is that it is ideal to have the data stored only locally, without even having a copy abroad, in order to protect Indian data from foreign surveillance.
• Currently, the only mandatory rule on data localisation in India is by the Reserve Bank of India for payment systems. Other than this, there are only reports or drafts of bills that are yet to be signed into law.
• Among material available in the public domain on data localisation is the white paper that preceded the Jusitce Srikrishna Committee report, inviting public comments.
• The second piece is the Draft Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018 itself which has specific requirements on cross-border data transfers. This is seen as being more restrictive than the recommendations of the Srikrishna Committee.
• The draft e-commerce policy also has clauses on cross-border data transfer. For example, it suggests that if a global entity’s India subsidiary transfers Indian users’ data to its parent, the same cannot be transferred to a third party even with the user’s consent.

Biological products include a wide range of products such as vaccines, blood and blood components, allergenics, somatic cells, gene therapy, tissues, and recombinant therapeutic proteins.

• Biologics can be composed of sugars, proteins, or nucleic acids or complex combinations of these substances, or may be living entities such as cells and tissues.
• Biologics are isolated from a variety of natural sources – human, animal, or microorganism – and may be produced by biotechnology methods and other cutting-edge technologies.
• Gene-based and cellular biologics, for example, often are at the forefront of biomedical research, and may be used to treat a variety of medical conditions for which no other treatments are available.
• In contrast to most drugs that are chemically synthesized and their structure is known, most biologics are complex mixtures that are not easily identified or characterized.
• Biological products, including those manufactured by biotechnology, tend to be heat sensitive and susceptible to microbial contamination.
• Therefore, it is necessary to use aseptic principles from initial manufacturing steps, which is also in contrast to most conventional drugs.

Biological products often represent the cutting-edge of biomedical research and, in time, may offer the most effective means to treat a variety of medical illnesses and conditions that presently have no other treatments available.

With the definition of the ‘kilogram’ getting a global, technical makeover, textbooks — from those used in schools to ones recommended by engineering colleges in India — are set to undergo an update.

• The kilogram derived its provenance from the weight of a block of a platinum-iridium alloy housed at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in France.
• All other prototypes that served as national reference standards, including the one at New Delhi’s CSIR-National Physical Laboratory (NPL), were calibrated to it. No longer.
• On May 20, the kilogram joined other standard units of measure such as the second, metre, ampere, Kelvin, mole and candela that would no longer be defined by physical objects.
• The measures are all now defined on the basis of unchanging universal, physics constants. The kilogram now hinges on the definition of the Planck Constant, a constant of nature that relates to how matter releases energy.
• The CSIR-NPL, which is India’s official reference keeper of units of measurements, on Monday, released a set of recommendations requiring that school textbooks, engineering-education books, and course curriculum update the definition of the kilogram.

‘Kibble Balance’, is a device that was used to measure the Planck Constant and thereby reboot the kilogram.

• Named after its inventor, Bryan Kibble at the U.K.’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL), who conceptualized it in 1975, the Kibble balance is an exquisitely accurate weighing machine.
• Like any balance, it is designed to equalize one force with another: In this case, the weight of a test mass is exactly offset by a force produced when an electrical current is run through a coil of wire immersed in a surrounding magnetic field.

*NOTE: According to National Physics Laboratory director, a Kibble Balance capable of measuring at least a kilogram takes about ₹50 crore to manufacture.

Magic Moringa Tree has been crowned by WHO as a magical tree. In Europe and America was happening once called as “Miracle Tree”.

• Apparently it’s called “Kelor Tree” in Indonesia.
• Researchers have finally unravelled how each part of drumstick (Moringa oleifera), the “magic tree”, is nutritionally rich compared with other plants such as rice, papaya, spinach and cocoa.
• All the five tissues — stem, root, leaf, flower and seed — of drumstick studied were found to be rich either in certain vitamins or essential minerals.
• A team led by Prof. from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru analysed the genes on complimentary DNA (cDNA) of all the five tissues.
• The team found drumstick leaves, which are the most nutritious part of the tree, are rich in vitamins, while the roots are mineral-rich.
• The stem is rich in vitamin C and the flowers and seeds are rich in potassium. The pod and flower also have enzymes that help bring down cholesterol level.

ISRO Chairman K Sivan flagged off the shipment of India’s largest liquid hydrogen storage tank at the VRV Asia Pacific’s manufacturing plant at Sri City in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh.

• VRV Asia Pacific manufactured the storage tank with a Liquid Nitrogen (LIN) shield, in a collaborative effort with Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, under the Make in India initiative.
• The storage capacity of the tank is 120 kilo liters. Liquid hydrogen is used as fuel for satellite launch vehicles.

Motion smoothing is also known as motion interpolation, video interpolation, and the soap opera effect, it refers to a process of reducing motion blur by artificially inflating the frame rate of the film or series.

• So, from 24 frames per second (fps) it is increased to 60fps, 120fps or even higher (higher rates are perceived as motion), digitally combining the images to simulate more.
• This effect can be useful when watching sports, as the action moves quickly, and enabling the feature allows viewers to catch more details.

*NOTE: Motion interpolation is a feature that increases a video’s frame rate, usually up to the maximum frame rate of the TV. This has the effect of making movements look smoother, clearer, and more lifelike than what you typically see from movies and TV – pretty similar to the look of movement in soap operas (hence the alternate name of ‘soap opera effect’). This feature only matters if you want to be able to make movement in videos look a bit smoother.

We test all our TVs to see whether they are able to interpolate 30 fps and 60 fps video. Only 120Hz TVs will be able to interpolate 24, 30, and 60 fps video up to a higher frame rate, but some 60Hz TVs are able to interpolate 24 and 30 fps video.

The World Health Organization said on May 28 that “burnout” remains an “occupational phenomenon” that could lead someone to seek care but it is not considered a medical condition.

• The clarification came a day after the WHO mistakenly said it had listed burnout in its International Classification of Diseases (ICD) for the first time.
• While burnout was listed in the previous version, the ICD-10, its definition has been changed in the latest edition of the text. “The definition has been modified based on existing research”.
• WHO has now defined burnout as “a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”.
• It said the syndrome was characterised by: “1) feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; 2) increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and 3) reduced professional efficacy.”
• “Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life,” according to the definition.

APSARA is the first nuclear reactor in Asia to have achieved criticality on August 4, 1956.

• It is a pool type reactor of 1 MW power with highly enriched uranium as fuel (4.5 kg) in the form of plates.
• Light water was used as both moderator and coolant. The maximum neutron flux was around 1013 neutrons/cm2/s.
• It was mainly used for production of isotopes, basic research, shielding experiments, neutron activation analysis, and neutron radiography and for testing neutron detectors.
• Apsara was permanently shutdown in 2010.

Of all the mineral resources considered as potential targets for deep-sea mining, poly-metallic nodules (also commonly called manganese nodules) are probably the most likely commodity to be developed into a commercial operation.

• Poly-metallic nodules are rounded accretions of manganese and iron hydroxides that cover vast areas of the seafloor, but are most abundant on abyssal plains at water depths of 4000-6500 metres.
• They form through the aggregation of layers of iron and manganese hydroxides around a central particle (such as a shell or small rock fragment), and range in size from a few millimeters to tens of centimeters.
• The composition of nodules varies with their environment of formation, but in addition to manganese and iron, they can contain nickel, copper and cobalt in commercially attractive concentrations as well as traces of other valuable metals such as molybdenum, zirconium and Rare Earth Elements.