daily updates 28 March 2019

National News

1. ISRO Launches Young Scientist Programme 'YUVIKA' For Schoolkids
i. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has launched a special programme for schoolchildren called Young Scientist Programme or Yuva Vigyani Karyakram (VUVIKA), in tune with the government's vision "Jai Vigyan, Jai Anusandhan". 
ii. The program is primarily aimed at imparting basic knowledge on space technology, space science and space applications to the younger ones with the intent of arousing their interest in the emerging areas of space activities.
Static/Current Takeaways Important For LIC AAO Mains Exam:

ISRO Director: K. Sivan, Headquarters: Bengaluru, Established in: 1969. 

2. Facebook launches tools to boost Electoral Process
i. Social Media giant, Facebook has launched two new India-specific tools viz. “Candidate Connect” and “Share You Voted” to boost civic engagement on its platform during the Lok Sabha elections 2019 that commence in April. 
ii. Both these tools will be made available in 12 local languages.

Agreements/MoUs Signed

3. India-African Union Sign MoU On Strengthening Cooperation In Healthcare Sector
i. An agreement has been signed between India and the African Union to establish an India-Africa health sciences collaborative platform. 
ii. The MoU will pave the way for cooperation in research and development, capacity building, health services, pharmaceutical trade and manufacturing capabilities for drugs and diagnostics.
Static/Current Takeaways Important For LIC AAO Mains Exam:

On May 25, 1963, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the 32 African states that had achieved independence at that time agreed to establish the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

There are 55 Member States currently in the African Union.





Abdel Fattah El-Sisi (of Egypt) is the chairperson of AU from Jan 2019 to Jan 2020.



4. India, US Ink Pact To Check Tax Evasion By MNCs
i. India and the US signed an agreement for exchange of country-by-country (CbC) report. The move will give huge relief to subsidiaries of US-headquartered companies in the taxation-related matter. 
ii. The agreement for the exchange of CbC reports will enable the two countries to automatically exchange the reports filed by the ultimate parent entities of the multinational enterprises in the respective jurisdictions pertaining to the years commencing on or after January 1, 2016.

Banking/Business News

5. Infosys, Roland-Garros Team Up For Digital Innovation
i. Infosys, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, and Roland-Garros Grand Slam tennis tournament, also called the French Open, announced a three-year strategic technology partnership. 
ii. The partnership aims to re-imagine the tennis experience for the fans and the players globally.
6. Bank of Baroda Set To Develop Digital Agri Platform 'Baroda Kisan'
i. Bank of Baroda has signed an MoU with agriculture services companies to develop an agriculture digital platform, Baroda Kisan, which will provide solutions for agricultural requirements. 
ii. BoB has signed the agreement with Skymet Weather Services, Weather Risk Management Services, BigHaat, Agrostar India, EM3 Agri Services, and Poorti Agri Services.
Static/Current Takeaways Important for LIC AAO Exam:

P. S. Jayakumar is the MD and CEO of Bank of Baroda.

It headquarters in Vadodara, Gujarat.



7. Government To Infuse Rs 5,042 crore Into Bank of Baroda
i. The Finance Ministry has decided to infuse Rs 5,042 crore into state-owned Bank of Baroda (BoB) ahead of the merger of two other public sector lenders Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with BoB. 
ii. The merger of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with BoB would be effective from April 1. 

Appointments

8. BCCI Ombudsman Justice D.K. Jain to Serve As Ad-Hoc Ethics Officer
i. Supreme Court-appointed BCCI Ombudsman Justice D K Jain (retd) will now serve as the Ethics Officer of the Indian cricket board on an ad-hoc basis. 
ii. According to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), provisions in its constitution require an Ethics Officer to be appointed to determine and decide issues related to conflict of interest.
Static/Current Takeaways Important For LIC AAO Mains Exam:

Justice D K Jain (retd) has been appointed as the first Ombudsman of the BCCI recently.

Ranks and Reports

9. Skytrax World Airport Awards: Singapore's Changi Tops, India's IGI Ranks 59th
i. Singapore's Changi Airport has been crowned the world's best aviation hub for the seventh time in a row, while New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport featured at number 59, according to the Skytrax World Airport Awards.
ii. The list has been compiled by the UK-based Skytrax, a consultancy firm which runs an airline and airport review and ranking site, featuring 100 airports. New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport is India's Best Airport. 

Sports News

10. Veselin Matic Set To Be India's Basketball Coach
i. Veselin Matic, who took Iran to an Asian Games bronze medal in 2010, is set to be appointed as the new head coach of the Indian men's basketball team. 
ii. The Serbian's name had been cleared by the sports ministry. A veteran international coach, Matic helped Iran qualify for its first ever World Championship (2010) with victory in the 2009 FIBA Asia Championship.

Obituaries

11. Malayalam Writer And Poet Ashita Passes Away
i. Celebrated Malayalam writer and poet Ashita passed away at the age of 63 in Thrissur, after fighting a long battle with cancer. 
ii. She was the recipient of myriad awards, and some include the Padmarajan Award - Thathagatha (2000), Lalithambika Antharjanam Award (1994) and Edaserri Award (1986).

daily updates 29 March 2019

National News

1. Adani Becomes 1st Indian Port Operator To Record 200 MMT Cargo Movement
i. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) announced that it has recorded cargo movement of more than 200 million metric tonnes (MMT) at nine ports along the east and west coasts, becoming the first Indian port operator to achieve the milestone.
ii. Adani Ports embarked its journey in 2001 and has become one of the largest port operators in the world.

2. Tashigang in Himachal Pradesh Becomes World's Highest Polling Station
i. Tashigang, a Himachal Pradesh village at an altitude of 15,256 feet has now become the highest polling station in the world.
ii. Situated about 29 km from the India-China border, the polling station covers two villages, Tashigang and Gate. 
Static/Current Takeaways Important For LIC AAO Mains Exam:

Himachal Pradesh CM- Jai Ram Thakur, Governor- Kaptan Singh Solanki. 

3. GI Certification For 5 Varieties Of Indian Coffee
i. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India has recently awarded Geographical Indication (GI) to five varieties of Indian coffee.
ii. They are:

Coorg Arabica coffee,





Bababudangiris Arabica coffee,





Chikmagalur Arabica coffee,





Araku Valley Arabica coffee,





Bababudangiris Arabica coffee.



Static/Current Takeaways Important For LIC AAO Mains Exam:

In India, coffee is cultivated in about 4.54 lakh hectares by 3.66 lakh coffee farmers of which 98% are small farmers. Coffee cultivation is mainly done in the Southern States of India:

Karnataka – 54%





Kerala – 19%





Tamil Nadu – 8%

Coffee is also grown in non-traditional areas like Andhra Pradesh and Odisha (17.2%) and North East States (1.8%).

International News

4. In a 1st, UN Council Passes Resolution To Combat Terrorist Financing
i. The UN Security Council has unanimously passed the first-ever resolution ordering members to enforce laws against terror financing. 
ii. UNSC resolution demands all states “ensure that their domestic laws and regulations establish serious criminal offenses” to collect funds or financial resources to terrorist groups or individual criminals.
Static/Current Takeaways Important For LIC AAO Mains Exam:

The UN Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.

It has 15 Members, and each Member has one vote.





Vladimir Voronkov is the chief of U.N. counter-terrorism.

Banking/Business News

5. PNB Sells 13.01% Stake In Housing Finance Arm for Rs1851.60 crore
i. State-owned lender Punjab National Bank (PNB) had sold stake in its housing finance arm, PNB Housing Finance (PNBHF) to General Atlantic Group and VardePartners for Rs 1,851 crore at Rs 850 per share. 
ii. Both VardePartners and General Atlantic Group will buy 1.089 crore shares each at Rs 850 per share in the housing finance company from Punjab National Bank.
Static/Current Takeaways Important For LIC AAO Mains Exam:

PNB Headquarters in: New Delhi, CEO: Sunil Mehta. 

6. IIT Kharagpur, Wipro Partner For Research In 5G and AI 
i. Wipro Limited (Bengaluru Based), a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company and Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur), signed an MoU to collaborate on high-impact, industry-focused applied research in the areas of 5G and AI.
ii. Research outcomes from this partnership will be leveraged by Wipro to develop solutions for its customers, across industry verticals. IIT Kharagpur will benefit from the commercialization of the joint research insights and Wipro’s real-world industry expertise.

Awards

7. Nobel Prize Recipient Amartya Sen To Be Honored Oxford University's Bodley Award
i. Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen will be awarded the prestigious Bodley Medal, the highest honor granted by the University of Oxford's world-famous Bodleian Libraries.
ii. The medal is awarded to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the fields in which the Bodleian is awarded are, including literature, culture, science, and communication. 
Static/Current Takeaways Important For LIC AAO Mains Exam:

Amartya Sen is an Indian economist and philosopher.

He was awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize in 1998 in Economic Sciences for his valued work in welfare economics and social choice theory.



8. Geoffrey Hinton, Yann LeCun, and Yoshua Bengio Named Turing Award Winners
i. Three pioneers in AI, University of Toronto faculty member and Google Brain researcher Geoffrey Hinton, Facebook chief AI scientist and NYU professor Yann LeCun, and Element AI founder and University of Montreal professor Yoshua Bengio has been honored with the Turing Award.
ii. It is an annual prize the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has been awarding since 1966 to individuals who’ve made contributions of lasting and major technical importance to the computer field.

Books and Authors

9. Former Governor's Book Titled ‘Indian Fiscal Federalism’ Launched
i. The Chairman of 15th Finance Commission of India, N.K. Singh launched the book “Indian Fiscal Federalism”. 
ii. The book has been written by Dr. Y. V. Reddy, former Governor of RBI and Chairman of the 14th Finance Commission of India along with Dr. G. R. Reddy, Advisor (Finance) to the Government of Telangana.

Obituaries

10. Soviet-era Cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky Passes Away
i. Russian cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky, who made the first of his three flights to space in 1963, passed away at the age of 84 years.
ii. In June 1963, He first flew to space as a member of the Vostok-5 crew. He was a recipient of the Hero of the Soviet Union and Order of Lenin awards.

Stimulate wireless sensor nodes in matlab

You can simulate your Wireless Sensor networks using Matlab. As your question regarding implementation is already answered by Professor C.P. Ravikumar. Test-bed implementation (Hardware platform) require different types of sensors for examples BT-Node platform, TelosB sensor node, MICAz 2.4 GHz etc. Each type of sensor has different features and compatible with different platforms. Some of the known implemented platforms used for several projects include:

Accsense

Ambient Systems mesh networks

Atlas

BEAN Project

BTnode

COTS Dust

Fleck

Glacsweb

iSense hardware platform 

Hoarder Board -Open Hardware Design

MeshScape

Mica Mote (Crossbow) 

Newtrax Technologies, Inc

openPICUS - Open Hardware

Particles (Particle Computer) 

PicoCrickets

Redwire Econotag

Sensor Webs

Smart Dust

TIP Mote

Tyndall Motes

Waspmote (Libelium)

Sensor Internet Project

Global Sensor Networks 

 

 #Simple Example of generating the nodes in MATLAB:

Here is example to create node manually in MATLAB.

BeconX=500;

BeconY=500; axes(handles.axes1);

gca; hold on;

hbecon=plot(BeconX,BeconY,'s') set(hbecon,'color','red','LineWidth',8);

Basic part of code is to randomly place the sensor nodes in the given space then connecting each two nodes if the distance between them less than or equal to the communication radius. Kindly check  following Matlab code .

clear;

noOfNodes = 50;

rand('state', 0);

figure(1);

clf;

hold on;

L = 1000;

R = 200; % maximum range;

netXloc = rand(1,noOfNodes)*L;

netYloc = rand(1,noOfNodes)*L;

for i = 1:noOfNodes

plot(netXloc(i), netYloc(i), '.');

text(netXloc(i), netYloc(i), num2str(i));

for j = 1:noOfNodes

distance = sqrt((netXloc(i) - netXloc(j))^2 + (netYloc(i) - netYloc(j))^2);

if distance <= R

matrix(i, j) = 1; % there is a link;

line([netXloc(i) netXloc(j)], [netYloc(i) netYloc(j)], 'LineStyle', ':');

else

matrix(i, j) = inf;

end;

end;

 If you want to use Matlab for simulation then you can go on following links to download tutorial for Matlab.

 

http://wislab.cz/our-work/wireless-sensor-network-simulation-tutorial-for-matlab The following reading will be helpful for you.

 

Conference Paper Simulation & performance study of wireless sensor network (W...