Experts question safety features of China's straddling bus

August 8, 2016

Beijing, Aug 8: China's "straddling bus", trumpeted as an innovative idea to deal with traffic jams, is facing increasing scrutiny with many questioning the vehicle's safety features and whether it would ever come into service, a media report said today.

straddlingbus1

The Transit Elevated Bus (TEB), grabbed worldwide attention last week after China's official published pictures of the vehicle during a test run on a 300-metre track in Qinhuangdao city in Hebei province.

The bus is designed to run on rails and rises two metres above the road, allowing cars to pass underneath to ease congestion.

While the state-run Xinhua suggested last week the project was an excuse to raise funds rather than create an innovative solution to traffic problem, the experts have also questioned the safety and practicality of the technology, Hong-Kong based South China Morning Post reported.

It would be difficult for the bus to negotiate turns and motorists driving under it would have their line of sight severely limited, increasing the chance of accidents on the road, said Sun Zhang, a transportation professor at Tongji University in Shanghai and an expert in urban track transport systems.

"It can only run on wide and straight roads. In big cities where roads are winding and jammed [with traffic], such roads are in shortly supply. The biggest advantage of this project is that its designers have rich imaginations," he said.

straddlingbus2

Several employees of the TEB at Qinhuangdao city draped the bus with black curtains to prevent bystanders looking at the vehicle as the project has kindled the interest of curious local residents, the report said.

Also the idea of a bus to ease road congestion is attractive in China where car ownership is rapidly increasing, along with the number of traffic jams.

China had 172 million cars on the road at the end of last year, with 280 million licensed drivers. Research by the car-hailing service Didi Chuxing, based on data gathered in 400 Chinese cities, said the average car speed was less than 25 kmph in the first half of this year, the report said.

The publicity has created a wave of interests specially among the investors. After a series of media reports in China have questioned the technological viability and the feasibility of the project, some investors worried about the scheme to come down to check out the site.

"The company and the project are beset by so many questions. We are all worried," Zhang Ying, an investor, said

He has invested about 500,000 yuan (USD 75085) into Huaying after its sales staff told him annual returns could be as high as 14 per cent, the report said.

Yao Xu, an official in charge of press inquiries at TEB Technology told 'Morning Post' that an "official test run" would be arranged in the coming weeks.

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Agencies
March 3,2020

Facebook on Monday launched a new consumer marketing campaign in India titled 'More Together'. India is the first country in the Asia Pacific region where such a campaign is being rolled out.

It is also the first time that Facebook is rolling out a 'high decibel campaign of this stature in India', the company said in a statement.

It is also the first time that Facebook is rolling out a 'high decibel campaign of this stature in India', the company said in a statement.

"India is at the heart of Facebook and one of our focus areas this year is to tell the exciting story of a service that is deeply embedded in the fabric of India," said Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director, Facebook India.

The campaign would have multiple campaigns over the next few weeks in eight languages and the one will be set in the context of Holi.

Facebook in 2019 introduced a new company logo to further distinguish the company from the Facebook app.

The company recently announced the appointment of Avinash Pant as the Marketing Director for India operations, to drive the consumer marketing efforts across the family of apps.

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Agencies
March 10,2020

New Delhi, Mar 10: Crisis-hit Yes Bank on Tuesday said that it has enabled inward IMPS and NEFT services.

The move allows people to send money from other bank accounts to their Yes Bank account through IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) and NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) mode.

In a tweet, the bank also said that Yes Bank customers can pay their credit card dues and loan obligations from other bank accounts.

"Inward IMPS/NEFT services have now been enabled. You can make payments towards YES BANK Credit Card dues and loan obligations from other bank accounts. Thank you for your co-operation. @RBIA @FinMinIndia," said tweet.

Last week Yes Bank was placed under moratorium and a withdrawal cap of Rs 50,000 was imposed till April 3.

The administrator of Yes Bank, Prashant Kumar and Rajnish Kumar, the Chairman of the State Bank of India are hopeful that moratorium would be lifted within a week.

As per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) draft reconstruction scheme for the crisis-hit private lender, the SBI will take up 49 per cent in the bank by investing Rs 2,450 crore.

The new board of directors will stand constituted from the appointed date. It will comprise a CEO and MD, non-executive chairman and non-executive directors. The SBI will have nominee directors appointed on the board of the reconstructed bank.

The RBI may appoint additional directors to the board, who shall continue in office for one year, or until an alternate board is constituted by Yes Bank.

The SBI will not reduce its holding below 26 per cent before completion of three years from the date of infusion of the capital.

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Agencies
July 2,2020

Leiden, Jul 2: Astronomers have discovered a luminous galaxy caught in the act of reionizing its surrounding gas only 800 million years after the Big Bang.

The research, led by Romain Meyer, PhD student at UCL in London, UK, has been presented at the virtual annual meeting of the European Astronomical Society (EAS).

Studying the first galaxies that formed 13 billion years ago is essential to understanding our cosmic origins. One of the current hot topics in extragalactic astronomy is 'cosmic reionization,' the process in which the intergalactic gas was ionized (atoms stripped of their electrons).

Cosmic reionization is similar to an unsolved murder: We have clear evidence for it, but who did it, how and when? We now have strong evidence that hydrogen reionization was completed about 13 billion years ago, in the first billion years of the universe, with bubbles of ionized gas slowly growing and overlapping.

The objects capable of creating such ionized hydrogen bubbles have however remained mysterious until now: the discovery of a luminous galaxy in which 60-100 percent of ionizing photons escape, is likely responsible for ionizing its local bubble. This suggests the case is closer to being solved.

The two main suspects for cosmic reionization are usually 1) a population of numerous faint galaxies leaking ~10 percent of their energetic photons, and 2) an 'oligarchy' of luminous galaxies with a much larger percentage (>50 percent) of photons escaping each galaxy.

In either case, these first galaxies were very different from those today: galaxies in the local universe are very inefficient leakers, with only <2-3 percent of ionizing photons escaping their host. To understand which galaxies governed cosmic reionization, astronomers must measure the so-called escape fractions of galaxies in the reionization era.

The detection of light from excited hydrogen atoms (the so-called Lyman-alpha line) can be used to infer the fraction of escaping photons. On the one hand, such detections are rare because reionization-era galaxies are surrounded by neutral gas which absorbs that signature hydrogen emission.

On the other hand, if this hydrogen signal is detected it represents a 'smoking gun' for a large ionized bubble, meaning we have caught a galaxy reionizing its surroundings. The size of the bubble and the galaxy's luminosity determines whether it is solely responsible for creating this ionized bubble or if unseen accomplices are necessary.

The discovery of a luminous galaxy 800 million years after the Big Bang supports the scenario where an 'oligarchy' of bright leakers emits most of the ionizing photons.

"It is the first time we can point to an object responsible for creating an ionized bubble, without the need for a contribution from unseen galaxies.

Additional observations with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will enable us to study further what is likely one of the best suspects for the unsolved case of cosmic reionization," said Meyer.

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