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Florence

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FLORENCE     Florence –  the capital of the Tuscany region and the cradle of Renaissance   We opted for Flix Bus while traveling from Venice to Florence. The road journey takes about three and a half-hour. In Florence, it terminates at the rear end of Santa Maria Novella (SMN) train station. One of Italy’s busiest stations, it got its name from Santa Maria Novella Church just across the plaza from the main entrance. We debarked at the station and refreshed ourselves at McDonald's before hiring a cab for our hotel. Florence, popularly known as ‘Firenze’ by the Italians, is located in central Italy. This dreamy city with a romantic name is the regional capital of the lovely Tuscany region.   Columbus Hotel, where we stayed, is located in Lugarno District. We always prefer to book our hotels through Booking.com as we always land up getting good hotels at good locations. Despite being a little away from the heart of the city and Santa Maria Novella station

Human Centric Lighting - Prof Warren Julian's presentation

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What is Human Centric Lighting? - An illuminating talk by Professor Warren Julian Human Centric Lighting Design is an old Concept, given that our circadian clock runs on a 24-hour cycle. But It was difficult to maintain the circadian entrainment effectively with traditional lights. With the advent of LED, having expanded color capabilities, and seamless control on color changes and dimming, a lot of research is underway to make our visual system respond more effectively to the light stimulus. Dynamic Tunable LED, varying lighting   has always been human-centric  Spectrum from 6500K to 2700K has increased the circadian effectiveness of the human system. Increasing daytime alertness and nighttime sleep can be addressed in the near future by acutely synchronizing the circadian system of human beings with proper doses of red and blue light. A brilliant presentation on Human Centric Lighting was made at the Hong Kong International Lighting Fair 2017 by Professor Warren Julian of Sy

A Caledonian Experience

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Scotland - Part 1 King’s Cross Station, London. One of the oldest and busiest railway stations of Europe, located in central London. During the inaugural period(1851) Queen Victoria travelled to Scotland from this station. We took the morning high speed train from here on our journey to Caledonia. Caledonia is the Latin name given by the Romans in early first century AD for area north of their province Britannia. The train sped through the rolling English countryside. And from Newcastle upon Tyne the scene was more breathtaking, as the train ran almost along the North Sea, its beaches and cliffs.  Before coming to Scotland I personally carried an impression that Edinburgh is a quaint little Scottish town, and its rail station is small and compact, like any other wayside stations in England. But as we stepped down on the platform I was stupefied to find a vast complex teeming with people. The station is well connected to the North Bridge, which runs over the station and bridge

FRIED SARDINE - More on 'GREAT TASTES'

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From Ruby’s Kitchen SARDINE FRY Ingredients Fish – 2 whole pcs (medium size) Ginger Paste – 1 tsp Onion Paste – 1 tbsp Black Pepper(crushed) – 1 tbsp Olive Oil – 1.5 tbsp Parsley (finely chopped) – 1 tbsp Salt – 1.5 tbsp Vinegar - 1 tbsp Lemon – 2 pcs Besan – half tsp Capsicum, tomato, cauliflower, beans - all chopped into tiny cubes Method of Preparation. Clean fish and keep it soaked for about one hour in vinegar, lemon juice (two medium sized fresh lemons) and 1 tablespoon salt. After that wash the fish thoroughly and then dry it with towel napkin. Marinate the fish with onion paste, ginger paste, salt and parsley, preferably for about two hours. Once marinated, apply a thin layer of Besan coating on the entire fish. Then place the fish in one table spoon oil on a frying pan, cover it with a lid and let it fry in low flame for, say 10 minutes,. Next, flip the fish to the other side, apply half teaspoon black pepper and continue the frying process for 10 minutes. After that tu