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Showing posts from June, 2020

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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

An Invisible War – Overview on the role of UV-C in fighting COVID-19

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UV-C vs COVID 19 The invisible pathogen COVID 19 has suddenly taken our entire planet by surprise at the beginning of 2020. The invasion was so sudden that even the World Health Organization (WHO) took time to declare this as a pandemic. At a time when the entire world is trying to arrive at plausible solutions to arrest the spread of this rampaging virus, our Lighting fraternity has joined the fight by concentrating more on studies of non-visual impacts of light. An invisible part of the optical radiation spectrum, ultraviolet radiation has more energy than its visible counterpart due to its shorter wavelengths. The ultraviolet spectrum comprises UV-A (400 nm to 315 nm); UV-B (315 nm to 280 nm); UV-C (280 nm to 100 nm) – classification as defined by CIE. Whenever ultraviolet radiation is used for germicidal purposes, it is known as GUV (Germicidal Ultraviolet ) radiation. It has been found to be highly effective in deactivating or killing viruses,

Heidelberg

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at a cute little University town in Germany         Almost two decades that I first stepped into this romantic little University town of Germany. On an assignment at Nijmegen, Netherlands, I had decided to spend a few days at my brother-in-law’s house in Dreieich – a quiet suburb, around 10 km from Frankfurt International Airport. The museum dedicated to Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, inventor of the first rigid airship ‘Zeppelin’ is located in Dreieich. The day my niece Tanya drove me down to Heidelberg, about 100 km from Frankfurt, I was naturally excited. The main reason being I longed to see the place which boasted of the oldest university in Germany and one of the oldest surviving universities in Europe. The Schloss, a romantic twelfth-century castle. overlooking the university town below, the river Neckar (a tributary of Rhine), and the hills beyond were breathtaking views. Enough to instill a feeling of love at first sight. No wonder Heidelberg is known as an ‘epitome of