Over the course of the 2010s, the scope of human resources has expanded and evolved alongside changes in how organizations function, how teams are managed, and how employees set their expectations when it comes to work.

As HR enters the next decade, HR pros must focus their attention on the human element of human resources and people management in order to continue providing engaging and exceptional work experiences for their people. Some of the vogue in HR are as follows:

Using people analytics for decision making: Big data analysis has wide-reaching potential that can be applied to any sector of an organization. In HR, utilizing a data-driven approach to people analytics allows employers to discover valuable insights on employee performance and satisfaction and what influences their productivity and motivation.

With HR tech solutions, HR departments are equipped with a wealth of information that is available at their fingertips, including recruitment data, employee statistics, and performance KPIs. In the years to come, companies will apply this valuable intel into making smarter decisions for their organizations, from less biased hiring decisions to better support for their current employees.

Improving the job applicant experience: If a recruiting new hires to your organization is a complicated and lengthy experience, you will continue to miss out on bringing incredible talent to your teams. Making the recruitment process streamlined and efficient for both your HR department and your applicants is critical to landing the best people for the job.

In the new year and beyond, HR pros will implement HR solutions to simplify and speed up their administrative processes, from applicant tracking to application communication, through automation, thus reducing recruitment timelines significantly. Talent and recruitment pros will then be freed up to spend more time on improving the interview experience for candidates and increasing the odds of finding the right organizational fits.

In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious disease by maintaining a physical distance between people and reducing the number of times people come into close contact with each other. It typically involves keeping a certain distance from others (the distance specified may differ from time to time and country to country) and avoiding gathering together in large groups.

By reducing the probability that a given uninfected person will come into physical contact with an infected person, the disease transmission can be suppressed, resulting in fewer deaths. The measures are used in combination with good respiratory hygiene, face masks and hand washing by a population. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested favouring the term “physical distancing” as opposed to “social distancing”, in keeping with the fact that it is a physical distance which prevents transmission; people can remain socially connected via technology. To slow down the spread of infectious diseases and avoid overburdening healthcare systems, particularly during a pandemic, several social-distancing measures are used, including the closing of schools and workplaces, isolation, quarantine, restricting the movement of people and the cancellation of mass gatherings.

 Although the term was introduced only in the 21st century, social-distancing measures date back to at least the 5th century BC. The Bible contains one of the earliest known references to the practice in the Book of Leviticus 13:46: “And the leper in whom the plague is… he shall dwell alone; [outside] the camp shall his habitation be.” During the Plague of Justinian of 541 to 542, Emperor Justinian enforced an ineffective quarantine on the Byzantine Empire, including dumping bodies into the sea; he predominantly blamed the widespread outbreak on “Jews, Samaritans, pagans, heretics, Arians, Montanists and homosexuals“.In modern times, social distancing measures have been successfully implemented in several epidemics. In St. Louis, shortly after the first cases of influenza were detected in the city during the 1918 flu pandemic, authorities implemented school closures, bans on public gatherings and other social-distancing interventions. The influenza fatality rates in St. Louis were much less than in Philadelphia, which had fewer cases of influenza but allowed a mass parade to continue and did not introduce social distancing until more than two weeks after its first cases. Authorities have encouraged or mandated social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Social distancing measures are most effective when the infectious disease spreads via one or more of the following methods:

• droplet contact (coughing or sneezing)
• direct physical contact (including sexual contact)
• indirect physical contact (such as by touching a contaminated surface)
• airborne transmission (if the microorganism can survive in the air for long periods); the efficacy of social distancing to contain airborne viruses compared to other measures, such as widespread mask usage, is disputed

The measures are less effective when an infection is transmitted primarily via contaminated water or food or by vectors such as mosquitoes or other insect.

Drawbacks of social distancing can include loneliness, reduced productivity and the loss of other benefits associated with human interaction.

HISTORY

Leper colonies and lazarettos were established as a means of preventing the spread of leprosy and other contagious diseases through social distancing, until transmission was understood and effective treatments invented.

1916 New York City polio epidemic

During the 1916 New York City polio epidemic, when there were more than 27,000 cases and more than 6,000 deaths due to polio in the United States, with more than 2,000 deaths in New York City alone, movie theatres were closed, meetings were cancelled, public gatherings were almost non-existent, and children were warned not to drink from water fountains, and told to avoid amusement parks, swimming pools and beaches.

Influenza, 1918 to present

During the influenza pandemic of 1918, Philadelphia saw its first cases of influenza on 17 September. The city continued with its planned parade and gathering of more than 200000 people on 28 September and over the subsequent three days, the city’s 31 hospitals became fully occupied. During the week ending 16 October, over 4500 people died. Social distancing measures were introduced on 3 October, on the orders of St. Louis physician Max C. Starkloff, more than two weeks after the first case. Unlike Philadelphia, St. Louis experienced its first cases of influenza on 5 October and the city took two days to implement several social distancing measures, including closing schools, theatres, and other places where people get together. It banned public gatherings, including funerals. The actions slowed the spread of influenza in St. Louis and a spike in cases and deaths, as had happened in Philadelphia, did not occur. The final death rate in St. Louis increased following a second wave of cases, but remained overall less than in other cities. Bootsma and Ferguson analyzed social distancing interventions in sixteen U.S. cities during the 1918 epidemic and found that time-limited interventions reduced total mortality only moderately (perhaps 10–30%), and that the impact was often very limited because the interventions were introduced too late and lifted too early. It was observed that several cities experienced a second epidemic peak after social distancing controls were lifted, because susceptible individuals who had been protected were now exposed.

 School closures were shown to reduce morbidity from the Asian flu by 90% during the 1957–1958 pandemic, and up to 50% in controlling influenza in the U.S., 2004–2008. Similarly, mandatory school closures and other social distancing measures were associated with a 29% to 37% reduction in influenza transmission rates during the 2009 flu epidemic in Mexico.

During the swine flu outbreak in 2009 in the UK, in an article titled “Closure of schools during an influenza pandemic” published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, a group of epidemiologists endorsed the closure of schools to interrupt the course of the infection, slow the further spread and buy time to research and produce a vaccine. Having studied previous influenza pandemics including the 1918 flu pandemic, the influenza pandemic of 1957 and the 1968 flu pandemic, they reported on the economic and workforce effect school closure would have, particularly with a large percentage of doctors and nurses being women, of whom half had children under the age of 16. They also looked at the dynamics of the spread of influenza in France during French school holidays and noted that cases of flu dropped when schools closed and re-emerged when they re-opened. They noted that when teachers in Israel went on strike during the flu season of 1999–2000, visits to doctors and the number of respiratory infections dropped by more than a fifth and more than two fifths respectively.

SARS 2003

During the SARS outbreak of 2003, social distancing measures such as banning large gatherings, closing schools and theaters, and other public places, supplemented public health measures such as finding and isolating affected people, quarantining their close contacts, and infection control procedures. This was combined with wearing masks for certain people. During this time in Canada, “community quarantine” was used to reduce transmission of the disease with moderate success.

COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing and related measures are emphasized by several governments as alternatives to an enforced quarantine of heavily affected areas. According to UNESCO monitoring, more than a hundred countries have implemented nationwide school closures in response to COVID-19, impacting over half the world’s student population. In the United Kingdom, the government advised the public to avoid public spaces, and cinemas and theatres voluntarily closed to encourage the government’s message.

With many people disbelieving that COVID-19 is any worse than the seasonal flu, it has been difficult to convince the public—especially teens and young adults—to voluntarily adopt social distancing practices. In Belgium, media reported a rave was attended by at least 300 before it was broken up by local authorities. In France teens making nonessential trips are fined up to US$150. Beaches were closed in Florida and Alabama to disperse partygoers during spring break. Weddings were broken up in New Jersey and an 8 p.m. Curfew was imposed in Newark. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania were the first states to adopt coordinated social distancing policies which closed down non-essential businesses and restricted large gatherings. Shelter in place orders in California were extended to the entire state on 19 March. On the same day Texas declared a public disaster and imposed state wide restrictions.

These preventive measures such as social-distancing and self-isolation prompted the widespread closure of primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools in more than 120 countries. As of 23 March 2020, more than 1.2 billion learners were out of school due to school closures in response to COVID-19. Given low rates of COVID-19 symptoms among children, the effectiveness of school closures has been called into question. Even when school closures are temporary, it carries high social and economic costs. However, the significance of children in spreading COVID-19 is unclear. While the full impact of school closures during the corona virus pandemic are not yet known, UNESCO advises that school closures have negative impacts on local economies and on learning outcomes for students.

In early March 2020, the sentiment “Stay The Fuck Home” was coined by Florian Reifschneider, a German engineer and was quickly echoed by notable celebrities such as Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and Busy Philipps in hopes of reducing and delaying the peak of the outbreak. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram also joined the campaign with similar hashtags, stickers and filters under #staythefhome, #stayhome began trending across social media. The website claims to have reached about two million people online and says the text has been translated into 17 languages.

 Drawbacks

There are concerns that social distancing can have adverse affects on participants’ mental health. It may lead to stress, anxiety, depression or panic, especially for individuals with pre existing conditions such as anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders, and paranoia. Widespread media coverage about a pandemic, its impact on economy, and resulting hardships may create anxiety. Change in daily circumstances and uncertainty about the future may add onto the mental stress of being away from other people.

Effectivenes

An empirical study published in July 2020 in the The BMJ (British Medical Journal) analyzed data from 149 countries, and reported an average of 13% reduction in COVID-19 incidence after the implementation of social distancing policies.

It was a week of truly longish, unplanned blackouts. The pillar box was hit by a truck, and power went off in a block of buildings. Our world plunged into non-connectivity during the day and total darkness at night.

Ever notice how when there is a blackout, everyone goes outside? We flatmates met and introduced ourselves, though we’ve lived a few feet away from one another for months. In that break from our frenetic schedules involving mobiles, Internet, video games and TV, we connected with people. We had no idea when we’d see “light”, so we talked about “coping” and soon realised we all sounded happy.

We talked of a time when grandma didn’t depend so much on electricity, dad remained supremely efficient without a cellphone, our aunts brought all the local gossip from temple visits and weddings, and not from websites. We talked of buildings without ugly power grids or cellphone towers, of fewer road accidents, riding bicycles, of clean ponds and parks.
A teacher from a digitally modern school told us this story. “A computer techie messed up our server system,” she said. “It was near-disaster! Our computerised attendance register was gone, and so were LAN, mark sheets, teachers’ notes, question papers, classroom material, presentations and a lot of the students’ work.” But that lasted only for a day, she said. The teachers woke up to the challenge and roped in kids to do the “paper work”. Together they prepared the teaching aids, kept the attendance record straight and wrote lesson plans for the coming week. “The kids said they were very happy to do the work,” she said. “I felt I got closer to a lot of them.”

What neurologists say

Neurologists already talk of how our brains are shaping to respond to a “gadgetised” life. There are Immunology disease digital diagnostics that would tell you your precise disease.. A micro-chip induced life could blur our view of the line between living and non-living machines, they warn. We already see an example of this when we try to give directions on the phone. Somehow even simple directions have become rocket science, the caller half following what’s said and calling a dozen times till he reaches the door. Is it because constantly interrupted by digital intrusions, we’ve lost the capacity to analyse, plan, remember and execute work? Does gadget dependence take away our confidence in our abilities?

“Electronic devices, like pharmaceutical drugs, have an impact on the micro-cellular structure and complex biochemistry of our brains. And that, in turn, affects our personality, our behaviour and our characteristics,” says Professor Susan Greenfield in her book. “It’s pretty clear that the screen-based, two-dimensional world that so many teenagers — and a growing number of adults — choose to inhabit is producing changes in behaviour. Attention spans are shorter, personal communication skills are reduced and there’s a marked reduction in the ability to think abstractly.” The games-driven generation interprets the world through screen-shaped eyes, she insists. It’s almost as if something hasn’t really happened until it’s been posted on Facebook or YouTube.

Psychologists tell us that we could be raising kids who live only for the thrill of the computer-generated moment. They are in danger of detaching themselves from what the rest of us would consider the real world, they say. As for us, we live in a world so technologically dependent that even a computer crash gives us many anxious moments. . Question is: Should pleasure be defined by the endless hours spent in front of a computer console? Should it be defined by our giggles at online comics?

Connecting with people

In a business-centred existence, there is probably no going back to a pre-computer age. That age will demand that we do more of our work ourselves; information won’t travel so quickly, and medical science may get frozen. But consider this theory: If all modern technology shut down and we were forced to live without e-appliances and gadgets, we’d adapt. It might signal more face-to-face time with people instead of emails and texting, might mean more walking and knowing what goes on in our neighbourhood. We might come out of the “lonesome boundary of life” that teleworking creates, and stop to smile at our neighbour, rather than at a shadow appearing on a pixellated screen. Some of us might even start a campaign for the rights of pedestrians.

I recieved an messege on my whatsapp
  which included the interview of Dr Girdhar Gyani, the convenor of a task force on COVID-19 hospitals, taken by the Quint. It talks about the oncoming stage 3 of the pandemic on the country. Dr Gyani, who’s the founder of the Association of Healthcare Providers, was part of a video conference of healthcare professionals with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 24 March. In the interview, he pointed out the fact that government does not have enough PPE kits so it is only checking patients that have all the three symptoms together – coughing, breathing problem, and fever. If the patient has only one of the symptoms, then they are not being tested. He continued by suggesting that the government needs to re-strategize or the country will soon reach the 3rd stage. He also mentioned his concerns about transferring the patients from hospital to hospital without the virus spreading.
The message created the curiosity to fact check the same,
Procedure followed to check the message is:
• Name of the journalist and the date. The journalist was Poonam Aggarwal, and has written articles like “Delhi police abandoned us on the road: Migrant Labourers”.
• I checked if there were any articles written by Poonam Aggarwal on 26th March 2020(the date given in the article), and we found the same article.
• I checked the logo and website of The Quint for its authenticity.
• We verified the given facts in the interview, regarding the number of cases so that more credibility could be established.

PATTIKONDA:19/07/2020.

An irrigation sprinkler (also known as a water sprinkler or simply a sprinkler) is a device used to irrigate agricultural crops, lawns, landscapes, golf courses, and other areas. They are also used for cooling and for the control of airborne dust.Sprinkler irrigation is the method of applying water in a controlled manner in way similar to rainfall. The water is distributed through a network that may consist of pumps, valves, pipes, and sprinklers.

Irrigation sprinklers can be used for residential, industrial, and agricultural usage. It is useful on uneven land where sufficient water is not available as well as on sandy soil.In sprinkler or overhead irrigation, water is piped to one more central locations within the field and distributed by overhead high pressure sprinklers or guns.

There are 4 types of sprinklers. They are Industrial , Residential, Agricultural and underground sprinklers. The first use of sprinklers by farmers was some form of home and golf course type sprinklers.Home lawn sprinklers vary widely in their size, cost, and complexity. They include impact sprinklers, oscillating sprinklers, drip sprinklers, underground sprinkler systems, and portable sprinklers

Many irrigation sprinklers are buried in the ground along with their supporting plumbing, although above ground and moving sprinklers are also common. Most irrigation sprinklers operate through electric and hydraulic technology.Rolling pipe type irrigation system for farms that has become the most popular type for farmers irrigating large fields. The end system method of sprinklers are widely used.

Underground sprinklers function through means of basic electronic and hydraulic technology.Advantages of Sprinkler Irrigation : A sprinkler system makes it easy and convenient to water your field, flowers and plants: just turn them on and walk away. You can use a sprinkler system to water a wide area of different types of crops, and you can usually adjust how large or small an area receives water.

Disadvantages of sprinkler irrigation include: High initial capital costs and high operation costs due to energy requirements for pumping and labor costs.

–By Sivam Pathak
In the autumn of 1894 Tsar Alexander third died at the age of 49 leaving his 26 year old son Nicholas the second as the new emperor of Russia. Tsar Nicholas the second of Russia belonged to an age old imperial royal family of Russia, known as Romanov Dynasty. Romanov dynasty ruled Russia over 300 years with an iron fist, during which time Russia had become one of the largest economic and military powers in the world. In yore times Russians regarded their Tsars and the whole monarchy as divine and godlike, and Tsar Nicholas was no exception to this tradition.
Russians, especially peasants (which constitute a majority of Russian population) always kept Nicholas and his family in high regards. With the
passage of time the life of the ordinary peasant become miserable, but they hold back their voices in hope of good times. Steadily survival in Russia grew increasingly harder for the common people that somehow paved the way for a greater divide between them and the Tsar. But the real turning point came from what became known as Bloody Sunday. On Sunday, 22nd of January 1905, a crowd of over thousands of people from all genders and age marched on the Winter Palace (Tsar’s residence) in
St. Petersburg. The protest from the very beginning was predetermined as a peaceful protest to highlight the poor working conditions of Russia’s workforce. At palace, in order to disperse the crowd the Cossacks firstly fired warning shots over the heads of the crowd, but as the situation was deteriorated the Cossacks then fired into the crowds. In the event of Bloody Sunday hundreds of people died and wounded. But here is one thing that needs to be taken into consideration before making any decision on a larger scale. At the time when Russians marched on the Tsar’s residence, Tsar was not in St. Petersburg, and nor he ordered to open fire on the crowd.

But Russians, unknown to this fact, began to hate the Tsar. The event of Bloody Sunday gave rise to huge resentment against the monarchy of Russia. Under the rule of Tsar Nicholas Russia was undergoing a period of severe political, social and economic hardships, and to made matters worse Tsar took an action during world war one (1914-1918) as a result of which Kaiser Wilhelm second of Germany declared war on Russia. The cost of World war one on the Russian people was catastrophic. The losses of war brought Russia on the brink of economic and military collapse. In 1917 due to mounting pressure from the provincial govt. led by Alexander Kerensky, Tsar Nicholas was forced to abdicate. In the meantime when Nicholas was returning to home, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna and his five children- Grand Duchess Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia (some people believed that Grand Duchess Anastasia survived the execution by Bolsheviks), and Alexei had already been placed under house arrest in the Alexandra Palace. When Nicholas arrived at home, he too was put under house arrest along with his family. In order to protect the Tsar and his family, Kerensky sends them almost 2000 miles away from St. Petersburg to the town of Tobosk, Siberia. There the family was accommodated in the governor’s house for several
days. By November 1917 Bolshevik party had come into power by overthrowing Kerensky’s government. Soon after Bolshevik party came into power a fierce fighting broke out across Russia between the Bolshevik govt. and the anti-communist white army that wanted the Tsar reinstated. As fighting grew more intense Vladimir Lenin moved the Tsar’s family to Yekaterinburg in a former merchant’s house, known as the house of special purpose by Bolsheviks.

On 16th July 1918, it was in the house of special purpose in Yekaterinburg the whole Romanov family was shot dead at night in the basement of the house by Yurovsky and his subordinates. After executing the Tsar and his family, Yurovsky ordered his subordinates to take the bodies of the Romanov family away and buried in unmarked graves at his secret location. His subordinates done all as ordered by Yurovsky. Soon people of Russia began to question about the royal family of Russia. Under increasing pressure the Russian authorities admitted the killing of Tsar Nicholas, but would neither affirm nor deny what had happened to his family. To this day the death of the Romanovs remains one of the most controversial subjects in Russian history.