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Group: Ching, Khairul, Adam Iskandar, Soo

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Group: Ching, Khairul, Adam Iskandar, Soo

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1.     I’m interested in knowing more about nuclear fusion. Nowadays humans have achieved controlled nuclear fission. Nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction that causes an atom's nucleus to divide into smaller pieces. This is frequently accompanied by a great amount of energy being released. Although this nuclear fission can release a lot of energy, it is only 1/4 of the energy released by nuclear fusion. Due to technical limitations, human still haven’t achieved controlled nuclear fusion.

I’m also interested in knowing more about Greek mythology. The word "mythology" comes from the ancient Greek word " μυθoλογία"(mythologia) which meaning "study of myths." Greek mythology is a collection of legends about gods, goddesses, and heroes that some cultures believe to be true. Oral storytelling was used to pass down the myths from generation to generation.

Greek mythology | Gods, Stories, & History | Britannica

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The next generation of fusion experiments will require major advances in plasma heating and improvements in the methods used to keep components cool

Fusion for the future

For the last 200 years the bulk of our energy has come from the burning of fossil fuels. However, this finite reserve is running out, and the only way to meet the world's increasing energy demands is to develop alternative energy sources, such as renewable energy, nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. Fusion is the least developed of these but it has the potential to provide a virtually inexhaustible source of energy. It is also safer than fission, and would produce no "greenhouse gasses" such as carbon dioxide. A fusion reactor burning just 1 kg of fuel per day could produce a sustained power output of 1 GW.

The idea behind controlled fusion is to use magnetic fields to confine a high-temperature plasma of deuterium and tritium. One way to do this is to use a tokamak - a doughnut-shaped vessel in which a strong, helical magnetic field guides the charged particles around it (see Further reading). The nuclei in the plasma undergo fusion reactions that convert some of their rest mass into energy - in the same way that energy is produced by the Sun. In order to overcome the mutual Coulomb repulsion experienced by the two nuclei, the plasma temperature, T, must be extremely high - typically about 10 keV, which corresponds to almost 10 ⁸K. However, the density of the plasma, n, can be relatively low at about 10 ²⁰ m⁻³. The resulting pressure in the plasma is therefore only about one atmosphere.

Although a fusion reactor will use the deuterium-tritium reaction, for operational convenience most current experiments are based on plasmas that contain only deuterium. However, we do have experience of working with deuterium-tritium fuel mixtures from the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) experiment at Princeton in the US and the Joint European Torus (JET) at Culham in the UK. In the mid-1990s the TFTR produced a peak fusion power of 10.7 MW, while JET - which is the world's largest tokamak - reached 16 MW.

The next big step in fusion research will be the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which is designed to produce up to 500 MW of fusion power. The ITER collaboration - which consists of researchers from Canada, China, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US - is currently negotiating where ITER will be built. Although ITER will not be used to generate electricity, it will allow us to explore the plasma conditions in a fusion reactor. A commercial fusion reactor would be only slightly larger than ITER and would produce a power of about 4 GW.

When a deuterium and a tritium nucleus undergo fusion they produce an alpha particle, a neutron and 17 MeV of energy. The aim is to use the energy of alpha particles to maintain the plasma at a steady temperature, thus allowing the reactions to be self-sustaining and leaving the neutrons - which carry 80% of the fusion energy - to boil water and drive steam turbines. For this "ignition" condition to be met, however, the triple product of the plasma density, plasma temperature and the energy confinement time - nTτ E- must be greater than 3 x 10 ²¹ keV m⁻³s. The energy confinement time, τ E, is the characteristic time that it takes for the plasma to cool once the heating is switched off; a typical value for a fusion reactor is a few seconds.

This triple product, which is used to describe the performance of a reactor, has increased by almost four orders of magnitude since the first generation of tokamaks in the late 1960s. It is a little-known fact that this progress is slightly faster than that in other high-technology fields (figure 1). For example, the energy of particle accelerators has doubled every 3 years, and the number of transistors that we can fit on a piece of silicon has doubled every 2 years (Moore's law). The performance of fusion plasmas, on the other hand, has doubled every 1.8 years.

Superconducting tokamaks

Most current fusion experiments run in a "pulsed" mode that lasts a few tens of seconds, but a fusion reactor needs to be able to operate continuously. The pulse length in these experiments is limited by the magnetic-field coils, which are usually made of copper and therefore consume a lot of electrical energy just to maintain the steady magnetic fields. A fusion reactor will use superconducting coils and will therefore be able to operate continuously with very low power consumption. Superconducting-coil technology has been used in several deuterium-deuterium plasma experiments, including the T7 and T15 experiments in Russia (T7 has been rebuilt as HT7 in China), and the TRIAM-1M tokamak and Large Helical Device (LHD) in Japan.

The Tore Supra tokamak at Cadarache in France is the largest operating superconducting device in the world, with a radius of 2.4 m and a toroidal magnetic field of 4 T. The superconducting magnets of Tore Supra, which are cooled by superfluid helium at a temperature of 1.8 K, have performed reliably for 16 years. Indeed, their innovative technology has formed the basis for the cryogenic systems of the CEBAF particle accelerator in the US and the Large Hadron Collider currently being built at CERN.

Almost all the fusion devices that are either planned or under construction rely on superconducting-coil technology, including Europe's Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), China's HT7-U (now renamed EAST), Japan's JT60-SC, South Korea's KSTAR and India's SST-1. When it comes online in 2015, ITER will be the first large superconducting facility that has the capacity to use deuterium-tritium plasmas under reactor-like conditions. The challenge between now and then is to learn how to control fusion plasmas for longer periods with a view to full, steady-state operation.

A plasma in a tokamak is initially heated by its own plasma current, which is induced by the primary transformer. But the heating power that can be drawn from this inductive source is limited because it depends on the resistivity of the plasma, which decreases as the temperature rises. In order to obtain the temperatures required for fusion we need to use external heating methods. A non-inductive plasma-current drive is also necessary for a fusion reactor to operate continuously, rather than in short pulses, otherwise the plasma duration is limited by the capacity of the primary transformer. Heating and current-drive methods have been successfully demonstrated using neutral-beam injection, in which high-energy beams of deuterium or tritium ions are injected into the plasma, and radio-frequency (RF) heating, in which the plasma is subjected to radio waves at resonant plasma frequencies.

Fortunately, a tokamak has a natural current known as the "bootstrap" current, which is driven by the pressure gradient in the plasma. A fusion reactor is likely to rely heavily on the bootstrap current, along with neutral-beam injection and RF heating.

Recent results have greatly improved our understanding of the role played by the plasma current in both stabilizing the plasma and confining its energy. In earlier tokamaks most of the current was driven inductively and the current distribution was determined by the resistivity, and therefore the temperature, of the plasma. By modifying the current distribution non-inductively we can reach regimes in which energy losses are reduced and confinement time is increased. The heating and current-drive systems for ITER require a pulse duration of at least 1000 s, and a vigorous R&D programme is under way to develop suitable systems.

Powerful negative-ion sources for neutral-beam injection have already helped researchers reach the long-pulse target. A beam of deuterium ions with a current of 80 A m⁻² - which were then neutralized in a gas cell so that they could penetrate far into a dense plasma - has been produced for 1000 s at Cadarache. In addition, RF power generators developed by Thales Electron Devices for W7-X have produced a power of about 0.3 MW for almost 22 minutes while operating at 140 GHz.

Keeping components cool

A further limiting factor for plasma duration is the need for the "plasma-facing components" (PFCs) to withstand very high fluxes of particles. These components include the exhaust systems, the vacuum-vessel walls, and the heating and current-drive antennae. The average power flux in a reactor might be about 1 MW m⁻², but the load is not uniformly distributed and some PFCs could receive a flux 10 or 20 times larger than this value. This corresponds to a surface temperature of thousands of degrees, which would cause serious damage to the machine.

In fusion experiments, however, the problems of heat removal are simplified when the plasma duration is of the same order as the thermal time constant of the PFCs (typically a few tens of seconds). Most current machines can therefore rely on inertial cooling - in other words the components are simply allowed to heat up adiabatically and then cooled slowly between pulses. A fusion reactor, on the other hand, will have to run under steady-state conditions, and will therefore need active cooling systems that can maintain the PFCs at a stable temperature. A prototype plasma-facing component for ITER has already been tested to withstand 2000 cycles at a power flux of 20 MW m⁻², which is almost one quarter of the heat flux on the surface of the Sun. But going from hi-tech prototypes like this to large-scale production presents a formidable industrial challenge.

During a recent upgrade, all the internal plasma-facing components in Tore Supra were replaced with ones that are actively cooled with water (see Garin et al. in further reading). A major part of this work was the installation of a "toroidal limiter" that has a heat-exhaust capability of up to 15 MW at a peak power flux of about 10 MW m⁻². The limiter is a continuous belt around the torus that is in contact with the plasma and is made up of 574 individually cooled elements called fingers (see box: "How a tokamak works"). The device had to be installed with a positional accuracy of about 1 mm to ensure an even distribution of the heat load. ITER will use an internal component called a divertor to handle similar fluxes of heat and particles.

Developing the limiter involved close co-operation with industry. Each of the 574 elementary components is armoured with 21 tiles made of a carbon-fibre composite, which are bonded to a water-cooled heat sink made of a chromium-zirconium-copper alloy (see Schlosser et al. in further reading). Such was the complexity of the components that it took four years to manufacture them.

Tore Supra's cryostat - which contains the superconducting-magnet system - was also upgraded with small poloidal limiters called bumpers to cope with transient loads at the beginning and end of the plasma discharge. In addition, a set of 10 actively cooled neutralizers were installed below the toroidal limiter. These devices intercept the particles coming from the region between the plasma and the walls, and then neutralize them before directing them into pumping ducts. The peak heat flux on these neutralizers can reach 15 MW m⁻². The surface temperatures of the PFCs at Tore Supra are now monitored by actively cooled infrared endoscopes.

Steady-state operation

Tore Supra is now able to provide new information on long-pulse operation that will be relevant for a fusion reactor. Deuterium plasmas with durations of up to 390 s have recently been obtained with the machine, corresponding to a world record for injected energy of 1.1 GJ - four times higher than its previous record in 1996. The pulse length is mostly limited by the radio-frequency power emitters (or klystrons), which were only intended to operate for about a minute at a time. These klystrons will be replaced by devices designed to operate for a duration of 1000 s, which are currently being tested.

The world record for pulse duration is held by the TRIAM-1M tokamak in Japan, which ran for more than three hours. However, the machine performed with an injected energy of only 110 MJ and at a very low current, temperature and density. Real-time feedback control of plasmas has also been demonstrated in Tore Supra over a period of more than three minutes in steady-state conditions, where the plasma current was completely replaced by a non-inductive current driven by RF waves. This control has allowed researchers to constrain the relevant plasma parameters - such as current and density - to follow the optimum path towards steady-state operation. Real-time control will be essential for ITER.

One advantage of using the actively cooled PFCs is that their surface temperature remains fairly stable, as well as low. At Tore Supra the cooled elements remained at a temperature of 320 °C during 3 MW of plasma heating for four minutes, which meant that the density of the plasma was perfectly controlled (see figure 2a). This is one of the crucial issues for a fusion reactor, in sharp contrast to inertially cooled PFCs in which the plasma density often increases over time and hinders tokamak performance. Actively cooled PFCs also allow us to control impurities such as oxygen, carbon and metallic ions in the plasma, which dilute the main ion-plasma density and therefore the fusion reaction rate.

New physics

The complex interplay between physics and technology can only be seen in discharges with a long duration. Events in fusion plasmas take place on many different timescales, from milliseconds for the magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities to several hours for the whole device to reach equilibrium (figure 2b). In between these timescales, the energy and particles in the plasma are transported over a period of seconds, while the plasma current reaches a steady-state distribution in a few tens of seconds. Most fusion experiments have a plasma duration time that is long enough to study MHD instabilities, and many also allow the various energy-transport processes to be studied. But only a few tokamaks have pulses that are long enough for the plasma current to reach a steady-state distribution.

Subtle effects can also occur because fusion plasma physics is complex and highly nonlinear. This means that a small change in the profiles of key plasma quantities, such as the density, temperature and current, can have a significant impact on the stability of the plasma and its energy confinement. Furthermore, current tokamaks cannot fully study the interactions between the plasma and the in-vessel components, such as the erosion of plasma-facing surfaces and hydrogen saturation. For example, when plasma-facing components get hot they release deuterium and other materials that enter the plasma and become ionized. This can cause undesirable effects such as increasing the plasma density and enhancing energy losses through plasma radiation.

As discussed earlier, full steady-state operation in a tokamak requires that the inductive plasma current is completely replaced by a non-inductive one. In other words, the toroidal electric field induced by the primary transformer must be made to vanish. At Tore Supra we have successfully achieved this, and discovered many important physics issues along the way. For example, an anomalous inward flux of particles that is responsible for the peaked radial profile of the plasma density has been seen for the first time. Such "peaking" is important because the fusion rate is proportional to the square of the density. Furthermore, a density profile that is strongly peaked helps to increase the bootstrap current, which will form an important component of the non-inductive current required for steady-state operation. The origin of this inward particle flux is still not fully understood, but the Tore Supra results suggest that it is related to turbulence in the plasma (see Garbet et al. in further reading). Particle transport is a subject of the utmost importance in fusion plasma physics, and it is now being studied in many other laboratories.

There were more surprises when the electron temperature was measured at the centre of the plasma during a long-pulse run (figure 3). The temperature of a very narrow central region was observed to oscillate in a sinusoidal manner for over two minutes. These oscillations - which were present with a variety of different current-drive combinations - cannot be explained by MHD instabilities. Computer simulations indicate that they might be caused by a nonlinear predator-prey interaction between the local heat transport and the current-density profile.

Furthermore, some plasma numbers did not add up. By carefully accounting for the particles injected into the machine and for those exhausted in the pumping system we found a deficit, indicating that a large fraction of deuterium gets trapped in the walls and components inside the torus. Carbon plasma-facing components are able to trap deuterium particles by different mechanisms, but the direct implantation of energetic deuterium ions does not explain the large retention observed since this mechanism should eventually saturate.

It could be that complex chemical reactions coming from the erosion and subsequent redeposition of material in the PFCs are involved. A vital clue to this was the observation of deposited carbon layers and carbon flakes in the machine. Plasma-wall interactions such as these have far-reaching implications for next-step devices, especially for the lifetime of PFCs due to carbon erosion or the build up of tritium in the walls. We need long-pulse operation to investigate such long-timescale issues. The next major challenge for the fusion community is to integrate various fields of physics and technology to produce a steady-state fusion plasma. The performance of the plasma could be further improved by suppressing turbulence in the plasma to improve the energy-confinement properties. Tokamaks with such an improved energy confinement would be smaller and could therefore significantly reduce the cost of a commercial reactor. The physics of fully non-inductive current plasmas - relevant for fusion reactors - is being studied intensively in current tokamak devices.

A rich harvest of new results is expected from several major projects around the world, especially from ITER and also from further upgrades to Tore Supra. This will open the way to the science and engineering of future fusion power plants. The next major challenge for the Tore Supra team, for example, will be to upgrade the heating and current-drive systems in order to operate at a higher injected power of 19 MW for 1000 s.

After several decades of research, we are confident that fusion energy is scientifically feasible. Plasma conditions that are very close to those required in a fusion reactor are now routinely reached in experiments. ITER will be the next major step forward. Its primary role will be to demonstrate a fusion power gain - i.e. the ratio of the fusion power produced to the power used to heat the plasma - of 10 for very long periods of time. ITER will also bring together all the necessary physics and technology required to build a fusion reactor. While it is under construction, however, many other issues will continue to be addressed in smaller-scale experiments that can operate with very long pulses.

Developing fusion as a viable, clean and unlimited energy source has taken a long time - much longer than early researchers envisaged - but the next few decades will see the realization of their dream.

Box: How a tokamak works

The main challenge in fusion is to create a self-sustaining reaction in which deuterium and tritium nuclei undergo fusion and release useful energy. One way to achieve this is to use magnetic fields to confine a hot plasma in a torus-shaped vessel called a tokamak. The strongest field (typically about 5 T) points in the direction that goes "the long way" round the torus and is called the toroidal magnetic field (red lines). This field is generated by external coils. The second component of the magnetic field points "the short way" round the torus and is called the poloidal field (green). This is typically less than 1 T and is generated by an electric current flowing through the plasma in the toroidal direction. The combination of these two fields creates a helix that twists round the torus (blue). Additional, weaker magnetic fields are used to control the shape and position of the plasma.

The plasma current, which is typically several mega-amps, is usually driven by a toroidal electric field induced by a transformer. Most of the available flux from this arrangement is used in configuring the magnetic fields, and in driving the plasma current in the early stages when the plasma is cold and resistive. Thereafter, relatively little flux is consumed in maintaining a steady current in a highly conducting hot plasma. This allows tokamaks to be driven inductively for long pulses - up to 1000 s for a fusion reactor. However, the current could be maintained indefinitely using non-inductive plasma currents. The current also heats the plasma by resistive (or ohmic) heating, but the maximum temperature that can be reached is too low to enable fusion to take place. A fusion reactor will be self-sustained by internal heating from alpha particles that are produced in the deuterium-tritium reaction. However, it will require some external heating and current-drive systems for start-up and plasma control. Various heating and current-drive methods, such as radio-frequency heating and neutral-beam injection, have allowed experimental tokamaks to achieve temperatures well above the fusion requirement.

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Controlled fusion: the next step - Physics World

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The next generation of fusion experiments will require major advances in plasma heating and improvements in the methods used to keep components cool For the last 200 years the bulk of our energy has come from the burning of fossil fuels.

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Group 1 - Loai, Adrian, Gaafar, Hafiz, Siam 

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Group 1 - Loai, Adrian, Gaafar, Hafiz, Siam 

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The world recently is developing technologically. One of the main fields of technology is mobile app development. There has been a growing demand on mobile app developers by huge companies like Google and Facebook, and luckily our group are all studying software engineering. Another topic that we found interesting is E-sports. Who would ever thought that one day people will make money out of gaming? Nowadays, there are worldwide tournaments for  E-sports where gamers from around the world compete with each other in certain games.

1. https://www.mobileappdaily.com/hiring-mobile-application-developers

2. https://hir.harvard.edu/esports-part-1-what-are-esports/

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The world is fast-forwarding towards a digital era where everything is connected to the internet and vice versa. Things nowadays happen at the finger tap of the screen.

"What You Experience is What You Get."
~ (WYEIWYG, the alternate version of WYSIWYG)

Ranging from that very first alarm clock of the day to the last email from your employer or college professor. Now the pandemic has pushed us towards Mobile Devices and the Internet more than ever before.

In the future, we would see an exponential increase in mobile and internet users. Hence there would be growing demand for mobile applications to support those consumption requests for various purposes.

The total number of smartphone users worldwide today crossed 3 billion, and it will further increase by several hundred million in the next couple of years.
Mobile Market shares show android occupies a large percentage of the users, roughly around 87%, and the rest 12.5% by iOS.

Hence the stock of native and non-native apps for android is by far the largest, and which is where most software developers are using their skill set to WoW the end-users daily. A good number of iOS developers have a strong foothold in the niche market.

Therefore, the demand to hire app developers for mobile app development has rolled up multiple times in the last few years and, in 2021, would be at an all-time high.

As per the research, while using a smartphone, users spend 90% of their time on various applications. In this way, our phones are no longer just a phone but a gateway to access the outside world.

During 2020 all the popular apps that shined might not perform as successfully in 2021. Implementing the correct mobile app development strategy is not the only gateway to success. It would be best if you introduce the latest trends in your strategy for mobile app development.

Top 10 Biggest Technology Trends To Focus in 2021

It is always suggested to consider certain things before building your mobile apps for your business. Let's jump in through some of the technologies which are going to rule the market in 2021.

The global mobile application market size was valued at $106.27 billion in 2018 and projected to reach $407.31 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 18.4% from 2019 to 2026. So, the demand for dedicated app developers too.

1. Cross-Platform App Development & Accelerated Mobile Pages

We have seen mobile developers shift towards cross platforms for faster development and better efficiency. Companies like Facebook, Pinterest, Alibaba, etc., have successfully switched to Cross-Platform. Flutter is one such framework by Google best suited for the purpose.

AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages are the new ways of increasing faster accessibility and smoother interaction with the application, thus reducing the loading time. You can outsource mobile app development services to an in-house app development agency or developers on-demand.

2. Enterprise Mobile Applications

The employees of an organization need to interact with each other and maybe the company's client too. Hence one app to cater to those needs like file sharing, calendar invites, work-related flow, etc., is being developed by dedicated mobile app developers as part of the Enterprise Mobile Application.

3. Cyber Security

All the apps be it developed or outsourced has to be checked for Cybersecurity threat; otherwise, it may cost users data, money, etc. Hence the demand for Cyber Experts for mobile applications is in higher demand than ever before.

4. Folding Screen Display

Samsung Galaxy Fold and Huawei Mate X - is the company that already launched its first model in the market. And the trends are expected to reign in smartphones in 2021 and 2022. It is the trend of the next decade to come, and therefore, apps have to be made, which would suffice the need for those foldable devices.

5. 5G

Higher Bandwidth means greater exchange of information. This means 5G services can execute multiple tasks at a single point in time. With the advent of 5G networks, the rise of hiring mobile application developers for those apps is rising daily. The mobile apps being developed have to be really data-driven and support higher bandwidth to handle a higher speed exchange rate.

6. AI, Analytics & Cloud Technologies

Data is the new oil that would run all the digital engines for the next decade or so. Today's generation can use this new oil to harness the power of new horizons like Artificial Intelligence and Predictive Analytics.

Thus, we need to store this oil somewhere, which is in Cloud Technologies, and then processed it by dedicated mobile application developers for further Analysis and Insights for better business growth.

7. Chatbots

In chatbots, the responses are becoming more human-like as it is driven by AI technology. It is one of the perfect ways to help the customer succeed. Integration of chatbots to mobile apps takes the user journey to the next level by introducing Do-it-yourself (DIY) custom service tools that expedite making an online purchase.

In 2021, the integration of chatbots to mobile apps will escalate from being fairly rudimentary to a fierce level. You can hire mobile app developers to avail Mobile App Development Services.

8. Blockchain & FinTech

Everyone is using the smartphone for buying and selling stuff online, but what about paying it too? That's where FinTech comes in, setting the building blocks for mobile wallets and digital banking technology. But then what if there is a correlation between users and merchants or the system is compromised.

To stop it, we have the new track called Blockchain on which sits this FinTech Technology. It can detect and stop fraud even before occurring. But for all these to happen, we need to hire app developers who can understand the problem and then give appropriate solutions to it.

9. IoT, Wearables, Biometric Auth & Beacon Technologies

All our devices are now connected to the internet for sure. But what about them interacting with other devices and making an ecosystem out of it. That's how big the IoT field is and that includes all the devices on the WEB ranging from Wearables to Biometric Authentication and even the Beacon Technologies.

These devices work in sync with each other to achieve the common bigger goal on the plate. Hence, it is imperative to hire app developers in this field who can really stand tall here.

10. AR & VR

Still futuristic, where one is wearing a device in front of his eyes and sees the virtual world but in 3D at large. Yes, that's right, the objective of Augmented Reality/ Virtual Reality is to create a world that seems to be as real and as close as to the real-world utilizing software and Optical magic.

That seems far-fetched in writings but when seen through one's own eyes. We can interpret it on similar lines. That being said, any regular developer from the mass won't conceptualize the idea behind it. Therefore, hire dedicated mobile app developers, someone special and skilled at that level would be able to do the necessary.

Summing up!

We now understand how to hire mobile app developer and their associated technologies that will revolutionize the year 2021 and later years to come. But to serve the greater good, we need to have a system and its people make it a reality. Thus, hiring application developers would be in great demand and not just with old school ideas and skills but with modern marvels and grandeur. Also, choosing professional app developers helps you expand your mobile app features in the future.

There is a saying, 20th-century solutions can't solve 21st-century problems. Therefore, both problems and opportunities need to be looked at carefully with a crystal-clear vision.

Looking to hire dedicated mobile app developers for your next project? We'll help you find the top app development companies with 100s of listings of the best developers and agencies in the world.

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The Rising Demand to Hire Mobile App Developers in 2021

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The world is fast-forwarding towards a digital era where everything is connected to the internet and vice versa. Things nowadays happen at the finger tap of the screen. "What You Experience is What You Get." ~ (WYEIWYG, the alternate version of WYSIWYG) Ranging from that very first alarm clock of the day to the last email from your employer or college professor.

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1. I'm interested in knowing more about future technology because as we know it is rapidly evolving. Thus, I would like to know the impact of this evolvement. While learning about the effects, I am also interested in finding out if there's any new technology that is being developed or will be developed in the future.
These are some articles I found related to the topic:-

- https://www.sciencefocus.com/future-technology/future-technology-22-ideas-about-to-change-our-world/

- https://www.totalphase.com/blog/2017/05/impact-technology-lives-future-technology/

2. Another topic that I'm interested in is women's empowerment. It is a topic that has been widely discussed by people all over the world and I believe that it is important to know what this topic focuses on.

- https://www.unfpa.org/resources/issue-7-women-empowerment

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Future technology: 22 ideas about to change our world

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The future is coming, and sooner than you think. These emerging technologies will change the way we live, how we look after our bodies and help us avert a climate disaster.

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1. One of the topic I'm quite interested in is "How to avoid procrastination", since I sometimes find myself delaying the tasks that need to be done till the last minute. Here are some articles I found regarding the topic:
i) https://mcgraw.princeton.edu/understanding-and-overcoming-procrastination
ii) https://www.spica.com/blog/how-to-stop-procrastinating

2. Another topic that seems interesting is "Overcoming Internet Addiction", which I believe is a common problem nowadays due to our reliance on the internet. From the internet (ironic :) ), I found these articles which I believe is helpful regarding the topic:
i) https://findfocus.net/overcome-internet-addiction/
ii) https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/business/trends-and-insights/articles/8-ways-to-control-your-internet-addiction-1/

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Two different types of procrastination

There are two types of procrastination, chronic and acute. Chronic procrastination has a deep, strong, and permanent psychological cause that may not be so easily eliminated. It can be done, but it takes patience and hard work.

On the other hand, acute procrastination can be caused even by small mood or energy swings throughout the day, or other small psychological triggers which aren't a steady natural part of your psyche (like having a bad day, for example).

Thus, chronic and acute procrastination have to be dealt with in different ways. Let's start with acute procrastination, since it's the easier one to sort out.

Acute procrastination - you procrastinate from time to time, which is normal

Acute procrastination happens as an out-of-the-ordinary behavioral pattern.

It's actually quite easy to recognize acute procrastination and distinguish it from the chronic version. When acute procrastination attacks you, you behave differently.

You may even ask yourself something like "Why am I acting so stupid?". In a normal state, you'd just get the job done, but this time something is holding you back.

Even if you're a super productive person, acute procrastination will strike you from time to time. There can be many reasons for this:

Low levels of energy

Being in an irritated emotional state

Not taking a break after completing a long, demanding task

You think someone else should do the task (if it was delegated to you)

People you don't like are involved in your work

It's a type of task you don't like (boring, in other words)

Other similar reasons

The first thing you have to do is to identify why you're procrastinating. Just ask yourself the question and observe your inner dialogue.

This is an important step, because you can't tackle all the reasons for acute procrastination in the same way. First you need to make the right diagnosis.

If you want to stop procrastinating when acute procrastination hits you, there are several things you can do:

Proven tips to overcome acute procrastination

1. Just start working

One thing you may do is to just force yourself to start and to make the first step.

The first step is always the hardest. If you ever had to push your broken-down car, you know how it is. Once you get the car moving, it gets much easier.

So, what you can try is to mobilize every single unit of discipline you possess and push yourself hard into making the first step. Sometimes it works surprisingly well.

After the first step, you just forget about the procrastination and get the job done. The timeboxing technique can definitely help you with that.

2. Manage your energy, not your time

An important concept in time management is that you don't manage only your time, but also consider your energy levels.

No matter how disciplined you are, you'll have super productive days and not so productive ones. In the same way, you have your peak productive hours and less productive hours in the day.

Here are a few things you should consider in this context:

Push yourself when you have your daily peak productive hours, not when your energy levels are low

Take a nap or a walk and start working right afterwards if you feel tired

After a period of hard work, take a break and recharge your batteries

If you're emotionally irritated, talk to other people and calm yourself down first

Accept that sometimes you're simply not in the state to be productive and that's okay. We are all only human.

Resolve your energy issues first, and then when things calm down go after the task you procrastinated on.

You also need to be smart about hard work. You can't just work hard constantly. Sooner or later, burnout happens.

Life is a marathon, not a sprint. So, take regular breaks throughout the day (walk, stretch, hug people etc.) and a long break at the end of the week. You will be much more productive on other days.

3. Do other, easier tasks until your energy levels recover

What usually happens when you procrastinate with a task? Remember back in school when you had to study for example, how did you procrastinate?
You probably went from your room to the kitchen to check if all the food was still in the fridge and took a bite or two. You all of a sudden needed to go to the toilet. You browsed a website or two to relax, counted the number of windows in the building next to yours, and so on.
But there is another thing that you probably did: you tidied up your room and your desk, arranged all the notes, stretched a little bit, talked with your classmates about what could be in the test, and other semi-productive tasks. You see where this is going?

If nothing else works, you can use procrastination as a source of motivation to do other important tasks.

The only key is that you don't waste time on stupid things, but instead tick off other work that is currently marked as important on your to-do list.

When the deadline for the procrastinated task approaches and puts more pressure on you, you'll just get it done. Don't fight procrastination, do other important things instead.

Chronic procrastination - a tougher nut to crack (but it can be done)

Acute procrastination is very different from the chronic version as there is often a deep and a complex psychological issue behind it.

You're in a state of chronic procrastination when you constantly procrastinate with certain types of tasks or, even worse, with all of them.

Here are the most frequent reasons for chronic procrastination:

1. Lack of assertiveness, fear and self-sabotage

2. Unreasonably high goals and expectations ( which you know deep down that you can't meet)

3. Laziness

4. Unhealthy lifestyle

5. A lack of skills or fake passion

6. Perfectionism and other cognitive distortions

Proven tips to overcome chronic procrastination

A lack of assertiveness is the number one reason people usually procrastinate. The source of a lack of assertiveness usually lies in upbringing.

To simplify, instead of trust, autonomy, initiative and competence, unassertive people develop mistrust, shame, guilt, doubt or inferiority.

Luckily, a lack of assertiveness usually happens only in a specific context. For example, someone who is very assertive and competent on a soccer field may not be in intellectual matters. A successful professor may not be as skillful when it comes to money management.

Similarly, there are usually areas of life where you know how to assert yourself and others where you don't. When it comes to the former, you procrastinate.

The only way to fix this is to learn how to assert yourself in a healthy way in that area of life.

There are several things you can do:

Mimic your assertive behaviour in fields where you feel less assertive

Join an assertiveness training course

Go to individual or group therapy to explore the underlying reasons for procrastination

Get a coach or a mentor to help you become more assertive

2. Overcome the fear of failure or fear of success

Procrastination can also happen because of fear. The two most common fears connected with procrastination that are potentially holding you back are the fear of failure and the fear of success.

There is a big difference between being hurt by failure, going through a recovery period, reflecting on what you learned and then trying again, and being paralysed by the fear.

Nevertheless, failure is an integral part of success. Success is nothing but going from one failure to the next without giving up, until you succeed.

So, if you want to succeed faster, you have to fail more. You have to learn to love failing and constantly learn from it.

It may be hard to believe, but there is another fear that may be holding you back and causing you to procrastinate - the fear of success.

Success brings things like fame, financial abundance, being the center of attention, good feelings about yourself, and so on. If you don't feel like you deserve success and everything that comes with it, you will always self-sabotage.

The techniques to overcome fears are similar to those used in assertiveness training. Expose yourself to smaller challenges, join group or individual therapy to explore the underlying reasons, and try techniques like visualization, affirmations, etc.

3. Make sure you don't have unreasonably big goals and expectations in life

Yes, we all have to dream big. But life has its limitations, and we must make sure we don't get caught in narcissistic grandiosity, driven by completely unrealistic expectations as to how fast we can achieve something.

Unrealistic expectations lead to disappointments, and big life disappointments usually lead to procrastination or giving up.

Here's how it happens. When you have unrealistic goals and realize after your first try that it will be much harder to achieve them than you thought, you may start to procrastinate.

It's called the Valley of Despair and is part of the Dunning-Kruger effect. You may start doubting yourself and asking if you even have what it takes to achieve your goals. For a while, you struggle with procrastination, and soon you give up.

There are at least two things you can do about it:

Focus more on the process than the outcome; nothing worthwhile comes easily

Have big dreams, but start small; slice and dice your goals into little steps

4. If you believe you are a lazy person, make an identity shift

If you see yourself as a lazy person, the best solution is to change that perception within yourself.

If you want to deal with procrastination due to laziness once and for all, you'll first have to see yourself as an ultra-productive person. But before that, you must explore your underlying beliefs.

Ask yourself: "what beliefs are supporting my laziness?" Imagine yourself as an ultra-productive person, never suffering from procrastination. How does your life look? Do you see any benefits?

Here are a few additional ideas that may help you:

Visualize your new identity and try to feel good about yourself.

Write down the rewards you'll get if you try harder (your whys). And make sure you really do reward yourself for small efforts.

Try to support your new identity with small productivity actions - where you would normally procrastinate at a small task, do it immediately instead.

If you don't see yourself as a lazy person and you actually are (we all have blind spots), well, first you have to become aware of it.

Maybe you can ask 10 people in your professional and personal life if they see you as a lazy person. Or benchmark your working outputs with 5 other people that have the same position as you do. That may be a good start.

5. Improve your lifestyle to have more energy

If you don't have high levels of energy, it's very normal to procrastinate.

A lack of energy may be caused by overworking, burnout, and temporary exhaustion, but it can be also caused by an unhealthy lifestyle. If you have a really poor diet with no exercise, small changes can have a big benefit on your productivity.

Here are a few recommendations for improving your lifestyle:

Get enough sleep (7 - 8 hours) and make sure it's quality sleep

Eat a healthy diet with lots of green veggies, healthy fats, and low levels of sugar

Have a few smaller meals throughout the day, so you keep your insulin levels steady

Avoid unhealthy snacks

Help yourself with a few basic supplements

Exercise a few times per week

Drink enough water

Make sure you aren't destroying your body and spirit with addictions

There's no big philosophy here, just do it. Go sleep early, add veggies to every meal, always have healthy snacks within reach, go for a walk or exercise every day, drink water and so on.

Introduce one of those things into your life every month, and in half a year you'll enjoy a completely new you.

When we talk about a healthy lifestyle, you should pay special attention to addictions. There are many addictions that could be destroying your life and your productivity and causing you to procrastinate.

These addictions are for example:

Too much chocolate and sweets

Watching TV shows late into the night

Sleeping too much

Hanging out in bars all the time

Not to mention harder addictions like smoking, alcohol, or drugs

6. Develop a new set of skills that will help you deal with more demanding tasks

If your skill level for a certain task is high and this task is not even a little challenging to you, you get bored and you may procrastinate.

In the same way, if a task is way too demanding and you lack skills, your actions will be hindered by worry, anxiety, and procrastination.

To look at it from another angle - in psychology, weknow the comfort zone, the learning zone, and the panic zone.

If a task is way too challenging for your current skillset, you push yourself directly into the panic zone. In the panic zone, you may face such severe negative emotions that it becomes much harder to go out of your comfort zone for the next attempt, which results in chronic procrastination.

Never overestimate what you can accomplish in a month but, on the other hand, also don't underestimate what you can accomplish in a few years' time.

There are two things you can do. The first one is to bite off only as much as you can chew at a particular moment.

The other thing you can do is to develop new competences. You can join an online course, get a mentor, engage in formal education etc.

We all usually want to show the world the new competences we have acquired, and that can be a great motivator to overcome procrastination.

7. Find a new passion that is the result of being good at something

To be highly motivated and not to deal with chronic procrastination at all, you want to make sure that your goals are totally aligned with your own life vision, your talents, and your competences and values.

It's where intrinsic motivation comes from. If your goals aren't true to your real self, you will never be motivated enough to achieve them, since they won't be your real passion.

But make sure you don't have unrealistic expectations regarding work that awakens passion in you. There's rarely a scenario where you have a passion for something (like a hobby) and then that thing also becomes a job with which you can pay your bills.

It can happen, but usually it's the exception rather than the rule.

A much better strategy is to follow your effort (advice by Mark Cuban). Find something you're good at and the market needs. Develop mastery at that thing and passion will come.

The bottom line is that you have to provide value to the market, and value is what other people are willing to pay for; unfortunately, those are usually not your hobbies.

Don't follow your passion, follow your effort. Become a master at something the market needs and passion will follow.

8. Make sure perfectionism is not holding you back

Perfectionism might be the reason you're constantly procrastinating.

Perfectionism is a result of cognitive distortions and below are just a few examples of how cognitive distortions may contribute to procrastination and how negative thinking and toxic beliefs are preventing you from acting:

All-or-nothing thinking: I have to do it perfectly or I won't do it at all.

Overgeneralisation: I never do this type of task right, so why would it be different this time? It's better if I don't do it at all.

Mental filter: I have to work with that a**hole on this task. I can't get anything good out of it except frustration and humiliation.

Disqualifying the positive: I shouldn't be the one doing this task.

Jumping to conclusions: Anyway, I won't be rewarded for completing this task.

Minimization: It's another unimportant task I have to do even though anyone else could easily do it.

Emotional reasoning: I don't feel like doing this task, so it must not be worth doing.

Should statements: I should perform better in life and I should have already completed this task a long time ago. Does it even make sense to finish it now?

Labelling: I'm a lazy person, if I always procrastinate, why wouldn't I procrastinate with this task as well?

In particular, all-or-nothing thinking leads to perfectionism, and perfectionism leads to procrastination. Since I can't do it perfectly, I don't want to do it at all.

You're never satisfied with your results, so why add another thing that you just won't be proud of? But in reality, this is the sort of toxic thinking that may prevent you from achieving anything in life.

The best solution for any cognitive distortion is emotional accounting. A technique to talk back to your inner critic. Try it, it may change your life forever.

The summary - How to stop procrastinating once and for all

Now you should have a really good understanding of procrastination and what you can do about it. The next time you procrastinate, first determine what kind of procrastination you're dealing with and find the real source.

After you have identified the type and source of procrastination, you now have many tools available that can help you deal with it once and for all. Below is the summary of all the techniques we have mentioned.

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There are two types of procrastination, chronic and acute. Chronic procrastination has a deep, strong, and permanent psychological cause that may not be so easily eliminated. It can be done, but it takes patience and hard work.

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2. Stand-up comedy is one of my favorite companions in leisure. But sometimes I wonder if it is helping me or the contrary. So I did some digging and found an article about the mental health of stand-up comedians (not consumers). I would like to look into this matter of how stand-up comedy affects mental health.
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/01/health/sad-clown-standup-comedy-mental-health/index.html

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The deep emotions behind stand-up comedy

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I am really interested to find out more on how I can cope with overcoming work burnout. Therefore, I find these articles to be very interesting.  I also found a YouTube video which can be helpful for me to find effective strategies of minimising the effects of work burnout. Here are some articles that I found:
1. https://www.ventureharbour.com/remote-work-challenges-solutions/
2. https://torquemag.io/2020/03/working-remotely-challenges/
3. https://zapier.com/blog/remote-work-challenges/

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3 steps to stop remote work burnout | The Way We Work, a TED series