Description:This dissertation concentrates on the study of metaphors in the first four Harry Potter novels. Written by J K Rowling, the novels with the powerful tool of ??magic turn common, ??real themes and things into something delightful and engaging. The dissertation aims to analyze this merging and argues that it is through the metaphors present in these four novels that such a blend is possible. Through a textual analysis of the first four Harry Potter novels, Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the dissertation first shows that these novels contain characteristics of magic realism fiction. The considerations of these characteristics or features verify the presence of magic and reality in the novels. Following which, the dissertation corroborates that the presence of magic and reality, the fusion of these two elements are possible through an extensive use of metaphors. The arguments are primarily developed with the support of vivid examples from all the four texts. The metaphors explored are divided into two major categories; human and non-human. Both the categories, established in different chapters, demonstrate that they are functional is merging the elements of magic and reality. The magic in reality and the real in the magical can be comprehended, analyzing the use of metaphors. Evidencing which had been the purpose of this dissertation through a study of the first four Harry Potter novels. [show more]

Description:The recent wave of reforms by the Government to introduce Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in various sectors is bringing a new zeal to the investment climate in India. One of the most debated reforms is the policy for allowing 51 percent FDI in multi-brand retail. The Government has now approved of 51 percent FDI in multi-brand retail. According to Deloitte, organized retail, which constitutes 8 percent of the total retail market today, will grow much faster than unorganized retail and is expected to be 20 percent by 2020. With the emergence of organized retail, a new set of brands ?? store brands, have evolved. Store brands are slowly gaining popularity across the organized retail sector. While elaborate research on the emergence of store brands have been undertaken in the developed economies of North America and Western Europe, research in the context of the Indian market is still at the nascent stage. This study intends to identify the factors influencing the consumers preference towards national brands and store brands across Bangalore. As Big Bazaar is the largest retail store chain in India and also stocks a large variety of store brands, the study has been confined to the Big Bazaar outlets across Bangalore, with specific focus on the food category. Survey research method was followed in this study. Questionnaire was used for collecting primary data while the secondary data was collected from selective sources of data like journals, websites, research reports, magazines and newspapers. The convenience sampling technique was used. A sample of 250 consumers was selected from the Bangalore city. The statistical techniques which are used in the study include descriptive statistics, frequencies and percentages, reliability test and one- way ANOVA. Some of the key findings of the study are:- There is no significant difference between national and store brands for factors like product innovation, repeat purchase, product variety across category, shelf placement, brand equity, taste, shelf life and nutritional benefit. The factors perceived quality, packaging, price rise, trust, TV/Newspaper promotions, shelf search, social acceptance, freshness and cleanliness influences a consumers preference towards national brands. Four factors primarily influence consumers preference towards store brands. They are perceived risk, value for money, copycats and in-store promotion. vi It is intended that the findings of this research, about the factors influencing consumers preference towards national and store brands, will be useful to retailers, food product manufacturers etc. It will help them to assess their current strategies revolving around their respective national or store brands. The findings will also help them to target the right audience to gain maximum mileage as extensive detail has been provided based on a number of demographic variables. The content in this report details out the research conducted in this regard followed by a conclusion. Keywords: Organized retail, Store brands, National brands, Foreign Direct Investment, Demography [show more]

Description:This research study entitled-??Current popularity of Assamese Cinema is a study on the status and recent growth of the Assamese film Industry and to explore the present scenario after a lots of bottlenecks. The prime focus is on the current level of popularity of the Assamese films and the paper is also directed towards the understanding of how the industry is rising and trying to achieve the position despite its long history, and its artistic successes, for a state (Assam) that has always taken its cinema seriously and after making a mark various prestigious Awards over the years. The methodology was devised with surveys, which was followed by a predominantly qualitative and quantitative data analysis to help to verify the objective of the research. The research was based mainly on audience survey and Experts?? opinion. After analyzing the survey results, it can be concluded that people still watch Assamese films but it is not as popular like earlier days. The condition of Assamese film industry is not so great but if people take initiatives then there is a hope of a bright future, whereas one cannot ignore the developments which has been taking place in the recent place. [show more]

Description: The effects resulting from the Maxwell-Cattaneo law in Rayleigh-B??nard convection in Maxwells viscoelastic fluid are studied using the Galerkin technique. The effects of one linear and five nonlinear basic temperature gradients are studied on the onset of convection. The Eigenvalue is obtained for free-free, rigid-rigid, rigid-free, velocity boundary combinations with isothermal boundaries. A linear stability analysis is performed. The influence of various parameters on the onset of convection has been analyzed. [show more]

Description:This dissertation aims at studying the social networking site??s impact on people and relationships. There are different reasons why people use social networking sites like Facebook. The study aims to check whether it is the loneliness or the need for socialization that encourages networking on such sites. Study looks into Facebook and other social networking sites have changed the youngsters?? lives and lifestyles. This research tries to find out how this new media trend has affected peoples attitude towards life and also their attitude towards relationships. A questionnaire has been used to find the opinion of the people regarding the social networking concept. 75-100 people were researched to find out the exact need for social networking. The ability of networks to introduce new actors and new contents in the process of social organization, with relative independence to the power centres, increased over time with technological change, and more precisely, with the evolution of communication technologies. This is the reason that social networks has encouraged creating strong bonds. Through this study I want to understand if these ties are actually as effective as they seem to be. Internet does have both positive and negative impacts on the youth but the relations that are formed or maintained cannot be used to replace the real world actual relations. [show more]

Description:This study is to analyse if readers read an article they come across, due to its presentation style (writing style, graphic designs, layout and topic). Readers pick a magazine based on their interest and the magazines may contain what they already know, something additional to the knowledge they already have and also from the areas that they are ignorant about. They may or may not read all the articles from that particular magazine and if at all they read there can be a solid reason behind it. The researcher wants to analyze if it is because of their interest or due to the presentation style. There have been studies done in this particular field but not with any particular point of view. They have also not stressed much on the contrast of presentations style and content. This study can be a means through which many magazines or other print media can reach up to the audience and make them read the articles or even view a website. The researcher prefers qualitative study as an analysis on why they read an article has to be done. It is by means of a questionnaire that the researcher is going to do the qualitative study. The questions in the questionnaires are not going to be in- depth but are going to, mainly, depend on a number of closed ended questions and a few open ended questions as the analysis is steadily depending on a perspective of the respondents, though their opinions might differ, and the sample the researcher chose are readers of magazine or newspapers or both. The researcher will be distributing the questionnaire among 75 readers and the samples are going to be picked randomly. [show more]

Description:The thesis aims at finding out which is a better medium to communicate environmental issues. For the purpose of the research, four films were selected, two live action films and two animation films. 2012 and 8 Below are the two live action films and Wall-E and Madagascar are the two animation films. The study had a sample of 86 people, 45 females and 41 males respectively between the age group of 18 to 28 years. A survey was conducted, consisting of four questions each for the four films. The questions were devised to find out the theme of the films, whether or not the film has scientific grounding and if yes as to the reason why. After tabulating and analysing the results it can be seen that animation films are more popular as 76% of the sample has seen the animation films and majority of the sample believes the films have scientific grounding and that the issues and rendered in a comic fashion. 2012 and Madagascar have been watched equally by the sample, both of them have 80 percent. [show more]

Description:The paper research??s about the potential of an advertisement strategy on a lower scale, where number of promotional activities and the use of certain strategies like; direct marketing, social networking sites, internet, word-of-mouth, guerrilla marketing are used as a channel for promoting and creating brand awareness unconventionally. The research paper is primarily incorporating few aspects which relate to market study. The paper is in context of the upcoming trend of advertising. Not every client has a big business, not every client is a opulent person, and such people need to spend money carefully as they do not have sufficient investment. One of the major reasons why this research is conducted is to plan clients a lucrative marketing scenario within the budget, as well provide them a good promotion scale. The communication is indirect to the mass audience but direct to the niche audience. The research is on how low cost advertisement i.e. strategies like below the line advertising, guerrilla marketing which is capturing the target market. The paper also researches about how various new mediums can club together and make it possible to advertise on a low cost channel, meant for clients with low budget as well as high budget and create more awareness in a way of unconventional media when compare to the conventional media. It is also becoming a cut throat marketing strategy for all the products. The researcher also believes that there is allot of potential in conducting this research, as it extracts allot of information and opinions of different people in today??s scenario based on daily observation. Also helps the research gather relevant information about the use of medium??s and their potential. [show more]

Description:Advertising has become very costly and time consuming and is an important marketing activity. A lot of time, energy and money is spent in developing a creative advertising appeals to influence the buying behaviour of consumers through various appeals, advertising influence, rationally or emotionally, the prospects purchase decisions. There are various types of appeals in advertisements. Appeals in both print and broadcast media keep changing according to the innovation and the product that keeps developing in the market. Language is also an important feature of advertisement ad advertisers have experimented a lot in terms of using language be it a particular language likes English or Hindi or au bilingual language. Hinglish is being used by mostly products focussing on youth and rural audience of India and who just does not want to restrict themselves to the elite of the society as the product is affordable. The study would examine the various Hinglish taglines of various different brands. The survey will be done to find out peoples perception about the language Hinglish as an important ad appeal. [show more]

Description: The study tries to explore the attitudes that healthcare professionals have towards euthanasia for the terminally ill. In order to understand euthanasia, having knowledge of the term euthanasia and the history of euthanasia is crucial. Previous studies conducted on euthanasia and attitudes towards euthanasia showed that majority of the studies focussed on separate analysis of attitudes of the healthcare professionals. A total of 75 participants were taken for the study, out of that 52% had a positive attitude towards euthanasia whereas 48% had a negative attitude. The study has used Euthanasia Attitude Scale to determine the level of positive or negative attitudes with regard to euthanasia. In conclusion, the study found out that majority of the participants had a favourable attitude towards euthanasia. The stated result did not show to be statistically significant. The author is of the view that with the advancement in times, the society also becomes aware and more accepting to concepts which are socially ostracised. The scope for further studies on a similar topic is wide and encouraged, as there are many more areas that need to be explored and studied. Keywords: Euthanasia, Physician Assisted Suicide, Healthcare Professionals, Attitudes on Euthanasia, Terminally Ill. [show more]

Description:The volume of traffic moving over the Internet is expanding exponentially every day due to increase in communication through Emails, branch offices remotely connect to their corporate network and commercial transactions. Hence protection of networks and their services from unauthorized modification and destruction is very much needed. TCPIP is the most commonly used communication protocol in the Internet domain. IP packets are exchanged between the end hosts as plain text (without any encryption). As Internet uses PSDN (Packet Switching Data Network) anybody who has access to PSDN can access/modify the data. Hence securing data over the network is difficult. The goal of network security is to provide, authenticity, confidentiality and integrity. Confidentiality is making sure that no body other than the receiver will be able to read the data. Integrity is making sure that the data didnt get modified by intruder or by some other means while it is getting transmitted. Authenticity is making sure that the data is coming from the right sender. In this paper we propose a new data encryption algorithm based on private key (symmetric key) cryptography method. Keys are shared between two end hosts using simple algorithm. Cyber block chaining method is used while encrypting/decrypting the data. Large prime numbers are generated well in advance and kept for further key refreshments. The keys were refreshed periodically, so it gives very minimal time for the hackers to attack the system. As simple operations are used, we will be able to achieve fast and secure data encryption/decryption using this method. The behavior of the proposed approach is verified through various tests. [show more]

Description:Cinema is told to be the universal teacher. It is simple and can teach the audience on various issues and provide entertainment at the same time. Cinema has proved to be a wonderful source of entertainment and relaxation. Films increase our horizon while at the same time frames our thinking process as it becomes the popular culture. It is said that films have a lot of influence on the audience and the society. Sometimes knowingly or unknowingly the society is influenced by what is shown on screen and try to relate it to their own life. It is generally seen that there are stereotypical roles, gender expectations from the male and female characters, storyline in a mainstream Indian film. However there are few directors who choose to be different and deal with delicate subjects like relationships, divorce, widowhood, infidelity and LGBT (lesbian, gay, Bisexual, Transexual) issues. Rituparno Ghosh has dealt with issues related to women and places the movie from the point of view of the female character and not the usual male character. The director is said to have understood the psyche of a woman very well and establish that on screen even better. Rituparno Ghoshs always celebrated the female sexuality and liberty and was against the stereotyping of female characters which is again very rare in Indian films. This research is an attempt to see the pattern of portrayal of women in his films regarding to the kind of issues and themes he dealt with. [show more]

Description:Films represent society and in a society there is a struggle between people and classes made by the people. In any type of film there is an underlying philosophy. Marxist philosophy or Marxism came out of classical German philosophy and it has a strong presence in countries like Russia and India. Marxism deals with various ideologies like capitalism, class struggle, class conflict and economy struggle. The study aims to analyze the portrayal of those ideologies through two Russian and two Indian films by applying qualitative (content analysis and in depth interview) methodology. [show more]

Description:Franz Kafka has been discussed as an existentialist, a Zionist, a Marxist and also a philosopher. While most of the twentieth century studies centred around reading Kafka on the content plane, the contemporary Kafka studies show a change in trend where scholars and critics alike have shifted focus on re-reading Kafkas works on the expression plane??from the Hegelian school to the Kantian school of art without a concept. But it is interesting that even such studies only deal with the form??use of metaphor and the typical Kafkaesque expressions in writing, syntax and use of minimal narrative, not delving deeper to realize the aesthetic potential of his works in totality. It was Milan Kundera who first noted that most Kafka readings negate the presence of aesthetics. On reading Kafka from the aesthetic perspective, readers would be bound to reflect on its semblance with psychedelic aesthetics?? a field of aesthetics which itself has been much debated. The research involved an analysis of the Kafkan texts and works which fall under the umbrella term psychedelic art??music, painting and literature. A close study revealed that indeed there is a similarity in form, expression and representation in Kafkas works and psychedelic art. This research will provide a new perspective of reading Kafka and partially explain Kafkas use of hallucinatory descriptions, grotesque images and nightmarish scenarios. [show more]

Description:The question of employability has risen as a problem worldwide. India produces around 400000 engineers every year. But, according to a study done by Nasscom, only one in four engineering graduates is employable. The remaining lagged in technical skills and know-how, ability to converse in English, make oral presentations or work in teams. According to a recent survey jointly carried out by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the World Bank, 64 percent of surveyed employers are ??somewhat, ??not really or ??not at all satisfied with the quality of the engineering graduates skills. Graduates are found lacking in important skills like entrepreneurship, communication in English and use of modern tools and technologies. It has been argued that if colleges want to improve the employability of their graduates, they have to focus on reducing these important skill gaps through improvements in curriculum and teaching methods. The primary objective of the paper is to identify a set of factors that may have a bearing on the employability of engineering graduates in Bangalore and then find out how they are being rated by the institutions engaged in training these graduates on one hand and their prospective employers on the other and then find out the prime factors or dimensions influencing the kind of response received from each side, i.e. the institution and the industry. Lastly, if differences are found between the decisive factors or principal components of the industry and the institution, the study also intends to propose qualitative suggestions that can help to bridge the gaps thereby accelerating chances of employability of engineering graduates. [show more]

Description:Health is a state of mental, physical and social well-being. India is in need of a healthcare system that can fulfill the demands of over a billion people who are unable to bear the burden of the cost of healthcare. The major challenges in the countrys healthcare system are the universal access to healthcare, health equity, healthcare human resources and healthcare finance. Increasing population in cities and urban poverty has raised a strong concern in the health condition of the urban poor in particular. The speedy growth of cities in the country in conjunction with the growth of the urban poor has made this position more important at this point of time. The present study basically aimed at finding the major factors influencing urban health and healthcare. This research aims in finding out the reasons for the fragmentation of Bangalores health services with unequal distribution of resources and minimum communication between various services. This study also focuses on areas of health concern like insufficient primary healthcare, lack of referral system, insufficient public participation towards healthcare promotion, co-ordination between various governmental or non-governmental departments etc. It is mainly based on secondary data. Interview guide is used as a tool to collect primary data. Content analysis is used to analyse and describe the present scenario objectively and systematically. Bangalore has a wide infrastructure of healthcare centres but still the poorer sections of the society do not have easy access to them. A significant number of government schemes have been implemented to provide better healthcare services in Bangalore. It can be said that Bangalore has got enough health resources to serve its people. However, the urban poor do not have the necessary means to access a proper healthcare due to various reasons like the shortage of staff, medicines, diagnostic services in public sector and private healthcare expenses which are unaffordable. The government has been failing to achieve its health target in the urban areas and ultimately left the same in the hands of private health sector. The funds allocated on health are not used effectively towards improved health service delivery. Healthcare budgeting, healthcare policies, disease eradication programmes and improvement plans of primary healthcare centres and dispensaries etc. are the main areas in which the government is falling short. There is a need to empower the urban poor to maintain their rights within the context of development. A policy which is more oriented towards the partnership of private and public healthcare sectors is advisable. A universalized system to provide equitable and basic care to every individual is required. Public-Private Partnership in health sector is a key for improving the health of the population. The governments act of financing towards healthcare must in fact be increased to 2-3 per cent of GDP. As such, the present study came out with a lot of suggestions to improve the health status of urban poor. It has also made an attempt to analyse the policy issues associated with healthcare. The researcher believes that this will be definitely an addition to the existing literature on healthcare systems in India. Layout of the dissertation: The dissertation is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is the introductory part of the research. It defines the basic concepts by giving brief summary or by providing information which are necessary to understand this research. This chapter also describes the research problems which motivates the researcher to conduct the study. Second chapter reviews the literature of healthcare problems faced by the common man. It includes reviews of various articles and books contributed towards healthcare and health policies by various health experts and practitioners. The third chapter talks about the methods used to implement the research. It explains the methodological procedures such as tools for data collection, sources of data and research design which are used to carry out the study. Data analysis is the fourth chapter and this part of the research includes the analysis of the various collected data. It includes the process of inspecting and transforming of the collected data with the goal of highlighting useful information, later helping towards suggesting conclusion of the research. The final chapter presents the summary of the research with important findings and suggestions. Key words: healthcare, health policy, health status, ailing people, urban poor, cost of treatment, public health sector, private health sector, health infrastructure. [show more]

Description:The dissertation titled Influence of social issues portrayed in commercial movies on the youth audience speaks about the effectiveness of the film as a means of communication to the large audience especially to the youth. As in the recent times the film industry is growing tremendously and many films are Bourne to experimentation, and commercial films also changing. In this regard this research paper analyses the implication of the commercial films on the youth audience as they are more prone to the changes of the media. The researcher analysis in this research paper the effectiveness of the commercial films on the youth audience, For this purpose the researcher conducted survey analysis taking 100 respondents as the sample size of youth group ranging from 15 -30 age group. In the literature review the researcher have used few theories to explain the phenomenon and also have collected few previously done researches related to the area of the subject. After conducting the research the researcher finds out that the respondents are not influenced by the social issues portrayed in the commercial movies as they feel that it is a tool used by the film makers to make profit. But the research found out that these commercial movies makes them aware of the issues portrayed in these commercial movies. [show more]

Description:Many studies have shown that Artificial Neural Networks has the capacity to learn the underlying mechanics of stock markets. In fact, Artificial Neural Networks has been widely used for forecasting financial markets. However, such applications to Indian Stock Markets are scarce. This paper applies neural network models to predict the option prices which are traded in National Stock Exchange. Multilayer perceptron network is used to build the option forecasting model and the network is trained using Back Propagation algorithm. It is found that the predictive power of the network model is not influenced by the neural network using realised volatility. The study shows that satisfactory results can be achieved when applying Hybrid Neural Networks to forecast for the next 30 days. The result shows Black Scholes model outperforms the Hybrid Neural Network models and also when we compared the Hybrid Neural Networks results with the econometric Models such as OLS and EGARCH we saw that the Econometric models give the good results. [show more]