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Cultural Constraints and Empowerment: A Study of Kudumbashree in Kerala
Women empowerment occupies the centre of discussions of social development and is carried by UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). It continues to be highly debated and contested. Different scholars have defined empowerment in a different ways depending upon the contextual variations. The study seeks to present varied theoretical perspectives on empowerment and reinforce them with current empowerment practices in Indian settings. Based on relevant literature on empowerment, an attempt has been made here to examine the definitions and its cultural and contextual variations. This provides a linkage between theory and practice of empowerment in Indian society. An ethnographic study of Kudumbashree, a women organization in Kerala is been carried out where the contextual variations of empowerment is covered. Women empowerment has multiple implications for patriarchal surroundings and has possessed problems in re-engaging with structural inequalities like caste and class identities of women. All these create a plethora of problems to Indian society and empowerment among women helps in solving and eradicating such problems. Hence the study attempts to find out how Kudumbashree negotiates the contextual and structural issues of women empowerment. The problems faced by women tend to increase day by day and studying topics likes these helps in minimizing it thereby providing a better understanding about the concept of women empowerment. The researcher concludes the study by mentioning the contextual and dynamic variations of empowerment. There is no universally accepted definition for empowerment where it varies according to the subjective locations of individuals. For instance; empowerment for a woman in a scheduled caste or lower caste women varies to that of upper caste women. -
Rewriting Epic as a Discourse of the Marginalized: A Study of Mahasweta Devis Select Fiction
The present dissertation engages itself with an analytical study of five short stories by Mahasweta Devi, where she has rewritten episodes from the grand narrative The Mahabharata. Her stories The Five Women, Kunti and Nishadin, Souvali, Draupadi and Bhishmas thirst have been chosen for being studied in order to show how Devi counter narrates the grand epic by looking at the religious battle of Kurukshetra and the canonical epic characters from the subaltern perspective and thus creates a discourse of the marginalised. The critical framework of the study is based on a postcolonial and subaltern study of the texts as the principal characters and Devis themes are anti-canonical and anti- hegemonic. Through Devis feminist rewriting of the ancient text the subaltern sections of the society, who have been marginally represented in the canonical text, have been given a chance to speak. A readers understanding of the epic undergoes a change by going through the rewritten stories which is Devis main intention behind rewriting The Mahabharata. Through her writing she challenges the age old notions and long established truths in the epic for which it has been granted an epic stature. Thus she makes an attempt to lend a voice to the voiceless by this narrative technique and fulfils her social commitment as a journalist and activist writer. -
Spectroscopic Studies of Galactic Field Be Stars
Be stars provide excellent opportunity to study circumstellar disks. But the disc formation mechanism of classical Be (CBe) stars- the Be phenomenon- is still poorly understood. This can be understood by studying CBe stars in various locations like clusters and fields. Spectra of Be stars show interesting emission lines of different elements like hydrogen, helium, iron, oxygen calcium, etc. These emission lines are valuable indicators in providing information about the circumstellar disks of Be stars. In the past several decades various aspects of Be stars have been studied. But literature review clearly indicates the need of further studies to frame a consolidated picture about Be phenomenon in CBe stars. It is found that especially, the region ?????? 7500 - 8800 ??? is a less studied, and thus poorly understood area in Be star research. But this area shows some interesting features like emission lines calcium, iron, oxygen and Paschen series. So, here we have studied a sample of 118 field CBe stars taken from the catalogue of Jaschek & Egret (1982) and whose medium resolution spectra were obtained in ?????? 3800 ?? 9000 ??? region during December, 2007 to January, 2009 with the 2.1-m Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT), located at Hanle, Ladakh, India and operated by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bangalore. In this thesis, we present three works which investigate the disc properties of our 118 program Be stars by studying their spectral line features, focussing primarily on the less explored ?????? 7500 - 8800 ??? region. Firstly, we have analyzed the less studied Fe II 7712 ??? emission line for our stars to understand the possible Fe II line excitation mechanism in CBe stars. Our work predicts that Ly???fluorescence may be the possible Fe II line excitation mechanism in CBe stars. Secondly, we have studied the Ca II triplet emission lines for our stars and have developed a new technique for deblending Ca II components from their counterpart Paschen lines, thus providing a more efficient way to analyze Ca II lines. Analyzing Ca II lines through this technique, we suggest that the gas producing these lines is optically thick. This leads us to predict that Ca II lines may be an indicator of binarity in Be stars. Lastly, we have estimated the Balmer decrement values, D34 and D54 for 81 of our sample stars to shed light on opacity effects in Be star disks. Our work confirms the disc transient nature of Be stars through epoch-wise D34 and D54 variation study and also suggests that Be star disks are optically thick. -
Evaluation and analysis of quality in e commerce (B2C Website) /
There has been a phenomenal growth in Ecommerce in the last few years and it is still growing. As the market is expanding, more and more organizations want to have web presence. Due to sudden and rapid demand in Ecommerce website, website development companies are ignoring or skipping the quality factor. Apart from this, due to popularity of Internet, more and more consumers are buying products and services through ecommerce websites. The software development companies want to delivery the products quickly, to make fast money. To meet the deadlines, usually the quality of the product is not taken as a priority, resulting in a product full of bugs, being shipped to the customers. Once the software becomes live, more and more bugs keep coming resulting in loss of business and credibility of the organization is affected. Lack of quality Ecommerce websites result in consumers moving back to the alternate methods of shopping or switching to another website. With the increase in the competition, companies have started studying the consumer behavior and determining the factors that affect the quality of Ecommerce websites form the consumers perspective. During these years, several lessons have been learned about the technology, business and economy of Ecommerce. -
Influence of Celebrity Endorsement on Women Consumers Purchase Decision of Lifestyle Product - A Study with Reference to the City of Bangalore
Companies have been using celebrities to promote their product and entice the consumers to buy eventually. Since decades this strategy is used by the marketers extensively to attract the consumers to buy the products. Many studies have been done in this area of marketing and most of them talk about celebrity endorsement as a consumer attention seeker. This research talks about the consumer perception about the celebrity in the advertisement and how far do the huge amount of money pumped into celebrity endorsement can be justified? The questionnaires were given to 300 women falling in the age group of 20-40 years residing in the city of Bangalore. By analyzing the data, it strongly came out that celebrity endorsers do not have any effect on the women consumers purchase decision of lifestyle products in the city of Bangalore. It was found that even if the celebrity advertisements get the attention of the women consumer, it may not necessarily convert the attention into purchase decision which depends on many other factors like quality, quantity, experience, price etc. and also one of the most important variables, it depends on the type of product. As a whole the crores of money invested celebrity endorsements cannot be justified in terms of the returns i.e. it may or may not bring a positive impact on the buying behavior of the consumers. In chapter one, the study presents an overview of marketing and consumer behavior. It explains the marketing trends and it is in this century. Then the concept of marketing gave way to the concept advertising and celebrity endorsements. It also talks about celebrity and consumer perception. Chapter two discusses about the various literature reviews relating to the current study. Many studies are citied both by foreign and Indian researchers pertaining to the present study. However, all the possible studies relating to celebrity endorsements are cited. Journals, e-magazines and books were referred. Chapter three discusses about the Research design. The questionnaires were given to 300 women falling in the age group of 20-40 years residing in the city of Bangalore. The sampling technique used here is partially judgmental convenient sampling. Chapter four discusses the analysis and interpretation of the data collected for the research with the help of different statistical and analytical tool. Chi square, F-test and Anova are the statistical tools used for this study Chapter five talk about the findings, suggestions and conclusions for the study. Scope for further study is also given in this chapter. -
A Study on Popular Naga Cuisine and Its Representation on Instagram
Food is a very sensitive topic as it is the representation of culture that shapes identity such that any flaw in representation could result in identity confusion or identity clashes. Food culture and its meaning varies from one culture to another. Also, very often one will notice that a cuisine which is a delicacy for a community could be a taboo or unacceptable for the other. India is known for its rich diverse culture, which includes geography, lifestyle, food habits, biodiversity and more. It is commonly seen that dominant food are often presented as the national cuisine while relegating others to the margins or erasing them altogether. A society is dynamic in nature, which goes through constant social issues too. But while the society strives to solve or seek for a solution to the conventionally defined social problem it fails to count in the misrepresentation of food culture as an issue that results in identity crisis. The dependency on media has increased tremendously such that a personal opinion and views about a subject are shaped by the sources that are readily available at their convenience in the form of social media. Today the concept of food gram that is the combination of Food and Instagram is a very popular trend among netizen. Instagram is an online photo-video sharing application where popularly in these context users post food images of what they eat, with whom and where. Whereas for professional based account it is seen as a marketing forum. The representation of food culture on social media is seen as an advantage and a challenge. The food culture of the Naga Tribes of Nagaland, Northeast, is the core of the study. It aims to understand the dominant tribal representation of Naga food and seek to understand how these representations on Instagram shape perceptions about the Naga population. The researcher has adopted a theoretical framework of Representation and Semiotics. A triangulation method approach has been applied for the study in analyzing Instagram post that is hash tagged, #nagacuisine from the month of July and August 2018. How Instagram as a medium represent Naga food and how it shapes an identity for the Naga population is what this study will seek to understand. -
Establishing a service composition frame work for smart healthcare system
As the idea of location awareness has already matured and numerous applications are flooded in today???s word, the logical next step reasons out, to context-awareness. Though the idea of context-awareness has been in the research field for close to two decades, the recent advancement in Internet of Things has brought a more compelling thrust in its research. Sensor networks integrating billions of sensors and actuators will be prevalent in the near future producing big data. Filtering and analysing this data with the contextual information will yield more significant results. But deducing the context information itself poses many challenges and unresolved research problems. Context-awareness systems involve acquiring, analysing, reasoning the data and composing the services for suitable action. Service composition either by orchestrating or choreographing technique has been deployed in certain applications, however, each domain requires unique methodology. Healthcare has always been the top priority when it comes to applying novel technologies. Applying context-awareness computing in the healthcare service sector is of paramount importance. The problem context for this research lies in a cardiology speciality hospital???s Intensive Therapy Unit or the post-surgery recovery ward which has lot of scenarios emanating that involves course of actions to be delivered by the healthcare professionals depending on the context. Depending on mere human service may not be adequate. With the available advancements in technologies, it would be possible to leverage optimum service in that time critical situations, provided technology can sense the changes in context and act accordingly. The course of actions to be taken involves an amalgamation of understanding the location, presence availability, relevance of and coordination among various departments, machines and personnel. This can be summarized as ???Response??? with ???Context-Awareness???. The primarily task is to sense the context and then determine and locate the relevant services, which are distributed in the World Wide Web, to achieve a goal situation as a solution to the problem. In order to deliver such a solution we need to develop an exclusive context-aware framework. The existing frameworks will not be adequate to meet such a demanding situation and hence, the research problem is to evolve a comprehensive service composition framework for smart healthcare systems. In order to solve this problem, a use-case approach was followed. After identifying an appropriate use-case, the solution was first modelled using Automata. The concept of service automata and timed automata were fused to deliver a timed-service automaton which is appropriate to model and test the framework and algorithm for service composition. As a solution to the research problem, a composition based framework of a context-aware smart healthcare system has been presented. It will guide software developers to deploy services for critical healthcare, under the umbrella of Service Oriented Architecture. The matured concept of Automata has been tweaked to present novel timed-service automata which will enable service composition precisely for meeting the time constrained demands of modern healthcare service requirements. It has been tested with UPPAAL verification tool for validity and concurrency. A prototype has been implemented to study the validity of the established framework. Apache JMeter tool was used to test the strength of the services and engine developed based on the proposed algorithm for effective service composition. -
A study on Savings and Investment Patterns of Women in Bangalore
Economic growth of a nation is driven by savings and its transformation into investment. In the last three decades, Indian economy has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies of the world. Households are the biggest contributors to Indias savings rate; their savings equal 23 percent of Indias GDP. Though the percentage of savings by household sector in financial assets is increasing year on year, what is worrying is that only around half of the household savings in India are invested in financial instruments. Knowledge about saving and investment preferences, gender-wise, will help to design effective investment instruments. Another area that requires further examination is the role that a woman plays in influencing aggregate savings and investment. Till the last decade, considering the low earning potential of women to earn, save and invest, not much research has been conducted on this subject. The coming decade, is going to see more and more women getting higher education and aiming for heavy pay cheque jobs. There is an urgent need to understand the savings and investment pattern of women, so as to frame policies and develop financial products exclusively for women. Another reason for understanding the savings and investment pattern of women is that, though they are good savers, they are unable to convert all their savings into investments. They do not invest as much as the men do. According to Barber (2001) though women are not active investors, they make more profits than men when they trade because by trading more, men hurt their performance more than women. Preda (2001) comments that women are always excluded from financial discussions, on the explicit ground that they cannot understand investments. According to Chachoria (2000) women are the next generation financial decision makers and they should be targeted from a financial perspective. She suggests that marketing for financial products should be done differently for women. Through this study an attempt is made to understand the savings and investment pattern of women. The factors which influence their investment decision making are identified. As 60 percent of women in India are house wives , they have been included in this study . The vi variations in the investment pattern between working and non-working with respect to socio-demographic attributes have been analyzed. The sample size consisted of 225 women, who regularly save and invest. The study was conducted in the city of Bangalore. Convenience sampling was used for the purpose of data collection. Data was collected through questionnaires and was subjected to descriptive and inferential analysis. The major findings of the research are: ?The most important reason why a woman saves is because of a Precautionary motive. Saving money in Bank and in the house kitty (saving at home) are the most preferred saving avenues. ?Even though non-working women dont have direct income of their own, they are able to save a minimum of 5 to 10 percent from their household savings. ?Safety of the principal is regarded as a very important criterion before investing, as opposed to instruments with low initial investment. ?The main motive behind investing is to fulfill their personal and financial goals. They also recognize the importance of multiplying savings through investment. ?Gold is the most preferred investment instrument, followed by real estate, insurance products, bank deposits, chit funds, mutual funds, bonds, post office deposits, shares and SIP. ?The highest constraint in investing is found to be lack of awareness and advice. This bursts a common myth: In India women are not able to invest as they are not able to take decisions on their own. -
Families Experience with Family Therapy: A Qualitative Inquiry
Various studies have found out that the experiences of the families with family therapy in several countries have generally been positive and the number of the people who benefit from family therapy is also high. Studies reveal that though there is a heightened need for family therapy in India, there is a kind of reluctance among the people towards it. When there is good number of literature in India that reveals the general attitude of Indian population towards family therapy, there is a lack of studies that explore the lived experience of the family members who have undergone family therapy. This study was designed to examine therapy from the point of view of the families. The participants of this study were eight families from Kerala and Karnataka who had completed entire family therapy under the trained professionals in the duration of last five months. The data was collected through in-depth interviews. The study reveals the common factors that led the families to family therapy, their experience with the whole therapeutic process, the barriers that prevented them and the perceived benefits of family therapy. Ten global themes and twenty seven organizing themes have been identified on the whole in relation with the research query. The findings are described along with the practical implication, suggestions and future research agendas. Keywords: Therapeutic process, Rapport building, Working phase, Termination, Interventions, Mental well-being -
The Effect of Logotherapy on Meaning and Quality of Life of the Elderly in Old Age Homes.
Today the elderly in India is faced with a changing life situation where the traditional joint family system, according to which the elders were recognized and respected have given way to nuclear families where the elderly try to fit in. The number of old age homes in India is on increase especially in the state of Kerala. The existing literature shows that the elderly in old age homes in India undergo the problems like, relational issues, poverty, health issues, rejection from children, death of the partner, death anxiety etc, which lead to meaninglessness and poor quality of life. The current research is aimed at studying the effectiveness of a logotherapy intervention called Meaning in Life Programme on the meaning and quality of life of the elderly in old age homes. For the purpose of the study three old age homes with similar administration were selected from the districts of Kottayam, Kannur and Ernakulam district of Kerala where the highest number of old age homes of India are situated. 60 of them who met the inclusion criteria were randomely put into two groups, namely control group and experimental group. At par with the existing literature the study proves that the elderly in old age homes have a low meaning and quality of life. The average mean score of meaning in the pre-test was 14.23 in MiLS and the average mean score of quality of life in the pre-test is 51.83 in WHOQOL. The experimental group was given an intensive Logotherapy- meaning in life programme for five days and the control group had normal life. After a period of one month both groups were tested with MiLS and WHOQOL and there was significant difference between the control group and the experimental group. The Experimental group scored 22.06 in MiLS at the significant level of p < .001 and 59.73 in WHOQOL at the significant level of p < .001. The study revealed that logotherapy is effective in enhancing meaning and quality of life of the elderly in old age homes. Key words: meaning, quality, elderly, logotherapy -
Perception of Anticipatory Psychological Contract: A Study among Post Graduate Students
Psychological Contract is the the unwritten contract between employer and employee, representing mutual expectations, beliefs, and obligations. The concept is popular among the HR managers as it is based on managing employment relationships. In order to best align the requirements of the organization and employee, the Human Resource manager has to be cognizant of this unwritten ???contract???. Like all relationships, it is important to shape and understand it starting from recruitment, through talent management and finally the employee exit. High volume campus recruitment still forms a key strategy among companies in growing markets, segments. Hence the understanding of this employment relationship begins with prospective employees who are the final year students. This study talks about the employment beliefs, & future employment relationships of final year students as an ???anticipatory psychological contract??? and includes promises that the future employee wants to make to their employer, along with the obligations they expect in return. Additionally, the long-term Career expectations of students, in conjunction with their Work values was also explored, to understand their interrelationship with the anticipatory psychological contract. This interrelationship has gained importance in organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and HRM where there is an opportunity for practical application. In this study, the respondents' expectations were measured through the collection of inputs on pre-employment beliefs from final year postgraduate students soon to be part of their respective industry???s workforce. The independent variables identified from the review of literature were career strategy and work values. As part of the study, these variables were tested for correlation, and multiple regression was done to understand the impact of career strategy and work values on anticipatory psychological contract. The results proved that a significant relationship exists between the dependent variable (anticipatory psychological contract ) and independent variables( career strategy and work values). Managing psychological contract is an advantage for employees and employers whereby, both can understand the expectations of the other to prevent breach or violation of the contract. Maintaining a positive contract ensures job satisfaction, commitment and talent retention. This study is significant as the expectations during the pre-employment stage affect the psychological contract even after organizational entry. Understanding contributions to the organization and what employees receive in return are also about managing the psychological contract. This study is also aimed at employers in redesigning their recruitment & talent management strategies. The outcomes of strong HRM strategy based on psychological contract are high employee motivation, productivity, and controlled attrition rates. The study also explores the formation and transition of psychological contract from university to workplace. Lastly, the study aims in exposing the expectations of the younger generation, future workforce. The absence of a longitudinal study is a limitation which would provide the longer term view of the concept. -
Work-Family Interface during the Age thirty Transition: Experiences of Women Professionals from the Corporate sector
The age thirty transition is a significant developmental transition in the lives of women. Past studies have found this to be a period of disruption and re-evaluation of choices before lasting commitments are made in work and family. This research is focused on studying the experiences of women professionals from the corporate sector as they negotiate the age thirty transition and the work-family interface during this transition period. It provides a current understanding of this transition in lives of women professionals in the context of urban India. Based in the paradigm of phenomenology, this study follows the IPA method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six women and the data was analyzed at individual as well as cross-case level. The findings indicate that approach of age thirty i.e. approximately between ages 25 and 31 is a transitional period as the young women enter and establish themselves in adult roles in work and family. The changes in their environment and social expectations interact with developmental changes within the ??self. Amidst unique individual experiences, the results suggest a common structure of the transition experience with distinct phases and an evolution of work-family interface across these phases. Keywords: age thirty transition, work-family interface -
THE STUDY OF THE ONSET OF RAYLEIGH B??NARD CONVECTION IN A COUPLE-STRESS DIELECTRIC LIQUID
The linear analysis of Rayleigh-Benard convection in dielectric couple stress fluid are studied using the Galerkin technique. The effects of six basic non-uniform temperature gradients on the onset of convection are analsysied. The eigenvalue is obtained for free - free velocity boundary combinations with isothermal and adiabatic boundaries. A linear stability analysis is performed. The influence of various parameters on the onset of convection has been analyzed. Six different non-uniform temperature profiles are considered and their comparative influence on onset is discussed. The problem suggests an elegant method of external control of internal convection. -
A study on Organizational Commitment in relation to Job Involvement in the Information Technology Industry
The research is entitled A Study on Organizational Commitment in relation to Job Involvement in the Information Technology Industry. Both Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment are areas of much interest to academicians, researchers, HR practitioners and the industry in its entirety. The last few decades has seen an increased interest in the study of both Organizational Commitment and Job Involvement by academicians and practitioners in a variety of work settings in the hope that it improves job performance and organizational effectiveness, and reduces tardiness, absenteeism and turnover. Organizations are realizing that it is critical to not just attract the right kind of talent but also ensure the retention of their key talent by addressing the problem of retention. Hence the increased focus on areas such as Job Satisfaction, Job Involvement, Organizational Commitment, Human Resource Development, Psychological Contract, Organizational Citizenship Behaviour or OCB, Organizational Development or OD initiatives, Retention strategies, Employee Engagement, etc. Each of these HR activities play a key role in achieving an organization??s strategy, goals, vision and mission. Both Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment have been studied because they are believed to affect and impact organizational performance and effectiveness in addition to clearly predicting other important variables such as absenteeism, turnover, organizational citizenship behaviour, etc. Several studies have indicated organizational commitment to be a better predictor of turnover than job satisfaction. This study, however, is intended to examine the impact of Job Involvement on Organizational Commitment specifically in the IT industry, and also understand the influence of several personal, situational, and organizational characteristics pertaining to Job Involvement on Commitment. The sample considered was 250 IT workers across various levels (right from industry freshers with no work experience whatsoever to Senior Managers with 12 to 15 years of IT experience) and functions in various IT organizations in Bangalore, India. It involved all employees working in IT organizations, including employees in functions such as HR & Training, Administration, Quality, Marketing/Sales and Finance in these organizations. The tools used for the study were (a) Organizational Commitment Questionnaire or OCQ developed by Meyer, Allen and Smith (1993); the internal reliability coefficient (Cronbach??s alpha) was found to be 0.95; and (b) the Lodahl and Kejner Job Involvement Scale (1965); Cronbach??s alpha for the 20-item Job Involvement scale was 0.79. Some of the key findings of this study were: 1. There is a significant relation between Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment of employees in the Indian IT industry 2. There is a significant influence of Job Involvement on Organizational Commitment of employees in the IT industry 3. There is a significant influence of Job Involvement on Affective Commitment of employees in the IT Industry. 4. There is a significant influence of Job Involvement on Normative Commitment of employees in the IT industry. 5. There is a significant influence of Job Involvement on Continuance Commitment of employees in the Indian IT industry 6. There is a significant difference between Organizational Commitment across demographics in the Indian IT industry. The researcher has also discussed the limitations and future research areas on the variables of this study. -
Quantitative X-ray and Spectroscopic Analysis of Nanocrystalline and Amorphous Carbon Materials
Carbon and its various allotropic forms is a blooming and extensively investigated field for the past few decades. The revolution which started with the discovery of fullerenes in 1985 continues with the newly discovered wonder material graphene and has never failed to amass the interest of scientific community. After all these years it still stays as a hot topic of research. This is primarily due to their unique physical and chemical properties which makes them suitable for a whole host of applications ranging from thin film technology to nano-medicine. But, the production cost of these novel materials is an issue which shadows its glory and hence it is essential to find out efficient and cost effective sources and production methods for these materials. Graphene oxide has attracted much interest because of its low cost, easy access and unique ability to get converted into graphene. Graphene oxide is basically, a graphene sheet which consists of either carboxyl or hydroxyl groups. Foreseeing the upcoming era of carbon nanomaterials on account of their revolutionary applications and the ever increasing demand for economical and viable sources, we have identified and explored the structural parameters of an efficient and cost effective precursor of the same. In the present investigation, wood charcoal and coconut shell charcoal, which is a superior source of activated carbon, is produced by a slow thermal decomposition method in a limited supply of oxygen. It is an impure form of carbon- is a black residue composed mainly of carbon, ash and char. Wood charcoal is transformed into Graphite oxide (GO) by a modified Hummers method. Spectroscopic analysis of the samples is carried out by various techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), UV-Vis spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The various structural parameters are calculated from XRD and Raman data.