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Sentencing Framework in the Administration of Criminal Justice in India :
This Thesis aims at having uniformity while sentencing the accused in respect of similar newlineoffences by various criminal courts. It is submitted that, in India, there is no separate sentencing Act which provides for the sentencing of the accused. It is submitted that the present thesis also recommends for the post sentencing/research process and administration of Criminal Justice through courts and supervisory power of the court over the executive after newlinethe conviction of the accused and during the pre-trial detention. Emphasis is also laid on newlineBails Act which is required to be legislated in the administration of Criminal Justice in India. The said Bails Act and Sentencing Act are very much in force in different common law countries such as New Zealand, UK, and USA. Similar legislations are the need of hour in the present day for administration of Criminal justice in India. The thesis also aims at highlighting the disparity of Sentencing by the different Criminal Courts in India. There are instances where length of detention itself is held to be sufficient, mitigating grounds are taken into consideration, and the accused is being given set-off for the period that he has already newlineundergone. The administration of post-sentencing process, more particularly probation is also being highlighted. The need for probation is also being highlighted, so also the requirement of plea bargaining being more popularised. The grant of parole by the executive in ignorance of conviction order is also critically analysed. Reforms are suggested for the better administration of criminal justice with special reference to sentencing. -
Design of new access control structure for provenance based on secret sharing
Access control is one of the important elements in providing confidentiality to the secured data. Access specifiers helps us understand degree of rights given to the users in utilizing data records in a right manner. Tampering the records by unauthorized parties is a high concern in secure communication. Tamper detection plays an important role in trouble shooting an issue associated with network/ host intrusion scenario. The advances in information technology have driven the modern world to focus on the Web for digital information. People across the globe rely on the internet for all the data from generic information to distribution of personal data over heterogeneous networks. Technology has grown so wide to an extent, where almost all of the financial transactions are taking place through online portals. On the other hand, there has been high rise in the security threats towards users confidential data. This information is however shared by the online users while performing financial transaction in e-commerce portals. In order to maintain security mechanism over the untrusted networks various authentication techniques available in this regard. All these security procedures are said to be stubborn and adequate on contextual basis, on the other hand over a period of time the intruders would find out ways to break into systems. Data theft and intrusion into the information systems would increase on a daily basis if defensive measures are not in place. In this concern a new mechanism for securing the data using majority voting concept is proposed. Majority voting for securing the provenance data is applied. Provenance data is data of origin, genesis data and often observed as sensitive data. Provenance is a record of events, timestamps, versions, transformations occurred for the data of interest. Elicitation of an entity's genesis is termed provenance. This understanding is called as data provenance for data objects and their relationships. In most of the cases provenance data is tend to be sensitive, and a small variation or regulation paves way to changes to entire lineage of the connected data. This origin needs to be protected and only approved parties should have right to use the data. Specific description or classification of an instance's historical record or data object is called data provenance. It has many implications in different disciplines in terms of its significance for the acquisition of data flow mechanisms. Personal control of data privacy is a common scenario and various solutions towards security exists. In this regard a unique model is proposed where control of data and its related allies is available with several bodies but however not one; and if access control is to be permitted for a cause based on context, all the entities holding their right keys will have to agree and share on a common platform for accessing the data. Combining these shares in a peculiar pattern allows the grant for accessing data. The method of allocating controls to multiple bodies and allowing grants based on the combination of stakes is called a mechanism for secret sharing. Share separation may be derived from the concept of visual encryption methodology We integrate concepts of secret sharing and provenance to provide an indigenous solution for parameters of information security namely confidentiality, integrity and availability. It is with the availability of exceptional wireless internet access in mobile motivated situations, users and usage data has become massive with respect to media. For example, financial related operations carried out over online platforms by users in many ways were found insecure and unauthenticated. Procedure with appropriate algorithms are available for safe data communication in various modes, however lacks to attain high accuracy and performance with regards to the basic goals of security; confidentiality, integrity, availability at a significant level. Security is the main aspect of any communications among untrusted networks in the current world. Sincere gratitude to many researchers for their tremendous contributions to effective security algorithms despite various threats that compromise the computer systems vulnerabilities. The origin of the data, i.e., by which the transaction thread was created, is the pertinent question to be answered while the financial operation is finalized. This definition of 'data antiquity ' has received good interest from researchers in different fields for many decades and is often termed as data provenance. However, security in provenance has made some progress with recent research, particularly in the field of cyber security. This study emphases on the safety characteristics of data provenance with a distinctive cryptographic approach. The combination of these principles produces unique results for safeguarding the genesis data. -
Role of healthcare quality in improving patients satisfaction at private hospitals in karnataka India
Healthcare is known as the treatment, diagnosis, and prevention from disease, newlineinjury, illness and other types of mental and physical losses in human beings (Pallipedia, 2009). Governments, insurers, consumers and healthcare delivery systems are involved in a continuous tug of war situation across the world and trying to meet increased demand for healthcare services, reducing the cost of service and healthcare quality improvements. Quality was already an area of attention for some time in healthcare, but recently the focus has been shifted towards quality majorly to reform entire healthcare. Therefore, in the present study healthcare quality has been focused. The main objective of this study is to investigate the role of healthcare quality in improving patient s satisfaction at private hospitals in Karnataka, India. The research has been designed as analytical research and used survey method for conducting the research. Primary data collection was done using structured questionnaire from respondents. For this study target population was private corporate multispecialty hospitals situated in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Multistage proportionate sampling was used for data collection. Data analysis was done using SPSS and AMOS. The results and findings of the study confirmed that the main influencers of newlinepatient s satisfaction and perceived service quality were six latent constructs: safety, newlinetimeliness, effectiveness, efficiency, patient centeredness and equitability. The model of patient s satisfaction with integrated framework revealed the relationships between independent and dependent variables and gave insights into interplay between the construct relationships. Study suggested practical significance of each construct and also raised a need for more holistic view of the model. Hence results of the study provided valuable insights for the management of private healthcare institutions. -
A mixed methods study on factors associated with relapse of alcohol use disorder
Background: Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is one of the most concerning mental health issues in India. According to the recent survey, Magnitude of Substance Use in India, 2019, 160 million of the countrys population consumes alcohol. About 35.6% are problem drinkers among those who drink, of which 18% are alcohol dependent. Despite the greater understanding of alcohol use disorder (AUD) and the scientific advancements in treatment, relapse remains to be the main challenge in managing AUD. This study aimed at investigating various factors associated with relapse of AUD and presenting an in-depth understanding of it. Methods: A Sequential Explanatory Mixed Methods design was used. In the quantitative phase, 72 relapsed individuals with AUD currently undergoing treatment were compared with 72 individuals previously treated for AUD who maintain total abstinence for a minimum period of one year. Relapsed participants were selected from three private de-addiction centers in Bangalore and abstaining participants were recruited from various Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in Bangalore. The relapsed and sober groups were matched on gender, AUD diagnosis, and previous inpatient alcohol de-addiction treatment. Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised was used to assess the personality profiles of the participants. A sociodemographic and clinical information form was also used to collect data. Six participants were selected purposively from the same sample for in-depth interviews. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS and NVivo for quantitative and qualitative data, respectively. The study protocol was approved by the institutional ethics committee. Results: Bivariate analyses showed a significant difference in Novelty Seeking, Persistence, Self-Directedness, and Self-Transcendence traits between the relapsed and sober participants. Results also suggested that reported use of other substances, post- discharge follow-ups, and living with drinking or drug-using individuals are significantly associated with relapse. Logistic regression displayed incomplete treatment, use of other substances, and no post-discharge follow-up as predictors of relapse. The qualitative thematic analysis revealed preparedness, motivation, personal exceptionalism, meaning and purpose, and social and interpersonal as the main relapse-related themes. Conclusions: The findings highlight the importance of treatment engagement, discharge planning, aftercare, and special attention to those presenting with multiple substance use. It also displays a few culture-specific aspects to be considered during treatment, such as preparing the individuals entering treatment to effectively engage, assessing and working with their motivation, and addressing the relationship dynamics. -
Health diagnosis of mango trees using image processing techniques
A Mango disease detection artificial intelligent model needs robust and effective newlinefeature extraction methods. The machine vision system has been designed for the newlineidentification of disease in plants from color leaf images. The research done proposes newlinenovel algorithms to extract color features Pseudo Color Regions and Texture Features newlineusing Pseudo Color Co-Occurrence Matrix. A new Mango dataset has been created and newlinealgorithms tested on it. An artificial intelligence model has also been created and tested on an existing disease dataset of Apple and Tomato plants. Results were compared with existing methods in the literature. The effectiveness of each statistical function was studied in classifying the pattern using a Support Vector Machine. For textures that are newlinedifferent like smooth new leaves, dry leaves, growth a Gray Level Co-occurrence based newlinestatistics was effective but values failed to discriminate in certain diseases. The proposed and implemented novel method which uses second-order statistics on a pseudo-color-based co-occurrence matrix has resulted in better classification. Pseudo Color Region feature is created using a novel intermediate data structure and found to be more effective than hue-based color features. It identifies dots, spots, patches and regions of different colors on the leaf and uses that as a feature vector to classify plant diseases. This generic method can be applied for early disease detection for plants and help farmers take corrective measures to avoid loss of yield. -
Spatio temporal crime analysis and forecasting using social media data
Now a days, people communicate, share ideas, and interact through social media platforms. It has given us an ability to talk about career interests, post videos, and pictures for sharing with others. The data present in social media enables the analysis of various human aspects. The social media data and domain is used for crime analysis, customer behaviour analysis, and healthcare analysis provides much information useful to predict human behaviours. Crime is the most common social problem faced in a developing country. In developing countries like India, crime plays a detrimental role in economic growth and prosperity. With the increase in delinquencies, law enforcement needs to deploy limited resources optimally to protect citizens. Crime affects the reputation of a nation and the quality of life of its citizens. Crime also affects the economy of the country, increasing the financial burden of the government due to the need for expenditure in the police force and judicial system. Various initiatives are taken by law enforcement to reduce the crime rate. An example of these initiatives includes an accurate and real-time prediction of crime occurrences. Crime analytics and prediction have lengthily studied among research analytics communities. In recent years, crime knowledge from one of a kind heterogeneous source (Twitter, News Feeds, Facebook, Instagram and so forth.) have given enormous opportunities to the research group to comfortably study crime pattern and prediction duties in specific real knowledge. Data mining and predictive analytics provide the best options for the same. Law enforcement organizations are increasingly looking to use data from social media such as Facebook, Newsfeeds, Twitter, etc. investing in research in this area. Using the intelligence gained through these data, the agencies can identify future incidents and plan for active patrolling. -
Graphene and graphene enhanced nanomaterials from biological precursors synthesis characterization and proliferant applications
Graphene family materials with non-photocatalytic biocidal properties are highly sought after in the field of biomedicine and nanobiotechnology. But the applications of graphene-based materials were often hampered by their high production cost, low yield, non-renewable precursors, harmful processing newlinetechniques, etc. In this context, this study presented the successful usage of biomass materials as sustainable feedstock for the production of graphene derivatives. Five raw materials of biological origin namely, coconut shell, wood, sugarcane bagasse, Colocasia esculenta leaves and Nelumbo nucifera leaves, were investigated. The graphitized forms of the above materials were newlineused as precursors for the graphene nanomaterial synthesis. They were chemically oxidized and functionalized with tin oxide nanoparticles to form the composite. Nano-systems obtained using an identical chemical route from a universal source of carbon nanomaterials, namely carbon black, were also newlinestudied for the purpose of validation and comparison. The synthesis protocols adopted for the preparation of graphene-based materials were devoid of hazardous reducing agents or byproducts. The products obtained after each stage of treatment were characterized with the help of various spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. newlineEven though structural properties of all the precursors appeared to be broadly the same, a variation in their morphology and defect density was discerned. Various analyses revealed the formation of graphene oxide domains with distinct dimensions after the oxidative treatment. An increase in defect newlinedensity was also observed due to the intercalation of oxygen groups to the carbon layers. Post composite formation, a distribution of ultrafine tin oxide newlinenanoparticles on the graphene surface was observed. The distribution of oxygen newlinefunctionalities on the carbon backbone were found to play a major role in governing the dispersal of tin oxide particles during the nanocomposite formation. -
Anomaly detection in online social media
Online Social Media (OSM) is a platform where users post opinions, discussions, product reviews, random thoughts, advertisements, comment exchanges and status updates.These platforms help in text mining applications such as prediction of election results, newlinestudying global mood trends, public perception of a national concern or an issue, mining of public health knowledge, detecting epidemics and business analytics. These newlineapplications also present some research challenges like personal data stealing, community phishing, hate speeches, spreading misconceptions, cyber bullying and terror attack planning. Some of these challenges are anomalies or outliers which don t conform with the majority ones. The anomalies focused in this research work are behavioral and content anomalies. Data preprocessing for textual data from OSM plays an important role for creation of the Vector Space Model (VSM) which is used as an input for behavioral and content anomaly models. The contents posted by the public in OSM is written using natural language and sometimes may not follow the formal communication mode. It has lexical, newlinesemantic and syntactic ambiguities and becomes a challenging task to extract accurate information and discover logical patterns during the text mining process. Some of the commonly used methods for text mining are, Bag of Words (BoW), N-grams and Term newlineFrequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF). Few limitations of these techniques newlineare, high dimensional sparse feature vectors, missing contextual meaning, presence of newlineweak features and Part of Speech ambiguity. In this research study, an improvised Feature Engineering model is proposed which is a combination of Forward Scan Trigrams and weighted TF-IDF to address the creation of an efficient Vector Space Model (VSM). This proposed model is used with an improvised Feature Hashing technique to address the removal of weak features. -
Noise removal feature enhancement and speech recognition techniques for artificial larynx transducer speech
Speech impediments are the state of difficulty for a person to speak comfortably. These impediments make the spoken speech distorted and they are generally categorized as disordered speech. The quality of disordered speech is poor as clarity, intelligibility and naturalness is missing. In most type of disordered speech the voice is natural and produced by the vocal system of the human being. The vocal system includes the organ called as Larynx placed in the upper part of the neck. This organ has the vocal folds that contribute for pitch variation and volume of the speech. This organ will be malfunctioning some time or will be removed because of cancer. In both the case in order to restore speech, an external device called Artificial Larynx Transducer (ALT) is used to produce the sound. It is a small handheld battery operated device and is used for decades to obtain the audible speech for people who lost their speech because of removal of larynx. The quality of speech and its intelligibility of AL speakers have not improved for decades. The reason for poor quality is constant vibration of ALT, direct sound from ALT and pressure offered to produce the vibration. newlineSo in this research the nature of the speech produced from ALT is analyzed, a possible enhancement of the parameter is done and a recognition technique of the spoken word with the help of trained data is done. Here the approach followed to tackle the problem of poor quality in AL speech involves both speech enhancement and recognizer technique development. When it is looked as enhancement problem noise region localization, noise estimation and noise suppression methods were adopted. In the process of parameter enhancement, pitch frequency estimation and improvement is implemented. When it is looked as recognition problem the parameters pitch frequency, formant frequency, glottal excitation, spectral tilt, coefficients are extracted. As formant frequency is a sensitive parameter, its estimation was done using Recurrent Neural network. -
Effect of crude oil price changes on macro economy and capital market of India
Oil symbolizes an important role in the global economy. Crude oil or petroleum is an indispensable and a contributing factor for any economy. Several international crude oil price benchmarks (Brent, WTI, OPEC and so on) have always been tested through empirical studies to established certain cause-effect newlinerelationship and to determine their predictability. However, literature evidence is limited to Indian basket. Moreover, the need for forecasting this benchmark has newlinenot been acknowledged by the scholars. International crude oil price of Indian newlinebasket, also termed as Indian basket crude oil price, is the base of any petroleum newlineproduct pricing in India. Importing crude oil enhance the trade deficit of the nation. The present scenario of the global petroleum industry and the relationship among the major oil-producing and exporting countries are vulnerable. This situation increases the supply-side risk for the major oil-importing countries like India. In this state of affairs, it is vital to find out the factors that influence this price benchmark to reduce uncertainty. This research work aims to provide a holistic picture of the international crude oil price of Indian basket, considering the present scenario of the oil industry and lack of scholarly work on this field. Where on one side, the external factors affecting crude oil price has been determined, on the other hand how Indian economy and capital market is affected newlineby this price change have been found out. Triangulation method under a mixed approach has been adopted for this research work where quantitative and qualitative data collection have been run simultaneously. The time frame of the quantitative data collection is April, 2000 to March, 2018 and the frequency is newlinemonthly. Twenty experts have been interviewed to capture the qualitative aspects associated with the models. Four models have been proposed to execute the objectives. -
Sustainable tourism development through community based waste management in backwater destinations of kerala
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, (2002) solid waste newlinemanagement is a great challenge in many tourist destinations because improperly managed solid waste can threaten the environment as well as the life of the local community. Sewage waste and plastic material from tourism houseboats are increasing the pollution in the backwaters of south Kerala. These days it is not completely proper for touristic activities because of their physical and morphological attributes. This can lead to unsustainable negative impact on the backwater (Iskander and El 2014).Therefore this study was seeking to understand the influence of community based waste management towards the sustainable tourism development in the backwaters of south Kerala. The research adopted a descriptive research design. The study consists of three newlinecategories of stakeholders. Public sector, Private sector, and Local community. Public Sector stakeholders include Hotel Officials, Resorts officials and houseboat officials. Private sector stakeholder includes the government representative of concerned backwater destination. Descriptive statistics, ANOVA, Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), SEM Modelling are the various statistical techniques used in this study. Cross-case analysis was used to analyse newlinethe qualitative aspects of the research study. This study also develops and test a community based waste management model for newlinesustainable tourism development and considered the influence of factors on community support, community involvement, perceived benefits and perceived cost. The structural model indicates that increasing perceived benefits and decreasing perceived cost from backwater tourism would help to enhance community involvement and support for newlinesustainable tourism development in the backwaters of south Kerala. -
Development and validation of an intimate relationship security scale
Relationships form an integral part of our lives, a key function being attachment. While newlineromantic relationships have mainly been studied with attachment theories as the basis,collectivistic cultures like India emphasize on togetherness more than individualism. To understand and measure security in any intimate relationship, a tool was developed, utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methods. An initial thematic analysis helped develop a basic model of relationship security that guided item generation. Items were developed to help newlinemeasure the newly operationalized construct, using stakeholders, literature review and social media. 520 participants, including both, marital and pre-marital and 7 experts, helped cut down the 206 item pool to (in the first phase of data collection) to 84 items. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted the second time on a sample of 486 participants that further narrowed down the scale to 58 items. The final confirmatory factor analysis, using SPSS AMOS, involved data collected from 408 participants. Validity, Reliability analysis and norms were developed for the final scale of 43 items. -
Operational excellence in relation to high performance engagement and quality of care among executives in the healthcare sector in kerala
Background Operational Excellence is a philosophy of leadership, teamwork and problem solving, to focus on the needs of the consumer, to empower employees, for ptimizing existing activities, continuous improvement and excellence. It is a competitive advantage which translates increased flexibility to improved consumer responsiveness, and lean management. Quality of care is about patient safety, institutional culture, attitude, clinical performance, clinical freedom with management as facilitators, efficient delivery of quality, high standard services, effective patient outcome, integration of legislation with regards to communities, health service providers, local health authorities and the government (WHO, 2013). The outcome of quality of care is health consumer (patient) satisfaction. High newlineperformance Engagement reflects how employees are engaged in their work, with commitment and passion, rather than mere compliance to impact performance. Health care is a balancing act between business excellence newlineand quality outcomes in practice. It is from the premise of high performance engagement and quality of care provided to health consumers with patient centered focus, the pedestal of success in operational excellence is achieved. Purpose This study focuses on establishing Operational Excellence in relation to High Performance Engagement and Quality of Care among executives in the health care sector. Method A descriptive study was carried out using quantitative method with a sample of 410 health care executives from NABH accredited and nonaccredited hospitals and qualitative analysis among patients in Kerala. Results newlineThe results indicate a positive correlation of operational excellence with high performance engagement and quality of care. The independent variables, high performance engagement and quality of care are significant predictors of operational excellence. -
Design and development of an efficient model for handwritten modi script recognition
Machine simulation of human reading has caught the attention of computer science newlineresearchers since the introduction of digital computers. Character recognition, a branch of pattern recognition and computer vision, is the process of identifying either printed or handwritten text from document images and converting it into machinecoded text. Character recognition has been successfully implemented for various foreign language scripts like English, Chinese and Latin. In the case of Indian language scripts, the character recognition process is comparatively difficult due to various complexities such as the presence of the vowel modifiers and a large number of characters (class). MODI script is a shorthand form of Devanagari script and it was used as an official script for writing Marathi until 1952. Presently the script is not used officially, but has historical importance. MODI script is a cursive script and the character recognition task is difficult due to various reasons such as variations in the shapes of a character with different individuals and the presence of identical looking characters. MODI documents do not have any word demarcation symbols and that adds to the complexity of the task. The advances in various Machine Learning newlinetechniques have greatly contributed to the success of optical character recognition. newlineThe proposed work is aimed at exploring various Machine Learning techniques/ newlinemethods which can be effectively used in(to) recognizing(recognize) MODI script and newlinebuild a reliable and robust character recognition model for handwritten MODI script. This research work also aims at the development of a Machine Transliteration and text recognition system for MODI manuscripts. -
Antecedents of psychological capital and its consequences on affective commitment and psychological wellbeing
Jharkhand Education Board stakeholders face the problem of dealing with the educational environment, thereby escalating a teacher's morale. To address this situation, a positive mindset in education, particularly among teachers, is desirable. Hence, based on positive psychology discipline, conservation of resource theory, and broaden and build theory, the study was carried out using a sequential explanatory mixed-method study design. The research questions addressed in the study were as follows: To what extent can the categories of proactive personality, emotional intelligence, servant leadership, and perceived organizational support predict PsyCap of teachers? To what extent will PsyCap predict the categories of affective commitment and psychological wellbeing? I considered both quantitative and qualitative methods; hence, this study had two phases. In the first phase, the data was gathered from 722 teachers using the survey instruments. The statistical analyses performed were Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling with the software SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 20.0. For teachers of rural Jharkhand, the study found that psychological capital has three dimensions. Besides proactive personality, emotional intelligence, and servant leadership also impact psychological capital. Further, psychological capital affects affective commitment and psychological wellbeing. In the second phase, this study examined the way and the reason behind the functioning of the antecedents of psychological capital using qualitative content analysis. The results offered a comprehensive understanding and identification of the antecedents that form rural teachers' psychological capital. Implications of the research include recommendations for recruiting teachers with higher levels of psychological capital and professional development through in-service teachers' training with a specific focus on psychological capital. -
An efficient framework for scientific article recommendation system
Excess data makes it challenging to extract information that is relevant to a domain of study or research. Existing state-of-the-art systems focus majorly on the selection of highly connected, prestigious and cited articles, regardless of the relevance of papers. To improve quality of findings, recommender systems which are a subclass of information filtration systems are used. They filter out relevant information over prestigious data from an existing repository of information. There are various sub-domains under recommender systems. This study focuses on citation recommendation. Citations are an integral part of any scientific paper, academic dissertation or projects. Finding appropriate citations for any work is a scholar's most time-consuming task. Thus, a well-defined citation recommendation system provides fulfillment and completeness for citing the giants works. The thesis aims to study existing frameworks for citation recommendation systems and identify the best dataset to work on graph- based recommender systems. A framework that recommends the most similar and relevant article to the user rather than prestigious authors or papers is here by proposed. The study explores various machine learning and deep learning techniques and methods which can be used effectively in recommending loosely connected yet highly relevant articles. -
Modified carbon based electrodes for electrochemical sensing of biomolecules
Now-a-days a large variety of biological analytes are detected by highly sensitive newlineelectrochemical sensors which are inexpensive and simple as compared to conventional methods such as UV-vis absorption spectroscopy, spectrofluorometry, HPLC and gas chromatography. Electrochemical analysis is exceptional owing to its economical, low energy consuming and unique approach in the method design, and high sensitivity for the analyte determination. Carbon based electrochemical sensors are commonly used because of their low cost, good electron newlinetransfer kinetics, good chemical stability, and biocompatibility. Recently electrochemical properties of pencil graphite electrodes (PGEs) have been explored in the analysis of various organic compounds. High electrochemical reactivity, easy modification, commercial accessibility, fine rigidity, disposability and low-cost of PGE make it ideal to be used as an effective working electrode. The thesis presented explains different modified PGEs have been employed in the electrocatalytic determination biomolecules such as cholesterol, cortisol, Vitamin B6 and morin. newlineThe modified electrodes are effectively used for the ultra-level sensing of these biomolecules in real samples. The electroactive surface area and the conduvtivity of bare PGE is enhanced newlinedifferent electrode modifiers such as and#946;-CD, graphene, conducting polymer, metal oxides and metal nanoparticles. The modified electrodes are found to exhibit good electrocatalytic behavior towards the target biomolecules. Cyclic voltammetric (CV) studies and electrochemical impedance spectroscopic (EIS) technique were used to investigate the electrochemical properties of the modified sensing platform. The newlinemorphology and step wise fabrication process of the modified electrodes were characterized byvii Ramana spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS),scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). -
Modified carbon substrates for electrocatalytic oxidation of selected heterocyclic carbinols
Electrochemically modified carbon electrodes are used as a substrate for electrocatalytic oxidation of different heterocyclic carbinols. Carbon fiber paper (CFP) is newlineused as the electrode substrate on which various modifications are employed. Modified newlineelectrodes were prepared by using different surface modification strategies such as newlineelectrodeposition of Pd nanoparticles or Pd-Pt bimetallic nanoparticles on a conducting newlinepolymer, polyaniline which is electropolymerized on to CFP. Biomass derived porous carbon nanoparticle coated CFP was also used for electrodeposition of Pd nanoparticles or MnO2-Pi nanoparticles. These modified electrodes were physicochemically characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Optical profilometry and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and electrochemically characterized using Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). This modification methods have attracted a lot of attention due to their exceptional stability, high electronic conductivity, mechanical strength, and good adhesive property to the substrate and to the modified electrode. The modified electrodes show excellent electrochemical and newlinephysicochemical properties which are demonstrated using various analytical techniques. The organocatalytic reagent, TEMPO is used as a mediator throughout the studies which helps to carry out the oxidation of organic molecules in an aqueous acidic medium. The developed electrodes have been successfully applied for the oxidation of different heterocyclic alcohol such as 4-pyridinemethanol, 2-thiophene methanol, and 2-Furfuryl alcohol to corresponding 4-pyridinemethanal, 2-thiophene methanol and 2-Furfural. -
Impact of gamification on learning outcomes in organizations
Background Operational Excellence is a philosophy of leadership, teamwork and problem solving, to focus on the needs of the consumer, to empower employees, for ptimizing existing activities, continuous improvement and excellence. It is a competitive advantage which translates increased flexibility to improved consumer responsiveness, and lean management. Quality of care is about patient safety, institutional culture, attitude, clinical performance, clinical freedom with management as facilitators, efficient delivery of quality, high standard services, effective patient outcome, integration of legislation with regards to communities, health service providers, local health authorities and the government (WHO, 2013). The outcome of quality of care is health consumer (patient) satisfaction. High newlineperformance Engagement reflects how employees are engaged in their work, with commitment and passion, rather than mere compliance to impact performance. Health care is a balancing act between business excellence newlineand quality outcomes in practice. It is from the premise of high performance engagement and quality of care provided to health consumers with patient centered focus, the pedestal of success in operational excellence is achieved. Purpose This study focuses on establishing Operational Excellence in relation to High Performance Engagement and Quality of Care among executives in the health care sector. Method A descriptive study was carried out using quantitative method with a sample of 410 health care executives from NABH accredited and nonaccredited hospitals and qualitative analysis among patients in Kerala. Results newlineThe results indicate a positive correlation of operational excellence with high performance engagement and quality of care. The independent variables, high performance engagement and quality of care are significant predictors of operational excellence. -
An Analysis of the effectiveness of HIV and AIDS policy implementation in teacher training colleges in zimbabwe
The study analyzed the effectiveness of implementation of the HIV and AIDS Policy for teachers colleges. The policy was enacted by the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education in 2004 and implemented by teacher training colleges in Zimbabwe. Teacher training colleges were a ready captive audience for the young people with the potential to newlineinfluence behaviour change among student teachers, with a snowball effect to pupils in primary and secondary schools. Despite the newlinedevelopment of the policy, incidences of sexually transmitted infections continued to increase. The objectives of the study were to determine to what extent the HIV and AIDS Policy has been operationalized and its newlineeffects on the sexual and reproductive health of students. Literature reviewed explored the HIV and AIDS policy implementation and quality assurance practices in teaching of HIV and AIDS in the colleges. Effective implementation was discussed within the context of the reproductive health challenges faced by students and access to quality newlineservices. Pragmatism philosophical paradigm was used for the study, since it combines quantitative and qualitative research techniques, methods and approaches into a single study. The population, sample and sampling procedure for the study were defined. Selection of the colleges was newlinepurposive and stratified according to location (urban or rural); administrative authorities (government and church-related colleges). While research questions guided the collection of qualitative data from newlineinterviews and focus group discussions for college authorities and stakeholders, hypotheses guided quantitative data collected from questionnaires completed by male and female third year students and Lecturers. Key informants were selected based on their role in policy implementation at the colleges. Validity and reliability of both qualitative newlineand quantitative data collecting instruments was assured.