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An invisible race from exclusiveness to inclusiveness of queer employees at workplace
Queer theory has been a significant part of the field of queer studies. Its presence can be found in women's studies, gay and lesbian studies and feminist theory, and postmodern and poststructuralist theories. Many types of research came around during the 1990s. One of the significant studies was in 1991. Teresa de Lauret coined the term "queer theory" to characterize a school of thought that rejected heterosexuality and binary gender constructions favoring a more open view of identity. Michel Foucault and Judith Butler's study is widely regarded as the founding text of this philosophy. This study adopts the lens of gender and sexuality to challenge people's cultural norms and ideals. There is hesitation among people regarding the acceptance of the third gender that exists in society. The queer theory suggests how the rest sees the queer community of the world. While studying the conditions of the queer community in India, it is imperative to undertake the recently legalized Section 377. The Indian Penal Code says that it is no more a crime to have sexual conduct between adults of the same gender as people have no control over their sexual orientation. The study discusses the practices and protocols of transgender inclusion at the workplace and how to look beyond the labels of the LGBT community. There are various issues when the company wants to employ transgender people at the workplace and accept the community. Qualitative research methods will be used in this research by reading several databases and conducting a systematic review. This chapter will also highlight how trans people confront significant job and career-related problems and barriers in the workplace and the concessions employers should make to ensure that trans people have a safe and discrimination-free workplace. This chapter observes how queer theory can be used as a conceptual framework to advance research in organizational research on trans people's several and many times conflicting needs. Ways could be explored to reach their goals around gender transgression and congruency, work, and career, by laying out some of the crucial concepts associated with the study of trans people in the workplace. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022. -
Integration of blockchain to IoT: Possibilities and pitfalls
[No abstract available] -
Biofuels from bio-waste and biomass
The planet's limited natural fossil fuel reserves are anticipated to be very soon owing to massive usage. Biofuels would be a critical alternative source that may reduce global warming and CO2 emissions. The food-versus-fuel dilemma is, however, one of the key drawbacks of first-generation biofuels like corn ethanol, sugarcane ethanol, etc. Cellulose and hemicellulose, the primary constituents of lignocellulosic feedstocks, could be reduced to sugars by either thermochemical/biological processes before being fermented to generate biofuels. However, owing to structural heterogeneity, more complicated operational techniques are required before the production technology can be commercialized, and several challenges must be addressed. This chapter provided an assessment of various feedstocks, availability, various processing techniques, obstacles, and current technical developments in the generation of biofuels from biomass. 2023, IGI Global. -
Revolutionizing legal services with blockchain and artificial intelligence
[No abstract available] -
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was a profound and rare Islamic scholar, writer, thinker, freedom fighter who promoted the idea of 'universal humanism'. He was well versed in poetry, art and music besides having a flair for writing. He was a multi-faceted personality with a progressive outlook. Though he had a rationalist outlook, he was very well versed in Islamic lore and history. His view of Islam did not necessarily come into conflict with territorial nationalism, Pan-Islamism and anti-imperialism. In this sense, he had interpreted Islam from a rationalist perspective. Maulana Azad had given a clarion call to the Muslims to join hands with the Hindus to achieve the common goal of ending British rule and domination in India. In fact, he considered this as the duty of the Indian Muslims, because according to him Muslims were created not for despondency but for 'hope'. As a revolutionary journalist the Maulana heralded a new era in Urdu journalism. His weekly 'Al-Hilal' grew in readership to such an extent that ultimately the British Government had to ban it. This chapter will analyse the thoughts, ideas and contribution of Maulana Azad to the freedom movement and nation-building in the post-independent India. Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022. All rights reserved. -
Servant leadership and diversity: A focus on ethnic and cultural diversity
Business organizations becoming global is nothing new in the current world due to the ever-shrinking physical and communication boundaries. Going global has its benefits and limitations. Benefits would be less expensive land, labor, and resources and reduced transportation cost by being present in countries with vast requirements for an organization's products or services. At the same time, the limitations would be to manage people or lead them toward shared organizational goals. India being a country with enormous opportunities has diverse cultures and practices. Thus, leading various people as employees would be a challenge. What may work in the Western countries may not work in India due to its vast diversity in culture, language, and ethnicity. This research aims to understand the servant leadership approach and if it would be applicable in India. In the context of diverse cultures, the authors analyze the servant leader's role in an organization and compare the practices of servant leadership in various other countries. 2023 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. -
Pandemic recovery strategies: A disaster management tourism framework
Purpose: The leisure industry is colossally impacted by varied types of crisis. Assessing the volatility; an attempt is made towards disaster planning and a response system. This chapter indicates an all-inclusive integrated approach to deal with disasters and narrates conceptual and latest factual findings in the space of disaster management. An efficient and self-equipped attraction demands a competent and efficient disaster management system in place. Methodology: This chapter devises measures to deal with the capacity of a destination during pandemic and proposes recovering strategies for the leisure business. Destination governance and disaster management techniques are well explored in the proposed chapter. Findings: An imperative study of this nature will determine the role of cultural perceptions of varied risk and threats in a pandemic scenario. Innovative practices of disaster governance and Post-disaster recovery strategies are crucial mechanisms for the sustenance of tourism and hospitality sector. Originality-Value: The conceptual ideas and outcomes obtained in this chapter helps policy makers not only to find new strategies to placate the negative impacts of COVID-19 on the organic image of tourist destinations but also assists in accelerating the recovery timeframe just after the pandemic. 2022 Joseph Chacko Chennattuserry, Bindi Varghese, N Elangovan and H Sandhya. -
Recent advances in lightweight epoxy-based composites for X-Ray and y-Ray shielding applications
Rapidly advancing technologies in the nuclear industry have led to the increased use of X-rays and ?-rays in our day-to-day life. They have emerged to be an integral part of several industries including medical diagnostics and imaging, nuclear medicine, reactor research facilities, industrial gauging, agricultural irradiation, geological exploration and security purposes. However, considering the adverse effects of prolonged exposure to these radiations on human health, this is also a cause of concern for mankind and radiation shielding and protection have become issues of paramount importance. In the search for alternatives to conventional shielding materials such as lead, metals, glass composites, ceramics and concretes, epoxy-based composites have emerged as promising X-ray and ?-ray shields. Material properties like high mechanical and bonding strength, high temperature resistance, low electrical conductivity and thermal expansion coefficients, dielectric constant with minimal shrinking stress and lightweight structure render epoxy composites to be particularly suitable for structural applications. Epoxy composites incorporated with fillers/additives such as inorganic metal oxides, carbon fibers, clay and carbon nanotubes are an emerging class of high-performance materials. The primary focus of this article is to present a detailed review on the recent research directed towards developing epoxy-based materials for radiation shielding applications. Influence of filler loading, filler size and interfacial adhesion on microstructural, thermo-mechanical and radioprotective efficacy of epoxy composites are discussed. We present a general overview and propose new possibilities for further research in this direction. 2022 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. -
Environmental applications of microbial fuel cells
The world is facing an energy crisis for non-renewable resources for the last decade. Hence, there is a search for highly efficient energy transformation techniques which utilizes alternate renewable energy sources. One such renewable energy production technology is Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) based on dynamic organisms like microbes. MFCs allow producing electricity using renewable organic waste through microbial cellular respiration, which helps in reducing the carbon footprint as well as the environmental pollution. MFCs can also be used in metal recovery by bio electrochemical recovery, because metal ions can be reduced and deposited on an electrode by bacteria, algae, yeasts, and fungi. Microbial carbon capture cells are advancements to MFC, where algal biomass provides oxygen for cathodic reduction in the cathodic chamber and is ideally considered as the plausible technologies to tackle the ever-increasing problem of global warming and increased CO2 concentration. The MFCs find application in environmental remediation with respect to harmful organic pollutants by neutralizing/degrading contaminated water and soil. The harmful organic pollutants that can be neutralized include organic dyes, pesticides, insecticides, antibiotics, phenolic nitro phenolic compounds, and many others. This gives a long-term solution for pollutant degradation that is also environmentally acceptable. MFC-based biosensors have recently emerged as the next-generation biosensing technique for environmental monitoring. 2022 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. -
A survey on various applications of internet of things on blockchain platform
[No abstract available] -
Punching above the weight? Role of Sri Lanka in BIMSTEC
[No abstract available] -
Deep neural network architecture and applications in healthcare
Gaining insights related to medical data has always been a challenge, as limited technology delays treatment. Various types of data are collected from the medical field, such as sensor data, that are heterogeneous in nature. All of these are very poorly maintained and require more structuring. For this reason, deep learning is becoming more and more popular in this area. There are many challenges due to inadequate and irrelevant data. Insufficient domain knowledge also adds to the challenge. Modern deep learning models can help understand the dataset. This chapter provides an overview of deep learning, its various architectures, and convolutional neural networks. It also highlights how deep learning technologies can help advance healthcare. 2022 River Publishers. -
Sustainable practices in Indian aviation
Air travel produces about three percent of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. The air travel industry requires an enduring vision that focuses on sustainable practices in the entire aviation sector, which will be a significant aspect of the future of civil aviation. The study adopts a systematic review to portray significant challenges, issues, and best practices in the worldwide aviation industry, highlighting the Indian scenario to establish future exploration in India. The chapter extensively investigates the latest sustainable developments in the airline business, the logical agreement on its ecological effects, and steps taken for sustainability. 2023, IGI Global. All rights reserved. -
Data-driven behaviour finance for mutual fund investment decision making
When it comes to money and investing funds, the individual portfolio investor isn't always as logical as he feels he is, which is why there's a whole school of thought dedicated to explaining why people behave in irrational and weird ways. The primary objective of this research is to investigate the effects of five major behavioural biases on individual investor decisions in a metro city India, with a focus on mutual funds, as well as to examine how individuals make decisions to ensure that their investments generate greater returns for a better future. The statistical evidence shows that a variety of behavioural elements have a significant part in people' investment decision-making patterns, which has an impact on the population's economic situation. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how an individual's perspective, attitude, and conduct affect mutual fund investments. 2023, IGI Global. -
Perceived cyber security challenges in adoption and diffusion of FinTech services in India
FinTech is a term that refers to a new type of digital technology that intends to build up and automate the distribution and management of financial services. FinTech is an abbreviation for "financial technology." FinTech, or financial technology, assists companies, business holders, and consumers in managing their financial procedures and methods. The high adoption rate of fintech services creates a whole ecosystem of looters and hackers. This indeed is scary, and this chapter makes an attempt to understand the adoption rate of fintech services and diffusion challenges at the same time. 2023, IGI Global. -
Exploring the role of social media influencer marketing in the tourism sector
The growing popularity of social media influencers (SMI) increasingly encourages destinations to use social media influencer marketing (SMIM) for their promotional campaigns. SMIs demonstrate the power of an individual based on certain factors employed to influence a broad segment of audience, and when it is used for marketing purposes, it is known as SMIM. SMIM is a part of the social media marketing that exercises all the commercial marketing techniques via social media channels. SMIM has impacted many industries including tourism, but looking at the progressive growth of SMIM today, it is surprising that such little attention had been paid to this area. However, while there is increasing use of SMIM by tourism organizations, there is a lack of research and limited knowledge on the roles of SMIM in travel and tourism. This chapter sheds light on the use of SMIM in the tourism sector where existing literature on the SMIM, its factors, and the influence of SMIM on the tourism sector by distinct authors are reviewed to identify the effectiveness of SMIM in the travel and tourism industry. 2023, IGI Global. All rights reserved. -
Implementation of biological fuel cells in treating pharmaceutical effluents
Mankind suffers from a wide variety of infections, diseases, and lifestyle problems. To overcome, several industries worldwide aim to achieve their main objective as the synthesis of an enormous number of diverse drugs that neutralize problems. With the production of tones-to-tones pharmaceutical products these industries also generate extreme good amount of waste, pharmaceutical waste which is now concerned as it contains massive quantity of high organic load of toxic and non-toxic elements. However, the industrial sector adopts anaerobic wastewater treatment strategies to overcome this. As pharmaceutical waste owes highly varied and complexed recalcitrant elements in their complex drug molecules it is not ideal to treat only with anaerobic treatment. Hence, several biotreatments are becoming popularized because they employ MFCs, which are known for the generation of electricity directly from biodegradable organic compounds. The new bio electrochemical technology promises to be inexpensive in comparison to conventional ones. MFC holds the process of both oxidation and reduction permitting the degradation of a wide range of compounds to easily degradable and generates concurrent renewable energy. 2022 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. -
Differential query execution on privacy preserving data distributed over hybrid cloud
Hybrid cloud is proposed as a solution for ensuring security and privacy for data outsourced to cloud. Hybrid cloud uses a mix of both private and public cloud with distribution of sensitive information to private cloud and insensitive information to public cloud. Though data distributed over multi storage provides enhanced security and privacy, query performance is distorted. This work proposes a privacy preserving data distribution with goal of ensuring reduced query latency for data distributed over hybrid clouds without any compromise to the security and privacy. The proposed solution also provides different queries results for the query depending on the access control provided to the users. 2022 Scrivener Publishing LLC. -
Microbial fuel cells for electricity generation and environmental bioremediation
The environmental impact on the use of fossil fuels and their unsustainable nature has led to the development of techniques using renewable energy and fuel cells. The recent decade has captured the attention of scientists towards the importance of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) with the role of microbial ability in converting organic wastes directly to electricity through microbially catalyzed anodic reactions along with microbial/enzymatic cathodic electrochemical reactions. MFC represents an environmental friendly approach for the use of generating electricity using wastewater, thus ensuring a bioremedial approach for effluent treatment with the achievement of chemical oxygen demand (COD) of about 50% chemical oxygen demand and power densities. This MFC utilises microbial metabolism for electricity generation. The overall performance of electricigens or MFC is based on the reactor design, operating conditions, electrode material used, types of substrates, and microorganisms involved. The optimization parameters studies for commercial production and their applications for MFC need to be intensified. Microbes have applications as biopolymer electrolytes that can be variously used in the applications of batteries, fuel cells and dye-sensitized solar cells. The use of MFCs has many advantages as they are eco-friendly, they have high performance abilities and they are costeffective and therefore can be used for modern applications. 2022 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc.