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Sustainable tourism management : Issues and challenges of eco wildlife resorts in karnataka
Sustainable tourism principles comprise of visitor satisfaction, the economic newlinesustainability of the industry, environment conservation, socio-cultural and economic newlinedevelopment of local communities. The tourism industry has to consider all these elements while developing any form of tourism for its long-term sustainability. Eco and wildlife resorts are one of the prominent and attractive segments of the accommodation sector. It has a major implication for implementing sustainable tourism practices in their daily operations since they are set close to nature and reside in pristine wildlife regions. It is inevitable for eco and wildlife tourism, to consider all newlinethe elements of sustainable tourism practices and to implement it in their day to day newlineactivities. At the same time, they might have to face issues and challenges in newlineimplementing sustainable practices. So, the main objective of the research is to newlineunderstand operational issues and challenges of eco and wildlife resorts in achieving newlinesustainable tourism principles. The purpose of the study is to investigate the issues and challenges faced by eco and wildlife resorts in implementing sustainable tourism practices and understanding the indicators used by the resorts to measure their sustainable tourism newlinepractices. The scope of the study covers selected eco and wildlife resorts in Karnataka because most eco and wildlife reserve areas are shared by pristine natural areas and are located near villages. The targeted respondents of the study are eco and wildlife resort managers and visitors of eco and wildlife resorts. Based on purposive sampling, 30 resorts are selected for the study, and 410 visitors are selected based on convenient sampling technique. The study employs a mixed-method research design. newlineTriangulation design is used in the study. The study adopted a tool to identify the newlinesustainable tourism indicators used by the resorts to measuring their sustainable newlinetourism practices. -
Local community involvement in wildlife resorts: Issues and Challenges
The Global Code of Ethics for Tourism Article 5 states that tourism should be a beneficial activity for host countries and communities (UNWTO). The code also emphasises on equitable distribution (between host countries and communities) of the economic and sociocultural benefits generated by tourism activities. The tourism resorts and accommodation sector have to involve local communities in socio-economic activities and priority should be given to local manpower. A wildlife resort has vast opportunities to involve local communities in their day to day operation by purchasing local products, promoting local festivals, providing employment opportunities to locals, and involving local communities in decision-making. Wildlife resorts can also promote local culture, create environment awareness among local people, provide educational support to the local children, and support development of infrastructure and medical facilities for the locals. Though local communities can be involved in various activities of wildlife resorts, it is essential to address the issues and challenges that hinder wildlife resorts from doing so. This paper attempts to determine the issues and challenges faced by wildlife resorts in involving local communities in their day to day operations and suggests ways and means to overcome those challenges. The scope of the study covered selected wildlife resorts in Karnataka. The targeted respondents of the research survey were resort managers and data were collected using open-ended questions to understand real-time issues and challenges involving local communities in resort activities. The data were then analysed using thematic text analysis. The findings from the study will help explore means of providing a better framework which will help wildlife resorts overcome issues and challenges involving local communities. The Author(s) 2017. -
Relationship Between Sustainable Tourism Indicators and the Operational Challenges of the Tourism Business: Empirical Evidence from the Wildlife Resorts of Karnataka, India
Wildlife resorts are one of the most prominent and attractive segments of the accommodation sector. They face many socio-economic and environmental challenges to implement sustainable tourism practices in their daily operations. This study aims at investigating whether there is any relationship between socio-economic and environmental issues, and challenges faced by wildlife resorts in implementing sustainable tourism practices, and the indicators used by the resorts to measure their sustainable tourism practices. The study employs triangulation design to conduct the research. Survey method was employed for identifying the sustainable tourism indicators and personal interviews with resort managers were conducted to identify the operational issues and challenges of wildlife resorts for the implementation of sustainable practices. Based on purposive sampling, sixteen wildlife resorts from the Indian state of Karnataka are selected for the study. Dedoose software is used to conduct mixed method analysis, to compare and analyse the data obtained from both qualitative and quantitative methods. Copyright 2022, IGI Global. -
Prefabricated Houses - A Model to Sustainable Housing Market
Effective spatial planning in an urban center is the need of the hour especially for offering affordable and sustainable houses. separate sheet. Spatial planning may help in achieving Sustainable Development goals (SDG) (09) Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, (11) Sustainable cities and communities, and (15) Life on Land. The prefabricated house model can be used as a strategy in achieving above mentioned SDGs. It is important to study the prefabricated housing market for a country like India, considering its growing population and the necessity of access to affordable and sustainable houses. The main objective of this study is to identify the determinant factors of prefabricated houses and its impact on preference among urban consumers. The study is quantitative in nature and adopts a survey method. SEM model is used to analyze the data. A structured questionnaire is developed based on the objectives of the study. The questionnaire majorly focused on the perception of Sustainability, Affordability, Durability, Barriers, Opportunities, and Quality. The Electrochemical Society -
Exploring challenges in online higher education for AI integration using MICMAC analysis
The consequence of Covid-19 has affected the traditional higher education system. Acknowledging the significant role of online education in national development for accessibility and quality education, countries around the world have understood its importance in current digital era. Indian policymakers have been giving due importance to enhancing the education quality, however the progress made by the country in higher education is not adequate. Amidst all the inadequacies of traditional education system, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are bringing new ray of hope to democratize education system. This chapter is subjected to identify the challenges in online education and suggest specific ways to address each of them. The challenges are categorized into internal and external challenges/barriers. These challenges have been modeled with the expertise of educationalist's opinions and interpretive structural modeling to create a hierarchy of the barriers using MICMAC analysis and categorize these barriers into four clusters. 2024, IGI Global. All rights reserved. -
The Challenges of Blockchain Technology Adoption in the Agro-based Industries
Blockchain is one of the latest innovations in information technology, bringing a digital revolution to many industries by increasing transparency. But this technology needs to be explored a lot as of now. Agriculture supply chain management distributes agro-based products like vegetables, fruits, pulses, and cereals. This research is conducted to identify the agro-based industries' adoption of blockchain in their supply chain for achieving sustainability. The next step towards sustainable agriculture is primarily seen as blockchain-enabled agriculture. By making supply chains transparent, technology can follow products from the point of manufacture and prevent waste and inefficiency. A structured literature review helped determine the barriers to blockchain adoption in agro-based industries. This research is unique as no survey-based research on blockchain in the agriculture supply chain using structural equation modeling has been found. The seven proposed hypotheses support the blockchain challenges for adoption in agro-based industries. The findings of this study suggest that the blockchain can bring transparency and traceability and will remove the agro-industry inefficiencies. 2022 International Journal of Mathematical, Engineering and Management Sciences. All rights reserved. -
Analyzing blockchain-based supply chain resilience strategies: resource-based perspective
Purpose: This research tries to find the blockchain-based resilience strategies that can help the supply chains of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to recover from the disruptions and work effectively in a resource-based view perspective. Design/methodology/approach: Eight broad strategies and 32 sub-strategies are identified from the literature review. Delphi study was carried out, and detailed discussion with 16 experts helped in finalizing these strategies. Further, the best-worst method (BWM) prioritized these strategies. Findings: The findings suggests that building social capital, improving coordination capabilities, sensitivity towards market, flexibility in process and production, reduction in process and lead time,and having a resource efficiency and redundancy are the top strategies on which the top management should focus to overcome the situations of disruptions and enhance performance of MSMEs. Practical implications: The blockchain-based strategies will enable the companies in tracing the products from the company to customers. Further, the customers will be able to identify their manufacturers, the raw materials used in manufacturing, and the life and quality of raw used materials. Altogether the textile industry will become more sensitive toward environmental practices. Originality/value: The previous research has not identified and evaluated the blockchain-based resilience strategies, and therefore this study tries to fill this gap. This study used a smaller sample from the experts, so the results may vary if the larger data set is used and hypothesis testing can be done. 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited. -
Strategic Data Analytics for Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Data and analytics have become major assets for all organizations to leverage into superior strategic positions in this cut-throat competitive world with buzzwords like data crunch, metrics, and dark data. This chapter discusses the structural and economic reasons of why business analytics is necessary for organizations. The ability to collect different resources and entities such as talent, process, data, and information technology to bring out a valuable output is crucial for business analytics success. The most common difficulty of big data begins when organizations are in the journey of business analytics. Since a number of organizations are still in the baby steps of basic, tackling data challenges is humongous for them. This situation calls for the need to foster a business analytics ecosystem by every organization. This paper discusses how optimizing analytics could lead to a sustainable competitive advantage, building data strategy, and setting Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for business analytics. The chapter further explores how analytics is used across business domains and the challenges in crafting a business analytics strategy. The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024. -
Modeling the Intention to Use AI Healthcare Chabots in the Indian Context
Covid-19 has accelerated the need and use of artificial Intelligence-based healthcare Chabots. Penetration of the internet, smartphone, computational capability and machine learning technology brings healthcare services close to the patients. The penetration of AI healthcare Chatbot technology worldwide is on the rise. However, the healthcare ecosystem in India is unique and poses challenges in the adoption of healthcare chatbots. The demographic characteristics, economic conditions, diversity, belief systems on health-seeking, and alternative medical practices play a role in accepting and using chatbots. In this study, we attempt to model the factors influencing the intention and the purpose of using the chatbot. Through a literature review, we identify the variables related to the adoption of healthcare chatbots. We then focus on the more relevant concepts to the Indian context and develop a conceptual model. Through cases and literature, we frame the propositions of the study. We look at the awareness of chatbot features, perception towards the chatbot, trust and mistrust of the healthcare system, the doctors and the chatbots, health-seeking behavior, and the belief in traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine prevalent in India. This study contributes by developing an initial conceptual model for healthcare chatbots adoption in the Indian context. In the future, we plan to operationalize the study and test the propositions through an elaborate survey to validate the model empirically. 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG. -
Green Data Centers: A Review of Current Trends and Practices
A green data center is a facility that makes use of eco-friendly techniques and technologies to lessen its carbon footprint and environmental impact. A data center can consume as much electricity as a small city and contains thousands of servers. These server farms require an enormous amount of processing power to operate, which presents numerous difficulties, including high energy costs, greenhouse gas emissions, backups, and recovery. This paper clarifies the various green data center best practices, including energy efficiency, cooling systems, renewable energy, sustainable building techniques, and carbon footprint. The need for green data centers in todays internet, commercial, financial, and business applications is also covered in the paper. The reality and myths of green data centers are alsoexamined. The paper delves into the metrics for each characteristic used to gauge how green and effective data centers are. The discussion has concluded with case studies of companies that have implemented green data centers. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024. -
Return and volatility spillover between India, UK, USA and European stock markets: The Brexit impact
The 2016 Brexit referendum created potential turmoil in financial markets. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the Brexit referendum on the return and volatility spillover between the EU, the UK, and the USA stock markets and the Indian stock market during the pre- and post-Brexit referendum period. The VAR and bivariate GARCH BEKK models were employed. The study results suggest that before the Brexit referendum, Indian stock market returns made no significant return spillover on the other markets. On the contrary, following the referendum, Indian stock returns significantly spilled over to France, Germany, the UK, and the USA stock market returns. The study results also identified a substantial increase in the bidirectional volatility spillover between India-France, India-UK, and India-USA during the post-Brexit referendum period. Therefore, the investors opportunity to invest simultaneously in India, UK, EU, and US stock markets for portfolio diversification is limited. India was affected mainly by its own past shocks before the Brexit referendum. However, after the Brexit referendum, Indian markets are getting more and more integrated with other markets. In order to reap the diversification benefits, a prudent investment strategy will need to be developed in the future, especially during times of economic and political uncertainty and market crisis. Sangeetha G Nagarakatte, Natchimuthu Natchimuthu, 2022 -
Impact of Brexit on bond yields and volatility spillover across France, Germany, UK, USA, and India's debt markets
Britain's decision to exit the EU lead to disruptions in global markets. This study investigates the change in the return and volatility spillover pattern due to the repercussions of the Brexit vote between the US, France, the UK, Germany, and India's 10-year government bond yields by applying the VAR and GARCH-BEKK models. The findings demonstrate a substantial rise in the return spillover to India and USA 10-year government bond yields following the Brexit vote compared to the pre-Brexit vote era. In addition, the results showed evidence of unidirectional volatility spillover from India to France, bidirectional volatility spillover between the USA and India, and unidirectional volatility spillover from the UK to India 10-year government bond market post-Brexit vote. However, there was no interconnection between these markets before the Brexit vote. Therefore, the Brexit vote did affect and significantly increased the linkage between the US, France, the UK, and India's 10-year government bond market. The increase in correlation in India-US, India-UK, and India-France's 10-year government bond markets will help predict and have an important implication for hedgers, decision-makers, and portfolio managers if similar political events occur in the future. Sangeetha G. Nagarakatte, Natchimuthu Natchimuthu, 2022. -
Hybrid area explorationbased mobility-assisted localization with sectored antenna in wireless sensor networks
In common practice, sensor nodes are randomly deployed in wireless sensor network (WSN); hence, location information of sensor node is crucial in WSN applications. Localization of sensor nodes performed using a fast area exploration mechanism facilitates precise location-based sensing and communication. In the proposed localization scheme, the mobile anchor (MA) nodes integrated with localization and directional antenna modules are employed to assist in localizing the static nodes. The use of directional antennas evades trilateration or multilateration techniques for localizing static nodes thereby resulting in lower communication and computational overhead. To facilitate faster area coverage, in this paper, we propose a hybrid of max-gain and cost-utilitybased frontier (HMF) area exploration method for MA node's mobility. The simulations for the proposed HMF area explorationbased localization scheme are carried out in the Cooja simulator. The paper also proposes additional enhancements to the Cooja simulator to provide directional and sectored antenna support. This additional support allows the user with the flexibility to feed radiation pattern of any antenna obtained either from simulated data of the antenna design simulator, ie, high frequency structure simulator (HFSS) or measured data of the vector network analyzer (VNA). The simulation results show that the proposed localization scheme exhibits minimal delay, energy consumption, and communication overhead compared with other area explorationbased localization schemes. The proof of concept for the proposed localization scheme is implemented using Berkeley motes and customized MA nodes mounted with indigenously designed radio frequency (RF) switch feed network and sectored antenna. 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. -
Energy-Efficient Long-Range Sectored Antenna for Directional Sensor Network Applications
The popularity of Directional Sensor Network (DSN) is increasing due to their improved transmission range, spectral reusability, interference mitigation, and energy efficiency. In this paper, the radio module of the DSN is implemented using an eight-sector antenna array. Two types of sectored antennas, namely the Rectangular Patch Sectored Antenna (RPSA) and the Triangular Patch Sectored Antenna (TPSA), are proposed to operate at frequency of 2.4 GHz ISM band. The RPSA has a half-power beamwidth (HPBW) of 45 and a peak gain of 5.2 dBi, while the TPSA has an HPBW of 48 and a peak gain of 4.16 dBi. The design and performance evaluation of RPSA and TPSA in terms of gain, reflection characteristics (|S11|), and HPBW are conducted using Ansys High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) and Vector Network Analyzer (VNA). To demonstrate the concept, the fabricated sectored antennas are connected to MicaZ Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) nodes using an indigenously designed Single Pole 8 Throw (SP8T) Radio Frequency (RF) switchboard. The performance of the DSNs based on RPSA and TPSA is evaluated using the Cooja simulator and a testbed consisting of MicaZ nodes. The results show that RPSA outperforms TPSA and omnidirectional-based WSNs in terms of power consumption, received signal strength, and packet delivery ratio. 2024 IETE. -
Rectangular Microstrip Patch Antenna Array Based Sectored Antenna for Directional Wireless Sensor Networks
Directional wireless Sensor Network (DSN) outperforms Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) over different parameters such as transmission range, interference, spatial reusability and energy efficiency. In this paper, a Rectangular Patch antenna Array (RPA) based sectored antenna is proposed for DSN. The individual sector is composed of two-element rectangular patch antenna array with a measured peak gain of 5.2 dBi and half-power beamwidth of 45. Single Pole 8 Throw (SP8T) Radio Frequency (RF) switchboard is designed to connect the sectored antenna to MICAz WSN mote. The antenna performance analysis carried out in simulation and real-time measurement via Ansys High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) and Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) exhibits higher gain, lower return loss, half-power beamwidth and Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR). 2020 IEEE. -
Mental health counsellors perceptions on use of technology in counselling
The objectives of the study were: (a) to explore the self-reported knowledge of counsellors about technology in counselling. (b) to understand the flexibility, usage, and openness to integrating the technology services in their practice, and (c) to identify the problems associated with using technology as a process in counselling. Semi-structured interviews of eleven practising counsellors in Bangalore and Chennai, India, recruited through snowball sampling, were used for data collection. The deductive content analysis of the interview transcripts generated seven concepts, each comprising of several categories. The seven concepts were 'attitude', 'strengths', 'weakness', 'suitability', 'skills and training', 'therapeutic alliance', and 'theoretical approaches'. The analysis revealed that the counsellors preferred face-to-face counselling and were not using technology for their mainstream practice, but all were quite aware of the process, the benefits and costs of using different forms of technology. The study revealed that the counsellors were also aware about the target population and mental health issues for online counselling. This study has strong implications for building additional skills and enhancing training for counsellors to use technology in their counselling practice, along with the formulation of legal and ethical policies, certification and licensing, in order to protect both the clients and counsellors. 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. -
A Novel Edge-Based Trust Management System for the Smart City Environment Using Eigenvector Analysis
The proposed Edge-based Trust Management System (E-TMS) uses an Eigenvector-based approach for eliminating the security threats present in the Internet of Things (IoT) enabled smart city environment. In most existing trust management systems, the trust aggregation process completely depends on the direct trust ratings obtained from both legitimate and malicious neighboring IoT devices. E-TMS possesses an edge-assisted two-level trust computation approach for ensuring the malicious free trust evaluation of IoT devices. The E-TMS aims at removing the false contribution on aggregated trust data. It utilizes the properties of the Eigenvector for identifying compromised IoT devices. The Eigenvector Analysis also helps to avoid false detection. The analysis involves a comparison of all the contributed trust data about every single connected device. A spectral matrix will be generated corresponding to the contributions and the received trust will be scaled based on the obtained spectral values. The absolute sum of obtained values will contain only true contributions. The accurate identification of false data will remove the effect of malicious contributions from the final trust value of a connected IoT device. Since the final trust value calculated by the edge node contains only the trustworthy data, the prediction about the malicious nodes will be accurate. Eventually, the performance of E-TMS has been validated. Throughput and network resilience are higher than the existing system. 2022 G. Nagarajan et al. -
Fabrication and Characterization of AA7050 Nano Composites by Enhancing Directional Properties for High Impact Load Applications
The demand for materials with superior strength and impact resistance has driven the exploration of innovative composite materials. In this research, Al 7050 is chosen as the matrix material due to its excellent mechanical properties, whereas SiC and graphene nanoparticles are incorporated to tailor its directional strength characteristics. The fabrication process involves the synthesis of Al7050 nanocomposites through a meticulous blending of nanoparticles with the matrix material. The characterization phase encompasses a comprehensive analysis of various techniques, including scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and mechanical testing. The results shows that the directional strength improvements achieved through SiC and graphene nanoparticle reinforcement with Al7050. The tensile strength of the aluminum in the AA7050-7.5g composite rose from 185.3 to 256.1MPa upon the addition of SiC and graphene. The findings of this study contribute to the evolving field of nanocomposite materials, offering insights into the design and development of advanced materials tailored for specific directional strength requirements. The Institution of Engineers (India) 2024. -
WEAR AND FRICTION BEHAVIOUR OF ALUMINIUM METAL MATRIX COMPOSITE REINFORCED WITH GRAPHITE NANOPARTICLES
In the current research work, AA7050 a marine aluminium alloy was reinforced with the nano-graphite particles, processed through the stir casting technique. The scanning electron microstructure reveals, that the nanoparticles were uniformly distributed over the matrix material and the hardness of the composites increased with a rise in the weight percentage of Gr particles owing to the Hall patch effect. The wear experiments were conducted by varying reinforcement, load, velocity, distance, and temperature, and the experimental runs were designed using the L25 orthogonal array, in which wear, coefficient of friction and worn surface hardness were recorded as a response. The wear resistance of the composites increases with a rise in the graphite content attributed to the formation of a mechanically mixed layer, the wear rate transfers from mild to severe, when there is shift in temperature from 100C to 150C. The worn surface hardness of the composites was higher than those of as-cast composites owing to the presence of Fe on the surface confirmed through the EDAX mapping. The composites were optimized using the modified PROMETHEE optimization technique and the results revealed that AA7050 reinforced with 8% Gr particles showed the best result and was recommended for the marine sector. 2024, Scibulcom Ltd.. All rights reserved. -
Wear and Friction Behaviour of Aluminium Metal Matrix Composite Reinforced with Graphite Nano Particles for Vehicle Structures
In the current research work, AA7050 a marine aluminium alloy was reinforced with the nano graphite particles processed through stir casting technique. The scanning electron microstructure reveals that the nano particles were uniformly distributed over the matrix material and the hardness of the composites increase with raise in weight percentage of Gr particles owing to the Hall-Petch effect. The wear experiments were conducted by varying reinforcement, load, velocity, distance and temperature. The experimental runs were designed using the L25 orthogonal array in which wear, coefficient of friction and worn surface hardness were recorded as response. The wear resistance of the composites increases with raise in the graphite content attributed to the formation of mechanical mixed layer, the wear rate transfer from mild to severe when there swift in temperature from 100C to 150C. The worn surface hardness of the composites was higher than the as cast composites owing to the presence of Fe on the surface confirmed through the EDAX mapping. The composites were optimized using the modified PROMETHEE optimization technique and results revealed that AA7050 reinforced with 8% Gr particles showed best result and recommended for the marine sector. 2024. Carbon Magics Ltd.