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Explaining the intention to uptake COVID-19 vaccination using the behavioral and social drivers of vaccination (BeSD) model
Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) has proposed a tool to measure behavioral and social drivers (BeSD) of vaccination uptake intentions of people across all countries. This study tests BeSD model to predict people's intentions to uptake COVID-19 vaccination in rural India. Methods: An online cross-sectional survey was developed for the purpose based on the components of the BeSD model, i.e., confidence, motivation, and behavioral intention. A convenient sampling technique was used to collect samples, amounting to a total of 625, from rural Bengaluru, in the Karnataka state of India. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was applied to examine the proposed model. All respondents for the survey were in the age category of 1868 years with a mean age of 35 years. Findings: The results showed that 85% of COVID-19 vaccine uptake intentions can directly or indirectly be attributed to the government's vaccine communication strategy, perceived threats about the vaccine, and their trust in the healthcare sector. The dimensions of the vaccine acceptance scale (motivation factors) act as a mediator between these factors and COVID-19 vaccination uptake (the behavioral factor). Conclusion: The study demonstrates that the BeSD framework is an efficient model for predicting the COVID-19 vaccination uptake in India. 2022 The Authors -
An Effective Strategy and Mathematical Model to Predict the Sustainable Evolution of the Impact of the Pandemic Lockdown
There have been considerable losses in terms of human and economic resources due to the current coronavirus pandemic. This work, which contributes to the prevention and control of COVID-19, proposes a novel modified epidemiological model that predicts the epidemics evolution over time in India. A mathematical model was proposed to analyze the spread of COVID-19 in India during the lockdowns implemented by the government of India during the first and second waves. What makes this study unique, however, is that it develops a conceptual model with time-dependent characteristics, which is peculiar to Indias diverse and homogeneous societies. The results demonstrate that governmental control policies and suitable public perception of risk in terms of social distancing and public health safety measures are required to control the spread of COVID-19 in India. The results also show that Indias two strict consecutive lockdowns (21 days and 19 days, respectively) successfully helped delay the spread of the disease, buying time to pump up healthcare capacities and management skills during the first wave of COVID-19 in India. In addition, the second waves severe lockdown put a lot of pressure on the sustainability of many Indian cities. Therefore, the data show that timely implementation of government control laws combined with a high risk perception among the Indian population will help to ensure sustainability. The proposed model is an effective strategy for constructing healthy cities and sustainable societies in India, which will help prevent such a crisis in the future. 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. -
UV-Promoted Metal- and Photocatalyst-Free Direct Conversion of Aromatic Aldehydes to Nitriles
Abstract: An efficient, simple, and catalyst-free UV-induced functional group transformation of aromatic aldehydes to nitriles has been reported. The developed strategy delivers various functionalized aromatic nitriles with high yields and purity. The UV irradiation activates the carbonyl group of aldehydes and leads to the formation of aldoxime intermediate, further resulting in the generation of nitriles. The striking highlights of the reported methodology are simple reaction conditions, good yields, UV-promoted transformation, and catalyst-free synthesis. Due to the above-mentioned advantages, the methodology provides a whip hand toward environmentally friendly chemical synthesis. 2022, Pleiades Publishing, Ltd. -
Dimensionally engineered ternary nanocomposite of reduced graphene oxide/multiwalled carbon nanotubes/zirconium oxide for supercapacitors
Three dimensional (3D) hybrid nanoarchitecture of two-dimensional (2D) reduced graphene oxide/one dimensional (1D) multiwalled carbon nanotube and zero-dimensional (0D) zirconium oxide (ZrO2) nanoparticles (rGO/MWCNT/ZrO2) was synthesised by a simple hydrolysis method for high performance supercapacitors. To unlock the properties of individual materials to the maximum, binaries of ZrO2 with GO and MWCNT were also synthesised. The increased wettability, integrated structure, and the synergistic effect of rGO, MWCNT, and ZrO2 in rGO/MWCNT/ZrO2 (GMZ) offer a capacitance of 357 F g?1 at 1 A g?1 with excellent capacitance retention of 98% across 5000 cycles. 1D structure of MWCNT creates an exceptional conductive network with rGO due to the confinement of electrons and ions without disturbing its electronic structure. The intriguing supercapacitor performance of differently dimensioned framework with ZrO2 emphasises the engineered orientation and tuning of a designed environment for its appropriateness, uniqueness, and sensitivity to push up enhanced performance. 2021 Elsevier B.V. -
Nitrogen-rich dual linker MOF catalyst for room temperature fixation of CO2 via cyclic carbonate synthesis: DFT assisted mechanistic study
The benign synthesis of a novel Zn based Lewis acid-base bifunctional metal-organic framework (ITH-1) and its room temperature catalytic ability for the chemical fixation of carbon dioxide via cyclic carbonate synthesis is reported herein. ITH-1 is characterized by the presence of mono coordinated pendant imidazole groups throughout the framework inducing Lewis basicity. The synthesized material is crystallized in the monoclinic space group as revealed by the Single Crystal X-ray Diffraction Analysis and possesses a 2 D non-planar interdigitated network wherein the neighbouring sheets are connected via strong hydrogen bonding (1.947 . ITH-1 was characterized thoroughly via various physicochemical analyses such as XRD, FT-IR, Raman, FE-SEM, CHN, ICP, TGA and was found thermally stable up to 300 ?C. The co-existence of accessible and active Lewis acid (Zn) Lewis base (imidazole) moieties rendered ITH-1 the potential to catalyse the cycloaddition of CO2 with propylene oxide under solvent and co-catalyst free conditions (~95% conversion) at moderate temperatures with remarkable reusable performance (over 5 times). ITH-1 manifested excellent CO2 conversion even under room temperature and 1 bar pressure in the presence of a co-catalyst. Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations utilizing M06 functional were exercised to envisage the mechanism behind the successful CO2 conversion by ITH-1 at room temperature and were found to be in clear agreement with the experimental results. 2022 Elsevier Ltd -
Multifaceted Destination Personality Traits: A Short Communication on Understanding from Tourists Perspective
This short communication is an extract from a major research work on destination branding, and this cull out of analysis focused on the multifaceted destination personality traits that the destinations possess and perhaps how such perceptions of tourists differ based on the selected personal factors. Though there are many studies in the destination branding literature, the evidence regarding the personality traits is still at the stage of progression, and approaches referring to multifaceted personality traits are unseen. After the pilot testing, a structured questionnaire was floated to 400 tourists who visited the selected destinations a district in Tamil Nadu, India, between June 2019 and February 2020, where 327 responses were finalized. The questionnaire had statements measuring the destinations personality traits and other questions on tourists characteristics. Combined mean calculation and multivariate results revealed that two personality traits, welcoming and friendly, were emphasized by the tourists and perceived in common. Also, personality traits such as spiritual and charming were found to be commonly perceived. The mean values also indicated the existence of multifaceted destination personality traits some inherent and some perceived. Marketers and others thereof have been recommended on the branding and advertising strategies based on the outcome of this communication. The limitations and scope of this research have been indicated. 2022, Associated Management Consultants Pvt. Ltd.. All rights reserved. -
Electro fabrication of molecularly imprinted sensor based on Pd nanoparticles decorated poly-(3 thiophene acetic acid) for progesterone detection
In recent years, scientific community has witnessed substantial interest in the design and engineering of electrodes as sensing platforms towards sensitive and selective detection of hormones. An electrochemical strategy for the detection of progesterone was proposed by generating a composite film comprising of palladium nanoparticles with 3-thiophene acetic acid (3-TAA) coupled with molecular imprinting technology. Progesterone molecule was employed as the template while generating molecular imprints by electropolymerization on the surface of the Carbon Fibre Paper (CFP) electrode. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and cyclic voltammetry were used to analyse the various modified working electrodes (CV). Characterization methods included field emission scanning microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, optical profilometry, and X-ray photon electron spectroscopy. Pd nanoparticles resulted in enhanced sensitivity and molecular imprinting technology contributed to its specificity. Because of the molecular cavities created on the removal of the template molecule, Nyquist plots data showed that the MIP/Pd/CFP electrode had the lowest charge transfer resistance compared to other control electrodes. 2022 Elsevier Ltd -
Investigations on the electronic properties and effect of chitosan capping on the structural and optical properties of zinc aluminate quantum dots
Quantum confined uncapped and chitosan capped nanoparticles of ZnAl2O4 synthesized by microwave-assisted solgel method were investigated by structural analysis and optical techniques. X-ray diffraction studies confirmed the formation of cubic spinels with crystallite size 4.5 nm and 3.4 nm, respectively for uncapped and chitosan capped ZnAl2O4 nanoparticles. Chitosan capping produced a blue shift in bandgap energy (3.84 to 3.94 eV) agreeing with size effects according to the Brus equation. A blue shift in emission peak and enhancement in photoluminescence intensity was also observed upon chitosan capping. The electronic band structure and the density of states of the bulk spinel were also calculated using density functional theory. The effective masses of electrons and holes estimated based on the band structure were used to extract the excitonic Bohr radius. 2021 Elsevier B.V. -
Green Synthesized ZnO Nanoparticles as Biodiesel Blends and their Effect on the Performance and Emission of Greenhouse Gases
Pollution and global warming are a few of the many reasons for environmental problems, due to industrial wastes and greenhouse gases, hence there are efforts to bring down such emissions to reduce pollution and combat global warming. In the present study, zinc oxide nanoparticles are green synthesized using cow dung as fuel, through combustion. Synthesized material was characterized by FTIR, XRD, UV, and FESEM. The as-prepared ZnO-GS NPs were employed as a transesterification catalyst for the preparation of biodiesel from discarded cooking oil. The biodiesel obtained is termed D-COME (discarded cooking oil methyl ester), which is blended with 20% commercial diesel (B20). Additionally, this blend, i.e., B20, is further blended with varying amounts of as-prepared ZnO-GS NPs, in order to ascertain its effects on the quality of emissions of various greenhouse gases such as hydrocarbons, COx, NOx. Moreover, the brake thermal efficiency (BTHE) and brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) were studied for their blends. The blend (B20) with 30 mg of ZnO-GS, i.e., B20-30, displays the best performance and reduced emissions. Comparative studies revealed that the ZnO-GS NPs are as efficient as the ZnO-C NPs, indicating that the green synthetic approach employed does not affect the efficiency of the ZnO NPs. 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. -
Improved Bald Eagle Search for Optimal Allocation of D-STATCOM in Modern Electrical Distribution Networks with Emerging Loads
Currently, modern electrical distribution networks (EDNs) are experiencing high demand with emerging electric vehicle loads and are being planned for specific load requirements such as agricultural loads. In this connection, characterization and optimization of their performance become essential in planning studies. In this paper, optimal reactive power compensation using a distribution-static synchronous compensator (D-STATCOM) is proposed with the aim of loss reduction, voltage profile improvement and voltage stability enhancement different types of loads including agricultural and electric vehicle loads. A recent efficient meta-heuristic approach, improved bald eagle search (IBES), is implemented for solving the proposed optimization problem considering different operational and planning constraints. The simulation results are performed on IEEE 33-bus for different types of load modelling. The computational efficiency of IBES is compared with basic BES and other literature works. From the results, IBES has shown superior computational characteristics than all compared works. On the other hand, the optimal location and size of D-STATCOM caused significant loss reduction, voltage profile improvement and voltage stability enhancement for kinds of loads as experiencing in the modern EDNs 2022,International Journal of Intelligent Engineering and Systems.All Rights Reserved -
Bridging Digital Divide in India: Positive Outlook Amid COVID-19
The digital divide is described as the gap in access to, knowledge of, use of, or ability to comprehend information and communication technology (ICT) between different societal groups. The digital divide can often give way to an upsurge in social inequalities. This study intended to comprehend the extent of the rural-urban digital divide in India regarding access to the internet and to analyze the increase or decrease in the same due to the global coronavirus pandemic. The analysis of the paper was primarily based on secondary data collected from the report on The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for June 2019 and June 2020. Percentage analysis was employed to comprehend the trend of the digital divide in terms of access for the years 2019 and 2020. The results disclosed that there was an increase in internet access in the rural population during the time frame of COVID-19, and this increase has led to a decrease in the digital divide in terms of access to the internet. Moreover, the study revealed that COVID-19, to some extent, has resulted in bridging the rural-urban digital divide in India in terms of access. The study further highlighted the importance of digital literacy and access to ICT, and suggested ways to improve digital literacy in India. 2022, Associated Management Consultants Pvt. Ltd.. All rights reserved. -
The Mindful Self: Exploring Mindfulness in Relation with Self-esteem and Self-efficacy in Indian Population
The aim of the current study was to evaluate and compare the relationship of mindfulness with self-efficacy and self-esteem. The study has also investigated the difference in mindfulness levels across five dimensions: observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging of inner experiences and non-reactivity to inner experience between males and females and between young adults and middle-aged adults who belong to the Indian population. There was a total of 146 participants (F = 80, M = 66), 84 in the young adult group (2040years) and 62 participants in the middle adult group (4165years). Pearson correlation showed statistically significant (p < 0.01) moderate positive correlation between all the five dimensions of mindfulness and self-esteem; while self-efficacy had significant (p < 0.01) moderate positive correlation with all the dimensions of mindfulness except for non-judging of inner experiences. Multiple linear regression (MLR) with self-esteem as outcome variable showed model fitness of 51% (p < 0.01) with acting with awareness, non-reactivity to inner experience, non-judging of inner experiences and describing as predictive variables. With self-efficacy as outcome variable, MLR showed model fitness of 40% (p < 0.01) with non-reactivity to inner experiences, acting with awareness, observing and describing as predicting variables. Females were found to be significantly higher in acting with awareness and observing dimensions of mindfulness compared to males. Middle adults were found to be significantly higher only in the non-judging of inner experiences dimension as compared to early adults. Importance of mindfulness in improving self-concept has been established in western world. The present study, by exploring the relationship between mindfulness and self-variables in Indian population, highlights the probable positive outcomes of mindfulness enhancing techniques on self-esteem and self-efficacy of individuals, and therefore on the quality of life. 2022, National Academy of Psychology (NAOP) India. -
Emotion Regulation and Psychological Well-being as Contributors Towards Mindfulness Among Under-Graduate Students
Emotion regulation is generally described as the ability of an individual not only to manage emotions effectively but also to respond effectively to the emotional experience. It has also been viewed as a crucial aspect for psychological well-being. It is a psychological state which means more than just being free from stress and not having any other psychological disorder reported by the individual. At the same time, students with higher emotion regulation and psychological well-being are expected to be more attentive and able to observe, describe and participate in the present moment, effectively, with non-judgmental awareness, which is in turn defined as mindfulness. Hence, it has been expected that participants with higher emotion regulation and psychological well-being would also report higher levels of mindfulness. Therefore, the present empirical investigation has been conducted with an objective of assessing the level of emotion regulation, psychological well-being and mindfulness among under-graduate students. Additionally, it was also expected that all the said variables would be positively correlated and emotion regulation and psychological well-being would predict mindfulness positively for under-graduate students. For this purpose, ex post facto research design was adopted, and standardized tools pertaining to emotion regulation, psychological well-being and mindfulness were administered on a sample of 104 under-graduate students. The results of correlation statistics revealed that emotional regulation (r=0.27; p<0.01) and psychological well-being (r=0.21; p<0.01) are the positive and significant correlates of mindfulness. Additionally, statistical outcomes of stepwise multiple regression analysis confirm that emotion regulation and psychological well-being are the significant predictors of mindfulness and contribute collectively towards a 11% variance towards the same. 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. -
Corrigendum to Implementation of modified Buongiorno's model for the investigation of chemically reacting rGO-Fe3O4-TiO2-H2O ternary nanofluid jet flow in the presence of bio-active mixers [Chemical Physics Letters, 786, 2022, 139194]
A few typographical errors have been identified in our paper titled Implementation of modified Buongiorno's model for the investigation of chemically reacting rGO-Fe3O4-TiO2-H2O ternary nanofluid jet flow in the presence of bio-active mixers. This corrigendum addresses those errors however, these errors have no impact on the obtained results. 2022 -
A Study on Ornated Graphs
In this paper, we introduce the notion of a finite non-simple directed graph called, an ornated graph. An ornated graph is a directed graph on n vertices, denoted by On(sl), whose vertices are consecutively labeled clockwise on the circumference of a circle and constructed from an ordered string sl. Joining vertices is such that for an odd indexed entry at of the string, a tail vertex vi has clockwise heads vj if and only if (i + at) ? j. For an even indexed entry as of the string, a tail vertex vi has anticlockwise heads vj if and only if (i - as) ? j. Some interesting results for certain types of ornated graphs are presented. 2023 World Scientific Publishing Company. -
Visiting Indian Hospitals Before, during and after COVID
The prevailing COVID-19 situation has brought in temporary and permanent changes in the attitude and lifestyle of people. Starting from Hand sanitizers and face masks, it extends to online classrooms and work from home culture. In case of visiting hospitals and medications, people with pre-existing medical conditions and minor health issues tend to delay or avoid visiting hospitals due to fear of infection, which is dangerous. Further, people or patients tend to access several alternatives and precautions. The alternatives include home remedies, ayurvedic medication, yoga and meditation. On the other hand, hospitals are trying to adapt online consulting and telemedicine. Besides, Cancellation or delay of nonemergency surgeries became inevitable in the lockdown phase. This survey conducted among the people of Erode district, Tamilnadu to study the perception of people concerning visiting hospitals for health issues. The results show that fear of infection, financial and transportation difficulties are the major factors which affected people from visiting hospital. Also, changing trends like Telemedicine and home remedies are likely to be permanently opted by people. In Brief, the outcomes reveal the changing attitude of people towards medication and hospital visiting habits. 2022 World Scientific Publishing Company. -
JP-DAP: An Intelligent Data Analytics Platform for Metro Rail Transport Systems
This paper deals with an intelligent data analytics platform-Jaison-Paul Data Analytics Platform (JP-DAP)-for metro rail transport systems. JP-DAP is intended to ensure smooth functioning, improved customer experience, ridership forecasting, and efficient administration of metro rail transportation systems by integrating and analysing its many data sources. It consists of a middleware which is built on the top of a Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) and Spark framework, along with a set of open-source software tools like Apache Hive, Pandas, Google TensorFlow and Spark ML-lib for real-time and legacy data processing. The benchmarking of JP-DAP was conducted using TestDFSIO and have found that it performs well according to industry standards. The specific use case for this project is Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL). The analysis of Automated Fare Collection data from KMRL on JP-DAP framework have produced descriptive statistics visualisation of inflow and outflow analysis, travel patterns during weekdays and weekends, origin-destination matrix, etc.. Moreover JP-DAP framework is capable of producing short term passenger flow predictions using SVR machine learning algorithm with linear, radial basis function and polynomial kernels. Our experiments have shown that SVR linear kernel gives the most accurate results with the least errors in predicting the next day's passenger count using the previous five weekdays data. The station usage (one-to-all) prediction using Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) is also integrated to this framework. The visualisation as well as analytical outcomes of JP-DAP framework have also been made available to the external world using a rich set of REST APIs and are projected on to a web-dashboard. 2000-2011 IEEE. -
Linear and weakly non-linear stability analyses of Rayleigh-Bard convection in a water-saturated porous medium with different shapes of copper nanoparticles
The Rayleigh-Bard convection of a nanoliquid-saturated porous medium confined in a very shallow enclosure is investigated theoretically using the modified Buongiorno - Brinkman model. In the study, the chosen nanoliquid-saturated porous medium is assumed to be made up of water well dispersed with copper(Cu) nanoparticles of five different shapes saturating in a 30% reinforced polycarbonate glass fiber(GF) porous material of high porosity and its effective thermophysical properties are calculated using the phenomenological laws or mixture theory. Two kinds of boundary conditions, viz., stress-free and rigid, are employed and the analytical solution is obtained in both cases. On the other hand, Rayleigh-Bard convection in a very shallow domain of height 5mm and width 5cm filled with water-liquid and bounded by the rigid boundaries is simulated. The simulation results are then compared with the analytical results in the case of rigid boundaries. We found that the analytical results are in good agreement with those of the simulation results and this validates results of the present study. Linear and weakly non-linear stability analyses are performed to find the onset and the heat transport of the system. The effects of various parameters on the onset and heat transport of the system are depicted graphically and the physical explanation is provided for all observed results in the study. We found that the addition of dilute concentration of nanoparticles advances the onset and thereby enhances the heat transport in the system. Among five different shapes of copper nanoparticles, maximum and minimum heat transports are observed in the cases of blade and spherical shaped nanoparticles, respectively. The porous medium parameters: Brinkman number and porous parameter, show a stabilizing effect in the system. The existence of subcritical motions is also predicted for the system. The results of the Khanafer-Vafai-Lightstone(KVL) single-phase model, nanoliquid, base liquid and base liquid-saturated porous medium are obtained as limiting cases of the present study. Since nanoparticles and porous medium, respectively, show a destabilizing and stabilizing nature of influence in the system, the present work has possible applications in both heat removal and heat retainment systems. 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to SocietItaliana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. -
Exosomal mediated signal transduction through artificial microRNA (amiRNA): A potential target for inhibition of SARS-CoV-2
Exosome trans-membrane signals provide cellular communication between the cells through transport and/or receiving the signal by molecule, change the functional metabolism, and stimulate and/or inhibit receptor signal complexes. COVID19 genetic transformations are varied in different geographic positions, and single nucleotide polymorphic lineages were reported in the second waves due to the fast mutational rate and adaptation. Several vaccines were developed and in treatment practice, but effective control has yet to reach in cent presence. It was initially a narrow immune-modulating protein target. Controlling these diverse viral strains may inhibit their transuding mechanisms primarily to target RNA genes responsible for COVID19 transcription. Exosomal miRNAs are the main sources of transmembrane signals, and trans-located miRNAs can directly target COVID19 mRNA transcription. This review discussed targeted viral transcription by delivering the artificial miRNA (amiRNA) mediated exosomes in the infected cells and significant resources of exosome and their efficacy. 2022 The Authors -
Usability Evaluation and Classification of mHealth Applications for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Using MARS and ID3 Algorithm
The rapid growth of mHealth applications for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) patients self-management has motivated the evaluation of these applications from both the usability and user point of view. The objective of this study was to identify mHealth applications that focus on T2DM from the Android store and rate them from the usability perspective using the MARS tool. Additionally, a classification of these mHealth applications was conducted using the ID3 algorithm to identify the most preferred application. The usability of the applications was assessed by two experts using MARS. A total of 11 mHealth applications were identified from the initial search, which fulfilled our inclusion criteria. The usability of the applications was rated using the MARS scale, from 1 (inadequate) to 5 (excellent). The Functionality (3.23) and Aesthetics (3.22) attributes had the highest score, whereas Information (3.1) had the lowest score. Among the 11 applications, mySugr had the highest average MARS score for both Application Quality (4.1/5) as well as Application Subjective Quality (4.5/5). Moreover, from the classification conducted using the ID3 algorithm, it was observed that 6 out of 11 mHealth applications were preferred for the self-management of T2DM. 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.