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A Comprehensive Review on the Electrochemical Sensing of Flavonoids
Flavonoids are bioactive polyphenolic compounds, widespread in the plant kingdom. Flavonoids possess broad-spectrum pharmacological effects due to their antioxidant, anti-tumor, anti-neoplastic, anti-mutagenic, anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic, immunomodulatory, and vasodilatory properties. Care must be taken, since excessive consumption of flavonoids may have adverse effects. Therefore, proper identification, quantification and quality evaluations of flavonoids in edible samples are necessary. Electroanalytical approaches have gained much interest for the analysis of redox behavior and quantification of different flavonoids. Compared to various conventional methods, electrochemical techniques for the analysis of flavonoids offer advantages of high sensitivity, selectivity, low cost, simplicity, biocompatibility, easy on-site evaluation, high accuracy, reproducibility, wide linearity of detection, and low detection limits. This review article focuses on the developments in electrochemical sensing of different flavonoids with emphasis on electrode modification strategies to boost the electrocatalytic activity and analytical efficiency. 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. -
Adapting Employee Engagement Strategies Amid Crisis: Insights from the COVID-19 Pandemic
Crises are unpredictable events that have the potential to strike at any moment, causing significant disruptions to work, daily routines, and the normal course of life. The COVID-19 Pandemic served as a facilitator for transformative changes in the way we work, shifting to an era of remote and flexible work arrangements across industries. This crisis underlined the importance of employee engagement and organizational culture-building in navigating unforeseen situations. As organizations prepare for the future, it becomes crucial to anticipate and adapt to potential crises that may arise. The effect of the pandemic varied from industry to industry. When the technology industry worked towards creating a virtual workspace, the production industry strived to continue production without disruption. However, irrespective of the industry, HR teams across the board were dedicated to identifying and addressing the challenges posed by the crisis. They have worked tirelessly to ensure employee engagement remains a priority. This qualitative study explores the challenges encountered by HR teams during the pandemic and explores the strategies and policies they adopted to foster employee engagement. The data was collected through an in-depth interview with 39 HR Practitioners from different industries. The significant challenges included the need to cultivate a sense of community, navigate muddled up HR processes, sustain productivity amid disruptions, and prioritize employee wellness. To provide a comprehensive analysis, this study examined industry-specific approaches, employing within-case analysis to understand key strategies in communication, rewards and recognition, employee benefits, wellness initiatives, and fostering an enjoyable virtual workplace. This study offers a forward-looking perspective and serves as a guide for organizations aiming to thrive in times of uncertainty, ensuring that employee engagement remains a strategic priority regardless of the crisis at hand. 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. -
Predicting Employee Attrition Using Machine Learning Algorithms
Employees are considered the foundation of any organization. Due to their importance, the Human resources department implements various policies to sustain them. Yet the attrition rate in any organization is increasing yearly. The attrition rate signifies the number of employees who leaves a firm without being replaced. It is regarded as a well-known issue that requires the administration to make the best choices to retain highly competent staff. It is interesting to note that artificial intelligence is frequently used as a successful technique for foreseeing such an issue. This review paper aims to study the different machine learning approaches that predict employee attrition and factors influencing an employee to attrite from an organization. A Hybrid model comprising the various ensemble models is proposed to predict attrition at its earliest. The forecasted attrition model aids in not only taking preventive action but also in improving recruiting choices and rewarding top performers who contribute to the company's success. 2022 IEEE. -
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Food quality traceability prototype for restaurants using blockchain and food quality data index
As competition between organizations are evolving into competition between supply chains, to survive and indeed grow, it is necessary to deliver added value to customers. Traceability has emerged as one of the key measures of operational efficiencies within supply chains and ultimately, customer service. Over the years, organizations have deployed number of methods in delivering food traceability. This paper examines major methods of food traceability currently in existence and proposes a restaurant prototype for implementing more reliable food traceability using Blockchain and product identifiers. The prototype captures data from various stakeholders across the food supply chain, segregates it and finally, applies the Food Quality Index (FQI) algorithm to generate an FQI value. The FQI value helps in identifying whether the food is good for consumption on specified parameters. FQI value is generated based on extant standard storage and handling regulations specified by food safety authorities, and checks whether value so derived, is within the permissible range. The prototype helps in grading food quality for human consumption besides strengthening food (product) traceability. This prototype can be customized to address future requirements of traceability triggered through new information emanating from any stakeholder or the node in the supply chain. 2019 Elsevier Ltd -
Aiming at digital health via mHealth application for generation Y post-pandemic scenario
Medical and health products have become a part of our lives. A health-conscious .society is the aftermath of the pandemic. The increasing role of technology has pushed people to online alternatives for medical services, progressing towards digital health. This research thus contributes to the nascent literature on the impact of mHealth apps and the consumption pattern in Bangalore in the post-pandemic scenario. This research investigates from the perspective of usage, privacy, and affordability of the mHealth apps. Results suggest that usage is positively affected by the affordability and privacy of these apps. Firstly, app developers could use the findings for different digital health marketing strategies and implementations for the mHealth app. Secondly, academics can look at other aspects such as the knowledge people possess regarding apps and their proficiency in accepting technology. Finally, the policy discussion makers can work on concerns of affordability and privacy to cater to the more significant population segment. 2023 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. -
Transforming through dialogue in Bernard Malamud's the assistant
This paper investigates the importance and relevance of dialogue in interpersonal relationship and argues that the authentic interpersonal relationship is essentially dialogic and transforming. The importance and the transforming effects of dialogue are explored through an analysis of Bernard Malamud's novel The Assistant. An attempt is made to understand the relationship between philosophy and literature while at the same time an interrogation is made to analyse the role of dialogue in philosophy and literature. For this it makes use of the Philosophy of Dialogue proposed by Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas. The analysis shows that dialogue acts as a medium through which human beings interact and it has the potential to transform people. The results of this study clearly emphasize the possibility of using dialogue as a tool for transformation in day to day life. 2017 Journal of Dharma: Dharmaram Journal of Religions and Philosophies (DVK, Bangalore). -
Humour as a moderator of stress and defence based coping mechanisms among the youth of Kerala, India
The goal of this study was to examine the effect of the moderators of adaptive and maladaptive humour on stress and on the four levels of defence based coping mechanism amongst the youth of Kerala, India. Four hundred and fifty-three youth between the age of 18 and 40, selected from two different cities of North Kerala, India (Calicut, Malappuram) and Central Kerala, India (Cochin, Trissur), were asked to fill out three questionnaires assessing stress, coping and humour. Pearson's test of product-moment correlation indicated that stress had a positive and moderate statistically significant correlation with the first three levels of defence based coping mechanism (pathological defences, immature defences and neurotic defences). Furthermore, there was a positive and weak statistically significant correlation between stress and level-IV coping (mature defences). When positive and moderate correlation was found for stress with maladaptive humour, no significant correlation was found with adaptive humour. When coping was studied in relationship with humour, a negative and weak statistically significant correlation was found for level-I coping (pathological defences) with adaptive humour, whereas a positive and moderate statistically significant correlation was found with maladaptive humour. Here level-IV coping (mature defences) was found to have a positive and moderate statistically significant relationship with adaptive and maladaptive humour. Moderator analysis showed that maladaptive humour moderated the association between stress and four levels of defence based coping mechanism. The study implied that youth should be trained to use more of mature means of coping and adaptive humour styles in life. Universiti Putra Malaysia Press -
Robs algorithm
Sparse matrix is a matrix having a relatively large proportion (proportion - a ratio is a comparison of two numbers. We generally separate the two numbers in the ratio with a colon (:)) of zero elements. To store the elements of the matrix in computer memory, linear array concept of storing is used. When a sparse matrix is stored in full-matrix storage mode, all its elements, including its zero elements, are stored in an array, which is a wastage of memory. In order to avoid the memory and processing overhead many alternate forms are used. Each one has separate time and space complexities and performances. In this paper we are suggesting one way of representing the sparse matrix which has both time and space complexity O(2n) only, while all other methods work with complexity more than O(3n) where n is the total number of non-zero elements in the matrix .The implementation of this algorithm in applications may improve the performance especially in the area of adjacency matrix, tree representation, 3D representation to an object, network communication, electronics, mathematical calculations, picture storage/file storage, file compression, bioinformatics, and the computer performance. The proposed algorithm has a large scope not only in computing but also in different branches of science, electronics and graphics. 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. -
Cryogenian magmatism and crustal reworking in the Southern Granulite Terrane, India
Understanding Neoproterozoic crustal evolution is fundamental to reconstructing the Gondwana supercontinent, which was assembled at this time. Here we report evidence of Cryogenian crustal reworking in the Madurai Block of the Southern Granulite Terrane of India. The study focuses on a garnet-bearing granite-charnockite suite, where the granite shows in situ dehydration into patches and veins of incipient charnockite along the contact with charnockite. The granite also carries dismembered layers of Mg-Al-rich granulite. Micro-textural evidence for dehydration of granite in the presence of CO2-rich fluids includes the formation of orthopyroxene by the breakdown of biotite, neoblastic zircon growth in the dehydration zone, at around 870C and 8 kbar. The zircon U-Pb ages suggest formation of the granite, charnockite, and incipient charnockite at 836 73, 831 31, and 772 49 Ma, respectively. Negative zircon ?Hf (t) (-5 to -20) values suggest that these rocks were derived from a reworked Palaeoproterozoic crustal source. Zircon grains in the Mg-Al-rich granulite record a spectrum of ages from ca. 2300 to ca. 500 Ma, suggesting multiple provenances ranging from Palaeoproterozoic to mid-Neoproterozoic, with neoblastic zircon growth during high-temperature metamorphism in the Cambrian. We propose that the garnet-bearing granite and charnockite reflect the crustal reworking of aluminous crustal material indicated by the presence of biotite + quartz + aluminosilicate inclusions in the garnet within the granite. This crustal source can be the Mg-Al-rich layers carried by the granite itself, which later experienced high-temperature regional metamorphism at ca. 550 Ma. Our model also envisages that the CO2 which dehydrated the garnet-bearing granite generating incipient charnockite was sourced from the proximal massive charnockite through advection. These Cryogenian crustal reworking events are related to prolonged tectonic activities prior to the final assembly of the Gondwana supercontinent. 2015 Taylor & Francis. -
Identity in Consumption: Reading Food and Intersectionality in Anita Desai's Fasting, Feasting
With the resurging interest in Food Studies, this rapidly emerging field of study has seen multiple disciplines adding in their distinct flavours that truly make this an area to savour. Literary food studies, in particular, has become a relevant field of study with the understanding that food in literature always plays a symbolic role, as food in literature is never depicted for the sustenance of the literary characters. This paper seeks to explore the novel Fasting, Feasting (1999) by Anita Desai through the lens of food and foodways to explicate how the characters interact with the culinary arena, and ultimately, interact with each other and themselves. These interactions will serve as crucial insights into their identities, particularly their intersectional gender identities considering the facets of nationality, class, and the like. A special focus will also be rendered on the notion of marginalisation seen in the text, of which gender is a crucial deciding factor. The title of the novel hints at consumption-at both its presence and absence-which will prove as the gateway to the interactions of the characters with food in the novel to examine who it is that gets to feast while who are forced to starve. 2022 Aesthetics Media Services. All rights reserved. -
Exploring Cross-cultural Comfort Food Narratives in Beryl Shereshewskys YouTube Videos
This article explores how certain food and the stories linked to the same are capable of evoking feelings of comfort and security. Food binds people together. The rituals and practices surrounding food inspire and sustain the association of various memories, experiences and emotions. The area of food studies is especially interested in how these linkages translate into the practice of nourishment. The narratives surrounding comfort food take on a cross-cultural flavour in the videos from Beryl Shereshewskys YouTube channel. This article analyses these narratives through the lens of Symbolic Interactionism to explicate how these food narratives bring people together from across the world by evoking the universal needs of food and comfort. Consequently, it is seen that even though it is true that the experience of consuming comfort food is extremely personal, it is also rendered as a universal phenomenon through the narratives that are created and shared. 2023 MICA-The School of Ideas. -
Commensality and Togetherness in Becky Chambers The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Food in literature is always part of a symbolic act, as the characters within do not eat to stay alive as humans do, but rather, this depiction of eating is always a symbolic process. Food, especially in science fiction and fantasy fiction, works on an even grander scale by being an integral part of the world-building process. It operates on a two-fold scale by serving as a familiar anchor in futuristic and fantastical settings, while also functioning as a defamiliarizing agent that adds to the strangeness of the story world. Food is an incredibly complex motif to be explored in literature, but what will be concentrated on here is the aspect of commensality that is related to food and food practices. Commensality, often seen as related to conviviality, is the practice of sharing a table and consuming food together. This practice has connotations of the deeper meanings vested within food practices in a communal and social sense. These practices promote harmony and feelings of belongingness and togetherness. This paper looks at The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (2015) by Becky Chambers through the lens of food to explore how commensality works to create a home and promote the feeling of togetherness amongst an inter-galactic space crew that consists of multiple alien species from radically different cultures and communities. 2022, Istanbul University Press. All rights reserved. -
Consuming Identities in Foodways
[No abstract available] -
IDENTITIES AT THE DINNER TABLE: COMMENSALITY, SELF-PERCEPTION, AND RELATIONSHIPS IN ANNE CHERIANS A GOOD INDIAN WIFE
Food studies is rapidly gaining ground as a multidisciplinary area of research. Within it, literary food studies brings an interdisciplinary perspective as works of literature are viewed through the lens of food that is informed by frameworks and concepts that are rooted in a variety of fields including cultural anthropology, sociology, and more. one such concept that is in focus here is that of commensality that is associated with food and food practices. Commensality, drawing from notions of conviviality, refers to the practice of sharing a table and consuming food together. Deeper meanings of communal identities come to the fore in this social practice, leading it to shape how identities are understood and projected. Commensality can be a complex site of belonging and alienation depending on the context, and this paper seeks to explore the representation of the same in Anne Cherians A Good Indian Wife (2008). Leila, the titular Indian wife in the novel, moves to the US from India after her marriage to Neel and grapples with finding her place in the foreign land. With this displacement comes the endeavor to reaffirm her new identity, which now includes the role of being a wife and the aspect of being an immigrant. Neel also deals with complicated feelings towards the projection of his identity. With food playing a crucial role in the everyday experiences of their lives, commensality becomes a point of enquiry into how they see themselves and how their relationships with each other and themselves evolve through the course of the narrative. 2024 Nayana George. -
Constitutional crossroads in India: perspectives from federal constitutional history on allocating competency over public health
This article examines the nascent proposal in India advising that public health should be shifted from the exclusive state legislative list to the concurrent legislative list of the Constitution of India. This proposal raises complex constitutional, administrative, and political questions animating federal democracies about the roles of various levels of government in public health policy, administration and delivery. Unfortunately, the 15th Finance Commission (supported by other entities) does not provide full reasons for their proposal, or the constitutional, administrative and political dimensions of this proposal. In this context, this paper attempts to throw some light on the constitutional history of public health being a state subject in India, by examining seven pre-independence constitutional documents that briefly but clearly addressed the subject. All the constitutional documents illustrate how public health was at first devolved, thereafter distributed to state competency, and eventually settled for exclusive state competency. However, colonial administrators raised a constant caveat that devolution/distribution of powers over the subject should not deter the coordination of the subject. It is suggested that this caveat should inform the future debate on whether health should be a state or concurrent subject, especially since coordination is not possible unless the centre also has a minimum of legislative competency over the subject. The actual subjects/topics on which coordination in the field of public health is necessary is a matter appropriate for discussion and determination by public health professionals. 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. -
Dielectric performance of solid dielectric immersed in vegetable oil with antioxidant
Transformers are the most vital part of the power transmission and distribution system. Protecting them from all possible abnormalities is of very high priority. The insulation levels in the transformers need to be of very high grade as the power and voltage levels of a transformer are very high. Transformers are generally filled with petroleum based mineral oil as an insulator and also as a coolant inside them. These oils are highly inflammable and also highly toxic. They are also non-biodegradable, causing major harm to the environment. Vegetable oils which are abundant in nature unlike the mineral oil is being studied as a suitable substitute for mineral oils as transformer oil. The availability of vegetable oils differ from place to place. The work here focusses on the commercially available vegetable oils in India. Seven different samples of oil are tested for their dielectric properties and viscosity and the best one among them is tested with a solid dielectric (epoxy) immersed within it in order to simulate more appropriate conditions of a practical transformer. The tests are conducted based on Indian Standards (IS6792). 2016 IEEE. -
Entropy Based Segmentation Model for Kidney Stone and Cyst on Ultrasound Image
Segmentation of abnormal masses in kidney images is a tough task. One of the main challenges is the presence of speckle noise, which will restrain the valuable information for the medical practitioners. Hence, the detection and segmentation of the affected regions vary in accuracies. The proposed model includes pre-processing and segmentation of the diseased region. The pre-processing consists of Gaussian filtering and Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLHE) to improve the clarity of the images. Further, segmentation has been done based on the entropy of the image and gamma correction has been done to improve the overall brightness of the images. An optimal global threshold value is selected to extract the region of interest and measures the area. The model is analyzed with statistical parameters like Jaccard index and Dice coefficient and compared with the ground truth images. To check the accuracy of the segmentation, relative error is calculated. This framework can be used by radiologists in diagnosing kidney patients. 2022, International Journal of Computing. All Rights Reserved. -
Analysis of Kidney Ultrasound Images Using Deep Learning and Machine Learning Techniques: A Review
Ultrasonography is the most accepted and widely used imaging technique due to its non-invasive and radiation-free nature. The heterogeneous structure of kidney makes the disease detection a difficult task. Hence, more efficient models and methods are required to assist radiologists in making precise decisions. Since ultrasound imaging is considered to be the initial step in the diagnosis, more efficient processing techniques are needed in the interpretation of images. The presence of speckle noise is a challenge task in image processing. It diminishes the clarity of the images. In this article, an in-depth review has been performed on various machine learning and deep learning techniques, which are helping to improve the quality of images. The pre-processing, segmentation, feature extraction, and classification are described in detail using kidney cyst, stone, tumor, and normal kidney images. Deep learning techniques are enhancing the quality of the images with better accuracy. The remaining challenges and directions for future research are also explored. 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. -
Kidney Abnormalities Detection and Classification Using CNN-based Feature Extraction
The presents of noises degrade the quality of ultrasound images and diminishes the disease diagnosis accuracy. Thus, an effective automatic stone and cyst detection system is beneficial to both the medical practitioners and patients. In this paper, an automatic detection and classification system for kidney stone and cyst image is proposed. The Gaussian filtering and Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLHE) techniques are applied to improve the quality of the images. In the next step, segmentation has been done based on the entropy of the image. The gamma correction technique has been applied to improve the overall brightness and an optimal global threshold value is selected to extract the region. The CNN model has attained much attention in medical image recognition and classification. In this paper, the pre-trained model ResNet-50 is utilized as a feature-extractor and Support Vector Machine as classifier to categorize the normal, cyst and stone images. The CNN model is analyzed with various other classification models such as k-nearest neighbor, decision tree and Nae Bayes. The results demonstrate that the ResNet-50 with supervised classification algorithm SVM is an optimal solution for analyzing kidney diseases. 2022 IEEE.