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Women’s participation in higher education is an important pathway towards gender equality in economy and society. This article examines their participation levels in higher education across major Indian states and explores the underlying factors in the disparity between states. It employs two indicators, namely, Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of Females and Gender Parity Index (GPI) to measure the absolute and relative participation of women in the higher education, from 2011 to 2019. The comparative statistical analysis of these parameters for the 16 major states shows that they perform poorly in postgraduation and technical education courses. However, they are better placed in GPI at undergraduation level. Further, they appear to be moving towards gender parity with recent increases in enrolment of girls in higher education. On the basis of fixed-effect panel data regression, it is found that significant share of female teachers, higher per capita state domestic product (a proxy for per-capita income) and availability of colleges and girls’ hostels are playing important roles to contributing to the GER of females and GPI in higher education in India.

It is now difficult for an agricultural-labour household to get employment as agricultural labourers throughout the year. So, this type of household for survival purposes has to depend on diversified occupations when sometimes only the household head participates and sometimes more than one able-bodied household member participate. Based on a village-level field investigation in West Bengal, the article explores that possibility to keep an agricultural labour household above the poverty line will be more effective if more than one adult member participates in different types of occupations throughout the year. Except this, other possible determinants which can play an effective role to keep an agricultural-labour household above the poverty line are higher operational land among the marginal farmer household who are also working as hired agricultural labour in others’ land and accessibility of microcredit for income-generating activity for the female member(s) of a household from self-help groups (SHGs).

Farmers constitute a major portion of the subaltern population in agrarian economies like India. Sustainable agricultural practices are claimed to be the key to the social and economic advancement of subaltern farmers in India. The district of Murshidabad, in the state of West Bengal, India, is significant because of its crop variety, favorable agro-climatic situation, and its soil conditions. But surprisingly, more than thirty percent of its population lives below the poverty line. This indicates that the general agricultural conditions, which exist in this district, are not utilized optimally for the socioeconomic development of the farmers. The imbalanced use of fertilizers, coupled with a relatively lesser application of organics, has progressively degraded soil health, causing multi-nutrient deficiencies, as well as declining productivity. The present experiment is based on the All India Soil Rejuvenation and Crop Productivity Enhancement Project, a specific project under the aegis of the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO), in the Murshidabad district. Since the present study was intended as an experiment, a control group of farmers in five neighboring villages, the ones where no project interventions were made, were also interviewed. While the analysis was done on the experimental group, results of the corresponding analysis using the control are also mentioned in the ensuing discussions. It is aimed at presenting and analyzing the impact of the aforementioned project on the sustainable socioeconomic development of the target groups within the selected blocks of the district. Three factors, namely technology branding (F1), value perceptions (F2), and distribution network (F3), have emerged as the important antecedents that lead to a significant financial improvement in the farmers which, in turn, ensures inclusive growth.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to report the apparent linkage between knowledge management (KM) practices in a semi-structured sector and business sustainability. Micro, small and medium scale enterprises in developing economies are constrained by accessibility to resources and have not been able to reap the benefits of structured KM practices to fine-tune their business processes. Insights derived from business operations of such enterprises can be formalized into relevant knowledge creation. An effective KM can help in revival strategies for many traditional organizations like handloom that operate as a co-operative. Such business has come under immense challenges from new-age organizations in that particular sector. This study reports the brand revival and business sustainability journey of a handloom co-operative through effective knowledge assimilation and dissemination. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the authors have assessed the governance of small co-operative units in handloom and their supervision, which pose serious challenges for business sustainability. Their business data pertaining to productivity, sales and income for the period from 1997-1998 to 2015-2016 have been analyzed for business sustainability. A time-series analysis has been done on the above data set to track business sustainability of the handloom co-operative. The findings have been analyzed through a case-based study approach. Findings Over a period of one and half-decade, the handloom co-operative has been able to improve its product offering, which, in turn, led to the revival of the brand. Such transformation has resulted in revival of decades old brand through effective knowledge sharing, which is mainly tacit in nature. This case study based paper showcases that despite their inherent constraints, micro, small and medium enterprise organizations (many of which are semi-structured or unstructured in nature) can reap huge benefits by making efforts to put in place an effective KM mechanism. Originality/value There are very few reported studies, which have explored the linkage between tacit KM practices and business sustainability. Studies in context to a semi-structured small- and medium-scale enterprises are not available in published literature.

Background/aim We investigated drugs that could sensitize KBV20C cancer cells resistant to eribulin or vincristine (VIC) treatment and assessed their associated mechanisms of action. Materials and methods Such cancer cells were known to overexpress P-glycoprotein (P-gp). Considering that reserpine (P-gp inhibitor) plays a regulatory role in patients with high blood pressure, we investigated the effect of low doses of 27 blood pressure-regulating drugs on VIC-resistant KBV20C cells. This was done to identify drugs that could be repurposed for sensitizing antimitotic drug-resistant KBV20C cells at relatively low doses. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), annexin V analyses, rhodamine uptake tests and western-blot analysis were performed to further investigate the mechanism of action of such drugs. Results We found that co-treatment with amiodarone, nicardipine, carvedilol, or vardenafil at low doses could highly sensitize KBV20C cells treated with eribulin or VIC. These drugs reduced cellular viability, increased G2 arrest and up-regulated apoptosis when co-administered with eribulin or VIC. Considering that they sensitize with either co-treatment of eribulin or VIC, we assumed that they can be combined with other antimitotic drugs to sensitize the resistant cancer cells. Through detailed quantitative analysis, we found that eribulin with amiodarone had a higher sensitization effect than eribulin with nicardipine or eribulin with carvedilol. We found that reserpine had the highest P-gp-inhibitory activity, indicating that eribulin- or VIC-reserpine sensitization involves the P-gp inhibitory effects of reserpine. However, we found that amiodarone, nicardipine, carvedilol and vardenafil had very low P-gp inhibitory activity. Moreover, we found that cells co-treated with VIC-carvedilol down-regulated expression of pERK. Conclusion Highly antimitotic drug-resistant KBV20C cells can be sensitized by co-treatment with the repurposed blood pressure-regulating drugs amiodarone, nicardipine, carvedilol or vardenafil. These findings indicate that the repurposed blood pressure-regulating drugs may potentially be used in drug-resistant cancer patients without any toxic effects due to P-gp inhibition.

Labour force participation rate in the Indian agricultural sector is gradually declining. This paper wants to investigate the possible causes behind it. Here both possible push and pool factors behind this decline are considered simultaneously. Initially, on the basis of 70th round NSSO data on agricultural households, it is tested whether or not marginal farmers are enjoying comparative advantage during the time of getting employment in the agricultural sector as agricultural labourer. But as ‘decline’ is a flow concept, to investigate possible reasons behind this decline, we have considered six rounds state-level NSSO data on Employment Unemployment Survey of India and its 20 major states. Applying fixed effect panel data regression technique after considering state-specific possible factors, it is found that gradual decline of per capita land holdings is the major push factor responsible for gradual decline of labour force participation rate in Indian agriculture. Apart from that, other push factors like hike of real agricultural wage rate, improvement in education level of the agricultural households and pull factor like hike of non-farm real wage, employment opportunities in construction and other non-farm activities are found significant for gradual decline of labour force participation rate in Indian agriculture.

Discovery and development of new potentially selective anticancer agents are necessary to prevent a global cancer health crisis. Currently, alternative medicinal agents derived from plants have been extensively investigated to develop anticancer drugs with fewer adverse effects. Among them, steroidal alkaloids are conventional secondary metabolites that comprise an important class of natural products found in plants, marine organisms and invertebrates, and constitute a judicious choice as potential anti-cancer leads. Traditional medicine and modern science have shown that representatives from this compound group possess potential antimicrobial, analgesic, anticancer and anti-inflammatory effects. Therefore, systematic and recapitulated information about the bioactivity of these compounds, with special emphasis on the molecular or cellular mechanisms, is of high interest. In this review, we methodically discuss the in vitro and in vivo potential of the anticancer activity of natural steroidal alkaloids and their synthetic and semi-synthetic derivatives. This review focuses on cumulative and comprehensive molecular mechanisms, which will help researchers understand the molecular pathways involving steroid alkaloids to generate a selective and safe new lead compound with improved therapeutic applications for cancer prevention and therapy. In vitro and in vivo studies provide evidence about the promising therapeutic potential of steroidal alkaloids in various cancer cell lines, but advanced pharmacokinetic and clinical experiments are required to develop more selective and safe drugs for cancer treatment.

To keep up with the dominance in the field of leading semiconductor technology innovation, TSMC has announced the risk production of its most advanced 5nm CMOS logic node [1] using the full-fledged EUV and high mobility channel (HMC) FinFETs. Supporting the state of the art mobile SOC chips and HPC application needs, this 5nm technology node provides ~1.8x improvement in logic density, 15% speed gain and 30% power reduction as compared to its previous 7nm generation [1] - [2] . This paper, for the first time, brings out the detailed reliability attributes for the TSMC 5nm technology node from the device to various chip/package level reliability testing. While delivering an enhanced performance for N5, here we demonstrate the reliability benefit in terms of Bias Temperature Instability (BTI), Hot Carrier Degradation (HCD), Time dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) degradation modes in device level. Not only that, N5 node also delivers excellent reliability margins in chip level evaluations for SRAM and logic CPU/GPU applications. Moreover, to compete with the strictest industry reliability requirements even to the DPPM or low DPPB levels, N5 logic confirms its benefit for the automotive applications.

An organization’s performance is often claimed to be associated with the business environment, as well as with the organization’s strategic response to such an environment. If the environment of an organization is adverse, it may face challenges in getting its required inputs, and in adding value to the society. The objective of the present study is to propose a measure of uncertainty based on a survey of executives from randomly selected companies and present several implications for practice and theory. The present research follows a multi-stage sampling process. In the first stage, a complete list of sectors was taken from CMIE, and four sectors were randomly selected (simple random sampling) from the list. The selected sectors are as follows: chemical, petro-chemical industry, agricultural-related industry, and food processing industry. The second stage was also a simple random sampling process. The third stage was a sort of convenience sampling since the top management of the selected organizations proposed the names of the executives to be surveyed. A firm’s performance seems to be associated to the business environment, as well as, the organization’s strategic response to such an environment. There exists a dynamic relationship between a firm and its business environment. Several limitations and future courses of studies are also presented.

Purpose The eco-friendly approach has become an active component of sustainable strategy for both academia and industry. The concept of green SCM is relevant as it integrates ecological wisdom of any organization with organizational supply chain actions. Methodology A pilot survey was done through framed questionnaire, and from value chain analysis, we have developed a model for sustainable strategy. The data was collected and analyzed to identify the major components of sustainability. The valid data was analyzed with the help of regression and correlation analysis. Findings: Basically, the rapid industrial expansion has led to greenhouse gas emissions; toxic pollutants those as a whole reflect declined sustainable growth. So, this study suggests that green HR management can be taken as new initiative by providing training toward employees on how to adopt sustainability practices from the view point of customer and suppliers. Research implications Sustainable supply chain process has theoretical implication and practical significance as well to ensure overall sustainable development for any industry. This model suggests that management support is always required for implementing the sustainability strategy in the organization. This novel business model guides the managers for implementing sustainable supply chain management practices in the organization.

This paper analyzes device-structure-induced and process- dependent temperature inaccuracy sources of thermal sensing applications in advanced FinFET nodes, including self-heating and Joule heating interaction , non-uniform temperature distribution in a FinFET array and distance limitation due to gate-uniformity restraints. These effects cannot be eliminated by conventional temperature calibration methods. Based on simulations and experiments, thermal behaviors of these inaccuracy sources are comprehensively characterized in this work. The goal is to mitigate the temperature gap between FinFET hot-spots and thermal sensor measurements.

Background: Skin conditions have multiple causes. Natural phages in the Ganga River have bactericidal qualities against a number of bacterial infections, which help resolve skin conditions. Materials and Methods: We collected water from upper reaches of the Ganga River where the number of isolates of phages was more than 200 according to a study of the National Environmental Engineering Institute, Nagpur. The water was collected in May 2020 before the onset of monsoons and stored with sediments so that the phages adsorbed in the sediments cleaned up the overlaying column of water of all coliforms. We supplied the water by post to a number of volunteers who took the water through oral, topical or nasal route as per their convenience. Thirty-nine of the 52 volunteers provided data by telephone on their skin conditions on which this study is based. Results: The results show that an improvement of 1.7 on Likert Scale of 1-10 is obtained on skin conditions as per assessment of the volunteers after a treatment of 100 days. Further improvement of 1.0 on Likert Scale was reported after 85 days of stoppage of treatment. Conclusions: Natural phages of Ganga river could provide an inexpensive treatment not only for skin conditions but other comorbidities as well because skin conditions have multiple causes and phages of Ganga water may work at multiple levels.

Background Currently, novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak creates global panic across the continents, as people from almost all countries and territories have been affected by this highly contagious viral disease. The scenario is deteriorating due to lack of proper & specific target-oriented pharmacologically safe prophylactic agents or drugs, and or any effective vaccine. drug development is urgently required to back in the normalcy in the community and to combat this pandemic. Purpose Thus, we have proposed two novel drug targets, Furin and TMPRSS2, as Covid-19 treatment strategy. We have highlighted this target-oriented novel drug delivery strategy, based on their pathophysiological implication on SARS-CoV-2 infection, as evident from earlier SARS-CoV-1, MERS, and influenza virus infection via host cell entry, priming, fusion, and endocytosis. Study design & Methods An earlier study suggested that Furin and TMPRSS2 knockout mice had reduced level of viral load and a lower degree of organ damage such as the lung. The present study thus highlights the promise of some selected novel and potential anti-viral Phytopharmaceutical that bind to Furin and TMPRSS2 as target. Result Few of them had shown promising anti-viral response in both preclinical and clinical study with acceptable therapeutic safety-index. Conclusion Hence, this strategy may limit life-threatening Covid-19 infection and its mortality rate through nano-suspension based intra-nasal or oral nebulizer spray, to treat mild to moderate SARS-COV-2 infection when Furin and TMPRSS2 receptor may initiate to express and activate for processing the virus to cause cellular infection by replication within the host cell and blocking of host-viral interaction.

The present study endeavours to examine the role of government spending on the education and health sectors with regard to promoting the gross domestic product (GDP) of India over the last three decades. Johansen cointegration test confirmed the existence of cointegrating relation. The causal impact of education and health care spending on GDP was further examined in the study. Results of the estimated vector autoregression (VAR) models showed that public spending on education and public spending on health care have not been able to exert any impact on GDP. On the contrary, it is found that two-periods-lagged GDP Granger caused the government spending on health care. The variance decomposition analysis indicates that in India, education spending and health care spending may contribute just about 3 per cent and 15 per cent respectively in constituting a GDP growth profile in the coming future. Therefore, it is found that India’s fiscal system has a relatively low impact on the distribution of income as far as public spending on education and health care are concerned. JEL Classification: I25

High-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity is implicated in diabetic nephropathy (DN). EX-527, a selective Sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) inhibitor, has multiple biological functions; however, its protective effect against DN is yet to be properly understood. This study was aimed to explore the protective effect of EX-527 against DN in HFD-induced diabetic Zucker (ZDF) rats. After 21 weeks of continually feeding HFD to the rats, the apparent characteristics of progressive DN were observed, which included an increase in kidney weight (~160%), hyperglycemia, oxidative stress, and inflammatory cytokines, and subsequent renal cell damage. However, the administration of EX-527 for 10 weeks significantly reduced the blood glucose concentration and kidney weight (~59%). Furthermore, EX-527 significantly reduced the serum concentration of transforming growth factor-β1 (49%), interleukin (IL)-1β (52%), and IL-6 in the HFD-fed rats. Overall, the antioxidant activities significantly increased, and oxidative damage to lipids or DNA was suppressed. Particularly, EX-527 significantly reduced blood urea nitrogen (81%), serum creatinine (71%), microalbumin (43%), and urinary excretion of protein-based biomarkers. Histopathological examination revealed expansion of the extracellular mesangial matrix and suppression of glomerulosclerosis following EX-527 administration. EX-527 downregulated the expression of α-SMA (~64%), TGF-β (25%), vimentin, α-tubulin, fibronectin, and collagen-1 in the kidneys of the HFD-fed rats. Additionally, EX-527 substantially reduced claudin-1 and SIRT1 expression, but increased the expression of SIRT3 in the kidneys of the HFD-fed rats. EX-527 also inhibited the growth factor receptors, including EGFR, PDGFR-β, and STAT3, which are responsible for the anti-fibrotic effect of SIRT-1. Therefore, the administration of EX-527 protects against HFD-induced DN.

Pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2) is essential for aerobic glycolysis and is highly expressed in various cancer tissues. Although high PKM2 expression is observed in prostate cancer tissues, its functional role in cancer metabolism is unclear. Here, we investigated the role of PKM2 in regulating autophagy and its associated pathways in prostate cancer cells. PKM2 expression was silenced using various PKM2 small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and then we measured PKM2-related cellular pathways associated with autophagy. PKM2 siRNA-transfected prostate cancer cells showed significantly reduced viability. Acridine orange staining and immunoblotting analysis showed that PKM2 downregulation markedly increased autophagic cell death. Results of western blotting analysis showed that PKM2 knockdown affected protein kinase B/mechanistic target of rapamycin 1 pathway, which consequently downregulated the expression of glycolytic enzymes lactate dehydrogenase A and glucose transporter 1. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to show that PKM2 inhibition alters cancer cell metabolism and induces autophagy. Thus, the present study provides a strategy for the development of PKM2-targeted novel anticancer drugs for the treatment of prostate cancer.

PurposeThis study aims to explore the linkage between organization climate, politics and enterprise system implementation in context to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Organizational climate and politics play a significant role in determining the outcome of enterprise implementations. Adequate focus on such factors can help resource-starved MSMEs to ensure a positive outcome of their enterprise system implementation exercise.Design/methodology/approachPrimary data used in this study were collected from the users in 62 MSMEs who have been part of the implementation process in their organization. Responses were collected by means of validated questionnaires and personal interviews given by end-users. The study presents the reduced factors after analyzing the responses through exploratory study followed by a confirmatory study.FindingsThe results highlight that in addition to factors like project execution and management competency, package and vendor competency, top management support and leadership factors, organizational politics and organizational climate factors play a significant role in ensuring success of an implementation process. Organization climate in the form of organization politics emerges as a major inhibitor in context to MSMEs. The analysis also showed a statistically significant relationship between the identified factors like technical, project management competency and vendor- and package-specific competency.Practical implicationsMSMEs are resource-constrained and hence cannot afford any failure in the implementation of processes running within the system. For enterprise system implementation, not only financial commitments are required but a successful execution of processes is also required, otherwise there are chances of failures, which can adversely affect the business continuity of many MSMEs. Thus, the finding of this study can provide an insight into the management of such organizations, so that they can plan properly to ensure a successful implementation.Originality/valueSome published studies have reported the role of top management in the enterprise implementation process but have not been able to provide specific evidence of the factor “organization climate” in the implementation process. Also in context to a developing economy, few published studies are available exploring this linkage in context to MSMEs, as attempted by this study.

An important objective of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme presently known as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is to raise agricultural productivity through creating different productive assets related to agriculture. The present study investigates whether different kinds of asset creation activities related to agriculture under NREGS have any impact on the cropping intensity of West Bengal over the years. We have taken 18 districts in West Bengal and the time period is considered up to 2013-14. We primarily carried out Random Effect estimation without considering the district specific effects. The result shows that work like ‘micro irrigation’ and ‘rural connectivity’ through NREGS has created a positive but small impact on cropping intensity. It is further observed that average rain fall and average harvest price of principal crops in the previous period play a significant role to enhance the cropping intensity of West Bengal. Considering few bottlenecks of random effect estimation, we as supplementary carried out the Fixed effect estimation to judge both cross district disparity in cropping intensity through district specific effects and variation over the time periods via examining time specific effects.Â

It is investigated whether the expansion of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) can influence the real agricultural wage in West Bengal. The time period studied is between 2005-06 and 2012-13 where 18 districts of the state are used as a unit. Three types of NREGS work like, (i) provision of irrigation facilities, (ii) micro irrigation work and (iii) rural connectivity are considered separately because these works are undertaken in a majority during this tenure. These works have been measured as the total number of tasks completed in different districts in the different years. They are considered separately because each type of asset creation work could influence agricultural wage but not uniformly. Both the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors functioning in the labour market are deemed as being able to impact agricultural wage rates. Agricultural wages of a particular district in a particular period is also very affected by the agricultural wage rates prevalent in the same district in the previous period. The dynamic panel approach used in this paper shows that all three types of NREGS work are responsible for the hike of real agricultural wage rates in West Bengal but the impact has not been very strong. It may then, be concluded that, the expansion of the NREGS has little impact when determining the real agricultural wage rate in West Bengal.

Sirtuin (SIRT) is known to prevent nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), however, the role of SIRT4 in the progression of hepatic fibrosis remains unknown. We hypothesize that EX-527, a selective SIRT1 inhibitor, can inhibit the progression of high-fat diet (HFD)-induced hepatic fibrosis. We found that SIRT4 expression in the liver of NAFLD patients is significantly lower than that in normal subjects. In this study, EX-527 (5 &micro, g/kg), administered to HFD rats twice a week for ten weeks, reduced the serum levels of triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and attenuated hepatic fibrosis evidenced by Masson&rsquo, s trichrome and hepatic fat by oil red-O staining. EX-527 upregulated SIRT2, SIRT3, and SIRT4 expression in the liver of HFD fed rats but downregulated transforming growth factor-&beta, 1 (TGF-&beta, 1) and &alpha, smooth muscle actin (&alpha, SMA) expression. It decreased proinflammatory cytokine production and hydroxyproline levels in the serum and SMAD4 expression and restored apoptotic protein (Bcl-2, Bax, and cleaved caspase-3) expression. These data propose a critical role for the SIRT4/SMAD4 axis in hepatic fibrogenesis. SIRT4 upregulation has the potential to counter HFD-induced lipid accumulation, inflammation, and fibrogenesis. We demonstrate that EX-527 is a promising candidate in inhibiting the progression of HFD-induced liver fibrosis.

The aquatic extract of Dendropanax morbifera (DP) is typically consumed as a beverage in Korea and China and is also used in various traditional medicines. However, the functional role of DP on diabetes-induced renal fibrosis is unclear. Here, the protective effects of DP extract against diabetes-induced renal fibrosis were evaluated. Streptozotocin (STZ, 60 mg/kg) was injected intraperitoneally in rats to induce diabetes. After 5 days, DP extract (25 mg/kg/day) and metformin (50 mg/kg/day) were administered orally to diabetic rats for 28 days. DP administration protected both body and organ weight loss in STZ-treated diabetic rats. Significant improvements in serum blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine, and oxidative stress parameters were observed in diabetic rats by DP administration. DP extract markedly protected diabetic-induced histopathological damages in the kidney and pancreas. A significant reduction was observed in microalbumin, kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1), selenium binding protein-1 (SBP1), and pyruvate kinase muscle isozyme M2 (PKM2) levels in the urinary excretion of diabetic rats after the administration of DP extract. The expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and fibrosis marker levels were significantly reduced in the kidney of diabetic rats. Our results strongly indicate that DP extract exhibits protective activity against diabetes-induced renal fibrosis through ameliorating oxidative stress and inflammation. Therefore, we suggest that DP extract can be used as a preventive agent on the progression of diabetic nephropathy and renal fibrosis.

Micro-Insurance of Health (MHI) is considered as one of the possible instruments in reducing impoverishing effects of catastrophic out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure for the households in lower-income strata of the developing countries. MHI schemes can complement a publicly funded healthcare system within a specific local context. The present study attempts to investigate the demand for MHI among informal workforce using a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE). In any DCE application we can determine the characteristics that describe a product and to what extent the respondent is willing to trade-off one characteristic to another. Our DCE in West Bengal (India) suggests that, any MHI scheme with low premium, transport coverage, full family coverage, cash-back facility and comprehensive benefit will encourage enrolment.

The present research is aimed at to do research on energy utilization by SMEs of virtual ERPs. Economic performances of the SME sector have proved its contribution to nation building through the increased contribution to GDP, huge employment generation, equitable allocation resources and facilitate inclusive growth. Based upon the backbone of SMEs, virtual ERP is rising rapidly. The business strategy that virtual ERP follows incorporates the production of huge amount of data. Hence, an attempt has been made in this research to identify the broad parameters which are indicative of the success of the virtual ERP implementation in the Indian context. The identified parameters of adoption of Enterprise Systems (ES) in the Indian organizations are needed to put as factors in developing generic model. The construct of the theoretical model would help us to develop the optimization model in terms of cost, energy efficiency and resource utilization. Loss of huge amount of energy in order to manage ‘Big data’ produced by the cloud ERPs is becoming a challenge towards the establishment of sustainable business model.

A 77-year-old man presented with voiding lower urinary tract symptoms with history of terminal haematuria. His ultrasonography (USG) was suggestive of a 58 g prostate with thickened urinary bladder walls along with two vesical calculi. A plain X-ray was taken that showed two radio-opaque shadows in the urinary bladder corresponding to vesical calculi reported on the USG. Along with that there were two serpentine radio-opaque shadows on each side of the urinary bladder (figure 1). The primary care physician thought these shadows to be ureteric calculi/calcification and referred the patient to our centre for further workup and management. On carefully reviewing the X-ray we immediately recognised that the serpentine radio-opaque …

In today’s business parlance, firms who possess superior technology are found to be more efficient. This paper examines the relative importance assigned by key management personnel to three broad parameters of a firm’s capabilities, namely, marketing, R&D and operations, which affect the performance of a medium-sized dairy firm operating in a highly competitive market in the city of Kolkata in India. Using conjoint analysis on the data collected from key managerial personnel, the empirical study obtained an estimation of the relative importance of the various attributes chosen within marketing, R&D and operational capabilities. The study found that the success of this particular dairy firm, where consumers generally have low involvement, lied with marketing capability compared to R&D and operational capability. Moreover, the technological know-how was the most dominant attribute within those three capability dimensions. Hence, authors chose to title the paper as Tie-Up Technology in the Marketing Strategy Formulation.

The central problem is to design the organisations for superior performance on the basis of redesign mechanisms such as uncertainty, differentiation and integration. In the backdrop of the ongoing economic liberalisation in India, the specified sector that includes chemical; petro-chemical process industry; agricultural related industry; processed food industry; bio-chemical related industry was undertaken for research. The objective of the present study is to estimate the relative importance of uncertainty, differentiation and integration and also of their different levels, indicating the design specificity of the groups. On the basis of the data, three groups have been identified. Relative importance of design parameters and also that of their levels have been estimated for each of the group. Three groups face the business environment in different ways. So, those three groups have to formulate the three redesign strategies in different ways for superior performance.

An ultra-compact sub-1V CMOS bandgap reference circuit is presented. To reduce the chip area the proposed bandgap is realized with 40 stage stack-gate, which adopts a novel layout floorplan without any area penalty. This paper describes two bandgap circuits and are both fabricated in TSMC 16nm FinFET process. The first bandgap aims at applications requiring small-area (area 0.0023 mm2) that achieves medium accuracy (3σ VBG 1.67%) without trimming. The second bandgap aims at high-accuracy applications (area 0.013 mm2) that achieve 3σ VBG 0.64% without trimming. Both bandgap circuits have good TC performance less than 35ppm/°C between −40°C to 125°C. We claim to have the smallest chip area and highest accuracy when compared to the present state-of-the-art untrimmed CMOS bandgap circuits.

The study explores the measure of uncertainty of the market and also the linkage between the uncertainties of the business environment and the performance of the organisations in the specified sector that includes chemical; petro-chemical process industry; agricultural related industry; processed food industry; bio-chemical related industry in the context of liberalised Indian economy. In this paper, the measure of uncertainty on the basis of subjective understanding of managers is validated by the objective measure of market uncertainty. The strong relationship between two measures of uncertainty has been established and the subjective measure of uncertainty has strong impact on the performance of the organisation. The subjective measure has been classified into two dimensions, namely, internal uncertainty and external uncertainty. The paper also ascertains the relative influence of the internal uncertainty (IU) and external uncertainty (EU) on the performance of the organisation using SEM analysis.

This paper reports a combination structure of temperature and voltage sensor in a 16nm FinFET technology. The circuit transforms PTAT voltage across a resistor into an output clock with PTAT pulse-width. Fabricated in a 16nm CMOS, the temperature sensor achieves 1°C resolution over -10 ~ 90°C range and the voltage sensor achieves 4mV output error over 0.38V to 0.56V. The total chip size is 0.01mm 2 and draws 70uW total power from a 0.7V supply. Depending on resolution, the measurement time can change from 10μsec to 1.6msec. This approach is not restricted by forward junction bias (~0.7V) of conventional BJTs and diodes.

Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) is a government-sponsored microfinance program. The scheme is based on four features: group lending with joint liability, progressive lending, back-ended subsidy, and social capital. We propose a new model of SGSY having these features: group lending with individual liability, progressive lending, back-ended subsidy, and social capital. “Joint liability” clause of the existing model is replaced with individual liability in the new model. The paper shows that problem of adverse selection is removed in both models, i.e. in “SGSY with group lending and joint liability” and “SGSY with group lending and individual liability.” The problem of “moral hazard” is more severe in the existing model of SGSY compared with the proposed model of SGSY. Borrowers are also benefitted from participation in the proposed scheme of SGSY than that in the existing model of SGSY.

The present study endeavors to examine the role of government spending on the education and health sectors with regard to promoting the gross domestic product (GDP) of Brazil over the last three decades. Johansen cointegration test confirmed the existence of cointegrating relation. The causal impact of education and health care spending on GDP was further examined in the study. Results of the estimated models showed that public spending on education and public spending on health-care have not been able to exert any impact on GDP. On the contrary, it is found that one period lagged GDP slowed down the government spending on health-care. The variance decomposition analysis indicates that in Brazil education spending and health care spending may contribute just about 8.5% and 6% respectively in constituting a GDP growth profile in the coming future. Therefore, it is found that Brazil’s fiscal system has a relatively low impact on the distribution of income as far as public spending on education and health-care are concerned.

Government of India wants to implement 'Conditions of Work and Livelihood Promotion Bill' for the agricultural workers who are unorganized in nature in such a time when cultivation is not very profitable and employment generations in the agricultural sector are declining. This paper is a theoretical attempt to identify the impact on agricultural employment and profitability of the farmer if the 'conditions of work' are imposed in the agricultural labour market. Here the farmer is a monopsonist and employs both local and migrant labourer during the time of production when the local labourers get full social security from their employer but the migrant labourers are deprived from getting that. This paper proves that any type of social security norm including higher minimum wage not only decreases the overall employment generation in the agricultural sector but also decreases the profitability of the farmer. The profit maximizing farmer will always force the unprotected migrant labourer to work maximum possible extra hours more than the normal one. But if the monetary punishment for the employer after detection of the violation of social security norms is high then the farmer will employ less number of unprotected labourers during the time of cultivation. We here will decide the value of penalty at which the cultivation is not become less attractive and social security norms for most of the labourers can be maintained.