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Head and neck cancer is one of the most common malignancies in Indian males. Due to poor socioeconomic status, presentation is usually in advanced stage. Treatment option is limited to radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy. Intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) provides highly conformal dose distributions creating nonuniform spatial intensity using different segments in the beam. Concomitant chemoradiation is highly toxic in this age group.During 2016-2017, 44 patients with locally advanced head-and-neck cancers were treated with a curative intent with IMRT. They were in the age range of 65-75. The median age was 69 years. Thirty five were male and nine were female. Histopathologically, all had squamous cell carcinoma. Stage wise, all were T3N2 or more. The standard technique of IMRT was used with sparing of organs at risk and defining treatment volumes: gross, clinical, and planning. Patients were assessed after 4 weeks of completion of treatment for response and toxicities.Response vise, 14 patients achieved complete response, 28 patients had partial response, and 2 had stable disease. There was no treatment-related mortality. Six patients had treatment interruptions due to toxicity. Incidence of mucositis was of Grade 1-2 in all patients. No hematological toxicity was seen. Patients having dysphagia during treatment were given nasogastric feed.

Context: Chronic lower back pain (CLBP) and Vitamin D deficiency are two common conditions presenting to primary care physicians. Aims: To study the vitamin D status in North Indians presenting with nonspecific CLBP and the correlation between vitamin D levels and pain severity by the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). Settings and Design: An observational study. Record of all CLBP patients presenting to the outpatient department in 2019, were analyzed, retrospectively. Methods and Materials: All the patients of age 18 to 65 and either sex with nonspecific CLBP were included. Patients were divided into two: Vitamin D deficient (Group 1) and normal (Group 2) with cut off Serum Vitamin D values at 30 ng/mL. Demographic data and Visual Analogue Scale scores (VAS) of both groups were recorded. Statistical Analysis Used: Correlations between Vitamin D values and VAS scores were investigated using the Spearman coefficient, and the results with P of ≤ 0.05 were contemplated significant. Results: Of total 376 patients with nonspecific CLBP, the majority were adults, females, married, vegetarians, overweight or obese, and had a mean sun exposure time of two hours. Vitamin D deficient Group 1 had 302 (80.32%) patients with significantly lower (P < 0.0001) mean vitamin D levels compared to Group 2 (74 patients i.e., 19.68%). Spearman's rho coefficient between vitamin D and VAS, showed a negative correlation (–0.554), with a P value < 0.00001. Conclusions: This study indicated a high probability of vitamin D deficiency in the nonspecific CLBP population and a negative correlation between vitamin D status and pain severity.

Background: Pressure ulcer is one of the common complications occurring in spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has been found useful in the treatment of pressure ulcers in few studies. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of PRP in pressure ulcer healing in comparison to hydrogel dressing in SCI patients. Methods: In this randomized interventional study, 52 patients of SCI having pressure ulcers of grade III/IV were randomized into two groups of 26 each. In group A patients, hydrogel dressing was done while freshly prepared PRP was used in patients of group B. Pressure ulcers were evaluated at baseline and after three weeks and six weeks in terms of ulcer surface area, volume, Pressure Ulcer Scale for Healing (PUSH) score, histopathology, and ulcer healing parameters. Data were collected and quantitative variables were compared using unpaired t-test or Mann-Whitney test between the two groups and qualitative variables were compared using the chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test. A p-value of 0.05). There was a significant improvement in the PRP group as compared to the other group in terms of epithelization, granulation, and neovascularization at three and six-week follow-up. Conclusions: This study suggests that PRP is a possible and better alternative to conventional dressing methods for the treatment of pressure ulcers.

Treatment of traumatized immature teeth poses a challenge for clinician. Apexification is considered to be the treatment of choice for non-vital young permanent teeth. The present report, highlight the case of traumatized young permanent tooth where apexificationwas achieved in a previously endodontically treated tooth. Endodontic treatment of immature permanent teeth without apical barrier leads to failure of treatment due to incomplete sealing of the canal. Also, the success of endodontic treatment is determined by the quality of obturation. In wide canals, traditional obturating technique may result in spaces being left in the canal space. Obturation using rolled cone technique to achieve a good seal is used in the present case. Keywords: MTA Apexification, Rolled cone technique, Traumatic injury.

Automatic Image Colorization is the process of converting a gray-scale image to a corresponding colored image as output, without any human interference. The main objective of the research is to develop an automated technique that colorizes a given gray-scale image and generates a colorized version of the image as the output. We have presented our custom U-Net architecture model. We have treated this problem as an image segmentation + multinomial classification problem. The results contain handpicked images from our outputs. We have included the black and white image, our model's colored output and the colored ground truth of the images.

The goal of including the deblocking channel is to dispose of hindering ancient rarities that exist at macroblock limits. In any case, the deblocking calculation is intricate and can account up to 33% of the computational unpredictability of a decoder. The Static Random Access Memory utilized for putting away and recovering video information essentially adds to the handling time and force utilization of the decoder. In this postulation, an improved 6T SRAM utilizing 22nm FinFET innovation and effective deblocking channel for H.264/SVC video codec is introduced. An equal separating design with novel sifting and information getting to arrange for deblocking channel is proposed. For PAFF or typical coding the deblocking channel, channels the entire macroblock in 202 clock cycles for both luma and chroma blocks. If there should be an occurrence of MBAFF sifting, the handling will happens in 242 clock cycles. The design is blended on Cyclone V (5CEFA9F31C8N) and a presentation improvement regarding handling speed (for example number of clock cycles for separating) of 19% and territory decrease by 8% is accomplished. A 22 nm FinFET based 6T-SRAM cell with improved read admittance time is introduced in the theory. The reproduction aftereffects of the peruse and compose access time are assessed utilizing HSPICE and with Custom Wave View.

Introduction: Stroke is frequently followed by bone loss, causing increased fracture risk in patients. Bone loss starts within days of vascular brain injury, progresses till fourth month and then lowers until the end of first year after stroke. Aim: To assess the Bone Mineral Density (BMD) in hip, spine and wrist and its difference between paretic and nonparetic side in ambulatory stroke survivors. Materials and Methods: This hospital-based observational cross-sectional study was conducted on 40 subjects, from January 2015 to June 2016 in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, VMMC and Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi. Biochemical markers, x-rays and BMD were recorded in all patients along with demographic profile in a pre-structured proforma after taking informed consent. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS Software version 14.0. Results: Out of 40 subjects (mean age: 53.9±10.9 years), 82.5% were males with nearly equal distribution in 41-50, 51-60 and 61-70 years age groups. Around 65% stroke survivors presented within 1-3 years of stroke with 68% having right sided involvement. Bone mineral densities over hip with a mean of -2.14±1.57 and lower end of radius with a mean of -4.85±2.01 were less on paretic side as compared to the nonparetic side. DEXA scanning of spine showed 52.5% subjects were osteopenic and 37.5% were osteoporotic. Conclusion: BMD over hip and lower end of radius was less on paretic side as compared to the nonparetic side but it was insignificant statistically.

Compile-time errors can wreak havoc for programmers – seasoned and novice. Often developers spend a lot of time debugging them. An automated system to repair such errors can be a useful aid to the developers for their productivity. In this work, we propose a deep generative model, RepairNet, that automatically repairs programs that fail at compile time. RepairNet is based on sequence-to-sequence modeling and uses both code and error messages to repair the program. We evaluated the effectiveness of our system on 6,971 erroneous submissions for 93 programming tasks. RepairNet outperforms the existing state-of-the-art technique, MACER, with 17% relative improvement of repair accuracy. Our approach can fix 66.4% of the erroneous submissions completely and 14.2% partially.

Lately, crowdsourcing has emerged as a viable option of getting work done by leveraging the collective intelligence of the crowd. With many tasks posted every day, the size of crowdsourcing platforms is growing exponentially. Hence, workers face an important challenge of selecting the right task. Despite the task filtering criteria available on the platform to select the right task, crowd workers find it difficult to choose the most relevant task and must glean through the filtered tasks to find the relevant tasks. In this paper, we propose a framework for recommending tasks to workers. The proposed framework evaluates the worker's fitment over the tasks based on worker's preference, past tasks (s)he has performed, and tasks done by similar workers. We evaluated our approach on the datasets collected from popular crowdsourcing platform. Our experimental results based on 5,000 tasks and 3,000 workers show that the recommendation made by our framework is significantly better as compared to the baseline approach.

A 7-year-old girl presented with progressive walking difficulties, spasticity, and cognitive decline with onset at 3 years of age. No seizures, vision, or hearing impairment were reported. The magnetic resonance imaging of the brain revealed cerebellar atrophy and evidence of iron deposition in the globi pallidi and substantia nigra. The clinico-radiological profile was suggestive of atypical childhood-onset neuroaxonal dystrophy. The patient was found to have compound heterozygous mutations in the PLA2G6 gene confirming the diagnosis.

We witnessed great advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) powered technologies over the past few decades. Wide use of AI technologies has led to the creation of an ecosystem where human and AI systems are partners, complementing each other with their strengths. To build a successful human-AI team, there are several considerations, including context awareness, effective communication, pro-activeness, etc. In this paper, we present a taxonomy of human-AI teaming concepts. We extend a multi-agent framework, Java Agent Development Framework (JADE), to support the proposed taxonomy. Our solution framework, Human-AI Collaboration (HACO), enables a model-driven development of human-AI teaming systems through graphical user interface. In this paper, we present the solution architecture for extending JADE with human-AI teaming taxonomy. A user study performed to assess the usefulness of HACO, shows that HACO is a promising framework. We evaluated the proposed framework by developing a set of use cases for a contact center and observed a signification reduction in the overall development effort. The framework video can be viewed at https://youtu.be/lNyrrk8dMqU.

Objective To determine whether physician spirituality, religion, and sense of calling toward medicine are predictors of self-reported empathic compassion. Methods We sampled 2000 practicing US physicians from all specialties and used self-reported measures of general and clinical empathic compassion taken from previous studies. Independent variables were single-item measures of calling, spirituality, and religiosity (importance of religion). Results The survey response rate was 64.5% (1289/2000). Physicians with a strong sense of calling were more likely to report higher general empathic compassion (odds ratio [OR] 2.00, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.26-3.15) and higher clinical empathic compassion (OR 3.33, 95% CI 2.07-5.36). Similarly, physicians who considered themselves spiritual were more likely to report higher general empathic compassion (OR 2.76, 95% CI 1.69-4.50) and higher clinical empathic compassion (OR 2.32, 95% CI 1.38-3.90). We did not find an association between religiosity and measures of physicians' empathic compassion. Conclusions This national study of practicing US physicians from various specialties found that spirituality (not religiousness) and the identification of medicine as a calling are associated with physicians' empathic compassion. Further study is needed to understand how spirituality and calling are linked to prosocial behaviors among physicians that may be enhancing their clinical empathy and promoting compassionate patient care.

Websites extensively track users via identifiers that uniquely map to client machines or user accounts. Although such tracking has desirable properties like enabling personalization and website analytics, it also raises serious concerns about online user privacy, and can potentially enable illicit surveillance by adversaries who broadly monitor network traffic. In this work we seek to understand the possibilities of latent identifiers appearing in user traffic in forms beyond those already well-known and studied, such as browser and Flash cookies. We develop a methodology for processing large network traces to semi-automatically discover identifiers sent by clients that distinguish users/devices/browsers, such as usernames, cookies, custom user agents, and IMEI numbers. We address the challenges of scaling such discovery up to enterprise-sized data by devising multistage filtering and streaming algorithms. The resulting methodology reflects trade-offs between reducing the ultimate analysis burden and the risk of missing potential identifier strings. We analyze 15 days of data from a site with several hundred users and capture dozens of latent identifiers, primarily in HTTP request components, but also in non-HTTP protocols.

Using a predetermined set of criteria, including burden of anemia and neural tube defects (NTDs) and an enabling environment for large-scale fortification, this paper identifies 18 low- and middle-income countries with the highest and most immediate potential for large-scale wheat flour and/or rice fortification in terms of health impact and economic benefit. Adequately fortified staples, delivered at estimated coverage rates in these countries, have the potential to avert 72.1 million cases of anemia among non-pregnant women of reproductive age, 51,636 live births associated with folic acid-preventable NTDs (i.e., spina bifida, anencephaly), and 46,378 child deaths associated with NTDs annually. This equates to a 34% reduction in the number of cases of anemia and 38% reduction in the number of NTDs in the 18 countries identified. An estimated 5.4 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) could be averted annually, and an economic value of 31.8 billion United States dollars (USD) generated from 1 year of fortification at scale in women and children beneficiaries. This paper presents a missed opportunity and warrants an urgent call to action for the countries identified to potentially avert a significant number of preventable birth defects, anemia, and under-five child mortality and move closer to achieving health equity by 2030 for the Sustainable Development Goals.

Background: Management of caries using minimally invasive dentistry is prevalent in dentistry today. A newer technology is to disinfect/sterilize caries in depth of the dental tissue with diode laser. However, to have a bactericidal effect, increased energy density of light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (LASER) may be required which in turn may lead to higher thermal load causing harmful effects on vital pulpal tissue. Aims: The aim was to evaluate temperature rise and efficacy of cavity disinfection with diode laser. Materials and Methods: Twenty permanent molar teeth with dentinal caries were randomly assigned into two groups on the basis of LASER irradiation: Group 1 – at 1 W, Group 2 – at 2 W. The elevation of subsurface temperature during irradiation was measured using thermocouples positioned in the center of a prepared cavity. Dentinal samples were collected before and after disinfection of the cavity. These samples were subjected to microbiological evaluation for Streptococcus mutans on Mutans-Sanguis agar and Lactobacilli on Rogosa agar. Statistical Analysis: Log transformed “t”-test and paired “t“-test were used for the statistical analysis. Results: Although the reduction in microbial count revealed insignificant difference at two different wattages, the rise in temperature with 1 W was less than that with 2 W. Conclusion: Efficacy of 1 W and 2 W is similar, but 1 W causes less thermal changes, thus, 1 W is recommended over 2 W.

Crowdsourcing is an emerging practice which provides workers, across the globe, to work on their choice of tasks. It offers many benefits to people over traditional long term employment model, such as, schedule and geographic flexibility, easy access to work, an opportunity to gain experience on wide variety of tasks, or supplemental revenue streams. However, it also brings a new set of challenges to the workers. Workers on crowdsourcing platform do not have similar level of support as they get in traditional employment model, such as career guidance, compensation counseling, HR support, etc. To overcome the challenges crowd workers face, we propose "CrowdAssistant" which acts as a virtual buddy for the worker and helps them throughout their career journey on the platform. It even renders a level of support impossible for human managers and career counselors to provide. The proposed system acts as a personalized assistant and pro-actively supports worker's needs. It is the first of its kind to the best of our knowledge.

Collaboration of information from numerous resources is called as fusion. Infrared images are not able to show most precise features required for face recognition. However the information in the infrared and visible images is independent and complimentary. Therefore, it is helpful in automatic face recognition to merge infrared and visible information into a solitary image. This paper divides the fusion methods based on study of their algorithm, dataset and tools used as wavelet based, feature based and local binary pattern based fusion, including good and bad of each method along with its accuracy. This paper also discusses the challenges in feature extraction of infrared face images.

Hiring is one of the important challenges in the context of online labor marketplace. Unlike traditional hiring, where workers are hired either as a full time employee or as a contractor, hiring from online marketplaces are done for individual jobs of short duration. As these marketplaces are open for anyone, hiring becomes challenging due to the large number of freelancers applying for a posted job. Quite often, clients use ratings of the freelancers while hiring. However, we have observed that ratings are skewed towards higher values and do not provide valuable insights about freelancers' abilities to do a quality work. Therefore, we propose a multidimensional assessment framework which evaluates freelancers on several dimensions. The proposed framework, not only uses the current information about the freelancer, but also utilizes the past jobs he has performed. The framework is evaluated on the data collected from a popular online marketplace. Our analysis, performed on 7254 jobs and 96,271 applicants, shows that the assessment made by the proposed framework outperforms the baseline algorithm.

With the state-of-the-art teleport and broadcast satellite space segment today host of services are provided for the media companies to address their broadcasting needs across Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa and India etc. In addition subfeature support of Co-location Services, Data Centers and at par Telecom Services, are ideal choice for the media companies. Numerous automation and optimization techniques adds to its ease of use [1][5]. General Terms Teleport Services, Network Operation Center, Teleport architecture.

Option backdating practices have resulted in broad regulatory scrutiny, formal inquiries by federal authorities, and internal investigations by companies. In this paper, we investigate stock market reactions to option backdating probe announcements. For the 245 implicated companies, we detect negative abnormal stock returns, which are modest for internal investigation, larger for SEC probes, and the most severe for Department of Justice investigations. We also find that the market reaction is more negative for companies with higher stock price volatility, less effective corporate governance, and lower quality of financial statements. Results suggest that option backdating practices demonstrate weak corporate governance and financial reporting, and regulatory investigations of such practices are value-relevant as reflected in stock prices.

Passwords are used for user authentication by almost every Internet service today, despite a number of wellknown weaknesses. Numerous attempts to replace passwords have failed, in part because changing users’ behavior has proven to be difficult. One approach to strengthening password-based authentication without changing user experience is to classify login attempts into normal and suspicious activity based on a number of parameters such as source IP, geo-location, browser configuration, and time of day. For the suspicious attempts, the service can then require additional verification, e.g., by an additional phone-based authentication step. Systems working along these principles have been deployed by a number of Internet services but have never been studied publicly. In this work, we perform the first public evaluation of a classification system for user authentication. In particular: (i) We develop a statistical framework for identifying suspicious login attempts. (ii) We develop a fully functional prototype implementation that can be evaluated efficiently on large datasets. (iii) We validate our system on a sample of real-life login data from LinkedIn as well as simulated attacks, and demonstrate that a majority of attacks can be prevented by imposing additional verification steps on only a small fraction of users. (iv) We provide a systematic study of possible attackers against such a system, including attackers targeting the classifier itself.

A mobile Adhoc Network (MANET) is a huddle of autonomous mobile nodes which dynamically forms a temporary multi-hoped radio network, without any use of previous infrastructure. Due to its characteristics like limited resources, changing topology and lack of centralized administration, MANET is exposed to various network layer attacks.

Copyright © 2015 ACM. In this work, we propose and evaluate an active learning algorithm in context of CPSGrader, an automatic grading and feedback generation tool for laboratory-based courses in the area of cyber-physical systems. CPSGrader detects the presence of certain classes of mistakes using test benches that are generated in part via machine learning from solutions that have the fault and those that do not (positive and negative examples). We develop a clustering-based active learning technique that selects from a large database of unlabeled solutions, a small number of reference solutions for the expert to label that will be used as training data. The goal is to achieve better accuracy of fault identification with fewer reference solutions as compared to random selection. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm using data obtained from an on-campus laboratory-based course at UC Berkeley.

Web services are increasingly adopting auxiliary authentication mechanisms to supplement the security provided by conventional password verification. In the domain of social network based web-services, Facebook has pioneered the use of social authentication as an auxiliary authentication mechanism. If Facebook detects a user login under suspicious circumstances, then users are asked to verify information about their friends (in addition to verifying their passwords). However, recent work has shown that Facebook’s social authentication is insecure. In this work-in-progress, we propose to rethink the design of social authentication. Our key insight is that online social network (OSN) operators are privy to large amounts of private data generated by users, including information about users’ online interactions. Based on this insight, we architect a system for social authentication that asks users to verify information about their social contacts and their interactions. Our system leverages information protected by privacy policies of OSNs to resist attacks, such as questions based on private user interactions including exchanging messages and poking social contacts. We implemented our system prototype as a Facebook application, and performed a preliminary user study to evaluate feasibility of the approach. Our initial experiments have been encouraging; we find that users have high rates of recall for information generated in the context of OSN interactions. Overall, our work provides a promising new direction for the secure and usable deployment of social authentication.

In addition to storing a plethora of sensitive personal and work information, smartphones also store sensor data about users and their daily activities. In order to understand users' behaviors and attitudes towards the security of their smartphone data, we conducted 28 qualitative interviews. We examined why users choose (or choose not) to employ locking mechanisms (e.g., PINs) and their perceptions and awareness about the sensitivity of the data stored on their devices. We performed two additional online experiments to quantify our interview results and the extent to which sensitive data could be found in a user's smartphone-accessible email archive. We observed a strong correlation between use of security features and risk perceptions, which indicates rational behavior. However, we also observed that most users likely underestimate the extent to which data stored on their smartphones pervades their identities, online and offline.

Comparison of heat transfer performance of a non-axisymmetric contoured endwall to a planar baseline endwall in presence of leakage flow through stator-rotor rim seal interface and mateface gap is reported in this paper. Heat transfer experiments were performed on a high turning (∼127°) turbine airfoil passage at Virginia Tech’s transonic blow down cascade facility under design conditions (exit isentropic Mach number 0.88 and 0° incidence) for two leakage flow configurations — 1) mateface blowing only, 2) simultaneous coolant injection from the upstream slot as well as mateface gap. Coolant to mainstream mass flow ratios (MFR) were 0.35% for mateface blowing only, whereas for combination blowing, a 1.0% MFR was chosen from upstream slot and 0.35% MFR from mateface. A common source of coolant supply to the upstream slot and mateface plenum made sure the coolant temperatures were identical at both upstream slot and mateface gap at the injection location. The contoured endwall geometry was generated to minimize secondary aerodynamic losses. Transient IR (Infrared) thermography technique was used to measure endwall surface temperature and a linear regression method was developed for simultaneous calculation of heat transfer coefficient (HTC) and adiabatic cooling effectiveness (ETA), assuming a 1D semi-infinite transient conduction. Results indicate reduction in local hot spot regions near suction side as well as area averaged HTC using the contoured endwall compared to baseline endwall for all coolant blowing cases. Contoured geometry also shows better coolant coverage profiles further along the passage. Detailed interpretation of the heat transfer results along with near endwall flow physics has also been discussed.Copyright © 2014 by Siemens Energy, Inc.

The present article investigates mixed out aerodynamic loss coefficient measurements for a high turning, contoured endwall passage under transonic operating conditions in presence of upstream purge slot and mateface gap. The upstream purge slot represents the gap between stator-rotor interface and the mateface gap simulates the assembly feature between adjacent airfoils in an actual high pressure turbine stage. While the performance of the mateface and upstream slot has been studied for lower Mach number, no studies exist in literature for transonic flow conditions. Experiments were performed at the Virginia Tech’s linear, transonic blow down cascade facility. Measurements were carried out at design conditions (isentropic exit Mach number of 0.88, design incidence) without and with coolant blowing. Upstream leakage flow of 1.0% coolant to mainstream mass flow ratio (MFR) was considered with the presence of mateface gap. There was no coolant blowing through the mateface gap itself. Cascade exit pressure measurements were carried out using a 5-hole probe traverse at a plane 1.0-Cax downstream of the trailing edge. Spanwise measurements were performed to complete the entire 2D loss plane from endwall to midspan, which were used to plot pitchwise averaged losses for different span locations and loss contours for the passage. Results reveal significant reduction in aerodynamic losses using the contoured endwall due to the modification of flow physics compared to a non-contoured planar endwall. The heat transfer experiments, designed to find the heat transfer coefficient and the film cooling effectiveness are described in detail in a separate paper [1].Copyright © 2014 by Siemens Energy, Inc.

Modern production system requires a high degree of automation for the feeding and handling of small, individual components, which tends to reduce both the production time and human labour. Mechanized feeders are used to bring components to be fed, from a disorderly state into the required orientation in required quantity for a particular process. Present study has been carried out with regard to the analysis of performance of a Rotary Hook feeder under certain variable factors. For this, the above-mentioned feeder has been developed. A series of experiments were carried out on cylindrical parts, and effect of different input parameters on the feed rate was studied graphically. Experimentation shows that the performance of this feeder depends upon various factors such as part population, number of hooks, speed, part sizes and blind/through-holed parts. However, only the first three parameters have been studied in the present case, and a mathematical model has been formulated. The design of experiments is done using 23 full-factorial method. Significance of individual factors as well as their interactions is examined using Design Experts Software. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) method is used to predict proficiency of the model. This model also provides optimized feed rate for appropriate process parameters under given constraints.

Momentum strategies have drawn great attention in investment management literature over last two decades. In this paper we examine three important propositions in Indian context (1) Do momentum profits persist for long time periods?, (2) Can these momentum profits be absorbed by risk models?, and (3) Is stock momentum an outcome of sectoral momentum?.We develop 6-6 and 12-12 investment strategies based on past returns as well as company characteristics. We find momentum profits in Indian context for our prior return portfolios which are stronger for 6-6 compared to 12-12 strategies. These momentum profits are larger for some characteristic sorted portfolios. Risk models such as CAPM and Fama French model significantly fail to capture momentum profits. In fact, winner portfolios generally comprise of large firm and high P/B stocks, thus defying the risk story. Some zero investment momentum based trading strategies do provide significant payoffs. We also observe momentum profits in sectoral returns. A part of stock momentum profits is captured by sectoral factor, thus implying that it may mainly be an outcome of sectoral momentum. Our findings are pertinent for portfolio managers and investment analysts who are continuously in pursuit of trading strategies that provide abnormal returns.

The pervasiveness of option backdating practices has resulted in broad regulatory scrutiny, formal investigations by federal authorities and internal inquiries by more than 200 implicated companies. Prior studies (Yermack 1997; Aboody and Kasznik 2000; Lie 2005; Heron and Lie 2006) find a pattern of timing of stock option grants to influence stock prices. Option backdating happens when grant dates are managed retroactively to precede a run-up in underlying shares in an attempt to maximize the option value. We investigate capital market reactions to backdating probe announcements for a sample of 180 implicated companies and the link between such reactions and specific firm attributes. We detect, on average, negative abnormal returns for implicated companies. We also find that the market reaction is more negative for companies that have higher stock price volatility, less effective corporate governance resulting in shareholder lawsuits or departure of their executives, and more leverage. These results have implications for public companies, policy makers, regulators, and the investing and academic communities, as more companies are being investigated by federal authorities and their corporate governance, financial reporting and management integrity are being scrutinized.

The pervasiveness of option backdating practices has resulted in broad regulatory scrutiny, formal investigations by federal authorities and internal inquiries by more than 200 implicated companies. Prior studies (Yermack 1997; Aboody and Kasznik 2000; Lie 2005; Heron and Lie 2006) find a pattern of timing of stock option grants to influence stock prices. Option backdating happens when the actual grant dates are days, weeks, or months before or after their stated date. We investigate capital market reactions to backdating probe announcements for a sample of 180 implicated companies. We detect, on average, negative abnormal returns for implicated companies. We also find that the market reaction is more negative for companies that have higher stock price volatility, less effective corporate governance resulting in shareholder lawsuits or departure of their executives, and more leverage. These results have implications for public companies, policy makers, regulators, and the investing and academic communities, as more companies are being investigated by federal authorities and their corporate governance, financial reporting and management integrity are being scrutinized.

This paper covers the basis and design of the Blind audio guidance system. It describes a guidance system for blind and partially sighted people with the aim of coping in the known and unknown internal and external spaces without the assistance of human guides. This represents a significant step forward in the application of innovative techno- logical solutions to increase independence and improve the quality of life for people with disabilities. It describes the technical and functional architecture of the system for orientation and guidance of a blind person using available modern technology. The Blind Audio guidance is systems that will help blind people navigate through buildings. The system is implemented using proximity sensors (IR sensors) that are located at various locations in a particular building (say an organization).