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PurposeThe study is aimed at analyzing the perceptions of students and teachers regarding the effectiveness of massive open online courses (MOOCs) on learning efficiency of students and also evaluating MOOCs as an ideal tool for designing a blended model for education.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis was carried out by using the data gathered from the students as well as teachers of University of Mysore, Karnataka, India. Two separate sets of questionnaires were developed for both the categories of respondents. Also, the respondents were required to have prior experience in MOOCs. Further, the collected data was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS).FindingsThe study showed that MOOCs have a more positive influence on learning efficiency, as opined by both teachers and students. Negative views such as cheating during the assessment, lack of individual attention to students and low teacher-student ratio were also observed.Practical implicationsMany educational institutions view that the MOOCs do not influence learning efficiency and also do not support in achieving their vision. However, this study provides evidence that MOOCs are positively influencing the learning efficiency and also can be employed in a blended model of education so as to promote collaborative learning.Originality/valueTechnology is playing a pivotal role in all fields of life and the education sector is not an exception. It can be rightly said that the technology-based education models such as MOOCs are the need of the hour. This study may help higher education institutions to adopt MOOCs as part of their blended model of education, and, if already adopted, the outcome of the present study will help them to improve the effectiveness of the MOOCs they are offering.

An efficient and eco-friendly synthetic method has been established for synthesis of 7-hydroxy-4-methyl coumarin and its derivatives using tamarind juice as a biocatalyst. The condensation reaction of Substituted phenol with ethyl acetoacetate (EAA) successfully carried out using tamarind juice as a green and efficient catalyst at 90°C in aqueous condition. This green biocatalyst has been utilised effectively for pechmann reaction with good yield of product, easy workup and eco-friendly reaction conditions.

The impact of COVID-19 has revamped all aspects of human life including education sector, and it has completely changed the educational environment across the globe. Due to the pandemic, the methodical functions of educational institutions have stopped, and new phases have started like online class, online evaluation, and indoor activities. Students are the vital players in education sector, and their opinions play an indispensable role while formulating the policies by the government. In the pandemic, students' perspective on education environment finds new dimension. Therefore, this paper has made an honest attempt to know the coastal Karnataka students' stance on college educational environment. In this study, six major components of education environment are considered, namely (1) online class, (2) teaching and learning, (3) evaluation, (4) college administration, (5) extracurricular activities, and (6) teachers. The study is descriptive in nature, and data was collected from 347 college students of Coastal Karnataka. To support the main objective, a hypothesis has been developed with the help of review of literature and is tested by using ANOVA and independent t-test. The path analysis is used to analyze the casual relationships among components of college educational environment, overall perception, and student performance. The result of the study found that the college students have positive perception towards online class (M=3.14), teaching and learning (M=3.704), evaluation (M=3.38), college and administration (M=3.83), extracurricular activities (M=3.87), and teachers (M=3.63). The result of the hypothesis testing revealed that there is no significant difference in the student perception towards various components of college education system. Path analysis results show that there is relation and effect between components of college education, overall perception, and students' performance. The study concludes that students agree with policies and actions taken by colleges to carry out classes during COVID-19 pandemic irrespective of demographic and educational difference.

Objective: The major goal of this research evaluation was to see if yoga therapy may help people with epilepsy manage stress. Introduction: Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that has a high psychological and physical toll. Self-reported seizures are frequently caused by stress, individual and many patients with epilepsy believe that reducing stress improves seizure management. Methodology: An electronic search of published research publications was conducted using Google Scholar, PubMed, Science Direct, and other databases, and the results were analysed to determine the effectiveness of yoga in the treatment of stress in epileptic patients." Based on inclusion criteria, few papers were included in the literature review like randomised controlled trials, systematic literature reviews, systematic reviews, Cochrane review, and pilot study. Results: This review looked at how yoga affects stress through multiple mechanisms and found that it helps epileptic patients reduce stress and improve their quality of life. Conclusion: This study found that yoga can be one of the alternative methods for reducing stress in epileptics. Yoga should be practised by epileptics to reduce stress and seizure frequency, as well as increase overall well-being. It doesn't have any negative side effects.

De-addiction of mobile in students has become a challenge for both urban and rural parents. Students were forced to use mobile handsets and in-spite of the hybrid learning mode adopted and adapted by schools and colleges; due to Covid and its challenges. Covid has made things clearer to learn by distance and maintain the social distance. India is full of villages and most parents are unaware of what students are watching on their mobile. Children and students camouflage their parents by projecting as attending an online class. This has become a challenge to de-addict and bring them back to normal learning. The present study intends to analyses the dynamic changes in the learning environment during pre and post Covid learning environment. The outcome of the study indicated that the that there is significant difference in the learning environment and it also revealed that after covid the learning environment became unfavourable.

Due to the transparency, simplicity, and blockchain system, cryptocurrencies gained popularity in the modern world. This led to more use of cryptocurrencies for speculation and investment rather than a medium of exchange. It is crucial to analyse the nature of the crypto market before investing in such currencies. With this intention, the paper tried to know the extent of following (Followness) of altcoins to the bitcoin in the different dominance phases like High Dominance, Low Dominance, and Moderate Dominance. For this purpose, daily closing prices of the Bitcoin and five major altcoins (Ethereum, Litecoin, Namecoin, Doge, and Ripple) are collected for the last five years and analyse the relationship between bitcoin and altcoins. Pearson's correlation coefficient test is used to know the direction of the relationship, and Vector Error Correction Model is used to see the extent of the relation. In general, the empirical result of the study showed cointegration between bitcoin and Altcoin. It also depicted that Altcoin showed a high level of followness in the moderate dominance phase and low followness in the low dominance phase. The study developed a price estimation equation to predict the price of altcoins depending upon the price of bitcoin and its dominance in the crypto market. This paper concludes that the dominance of Bitcoin also has a significant role in the price movement of altcoins.

Background The primary indication for using long-acting anesthetics in dentistry is extensive dental procedures that require pulpal anesthesia beyond 90 min and management of postoperative pain. Ropivacaine is an amide local anesthetic that is available at various concentrations with inherent vasoconstrictive properties at low concentrations. Ropivacaine has a 75% greater margin of safety than bupivacaine. Ropivacaine can be a good alternative to bupivacaine as a local anesthetic in dental implant surgery as it provides a longer duration of both pulpal and soft tissue anesthesia after mandibular nerve block and lowers CNS and cardiovascular toxicity. This study aimed to evaluate and compare the clinical efficacy of ropivacaine and lignocaine for implant surgery anesthesia. Methods Fifteen patients with bilateral edentulous sites indicated for implant placement were recruited for this study. Patients aged 20-60 years of both sexes were randomly recruited. Thirty implant placements were performed in the test and control groups using ropivacaine and lignocaine with adrenaline as local anesthetics, respectively. Results The results were analyzed statistically. The duration of anesthesia was significantly higher in the test group than in the control group. Ropivacaine was found to be superior to lignocaine in terms of the quality of anesthesia. The comparison of mean visual analog scale scores showed ropivacaine to have better anesthetic and analgesic effects than the control group. Conclusion Ropivacaine 0.75% provides a significantly longer duration of anesthesia than lignocaine 2% with adrenaline. Ropivacaine 0.75% decreased intraoperative and postoperative analgesia compared to lignocaine 2% with adrenaline. Hence, ropivacaine 0.75% can be used as an alternative to lignocaine in implant surgeries and other intraoral surgical procedures that require a longer duration of anesthesia and analgesia.

The chemical industry is facing a major challenge in the design of heterogeneous catalysts for CO2 activation and valorization. The modification of CeO2 nanorods with divalent transition metal ions...

Indian sandalwood (Santalum album), valued for its medicinal properties, is an indigenous species of India. Circular or irregular pale yellow lesions surrounded by a purple halo with prominent pinhead sized black fruiting bodies at the centre of the lesion were observed on leaves of sandalwood seedlings in a nursery located in Karnataka, with a disease incidence of 75% (n = 100 investigated plants) during July 2020. The disease prevailed in monsoon followed by winter season (July 2020 - January 2021); summer was less supportive for the disease incidence. As the disease progressed, lesions expanded and merged, causing necrosis of the whole leaf. Isolation of the pathogen involved excision of small sections of diseased tissues from the lesions followed by surface sterilization with 70% ethanol for 30 s and in 1% NaClO for 1 min. Sections were rinsed in sterile distilled water, placed on potato dextrose agar (PDA), and incubated at 25°C for 7 days. Ten isolates of Colletotrichum ssp. were obtained with an isolation frequency = 10/12×100 = 83%. One representative single-spore isolate (CSSA-1) was used for further study. Initially, pure cultures exhibited a white mycelium which later turned gray with time, and had orange conidial masses in a concentric ring pattern with the aggregation of black acervuli at the center of the culture Conidia were single celled, hyaline, and cylindrical having smooth rounded ends and the size ranged from 12.6 to 18.5 µm in length, and 3.5 to 5.6 µm in width (n = 100). The morphological characteristics were in agreement with the species description of fungi in the Colletotrichum gloeosporioides species complex (Weir et al. 2012). To confirm the species designation of the isolate CSSA-1, a multilocus phylogenetic analysis was performed using six genomic loci (Weir et al. 2012; Marin-Felix et al. 2017). The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of rDNA and a partial sequence of the beta-tubulin (TUB2), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), chitin synthase 1 (CHS-1), actin (ACT), and glutamine synthetase (GS) genes were amplified using ITS1/ITS4, BT2F/BT4R, GAPDHF/R, 79F/354R, 512F/783R and GSF/GSR primers, respectively. The ITS (OK254122), TUB2 (OL462863), GAPDH (OL462859), CHS-1 (OL462860), actin (OL462861), and glutamine synthetase (OL961822) sequences of representative isolate CSSA-1 showed 99 to 100% identity with sequences MZ148628, MK967339, MN525882, MW192791, MT263504, MF111030, MH370542 and KX578767, respectively to the holotype isolate of Colletotrichum siamense (Prihastuti et al. 2009). The sequences were analysed with representative sequences of Colletotrichum and a multilocus Bayesian inference phylogenetic tree with ITS-GAPDH-ACT-CHS1-GS-TUB2 concatenated data sets (concatenated with Sequence Matrix v.1.8 (Vaidya et al. 2011)) was constructed using Beast version 1.8.4 to confirm the isolate identification (Drummond et al. 2012; Hyde et al. 2014; Weir et al. 2012). Isolate CSSA-1 clustered with C. siamense isolates. To complete Koch's postulates, for the characterized isolate CSSA-1, a pathogenicity test was conducted on 3-month-old sandalwood seedlings by spore spray inoculation. Ten plants were inoculated with a conidial suspension (106 conidia/ml) and control plants inoculated with sterilized water then kept in a glass house at 25°C and85% relative humidity with a 12-h photoperiod. Humidity was maintained by spraying the plants with water in the morning and evening to enhance the infection. Typical symptoms of anthracnose disease similar to naturally infected leaves were observed, which included circular pale yellow lesions surrounded by a purple halo with prominent pinhead sized black fruiting bodies at the center of the lesion 7 days after inoculation, while the control plants remained unaffected. The pathogen was reisolated from infected leaves and its identity was confirmed as C. siamense based on morphological characteristics. Previously, C. siamense was identified causing disease on chili in India (Gunjan and Shenoy, 2014), but to our knowledge this is the first report of leaf anthracnose caused by C. siamense on Indian sandalwood in India or globally. This study documents crucial information, paving way for epidemiologic studies and design of control strategies to combat this newly emerging disease.