Search

To date, researchers who have done work life balance (WLB) have mainly focused on work and the family domain. However, the present-day workforce is heterogenous in nature and the workers might even value the other domains of non-working apart from family. These researchers mainly aim at investigating the significance of the other domains of non-working in work life balance with a special focus on the health of workers. Besides the meaning of the effect of balance between serious and fun activities and work well-being balance on representative fulfillment was evaluated. Likewise, these examinations investigate the impact of balance between serious and fun activities and work well-being balance on change in the degree of representative fulfillment according to the qualities of the laborers, including parental status, age, work capacity, and sex. The consequences of studies show that the specialists believe well-being to be a significant factor in the space of balance between fun and serious activities. Work well-being balance clarifies a greater amount of change in representative fulfillment when contrasted with balance between fun and serious activities. A sample of 311 respondents was surveyed to find the factors related to work life balance and their impact on job switching behavior. After applying factor analysis, a statistical tool, and analyzing the data, the study concludes that work health balance, job satisfaction, work environment, relation with management and co-workers, and work and personal life balance are the different factors related to work life balance that shows significant impact on job switching behavior.

Tobacco use causes serious health problems. Its use presents a crucial threat to the well-being of children. School health programs to prevent tobacco use could become one of the most effective strategies to reduce the burden of tobacco induced illness and make a substantial contribution to the health of the next generation. Preventing as many children as possible from starting tobacco use is feasible and worthwhile, both economically and in terms of improved health of the population. This review discusses the various school-based strategies in the field of tobacco-use prevention and cessation to help school personnel implement effective prevention programs.

Purpose The use of flexible connections throughout the steel structures provides a high level of stiffness compared to that of fully welded connections. Flexible connections allow for rotation to an extent, which make them perform better during earthquake than welded connections. In hanger connections, the applied load produces tension in the bolts and bolts are designed for tensile forces. When the deformation of the flange plate is equal to that of the bolts, a plastic hinge is formed in the flange plate at the weld line and the bolts are pulled to failure. If the attached plate is allowed to deform, additional tensile forces called prying forces are developed in the bolts. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach This paper includes the results of investigation on prying force in T-stub connection fabricated with normal grade bolts and high strength friction grip (HSFG) bolts. Finite element analysis has been carried out by creating models and analyzing the effect of external tensile force and bolt force. For different grades of bolt (4.6, 8.8, 10.9, 12.9), the prying force is calculated. Findings It is found that prying force is increasing with the change in grade of bolt used from normal to HSFG. The results obtained from analysis using IS 800:2007 codal provision are also included. It is observed that HSFG bolts do not allow for any slip between the elements connected and hence rigidity is increased. Originality/value The prying force mainly depends on geometrical parameter of the connection. In this research work, the variation of prying force was studied based on the variation in dimensions of T-stub angle section and bolt grade (4.6, 8.8, 10.9, 12.9). The method of obtaining prying force from bolt load and applied load is a unique approach. The results of FE analysis is validated with the analytical calculation as per IS 800:2007 code provisions, which shows the originality of the research.

Facial expression recognition plays a major role in various application areas such as medical science, security, computer vision, etc. The face was detected and aligned using the ensemble of regression tree technique. The face detection and face alignment challenges such as pose variations, the camera distance from the face, and the lighting changes were analyzed. The aligned face region was connected and cropped with the boundary of the landmark points using Delaunay triangulation for extracting facial features. Two types of feature fusion methods are used to derive the distinctive aspect of the cropped face images. These features are fed into three classifiers to recognize six facial expressions. The error-correcting output code model achieves promising predictions in terms of accuracy.

Surface potential and chemical compositions of the bioceramics are the core of therapeutic effect and are key factors to trigger the interfacial interactions with surrounding hard and soft tissues to repair and regeneration. Ionic substitution in hydroxyapatite (Hap) lattice significantly influences the zeta potential from −16.46 ± 0.66 mV to −6.01 ± 0.68 mV as well as an average nano-rod length from ~40 nm to ~26 nm with respect to SO42− ion content. Moreover, the surface chemistry of Hap is mainly inter-related to SO42− substitution rate at PO42− site. Specifically, nano-sized feature with lowered negative surface potential influences the protein adsorption via their weak repulsive or attractive forces. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) and lysozyme (LSZ) adsorption studies confirmed the increased affinity to active binding sites of Hap's surface. Further, SO42− ion substituted Hap (SNHA) showed improved in vitro biomineralization activity and alkaline phosphatase activity. Expression of osteogenic biomarkers such as collagen I, V, osteopontin and osteocalcin were evaluated in Saos-2 and MC3T3-E1 cells. Gene expression of these markers was influenced by SO42− ion content in Hap (maximum with 10SNHA). Altogether, these data emphasizes that chemical composition and surface properties are dominant aspect in bioceramic development towards bone regeneration.

Understanding the crystalline properties of nano-hydroxyapatite (nHAp) from amorphous material is quite a complex process involving investigating thermal treatment, the size and charge of ions and the arrangement of ions or molecules into an ordered lattice, all of which consequently influence structural, morphological and biological properties. Varying the ratio of iron (Fe) incorporated in nano-hydroxyapatite (Fe-nHAp) subjected to different thermal treatments mediated the apatite mineralization potential under non-cellular and cellular conditions, as explored herein. An increase in thermal treatment induces a phase transition from nHAp to β-TCP, which gradually increased due to Fe incorporation and reduced the size aspect ratio followed by the creation of an irregular morphology, as evidenced by XRD and high resolution TEM analyses. The mineralization potential under non-cellular conditions is considerably influenced by the rate of calcium (Ca), phosphate (P) and Fe ionic release. Even if an apatite layer formed by nanocrystalline Fe-nHAp can endow host bone tissue with bioactivity, it is however important to address other biological activity. In line with this, under cellular conditions, the mineralization potentials of Ca, P and Fe ions were assessed using Saos-2 cells in terms of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, gene expression and calcium nodule formation, which show the enhanced potential for mineralization upto a certain ratio of Fe incorporation, as well as under thermal treatment. Thus, it could be perceived that a newly formed bone-like apatite layer is insufficient for the successful use of biomaterials in tissue regeneration, but rather optimal levels of Ca, P and Fe ions are essential to up-regulate osteoblasts, which may promote tissue regeneration.

In this study, we have attempted to prepare reduced graphene nanosheets (RGNS) reinforced nano-hydroxyapatite (nHAp) nanocomposites via different sonochemical treatments of nHAp. Structural properties of RGNS-nHAp nanocomposites were investigated by XRD and Raman analysis. In vitro bioactivity of RGNS-nHAp nanocomposites were examined by immersing them in hank's balanced salt solution and further in vitro apatite layer formation was confirmed by systematic investigations using FESEM and ICP-OES analyses. Interactions of RGNS, pure nHAp and their nanocomposites with human erythrocytes were explored. Hemocompatibility of BGO-nHAp nanocomposites were found to be superior to pristine RGNS. The nanocomposites were mechanically improved when compared to nHAp through effective load transfer onto their 2D lattice of RGNS. However, 20PGO-nHAp nanocomposites were mechanically weaker than 20BGO-nHAp due to the formation of β-TCP as an additional phase, thus decreases its mechanical strength.

The proposed framework recognizes facial expressions with the minimal histogram features. Emotional parts of the face are traced with the combination of face detection and facial landmark techniques; HOG integrated with a linear Support Vector Machine [SVM] classifier framework is adopted for face detection. The landmark points are aligned by using an ensemble of regression algorithm. The aligned facial landmark points are integrated by using a Delaunay triangulation. The mask is created by means of the convex hull points. The emotional parts of the face are isolated by the mask. For feature extraction, HOG and LDP descriptors are utilized to derive the distinct features of the detected face area. The dimensions of the fused feature vectors are reduced with the use of single-layer auto-encoder. The downsized features are recognized by using the soft-max layer. Facial expressions are recognized from still images and video frames. Images are collected from JAFFE, WSEFEP datasets, RAVEES audio-visual database and some of the images are collected from internet. The performance of the proposed model attains 95.7%.

This paper proposes an automated system to identify speaker’s regional nativity by analysing their English speech utterances. A database of English speech of native speakers of three South Indian languages: Kannada (KAN), Tamil (TAM) and Telugu (TEL), is especially collected for this study, in text-independent mode. Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs) features are used with three different classifiers, namely, Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM), GMM-Universal Background Model (GMM-UBM) and i-vector. The i-vector classifier gave accuracies of 93.9%. Nativity identification from English speech is observed to be relatively easier for native speakers of Kannada language, than for Tamil and Telugu speakers.

Surface coating of titanium implants is a predominant technique for enhancing osseointegration and controlling bacterial adhesion for orthopedic applications. In this study, we have developed zirconia (Zr)-incorporated bioactive glass (BG) thin films coatings on Cp-Ti substrate. As Zr is expected to increase mechanical stability, coatings with different weight percentages of Zr incorporated bioglass were examined. XRD results of thin films, confirms the of sodium calcium silicate (Na2Ca2Si3O9) along with Na2Ca2Si2O7 phase. In-vitro biomineralization ability of the thin films was evaluated from in-vitro immersion in simulated body fluid (SBF) for up to 14 days. The apatite formation on the surface of the thin films after immersion studies observed using SEM confirms the bioactivity of the coatings. Hemocompatibility of thin films shows good compatibility with acceptable lysis of less than 2%. Further, the in-vitro cytocompatibility with MG-63 Osteoblast like cell lines showed significant improvement in cell viability. Moreover, BG-Zr composite-coated Cp-Ti substrate eventually decreased biofilm formation due to linear increase of surface roughness with increased content of Zr in BG matrix. Hence, the surface-modified Cp-Ti implant materials using BG-Zr composites displayed considerably enhanced bioactivity as well as improved osseointegrated surface suitable for orthopedic applications.

The vein structure is stable over time and can be manipulated for identifying human. The sclera portion of the human eye has blood vessel pattern which is unique for each human being. So, the sclera vein pattern can be used for a useful biometric feature. A few research works has been done over finger vein pattern recognition. Finger vein is an important biometric technique for personal identification and authentication. The finger vein is a blood vessel network under the finger skin. The network pattern is distinct for each individual, unaffected by aging and it is internal i.e. inside human skin which can always guarantee more security authentication. Sclera vein pattern recognition can face a few challenges like: the vein structure moves as the eye moves, low image quality, multilayered structure of the sclera vein and thickness of the sclera vein changes with the excitement level of the human body. To overcome this limitation, the multimodel biometrics is proposed through which the user can be authenticated either sclera vein or finger vein recognition. Sclera vein recognition used Y-shape descriptor and finger vein recognition used repeated line tracking based feature extraction method to effectively eliminate the most unlikely matches respectively. According to the available work in literatures and commercial utilization experiences, sclera vein and finger vein multimodality ensures higher performance and spoofing resistance. Thus building the multimodel biometric system increases the population coverage and improves the accuracy of the human recognition.

Consumer behaviour is the study of how individual customers, groups or organizations select, buy, use, and dispose ideas, goods, and services to satisfy their needs and wants. It refers to the actions of the consumers in the marketplace and the underlying motives for those actions. Marketers expect that by understanding what causes the consumers to buy particular goods and services, they will be able to determine which products are needed in the marketplace, which are obsolete, and how best to present the goods to the consumers.

Freshly collected seeds of cocoa were desiccated at room temperature and germination rate moisture content, soluble carbohydrates etc were analysed in the samples collected at regular intervals. Cocoa seeds are highly recalcitrant and total lose of viability occurs within 6 days of storage at room temperature. There is progressive deterioration of integrity of the membrane component of the cellular system during desiccation. This is manifested as the enhanced leakage of electrolytes from the tissues. A significant increase in sucrose content was observed in the cocoa seed tissues during desiccation. Raffinose content in the seeds declined rapidly during desiccation. Sucrose is suggested to have a critical role in maintaining the integrity of the cell membrane during dehydration. HPLC analysis of sucrose and raffinose through successive stages of desiccation does not impart tolerance to dehydration. This is because of the crystallization of sucrose and the deficiency of raffinose to ameliorate it. The sucrose to raffinose ratio is critical to seed viability in cocoa than their absolute quantum. When the ratio goes beyond 8:1 the viability of the cocoa seeds commence to decline rapidly.

Introduction: Sugared beverages such as cola, packaged juice, are known for cariogenicity their intake leads to the immediate drop in plaque and salivary pH, which can be an etiologic factor for dental caries. Objective: The objective was to assess the endogenous acidity and total sugar content of four commercially available beverages commonly consumed by children in India and its effect on salivary and plaque pH. Materials and Methods: A crossover controlled trial was conducted. 60 randomly selected school children from school at south Bangalore, who were meeting the inclusion criteria, were asked to refrain from oral hygiene practices for 24 h till the sample collection. Children were divided into four groups and for each group test drink was given. Plaque and salivary sample were collected at the time of 2, 5, 10, 20, and 30 min and were sent for pH estimation. 7 days of washout time was given for each cross-over and 3 such cross-over was done during the study and the drinks were interchanged. Results: Sweet lassi was found to be having maximum total sugar content of and Coca-Cola had the lowest pH 5.3. Milk showed least sugar content and highest pH (6.7). Study showed a significant drop in pH after consumption of all the test drinks (P = 0. 05). Carbonated beverage, that is, Coca-Cola Showed the maximum drop of pH, followed by Pulpy orange in both the plaque as well as saliva. Coca-Cola showed the drop of plaque pH below the critical level, 5.44 (0.134). Conclusion: Sweet lassi showed the maximum inherent total sugar content, lowest inherent pH and maximum fall in plaque and salivary pH, was found with Coca-Cola.