bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Vulnerability and the Coping Capacity of Women in Natural Disasters- An Indian Experience
Authors: M. Rajeev M.
Published: September 2016

Disasters affect men and women, the young and the old, the rich and the poor in different ways. Women are more vulnerable in disastrous situations and they need to be taken care of. Initiatives should be taken for this vulnerable group to reduce the vulnerability so that they can cope with disasters more effectively and efficiently. Women more than men are at risk of morbidity and mortality because of their gender role in terms of social, cultural and biological aspects (Meleis, 2005). Womens vulnerability to disasters is also shaped by traditional gender roles, power and privilege, low wages, and secondary responsibilities such as child care (Elaine Enarson and Betty H. Morrow). This study tries to understand the vulnerability and coping capacity of women during natural disasters, and various measures to be taken for reducing the coping capacity of women. The main objectives of the study are (1) to study how vulnerable women are to natural disasters. (2) to make aware of coping capacity of women in natural disasters. (3) to understand the major measures taken for reducing the vulnerability of women. The researcher used descriptive research design for the study. The researcher used questionnaires for conducting the study. The universe of the study is the flood affected women in Thalavadi Grama Panchayat in Kerala. The researcher used convenient sampling method for data collection. And statistical methods were used to analyze the collected data. The study pointed out that the governmental system, local self-government, non-governmental organizations, voluntary organizations have a
Films and Destination Promotion: An Exploratory Study
Authors: Bharti Parvi
Published: September 2016

Film tourism is quite a new concept, it is also referred to as film-induced or movie-induced tourism. It promotes the tourism advantage induced for any destination or country due to its exposure to public through the film media. This concept is at its nascent stage in the world. Many countries are found to work on this concept after realizing the benefits which can be reaped by their people, society and economy as a whole. Every theory, if advantageous, also tends to present some challenges. This mode of tourism promotion has its own benefits and challenges too for the administration, but, it depends on the government: local and central both, to make use of the concept in the manner befitting most for the locales and the economy. The international or worldwide famous films have been found to do wonders to the inflow of tourist for the country and shooting destinations in specific. Various governments have also started playing a significant role, and contributing by providing assistance to the film producers. In India we have had films promoting various destinations in the country itself through our own Bollywood, whereas some films under the international banner also have had some scenes or part of the film shot in the country. It would be of immense benefit to use this concept for the tourism industry of the country, but before that, it is essential to be prepared to deliver the required infrastructure and facilities. The study of this model is quite complex and requires an exhaustive research to understand the benefits (in exact measures) any country can reap for its economy. This paper aims to induce further research in the field and integrate the efforts and research in the field of tourism and management.
Skiing in Gulmarg: Opportunities and Challenges
Authors: Dar Shahnawaz A.
Published: September 2016

Tourism provides various attractions for tourists in the form of natural spots, built places, sports and games. Skiing is one of the attractions that is basically done in snow slopes of various tourism destinations around the world. Gulmarg in Kashmir is an all season destination providing various attractions and scenic views throughout the year. In summers, it turns into a meadow of flowers and in winters into a white gold destination. Skiing in Gulmarg is one of the most important winter sports. Its natural slopes, powdery snow, easy accessibility, highest and natural ski slopes, etc, provide the conditions of an ideal ski destination for all types of skiers. It is in this connection the study has been done to analyze the flow of visitors and skiers to Gulmarg and to evaluate the related requisite infrastructure there. The various opportunities that are available to Gulmarg to emerge as an international ski destination and the various challenges that are in this regard are studied through this research work. The study is primarily based on primary data although secondary data have also been used to complete the study. The outcome of the study is that Gulmarg can emerge as a leading Ski destination of the world provided it keeps pace with the technology and keeps control on pollution.
The Extraction of Expert Weights from Pair Wise Comparisons in Delphi Method
Authors: Azadfallah Mohammad
Published: September 2016

In the second step of Delphi, it has often seen that experts play their roles with same weights of importance. Meanwhile, some experts clearly wiser and more powerful in such matters than others. There is no specific guidance to find the weight of importance of experts in Delphi process. Therefore, this paper intends to introduce a simple method (based on Eigenvector method - by using the number of iteration to reach convergence) to find the weight of importance of experts in Delphi process. The findings in this paper confirm the effectiveness of proposed method. So that, inconsistent experts get less weight and vice-versa. A numerical example demonstrates the application of the proposed method.
Clustering Techniques for Biological Sequence Analysis: A Review
Authors: Lakhani Jyoti , Chowdhary Anupama , Harwani Dharmesh
Published: September 2016

In the present scenario there are a variety of technical tools for supporting and validating wet-lab experiments in the field of science and biotechnology. In order to analyze biological sequences it is necessary to group similar genes. Grouping of genes can be done by using various techniques like pattern matching, classification, clustering etc. In the present study clustering is used as a tool for analyzing biological data. Clustering of Biological sequences is a very interesting and fascinating area as various researchers are working on it. But simple clustering algorithms are not much suitable for sequence analysis problems. Most of the biological sequence analysis problems are NP-hard and some strong optimization algorithm are required for these types of problems. The manuscript presented here is a survey of various clustering techniques useful for analysis of biological sequences. The 3+ stage review process is adopted for the review of literature. To prepare this report 98 papers have been reviewed from year 1997 to 2014 according to the year of publish. The papers reviewed have discussed various issues related to the analysis of biological sequences. The major issues discovered in the reviewed papers were prediction, sequence alignment, motif discovery, cluster boundary prediction etc. Various solution approaches used by researchers for the biological sequence analysis are evolutionary clustering, neural networks, hierarchical clustering, k-means, Go technologies, feature selection, incremental approach, bio-inspired methods, particle swarm optimization, fuzzy techniques, rough set theory and bi-clustering etc. Researchers have applied these solution approaches on various types of datasets. In this communication we have also discussed about these datasets and the parameters used with results mentioned in papers.
A New MADM Approach in Building Consensus in Delphis Technique
Authors: Azadfallah Mohammad
Published: September 2016

There is no doubt that Delphi is a powerful technique in group decision-making context. Despite its usefulness, Delphi has some limitations too. A major drawback is the lack of transparency in reaching the consensus among the respondents. Therefore, in this paper, to resolve this limit, a new mathematical approach (based on the improved AHP models) according to Asgharpour (2003) and Azadfallah and Azizi (2015), is proposed, and can more assure the results by applying a model. A numerical example (in technologies foresight fields) demonstrates the application of the proposed method. The findings in this paper confirm the effectiveness of proposed method.
Graphene Oxide Based Dye-Sensitised Solar Cells Using Terminalia-Chebula
Authors: Ahmadi M. T. , Golmohammadi Kambiz , Azman Adila , Ismail Razali , Sedghi Hasan
Published: September 2016

The use of carbon compounds and natural pigments help to build easy and cheap dye-sensitised solar cells. Accordingly, graphene oxide is used as a layer separation on the pigment with more efficiency. Also, instead of an expensive and commercial pigment, chebula terminalia plant which is cheap, abundant and environmental friendly was used. In the presence of graphene oxide, more voltage and conversion efficiency are obtained compared to the solar cell without the graphene oxide.
Linkages between India and three ASEAN Stock Markets: A Co-integration Approach
Authors: Rajkumar Giridhari Singh
Published: September 2016

Today, an investor has an array of investment choices including the opportunities to approach overseas market which were unavailable a few decades ago. In literature, the integration of stock markets has been widely discussed and analyzed. This paper examines the relationship between Indian stock market and the three stock markets of the ASEAN countries viz. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Using the daily closing prices of the indices over a period of ten years i.e. 2004 to 2014, the study examined the inter-linkages of Indian stock market with the three markets. The Granger-causality and co-integration test were used to check the causal relationship. The study found that there is a significant short-term unidirectional influenced from the Indian stock market to the three ASEAN countries stock markets while no long-term relation (no co-integration) are found between the Indian equity market with that of three ASEAN countries viz. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore equity markets.
Do Macroeconomic Variables affect Stock Returns in BRICS Markets? An ARDL Approach
Authors: Tripathi Vanita , Kumar Arnav
Published: September 2016

The Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) propounded by Ross in 1976 argued for a variety of macroeconomic variables (sources of systematic risk) in explaining stock returns. In the same vein, this paper examines the relationship between macroeconomic variables (GDP, inflation, interest rate, exchange rate, money supply, and oil prices) and aggregate stock returns in BRICS markets over the period 1995-2014 using quarterly data. We have applied Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to document such a relationship for individual countries as well as for panel data.
Sectoral Analysis of Foreign Direct Investment in India During First Generation Reform Period
Authors: Sinha Manoj Kumar
Published: September 2016

Since 1991, India has cautiously and slowly opened almost all the sectors, except a few related to strategic importance, for foreign investors. Degree of openness of various industrial sectors for FDI has been increased to the extent of 100 percent by consistently liberalizing industrial policies of the sectors. The purpose of the paper is to study pattern and trends of sectoral distribution of FDI within the background of the first generation reforms and liberalized industrial policies during 1991-2001. The paper has used series of the dynamics and stylistic indices and statistical tools such as three level indices, index of rank dominance, and correlation matrices for explaining the pattern of FDI distribution across sectors during 1991-2001. The results show that electrical, transportation, chemical, telecommunication, and service sectors are most dominating sectors and represent almost 75 percent of total FDI received during 1991-2001. Index of rank dominance indicates distribution of FDI across the sectors is top heavy.
Cash Conversion Cycle and Firm Profitability in Malawi Manufacturing Sector
Authors: Majanga Byson Beracah
Published: September 2016

The composition of a business current assets and liabilities provides an indication of the business liquidity position. It is advisable for a company to maintain a good amount of readily liquid assets as compared to its current liabilities which may be payable on demand. The business liquidity position determines its ability to survive in the short term and of late most companies have had critical financial problems regardless of posting profits in some cases. Manufacturing companies pile up more current assets in form of inventory which is considered to be an il-liquid asset and therefore liquidity for manufacturing companies differs from that of service organizations, such as banks. The purpose of this study is to establish the relationship between a companys liquidity, measured by the length of the cash conversion cycle, and its profitability, measured by return on capital. Using a correlation and regression test, the study used data from sample of twelve Malawian manufacturing firms from 2007 to 2015. The study finds that there exists an inverse relationship between the cash conversion cycle and the companys return on investment and return on equity, and provides evidence that the cash conversion cycle, a measure of business liquidity, has an impact on a firms performance.
Cash Management in IT Sector - A Study
Authors: Das Somnath
Published: September 2016

Cash plays a very important role in modern business, specifically a new one. Cash is the life blood of every business. Cash may be in the form of liquid money, bank balance etc. In this respect, cash management is both art as well as science of managing a companys short-term resources for its ongoing activities, mobilizing funds and optimizing liquidity. In this contest another important concept which is related with the cash management is the Treasury technique which emphasizes the liquidity by different factors and processes which convert immediately into cash for increasing profitability. Inefficient cash management may lead the company to bankruptcy. In this paper we highlighted different perspectives by which we can control the corporate cash of the company from Cash Conversion Cycle, Cash Flow, and Creditworthiness point of view. In this paper we tried to interlink among them to control and manage cash well, so that bankruptcy can be prevented and profitability should be improved.
Inter-linkages between India and World Stock Markets and European Debt Crisis
Authors: Kumar Mohit
Published: September 2016

This paper examines the inter-linkages and long run co-integration of Indian economy with other economies of the world (US, Europe, Other Emerging markets, and World economy) using standard indices of MSCI over the period April, 2001 to March, 2013. We also investigate Indian economys response to recent global turbulence European Debt crisis (EDC). We use Granger causality test, Johansen co-integration test and Impulse response analysis of Vector auto-regression framework to test various hypotheses. There is no contagious effect of EDC on Indian economy. During post-EDC, the Indian economy is granger caused by US and world economies. Further during the pre as well as post- EDC period, no cointegrating relationship has been found. This low level of co integration, despite presence of short run causal relationship, shows that global shocks might destabilize Indian economy in long run. Especially, Impulse response analysis revealed that Indian economy seems to be affected from the shocks created in the European markets and such shock persists in Indian economy for more than 10 months. These results have important policy implications. The policy makers need to understand that although there is no contagious effect of EDC on Indian economy but interdependency can destabilize Indian economy for much longer period.
Pricing Efficiency of Equity Index Option Contracts: Evidence from National Stock Exchange of India
Authors: Shankar Uma , Gupta Kapil
Published: September 2016

The present study examines the pricing efficiency of equity index options traded at National Stock Exchange of India by comparing the premium of options contracts traded on NIFTY, BANK NIFTY, CNXIT, NIFTY JUNIOR, and CNX100 indices with their respective theoretical price estimated by using Black-Scholes Model. 91-day T-Bill rate is used as risk-free rate and standard deviation computed on daily returns of the underlying index is used as volatility to estimate the theoretical prices. Pricing efficiency has been tested both for daily closing prices per se as well as for the In-the-Money, At-the-Money, and Out-of-the-Money options contracts. Mean Absolute Errors (MAE), Mean Squared Errors (MSE), Root Mean Squared Errors (RMSE), and Theils U statistics suggest that the premium of equity index options contracts do not follow Black-Scholes Model.
Do Macro-Economic Variables Affect Foreign Trade of India? Panel Regression Approach
Authors: Sinha Manoj Kumar
Published: September 2016

After the crisis in 1991, the Indian government introduced some changes in its Policy on trade, foreign investment, tariffs, and taxes under the name of New Economic Reforms. The main focus of these reforms has been on liberalization, openness, and export promotion activity. The paper focuses on the impact of development variables on export from India. Developmental variables include infrastructure, human resource, openness, production & market, research & development, resources, and taxation. Each development variable consists of a set of related variables. The paper has used principal component analysis (PCA), composite index and panel regression model. These help to know impact of individual developmental variable on Indias export. The period of study is 1990 2013. The value of KMO is over 0.6 indicating the samples are adequate and the value of Bartletts test is less than 0.05 ensure suitability of PCA. The overall growth rate Indian foreign trade is 3 percent during last more than two decades. Main macro-economic variables are infrastructure, resources, and taxation. The government should strengthen and incorporate these macro-economic variables while making foreign trade policy (i.e. EXIM policy) policy under the umbrella of WTO.
A Comparative Analysis of Media Consumption in Delhi, India
Authors: Obhrai Priya
Published: September 2016

A common assumption is that age is the chief determinant for media habits of people. However, new researches believe that habits are the function of mindset rather than age. We are living in an era of cage-free content, where all media whether text, audio or video based are distributed and consumed across a wide range of channels from which individuals can pick and choose. Social media has today made far-reaching changes to the way many of us consume media. It encourages people to create content. Anyone can write articles or blogs, create photographic content, video content, broadcast ones voice through the media, and so on. Social media has weaned off traditional media. For example, digital technologies are causing vast changes in the way we use media. Understanding the role of media in young peoples lives is therefore of immense importance for those concerned about promoting the healthy development of children and teenagers, including parents, paediatricians, policymakers, childrens advocates, educators, and public health groups. The survey for the same was done among teenagers (13-18 year olds) and young adults (19-25 year olds) and the results have been graphically represented here.
Relevant Costing: Can the Method Coincide with Different Industries?
Authors: Nisha Nabila
Published: September 2016

In management accounting, relevant costing is a well-known method used to assess the feasibility of production decisions in the short-run. It can be applied to a number of specific decisions in various types of industries namely manufacturing, service, and not-for-profit organizations. However, this concept has not been widely used in agriculture. This paper reviews a case for using relevant costing approaches in agriculture and how this accounting concept can be applied to other organizational contexts. Relevant costing has been proposed to be more useful in agriculture as opposed to the traditional methods of cost analysis commonly used by the farms. Applications of relevant costing techniques in agriculture have been critically analyzed arguing that the nature of agricultural business and the assumptions of relevant costing do not really coincide. This makes the concept inappropriate for use in agriculture to a large extent. The paper further tries to assess cases with appropriate examples for different organizations where relevant costing techniques can be applied.
Country Risk Analysis of Bangladesh
Authors: Rahman Zahidur , Bristy Jannatul Ferdous
Published: September 2016

In the endeavor of conquering the worlds consumers, multinational companies face enormous risks. Such risks may arise from different political, economic, and financial factors. These factors are commonly referred to country risk as a whole. Focusing Bangladesh in this regard, objective of this study is to find out the level of country risk in terms of political, economic, and financial riskiness. Analysis of country risk has been done using an internationally recognized methodology named International Country Risk Guide (ICRG). For political risk analysis, primary data has been collected from 20 journalists, bureaucrats and policy makers, business persons, corporate professionals, and academicians with a structured closed-ended questionnaire. Results indicate that Bangladesh is in high risk position in terms of political risk, low risk position in terms of economic risk and very low risk position in terms of financial risk. Compositely, Bangladesh has been found to be a moderately risky country for investment.
Measuring Age-wise Perception of Different Beneficiaries Regarding Access to Financial Services through Cooperative Banks
Authors: Andotra Neetu , Lal Tarsem
Published: September 2016

The present study is undertaken to measure empirically the age-wise perception of different respondents regarding access to financial services through cooperative banks. In order to fulfill the objectives of the study, the primary data are collected personally from beneficiaries of the four cooperative banks covered under financial inclusion drive of RBI operating in Jammu region viz. The Citizen Cooperative Bank, The Jammu Central Cooperative Bank, Devika Urban Cooperative Bank Ltd., and Women Cooperative Credit Bank. The responses are collected using a self-developed questionnaire sub-divided into socio-economic variables and specific information regarding access to financial services. For comparison, responses from beneficiaries of cooperative banks operating in neighbouring tehsils of Himachal Pradesh and beneficiaries of cooperative banks from the state of Punjab are collected. The findings of the study reveal that there exists no significant difference between the perceptions of beneficiaries belonging to different age groups regarding the access to financial services through cooperative banks.
Implementation of Lean Manufacturing Practices and its Impact on Productivity in Coimbatore Foundries
Authors: Vinayagasundaram R. , Kannan V.
Published: September 2016

It is very essential to produce the cast components in foundries with high quality, reliable, consistent and at lowest cost. Hence the foundry owners have to introduce the Lean manufacturing to improve the productivity. This study brought out how technically qualified entrepreneurs of selected foundries have carried out technological innovations, mainly due to their self-motivation and self-efforts. Introducing the Lean manufacturing in the process and changing product designs, as desired or directed by the customers resulted in cost reduction, quality and productivity improvement. These have enabled the selected foundries to enhance competitiveness, grow in the domestic market and penetrate the international market and grow in size over time. And have achieved technological innovations successfully based on their technological capability and customer needs, enabling them to sail through the competitive environment. There are about 35000 foundries in the world with annual production of 90 million metric tons, providing employment to about 20 lakh people. Indian foundry industry is acknowledged as the worlds second largest producer of castings (7.4 Million Tons per Annum - MTPA) based on Tonnage during 2009, next to China (35.2 MTPA). There is a large gap between India and other nations, along with the fact that the foundry industry is not able to keep up with the local and international demand and to catch up in terms of absolute production quantities and qualities and hence the market share. Having reached this stage, what we need is to utilize the potential for growth in our favour. Indian Foundry Industry occupies a special place in shaping the countrys economy. India has around 5000 foundries, producing about 7.4 MT of castings worth Rs 20,500 crores. It ranks second in terms of casting production, next to China. These units are mostly located in clusters with numbers varying from 100 to 500 per cluster. Some of the notable clusters are Agra, Howrah, Coimbatore, Kolhapur, Rajkot and Belgaum. Coimbatore foundries have more export opportunities to tap with growth in the end user segment. Coimbatore foundry cluster has about 620 units and most of them are small-scale. They produce 40,000 to 45,000 tonnes of castings a month. The foundry product line of Coimbatore cluster is mainly catering to motor pumps, machineries and is slowly emerging to cater to valves and auto components sector from South India. In the last five years, output of the Coimbatore foundries has grown at 15 to 20 percent and it is estimated that Coimbatore contributes nearly 15 percent of the total casting production in the country. The total monthly casting production has gone up from about 25,000 ton in 2007 and in 2010 it is 60,000 ton. Almost 20% of the total production goes for exports (direct and indirect) to most of the European countries.
Impact of Fiscal Incentives on MSMEs Performance in Gujarat
Authors: Jani H. J. , Joshi Yogesh C. , Pandya Falguni H.
Published: September 2016

Fiscal incentives act as an instrument to enhance growth of industry and in turn, that of economy is a debatable issue all over the world. Many countries and many governments have burnt their hands in imposing or reducing tax rates and other benefits. The impact of different fiscal incentives on various corporate decisions is not certain and varies from country to country and time to time. Sometimes it has been found that such fiscal incentives work best when it is coupled with other factors like political stability, infrastructure facilities etc. In addition, many researchers have viewed that such fiscal incentives results in to nothing but just raises the burden of the government. The present study attempts to find out how industrial sector particularly MSMEs view these incentives on their overall impact.
Revitalizing Literacy for Entrepreneurship among Nigerian University Students for National Growth
Authors: Bello Yekeen
Published: September 2016

The fast increasing rate of under-development in Nigeria as a result of nonchalant attitudes towards literacy and entrepreneurship by Nigerian students propelled this researcher to carry out this study. The study adopted a survey research type. The population for the study was all the Nigerian students from the North Central geopolitical zone of Nigeria. Stratified ransom sampling technique was used to select 30 students (15 males and 15 females) from each of the 25 universities in this zone. A twenty-item researcher-designed questionnaire (RDQ) was used for the purpose of collecting data. The content validity of the instrument was done by two experts while the reliability of the instrument was ascertained via test re-test statistical method, thus giving 0.58 reliability index. The three null hypotheses were tested using Pearson r statistical method at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The findings revealed that there are positive but low correlations between literacy and entrepreneurship as well as entrepreneurship and national development having computed calculated r-values of 0.289 and 0.299 which are greater than the critical r-value of .195 respectively at 0.05 alpha level of significance. However, there was positive and high correlation between literacy and national development having calculated r-value of 1.296 and critical r-value of .195 at 0.05 alpha level of significance. Based on these, it was concluded that national development is a result of intellectual work and an easy facilitator of intellectual development is in the art of literacy. As a result of the findings and conclusion of this study, it was recommended among other things that the Federal Government should entrench mass literacy and entrepreneurship education in schools curriculum and also put up a unit that would be vested with the responsibility of monitoring the full implementation of the mass literacy program and entrepreneurship education as well.
How Entrepreneurial are the Business Students! Bangladesh Perspective
Authors: Yasmin Shakila
Published: September 2016

This paper investigates the entrepreneurial propensity (EP) of business students. EP is a concept used to represent the likelihood that a person will eventually be an entrepreneur or not, whether he or she will demonstrate the characteristics of entrepreneurs in his/her work or profession. Through literature review, the paper has created a model of EP involving its construct variables and some demographic variables that influence EP and its constructs. Based on a survey of evening MBA students in Bangladesh, it has been found that business students have high EP. But female students significantly lag in EP from their male counterparts. The same is true for students who have dependents. Economies, organizations and schools promoting entrepreneurship can use aggregate EP as a measure of their performance. The identification of the construct variables and their measures will help trainers and educators promoting entrepreneurship in identifying areas to emphasize.
Marketing Problems of Micro Enterprises of Papum Pare District
Authors: Chanu Yumlembam Linthoi , Sharma Ashok
Published: September 2016

The objective of the paper is to find out the problems faced by micro enterprises of Papum Pare district in marketing their products as well as the type of business enterprise chosen by micro entrepreneurs of Papum Pare district. The paper is also set to examine whether there is a significant relationship between the choice of business type by micro entrepreneurs of Papum Pare district and their marketing problems.
Entrepreneurial Management Capabilities- The Differential Effect of Role Models
Authors: Nandamuri Purna Prabhakar
Published: September 2016

Entrepreneurs require a variety of skills and competencies to successfully manage an enterprise. As the business grows, the need for incorporating professional management practices increases which necessitates in possessing entrepreneurial management capabilities. However, such skills and capabilities are a function of various factors. Existence of role models is one among such socio-demographic factors. The purpose of this research is to understand the impact of role models on entrepreneurial management capabilities of those who wish to take-up entrepreneurship as a career. A sample of 200 management students were selected and served with a questionnaire schedule and the responses are statistically tested through ANOVA and T-Test. The analysis concludes that role models exert a significantly positive influence on the entrepreneurial management capabilities. Among the five components considered, four, namely, autonomy, risk taking, pro activeness and drive and energy are significantly affected by the existence of role models. Whereas the component of self-confidence prevails uniformly across the sample despite the prevalence of role models. Thus the effect of role models on the entrepreneurial management capabilities proves to be highly significant.
Determining Stock Level Factors that Contributes Towards Inventory Control and Economy
Authors: Chalotra Vipul , Sharma Mamta
Published: September 2016

The present research reveals the factors that assist in determining the stock level which contributes towards the inventory control and economy in the 44 small scale firms functioning/operating in District Udhampur of J&K State. The primary data for the research purpose were collected from 44 small scale firms registered under DIC (District Industries Center) Udhampur in Jammu & Kashmir State. The main factors that contributed towards stock level determination found were: Requirement of funds, Consumption rate, Delivery lead time, and Price fluctuations. The results were analyzed with the help of ranking table and linear regression analysis. The results of ranking table revealed that the variable Requirement of funds came up with highest rank amongst all the four variables as it seems to be the main variable that mainly contributes towards the exact stock level determination. Further, the result of Linear Regression analysis portrayed that requirement of funds leads to stock level determinations as the results were found significant.
Environmental Scanning for Organisational Effectiveness: A Study of Select MSMEs of Jammu and Kashmir, India
Authors: Chauhan Vinay , Kaushal Sushma
Published: September 2016

Environmental scanning yields greater anticipatory management that provides important inputs for aquitision and use of information for planning and designing organization strategies. Apart from this, effective environmental scanning activities are likely to deal with threats and grasp the opportunities to finally link with enhancing organizational effectiveness. In fact this relationship matrix has led the researchers to conduct an environmental scanning through an examination of the existing status the components of the macro-environment vis-a-vis their relationship with the organizational effectiveness. There are a number of approaches, which describe the macro-environment, of which PEST analysis is regarded as the most common approach for considering the external business environment. Thus, the present study applies PEST analysis to scan the existing business environment. Jammu and Kashmir due to its peculiar political, geographical, economic, and socio-cultural features, had led its cost mountain economy become a distinctive identity. Despite the fact that the state has rich endowments, international relations with its neighbours vis-a-vis its impact on political environment also pose developmental challenges for the business units operating in the state. This has provided valid rationale for conducting the present. The environmental scanning is done through the perception of the select entrepreneurs operating MSMEs in the state of J & K. An impact analysis of environmental factors (PEST) on the organizational effectiveness is also done in the study. The findings of the study show that the political environment of the state that is not favourable for entrepreneural development whereas the rest of the other drivers of PEST i.e. economic environment, socio-cultural environment, and technological environment show a favourable response of the entrepreneurs. In terms of cause and effect relationship, it is found that the first two drivers of the PEST i.e. political and economic dimension impacts OE positively whereas the other two dimensions namely socio-cultural and technological impacts OE negatively but it is pertinent to mention that the impact is very less and is insigninificant. The study also suggests some of strategic options for developing and creating an enabling environment for successful entrepreneurial development to achieve integrated development of the state.
Marketing and Sickness in Micro and Small Enterprises in India: An Inter-State Analysis with Special Reference to the Engineering Enterprises in the District of Howrah, West Bengal
Authors: Dasgupta Manidipa
Published: September 2016

Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) [formerly Tiny and Small Scale Industries (SSIs)] are recognized as the main contributors in socio-economic advancement of any country especially the developing one like India. But due to some controllable and/or uncontrollable factors, MSEs cannot get themselves free from sickness. Sickness in MSEs expands its steps in all states in India amongst which West Bengal (WB) is specially notable mainly due to the continuous degradation of Micro and Small Engineering Enterprises of the then Birmingham/Sheffield of the East, Howrah. In WB, Howrah is considered to be the most incipient sickness-prone district for MSEs. Government effort to locate the probable causes of sickness of MSEs has exposed that in India, lack of demand of the product of MSEs in market is the most sever one, while in WB, marketing problem holds the maximum severity, followed by lack of demand which is also partially due to the marketing problem. The present paper aims at identifying how far the major responsible causes in marketing related area are liable in bringing about sickness in Micro and Small Engineering Enterprises.
Rural Dalit Women Entrepreneurs and Development Scenario: A Study
Authors: M. Amaldass , Gnanadev Neema
Published: September 2016

Pandit Nehru affirmed that women development/ empowerment is the basis for the substantial growth of a family, a village, or a nation. Development/upliftment of women is an essential ingredient of human development. Entrepreneurship development among the rural women folk would strengthen the village economy and promote regional development. The women entrepreneurs have proved that there is a source of immense untapped power in the womanhood of India (Margaret, 1992). Women undoubtedly are the backbone of the socio-economic-cultural aspects in the hill scenario. The subsistence agriculture which leads to low and unstable incomes, which in turn lead to a sizeable out-migration of male members that leads to only women headed families behind, and the role of women in the household economy becomes more important (Rawat, 2004). In the midst of limited opportunities, tough terrains and lack of resources, the contribution of women entrepreneurs to the society is enormous. An attempt was made to highlight the strategies and development aspects of rural women entrepreneurs in Almora district. Entrepreneurs who are engaged in self-employment and innovative entrepreneurial activities were selected for the study. A total of 50 samples were selected and the data were collected through interviews and focus groups. The study reveals various aspects related to rural women entrepreneurship and constraints that need attention so to empower women in their efforts toward integral development.
Are Motivations behind Women Entrepreneurship is Identical in Metros and Smaller Cities of Developing Countries? A Study on Dhaka and Khulna City of Bangladesh
Authors: Bose Tarun Kanti , Nasira Sultana
Published: September 2016

This study focuses on the factors that motivate the female entrepreneurs in metros and small cities of a developing country. Explorative and quantitative study was carried out to detect the exact scenario in the metro city of Dhaka and relatively smaller yet important city of Khulna. Women entrepreneurs of Dhaka city showed higher degree of motivations behind their entrepreneurial venturing in the motivating factors of personal traits, macro environment, education and training, financing, business infrastructure and inputs, investment security and safeguards, scope for internationalization, economic freedom, legislation, family, and innovation and creativity whereas women entrepreneurs of Khulna city tend to show higher importance on social setup, job and profession, easiness of entry and exit, network and management skills. The t-test result shows that there is no difference between women entrepreneurs of Dhaka and Khulna on business infrastructure and inputs, investment security and safeguards, legislation, easiness of entry and exit, and network, whereas, there is a difference between women entrepreneurs of Dhaka and Khulna on social set-up, personal traits, macro environment, education and training, financing, scope for internationalization, economic freedom, job and profession, family, and innovation & creativity.
Design of Optical Thin Film Filter for Sensor Network
Authors: Hosseini Vahideh Khadem , Ahmadi Mohammad Taghi
Published: September 2016

Human body detection is very important especially in the countries prone to earthquakes. Fabry-Perot filter as an ideal option in this field needs to be explored. This filter is useful for detection of objects that have temperature around that of the human body. In the presented research, an optical thin film Fabry-Perot filter (FPF) at the wavelength about 8 um to 14 um is investigated. The important factors on transmission spectrum and the band width of filter are discussed. Additionally structural factors such as layers material and their thickness are explored. Various materials with high and low refractive index are examined by TFCalc3.5 for thin film layers. Germanium (Ge) with the refractive index 4.20 is selected for layer with high refractive index and Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) with the refractive index 1.46 is selected for low refractive index layer. Our simulation results lead to optimum parameters as: Germanium layer with 196nm thickness and Silicon Dioxide layer with 451nm thickness. Simulation of proposed filter indicated that the transfer coefficient is more than 90% in desired spectrum. Filter structure can be used on Infrared detectors to improve their resolutions and detection.
Efficient Security for Data Communication in Wireless Sensor Networks using Raspberry PI
Authors: Jadhav Shruti V , Acharya Ajay
Published: September 2016

Information technology finds its wide application in many fields like healthcare, border security etc. where security of information is very important. With advancement in wireless sensor networks, gathering and processing of data have become much easier and affordable, due to its wide application, providing security to data is required. This work proposes a prototype that uses Raspberry Pi as secure sensor node that performs both regular encryption and XML encryption to provide security to the data collected by sensor nodes and transmit it to the master node in the WSN. The design uses a temperature sensor which can be replaced by any other sensor going forward and can be used in the field of healthcare, border security, and many other areas. The data are collected, processed, encrypted, and wirelessly communicated to the master node. Since there is direct interfacing between the sensor and Raspberry Pi, there is no risk of data loss. The idea of this paper is to meet the goal of comparing the two encryption techniques in terms of processing time and number of characters and to see which is better in terms of both the parameters.
Anywhere at Anytime Internet: Google Loon Balloons
Authors: George Sheba Jiju , Babu K. R. Remesh
Published: September 2016

Loon Balloons, the network of balloons which provides Internet for people in rural and remote area, is a recent project undertaken by Google. Though Internet is a global network, large number of people does not have access to it. Loon technology is also helpful in disaster management, e.g.: during floods in Kashmir, where a reliable communication system was not available, Google Loon Balloons could be one of the solutions. These balloons with the help of Wi-Fi technology, help to attain unlimited connectivity to the global community of internet. The Loon Balloons provide connectivity to a ground area of about 40 km in diameter using LTE. Using LTE enabled devices and also through their phones, people can directly access the Internet. Google implemented Loon project in New Zealand in June 2013 as a pilot experiment and now improvements are being made in Loon technology based on the pilot test results.
Secure Watermarking using Diophantine Equations for Authentication and Recovery
Authors: Nair Jayashree , Padma T.
Published: September 2016

This paper describes an authentication scheme that uses Diophantine equations based generation of the secret locations to embed the authentication and recovery watermark in the DWT sub-bands. The security lies in the difficulty of finding a solution to the Diophantine equation. The scheme uses the content invariant features of the image as a self-authenticating watermark and a quantized down sampled approximation of the original image as a recovery watermark for visual authentication, both embedded securely using secret locations generated from solution of the Diophantine equations formed from the PQ sequences. The scheme is mildly robust to Jpeg compression and highly robust to Jpeg2000 compression. The scheme also ensures highly imperceptible watermarked images as the spatio –frequency properties of DWT are utilized to embed the dual watermarks.
Restricted Constraints in the Problem of Maximum Attainable Flow in Minimum Cost in a Network
Authors: Ahmed Nazimuddin , Duttadeka Shobha
Published: September 2016

In this paper we have considered a version of restricted constraints in the problem of maximum attainable flow (capacity) in minimum cost (distance) in a network (Ahmed, Das, & Purusotham, 2012b). By restricted constraints one means that the link(s) (cities or stations or nodes) are completed (or visited) in such a way that a particular link is to be preceded (completed or visited) by another link (precedence relation need not be immediate). Here the aim is to obtained an optimal route of a more realistic situation as to scheduling a restricted constraints to a maximum flows at a minimum cost from a source to a destination. The distance (cost) and arc capacity between any two stations are given.
Negative Social Aspects of Tourism and Sustainable Development: An Empirical Study
Authors: Chakrabarty Amit Kumar
Published: September 2016

This paper deals with the identification of negative social aspects of tourism that hinders the sustainable tourism development and well being seriously. Identification is exclusively based on opinion of sample tourist vis-a-vis opinion of local people. A methodology has been framed to determine the major, minor and other negative social aspects of tourism. Applying statistical technique on respondents opinion the author identified five major negative social aspects of West Bengal tourism viz. Growth of unscientific massage parlors, Exploitation on tourists, over pricing, commercialization of countrys culture/customs and water pollution which seriously affects the growth of sustainable tourism development. Identified minor negative social aspects are Littering, Pick pocketing, Theft and Female prostitution, also affects tourism by and large. Apart from these the author identified numerous negative social aspects which affects the industry occasionally, as per capacity. The author suggests that sound Security Systems Management Process at operational level should be implemented by the government to arrest the growth of these negative aspects so that they can be nipped in the bud. Other wise the motto of sustainable development and well being of studied area will be impeded.