Knowledge Management Skills for 21st Century Library Professionals in India: A Study

In any kind of educational institute and organization, libraries are playing a crucial role. For the development of library services, skillful library professionals are indispensable. Without knowledge management skills, no one can provide essential services to the users. “Library is a growing organism” by S.R. Ranganathan (1931), based on his law, as library professionals have to adopt futuristic skills for better user services. The study investigates knowledge management skills and the chief strengths of library and information science professionals in India. For this study, data collected from the Institute of National Importance and Central Universities around India. The principal aim of this study is to understand the current scenario and data literacy skills of library professionals. The study found that 98.7% of respondents qualified for library and information science postgraduate and above. They highlighted the very important skills respondents are digital literacy skills (65.9%), soft skills (70%), organization skills (67.7%), leadership skills (70%), and English language skills (52.4%)

Evidence-based assessment of antiosteoporotic activity of petroleum-ether extract of Cissus quadrangularis Linn. on ovariectomy-induced osteoporosis

The increasing incidence of postmenopausal osteoporosis and its related fractures have become global health issues in the recent days. Postmenopausal osteoporosis is the most frequent metabolic bone disease; it is characterized by a rapid loss of mineralized bone tissue. Hormone replacement therapy has proven efficacious in preventing bone loss but not desirable to many women due to its side-effects. Therefore we are in need to search the natural compounds for a treatment of postmenopausal symptoms in women with no toxic effects. In the present study, we have evaluated the effect of petroleum-ether extract of Cissus quadrangularis Linn. (CQ), a plant used in folk medicine, on an osteoporotic rat model developed by ovariectomy. In this experiment, healthy female Wistar rats were divided into four groups of six animals each. Group 1 was sham operated. All the remaining groups were ovariectomized. Group 2 was fed with an equivolume of saline and served as ovariectomized control (OVX). Groups 3 and 4 were orally treated with raloxifene (5.4 mg/kg) and petroleum-ether extract of CQ (500 mg/kg), respectively, for 3 months. The findings were assessed on the basis of animal weight, morphology of femur, and histochemical localization of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) (an osteoblastic marker) and tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) (an osteoclastic marker) in upper end of femur. The study revealed for the first time that the petroleum-ether extract of CQ reduced bone loss, as evidenced by the weight gain in femur, and also reduced the osteoclastic activity there by facilitating bone formation when compared to the OVX group. The osteoclastic activity was confirmed by TRAP staining, and the bone formation was assessed by ALP staining in the femur sections. The color intensity of TRAP and ALP enzymes from the images were evaluated by image analysis software developed locally. The effect of CQ was found to be effective on both enzymes, and it might be a potential candidate for prevention and treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis. The biological activity of CQ on bone may be attributed to the phytogenic steroids present in it

Categorically Redeeming Graham v Florida and Miller v Alabama: Why the Eighth Amendment Guarantees All Juvenile Defendants a Constitutional Right to a Parole Hearing

The Supreme Court has held that life without parole is an unconstitutional sentence for nearly all juvenile defendants—except for a select few that the criminal justice system deems irredeemable. Though this represents a positive development in the Court’s juvenile sentencing jurisprudence, it has left the case law deeply unsettled. For instance, the Court has held that redeemable juveniles are all entitled to a “meaningful opportunity to obtain release,” but it has failed to explicitly define what that constitutional mandate means in practice. On top of that, the Court has concluded that not even expert psychologists can determine at sentencing whether a juvenile is irredeemable. However, lower courts may still sentence certain juvenile homicide defendants to life without parole if they can somehow make that determination. This Comment addresses questions left unanswered in the wake of the Court’s recent juvenile sentencing cases. Because the Court has held that conclusively determining whether a juvenile defendant is irredeemable at sentencing is a fraught endeavor, and that a meaningful opportunity to obtain release means more than simply a release immediately before a defendant’s specific life expectancy, this Comment argues that the Eighth Amendment provides a constitutional right to a timely parole hearing with the presumption of release for all juvenile defendants. The ultimate focus of this Comment is to address the question that instituting a constitutional right to a parole hearing for juvenile defendants will inevitably pose: When must that parole hearing occur? Drawing on state legislative enactments, available parole data, and the Court’s analysis in its prior decisions, this Comment argues that juvenile defendants have a constitutional right to a parole hearing before the twenty-sixth year of their respective sentences

Categorically Redeeming Graham v Florida and Miller v Alabama: Why the Eighth Amendment Guarantees All Juvenile Defendants a Constitutional Right to a Parole Hearing

The Supreme Court has held that life without parole is an unconstitutional sentence for nearly all juvenile defendants—except for a select few that the criminal justice system deems irredeemable. Though this represents a positive development in the Court’s juvenile sentencing jurisprudence, it has left the case law deeply unsettled. For instance, the Court has held that redeemable juveniles are all entitled to a “meaningful opportunity to obtain release,” but it has failed to explicitly define what that constitutional mandate means in practice. On top of that, the Court has concluded that not even expert psychologists can determine at sentencing whether a juvenile is irredeemable. However, lower courts may still sentence certain juvenile homicide defendants to life without parole if they can somehow make that determination. This Comment addresses questions left unanswered in the wake of the Court’s recent juvenile sentencing cases. Because the Court has held that conclusively determining whether a juvenile defendant is irredeemable at sentencing is a fraught endeavor, and that a meaningful opportunity to obtain release means more than simply a release immediately before a defendant’s specific life expectancy, this Comment argues that the Eighth Amendment provides a constitutional right to a timely parole hearing with the presumption of release for all juvenile defendants. The ultimate focus of this Comment is to address the question that instituting a constitutional right to a parole hearing for juvenile defendants will inevitably pose: When must that parole hearing occur? Drawing on state legislative enactments, available parole data, and the Court’s analysis in its prior decisions, this Comment argues that juvenile defendants have a constitutional right to a parole hearing before the twenty-sixth year of their respective sentences

Synthesis and characterization of hydrogen bonded co-crystals for application asorganic ferroelectrics

Ferroelectrics are a class of functional materials that display the property of possessing two or more distinct states of electrical polarization, which are switchable by the application of an external electric field. Among these materials, Organic Ferroelectrics has recently become a growing field of research.1In the recent past, low cost Organic Electronic Devices (OED) havegenerated significant interest for applications in sustainable energy, electro-optical devices, memory storage and so on. Organic devices offer advantages of ease of fabrication, light weight, lower cost, as compared to the conventional ferroelectric materials.The formation of molecular co-crystals based on principles of supramolecular chemistry i.e.linking molecules through secondary bonding such as the Hydrogen Bond, offers a novel design approach.This type of design also offers a flexibility of working with molecules which are not asymmetric (like conventional perovskites), but may display ferroelectric properties due to phenomena such as proton transfer in the hydrogen bond. Till date, very few materials systems have been developed which exhibit the ferroelectric behavior on account of hydrogen bond.2 The number of materials and understanding of such materials is limited in the literature and correlation between the hydrogen bond and ferroelectricity is not well understood. This work reports the successful synthesis of novel molecular co-crystals which could be potentially useful in organic ferroelectric development. New molecular co-crystals were synthesized starting from a low molecular weight organic Acid-Base combination and were studied using the characterization techniques of XRD, NMR, TGA, DSC, UV-VIS. An estimation of dielectric properties was attempted at room and low temperature.Master of Engineering (MSE

Composite axilens-axicon diffractive optical elements for generation of ring patterns with high focal depth

A binary Fresnel Zone Axilens (FZA) is designed for the infinite conjugate mode and the phase profile of a refractive axicon is combined with it to generate a composite Diffractive Optical Element (DOE). The FZA designed for two focal lengths generates a line focus along the propagation direction extending between the two focal planes. The ring pattern generated by the axicon is focused through this distance and the radius of the ring depends on the propagation distance. Hence, the radius of the focused ring pattern can be tuned, during the design process, within the two focal planes. The integration of the two functions was carried out by shifting the location of zones of FZA with respect to the phase profile of the refractive axicon resulting in a binary composite DOE. The FZAs and axicons were designed for different focal depth values and base angles respectively, in order to achieve different ring radii within the focal depth of each element. The elements were simulated using scalar diffraction formula and their focusing characteristics were analyzed. The DOEs were fabricated using electron beam direct writing and evaluated using a fiber coupled diode laser. The tunable ring patterns generated by the DOEs have prospective applications in microdrilling as well as microfabrication of circular diffractive and refractive optical elements. © (2016) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only