Indian Contribution to Open Access Scholarly Publishing: A Case Study of DOAJ

India has been a cradle of knowledge for thousands of years. Presently it has significant advantages in the 21st century knowledge race due to one of the largest higher education system in the world. It generates a lot of information in the form of research papers, project reports, books, conference papers, theses, dissertations, articles, and so on. Therefore, it is necessary to preserve, manage and make it accessible to the academic community in particular for sharing and visualizing their innovations for the betterment of society as a whole. The present study attempts to evaluate the initiatives taken by India to make this intellectual output accessible for all by publishing them in Open Access journals. The results revealed that India is continuously contributing in Open Access scholarly publishing as some of the premier institutions, particularly in the science and technology area, are providing open access to their research publications. The position of India in terms of number of journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is 7th in the world, well ahead of countries such as China, Australia, and Japan

Impact of New Technology on Reading Habits: A Glimpse on the World Literature

Reading helps in all-round development of a person from his birth to death. It adds new sight to eyes and new wisdom to mind. A dump person becomes a communicator and a lame climbs mountains of knowledge through reading. However, in the modern multimedia society, the radio, television, cell phone, computer and the Internet have captured a big slice of time and reading has taken a back seat. These new gadgets of technology have become the “Time Eating Machine” and reading has almost become a closed book. Children, youth and adults alike are more inclined towards new technology for information, entertainment and pleasure. This paper attempts to summarize the literature available worldwide on this issue to identify the impact of new technology on reading habits

TyG index and insulin resistance in beta-thalassemia

Insulin resistance (IR) underlies some glucose metabolism abnormalities in thalassemia major. Recently, triglyceride glucose index (TyG) has been proposed for evaluating insulin resistance as a simple, low cost, and accessible tool. In this study, the TyG index were studied for IR monitoring in beta-thalassemia major (βTM) patients. The participants were 90 βTM patients on chronic regular transfusion therapy. The TyG index was computed based on fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and triglyceride (TG). The time gap between the first and the second TyG index survey (TyG.1 and TyG.2) was 2 years. The agreement between TyG and HOMA-IR were studied with the extension of limit of agreement (LOA). We included 90 patients 53.3 % men (n = 48). Among them, 14.4 % (14.6 % male, 14.3 % female) had impaired fasting glucose level (e.g., 100–125 mg/dl) at first test. It rose to 37.8 % (27.1 % male, 50 % female) during 2 years. Based on TyG.1, the 34.4 % of patients was detected as IR cases. After 2 years, the percent of IR based on TyG.2 was 82.2 %. The mean differences between TyG.1 and TyG.2 and their differences from the considered cutoff values were significant (P < 0.001). The prediction limits between TyG and HOMA-IR had good agreement. These data may suggest the use of TyG index for detection/monitoring of IR in βTM patients. © 2015, Research Society for Study of Diabetes in India

A Review on Energy Consumption Optimization Techniques in IoT Based Smart Building Environments

In recent years, due to the unnecessary wastage of electrical energy in residential buildings, the requirement of energy optimization and user comfort has gained vital importance. In the literature, various techniques have been proposed addressing the energy optimization problem. The goal of each technique was to maintain a balance between user comfort and energy requirements such that the user can achieve the desired comfort level with the minimum amount of energy consumption. Researchers have addressed the issue with the help of different optimization algorithms and variations in the parameters to reduce energy consumption. To the best of our knowledge, this problem is not solved yet due to its challenging nature. The gap in the literature is due to the advancements in the technology and drawbacks of the optimization algorithms and the introduction of different new optimization algorithms. Further, many newly proposed optimization algorithms which have produced better accuracy on the benchmark instances but have not been applied yet for the optimization of energy consumption in smart homes. In this paper, we have carried out a detailed literature review of the techniques used for the optimization of energy consumption and scheduling in smart homes. The detailed discussion has been carried out on different factors contributing towards thermal comfort, visual comfort, and air quality comfort. We have also reviewed the fog and edge computing techniques used in smart homes

Temperature Dependent Piezoelectric Properties of Lead-Free (1-x)K0.6Na0.4NbO3–xBiFeO3 Ceramics

(1-x)K0.4Na0.6NbO3–xBiFeO3 lead-free piezoelectric ceramics were successfully prepared in a single perovskite phase using the conventional solid-state synthesis. Relative permittivity (εr) as a function of temperature indicated that small additions of BiFeO3 not only broadened and lowered the cubic to tetragonal phase transition (TC) but also shifted the tetragonal to orthorhombic phase transition (TO–T) toward room temperature (RT). Ceramics with x = 1 mol.% showed optimum properties with small and large signal piezoelectric coefficient, d33 = 182 pC/N and d∗33 = 250 pm/V, respectively, electromechanical coupling coefficient, kp = 50%, and TC = 355°C. kp varied by ∼5% from RT to 90°C, while d∗33 showed a variation of ∼15% from RT to 75°C, indicating that piezoelectric properties were stable with temperature in the orthorhombic phase field. However, above the onset of TO–T, the properties monotonically degraded in the tetragonal phase field as TC was approached

The effect of spice principles on body composition and lipogenesis in rats

Inclusion of a spice like red pepper fruit and kokum powder in the diet led to a lowering of total lipids, particularly triglycerides in the liver. The total body fat was lowered in animals fed red pepper or capsaicin but not in animals fed kokum powder which had less effect on the total animal body wt. content. Hyperlipogensis and hypertriglyceridemia caused by fructose feeding were significantly decreased in capsaicin-​fed animals. Lipogenesis was decreased as reflected by the reduced activities of the key lipogenic enzymes obsd. in albino rats