Interplay of Diverse Atmospheres

44-45There is a constant give and take between different compositions making up these ‘diverse’ atmospheres

A Study of Human Process Research Practices Employed by the Construction Organisations in India

The best performing organisations always aspire to create good human resource development (HRD) climate in the teams. To achieve this state the management needs to employ good HR practices on a continuous basis across the organisation. For their effective implementation, management need to have information and feedback about the performance of existing processes and systems. The practice of collecting process data in a scientific manner and further applying it to diagnose the HR problems and  organizational issues is a key aspect in ‘human process research’ .This study attempts to investigate the extent of such action research practices employed in construction organisations in India. Another objective of the study is to find out an association that exist between such practices score and the size of the organisations. For this study primary data has been collected through a structured questionnaire survey in which 100 professionals working in the construction organizations (Contractors, Consultants, and Developers) were selected by random sampling method. The data collected was analysed through the application of percentages and the one way ANOVA, Correlation technique using the statistical application. The study has revealed that only 41% of organisations are meeting the set expectations of implementing ‘Human process research’ practices for understanding the processes, systems and challenges in the construction organizations in India. The organisations were categorized into three classes for exploring the significant differences in the scores of practices. From this study it has been observed that there is no significant difference in the ‘Human process research practices’ among the small sized organization (upto 134 employees), medium sized organisations (up to 135-5000 employees) and the large sized organisations (more than 5000) employees. The study also revealed that there is no significant relationship exists in the scores of practices and the size of organisations. Keywords: HRD, Human process research, HRD Climate, Organisational surveys

Impact of Technology on Business Values and Marketing in Insurance Sector in India

Today Internet has provided brand new distribution channels to the Insurers. The technology has enabled the Insurer to innovate new products, provide better customer service and deeper and wider insurance coverage to them. On insurance front, people started relying on internet to research about the kinds of products. However, with each passing year, digital insurance industry gradually expanded its footprints in India. E-business affects the whole business and the value chains in which it operates. It enables a much more integrated level of collaboration between the different components of a value chain than ever before. Adopting e-Business also allows companies to reduce costs and improve customer response time. This paper highlights Changing Scenario, impact, Latest Trends, Challenges to Enhance Technology in Insurance Sector and Penetration of e-commerce in the Indian Insurance Industry

Implementation of Image Processing and Classification Techniques on EEG Images for Emotion Recognition System

The target paper aims at recognizing emotions using miscellaneous stimulus domains such as Electroencephalography (EEG) Images. The present study focuses on the recognition of emotions and extracting active regions, by using image processing and classification techniques. The study was performed using the data from 10 volunteers experiencing three emotional states relax, happy and sad. By applying thresholding and Sobel Edge detection technique, active regions were extracted. The Principle Component Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminate Analysis (LDA) classification techniques were enforced on the results respectively. The techniques resulted in effective outcomes, which can further be used for compelling Emotion Recognition System. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.160411

Data Hiding in Binary Images Using Orthogonal Embedding - A High Capacity Approach

The growth of high speed computer networks and the Internet, in particular, has increased the ease of Information Communication. In comparison with Analog media, Digital media offers several distinct advantages such as high quality, easy editing, high fidelity copying, compression etc. But this type advancement in the field of data communication in other sense has hiked the fear of getting the data snooped at the time of sending it from the sender to the receiver. Information Security is becoming an inseparable part of Data Communication. In order to address this Information Security, Digital Watermarking plays an important role. Watermarking Techniques are used to hide a small amount of data in such a way that no one apart from the sender and intended recipient even realizes there is a hidden message. This paper proposed a high capacity data hiding approach for binary images in morphological transform domain for authentication purpose so that the image will look unchanged to human visual system

RANDOMIZED COMPARISON OF EFFICACY, DURATION OF ACTION, ADVERSE REACTIONS AND COST EFFECTIVENESS OF PENTAZOCINE AND TRAMADOL ON RELIEF OF POST OPERATIVE PAIN

Background: Many options are available for the treatment of postoperative pain. By considering patients’ preferences and making an individualized assessment of the risks and benefits of each treatment modality, the clinician can optimize the postoperative analgesic regimen for each patient. Material method: Female patients of age between 30 to 60 years undergoing elective abdominal and vaginal hysterectomies were included in this study. Hysterectomies performed under spinal anesthesia. Group I constituted patients who received Tramadol 50 mg intravenously; Group II constituted patients who received Pentazocine 30 mg intravenously for post-operative analgesia. The study drugs were administered postoperatively to the patients after the effect of spinal anesthesia wears off and the patient complained of pain. Before administering the study drug an assessment Visual analogue score of was done, and after giving the study drug, the pain was assessed subjectively at 0 minutes and at every 30 minutes for 6 hrs. Each patient’s pain was recorded on a scale 0-10 by their response to a visual analogue pain scale. The onset of analgesic action, time at which maximum pain relief occurs, duration of minimal pain, a total duration of analgesic action and any acute side effects were noted, the average cost-effective ratio was studied. Results: The range of onset of analgesia in both the groups was 10 to 20 minutes when comparing the mean value of onset of analgesia of the two groups, the mean value of the tramadol group was 14.92 ± 3.89 minutes and that of pentazocine was 14.66 ± 3.23 minutes. The range of duration of analgesia in the two groups was the same, which was 5 to 6 hours. The mean duration of postoperative analgesia in the tramadol group was 5.77 ± 0.33 hours, whereas in the pentazocine group it was 5.67 ± 0.39 hours. In the tramadol group 45 patients (90%) had only mild pain and 5 patients (10%) had moderate pain. Whereas in pentazocine group 40 (80%) patients had mild pain and 10 patients (20%) had moderate pain. The duration of minimal pain in both groups was 1.5 hours (from 2 to 3.5 hours). The common side effects were nausea, vomiting, headache, drowsiness, respiratory depression. Conclusion: We conclude that intravenous tramadol 50 mg and intravenous pentazocine 30 mg produced adequate postoperative analgesia and intravenous tramadol 50 mg was safe and more cost effective. &nbsp

Effective Ways of Communicating Science to Common People

Due importance is not accorded by scientists to public outreach activities, probably due to their busy research and administrative schedule. However, even if they want to devote their time they cannot do it in a sustained manner because of “(over) specialization”. Creative science communication is hindered by alleged ‘egoist’ feeling that it is an act of “copying” and “over-simplification” making the purists cringe to the core. However, it must be borne in mind that all current science is combinatorial. It derives from a diverse set of disciplines and research that has already been done by generations. It’s a networked knowledge that needs to be effectively communicated to the masses by combining the disparate pieces of inspiration, knowledge, skill and talent that are accumulated over the lifetime. These need to be stitched together or recombined into new creations for easy understanding and consumption of the common people. Science communicators need to cross-pollinate to create and evolve new ideas.Science communication to the common people needs an assortment of techniques that can appeal to the “interested” and “non-interested” participants as well. Both these constituents are an important segment, hence efforts should be made to make science communication a participatory event rather than a unidirectional flow of information. The participatory model should strive at creating an ambience of reflection and rumination, on the ideas that are floating around, so that the information that is being discussed can seep into the psyche of interested as well as un-interested participants. Hence, the effective communication of a scientific idea also rests on the shoulders of the participant, and not just on the communicator. This will induce the communicator to explore new, innovative and effective ways to reach the audience.The new integrated social media platform can be harnessed since it provides an opportunity to effectively engage with a wide spectrum of common people comprising students, teachers, academicians, aspiring scientists and technologists, not just locally but globally. This approach will encourage wide participation and greater returns on time invested. It will also give quantifiable metrics on their impact

Implementation of Robotic arm control with Emotiv Epoc

Brain Computer Interface (BCI) has opened up a new hope for people suffering from severe motor disabilities, having no physical activities caused due to disease or injury to the central or peripheral nervous system. A BCI based robotic arm movement control is designed and implemented. The proposed system acquires data from the scalp of subjects a group of sensors. Emotiv EPOC a commercially available EEG headset is used, which analyzes the acquired EEG signals real time. The signals are processed and accordingly commands are issued for different movements which will be based on the characteristic patterns for various facial expressions, human emotions and cognitive actions. The idea is to combine the user intent with a robotic arm to achieve the user initiated motor movements

Comparison of combination metformin-vildagliptin versus metformin-glimepiride in patients of type 2 diabetes mellitus with inadequately controlled metformin monotherapy

Background: Metformin has been recommended as a first-line therapy for T2DM in many guidelines. Adding a sulfonylurea to metformin has been a conventional and gold standard for decades to achieve tight glycaemic control. dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors, an incretin-based therapy has emerged as important adjunctive drugs in T2DM. Therefore, the present study was planned to evaluate and compare the efficacy and safety of combination metformin-vildagliptin and metformin-glimepiride in patients of T2DM inadequately controlled with metformin monotherapy.Methods: A total 45 patients were allocated to each metformin-vildagliptin group and metformin-glimepiride group. Fasting plasma glucose, post prandial plasma glucose, body weight, adverse events were recorded at 0 week, 6 weeks, and 12 weeks. Glycosylated haemoglobin was recorded at 0 week and 12 weeks.Results: There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups (p>0.05) at the end of 12 weeks in the mean percentage reduction in FPG, PPPG and HbA1c.There was statistically highly significant (p0.05).Conclusions: In patients of T2DM with inadequately controlled metformin monotherapy, combination metformin-vildagliptin provides comparable efficacy in terms of FPG, PPPG and HbA1c to that of combination metformin-glimepiride with no risk of weight gain reduction in risk of hypoglycemic events