Organized Retailing in India: Issues and Outlook

Domestic and multinational corporations have begun to enter retailing in India, raising concerns that they will destroy the millions of small stores and street vendor businesses that presently dominate retailing in the country. Policymakers know that corporate retailers can improve the efficiency and productivity of retailing and distribution in India, but they are also concerned about possible harm to small businesses and loss of jobs among those who might not have the skills and training needed to find alternative employment. We examine whether corporate retailing has already harmed small retail businesses in India (and to what extent if so) and how much damage might occur in the future. We discuss how corporate retailing might benefit small retailers and consumers and consider how small and large retailers might coexist in a country where, in the next twenty years, 40% of the population and 70% of gross domestic product may be concentrated in urban areas. We consider problems that may arise if organized retailing grows and suggest ways in which such problems could be addressed by policymakers

Personal concepts of stability in the second half of life

The study contributes to the conceptualization of stability in the development of later life by answering four questions: Are there certain concepts of no-change in the population of aging adults? What are the issues that people combine with the idea of no-change? Are the issues of different importance for different groups? What kind of time perspective is expressed in their expectations of no-change? Stability expectations were investigated within a representative sample of about 2934 Germans aged 40-85 who live independently in the community. By means of a sentence completion instrument subjects provided spontaneous statements about self and life conceptions. Content analysis indicated clearly two different concepts of stability among the respondents in the second half of life: One concerns the continuation of gains, the other the maintenance of the status quo. One third of the expectations deals with further gains. Two thirds of the statements, however, refers to the maintenance of the status quo. Expected maintenance of the status quo showed a strong association with older age. In terms of Raynor's [Raynor, J. O. (1982). A theory of personal functioning and change. In J. O. Raynor &amp; E. Entin (Eds.), Motivation, career striving and aging (pp. 249-302). Washington: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation] theory of the time-bound sense of self, the concept 'continuation of gains' reflects a future sense of self, while the concept 'maintenance of the status quo' refers to a more present sense of self. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.</p

Awareness, Practices and Treatment Seeking Behavior of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients in Delhi

Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a multisystem disorder that is associated with number of complications. Patient’s awareness and practices are crucial components in reducing the burden of diseases and its complications.Aim: To assess patient’s knowledge about their disease and its complications, practices, treatment seeking behavior and average expenditure incurred by its management.Subjects and Methods: A community based cross‑sectional study was conducted in rural and urban slum areas of Delhi selecting a total of 98 diabetic patients diagnosed during the two community surveys and interviewed using pretested and predesigned questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS software, version 17 (Chicago II, USA). Chi‑square, fisher or Mann–Whitney tests were used for test of significance and considered statistically significant at P &lt; 0.05.Results: Of 98 participants, 31.6% (31/98) were from urban slum area, and 68.4% (67/98) were from the rural area. In both urban and rural areas, majority were Hindu, married, literate and unemployed. Significantly less subjects (61.3%, 19/31) of urban slum area than of rural area (85.1%, 57/67) could name at least one complication of DM (P &lt; 0.01, odds ratio [OR] =3.6, 95% confidence interval [CI] =1.3–9.6). Majority of participants in both urban slum and rural area have knowledge about at least one component of management but significantly lesser in urban (83.9%, 26/31) than rural area (97.0%, 65/67) were reported (P = 0.02, OR = 6.2, 95% CI = 1.1–34.2). Significantly more subjects (29.0%, 9/31) in urban slum area than rural areas (7.5%, 5/67) reported that they were not taking any treatment for DM (P &lt; 0.01, OR = 0.2, 95% CI = 0.1–0.6). In urban area, 32.2% (10/31) patients told that it is a burden on their family while in rural area 44.7% (30/67) of the patients told that they have to squeeze money from the family expenditure to afford drugs.Conclusion: Patients need to be made aware of the asymptomatic phase of DM and its long‑term complications. At the same time, efforts should be made to sensitize them about the importance of taking regular treatment and management.Keywords: Diabetic mellitus type 2, Economic impact, Knowledge, Practice

Study of Ventilator Associated Pneumonia in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: characteristics, risk factors and outcome

Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (VAP), the nosocomial pneumonia developing in mechanically ventilated patients after 48 hours of mechanical ventilation, is the second most common nosocomial infection.Therefore, there is a vital need to study the etiology and risk factors associated with VAP in neonates. Neonates admitted to neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), over a period of 1 year and who required mechanical ventilation for more than 48 hours were enrolled consecutively into the study. Diagnosis of VAP was made by the guidelines given by National Nosocomial infection Surveillance System (NNIS, 1996). Semi-quantitative assay of endotracheal aspirate was used for microbiological diagnoses of VAP. 105CFU/ml was taken as the cut off between evidence of pathological infection and colonization. The risk factors such as birth weight, prematurity (gestational age < 37 weeks), duration of mechanical ventilation, number of reintubations, length of hospital stay, primary diagnosis of neonate, postnatal age and small for gestational age (SGA) were studied for the development of VAP. Risk factors found significant on bivariate analysis were subjected to multiple regression analysis to determine the most important predictors of VAP. The study group comprised of 98 neonates out of which, 30 neonates developed VAP (30.6%). VAP rates were 37.2 per 1000 days of mechanical ventilation. Most common bacterial isolated from endotracheal aspirate of VAP patients was Klebsiella spp (32.8%), E.coli (23.2%) and Acinetobacter (17.8%) being the other two common organisms. Very low birth weight

Competitive Priorities and Strategic Consensus in Emerging Economies: Evidence from India

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the competitive priorities of manufacturers in India, and examine the level of agreement or strategic consensus between senior executives and manufacturing managers on manufacturing competitive priorities in light of the prevalent culture. Design/methodology/approach – Survey data collected from 156 respondents from 78 manufacturing units based on a national sample in India are used to test the hypotheses using the paired samples t‐tests and multivariate analysis of variance. Findings – A relatively high emphasis by both levels of managers on quality, compared to the other three competitive priorities, is noteworthy and consistent with the global trends. The emphasis on delivery is a close second. Differences in competitive priorities exist across managerial levels in India despite the high power distance and low individualism. Research limitations/implications – The effect of ownership as private or public company was examined and no significant differences found, but data could not be collected on the ownership structure such as wholly owned domestic firms, foreign subsidiaries, or joint ventures. and whether a firm is a supplier to a multinational company. It may also be noted that a majority of the manufacturing companies in this paper came from three industries – chemicals, fabricated metals, and electronic and electrical equipment – and, hence, the findings of the paper might have been unduly influenced by the prevalent practices in these industries. Practical implications – The paper informs global managers and firms seeking to outsource to, or invest in, India that the Indian managers place significantly high emphasis on quality and delivery, but not as much on product variety or ability to make frequent changes to product design and production volume. The managers in India need to take note of prevailing differences in managerial priorities and efforts need to be made such that the priorities are aligned and manufacturing strategy may be unified and coordinated. Originality/value – In the Indian context, this is the first study that deployed multiple respondents to understand the manufacturing competitive priorities, and also the first to examine strategic consensus in operations strategy

A Note on the Determination of Ricochet Trace of Small arms Ammunition

A method of obtaining the relationship between various parameters governing the ricochet phenomenon of a projectile has been described. The experimental procedures for determining such parameters and their use have also been discussed

Biomimetic surface functionalization of clinically relevant metals used as orthopaedic and dental implants

Titanium and its alloys or tantalum (Ta) are materials used in orthopaedic and dental implants due to their excellent mechanical properties and biocompatibility. However, their bioactivity and osteoconductivity is low. With a view to improving the bioactivity of these materials we hypothesised that the surface of Ta and TiAl6V4 can be functionalised with biomimetic, amorphous nano-sized calcium phosphate (CaP) apatite-like deposits, instead of creating uniform coatings, which can lead to flaking, delamination and poor adherence. We used Ta and TiAl6V4 metal discs with smooth and rough surfaces. Amorphous CaP apatite-like particles were deposited on the different surfaces by a biomimetic rapid two-step soaking method using concentrated simulated body fluid (SBF) solutions without a pre-treatment of the metal surfaces to induce CaP deposition. Immersion times in the second SBF solution of 48 and 18 h for Ta and TiAl6V4 respectively produced CaP deposits composed of amorphous globular nano-sized particles that also contained Mg, C and O. Longer immersion times produced more uniform coatings as well as an undesired calcite mineral phase. Prediction of in vivo behaviour by immersion in regular SBF showed that the obtained CaP deposits would act as a catalyst to rapidly form a Ca deficient CaP layer that also incorporates Mg. The amorphous CaP apatite-like deposits promoted initial attachment, proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells. Finally, we used our method to functionalise 3D porous structures of titanium alloy made by selective laser sintering. Our study uses a novel and cost-effective approach to functionalise clinically relevant metal surfaces in order to increase the bioactivity of these materials, which could improve their clinical performance

Humoral Response Induced by Prime-Boost Vaccination with the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and mRNA BNT162b2 Vaccines in a Teriflunomide-Treated Multiple Sclerosis Patient.

Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) are treated with drugs that may impact immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. Evaluation of "prime-boost" (heterologous) vaccination regimens including a first administration of a viral vector-based vaccine and a second one of an mRNA-based vaccine in such patients has not yet been completed. Here, we present the anti-spike protein S humoral response, including the neutralizing antibody response, in a 54-year-old MS patient who had been treated with teriflunomide for the past 2 years and who received a heterologous ChAdOx1 nCoV-19/ BNT162b2 vaccination regimen. The results showed a very strong anti-S IgG response and a good neutralizing antibody response. These results show that teriflunomide did not prevent the development of a satisfactory humoral response in this MS patient after vaccination with a ChAdOx1 nCoV-19/ BNT162b2 prime-boost protocol

Phytotoxicity of volatile oil from Eucalyptus citriodora against some weedy species

A study was undertaken to explore the phytotoxicity of volatile essential oil from Eucalyptus citriodora Hook. against some weeds viz. Bidens pilosa, Amaranthus viridis, Rumex nepalensis, and Leucaena leucocephala in order to assess its herbicidal activity. Dose-response studies conducted under laboratory conditions revealed that eucalypt oils (in concentration ranging from 0.0012 to 0.06 %) greatly suppress the germination and seedling height of test weeds. At 0.06 % eucalypt oil concentration, none of the seed of test weeds germinated. Among the weed species tested, A. viridis was found to be the most sensitive and its germination was completed inhibited even at 0.03%. Not only the germination and seedling growth, even the chlorophyll content and respiratory activity in leaves of emerged seedlings were severely affected. In A. viridis chlorophyll content and respiratory activity were reduced by over 51% and 71%, respectively, even at a very low concentration of 0.06%. These results indicated an adverse effect of eucalypt oils on the photosynthetic and energy metabolism of the test weeds. A strong negative correlation was observed between the observed effect and the concentration of eucalypt oil. Based on the study, it can be concluded that oil from E. citriodora possess strong inhibitory potential against weeds that could be exploited for weed management

Motion Segmentation of Truncated Signed Distance Function based Volumetric Surfaces

© 2015 IEEE.Truncated signed distance function (TSDF) based volumetric surface reconstructions of static environments can be readily acquired using recent RGB-D camera based mapping systems. If objects in the environment move then a previously obtained TSDF reconstruction is no longer current. Handling this problem requires segmenting moving objects from the reconstruction. To this end, we present a novel solution to the motion segmentation of TSDF volumes. The segmentation problem is cast as CRF-based MAP inference in the voxel space. We propose: a novel data term by solving sparse multi-body motion segmentation and computing likelihoods for each motion label in the RGB-D image space, and, a novel pair wise term based on gradients of the TSDF volume. Experimental evaluation shows that the proposed approach achieves successful segmentations on reconstructions acquired with Kinect Fusion. Unlike the existing solutions which only work if the objects move completely from their initially occupied spaces, the proposed method permits segmentation of objects when they start to move