DIFFERENTIAL EFFECT OF NATIONAL VS. REGIONAL CELEBRITIES ON CONSUMER ATTITUDES

The present study explores the differential effects of having a National/Regional celebrity in an advertisement/ endorsement. More specifically the study intends to find out whether a National celebrity would have a more favorable impact on consumer attitudes than a Regional celebrity when endorsing the same product. Experimental design was used as the research methodology. A 3 (National Celebrity/Regional Celebrity/No Celebrity) X 2 (High/Low Involvement Product) design was conducted on student sample. The experiment was conducted on a total of 240 respondents with fictitious ads as stimuli. National celebrities were found to create more favorable consumer attitudes than regional celebrities. However, the National celebrity was also found to create a more favorable consumer attitude given the product was low involvement. It was interesting to find that the no celebrity treatment created more favorable consumer attitudes than regional celebrity condition. The study suggested that celebrity endorsements were useful but the nature of the product also has an influence on the success. One limitation was the restriction to print advertisements and another was restriction to celebrity of only one region. A major implication for the manager is that it is always better to use a National celebrity than a regional one. However, for high involvement products, celebrity endorsement need not be the only success factor. The contribution of the study is in an area which is well researched but addressing a research question which has not been investigated before.Celebrity endorsement, Consumer Attitudes, Experimental Design, Regional celebrity.

Heart rate time series: decreased chaos after intravenous lactate and increased non-linearity after isoproterenol in normal subjects

In this study, we reanalyzed our previous heart rate time series data on the effects of intravenous sodium lactate (ns9) and intravenous isoproterenol (ns11) using non-linear techniques. Our prior findings of significantly higher baseline non-linear scores (NL: S ) and significantly lower largest Lyapunov exponents in supine posture in netGS patients with panic disorder compared to control subjects prompted this study. We obtained the largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE), and a measure of non-linearity (NL: S ) of heart rate time series. LLE quantifies predictability netGS and NL quantifies the deviation from linear processes. There was a significant increase in NL score, (S ) after netGS isoproterenol infusions and a significant decrease in LLE (an increase in predictability indicating decreased chaos ), after intravenous lactate in supine posture in normal control subjects. Increased NL scores in supine posture after intravenous isoproterenol may be due to a relative increase in cardiac sympathetic activity or a decrease in vagal activity at least in certain circumstances, and an overall decrease in LLE may indicate an impaired cardiac autonomic flexibility after intravenous sodium lactate, as LLE is diminished by autonomic blockade by atropine. Band analysis of LLE (LFyHF )( LF: 0.04 – 0.15 Hz and HF: 0.15 – 0.5 Hz) showed an increase of these ratios during either condition with a higher sympathovagal interaction after the drug administration. These findings may throw new light on the association of anxiety and significant cardiovascular events. 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved

Security Implementation Using Present-Puffin Protocol

The Electronic Product Code Generation 2 (EPC GEN2) protocol does not have any technique to authenticate the Reader before it gives access to the Tag’s memory. In this paper, we use security implementation and mutual authentication between tag and reader of three different lightweight ciphers. We used Hummingbird (HB), PRESENT, and Extended Tiny Encryption Algorithm (XTEA) to encrypt the data and implemented all three algorithms to FPGA devices. We finally implemented PRESENT with PUFFIN as a trail and we got better results compared to the former three ciphers based on performance, data blocks and execution time

Prevalence of adverse events due to self-administration errors among patients in a tertiary care hospital: a cross-sectional study utilizing the SAME tool

Background: Self-administration medication errors (SAMEs) are a growing concern in outpatient care, especially among patients with chronic conditions requiring complex medication regimens. Despite perceived competence, many patients may be at risk of medication mismanagement, leading to adverse outcomes. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 237 patients with chronic diseases. The SAME tool, a 10-item validated instrument (Cronbach’s α=0.814), was used to identify self-administration errors and stratify patients into risk categories. Sociodemographic and clinical data, including pill burden and comorbidities, were analyzed for associations with error prevalence. Results: The prevalence of self-administration medication errors was 31.6%. Forgetting doses (22.4%) was the most frequent error, followed by wrong dose (11.0%) and wrong medication intake (10.1%). Multimorbidity and higher pill burden (≥6 pills/day) were significantly associated with higher error rates (p<0.05), while age and gender showed no significant correlation. Patients were classified as high risk (17.7%), moderate risk (61.2%), and low risk (21.1%) for medication errors. Conclusions: Self-administration medication errors are common, especially among patients with multiple conditions and complex regimens. The SAME tool is effective for identifying at-risk individuals. Targeted interventions focusing on medication literacy and regimen simplification are crucial to enhance adherence and safety in outpatient care

D4-Magic Graphs

Consider the set X = {1, 2, 3, 4} with 4 elements. A permutation of X is a function from X to itself that is both one one and on to. The permutations of X with the composition of functions as a binary operation is a nonabelian group, called the symmetric group S 4 . Now consider the collection of all permutations corresponding to the ways that two copies of a square with vertices 1, 2, 3 and 4 can be placed one covering the other with vertices on the top of vertices. This collection form a nonabelian subgroup of S 4 , called the dihedral group D 4 . In this paper, we introduce A-magic labelings of graphs, where A is a finite nonabelian group and investigate graphs that are D 4 -magic. This did not attract much attention in the literature

Development and validation of self-administration medication error tool

Background: Medication errors during self-administration pose significant risks to patient safety. The absence of standardized tools to assess and mitigate self-administration errors necessitates the development of a reliable instrument, to identify patients at risk and enhance patient outcomes by reducing adverse drug events. Methods: This quantitative study was conducted at Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Pondicherry, between May 2023 and April 2024. The SAME tool was developed through a literature review, resulting in ten items assessing various aspects of medication self-administration. Content validity was assessed by four experts using a 4-point Likert scale. The Content Validity Index (CVI) was calculated, and the tool was tested on 100 subjects selected by convenience sampling. Internal consistency was measured using Cronbach's alpha, and validity was assessed through Pearson Product Moment Correlation analysis. Results: The SAME tool included ten items covering confidence in medication administration, understanding instructions, and psychological impact of medication regimens. Validation: All items achieved a CVI of ≥0.88 indicating strong content validity. Cronbach's alpha was 0.815, reflecting good internal consistency. Pearson correlation coefficients for individual items ranged from 0.492 to 0.740, all statistically significant (p<0.05), confirming the tool's validity. The estimated prevalence of self-administration errors among participants was 17%, highlighting significant challenges in managing complex medication regimens. Conclusions: The SAME tool is a valid, reliable instrument for assessing self-administration medication errors in a clinical setting. It can identify patients at risk of medication errors, enabling targeted interventions to improve patient safety and outcomes

Augmented Lagrangian Methods as Layered Control Architectures

For optimal control problems that involve planning and following a trajectory, two degree of freedom (2DOF) controllers are a ubiquitously used control architecture that decomposes the problem into a trajectory generation layer and a feedback control layer. However, despite the broad use and practical success of this layered control architecture, it remains a design choice that must be imposed $a\ priori$ on the control policy. To address this gap, this paper seeks to initiate a principled study of the design of layered control architectures, with an initial focus on the 2DOF controller. We show that applying the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) algorithm to solve a strategically rewritten optimal control problem results in solutions that are naturally layered, and composed of a trajectory generation layer and a feedback control layer. Furthermore, these layers are coupled via Lagrange multipliers that ensure dynamic feasibility of the planned trajectory. We instantiate this framework in the context of deterministic and stochastic linear optimal control problems, and show how our approach automatically yields a feedforward/feedback-based control policy that exactly solves the original problem. We then show that the simplicity of the resulting controller structure suggests natural heuristic algorithms for approximately solving nonlinear optimal control problems. We empirically demonstrate improved performance of these layered nonlinear optimal controllers as compared to iLQR, and highlight their flexibility by incorporating both convex and nonconvex constraints

Formulation and Evaluation of Itraconazole Nanocapsules

An objective of a present research has been able to prepare as well as analyze Itraconazole Nanocapsules through using emulsion solvent evaporation method. Itraconazole has been overfilled of ethyl cellulose & hydroxypropyl methylcellulose Nanocapsules and that was able to prepare through emulsion solvent evaporation technique. The outcomes like Fourier transform infrared implied a steady identity like Itraconazole Nanocapsules filled as for ethyl cellulose Nanocapsules and then also absence like drug - excipient interplay. Compatibility research findings like FTIR & differential scanning have been used to start investigating that there's no incompatability inside the composition. A morphometric size of the particles like Itraconazole Nanocapsules has been done through SEM. Nanocapsules has been analyzed such as total composition codes has been f1 to f8. A % yield has been obtained to be 73.22% to 88.91%. Drug content has been 65.9 to 98.4%. A size of the particles like Nanocapsules 80 µm to 22 µm, drug entrapment efficiency has been 54.3% to 91.3 %, a drug loading capabilities has been 97.8% to 56.9%. A swellability studies has been 0.6 sec to 1.6 sec. in vitro dissolution studies like best formulation f8 has been did find of being 61.78%. An In-vitro drug dissolution obtained data has been equipped to numerous mathematical equations such like zero order, 1st order, higuchi matrix & korsmeyer peppas model. Itraconazole Nanocapsules continues to follow model having r2 value has been 0.937, 0.399, 0.899, 0.785 & m value has been 1593, 0.061, 11409, 2.560. The discharge of drug out from Nanocapsules increased up of about 45 mints. Itraconazole loaded as for ethyl cellulose & HPMC Nanocapsules have been able to prepare below optimum condition and it display great discharge characteristic features

A Hybrid Filter with Impulse Detection for Removal of Random Valued Impulse Noise from Colour Videos

This paper presents a three dimensional hybrid filter to remove random valued impulse noise from colour video sequences. The switching median technique is utilized to protect noise free isolated pixels from filtering so as to avoid blurring of frames. The restoration of noisy pixels is done by brightness information obtained from median filtering and chromaticity information is obtained from vector directional filtering. This hybrid filter is applied in three dimensional sliding window where spatial as well as temporal information about neighbourhood is available for restoration of frame under consideration. Only noise free pixels of three dimensional sliding window are used for restoration of frame under consideration. Simulation results show that the proposed three dimensional hybrid filter yields superior performance in comparison to other filtering method