Does Higher Defence Organisation in India Require a Major Surgery?

Amendments and/or modifications in the Higher Defence Organisations of our country are a subject of constant debate. Many and diverse views continue to be aired. The common denominator seems to be a general dissatisfaction with the existing state of affairs. The need to improve on the existing templates is a laudable thought but the burning question is: ‘Do we require major surgery?’ Also, must we be taken in by examples of systems that have obtained in other countries or should we only seek solutions that are more appropriate to our circumstances? Should we blindly ape what others do or employ our own genius in fashioning systems that are more applicable to our needs? What are the changes that could be introduced to advantage? This article addresses these questions and a few more. The views expressed are personal and not parochial but they are, possibly and naturally, based on the experiences of the author after a lifetime of service in our Air Force. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.346480

Does Higher Defence Organisation in India Require a Major Surgery?

Amendments and/or modifications in the Higher Defence Organisations of our country are a subject of constant debate. Many and diverse views continue to be aired. The common denominator seems to be a general dissatisfaction with the existing state of affairs. The need to improve on the existing templates is a laudable thought but the burning question is: ‘Do we require major surgery?\u27 Also, must we be taken in by examples of systems that have obtained in other countries or should we only seek solutions that are more appropriate to our circumstances? Should we blindly ape what others do or employ our own genius in fashioning systems that are more applicable to our needs? What are the changes that could be introduced to advantage? This article addresses these questions and a few more. The views expressed are personal and not parochial but they are, possibly and naturally, based on the experiences of the author after a lifetime of service in our Air Force. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.346480

The Linearly Independent Non Orthogonal yet Energy Preserving (LINOEP) vectors

It is well known that, in any inner product space, a set of linearly independent (LI) vectors can be transformed to a set of orthogonal vectors, spanning the same space, by the Gram-Schmidt Orthogonalization Method (GSOM). In this paper, we propose a transformation from a set of LI vectors to a set of LI non orthogonal yet energy (square of the norm) preserving (LINOEP) vectors in an inner product space and we refer it as LINOEP method. We also show that there are various solutions to preserve the square of the norm.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Indian consumers and their mall patronage:Application of cultural-self and the theory of planned behavior to patronage intentions

This study investigated Indian consumers\u27 motivations and intentions to patronize contemporary retail formats, such as shopping malls. The study attempts to explain the effect of cultural-self (Brewer & Chen, 2007) on Indian consumers\u27 shopping attitudes and subjective norms in addition to motivations on the intentions to patronize malls in India. In addition to the cultural-self, this study is also framed by the theory of planned behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1988, 1991). Data were collected from shoppers present in four different zones (i.e., north, south, west, and east) of New Delhi, India. Trained data collection staff approached 845 Indian mall shoppers at the various malls in New Delhi. Three hundred and one completed surveys were used for the statistical analysis. Two phases of data analysis were conducted: preliminary analysis and model testing. Preliminary analysis of research data consisted of descriptive analysis, principal components analysis, internal reliability assessment of research variables using Cronbach\u27s alpha coefficients, and correlation analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis for each construct and measurement model testing was performed using Mplus version 6 statistical software (Muthyn & Muthyn, 2000). Structural model testing was conducted through two steps: testing of the proposed model and alternative model testing. Model testing was performed through maximum-likelihood estimation procedures using Mplus statistical software (Muthyn & Muthyn, 2000). An important contribution of this study is the identification of cultural groups based on the dimensions of cultural-self (Brewer & Chen, 2007). The emergence of five cultural clusters or groups in this study— enthusiasts, autonomous, sociables, affables, and family-oriented —confirm the multidimensionality of the individualism-constructivism construct (Bond, 2002; Fiske, 2002; Ho & Chiu, 1994; Triandis & Gelfand, 1998). Overall results from this study confirm applicability of elements of the theory of planned behavior in a non-western cultural context. As proposed by Ajzen (1991), attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control were important predictors of behavioral intentions related to Indian consumers\u27 mall shopping preferences and behaviors. Among the three antecedents of patronage intentions towards malls in India (i.e., subjective norms, attitude towards mall attributes, and perceived behavioral control), perceived behavioral control had the greatest effect on purchase intentions. This study provides useful insights into mall shopping behavior of Indian consumers. Mall managers and retailers in India will benefit from knowledge of Indian consumers\u27 clusters. Theoretical contributions include an understanding of the multidimensionality of the cultural-self construct and the antecedents of Indian mall shoppers\u27 patronage intentions. Results of this study provide a deeper understanding of the reasons Indian consumers go shopping, and specifically why they patronize malls. Findings from this research provide important insight for retailers\u27 strategic marketing activities directed at different consumer groups. It is posited that effective marketing communication for different consumer groups could be improved by better understanding the cultural-orientation, mindsets, and shopping motives of Indian consumers

k-d Darts: Sampling by k-Dimensional Flat Searches

We formalize the notion of sampling a function using k-d darts. A k-d dart is a set of independent, mutually orthogonal, k-dimensional subspaces called k-d flats. Each dart has d choose k flats, aligned with the coordinate axes for efficiency. We show that k-d darts are useful for exploring a function's properties, such as estimating its integral, or finding an exemplar above a threshold. We describe a recipe for converting an algorithm from point sampling to k-d dart sampling, assuming the function can be evaluated along a k-d flat. We demonstrate that k-d darts are more efficient than point-wise samples in high dimensions, depending on the characteristics of the sampling domain: e.g. the subregion of interest has small volume and evaluating the function along a flat is not too expensive. We present three concrete applications using line darts (1-d darts): relaxed maximal Poisson-disk sampling, high-quality rasterization of depth-of-field blur, and estimation of the probability of failure from a response surface for uncertainty quantification. In these applications, line darts achieve the same fidelity output as point darts in less time. We also demonstrate the accuracy of higher dimensional darts for a volume estimation problem. For Poisson-disk sampling, we use significantly less memory, enabling the generation of larger point clouds in higher dimensions.Comment: 19 pages 16 figure

FOVQA: Blind Foveated Video Quality Assessment

Previous blind or No Reference (NR) video quality assessment (VQA) models largely rely on features drawn from natural scene statistics (NSS), but under the assumption that the image statistics are stationary in the spatial domain. Several of these models are quite successful on standard pictures. However, in Virtual Reality (VR) applications, foveated video compression is regaining attention, and the concept of space-variant quality assessment is of interest, given the availability of increasingly high spatial and temporal resolution contents and practical ways of measuring gaze direction. Distortions from foveated video compression increase with increased eccentricity, implying that the natural scene statistics are space-variant. Towards advancing the development of foveated compression / streaming algorithms, we have devised a no-reference (NR) foveated video quality assessment model, called FOVQA, which is based on new models of space-variant natural scene statistics (NSS) and natural video statistics (NVS). Specifically, we deploy a space-variant generalized Gaussian distribution (SV-GGD) model and a space-variant asynchronous generalized Gaussian distribution (SV-AGGD) model of mean subtracted contrast normalized (MSCN) coefficients and products of neighboring MSCN coefficients, respectively. We devise a foveated video quality predictor that extracts radial basis features, and other features that capture perceptually annoying rapid quality fall-offs. We find that FOVQA achieves state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance on the new 2D LIVE-FBT-FCVR database, as compared with other leading FIQA / VQA models. we have made our implementation of FOVQA available at: http://live.ece.utexas.edu/research/Quality/FOVQA.zip

Digital Filters Using Identical Blocks

Improved response of non-recursive digital filters is achieved using Amplitude Change Functions (ACFs) on a prototype filter. A generalized ACF with interesting properties is suggested. Methods for achieving variable cut-off frequency and frequency transformation are explained. A modular hardware implementation is also presented