Administrative Reforms in India: Need for Systems Approach to Problem Solving

review of Indian administrative structure in 1950s, Appleby certified Indian Civil Service to be one of the best in the world. While there is still a lot to commend the civil service for, this article will focus exclusively on the deficiencies that have crept in the services over last few years. This should not be taken to mean that all is wrong with it. The article does, however, attempt to present the critique of the service from the perspective of an insider with a view to rid it of its malaise. Despite its notable achievements, over last five decades, disenchantment with public administration in India has dramatically increased. It is criticized for inefficiency, lack of professionalism, irresponsiveness, nepotism and corruption. After the assumption of power by UPA government, civil services have come under a real scanner. The government appointed an expert committee, under the chairmanship of the Hota committee, to review and suggest changes to the administrative structure. The committee submitted its report recently. It suggested changes in recruitment and performance appraisal system, opening of civil service position to outsiders and relaxing norms pertaining to removal from service to shake complacency of the civil servants. This article argues that these proposals are too restrictive in nature and scope. They are limited to changes in the upper echelon of bureaucracy. These don’t just exclude a large part of bureaucracy from the reform efforts, but also fail to address the factors external to the administration that hinge upon its performance. To be specific, the article presents evidence of the linkage between the deficiencies in the political, electoral and judicial system and the decline in performance of civil service. It reasons that it is meaningless to talk of administrative reforms without undertaking simultaneous reforms in political and electoral system. Finally, it suggests a more comprehensive reform agenda to improve the performance of civil service, and above all emphasizes the need for adopting the systems approach to problem-solving

Strategic Management

Strategic Management is an integrative course that is designed to provide students with an understanding of the nature of businesses, their leadership and governance, and how the various functional areas (finance, marketing, accounting, operations, etc.) fit together to support a broad and purposeful organization. Strategic Management is the process whereby a firm chooses its business activities and establishes and sustains its position in a competitive market. It explores such questions as: Why do some companies succeed; while others fail? How can a company build and sustain competitive advantage? Which industries offer the best opportunities for long-term profitability? The course materials focus on larger firms, but the principles are applicable to any business organization. Skills learned in this class help in problem-solving situations

Tech Entrepreneurship: An Experiential Journey

This course uses Lean Launchpad for creating entrepreneurial ventures that start small but can be scaled up fairly quickly. You should you take this class only IF you are interested in creating such ventures. This course provides real world, hands-on learning on what it’s like to actually start a high-tech company. This class is not about how to write a business plan. It’s not an exercise on how smart you arein a classroom, or how well you use the research library to size markets. This is a practical class – essentially a lab, not a theory or “book” class. Our goal, within the constraints of a classroom and a limited amount of time, is to create an entrepreneurial experience for you with all of the pressures and demands of the real world in an early stage start up

Principles of Management

This course addresses theory and practice of the modern organization, its historic development, and its role in our modern society. The course takes a functional approach, first introducing the role of a manager and the modern managerial environment, then exploring planning, organizing, leading, and control. Particular attention is given to developing the skills necessary to manage, lead, and compete in today’s world

Fatigue Crack Growth Behavior in Pipes and Elbows of Carbon Steel and Stainless Steel Materials

AbstractThe objective of the present study is to understand the fatigue crack growth behavior and validate analytical procedures for austenitic stainless steel and carbon steel pipes, pipe welds and elbows. The study involved fatigue tests on actual components and specimens. The Paris law has been used for the prediction of fatigue crack growth life. Paris constants have been determined for pipe (base), pipe weld and pipe elbow materials by using Compact Tension (CT)/Three Point Bend (TPB) specimens machined from the actual pipe, pipe weld and pipe elbow. Analyses have been carried out to predict the fatigue crack growth life of these piping components having part through cracks on the outer surface. In the analyses, Stress Intensity Factor (K) has been evaluated through two different schemes. The first scheme considers the ‘K’ evaluations at two points of the crack front i.e. maximum crack depth and crack tip end at the outer surface. The second scheme accounts for the area averaged root mean square stress intensity factor (KRMS) at deepest and surface points. In order to validate the analytical procedure/results, experiments have been carried out on full scale pipes, pipe welds with part through circumferential crack. The tests have also been conducted on the full scale carbon steel elbows having part-through circumferential notch at intrados location and axial notch at crown location on the outer surface. Fatigue crack growth life evaluated using both schemes have been compared with experimental results. Use of stress intensity factor (KRMS) evaluated using second scheme gives better fatigue crack growth life prediction compared to that of first scheme

Multiaxial fatigue studies on carbon steel piping material of Indian PHWRs

The tests studies and analyses have been carried out in the area of “Multiaxial Fatigue” with an objective to improve the damage assessment methodologies and design rules. Nearly 50 numbers of fatigue tests were conducted on solid and tubular specimens of SA333Gr.6 material under pure axial, pure shear and combined axial-torsion in-phase/ out-of-phase loading combinations. A software has been developed for the evaluation of multiaxial fatigue damage for the analyses of tests data using different invariant fatigue models such as ASME Sec.III code procedures, von-Mises etc. The fatigue crack initiation life was predicted using the best fit axial fatigue life curve (without use of safety factors). These tests and their analyses have helped in understanding the fatigue failure behavior of piping material under complex cyclic loadings where the principal directions rotate during a loading cycle. The crack initiation angles have also been measured by analyzing the image of the tested specimens. The measured crack angles will help in validation of the critical plane based models

Venipuncture Induced Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Presenting as Inflammatory Arthritis

Venipuncture is one of the most commonly done medical procedures. We report a unique case of a 23-year-old young male who presented with features suggestive of inflammatory arthritis. The symptoms, which initially started on the right side, also involved the other side after a few weeks. Although the patient’s symptoms and signs were simulating inflammatory arthritis, he had atypical features like poor response to anti-inflammatory medicines and normal laboratory parameters. His musculoskeletal ultrasonography was also not suggestive of arthritis. His history was reviewed and on direct questioning he revealed a history of venipuncture for blood sample withdrawal, done from right antecubital region for routine health check on the day prior to the onset of symptoms. Complex regional pain syndrome was suspected and triple-phase radioisotope bone scan was done which was highly suggestive of this diagnosis. The patient was managed with multidimensional approach and responded very well to the treatment. Complex regional pain syndrome is usually not thought of in the initial differential diagnosis of inflammatory arthritis. In this report we highlight the need to elicit the often overlooked history of trivial trauma like venipuncture, especially in atypical cases of arthritis. Also the role of newer diagnostic modalities in such cases is emphasized

Fatigue studies on stainless steel piping materials and components: Indian AHWR

As a part of component integrity test program at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, fatigue tests on full scale pipe and pipe welds were conducted in addition to CT and TPB specimens. In this paper the outcome of this program is discussed. Specimen testing was conducted to determine the basic cyclic stress strain curve, LCF and FCGR properties. FCGR tests were conducted on CT and TPB specimens to understand the effect of different conditions: Specimen level tests result show that, for the present grade of material, the FCGR is not significantly affected by specimen type (CT and TPB), specimen thickness and notch orientation. FCGR resistance of the hot wire GTAW is superior compared to that of conventional SMAW. The effects of stress ratio are mildly significant at lower R-values for base metal but are significant for weld metal. Component tests were conducted to understand the effect of the following variables:(a)Component type and size: pipe and pipe weld, Pipe diameters 170 mm and 324 mm,(b)Pipe and pipe weld: initial notch in pipe base, and girth welded pipe, (c) Pipe welds: Conventional GTAW/SMAW and hot wire narrow gap GTAW, (d)Environment: Air and water, (e) Type of loading: Constant amplitude cyclic, vibration, Block, overload and underload. Results indicated that the fatigue life of the component is reduced under water environment compared to air environment. Fatigue life of the pipe subjected to block loading (increasing stress ratio followed by decreasing stress ratio), intermittent overloading and underloading is also decreased compared to that of constant amplitude loading. Vibration loading reduces fatigue life significantly. Crack growth in thickness direction is more compared to circumferential direction for all types of loading which is desirable for demonstration of LBB criteria. Fatigue life of the notched component has also been predicted using the Paris constants data from the specimen level tests. Fatigue crack growth and the crack shape of the growing crack have been evaluated for regular interval of loading cycles. The predictions compares well with those of experiments

Inhibition of Protein Aggregation: Supramolecular Assemblies of Arginine Hold the Key

BACKGROUND: Aggregation of unfolded proteins occurs mainly through the exposed hydrophobic surfaces. Any mechanism of inhibition of this aggregation should explain the prevention of these hydrophobic interactions. Though arginine is prevalently used as an aggregation suppressor, its mechanism of action is not clearly understood. We propose a mechanism based on the hydrophobic interactions of arginine. METHODOLOGY: We have analyzed arginine solution for its hydrotropic effect by pyrene solubility and the presence of hydrophobic environment by 1-anilino-8-naphthalene sulfonic acid fluorescence. Mass spectroscopic analyses show that arginine forms molecular clusters in the gas phase and the cluster composition is dependent on the solution conditions. Light scattering studies indicate that arginine exists as clusters in solution. In the presence of arginine, the reverse phase chromatographic elution profile of Alzheimer's amyloid beta 1-42 (Abeta(1-42)) peptide is modified. Changes in the hydrodynamic volume of Abeta(1-42) in the presence of arginine measured by size exclusion chromatography show that arginine binds to Abeta(1-42). Arginine increases the solubility of Abeta(1-42) peptide in aqueous medium. It decreases the aggregation of Abeta(1-42) as observed by atomic force microscopy. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our experimental results we propose that molecular clusters of arginine in aqueous solutions display a hydrophobic surface by the alignment of its three methylene groups. The hydrophobic surfaces present on the proteins interact with the hydrophobic surface presented by the arginine clusters. The masking of hydrophobic surface inhibits protein-protein aggregation. This mechanism is also responsible for the hydrotropic effect of arginine on various compounds. It is also explained why other amino acids fail to inhibit the protein aggregation

Essays on Vulnerability to and Likelihood of Reemergence from Corporate Bankruptcy

This dissertation makes two important contributions to literature on organizational failure. The first study explores the relationship between a firm\u27s corporate (diversification) strategy and its vulnerability to failure (bankruptcy), and the second study explores the likelihood of reemergence from the governance perspective. In the first study, I show that there is a significant difference between the bureaucratic costs incurred by bankrupt and non-bankrupt firms. My results suggest that the likelihood of a firm going bankrupt significantly increases as its bureaucratic costs increase. These results provide robust support for resource dependence predictions, and highlight the important role implementation plays in the success of corporate strategy, i.e., if a firm incurs bureaucratic costs that offset the synergistic benefits it derives from its diversification profile, its performance is likely to be suboptimal and prone to failure. My study further shows that higher related diversification, especially when combined with higher bureaucratic costs, makes firms most vulnerable to failure. In the second study, I show that when resourceful directors are actively involved in the firm\u27s business, a firm\u27s likelihood of reemergence goes up significantly. Further, the relationship between directors\u27 resourceful interlinks and reemergence likelihood is curvilinear such that too few or too many linkages reduce the likelihood of reemergence. Finally, I also show that nature of resources useful to firms is contingent on the nature of the business the firm is in, i.e., while resourceful insiders are valuable to firms in knowledge-intensive industries, resourceful outsiders are more valuable to firms in knowledge-mundane industries. Overall, this study extends resource dependence perspective and provides a more robust and contextualized understanding of directors\u27 impact on firm performance