A Study on Customers’ Perception Towards Life Insurance Corporation Products with Reference to Chennai City

Purpose:  The objective of this study is to assess the level of customer perception towards Life Insurance Corporation in the city of Chennai. The study aims to identify the factors influencing customers' decision-making process in selecting life insurance products.   Theoretical Framework: Life insurance is a crucial aspect of financial planning, providing protection to individuals and their families against unforeseen events such as accidental death or disability. In the current scenario, there are numerous insurance companies offering life insurance products, with public limited companies being the preferred choice for investment due to their ability to safeguard both the amount invested and the policyholder's life. Insurance companies play a vital role in promoting the well-being of individuals by offering protection against life risks.   Design/Methodology/Approach: The data for this study was collected using a well-structured questionnaire and statistical techniques such as descriptive and percentage analyses were used to analyze the data.   Findings: The study showed that research finding brings practical value in improving customer perception in Chennai. The Article identifies the key elements to enhance the customer perception.   Research, Practical & Social implications: The study has fused the theory of service quality and customer perception. In addition, the study has systematized the relationship between the factors measuring the service quality of life insurance and customer satisfaction.           Originality/value: The paper's originality and value assist policy providers to regulate and weigh the measure they have been using and adjust into a set of observed variables measuring the customers’ perception of Life Insurance Corporation in Chennai. This study provides new roadmap to a future study on customer Perception towards life insurance Corporation, a document for other research in the life insurance field

Narasimham Committee Report - Some Further Ramifications and Suggestions

This paper while agreeing with the general thrust of the Narasimham Committee Report. Calls attention to some logical corollaries of the Report and analyses some possible fallout from implementing the Report. We agree with the view that control of banking system should be under an autonomous body supervised by the RBI. However at the level of individual banks, closer scrutiny of lending procedures may be called for than is envisaged in the Report. In a freely functioning capital market the potential of government bonds is enormous, but this necessitates restructuring of the government bond market. The government bonds may then also be used as suitable hedging mechanisms by introducing options and futures trading. We recommend freeing up the operation of pension and provident fund to enable at least partial investment of such funds in risky securities. In the corporate sector, we believe that the current 2:1 debt equity norm is too high and not sustainable in the long term. We envisage that high debt levels and higher interest rates, combined with higher business risk may result in greater incidence of corporate sickness. This may call for various schemes for retrenched workers and amendment to land laws for easy exit of companies. On account of interdependencies across different policies, any sequencing of their implementation may be highly problematic. We therefore suggest a near simultaneity in the implementation of various reforms in order to build up a momentum which would be irreversible if people are to have confidence that the reforms will endure, and if we are to retain our credibility with international financial institutions.

Suppliers\u27 Quality Practices in Six Countries and Regions: China, Taiwan, India, Korea, Mexico, and Costa Rica

In this paper we report suppliers’ quality practices in six countries — China, Taiwan, India, Korea, Mexico and Costa Rica. The practices include suppliers’ education, technical assistances, involvement in product development and long-term relationships. India, China, Korea and Taiwan are four major countries in Asia that have shown substantial economic growth over the years. Mexico is a member of NAFTA. Cost Rica is a growing country in Central America. Differences in terms of quality results are explored as well. In general, supplier quality practices are related to the overall quality management practices. Supplier quality practices affect the internal and external quality results. However, the length of quality experience in the organizations turns out to be a discriminating factor for choosing particular supplier quality practices. The implication of these results confirms that supplier quality practices are important practices for both internal and external quality results

Microstructural characterization of friction stir welded AA5083 aluminum alloy joints

The objective of the current work is to apply Taguchi L9 orthogonal array to enhance the welding process factors for friction stir welding (FSW) of AA5083 aluminium alloy plates. Using a randomized procedure, the Taguchi orthogonal array was implemented to identify the FSW process parameters such as the rotating speed of the tool, welding speed, and tilting angle of the tool. The optimum welding parameters for the ultimate tensile strength and hardness of the joints were predicted and the individual rank of each process parameter on the ultimate tensile strength and hardness of the friction stir weld was assessed by investigative ANOVA results and the S/N ratio (signal-to- noise ratio). The most desirable rotational speed of the tool, welding speed and tilting angle of the tool were 600 rev. per. min, 70 millimeter/min and 1o appropriately for the ultimate eluting strength and 600 rev. per. min, 80 millimeter/min and 1o correspondingly for summit joint hardness. The outcomes of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) designated that the tilting angle of the tool has the higher statistical effect succeeded by the welding velocity and rotational speed of the tool. Furthermore, metallurgical properties of the weld cross-sections were investigated by using optical microscope (OM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis. The microstructure of the stir zone reveals finer grain structure, directed to the higher hardness, which gives rise to higher tensile strength

Moduli Stacks of Vector Bundles and Frobenius Morphisms

We describe the action of the different Frobenius morphisms on the cohomology ring of the moduli stack of algebraic vector bundles of fixed rank and determinant on an algebraic curve over a finite field in characteristic p and analyse special situations like vector bundles on the projective line and relations with infinite Grassmannians.Comment: 19 page

Gait speed reference values in community-dwelling older adults:Cross-sectional analysis from the Rotterdam Study

Background: Gait speed is a simple, inexpensive and clinically useful marker of physical function in older adults. We aimed to establish gait speed reference values for community-dwelling older adults. To this end, we further explored the association of age, sex and height with gait speed. Methods: This study included community-dwelling participants aged 50 years and over enrolled in the Rotterdam Study. Participants completed the gait protocol between 2009 and 2016. The mean gait speed was calculated for age and height groups, stratified by sex. Reference values for gait speed were calculated using a quantile regression model adjusted for sex, the non-linear effects of age and height, as well as the interaction between age and sex plus the interaction between age and height. Results: The study population included 4656 Dutch participants with a mean (standard deviation) age of 67.7 (9.5) years, comprising 2569 (55.2%) women. The mean height of the participants was 1.69 (0.10) meters and the mean gait speed was 1.20 (0.20) m/s. Gait speed was lower with older age and greater with taller stature, but the effect of height disappeared above the age of 80 years. Sex did not affect gait speed after accounting for age and height. Age-, sex-, and height-specific reference values for gait speed are available for use at https://emcbios tatistics.shinyapps.io/GaitSpeedReferenceValues/. Conclusions: We found that height explains the commonly noted difference in usual gait speed between sexes and that neither height nor sex impacts gait speed in the very oldest adults. We developed reference values for usual gait speed in Western European community-dwelling older adults

Antimicrobial activities of selected herbs and two herbal decoctions against Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)

Objectives: To determine the antimicrobial activity of selected herbs against MRSA.Methods: Aqueous extracts, of dried stem bark of Pongamia pinnata (magulkaranda), dried stem of Rubia cordifolia Linn (Welmadata), tender leaves of Jasminum officinale Linn(Jasmine), dried stem of Berberis ceylanica (Daruharidra), Garcina zeylenica (Goraka) and two ayurvedic decoctions were prepared following the traditional ayurvedic practice by boiling chopped pieces of herbs in 6 volumes of water down to 1 volume to obtain neat and down to half volume to obtain double (2x) concentrations of the extract. Five clinical isolates of MRSA, were tested in triplicates using well diffusion method with cloxacillin and vancomycin as positive controls. Further minimum inhibitory concentration(MIC) of the aqueous extracts were determined using the pour plate method.Results: Garcina zeylenica had an average zone of inhibition of 13mm against MRSA. The ayurvedic preparation which consists of Dummulla, Ginger, Aralu, Bulu, Nelli, Gon Kekiri, Lunuwila, Katukarosana, dried Turmeric, Venivel and Rasakinda had a 14mm zone of inhibition, and the decoction which consisted of Venivel, Rasakinda, Jasmine, dried grapes, Asamodagam, Aralu, Bulu and Nelli, gave a 16mm zone of inhibition. Jasminum officinale, Pongamia pinnata, Rubia cordifolia Linn and Berberis ceylanica did not give a zone of inhibition. The neat concentration was the lowest concentration tested which inhibited growth of MRSA isolates in all three extracts.Conclusions: Aqueous extracts of Garcina zeylenica and the two decoctions have potential antimicrobial activity against MRSA and further studies should be carried out to determine the cell cytotoxicity and in vivo activity of this extract.

Reconstruction of incomplete X ray diffraction pole figures of oligocrystalline materials using deep learning

X ray diffraction crystallography allows non destructive examination of crystal structures. Furthermore, it has low requirements regarding surface preparation, especially compared to electron backscatter diffraction. However, up to now, X ray diffraction has been highly time consuming in standard laboratory conditions since intensities on multiple lattice planes have to be recorded by rotating and tilting. Furthermore, examining oligocrystalline materials is challenging due to the limited number of diffraction spots. Moreover, commonly used evaluation methods for crystallographic orientation analysis need multiple lattice planes for a reliable pole figure reconstruction. In this article, we propose a deep learning based method for oligocrystalline specimens, i.e., specimens with up to three grains of arbitrary crystal orientations. Our approach allows faster experimentation due to accurate reconstructions of pole figure regions, which we did not probe experimentally. In contrast to other methods, the pole figure is reconstructed based on only a single incomplete pole figure. To speed up the development of our proposed method and for usage in other machine learning algorithms, we introduce a GPU based simulation for data generation. Furthermore, we present a pole widths standardization technique using a custom deep learning architecture that makes algorithms more robust against influences from the experiment setup and materia

Direct measurement of hyperfine shifts and radio frequency manipulation of the nuclear spins in individual CdTe/ZnTe quantum dots

We achieve direct detection of electron hyperfine shifts in individual CdTe / ZnTe quantum dots. For the previously inaccessible regime of strong magnetic fields Bz≳0.1T, we demonstrate robust polarization of a few-hundred-particle nuclear spin bath, with an optical initialization time of ∼1 ms and polarization lifetime exceeding ∼1s. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of individual dots reveals strong electron-nuclear interactions characterized by Knight fields |Be|≳50 mT, an order of magnitude stronger than in III–V semiconductor quantum dots. Our studies confirm II–VI semiconductor quantum dots as a promising platform for hybrid electron-nuclear spin qubit registers, combining the excellent optical properties comparable to III–V dots and the dilute nuclear spin environment similar to group-IV semiconductors