4d’s Of Taxi Fares: A Behavioural Model For The Ict Age

Price influences the behaviour of people. It follows that the quality of a taxi service and the behaviour of the driver depends on the fare structure. This paper finds that the contribution approach to pricing as opposed to the cost plus pricing used universally can provide the ‘motivation handles’ to influence the behaviour of drivers, passengers and all stake holders. A real life example from Chennai, India is used to demonstrate a scientific fare structure. It is based on the four Ds of a fare mix: Distance, Duration, Drop and Discern. Such pricing granularity can be implemented with the advances in information and communication technology (ICT) of today. The transparency of the structure can balance the needs and costs of all the stake holders—passengers, drivers, other road users, owners, capital and society.Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies. Faculty of Economics and Business. The University of Sydne

Effectiveness of structured teaching programme on knowledge about postnatal care among mothers

Background: Mothers and new-borns are vulnerable to illness and deaths during the postnatal period. Care during postnatal period is the important part of maternal health care as the serious and life-threatening complications can occur in postnatal period.Methods: A Quantitative approach with pre- experimental design was used to study the effectiveness of STP on postnatal care. Sixty postnatal mothers were selected from tertiary care hospital. The Purposive sampling techniques was used to select the study subjects. Data was collected by using Structured Knowledge questionnaire.Results: The results show that the overall mean pre-test knowledge score of postnatal mothers was 19.8±2.98 and mean post-test knowledge score of postnatal mothers was 26.28±1.89 and the mean difference was 6.48. This revealed that the STP was an effective method in improving mother’s knowledge on postnatal care. There was no significant association found between pre-test knowledge score with their demographic variables except occupation.Conclusions: The findings of the study revealed that STP was effective in enhancing the knowledge of postnatal mothers on postnatal care

Structured teaching programme on knowledge about polycystic ovarian syndrome among adolescent girls

Background: Polycystic ovarian syndrome is a common female endocrine disorder affecting 4 – 18% of women in their reproductive age. It is common in adolescent girls. Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome affects throughout the life and produce gynaecological and metabolic health problems. The aim of this study to create the awareness about the polycystic ovarian syndrome to the adolescent girls.Methods: A Quantitative approach with pre- experimental design was used to study the effectiveness of STP on Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome. Ninety-four adolescent girls aged between 15 – 18 years were conveniently selected. Data was collected by using Structured Knowledge questionnaire.Results: The mean post-test knowledge score (22.55± 3.57) was higher than that of mean pre-test mean knowledge score (11.13± 3.32) and the mean difference was11.42. The ‘t’ calculated value was 23.45 which is higher than the tabulated value of 1.98 (df 93 at p< 0.05). Therefore, research hypothesis was accepted. So, it can be interpreting that structured teaching programme is effective in improving the knowledge of adolescent girls.Conclusions: The findings of the study revealed that STP was effective in enhancing the knowledge of adolescent girls on PCOS. Hence the study concluded that structured teaching programme had a great potentiality to increase the awareness on PCOS

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF SOLAR WATER HEATER INTEGRATED WITH SODIUM ACETATE TRIHYDRATE AS PHASE CHANGE MATERIAL

The Solar Water Heater (SWH) has an important place among solar heating collectors due to the fact that construction of the water heater requires less material than others. The Solar water heater may be used for space heating and drying. The main objectives of this paper are to increase the efficiency of flat plate collector solar water heater. The efficiency of Solar Water Heater is increased with decreasing, the thermal losses. To overcome the high thermal losses due to conduction, convection and radiation in the flat plate collector, PCM materials are used. To improve the efficiency of the flat plate collector, it is integrated with the Sodium Acetate Trihydrate as PCM. To enhance the heating rate of the solar water heater, the PCM is integrated and stored directly in flat plate collector. The performance of the flat plate collector is measured with and without using PCM. The Experimental result were taken for the area of 0.42 m2. The efficiency of the flat plate collector is increased up to 5 to 7% while compared to with and without using PCM

Who can wait for the future? A personality perspective

Who can wait for larger, delayed rewards rather than smaller, immediate ones? Delay discounting (DD) measures the rate at which subjective value of an outcome decreases as the length of time to obtaining it increases. Previous work has shown that greater DD predicts negative academic, social, and health outcomes. Yet, little is known about who is likely to engage in greater or less DD. Taking a personality perspective, in a large sample (N = 5,888), we found that greater DD was predicted by low openness and conscientiousness and higher extraversion and neuroticism. Smaller amounts were also discounted more than larger amounts; furthermore, amount magnified the effects of openness and neuroticism on DD. Our findings show that personality is one predictor of individual differences in DD-an important implication for intervention approaches targeted at DD. © The Author(s) 2013.Vaishali Mahalingam was supported by a ‘Cambridge Nehru Bursary’ from the Nehru Trust for Cambridge University. David Stillwell was supported by an ESRC studentship (ES/F021801/1). He also receives revenue as an owner of the ‘My Personality’ website. Michal Kosinski received funding from Boeing Corporation

A computer adaptive measure of delay discounting

Delay discounting has been linked to important behavioral, health, and social outcomes, including academic achievement, social functioning and substance use, but thoroughly measuring delay discounting is tedious and time consuming. We develop and consistently validate an efficient and psychometrically sound computer adaptive measure of discounting. First, we develop a binary search–type algorithm to measure discounting using a large international data set of 4,190 participants. Using six independent samples ($N$ = 1,550), we then present evidence of concurrent validity with two standard measures of discounting and a measure of discounting real rewards, convergent validity with addictive behavior, impulsivity, personality, survival probability; and divergent validity with time perspective, life satisfaction, age and gender. The new measure is considerably shorter than standard questionnaires, includes a range of time delays, can be applied to multiple reward magnitudes, shows excellent concurrent, convergent, divergent, and discriminant validity—by showing more sensitivity to effects of smoking behavior on discounting.Nehru Trust for Cambridge University, Cambridge Overseas Trus

Synonymous Codon Usage Analysis of Thirty Two Mycobacteriophage Genomes

Synonymous codon usage of protein coding genes of thirty two completely sequenced mycobacteriophage genomes was studied using multivariate statistical analysis. One of the major factors influencing codon usage is identified to be compositional bias. Codons ending with either C or G are preferred in highly expressed genes among which C ending codons are highly preferred over G ending codons. A strong negative correlation between effective number of codons (Nc) and GC3s content was also observed, showing that the codon usage was effected by gene nucleotide composition. Translational selection is also identified to play a role in shaping the codon usage operative at the level of translational accuracy. High level of heterogeneity is seen among and between the genomes. Length of genes is also identified to influence the codon usage in 11 out of 32 phage genomes. Mycobacteriophage Cooper is identified to be the highly biased genome with better translation efficiency comparing well with the host specific tRNA genes

Pharmacological strategies to reduce anthracycline-associated cardiotoxicity in cancer patients.

INTRODUCTION: Anthracycline chemotherapeutic agents are widely used in the treatment of hematological and solid tumors, working principally through DNA intercalation and topoisomerase II inhibition. However, they are also well known to have cardiotoxic sequelae, commonly denoted as a reduction in ejection fraction. Drug-associated cardiotoxicity remains a significant limiting factor in the use of anthracyclines. AREAS COVERED: In this review, we explore the potential mechanisms of anthracycline-associated cardiotoxicity, identifying high-risk cohorts and approaches to cardiovascular monitoring. The mechanisms through which cardiotoxicity occurs are complex and diverse, ultimately leading to increased oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and subsequent cellular apoptosis. Many of the cardiotoxic effects of anthracyclines exhibit a dose-dependent cumulative relationship and are more apparent in patients with previously existing cardiovascular risk factors. Long-term cardiovascular monitoring and optimization of risk factors, prior to commencing treatment as well as beyond the time of treatment, is therefore essential. EXPERT OPINION: We discuss some of the pharmacological strategies proposed to mitigate anthracycline-associated cardiotoxicity as well as prevention strategies to reduce the burden of coexisting cardiovascular risk factors. We highlight methods of early detection of patient cohorts who are at increased risk of developing anthracycline-associated cardiotoxicity and identify potential avenues for further research

Interactive flow behaviour and heat transfer enhancement in a microchannel with cross flow synthetic jet

This paper examines the effectiveness in combining a pulsating fluid jet for thermal enhancement in microchannel heat sinks. The proposed arrangement utilises an oscillating diaphragm to induce a high-frequency periodic fluid jet with zero net mass output at the jet orifice hence, termed "synthetic jet". The pulsed jet interacts with the fluid flow through microchannel passages altering their flow characteristics. The present study develops a 2-dimensional finite volume numerical simulation based on unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations for examining the microchannel-synthetic jet flow interaction. For a range of parametric conditions, the behaviour of this periodic flow with its special features is identified and the associated convective heat transfer rates are predicted. The results indicate that the pulsating jet leads to outstanding thermal performance in microchannel flow increasing its heat dissipation rate by about 4.3 times compared to a microchannel without jet interaction within the tested parametric range. The degree of thermal enhancement is seen to grow continuously to reach a steady value in the absence of fluid compressibility. The proposed strategy has an intrinsic ability for outstanding thermal characteristics without causing pressure drop increases in microchannel fluid passages, which is identified as a unique feature of the technique.The study also examines and presents the effects of fluid compressibility on the heat removal capacity of this arrangement. The technique is envisaged to have application potential in miniature electronic devices where localised cooling is desired over a base heat dissipation load