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Developing countries like India, accounts for about 40 percent of undernourished children in the World and it is largely due to the result of dietary inadequacy in relation to their needs. The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the changes in the nutritional status of the children, from their preschool days to the present primary school days.

The present investigation was conducted at 20 Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) centers (Center-A) and 15 primary schools (Center-B) in Bali Gram Panchayat, Arambag, Hooghly District of West Bengal, India, at an interval of three to four years. A total of 1,012 children (boys=498; girls=514) aged two to six years old enrolled in these ICDS centers and a total of 603 children (boys=300, girls=303), aged five to ten years were studied from the 15 primary schools who were the beneficiaries of ICDS centers. Underweight (weight-for-age Z-score (WAZ)) and wasting (weight-for height Z-score (WHZ)) were used to assess the nutritional status.

The nutritional situation (both in case of underweight and wasting) was better in Center B as compared with Center A. In general, the nutritional condition of boys was better than girls. Center had a very significant effect on both WAZ as well as WHZ, irrespective of age and sex. Sex has a significant impact only on WAZ. Interestingly, there was no significant sex-center interaction for both WAZ as well as WHZ. The children of the area were getting Mid Day Meal supplied through the school authorities which was comparatively better than the ICDS centers’ food supplementation. Better monitoring of nutritional supplementation at primary schools may be an important factor.

In ICDS centers, only the Anganwari worker is responsible in running and implementing the programs offered by the Government. However, at primary schools, the active involvement of all the teachers to run the program may have effectively led to have better results. Furthermore, the Government's focus should not be only on the increase the area covered by the ICDS program, but focus should be to increase the quality of food supplied, proper monitoring of the implementation and increase the allocation of funds. Appropriate measures may be taken by the authorities regarding this.

The results of the study will help in policy making in reducing the prevalence of undernutrition.

Discusses the telecommunications infrastructure of the USA and issues surrounding its restructuring. Describes the role and impact of broadband Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) in applications development and the societal implications of this change. Points out that global development of broadband technologies makes personal access to multimedia applications possible and promotes new information‐sharing partnerships. Argues for an holistic, ethical approach to future development of ISDN.

The high rate of CRM failures is a matter of concern for business managers. Although the benefits of CRM have been well acknowledged, the manner in which CRM's benefits can be leveraged is still not well understood. This paper seeks to offer an approach that can be used to strategize for CRM in order to leverage the benefits.

The paper is based on the findings of various authors and by studying the CRM strategy adopted by Tesco to develop a conceptual framework that can be used for strategizing for CRM.

The contribution of the author of this paper is a conceptual framework that can be used to strategize for CRM. The four stages of the framework are: Engage- Segment-Personalize-Track.

Only one case study has been referred to.

The framework can be used by managers who desire to use CRM and leverage its benefits.

Since the failure rates of CRM are high, it seems that the existing frameworks and approaches are not capable of ensuring success with CRM. It is hoped that this new conceptual approach that basically focuses on four steps – Engage-Segment-Personalize-Track – will deliver on the promise of CRM.

This paper aims to present the edge scattering dominant circuit modeling. The effect of crosstalk on gate oxide reliability (GOR), along with the mitigation using shielding technique is further studied.

An equivalent distributed Resistance Inductance Capacitance circuit of capacitively coupled interconnects of multilayer graphene nanoribbon (MLGNR) has been considered for T Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (TSPICE) simulations under functional and dynamic switching conditions. Complementary metal oxide semiconductor driver transistors are modeled by high performance predictive technology model that drive the distributed segment with a capacitive load of 0.001 fF, V_DD and clock frequency as 0.7 V and 0.2 GHz, respectively, at 14 nm technology node.

The results reveal that the crosstalk induced delay and noise area are dominated by the overall mean free path (MFP) (i.e. including the effect of edge roughness induced scattering), in contrary to, acoustic and optical scattering limited MFP with the temperature, width and length variations. Further, GOR, estimated in terms of average failure rate (AFR), shows that the shielding technique is an effective method to minimize the relative GOR failure rate by, 0.93e-7 and 0.7e-7, in comparison to the non-shielded case with variations in interconnect’s length and width, respectively.

Considering realistic circuit modeling for MLGNR interconnects by incorporating the edge roughness induced scattering mechanism, the outcomes exhibit more penalty in terms of crosstalk induced noise area and delay. The shielding technique is found to be an effective mitigating technique for minimizing AFR in coupled MLGNR interconnects.

This study aims to investigate how city dependence and city social bonding determine city brand love. In addition, the study examines whether there are different resident segments that exhibit distinct behaviour in relation to city brand formation.

The study is based on primary responses collected from 595 residents from Khulna city in Bangladesh. The research model is tested using partial least square (PLS) structural equation modelling. The resident segments were identified using PLS prediction-oriented segmentation method.

Results show that city dependence (i.e. dependence on urban facilities and services provided by the city) and city social bonding (i.e. social interactions amongst residents in the city) lead to city brand love through city satisfaction and city identification. In addition, the study finds that city social bonding and city satisfaction are important for the relationship-reliant residents, whereas city dependence and city identification are important for the resource-reliant residents.

Future research can investigate the relationship between the length of residence and native vs non-native residents’ influence on city brand love formation.

The city brand managers and planners should adopt a resident-inclusive approach that considers the different needs of the residents to engender city brand love.

The study contributes to city branding literature by empirically investigating the under-researched topic of city brand love by identifying the key constructs and their role in determining city brand love. Further, it shows that the route to city brand love formation is different based on residents’ needs.

Health-care knowledge is dispersed among different departments in a health care organization, which makes it difficult at times to provide quality care services to patients. Therefore, this study aims to identify the main challenges in adopting health information technology (HIT).

This study surveyed 148 stakeholders in 4 key categories [patients, health-care providers, United Arab Emirates (UAE) citizens and foresight experts] to identify the challenges they face in adopting health care technologies. Responses were analyzed using exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

EFA revealed four key latent factors predicting resistance to HIT adoption, namely, organizational strategy (ORGS); technical barriers; readiness for big data and the internet of things (IoT); and orientation (ORI). ORGS accounted for the greatest amount of variance. CFA indicated that readiness for big data and the IoT was only moderately correlated with HIT adoption, but the other three factors were strongly correlated. Specific items relating to cost, the effectiveness and usability of the technology and the organization were strongly correlated with HIT adoption. These results indicate that, in addition to financial considerations, effective HIT adoption requires ensuring that technologies will be easy to implement to ensure their long-term use.

The results indicate that readiness for big data and the IoT-related infrastructure poses a challenge to HIT adoption in the UAE context. Respondents believed that the infrastructure of big data can be helpful in more efficiently storing and sharing health-care information. On the technological side, respondents felt that they may experience a steep learning curve. Regarding ORI, stakeholders expected many more such initiatives from health-care providers to make it more knowledge-specific and proactive.

This study has implications for knowledge management in the health -care sector for information technologies. The HIT can help firms in creating a knowledge eco-system, which is not possible in a dispersed knowledge environment. The utilization of the knowledge base that emerged from the practices and data can help the health care sector to set new standards of information flow and other clinical services such as monitoring the self-health condition. The HIT can further influence the actions of the pharmaceutical and medical device industry.

This paper highlights the challenges in HIT adoption and the most prominent factors. The conceptual model was empirically tested after the collection of primary data from the UAE using stakeholder theory.

The purpose of this paper is to implement the six sigma (SS) strategy in a bag sector under actual operating circumstances based on defining-measure-analyze-improve and control (DMAIC). During the project, several statistical tools and methods have been used efficiently to create inferences. Thus, to measure and enhance system efficiency, the author calculate reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) indices. Based on this research, the author show how the SS method and RAM analysis are very helpful in determining maintenance intervals, as well as in planning and organizing the appropriate maintenance strategy.

This study introduces the step-by-step application of the DMAIC methodology for the identification and reduction of bag production line downtime and examines the present operations management. Thus, statistical techniques are used to analyze the failure and repair database. Pareto analysis, histograms and descriptive statistics at the machine and line-level of the historical data were conducted. Trend and serial correlation testing validated the hypothesis of independence and identical distribution of database was performed. In addition, with their best fit allocation, the RAM of both the bag production line and its machines was estimated at separate mission times.

The main goals of the applied method are to understand the nature of the downtime patterns and to accurately and quantitatively estimate the RAM characteristics of the bag production system. The assessment defines the production line's critical points, requiring further enhancement through an efficient maintenance approach. Therefore, by improving plant efficiency and safety, the author can decrease unplanned downtime and equipment failures.

This research is expected to serve as an attempt to conduct SS DMAIC methodology through RAM assessment and its impact on system efficiency under actual circumstances. The benefit of the methodology is that the manufacturing process is continuously monitored by suitable indicators, the use of which leads to a continuous improvement cycle.

Solar as an energy source has a massive potential to reduce dependence on fossil fuels in Gulf Countries (GC). One attractive application of solar energy is solar-powered desalination, which is a viable method to produce fresh water. The most significant factor determining the potential deployment of this application is economics.

In this study, the classical economic analysis model has been modified to assess the penetration of solar technology to power desalination plants at different periods during the project lifetime. Furthermore, the environmental and financial values were combined to assess the incentive of powering desalination plants with solar energy in Saudi Arabia. Three systems of solar technologies accompanied with water desalination based on technical applicability were modeled and economically analyzed to understand the impact of various design and operation parameters.

This study shows that PV-RO is currently more competitive at both market and administrated prices in Saudi Arabia, followed by the MED-CSP system and finally CSP-RO system. CSP-RO system starts to generate positive surplus after 11 years, while the base case shows no positive surplus at all during the entire lifetime. Moreover, the same trend continues to hold with MED-CSP and PV-RO systems. The MED-CSP generates positive surplus after six years and PV-RO after five years only. On average, it takes eight years for a project running based on solar (CAPEX and OPEX) and desalination OPEX to generate positive cash surplus.

This paper discusses the debate about incentives for renewable energy in GC and the impact of coupling water production and solar generation. Given that there is no analytical framework built earlier, this paper provides an alternative methodology for policy analysis to understand the role of economies of scope to incentivize solar generation. In other words, the authors are investigating options to reduce the total cost of solar production as a result of increasing the number of different goods produced.