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Rising energy demand and the quest for achieving climate change targets have been pushing emerging markets like India to bolster the natural gas share in their energy mix. The country has set an aggressive target of increasing natural gas share in the energy mix to 15% by 2030. The purpose of this study is to acknowledge the need for adopting and developing strategies for natural gas business market development to ensure a reliable supply at an affordable price. Hence, this study explores the natural gas market business development strategies and assesses them through cause/effect analysis.

This study proposed an integrated framework based on the Grey concept and Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) technique to assess and determine the interdependence among the natural gas business market development strategies by cause-and-effect group analysis. The application of Grey theory reduced the uncertainty and subjectivity involved in the decision-making process. Later, sensitivity analysis is also performed to check the robustness of the framework.

The natural gas business market development strategies are identified through a systematic literature search and contributions from industry experts. The findings of this study highlight the importance of developing pipeline and storage infrastructure facilities, ensuring supply security through long-term imports and overseas investment, implementing free-market-based pricing, simplification and standardization of regulatory processes at state and national levels, etc., for the development of the natural gas market development in India.

This study acknowledges the natural gas market development strategies and evaluated them into cause-and-effect groups which are limited to Indian context. All evaluations in the Grey-based DEMATEL method were made in this study based on the decision team inputs which limits the generalization to other geographies. Moreover, the opinions of the experts can be subjective and differ. The selection of the experts is done through non-probability sampling process.

This study could support the government and decision-makers in formulating the appropriate strategies to develop the domestic natural gas market. The cause-and-effect relationships are helpful for the companies, management, government, regulators and other stakeholders to understand the criticality of the causal strategies that must be implemented for developing the favorable natural gas business market scenario.

This study explores and evaluates the strategies that successfully bolster the natural gas business demand in India using Grey-based DEMATEL framework. By focusing on those critical strategies, relevant stakeholders would ensure a reliable natural gas supply at affordable prices.

This study aims to identify and rank the operational and financial risks causing a delay in the commencement of the city gas distribution project in India.

This study reviews the literature to identify operational and financial risks variables associated with infrastructure projects. Followed by a survey to isolate and assess the critical risk factors for city gas distribution network project in India. The survey data is evaluated using factor analysis to understand the latent structure of the critical risk factors. Second, the author ranks the identified variables as per significance by using the mean score method.

Five critical risk factors with 20 variables were extracted and assessed to build more understanding of their significance and impact on city gas distribution network project.

This study is the first attempt to follow the management approach to identify and rank operational and financial risks impacting city gas distribution project.

This study aims to focus on identifying the business risks that cause a delay in the oil and gas projects and suggest the way forward toward the better development of the city gas distribution (CGD) sector in India by suggesting the appropriate mitigation strategies.

The study is a systematic review of literature on risks causing a delay in oil and gas projects. Comprehensive literature was carried out following a seven-step model to develop an exhaustive list of risk classifications and factors, risk identification methods and strategies to mitigate the risks. Weighted average ranking method is used to identify the top ten risks affecting oil and gas projects.

This research identifies the top ten risks frequently impacting the oil and gas projects, which are project cost, improper project management, change in economic parameters, currency exchange rate, government regulations and laws, contractor and subcontractors issues, lack of skilled labor, delay in approvals, health and safety issues and force majeure. These risks are primarily responsible for cost overrun and project delay. Additionally, this study recommends the implementation of joint risk management to avoid CGD project delay.

The CGD industry is in the growing stage with many projects under construction. However, there is a lack of research to manage risks in the CGD project. This study contributes to the limited literature available on risk management in oil and gas projects. Additionally, it highlights the need for further research to explore the different risks factors affecting the CGD business and its operations and subsequently develop appropriate mitigation strategies.

This study aims to identify the operational and financial risks associated with the city gas distribution project in India and suggest appropriate strategies to mitigate them.

This study aims to identify the operational and financial risks associated with the city gas distribution project in India and suggest appropriate strategies to mitigate them. The survey data is evaluated using factor analysis to understand the latent structure of the critical risk factors. Second, the author uses Situation, Actor and Process–Learning, Action and Performance framework to suggest the mitigation strategies for the identified operational and financial risk factors.

The research identified five critical risk factors and suggested 39 mitigation strategies to address operational and risk factors impacting CGD projects. The findings of this research will enable the CGD companies to formulate long-term strategies for their business and adopt proactive measures to mitigate the operational and financial risks causing delay and increasing project costs. This study also highlights the importance of government support in developing a conducive environment for CGD industry to thrive.

The CGD projects are critical for natural gas growth in India’s energy mix. The project delay leads to a rise in the total cost involved and increases the payback period for the CGD companies. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this research is first of its kind that identifies the critical operational and financial risks affecting CGD projects in India and suggests the mitigating strategies for them.

Block chain technology (BCT) has apparent capability of handling information in digital format, which has dragged attention of the practitioners for its utility in industrial and manufacturing practices. Conversely, the managerial adoption of BCT is relatively limited, which motivated the authors to identify crucial dimensions that can persuade the acceptance of BCT from an executive perspective. Thus, the present study is aimed to conduct to understand crucial barriers under BCT for managerial implementation in supply chain management (SCM) of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The present study investigated evident barriers to understand implementation of BCT. A questionnaire based survey is performed to collect primary data from service and manufacturing based companies in India. Survey responses are received online and the data is analyzed in a scorecard. The scorecard embedded the scribed entries of Likert scale to determine the relative score.

In present study, sixteen barriers from three categories named as technological, organizational and environmental are evaluated, where, five sub-barriers from technological domain, seven sub-barriers from organizational domain and four sub-barriers from environmental domain are evaluated. The findings of the study determined that the three factors, i.e. “complexity in setup/use”, “Security and privacy concern” and “Technological awareness” mostly affect the adaptation of BCT in SCM. Conversely, “Market dynamics”, “Scalability” and “Cost” do not influence the intention to adopt the technology.

Only few studies have endeavored to ascertain the BCT adoption in SCM of SMEs in developing country like India. Thus, the study is filling a momentous gap of mapping BCT dimensions in the scholastic literature. The findings are expected to enable SMEs to understand important factors to be considered for adopting BCT in their curriculum. Furthermore, the study may benefit the BCT developers and suppliers to endure customized solutions based on the findings.

This paper aims to present a low-cost, edge-fed, windmill-shaped, notch-band eliminator, circular monopole antenna which is practically loaded with a complementary split ring resonator (CSRR) in the middle of the radiating conductor and also uses a partial ground to obtain wide-band performance.

To compensate for the reduced value of gain and reflection coefficient because of the full (complete) ground plane at the bottom of the substrate, the antenna is further loaded with a partial ground and a CSRR. The reduction in the length of ground near the feed line improves the impedance bandwidth, and introduced CSRR results in improved gain with an additional resonance spike. This results in a peak gain 3.895dBi at the designed frequency 2.45 GHz. The extending of three arms in the circular patch not only led to an increase of peak gain by 4.044dBi but also eliminated the notch band and improved the fractional bandwidth 1.65–2.92 GHz.

The work reports a –10dB bandwidth from 1.63 GHz to 2.91 GHz, which covers traditional coverage applications and new specific uses applications such as narrow LTE bands for future internet of things (NB-IoT) machine-to-machine communications 1.8/1.9/2.1/2.3/2.5/2.6 GHz, industry, automation and business-critical cases (2.1/2.3/2.6 GHz), industrial, society and medical applications such as Wi-MAX (3.5 GHz), Wi-Fi3 (2.45 GHz), GSM (1.9 GHz), public safety band, Bluetooth (2.40–2.485 GHz), Zigbee (2.40–2.48Ghz), industrial scientific medical (ISM) band (2.4–2.5 GHz), WCDMA (1.9, 2.1 GHz), 3 G (2.1 GHz), 4 G LTE (2.1–2.5 GHz) and other personal communication services applications. The estimated RLC electrical equivalent circuit is also presented at the end.

Because of full coverage of Bluetooth, Zigbee, WiFi3 and ISM band, the proposed fabricated antenna is suitable for low power, low data rate and wireless/wired short-range IoT-enabled medical applications.

The antenna is fabricated on a piece (66.4 mm × 66.4 mm × 1.6 mm) of low-cost low profile FR-4 epoxy substrate (0.54 λ_g × 0.54 λ_g) with a dielectric constant of 4.4, a loss tangent of 0.02 and a thickness of 1.6 mm. The antenna reflection coefficient, impedance and VSWR are tested on the Keysight technology (N9917A) vector network analyzer, and the radiation pattern is measured in an anechoic chamber.

The main purpose of present study is to model the replacement policy under uncertainty for managerial application based on grey-reliability approach by considering the subjective views of quality control circle (QCC). The study objectively links the optimality between individual replacement and group replacement policies for determining the minimum operational costs. The integrated framework between QCC, replacement theory, grey set theory and supply chain management is presented to plan replacement actions under uncertainty.

The study proposes the concept of grey-reliability index and built a decision support model, which can deal with the imprecise information for determining the minimum operational costs to plan subsequent maintenance efforts.

The findings of the study establish the synergy between individual replacement and group replacement policies. The computations related to the numbers of failures, operational costs, reliability index and failure probabilities are presented under developed framework. An integrated framework to facilitate the managers in deciding the replacement policy based on operational time towards concerning replacement of assets that do not deteriorate, but fails suddenly over time is presented. The conceptual model is explained with a numerical procedure to illustrate the significance of the proposed approach.

A conceptual model under the framework of such items, whose failures cannot be corrected by repair actions, but can only be set by replacement is presented. The study provides an important knowledge based decision support framework for crafting a replacement model using grey set theory. The study captured subjective information to build decision model in the ambit of replacement.

The unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) described in this manuscript is a robot designed by the authors to map the underground mine environments. The UGV works to develop a computational intelligence-based cyber-physical system (CPS)-based analytical framework for mining operations. The UGV demonstrated excellent semi-autonomous navigation capabilities in the absence of GNSS signals. The UGV has a suite that works in unison to provide relevant information. These sensors are integrated to form a robust sensor fusion-based architecture, creating a CPS with a wide range of capabilities such as data acquisition and navigation in challenging underground environments. UGVs can be used to enhance the efficacy of safety inspections, rescue during underground emergencies and assist miners in hazardous conditions.

In this research, an UGV was constructed whose operations are enabled by sensors including a D415i Red Blue Green (RGB) depth camera, a LiDAR, a FLIR C5 infrared camera and smart air quality sensors. This sensor fusion-based architecture forms a CPS. Data obtained remotely are processed by deep learning algorithms to achieve overall capabilities such as real-time image analysis for miner identification, object detection, posture analysis and identifying threats of roof falls and overhangs. Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithms create a 3D map, facilitate autonomous navigation and build a decision support system for delivering mine rescue support.

The aim of this study is to include this capacity in training situations when it has been validated and authorized by the Directorate General of Mines Safety (DGMS) Indian government regulatory agency for safety in mines and oil fields. The longwall demo mine, at IIT (ISM) is being used as the site of the first operations. Once approved by the respective enforcement agencies, this technology and the accompanying rescue and training process can be used in underground operations.

In fact, this paper is the first attempt at remotely operated UGVs based on CPSs, the CPS–UGV in Indian mine conditions, so as to revolutionize Indian mines based on the idea of Industry 4.0.

Spotlights India and that by 2045 it may become a more populous country than China. Deplores the lack of social and economic development in India and looks at the reasons for these. Tries to explain why the population has shot up from 1971 and two‐thirds of the growth in India has taken place since then. Uses tables to aid in explanation of birth rates, literacy and literacy among females particularly. Concludes that the economic development and urbanization is to be commended but not the only key factor regarding fertility rates of single states.