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The case presents the efforts of Dr. Dhanesh Jain, founder of Ratna Sagar Publications to innovate in children's publishing space. His innovations received mixed response. Commercial success was delayed. Adoption of innovations by the educational institutions did not happen as expected, the innovations, however, created opportunities for other business ventures. Dr. Jain is wondering whether the innovation efforts were worth their while.

Metal matrix composites (MMCs) are commonly used in many aerospace and industrial applications. MMCs possess significantly improved properties including high specific strength, specific modulus, damping capacity and good wear resistance compared to unreinforced alloys. The purpose of this paper is to describe the tribological studies of Al-Si alloy–fly ash composites manufactured using powder metallurgy technique.

Al-Si (12 Wt.%) alloy–fly ash composites were developed using powder metallurgy technique. Al-Si alloy powder was used as matrix material, and the fly ash was used as reinforcement. The particle size of Al-Si alloy powder was in the range of 75-300 μm, and the fly ash was in the range of 1-15 μm. The friction and wear characteristics of the composites were studied using a pin-on-disc set up. The test specimen was mated against cast iron disc, and the tests were conducted with the loads of 10, 20 and 30 N, sliding speeds of 0.5, 1 and 1.5 m/s for a sliding distance of 2,000 m.

The effects of load and sliding speed on tribological properties of the base alloy and Al-Si alloy–fly ash composites pins on sliding with cast iron disc are evaluated. The wear rate of Al-Si alloy–fly ash composites is lower than that of base alloy, and it increases with increasing load and sliding speed. The coefficient of friction of Al-Si alloy–fly ash composites is increased as compared with base alloy.

The development of Al-Si alloy–fly ash composites produced by powder metallurgy technique will modernize the automobile and other industries because near net shape at low cost and good mechanical properties are obtained.

There are few papers available on the development and tribological studies of Al-Si alloy–fly ash composites produced by powder metallurgy technique.

This paper aims to present the problem of heating the damaged insulation of an orbiter.

Changes of the insulation’s thermal properties, made by adding conductive material of high value of specific heat in a form of a dope to the protective layer, were examined. An iterative algorithm determining a variable of dope concentration in the material was developed.

Determination of distribution of conductive material concentration was made for materials which, after verification, demonstrated the most beneficial effect on protective properties of the modified insulation layer. The problem of determining the distribution of metal filings concentration in the insulation layer of the coating belongs to inverse heat conduction problems.

Change of properties was to enable time extension of the LI900 insulation tile heating up to the maximal temperature and, additionally, to lowering this temperature.

High-efficiency video coding (HEVC) is the latest video coding standard that has better coding efficiency than the H.264/advanced video coding (AVC) standard. The purpose of this paper is to design and develop an effective block search mechanism for the video compression-HEVC standard such that the developed compression standard is applied for the communication applications.

In the proposed method, an rate-distortion (RD) trade-off, named regressive RD trade-off is used based on the conditional autoregressive value at risk (CaViar) model. The motion estimation (ME) is based on the new block search mechanism, which is developed with the modification in the Ordered Tree-based Hex-Octagon (OrTHO)-search algorithm along with the chronological Salp swarm algorithm (SSA) based on deep recurrent neural network (deepRNN) for optimally deciding the shape of search, search length of the tree and dimension. The chronological SSA is developed by integrating the chronological concept in SSA, which is used for training the deep RNN for ME.

The competing methods used for the comparative analysis of the proposed OrTHO-search based RD + chronological-salp swarm algorithm (RD + C-SSA) based deep RNN are support vector machine (SVM), fast encoding framework, wavefront-based high parallel (WHP) and OrTHO-search based RD method. The proposed video compression method obtained a maximum peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) of 42.9180 dB and a maximum structural similarity index measure (SSIM) of 0.9827.

In this research, an effective block search mechanism was developed with the modification in the OrTHO-search algorithm along with the chronological SSA based on deepRNN for the video compression-HEVC standard.

This study aims to examine the flow of unsteady mixed convective hybrid nanofluid over a rotating sphere with heat generation/absorption. The hybrid nanofluid contains different shapes of nanoparticles (copper [Cu] and aluminium oxide [Al₂O₃]) in the base fluid (water [H₂O]). The influence of different shapes (sphere, brick, cylinder, platelets and blades) of nanoparticle in water-based hybrid nanofluid is also investigated.

To analyse the nanomaterial, the flow model is established, and in doing so, the Prandtl’s boundary layer theory is incorporated into the present model. The bvp4c approach, i.e. finite difference method, is used to find the numerical solution of differential equations that is controlling the fluid flow. The effect of relevant flow parameters on nanofluid temperature and velocity profile is demonstrated in detailed explanations using graphs and bar charts, whereas numerical results for Nusselt number and the skin’s coefficient for various form parameters are presented in tabular form.

The rate of heat transfer is least for spherical-shaped nanoparticle because of its smoothness, symmetricity and isotropic behaviour. The rate of heat transfer is highest for blade-shaped nanoparticles as compared to other shapes (brick, cylindrical and platelet) of nanoparticles because the blade-shaped nanoparticles causes comparatively more turbulence flow in the nanofluid than other shapes of nanoparticle. Heat generation affects the temperature distribution and, hence, the particle deposition rate. The absorption of heat extracts heat and reduce the temperature across the rotating sphere. The heat generation/absorption parameter plays an important role in establishing and maintaining the temperature around the rotating sphere.

The numerical study is valid with the exception of the fluctuation in density that results in the buoyancy force and the functional axisymmetric nanofluid transport has constant thermophysical characteristics. In addition, this investigation is also constrained by the assumptions that there is no viscosity dissipation, no surface slippage and no chemically activated species. The hybrid nanofluid Al₂O₃–Cu/H₂O is an incompressible and diluted suspension. The single-phase hybrid nanofluid model is considered in which the relative velocity of water (H₂O) and hybrid nanoparticles (Al₂O₃–Cu) is the same and they are in a state of thermal equilibrium.

Study on convective flow across a revolving sphere has its applications found in electrolysis management, polymer deposition, medication transfer, cooling of spinning machinery segments, spin-stabilized missiles and other industrial and technical applications.

The originality of the study is to investigate the effect of shape factor on the flow of electrically conducting hybrid nanofluid past a rotating sphere with heat generation/absorption and magnetic field. The results are validated and provide extremely positive balance with the recognised articles. The results of the study provide many appealing applications that merit further study of the problem.

The purpose of this paper is to study the sensitivity and selectivity properties of polyaniline/tantalum pentoxide (PANI/Ta₂O₅) composite to liquid petroleum gas (LPG).

Polyaniline/tantalum pentaoxide (PANI/Ta₂O₅) composites were synthesized by in situ chemical polymerization method using ammonium persulphate as an oxidizing agent. This is the novel polymerization process for the direct synthesis of emeraldine salt phase of the polymer. The composites were characterized by FTIR, XRD and SEM. Temperature dependence conductivity of the composites shows thermally activated behaviour. Sensitivity and selectivity of the composites are studied.

The PANI/ Ta₂O₅ composites of 20 wt% and 30 wt% are showing maximum change in resistance against time when compared to pure PANI and other polyaniline composites when exposed to LPG. The 20 wt % composites show maximum sensitivity of 83% to LPG. The selectivity studies reveals that LPG could be sensed better when compared to oxyacetylene and other test gases.

Selectivity studies have been carried out and the sensor proved to be better than metal oxides sensors.

The sensing material is of low cost.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, studies on Ta₂O₅‐based gas sensor have not been reported previously.

The purpose of the article is to report a study on evaluation of smart manufacturing (SM) performance using a grey theory-based approach.

In total, 30 criteria and 79 attributes for SM performance have been developed. A grey theory-based approach has been used for SM performance evaluation. The grey index has been calculated, and weaker areas have been derived. Performance level of SM has been evaluated using the Euclidean distance approach.

The SM performance index is found to be (3.036, 12.296). The ideal grey performance importance index (GPII) is obtained as (3.025, 4.875). The level of visibility and traceability, vertical integration, lead time and configuration data espionage and control ability are strong performing attributes. Integration abilities of services and manufacturing systems, ability of self-control, worker and raw material productivity, collaboration among buyers and suppliers and dynamic scheduling are identified as weaker areas, and suggestions for improvement have been derived. SM performance level has been identified as “Good.”

Additional performance measures could be included as a part of evaluation. Practitioners can overcome weaker areas in the early phase. Management achieves confidence and practitioners attain success in implementation of SM in industry through the developed SM performance indexing system.

Identification of SM performance measures and analysis of SM performance is the original contribution of the authors. The developed approach assists practitioners and managers to focus more on specific areas for performance improvement.

The purpose of the study is to review the e-books collection, namely, Ebrary Academic Complete, by understanding its features, cost and usage at Vikram Sarabhai Library, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA). The study attempts to understand the usefulness of Ebrary in terms of its currency of titles, publishers, subjects and cost.

The paper is based on five-year usage data of Ebrary Academic Complete at Vikram Sarabhai Library, IIMA. The data on usage of Ebrary was downloaded and analyzed on different parameters to find out the overall value or use of Ebrary Academic Complete package from the perspective of a management library.

The research concluded that there was an increase in usage of Ebrary Academic Complete over time. The subject analysis revealed that titles from “Business and Economics”, “Computers” and “Social Science” were the highest used. The publisher analysis indicated that John Wiley & Sons topped in both the highest number of titles in the package and highest used titles. The annual subscription fee model of Ebrary Academic Complete adopted by Vikram Sarabhai Library was working well with a gradual increase in usage bringing down the per title access costs.

The study helps in understanding the approach to evaluating e-book collections in terms of currency of content, subjects covered, publishers included and costs involved. The detailed analysis would assist libraries in decision-making with regard to e-book collection development.

The objective of the study is to identify and analyse drivers of smart manufacturing using integrated grey-based approaches. The analysis facilitates industry practitioners in the identification of preference of drivers through which smart manufacturing can be implemented. These drivers are explored based on existing literature and expert opinion.

Modern manufacturing firms have been adopting smart manufacturing concepts to sustain in the global competitive landscape. Smart manufacturing incorporates integrated technologies with a flexible workforce to interlink the cyber and physical world. In order to facilitate the effective deployment of smart manufacturing, key drivers need to be analysed. This article presents a study in which 25 drivers of smart manufacturing and 8 criteria are analysed. Integrated grey Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (grey TOPSIS) is applied to rank the drivers. The derived ranking is validated using “Complex Proportional Assessment – Grey” (COPRAS-G) approach.

In total, 25 drivers with 8 criteria are being considered and an integrated grey TOPSIS approach is applied. The ranking order of drivers is obtained and further sensitivity analysis is also done.

In the present study, 25 drivers of smart manufacturing are analysed. In the future, additional drivers could be considered.

The study presented has been done with inputs from industry experts, and hence the inferences have practical relevance. Industry practitioners need to focus on these drivers in order to implement smart manufacturing in industry.

The analysis of drivers of smart manufacturing is the original contribution of the authors.

The purpose of this paper is to identify, model, analyze and prioritize the barriers in implementing sustainable practices in rubber products manufacturing industry in Kerala, a state in South India. This research provides a more reliable quantitative measure of association of the barriers in the implementation of sustainable practices in the rubber products manufacturing sector.

Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is used to develop the hierarchical relationships among the barriers in the implementation of sustainable supply chain practices in the rubber products manufacturing sector. The hierarchical structure among the barriers is framed using the experts’ opinion. Cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to the classification (MICMAC) analysis is integrated with the output of ISM to classify the barriers into different categories based on the driving power and the dependence power. The driving power and the dependence power of the barriers obtained from ISM constitute two criteria for prioritizing the barriers. The change management required is considered as the third criterion. The fuzzy-analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP) methodology is adopted to prioritize the barriers based on these three criteria.

The hierarchical relationship obtained through ISM methodology shows that lack of government initiatives and lack of benchmark on sustainability measurement in Indian conditions are the major barriers in implementing sustainable practices in the rubber products manufacturing sector. These barriers lead to the lack of management commitment for the implementation of sustainable practices in the organizations under study. The prioritization obtained through the F-AHP method suggests that lack of top-level management commitment, lack of motivation, lack of government initiatives and high initial cost of implementation are some of the major barriers in implementing sustainable practices in the organizations.

In the application of the ISM methodology, the contextual relationship between the barriers specified by the experts and their preferences may involve bias. Another limitation of this research is that the modeling and prioritization of the barriers are executed based on the opinion of experts from rubber product manufacturing companies in one state only.

To the best knowledge of the authors, this research is the first study on the identification and prioritization of the barriers in sustainable supply chain implementation in the rubber products manufacturing sector. Modeling the inter-relationship among the barriers using ISM technique and prioritizing the barriers using F-AHP are the novel features of the contributions of this work.