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The main objective of this research is to analyze the living and learning experience of foreign students at Jinan University (JNU). The study aims to elicit two basic purposes; first, to help JNU administrators to measure the level of satisfaction of students and response to their needs. Second, to assess the existing facilities in the context of quality of education, the syllabus, credit system, choices of available courses, foreign faculty, teaching resources, effective dissemination of knowledge, behavior of administration and teachers, quality of food versus price, dormitory conditions, library resources, and other necessary facilities for productive learning.

To recognize the issues of foreign students and obtain their responses, this research has relied on several techniques. We have created a questionnaire and applied a systematic sampling technique. The questionnaire has been divided into several categories and sub-categories.

Findings of this study have confirmed that majority of the foreign students at JNU are satisfied with the learning and living conditions.

Though our study is subject to limitations, yet it provides some valuable insights. Due to lack of resources and time, we have limited our sample size to 27. However despite having few respondents, the overall feedback represents the entire population. Additionally, this study is mainly focused on foreign student’s living and learning experiences satisfaction. Hence, no dependent and independent variable relationship is being determined or argued.

However, as indicated by the respondents, JNU needs to improve its learning facilities, as well as induction of additional foreign faculty, availability of English text books, security of student dormitories, expansion of sports facilities, renovation of university roads, and installation of new equipment in the laborites. Such conclusion provides the administration and other stakeholders with valuable indicators of how well the JNU is meeting with the expectations of international students and how resources might best be directed to improve further services.

Our approach is unique and inventive, as so far there has been very little research that has been carried out on this topic on Chinese Universities. This study serves as a benchmark in measuring the living and learning experience of foreign students at JNU. The results of the research would be useful for planning and improving the quality of services and help the administration in formulating better policies for international students.

The aim of this study is to measure the perceptions of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) library users as they relate to quality service and to determine how far the JNU library has succeeded in delivering such service to its users.

The research was carried out among the students and faculty members of the JNU. A questionnaire was used as the data gathering instrument. The instruments for data collection consisted of structured questions. All the closed ended questions were designed to elicit responses on a five point Likert scale to measure both respondent satisfaction and perception of service quality. Analysis of the collected data made use of the chi‐square method.

The results would appear to indicate that the JNU library is not lacking in quality of service. However, we need to note that quality information service is about helping users to define and satisfy their information needs, building their confidence in using information retrieval systems, and making the whole activity of working with library staff a pleasurable experience. To achieve total quality in information service the JNU library should provide a comprehensive information programme that is predicated on the needs and activities of the users.

This study may help those libraries, who are seriously interested to develop user satisfaction and provide better service to the user. This study also suggests some recommendations about increasing the user satisfaction in the library service.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the students’ opinion of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, regarding the use and success of mobile technology in the library environment for providing better services by library and their expectations from the library through mobile technology.

A survey was conducted through a well-structured and precise questionnaire circulated personally among 200 students studying in Jawaharlal Nehru University for the academic session 2012-2013.

The majority of students are in favor of using mobile technology for better services, and it is expected by the students that services should be provided to them by libraries through mobile technology. Furthermore, the study also explores the students’ opinion on improved services using mobile technology.

The geographical area of study was confined to the students of the JNU, New Delhi, purely regarding their opinion on use and success of mobile technology by the library. The research results are limited to this environment only.

The paper highlights the students’ opinion of JNU regarding the use of mobile technology by the library for better services, and further it also explores the expectations of students from the library through this technology.

As the demand for human–robot collaboration in manufacturing applications grows, the necessity for collision detection functions in robots becomes increasingly paramount for safety. Hence, this paper aims to improve the existing method to achieve efficient, accurate and sensitive robot collision detection.

The external torque is estimated by momentum observers based on the robot dynamics model. Because the state of the joints is more accessible to distinguish under the action of the suppression operator proposed in this paper, the mutated external torque caused by joint reversal can be accurately attenuated. Finally, time series analysis (TSA) methods can continuously generate dynamic thresholds based on external torques.

Compared with the collision detection method based only on TSA, the invalid time of the proposed method is less during joint reversal. Although the soft-collision detection accuracy of this method is lower than that of the symmetric threshold method, it is superior in terms of detection delay and has a higher hard-collision detection accuracy.

Owing to the mutated external torque caused by joint reversal, which seriously affects the stability of time series models, the collision detection method based only on TSA cannot detect continuously. The consequences are disastrous if the robot collides with people or the environment during joint reversal. After multiple experimental verifications, the proposed method still exhibits detection capabilities during joint reversal and can implement real-time collision detection. Therefore, it is suitable for various engineering applications.

The main purpose of this paper is to describe the use of e-resources at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), those are being offered through the University Grant Commission – Information and Library Network (UGC-INFONET) consortium. Statistical techniques are applied on usage reports generated by e-resources vendors/publishers to understand trend and seasonality in usages of e-resources in academic libraries. The researchers evaluated gain in popularity of e-resources and drew a comparison in use of various databases of e-resources in terms of volume of downloads over a period of three years. The study would help in designing an instrument to evaluate utilization of e-resources. The cross comparison of databases helps in identifying e-resources, which have been optimally used.

The present study used quantitative approach to express utilization of e-resources in terms of number of downloads of full text research papers from Project Muse, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Springer Links, Taylor and Francis and JSTOR databases, accessible through the UGC-INFONET consortium. The investigation is based on secondary data of usage statistics made available by the UGC-INFONET consortium. The descriptive statistics techniques have been used in the initial phase of the investigation to understand trend in utilization of e-resources and examine robustness of various statistical tests to identify most appropriate tests for the latter phase of the investigation. The robustness analysis has been recommended for graphical and non-parametric tests for advanced investigation, in the latter phase of the study. The with-in cohort analysis techniques investigates numbers of monthly downloads from each database for a period of three years, i.e. 2008-2010 to explain seasonality in volume of downloads of e-resources.

e-Resources have been gaining popularity gradually in academic libraries; this trend is in tune with gaining of popularity of web-based intellectual resources in other sectors. The study established need of library consortium for sharing resources and subscription fee. The investigation proves significant association between numbers of downloads of e-resources from different databases in the same period; thus gain in popularity of one database encourages readers to explore other databases. The study indicates seasonality effect in the usages of e-resources in academic libraries. This seasonality effect is contemporary to the academic calendar. There are large numbers of downloads just before the examinations, which are held twice in a year and negligible number of downloads during and around long summer study breaks. Thus, the bandwidth rendered to the university is not consistently used during the academic session. The coverage of databases in terms of disciplines and numbers of journals varies to great extent. There is overlapping in the coverage of databases. The strength of students and their demands for scholarly works also vary across disciplines, thus cross comparison of numbers of downloads from databases has little meaning until impact of these three parameters are not controlled in the investigation of utilization of e-resources.

The literature shows that no study has been carried out for the use of e-resources by researchers of JNU.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the students’ opinion of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, regarding the use of social networking sites (SNSs)/tools by library and their expectation from the library through SNSs.

A survey was conducted using a well-designed questionnaire circulated among 200 students studying in JNU for the academic session 2011-2012.

The study explores that most of the students are in favor of using the SNS/tools by the libraries and they expect the services should be provided to them by libraries through SNS/tools as well.

The study geographical area was confined to the students of the JNU, New Delhi, regarding their opinion on use of SNS/tools by the library.

The paper highlights the student opinion regarding the use of SNS by library and further explores the expectations of students from library through SNS/tool.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the prices of print and electronic versions of the same scholarly titles charged from a university library. This study also examines whether preferences for print or electronic formats differ with disciplines and whether high preferences for the electronic version in particular disciplines lead to tagging of high prices for e-books in those disciplines. This study evaluates association in prices of e-books and their print versions for scholarly books. It also explains trends in gaps of prices of electronic and their print versions over the time to understand changing price policy of e-books with time.

This is a case study analysing and interpreting prices of 717 book titles available in electronic and print versions out of 1248 book titles recommended by the faculty members of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in early 2014. The minimum prices quoted by publishers or aggregators for these books became the secondary data for the study. The research methodology is based on quantitative descriptive and inferential statistical techniques.

The study statistically rejected the hypothesis that price tags of electronic and print versions of books do not differ significantly. E-books are usually more expensive than their print counterparts. They are more highly priced in disciplines, where the users prefer electronic books over the print ones. There is a moderate association in prices of electronic and their print versions; libraries can estimate about the budget which would be required for procuring books in electronic format with the help of price of print version; however, the accuracy of this stipulation would be only 20 per cent. The study has highlighted that 95.4 per cent of the scholarly e-books in English medium are published in the USA and the UK. The university presses of Cambridge, Oxford, Columbia, Princeton and MIT and commercial publishers like Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, Ashgate and Springer are the major publishers and providers of the scholarly e-books.

This study provides insights into pricing policy of electronic and their print versions of scholarly book titles for libraries. Thus it may be relevant and helpful for library administrators in informed decision making while developing their collections for books.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the status and application of automated acquisition in central university libraries in north India. North India is a loosely defined region consisting of northern parts of India. Significantly, all the libraries are having very rich collections of different types of documents.

Data for the present study have been collected using questionnaire. Interview and observation techniques have also been used to bring more objectivity in the present study. MS-Excel has been used for analysis of the data. Results show that varying levels of progress has been made with respect to implementation of acquisition system in the surveyed libraries.

Expectations of user community have been increased manifold in the wired world. Furthermore, suggest that the staff morale is boost up in the automated environment.

The study covers select academic libraries of north India. Application of various features of acquisition module is examined in this paper along with the staff perspective about automation. Automation process in these university libraries has been started with the selection of different library management software package in different universities. Notably, all the prominent central universities are located in north India.

The evaluation shed light on the current automation scenario in prominent academic libraries of India.

All the surveyed libraries must explore the fullest potentials of all the features available in the software to provide better services. This will help in heading toward and information rich society.

There have been a couple of studies in the past on library automation in academic libraries, but none have intended to cover collection building or acquisition activities in central university libraries of north India.

This study aims to propose a refined dynamic network slacks-based measure (DNSBM) to evaluate the efficiency of China's regional green innovation system which consists of basic research, applied research and commercialization stages and explore the influencing factors of the stage efficiency.

A two-step procedure is employed. The first step proposes an improved DNSBM model with flexible settings of stages' input or output efficiency and uses second order cone programming (SOCP) to solve the non-linear problem. In the second step, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and Tobit models are used to explore the influencing factors of the stage efficiency. Global Dynamic Malmquist Productivity Index (GDMPI) and Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition method are introduced for further discussion of the productivity change and regional differences.

On average, Chinese provincial green innovation efficiency should be improved by 24.11% to become efficient. The commercialization stage outperforms the stages of basic research and applied research. Comparisons between the proposed model and input-oriented, output-oriented and non-oriented DNSBM models show that the proposed model is more advanced because it allows some stages to have output-oriented model characteristics while the other stages have input-oriented model characteristics. The examination of the influencing factors reveals that the three stages of the green innovation system have quite diverse influencing factors. Further discussion reveals that Chinese green innovation productivity has increased by 39.85%, which is driven mainly by technology progress, and the increasing tendency of regional differences between northern and southern China should be paid attention to.

This study proposes an improved dynamic three-stage slacks-based measure (SBM) model that allows calculating output efficiency in some stages and input efficiency in the other stages with the application of SOCP approach. In order to capture productivity change, this study develops a GDMPI based on the DNSBM model. In practice, the efficiency of regional green innovation in China and the factors that influence each stage are examined.

Alcohol and tobacco consumption are significant public health concerns and considered some of the riskiest behaviors among students. Despite strong indications of heavy consumption of these substances, certain sections of the student population remain unexplored regarding their consumption patterns and associated factors, including research scholars pursuing Doctor of Philosophy degrees. This study aims to explore the patterns and correlations of consumption of alcohol and tobacco among doctoral students in three Indian universities.

A cross-sectional study was conducted on a total of 530 scholars from three central universities, Aligarh Muslim University, Banaras Hindu University and Jawahar Lal Nehru University, and focused on two substances (alcohol and tobacco) frequently used by students in India. Bi-variate analysis and penalized logistic regressions were applied to analyse the prevalence and associated factors of alcohol, smoking and smokeless tobacco among doctoral students.

Tobacco consumption was observed to be the dominant form of substance use among doctoral students. Findings revealed that 34% of scholars smoked and 25% consumed smokeless tobacco daily and around 14% consumed alcohol at least once a week. Major significant correlates of substance consumption among scholars were found to be gender, religion, parental mortality, dissatisfaction with academic performance and stress about future career/employment. Significant variation in substance use patterns was observed among universities.

This study provides first-hand evidence on substance use patterns and the correlates among doctoral students in three Indian universities. Findings indicate the implementation of specific intervention programs for mental health and counselling for this section of students to prevent substance use addiction would be beneficial.