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The primary aim of this article is to ascertain the modalities of leveraging Lean Six Sigma (LSS) for Industry 4.0 (I4.0) with special reference to the process industries. Moreover, it intends to determine the applicability of simulation-based LSS in the automation of the mineral water industry, with special emphasis on the robust design of the control system to improve productivity and performance.

This study adopts the action research methodology, which is exploratory in nature along with the DMAIC (define-measure-analyze-improve-control) approach to systematically unearth the root causes and to develop robust solutions. The MATLAB simulation software and Minitab statistical software are effectively utilized to draw the inferences.

The root causes of critical to quality characteristic (CTQ) and variation in purity level of water are addressed through the simulation-based LSS approach. All the process parameters and noise parameters of the reverse osmosis (RO) process are optimized to reduce the errors and to improve the purity of the water. The project shows substantial improvement in the sigma rating from 1.14 to 3.88 due to data-based analysis and actions in the process. Eventually, this assists the management to realize an annual saving of 20% of its production and overhead costs. This study indicates that LSS can be applicable even in the advent of I4.0 by reinforcing the existing approach and embracing data analysis through simulation.

The limitation of this research is that the inference is drawn based on a single case study confined to process industry automation. Having said that, the methodology deployed, scientific information related to optimization, and technical base established can be generalized.

This article is the first of its kind in establishing the integration of simulation, LSS, and I4.0 with special reference to automation in the process industry. It also delineates the case study in a phase-wise manner to explore the applicability and relevance of LSS with I4.0. The study is archetype in enabling LSS to a new era, and can act as a benchmark document for academicians, researchers, and practitioners for further research and development.

The purpose of this paper is to assess and evaluate quantitative and qualitative use of electronic resources in the academic ambience of business schools in Orissa (India) with a view to examining the level of electronic information services (EIS) offered to the faculty members of the state with an opinion pool of the faculty members of the respective business schools. Moreover, the study aims to highlight some of the problems and constraints faced by the target users with some constructive suggestions and recommendations for the improvement of the status of electronic information services in the business schools of the state in days to come.

The paper investigates the use of e‐resources by the faculty members of business schools of the state through a survey based on responses of the target users from structured questionnaires. The SPSS package is used for data analysis.

Faculty members pay high preference to the use of e‐articles while the least preference goes towards the use of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). Further it is found that a selected few online databases like Emerald Management Xtra (EMX), EBSCO, and PROQUEST are fairly in use while the use of other online databases is not up to expectations. In tandem, the majority of faculty members are in favor of commercial e‐services.

The paper restricts the study exclusively to e‐resources as the type of material and faculty members of major business schools of Orissa (India) as the respondents in its scope of discussion.

The study focuses on the use of e‐resources by faculty members in business schools of Orissa with some constructive outcomes for effective generalization.

This study aims to analyze the productivity patterns of authors in Nigeria using publications indexed in Medline from 2008 to 2012 based on Lotka’s Law. Lotka’s Law of scientific productivity provides a platform for studying inequality in authors’ productivity patterns in a given field and over a specified period.

This study covers all the journal articles on HIV/AIDS pandemic in Nigeria over a period of five years (2008-2012) in Medline, of which 512 articles were reported to have been published during this period. In this paper, 306 articles that had HIV/AIDS in the title, published in 20 journals, and articles that had HIV/AIDS as author keywords were analyzed. Because no local database that indexed biomedical literature from Nigeria was available, Medline was used, which is not only a robust and flexible database that includes articles from Nigeria but is also the largest medical database that indexes over six-and-a-half million articles from 3,400 biomedical journals.

While HIV/AIDS can be considered a global pandemic, Nigeria has the second highest number of new infections reported each year, and an estimated 3.7 per cent of the population is living with the dreaded disease. This study presents a general picture of the distribution of papers as single-author papers, multiple-author papers and the measures of co-authorship. The findings of the study reveal that in the productivity distribution for authors on the subject of HIV/AIDS, only co-authors and non-collaborative authors’ categories fit in the Lotka’s Law, whereas all-authors and first-author categories differ from the distribution of Lotka’s inverse square law.

The empirical evidence used in this paper was based on only articles of HIV/AIDS pandemic in Nigeria that had HIV/AIDS the title. Therefore, the findings of this study might not be the generalized to other biomedical research studies.

The originality of this paper lies in the fact that the productivity pattern of each of the different author categories on the subject of HIV/AIDS is a first of its kind in the Nigerian context.

Similar to Western countries, the early origins of special education in India started with Christian missionaries and nongovernmental agencies which stressed a charity model of serving populations such as the visually, hearing, and cognitively impaired. However after its independence from Great Britain in 1947, the Indian government became more involved in providing educational, rehabilitation, and social services. Thus over the past four decades, India has moved gradually toward an inclusive education model. This chapter discusses the implementation of such a model related to the prevalence and incidence rates of disability in India as well as working within family environments that often involve three to four generations. Also included are challenges that an inclusive education system faces in India, namely, a high level of poverty, appropriate teacher preparation of special education teachers, a lack of binding national laws concerned with inclusive education, a dual governmental administration for special education services, and citizen’s and special education professionals strong concern about whether inclusive education practices can be carried out.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the current status of special libraries of Bangladesh and their ability to adapt information technology (IT) in various library operations and services.

The study is based on the case study method. A structured questionnaire was distributed among the special libraries of Bangladesh to uncover the status of using IT by those libraries.

Being a developing country, Bangladesh is confronted with certain problems to introduce IT‐based services and other facilities in the special libraries. The study has revealed the embryonic state of IT in the special libraries of Bangladesh.

The paper is an original case study on the application of IT in the Special Libraries of Bangladesh. It will help web researchers to obtain a precise picture of the application of IT in these libraries. It will also help researchers to acquaint themselves with IT applications in libraries in a third world country.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the prolific growth of electronic resources during the last decade. The standards and strategies are sought to access and organize the abundance of e‐resources and to ensure free flow of information to the user's community. This survey attempts to measure the quantum of e‐resources accessed in the academic ambience of Business School libraries in Orissa (India). Moreover, the study attempts to examine to what extent Electronic Information Services (EIS) are offered to users of Business School libraries in the State with an opinion pool of the librarians of the respective Business Schools. Furthermore, the study aims to highlight problems and constraints faced by the information professionals in accessing e‐resources and delivering electronic information services with some constructive suggestions and remedial measures for the ensuing bottle‐neck.

The paper highlights the availability of e‐resources and critically examines the quantum of their use in Business School libraries of Orissa and the crucial role played by the information professionals in providing electronic information services to users through the findings based on responses from structured questionnaires. The SPSS package is used for analysis of data.

The paper arrives at the conclusion that the internet‐based e‐resources are being well used compared with CD‐ROM databases. Premier web search options like Google and Yahoo! are the most frequently used search engines, while the other searching options are less used. Availability of some key online databases are exclusively confined to only a selected few B‐School libraries of the State.

The paper restricts the study exclusively to e‐resources as the type of material and the librarians of 25 major Business School libraries of Orissa (India) as the respondents in its scope of discussion.

The paper sheds some light on the use of e‐resources in Business School libraries of Orissa (India) with some constructive suggestions for the development of the platform of electronic resources and services.

This paper aims to consider a sustainable inventory model with price dependent demand, non-instantaneous deterioration rate, discount facility, partially backlogged shortages and advance and delay in payments for a two-warehouse system.

This model considered a non-instantaneous deterioration, which starts after a certain period with a constant rate. The deterioration rate in the rented warehouse is more compared to own warehouse. The proposed model focused on two things. The first one is to the benefits of the advance payments strategy and delayed payment for the retailer and supplier, where the two-warehouse system is available and the second one is using an appropriate discount facility on no of the installment to maximize the total profit. The classical optimization technique is used to solve the problem.

The combination of trade-credits and advance payments is initiated to provide more benefits to the retailer. The findings prove that advance payments, which are received from the retailer to the supplier are beneficial for the supplier, who can influence the demand increase because of higher lower selling prices. Decreasing the selling price is used as a catalyst to increase demand. It also extends the discount concept of Khan et al. (2019, 2019b).

This model is limited by the fact that it does not consider variable deterioration. Therefore, the proposed inventory model could be extended by considering variable deterioration, as well as fully backlogged shortages and time-dependent demand function.

The study simultaneously considers a non-instantaneous deterioration inventory model, advance-payment, trade-credit for a sustainable two-warehouse inventory system. From the literature search to the best of knowledge no researcher has undergone this sort of study.

The main aim of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of various strengthening techniques in restoring the structural performance of reinforced concrete (RC) beams damaged by elevated temperatures.

Three different strengthening techniques, namely, high-strength fibre reinforced concrete (HSFRC), ferrocement (FC) jacketing and externally bonded fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) were used. Series of RC beams were casted, heated, strengthened and tested to investigate the influence of various variables. The variables of the study were type of strengthening and level of heat damage.

Externally bonded FRP was found to be the best among the various techniques, especially with respect to strength and stiffness restoration. On the contrary, the FRP strengthening was not that effective in restoring the energy absorption capacity of beams compared to HSFRC and FC techniques of strengthening. The chosen strengthening techniques were able to restore the failure mode of beams to flexural failure, which was found to have changed to shear failure in case of heated unstrenghthened beams.

This research program has contributed to the fundamental understanding of designing post fire retrofit solutions for RC beams.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the functional attributes of the automated serials control systems of the libraries in seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and provide a comparative analysis.

Features of the serials control modules of the library management systems (LMSs) in use in the central libraries of the IITs are thoroughly studied by logging into the respective systems.

The paper finds that five IITs are using LibSys and two use Virtua and Troodon for their LMS. Virtua covers most of the functional attributes that comply with the international standards, LibSys has tried to incorporate the core functionality of serials control although the compliance of standards is limited, but Troodon is lagging behind.

The recommended attributes of the automated serials control system will definitely act as guidelines for the libraries of the IITs to upgrade their existing systems and the developers of the respective library management system software will also take the necessary initiative to make their system fool‐proof by resolving the identified drawbacks.

The purpose of the study is to find out the trends of web‐based information seekers at Sambalpur University, India since the internet is more helpful than the library in the present electronic era.

The study is based on the case study method. A structured questionnaire was distributed among the relevant researchers at Sambalpur University in order to ascertain their web searching habits.

The application of is ever increasing – to the extent that people believe that electronic material will eventually replace the traditional library and users need not go there to find and collect the information they need. The study revealed, however, that in one Indian university, traditional library and printed materials are still more effective to researchers than web‐based information and resources.

This is an original case study on web‐based information retrieval trends of university researchers. This paper will help web researchers to obtain a clear‐cut picture of the information seeking and retrieval trends of the researchers of an Indian university which will serve as a role model for the universities of the Third World.