5 research outputs found
Blockchain adoption in sustainable supply chains: Opportunities, challenges, and sustainability impacts across sectors
No full textPurpose: This research reviews blockchain technology's integration into modern financial systems, outlining its huge potential to bring about improvement in areas such as transparency, security, and operational efficiency. Based on the challenges of data integrity, fraud prevention, and reduction of intermediaries, the study assesses the transformational role of blockchain in financial institutions.
Research Methodology: A mixed-methods approach was taken, where quantitative data from the surveys of 150 financial executives across different types of organizations were combined with qualitative insights from expert interviews. Such statistical analysis, complemented by thematic interpretation, could enable an integrated assessment of blockchain applications and related challenges in the financial sector.
Results: The results reveal that blockchain significantly enhances the transparency and security of transactions, hence reducing fraud and manipulation of data. The respondents were very optimistic about the cost reductions due to the elimination of intermediaries. Yet, these are counterbalanced by barriers to wide diffusion, such as scalability issues, regulatory uncertainties, and technical integration complexities that reduce the full potential of blockchain.
Limitations: The limitations of the study are the small sample size, which limits the generalization of findings. Further research with larger and more diverse samples is needed to investigate more comprehensively the impact of blockchain on the financial sectors.
Contributions: The research, therefore, contributes to discourses on blockchain as a transformative finance technology, giving insights into useful strategic, policy, and technology issues.
Novelty: It also presented both opportunities and challenges in view of realizing blockchain's role in digitizing financial ecosystems
Impact of consumption values on cashless society: influence of perceived costs
No full textPurpose: This study aims to investigate the influence of consumption values (functional, social, emotional, epistemic, and conditional) on adopting a cashless society while examining the moderating effect of perceived cost and the mediating effect of cashless readiness.
Research Methodology: A quantitative research approach was employed, utilizing a convenience sampling method to collect data from 200 respondents through a survey. Statistical analysis techniques such as structural equation modeling (SEM) were likely used to analyze the data and test the hypothesized relationships.
Results: The study reveals that functional, epistemic, and conditional values significantly impact cashless readiness, which in turn affects the adoption of a cashless society. Perceived cost is identified as a significant moderator between cashless readiness and the adoption of a cashless society. Additionally, the findings indicate that cashless readiness partially mediates the relationship between functional, epistemic, and conditional values and the adoption of a cashless society.
Limitations: A potential limitation could be the use of a convenience sampling method, which may affect the generalizability of the findings to a larger population.
Contributions: The findings of this study could be valuable for mobile financial service providers, banking institutions, and governmental organizations in developing strategies to increase the adoption of digital payment systems. It contributes to the existing literature on consumer behavior and technology adoption, specifically in the context of cashless societies and mobile financial services
The dramaturgy of ritual performances in Indian parliamentary debates
No full textThe content, style and form of MPs' performances on the floor of both Houses of the
Indian Parliament has undergone dramatic change within the last decade. For example,
97% of the productive hours of the Winter (Nov-Dec) 2010 Session were lost due to
intense disruption by MPs across the political spectrum seeking to stall the House.
Moreover, an increasing number of Bills are debated for less than an hour, if at all, on
the floor of Parliament - raising the conceptual question of whether legislation can still
be considered one of parliament's key functions in India. These changes require, at the
very least, an attempt to re-conceptualize the meaning and significance attributed to
various tropes of parliamentary performances, including those which seemingly subvert
all notions of parliamentary procedure, decorum and etiquette. In my thesis, I adopt a
novel interdisciplinary analytical framework, drawing upon performance studies, microsociological
dramaturgy of face-to-face interaction, interpretations of procedural
invocations, rhetorical political analysis and the study of political rituals. My primary
research question was whether the concept of ritual could usefully be mapped onto
performances of debates in the Indian parliamentary context. I then asked what the
significance of the absence or presence of rituals in this context would mean. Two case
were studies selected for this analysis, namely the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2001-
2004) and the Women's Reservation Bill (1996-2011), informed by a more general
ethnography of the Indian Parliament undertaken for this research. Both studies were
chosen using the logic of 'extreme case study selection' as these performances exhibit
extreme forms of dramaturgical violence, protest and polarized rhetoric that is
increasingly reflective of the everyday performances of the Indian Parliament. In my
research, I have adopted an interpretivist-constructivist approach to the ethnographic
method and have conducted two tranches of field research in New Delhi for that
purpose. My analysis demonstrates the presence of a diverse range of rituals of debate
being performed simultaneously during the legislative process within the Indian
Parliament, namely, procedural rituals, interpersonal rituals and disruptive rituals. These
findings corroborate the broader argument that the study of rituals are integral to an
understanding of parliamentary processes. Moreover, instead of dismissing certain
aspects of performance (e.g. physical obstruction of debate) as being symptomatic of
what many scholars have called the 'decline of parliament', my findings support the
cause for re-signifying, or re-reading parliamentary disruption as supporting, rather than
diminishing, the processes of political representation and widening the spectrum of
forms of political action considered as legitimate modes of political deliberation. The
evolution of these newer, sometimes disruptive, forms of representative ritual can be
read into wider processes of vernacularization and mediatization currently transforming
the ethos, identity and modus operandi of the Indian Parliament
Impact of the 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines on the prevalence of hypertension among Indian adults: Results from a cross-sectional survey
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Impact of the 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines on the prevalence of hypertension among Indian adults: Results from a cross-sectional survey
No full textBackgroundThe impact of the 2017 American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) guidelines for diagnosis and management of hypertension on the prevalence of hypertension in India is unknown.MethodsWe analyzed data from the Cardiac Prevent 2015 survey to estimate the change in the prevalence of hypertension. The JNC8 guidelines defined hypertension as a systolic blood pressure of ≥140 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure of ≥90 mmHg. The 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines define hypertension as a systolic blood pressure of ≥130 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure of ≥80 mmHg. We standardized the prevalence as per the 2011 census population of India. We also calculated the prevalence as per the World Health Organization (WHO) World Standard Population (2000-2025).ResultsAmong 180,335 participants (33.2% women), the mean age was 40.6 ± 14.9 years (41.1 ± 15.0 and 39.7 ± 14.7 years in men and women, respectively). Among them, 8,898 (4.9%), 99,791 (55.3%), 35,694 (11.9%), 23,084 (12.8%), 9,989 (5.5%) and 2,878 (1.6%) participants belonged to age group 18-19, 20-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65-74 and ≥ 75 years respectively. The prevalence of hypertension according to the JNC8 and 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines was 29.7% and 63.8%, respectively- an increase of 115%. With the 2011 census population of India, this suggests that currently, 486 million Indian adults have hypertension according to the 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines, an addition of 260 million as compared to the JNC8 guidelines.ConclusionAccording to the 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines, 3 in every 5 Indian adults have hypertension
