164 research outputs found
6 - Pratyoosh Kashyap
No full textDepartment of Agricultural and Resource Economics.2019 Fall.Goat rearing is a major livelihood activity for the resource poor farmers in India who happen to be among the poorest agricultural communities and also largely women. However, the sector faces numerous challenges in the form small scale traditional production methods, lacking input support and inefficient marketing practices. A consistently growing market and massive scope of improvement in production makes developing the value chain an effective tool of combating low farm income and falling rural employment in India. It is also a strong means of women empowerment as the sector largely employs women, though in an informal manner. With the necessary input and extension support, market linkages and developing on community based models, the goat value chain can be strengthened manifold. These photographs are from various states in India and include farmers involved in goat rearing. I had worked with Creative Agri Solutions, an agricultural research organization in Delhi, India. We worked on multiple studies involving value chains development of the goat sector in different states in India as well as at the national level. These photographs are from my visits to these states during the duration of these research projects. They represent an intimate connection between the farmers and the goats and also the different stages in the value chains.2nd Place - Distinction in Creativity
Analysis of the International Horizontal Judicial System’s Intervention in Sovereign Disputes: ratios without spine
Get PDFArohi Kashyap analyses the level of implementation and intervention of the International Horizontal Judicial System in sovereign disputes, referring in particular to the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The paper considers the binding and horizontal nature of the International Judicial System, with detailed reference to three important international sovereign dispute cases, i.e. Nicaragua v. USA, Cambodia v. Thailand (Temple of Preah Vihear case) and the South China Sea Dispute. The author argues that the judicial bodies in international law give judgments and awards without any legal force or backing for implementation making the judgments no more than strict guidelines. The paper highlights the importance of an enforceable International Judicial System in sovereign disputes and suggests that the present system cannot fulfil this requirement
Universal banking and the financing of industrial development
Get PDFIn universal banking, large banks operate extensive networks of branches, provide many different services, hold several claims on firms (including equity and debt), and participate directly in the corporate governance of firms that rely on the banks for funding or as insurance underwriters. In this paper, the author contrasts the cost of financing industrialization in the United States and in Germany during the second industrial revolution. He explains that large production is typical of modern industrial practice, so the lessons from that period apply broadly to contemporary developing countries. The second industrial revolution involved many new products and technologies. Firms were producing new goods in new ways on an unprecedented scale. Therefore, they needed quick access to heavy financing. Finance costs for industry were lower in Germany than in the United States, because U.S.regulations prevented the universal banking from which Germany benefited. High finance costs retarded U.S. realization of its full industrial potential. The potential to expand quickly and reap economies of scale was greater in German industrialization. The cost of industrial financing began to decline when institutional changes came about that increased the concentration of financial market transactions. In recent decades, a combination of macroeconomic distress, international competitive pressure, and the creative invention of new financial intermediaries has helped the U.S. financial system overcome the regulatory mandate of financial fragmentation.Financial Intermediation,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Banks&Banking Reform,Labor Policies,Decentralization,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Housing Finance
Iterating with crowd
Get PDFThis thesis studies how novice designers iterate on their designs using the feedback received from a popular online forum Reddit. The goal was to understand the potential of online forums to serve the need for external feedback during the design process. The thesis also strives to understand the feedback and what motivated iterations. This could potentially aid development of rubrics for receiving design feedback using online forums.
This thesis also looks at the difference in perceived quality of designs between iterations and if the perceived quality improves. Domain experts were asked to judge (blind to condition) which iteration more effectively satisfied the design goals originally stated by the designer. The goal is to understand if the evolution of a design better satisfies the design goals due to the feedback received online.
Sentiment analysis was performed to test if certain qualities of feedback potentially trigger iterations on a design. Additionally, the thesis studied how much of the feedback received on the designs through Reddit was used to make design changes. The other aspect is to understand if the degree of transformation between designs correlates to the number of perceived differences.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2018-05-01The student, Dharthi Nagaraj Kashyap, accepted the attached license on 2016-04-25 at 21:05.The student, Dharthi Nagaraj Kashyap, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2016-04-25 at 21:06.This Thesis was approved for publication on 2016-04-26 at 13:29.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #9492 on 2016-07-07 at 13:50:52Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-07T20:35:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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Previous issue date: 2016-04-26Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 93183
Lift date: 2018-07-07T20:35:34Z
Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD systemU of I Only Restriction Lifted for Item 93183 on 2018-07-08T09:15:30Z
Information Brokering Over Heterogeneous Digital Data: a Metadata-Based Approach
No full textInformation overload, arising from di erent types of heterogeneous digital data readily accessible from millions of repositories, is a critical problem on the Global Information Infrastructure (GII). We present an information brokering approach, architecture and techniques that address issues related to information overload on the GII. The approach spans three levels: representation (structure/format/type) of digital data, information content captured in the data; and the vocabulary underlying the data. Metadata (data/information about data) is used to abstract from heterogeneous representational details and capture information content. Domain speci c ontologies are used to represent and interoperate across di erent vocabularies used to characterize information content. The approach thus suggested induces a metadata-based architecture that enables information brokering at the di erent levels. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated by using a wide variety of metadata to capture information content for textual, image and structured data. These metadata belong to a wide spectrum and may range from metadata independent of the data content to those capturing information content in a application and domain speci c manner. This thesis demonstrates how metadata characterizing information in a domain speci c manner may enable: (a) media-independent correlation of information across ii heterogeneous media; and (b) vocabulary-based interoperation of information across di erent domains. Example information brokering prototypes based on metadata capturing information content to varying degrees are presented as instantiations to validate the proposed architecture. We also identify the desired (SEA") properties of an architecture in the presence of information overload, namely, scalability, extensibility and adaptability; and discuss in what measure the prototypes display these properties. The intrinsic trade-o between scalability and extensibility is identi ed and discussed. Adaptability, a new proposed property, is the ability of an information brokering system to adapt to di erent vocabularies used to describe similar information content. We show how maximizing scalability leads to issues of adaptability and how terminological relationships across domain speci c ontologies characterizing vocabularies may be used to achieve interoperation and increase adaptability.Technical report DCS-TR-34
Semantics-based Information Brokering: A step towards realizing the Infocosm
No full textThe rapid advances in computer and communication technologies, and their merger, is leading to a global information market place. It will consist of federations of very large number of information systems that will cooperate to varying extents to support the users' information needs. We propose an architecture which may facilitate meeting these needs. It consists of three main components: information providers, information brokers and information consumers. We also propose an approach to information brokering. We discuss two of it's tasks: information resource discovery, which identities relevant information sources for a given query, and query processing, which involves the generation of appropriate mapping from relevant but structurally heterogeneous objects. Query processing consists of information focusing and information correlation.
While the access-based search, and syntactic and hierarchical information organization has been adequate in the past, information brokering in presence of huge digital libraries or millions of information sources will likely require semantics and information-content based search and structuring of information. Our approach is based on: semantic proximity, which represents semantic similarities based on the context of comparison, and schema correspondences which are used to represent structural mappings and are associated with the context. The context of comparison of the two objects is the primary vehicle to represent the semantics for determining semantic proximity. Specifically, we use a context to capture the semantics in terms of the meaning and/or the use of an object. Using a partial context representation, we capture the assumptions in the intended use of the objects and the intended meaning of the user query. Information focusing is supported by subsequent context comparison. The same mechanism can be used to support information resource discovery. Context comparison leads to changes in schema correspondences that are used to support information correlation.Technical report DCS-TR-30
Schema Correspondences between Objects
No full textIn a multi-database system, schematic conflicts between two objects are usually of interest only when the objects have some semantic similarity. In this paper we try to reconcile the schematic and semantic perspectives. We introduce a uniform formalism called schema correspondences to represent structural similarities between the objects. We represent the semantic similarities between the objects using the concept of semantic proximity. We show how the reconciliation is achieved by illustrating the association of the schema correspondence(s) with and as component(s) of the semantic proximity. We also provide a data model independent semantic taxonomy on the basis of the semantic proximity defined. We then enumerate and classify the schematic and data conflicts. The association between the schema correspondences and semantic proximity helps represent the possible semantic similarities between two objects having these conflicts. One representation of uncertain information using semantic proximity as the basis is explored. Issues of inconsistent information are also discussed in the framework of semantic proximity.Technical report DCS-TR-30
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