CSR and Brand Marketing: A Strategy Alignment for Competitive Advantage

Corporate social responsibility is defined as doing business in a responsible manner that delivers value not only to the organization, but also to all of its stakeholders and the community within which it operates. CSR covers five main areas: environment, community, employee welfare, financial performance and corporate governance. Corporations know that CSR is inextricably linked to their reputations and brand identities. Integrating CSR and brand building efforts without a roadmap, however, can be daunting.The current CSR debate is clear evidence of missed opportunities to leverage CSR in brand-building activities. More money than ever is being invested in CSR and Corporations are making wide ranging organizational changes to support it. Most Corporations are formulating separate budget for their CSR activities and have established CSR departments reporting to the chief executive, publishing CSR reports and developing CSR strategies and plans. However, despite this intense investment activity, results are few and far between. This paper examines inter-dependence of CSR and Brand Marketing; and reviews different models and approaches for integrating CSR and Branding.  It recommends alignment of CSR and brand marketing as aligned strategy for competitive advantage. Keywords: CSR, Brand marketing, Strategy Alignment, Integration, Competitive Advantag

Indian Sign Language Recognition Using Deep Learning Techniques

By automatically translating Indian sign language into English speech, a portable multimedia Indian sign language translation program can help the deaf and/or speaker connect with hearing people. It could act as a translator for those that do not understand sign language, eliminating the need for a mediator and allowing communication to take place in the speaker's native language. As a result, Deaf-Dumb people are denied regular educational opportunities. Uneducated Deaf-Dumb people have a difficult time communicating with members of their culture. We provide an incorporated Android application to help ignorant Deaf-Dumb people fit into society and connect with others. The newly launched program includes a straight forward keyboard translator that really can convert any term from Indian sign language to English. The proposed system is an interactive application program for mobile phones created with application software. The mobile phone is used to photograph Indian sign language gestures, while the operating system performs vision processing tasks and the constructed audio device output signals speech, limiting the need for extra devices and costs. The perceived latency between both the hand signals as well as the translation is reduced by parallel processing. This allows for a very quick translation of finger and hand motions. This is capable of recognizing one-handed sign representations of the numbers 0 through 9. The findings show that the results are highly reproducible, consistent, and accurate

Adaptive Learning Based Whale Optimization and Convolutional Neural Network Algorithm for Distributed Denial of Service Attack Detection in Software Defined Network Environment

SDNs (Software Defined Networks) have emerged as a game-changing network concept. It can fulfill the ever-increasing needs of future networks and is increasingly being employed in data centres and operator networks. It does, however, confront certain fundamental security concerns, such as DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) assaults. To address the aforementioned concerns, the ALWO+CNN method, which combines ALWOs (Adaptive Learning based Whale Optimizations) with CNNs (Convolution Neural Networks), is suggested in this paper. Initially, preprocessing is performed using the KMC (K-Means Clustering) algorithm, which is used to significantly reduce noise data. The preprocessed data is then used in the feature selection process, which is carried out by ALWOs. Its purpose is to pick out important and superfluous characteristics from the dataset. It enhances DDoS classification accuracy by using the best algorithms.  The selected characteristics are then used in the classification step, where CNNs are used to identify and categorize DDoS assaults efficiently. Finally, the ALWO+CNN algorithm is used to leverage the rate and asymmetry properties of the flows in order to detect suspicious flows specified by the detection trigger mechanism. The controller will next take the necessary steps to defend against DDoS assaults. The ALWO+CNN algorithm greatly improves detection accuracy and efficiency, as well as preventing DDoS assaults on SDNs. Based on the experimental results, it was determined that the suggested ALWO+CNN method outperforms current algorithms in terms of better accuracies, precisions, recalls, f-measures, and computational complexities

Blood transfusion needs among obstetric patients in a tertiary care hospital: a prospective observational study

Background: Pregnancy possess a special challenge as immune responses in pregnant and non-pregnant states are different. The objectives of this study were to analyze the various indications for blood and blood component transfusion in obstetric patients. To study the prevalence and indications for blood transfusion among obstetric patients. To evaluate the various risk factors among these women. To study the role of antenatal visits in patients requiring blood transfusionMethods: A prospective observational study will be undertaken over a period of one year from July 2018 to June 2019 in Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at SSIMS and RC, Davangere. This study was conducted on pregnant women and immediate postpartum patients (up to 7 days after delivery) admitted in Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and requiring blood and blood component therapy. Statistical analysis will be performed using Chi square test and Student’s t test.Results: During study period out of 5486 patients 543 patients required blood transfusion. The incidence of blood transfusion is 9.89%. The indications for blood and blood product transfusion observed in our study were anemia, obstetric hemorrhage, thrombocytopenia, disseminated intravascular coagulopathy, ruptured ectopic, incomplete abortion, complete abortion and hydatidiform mole. Anemia in pregnancy was the most common indication and was observed in 217 cases (39.96%) followed by postpartum hemorrhage, which was seen in 117 cases (21.54%). The incidence of transfusion reactions was 5.34% in our study.Conclusions: A proper knowledge of blood and blood product transfusion is needed to make it available for people who are actually in need and also to decrease the economic burden. Regular Antenatal checkups should be given more importance in order to maximize the hemoglobin level at the time of delivery and to screen out the high-risk patients. Active management of the third stage of labor is required to minimize the blood loss. Anemia followed by obstetric hemorrhage still persists to be a major cause for blood and blood product transfusion

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Video Quality Assessment through PSNR Estimation for Different Compression Standards

Abstract           There is a threefold increase in video traffic over internet. Due to this video compression has become important. Compression of video signals is quiet an interesting task but comes at the cost of video quality. After compression, two methods are scientifically applied to evaluate the quality of video; Subjective and objective analysis. In subjective approach the compressed video is shown to a group of viewers and their feedback is recorded Objective approach aims to set up a mathematical model which can approximate the results of subjective analysis. One such approach is based on the measurement of PSNR. When a signal is applied to the encoder for compression, too much of compression results in a signal with a smaller size but at the same time quality of the signal degrades. In this paper we will compare the quality of compressed video signals produced by H.264, Mpeg2 and Mpeg4 encoder based on the values of MSE and PSNR. Lower the value of MSE, higher will be the PSNR. Comparative plots of MSE, PSNR, SSIM and images for subjective analysis have been added at the end of this paper.

Entangled in a membranous web: ER and lipid droplet reorganization during hepatitis C virus infection

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of liver disease worldwide. To establish and maintain chronic infection, HCV extensively rearranges cellular organelles to generate distinct compartments for viral RNA replication and virion assembly. Here, we review our current knowledge of how HCV proliferates and remodels ER-derived membranes while preserving and expanding associated lipid droplets during viral infection. Unraveling the molecular mechanisms responsible for HCV-induced membrane reorganization will enhance our understanding of the HCV life-cycle, the associated liver pathology, and the biology of the ER:lipid droplet interface in general