Online Gaming and Teamwork

This thesis aims to find out the relationship, if any, between playing multi-player online games and developing teamwork qualities. Online multi-player games involve thousands of players who play in teams (or solo, as the preference may be) in sophisticated gaming environments. As gamers team together to complete missions within the game, teamwork concepts such as communication skills, leadership, coordination, negotiation and other similar qualities come to the fore. The research component of this thesis consists of a survey where respondents answered questions about their online gaming behavior. They also answered questions about their experience working in teams in the offline environment. A total of 202 responses were collected and analyzed. There was a significant negative association found between autocratic leadership ability and hours spent per week playing online games in teams/groups. Team communication skills and leadership communication skills were significantly related to the degree of involvement in the gaming community, but only for individuals with low leadership-work experience. A significant relationship was also seen between democratic leadership skills and the degree of involvement in the gaming community. In addition, a significant negative relationship was found between autocratic leadership ability and degree of involvement in the gaming community

A DEEP DIVE INTO OMNI-CHANNEL INFLUENCE: UNDERSTANDING ITS IMPACT ON SHOPPERS’ BUYING BEHAVIOR

Purpose: This study investigates the influence of psychographic factors and omni-channel environments on shoppers\u27 purchasing behavior. It aims to examine how key dimensions of omni-channel effectiveness—Channel Integration, Seamless Experience, and Ease of Use—interact with psychographic variables such as Expected Benefits, Required Effort, Social Influence, Behavioral Habits, and Security Perceptions to shape consumer preferences and behavior.Methodology: A cross-sectional quantitative research design was utilized, involving a sample of 140 shoppers who engage with omni-channel environments. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire and analyzed using discriminant analysis and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). These methods facilitated the exploration of relationships between omni-channel effectiveness dimensions, psychographic factors, and shoppers\u27 purchasing behavior.Findings: The study found that ease of use, social validation, and security are crucial drivers of consumer engagement in omni-channel settings. Significant correlations were observed between easier transactions and shopper preferences, as well as between minimal required effort and user satisfaction. Social media endorsements were found to have a substantial impact on shopper behavior. Channel Integration and Ease of Use were important, but the Seamless Experience had the most significant influence on purchasing decisions.Conclusion: The research highlights the need for retailers to develop a unified, seamless shopping environment that effectively integrates multiple channels. Enhancing user-friendly interfaces, leveraging social media influence, and implementing robust security measures are essential strategies for improving shopper satisfaction and driving purchase behavior. By addressing these aspects, businesses can optimize the omni-channel experience and gain a competitive edge in the retail market

Impact Of Source Credibility Dimensions On Consumers Purchase Intention: An Empirical Study On Textile Industry

The textile and equipment industry of the country India accounts almost about 4% of the global textile market. This sector is one of the expanding and most crucial sectors of the economy in the aspects of production, income by exchange rate and job opportunities. The objective of the study is to understand the theoretical concepts of credibility of the message source and its components. Our objective is to study the impact of message trustworthiness, expertness and attractiveness on consumer purchase intention. It is assumed that the true marketing concept professional must discover what consumers want or need and try to meet those needs if it makes economic and strategic sense. A marketing message is a means of communication designed to influence customers. The questionnaire consists of nine questions and all the questions were made in relevance to likert scale which is very famous in capturing intention and behavioral studies. The items in the scale are validated using explorative factor analysis. The associations between the study constructs are analyzed by regression analysis and discussions are made on the results obtained

A Study on Income and Expenditure Pattern of Fishermen During Fishing Holiday Period in Kakinada Harbour, Andhra Pradesh

India is the second leading fish producing country in the world accounting for 7.56 per cent of global production. Fisheries sector plays an important role in the Indian economy through contributing national income, employment creation; promote exports, provides food and nutritional security. Andhra Pradesh has favorable agro-climatic conditions for the growth of fisheries and aquaculture sector. The State is contributing about 29.7% of national fish production and is a major exporter of shrimp in India with share of 40.4% in total value of sea food exports of the country during 2019-20. The sector is providing employment to nearly 26.5 lakhs. Andhra Pradesh has 26 coastal districts. The present study analyzing the socio-economic status of fishermen and various problems encountered by the fishermen during fishing holiday period in the study area. To analyze the income and expenditure pattern and asset structure of fisher households. This study is confined to Kakinada Harbour Area. A major proportion of the sample respondents were joined in fishing due to poverty i.e. 45 per cent, a higher proportion of the respondents (67%) are living in nuclear family, Major proportion of respondents had 11-20 years of fishing experience (42%), followed by 21-30 years (24%), 1-10 years (17%) and more than 30 years (16%), 97 per cent of respondents are living in the pucca and semi-pucca house

Enhanced Speech Emotion Recognition based on Convolution Neural Networks using MLP Classifier and KNN

The paper aims to recognize emotions from speech using CNNs, leveraging well-known databases such as EmoDB and RAVDESS. It proposes a CNN-based architecture for emotion recognition. The proposed model is trained and evaluated in both speaker-dependent and speaker-independent settings. Speaker-dependent means the model is trained and tested on the same speaker\u27s data, while speaker-independent means testing is done on speakers not seen during training. Techniques such as data augmentation and advanced pre-processing are included to enhance model performance. The results indicate that the proposed CNN architecture achieves comparable performance with state-of-the-art methods. It surpasses traditional systems in terms of accuracy or other relevant metrics. The paper contributes by proposing a CNN-based approach for speech emotion recognition using MLP classifier, which is evaluated on established databases and shows promising results compared to existing methods. It also explores various aspects of dataset properties, speech signal analysis, and classifier methods relevant to emotion recognition tasksdocuments in various Scopus indexed journals was examined bibliometrically, for the years 2014-2024

A PERVERSION-RESISTANT ROUTING FOR VIDEO DELAY IN WIRELESS NETWORKS

From the user perspective, reducing the amount of video distortion is crucial. Popular link-quality-based routing metrics don't take into account dependence over the links of the path consequently, they are able to cause video flows to converge onto a couple of pathways and, thus, cause high video distortion. Traditional routing metrics created for wireless systems are application-agnostic. Within this paper, we think about a wireless network in which the application flows contain video traffic. Particularly, the various amounts of encoding make reference to, either information encoded individually, within the situation of I-frames, or encoding in accordance with the data encoded within other frames, out of the box the situation for P- and B-frames. We discover via simulations and test bed experiments our protocol is efficient in lessening video distortion and minimizing the consumer experience degradation. To take into account the evolution from the video frame loss process, we construct an analytical framework to, first, understand and, second, measure the impact from the wireless network on video distortion. Because of the complexity from the optimization problem, an inherited-formula-based heuristic approach can be used to compute the routes. Our approach differs not just in route we model video distortion, but additionally on the truth that we concentrate on LC that is popular in programs today.  The framework enables us to formulate a routing insurance policy for minimizing distortion, according to which we design a protocol for routing video traffic

Green Synthesis and Characterization of Silver Nanoparticles Derived from Bauhinia variegata: Exploring Anticancer Activity against Breast Cancer

Objective Cancer nanobiotechnology has the potential to redesign the techniques of cancer detection, diagnosis, and treatment. This study is aimed to synthesize stable silver nanoparticles using the bioreduction method. Using the biological materials to make metal nanoparticles has a lot of potential and is environmentally safe. Silver nanoparticles (SNPs) will be synthesised using Bauhinia variegata bark extract. It will be studied whether synthesized SNPs could be used as a natural medication. Method  Silver nanoparticles are formed by incubating boiling bark extract of the plant Bauhinia variegata with the boiling solution of silver nitrate (AgNO3).The SNPswere characterised by UV-Visible spectrophotometer, SEM, TEM, XRD, and FTIR. The anti microbial activity was studied using Disc diffusion method. The free radical scavenging activity was examined using DPHH assay. In vitro cytotoxicity of the SNPs was evaluated against MCF7 liver cell line at different concentrations. Results A change in color from pale yellow to reddish-brown and a strong peak at 450 nm under UV spectral analysis confirmed the formation of SNPs. In this, the plant extracts act as the reducing agent for the reduction of Ag+ to Ag0. FTIR analysis indicated the functional groups responsible for the formation of SNPs. Results obtained from Transmission Electron Microscopic(TEM) studies indicated that the formed SNPs were of 20nm.The antibacterial activities of the formed SNPs proved to be more effective against E.faecali. The Free Radical Scavenging Activity and the preliminary anti-cancerous activity was checked and cell viability was found to be 10% at 500μg/ml. The viability of MCF7 cells was likewise seen to decrease as the sample concentration increased. Conclusion: The SNPs showed potent cytotoxic activity against MCF7 cell line. The IC50 value was studied as 500μg/ml at which the cell viability was recorded as 10 %. It was also observed that with increasing concentration of the sample, the viability of MCF7 cells decreased. This study demonstrates that SNPs derived from bauhinia variegata bark extract can be a useful therapeutic herb in treating cancer

BUOYANCY AND CHEMICAL REACTION EFFECTS ON MHD FREE CONVECTIVE SLIP FLOW OF NEWTONIAN AND POLAR FLUID THROUGH POROUSMEDIUM IN THE PRESENCE OF THERMAL RADIATION AND OHMIC HEATING WITH DUFOUR EFFECT

The present paper investigates the effects of thermal radiation, joule heating on an unsteady hydro magnetic free convective flow of a viscous electrically conductive Newtonian and polar fluid past a semi-infinite vertical plate embedded in a porous media in the presence of heat absorption, chemical reaction, slip flow and Dufour effect. Analytical perturbation solutions are obtained for the velocity, temperature and concentration fields as well as for the skin friction coefficient, Nusselt number and Sharewood number. The results are presented in graphical forms to study the effects of various parameters

Laparoscopy in management of appendicitis in high-, middle-, and low-income countries: a multicenter, prospective, cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Appendicitis is the most common abdominal surgical emergency worldwide. Differences between high- and low-income settings in the availability of laparoscopic appendectomy, alternative management choices, and outcomes are poorly described. The aim was to identify variation in surgical management and outcomes of appendicitis within low-, middle-, and high-Human Development Index (HDI) countries worldwide. METHODS: This is a multicenter, international prospective cohort study. Consecutive sampling of patients undergoing emergency appendectomy over 6 months was conducted. Follow-up lasted 30 days. RESULTS: 4546 patients from 52 countries underwent appendectomy (2499 high-, 1540 middle-, and 507 low-HDI groups). Surgical site infection (SSI) rates were higher in low-HDI (OR 2.57, 95% CI 1.33-4.99, p = 0.005) but not middle-HDI countries (OR 1.38, 95% CI 0.76-2.52, p = 0.291), compared with high-HDI countries after adjustment. A laparoscopic approach was common in high-HDI countries (1693/2499, 67.7%), but infrequent in low-HDI (41/507, 8.1%) and middle-HDI (132/1540, 8.6%) groups. After accounting for case-mix, laparoscopy was still associated with fewer overall complications (OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.42-0.71, p < 0.001) and SSIs (OR 0.22, 95% CI 0.14-0.33, p < 0.001). In propensity-score matched groups within low-/middle-HDI countries, laparoscopy was still associated with fewer overall complications (OR 0.23 95% CI 0.11-0.44) and SSI (OR 0.21 95% CI 0.09-0.45). CONCLUSION: A laparoscopic approach is associated with better outcomes and availability appears to differ by country HDI. Despite the profound clinical, operational, and financial barriers to its widespread introduction, laparoscopy could significantly improve outcomes for patients in low-resource environments. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT02179112