A model of consumer buying behavior is used to identify household characteristics that should affect deal proneness. The model treats household purchasing and inventory decisions like those of a firm. In other words, the household's purchasing decisions are assumed to be based on such factors as transaction costs, holding costs, and stockout costs in addition to product price. Household characteristics then are related to these cost parameters to identify households that are likely to be deal prone. The predictions are tested empirically by use of panel data for five frequently purchased products. The empirical results indicate that deal prone households can be identified and that the key variables affecting deal proneness are household resource variables such as home ownership and automobile ownership.

Identifying the Deal Prone Segment

In recent years, hopes that Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) would make access to education fairer faded in the light of research showing MOOCs favoured the already educated and relatively advantaged. This paper presents the results of a systematic review of literature from 2014 to 2018. The aim was to investigate the extent that MOOCs and other free open education programs provide equitable forms of online education to address global widening participation agendas. The literature fell into two main groups: empirical reports on outcomes for students, and those providing policy or practitioner guidance. A globally diverse set of 46 studies and reports were examined, including 24 empirical evaluations of programs reaching over 440,000 disadvantaged learners in both distance and blended learning settings. Most literature claimed an interest in advancing student equity (enrolled or tertiary preparation learners) and/or social inclusion (community learners) with low-skills, low confidence, and/or low levels of previous education. In contrast to the existing literature, this study found that there was a flourishing of multi-lingual and Languages other than English (LOTE) programs and those addressing regional socio-economic disadvantage. Most cases involved MOOCs and free online resources combined with additional forms of support, including face-to-face study groups. Contrary to the existing debate in the open education literature, the review also found that the legal status of the learning materials (copyright or openly licenced) was of little consequence so long as it was free to the end user. What seemed to matter most was the intentional and collaborative design for disadvantaged cohorts, including the provision of digital or face-to-face personal support. Successful design collaborations often featured learner-centred, non-technical partnerships with community groups which increased the understanding of the needs of particular marginalised learners, while also providing more sustainable and distributed learner support. The review concludes that MOOCs which aim to widen participation in education are an alternative global practice that exists alongside more commercial MOOC offerings. Recommendations are provided for addressing gaps in offerings, and improving design and research.

Do MOOCs contribute to student equity and social inclusion? A systematic review 2014–18

Fouling of heat transfer equipment poses a major problem in the food and especially the dairy industry. A review of recent progress made in the study and understanding of fouling and cleaning mecha...

Fouling and its control in heat exchangers in the dairy industry

Purpose




Management education has assumed phenomenal prominence in India in recent years, with branding being a prime factor used as a yardstick, rather a benchmark or point of reference, for one institution having an edge over the other. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors leading to branding of management education in India. It proposes two frameworks using Total Interpretive Structural Model (TISM) for public and private sector management colleges. For this purpose, variables are extracted using systematic literature review, which play a crucial role in changing the dynamics of college rankings. The inquiry distinctly examines the nature of relationship between them for public and private colleges offering higher education. The study further proposes strategies for improvement of rankings by discussing the hierarchy and interrelationship among the enablers.




Design/methodology/approach




The study uses Interpretive Structural Model (ISM) to ascertain the linkages between the variables, and employs TISM to validate the reasons of association. The model was fabricated by consulting the experts from various spheres closely allied to branding and higher education, including the private agencies and decision makers in the selected colleges. The variables were furthermore structured for classification using Matrice d’Impacts Croises-Multiplication Applique an Classment Analysis.




Findings




It was observed that the variables behave differently when studied from the perspective of private sector colleges and public sector colleges; the former have seven levels of arrangement while it is only four for the latter. Quality of Faculty and Research were the key areas of concern for private sector colleges while infrastructure featured as a focal point for those in public sector. It was also evident that the placement of variables and their flow were different. Rankings should thus be premeditated differently for both the sectors and different weights should be assigned to rank the colleges.




Research limitations/implications




The study is confined to branding of management education institutes in India, without considering other important disciplines for generalizing the framework. It is based on literature review followed by ISM, while other approaches such as ethnographic research methods and appreciative inquiry could have been possible alternatives as well.




Practical implications




The paper helps in developing different frameworks for private and public sector institutes, which would assist them to have a homogenous completion within their respective sectors. The study can be used to measure the performance of colleges on various parameters and gives them linking variables to enhance their productivity.




Originality/value




The paper discusses the need for developing a different barometer to measure the performance of private sector and public sector colleges offering higher education.

Benchmarking model for management education in India: A total interpretive structural modeling approach

Physico-chemical characterization of phosphate-added skim milk

INTRODUCTIONThe two Asian giants of India and China, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the world's population, have a unique set of challenges facing them as they each chart their own course towards development in the twenty-first century. A key facet of social development in any context is attitude towards education and how adequately and swiftly the design and delivery of education evolves over time to meet the needs of development. While India and China might be at different stages of economic development, one common concern is the need to scale education to keep up with an overwhelming demand of their respective populations. The challenge of information and knowledge delivery in developing countries and the potential of eLearning as a viable approach have been acknowledged since long (Abdon, Raab, & Ninomiya 2008). The Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), in particular, is a recent innovation in open online learning that was (at least initially) promoted by the providers as a significant development for extending education in developing countries (Koller 2012). Evolution of the MOOC in higher education is an important topic to be explored as having diverse, accessible forms of quality education is vital for both China and India.Why a joint study of the MOOC in China and India? Besides the common need to scale up education to meet the growing demand for it, as noted above, there is another similarity between China and India in terms of their governments' active initiatives which makes a joint study of MOOC in India and China significant. Governments in India and China have provided active policy support with respect to MOOCs and undertaken new initiatives, either to expand people's accessibility to HE in general or to reform their existing systems of HE and lifelong learning. In April 2015, China Ministry of Education (MOE) announced MOE decree 2015 #3 (MOE 2015 b), which includes a number of policies to promote MOOCs in China1. The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in India brought out guidelines for development and implementation of MOOCs in March 2016 (MHRD 2016). Indeed, as noted by Kim et al. (2015), this is a fundamental difference regarding MOOCs between most Asian Countries (like India and China) and the Western countries - namely, the governments' active initiatives in the former.The move towards online learning opportunities is evident amongst both developed and developing countries in recent times (Mirriahi, Alonzo, McIntyre, Kligyte & Fox 2015). Specifically, MOOC, which is the latest artefact in online learning, has caught on fast in China and India. The three main US-based MOOCs - edX, Coursera and Udacity - in their very first year, 2012, each had a large number of Indian enrolments, representing between 10-15% of total enrolments (Bhattacharyya 2013). In 2016, the number of India's MOOC learners ranked at 3rd place in the world, after the U.S. and Brazil and China's at 4th place after India (Shi & Yu 2016). Yet India and China present interesting contrast in their speed and depth of response to the MOOC phenomenon. While India mainly remains a consumer of the branded MOOC, China where too MOOCs have gained vast popularity since 2013 (Lingfeng 2016) has also substantially jumped on the MOOC bandwagon itself - China has not only partnered with some global MOOC platforms like Coursera, edX and FutureLearn, but also has developed platforms of its own. XuetangX, the major MOOCs and blended learning portal from China, crossed 2.7 million students in May, 2016 (Lingfeng 2016). By the end of 2016, it offered nearly 400 courses and had over 6 million registrants worldwide and was the 3rd largest MOOCs provider in the world behind Coursera and edX by registration count (Shah 2016).MOOC: EVOLUTION, CLASSIFICATION AND DEFINITIONThe MOOC has been continuously evolving since 2008 so there are a number of variants and definitions. Primarily, there are two broad strands of MOOCs, namely, cMOOCs (based on the principles of the learning theory of Connectivism (Siemens 2004) and the notion of Connective Knowledge (Downes 2007)) and x-MOOCs (based on cognitivist and behaviourist approach (Conole 2015; Kop 2011)). …

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Critical discussions on the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in India and China

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to primarily emphasize on improvement of student’s academic excellence through devising and implementing a competent Internal Assessment Criteria that indirectly improves their results and passing rates in exams. Design/methodology/approach – In present system, Internal Assessment Criteria has evolved as critical factor having lot of margin for bringing improvement in student’s academics by redesigning or editing the existing one, appropriately. Assessment criteria are re-optimized by strategic implementation of well proved Six Sigma’s DMAIC approach. Findings – It is a one of rarely seen effort to transform Assessment Criteria by identifying the statistical relations between internal marks and external marks secured by students in an end semester university exams. The proposed framework and its validation through an Indian case study, ignites the application of this structured Six Sigma approach in higher education for necessary excellence. Research limitations/impl...

Benchmarking academics through sustainable assessment criteria: an Indian case study

Heat-induced deposit formation and its relationship to heat stability in a blend of recombined and fresh milk

Logistic regression is a popular tool used to build and evaluate binary choice models. It has been applied in a variety of situations and contexts involving dichotomous choice. In the current paper, we apply it to explain and predict the individual choice of adopting online learning through a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC), a specific artefact in the domain of online, open learning. The MOOC holds promise for a developing country like India to scale quality education to keep up with an overwhelming demand of its large population. Hence the importance of the choice to enter MOOCs in the Indian context cannot be overemphasized. Factors possibly driving MOOC adoption were selected after an extensive literature study and a binary logistic regression model was applied to analyze their influence using data from a primary survey. A variety of different subsets of possible explanatory variables under consideration were experimented with. Due diligence was exercised with respect to model selection and evaluation and a ‘best’ model was identified and discussed. Among other things, our proposed model suggested that a respondent’s online communicative efficacy was the strongest predictor of MOOC usage and similarly their preference for self-directed learning. In terms of practice and policy, the results of this study underline the need for strategies for enhancing digital literacy, online efficacy, self-directed learning and e-readiness of the prospective higher education aspirants in order to help with wider MOOC outreach and adoption in a developing country like India.

/pdf/building-and-evaluating-logistic-regression-models-for-52zq2bvepz.pdf

Building and evaluating logistic regression models for explaining the choice to adopt MOOCs in India

The objective of this present work is to study the performance characteristics of a centrifugal slurry pump, handling water at different operating speeds using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code FLUENT. Three-dimensional numerical simulation is carried out to investigate the flow field inside the pump passage at ‘design’ and ‘off-design’ conditions. Turbulence models namely, eddy large simulation, standard k-e and k-? models are being used for simulation of flow through pump. It indicates the accuracy of each model by conducting comparison with experimental values through quantitative tests like ANOVA and generate linear regression line plots for corresponding models for strategic implications. This paper has a limitation that water as a standard fluid has been used as a working fluid instead of direct slurry as it is easy to simulate through CFD. It is rare to see literature regarding statistical comparison of various existing simulating models for slurry pumps at different rpm ranges.

Rakesh Mohan Joshi

Papers

Critical discussions on the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in India and China

Benchmarking academics through sustainable assessment criteria: an Indian case study

Heat-induced deposit formation and its relationship to heat stability in a blend of recombined and fresh milk

Building and evaluating logistic regression models for explaining the choice to adopt MOOCs in India

Operational management of a centrifugal slurry pump through strategic CFD modelling