Status and Performance Appraisal of Electronic National Agricultural Markets (e-NAM) in Punjab

The Electronic National Agricultural Market (e-NAM), a shared online market platform for agricultural commodities on a one nation one market basis, was launched on April 14, 2016. Since this scheme has been in practice for the last four years in the country, but the state of Punjab opted for it two years later, the present study was designed to appraise the adoption of the portal in the selected markets of the state and to throw light on constraints and prospects of e-NAM in Punjab. The results showed that most farmers benefitted from remunerative prices and found the e-NAM system transparent as every step of trading was digitally recorded. The farmers enjoyed the liberty to sell the produce anywhere at a comparatively higher price. The majority of the farmers expressed that e-NAM was better in price realization, which was the most lucrative aspect. At the same time, the farmers wanted to have a separate gate entry for trading through e-NAM, increased awareness, and uninterrupted and low-cost internet connectivity in markets.

Author(s):  
Jason Loh ◽  
Guangwei Hu

Educational neoliberalism has swept the world, and Singapore, with its much-lauded educational system, has not been spared. In fact, it has taken a stranglehold on the system, from its policymakers at the helm to its teachers at the chalkface. The embrace of neoliberal ideas has pervaded Singapore’s short educational history, from its colonial times to the present moment, undergirding various educational reforms intended to ensure economic survival in the global economy and prosperity for the nation. Through a slew of educational policies targeted at and enacted by the state-controlled educational organizations, chief among which are the state schools, these reforms have been promulgated as effective educational initiatives to develop each citizen to the fullest potential. Given its ideological centrality in these reforms, educational neoliberalism has exerted a palpable influence on principals, teachers, and their pedagogical practices through a torrent of various performance appraisal mechanisms meant to ensure accountability to the state and the various stakeholders, and stimulate competition in the form of ever-increasing scores, awards and recognized performances in different educational arenas. Thus, marketization and performance management have become the buzzwords for the education industry. Will Singapore’s educational system be able to survive this onslaught of neoliberal pressure? Can it counter the impact of educational neoliberalism on its teachers and their practices? Will its recent policy announcement of assessment reduction have an impact on this neoliberal discourse, or will the neoliberal juggernaut continue to thunder through the system, albeit with less rolling and clapping? Can the teachers contest and resist this neoliberal discourse, while struggling to stay afloat in the sea of performativity? It is these and other questions that have provided the impetus for the present article.


Author(s):  
Luis Cláudio de Jesus-Silva ◽  
Antônio Luiz Marques ◽  
André Luiz Nunes Zogahib

This article aims to examine the variable compensation program for performance implanted in the Brazilian Judiciary. For this purpose, a survey was conducted with the servers of the Court of Justice of the State of Roraima - Amazon - Brazil. The strategy consisted of field research with quantitative approach, with descriptive and explanatory research and conducting survey using a structured questionnaire, available through the INTERNET. The population surveyed, 37.79% is the sample. The results indicate the effectiveness of the program as a tool of motivation and performance improvement and also the need for some adjustments and improvements, especially on the perception of equity of the program and the distribution of rewards.


Author(s):  
José Capmany ◽  
Daniel Pérez

Programmable Integrated Photonics (PIP) is a new paradigm that aims at designing common integrated optical hardware configurations, which by suitable programming can implement a variety of functionalities that, in turn, can be exploited as basic operations in many application fields. Programmability enables by means of external control signals both chip reconfiguration for multifunction operation as well as chip stabilization against non-ideal operation due to fluctuations in environmental conditions and fabrication errors. Programming also allows activating parts of the chip, which are not essential for the implementation of a given functionality but can be of help in reducing noise levels through the diversion of undesired reflections. After some years where the Application Specific Photonic Integrated Circuit (ASPIC) paradigm has completely dominated the field of integrated optics, there is an increasing interest in PIP justified by the surge of a number of emerging applications that are and will be calling for true flexibility, reconfigurability as well as low-cost, compact and low-power consuming devices. This book aims to provide a comprehensive introduction to this emergent field covering aspects that range from the basic aspects of technologies and building photonic component blocks to the design alternatives and principles of complex programmable photonics circuits, their limiting factors, techniques for characterization and performance monitoring/control and their salient applications both in the classical as well as in the quantum information fields. The book concentrates and focuses mainly on the distinctive features of programmable photonics as compared to more traditional ASPIC approaches.


1997 ◽  
Vol 23 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 221-250
Author(s):  
Lawrence E. Singer

The pressures encountered by hospitals in the current era of reimbursement declines and stiffened competition are well known. As the “ultimate” payors—primarily employers and government—aggressively continue to seek low cost care, the response of the hospital industry has been to move toward consolidation and efficiency-enhancing mechanisms.Increasingly, nonprofit, tax-exempt hospitals have come to believe that they are at a significant disadvantage vis-á-vis their for-profit brethren in their ability to attract the capital needed to compete in the market. A growing trend among nonprofit hospitals, therefore, is to sell to or enter into a joint venture with a proprietary organization, or alternatively to convert to for-profit status. In 1995, fifty-eight nonprofit hospitals became for-profit; hospital conversions to for-profit status in 1996 are projected to outstrip the pace established the prior year.The conversion trend has not gone unnoticed at the state level. Recently, several states have proposed or enacted laws regulating sales and conversions of nonprofit hospitals, and many more states are contemplating such legislation.


1987 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 134-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.A. Clarke

Practical classes in neurophysiology reinforce and complement the theoretical background in a number of ways, including demonstration of concepts, practice in planning and performance of experiments, and the production and maintenance of viable neural preparations. The balance of teaching objectives will depend upon the particular group of students involved. A technique is described which allows the embedding of real compound action potentials from one of the most basic introductory neurophysiology experiments—frog sciatic nerve, into interactive programs for student use. These retain all the elements of the “real experiment” in terms of appearance, presentation, experimental management and measurement by the student. Laboratory reports by the students show that the experiments are carefully and enthusiastically performed and the material is well absorbed. Three groups of student derive most benefit from their use. First, students whose future careers will not involve animal experiments do not spend time developing dissecting skills they will not use, but more time fulfilling the other teaching objectives. Second, relatively inexperienced students, struggling to produce viable neural material and master complicated laboratory equipment, who are often left with little time or motivation to take accurate readings or ponder upon neurophysiological concepts. Third, students in institutions where neurophysiology is taught with difficulty because of the high cost of equipment and lack of specific expertise, may well have access to a low cost general purpose microcomputer system.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 2535
Author(s):  
Bruno E. Silva ◽  
Ramiro S. Barbosa

In this article, we designed and implemented neural controllers to control a nonlinear and unstable magnetic levitation system composed of an electromagnet and a magnetic disk. The objective was to evaluate the implementation and performance of neural control algorithms in a low-cost hardware. In a first phase, we designed two classical controllers with the objective to provide the training data for the neural controllers. After, we identified several neural models of the levitation system using Nonlinear AutoRegressive eXogenous (NARX)-type neural networks that were used to emulate the forward dynamics of the system. Finally, we designed and implemented three neural control structures: the inverse controller, the internal model controller, and the model reference controller for the control of the levitation system. The neural controllers were tested on a low-cost Arduino control platform through MATLAB/Simulink. The experimental results proved the good performance of the neural controllers.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 785
Author(s):  
Chow Shing Shin ◽  
Yu Chia Chang

Lattice structures are superior to stochastic foams in mechanical properties and are finding increasing applications. Their properties can be tailored in a wide range through adjusting the design and dimensions of the unit cell, changing the constituent materials as well as forming into hierarchical structures. In order to achieve more levels of hierarchy, the dimensions of the fundamental lattice have to be small enough. Although lattice size of several microns can be fabricated using the two-photon polymerization technique, sophisticated and costly equipment is required. To balance cost and performance, a low-cost high resolution micro-stereolithographic system has been developed in this work based on a commercial digital light processing (DLP) projector. Unit cell lengths as small as 100 μm have been successfully fabricated. Decreasing the unit cell size from 150 to 100 μm increased the compressive stiffness by 26%. Different pretreatments to facilitate the electroless plating of nickel on the lattice structure have been attempted. A pretreatment of dip coating in a graphene suspension is the most successful and increased the strength and stiffness by 5.3 and 3.6 times, respectively. Even a very light and incomplete nickel plating in the interior has increase the structural stiffness and strength by more than twofold.


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