Responding to information needs of the citizens through e-government portals and online services in India

Providing government information, services, products and transactions electronically has the potential benefit of accessibility for a wider audience, political and administrative transparency, and improved service delivery. By using e-government websites, citizens can conveniently access government information and services and gain greater opportunities to participate in democratic processes. The present study aims to evaluate National Portal of India, which provides single window access to 601 e-government portals and websites in India. A total of 1576 online services are provided by these portals responding to information needs of the citizens. Ranking of the state and union territory portals has been done based on the number of online services they provide. The paper also focuses on the digitization of documents, acts, rules and schemes of central and state government departments and their availability and accessibility through government portals.     

Using Six Sigma for performance improvement in business curriculum: A case study

During the last few decades, a number of quality improvement methodologies have been used by organizations. This article provides a brief review of the quality improvement literature related to academia and a case study using Six Sigma methodology to analyze students' performance in a standardized examination. We found Six Sigma to be an effective tool for curriculum improvement and team building. The challenges and benefits of using Six Sigma are discussed.     

Feminist pedagogy and social media: a study on their integration and effectiveness in training budding women entrepreneurs

The Constitution of India ensures equal treatment to all its citizens without any discrimination. On the contrary, the patriarchal roots of the Indian society have subjected women to experience severe inequalities. This has resulted in a wide gender gap, which has been perceived to affect all the facets of a woman’s life. The field of entrepreneurship is also witnessing an intensified gender gap due to the lack of adequate education/appropriate training among budding women entrepreneurs. To bring out more successful entrepreneurs, an empowering learning system is an indispensable need. Hence, the present experimental study aims to build and analyse the effectiveness of an innovative learning environment incorporating feminist pedagogy and the social web. Feminist pedagogy – a democratic system that facilitates active, collaborative and communal learning – was adopted for offering entrepreneurial training. For reaching the socially oppressed and geographically diverse Indian women, Facebook was used as a virtual learning system.     

Burnout in indian teachers

Burnout is a concept which was born in the mid 1970’s in the USA and with astonishing rapidity has become a catch-word to convey an almost unlimited variety of social and personal problems afflicting workers. It describes a specific dysfunction among helping professionals, believed to be the result of excessive demands made upon their energy, strength and resources. Although a clearly agreed upon definition does not exist, burnout is characterized by the inability to be sufficiently concerned about and involved with service recipients. A burnt out worker tends to withdraw emotionally from the demands of the job. Burnout is reflected in emotional exhaustion and apathy, physical fatigue, lack of energy, psychosomatic illness, increased alcohol and drug consumption, cynicism, inappropriate anger, depression and lack of personal achievements. Now, it is observed that teachers are also showing symptoms of burnout, which directly or indirectly affect their teaching performance. Motivated by these reasons the investigators decided to investigate the status of burnout among secondary school teachers and assess its extent in Indian teachers.     

A low-cost 3D printed microfluidic bioreactor and imaging chamber for live-organoid imaging

Organoids are biological systems grown in vitro and are observed to self-organize into 3D cellular tissues of specific organs. Brain organoids have emerged as valuable models for the study of human brain development in health and disease. Researchers are now in need of improved culturing and imaging tools to capture the in vitro dynamics of development processes in the brain. Here, we describe the design of a microfluidic chip and bioreactor, to enable in situ tracking and imaging of brain organoids on-chip. The low-cost 3D printed microfluidic bioreactor supports organoid growth and provides an optimal imaging chamber for live-organoid imaging, with drug delivery support. This fully isolated design of a live-cell imaging and culturing platform enables long-term live-imaging of the intact live brain organoids as it grows. We can thus analyze their self-organization in a controlled environment with high temporal and spatial resolution.     

Irving Langmuir A pioneering industrial physical chemist

This is a biography of one of the most famous industrial chemists of the last century. Irving Langmuir showed that developing new devices leads to fundamental work of the highest order. Langmuir was the first industrial chemist to get the Noble Prize.