The immigration issue in Assam and conflicts around it

Assam, the northeastern state of India, has experienced strong anti-outsider sentiment for more than half a century now. What makes the Assam case unique is that it has faced both internal as well as illegal international migration in massive scales giving rise to intense existential fear and apprehension among its smaller indigenous communities. Their lack of the required political authority and the indifferent attitude of the Indian Union government in addressing the issue have only multiplied its magnitude. The article explicates the politico-economic dynamics of the immigration issue in Assam and the social tension and conflicts around it in a historical perspective and suggests that a multi-pronged approach backed by strong political will is imperative to negotiate the challenges of immigration in the state in an effective manner.     

Female Juvenile Violent Behavior: Bonding Systems and Other Mediating Constructs

The purpose of this research was to examine a conceptual/theoretical model with negative (substance use) and positive (extracurricular activities) mediating factors between several bonding systems and violent behavior among female youth. Since much of the prior researches have focused on both males and females therefore this study is focusing on females only. Data from the 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health was used for this study. For the purpose of this study female research participants between the age of 12–17 were selected (N = 9383). At the stage of bivariate analysis, parental bonding system was omitted from a model before moving onto a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis as most of the correlations between indicators of parental bonding systems and dependent variables were not significant. Revised model with two bonding systems on violent behavior through two mediating constructs, extracurricular activities and substance use were tested through the SEM and Sobel test analyses. This structural model specifies a satisfactory fit with the sample. Several mediating effects within this model, which help lower the occurrence of violent behavior, were also validated.     

Validity and reliability of proposed framework of manufacturing excellence in the Indian industry

This article presents the findings of the empirical study of proposed framework of manufacturing excellence (ME) in the Indian industry. The study includes companies from five major sectors, namely automobile, process, machines and equipment, electronics and components and textile. Responses from 90 companies were analysed to explore the validity and reliability of the proposed framework of ME in Indian industry. The developed questionnaire is outlined along with the results obtained from the analysis of the data from the Indian industry. The framework shows high level of reliability and validity.     

Application and evaluation of packaging postponement strategy to boost supply chain responsiveness: a case study

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how packaging postponement can be effectively leveraged in a dynamically changing diverse retail market where responsiveness is key. The study also guides about the empirical evaluation of how packaging postponement affects the performance in the sanitary pads supply chain by considering operating measures. The focal company belongs to the Indian Fast Moving Consumer Goods sector, hygiene products category. It examines the measures that are critical to a responsive supply chain and presents a comparative analysis of selected measures before and after implementation. The findings illustrate that the packaging postponement not only improves competitive advantage but also significantly contributes to improving product proliferation and supply chain responsiveness. The study provides understanding of drivers and obstacles for packaging postponement strategy with operational insights about ‘how-to’ implement. Most of modelling-based research studies justify the adoption of postponement through savings in inventory only and underplay on other operating measures. While justifying, studies emphasise ‘form’/manufacturing aspects and underestimate the packaging aspects of postponement. This paper addresses these gap areas by systematically highlighting prerequisites and demonstrates the benefits of adopting a packaging strategy to handle variety and responsiveness in an emerging economy.     

ON RESOLVABLE INCOMPLETE BLOCK DESIGNS1

A method of constructing resolvable incomplete block designs for v(=ks, 2 ≤ k ≤ s - 1) treatments in blocks of size k using mutually orthogonal Latin squares is proposed. It has been seen in particular that when the number of replications is s — 1 (or s), which is feasible if s is a prime or a prime power, the method gives PBIB (3) (or semi-regular GD) designs. The analysis of such designs has also been discussed.     

Causes of Neonatal Deaths among Tribal Women in Gujarat,India

Mortality among neonates has long been largely neglected by research in all developing nations of world including India. This study aims to identify the primary and secondary causes of neonatal deaths among the tribes of Gujarat by retrospectively analyzing 106 neonatal deaths that occurred during the year 2008 and 2009. The socio-economic, biological and traditional newborn care practices impacting newborn survival were also studied. Case studies including in-depth interviews of 33 women who had experienced neonatal deaths in period of 2008 and 2009 have also been conducted. The results show that the main causes of neonatal deaths in the study area were birth asphyxia, prematurity, aspiration, infection and congenital anomalies, irrespective of place of delivery. Absence of trained and skilled personnel for newborn resuscitation was the main cause of perinatal birth asphyxia related deaths. Around 36% mothers had a history of infant deaths. Low birth weight is one of the important causes of neonatal deaths among mothers who had a history of child loss. Cyclicality of neonatal deaths continued among clustered families with social factors initiating the cycle. Qualified trained birth attendants practicing essential newborn care are necessary during home deliveries.     

Selective Out-Migration from Florida

I test if selective out-migration of unhealthy seniors explains why disability rates are so much lower for Florida, as compared to the national average. This particular area of research is timely given the significant demographic changes relating to aging. Moreover, this study contributes to the body of literature examining migration with respect to disability and widowhood. Using State Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) and Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMA), I create national maps showing disability rates for the following age-groups: 50–59, 60–69, and 70+. After creating maps in ARCGIS and conducting univariate and clustering analysis on mobility disability and personal care limitation, I employ multinomial logit (MNL) analysis to test if individuals with disability are more likely to out-migrate from Florida. The regression analyses lend support to the relaxed Litwak and Longino (The Gerontologist, 27(3): 266–272, 1987) second-move hypothesis, which claims individuals with progressively worse health are more likely to undertake another move to be closer to family and friends. I state “relaxed” because the data does not allow one to determine the reason for migration—only that migration occurred during the past year. This research informs policy-makers to recognize that elderly in better health may migrate to places such as Arizona and Florida due to amenity-seeking behavior, but unhealthy elderly are more likely to leave these states due to assistance-seeking behavior. This out-migration can place excess demand on health services for the incoming regions, which requires state and local government to ensure resources are in place. Also noteworthy, my results are less likely to be flawed by erroneous age and sex data in the public use microdata samples (IPUMS) since I stack the 2006 and 2007 American Community Survey (ACS). A recent working studies by Alexander et al. (Inaccurate age and sex data in the Census PUMS files: Evidence and implications. Munich: CESifo, 2010) shows inaccuracies in the IPUMS for the 1 and 5% 2000 Census, the 2003–2006 ACS, the 2005–2007 3-year ACS, and the 2004–2009 current population survey (CPS) files.     

The quantile-based flattened logistic distribution: Some properties and applications

In this paper, the quantile-based flattened logistic distribution has been studied. Some classical and quantile-based properties of the distribution have been obtained. Closed form expressions of L-moments, L-moment ratios and expectation of order statistics of the distribution have been obtained. A quantile-based analysis concerning the method of matching L-moments estimation is employed to estimate the parameters of the proposed model. We further derive the asymptotic variance–covariance matrix of the matching L-Moments estimators of the proposed model. Finally, we apply the proposed model to simulated as well as two real life datasets and compare the fit with the logistic distribution.     

Do changes in patent policy influence firms’ technology strategy? Evidence from manufacturing in India

India made patent policy changes to comply with TRIPs agreement that increased the rights of patent owners. Considering that such policy changes influence both in-house research and development investments and technology licensing from external sources, the firms have to accordingly devise their technology strategy. This study employs a simple and fixed effects multinomial logit regression models to study the impact of policy changes on the technology strategy of 402 firms operating in Indian manufacturing sector from 1999 to 2014. The results show that changes in patent policy have a significant impact on technology strategy of firms.     

Second-Order Response Surface Model with Neighbor Effects

This article considers the second-order response surface model in which the experimental units, i.e., plots experience the neighbor effects from immediate left and right neighboring plots assuming the plots to be placed adjacent linearly with no gaps. Conditions have been derived for the estimation of coefficients of second-order response surface model. A method of constructing designs for fitting second-order response surface in the presence of neighbor effects has been developed. The designs so obtained are found to be rotatable.