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.     

Strong minimum energy hierarchical topology in wireless sensor networks

Given a set of \(n\) sensors, the strong minimum energy topology (SMET) problem in a wireless sensor network is to assign transmit powers to all sensors such that (i) the graph induced only using the bi-directional links is connected, that is, there is a path between every pair of sensors, and (ii) the sum of the transmit powers of all the sensors is minimum. This problem is known to be NP-hard. In this paper, we study a special case of the SMET problem, namely , the \(k\)-strong minimum energy hierarchical topology (\(k\)-SMEHT) problem. Given a set of \(n\) sensors and an integer \(k\), the \(k\)-SMEHT problem is to assign transmission powers to all sensors such that (i) the graph induced using only bi-directional links is connected, (ii) at most \(k\) nodes of the graph induced using only bi-directional links have two or more neighbors, that is they are non-pendant nodes, and (iii) the sum of the transmit powers of all the sensors in \(G\) is minimum. We show that \(k\)-SMEHT problem is NP-hard for arbitrary \(k\). However, we propose a \(\frac{k+1}{2}\)-approximation algorithm for \(k\)-SMEHT problem, when \(k\) is a fixed constant. Finally, we propose a polynomial time algorithm for the \(k\)-SMEHT problem for \(k=2\).     

Conserving Habitus: Home,Couplehood and Dementia

ABSTRACT

Compared to research on home in circumstances of aging, place and care, our knowledge about home in relation to couplehood is limited despite increases in the percentage of married and cohabiting older people in the UK. Specifically, our understanding of the experience and meaning of home for couples where one partner has dementia remains under-explored. This article presents a scoping review of published empirical literature to examine older couples’ experiences of home in dementia. The literature identified and reviewed through searching academic databases and Google Scholar is interdisciplinary and a thematic analysis suggests interactions of couplehood, home and dementia. To discuss these interactions, we use Bourdieu’s framework of field, capital, practice and habitus. We observe that habitus may gradually alter and fracture. But, in locating and supporting the performance of (adapted) everyday relationships and domestic practices, home has a distinct role in contributing to conserving habitus and in turn continuity of relationships and home. The gradual fracturing of habitus with the progression of dementia however also suggests that the continuity of relationships and home remain contingent, but this needs further investigation. It is an element of home futures that cannot remain invisible.     

On group divisible response surface (GDRS) designs

In this paper some experimental situations are identified corresponding to which suitable response surface designs do not exist. A class of response surface designs is introduced to cope with these situations. Their analysis with and without blocking and methods of construction is discussed.     

Hardness results and approximation algorithm for total liar’s domination in graphs

In this paper, we initiate the study of total liar’s domination of a graph. A subset L?V of a graph G=(V,E) is called a total liar’s dominating set of G if (i) for all v∈V, |N _G (v)∩L|≥2 and (ii) for every pair u,v∈V of distinct vertices, |(N _G (u)∪N _G (v))∩L|≥3. The total liar’s domination number of a graph G is the cardinality of a minimum total liar’s dominating set of G and is denoted by γ _TLR (G). The Minimum Total Liar’s Domination Problem is to find a total liar’s dominating set of minimum cardinality of the input graph G. Given a graph G and a positive integer k, the Total Liar’s Domination Decision Problem is to check whether G has a total liar’s dominating set of cardinality at most k. In this paper, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a total liar’s dominating set in a graph. We show that the Total Liar’s Domination Decision Problem is NP-complete for general graphs and is NP-complete even for split graphs and hence for chordal graphs. We also propose a 2(lnΔ(G)+1)-approximation algorithm for the Minimum Total Liar’s Domination Problem, where Δ(G) is the maximum degree of the input graph G. We show that Minimum Total Liar’s Domination Problem cannot be approximated within a factor of $(\frac{1}{8}-\epsilon)\ln(|V|)$ for any ?>0, unless NP?DTIME(|V|^loglog|V|). Finally, we show that Minimum Total Liar’s Domination Problem is APX-complete for graphs with bounded degree 4.     

Queering Bollywood: alternative sexualities in popular Indian cinema

In this essay, I demonstrate through numerous examples taken from four identifiable Hindi film subgenres queer themes which, though nontransgressive in their native Indian context, acquire subversive value and serve as queer points of identification when viewed from a non-nationalist bias. Watching particular films with this "queer diasporic viewing practive," sex/gender play which is normative (yet still coded) in the land of the films' production can be reclaimed as queer through the differently subjective lens of transnational spectatorship, a lens removed from patriarchy, sexism, and homophobia. This particularly becomes apparent in the Bollywood dance sequence-the frequent site of Hindi sex/gender play-whose coded queer desires are much easier to de-code (or re-code) when in the diaspora.     

Algorithmic aspects of <Emphasis Type="Italic">b</Emphasis>-disjunctive domination in graphs

For a fixed integer \(b>1\), a set \(D\subseteq V\) is called a b-disjunctive dominating set of the graph \(G=(V,E)\) if for every vertex \(v\in V{\setminus }D\), v is either adjacent to a vertex of D or has at least b vertices in D at distance 2 from it. The Minimum b-Disjunctive Domination Problem (MbDDP) is to find a b-disjunctive dominating set of minimum cardinality. The cardinality of a minimum b-disjunctive dominating set of G is called the b-disjunctive domination number of G, and is denoted by \(\gamma _{b}^{d}(G)\). Given a positive integer k and a graph G, the b-Disjunctive Domination Decision Problem (bDDDP) is to decide whether G has a b-disjunctive dominating set of cardinality at most k. In this paper, we first show that for a proper interval graph G, \(\gamma _{b}^{d}(G)\) is equal to \(\gamma (G)\), the domination number of G for \(b \ge 3\) and observe that \(\gamma _{b}^{d}(G)\) need not be equal to \(\gamma (G)\) for \(b=2\). We then propose a polynomial time algorithm to compute a minimum cardinality b-disjunctive dominating set of a proper interval graph for \(b=2\). Next we tighten the NP-completeness of bDDDP by showing that it remains NP-complete even in chordal graphs. We also propose a \((\ln ({\varDelta }^{2}+(b-1){\varDelta }+b)+1)\)-approximation algorithm for MbDDP, where \({\varDelta }\) is the maximum degree of input graph \(G=(V,E)\) and prove that MbDDP cannot be approximated within \((1-\epsilon ) \ln (|V|)\) for any \(\epsilon >0\) unless NP \(\subseteq \) DTIME\((|V|^{O(\log \log |V|)})\). Finally, we show that MbDDP is APX-complete for bipartite graphs with maximum degree \(\max \{b,4\}\).     

Incomplete row-column designs with factorial treatment structure for estimating main effects with full efficiency

In this paper, we propose two methods of constructing row-column designs for factorial experiments. The constructed designs have orthogonal factorial structure with balance and permits estimation of main effects with full efficiency.