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The American Psychological Association defines trauma as "an emotional response to a terrible event. . . ." Trauma can be experienced as a response to either physical or emotionally disturbing circumstances. The Journalism and the Pandemic Project from the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, in their global survey of journalists, have studied the impact of the pandemic on journalists across the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused varying degrees of disruptions in the personal and professional lives of journalists. Traumatic experiences like covering traumatic events up close, COVID-induced health issues, job loss, pay cuts, and insecurity at the workplace have consumed journalists like never before. Overwhelming emotions like shock, helplessness, loneliness, depression, and anxiety are some of the reactions observed by mental health experts. Indian journalists, too, like their counterparts across the globe, have had to take on the challenges posed by this unprecedented crisis. This article intends to study the impact of the pandemic on Indian journalists both from physical and emotional perspectives. The objectives of the study include--(a) to analyze the journalists' response to traumatic experiences during the pandemic, (b) to study the nature of trauma experienced by journalists during the pandemic, (c) to analyze how traumatic experiences affected the journalists, and (d) to explore and analyze how journalists managed to cope with the traumatic experiences. The study adopts social cognitive theory (SCT) as the framework. SCT comprises four goal realization processes: self-observation, self-evaluation, self-reaction, and self-efficacy. The four components are interrelated, and all influence motivation and goal attainment. Social cognition includes diverse processes linking the perception of social information with a behavioral response, including perception, attention, decision-making, memory, and emotion. The post-traumatic reactions include re-experiencing the traumatic event in flashbacks, recurrent nightmares, and intrusive memories, hypervigilant arousal, impaired concentration, depression, sleep disturbances, self-devaluation, avoidance of reminders of traumatic experiences, emotional detachment from others, and disengagement from aspects of life that provide meaning and self-fulfillment, which impair intrapersonal, interpersonal, and occupational functioning. The scope of the study covers the journalists' responses to traumatic experiences specific to the pandemic. The study adopts a mixed research method with a thematic analysis of the qualitative data from interviews of journalists followed by a factor analysis of the quantitative data from the survey of the journalists.

Unlike large businesses, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), being a key growth driver in accomplishing immeasurable socio-economic objectives, possess different governance structures and face unique governance issues. Through the agency perspective, this research endeavours to pore over how the quality of their board affects the performance of SMEs in India. A regression model was run applying heteroscedasticity robust standard errors (RSE) on a sample of 68 BSE-listed SMEs for the period from 2013–2014 to 2017–2018. The results of the regression of the performance of the SMEs against their board attributes showed the prominent contribution of high promoters' shareholding, signifying that SMEs with a highly concentrated ownership structure demonstrate better performance. Firm leverage and firm performance were shown to have a positive and significant relationship with each other, suggesting that levered firms display substantially better performance. On the other hand, it was found that increasing the number of independent directors and female directors does not necessarily result in improved firm performance. This finding suggests that tokenism, that is, appointing independent directors and female directors merely to comply with norms but not in true spirit, can reduce a firm's performance. This research effort contributes to the literature constructively through explaining the linkage between board quality and the performance of SMEs, particularly in the Indian context, and has implications for the escalation of governance standards through bringing more clarity to and streamline policy and disclosure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Huge fluctuations have been observed in the prices of agricultural commodities including coriander in the recent years. Coriander is known as a traditional crop which occupies a significant position among the spices in national and international markets. In India, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha are the major producers of coriander. The recent changes in future trading of coriander contract have led to concerns among the regulators and stakeholders. Using data obtained from NCDEX for the period 2008-2016, the present study examines the performance of coriander futures market and its efficiency, using econometric techniques like Johansen's cointegration test, vector error correction model, impulse response and variance decomposition. The study investigates both the long- and short-term mechanisms of prices between spot and futures market. In addition to it, Granger causality test is also applied to examine the casual relationship among the variables. The results of Granger causality indicate bidirectional causality between futures market and spot market. The impulse response graph reflects that the spot market has a larger response to stocks in the futures index than the futures' response to spot market. The study gives support with regard to the concern for the traders, hedgers and regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chili is the largest spice exported from India and occupies the first position in terms of value. Chili futures was launched on NCDEX on March 11, 2005. There has been a drastic fall in the prices of different varieties of red chilli in 2017 in Andhra Pradesh and the rest of the country. The recent changes in futures trading of chili contract have led to concerns for the stakeholders. The present paper examines the price discovery and efficiency of chili futures market using econometric models like Johansen's cointegration, vector error correction model, Wald test, impulse response and variance decomposition on data on daily closing spot and futures prices of chili obtained from NCDEX for the period from 2006 to 2016. The results indicate that both the markets are cointegrated and error correction is taking place in both the markets. The Granger causality test result also confirms this. However, Wald test results reveal short-term causality flowing from futures to spot prices for chili. The study observes long-run comovement between spot and futures prices which indicates futures contracts can serve as a useful hedging instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The QRS complex is the most distinctive feature in an electrocardiogram (ECG) signal. Therefore, its detection serves as the starting point for various applications, such as detection of other waves and segments, heart-rate calculation, derivation of respiration, etc. In this paper, a novel technique for QRS detection is proposed. The technique is based on the recently proposed synchrosqueezed wavelet transform (SSWT), which is obtained by application of a post-processing technique known assynchrosqueezingto the continuous wavelet transform. Following SSWT, various other processing steps are applied, including a nonlinear mapping technique, which is novel in the context of QRS detection, to finally detect the R-peaks. The proposed algorithm is evaluated on the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database and overall sensitivity, positive predictivity and error rate obtained are 99.92%, 99.93%, and 0.15%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Black pepper is known as a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae. While Vietnam is the largest producer and exporter of pepper in the world, producing almost one-third of the world's pepper crop, India produces 19% of the world's demand for pepper. In India, Kerala and Karnataka account for more than 95% of the pepper production. Indian pepper is of superior quality and is traded at a premium rate in international markets. In the present paper, spot returns of pepper volatility is modeled as a GARCH(1, 1) process using data from 2004 to 2013. GARCH(1, 1) model is used to study the relationship between spot volatility and unexpected futures trading activity, while Granger causality test is used for examining the causality flows from Unexpected Traded Volume (UTV) to spot volatility and unexpected open interest to spot price return. Therefore, whenever there is high unexpected fluctuation in the level of futures trading volume, the volatility of spot prices increases, indicating the destabilizing impact of futures trading. The augmented GARCH model reports positive relationship between UTV and spot returns volatility. The study obsoletes presence of excessive speculation manipulated trading which is a concern for regulators, genuine hedgers and government. Regulators need to take steps for checking speculation in pepper future market. Fluctuation in spot price is due to unexpected trading of hedgers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease affecting millions of people worldwide. Despite the crucial threat it poses, currently, no specific therapy exists that can completely reverse or halt the progression of the disease. Parkinson's disease pathology is driven by neurodegeneration caused by the intraneuronal accumulation of alpha-synuclein (α-syn) aggregates in Lewy bodies in the substantia nigra region of the brain. Parkinson's disease is a multiorgan disease affecting the central nervous system (CNS) as well as the autonomic nervous system. A bidirectional route of spreading α-syn from the gut to CNS through the vagus nerve and vice versa has also been reported. Despite our understanding of the molecular and pathophysiological aspects of Parkinson's disease, many questions remain unanswered regarding the selective vulnerability of neuronal populations, the neuromodulatory role of the locus coeruleus, and alpha-synuclein aggregation. This review article aims to describe the probable factors that contribute to selective neuronal vulnerability in Parkinson's disease, such as genetic predisposition, bioenergetics, and the physiology of neurons, as well as the interplay of environmental and exogenous modulators. This review also highlights various therapeutic strategies with cell transplants, through viral gene delivery, by targeting α-synuclein and aquaporin protein or epidermal growth factor receptors for the treatment of Parkinson's disease. The application of regenerative medicine and patient-specific personalized approaches have also been explored as promising strategies in the treatment of Parkinson's disease., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)

Objective: 'Burnout' among emergency healthcare workers needs focus as they make crucial life changing decisions every day and thus, their state of physical and mental wellbeing is an absolute necessity. We aimed to find the level and factors contributing to burnout among the healthcare workers in the busiest Emergency Department of Northeast India. This is the first study done in this department to assess burnout., Method: This cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study assessed burnout of the doctors, nurses, and paramedics working in an emergency department of a busy tertiary care teaching institute. Association of demographic variables and factors influencing burnout was explored. Results were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics., Results: Low level in emotional exhaustion, moderate level in depersonalization, and moderate level in the lack of personal accomplishment was reported by participants. Children and partner were found to be protective factors. Working hours, duration and status (permanent/contractual) of service influenced burnout., Conclusion: Knowing the level of burnout and their determinants can help in formulating measures of improving the work environment. A healthy workforce ensures high quality of healthcare and patient satisfaction.

Detection of QRS complexes in ECG signals is required for various purposes such as determination of heart rate, feature extraction and classification. The problem of automatic QRS detection in ECG signals is complicated by the presence of noise spectrally overlapping with the QRS frequency range. As a solution to this problem, we propose the use of least-squares-optimisation-based smoothing techniques that suppress the noise peaks in the ECG while preserving the QRS complexes. We also propose a novel nonlinear transformation technique that is applied after the smoothing operations, which equalises the QRS amplitudes without boosting the supressed noise peaks. After these preprocessing operations, the R-peaks can finally be detected with high accuracy. The proposed technique has a low computational load and, therefore, it can be used for real-time QRS detection in a wearable device such as a Holter monitor or for fast offline QRS detection. The offline and real-time versions of the proposed technique have been evaluated on the standard MIT-BIH database. The offline implementation is found to perform better than state-of-the-art techniques based on wavelet transforms, empirical mode decomposition, etc. and the real-time implementation also shows improved performance over existing real-time QRS detection techniques.