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Career Prospects in Visual Arts in 21st Century Era

Visual art is relies on visual experience. A degree in Visual Arts can lead us to a many-sided career and life as an artist. Throughout this study, we will be exposed in art history, theory and criticism alongside intensive studio practices and experiences in drawing, painting, sculpture, print media, photography and multimedia art. We can exhibit our art work in group or solo exhibitions in galleries as professional artists. Visual arts include painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, architecture, design, crafts, films etc. It also includes applied arts such as industrial design, graphic design, interior design, fashion design etc.

Visual Arts can lead to many career options like Freelance Artist, Art Teacher, Art Historian, Art Consultant, Architect, Archivist, Art Editor, Art Gallery Director, Art Critic, Art Curator, Cartoonist, Cinematographer, Engraver, Exhibition Designer, Fashion Designer, Gallery Director, Graphic Designer, Illustrator, Interior Designer, Jewelry Designer, Museum Director, Product Designer, Set Designer etc. Today visual effect is a creative professional field for visual artists with many bright prospects. At present day most of the movies are overwhelmingly reliant on visual effects that mean VFX. Big budget franchises depend on highly creative and realistic effects.

Very simply, artists create works of art. Artists employ a variety of methods and materials to communicate a message, thought or feeling, including painting, sculpture, and illustration using oils, acrylics, watercolors, pencils, pastels, clay computers etc. Craft artists make hand-made objects, such as candles, tapestries, quilts, and potteries to be sold or shown. Multimedia artists create images for film, video and other forms of electronic media. Apart from these, artists also can find work with museums, galleries, schools, advertising agencies, magazines, newspapers, and movie studios.

In Graphic Design one artist can work as an Advertising Director, Logo / Branding Designer, Advertisement Designer, Sign Writer, Magazine Layout Designer, Packing Designer, Calendar / Stationary / Wallpaper Designer, Typographer etc. In Museums, one artist can work as a Curator with good knowledge of art and good communication skills. One can get job as Artist Representative with the knowledge of art, business experience (marketing and sales), organizational skills, self-motivation, and sensitivity to working with artists

There is another bright career in Art Gallery to work as a Gallery Director or Curator. Good business and marketing skills, communication and writing skills, fundraising skills, flexibility, diplomacy, ability to motivate others, sensitivity to artists’ needs, experience in exhibition design, curatorial work, sales, and art education can all be useful here.

Art Teacher as a career in Education

With the degree in Fine Arts, one can find his or her career as an art teacher in Education. Art teachers are generally required to have a Bachelor and Master degree in Fine Arts with the following art spheres: ceramics, painting, sculpture, media arts, drawing, photography, printmaking and graphic design.

Art offers us the space to express ourselves. Art education entails teaching students how to express their feelings and thoughts about their world. Art Teachers guide their students to develop their visual communication skills by producing various art forms. Art students may be in public and private schools, museums, summer programs, and other places where visual communication is learned.

Art Education arouses language in visual images. Art Teachers nurture students’ artistic skills at their school level. They also teach after school and summer programs to children, or in an adult education program such as ‘Teachers Training Program’. They can also work in Art museums as education coordinators. Along with being creative and passionate about art, Art Teachers should be able to motivate students to think about the subject critically and to understand students’ educational and emotional needs.

Artist Picasso once said that painting is just another way of keeping a diary. Art Teachers should go beyond painting and guide students to keep their diaries in various art forms. They should spur students to unlock their creativity while expressing their thoughts, feelings and opinions at the same time.

Future of Brand Communication and Management

Branding have been evolved hundreds of years, may be more than this. The meaning and prospect of this brand came into use over a decade. The meaning and narratives of brand communication has been progressed and it is not limited to a particular products and services but the horizon of branding widens its spectrum in a larger array. Here, will reconnoitres the concept of branding which have been advanced to a new paradigm, and would venture on what’s coming next.

The word Brand is etymologically derived from the word “Brandr”, a term from Ancient Norse meaning “to burn”. Around 950 A.D. the term “brand” denotes to a burning piece of wood. By 1300s this word was used to mean a torch, a factor which burns a piece of wood. This term brand further adds to denote to scorch the cattle of ownership by the year 1500s. The ownership status quo been conferred if their cattle got misplaced, ranched or lost. So, the development of using some similar trait of identifying their respective cattle were used. They had very simple, familiar identification and quick remembrance which lead and pave the way for ‘logo’ which is indispensable for brand identity and image.

Brand communicates to inform, persuade, guide, teach, evoke, enlighten, remind and gives a new insight about a product, service, company, organization to its stakeholders and persuades to pursue the positive perception of the products, service and companies’ strength and core values.

For the drive of easier comprehension, let us put some of those changes in the form of pointers:

The Preponderance of Digital Media: with the advent of digital media, the traditional form of paid media push marketing strategy is no longer valid and lost its conventional power to hold and influence consumers.
Personal Branding: the role of Influencer’s which is in the rise of social media platforms has changed the phenomenon of the conventional definition of personal branding. Social media and branding also the future of branding in a positive room which enables every company and organization to maintain and update their social media pages of triggering and disseminating useful information (Facebook. Instagram and Twitter).
Brand Extension: it creates credibility and consumers gets varied scope of opportunity if the brand positively follows up for further extension.
Brand Association: the top of the mind awareness (recall) and aided awareness (recognition) seems credible in digital age with the help of niche marketing strategy and native advertising.
Co-Branding: this creates the blurred boundaries between global market products and services. So, no matter what, there is a prospect avenue for business collaborations both nationally and internationally. With the rapid changes in the pattern of brand communication, definitely this also need to be focussed international + local products collaboration (because generally the known businesses allies with the established brands).
Brand Equity: Simply, the brand awareness, positioning and loyalty leads to brand equity and paved the way for understanding these three factors in a more diligent manner (recognition/recall/ aided awareness/ TOMA etc).
Naming of the Brand: this gone beyond the graphics but the interactive media content spuriously based on the art, aesthetics, idea and creativity proves to be right in contemporary times. It more emphasizes the ideation blended with virtual reality and augmented reality.
Viral Marketing: this strategy is a new norm to reach out to potential consumers through snowballing and e word of mouth.
SEO: it enhances the website traffic to update the page of the website and searches through hashtags and keywords. It aims to unpaid traffic rather than paid traffic.
Outsourced Delivery: there are few companies and creative bunch of groups who takes this up on behalf of reputed and established brands. The young professionals who is proficiency of digital media marketing, search engine optimization and algorithms related to augmented reality and virtual reality can be put forth for positive brand image.

The rise of the usage and availability of internet across geographic boundaries with economic viability, enhances the platforms of social media which is a driving factor for the next stage of the progression of branding. Point to be noted that the definition of conventional consumer or customers have changed drastically, there is a bent towards the coexistence and participatory. They do not want to consume the products or content anymore, rather tries to participate and so as the future of brand communication not to communicate anymore but to act, feel and intermittence. The power of influencers of social media brands like Instagram, YouTube and Facebook frequently depend on their users to aid and to create their value and how they should be perceived by the public. It further gives them their identity and positive image and enhances the brand durability. Various content sites like Buzzfeed, Amazon, The Huffington post and Yelp be contingent on reviewers to deliver their utmost convincing content. In this regard, many web-based companies and organizations handles their respective brand image and gets loyalty and revenue through active consumers which is unmatched and some thing interesting in these recent times. On the other hand, viral marketing, search engine optimization, and outsourced delivery permits their companies and organizations to have expansion visibility which reduces the cost of products delivery and saves millions of bucks and investment on advertising and infrastructure.

Basically, to conclude, if there is a brand admiration established by the consumers and they would like to see the advancement of prospect category of a specific product, then they must go ahead. This improvement on positive branding and effective brand communication may bring various advantages to one’s business, for example, good growth, profit and a prospect to meet their clients’ who might need to know the advancement of companies’ brand image. If an excellent inkling or creativity for new product is there to experiment that certainly the consumers/customers may accept or like, then probably yes, the companies must give it a try!

THE NANO SCIENCE AND ITS CONTRIBUTION IN TREATING CANCER

Nanoscience involves the study of the control of matter on an atomic and molecular scale. This molecular level investigation is at a range usually below 100 nm. In simple terms, a nanometer is one billionth of a meter and the properties of materials at this atomic or subatomic level differ significantly from properties of the same materials at larger sizes. Although, the initial properties of nano materials studied were for its physical, mechanical, electrical, magnetic, chemical and biological applications, recently, attention has been geared towards its pharmaceutical application, especially in the area of drug delivery. According to the definition from NNI (National Nanotechnology Initiative), nanoparticles are structures of sizes ranging from 1 to 100 nm in at least one dimension. However, the prefix “nano” is commonly used for particles that are up to several hundred nanometers in size. Nanocarriers with optimized physicochemical and biological properties are taken up by cells more easily than larger molecules, so they can be successfully used as delivery tools for currently available bioactive compounds.

Cell-specific targeting can be achieved by attaching drugs to individually designed carriers. Recent developments in nanotechnology have shown that nanoparticles (structures smaller than 100 nm in at least one dimension) have a great potential as drug carriers. Due to their small sizes, the nanostructures exhibit unique physicochemical and biological properties (e.g., an enhanced reactive area as well as an ability to cross cell and tissue barriers) that make them a favorable material for biomedical applications. It is difficult to use large size materials in drug delivery because of their poor bioavailability, in vivo solubility, stability, intestinal absorption, sustained and targeted delivery, plasma fluctuations, therapeutic effectiveness etc. To overcome these challenges nanodrug delivery have been designed through the development and fabrication of nanostructures. Nanoparticles have the ability to penetrate tissues, and are easily taken up by cells, which allows efficient delivery of drugs to target site of action. Uptake of nanostructures has been reported to be 15–250 times greater than that of microparticles in the 1–10 um range. Nanoparticles can mimic or alter biological processes (e.g., infection, tissue engineering, de novo synthesis, etc. These devices include, but not limited to, functionalized carbon nanotubes, nanofibers, self-assembling polymeric nano constructs, nanomembranes, and nano-sized silicon chips for drug, protein, nucleic acid, or peptide delivery and release, and biosensors and laboratory diagnostics. Various polymers have been used in the design of drug delivery system as they can effectively deliver the drug to a target site and thus increase the therapeutic benefit, while minimizing side effects. The controlled release (CR) of pharmacologically active agents to the specific site of action at the therapeutically optimal rateand dose regimen has been a major goal in designing such devices. The drug is dissolved, entrapped, encapsulated or attached to a NP matrix and depending upon the method of preparation, nanoparticles, nanospheres or nanocapsules can be obtained. Nanocapsules are vesicular systems in which the drug is confined to a cavity surrounded by a unique polymer membrane, while nanospheres are matrix systems in which the drug is physically and uniformly dispersed. Biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles have attracted considerable attention as potential drug delivery devices in view of their applications in the controlled release of drugs, their ability to target particular organs/tissues, as carriers of DNA in gene therapy, and in their ability to deliver proteins, peptides and genes through a per oral route of administration. Recent advances in the application of nanotechnology in medicine, often referred to as nanomedicine, may revolutionize our approach to healthcare. Cancer nanotechnology is a relatively novel interdisciplinary area of comprehensive research that combines the basic sciences, like biology and chemistry, with engineering and medicine. Nanotechnology involves creating and utilizing the constructs of variable chemistry and architecture with dimensions at the nanoscale level comparable to those of biomolecules or biological vesicles in the human body. Operating with sub-molecular interactions, it offers the potential for unique and novel approaches with a broad spectrum of applications in cancer treatment including areas such as diagnostics, therapeutics, and prognostics.

Nanotechnology also opens pathways to developing new and efficient therapeutic approaches to cancer treatment that can overcome numerous barriers posed by the human body compared to conventional approaches. Improvement in chemotherapeutic delivery through enhanced solubility and prolonged retention time has been the focus of research in nanomedicine. The submicroscopic size and flexibility of nanoparticles offer the promise of selective tumor access. Formulated from a variety of substances, nanoparticles are configured to transport myriad substances in a controlled and targeted fashion to malignant cells while minimizing the damage to normal cells. They are designed and developed to take advantage of the morphology and characteristics of a malignant tumor, such as leaky tumor vasculature, specific cell surface antigen expression, and rapid proliferation.

Nanotechnology offers a revolutionary role in both diagnostics (imaging, immune-detection) and treatment (radiation therapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, thermotherapy, photodynamic therapy, and anti-angiogenesis). Moreover, nanoparticles may be designed to offer a multifunctional approach operating simultaneously as an effective and efficient anticancer drug as well as an imaging material to evaluate the efficacy of the drug for treatment follow-up. In recent years, nanomedicine has exhibited strong promise and progress in radically changing the approach to cancer detection and treatment.

Crisis Communication in the Post Digitalization Era

Crisis Communication at large has undergone a massive change in the last few decades especially after the introduction of new media and digital technologies. Earlier Corporate India used to have a Public Relations (PR) department which was mainly dedicated to maintaining the image of the organization. This was done using a series of steps including maintaining healthy relationships with people both at the internal level as well as with the audience or the customers at large. This department was also responsible for looking after the crisis communication in case of crisis situations. Now, in the post digitalization era, crisis may arise from Tweets, YouTube Videos or even a song, which has the power to tarnish the reputation of an organization.

There has been a notable instance in the year 2009 where a Canadian singer named Dave Carroll who had posted a song on YouTube based on “United Breaks Guitar” after his guitar was broken while flying through United Airlines. Initially the organization claimed that it was the negligence of the passenger and tried to shrug off the blame but through this song the Carroll made it a point to explain the entire incident. This musical video became popular in no time and gained massive attention of the audience which further influenced them from taking United Airlines flights for a while. The organization had to take many efforts to counter this narrative and thereby deal with this crisis situation to get back their customers, including offering a brand new Taylor guitar to Dave.

Now, this is not just one case rather with the growing popularity of online contents we get to see many such protests coming up almost every week. This is where the major challenge lies in dealing with a crisis scenario which has the potential of getting viral and thereby causing harm to the reputation of the organization. Here, the key lies in targeting the same medium to build up a counter narrative and reach out to similar audience for managing the crisis situation. For example, if a false narrative is spreading against an organization through twitter then the organization will have to take up initiatives to ensure that a counter narrative is spread from their end through twitter as well. So, it is not just important to target the crisis through communication but it is also important to use the same channel of communication though which the crisis has been spread.

Earlier organizations used to have draft Press Release ready for situations like any mishap during working hour or financial crisis which the organization may face in future. This used to help them to ensure that this Press Release can be readily spread if there are any such scenarios coming up in the near future. These days the definition of crisis has gone way beyond and all thanks to new media where anyone can literally post anything against an organization. Be it grievances from a customer or any counter narrative strategy used by competitive organization, crisis can come up in any form which was not even predicted before. In this case preparing a Press Release from beforehand will not be possible for any organization due to the vast diversity of crisis situations which may arise in the digital age. Hence, this is where using the same medium of communication can actually help any organization to target the same audience who has perhaps come across the information causing crisis in real time.

Strategic Communication management is playing a key role where dynamic crisis management is actually possible according to the book “How to Communicate Strategically in Corporate World”. The book states that communication has become an integral part of the strategies designed by an organization where a Chief Communications Officer often presides over the developments taking place in crisis management and other related strategic communication. Factors like personal touch and empathy are the key players in crisis communication where it is not just restricted to Press Release rather the organizations use strategies for communicating with people.

Sometimes, incidents like a flight crash can also come up as a crisis where communication becomes the major factor using which it can be managed. In one such incident during a flight crash of Air Asia, the organization had a strong hold of the situation and handled it so well that it had further lead to a positive publicity of the organization. This was possible due to the use of personal touch and empathy from the end of the organization during crisis communication. In this case the Tweets done by the spokes person Tony Fernandez who had profusely apologized for the plane crash and expressed that the organization takes over all the charges of the accident. This acted as a turning point where the audience could understand that the organization had genuine emotions towards the family members of the injured and deceased person. It became an eye opener for many other organizations that later came up with similar strategies to deal with crisis. Having empathy in communication helps to ensure that it is not the organization v/s the customers or the audience rather there is a blend between the organization and the audience. It further helps to persuade the audience ensuring that the organization is with them and not against them, making this one of the best practices in crisis communication.

Crisis communication has undergone a huge change over the course of time and now the use of only Press Release is not sufficient for crisis communication. The preference for medium of communication among the audience has changed, the lifestyle of the audience has changed and so do the nature of strategic communication but what has still remained same is the emotion. Hence, it is through personal touch and empathy that a crisis situation can be better handled and it should be reflected through crisis communication.

Prof (Dr) Mahul Brahma (PhD, DLitt) is a Professor and Dean of School of Media and Communications, Adamas University and a Fellow of School of Art, Film and Media, Bath Spa University, UK. He is an author and TEDx speaker. His latest book The Mythic Value of Luxury has won Sahityakosh Samman recently. His first short film was screened at Cannes Film Festival.

Nanofibers: A potent drug delivery system

Successful delivery of drug occurs only if the proper drug carrier has been chosen. Nanofibers act as a good drug delivery system and they are biodegradable, biocompatible. They can be prepared either by using a single polymer solution or a blend of different polymeric solutions. Due to the large surface area and high aspect ratio nanofibers are widely used for different biomedical purposes. Nanofibers act as a suitable drug delivery system for low solubility and low permeability drugs. Nanofibers act as a controlled release drug delivery system by delivering drugs over a fixed period with minimum side effects. Electrospinning is a voltage-dependent process in which nanofibers are prepared either from a single polymeric solution or from a blend of different polymeric solutions. The basic setup for this process is a syringe with a needle containing a polymeric solution which acts as a reservoir, a pump, a high voltage power source and a collector. When electrostatic repulsion becomes higher than the surface tension of the loaded polymer solution then it results in the formation of Taylor Cone, which elongates and is ultimately deposited on the collector as nanofibers mat.

Nanofibers are small lightweight fibers whose diameter is in the nanometer range. Nanofibers have some excellent properties such as a high surface area to volume ratio, small, better porosity. Nanofibers find their use in the chemical, biotechnological, pharmaceutical industries. Due to several functions of nanofibers, they have achieved immense interest in the sectors of power storage as well as power production, pharmaceutical field, fabrics, numerous biological devices, treatment of water as well as in maintaining ecological balance. The extremely conventional technique to form the nanofiber mat is done by electrospinning. Electrospinning is a voltage-dependent process where nanofibers are made from a polymer solution or a mixture of polymer solutions when placed in an electric field which results in the elongation of the solution into a jet-like structure and ultimately forms Taylor Cone. When electrostatic repulsion becomes higher than the surface tension of the liquid then a conical-shaped structure is formed at the tip of the needle which is called the Taylor cone. Nanofibers can be prepared using polymers or a mixture of various polymeric solutions. PVA is not a natural polymer but it is miscible with water. PVA is colorless, odorless, non-toxic. PVA is biodegradable and biocompatible. PVA is utilized for various purposes which comprise the making of membranes, films, also in biomedical fields, as a carrier for the delivery of drugs as well as polymer composites. PVA also finds its use in paper cutting, coating of fabrics, gums, preparation of fibers. HPMC falls into the class of cellulose ethers. HPMC is a hydrophilic, recyclable and biocompatible type of polymer which have numerous functions in cases of delivery of drug, colors, cosmetics, gums, coating agent, in agricultural fields as well as in textile industries. Chitosan which is a linear polysaccharide is made up of linking between D-glucosamine and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine. Chitosan is made up by treating chitin shells with alkaline substances. Chitosan provides many functions which in turn makes it appropriate for different uses like in the pharmaceutical field, biomedical purposes, as a carrier for delivery of drugs, foodstuffs, in treatment of water.

Nanotechnology has therefore emerged as an important field in medicine that has significant therapeutic benefits. There is also a need to control the delivery of the drug with respect to the site of action as well as dose to lower adverse effects. There are a large number of nano-drug delivery systems (NDDS) that act as potential drug carriers to treat cancer, autoimmune disorders, cardiovascular defects. Nanocarriers or nano vehicles act as effective drug delivery systems providing many advantages. Nanofibers possess a greater surface area to volume ratio. Therefore, nanofibers can be used where a large surface area is required. They can be formed using a wide variety of polymers. Polymeric nanofibers can be used in bone tissue engineering, cartilage tissue engineering, ligament, tendon tissue engineering. Nanofibers can also be used in lithium-air batteries, transistors, diodes, capacitors, composite for aerospace structures, optical sensors, air filtration. Nanofibers are also good carriers for effective gene delivery and expression.

Nanofibers are very small which provides them unique physical and chemical properties and allows them to be used in very small places. Nanofibers have a huge surface area compared to their volume. They possess the adaptability to change themselves to a broad variety of shapes as well as sizes respectively. Nanofibers are small, lightweight fibers whose diameter is in the nanometer range. Nanofibers are prepared by using a polymer or blend of different polymers. The diameter of the nanofibers relies upon the category, nature of the polymer used in the process of formation of nanofibers. Different methods which include drawing, electrospinning, self-assembly, template synthesis are used to prepare nanofibers while electrospinning is the most commonly used method. Nanofibers have attained extreme interest due to their utilization in various biomedical purposes over the last few decades due to their distinctive functional properties like greater surface area and high aspect ratio, which ultimately have a crucial role in cellular and molecular activities, maintaining their structure similar to the local cellular microenvironment. Instead of their numerous advantages, few biomedical purposes require the use of nanofiber composites due to their perfect, superior structural and tunable functional properties compared to single-phase nanofibers. Nanofiber composites are a relatively modern, distinctive, special, versatile group of nanomaterials. The nanofiber composite approach has remarkably increased the cell attachment and cellular role with respect to the single-phase nanofiber approach. Nanofibers have attained extreme interest due to their extensive usage in the storage and production of energy, chemical and biological detectors, pharmaceutical industries as well as textile industries, purification of water, and preventing environmental damage. Even though much work has been done for the fabrication of transition metal oxide nanofibers, but still their incorporation at definite positions into nano-matric requires nanofibers to be synthesized with fine reproducibility, suitable-controlled orientation, tunable size, and great aspect ratio. The big-scale production of nanofibers with such features is still a challenging work as the mostly used electrospinning methods have some disadvantages which are namely less yield, great operating voltage, and problems in acquiring in situ deposition of nanofibers on various substrates. The formation of nanofibers can be enlarged using the electrospinning setup with numerous needles or by utilizing needleless electrospinning. Nanofibers are fibers of the nanometer scale. Nowadays there are a large number of techniques for the generation of nanofibers which include self-assembly, electrospinning, template synthesis, and phase separation methods. Besides, nanofibers can be prepared using different types of polymers which include keratin, collagen, silk fibroin, cellulose, gelatin, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC), polylactic acid (PLA), polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA), polyethylene-co-vinyl acetate (PEVA) and polysaccharides like alginate and chitosan respectively. Nanofibers are regarded as essential, significant by many researchers because of the benefits they offer, such as being lightweight and having less diameter, possessing greater surface-to-volume ratios, manageable pore structures.

Career Prospects Post Pandemic – What prerequisites to know around Advertising Research?

What is Advertising Research?

As it has been known to all this advertising research falls under the gamut of marketing communication as paid form and sponsored ideas intrigues with this.

The moment we say that it falls under marketing communication, the potentials for knowing the market and its underlying category (customer/consumer/clients/audience); all is needed is research. The best meaning can be got through is ‘Research’; which helps the need of the consumer as well as to get the pulse of the competitors in and around.

There are few synonymous for this term such as Market research, marketing research, Brand Communication research.

Background and History of Advertising Research- The history of advertising research states us moderately a jiffy about its contemporary position. Although approximately advertising agencies have had research departments from the beginning, the actual affluent days came between the 1930s and the 1970s.

During this period, advertising agencies espoused research departments for two basic Reasons:

(1) The propagation of advertising research in the culture during this period suggested its necessity, and

(2) Other advertising agencies had research departments.

Various dimensions of Advertising Research-

Types of Advertising Research

Advertising research should be intended to tell you how operative your advertising plan is at reaching and coaxing customers.

This research is beneficial no matter what form of advertising you use, including print, television, radio, and digital. Advertising research can focus on different areas of the advertising process, including:

Target Market

It is all about doing research to know the habits and preferences of your target customers to ensure the advertising campaign. This eventually helps to identify and know who customers are, what difficulties they have, what assistances they are look for, and what type of messaging will reverberate with them.

Researching your target market can be cooperative if:

To attract new customers.
To retain potential consumers.
You are escalating your business market.
Your advertising is not reverberating with your set target market.

Another important aspects of advertising research is ‘Brands’ which are not defined just by their products or services. A brand is made up of much more; it has its own personality (contributed to by its employees), its own mission statement, its own goals, its own ethos, even its own humour (see Innocent drinks for an example). However, a brand’s perception is not owned by the brand itself, rather it is owned by the customer, based on how they see and feel it.

Response to Ads

Understanding how tangible customer/consumer in your aim demographic respond to ads can help you create a strong and effective advertising campaign. In this type of research, customers are shown different ads and are asked what they think about the products that are featured, whether they would consider purchasing them, and how well they understand the product after seeing the ad.

Outcomes and Success

Generally, research is done to measure the success of each advertising campaign. Understanding the effect advertising has on sales, customer perception, and lead generation, along with reoccurrence on venture also need to be taken into consideration, it further helps in saving time and resources. You can further go for comparative analysis of advertising across diverse media or markets. This can help your business comprehend whether it needs to revise its advertising strategy.

A clear benchmarking needs to be done for successful campaign for any ads to track customer response, such as exclusive assembling codes, coupons, or web links.

Well-articulated advertising research won’t just influence your advertising strategy. As with any constituent of your marketing mix, the eventual goal is to upsurge sales and grow your business.

The question or thoughts get provoked in following points

What is advertising analysis?

What’s the difference between a ad audit and ad analysis?

What is a ad association, attribute or perception?

What’s more important, understanding the tangible or intangible elements of an ad?

Importance of Advertising Research-

Questions such as- “Why netizens follow every trend of advertisements on a serious note?” “Who is a consumer?” “Why digital ads become viral?” “Why people believe whatever they see ads online?” can be answered only through advertising research. Advertising Research helps in- understanding the vehicles of media better, recognizing and empathetic negative effects of ad messages, and developing advertising literacy content. Ad research has the potential to bring another phenomenon to create ‘Acts’ instead of Ads. And so, there is a calamitous need to investigate the nature of advertising along with studying the audience in depth in order to understand its impact and reach. Now just think and feel how you perceive and feel about doing or be a part of this advertising research? Is it essential? Research is an continuous determination that requires lots of human power (knowledge to pulse of the audience) and hence “the supplementary, the additional”. I urge all the aspire students who have inclination towards advertising should know more about research to join this interesting and very much relevant field. To conclude I would like to end with a quote – ‘advertising is a story unfolding across all customers touch points!!!”.

Lean Management – An Advanced Management Practice in Construction Industry

1.0 Preamble

The lean thinking is a scientific approach in managing time and cost of the construction project which emphasize waste minimization and customer satisfaction. It originated from Toyota and adopted all over the world for managing the manufacturing process to enhance the quality, productivity and safety. The focus point of lean management is to design a customer centric approach by minimizing cost and time by reducing all kind of wastes in the production.

2.0 Lean Management in Construction

The construction is an uncertain sector where the target business remains as it is but priorities changes frequently. Here supportive and non-value addition works are more comparing than manufacturing sector, adopting lean principle is a challenge. Here to increase the operational efficiency, one need to control the inventory even though the unpredictable weather, market, vendors, inventory requirements and especially the labours both skilled and unskilled. These variations cannot be eliminated by one go with lean principles but it can improve the controllable and uncertainties will be addressed confidently. Lean management helps the team to schedule the resource requirements such as men, machine and materials more effectively which provides the expected outcome within the estimated time and budget. This encourages the construction firms to adopt lean management as tool for continual improvement in product and services through effectively managing process and practices.

The six basic lean principles followed in construction management are discussed below for common understanding and implementation.

Identifying Value

The construction industry mainly has focused on the needs of the customer to provide value to the product/service demanded. Realizing the customer requirement and perspective during the planning stage and shape their idea in to reality with an efficient team of engineers, suppliers and labours will provide great faith on the firm.

Map the Value Stream

Generate a value stream such a way that the process and procedures are well defined and precisely mapped with action plan and resources requirements to give the confidence to the customer that it will be delivered in time.

Eliminating Waste

The main aim of lean practice is to eliminate waste where every possible and following are the major areas to be considered

Transportation – Avoid waste during transportation of men, machine, materials and equipment when moved from one site to other. Provide precise information about the transfer of goods, date, time, location and quantity to avoid excessive waiting, movement and overproduction.
Inventory – Provide exact inventory requirements by proper estimation and avoid surplus materials which will be idle in the site and shoots-up the cost and space.
Movement – Avoid moving materials, equipment and manpower multiple time across the site and create unnecessary motion.
Wait Time – Do proper scheduling to avoid unengaged manpower, material and machines. This makes either manpower or equipment kept idle for unavailability of one over other because of improper planning.
Utilisation of Resources – Allocate right person for the right job to avoid expertise or knowledge go waste on the other hand quality output will not be there right in time. Maximum utilization of available resources is very much important.
Excess Processing – Reduce the unwanted task which doesn’t make any value to the project which lead over processing.
Over Production – It happens when one process completed earlier than the expected time.

Create Continuous Workflow

The purpose of lean practice is to achieve systematic, reliable and time bounded result in the construction project. In the lean management, every stage is to predetermined and need to be performed sequentially. There should not be any bottlenecks and to achieve this proper communication and collaboration required among team at every stage. Need to divide the construction activity and ensure time and resources to complete the work within the project schedule.

Create Pull System

Creating stable workflow is a healthy sign to your organization that it will deliver the work task faster and effortless. This can be achieved by pull system or scheduling appropriately to make the collaborative work to understand the sequential nature of the work to complete with in the target time.

Continuous Improvement

The continuous improvement is an essential life line of lean construction. Always identify the scope for improvement and act accordingly, for this close monitoring is required, similarly at any time uncertainties may occur for that you should be vigilant enough to control and manage the project with in the time frame and budget. This makes the construction project economical and profitable to the company.

3.0 Benefits of Lean Management in Construction Industry

Lean Management minimize the cost of production and maximize the profit
It values the customer feedback and improves the customer interaction and value. This enhances the product and services of the organization.
Establishment of Pull and Push system prevents over production and carrying cost.
The focused monitoring in to detail minimize the defects and increases the quality of the product.
Lean Management provides a systematic, well defined work frame which reduces uncertainties and increases the safety of the employees.
Introducing Lean Management will encourage work force for daily improvement that create a healthy atmosphere within the organization
In the lean process, managers are frequently in interaction with employees about the work process, this makes them feel aligned and creates great bonding.

4.0 Concluding Note

The implementation of lean management is the need of the hour to all the construction industry to practice sustainable technology by eliminating the waste, increasing the efficiency, productivity and quality of the construction. This customer focused approach will promote inclusive culture within the organization lifts not only productivity and also employee satisfaction.

Technological spin-offs from High Energy Physics research

The Large hadron Collider at the CERN (Image courtesy: CERN)

There is some good news waiting for the air travellers. They’ll soon be able to walk through airport security without having to separate liquids and gels in their hand baggage. Thanks to the new upgraded computerised tomography (CT) scanners that can detect explosives without going through a separate screening for the liquids and gels.

This discovery was widely publicised and lauded as a lifesaver for both travellers and security staff. But what was less frequently noted in those reports is that this advancement was made feasible due to the insights gained from the development of particle accelerator physics.

The bright and novel concepts and technology of particle physics have penetrated the mainstream of society to revolutionise our lives, from the first days of high energy physics to the recent times.

A broad and rising list of useful practical applications with contributions from particle physics can be seen in medicine, homeland security, industry, computers, science, workforce development etc. Noted below are a few such examples.

Medicine:

MRI: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a basic medical diagnostic technique that employs superconducting magnet technology, which was developed by scientists to accelerate protons to the maximum energy possible. Based on nuclear magnetic resonance principles, MRI creates high-quality images of the inside of the human body. Powerful magnets composed of superconducting wire and cable are at the heart of MRI technology. This technique was first created to build Fermilab’s Tevatron, the world’s first superconducting synchrotron, by a team of professionals in superconductivity, physics, engineering, material science, and manufacturing.

Cancer Therapy: Particle physics technology has resulted in significant advancements in cancer treatment. Accelerators that produce x-rays, protons, neutrons, or heavy ions are used at every major medical centre for illness diagnosis and treatment. Proton therapy, in comparison to x-rays, has significant therapeutic benefits, particularly for young patients. In the 1950s, medical linear accelerators for cancer therapy were developed at Stanford and in the United Kingdom using techniques developed for high-energy physics research. This innovation leads to a new industry and countless lives were saved. According to estimates over 7,000 functioning medical linear accelerators have treated over 30,000,000 people around the world.

Computing:

The World Wide Web: The World Wide Web was created by particle physicists to allow them to connect rapidly and effectively with peers all around the world. Tim Berners-Lee, a CERN scientist, created the World Wide Web to allow particle physicists to interact seamlessly with colleagues at universities and laboratories all around the world. This breakthrough has a massive impact on the global economy and societal ties that few other innovations can equal.

The Grid Computing: Particle physics experiments generate massive volumes of data, which necessitates the use of cutting-edge computing equipment. The Grid is a revolutionary particle physics computing platform that combines the power of hundreds of thousands of separate computing farms to allow physicists to manage and process unprecedented volumes of data around the globe. Medicine and finance are two examples of industries that create vast volumes of data and can benefit from improved computing technologies. To process this large volume of data, particle physicists took advantage of the computers located all around the world and build a virtual supercomputer – making it the latest computing machine for the particle physicists

Industry:

Biomedicine and drug development: The role of protein in biological processes is paramount. Thus, to find the root cause of diseases we need to identify the responsible protein and understand its structure. This process is the prerequisite for any drug development. The technologies used for particle physics experiments are proving to be of great help in this endeavour of analyzing the protein structure.

Power Transmission: With the advancement of accelerator technology, significant progress has been made in the area of superconducting materials. Now, these innovations are being applied in the sector of power transmission. The advantage of using superconducting materials over the conventional wire results in transmitting more electricity while keeping the power losses at a minimum.

To summarize, we can say particle accelerator research and development has fuelled innovation for over a century. As a result, applications with huge societal benefits have emerged. A brighter future is on the horizon.

References:

Post COVID Career Prospects of M.Sc. Tech (Statistics and Data Science)

In this current scenario i.e. post COVID period data science becomes a new era. Data science has played a vital role in making the policies or decision making in real life world. It is one of the trendiest jobs across the globe in terms of future scope and career stability. Data science is an interdisciplinary subject that includes the use of statistics, big data analytics, machine learning and related aspects in order to understand the problem or phenomena with respect to a set of real-world data. The thrust areas of data science are fraud and risk detection, healthcare, internet search, targeted advertising, advanced image recognition, speech recognition, airline route planning etc. Under health care sector it is having different applications such as medical image analysis, genetics & genomics, drug development, virtual assistance for patients and customer support. Thus, data science has major demand in many organization around the globe. In today’s career-oriented world, students are confused on choosing the right subject after completing graduation that will help them to get a good placement in the job enterprise. After graduation, numerous options like master degree in the general subjects, or in various professional courses confuse the students to take the right decision. Today, both students and their parents are seeking for job-centric programs, though general study programs are mostly preferred as their first choice. A good choice can be a program that is a combination of both general and professional courses. It is always better to choose a program that is a natural progression of the existing skills and qualifications along with some professional development skills.

The Role of Statistics and Data Science in Today’s World:
The pursuit of a career in Statistics is in high demand today. With a degree in Statistics, career opportunities are boundless. Statisticians have been known as Economists, Scientists, Mathematicians, Field Investigator or Qualitative Researcher. The ‘data-hungry’ modern world now calls them data analyst, business analysts, data scientists, quality and risk analysts. Data Science has become an integral contributor to success in career opportunities. Data Scientists and Data Analytics are in high demand in today’s job world. Data Science based enterprises are the largest companies in the entire world. The famous websites like Google, Amazon, and Facebook, use data science to create algorithms that improve customer satisfaction, which in turn maximizes the profit. Thus, with a degree in Data Science, one can work with high-tech companies like Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, Facebook, banking and financial companies like ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, or research firms like McKenzie, Deloitte.

So, according to the trend of the modern job world, the best option is to choose a program in Statistics or Data Science. But, can one pursue both Statistics and Data Science at the same time? Yes, the Department of Mathematics, Adamas University is offering such a program which is a combination of both Statistics and Data Science. The program name is ‘M.Sc. (Tech.) in Statistics and Data Science’. This program is also a combination of both general and professional courses, Statistics, being a general subject and Data Science, a professional course.

M.Sc. Tech (Statistics and Data Science) program is a two years (four semesters) post-graduate degree course which combines Statistics, Mathematics and Computer Science with applications to Data Science and Data Analysis to meet the demand of today’s job world. From Probability Theory and Statistics to Statistical Inference, from Applied Statistics to Statistical Modeling, from Problem Solving to Number Theory, from Computer Programming to Data Mining, the program is also offering a number of optional papers, a few of which are Big Data Analytics, Cryptography and Network Security, and Artificial Intelligence. Besides these, the program also offers summer internship and Project/Dissertation. In summer internship, a student may choose to visit relevant institute or industry according to the availability. The project/Dissertation helps the students to explore and strengthen the understanding of fundamentals through practical application of theoretical concepts.
On completion of the program, a student will
• Be acquainted with the various Statistical tools useful for Data Analysis
• Develop programming skills
• Acquire knowledge on Data Analytics and Data Mining
• Learn the concepts of Data Structures
• Develop a conceptual understanding on Network Security
Eligibility Criteria for the Program:
Graduate student having Statistics/Mathematics/Economics/Physics as compulsory subject, or graduate students in Data Science, or students having a B.Tech. degree in IT/CSE/ECE or BCA or other relevant stream with at least 50% marks are eligible to apply for this course.

Career Prospects:
From careers in IT sector to technological companies, Data Science professionals can choose their career in a numerous field including business, industry, agriculture, government and private sectors, computer science, and software development.
A few job roles available for a student after completion of the program are:
(i) Data Scientist: Data scientists also called analytical experts utilize their skills in both social science and technology to manage all kinds of data. A data scientist involves in arranging and analyzing disorganized and unstructured data, from numerous sources like smart devices, social media feeds, emails, industry, health science, environmental data.
(ii) Data Analyst: The role of a Data Analyst is to figure out a market trend. The data analyst serves as a caretaker for an organization’s data and as such shareholders are able to understand data and use it to make tactical business decisions.
(iii) Statistician: A Statistician deals with gathering, analyzing and interpreting to aid in many businesses and decision-making process. The Statisticians apply statistical models and methods to real-world problems. They analyse, gather and interpret data to help draw valid conclusions.
(iv) Forecasting Analyst: The task of a Forecasting Analyst includes tracking, analyzing, and evaluating operations in order to provide accurate forecasts. Forecasting analysts use current data of the company to predict future level production and sales. By examining inventory levels, demand for products or services, and speed of production, they ascertain a company’s optimal production levels and possible future sales.
(v) Data Manager: Data Manager are involved in making and implementing policies for effective data management, framing management techniques for quality data collection to confirm adequacy, accuracy and validity of data. They are also involved in planning and executing efficient and secure procedures for data management and data analysis with attention to all procedural aspects

Conclusion:
From above discussion we can see that a student with master degree in Statistics and Data Science has numerous career opportunities and so this program is recommended to graduate students seeking for a good career opportunity in the present scenario of the job world.

Green Hydrogen – A New Fuel of the Future

India is witnessing the multitude of benefits of renewable energy, including increased access to electricity, reduced local air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions, and lower energy imports. There are easy ways to boost renewable energy’s position in the grid as well as end-use industries like transportation and industrial. Nonetheless, there remain economic, technological, and feasibility challenges to fully electrifying all existing energy usage, limiting the extent to which renewable power may directly replace fossil fuels. Hydrogen is already widely employed, particularly as an industrial feedstock in the production of ammonia-based fertilizers. Most of the hydrogen is produced through methane reforming, which results in large carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies can collect these emissions, but they are yet undeveloped in India.

Hydrogen produced using electrolysis powered by renewable energy—green hydrogen—and its use in fuel cells has a long history of promising a pathway to a global clean energy economy yet failing to deliver. Electrolysis, where water (H₂O) is split into its component parts using electricity, is an alternate means of processing. While there is important research activity on electrolysis, photolysis and biogenic hydrogen production methods, these low-carbon emission technologies have not yet been implemented on a scale. This is partially due to today’s low-carbon hydrogen production costs that are higher than fossil fuel-based hydrogen or other fossil-fuel alternatives. However, it is possible that these costs could achieve equilibrium in the future with green hydrogen in desirable regions undercutting grey hydrogen. This is made more possible in India, where tariffs on renewable energy are already among the lowest in the world and natural gas supplies are low and expensive. The capital cost of electrolysers, along with energy costs, is another significant factor for reducing the cost of green hydrogen. With a ramp-up in implementation, these are likely to continue to decline, since most electrolysers are produced on a relatively small scale today.

Fresh water resources make up around 2.5 percent of the total amount of water on the planet. As shown in figure 1, fortunately, the accessible seawater resource is 39 times that of fresh water. Water use due to electrolysis should, however, not be viewed as gradually using up the water resource, because when green hydrogen is oxidized (by combustion or via a fuel cell) it yields the same amount of water as was originally electrolyzed. This may enter the atmosphere as water vapor or be condensed at the point of use and recovered as liquid water. Moreover, the production of green hydrogen simultaneously produces oxygen in the exact amount required to oxidize the hydrogen, this is an important characteristic, because atmospheric oxygen depletion is contributing to global warming.

Figure 1: Annual water requirement of Green Hydrogen production relative to Earth’s water resources. [Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1464285921006581] — Figure 1: Annual water requirement of Green Hydrogen production relative to Earth’s water resources.
[Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1464285921006581]

Green hydrogen provides India with major opportunities to grow into a new field of renewable energy technology, building domestic manufacturing expertise to supply the Indian market as well as overseas. Electrolysers would be the principal technology of significance. There are currently no major Indian producers of this technology, with electrolysers being imported from Germany, Norwegian or Japanese companies currently in use in India.

Globally, the momentum for hydrogen and fuel cell technology is rising, with market forecasts ranging from $2.5 trillion to $11.7 trillion by 2050. India has the capacity to manufacture more than its domestic demand, large quantities of low-cost, low green hydrogen. Significant economic value could be produced by exploiting the country’s diverse range of hydrogen production feedstocks to produce hydrogen for export. To manufacture hydrogen for sale, India has many strategic advantages, as depicted in the figure 2 below:

Figure 2: Strategic Advantages of Green Hydrogen in India; Source: Self-evaluation

Green hydrogen is therefore widely viewed as the ‘net zero’ fuel for our future energy system, with green oxygen replenishing the associated consumption of atmospheric oxygen. However, it should be noted that some of the hydrogen will be required as a feedstock (e.g., for ammonia and methanol production) rather than as a fuel, and some of the green oxygen will be applied to industrial processes and water oxygenation as opposed to being vented to the atmosphere. For instance, hydrogen and nitrogen will be carried into plants in the form of ammonium, and oxygen will be used by the steel industry. It is therefore important to identify synergies between the electrolysers’ need for water and the use of both green hydrogen and oxygen, because these could accelerate the deployment of electrolysis in the limited period, we have left to combat climate change.

As a result, green hydrogen and its derivatives are projected to play a crucial role in global decarbonization at scale due to their adaptability, which allows them to be used in a variety of applications and decarbonizes hard-to-abate sectors.