The asymmetric vehicle routing problem with simultaneous pickup and deliveries is considered. This paper develops four new classes of valid inequalities for the problem. We generalize the idea of a no-good cut. Together, these help us solve 45-node randomly generated problem instances more efficiently. We report results on a set of benchmark instances in literature. In this set, we are able to show an order of magnitude improvement in computational times over currently published results in literature. � 2019 Elsevier B.V.

The issue and relevance of financial misconduct and fear of prosecution on the lending behaviour of Indian banks is investigated by combining bank-level financial and prudential variables during 2008-18 with a unique hand-collected data set on financial misconduct and fear of prosecution. The findings indicate that, in the presence of financial misconduct, state-owned banks typically cut back on credit creation and instead increase their quantum of risk-free investment. In terms of magnitude, a 10% increase in financial misconduct lowers lending by 0.2% along with a roughly commensurate increase in investment. In terms of the channels, it is found that private banks increase provisioning to maintain their credit growth, although the evidence for state-owned banks is less persuasive. � 2020 Economic and Political Weekly. All rights reserved.

Luxury brands across the globe have made inroads into emerging markets (EM). While some brands have succeeded in one EM, they have failed to replicate their success in others. We investigate the drivers of luxury brand sales in EM using a multi-method approach. First, through a qualitative study, we identify which market characteristics of EM (market heterogeneity, competition from unbranded products, socio-political governance, and resources and infrastructure) affect luxury brand sales, with a firm's marketing effort and a market's financial freedom being important contingencies. Second, we empirically test the insights using data from 88 luxury brands and robust econometric analyses. Our results show that market characteristics influence luxury sales and that the effects of such market characteristics on luxury brand sales are heterogeneous. We also find significant moderating effects of marketing efforts and financial freedom. Our study thus extends the literature on the marketing of luxury brands and EM. © 2020 Elsevier Inc.

Religion and its envisaged structures have both macro- and micro-level implications for business. Of the many stratification schemas prevalent in India, two macro-social stratification schemas are important at the workplace: caste, which has been an age-old, religion-mandated, closed social stratification prevalent in Hinduism that had led to inequality in the society, and trade union, which is a relatively new and optional open workplace stratification that empowers workers and fosters equality. This study tries to decipher whether these two structures influence each other; if yes how and why do they influence each other (the tensions and contradictions that may happen between them), and whether the influence is uniform for all members. We conducted in-depth interviews with 43 trade union members, three trade union leaders of two state-owned organizations in North India. Initially, we found that caste does not have any superficial effect on the relationship between union members. However, a deeper analysis reveals that roots of this social reality reflect in the social and workplace exchanges between union members, and affect their social identity and loyalty. In the discussion we present a model of twin loyalties between union and caste. From the institutional logic perspective, we also delineate the caste and trade union perspective, and show how there is a change in trade union identity because of the influence of caste-based logic. Our findings have implications for industrial democracy, worker representation, and union effectiveness. � The Author(s) 2017.

Urban development induced land transitions affect urban hydrology, resulting in increased flooding risks. Climate change-related precipitation changes are an added complexity to the flood risks of cities. This study examines the role of land use changes in determining the occurrence of urban flooding events across 42 Indian cities under current and future climate change scenarios. Landsat images for 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2017 have been processed using a hybrid classification technique to determine the land use shares for all cities. A typical event-count study using newspaper archives has been conducted to create a flooding event database. A multilevel model employing logistic mixed-effects approach was used. Future projections of the occurrence of flooding events for nine models under three climate change-related Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs)�2.6, 4.5, and 8.5�and three urban development scenarios have been carried out. The results suggest that cities should preserve the land uses that act as a sponge�the green, open and blue spaces. As these spaces decrease, the projected flooding events increase. Under the RCP 2.6 scenario, the number of flooding events is significantly lower (95 % confidence) than under RCPs 4.5 and 8.5. The expected flooding occurrences between RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 are not significantly different (95 % confidence) for many scenarios, suggesting that Indian cities should aim for a world temperature increase of below 2 �C, or devastating consequences are imminent. This study highlights the need for Indian cities to undertake integrated spatial planning measures for a resilient, sustainable urban future. � 2020 Elsevier Ltd

[No abstract available]

The paper examines the nature and development of the participatory water institutions in the eastern Indo-Gangetic plains of India, focusing on the aspects of structure, participation, and devolution. Though the physical development of irrigation has made considerable progress in India, the proper management and distribution of water has poised many difficulties. The consequences of this are poor efficiency in water use, inequity in distribution, disputes, high cost, and substantial under-utilization of the potential created. On the other hand, institutional initiatives that aim to improve water management and distribution are seen in some areas/locations, and show a process of arriving at better institutional arrangements. Water institutions are crucial for eastern India and though there are a few examples of spontaneous bottom-up initiatives, much of this development is driven by external interventions including laws, policies, and government programs. Even though under the government interventions, the guidelines and policies are usually uniform and top-down, the local uptake and adoption show substantial variation and divergence and this deserves study. The research is based on review of the literature as well as on six in-depth case studies, and also responses of 510 households involved with 51 participatory water institutions in the setting of the eastern Indo-Gangetic plains states of Assam and Bihar. The paper first takes a brief look at the literature on the foundations and experiences of participatory irrigation management (PIM), and then examines through the case studies and data, the development and variation in the PIM water institution in the given setting. It examines features such as laws, membership, structure, inclusion, participation/involvement and devolution. It finds that inclusion of various groups of people in the institutions is quite good except for women and youth. However, actual involvement of different people varies substantially. The issue of devolution/decentralization versus centralization in decision-making is very important to PIM, and varies across the structure and functions. The association of involvement and devolution to performance indicates that the active involvement of some functionaries and groups is very important, and that devolution in several decisions can considerably enhance performance. The observations provide many useful insights for policy and institutional design which can help improve water resource management in the eastern Indo-Gangetic plains. © 2020 by the authors.

In this study, we examine how the monetary rewards and competitive constraints that organizers of innovation tournaments incorporate are associated with participation. These two aspects of innovation tournaments are crucial because they represent critical design decisions that the organizers must make beforehand. We show that the reward amount is negatively associated with participation, while the presence of competitive constraints, which "make the competitive landscape less asymmetric", is positively associated with participation. Furthermore, the study shows that competitive constraints moderate the negative association between reward amount and participation. These findings provide insights into contestant motivation as well as the interdependencies between tournament design choices. © 2020 World Scientific Publishing Company.

Research shows that early scientific interest is associated with science degree completion and career selection. However, little is known about the conditions that support early scientific interest. Using a “funds of knowledge” theoretical framework, this study examined the role of parents, family, and extended social networks in fostering early interest in science. Using interview narratives from 116 scientists (physicists and chemists) in the United States, we conducted a qualitative thematic content analysis. Findings suggest that children who become scientists in adulthood often received early, informal opportunities to use and manipulate material objects and discover how the world works. Second, families used a wide variety of scientific terms at home and encouraged children to pursue their interests whether in science or other fields. Third, these future scientists were often networked with extended family members or friends to observe and do science when they were quite young. Collectively, these findings highlight the specific ways in which families fostered early scientific interest and aided in supporting a student-directed learning environment. © The Author(s) 2020.

In multi attribute decision making (MADM), the choice of a decision-maker (DM) is often the result of an interplay between the DM's unique attitude, the utilities (specific to the DM) for the attributes, and the degree of positive (or negative) interaction among the attributes. Based on this conglomeration of information, we introduce a few choice models to give the probabilities for different possible choices of a DM. More specifically, the conventional multinomial logit (MNL) model is extended to consider the interaction among the attributes, and also the DM's unique attitudinal character. The usefulness of the proposed models is illustrated in a real world application. � 2019

Positive school climate has been consistently associated with many desirable student outcomes in both middle and high schools. However, there has been little work comparing the perceptions across these two school settings. The U.S. Department of Education conceptualized a three-factor model for school climate consisting of safety, engagement, and environment. Drawing on data from 29,720 middle and 34,950 high school students, the fit of the three-factor model was examined for measurement invariance, to explore whether the measure functioned similarly across both middle and high schools. The results indicated measurement invariance, which suggests that practitioners and researchers can confidently compare findings across middle and high schools to inform local decision making related to school-based programming. A series of multilevel analyses also explored the extent to which perceptions of school climate differed for middle and high school students; these results generally indicated that middle school students perceived the school more favorably than high school students. Implications of these findings for social workers are considered. � 2020 National Association of Social Workers.

The microfinance business model focuses largely on lending to the woman in the household, rather than the man. The belief is that women are more trustworthy borrowers than men, and that lending to women may have increased social impact. Yet in several cases, women do not have control over the loan backed business despite being the borrower of record. Such takeover of the business by the man constitutes an ethical violation. We find that high dependency ratios in the family are correlates of such ethical violations. Further, we also find that ethical violations have a significant economic cost, consistent with prior scholarship in the family-business domain. While access to microfinance increases household welfare, this beneficial impact reduces by over 50% in the presence of an ethical violation. Our results suggest that microfinance lenders need to move beyond the traditional role of just being a lender to providing advice on issues like family planning, and money management, and enforcement, thus moving closer to the solidarity economy paradigm of integrating savings and credit into broader canvases of social relationships and social structures. � 2020, Springer Nature B.V.

Organizational discourse is getting hyped and exaggerated about leadership. This results in shifting of rational preferences about leadership into absolutist musts. These hardened beliefs enter into the cognitive processes of the individuals at work places and thereby result in dysfunctional organizational behavior and high psychological stress. This study applies the cognitive psychotherapeutic framework of the rational emotive behavior therapy to discuss the implications of such beliefs in an organizational context. � 2020 American Psychological Association.

Alarmed by declining enrolment in government schools and potentially adverse academic, administrative and fiscal consequences associated with it, policy makers in India have initiated experimenting with closure of government schools with low enrolments (�small� schools), an exercise commonly referred to as �school rationalisation�. However, the impact of this policy on access to schooling and learning remains empirically unexplored. Utilising ASER 2014 data, this paper asks three key questions: (a) what are the characteristics of villages in which �small� schools are located?, (b) what options would students have if �small schools� were to be closed, and finally (c) what are the differences in characteristics of �small� and non-�small� schools? Results indicate that the villages which have �small� schools are more disadvantaged in terms of essential public services such as all-weather roads leading to village, availability of government health facilities or banks and post offices. Additionally, these villages are less likely to have an alternative to the �small� school, either government or private. Results also show that �small schools� are much more likely to have multi-grade teaching. They are less likely to have basic infrastructural facilities. Interestingly, learning levels are unlikely to be different in �small� schools than non- �small� schools even after controlling for child, household and village attributes. Thus, the analysis suggests that school rationalisation can potentially have severe consequences on children's access to schools without any meaningful impact on learning levels in a �business as usual� scenario. � 2019 Elsevier Ltd

The paper examines the nature and performance of participatory water institutions in eastern India using structural equation modelling. There is a crisis in the management of water in India, and this is often not about having too little water but about managing it poorly. It is now being widely recognized that engineering structures and solutions are not enough, and having effective water institutions is critical. These are urgently needed in eastern India for helping lift the region out of low incomes and poverty. However, creating good institutions is complex, and in this context, the fundamentals of new institutional economics, and management governance theory have suggested the importance of a number of key factors including five institutional features and eight rationalities. Based on this, a study was conducted in eastern India, sampling from the states of Assam and Bihar, covering 510 farm households across 51 water institutions. In order to understand and map the relationship and pathways across these key factors, a structural equation model is hypothesized. In the model, the five institutional features are considered determinants of the eight rationalities, and the rationalities are considered determinants of four performance goals. The performance on the goals determines the overall performance/success of the institution. Besides this, the institutional features and rationalities can also directly influence performance on the goals and the overall performance. The model is tested with data from the survey and different pathways that are robust are identified. The results can provide useful insights into the interlinkages and pathways of institutional behavior and can help policy and institution design for delivering more robust performance. The results show that one of the most important factors determining overall performance/success is technical rationality, and this deserves great attention. It includes technical expertise, sound location and quality of structures and equipment, and good maintenance. However, success is also strongly linked to performance on production/income goals, equity, and environment goals. These are, in turn, strongly related to achievement of economic, social, technical, and organizational rationalities, which call for attention to economic aspects such as crop choice and marketing, besides social aspects such as inclusion of women and poorer social groups, and organizational aspects such as member involvement and regular meetings. Further, the institutional features of clear objectives, good interactions, adaptive, correct scale, and compliance are important for achievement of almost all rationalities through various pathways, and should be strongly focused on in all the institutions. © 2020 by the authors.

Aim/Purpose This US-based study explored various facets of impostor phenomenon experienced during PhD training in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Specifically, the purpose of this research was to identify certain experiences that trigger this phenomenon. Background Competent high-achievers who do not believe in their efforts leading to accomplishments sometimes experience the impostor phenomenon. It is characterized by the notion that one has fooled others into overestimating their ability, not attributing one's accomplishments to ability, and living with the fear of being discovered as a fraud. Methodology Data were collected using convenience and snowball sampling. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews from 90 PhD students were analyzed thematically. Contribution Study findings contribute to a less-understood area of what constitutes triggers for the impostor phenomenon among PhD students in STEM fields. Findings Participants described the following themes that triggered impostor phenomenon during PhD training: 1) Progress and public recognition, 2) Comparing oneself with others, 3) Developing skills: public speaking and scientific writing. 4) Application of new knowledge, and 5) Asking for help. Recommendations PhD faculty, mentors, advisers, and administrators should be cognizant of the for Practitioners triggers that could give rise to the impostor phenomenon among their students. Professional development activities for students could focus on earlier and more rigorous training for improving scientific communication. Recommendations Future research should continue to explore if other stakeholders in academia such for Researchers as postdoctoral trainees and faculty also experience similar stress due to the impostor phenomenon. Impact on Society Institutes of higher education should continue to focus on improving student mental health and retention rates, alleviating some of the PhD training stressors by designing interventions that improve students' mindset and self-efficacy. Future Research Findings point to avenues for further research on how to support those with impostor phenomenon. Future research could explore the topic in other disciplines outside STEM and examine if long-term interventions could mitigate impostor-feelings, including the nature and length of interventions that could be helpful. © 2020 Informing Science Institute. All rights reserved.

In the context of significant public health benefits of brucellosis control and shrinking public resources for livestock vaccination, this paper considers the willingness of small ruminant livestock owners to pay for vaccination of their animals against brucellosis. The willingness to pay is estimated through a binary choice contingent valuation approach using data from a rural household survey specially designed for this purpose. The survey was conducted in southern Tajikistan, one of its poorest regions, in March 2009. The study used a non-parametric method for estimating the willingness to pay and a parametric (Probit) model for identifying determinants. The results show that households, including poor households, were willing to pay for continuing vaccination of their sheep and goats against brucellosis. Controlling for other attributes of willingness to pay, there was practically no correlation between willingness to pay and household asset level. This means both poor and rich alike are willing to pay for the service. On the other hand, the results also show that the willingness to pay was comparatively higher in households with relatively higher levels of education of adult females. This suggests that an awareness campaign targeted at female members of households would enhance the ownership and coverage of cost recovery programs and should form an integral part of any efforts towards introducing financial participation from sheep and goat owners for brucellosis vaccination. © 2020

Inspired by the interactive discrete choice logit models [Aggarwal, 2019], this paper presents the advanced families of discrete choice models, such as nested logit, mixed logit, and probit models to consider the interaction among the attributes. Besides the DM’s attitudinal character is also taken into consideration in the computation of choice probabilities. The proposed choice models make use of Choquet integal and the recent attitudinal Choquet integral. The models are termed as Choquet nested logit (CNL), Choquet mixed multinomial logit (CMMNL), and Choquet multinomial probit (CMP). These are further extended to represent the DM’s attitudinal character, and termed as attitudinal CNL, attitudinal CMMNL, and attitudinal CMP. © 2020, University of Sistan and Baluchestan. All rights reserved.

While quota-based and other affirmative actions remain on the policy radar of nations faced with social inequalities, there is limited evidence informing policy choices at the national level. This paper estimates the mid-term impact of quota-based affirmative action in higher education (HE) in India implemented from 2008, which mandates that 27 per cent of seats are to be reserved for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) in public funded institutions of HE. Exploiting the differences in participation across social groups, age cohort,s and geographies with varied histories of affirmative action, our triple difference method estimates the impact of the Act by the year 2011�2012. Our results indicate that southern and northcentral states that already had quotas in place for a fairly long period of time, do not contribute much in further expansion of enrolment of OBCs; instead, the eastern region, where such a policy did not exist for long has about 0.12 points improvement in enrolment. Our estimates are robust to different specifications and the impact seems to be non-existent amongst the richest. It suggests that future policy initiatives need to be more nuanced considering regional differences in policy histories, supply of institutions, and extant rates of HE participation of the disadvantaged sections. � 2019, � 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Group testing has been widely used in epidemiology and related fields to estimate prevalence of rare diseases. Parametric binary regression models are used in group testing to estimate the covariate adjusted prevalence. Unlike the standard binary regression model (viz., logistic, complementary log�log, etc.), the regression model for group testing data connects the maximum of a group of independent binary responses to its covariate values. Recently, in group testing literature, it has been extensively used for estimating covariate adjusted prevalence of a disease making the tacit assumptions that (i) the regression model is identifiable, and (ii) the standard asymptotic theory is valid for the maximum likelihood estimators of the regression parameters. Verifying these assumptions is found to be non-trivial theoretical issues. In this paper, we give theoretical proofs of these assumptions under a set of simple sufficient conditions, thus, providing a theoretical justification for likelihood based inference on the regression parameters. We also provide an outline of the proof extending the asymptotic theory to the data obtained by Dorfman retesting, where all subjects in a positive group are retested. � 2019 Elsevier B.V.