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The present work involves analytical and experimental investigation of sloshing in a two-dimensional rectangular tank including the effect of porous baffles to control and/or reduce the wave motion in the sloshing tank. The purpose of this study is to assess the analytical solutions of the drag coefficient effect on porous baffles performance to track free surface motion variation in the sloshing tank by comparison with experimental shake table tests under a range of sway excitation.

The linear second-order ordinary differential equations for liquid sloshing in the rectangular tank were solved using Newmark’s beta method and obtained the analytical solutions for liquid sloshing with dual vertical porous baffles of full submergence depths in a sway-oscillated rectangular tank following the methodology similar to Warnitchai and Pinkaew (1998) and Tait (2008).

The porous baffles significantly reduce wave elevation in the varying filled levels of the tank compared to the baffle-free tank under the range of excitation frequencies. It is observed that the Reynolds number-dependent drag coefficient for porous baffles in the tank can significantly reduce the sloshing elevations and is found to be effective to achieve higher damping compared to the porosity-dependent drag coefficient for porous baffles in the sloshing tank. The analytical model’s response to free surface elevation variations in the sloshing tank was compared with the experiment’s test results. The analytical results matched with shake table test results with a quantitative difference near the first resonant frequency.

The scope of the study is limited to porous baffles performance under range sway motion and three different filling levels in the tank. The porous baffle performance includes Reynolds number dependent drag coefficient to explore the damping effect in the sloshing tank.

The porous baffles with low-level porosities in the sloshing tank have many engineering applications where the first resonant mode of sloshing in the tank is more important. The porous baffle drag coefficient is an important parameter to study the baffle’s damping effect in sloshing tanks. Hence, obtained analytical solution for liquid sloshing in the rectangular tank with Reynolds number as well as porosity-dependent drag coefficient (model 1) and porosity-dependent drag coefficient porous baffles (model 2) performance is discussed. The model’s test results were validated using a series of shake table sloshing experiments for three fill levels in the tank with sway motion at various excitation frequencies covering the first four sloshing resonant modes.

In conventional discourses on sustainability, the relationship between economics and ecology is central. A number of nations' economies benefited from responsible tourism following these conferences. By supporting local businesses and attractions, ‘green’ tourism helps communities achieve their natural and cultural objectives while also preserving their limited resources. In terms of sustainable travel, Kerala was an early leader. This study looks at RT initiatives in various stages, with an emphasis on green tourism's sustainable responsible travel practises. The green economic development bottom line method was used for this descriptive research. These results highlight the difficulties inherent with RT implementation. Our review of secondary data shows that the first rollout of RT was unsuccessful, but that subsequent stages showed great promise. In order to create sustainable tourism on a worldwide scale, the study also highlights the necessity for more research in other culturally distant places.

Farmers' risk attitudes and risk perceptions play an essential role in shaping risk management strategies to address risks and uncertainties. Contract farming is considered as one of the feasible approaches to tackle farmers' concerns. However, risk perspectives under various categories have not been included in studies on farmers' preferences for contract farming in the literature, especially in Vietnam. This study aims to determine factors affecting farmers' choices of different contract farming practices.

The explanatory factor analysis (EFA) and multinomial logit model (MNL) were applied to explore the impacts of risk perspectives on farmers' preferences for contract farming. Data have been collected from 211 rice farmers in An Giang Province, “the rice bowl” of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam.

The study found that farm size, cooperatives, extension, market access and trust have significantly impacted on contract participation while a delay payment was a barrier for farmers' motivation to opt for the contract. Farmers' contract choices were also influenced by their risk attitudes and perceptions under different risk dimensions. The financial, policy and human risk-averse behavior predisposed farmers to single out the full contract while the policy and human risk-loving and production, market and finance risk-averse respondents were in favor of the marketing contract. Moreover, the findings indicated that the more farmers concerned about risk of weather and market, the more choices for the full contract, whereas the risk perceptions of weather and policy encouraged farmers to use the limited contract. By contrast, farmers who perceived the impacts of risk of diseases/pests and human were likely to adopt the marketing contract.

This study just focuses on collecting data from farmers’ perspective. Future studies involving stakeholders such as enterprises and policy makers are strongly recommended so as to design suitable contracts and enforce contract schemes effectively in Vietnam.

The findings also contribute to the literature on different types of contracts and the multidimensional aspect of risk for rice production in Vietnam.

Assistive technology (AT) is like the eyes of visually impaired users (VIUs) and plays a vital role in making them independent in accessing a wide range of library resources and services. It is a revolutionary way to improve the academic performance of VIUs and amalgamate them into mainstream library services. This paper aims to explore the familiarity and understanding of AT among VIUs in accessing library resources and services of three special institutes of Haryana state, India.

The study used a survey method, and data were collected using an online questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of closed-ended questions focused on participants’ familiarity, understanding and key barriers VIUs face in accessing existing AT facilities. Scope of the study is to include three special institutions’ libraries serving to VIUs in Haryana (India). Purposive sampling technique was adopted for data collection. The data are tabulated and analyzed with descriptive statistics methods using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 20.0, and the results are presented in tables, diagrams and graphs.

The study found that most of the VIUs are highly familiar and reported an expert understanding of Daisy player and digital voice recorder, whereas refreshable Braille display, Braille printer/embosser and scanning and reading devices are least familiar with and reported poor understanding. In the software category, it is noted that VIUs are more familiar with screen reading and speech synthesizer software than other software, and participants confirmed a good understanding of the said software.

The literature review revealed that the majority of library staff in the institutions being investigated had limited knowledge about the availability of the most suitable AT tools. So, the study will be beneficial for them to select the most popular AT tools for their libraries to amalgamate VIUs. The study also highlights some barriers VIUs face in using the existing AT facility of their respective libraries that may be helpful for librarians to understand the root cause of low utilization of available AT tools and how to address this problem effectively. The study can also help policymakers in formulating AT policies for academic libraries. Findings will also help to develop a cost-effective AT workstation suiting the needs of VIUs.

This study will provide an idea to library professionals about which AT hardware and software are more popular among VIUs and useful for developing/improving cutting-edge AT facilities in their libraries to amalgamate VIUs in the mainstream of the library.