National Institute of Technology Agartala

Abstract Tobacco consumption gets normalized with its positive portrayal through tobacco advertisement, promotions and sponsorship (TAPS) of tobacco products, to initiate or catalyze consumption. While the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003 (COTPA) bans TAPS in India, it is prevalent through social media, cable television, sponsorship of cricket matches, music or award shows, school or college events, etc., and through brand stretching to nontobacco avenues like consumer goods, hotel chains, etc., COTPA shows internal inconsistencies in its short title, preambular aim, and provisions, which carve out an exception for advertising at points of sale. Ban’s implementation is also limited due to the expensive action-taking mechanism and limited fines. These lacunae are further exacerbated by the inconsistencies of COTPA with other laws governing trademarks, cable television, food safety, consumer protection, etc. that allow for the advertisement of cobranded products of tobacco companies. To address TAPS comprehensively in India, these inconsistencies need to be redressed, arguably through legislative amendments in COTPA and allied laws, better implementation mechanisms, simplifying seizure of evidence for presentation in courts, and prioritizing public health over commercial interests of tobacco companies in the judicial pronouncements.

Abstract Now-a-days, many business organizations and companies are undertaking environmental considerations in supplier selection (SS) process due to growing environmental awareness and concern. Also choosing an appropriate green supplier (GS) will contribute to a company’s increased environmental sustainability. Sometimes it becomes very difficult to select the appropriate GS when a number of uncertainties present in selection process. So practical decision-making tools, like fuzzy sets (FSs) and its variants, those aim to address these issues are required to consider. In the present treatise, problem of GS selection (GSS) has been structured as a multi-criteria group decision making (MCGDM) problem under Fermatean fuzzy environment (FFE). For the first time, the notions of geometric Bonferroni mean operator (GBMO) and weighted GBMO (WGBMO) have been introduced under FFE to aggregate various decision maker’s (DM’s) assessments. Numerous salient traits of the proposed operators have been discussed theoretically as well as with numerical examples. To solve GSS problem, the notion of stepwise additive ratio analysis (SWARA) method has been extended under FFE with the aid of the proposed FFWGBMO to deal with group decision making issues under uncertainty. To rank the alternatives, FFWGBMO based novel ranking method has been developed and integrated with FFWGBMO based SWARA. A novel score function (SF) has been developed to rank Fermatean fuzzy numbers (FFNs), which is able to overcome the limitations of the existing FFSFs. The superiority of the proposed SF over the existing one has been validated through theoretical and numerical validations. Consistency, resilience and reliability of proposed integrated technique (PIT) have been investigated through comparative and sensitivity analyses.

In this work, a new design for a 4×2 acoustic priority encoder using fluid-fluid two-dimensional phononic crystal (PnC) ring resonators is presented. The priority encoding operation is enabled by the phononic bandgap characteristics of the mercury-water crystal, which suppress unwanted frequency components while allowing strong confinement and coupling of the resonant mode. At the selected operating frequency of 45.1 kHz, located inside the second bandgap, the ring resonators support constructive interference and selective energy circulation, allowing the highest-priority input to dominate the output logic state. The device structure incorporates two PnC ring cavities and engineered waveguide path lengths to control resonance-based logic discrimination. Performance is validated through high extinction and contrast ratio metrics. The proposed structure provides an acoustically driven alternative for integrated phononic logic circuits, offering potential use in underwater and medical signal-processing applications.

Efficient channel state information (CSI) feedback is critical for enhancing spectral efficiency in frequency division duplex (FDD) massive MIMO systems. This paper introduces PrecoderNet, a deep learning (DL)-based framework that avoids full CSI reconstruction by directly estimating the singular value decomposition (SVD)-based precoding matrix. This framework consists of a DL-based encoder and decoder. The encoder employs multi-scale feature extraction, multi-head self-attention, and an unpatched convolution block to generate codewords. The decoder integrates a multi-head self-attention mechanism, an unpatched convolution block, and an EnhanceNet block to reconstruct the dominant right singular vectors for two transmission layers from the received codewords. This design inherently reduces feedback overhead as the number of receive antennas increases. Moreover, it mitigates scalability issues by removing the input’s dependency on the number of receive antennas. Despite its higher computational complexity, PrecoderNet achieves substantial overhead reduction and delivers significant reconstruction accuracy for different compression ratios (CRs), making it well-suited for 5G-advanced and beyond.

Numerous research investigations have been carried out on the development of multiple charged layers in hollow cathode discharge in recent years. However earlier research failed to investigate the underlying mechanism using a controlled plasma source in the formation of multiple double layers (MDLs) and complex anode spots. The present study primarily focus on the role of negatively biased rectangular grid acting as a secondary plasma source placed between the asymmetrical cathode and the anode under an external magnetic field. The trapping of the non-thermal electrons by the negatively biased grid results in the nonlinear dissipation of energy in the plasma column, leading to the formation of MDLs in different Negative Differential Resistance (NDR) regimes close to the anode. The study also emphasizes the self-organization of MDLs and the associated sheath plasma interactions during different glow discharge regimes. Due to the insufficient transport of electrons from the biased rectangular grid, the sheath structure forms near the anode resulting in the charge localization and complex structure formations. With the enhancement of applied potential, the electrons surpass the barrier potential of the grid and the sheaths develop into concentric anode spots. Further nonlinear approaches confirm the formation of MDL enhancing the sheath dynamics and the associated NDR phenomenon to understand sheath- plasma instabilities present in the system. Various plasma applications related to self-organized MDLs includes medical technologies and nanomaterial synthesis.

This work proposes a single-phase multilevel grid-tied transformer-less solar inverter with voltage boost. The system comprises of two cascaded stages: the first is a partially rated dc–dc boost converter to create four dc voltage levels, while the second is a new topology of single-phase multilevel sinusoidal pulse width modulated (SPWM) inverter at rated volt-ampere (VA) coupled to the dc–dc converter output voltage levels. This scheme does not require capacitor voltage balancing due to the floating dc supply created in the dc–dc conversion stage. The inverter is controlled using a multicarrier SPWM logic. This scheme exhibits near sinusoidal line current, hence offering reduced filter requirements and reduced common mode currents during grid integration. The device losses in this scheme are low compared to the existing schemes, thus reducing heat-sink requirements. The voltage boost capability becomes cost-effective due to the partial rated conversion stage that offers seamless integration of the inverter at the grid voltage without any additional coupling transformer. Simulation and experimental study confirm the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in applications of single-phase grid interfaced harnessing of solar photovoltaic energy and injecting the power to the utility network.