Home Menu
icon-menu-close.svg

Faculty & Research

Faculty & Research

Research Productive

Show result

Clear
Search Query :
Area :
Search Query :
821 items in total found

Journal Articles | 2022

Performance evaluation and optimization of design parameters for electric vehicle-sharing platforms by considering vehicle dynamics

Vishal Bansal, Deepak Prakash Kumar, Debjit Roy, and Shankar C. Subramanian

Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review

Global adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) faces many challenges such as range anxiety, high cost of EVs, and inadequate charging infrastructure. EV-sharing platforms resolve such concerns by setting up an optimal configuration for charging infrastructure and optimizing the charging decisions for depleted EVs. These platforms manage the vehicles’ flow to different charging stations and decide when and to what energy level the depleted vehicles should be recharged. Station-based platforms are one of the mainstream vehicle sharing systems where the customer picks-up and drops-off the vehicle at the designated stations. If a vehicle’s battery energy level falls below a threshold after completing the customer trip, it is charged either partially or fully at the charging station. This study addresses various operational and strategic decisions (such as the number of chargers, vehicle repositioning, and partial charging policy) for a one-way station-based EV-sharing platform using a stylized three-stage analytical framework. We use vehicle dynamics to model the EV powertrain and regenerative braking under different traffic conditions and simulate them using AVL CRUISE™. We model the platform operations using an open queuing network and provide a mixed-integer non-linear optimization program using inputs from the queuing network and vehicle dynamics simulation. We also provide a bound-based heuristic to solve this NP-hard optimization problem. We generate various managerial insights for an efficient implementation of the partial charging policy for EV-sharing platforms. The increase in the partial charging probability (the fraction of depleted vehicles charged partially) reduces the effective charging demand, resulting in fewer chargers and a higher profit. On the other hand, if we increase the target battery energy level for partial charging, the platform’s profit decreases due to higher effective charging demand dominating the benefits of lower charging frequency of vehicles.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2022

Impostor phenomenon among Hispanic/Latino early career researchers in STEM

Devasmita Chakraverty

Journal of Latinos and Education

Impostor phenomenon (IP) is an experience of psychological discomfort where some high-achieving people disbelieve their success. Those experiencing IP feel undeserving and fear being discovered as a fraud in one’s area of expertise. This study examined how early career researchers or ECRs of Hispanic/Latino origin in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields described ethnicity-based experiences of IP. The research question examined how Hispanic/Latino ECRs (current PhD students and postdoctoral trainees) in STEM describe ethnicity-based experiences of IP during doctoral or postdoctoral training. Twenty-nine US-based ECRs were sequentially surveyed and interviewed. Participants were recruited purposefully and by snowball sampling through professional networks and social media. Descriptive statistics from surveys indicated that participants experienced moderate to intense IP at the time of the study with a mean score of 73.65/100 indicating high IP. Interviews with the same participants were coded and thematically displayed using constant comparison. The following themes were constructed: 1) family background and first-generation status, 2) disparity in observable traits and ethnic identity, 3) communicating in English, 4) enhance diversity, and, 5) underrepresentation and isolation. IP in connection with racial, ethnic, and other identities is poorly understood; culturally-informed understanding requires more research.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2022

Pathway to achieve a sustainable food and land-use transition in India

"Chandan Kumar Jha, Ranjan Kumar Ghosh, Satyam Saxena, Vartika Singh, Aline Mosnier, Katya Perez Guzman, Miodrag Stevanović, Alexander Popp, and Hermann Lotze-Campen"

Sustainability Science

India has committed to reducing the emissions intensity of GDP by 33–35% from the 2005 level by 2030 in alignment with objectives of the Paris Agreement. This will require a significant reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the food and land-use sector. In this paper, we construct three potential pathways for India to achieve its emissions target by 2050 involving moderate ambitions of mitigation action (BAU), moderate ambitions combined with achieving healthy diets (BAU + NIN), and high levels of mitigation action inclusive of healthy diets (SUSTAINABLE). Using an integrated accounting tool, the FABLE Calculator, that harmonizes various socioeconomic and biophysical data, we project these pathways under the conditions of cross-country balanced trade flows. Results from the projections show that the demand for cereals will increase by 2050, leading to increased GHG emissions under BAU. Under the SUSTAINABLE pathways, GHG emissions will decrease over the same period due to reduced demand for cereals, whereas significant crop productivity and harvest intensity gains would lead to increased crop production. The exercise reveals the indispensability of healthy diets, improved crop, and livestock productivity, and net-zero deforestation in achieving India’s mid-century emission targets from the agriculture sector.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2022

Caring for those in your charge: the role of servant leadership and compassion in managing bullying in the workplace

Saima Ahmad, Talat Islam, Premilla D'Cruz, and Ernesto Noronha

International Journal of Conflict Management

Adapting a positive business ethics framework, the purpose of this paper is to offer a new perspective to manage bullying at work. Specifically, this paper reports an empirical study which examines how the good work of servant leadership may lower employees’ exposure to workplace bullying, with compassion as a mediator and social cynicism beliefs (SCBs) as a moderator.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2022

Work life balance indicators and Talent Management approach: A qualitative investigation of Indian luxury hotels

Sunil Buddhiraja, Biju Varkkey, and Stephen McKenna

Employee Relations: The International Journal

Purpose – The purpose of the study is twofold: (1) it captures the work–life balance (WLB) experiences of front-office employees to inductively classify a set of WLB indicators for the locally owned Indian luxury hotels and (2) it further examines the existing WLB practices of the select hotels with the lens of talent management (TM) approach of key human resource management (HRM) practices (Thunnissen, 2016). Design/methodology/approach – To explore and classify WLB indicators, an exploratory, qualitative approach is utilized by administering seven focus group discussions involving 70 front-office employees working in Indian luxury hotels. Seven in-depth interviews with HR professionals were triangulated with secondary data to capture and analyse the existing WLB practices of sampled organizations. Findings – Four clusters of WLB indicators that are grounded in the lived experiences of front-office employees are identified and presented. Interview data from human resource representatives unveil that hotels consider existing WLB practices as key HRM practices with an inclusive TM approach. The findings also surface the differences in expectations of front-office employees and WLB practices followed by the hotels. Research limitations/implications – First, the paper addresses the issue of WLB from employees’ perspective which is crucial for designing effective WLB practices. Second, the paper contributes to the existing TM literature from the perspective of WLB practices. Originality/value – The originality of the study is grounded in the employees’ lived experiences to classify the WLB indicators for India and further examine the WLB practices through the lens of the TM approach.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2022

A bilevel conic optimization model for routing and charging of EV fleets serving long distance delivery networks

Vignesh Subramanian, Felipe Feijoo Sriram Sankaranarayanan, Kevin Melendez, and Tapas K. Das

Energy

Recent unveiling of electric semi-trucks by a number of electric vehicle manufacturers indicates that part of the existing long-distance transportation fleets may soon be electrified. Operators of electric fleets will have to select travel routes considering charging station availability and cost of charging in addition to usual factors such as congestion and travel time. This requires combined modeling of transportation and electric power networks. We present such a model that considers interactions between the two networks to develop optimal routing strategies. The problem is formulated as a multi-objective bilevel conic optimization model. The upper level obtains the routing decision by minimizing a function of charging cost and travel time. The routing decision is used in the lower level that solves the AC optimal power flow model, using second order cone constraints, to determine nodal electricity prices. The model is demonstrated using a numerical problem with 24-Node transport network supported by a modified 5-Bus PJM network. The results show that our model yields optimal routes and charging strategies to meet the objectives of fleet operators. Results also indicate that the optimal routing and charging strategies of the electrified transportation fleet can support power networks to reduce nodal prices via demand response.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2022

Routing and charging facility location for EVs under nodal pricing of electricity: A bilevel model solved using special ordered set

Sebastián González, Felipe Feijoo, Franco Basso, Vignesh Subramanian, Sriram Sankaranarayanan, and Tapas K. Das

IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid

We consider the problem of identifying optimal location of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, while accounting for (i) route optimization and (ii) charging cost optimization by the EV fleets, where the electricity price is obtained endogenously by an optimal power flow (OPF) model. We solve the problem using a bi-objective bilevel programming framework with the objectives being one of minimising travel time and the other of minimising EV charging cost. The upper level problem consists of the facility location and the transportation model and the lower level problem consists of the OPF model. After reformulating this computational hard problem as a mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC), we solve the problem using a special ordered sets-type 1 (SOS1)-based approach. We record the significant improvement in speed by our method, as opposed to the standard Big-M approach. Finally, we apply the technique to the Sioux Falls transportation network with the IEEE 14-bus electricity network embedded on it. We observe that solutions through our models results in as much 37% lower operating costs for the EVs.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2022

Domestic workers and sexual harassment in India: Examining preferred response strategies

Akshaya Vijayalakshmi, Pritha Dev, and Vaibhavi Kulkarni

World Development

The purpose of this research is to understand how women working as domestic workers, who are part of the informal sector, are likely to respond to sexual harassment incidents. Unlike the organized sector, women in informal and nontraditional workspaces often do not have access to formal organizational mechanisms for lodging complaints, thus making it important to understand their response strategies. To understand their likely response to sexual harassment in the informal sector, we conducted a detailed survey of 387 domestic workers in India where we presented each respondent with eleven possible sexual harassment scenarios and nine possible responses to each such scenario. We find that (a) women are most likely to employ strategies that are self-focused and with minimal support from friends/family. (b) Women complain to authorities/family only when they can furnish evidence of harassment. (c) Women are not likely to complain to their female supervisor under any circumstances. And (d) unsurprisingly, poorer, and migrant women are likely to be more silent than women who are relatively better-off about harassment. The results, in brief, show a distrust of the current systems. By examining this informal and unorganized workspace, we offer a stronger theoretical understanding of employee responses to sexual harassment and provide practical suggestions.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2022

From fear to courage: Indian lesbians’ and gays’ quest for Inclusive ethical organizations

Ernesto Noronha, Nidhi S. Bisht, and Premilla D’Cruz

Journal of Business Ethics

This paper focusses on the experiences of Indian lesbians and gays (LGs) who are subjected to unethical acts of workplace bullying which get manifested through constant guesswork, comments and questioning about their sexual identity in the hostile Indian context. Given this, LG participants usually opt for secrecy and lead a double life, using ‘passing’ and ‘covering’ strategies to manage economic, social and psychological risks. Nonetheless, this paper rewrites the negative tenor of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transexuals research by underscoring how LG participants move from fear to courage in their endeavour to live authentic lives while considering the broader organizational and social context. We argue that their courage is manifested mainly through deliberate micro-disclosures and a sense of defiance which can be enhanced if organizations are designed to be more inclusive and ethical. Consequently, participants defined inclusive ethical organizations as having conducive environments with trustworthy, supportive, secure, fair, unbiased and safe non-discriminatory policies open to the idea of diverse sexual orientations. Our findings point to the fact that, first and foremost, organizations must be crafted and sustained to be courageous within a hostile social climate, for employees to overcome their fears.

Go to link
Read More

Journal Articles | 2022

Identity work at the intersection of dirty work, caste, and precarity: How Indian cleaners negotiate stigma

Avina Mendonca, Premilla D’Cruz, and Ernesto Noronha

Organization

Drawing from in-depth interviews of cleaners employed in the cleaning industry in India, the study examines the ongoing process of constructing a positive identity among dirty workers. Cleaners respond to the intense identity struggles emerging from caste stigma, dirty taint, and precarity by constructing ambivalent identities. Cleaners’ identity work is constituted by the very identity struggles they encounter, and their efforts to negotiate stigmatized identities further create identity tensions. Apart from accenting the paradoxical duality inhered in identity work, the findings show how caste/class inequalities are reworked in a neoliberal milieu and reproduced in identity construction processes. The findings call attention to caste as an important social category in organizational studies that has implications for work identities, dirty work, and precarious work.

Go to link
Read More
IIMA