Use of delivery drones for humanitarian operations: analysis of adoption barriers among logistics service providers from the technology acceptance model perspective.

Delivery drones are yet to be adopted as a systematic delivery system for humanitarian operations but have the potential to substantially increase the efficiency and effectiveness of future delivery options. Thus, we analyse the impact of factors affecting the adoption of delivery drones by logistics service providers for humanitarian operations. A conceptual model of potential barriers to adoption and development is created using the Technology Acceptance Model theory involving security, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and attitude as factors that affect the intention to use. We validate the model using empirical data collected from 103 respondents by the 10 leading logistics firms located in China between May and August 2016. through a survey to examine factors currently affecting the intention/non-intention to adopt delivery drones. The results show that ease of use and addressing key security considerations about the drone, the delivery package and the recipient are crucial for adopting the technology as a specialized delivery option for logistics service providers. This is the first study of its kind and contributes to understanding the operational, supply chain and behavioural factors in the adoption of drones by logistics services providers for humanitarian operations.

Humanitarian management strategy for interstate movement of migrant workers in India during COVID-19 pandemic: an optimization based approach.

India faced a unique situation during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic when millions of migrant workers, in different states had to be transported to their home states as workplaces shut down. The governments in respective states faced challenges of minimizing economic impact while ensuring that the risk of infection was also kept under control. This paper develops models based on various secondary data from governmental and relevant non-governmental sources, trying to minimize the economic impact while keeping the rate of infection low and determining whether the migrant workforce should be allowed to stay in their workplace state or allowed to return to their home state. We found that the number of days of lockdown had a significant impact on the results. Fewer days of lockdown resulted in workers remaining in their work state as the preferred outcome, while a higher number of days of lockdown implied that people traveled to their home state and remain there. The proportion of workers who were willing to return to their work state played an important role on the results too. Beyond the threshold percentages of migrant workers returning to their work state, it became optimal for the government to encourage the workers to travel to their home state. However, this was mostly visible for moderate number of lockdown days as the effects on results were dominated by the impact from the number of lockdown days for too high or too low number of lockdown days. There is also an important trade-off between the budget and infection rate 'R' for the governments to consider. Minimizing the risk of infection requires an additional budget.

Author Correction: Rainfall seasonality on the Indian subcontinent during the Cretaceous greenhouse.

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Rainfall seasonality on the Indian subcontinent during the Cretaceous greenhouse.

The Cretaceous greenhouse climate was accompanied by major changes in Earth's hydrological cycle, but seasonally resolved hydroclimatic reconstructions for this anomalously warm period are rare. We measured the δ18O and CO2 clumped isotope Δ47 of the seasonal growth bands in carbonate shells of the mollusc Villorita cyprinoides (Black Clam) growing in the Cochin estuary, in southern India. These tandem records accurately reconstruct seasonal changes in sea surface temperature (SST) and seawater δ18O, allowing us to document freshwater discharge into the estuary, and make inferences about rainfall amount. The same analytical approach was applied to well-preserved fossil remains of the Cretaceous (Early Maastrichtian) mollusc Phygraea (Phygraea) vesicularis from the nearby Kallankuruchchi Formation in the Cauvery Basin of southern India. The palaeoenvironmental record shows that, unlike present-day India, where summer rainfall predominates, most rainfall in Cretaceous India occurred in winter. During the Early Maastrichtian, the Indian plate was positioned at ~30°S latitude, where present-day rainfall and storm activity is also concentrated in winter. The good match of the Cretaceous climate and present-day climate at ~30°S suggests that the large-scale atmospheric circulation and seasonal hydroclimate patterns were similar to, although probably more intense than, those at present.