This book is a collection of selected high-quality research papers presented at the 4th International Conference on Evidence-Based Management (ICEBM) 2023, held at Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, Rajasthan, India, during February 24–25, 2023. It has 76 chapters written by various scholars focusing on evidence-based management practices in different functional areas of management with the application of theory and empirical techniques. This book will be helpful to practitioners, academics, scholars, and policymakers.

Originally published in 2001, this book describes in detail various experimental techniques used in the study of liquid crystals. It will be indispensable for established workers in the field as well as students embarking on liquid crystal research. Each chapter in the book is dedicated to an important experimental technique used in the study and characterisation of liquid crystalline systems. Use of these techniques on liquid crystals requires modifications of traditional experiments, special sample handling and a fresh a approach to data analysis. In addition, general routes used to synthesise liquid crystals and tools to characterise liquid crystal phases are described. Attempts are also made to show structure property relationships for well known systems. This book will be of particular interest to graduate students in physics and chemistry as well as established researchers in the fields of liquid crystals and soft condensed matter.

This hands-on guide details various experimental techniques used in the study of liquid crystals and other soft-condensed matter systems. Each chapter portrays an important technique used to study and characterize these systems, fully discussing both the capabilities and limitations of each particular method. In addition, the volume also describes general routes used to synthesize liquid crystals, tools to characterize liquid crystal phases, and seeks to show structure property relationships for well known systems. This book will be indispensable for established workers in the field as well as students embarking on liquid crystal research.

Multimillion dollar poultry industry, always face the threats from emerging/ re-emerging poultry diseases. A major element of disease resistance is the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) and has regions i.e. B-F, B-L and B-G. BF2 is a predominantly expressed class I gene. Red jungle fowl (RJF) is the sole ancestor of all the present day chicken. The divergence between RJF and domestic chicken is presumed to have originated some 8000 years back. During the 8000 years, the chicken genome has undergone tremendous changes due to intentional selection. There is a general consensus among the animal breeders that many traits/alleles, especially related to adaptability are lost during intense selection. Hence, comparative genomic studies of the RJF and its present day domesticated descendents would answer many of these apprehensions on unequivocal terms. Hence, our aim is to characterize the BF2 gene in RJF.

Firms are facing intense competition in today's global business environment. They have to produce quality products at competitive prices with unpredictable demand and has to quickly respond to risks as well as opportunities. All these require an efficient supply chain and a well-designed distribution system. Information Technology is becoming a critical enabler of an efficient supply chain management system, which can help in sharing and utilizing the information efficiently. Thus, there is a need to study the significance of available information within supply chain in decision-making process. We have studied the impact of electronic linkage between supply chain partners on the performance of distribution systems through case studies of two firms. These firms have implemented Web-applications for performing some business operations and are in the process to automate few more operations. These case studies have helped us to formulate models for optimal replenishment decisions. A multi-product, multi-constraint single-period distribution model has been formulated to solve a problem. This problem being NP-hard, a multi-stage heuristic method has been developed to solve the model.