Mushtaq Ahmad Bhat

Tourism Service Quality: A Dimension-specific Assessment of SERVQUAL*

In the ever more competitive nature-based tourism market, service providers must maintain every edge to remain competitive. Owing to the customer-oriented service endeavours, tourism enterprises, either private or public, need to improve their service offerings so as to retain or improve their market share. To help service providers identify their strengths and weaknesses, the most widely accepted measurement scale for service quality is the SERVQUAL instrument. One of the criticisms levelled against the SERVQUAL scale is its inappropriateness as a generic measure for all service settings. Empirical research as to the dimensionality of service quality within a professional service environment, in particular, tourism sector, is scant and this study, therefore, is aimed to extend the line of research in service quality measurement. Based on data gathered from 320 tourists, the study brought to light four interpretable service quality dimensions for tourism services: Assurance, Tangibility, Responsiveness and Reliability. The overall quality of tourism services as provided by the Kashmir Valley to its tourists is slightly satisfactory. However, management has to improve upon Reliability and Responsiveness where the SERVQUAL scores were relatively low to improve the overall quality of tourism services.

Energy of signed digraphs

In this paper we extend the concept of energy to signed digraphs and we obtain Coulsons integral formula for energy of signed digraphs. We compute formulae for energies of signed directed cycles and we show that energy of non cycle balanced signed directed cycles increases monotonically with respect to the number of vertices. We extend the concept of non-complete extended p sum (or briefly, NEPS) to signed digraphs. We construct infinite families of noncospectral equienergetic signed digraphs. Moreover, we extend McClellands inequality to signed digraphs and also obtain a sharp upper bound for the energy of a signed digraph in terms of the number of arcs. Some open problems are also given at the end.

On equienergetic signed graphs

Abstract The energy of a signed graph S with eigenvalues x 1 , x 2 , … , x n is defined as E ( S ) = ∑ j = 1 n | x j | . Two signed graphs of same order are said to be equienergetic if they have the same energy. In this paper, we give several constructions for the pairs of signed graphs to be equienergetic.

Spectra and energy of bipartite signed digraphs

The energy of a signed digraph S with eigenvalues is defined as , where denotes real part of complex number . In this paper, we obtain the characteristic polynomial of a bipartite signed digraph S of order n with each cycle of length negative and each cycle of length positive. In this case, we obtain an integral expression for the energy and use it to compare the energy of signed digraphs by means of a quasi-order relation. The characteristic polynomial of a bipartite signed digraph S of order n with each cycle negative is also determined. Finally, we obtain a new family of pairs of non-cospectral, equienergetic and strongly connected signed digraphs.

Energy of weighted digraphs

In this paper, we study the spectra of weighted digraphs, where weights are taken from the set of non zero real numbers. We obtain formulae for the characteristic polynomial of two families of weighted bipartite digraphs. We study the sign alternating property of coefficients of characteristic polynomial in some classes of weighted digraphs. We extend the concept of energy to weighted digraphs and obtain Coulsons integral formula. As a consequence of these results, we study energy comparison property by means of a quasi-order relation. Unicyclic weighted digraphs with cycle-weight r[1,1]{0} having minimum and maximum energy are characterized. Finally, we obtain well known McClelland upper bound for the energy of weighted digraphs and also an upper bound for the energy of a weighted digraph in terms of number of arcs and their weights.

Unicyclic signed graphs with minimal energy

Abstract A connected signed graph with n vertices is said to be unicyclic if its number of edges is n . The energy of a signed graph S of order n with eigenvalues x 1 , x 2 , … , x n is defined as E ( S ) = ∑ j = 1 n | x j | . We obtain the integral representations for the energy of a signed graph. We show that even and odd coefficients of the characteristic polynomial of a unicyclic signed graph respectively alternate in sign. As an application of integral representation, we compute and compare the energy of unicyclic signed graphs. Finally, we characterize unicyclic signed graphs with minimal energy.

Synergistic effect of STS and cool storage on postharvest performance of cut spikes of Consolida ajacis cv. violet blue

Cut spikes of Consolida ajacis cv. Violet Blue were used for the study. The ethylene antagonist (STS) was used in combination with cool storage for 72 h at 5°C to assess the synergistic effect of both chemical and temperature treatment on postharvest performance of cut spikes. The spikes were divided into three sets, one set was pretreated with STS (1 h Pulse) prior to wet storage at 5°C for 72 h, while the other set was pretreated after 72 h cool wet storage. The third set of spikes was cool stored (at 5°C) for 72 h but kept unpulsed, which represented control. After 72 h storage, the spikes from all the three sets were transferred to flasks containing distilled water (DW) or 0.2 M sucrose + 100 mg·L−1 8-HQS (SUC + HQS). Pretreatment of spikes with STS before or after wet storage resulted in an improved postharvest performance as compared to the controls. Maximum vase life of about 18 days was shown by spikes pretreated with STS prior to storage and transferred to SUC + HQS as compared to controls which registered a vase life of 10 days in DW and 13 days in SUC + HQS (0.2 M sucrose + 100 mg·L−1 8-HQS). Flower diameter, fresh and dry mass was markedly increased in the samples from spikes transferred to SUC + HQS. Correlation between soluble protein content in sepals and vase life was positive. The results show that soluble protein content in sepals is an important factor in determining the vase life of cut spikes of Consolida ajacis cv. Violet Blue. The study recommends that pulsing the spikes with 0.5 mM STS prior to 72 h wet storage at 5°C and transferring them to holding solution containing SUC + HQS, can be used as a storage/chemical treatment to improve the postharvest performance of this cut flower.

On spectra and real energy of complex weighted digraphs

ABSTRACT In this paper, we study spectral properties of complex weighted digraphs. We show that a complex weighted digraph D is balanced if and only if D and have the same spectrum, where is the absolute value weighted digraph of D, that is, the digraph obtained by replacing the weight of each arc by its absolute value. We extend the concept of real energy to complex weighted digraphs and obtain extremal energy unicyclic complex weighted digraphs with cycle-weight in the punctured disk . We consider a family of complex weighted digraphs , in which each digraph has order n and cycles of length only with constant complex weight . We show that for each , the real energy of D is related to the real energy of unweighted cycle of length h and in some special cases real energy can be compared using quasi-order relation on coefficients of the characteristic polynomial. Finally, we obtain upper bounds on the real energy which generalize those known for unweighted digraphs and signed digraphs.