Published Papers

Smartphone ownership now commonly begins in early adolescence, raising concerns about dependency during a critical stage of social and emotional development. As smartphones can both support and hinder well-being, understanding adolescents’ own perceptions of dependency is essential. This study explores how American adolescents self-report smartphone dependency, perceived reasons for this dependency, and its emotional impact. Adolescents aged 14–18 living in the United States were recruited through targeted, random, and snowball sampling to complete a questionnaire on smartphone use and perceived dependency. The survey included open and closed-ended questions and Likert scales to assess emotional responses to phone-related scenarios and opinions about dependency in themselves and others. 18 adolescents participated, with 12(75%) identifying as female, ages ranging from 14-18. 94% of respondents believed others in their age group were attached to smartphones, only 44% reported feeling personally dependent. Participants reported an average smartphone use of five hours per day, with Instagram identified as the most frequently used app. Reasons for dependency varied, including social connection and the practical necessity of smartphones in an increasingly digitised world. Overall, respondents were hesitant to self-report dependency, despite recognising it as problematic in others, highlighting the complex nature of adolescents’ relationships with their smartphones. 

This paper examines the psychological and economic determinants of spending in free-to-play (F2P) games, focusing on high-school students in Mumbai. Drawing on 49 survey responses, the study investigates how behavioural biases, such as impulsivity, social pressure, instant gratification, and sunk-cost effects, influence microtransaction purchases despite limited financial independence. The findings reveal strong links between gaming engagement and expenditure, with higher playtime and PC/console use associated with substantially greater spending. Results support existing literature on the freemium model’s reliance on cognitive biases and reward mechanisms. The study highlights how F2P game design effectively converts non-paying players into paying users, even among youth with constrained resources.

Transpiration cooling is an active thermal protection system in which a coolant is injected through a porous wall into the external boundary layer, where it convects heat from the surface and establishes an insulating film that can also reduce oxidation. Hypersonic vehicles experience extreme aerodynamic heating during ascent, cruise, and re-entry, and conventional thermal protection systems are often non-reusable. Existing studies primarily focus on near-injector behavior and turbulent flows, while research on downstream laminar performance is lacking. This work addresses this gap by numerically simulating the reduction in post-injection heat flux. A steady-state two-dimensional CFD simulation of ideal-gas air at Mach 7 over an isothermal flat plate with a mass-flow inlet is performed in ANSYS Fluent 2025 R1 using a viscous, laminar, pressure-based solver, for six blowing ratios. The uncooled case matches the Eckert reference-enthalpy correlation. Coolant injection reduces wall heat flux downstream, with the thermal effectiveness decaying as the coolant mixes with the freestream flow. At 200 mm downstream, thermal effectiveness varies from 6% to 78% with the blowing ratio. The author proposes a modified correlation. This study supports rapid thermal protection design analysis and identifies areas requiring further validation. 

This current study dove into the relationship between emotional regulation, anxiety, and procrastination among adolescents. Research has hinted before that difficulties in coping or regulating emotions and anxiety could lead to avoidant habits, which include procrastination. However, not enough studies have been conducted that examine these variables in conjunction with a younger population. Participants (N=21) varied from middle schoolers all the way up to college students, and they completed a self-report questionnaire which assessed aspects of emotional regulation, anxiety, and procrastination using Likert-type scales, which were sent out through Google Forms. The correlational analysis that was performed showed a moderate positive relationship between anxiety and procrastination (r=53). This suggests that greater procrastination tendencies were associated with higher levels of anxiety. On the other hand, emotional regulation showed a weaker correlation when compared to procrastination (r = .09), and a moderate positive relationship with anxiety (r = .38). These discoveries support the hypothesis built that while emotional regulation didn’t directly have an impact on procrastination in this sample, anxiety did play a big role in affecting procrastination habits among adolescents. The findings prove the importance of addressing anxiety in educational / mental health interventions to improve academic behavior in adolescents. 

This research investigates the United Kingdom’s recent tax policy changes, particularly the freezing of income tax thresholds and the introduction of a tiered corporation tax system. Using the Laffer Curve framework, the study explores whether these measures optimise revenue without discouraging economic activity. It also assesses the impact on investment, migration, and business confidence. Drawing on international comparisons, the paper highlights the delicate balance between tax competitiveness and public finance sustainability. The findings suggest that while current policies yield fiscal gains in the short term, they risk long-term economic drawbacks if not managed transparently and predictably. 

Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) poses a growing public health challenge in India, where its prevalence continues to rise at an alarming rate. Over recent decades, India has observed a sharp rise in diabetes prevalence, with national rates increasing alongside earlier age of onset. This trend not only highlights the scale of the burden but also raises important questions about the hereditary basis of Type 2 Diabetes. Understanding its development is especially important in the South Asian context, where complex interactions between genetics, environment and lifestyle create unique patterns of risk. This review explores current evidence on the drivers of T2D, with attention to how both biological and socio-cultural influences shape susceptibility.