Determinants of Infant Mortality in Older ASEAN Economies

Infant mortality in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been declining, yet disparities remain between the nations. This paper therefore explores the determinants of infant mortality in the older ASEAN-4 economies, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Error Correction Model framework. The key findings of the study are: First, there is evidence of long-run relationships among infant mortality, education, female fertility, income and access to healthcare. Second, the determinants of infant mortality vary between countries. Female fertility emerged as the main determinant of infant mortality in Malaysia, while access to healthcare matter for infant mortality in Indonesia, and to a lesser extent for the Philippines. The income effect is significant for reducing infant mortality in Malaysia, while female education is important for Indonesia and Thailand. Third, the speed of adjustment of infant mortality rate is comparatively low in ASEAN-4

Synthesis of conducting ferromagnetic nanocomposite with improved microwave absorption properties

The present paper reports the synthesis of polyaromatic amine–ferromagnetic composite with nanosize TiO2 (∼70–90 nm) and γ-Fe2O3 (∼10–15 nm) particles via in situ emulsion polymerization. Magnetic and conductivity studies demonstrate that the conducting ferromagnetic composite possesses saturation magnetization (MS) value of 26.9 emu g−1 and conductivity of the order of 0.46 S cm−1, which are measured by vibrating sample magnetometer and four-probe technique, respectively. It is observed that the presence of the nanosized γ-Fe2O3 in the polyaniline–TiO2 matrix affects the electromagnetic shielding property of the composite. Polyaniline–TiO2–γ-Fe2O3 nanocomposite has shown better shielding effectiveness due to absorption (SEA ∼ 45 dB) than the polyaniline-γ-Fe2O3 (SEA ∼ 8.8 dB) and polyaniline–TiO2 (SEA ∼ 22.4 dB) nanocomposite. The polymer composites were further characterized by high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique

Conducting polymer embedded with nanoferrite and titanium dioxide nanoparticles for microwave absorption

The present paper deals with the synthesis of conducting ferrimagnetic polyaniline nanocomposite embedded with γ-Fe2O3 (9–12 nm) and titanium dioxide (70–90 nm) nanoparticles via a micro-emulsion polymerization. The microwave absorption properties of nanocomposite in 12.4–18 GHz (Ku-band) frequency range shows shielding effectiveness due to absorption (SEA) value of −45 dB, which is much higher than polyaniline composite with iron oxide and polyaniline–TiO2 composites. The higher EMI shielding is mainly arising due to combined effect of γ-Fe2O3 and TiO2 that leads to more dielectric and magnetic losses which consequently contributed to higher values of shielding effectiveness. XRD analysis of the nanocomposite reveals the incorporation of nanoparticles in the conducting polymer matrix while the thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) demonstrates that the nanocomposite is stable up to 250 °C

Dielectric and magnetic properties of conducting ferromagnetic composite of polyaniline with γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles

The present paper reports the synthesis of conducting polyaniline polymer composite with nanoclusters of ferrite (γ-Fe2O3) particles in the presence of dodecylbenzene sulfonic acid in aqueous medium through electrochemical and chemical oxidative polymerization. Different formulations have been prepared to study the effect of ferrite constituent on the electrical and dielectric properties of polyaniline nano-composite. Vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) studies and electrical conductivity measurements have revealed that conducting polymer composite has a saturation magnetization (Ms) value of 48.9 emu g−1 and conductivity of the order of 0.13 S cm−1. The particle size of γ-Fe2O3 was found in the range of 8–15 nm as analyzed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) results have shown the presence of characteristic band stretching of Fesingle bondO band at 630 and 558 cm−1, indicating the presence of γ-Fe2O3 in the polyaniline matrix which is in agreement with the electrochemical results. Dielectric measurements have shown decreasing trend of dielectric constant with the increase of γ-Fe2O3 particles in the polymer matrix while shielding effective (SE) of −11.2 dB was achieved for the polymer composite in 8.2–12.4 GHz (X-band) frequency range. The characterization of the composite was further carried out by X-ray diffraction, UV–vis and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA)

Nickel Doped Zinc Oxide Thin Films for Visible Blind Ultraviolet Photodetection Applications

The current research aims to investigate the effect of nickel doping on the structural and opto-electrical characteristics of zinc oxide thin films. Sol-gel spin coating technique has been utilized to deposit Zn _1-x Ni _x O (x = 0, 0.005, 0.010, and 0.015) films on glass substrates. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis confirms the formation of crystalline zinc oxide thin films with hexagonal wurtzite structure. Williamson-Hall analysis has been performed to study the individual contribution of lattice strain and crystallite size to the peak broadening in the XRD pattern. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Photoluminescence spectroscopy, and UV–visible spectroscopic techniques have been used to examine the surface morphology and optical properties of the deposited films. Transient photocurrent measurements have been performed on all the films under the exposure of ultraviolet (UV) light of wavelengths 365 and 254 nm with on/off cycle of 100 s, and various device key parameters such as sensitivity, responsivity, and quantum efficiency, etc have been determined. Sensitivities of the fabricated photodetectors (PDs) are found to be 5463%, 3809%, 3100%, and 831% for pristine ZnO, Zn _0.995 Ni _0.005 O, Zn _0.99 Ni _0.01 O, and Zn _0.985 Ni _0.015 O, respectively. The UV photodetection mechanism, which is based on the interaction between chemisorbed oxygen on the surface of ZnO and photo-generated holes, has been thoroughly discussed