Private Universities of Bangladesh: A Study on Service Quality, Customers’ Perceptions and Satisfaction

The higher education sector of Bangladesh is divided as private and public sectors in terms of the initiative of establishment. All of them are autonomous where the public universities are owned by the government and the private universities have been developed by the private sector. As the private universities produce services and sell it to the students by a comprehensive marketing effort, we can treat their services as a part of marketing. In this study, we tried to show the quality of services and the subsequent perception and satisfaction level of the stake holders regarding services are being provided by the private universities along with some recommendations to improve their service quality. For primary data, we interviewed 500 students and their guardians, teachers and staffs of private universities and also some famous educationists of Bangladesh though out Dhaka city through the cluster sampling of probability method; and we also used much enriched secondary sources of data. As our targeted readers are the mass people of the country

Capital structure and debt maturity: Evidence from listed companies in Saudi arabia

This study examines the determinants of capital structure in general and the determinants of corporate debt- maturity in particular for 56 listed companies in Saudi Arabia. To achieve this objective the study was set to test a number of hypotheses regarding the determinants of capital structure and debt maturity. These hypotheses were related to the effects of profitability, growth opportunities, asset maturity, size, liquidity and age. Total debt ratio was found to be positively and significantly related to the percentage growth in total assets and negatively and significantly related to liquidity and asset structure. Growth opportunities variable was found to be positively and significantly related to long - term debt and was negatively and significantly related to short term debt. The relationship between asset maturity and long term debt was found to be negative and significant. Therefore, there is no support of the hypothesis that debt maturity decreases as the proportion of growth potentials increase. Size was found to be positively and significantly related to long term debt and negatively and significantly related to short term debt implying that larger firms borrow on long term and small ones borrow on short term. Profitability, age liquidity appeared to have no statistical significance on the different types of debt. The implications of these results have been examined and future research directions have been suggested

Environmental Impact Assessment and Sedimentology of the Carbonate Quarry Site for Al-Maroua'ah Cement Plant in Al-Hodeida District, NW Yemen

In this study, environmental impact assessment and sedimentology includes chemical analysis were carried out for the quarry site of the limestone raw material in Al-Maroua'ah cement plant in Tehama plane, Al-Hodeida district NW Yemen. The study includes the assessment of the limestone raw materials, the quality, chemical and mineralogical analysis and expected pollutions impact in the quarry site. The studied rock successions are belonging to the Amran Group, which is composed mainly of limestone rocks with few interbedded marl, shale and sandstone beds. The chemical analysis of the limestone rocks show CaO content is (50.31%), with very little MgO content (0.71%). The present shale marl and sandstone rock units are useful for the correction of the rocks to concise with the international specifications of the cement production. The site of the quarry of the main raw materials of limestone rocks was selected far From the villages and human populations to prevent the environmental pollutions according to the WHO and YEPA specifications. The emitted dust from the operations of the quarry machine makes impacts on the surrounding environments especially for the farms and the natural plants and animals, which are living in the region. For this, the site of quarry is selected in a mountain far from the vegetation, population and villages to avoid the expected environmental impact. Mitigation plan for prevent or decreases the pollution impact to the minimum, was discussed

Agricultural wastes as a supplementary source of energy: An economic assessment of a briquette making facility

For commercialization of crop based biomass briquetting technology and alternate source of energy model, is essential to know whether the technology is economically viable or not. In view of this, an attempt was made to analyze the economics of the biomass briquettes prepared by utilizing unused agricultural byproducts and other selected biomass produced from different crop residues. Biomass briquetting is one among the processes of converting low bulk density biomass into high density and energy concentrated fuel referred as briquette and has scope to use as fuel energy for food preparation by the rural households. India continued to roll its economy with agriculture whose energy requirement is increasing day by day with the progress made in agricultural sector. Under the existing situation, day to day’s demand for fuel energy for food preparation at rural households observed to be very high and women folk struggle hard to gather fuel for food preparation. On the other hand, in India plenty of biomass is available due to vast agricultural based crop production systems. The per annum current availability of biomass in India is estimated at 1,249 million tons. With this advantage, to minimize the drudgery of rural women folk and to fulfill rural house hold demand for fuel energy required for food preparation, could only be addressed by the means production of biomass briquettes which provides cost effective and good fuel energy source for rural households for cooking food every day. The economics of biomass briquettes production indicated per month average net return ofINR80,000to the briquette machine owner. The project appraisal with other financial indicators for biomass briquettes production had indicated desired, theNet Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, Benefit-Cost Ratio and Payback Period were observed to be INR3931, 245, >30 per cent, 2.21 and 3.00 years respectively

Environmental Impact Assessment and Sedimentology of the Carbonate Quarry Site for Al-Maroua'ah Cement Plant in Al-Hodeida District, NW Yemen

In this study, environmental impact assessment and sedimentology includes chemical analysis were carried out for the quarry site of the limestone raw material in Al-Maroua'ah cement plant in Tehama plane, Al-Hodeida district NW Yemen. The study includes the assessment of the limestone raw materials, the quality, chemical and mineralogical analysis and expected pollutions impact in the quarry site. The studied rock successions are belonging to the Amran Group, which is composed mainly of limestone rocks with few interbedded marl, shale and sandstone beds. The chemical analysis of the limestone rocks show CaO content is (50.31%), with very little MgO content (0.71%). The present shale marl and sandstone rock units are useful for the correction of the rocks to concise with the international specifications of the cement production. The site of the quarry of the main raw materials of limestone rocks was selected far From the villages and human populations to prevent the environmental pollutions according to the WHO and YEPA specifications. The emitted dust from the operations of the quarry machine makes impacts on the surrounding environments especially for the farms and the natural plants and animals, which are living in the region. For this, the site of quarry is selected in a mountain far from the vegetation, population and villages to avoid the expected environmental impact. Mitigation plan for prevent or decreases the pollution impact to the minimum, was discussed

Evaluating manurial value of bioslurry for tomato cultivation in subtropical floodplain soil

Bioslurry is an anaerobically decomposed product, which comes out of the digester after extraction of biogas (chiefly CH4). Recently a huge amount of bioslurry is being produced in Bangladesh for enormous installation of biogas plants. Utilization of bioslurry is yet to be addressed adequately though it has potential value as a good quality organic fertilizer. Therefore, a field experiment supported by a laboratory analysis was conducted in floodplain soil of Bangladesh to evaluate the performance of bioslurry along with chemical fertilizers on the yield of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with six treatments viz., Control (no fertilizer/manure), N200P90K180 (100% Recommended Fertilizer Dose, RFD), N120P54K108 (60% RFD) + Poultry manure (PM), N120P54K108 (60% RFD) + Poultry slurry, N120P54K108 (60% RFD) + Cowdung (CD), N120P54K108 (60% RFD) + Cowdung slurry, each treatment replicated thrice. Chemical analysis of cowdung, cowdung bioslurry, poultry manure and poultry bioslurry showed that the organic carbon, N, P, K and S varied from 10.1-35.1, 0.70-2.52, 0.18- 1.28, 0.86- 3.80 and 0.13- 0.61% respectively. Cowdung and poultry manure had the higher organic carbon content as well as higher nutrient concentration compared to cowdung bioslurry and poultry bioslurry. Nutrient concentration particularly N, P and S in cowdung and cowdung bioslurry was found lower than the poultry manure and poultry bioslurry. The fruit yield of tomato increased by 81-225% due to the application of different slurry, manure and chemical fertilizers compared to no application of manure or fertilizer (control). The highest fruit yield (27.2 t ha-1) of tomato was obtained from N120P54K108 + Poultry slurry treatment. Hence application of poultry bioslurry in combination with 60% recommended dose of fertilizers can help improve the production of tomato in sub-tropical floodplain soil

Comparative performance of two extractants in colorimetric determination of soil organic matter in paddy soil

Commonly used soil organic carbon (SOC) determination methods are expensive, time consuming, require equipment and skilled personnel making them impractical to use at field level. Therefore, a laboratory analytical study was carried out to identify a suitable extractant for SOC extraction as part of an ongoing effort to develop a low cost quick method for determining soil organic matter (SOM) at field level. For this purpose, 38 soil samples were collected from different Agro Ecological Zone (AEZ) to represent typical rice based cropping pattern covering a sufficient range in texture, soil organic matter, pH, and type of management. Two extractants e.g. NaOH-Pyrophosphate + HCl and NaOH-EDTA were used to extract organic carbon from soil and two wavelength e.g. 300 and 400 nm were used to measure the absorbance of organic carbon in spectrophotometer. Soil organic carbon measurements by CNS analyzer were used as reference measurement to compare the extracting efficiency of SOC by the selected extractants. Both the extract and wavelength showed different degrees of error in OC measurement. The error sum square of NaOH-Pyrophosphate + HCl and NaOH-EDTA measured at 300 nm wavelength were 15.21 and 13.35 whereas at 400 nm it was 227.37 and 19.95, respectively. Consequently, the average error percentages at 300 nm were -33 and -8 while at 400 nm it was - 187 and -16. Based on the error sum square and error percentage, NaOH-Pyrophosphate + HCl performed better than the NaOH-EDTA, and 400 nm wavelength came out better than the 300 nm wavelength. In addition, both the extracts produced coloured solutions which were easily visible or detectable by naked eye and the colour intensity increased with the increase in SOC content. Variations in colour among the soils depending on organic matter content indicate that it would be possible to develop a new low cost method for SOM determination at field level by using NaOH-Pyrophosphate + HCl as the extractant. Further research is warranted to confirm this finding

The Maximum Principle and Its Applications

This dissertation is concerned with some of the many applications of the MAXIMUM PRINCIPLE. In the first two chapters, we discuss and prove versions of the maximum principle first for Ordinary Differential equations, then for elliptic Partial Differential Equations, including some improvements due to Serrin. In Chapter (III), we study in detail symmetry properties of positive solutions of second order elliptic equations of the type Delta u+ f(u) = 0 in a domain O with zero boundary conditions. This follows the important article of Gidas, Ni and Nirenberg and shows that the problem cited has radial solutions in a spherically symmetric domain, no matter what the function f is. We give extensions of these results to certain systems of second order elliptic equations in Chapter (IV). Chapters (V) and (VI) contain applications of different type. In Chapter (V), we study solutions of the equation Delta u+ f(u) = 0 with either Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions, and obtain bounds for various quantities determined by a solution of Delta u+ f(u) = 0. We show that it is possible to find functions g, f so that the function P = g(u) |grad u|2 + h(u) satisfies an elliptic inequality and , by an application of the maximum principle, P either attains its maximum on the boundary of O, or at a critical point of u. We study particularly the case h'(u) = c f(u) g(u) where c is a constant. For c ≤ 1 we show that, under suitable assumptions, the maximum of P occurs on ∂O, whereas for c ≥ 2 the maximum occurs at a critical point of u. In the last chapter, we illustrate these results by giving some applications to the torsion problem, the efficiency ratio of a nuclear reactor and the free membrane problem