Study on the Formulation and Characterization of Herbal Toothpaste

The present research work focused on the formulation and characterization of herbal toothpaste from neem oil. Firstly, the physico-chemical properties of Neem seeds (Azadirachtaindica A. Juss) were determined. The Neem oil was extracted from Neem seeds by using solvent extraction process with ethanol (material-to-solvent ratio 1:4 w/v) at extraction temperature 60ºC for 150 min. The physico-chemical characteristics and fatty acid profile of extracted neem oil were also determined using Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC) method and Gas Chromatography (GC). Then, the herbal toothpaste was formulated using extracted neem oil with active and inactive ingredients. The effect of foaming agent, humectant, binder and preservative on the quality of formulated herbal toothpastes were investigated. Finally, the properties such as pH, alkalinity, viscosity, density, lead content, arsenic content, foaming power and physical appearance of formulated herbal toothpastes were also evaluated and compared with commercial product

From Falx to Fingertips: An Exercise in Mind-Body Awareness Through Acupuncture

This is a subjective account of an acupuncture treatment that includes a brief scientific exploration of its mechanisms of action. Additionally, connections are made between acupuncture and osteopathic manual manipulation, yoga, and meditation

Agricultural export and economic growth in ASEAN countries

Thesis(Master) --KDI School:Master of Public Policy,2017Many of developing countries in ASEAN community are still depend on the agricultural environment. This research applied the fixed effect and random effects regression model to examine the impact of the primary product of agricultural export on the countries economics growth in selected developing ASEAN countries. The study period is from 1995-2014 using year dummy variables. The outcomes of the study show the primary products of agricultural raw materials export is statistically significant on the inverse relation on the growth of economic. But the manufactured export (non-agricultural export) is strongly and positively effect on the economic development. Based on main finding of this research, this study concluded that the domestically value-added processing should be encouraged instead of exporting raw material to the foreign market. Over-reliance on primary agriculture export (raw material) may suffer economic development of the country. The manufactured export should expand to rapid increase of economic development.I. INTRODUCTION II. LITERATURE REVIEW III. METHODOLOGY AND DATA IV. RESULTS OF EMPIRICAL ANALYISIS AND RELATED DISCUSSION V. SUMMARY AND POLICY IMPLICATIONSmasterpublishedAYE MON MON KYAW

CCR2 upregulation in DRG neurons plays a crucial role in gastric hyperalgesia associated with diabetic gastropathy

13301甲第4648号博士（医学）金沢大学博士論文本文Full 以下に掲載：Molecular Pain 14 pp.174480691775132 2018. SAGE Journals. 共著者：Aye Aye-Mon, Kiyomi Hori, Yu Kozakai, Tatsuki Nakagawa, Shinichiro Hiraga, Tsuneo Nakamura, Yoshitake Shiraishi, Hiroaki Okuda, Noriyuki Ozak

Hemoglobin E prevalence in malaria-endemic villages in Myanmar.

The population of Myanmar comprises 8 major indigenous races (Bamar, Kayin, Kachin, Shan, Rakhine, Mon, Chin, and Kayah). The Bamar reside in the 7 central divisions of the country, and the others reside in the 7 peripheral states that border neighboring countries, including China, Laos, and Thailand in the east and India and Bangladesh in the west. Both malaria and HbE are endemic in Myanmar, although the actual prevalence of the latter in the different indigenous races is not yet known. Hemoglobin electrophoresis was performed in 4 malaria-endemic villages, each having a different predominating indigenous race. The overall prevalence of HbE was 11.4% (52/456 villagers), ranging from 2-6% in the Kayin-predominant villages to 13.1-24.4% in the Bamar-predominant villages. Although the overall HbE prevalence in the villages studied was not significantly different from that of the general Myanmar population, this study strongly documented the influence of racial differences on the prevalence of HbE in Myanmar. To prevent and control severe thalassemia syndromes in Myanmar, extensive prevalence studies of the country?s indigenous races are suggested.</p

An Improved Fuzzy-based Image Filtering for High Density Salt and Pepper Noise

The proposed system presents a fuzzy switching filter to remove high density salt and pepper noise in an image. This system combined the ability of modified median filter, the proposed fuzzy median filter and the proposed fuzzy mean filter. At first, target pixel in a (3x3) kernel is checked whether it is noise pixel (0 or 255) or not. If there isn’t noise, the noise checking process shifts to the next kernel. If there is noise pixel (0 or 255), the number of noise within a kernel is counted. If the noise count is less than or equal to four which is less noise density, the modified median filter is used to remove noise. If the noise count is greater than four and less than or equal to six, the proposed fuzzy median filter is applied. If the noise count is larger than six which is high noise density, the proposed fuzzy mean filter is used to remove noise. By switching these three filters depending on the noise count within a kernel, the propose system can remove high density salt and pepper noise without distorting the edge and fine details in an image. At the experimental results, the proposed system can give better performance in removing high noise density. Furthermore, the denoising performance of the proposed filters will also be presented by calculating the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) values

Student Expectation and Perception on Service Quality: Gap Analysis Model

In the competitive market, it is crucial to stand as the market leaders maintaining the current customers offering the satisfying service quality and creating impacts to attract the potential. Hence, this research identifies the gaps between the customer expectation and perception on the academic service quality of an English Department in Yangon, Myanmar through the five dimensions SERVQUAL model. Deductive approach and exploratory research design are applied in the research. The study uses proportional sampling where a definite number of populations is known and the respondents are selected randomly from every batch. Through mixed method, quantitative and qualitative data are collected from 66 respondents attending English Language Programme. The results reveal that there are significant gaps between the customer expectation and perception, and the customers’ expectation level is higher than the perceived service quality. The qualitative data analysis is not merely provided in the research; therefore, it seems weak to identify the detailed opinions of the respondents’ views on the research factors. The customers’ perception and suggestions should be prioritised for the betterment of developmental progress of the academic service quality. The research indicates the prominence of the customer loyalty to maintain the customer satisfaction in the organisation

Influencing Factors on the Selection of Language Learning Centres: Empirical Evidence from Myanmar

This study aimed to analyse the factors considered by the learners in choosing a language learning centre in Myanmar as an overview of the competitive advantage in the rapidly transforming cutthroat and globalised market competition. Deductive approach was applied as the base of conducting the study with exploratory research design using survey questionnaire in which the related quantitative and qualitative questions distributed to 108 students. The qualitative and quantitative data interpreted revealed two prominent factors, TV advertising and financial factor, have no impact on the students’ selection decision. However, the other three factors, social media advertising, academic quality, and social influence, have significant impact on the students’ decision of selecting a language institute. The competitive advantages based on the user experience have been identified as well. Because the research area is limited to only five influential factors, the number of variables can merely cover the narrow scope of the research area to foreground the whole resemblance of the students’ selection behaviour and attitude. However, the results imply that competitive advantage in the highly competitive market requires strategic formulation of marketing strategies

The Relationship between Foreign Aid and Democratization in Myanmar in respect to Civil Society

Since 2010, Myanmar has been making a transition to a democratic country after 40 years under successive military regimes. The semi-civilian government led by President U TheinSein has been in charge of Myanmar since the democratic reform is carried out. After Myanmar's new government has carried out its democratic reform for 2 years, international assistance has come in Myanmar to assist Myanmar's democratization in 2012 unlike before 2010. Western donors who were not active in providing aid in Myanmar became enthusiastic to help Myanmar's democratization in various ways. Civil society in Myanmar is still small and informally organized to participate as a strong actor in Myanmar's democratization. Democratic aid to nurture civil society in Myanmar, which has been repressed for long time, became an important aid to strengthen democracy in Myanmar. This thesis will analyse the relation between democratic aid through civil society and democratization in Myanmar. It is based on recently completed in-country research involving document analysis and semi-structured interviews. The paper investigates what is the impact of democratic aid through civil society on Myanmar's democratization process. The findings of this thesis indicate that democratic aid was not delivered in Myanmar under the successive military regimes to impose democratization. Democratic aid has started to be delivered again after the Myanmar government started its process of democratization mostly due to domestic factors, such as people's dissatisfaction with the military governments. When western donors started supporting the democratization process in Myanmar, they provided democratic assistance to sustain local civil society organisations in Myanmar in order to act as a check and balance to the Myanmar government and to make it more accountable to the citizens. Democratic assistance towards civil society has been promoting the role of civil society organisations in politics, creating a platform for communication between the government and local civil society organisations to increase the all-inclusiveness in Myanmar's democratization process. With the democratic assistance from western donors, local civil society organisations became more developed and started working as one of the check and balance actors in Myanmar's politics. Thus, democratic assistance to civil society has increased the sustainability of local civil society organisations in Myanmar to participate in the democratization process. However, democratic assistance to civil society has only started recently, in 2012, and there are challenges in providing assistance to civil society to promote democratization. If those challenges can be avoided in delivering aid to civil society, the assistance towards civil society can have a better impact on democratization in Myanmar

Quantum dots based superluminescent diodes and photonic crystal surface emitting lasers

This thesis reports the design, fabrication, and electrical and optical characterisations of GaAs-based quantum dot (QD) photonic devices, specifically focusing on superluminescent diodes (SLDs) and photonic crystal surface-emitting lasers (PCSELs). The integration of QD active regions in these devices is advantageous due to their characteristics such as temperature insensitivity, feedback insensitivity, and ability to utilise the ground state (GS) and excited state (ES) of the dots. In an initial study concerning the fabrication of QD-SLDs, the influence of ridge waveguide etch depth on the electrical and optical properties of the devices are investigated. It is shown that the output power and modal gain from shallow etched ridge waveguide is higher than those of deep etched waveguides. Subsequently, the thermal performance of the devices is analysed. With increased temperature over 170 ºC, the spectral bandwidth is dramatically increased by thermally excited carrier transition in excited states of the dots. Following this, an investigation of a high dot density hybrid quantum well/ quantum dot (QW/QD) active structure for broadband, high-modal gain SLDs is presented. The influence of the number of QD layers on the modal gain of hybrid QW/QD structures is analysed. It is shown that higher number of dot layer provides higher modal gain value, however, there is lack of emission from QW due to the requirement of large number of carriers to saturate the QD. Additionally, a comparison is made between “unchirped QD” and “ chirped QD” of hybrid QW/QD structure in terms of modal gain and spectral bandwidth. It is showed that “chirped” of the QD can improve the “flatness” of the spectral bandwidth. Lastly, the use of self-assembled InAs QD as the active material in epitaxially regrown GaAs-based PCSELs is explored for the first time. Initially, it is shown that both GS and ES lasing can be achieved for QD-PCSELs by changing the grating period of the photonic crystal (PC). The careful design of these grating periods allows lasing from neighbouring devices at GS ( ~1230 nm) and ES (~1140 nm), 90 nm apart in wavelength. Following this, the effect of device area, PC etch depth, PC atom shape (circle or triangle or orientation) on lasing performance is presented. It is shown that lower threshold current density and higher slope efficiencies is achieved with increasing the device size. The deeper PC height device has higher output power due to more suitable height and minimal distance to active region. The triangular atom shape has slightly higher slope efficiency compared to triangular atom shape which is attributed to breaking in-plane symmetry and increase out-of-plane emission