Can we take you as a bride? – the stories of eight Hindu women

While the horrifying experiences of Rohingya women and girls in Myanmar are well documented, less known is the experiences of Hindu women and girls in the region. Aye Thiri Kyaw (Researcher, Myanmar) details the experiences of eight women, as told in the documentary Trunocide, who were forcibly displaced and held captive after attacks on a number of Hindu-majority villages in the northern part of Myanmar’s Rakhine State by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA)

Design and Application of Membrane Nanodiscs for Biophysical Studies of Influenza A Proteins

Membrane proteins play a range of important roles in biological systems, yet they are underrepresented in the data base of high-resolution structures of all proteins. There is intense interest in developing new methodologies for studying membrane proteins. An essential step to membrane protein method development is devising reliable membrane mimics in which to embed membrane proteins. The goal of this thesis was to develop and apply nanodisc membrane mimics to the study of an influenza A membrane protein called M2. Nanodiscs provide a lipid bilayer environment with access to both sides of the bilayer and are smaller than commonly used liposome model membranes whose size provides challenges for some biophysical methods. This thesis shows how the sample composition of M2 containing nanodiscs was optimized. Dynamic light scattering and size exclusion chromatography was used to characterize M2-nanodiscs. Electrophysiological and budding assays showed that M2 in liposomes were in a functionally relevant conformation. Extensive previous work has been done on studying M2 protein in spherical liposome using site-directed spin label electron paramagnetic resonance (SDSL-EPR). We carried out SDSL-EPR studies of M2-nanodiscs and compared them to published work on M2 in liposomes. Our EPR data is consistent with M2 protein in nanodiscs having a similar conformation, mobility and membrane topology as that seen in previously published M2-liposome work. Furthermore, we probed the ability of nanodiscs to allow for conformational exchange by comparing the impact of drug binding on M2-nanodiscs with M2-liposomes

Constant factor delta modulation - a new instantaneously adaptive delta modulation system

A new model of an instantaneously adaptive delta modulator called hero a "CONSTANT FACTOR DELTA MODULATOR", (abbreviated C.F.D.M.) has been developed and the selection of suitable constant factors (adaptation constants) with its adaptation logic has been described. The basic delta modulator has been adapted to give an improved performance by introducing a small memory and prediction method in the feedback loop thereby enabling the coder to adapt to the instantaneous variations in the analogue input signal. This C.F.D.M. model of adaptive system adapts its step size, at every sampling instant r, as a result of the detection of the four possible binary groups formed from the last three binary values transmitted. The adaptation constant which is the ratio of-the present step size mr, to the previous step size mr-l, can have, at any sampling instant, one of four values with a magnitude of Ai; A2, A3 and A4, corresponding to the four different possible groups formed. The polarity of the present step size is the same as the present binary value Lr. The effect of this C.F.D.M. system is that for a given decoded signal to noise ratio, the necessary bandwidth of the transmission channel is reduced. The C.F.D.M. described here gives an improved overall coding characteristic and removes an objectionable hunting characteristic compared to the one-bit memory adaptive DM by JAYANT(13). It offers wider dynamic range for the bandlimited Gaussian Input. The results are compared with other similar schemes on adaptive delta modulators and computer plotted graphs are presented whenever necessary. From these results and responses, the C.F.D.M. seems to be promising for encoding video-signals. Several computer simulations have been made for the design of the Constant Factor delta modulator, JAYANT's CODER, WINKLER's H.I.D.M. coder and linear delta modulator. The performances of these coders have been compared. A considerable number of computer simulation results are presented which relate to digital low-pass filter and the estimation of power spectra

Effects of energy band structure on gallium arsenide based MOSFET

This research work is focused on material science and semiconductor engineering. It emphasized on the semiconductor material such as Gallium arsenide (GaAs). The Gallium arsenide semiconductor material was used as a group III-V compound for metal-oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) modeling.  The band-gap energy structures were analyzed by using material parameters such as Varshni parameters, temperature and doping concentrations. Then, an electrical characteristic was carried out depending on the current and voltage relationship. The current flowing in the device is associated with a gate voltage applied to the device. From this paper, the analysis of MOSFET modeling was investigated using mathematical equations and MATLAB simulation

Simulation of Energy Bands for Metal and Semiconductor Junction

This paper presents the metal-semiconductor band structure analysis for metal-oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET). The energy bands were observed at metal-semiconductor and semiconductor-metal junctions. The simulation results show energy variations by using gallium-nitride (GaN) material. Gallium nitride based MOSFETs have some special material properties and wide band-gap. From the energy band, the condition of contact potential, conduction and valence band-edges can be analyzed. The computerized simulation results for getting the band layers are investigated with MATLAB programming language

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

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

Effect of dietary garlic and thyme seed supplementation on the production performance, carcass yield and gut microbial population of broiler chickens

A total of 200 Cobb 500 male broilers were randomly allocated to 4 treatments consisting of 5 replications with 10 chicks each in order to evaluate the effect of dietary garlic and thyme seed supplementation on the production performance, carcass yield and gut microbial population. Treatments were control diet (T1), control diet with 1% thyme seed powder (T2), control diet with 1% garlic powder (T3) and control diet with 0.5% thyme seed and 0.5% garlic powder (T4). Feed intake, body weight, weight gain, feed conversion ratio (FCR), carcass yield was not significantly (p>0.05) improved by dietary treatments compared to control. Escherichia coli (E. coli) count in the gut of broilers did not show significant difference among dietary treatments. However, Lactobacilli count in the gut of broilers significantly (p<0.05) increased in T2 compared to that of T1. Lactobacilli count in the gut of broilers received T1, T3 and T4 did not differ significantly (p>0.05) with each other. It was concluded that thyme seed was reliable as feed additive in the broiler diet and could provide positive advantages to the colonization and proliferation of Lactobacilli

UCSY-SC1: A Myanmar speech corpus for automatic speech recognition

This paper introduces a speech corpus which is developed for Myanmar Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) research. Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) research has been conducted by the researchers around the world to improve their language technologies. Speech corpora are important in developing the ASR and the creation of the corpora is necessary especially for low-resourced languages. Myanmar language can be regarded as a low-resourced language because of lack of pre-created resources for speech processing research. In this work, a speech corpus named UCSY-SC1 (University of Computer Studies Yangon - Speech Corpus1) is created for Myanmar ASR research. The corpus consists of two types of domain: news and daily conversations. The total size of the speech corpus is over 42 hrs. There are 25 hrs of web news and 17 hrs of conversational recorded data.The corpus was collected from 177 females and 84 males for the news data and 42 females and 4 males for conversational domain. This corpus was used as training data for developing Myanmar ASR. Three different types of acoustic models  such as Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) - Hidden Markov Model (HMM), Deep Neural Network (DNN), and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) models were built and compared their results. Experiments were conducted on different data  sizes and evaluation is done by two test sets: TestSet1, web news and TestSet2, recorded conversational data. It showed that the performance of Myanmar ASRs using this corpus gave satisfiable results on both test sets. The Myanmar ASR  using this corpus leading to word error rates of 15.61% on TestSet1 and 24.43% on TestSet2

Seismic Risk Analysis for Critical Infrastructure: The Case Study of a Medical Center and its Supporting Systems in Yangon, Myanmar

Myanmar has a great strike-slip active fault called the “Sagaing Fault Zone” besides the Sumatra-Andaman Subduction Zone. Major cities (Yangon, Naypyitaw, Bago and Mandalay) are at risk along this fault. Recently, in 2012, Thabeikkyin earthquake with Magnitude of 6.8 caused collapse of many residential housings and ground failures near Mandalay. Therefore more attention should be paid for Yangon which has no large earthquakes since 1930 and is the largest not only in population but also in socio-economic activity. One of the most important concerns after an earthquake is to survive under any disastrous conditions. The medical care is requested not only for emergent injured people after an earthquake, but also for various types of patient and aged people from several weeks to longer periods. So medical center must be always functional before and after earthquake. For this purpose, medical buildings should be structurally resilient and also be functional for medical services by sustainable supply of electric power, water and any other delivery service which can be carried out by urban lifeline systems. This research is to investigate the structural vulnerability of hospital buildings and facilities, to assess the performance of urban lifeline systems and to check the operational capability of medical services in which surgical capability and life safety management method should be discussed. The water supply system is adopted as a typical lifeline system in Yangon in this study. One sample medical center in Yangon is adopted to carry out this analysis. Finally, the performance of medical services after the earthquakes can be assessed in a probabilistic manner