Design of time delayed chaotic circuit with threshold controller

A novel time delayed chaotic oscillator exhibiting mono- and double scroll complex chaotic attractors is designed. This circuit consists of only a few operational amplifiers and diodes and employs a threshold controller for flexibility. It efficiently implements a piecewise linear function. The control of piecewise linear function facilitates controlling the shape of the attractors. This is demonstrated by constructing the phase portraits of the attractors through numerical simulations and hardware experiments. Based on these studies, we find that this circuit can produce multi-scroll chaotic attractors by just introducing more number of threshold values.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures; Submitted to IJB

Corporate governance, Islamic governance and earnings management in Oman: A new empirical insights from a behavioural theoretical framework

Purpose: This paper examines the impact of corporate (CG) and Islamic (IG) governance mechanisms on corporate earnings management (EM) behaviour in Oman. Design/Methodology/Approach: We employ one of the largest and extensive datasets to-date on CG, IG and EM in any developing country, consisting of a sample of 116 unique Omani listed corporations from 2001 to 2011 (i.e.,1,152 firm-year observations) and a broad CG index containing 72 CG provisions. We also employ a number of robust econometric models that sufficiently account for alternative CG/EM proxies and potential endogeneities. Findings: First, we find that, on average, better-governed corporations tend to engage significantly less in EM than their poorly-governed counterparts. Second, our evidence suggests that corporations that depict greater commitment towards incorporating Islamic religious beliefs and values into their operations through the establishment of an IG committee tend to engage significantly less in EM than their counterparts without such a committee. Finally and by contrast, we do not find any evidence that board size, audit firm size, the presence of a CG committee and board gender diversity have any significant relationship with the extent of EM. Originality: To the best of our knowledge, this is a first empirical attempt at examining the extent to which CG and IG structures may drive EM practices that explicitly seeks to draw new insights from a behavioural theoretical framework (i.e., behavioural theory of corporate boards and governance). Keywords: Corporate governance, Islamic governance, earnings management, behavioural theory, endogeneity, Oman. Paper type: Research pape

ABO BLOOD GROUPS IN CORRELATION WITH HYPERLIPIDEMIA, DIABETES MELLITUS TYPE II AND ESSENTIAL HYPERTENSION

Objectives: There are associations between ABO blood groups and systemic diseases. So we aim to explore any associations among ABO blood groupwith hyperlipidemia; diabetes mellitus (DM) type II, and essential hypertension.Methods: A total of 800 subjects were recruited. Patients groups were subdivided into hyperlipidemia group (n=100), DM type II group (n=160),and hypertension group (n=166). Fasting blood sample was collected and plasma samples used for measuring of 2, 3-dinor-6-keto-prostaglandinF1α (PGF1α), 11-dehydro-thromboxane (TX) B2, insulin, triglycerides (TGs), total cholesterol (Tc), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C),prothrombin time (PT), activated partial PT (aPPT), blood group type, random blood glucose level, and body mass index (BMI) were also determined.Results: Blood Group A demonstrates a significant elevation in insulin, random blood sugar (RBS), Tc, TGs, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL)/HDLratio and shows a significant decrease in prostacyclin. Blood group B demonstrates a significant elevation in TXB, Tc, TGs, and LDL/HDL ratio andshows a significant decrease in PT. Blood group AB demonstrates a significant elevation in PT, and prostacyclin and shows a significant decrease ininsulin, RBS, Tc, TGs, and LDL/HDL. Blood group O demonstrates a significant elevation in PT, and prostacyclin and shows a significant decrease inTXB2, Tc, TGs, and LDL/HDL ratio.2Conclusions: Blood group AB is protective against hyperlipidemia, diabetes, thrombosis, and hypertension, blood group O is protective againstcardiovascular diseases while blood group B followed by A are risk factors for hypertension and blood group A is a risk factor for diabetes. Thesefindings are establishing the ethnic-dependent correlation of ABO groups and studied diseases.Keywords: Hyperlipidemia, DM type II, Hypertension, Thrombosis, ABO blood groups

Picture book on Marine Gastropods

Gastropods includes snails, slugs and their relatives is a hyper diverse with respect to number of species, structure and habitat and many other attributes. Gastropods are characterised by having single shell and an operculum. Widely ranging in size, the shell has been modified enormously in many groups. A total of 80,000 to 100,000 mollusc species are known world over. About 3271 species of molluscs are found in India, of which 1900 marine species of gastropods are known to date. These resources are exploited by either mechanised trawlers, bottom set gillnets or by diving. Very few species forms a regular fishery and most of them are obtained in smaller magnitude making them unnoticed. While these resources are smaller in magnitude compared to other fisheries, they play an important role as raw materials for the multi-million dollar ‘SHELLCRAFT INDUSTRIES’ world over. In India, the resource is harvested in almost all the landing centres of both the coasts. In southeast coast of India, where the most part of landings of marine gastropods are occurring is considered a hub of shellcraft industry. A total of more than 250 species has been recorded and representing forty odd families in gastropods. The Federation of Sea Shell Handicrafts Merchants Association (FOSSHMA), estimates around 90 active seashell handicrafts traders in India, comprising of 20 very active, 30 minimal functioning and 40 dormant units. The major destinations of export is found to be the United States of America, Australia, Europe, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, Africa, Malaysia, Belgium, Croatia, England, Haiti Island, Sri Lanka,France, Netherlands, Germany, South Africa etc. The major species exported are Conus sp, Umbonium sp, Chicoreus ramosus, Lambis lambis, Babylonia spirata, B. zeylanica, Telescopium sp, Terebralia sp, Tonna spp and Cerithium sp. Around 20-25 species are imported by shellcraft industries and the major species imported are Busycon sp, Haliotis sp, Cypraea tigris, Mitrella sp. The major importing countries includes USA, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Philippines, Spain and other African countries. This picture book contains 165 photographs of seashells used in the Indian seashell industries clustered under the common name of the respective species along with vernacular (Tamil) names

Thermodynamic properties of an interacting hard-sphere Bose gas in a trap using the static fluctuation approximation

A hard-sphere (HS) Bose gas in a trap is investigated at finite temperatures in the weakly-interacting regime and its thermodynamic properties are evaluated using the static fluctuation approximation (SFA). The energies are calculated with a second-quantized many-body Hamiltonian and a harmonic oscillator wave function. The specific heat capacity, internal energy, pressure, entropy and the Bose-Einstein (BE) occupation number of the system are determined as functions of temperature and for various values of interaction strength and number of particles. It is found that the number of particles plays a more profound role in the determination of the thermodynamic properties of the system than the HS diameter characterizing the interaction, that the critical temperature drops with the increase of the repulsion between the bosons, and that the fluctuations in the energy are much smaller than the energy itself in the weakly-interacting regime.Comment: 34 pages, 24 Figures. To appear in the International Journal of Modern Physics

Countable and Full Exchange Rings

We show that a suitable ring with a ``nice'' topology, in which convergent limits of units are units, is an \aleph_0-exchange ring. We generalize the argument to show that a semi-regular ring, R, with a ``nice'' topology, is a full exchange ring. Putting these results in the language of modules, we show that a cohopfian module with finite exchange has countable exchange. Also, all modules with Dedekind-finite, semi-regular endomorphism rings are full exchange modules.Comment: 15 page