The thermal degradation of some polyelectrolytes

All naturally occurring polyelectrolytes are found in an aqueous environment and this feature directed most of the chemical research in this field towards an understanding of polyelectrolyte behaviour in aqueous solution. The very rapid and steady progress in the field of synthetic electrolyte applications in industry has naturally stimulated further interest in the problems of synthesis and thermal stability of this type of polymer. A brief definition of polyelectrolytes, their classification, and a discussion of tacticity and cation binding in these materials is presented in Chapter 1. The introductory chapter also reviews briefly the relationships between the chemical structure and thermal stability of vinyl polymers. Chapter 2 summarises the apparatus and experimental techniques employed in the present study. The first part deals with the thermal analysis techniques and the second section describes the techniques used to identify the degradation products both qualitatively and quantitatively. Monomer preparation, polymerization, and characterization of monomers and polymers is considered in detail in Chapter 3. A brief account of thermal stability of monomers is also included in this chapter. The thermal degradation of alkali metal salts of polymethacrylic acid is discussed in detail in Chapter 4. The decomposition of these homopolymers is shown to involve depolymerization accompanied by the formation of metal carbonate and cyclic ketones. A mechanism of thermal degradation of the salts of polymethacrylic acid is postulated based on the results obtained. Chapter 5 details the thermal decomposition of divalent metal salts of polymethacrylic acid, which provides further support for the mechanism proposed in Chapter 4. In Chapter 6 studies of the thermal degradation of zinc polymethacrylate are reported. The nature of the volatile products and structural changes which can occur during decomposition suggest a similar pattern of degradation to other salts. The maximum rate of volatilization of zinc polymethacrylate is shown to occur at lower temperature than those of other divalent metal salts. The thermal behaviour of ammonium polymethacrylate is examined in Chapter 7. Thermal decomposition is shown to result in a cyclization reaction between adjacent monomer units before fragmentation to volatile products. Comparisons are made between ammonium polymethacrylate, polymethacrylamide and polymethacrylic acid degradation, hence thermal decomposition of the latter homopolymers is also considered in Chapter 7

Impacts of Climate Change on Livelihood of Older People in District Nowshera- Pakistan

The study was carried out in district Nowshera  in 2017, in order to examine the effects of  climate change  on livelihood of older people . The Universe of the study was District Nowshera which consist of three tehsil namely Phabbi, Nowshera and Jehangira while in the first stage purposively two tehsil Phabbi and Nowshera  were selected on the basis of more climate affection. On the same methodology in the second stage villages Kheshgi Bala and Cant union councils were selected from Nowshera  while Mohib Banda, Pashtung Ghari and Jabba Khansa were chosen from tehsil Phabbi on the same analogy. The number of  respondents were 117 in the selected villages   while   number of male was 54 and women  was 63. The data was collected through focused group discussion, Key Informant interview and consultation meeting with Elder people of the study area. The results indicate that climate change has affect the pattern of the rainfall which has brought the flood. Latter on flood damage the Land, Houses, infrastructure and farming and livelihood of the old people in district Nowsehera. The health of older people highly affected which further affect their activities in the study area and affect the income level of the older people. Before they were capable to work in the fields and to help their families for boosting their income level while now due to heat and unfavorable environment it is difficult to perform duty in the field efficiently and due to seasonal change also affect their health which have affected their daily activities. The rich people of the area  have increased fertilizer to their field for boosting their productivity of agriculture while the poor have no money for covering these deficiencies, so their livelihood badly affected due to climate change. It was also reported that due to floods majority old farmers land was damaged and because of this they have left the farming activities and start work as a labors in other sector of the economy.  On the basis of problems it is necessary for the government to provide credit to poor old farmers on free interest basis for boosting their farming activities in the study area. Similarly provide tractors on low per hour rate to farmers for leveling to their land which was damaged by flood for uplifting their livelihood. Keywords: - Climate, Impact, Livelihood,  Older People,  District Nowshera DOI: 10.7176/JAAS/55-05 Publication date:May 31st 201

Induction of bovine respiratory syncytial virus vaccinal immunity

Electron microscopic examination of ultrathin sections of BRSV strain 375-infected Vero cells revealed not only spherical and filamentous forms of the virus but also bridges between the spherical particles. The bridges did not appear to be arranged at a particular angle. Because of the bridges the virus particles occurred in large aggregates requiring that this factor be taken into account while purifying the virus. Most of the observed mature particles were extracellular. However a few spherical particles with and without internal structure were also present in intracytoplasmic vesicles;A panel of monoclonal antibodies (MAbs), derived from the fusing of the primed BALB/C mice splenocytes to SP2/O cells, were generated against the N protein of BRSV. The MAbs were characterized by ELISA, a radioimmunoprecipitation assay, indirect immunofluorescence, and epitope mapping. According to the class and subclass of Ig these MAbs can be grouped into four groups. Eight MAbs, two from each group, were used for epitope mapping. The reaction pattern of the MAbs indicated 4 to 6 antigenic sites on the N protein;Two monoclonal antibodies 65-12 (IgM) and 38-6 (IgG[subscript] 2a) were used to make solid matrix-antibody-antigen complexes (SMAA). The SMAA complexes so formed were washed five times with PBS, suspended in an equal quantity of aluminum hydroxide gel and used for immunization of two groups of lambs. In immunized groups the maximum immune response in terms of lymphocyte blastogenic responses was observed on day 11 postvaccination. However, the response of animals in group B, vaccinated with SMAA complexes containing MAb (IgM) was significantly higher than the group C, vaccinated with SMAA complexes containing MAb (IgG[subscript] 2a). The group B animals also exhibited a marked humoral response to N protein in western immunoblot assay as compared to group C and control animals 11 days postvaccination. None of the animals developed a SN antibody titer after vaccination. Subsequent challenging, 21 days postvaccination, with heat inactivated BRSV resulted in a far better SN titer in the SMAA complexes vaccinated groups than the control group. Not only did vaccinated animals developed a higher titer but the response developed earlier since all vaccinated animals seroconverted within five days of challenge

High-temperature superconducting ring magnet

Many electrical engineering applications such as motors and generators use permanent magnets which approximately account for 45% of their electricity consumption. The conventional magnets in use have a maximum field of around 1.5-2 T. High performance superconducting materials such as REBCO have facilitated the development of superconducting magnets. Superconducting bulk magnets and stacks of tapes have already demonstrated the extraordinary potential to trap magnetic fields of very high order with very compact sizes. This has significantly increased the efficiency of rotating machines and improved power/torque density, while having low synchronous reactance with large overloading capacity, high transient stability with low noise and harmonic content with the additional cost of cooling. This thesis focuses on a new type of superconducting magnet which uses superconducting tape as the field source. The most significant limiting factor for superconducting magnets is their size.;This new superconducting magnet has made possible the development of HTS magnets with flexible sizes by splitting the 2G HTS tapes to form the persistent current rings. By stacking HTS closed loop rings into a compact magnet, our HTS ring magnet has been proven to generate a trapped magnetic field higher than 5 T. The main advantage of the new magnet compared to existing trapped field HTS magnets is that the magnetic field lies parallel to the ab plane of the HTS, leading to higher critical currents in the same magnetic field. This thesis reports our key findings so far. Two different stacking configuration magnet samples were tested using the field cooling magnetization at 25 K and 4.2 K, with magnet diameter 90 mm and 150 mm, respectively. Over 4.6 T of the trapped field has been reported by using Super Power tapes with a field cooling process at 25 K, which is the highest field trapped in the ring magnets for first configuration. A new stacking design was proposed to improve magnetic field distribution within the magnet and has the potential to trap more magnetic field with the estimated trap field of 9.4 T at 4.2 K. A three dimensional model was developed to simulate the performance of the ring magnets, and good agreements between experiment and simulation have been achieved. The new HTS permanent magnet with improved field homogenisation and large diameter is promising for medical imaging applications, as well as propulsion applications.Many electrical engineering applications such as motors and generators use permanent magnets which approximately account for 45% of their electricity consumption. The conventional magnets in use have a maximum field of around 1.5-2 T. High performance superconducting materials such as REBCO have facilitated the development of superconducting magnets. Superconducting bulk magnets and stacks of tapes have already demonstrated the extraordinary potential to trap magnetic fields of very high order with very compact sizes. This has significantly increased the efficiency of rotating machines and improved power/torque density, while having low synchronous reactance with large overloading capacity, high transient stability with low noise and harmonic content with the additional cost of cooling. This thesis focuses on a new type of superconducting magnet which uses superconducting tape as the field source. The most significant limiting factor for superconducting magnets is their size.;This new superconducting magnet has made possible the development of HTS magnets with flexible sizes by splitting the 2G HTS tapes to form the persistent current rings. By stacking HTS closed loop rings into a compact magnet, our HTS ring magnet has been proven to generate a trapped magnetic field higher than 5 T. The main advantage of the new magnet compared to existing trapped field HTS magnets is that the magnetic field lies parallel to the ab plane of the HTS, leading to higher critical currents in the same magnetic field. This thesis reports our key findings so far. Two different stacking configuration magnet samples were tested using the field cooling magnetization at 25 K and 4.2 K, with magnet diameter 90 mm and 150 mm, respectively. Over 4.6 T of the trapped field has been reported by using Super Power tapes with a field cooling process at 25 K, which is the highest field trapped in the ring magnets for first configuration. A new stacking design was proposed to improve magnetic field distribution within the magnet and has the potential to trap more magnetic field with the estimated trap field of 9.4 T at 4.2 K. A three dimensional model was developed to simulate the performance of the ring magnets, and good agreements between experiment and simulation have been achieved. The new HTS permanent magnet with improved field homogenisation and large diameter is promising for medical imaging applications, as well as propulsion applications

Innovative Method for Unsupervised Voice Activity Detection and Classification of Audio Segments

An accurate and noise-robust voice activity detection (VAD) system can be widely used for emerging speech technologies in the fields of audio forensics, wireless communication, and speech recognition. However, in real-life application, the sufficient amount of data or human-annotated data to train such a system may not be available. Therefore, a supervised system for VAD cannot be used in such situations. In this paper, an unsupervised method for VAD is proposed to label the segments of speech-presence and speech-absence in an audio. To make the proposed method efficient and computationally fast, it is implemented by using long-term features that are computed by using the Katz algorithm of fractal dimension estimation. Two databases of different languages are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The first is Texas Instruments Massachusetts Institute of Technology (TIMIT) database, and the second is the King Saud University (KSU) Arabic speech database. The language of TIMIT is English, while the language of the KSU speech database is Arabic. TIMIT is recorded in only one environment, whereas the KSU speech database is recorded in distinct environments using various recording systems that contain sound cards of different qualities and models. The evaluation of the proposed method suggested that it labels voiced and unvoiced segments reliably in both clean and noisy audio

Effective Management and Its Impact on Growth of Small and Medium Sized Pakistani Firms

The study is held to observe the impact of Management including Management levels and decision making on the growth of small firms. Study area is Punjab (Pakistan). Small firms have no proper firm structure; they do not follow the formal rules to run the organization. Inspite of this, these firms are growing rapidly. If these firms have effective management levels and rational decision making than the firms will grow rapidly. The results show a significant increase in growth by using rational decision making and having effective management levels. Statistical results show that if we spend 1% on independent variable, then it shows an 80% increase in dependent variable. Keywords: Small firm; Management; Growth; Decision makin

A New Weighting Scheme in Weighted Markov Model for Predicting the Probability of Drought Episodes

Drought is a complex stochastic natural hazard caused by prolonged shortage of rainfall. Several environmental factors are involved in determining drought classes at the specific monitoring station. Therefore, efficient sequence processing techniques are required to explore and predict the periodic information about the various episodes of drought classes. In this study, we proposed a new weighting scheme to predict the probability of various drought classes under Weighted Markov Chain (WMC) model. We provide a standardized scheme of weights for ordinal sequences of drought classifications by normalizing squared weighted Cohen Kappa. Illustrations of the proposed scheme are given by including temporal ordinal data on drought classes determined by the standardized precipitation temperature index (SPTI). Experimental results show that the proposed weighting scheme for WMC model is sufficiently flexible to address actual changes in drought classifications by restructuring the transient behavior of a Markov chain. In summary, this paper proposes a new weighting scheme to improve the accuracy of the WMC, specifically in the field of hydrology

Role of Corporate Governance to Mitigate the Idiosyncratic Risk in Non-Financial Sector of Pakistan

The primary focus of this study is on the relationship between idiosyncratic risk and corporate governance. A secondary focus of the study is on the relationship between firm performance and corporate governance. Then, a potential corporate governance-to-idiosyncratic volatility-to-firm performance link is considered. In this study, corporate governance is approached in the context of internal governance control, based on board structure, composition, ownership, ownership structure, audit committee structure and quality. These are the essential elements of corporate governance, and relevant for studies pertaining to a market with internal-governance characteristics, such as the Pakistan market. The market of Pakistan provides a unique study that is based on market with its distinct characteristics. It is the market with internal-governance-control characteristics that operates in an internal-governance-control system. Therefore, this study has applied data draw form firms listed under the aforementioned of the Pakistan Securities Exchange (PSE). The data used in this study are taken from the PSE, the 104 listed firms for the year’s 2004-2016. The primary conclusion of the study is that there is a clear relationship between idiosyncratic risk and corporate governance. Specifically, this study finds consistent and significant relationship between idiosyncratic volatility and a number of firm-level corporate governance variables. The variables include among others, CEO duality, firm size and leverage. Thus, based on these conclusions, a link between corporate governance, idiosyncratic volatility, and firm performance is implied. The results show that the firms with batter corporate governance mechanisms tend to have a lower idiosyncratic risk. The current studies differ from previous studies on idiosyncratic risk, and also previous corporate governance studies, in its focus on a relationship between idiosyncratic and corporate governance in the context of internal governance controls, and the significant finding and conclusion. Hence, this study adds a valuable contribution to the knowledge and literature on the relationship between idiosyncratic risk and corporate governance, and also to the streams of literature on both idiosyncratic risk, and corporate governance

HR Practices and Employee Retention in the Banking Sector of Pakistan

Purpose: Human Resource is one of the most valuable resources in any organization and its contribution is massive everywhere in the world.  Human Resources (HR) practices can be helpful to retain valued employees. This study examines the role and association between HR practices and employee retention. HR practices include training & development, compensation, job security, working environment, leadership and culture & policies. Major objective of this study is indentfiy the roele and effect of HR practices on employee retention in banking sector of Pakistan.   Design: The population of this study consists of 8 major banks of Pakistan including public, private, Islamic and foreign banks.  The mixed-method was employed to get the data through interviews and questionnaires. Simple random sampling and stratified random were used for interviews and questionnaires respectively. Findings: Findings of the study indicate that compensation; job security, training & development, working environment and leadership practices have a significant association with employee retention. These variables also play a very imperative role in employee retention except job security. The culture & policies have no significant association and role on employee retention. Value: The research findings may help the policymakers to prioritize the areas of instant concerns and invest resources as per the local requirement of staff for their retention in the banking sector of Pakistan

Analisis Risiko Pembangunan Jalan Tol Pekanbaru - Dumai pada Tahap Konstruksi (Studi Kasus Jalan Tol Pekanbaru - Dumai)

Pekanbaru-Dumai highway is now an important highway, the condition of the existing road are consist of 2-lane road 2-way, predictable way Pekanbaru-Dumai will experience overcapacity in Kandis-Dumai section in 2015. To overcome this situation the toll road is planned. The investment of highway construction will always be involved in risk with certain scale, it is necessary to do the risk analysis. The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the risk, measuring of risk probability point and risk impact and risk test by performing simulations using @Risk For Excel software. This research was conducted using a survey method and interview with respondents. The survey was conducted in three phases, namely: beginning survey, preliminary survey and detailed survey. Based on research conducted identified four risk factors are financing risk, construction risk, equipment risk and force majeure. These four risks are identified in the medium risk category. The influence level of risk impact to the increase of construction investment budget plan Pekanbaru-Dumai toll roads as a whole amounted to 8.07% (Rp. 1,183 trillion) with risk factor for 0,549 then classified as medium risk. While detaily 15% (Rp. 2,194 trillion) by a factor of 0.685 then risk being classified as at risk. The most sensitive risk is the risk of development