Research-Oriented Teaching and Students’ Academic Performance: Perception of University Teachers

The role of teacher and teaching methodology is very important to transfer knowledge and content to students. The traditional ways of teaching make the students passive listeners and knowledge observers only.  Now a day’s trend of teaching has been changed from traditional ways to research oriented teaching.  These reforms in teaching- learning environment make the students more critical, innovative, problem solvers and active learners. Now students under the guidance of the teachers engage themselves in research related and problem solving activities and find out the solutions of the problems.  This paper intended to find out the perception of teachers regarding the effect of research oriented teaching strategies on the performance of university students. Data were collected from 100 university faculty members of five public cadre universities by employing convenient sampling technique. The results of data analysis showed that teachers were aware about the mode of research oriented teaching. Results of regression analysis also made it clear that students’ performance was affected by teacher’s research oriented teaching

Do financial variables affect the systematic risk in sugar industry?

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between financial variables and systematic risk. The studied variables are explored as determinants of systematic risk. This study analyzed the annual data over the period of 2005-2015 from selective industry. To test the studied hypotheses simultaneously, panel tests were applied along with multiple regression analysis approach. The findings of sugar industry have shown that liquidity, leverage (insignificant), operating efficiency, dividend payout, and chin model are inversely associated while profitability and Tobin q (insignificant) are positively related with Systematic risk. The regression results show that significant association of liquidity, profitability, operating efficiency, growth, dividend payout and chin model are with earlier studies. The studied variables have decisive impact for determinants of Systematic risk. Findings are fruitful for all stakeholders to maximize the returns by reducing the risk factors

Design of Experiment Approach in the Industrial Gas Carburizing Process

Carburized samples were prepared under different sets of conditions at Millat Equipment Limited, Lahore, Pakistan, using continuous carburizing furnace under a reducing atmosphere. The gas carburizing process parameters were determined by the Taguchi design of experiment (DoE), an orthogonal array of L9 type with the mixed level of control factors. The key process parameters in gas carburizing process such as delay quenching interval, hardening temperature, and soaking time in oil were optimized in terms of core hardness, effective case depth (ECD), and surface hardness. DoE approach elucidated that the best results in terms of core hardness are A2 (delay quenching for 60 seconds), B2 (hardening temperature of 800°C), and C2 (soaking in quenching oil for 300 seconds). However, the best results in terms of ECD were A1 (delay quenching for 45 seconds), B3 (hardening temperature of 820°C), and C1 (soaking in quenching oil for 180 seconds). In order to choose the optimized parameters from the results given by DoE, microscopic analysis was conducted. Microscopic analysis showed coarse bainitic structure in core and tempered martensite at the surface of the samples processed at A2 (delay quenching for 60 seconds), B2 (hardening temperature of 800°C), and C1 (soaking in quenching oil for 180 seconds) compared to the other process conditions (A1, B3, and C1), which shows fine bainitic structure at core and relatively higher amount of retained austenite at the surface. Finally, defect per million opportunities (DPMO) model exhibited that the samples produced from the optimized set of parameters (A2, B2, and C1) are highly reproducible, gaining DPMO of 83 parts per million (PPM)

Dislocation-mediated Electrical Conductivity in Metal Oxides Titania and Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia

Using dislocations as one-dimensional dopants is a novel concept that utilizes their elastic strain field, charged core, and associated compensating space charge to engineer the functional properties of metal oxides. In contrast to comparatively mature research fields, such as the mechanical deformation of metals, little is known about the plastic deformation of metal oxides due to their brittle nature. Consequently, the tailoring and impact of mechanically introduced dislocations on functional properties, especially electrical conductivity, remain under investigated. In this work, these issues are addressed by investigating the influence of mechanically generated dislocations on the electrical properties of the two important metal oxides. Model material systems are chosen to be rutile (TiO2) and Yttria Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ) due to their many technological applications such as solar cells, water splitting, memory devices, Li-ion batteries, and solid electrolytes in fuel cells (SOFCs). A comprehensive framework is developed by utilizing dislocations to tune the electronic and ionic conductivity of metal oxides. It is illustrated that understanding the mechanics of the subjected material system helps introduce significantly large deformation in metal oxides, which are considered brittle otherwise. Several dislocation configurations can be systematically achieved by changing the deformation conditions. The resulting electrical response of induced dislocation networks is accessed via electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, including bulk and microcontact modes, supplemented by scanning probe microscopy. These measurements indicated that the electrical conductivity could both be increased and decreased by merely controlling the mesoscopic dislocation structure. Dislocation configuration is identified as a tuning parameter over which it is shown that unprecedented control allows us to engineer the electrical conductivity above what can be achieved by point defect doping. Induced dislocation networks profoundly impact the electronic conductivity of rutile and can induce behavior akin to the donor and/or acceptor doping in the pristine material. Arranged dislocation regions showed several orders of magnitude higher electrical conductivity compared to the pristine regions. The physical interpretation of the data results in a quantitative description of the impact of dislocations as highly conductive pathways in rutile. This route is further expanded to study the influence of mechanically generated dislocations on the ionic conductivity of YSZ. Highly aligned dislocation-rich and -deficient regions are generated; an in-depth electrical characterization of these regions exhibited highly conducting effects of dislocation-induced strain inside the bulk material. The underlying mechanism for the observed enhancement in the ionic conductivity is discussed in detail. So far, such effects were only illustrated via DFT calculations and in strained thin films. However, in this work, the potential of mechanically induced dislocations is presented as a design element to tune the bulk ionic transport. The underlying mechanism responsible for the observed enhancement in ionic conductivity is discussed in detail. Furthermore, it is emphasized that dislocations possess the potential to tune the electronic and ionic conductivity of metal oxides. These effects are explained by deconvoluting the dislocation character, core charge properties, possibly existing space charge, and their mesoscopic arrangement. The combined concepts of dislocation mechanics and solid-state ionics indicate that dislocation-mediated, highly stable electrical conductivity can be used to modify the electronic and ionic charge transport locally and globally. Therefore, these results allow an additional degree of freedom for tuning various functional oxides' electronic/ionic properties apart from chemical doping strategies

Muons from Neutralino Annihilations in the Sun: Flipped SU(5)

We consider two classes of supersymmetric flipped SU(5) models with gravity mediated supersymmetry breaking such that the thermal neutralino relic abundance provides the observed dark matter density in the universe. We estimate the muon flux induced by neutrinos that arise from neutralino annihilations in the Sun and discuss prospects for detecting this flux in the IceCube/Deep Core experiment. We also provide comparisons with the corresponding fluxes in the constrained minimal supersymmetric standard model and non-universal Higgs models. Regions in the parameter space that can be explored by the IceCube/DeepCore experiment are identified.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, 1 tabl

New α-Glucosidase inhibitors from Croton bonplandianum Croton bonplandianum Baill (Euphorbiaceae)

Purpose: To isolate and evaluate α-glucosidase inhibitors from dichloromethane extract of Croton bonplandianum Baill as probable remedy for management of diabetes.Methods: Activity-guided isolation of constituents from dichloromethane extract was carried out. Fractionation of dichloromethane extract by column chromatography on silica gel and Sephadex LH 20 using different mobile phase systems led to the isolation of compounds (A-I). The structures of these isolated compounds were established by ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) spectroscopy. Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR), 13C NMR and mass spectrophotometry, electron impact mass spectroscopy (EIMS) and high resolution mass spectroscopy (HRMS) were used for structural elucidation. All the isolated compounds were screened for their α-glucosidase inhibitory activity using standard in vitro α-glucosidase inhibition assay. Acarbose was used as positive control.Results: On the basis of their physical and spectral data from literature, the isolated compounds were identified as n-pentacosanyl-n-nonadeca-7′-en-9′-α-ol 1′-oate (A), n-tridecanyl n-octadec-9,12-dienoate (B), nonacosyl hexadecanoate (C), heptacosanoic acid (D), 1,3,5-trihydroxy-2-hexadecanoylamino- (6e,9e) heptacosdiene (E),cumarin (F), betulin (G), stigmasterol (H), and 3,5-dimethoxy 4-hydroxy cinnamic acid (I).Compounds F, GandI possessed significant α glucosidase inhibitory activity in a concentration-dependent manner with 50 % inhibitory concentration (IC50) values ranging from 23.0 to 26.7 μg/mL, relative to that of the positive control, acarbose (IC50, 38.2 μg/mL).Conclusion: The plant contains bioactive compounds with α-glucosidase inhibitory activity. This lendssome support for the traditional use of this herb in the management of diabetes. Compound F, GandI possessed significant α glucosidase inhibitory activity in a concentration-dependent manner and may be developed as a new α-glucosidase inhibitor.Keywords: α-Glucosidase, Inhibition, Diabetes, Acarbose, Cumarin, Betulin, 3,5 Dimethoxy 4-hydroxy cinnamic acid, Croton bonplandianu