Developmental research of sustainable technologies to minimise problematic road embankment settlements

Challenging, problematic and non-uniform ground conditions are a night mare to geotechnical engineers tasked with the design and construction of buildings and transport infrastructure. These often suffer undesirable structural settlements. Designing within the current understanding of geotechnics; settlement in peat and organic soils need to be recognised to include the known “primary and secondary consolidation characteristics” and the lesser known “tertiary consolidation phase”. These eventually contribute cumulatively to the consequential uneven and hazardous “bumpy road” surfaces. Undulating flexible road pavements result primarily from the transference of the heavy self-weight of the embankment fill to yielding and non-uniform subgrade. The adoption of conventional design/repair methods such as pile, vertical drain, soil replacement and soil stabilisation are expensive and inappropriate in very soft ground conditions. These then lead to unjustifiably high and repetitive maintenance costs. There being no one quick fix solution for all; pragmatic research must necessarily identify the best/progressively improved practical and sustainable solution. A viable solution is to develop criteria and explore the concept of a “masonry arch bridge structure/lintel-column structure” and adopting sustainable materials through pragmatic searching for appropriate recyclable waste materials. This will lead to the basis for a sustainable, innovative, strong, stiff, permeable composite mat structure that can be used on soft and/or yielding ground conditions. Conceptual lightweight fill technology including the popularly used expanded polystyrene (EPS) and the innovative composite mats recently being developed by the research team are outlined

Supercapacitors Based On Patronite-reduced Graphene Oxide Hybrids: Experimental And Theoretical Insights

Here we report the hydrothermal synthesis and detailed study on supercapacitor applications of a patronite hybrid, VS4/reduced graphene oxide, which showed an enhanced specific capacitance of similar to 877 F g(-1) at a current density of 0.5 A g(-1). In comparison to bare vanadium sulfide and reduced graphene oxide, the hybrid showed similar to 6 times and similar to 5 times higher value of specific capacitance, respectively. The obtained energy density (117 W h kg(-1)) and power density (20.65 kW kg(-1)) are comparable to those of other reported transition metal sulfides and their graphene hybrids. Theoretical calculations using density functional theory confirm an enhanced quantum capacitance of VS4/graphene composite systems, owing primarily to the shifting of the graphene Dirac cone relative to the band gap of VS4. The results infer that the hybrid has the potential to be used as a high performance supercapacitor electrode.3371887418881DST (Government of India)DST-SERB [SB/FTP/PS-065/2013]Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Ramanujan Fellowship [SR/S2/RJN-21/2012]Department of Science and Technology (DST-SERB), Govt. of India [SR/S1/IC-04/2012]Interconnect Focus Center (MARCO program)State of New YorkNational Science Foundation (NSF) Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program [0333314]Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF) through a joint INDO-US centre grantMinistry of Human Resources Development (MHRD), India through a center of excellence gran

Signal specific electric potential sensors for operation in noisy environments

Limitations on the performance of electric potential sensors are due to saturation caused by environmental electromagnetic noise. The work described involves tailoring the response of the sensors to reject the main components of the noise, thereby enhancing both the effective dynamic range and signal to noise. We show that by using real-time analogue signal processing it is possible to detect a human heartbeat at a distance of 40 cm from the front of a subject in an unshielded laboratory. This result has significant implications both for security sensing and biometric measurements in addition to the more obvious safety related applications

Impact of remittances on economic growth in developing countries: The role of openness

The paper examines the empirical relationship between remittances and economic growth for a sample of 62 developing countries over the time period 1990–2014. Remittances seem to promote growth only in the ‘more open’ countries. That is because remittances are in themselves not sufficient for growth. The extent of the benefit depends on domestic institutions and macroeconomic environment in the receiving country. Unlike the ‘less open’ countries, ‘more open’ countries have better institutions and better financial markets to take advantage of the remittances income and channelise them into profitable investments which, in turn, accelerates the rate of economic growth in these countries.N/

Finance, Development, and Remittances: Extending the Scale of Accumulation in Migrant Labour Regimes

The last decade has seen a heightened level of interest in the relationship between remittances and development, driven by the World Bank and other Bretton Woods Institutions. This has materialised in a global agenda to incorporate migrants and their households in commercial banking. The double significance of this policy rests in the financial incorporation of migrants and their households, and in the deepening entrenchment of the historical labour migration dynamic between sending communities and centres of capital. The central role of labour power in the advance of money forms the core of this analysis of a contemporary market-building strategy. This article presents a threefold critique of the global remittance agenda, based on (1) its transformative profit-driven development ideology, (2) its detachment of remittances from the political economy of migrant labour regimes, and (3) its dismissal of existing modes of remitting and uses of the funds

Exchange rate volatility and capital inflows: role of financial development

There is vast literature examining the impact of exchange rate volatility on various macroeconomic aggregates such as economic growth, trade flows, domestic investment, and more recently capital flows. However, these studies have ignored the role of financial development while examining the impact of exchange rate volatility on capital flows. This study aims to analyze the impact of exchange rate volatility on capital inflows towards developing countries by incorporating the role of financial development over the time period 1980–2013. In this regard, the behavior of two types of capital flows is examined: physical capital inflows measured as foreign direct investment, and financial inflows quantified through remittance inflows. The empirical investigation comprises the direct as well as indirect effect of exchange rate volatility on capital inflows. The study employs dynamic system GMM estimation technique to empirically estimate the effect of exchange rate volatility on capital inflows. The empirical results of the study identify that exchange rate volatility dampens both physical and financial inflows towards developing countries. The indirect impact of exchange rate volatility through financial development, however, turns out positive and statistically significant. This finding reflects that financial development helps in reduc- ing the harmful impact of exchange rate volatility on capital inflows. Hence, the study concludes that a developed financial system is an important channel through which developing countries may improve capital inflows in the long run.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

At once the saviours and the saved: ‘Diaspora Girls’, dangerous places and smart power

This article explores how racially marked young women and girls are sought to be discursively and materially incorporated into markets and imperial economic and geopolitical strategies in spatially differentiated ways, through an examination of a series of media productions which portray the engagement of young racialised British citizens with their countries of heritage. I propose the term ‘diaspora girls’ to refer to the protagonists of these media productions, who are understood as embodying ‘British’ post-feminist gender values and heroically carrying them to ‘dangerous’ spaces of gender oppression and violence. In the context of current constructions of diasporas as agents of development, alongside the framing of migration as a ‘security threat’ to the global North, these British citizens are viewed as ideally positioned to further the contemporary imperialist project. Their perceived empowerment is understood to be fragile and contingent however, because of their affective connection with these spaces. Further, for those who are Muslim in particular, their perceived Britishness is understood as requiring continual reaffirmation and proof, thus reinforcing racialised structures of citizenship, and legitimising a border regime which reinscribes permanent North-South inequality

ICAR: endoscopic skull‐base surgery

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