AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF SUSTAINABILITY OF TRADE DEFICIT: EVIDENCE FROM SRI LANKA

In this paper, the long-run relationship between Sri Lankan exports and imports during the period 1950 to 2006 is examined using unit root tests and cointegration techniques that allow for an endogenously determined structural break. The results failed to support the existence of a long-run equilibrium between exports and imports in Sri Lanka. This finding questions the effectiveness of Sri Lanka’s current long-term macroeconomic policies and suggests that Sri Lanka is in violation of its international budget constraint.Trade Deficit, Unit root, Structural Breaks, Cointegration, Sri Lanka

An Empirical Analysis of Sustainability of Trade Deficit:Evidence from Sri Lanka

In this paper, the long-run relationship between Sri Lankan exports and imports during the period 1950 to 2006 is examined using unit root tests and cointegration techniques that allow for an endogenously determined structural break. The results failed to support the existence of a long-run equilibrium between exports and imports in Sri Lanka. This finding questions the effectiveness of Sri Lanka’s current long-term macroeconomic policies and suggests that Sri Lanka is in violation of its international budget constraint.Trade Deficit, Exports, Imports, Unit root, Structural Breaks,Cointegration, Sri Lanka

An empirical analysis of sustainability of trade deficit: Evidence from Sri Lanka

In this paper, the long-run relationship between Sri Lanka exports and imports during the period 1950 to 2006 is examined using unit root tests and co-integration techniques that allow for an endogenously determined structural break. The results failed to support the existence of a long-run equilibrium between exports and imports in Sri Lanka. This finding questions the effectiveness of Sri Lanka’s current long-term macroeconomic policies and suggests that Sri Lanka is in violation of its international budget constraint

次世代ナノエレクトロニクスを志向した単層及び多層グラフェンナノリボンの電気特性に関する研究

Graphene nanoribbon (GNR) is a narrow strip of carbon atoms which has exceptional properties and are being exploited for various applications, such as in semiconductor electronics, solar cells, and sensors. However, the realization of GNR based devices still needs an extensive research to achieve the commercial specifications. This research is mainly emphasized on the synthesis of high-quality GNR from double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWNTs) and fabrication of field effect transistor (FET) devices. Moreover, the electrical transport properties were also investigated for single-layer GNR (sGNR), multi-layer GNR with and without adsorption of molecular nanoparticles. The electrical transport properties of GNR device was tuned to semiconducting with the adsorption of molecular nanoparticles. This study demonstrates a simple and fast approach to band gap formation in sGNR using Hexaazatriphenylenehexacarbonitrile (HAT-CN6). In this process, sGNRs were synthesized by unzipping of DWNTs followed by casting the solution of HAT-CN6. HAT-CN6 on GNR forms self-assembled nanoparticle and the adsorption of nanoparticles was confirmed by AFM observation. Further, the electric property of pristine sGNR device and the device with HAT-CN6 were measured using point-contact current imaging (PCI-) AFM and also with the FET device. Thus, the adsorbed nanoparticles on sGNR forms the electron trapping sites which result in a necklike structure of sGNR near the adsorbed region of the molecular nanoparticle. The neck region working similar to narrow width GNR (< 10 nm) allows the charge carriers passing through. Such a narrow sGNR has lateral confinement of charge carrier around the neck region hence the device turns to semiconducting. The activation energy of pristine sGNR and the sGNR with HAT-CN6 were calculated by the results of temperature change measurement as about 1.5 meV and 52 meV, respectively. The pristine sGNR has very low activation energy as compared to the device with HAT-CN6. Thus, the device with HAT-CN6 has a large transition from semimetallic to semiconducting property. The device could have various possible application in future electronics industry due to its semiconducting property. Moreover, the study also explains the fabrication of multi-layer GNR (mGNR) field effect transistor (FET) and control of its electrical property with the adsorption of the flat molecular nanoparticle. The stacked mGNR device shows the similar performance to the sGNR device due to lower inter layer coupling. Inter layer interaction was supposed to be lower since the turbostratic stacking of GNR was formed with CVD growth process. Next, HAT-CN6 were casted on the mGNR device to alter the electronic property of GNR. Thus, the adsorbed nanoparticles form the charge carrier trapping sites on mGNR and the channel width was narrowed due to the nanoparticles on GNR. Hence, the charge carriers are confined in a narrow channel and the device is in a transition state from semimetallic to semiconducting, which is similar to narrow width GNR. The on/off ratio and mobility of mGNR-FET device was also improved with the adsorption of the nanoparticle. The fabricated mGNR-FET device has wide area of semiconductor electronics applications in the semiconductor industry. Furthermore, X- and Y-type junctions were also fabricated using GNRs obtained by unzipping of DWNTs. The junction of the synthesized GNR shows semiconducting property whereas the other part shows the semimetallic property. The semiconducting property at the junction was supposed to be due to change in lattice orientation at the junction of two GNRs. Such a junction can have great interest for the device and wiring application in the semiconductor industry. The semiconducting property in the several X-type junctions of wide GNRs (greater than 10 nm) was investigated.九州工業大学博士学位論文 学位記番号：生工博甲第295号 学位授与年月日：平成29年6月30日1 Introduction|2 Methodology|3 Tuning the electrical property of single-layer graphene nanoribbon by adsorption of planar molecular nanoparticles|4 Fabrication of turbostratic multi-layer graphene nanoribbon field effect transistor and investigating the electrical property with the adsorption of HAT-CN666|5 Fabrication of X- and Y-type graphene nanoribbon cross junction and study the electrical transport property|6 Conclusion九州工業大学平成29年

次世代ナノエレクトロニクスを志向した単層および多層グラフェンナノリボンの電気特性に関する研究

九州工業大学博士学位論文（要旨）学位記番号：生工博甲第295号 学位授与年月日：平成29年6月30

Demographics, labor mobility, and productivity

This paper considers two major issues that need to be treated as matters of urgency. First, internal (within country) migrations in the Asian (ACI) region are mostly undocumented and large. It is shown there are significant differences in wages and human development measures to which migrants will respond. Our first (of two) recommendation(s) is the need to collect better information on migration and for wage premiums and discounts to be estimated across sectors and countries. The second major issue is the emerging demographic imbalances in the form of aging, which will give dependency ratios that have never been experienced in all of recorded human existence. This needs urgent attention and the development of appropriate migration policies. Whilst it is possible to share the burdens of ageing and dependency through migration, this will not happen under present arrangements. Migration cannot continue to be treated differently to trade and finance. A framework needs to be developed to provide a coherent set of policies relating to migration and social welfare, within and across countries in the Asian region. Our second recommendation is for the East Asia Summit (ASEAN+10) to set up a high level working group to consider possible future harmonized migration based policies, bringing together relevant economic, political, social and legal issues. This should encompass the recent ASEAN leadership on the rights of migrant workers and labor work programs. It complements the Summit's focus on education and human resource development and heeds the World Economic Forum's call for Asian leadership in enhancing regional connectivity (expanded to include human resources). As we have argued many times in this paper, increasing the mobility of humans is the best way to not only promote economic efficiency, but to provide freedom and significant improvements in their wellbeing and quality of life

Validation of Drug-Like Inhibitors against Mycobacterium Tuberculosis L-Aspartate α-Decarboxylase Using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H NMR)

10.1371/journal.pone.0045947PLoS ONE79

Interplays of psychometric abilities on learning gross anatomy

In recent years, there has been international debate concerning how students learn anatomy. The rapid increase in scientific knowledge has put pressure on the place of anatomy within the medical and allied health professional curricula, as well as the design and structure of anatomy courses. In this regard, relatively little is known about what medical and allied health professions students want from an anatomy course or how they learn it. To assess students’ learning approaches and perceptions of anatomy, a series of psychometric tests were administered to Medical (n=82), Podiatry (n=21), and Pharmacy (n=74) students in the United Kingdom. Analysis of the Anatomy Learning Experience (ALE) questionnaire revealed a predominantly positive attitude towards anatomy and the dissection room, with most valuing cadaveric dissection and not regarding it as a daunting environment. Further to this, analysis of the Approaches to Studying Inventory for Students (ASSIST) revealed predominant preferences for strategic and deep approaches. Personality traits were associated with certain learning approaches; neuroticism with surface (p=0.038), conscientiousness with both a deep and strategic approach (p=0.000 and p=0.060 respectively). Certain personality traits were also found to be associated with anatomy experience e.g. neuroticism and achievement striving felt the most effective way to learn was to get their hands in and feel for structures (p=0.044 and p=0.012 respectively). This study concludes that undergraduate students of medicine, podiatry and pharmacy learn anatomy in slightly different ways. Preparation for classroom activities should centre on the promotion of an optimum learning environment and teaching strategies which promote a deep approach to learning. Understanding students’ personality and learning experiences should help teachers improve the students’ learning of anatomy for effective application to clinical practice

Search and optimization algorithms for binary image compression

The creation of and demand for large-scale image data grows increasingly fast, resulting in a need for efficient image compression. This work focuses on improving the efficiency of lossless compression of binary images. To this end, we propose the use of the following two optimization algorithms, which search for either the best combination of scan directions for uniform blocks, or search for the best partitions of the input image into non-uniform blocks, with the goal of allowing for more efficient compression of the resulting sequences of intervals between successive symbols of the same kind. The first algorithm is the Binary Particle Swarm Optimization (BPSO) algorithm, which is shown to offer increasingly better image compression with additional iterations. The other algorithm is the Tree-based Search algorithm, which searches for the best grid structure for adaptively partitioning the image into blocks of varying sizes. Extensive simulations of these two search algorithms on various datasets demonstrated that we can achieve significantly higher compression on average than various standard binary image compression methods such as the JPEG 2000 and JBIG2 standards

Performance evaluation of water and wastewater treatment plant in Kathmandu Valley

In this work, assessments of technology of the water and wastewater treatment plants including constructed wetlands in Kathmandu valley are presented. There are nine water treatment plants among which two are not in operation; seven constructed wetlands among which two are under maintenance and one is not in operation. In addition, one conventional wastewater treatment plant is studied in order to highlight the associated benefits and identify challenges of water and wastewater treatment in Kathmandu valley. A constructed wetland uses less energy to treat wastewater than a conventional wastewater treatment plant. Thus, wetland systems have benefit in a country where energy scarcity occurs. However the technical and managerial problems and lack of awareness decrease the success of the wetland systems, but technical as well as managerial problems exist also in water treatment plants even Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL) has responsibility over it. Analysis of chemical parameters that indicate the characteristics of wastewater from constructed wetlands is done by collecting one sample for each parameter. Similarly, assessment of technical and operation and maintenance for water and wastewater treatment plants including constructed wetlands are obtained by field observation and conducting questionnaire survey. Interviews with care operator are made for all studied treatment locations and reviews from user committees, non- user committees and farmers are made only for constructed wetlands. A comparative analysis between conventional wastewater treatment plants and constructed wetland is also presented. Compared to conventional wastewater treatment systems, constructed wetland systems uses less energy and are less costly as well as easier to maintain due to simple construction and efficient functioning. More attention has given to water treatment plants though it does not show good performance in operation when compared to wastewater treatment plants. The results showed that there is a need of development in water and wastewater management with systematic operation and maintenance. An effective study of the most fruitful type of plants and their monitoring after establishment is essential. Treatment efficiency of water and wastewater treatment plants has not shown very high performance. It is necessary to address issues, including economical, technical, social and personal to improve the systems.M-MIN