Determinants of student satisfaction in higher education: an empirical study in Dubai

We develop and empirically validate a student satisfaction modelling technology-enabled university environments. We use focus groups at a university in Dubai and an intensive literature review to propose a theoretical model that involves different types of student interactions; perceptions of infrastructure; and university branding as independent variables influencing student satisfaction as outcome variable. Using data collected from a random sample of 99 students, we empirically test the model using linear regression analysis. Two variables, branding and interactions of students with administrative staff are found to significantly influence student satisfaction, accounting for 61% of variance. Implications are discussed and suggestions for future research are given. With its specific context, the study requires replication in other countries to determine whether the findings are generalisable. This study is one of the rare occasions when a structural model of student satisfaction in technology-enabled environments in the Middle East has been subjected to empirical scrutiny. © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd

PCR-based Methods for Identification and Detection of Phytophthora infestans in Infected Leaves of Tomato

Every year there is a huge amount of loss of tomato crop due to infection of late blight caused by P. infestans. To minimise this loss, it is important to visualise disease infection, so as the control measures can be taken up rapidly. The aim of this study was to develop a schematic protocol in order to examine the disease outbreak. P. infestans were isolated and identified based on morphological characteristics, serological and species-specific PCR assays. Ten samples were processed and examined morphologically and serologically (dipstick). However, on molecular examination only three isolates were confirmed as P. infestans. Four sets of PCR primers i.e., AE-7, O-8, INF, ITS 3 and ITS 4 were validated for accurate detection of P. infestans infection. All the sets of primers gave positive result by giving amplicons of expected size

Nanoscale Copper II Oxide An Efficient and Reusable Adsorbent for Removal of Nickel II from Contaminated Water

The present work describes the synthesis of copper(II) oxide nanoparticles (NPs) with high surface area (52.11 m2/g) and its Ni(II) adsorption efficiency from contaminated water at room temperature. Copper (II) oxide NPs are able to remove Ni(II) as 93.6 per cent and 93.7 per cent using 500 ppb & 1000 ppb initial concentration of nickel at near-neutral pH respectively. CuO NPs is very much effective to remove more than 75 per cent nickel over a wide range of pH even in presence of other competing ions like Cd2+, Pb2+, Cr6+, SO42-. Prepared CuO NPs can be used to remove Ni(II) from aqueous solution in real field application

Factors influencing student satisfaction in universities in the Gulf region: Does gender of students matter?

While various research studies have focused on antecedents and consequences of student satisfaction, few studies have done so in the Gulf region. The objective of the present study was therefore to design and empirically examine a model of student satisfaction in a private university in the Gulf region that operates in a high-technology-enabled environment. Based on a literature review and conducted focus groups, draft measures for the study constructs were developed. Data were collected from 217 students and an exploratory factor analysis identified 6 factors that potentially influenced satisfaction. After scale development, multiple regression analysis was used to test the research questions. It was found that the two genders displayed a difference in the factors influencing their satisfaction. For female students, only reputation (beta =.499, p \u3c.01) was significant, while for male students, both reputation (beta =.763, p \u3c.01) and perceived faculty academic competence (beta =.301, p \u3c.01) were significant. Various theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. © 2013 © 2013 Taylor & Francis

A Modified Non Electrical Filter for Decontamination of Iron Rich Water for Rural Application

A non-electrical filter is designed to cater the need of providing iron free water in forward and rural areas. The features of the unit are equipped with the aeration system and activated sand chemically coated by iron oxide as catalytic and filtering media which can bring down iron concentration from 12 mg/L to desirable limit. It increases the pH of water from acidic to pH above 7. This is in contrast to some indigenous water filter which existed in the North Eastern India that tend to remove iron below 4 mg/L. The modified filter is effective in reducing excess total dissolved solids (TDS) from drinking water. All other physical parameters found to be within the prescribed limit. It can give iron free water with output capacity of 25L/hr. The added advantage of the unit is the provision for back washing of the filter media and collection point of the precipitated iron at the lower bottom of the tank for safe discharge

Performance Evaluation of Cabbage Cultivars under Open Field Cultivation in High Altitude of Tawang Arunachal Pradesh

The study has been undertaken to evaluate the performance of locally available commercial cultivars of cabbage in open field during summer season of 2019 at Defence Research Laboratory Research and Development Centre Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh). The commercial cultivars of these vegetables were evaluated based on the growth parameters and their yield performance under open field with paired row system of planting. It was found that the cultivar Green Express performance was outstanding among test edcultivars and it superseded cv. Royal Ball BC-51 and cv. Blue Jayes in terms of growth parameters as well as marketable yield (2.62 kg/m2) and biological yield (3.47 kg/m2). The cv. Royal Ball BC-86 was also found next best performing cultivar after cv. Green Express as former was at par with growth and yield parameter and harvest maturity of later. The head of cv. Green express attended harvest maturity (149.25 days) approximately one week earlier as compared to cv. Blue Jayes (155.0 days). However, the productivity of cultivars Green Express and Royal Ball BC-86 was found within the range of national average, therefore, these two cultivars could be recommended for the commercial cultivation with paired row system of planting under open field cultivation during summer season in high altitude areas of Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh)

Vegetable Cultivation under Hydroponics in Himalayas : Challenges and Opportunities

Defence Institute of Bio-Energy Research, Haldwani has successfully developed a hydroponics system by clubbing the soil less cultivation with rain water harvesting technology. The institute has also developed a suitable nutrient composition suitable for wide range of vegetables. Among the various varieties/hybrids grown in hydroponics, cucumber line PC 4C-8 exhibited the maximum fruit yield (448.3 q/ha). Among the various tomato hybrids, Avinash-2 exhibited highest yield (1052 q/ha) and number of fruits (154 per sq m) whereas TSS, total sugars, crude protein and minerals content were the maximum in tomato hybrid DARL-304. Interestingly, hydroponics system prolonged the harvesting period by 45 days in tomato. Plant population density of 6 plants/m2 was found optimum with the highest fruit yield in tomato and cucumber. Tomato hybrid DARL-304 exhibited higher fruit yield (6.5 kg/plant). Hydroponics system have been found successful in Auli (9000’ MSL), Joshimath with fruit yield of 2.25 kg/plant to 3.79 kg/plant in tomato. The yield was higher in rain water as comparison to river water. The article deals with the hydroponics technology in detail vis-à-vis efforts made at DIBER for standardization of hydroponics technology. It is envisaged that experience gained in successful cultivation of various crops in hydroponics using single nutrient solution at various altitudes through research stations of the institute

Fast Design Space Exploration of Nonlinear Systems: Part I

System design tools are often only available as blackboxes with complex nonlinear relationships between inputs and outputs. Blackboxes typically run in the forward direction: for a given design as input they compute an output representing system behavior. Most cannot be run in reverse to produce an input from requirements on output. Thus, finding a design satisfying a requirement is often a trial-and-error process without assurance of optimality. Finding designs concurrently satisfying multiple requirements is harder because designs satisfying individual requirements may conflict with each other. Compounding the hardness are the facts that blackbox evaluations can be expensive and sometimes fail to produce an output due to non-convergence of underlying numerical algorithms. This paper presents CNMA (Constrained optimization with Neural networks, MILP solvers and Active Learning), a new optimization method for blackboxes. It is conservative in the number of blackbox evaluations. Any designs it finds are guaranteed to satisfy all requirements. It is resilient to the failure of blackboxes to compute outputs. It tries to sample only the part of the design space relevant to solving the design problem, leveraging the power of neural networks, MILPs, and a new learning-from-failure feedback loop. The paper also presents parallel CNMA that improves the efficiency and quality of solutions over the sequential version, and tries to steer it away from local optima. CNMA's performance is evaluated for seven nonlinear design problems of 8 (2 problems), 10, 15, 36 and 60 real-valued dimensions and one with 186 binary dimensions. It is shown that CNMA improves the performance of stable, off-the-shelf implementations of Bayesian Optimization and Nelder Mead and Random Search by 1%-87% for a given fixed time and function evaluation budget. Note, that these implementations did not always return solutions.Comment: 14 pages, 26 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2010.0984