Irrigation Management in Pakistan and India: Comparing Notes on Institutions and Policies

irrigation management / productivity / privatization / irrigated farming / equity / water distribution / groundwater management / economic aspects / tube wells / price policy / electricity supplies / pumps / India / Pakistan /

Experimental study on silver nanoparticles: synthesis, photo-degradation and analysis

The aim of present study was waste water treatment via advanced oxidation process (AOP). Wet chemical precipitation method was used to prepare silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs). The Ag NPs were employed for photo catalytic degradation of Congo red (CR) dye in aqueous medium. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) investigation shows agglomerated form of Ag NPs. The average sizes of agglomerations are below 600 nm. Energy dispersive X-rays spectroscopy (EDX) and ultraviolet light visible spectroscopy (UV/Vis) also established the formation of Ag NPs. The photo-degradation study reveals that Ag NPs degraded by 73% of CR dye in 480 min. Catalytic dosage study shows the dye degradation was increased vice versa as increased the amount of Ag NPs and then almost level off after 0.025 g of catalyst. In pH study it was observed that degradation of CR dye increased as pH increased. The recovered catalyst study also significantly degraded the CR dye

Factors associated with the compliance of standard precaution; review article

Compliance with standard precautions is very important for healthcare workers because studies have shown that it helps in minimising the transmission of infectious diseases and healthcare-associated infections which is directly proportional to the patient cost and stay of the patient in hospitals. As healthcare associated infections increase, the cost and the stay of the patient will increase. Researchers suggest that all healthcare workers need to follow the standard precautions guideline and it can be possible with the help of health education, training, provision of equipment and supervision by the management. Barriers to the compliance identified are lack of education, heavy workload, unavailability of equipment, lack of resources and lack of access to supplies. The lack of education and heavy workload are the major factors faced by the nurses

Prevalence of needlestick injury and nursing practices regarding safe injection and sharp disposal while working in critical care settings of two tertiary care hospitals

This observational cross-sectional study design (Pilot) was conducted to assess the prevalence of needle stick injury (NSI) and nursing practices regarding safe injection and sharp disposal in critical care units of two tertiary care hospitals from 1st July to 30th August 2014. Data was collected using a self-developed questionnaire about the prevalence of NSI and nurses’ pract­ices regarding safe injection and sharp disposal after a thorough literature review and then was given to the expert for review. Finally, the data was collected from the participants after verbal consent. The study result showing that about half of the nurses have no knowledge regarding the disposal of sharp and it has been found that 47.8% re-cap the needle before disposal. While 32.6% reported needle prick injury. The study concluded that inadequate knowledge among nurses about safe nursing practices and lack of using preventive measures from NSI were identified. Lack of reporting is also a factor identified in this study

Organizational Performance and Entrepreneurial Orientation: The Intervening Role of Organizational Learning

Many past studies have examined the association between entrepreneurial orientation (E.O.) and organizational performance (O.P.). However, these studies have not adequately addressed the mediating roles of acquisition learning (A.L.) and experiential learning (E.L.) on organizational performance. Given this gap, we have developed a new model that contains six direct relationships, three mediating relationships, and one multi-mediating relationship. The focus of the study was on Indonesian Pharmaceutical SMEs. We have collected a sample of 365 respondents non-randomly. For statistical analysis, we have used Smart PLS version 3.2. The statistical analysis includes reliability, validity, and descriptive statistics. The results confirm that acquisition learning (A.L.), experiential learning (E.L.), and entrepreneurial orientation (E.O.) promote organizational performance (O.P.). We also found that entrepreneurial orientation (E.O.) impacts acquisition learning (A.L.) and innovative performance (I.P.) but does not affect organizational performance (O.P.). However, the results suggest that acquisition learning (A.L.) and experiential learning (E.L.) are positively linked. Our results also support all the mediating relationships

Bioassay studies of metal(II) complexes of 2,2'-(ethane-1,2-diyldiimino)diacetic acid

Ni(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II) coordination compounds with modified diammine 2,2'-(ethane-1,2-diyldiimino)diacetic acid (EDDA) were prepared and characterized. Coordination complexes of the EDDA were characterized by physical measurements including elemental analysis, IR, UV-Visible, magnetic susceptibilities and conductance measurements. The complexes were screened against four pathogenic bacteria like Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus and their concentrations for maximum inhibition zones were obtained. KEY WORDS: EDDA, Coordination complexes, Antibacterial studies Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2011, 25(2), 239-245

Challenges in compression testing of 3D angle-interlocked woven-glass fabric-reinforced polymeric composites.

This paper describes the challenges in using testing standards such as D6641/D6641M-14, for determination of compressive strength of 3D angle interlocked glass fabric reinforced polymeric composites (3D-FRPC). It makes use of both experimental investigation and finite element analysis. The experimental investigation involved testing both 2D and 3D-FRPC using ASTM D6641/D6641M-14 and subsequent scanning electron microscopic imaging of failed specimens to reveal the stress state at failure. This was further evaluated using laminate level finite element (FE) analysis. The FE analysis required input of effective orthotropic elastic material properties of 3D-FRPC, which were determined by customizing a recently developed micro-mechanical model. The paper sheds new light on compressive failure of 3D angle interlocked glass fabric composites, as only scarce data is available in literature about this class of materials. It showed that although the tests produce acceptable strength values the internal failure mechanisms change significantly and the standard deviation (SD) and coefficient of variance (COV) of 3D-FRPC comes out to be much higher than that of 2D-FRPC. Moreover, while reporting and using the test data some additional information about the 3D-fabric architecture, such as the direction of angle interlocking fabric needs to be specified. This was because, for 3D angle interlocking of fabric along warp direction, the strength values obtained in the warp and weft direction were significantly different from each other. The study also highlights that due to complex weave architecture it is not possible to achieve comparable volume fractions with 2D and 3D fabric reinforced composites using similar manufacturing parameters for the vacuum assisted resin infusion process. Thus, the normalized compressive strength values (normalized with respect to volume fraction) are the highest for 3D-FRPC when measured along the warp direction, they are at an intermediate level for 2D-FRPC and the lowest for 3D-FRPC, when measured in the weft direction.DelPHE 780 Project grant (DFID UK

Structural Breaks and Volatility Spillover in South Asian Economies

Purpose - This study examines the volatility spillovers in the presence of structural breaks with specific reference to South Asian Capital markets. The global financial crisis of 2007-2009 has compelled policymakers to realize that financial instability has the potential to threaten economic stability and growth; therefore, managing the financial crisis is inevitable. To manage the impact of financial crises, understanding the dynamics of volatility spillover across various markets is imperative. This study has investigated the possible emergence of structural breaks in risk patterns after global financial crises in south Asian markets. Methodology - Using the data from July 2002 to June 2016, employing the Exponential GARCH methodology. Findings - This study finds a significant volatility spillover after the financial crisis of 2007-09. Therefore, the existence of a structural break in the risk pattern of south Asian capital markets cannot be fully rejected. Policy Implications - This conclusion is of prime importance to policymakers in devising policy guidelines concerning financial crises

Rethinking Data Heterogeneity in Federated Learning: Introducing a New Notion and Standard Benchmarks

Though successful, federated learning presents new challenges for machine learning, especially when the issue of data heterogeneity, also known as Non-IID data, arises. To cope with the statistical heterogeneity, previous works incorporated a proximal term in local optimization or modified the model aggregation scheme at the server side or advocated clustered federated learning approaches where the central server groups agent population into clusters with jointly trainable data distributions to take the advantage of a certain level of personalization. While effective, they lack a deep elaboration on what kind of data heterogeneity and how the data heterogeneity impacts the accuracy performance of the participating clients. In contrast to many of the prior federated learning approaches, we demonstrate not only the issue of data heterogeneity in current setups is not necessarily a problem but also in fact it can be beneficial for the FL participants. Our observations are intuitive: (1) Dissimilar labels of clients (label skew) are not necessarily considered data heterogeneity, and (2) the principal angle between the agents' data subspaces spanned by their corresponding principal vectors of data is a better estimate of the data heterogeneity. Our code is available at https://github.com/MMorafah/FL-SC-NIID.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2209.1052