Nanofiltration Treatment For Pesticides Removal: A Case Study For Atrazine And Dimethoate

Tesis ini memfokuskan kepada penyingkiran racun serangga dari larutan akues menggunakan membran penurasan nano. This thesis focuses on the removal of pesticide from aqueous solution using nanofiltration membrane

Regression Modeling of Longitudinal Outcomes With Outcome-Dependent Observation Times

Conventional longitudinal data analysis methods typically assume that outcomes are independent of the data-collection schedule. However, the independence assumption may be violated when an event triggers outcome assessment in between prescheduled follow-up visits. For example, patients initiating warfarin therapy who experience poor anticoagulation control may have extra physician visits to monitor the impact of necessary dose changes. Observation times may therefore be associated with outcome values, which may introduce bias when estimating the effect of covariates on outcomes using standard longitudinal regression methods. We consider a joint model approach with two components: a semi-parametric regression model for longitudinal outcomes and a recurrent event model for observation times. The semi-parametric model includes a parametric specification for covariate effects, but allows the effect of time to be unspecified. We formulate a framework of outcome-observation dependence mechanisms to describe conditional independence between the outcome and observation-time processes given observed covariates or shared latent variables. We generalize existing methods for continuous outcomes by accommodating any combination of mechanisms through the use of observation-level weights and/or patient-level latent variables. We develop new methods for binary outcomes, while retaining the flexibility of a semi-parametric approach. We extend these methods to account for discontinuous risk intervals in which patients enter and leave the at-risk set multiple times during the study. Our methods are based on counting process approaches, rather than relying on possibly intractable likelihood-based or pseudo-likelihood-based approaches, and provide marginal, population-level inference. In simulations, we evaluate the statistical properties of our proposed methods. Comparisons are made to `naive\u27 approaches that do not account for outcome-dependent observation times. We illustrate the utility of our proposed methods using data from a randomized trial of interventions designed to improve adherence to warfarin therapy and a randomized trial of malaria vaccines among children in Mali

Nanofiltration Treatment For Pesticides Removal : A Case Study For Atrazine And Dimethoate [SB951. T161 2007 f rb].

Tesis ini memfokuskan kepada penyingkiran racun serangga dari larutan akues menggunakan membran penurasan nano. Dua jenis racun serangga, atrazin dan dimetoat, telah dipilih untuk diuji. This thesis focuses on the removal of pesticide from aqueous solution using nanofiltration membrane. Two pesticides, atrazine and dimethoate, were selected for study in this research

Enhancement of Cadmium and Zinc Flame Spectrometric Signals by Using APDTC-nButylamine-MIBK Extractants

Ammonium pyrrolidine-dithiocarbamate (APDTC) and methyl-isobutyl-ketone (MIBK) extractant were jound to be considerably improved by the addition of nbutylamine especially for the chemical analysis of Cd(II) and Zn(II) ions. Solvent extraction oj the bivalent metal ions is a function of pH and the concentration of APDTC and nbutylamine. Cd(II) and Zn(II) ions exhibit considerable flame spectrometric signal enhancement for pH ranges from 7 to 12 and 2 to 12 respectively when APDTC-nbutylamine-MIBK was used as the extractant in place oj APDTC-MIBK. The signal enhancement observed may be interpreted in terms of the formation of synergistic amine adduct and/or mixed solvent effect

Solvent Extraction of Cd(II) using n-Butylamine-ClO:-MIBK and n-Butylamine-Oxine-MIBK

n-Butylamine-perchlorate-1WJBK and n-butylamine-oxine-MIBK extractants were found to be effective for the extraction of Cd(II) ions under strongly alkaline conditions (pH>10). This extraction is a function of the concentration of oxine, perchlorate, n-butylamine and pH. The flame AAS signal for Cd(II) was considerably enhanced by using the above extractants. The signal enhancement and the increase in % extraction of Cd(II) can be attributed to the formation of synergistic amine adducts

Stochastic Downsampling for Cost-Adjustable Inference and Improved Regularization in Convolutional Networks

It is desirable to train convolutional networks (CNNs) to run more efficiently during inference. In many cases however, the computational budget that the system has for inference cannot be known beforehand during training, or the inference budget is dependent on the changing real-time resource availability. Thus, it is inadequate to train just inference-efficient CNNs, whose inference costs are not adjustable and cannot adapt to varied inference budgets. We propose a novel approach for cost-adjustable inference in CNNs - Stochastic Downsampling Point (SDPoint). During training, SDPoint applies feature map downsampling to a random point in the layer hierarchy, with a random downsampling ratio. The different stochastic downsampling configurations known as SDPoint instances (of the same model) have computational costs different from each other, while being trained to minimize the same prediction loss. Sharing network parameters across different instances provides significant regularization boost. During inference, one may handpick a SDPoint instance that best fits the inference budget. The effectiveness of SDPoint, as both a cost-adjustable inference approach and a regularizer, is validated through extensive experiments on image classification

Defence diplomacy: is the game worth the candle?

Few defence topics have been as prominent or invested with as much optimism in recent years as defence diplomacy. This paper has been created to explore the issue and help guide policymakers. Foreword Few Defence topics have been as prominent or invested with as much optimism in recent years as defence diplomacy (also called military diplomacy or defence engagement). In response to the growing security challenges of Asia, scholars, policymakers and practitioners have looked for ways to build confidence, decrease the risk and impact of accidents and encourage peaceful dispute resolution. Defence diplomacy, namely the practice of military and defence officials engaging their overseas counterparts, is increasingly regarded as a vital way to achieve these aims. Given the importance of this topic, a special Centre of Gravity paper has been created to explore the issue and help guide policymakers. This edition features six short papers, each with a different take and policy recommendation. The authors were asked the same question ‘Is the game worth the candle?’ and while their answers focus largely on Australia there are lessons and implications from their findings for the entire region. Brendan Taylor, the head of the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre begins the special edition calling for a stocktake of current efforts, in a bid to understand what has worked and what resources it requires. He is joined by two colleagues, John Blaxland who argues strongly in favour of an expanded defence diplomacy program and Hugh White who urges caution about the strategic influence of the practice. To complement these views, Nick Bisley, Executive Director La Trobe Asia, highlights the need for realistic ambitions. Lieutenant General (Ret.) Peter Leahy draws on his distinguished career in the ADF to detail how defence diplomacy occurs in practice and why it matters. Finally, See Seng Tan, Deputy Director of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore provides a regional perspective on Australia’s defence diplomacy. The authors of these papers don’t agree with each other, and that was precisely why they were invited to contribute. But some common themes are clear. Such as the need for a clear —and public — strategy along with integrating defence diplomacy into the efforts of other parts of government. Together these six papers provide insight into the practice and potential of defence diplomacy. This special edition also marks a re-launch of the Centre of Gravity Series. While some of the design may change, the focus remains the same: inviting some of the best analysts from Australia and around the world to provide short, accessible papers on the key questions facing Australian strategic affairs

Pengaruh gaya kepimpinan transformasi dan gaya kepimpinan transaksi terhadap penglibatan pekerja di Pelabuhan Pulau Pinang

Employee involvement is important because when employees are involved in their work, it will increase the profitability and productivity of the organization with increased performance. As such, employees will be loyal and have no intention of leaving their organization as the employees are more committed and focused in their work. To maintain good employee engagement, transformational leadership styles and transaction leadership styles need to be well-trained and effective. 351 questionnaires were usable for analysis. Factor analysis was conducted to identify the emergence of new dimensions in the variables in this study. The results show that employee involvement has three dimensions, namely spirit, dedication and absorption. The leadership style of transformation has three dimensions namely the influence of ideas, inspirational motivation and intellectual stimulation; while the leadership style of transaction has three dimensions, namely contingent reward, management with exception (active) and management with exception (passive). The findings of the study through regression analysis show that employee involvement has a significant relationship with the leadership style of transformation and the transaction leadership style. This study shows that transformation leadership style (influence of ideas) influences employee involvement (spirit and dedication). Meanwhile, the transaction leadership style is the dimension of management with exception (passive) only which clearly influences employee involvement (spirit). For the transformation leadership style (motivation) has been proven in which it affects employee involvement (dedication) and transaction leadership style (contingent reward) also influences employee involvement (absorption). This proves that leadership style is the determinant of employee engagement within the organization. The limitation of this study is that it the study was conducted mostly at Penang Port. It is proposed that future researcher should conduct studies on several ports to achieve more solid and complete information