Making regional cooperation work for South Asia's poor

South Asia has attracted global attention because it has experienced rapid GDP growth over the last two decades. What is not so well known is that South Asia is the least integrated region in the world. South Asia has opened its door to the rest of the world but it remains closed to its neighbors. Poor market integration, weak connectivity, and a history of friction and conflict have resulted in two South Asias. The first South Asia is dynamic, growing rapidly, highly urbanized, and is benefiting from global integration. The second South Asia is rural, land locked, full of poverty, and lagging. The divergence between the two South Asias is on the rise. Policy makers in South Asia have realized that countries and regions can not grow in isolation. The unique geography of South Asia-distance and density--has the potential to raise growth through increased flow of labor, capital, ideas, technology, goods and services within the region and with the rest of the world. Most lagging regions, in terms of both per capita income and poverty incidence, in South Asia are either land-locked or located in the border areas. Regional cooperation and market integration will unlock the development of these lagging regions in South Asia.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Economic Theory&Research,Achieving Shared Growth,Rural Poverty Reduction,Population Policies

Room-Temperature Synthesis of Transition Metal Clusters and Main Group Polycations from Ionic Liquids

Main group polycations and transition metal clusters had traditionally been synthesized via high-temperature routes by performing reactions in melts or by CTR, at room-temperature or lower temperature by using so-called superacid solvents, and at room-temperature in benzene–GaX3 media. Considering the major problems associated with higher temperature routes (e.g. long annealing time, risk of product decomposition, and low yield) and taking into account the toxicity of benzene and liquid SO2 in room-temperature or lower temperature synthesis, a soft and sustainable chemical approach has been developed, employing a Lewis-acidic IL [bmim]Cl/AlCl3. This new alternative reaction medium has proven to be an excellent solvent system for the single–step synthesis of main group polycations and transition metal clusters. X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy have been used for the structural characterization of the isolated compounds. Physical properties and quantum chemical calculations of some of the compounds have also been carried out

Online Art Gallery

Online art gallery is an e-commerce application which connects artists with their customers, this website will help the artists to showcase their art in this website by helping them to sell it to prospective customers also it will help the customers to discover and search the art which they like and they will have an option to buy the art if they want. There will be three types of user’s roles in the website, the first one is buyer who can search and discover the art without any need to register or login but if they want to buy any art they have to register and login to buy the art and second one is a seller who has to register and login to post their art works for exhibiting and selling on the website and third user is admin who specifies authority and restrictions on the users. There will be a separate console for artist, buyer and administrator. Software Requirements/Tools: Operating System: Windows XP/2010. User Interface: HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap. Client-side Scripting: JavaScript. IDE/Workbench: NetBeans. Database: MySQL. Modules: Admin Login module. Admin Order Management module. Add Artist information module. Add System user module. Artist Login module. Customer Login Module. Customer Payment Module. Advanced Search module

The chemistry and technology of transparent flexible polyurethanes

Thermoset and thermoplastic polyurethanes have been prepared which are transparent and flexible. A synthesis technique and reaction and curing conditions were investigated to establish a reproducible method of obtaining these transparent urethanes: this is based on a polycaprolactone diol/4,4 1 -methylene biscyclohexyl diisocyanate (H12MDI) prepolymer system. Only certain chain extenders will give transparent polyurethanes and these are aliphatic diols, cycloaliphatic diols and triols. Their relative reactivities with diisocyanates were studied. The way in which the various chemical constituents control light transmission characteristics in polyurethane elastomers has been investigated by studying the morphology using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), infrared spectroscopy and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis techniques. Physical and mechanical properties of the prepared materials were used as the criteria of their quality and measurementswere made of modulus, ultimate tensile strength, elongation at break, hardness, tear strength, tension set and compression set. The stability of these materials toward thermooxidative degradation, UV exposure, hydrolysis and gamma radiation have been quantfied. In Northern Australia outdoor weathering trials for retention of transparency in these polyurethanes have been organised and these are still progressing, but no firm conclusions can be drawn at this date

Intention Towards Online Shopping: A Pakistan Based Study

Online shopping environment is still in an infancy stage in Pakistan. The intent of this research is to develop a model on the basis of the traditional technology acceptance model (TAM), to find factors that affect online shopping adoption in Pakistan. With a survey sample of 286 respondents which includes university students and professionals from various walks of life, the proposed model was evaluated by confirmatory factor analysis and regression analysis. The significant findings of the study indicate that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived risk, perceived enjoyment, distrust and legal framework are the main factors affecting online shopping acceptance except that the cultural environment has a negligible influence