A review on seawater as concrete composites and its effects on the strength and durability

The world is facing a big challenge of balancing a growing population and demand with a natural environment that is increasingly under stress. The rapidly changing environmental conditions especially intensity and frequency of extreme weather it has now become very important to explore in green technology. Effective use of natural resources is pressing concern. Particularly, water resources for drinking are predicted to be in serious shortage in 2050 due to increase in population and rapid urbanization throughout the world. The beginning of the 21st century is straddled with enormous environmental problems of which water shortage is one of the most serious. It is a well-known fact that fresh water resources are continuously declining throughout the world and according to a report by the United Nations, water will be very short in future. It is expected that 5bn people will be short of drinking water in 2050 [1]. In another report published by OECD, it is stated that a number of people living in river basins will be under severe water stress which is expected to be double in 2050 .

Impacts of Drain Water on Soils and Crops and It Causes: A Case Study of Kamber Taluka, Pakistan

Taluka Kamber has been the receiving of natural calamities turned disasters due to its geographical location. The area is in constant threat of the surface drainage effluent coming from Balochistan Plateaus and Local drains. The toxic and highly contaminated water from different drains has devastating and impact on the natural lakes and agricultural lands of the region. The natural flow routes of the flood water have been interrupted at many places which have increased the impact and frequency of the floods in the area. The investigated area is very famous for the paddy and wheat production in the country, but its average production of both crops is reducing. Growers dependent on the cultivation of wheat crop on the land degraded by the Hairdrin Drain as well as on rain fed agriculture on the uplands of Kachho also has been facing difficult situation interestingly, since 1998-1999 not only the Rabi Minor command lands were submerged in Hairdrin Drain but since the same year there has been drastic reduction in the rainfall in Kachho resulting in the failure in any crop production in the area at rain fed irrigation. The experienced started taking its toll as due to the use of saline water. The salinity is affecting the area of Kachho. The situation has become dismal to the extent that last year, the wheat crop yield was not even 200 kg per acre. As a result the growers were not even able to recover the expenditure incurred on the inputs. The study shows that a solution of the problem is possible for the development of the agriculture in the study area

An inquiry-based simulation-supported approach to assist students' learning of basic electric circuits

Important aspects of teaching and learning are to understand what difficulties students have, why they face these difficulties, and how to help them overcome these difficulties. This research investigated the alternative conceptions that students hold pertaining to the concepts of open circuits and short circuits in a Basic Electric Circuits course. Data gathered from different sources including interviews, tests and documents were analyzed to characterized students’ conceptual learning difficulties. The researcher adapted a diagnostic instrument that consists of 12 multiple choice items for the pretest and posttest. The participants were 80 first-year students enrolled in a Diploma in Electrical Engineering programme at one local public university; where 47 students constituted the treatment group and 33 students constituted the control group. The pretest was administered to both groups during the first week of the semester. An inquiry-based simulation-supported approach session was conducted with the treatment group after the pretest. The inquiry-based simulation-supported approach incorporated predict-observe-explain (POE) tasks. The extent to which this approach can assist students’ in developing conceptual understanding was investigated. Students’ verbal responses during the circuit simulation using Multisim software were recorded and analyzed. The posttest was administered during the final week of the semester to both groups. Research findings are presented in two parts. The first part is a quantitative analysis of students’ performance on the pretest and posttest. The second part is a qualitative analysis of students’ documents and interviews to identify their alternative conceptions. Findings reveal that the inquiry-based simulation-supported approach positively impacted students’ conceptual understanding. The advantages and disadvantages of applying the inquiry-based simulation-supported approach in Basic Electric Circuits are discussed

Inducible tolerance and sensitivity to stress responses in Escherichia coli with particular reference to copper and pH

Stress responses to copper and alkali were studied in Escherichia coli. E. coli 1829 and its derivatives, were able to tolerate lethal doses of CUSO4 (58.92 μg/ml and 117.84 μg/ml) after pre-exposure to sublethal doses of CUSO4 (14.73 μg/ml and 29.46 μg/ml). The observed copper tolerance was due to a phenotypic change induced during the pre-exposure period which depends on de novo protein synthesis. Cytoplasmic membrane proteins of molecular weights 26 and 24.5 kDas and outer membrane proteins of molecular weights 16.5, 18, 31.5 and 65 kDas were overexpressed in the copper-induced cells. The DNA from the copper-induced cells was also less damaged than that from the uninduced cells. Pre-exposure to 14.73 μg/ml CUSO4 also confers cross-protection to heat, acid, alkali and cadmium sulphate but not to hydrogen peroxide. Pre-exposure to mildly acidic pH which would normally induce acid tolerance was shown to also induce alkali sensitivity. When E. coli 1829 cells were transferred from pH 7.0 to pH 5.5 for one hour they became alkali sensitive upon challenge with pHs 9.5 and 9.75 for 30 minutes. Substantial induction also occurs at pH 6.0 but there was less at pH 5.0 and practically none at pH 6.5. The response was triggered by cytoplasmic acidification by protons entering the cells possibly via OmpC, LamB, PhoE, NhaA and NhaB. The induction of alkali sensitivity also depends on de novo protein synthesis of components involved in alkali sensitization. Cytoplasmic membrane proteins of molecular weights 14 and 18 kDas were overexpressed in the pH 5.5 induced cells. The induction of the alkali sensitization components is not subject to catabolite repression nor affected by deletion in rpoS but appeared to be under the control of Fur, RelA, CysB and Lrp. Mutants with a deletion in tonB showed derepressed alkali sensitivity; the response being observed in pH 7.0 induced cells instead. The expression of the alkali sensitization components also appeared to be affected by changes in the DNA supercoiling and is influenced by HimA, HimD and H-NS

Electrochemical Remedy and Analysis for the Environment Based on the New Polymer-DNA Composite Material.

In this work a new material, the conducting polymer-DNA composite, has been reported for the first time due to its promise in micro extraction, transfer, and release of cations under controlled potential conditions by using electrochemically assisted solid phase micro extraction (SPME). The Polypyrrole/DNA composite can be formed easily by oxidation of pyrrole monomers in the presence of chromosomal DNA by electropolymerization. Environmental significant pollutants such as Cd, Pb, Hg, Co, Zn, Cu, and Bi metal ions can be extracted from the aqueous solution and are able to be transferred to another medium defined as the release solution where the metals were detected by anodic stripping voltammetry. Using Cd2+ as a model, this method has been examined to optimize its operational condition. Extraction efficiency and potential interference for this method were studied

Time Series Forecasting for Retail Sales: A Comparative Study of Traditional Econometric Models and a Machine Learning Approach

openThis thesis compares the forecasting performances of FBProphet, Holt Winters' Exponential Smoothing, and Box Jenkins ARIMA models for retail sales in the US. Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) is used as the evaluation metric for comparing the forecasts in two different scenarios. The study aims to assess if FBProphet outperforms traditional econometric models in terms of forecasting accuracy. The findings shed light on the relative strengths and weaknesses of these models and contribute to improving retail sales forecasting methodologies

Exploring current practices of supervisors in government primary schools in Karachi, Pakistan

This paper explores the current practices of supervisors in Government Primary Schools in Karachi, Pakistan. Research participants included two supervisors, two head teachers and four primary school teachers. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, informal discussions, documents analysis. Findings suggest that since, the supervisors are not provided with the TORs by Education department their practices are influenced by the way they are appointed and the ways they learn about their roles and responsibilities in the schools. Since supervisory practices are mostly hanging between supervision and monitoring, these neither fulfill the criteria of Supervision nor of Monitoring and Evaluation. Their routine work in schools is carried out through surprise visits. During those visits, they write visit notes in the visit logs maintained at schools. The language of these visit notes indicate that main concerns of the supervisors are dealing with the issues of teacher absenteeism and completion of courses. They seldom appear to be concerned with quality of teaching pedagogies in schools. Study concludes with recommendations for re-conceptualization of supervision as a moral practice. Other key recommendations focus professional development of supervisors, preparation of comprehensive TORs for supervisors and clustering primary schools with high schools, where supervisors can play the role of being liaison persons

Fighting Governmental Corruption in Pakistan: An Evaluation of Anti-Corruption Strategies

Corruption remains a persistent problem in both developed and developing countries. Statistics provide evidence that Pakistan faces the menace of corruption. The recently released Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for 2019 by Transparency International (TI) ranks Pakistan as the 120th country out of a total of 180. In 1995 Pakistan used to be the second most corrupt country in the world. Moreover, TI’s Global Corruption Barometer for 2017 shows that 40–50 per cent of the respondents have given a bribe to get a public service in Pakistan. The Global Competitiveness Reports (2016, 2017, and 2018) released by the World Economic Forum in Switzerland have declared corruption to be the topmost problematic factor when doing business in Pakistan. Corruption is a public problem and relevant academic literature holds the dominant view that it obstructs economic development. It increases the direct costs of firms through bribery. It encourages bureaucratic red tape and corrupts the institutions of contract enforcement and property rights protection. Although corruption and anti-corruption have long been research topics in the social sciences, little has been done about the evaluation of anti-corruption strategies. Anti-corruption efforts are required where corruption prevails. With this in view, the study aims to ascertain the opinion of policy professionals regarding different anti-corruption strategies. Data on 26 anti-corruption strategies were collected through a self-administered questionnaire from 100 policy professionals working in 12 different policy institutes. The results have found slight differences between the mean scores for anti-corruption strategies, depicting a certain level of effectiveness for each strategy. Harsher punishments for corrupt persons and legal protection for whistleblowers informing about persons involved in corruption are the strategies that had the highest mean scores of 4.07 and 4.04 respectively. Policy professionals rated the category of “Political, legal and judicial strategies” with the highest mean value of 3.90 as the most effective anti-corruption typology. A holistic approach is required in Pakistan to eradicate corruption from governmental offices

Examining a Norwegian Client’s Response over Information Security and Privacy Policy

The core purpose of this article is to investigate how different a Norwegian subscriber’s point of view about the terminology of understandability, technicality, importance and awareness of privacy policy. Indeed this research article has its demographic limits and was targeted for Norwegian clients but it may suggest a first step to reshape policy for better realization. The emerging ambiguity in information security has raised much privacy and trust issues that are context dependent. Therefore there are several uncertainties and risks seen today concerning the privacy policy & subscriber trust. It is a responsibility of services providers before amending their policy to notify their subscribers. Since if they do not take this initiative then it creates trust deficit for their subscribers and this affects their business and goodwill. For this article we have adopted a survey questionnaire methodology based on clients’ own perspectives. Generally observed that, before accepting privacy policy, it`s hard to read these policies and understood by common user, and taking this prospect ahead, many policies & regulations have a difficult context to recognize

Contractual justice in Asean: a comparative view of coercion

The European legal system which provided Indonesia, Thailand and partly Philippines with much of their ground rules in contract has witnessed a new and rapidly increasing awareness of the need for justice in contract. Hence, countries sharing the same European legal tradition are well placed to embark on a similar path towards contractual justice. British legal tradition, of which Malaysia is a part, places an undue and unfortunately illusory emphasis on freedom of contract. Free and voluntary consent must be looked at as a mechanism to achieve contractual justice not contractual freedom. An examination of coercion in several ASEAN jurisdictions will reveal the need for this distinction