Effect of Annealing Temperature of Cugao2 thin Films by Using RF Magnetron Sputtering Technique on Optical and Structural Properties

Cu-based conductive oxide such as CuGaO2 is seen to be a promising transparent p-type oxide material. The study of p-type semiconductor CuGaO2 thin films have been carried out to investigate the effects of different parameters in providing the optimum result in achieving good optical transparency and conductivity of the thin film. The CuGaO2 thin films were fabricated on quartz substrate via the Radio Frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering technique with varying substrate temperatures and different annealing temperatures. The p-type thin films were deposited at a temperature ranging from room temperature, 100°C, 200°C and 300°C. The samples were also annealed varying from temperature of 500°C, 600°C, 700°C and 800°C. The fabricated sample were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-Visible spectroscopy, and atomic force microscope (afm). XRD showed a peak at 2θ = 36.10° (012). The optical transparency values achieved from UV-Vis spectrometer were seen to be approximately 80% and the bandgaps were found to be in the range of 3.34-3.43 eV which is in line with the bandgap value from the research on CuGaO2 thin films. From the afm, the mean surface roughness increases with increasing temperature and this is due to the increment of grain size. The highest grain size was observed at substrate temperature of 200°C

Effect of Vaned Diffuser on the Performance of Small Turbocharger

This work presents an experimental investigation of performance of small turbocharger compressor with vaned diffuser. The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of number vaned diffuser on peak pressure ratio in turbocharger. The study was carried out using cold-flow turbocharger test rig driven by compressed air with the impeller rotational speed from 40,000 to 70,000 rpm. Tests were conducted with 6, 8 and 10 number of vanes while maintaining the vane blades angle of 6°, turning angle of 30° and blade length of 21.8 mm. The vanes as a flow deflector were designed as a thin flat plate of 1 mm thickness. All the results were compared with original vaneless diffuser of the compressor. The results found that the proposed design of 6 and 8 vanes shifted the peak pressure ratio toward low mass flow rate region. It was observed that modification from conventional vaneless diffuser compressor to the one equipped with vaned diffuser has significant improvement on the overall pressure ratio of the turbocharger

Turn on the Lights: Macroeconomic Factors Affecting Renewable in Pakistan

The objective of the study is to examine the relationship between macroeconomic factors (i.e., population growth; urbanization, industrialization, exchange rate, price level, food production index and live stock production index) and renewable energy in Pakistan over a period of 1975-2012. In addition, this study uses oil rent as an intervening variable to overcome the biasness of the single equation model. The results indicate that macroeconomic factors positively contributed to renewable energy consumption in Pakistan. The causality test indicate that there is a unidirectional causality running towards macroeconomic factors to renewable energy in Pakistan, however, renewable energy Granger cause oil rent but not via other route. In addition, there is bidirectional causality between exchange rate and live stock production in Pakistan. Variance decomposition analysis shows that economic growth has a major contribution to increase renewable energy in Pakistan

Turn on the Lights: Macroeconomic Factors Affecting Renewable in Pakistan

The objective of the study is to examine the relationship between macroeconomic factors (i.e., population growth; urbanization, industrialization, exchange rate, price level, food production index and live stock production index) and renewable energy in Pakistan over a period of 1975-2012. In addition, this study uses oil rent as an intervening variable to overcome the biasness of the single equation model. The results indicate that macroeconomic factors positively contributed to renewable energy consumption in Pakistan. The causality test indicate that there is a unidirectional causality running towards macroeconomic factors to renewable energy in Pakistan, however, renewable energy Granger cause oil rent but not via other route. In addition, there is bidirectional causality between exchange rate and live stock production in Pakistan. Variance decomposition analysis shows that economic growth has a major contribution to increase renewable energy in Pakistan

Global patient outcomes after elective surgery: prospective cohort study in 27 low-, middle- and high-income countries.

BACKGROUND: As global initiatives increase patient access to surgical treatments, there remains a need to understand the adverse effects of surgery and define appropriate levels of perioperative care. METHODS: We designed a prospective international 7-day cohort study of outcomes following elective adult inpatient surgery in 27 countries. The primary outcome was in-hospital complications. Secondary outcomes were death following a complication (failure to rescue) and death in hospital. Process measures were admission to critical care immediately after surgery or to treat a complication and duration of hospital stay. A single definition of critical care was used for all countries. RESULTS: A total of 474 hospitals in 19 high-, 7 middle- and 1 low-income country were included in the primary analysis. Data included 44 814 patients with a median hospital stay of 4 (range 2-7) days. A total of 7508 patients (16.8%) developed one or more postoperative complication and 207 died (0.5%). The overall mortality among patients who developed complications was 2.8%. Mortality following complications ranged from 2.4% for pulmonary embolism to 43.9% for cardiac arrest. A total of 4360 (9.7%) patients were admitted to a critical care unit as routine immediately after surgery, of whom 2198 (50.4%) developed a complication, with 105 (2.4%) deaths. A total of 1233 patients (16.4%) were admitted to a critical care unit to treat complications, with 119 (9.7%) deaths. Despite lower baseline risk, outcomes were similar in low- and middle-income compared with high-income countries. CONCLUSIONS: Poor patient outcomes are common after inpatient surgery. Global initiatives to increase access to surgical treatments should also address the need for safe perioperative care. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN5181700

Enablers for integrated operations diagnosis and improvement

In order for organizations to improve their performance, they shall identify their operations opportunities for improvement. The process to identify the opportunities for improvement is referred herein as “diagnosis” process. The most common systematic operations diagnosis and improvement approaches are Quality Audit, Organizational Assessment based on Business Excellence Framework and Project Selection for Lean and Six Sigma. All these three approaches should be integrated in order to grasp the fruitful benefits for the organizations. The benefits include; minimize redundancies, improve the operations performance and eventually assist in achieving certification and award. This paper proposes the enablers for operations diagnosis and improvement based on integration of ISO19011 Quality Audit framework, Business Excellence Framework and Lean Six Sigma approaches