Archives-January 2012

Water resources management is a predominant problem for future development in today’s condition. Development of new technologies has extended the possibilities of wastewater reuse concept. Therefore, reuse of treated wastewater effluents has emerged as a renewable resource that increases in amount with the increase in water use. Inline with that, the wastewater treatment plants have come forth to implement tertiary filtration of secondary treated effluents to improve water quality for possible reuse in irrigation. In this present study, the characteristics of the tertiary treated effluent from granular activated carbon and pressure sand filtration are analyzed. The performances of the tertiary units are also monitored. The tertiary treated effluent is analyzed for applicability in agricultural purposes. The results revealed that treated sewage is applicable for gardening purposes but the removal of microbiological quality of the treated sewage was not at the satisfactory level. For removal of microbiological population, disinfection system such as UV/Ozonation can be installed for improving the quality of treated sewage.

Wireless Sensor Networks consists of spatially distributed autonomous sensors called nodes which co-operatively monitor a physical or environmental condition. Due to the scarce energy reserves in the sensor networks it is necessary to design protocols which minimize the energy consumption. In this paper, we firstly analyze the LEACH protocol in a homogeneous environment and then present a novel clustering based routing protocol for sensor networks. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol prolongs the network lifetime with 70% of the nodes remaining alive when compared to LEACH.

This paper describes key aspects of the informal employment - its size and composition, its linkages with working poverty and provides more complete picture of the dimensions of informal employment in Pakistan using data of Labour Force Survey since 1999-2009. The data show that informal employment in the country is the result of the economy’s inability to create sufficient numbers of quality jobs to absorb increasing labour force. Compared to 3.4 average annual growth rates of labour force from 1999-2009, the informal sector employment growth rate is 3.6. As a result, share of formal sector employment shrunk from 34% to 26% in case of males and from 34.3% to 27% in case of females. Data further reveal that out of roughly 48.2 million employed people in 2009, about three fourth of them are in informal employment i.e. 37.0 million. The agriculture sector alone absorbs 54.4 percent of the informal employment. The distribution of status in informal employment shows large proportions of own account workers and contributing family workers in informal employment. It is shown that in 2009, more than one third (44.3 per cent) of all informal employed workers in Pakistan work as own-account workers and about one third (35.3 percent) as contributing family workers. Presence of a large informal employment is, in a way challenge to policy makers to consider improved working conditions, legal and social protection of the people employed in the informal economy and implementation of the appropriate regulatory frame work, developing training and skills, etc. To increase job quantity and quality, the emphasis should be placed on investing in people, especially the most vulnerable – in their education, skills training, lifelong learning, health and safety – and encouraging their entrepreneurial initiative.

The present study investigates the relationship between corporate governance profile of acquiring firms and operating performance changes associated with merger and acquisitions in Pakistan. The financial sector mergers and acquisitions have been selected as sample transactions for the period of 1996 to 2008 and two years pre- and post-merger analysis has been conducted by using OLS regression. The estimated results indicated that post-merger operating performance of acquiring firms is positively related to its pre-merger level. Moreover, board size and CEO duality are negatively while board independence, outside dominated boards, and presence of large independent blockholder are positively related to change in post-merger operating performance of acquiring firms in Pakistan. The results were also robust with an alternative dependent variable of change in market value of acquiring firms. The results from replaced dependent variable were found to be more strong and cohesive with corporate governance profile of acquiring firms. Aligned with the existing literature, the study concluded that effective corporate governance mechanism does play its role in aligning the interests of managers with shareholders and enhances value for firms, particularly in large scale transactions of mergers and acquisitions.

People with different personality traits show different coping styles and different degrees of vulnerability to the experience of traumatic events. Pregnancy is one of the events that may cause stress and depression in some women and put mother and child’s health at risk. In this study the relationship between pregnant women’s big five personality factors, coping styles and depression has been studied. The population of the study consists of all pregnant women who referred to a specialized center of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Iran in the first quarter of 2009. 130 questionnaires (Revised NEO Personality inventory, Multidimensional Coping Inventory (MCI) and depression questionnaires) with multi-stage random cluster sampling were distributed among subjects, 80 of which were completed and analyzed using SPSS16 statistical software. Regression and MANOVA statistical methods were used to analyze the data. The results show that Neuroticism has a significant negative relationship with task-oriented coping style and a significant positive relationship with emotion-oriented coping style and depression. Extraversion has a significant positive relationship with task-oriented coping style. Also, Agreeableness has a significant positive relationship with task-oriented coping style and a significant negative relationship with avoidance-oriented coping style and depression. Conscientiousness has a significant positive relationship with task-oriented coping style. Furthermore, task-oriented coping style has a significant negative relationship with depression and emotion-oriented coping style has a significant positive relationship with depression. Applying pregnant women’s personal characteristics enables us to predict their styles of coping with stress and depression. Therefore, stress management meetings and training and treatment courses for mothers are of great importance.

Chemical vapour deposition (CVD) is a widely used method for depositing thin films of a large variety of advanced materials. Applications of CVD range from the fabrication of microelectronic devices to the deposition of protective coatings but also optoelectronic films, decorative coatings.

This paper investigates the technical efficiencies of rubber product manufacturing industry in Malaysia. We employed Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). Secondary data from 313 firms that manufacture rubber product was obtained from the Annual Survey Of Manufacturing Industries 2004 by Department of Statistics Malaysia. Variables that are included in this are such as capital (RM), labor, and energy. Results clearly show that the mean technical efficiency of manufactured rubber product industry in Malaysia is 0.70328 or 70.33 percent. Majority of the firms are also fairly efficient in the use of available resources. Some technical assistance such as training programs for the proprietors of the firms and financial support such as subsidies could be offered to boost their production level as rubber is indeed an important component of the manufacturing industry in Malaysia.

Gulf heavy crude oil samples were separated into four fractions of saturates, mono-, di- and polyaromatics by elution open column chromatography. Alumina and a mixture of equal amount of silica and alumina stationary phases were separately used to study the effect of these stationary phases on the separation. The Gas Chromatography – Mass Spectrometry (GC – MS) results of the fractions show that the nature of the stationary phase may affect the elution of both aromatic and the saturate components of the oil. The pristane/phytane ratio ranging from 0.63-2.00 obtained for the crude oil fractions using the two stationary phases indicates an oxygen depositional environment for the source rocks.

This study was conducted to understand the potential of medicinal herbs, Andrographis paniculata, Cissus quadrangularis and Eclipta alba on growth promotion, utilization of energy, induction in activities of digestive enzymes, concentrations biochemical constituents and non-enzymatic antioxidants of the freshwater prawn Macrobrachium rosenbergii. These herbs were incorporated with basal diets at three different concentrations (1%, 3%, and 5%) individually and fed to the post larval (PL) of M. rosenbergii (1.83±0.50 cm; 0.14± 0.02 g) for a period of 90 days in a triplicate experimental set-up. A significantly improved survival and growth performance (weight gain, specific growth rate, condition factor), elevation in energy utilization, increased activities of digestive enzymes (protease, amylase and lipase), concentrations of biochemical constituents (total protein, carbohydrate and lipid) and non-enzymatic antioxidants (vitamin-C and vitamin-E) were recorded (P<0.05) in C. quadrangularis incorporated feed fed PL (5%>3%>1%), followed by E. alba (5%>3%>1%) and A. paniculata (3%>5%>1%) when compared with control diet (without incorporation of any herb) fed PL. Twelve polypeptide bands of molecular weight between 116-14 were recorded in the muscle of PL fed with control as well as the best concentration of each herb incorporated feeds. The intensity of 50, 48, and 46 kDa regions was found to be stained more in C. quadrangularis incorporated feed fed PL when compared with control feed as well as E. alba and A. paniculata incorporated feeds fed PL. In this study, the overall results indicated the fact that these herbs enhanced the secretion of digestive enzymes, act as appetizer, which facilitate efficient digestion, absorption of nutrients and favour general metabolism, which in turn ultimately improved the general health and produced better survival and growth of M. rosenbergii PL. Therefore, it is suggested that these herbs have the characteristic ability to promote growth in M. rosenbergii. The aquaculture potential of these herbs needs further study based on their active principles.

A field experiment was carried out in 2007, 2008 and 2009 at Samaru, Zaria, Nigeria to determine the response of two Chilli pepper (Capsicum frutescens L.) varieties (Bird’s eye and Dantsiga) to five harvesting frequencies (weekly, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks and once at the end of the rains). Factorial combinations of the treatments were replicated three times and laid out in a randomized complete block design. Gross and net plots were 9m2 and 4.5m2 respectively. A spacing of 75cm x 30cm was used. Appropriate agronomic and crop protection practices were adopted to ensure adequate crop performance. The results showed that variety Dantsiga had significantly longer fruits, higher fruit diameter, number of seeds per fruit and dry fruit yield per hectare. There was no difference between the two varieties in the number of fruits per plant. Harvesting every two weeks resulted in significantly higher fruit yield and number of seeds per fruit throughout the three years of study.