Archives-  

SOLECKSHAW, a motor assisted pedal driven three wheeled vehicle, was developed by CSIR-CMERI in 2008-09, under the recent CSIR vision, CSIR-800, aimed at empowering 800 million Indians, who belong to the underprivileged class of society in our country, by way of S&T intervention. Rear wheels of SOLECKSHAW are driven by manual power and front wheel is driven by brushless DC (BLDC) electric hub motor, leading to driving comfort of the driver. Once the product was developed and on road trial was successful, the technology was transferred to a few Indian Industries. It is found that the users of SOLECKSHAW are financially handicapped and not exposed to modern science and technology, which is a major hindrance in deploying this technology. Thus this market seeding project was taken up to make these users (rickshaw pullers) empowered through extra effort and financial facilitation. The main objective of this project was deployment of SOLECKSHAW technology on a large scale in a faster mode, to ensure its acceptability in the society. Based on the user’s feedback and ready availability of interested “Operator” in the form of either NGO or a start-up tourism company, Soleckshaws have been successfully implemented on road in different cities of the country.

Now a day, global warming has induced changes in precipitation in different regions of the world. Bangladesh is recently experiencing climate change impact related to hazards like cyclone, flood, draught etc. Climate variable like rainfall is the most important parameter which is linked with agricultural aspects too. Most of the rain occurred during monsoon period in Bangladesh. The study on rainfall trend over the country has done using observed station data of Rainfall (In-situ) collected from Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) .These data have been analyzed based on annual and seasonal variation in Bangladesh for last 6 decades. A set of analysis has been carried out for this study. Linear trend lines show the rainfall trend over Bangladesh which is not very significant. The annual and monsoon rainfall is found in decreasing trend in recent times (1981-2010) whereas in increasing trend during the period of 1951-2011. The time series statistical analysis of this study will provide information about annual and seasonal mean total rainfall and rainfall variation over the country for different decades, as well as the rainfall trend in different divisions of Bangladesh in different times. The result of this study will help the policy makers to take necessary steps and measure in different sectors like disaster management, agricultural production, drought mitigation, flood control etc. and to act against the adverse impact of climate change. In this paper, annual, seasonal and divisional rainfall variability and trend analysis over Bangladesh will be discussed.

The Cu(II) , Co(II), Ni(II), Zn(II), Cd(II), Hg(II), Mn(II) and Fe(III) complexes of Schiff base 6-bromo-N’-(1-(5-chloro-2-hydroxyphenyl)ethylidine)-2-oxo-2H-chromen -3-carbohydrazide has been synthesized and characterized by various spectral techniques. The complexes were prepared by reacting the ligand and metal chloride of Cu(II), Co(II), Ni(II), Zn(II), Cd(II), Hg(II), Mn(II) and Fe(III) in ethanol to get a series of mononuclear complexes. The complexes were characterized by CHN analysis, conductivity measurements, magnetic susceptibility, IR, NMR, ESR, UV-Vis and X-ray Powder diffraction studies. By these spectral studies it is found that Cu(II), Co(II), Ni(II), Mn(II) and Fe(III) complexes have exhibited octahedral geometry where as the other Zn(II), Cd(II), and Hg(II), complexes have exhibited square pyramidal geometry. The ligand and its metal complexes have been screened for their antimicrobial activities. The prepared ligand shows low activity and its metal complexes shows moderate to good activity.

This paper proposes a new Tabu Search Enhanced Artificial Bee Colony (TSEABC) algorithm that integrates the concepts of Tabu Search (TS) and Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) techniques. The proposed algorithm is applied to solve Economic Load Dispatch(ELD) problems considering of prohibited operating zones and ramp rate limits of thermal units, capacity limits and power balance constraints. In the proposed TSEABC algorithm, the best attributes of both TS and ABC are utilized, and it is capable of finding the better optimal solution for the combinatorial optimization problems. For validating the proposed algorithm, it has been tested on the standard three, six and fifteen unit test systems. The comparison of results show that the proposed TSEABC algorithm is well suitable for solving non-linear economic dispatch problems, and it is doing better than the EP, PSO and other modern metaheuristic optimization methods reported in the recent literatures.

The study was conducted to examine secondary school teachers’ perception of personnel management functions and their job performance in Ikom Education Zone of Cross River State, Nigeria. The study utilised two objective, research questions and hypotheses and the ex-post facto research design was adopted for the study. The study population comprised all public secondary school teachers in Ikom Education Zone of Cross River State. Data obtained from the Ministry of Education, Calabar which stood at 15, 972 and a sample of 529 teachers were used and the study with stratified random sampling technique a well validated researcher’s developed instrument titled School Teachers’ Perception of Personnel Management Functions and their Job Performance Questionnaire (STPPMFJPQ) was adopted for data collection. The instrument was scrutinized for correction by expert validation the Department of Educational Foundations and Administration, and two from Measurement and Evaluation, all from the Cross River University of Technology, Calabar. The face validity was also determined using the split half reliability method to determine the internal consistency which ranged from .76 to .84 accordingly and the data was analysed using descriptive (mean and standard deviation), and inferential statistical analysis (One-Way Analysis of Variance). The major findings revealed that there is a significant influence of staff recruitment on secondary school teachers’ job performance. Also, staff development programmes do significantly influence secondary school teachers’ job performance. It was recommended among others that the government should endeavor to recruit competent teachers in schools, so as to promote quality and standard in the teaching profession this will further enhanced teachers’ job performance in Ikom Education Zone.

Teaching is a noble concept, and it is highly respected in the society. It is a social process that is basically derived from philosophy despite the fact that Philosophy is always confused with a farfetched idea or a metaphysical conceit, however, it is very simple to understand. There is no denying the fact that it is not every body’s cup of tea. Yet everyone has a specific philosophy that determines his course of action in life. In other words, every human being has a philosophy which he has and tries to live with. Teachers are supposed to do some noble work in order to bring societal change to deal with the modern need of the fast changing time. It will simply not be possible unless they possess some noble thoughts. These ides or thoughts are nothing but their philosophy. Philosophy of life can further be categorized into sub philosophies. Philosophy of teaching is one of them. In educational system, many educational philosophers are taught, and each future teacher or practicing teacher has a liking for a particular philosopher or educationist. In sum, philosophy of teaching determines every activity or action of a teacher starting from objectives, discipline, teaching style, management, curriculum, evaluation etc. Teaching of English is perhaps more important than any other subject because it plays the role of international communication, global business, medium of instruction, examination and language of science-technology and medicine. Therefore, the teachers of English language must have social values and incorporate philosophical considerations while teaching the target learners.

This paper investigates the efficacy of Newmark’s semantic and communicative translation methods in teaching vocabulary to elementary Iranian EFL learners. To do so, based on the true experimental method, a pretest posttest procedure was administered. Analysis of the results in the posttest revealed significant differences between communicative group and semantic group, on the one hand, and between these groups and the control group, on the other hand. The results showed that though both communicative and semantic translation methods enhanced vocabulary development of the learners, communicative translation method seemed to be more effective than the semantic one. That is, communicative group outperformed the other two groups significantly. Hence, it was concluded that the contribution of communicative translation method in teaching vocabulary items to elementary Iranian EFL students led to a higher level of vocabulary improvement. The study can also be helpful in establishment of Persian equivalents in teaching vocabulary in EFL settings.

Cerebral palsy (CP) in children is a seriously disabling disease which is a threat to children's health and causes enormous emotional stress and financial loss to the affected families and the community. This study aimed to explore the association of IL-18 gene polymorphism with cerebral palsy by IL-18 genotyping. This was a case-control study that used DNA from 120 children with cerebral palsy and 120 control children to test polymorphisms in exon-4 and exon-5 of IL-18 gene. A polymorphic site in exon-4of IL-18 gene,A105C, was significantly different in genotype distribution between case group and control group. Compared with type AC+CC individuals, type AA individuals were associated with lower risk for cerebral palsy. There was no significant difference in the possible polymorphic site in exon-5of IL-18 gene, G276A, between the two groups. Presence of polymorphism in IL-18 gene is associated with an increased risk of cerebral palsy.

The levels of crude fat, fatty acids, phospholipids and phytosterols were determined in the unfermented and fermented samples of African locust bean seeds using gas chromatography techniques. Results showed crude fat varied from 16.9-19.5 g/100 g; SFA varied from 45.6 down to 42.1 % of total fatty acids, total unsaturated fatty acids varied from 54.4-57.9 %, PUFA range was 31.8 down to 31.0 % and PUFA/SFA ranged from 0.698-0.735. Both samples had high levels of n-6 fatty acids but low in n-3 fatty acids. In the phospholipids, lecithin was highest in the two samples with values ranging from 95.5-107 mg/100 g (46.1-51.4 %). The phytosterol values in the unfermented seeds ranged from 0.00-138 mg/100 g and in fermented seeds the range was 0.00-144 mg/100 g with sitosterol predominating in both samples. Whilst 100 g unfermented seeds would provide 13.5 g fatty acids, 100 g fermented seeds would provide 15.6 g fatty acids. The correlation coefficient was not significantly different in the fatty acids and phospholipids but significantly different in the phytosterols at r _{= 0.05}.

Meritocracy values undergrid the ideology of democracy and identifies the core belief that a) individuals can succeed on the basis of their autonomous decisions and actions; b) this success is based upon moral virtue; and c) equal opportunity applies to everyone regardless of origin or social identity. Meritocracy is generally held to be a social system within which individuals earn rewards according to their abilities and efforts.