Archives-December  

Algerian oil as a new source of carbon is used to prepare the carbon nanospheres (CNSs) by pyrolysis method. A mixture of crude oil and FeCl3.6H2O solution as catalyst was injected into the reaction furnace to produce CNSs in an inert atmosphere, followed by multi step purification to remove different impurities. The carbon nanospheres have been characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-rays spectroscopy (EDAX), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy and FTIRspectrum. The SEM image reveals that these CNSs have smooth surfaces and uniform particles with a diameter lower than 500 nm. the XRD and Raman studies shows that the graphitization degree of CNSs is not high , while the EDAX analysis shows that more than 98 % of the CNSs is carbon, FTIR proved the presence of new functions after samples treatment such as acid function. This study reports the optimization of various process parameters such as, temperature of reaction (860-940°C), process Time (90-150min)and mass ratio catalyst/Crude oil (0.83 10-3-2.4810-3 g/g) for increasing the Yield of CNSs. A MODDE 6.0 experimental design was employed for the optimization of synthesis of crude oil to ensure high production of carbon nanospheres in a low catalyst concentration and high temperature for a short length of time. The analysis of variance showed a high coefficient of determination value (R2 = 0.965) and Maximum CNSs production was predicted and experimentally validated, the optimized process conditions were identified to be reaction temperature of 900°C, duration synthesis of 113min and mass ratio catalyst /crude oil of 0.8 10-3 g/g with a yield of 13.23 %.

The Indian Financial System, in the last two decades, has seen a phenomenal expansion in the geographical coverage and financial spread. The spread of the banking system has been a major factor in promoting financial intermediation in the economy and in the growth of financial savings. With progressive liberalization of economic policies, there has been a rapid growth of capital market, money market and financial services industry including merchant banking, leasing and venture capital. Consistent with this evolution of the financial sector, the mutual fund industry has also come to occupy an important place. The Indian mutual fund industry has grown at an impressive rate in the last few years, the recent developments of the past few months triggered by the global financial crisis have impacted the fortunes of the Industry resulting in AUM decline, adversely impacting the revenue and profitability. Our research has attempted to identify and highlight some of the key issues and challenges being faced by the industry participants that are preventing the industry from harnessing its true growth potential.

This study was carried out to evaluate the changes in nutritional quality of corn offal (CO) fermented with Penicillium notatum and Penicillium citrinum using in vitro gas production technique. After the fungal biodegradation of CO in a solid state fermentation, the chemical composition and in vitro digestibility of the undegraded and the degraded CO were determined. It was observed that there were significant (P<0.05) differences in the crude fibre values. The crude fibre (CF) significantly (P>0.05) decreased. It decreased from 8.02g/100gDM for the control (UC) to 5.41g/100gDM for Penicillium notatum degraded corn offal (PNC) and 6.22g/100gDM for Penicillium citrinum degraded corn offal (PCC). The results also showed significant (P<0.05) differences in the values for detergent fibres. There was a significant (P<0.05) increase in the crude protein (CP) contents from 10.69g/100gDM for the control (UCO) to 16.69g/100gDM for PCC and 14.41g/100gDM for PNC. The value of organic matter digestibility (OMD) was from 28.46 to 62.28%, metabolizable energy (ME) improved from 4.59 to 10.18MJ/kg DM and short chain fatty acid (SCFA) values ranged from 0.03 to 0.85µM. There were significant (P<0.05) differences in the values obtained for potentially degradable fractions (b) ML. Rate of degradation of b, that is, C, was faster in the degraded CO compared with the undegraded CO. The obtained results revealed the possibility of using fungal treatment for the improvement of nutritional quality of corn offal for ruminant nutrition.

Inherent dominating Coulombic interaction of the man-made 1-D carbon nanotubes is influenced by the biotic nanomaterial namely Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) that staunchly binds to the SWNTs surface and thus modifies the electronic structure of Single Wall Carbon Nanotube (SWNTs), as noticed by the optical process of Photoluminescence (PL) using Spectrofluorophotometer. This modification finds several applications in various disciplines & one of its applications of DNA sequence detection in field of biotechnology is observed in present work.

Swine flu (swine influenza) is a respiratory disease caused by viruses (influenza viruses) that infect the respiratory tract of pigs and result in nasal secretions. Swine flu produces most of the same symptoms in pigs as human flu produces in people. The 2009 swine flu strain, first seen in Mexico, is termed novel H1N1 flu since it is mainly found infecting people and exhibits two main surface antigens, H1 (hemagglutinin type 1) and N1 (neuraminidase type1).This study deals with the structure prediction and computer aided drug interaction studies for the neuraminidase protein from H1N1 virus. Selection of neuraminidase was done since its function is to move the virus out of host cell and hence spread more disease. Targeting this protein with potential drug compounds will stop further spread. Accelrys Discovery studio 2.5 was the software employed in this work. Target sequence selection was done from PIR database and homology modeling was carried out using in-build modeler in DS. Quality of the model has been analyzed and binding sites were predicted. Drugs suitable for swine flu were retrieved from drug bank and through a 3D database search in DS, different conformations has been developed. Molecular docking was performed using Ligandfit in DS. Selection of best drug was done based on highest dock score which was further studied for ADMET (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Elimination and Toxicity) properties. TOPKAT predictions, which give results for carcinogenicity, ocular irritation, skin irritation was also carried out. The results of this study can be useful further for QSAR studies and various in-vitro analysis later.

Prolonging lifetime of WSN is a critical issues today. For overcoming this issue a good WSN design needed to be energy efficient. Routing is one of the reasons for reducing the lifetime of WSN. By using energy aware routing algorithm we can maximize the life of the network. In this paper we have used load balancing ACO algorithm with TARF to overcome energy problem in WSN. This algorithm help in providing shortest path reduce energy and time consumption and provide security against attacks.

In this study, the deformation behavior of 93Tungsten alloy under the hydrostatic extrusion has been investigated. The hydrostatic extrusion process of 93 Tungsten alloy has been analyzed by means of finite element method (FEM). The numerical results were highly corresponded to the experimental ones. Also the effect of die angle on the extrusion pressure and applied damages to the 93 Tungsten alloy during the process of hydrostatic extrusion has been investigated according to the Cockcroft & Latham damage criterion. As was deduced from results, when the die angle has been considered as 30°, the applied damages to the material during the process were negligible in comparison with higher values of die angle.

The vibrational spectral analysis was carried out by using Raman and infrared spectroscopy in the range 4000–400 cm?1 and 4000–100 cm?1 respectively, for 2-amino-5-nitropyrimidine (2A5NP) molecule. The molecular structure, fundamental vibrational frequencies and intensity of the vibrational bands are interpreted with the aid of structure optimizations and normal coordinate force field calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) method and different basis sets combination. The complete vibrational assignments of wavenumbers were made on the basis of potential energy distribution (PED). The scaled B3LYP/6-311++G results show the best agreement with the experimental values over the other methods. The calculated HOMO and LUMO energies shows that charge transfer within the molecule. The results of the calculations were applied to simulate spectra of the title compound, which show excellent agreement with observed spectra. Electronic excitation energies, oscillator strength and nature of the respective excited states were calculated by the closed-shell singlet calculation method were also calculated for the molecule.

The study investigates the significant determinants of stock returns of all non-financial listed companies in Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE), Pakistan from 1998-2011 by using panel data techniques. In addition, this study further categorized into Syariah and Non-Syariah compliant firms to examine the significant differences of stock determinants. All listed stocks in Karachi Meezan Index (KMI) are entitled as Syariah complaint firms, rest of the firms listed in KSE all index are identified as non-Syariah complaint firms. As Syariah complaint firms don’t use any unethical means to cater its stock prices, so, it was hypothesized that Syariah stocks follow the fundamental of the companies. Size, book to market, leverage, dividend yield, earning to price, cash flow to price and discretionary accrual represents the fundamentals while market premium, stock price volatility and trading volume indicates the stock market variables. Fixed effect model and Random effect model is applied for statistical estimations. Hausman test is further used to find the most significant model. Modified wald test find the heteroskedasticity, final results were robust to counter the heteroskedasticity issue. The results of all non-financial listed firms confirmed the significant positive market premium, size, stock price volatility and trading volume whereas significant negative book to market ratio. Market premium, leverage and stock price volatility are the only significant determinants of Syariah complaint firms. Insignificance of BM and TV confirms that Syariah stocks follow the fundamentals instead of noise trading. In a nutshell, Syariah complaint firms respond to fundamentals although non-Syariah complaint firms follow noise trading in Pakistani context.

Education in general and language education in particular usually poses great problems to those who don’t have a favourable academic environment. The case of ESL/EFL/ESOL is always a challenging task. English in most Arabic speaking countris serves a very limited purpose. Yet, it is very important for social as well as technological development. Therefore, English language teaching (ELT) in such countries also catches attention of many researchers. ELT generally starts at the school level. Despite good overall planning, purposive curriculum, integrated textbooks, qualified teachers, the achievement is below the expectations. Therefore, diagnostic studies should better be undertaken in different language areas: sound system, vocabulary, meaning, grammar and various skills so that the teacher may know the types of the problems and the corresponding factors. Such attempts are expected to be helpful in possible evolution of some fruitful and compatible strategies in order to yield the maximum academic output.