Archives-December 

This study was carried out on the acute toxicity and anti-diabetic effect of the extracts of Phyllanthus amarus on blood glucose concentration (BGC) of normal and alloxan-induced diabetic rats. The study was done in the extracts alone and in combination of the extracts with glibenclamide drug. The acute toxicity test of the plant extracts gave a lethal dose of 3400mg/kg in mice. The anti-diabetic effect of the plant extracts was dose-dependent. Ethanolic extract alone (300mg/kg and 600mg/kg) caused a reduction in BGC of 18% and 23-5% (p<0.05) respectively in non-diabetic rats. Aqueous extract (300mg/kg) gave 23.6% and (600mg/kg) 25.8% (p<0.02). Glibenclamide alone gave 37.5% reduction (p<0.01). The simultaneous administration of the plant extracts 300mg/kg with 5mg/kg glibenclamide gave 34.4% reduction (ethanolic) and 36.5% (aqueous), 600mg/kg extracts caused reduction of 37.6% and 38.4% ethanolic and aqueous respectively on non-diabetic rats (p< 0.01).The percentage reductions in BGC in alloxan induced diabetic rats were 15.8% and 27.7% (p<0.01) for 300mg/kg ethanolic and aqueous extracts alone respectively. The extracts alone 600mg/kg gave 26.7% (p<0.05) ethanolic and 29.9% (p<0.01) aqueous. The extracts 300mg/kg in combination with 5mg/kg glibenclamide gave a percentage reduction of 35.5% (p<0.01) ethanolic, 37.4% (p<0.001) aqueous while 600mg/kg gave 39.2% and 58.1% reduction for ethanolic and aqueous extracts respectively (p<0.001). Glibenclamide administered alone on diabetic rats gave 43.8% reduction (p< 0.01). However, the higher percentage reduction were obtained with the dose of 600mg/kg, also aqueous extract in combination with 5mg/kg glibenclamide gave higher percentage reduction in BGC in alloxan induced diabetic rat.

The OFDM based architectures severely suffers with the Impairments like IQ imbalance and Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO). These impairments lead to Inter Carrier Interference (ICI). It causes reduction in the performance of the systems in terms of Bit Error Rate (BER). In this paper we propose an adaptive equalizer to compensate for these impairments caused at Tx and Rx while considering Inter Block Interference (IBI) due to mismatch between Cyclic Prefix (CP) and Channel Impulse Response. If the cyclic prefix is sufficient an LMS based adaption with 2 tap is proposed which converges easily. In case of lesser length of CP a Frequency domain Per Tone Equalizer (PTEQ) is proposed which uses separate T-taps for each tone unlike Time domain Equalizer (TEQ) which equalizes all tones jointly and limits the system performance. This proposed equalizer thus increases the delay of channel response and hence reduces the IBI. The frequency domain equalizer after FFT will perform well and the simulation results shows that both the equalizers BER values are very near to the curves for ideal case.

Today’s young generation are considered to be the centre and the basis for future generations because of several reasons. Jean McDougall and David Chantrey (2004) are of the opinion that this generation between the ages of 8 and 14 years are the controlling entities of the future. From business point of view this segment of market is considered to be the most profitable segment because they have ample of money to spend on. They are growing fast; know their own minds and growing with distinctive attitude. For these individuals older values no longer hold true and they are greatly influenced by urbanization, 24/7 and the new online media. Most of their decisions are not based on logic but are influenced by the social environment in which they exist. They are keener on clothes, image, tastes, sports, technology and electronic gadgets. Gifts, leisure goods and mobile phones are quite essential for keeping them connected with their friends. They have obsession towards advanced gadgets and they even can’t think of their life without cell-phones in their pockets, laptop bags on their shoulders and their day doesn’t start without chatting on ‘facebook’ or ‘orkut’. Although advance technologies are quite essential in this fast moving era but addiction to such gadgets can cause health hazards as well as social imbalances.

This study examines the extensive strategic analysis of AirAsia Berhad that has enabled it to sustain its competitive advantage as Asia’s leading low cost carrier (LCC). The study demonstrates the diverse business-level, corporate level and competitive strategies of AirAsia Berhad, played crucial roles in the LCC to successfully penetrate the under-served market segment of the airline industry within the ASEAN region. An in-depth analysis using a wide array of academic resources, relevant financial, legal and management resources and authorized websites, including face-to-face interviews were used to provide a more consequential comprehension on the varied business and international strategies that were implemented by AirAsia Berhad. This research exhibits critical analysis pertaining to the current macro environment of the aviation industry which includes the PESTEL framework and Porter’s Industry Analysis. The competitive environment analysis for AirAsia Berhad is thoroughly scrutinised to examine the driving determinants that attributed to the organisation’s competitive advantage in the industry. Further analysis using the Ansoff Matrix, lends evidence to the successful growth of the organization. Additionally, the international strategies that were implemented exhibit the foresight of the airline. The study concludes by adopting the balance scorecard framework to evaluate the organization from four pertinent perspectives of an organization which includes financial performance, customer knowledge, internal business process and learning and growth.

This study discusses skills of workers, especially educational attainment and technical and vocational training capacity and its relationship with wages in district Faisalabad. The analysis highlights the need to promote technical and vocational skills and education of labour force through greater investment on training programs so that male and female productivity could be increased. Education and vocational training of female needs to be increased in order to increase labour force participation rate of women in the district. Furthermore, education reforms especially in technical and vocational education are necessary which needs to be closely linked to the requirements of the domestic industry, service and agriculture sector in the district.

An estimation of volumetric efficiency in large sample neutron activation analysis through the application of an empirical expression for the full energy peak efficiency was done. The gamma-ray self-attenuation correction factor and the geometric correction factor based on which the volumetric efficiency is finally estimated were experimentally and theoretically determined respectively. Within the limits of mass range of the sample investigated, there was no significant difference between the photo-peak efficiency and the volumetric efficiency. The result of the study therefore establishes that the mass (volume) of the test portions does not have significant effect on the efficiency of elemental detection when geometrical correction is considered.

The quality of weld is depicted by weld bead geometry. In submerged arc welding (SAW) bead geometry closely related to the process parameters namely welding current, open circuit voltage, welding speed and nozzle to plate distance. So it is necessary to develop the mathematical models for bead geometry in automatic SAW machine. In the present work mathematical models are developed for bead width and bead hardness by making bead on plate (12 mm thick ASTM SA 516 Grade 60). Experiments were conducted according to the two level half factorial technique and analysis of direct and interactive effect of parameters on responses are presented with the help of Design expert software. Results were clearly illustrated that bead width increases with welding current and voltage, but decreases with welding speed and nozzle to plate distance. Bead hardness increases with Welding current, welding speed and nozzle to plate distance, but decreases with voltage.

Data mining is the process of extracting previously unknown patterns from large amount of data. Association rule mining is one of very important data mining models. Swarm intelligence is a new subfield of artificial intelligence which studies the collective behavior of groups of simple agents. In this paper, a new efficient algorithm is proposed for exploring high-quality association rules by firefly algorithm. The proposed method mines interesting and understandable association rules without relying upon the minimum support and the minimum confidence thresholds in only single run. Experimental evaluation shows the efficiency of proposed algorithm in terms of computation time.

The Availability-Redundancy Allocation Problem (ARAP) is a kind of reliability optimization problems. It involves the selection of components with appropriate levels of redundancy or reliability/availability for maximizing the system availability under some predefined constraints. Identical redundant elements are included in order to achieve a desirable level of availability. Classical mathematical methods fail in handling non-convexities and non-smoothness in optimization problems. This drawback has been removed through meta-heuristics due to their ability of finding an almost global optimal solution in reliability–redundancy optimization problems. Artificial bee colony (ABC) is one of such meta-heuristic algorithm. This paper aims to present an ABC algorithm to search the optimal solution of ARAP with nonlinear resource constraints of a parallel-series system. A washing unit of a paper mill has been taken to illustrate the approach. The experimental results demonstrate that the evolutionary approach can provide more promising solutions in comparison with the widely used single-objective approaches by classical method on parallel-series systems which are frequently studied in the field of reliability optimization.

This article reviews the benefits of a collaborative school culture, including reduced teacher isolation, social and emotional support, opportunities for professional development and learning, and closer ties with significant stakeholders, such as families and community organizations. While collaborative cultures may be powerful, they also may be either misguided or superficial. Further, cultural change is difficult and norms such as teacher isolation and autonomy are well entrenched. These concerns point to the need for a change process that has a positive focus, is essentially self-organizing, encourages deep reflection, and avoids the pitfalls of manipulation by school administrators. This analysis points to consideration of appreciative inquiry, a strengths-based process that builds on ‘the best of what is’ in an organization. The second portion of the article reports on the impact that an appreciative inquiry process had on building a collaborative culture in 22 schools located in British Columbia, Canada and reflects on its strengths and limitations.