Archives-November 2014

Quality Assessment System in Construction (QLASSIC) was promoted by Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) in late 2006. Apparently its main aim is to assess objectively the level of quality of the building construction work. Essentially the program comprised of two main components which are the assessment standard known as Construction Industry Standard (CIS) 7:2006 and the operation of the QLASSIC assessment. After more than five years of its existence, inevitably there are several issues prevailed that need to be addressed. Having said that leads to the primary objective of having this study is to explore the potential areas of improvement in QLASSIC. The respondents for this research were the construction personnel that have fair knowledge on CIS 7: 2006 and considerable years of experience in QLASSIC assessments. The data were collected through five focus group workshops consisted representative from the key stakeholders in QLASSIC assessments namely developer, consultant, contractor, Housing Tribunal and QLASSIC assessor. Altogether 66 respondents have participated in the workshops. This study had utilized questionnaire form as the research instrument. The data collected were analyzed using SPSS version 17. Generally this study was able to identify potential areas of improvement in CIS 7: 2006 as well as the operational of QLASSIC assessment. The output of this research is expected to provide the preliminary indications as areas that need to review and improve in an effort to improvise the implementation of QLASSIC by CIDB.

Thambraparani River empties in Arabian Sea at Punnakayal area and forms the Punnakayal estuary and it is situated in Tuticorin, South east coast of India. Mangroves are abundant in this area especially Avicennia sp. Diversity of marine fungi colonizing the drift wood samples collected from the intertidal regions at different season of the Punnakayal mangrove environment was studied. They are categorized into rare (0-25% frequency), occasional (26-50% frequency), frequent (51-75% frequency) and common (76-100% frequency) species. A total number of 62 species of fungi under 33 genera were recorded from the drift wood samples. They were assigned to Deuteromycetes (46 species), Ascomycetes (14 species), Trichomycetes (1 species) and Basidiomycetes (1 species).

The mastoid region is favourable for sex determination, as it is the most protected region and resistant to damage due to its anatomical position at the base of the skull. The skull is traditionally considered to be the best skeletal indicator of ancestry and the second best indicator of sex next to the pelvis. The objective of this study is to verify the efficacy of a new method for determination of sex of fragmentary human skeletal remains in the native state of U.P., India. Knowledge of sex estimation through mastoid process is important for Anatomist, physical and forensic anthropologists.

India is one of the fastest growing pharmaceutical markets in the world and has established itself as a key global hub for research & development, manufacturing of raw materials, excipients, intermediates, finished dosage formulations, packaging materials, and clinical trials for both synthetic and biological drugs. This review paper discusses on how Hyderabad which was known as a bulk drug capital transformed in to an emerging pharma global pharma hub. Business friendly government policies, visionary entrepreneurs and a large pool of knowledge base specialized to support industry has transformed Hyderabad a place for many SME’s, Indian & Foreign Multinational Pharma companies.

The knowledge of the structure of the boundary layer gives an idea to understand the capabilities of the atmosphere to dispose of pollutants. Finite difference technique with non-uniform grid is used to investigate the effect of various flow parameters on skin friction , heat transfer and other characteristics of two phase thermal boundary layer flow on a flat plate. Heat is diffused away from the heated surface for smaller values of Prandtl number Pr more rapidly than that of higher values of Pr. The particle density on the plate goes on increasing and attains a finite value of 3.5 at a far down stream station. The presence of coarser particles with high material density have an effect of increase in magnitude of particle velocity and particle phase density whereas to reduce the particle temperature. The increase in Prandtl number Pr is to increase the magnitude of carrier fluid velocity, particle velocity, particle phase density, coefficient of skin friction and Nusselt number where as to decrease the displacement thickness.

Maritime industry provide the basis for the growth and development of marine-related activities such as: ocean and coastal shipping, port services, offshore oil and gas, inshore and offshore fisheries, marine culture, renewal energy (current, wave, wind), naval defence and other marine related activities that need competence human capital enrolment to manage, explore and exploit this resources in a sustainable manner. Maritime education provides competence, highly skill and professional worker mainly in the shipping and port sector. Even though the maritime industry is dynamically changing their environment (Facilities, technology and system), the present maritime educations are of traditional manner with limited capacity of maritime facilities such as ports and ships. Until now, not much on training work has been done at rationalising the number and optimizing the facilities in the maritime education due to the escalating of the cost to maintain these facilities. Therefore the aims of this paper are to determine the rationale to develop an offshore integrated teaching port as a new approach for the maritime education system. The system via simulation approach is a tool for teaching maritime students how to be a professional and ready to work on a real ship or port environment. This approach will offer alternatives to an audience or maritime students hungry for fresh thinking in the maritime studies with a fresh training angle. In this paper we will mimicry as closely as possible on real port environment, duplicating everything in the real port operation towards an innovative approach in the Maritime Education and to determine the rationale of designing offshore Teaching Port.

India has the highest number of road accident casualties in the world. Out of 0.5 million accidents occurring every year around 0.2 million people lose their precious life. Most of the people die because of lack of proper first aid and immediate back up services. The information about the accident does not reach to ambulance service very soon after occurrence of the accident. To overcome this problem Accident Recovery System is simulated where a sensor is installed in the car which detects an accident and sends a message to the Administrator. Admin can immediately request for backup service and also alert the cars behind the accident location. Various sensors combined together gives us more faster and reliable detection of accidents on highways through autonomous units on the edge of the road (Road Support Units).The sensors in the car tend to detect any accident that has occurred to the car and send a message to the administrator with the help of Road Support Units which helps a car to be connected in the network. The simulation of the model is done with the help of NetLogo.

Onion is the second most cultivated vegetable crop and a dietary source of vitamins and flavonoids. Historically, the specie has undergone biotechnological manipulations for crop improvements due to its high amenability to cell and tissue culture. This review begins with a historical viewpoint on onion improvement using biotechnology encompassing ploidy manipulation and applications of cell and tissue culture. The past developments and new approaches for gene transfer to onion are described in this review. Genetic transformation is highly effective for adding single genes to existing elite onion clones with no, or minimal disruptions to their genetic background and represents the only effective way to produce isogenic lines of specific cultivars. This is nearly impossible via traditional breeding due to the high heterozygosity in the diploid onion genome, the genetic integrity of onion clones is lost upon sexual reproduction as a result of viable gene segregation. These genetic attributes have also provided challenges for the development of genetic maps and applications of molecular markers and genomics in onion breeding. Molecular approaches represented by a combination of different omic technologies including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics are described as well as future prospects. The resultant effects of these will facilitate the introduction of elite genes that could provide resistance to pests and diseases, and lead to generation of high quality traits.

The importance of oil seeds cannot be overemphasised, being a large store of energy in the form of fatty acids deposited in their tissues. This work was aimed at determining the physic-chemical properties and the lipid composition of Sesanum indicum. The sesame seeds analysed have acid and saponification values of 0.53 and 185.9 mg KOH / g of oil respectively and an iodine value of 105.12 g of I2 / 100g of oil. Percentage free fatty acids of 2.52, and kinetic viscosity at 40ºC of 4.8 were also obtained. In addition, trace amounts of trace amounts of butyric, caprioc, caprylic, capric, lauric and myristic acids which are short chain fatty acids were detected. Little amounts of myristic, palmitolic, linolenic, arachidolic and behenic acids of 0.13, 0.18, 1.01, 0.26 and 0.48% respectively were also detected. High amounts of palmitic and stearic acids of 11.49 and 8.124% respectively were obtained with significantly high amount of oleic and linoleic acids of 40.20 and 38.0% respectively. In contrast, trace amounts of longer chain fatty acids including erucic and lignoceric acids were detected. The result obtained also revealed high amount of saturated fatty acids of 32.06%, however the degree of unsaturation of the oil was greater. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated oils constituted 25.82 and 42.14% of the total fats respectively. The ratio of oleic to linolenic and omega 6 to 3 were 0.67 and 37.7 respectively. The above results imply that the Sesanum indicum is a valuable source of essential fatty acids.

The persistent roofing problems of the leaking roof, collapse and the ripping off roofing system and the plight of the affected majority in the past few years throughout the country has prompted an undertaking a roof design verification survey of the affected roofing system in the rural areas of the following state Osun State, Ondo State, Sokoto State, Rivers State and Yobe State. The aim of which was to find out the main causes of the roofing problems affecting rural housing stock and National economy as a whole. The studies revealed that environmental degradation, bad roof construction practice, poor roof design and supervision, lack of maintenance, poor social economic situation and ignorance are the main causes of roofing problems. The total homelessness effect from annual roof problems has been enormous and from environmental considerations logs of wood are wasted on the reinstatement of roofs. Bad roof construction practices were identified during the survey and their corresponding recommended procedures have also been indicated to help improve the situation.