No abstract

The results suggest that with regard to the risk of chronic undernutrition, the negative effect of high-risk fertility behavior extends across all economic backgrounds and is not limited to children of mothers who were either poor or who experienced high-risk fertility.

Due to its non-toxicity and environmentally friendly nature, carbohydrate-based fatty acid (CFA) esters are encouragingly used as antimicrobials and synthetic intermediates. They also are notably applied in food, surfactant, and pharmaceutical industries. In this respect, methyl 2,6-di-O-isopentanoyl-α-D-glucopyranoside (2), synthesized in a single step from methyl α-D-glucopyranoside (1), was converted into four other 3,4-di-O-acyl esters (3 – 6). All the newly synthesized CFA esters (2 – 6) were applied for the first time to study decay resistances of aspen (Populus tremula) and pine (Pinus sibirica) wood from decay caused by white-rot (Polyporous versicolor L.ex. Fr.) and brown-rot (Postia placenta (Fr). Cke.) fungi. Most of these CFA esters protected these woods from fungal attack, reduced deterioration, and preserved the weight percentage of woods at a certain point. It is noted that the CFA esters compounds reduced the deterioration and suppressed the weight percentage loss of wood at a certain point and from low to moderate decay resistances against the selected fungi.

The nanocarbon-based mixture was shown to be an effective adsorbent for removing dyes and heavy metals from wastewater via adsorption. The goal of this research was to prepare and investigate the properties of a bio-carbon mixture made from Dabai (Canarium odontophyllum) nutshell with the addition of titanium dioxide (TiO2) and montmorillonite (MMT) clay. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was used to determine the functional groups of raw carbon and potassium hydroxide (KOH)-activated carbon (AC). The FTIR analysis of the active carbon revealed that the active carbon had more surface chemistry than the non-AC. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis was used to compare the raw and AC morphologies and the developed nanocarbon. The results were confirmed using energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis to verify the elements in the studied sample. The SEM analysis revealed that the structure of both the carbon samples was irregular, granular, and porous. BET analysis showed that nano-activated carbon had higher surface area compared to activated carbon itself. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used in Design-Expert 13.0 software for the sample composition development to achieve the best performance of the developed nanocarbon as an adsorbent.

Generalised extreme value (GEV) distribution is traditionally applied to model extreme event and their return period. There are three parameters (location, scale and shape) in GEV distribution, which needs to be determined before its application. Different techniques have been developed to estimate the parameters of the GEV distribution. There is no specific guidance regarding the optimal method for estimating the parameters of the GEV distribution. This paper investigated the sensitivity of different parameters estimation techniques which are being commonly used in the application of the GEV distribution. Stationary GEV was adopted for the homogeneous data sets; whereas, non-stationarity GEV was implemented for the nonhomogeneous data sets. Four methods were applied in the estimation of the GEV distribution parameters for four different timescales. The methods were applied in extreme rainfall modelling using extreme rainfall data in Tasmania, Australia as a case study. It was found that adoption of any GEV parameter estimation methods does not change the GEV type in Tasmanian extreme rainfall. The length of the data series has significant influence on the values of the GEV distribution parameters. The Fréchet type GEV distribution is suitable in most of the analysed rainfall stations in Tasmania.