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The Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea has been concluded in the spring of 1982 with the adoption of a convention text. The acceptance of this text (signature and ratification) by the necessary number of states is still highly uncertain. The major disagreements relate to the convention's seabed mining regime, in particular the provisions for production controls and technology transfer. Among the four metals which can be recovered from the seabed - manganese nodules containing manganese, cobalt, copper and nickel - over half of the potential revenues would come from nickel. Conditions in the nickel market will have an impact on investment decisions in seabed mining and the nickel market itself may be significantly affected by nickel output from manganese nodules. The purpose of this paper is to present and estimate an econometric model for the world nickel industry. Furthermore, in order to quantify the impact of alternative seabed mining regimes on the future price of nickel as well as on the output of nickel from current land-based sources, a simulation analysis is provided. Such a simulation model is also helpful in estimating the revenue losses that land-based producers might incur as a result of seabed mining.

AbstractIslamic economics has been counter‐constructed as an alternative to the mainstream development model perceived to be purely focused on the material world. In this context, the development narrative of a leading Islamic bank in Bangladesh is explored, utilising a discourse analytical approach.Despite the fact that the Islami Bank's development programme appears to very similar to mainstream interventions, it seeks to re‐cast development as a holistic process with a vision for society that is both spiritual and material. By virtue of this narrative that conceptualises the objectives of development in a different fashion to the mainstream, complex power dynamics and antagonistic frontiers with other development actors are generated. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The contribution of the Muslim World to relief and development is underestimated. Adapted from the source document.

In this paper, we discuss a fluid problem that has wide applications in biomechanics, polymer industries, and biofluids. We are concerned here with studying the combined effects of porous medium and heat transfer on MHD non-Newtonian Jeffery fluid which flows through a two dimensional asymmetric, inclined tapered channel. Base equations, represented by mass conservation, motion, energy and concentration conservation, were formulated first in a fixed frame and then transformed into a moving frame. By holding the assumptions of "long wavelength and low Reynolds number" these physical equations were simplified into differential equations. Approximate solutions for the velocity profile, stream function, and temperature profile were obtained using homotopy perturbation method. Finally, the graphical expressions and analysis for velocity curve, temperature distribution, heat transfer coefficient, and stream function, via the effects of important parameters that appear in the solution form, were given and examined. These results show a parabolic behavior for velocity distribution curve, the maximum value of which appears in the central part of the channel and reduces toward the lower and upper walls, due the impact of porosity parameter . While a decreasing behavior was observed via the effect of increasing Hartman number )because of the existence of Lorentz force). Furthermore, the plots showed an increased function for Jeffrey fluid parameter on the magnitude of the trapped bolus.

Non-thermal plasmas have become popular as plasma technology has advanced in various fields, including waste management, aerospace technology, and medicinal applications. They can be used to replace combustion fuels in stationary hall motors and need little effort to keep running for longer periods of time. To improve overall system performance, non-reactive gases such as )Xe, Ar, and Kr) are utilized in pure or mixed form to generate plasma. Since DC glow discharge is a fundamental topic of importance, these gases have been researched. The paper concentrates on 2-D modeling and simulation. DC glow-discharge tubes are utilized with argon gas to create plasma and learn about its properties. The magnitude of the electron density, increases with rising pressure, whilst the rest of the parameters gradually decrease with increasing pressure

The digital world has been witnessing a fast progress in technology, which led to an enormous increase in using digital devices, such as cell phones, laptops, and digital cameras. Thus, photographs and videos function as the primary sources of legal proof in courtrooms concerning any incident or crime. It has become important to prove the trustworthiness of digital multimedia. Inter-frame video forgery one of common types of video manipulation performed in temporal domain. It deals with inter-frame video forgery detection that involves frame deletion, insertion, duplication, and shuffling. Deep Learning (DL) techniques have been proven effective in analysis and processing of visual media. Dealing with video data needs to handle the third dimension (the time dimension), which means extracting temporal features as well as spatial features. The proposed model is built based on the Three Dimension Convolution Neural Network (3D-CNN). Through pre-processing operation that introduced difference frames that pick up the difference in successive adjacent frames, which provide a large quantity of temporal information and lead to enhance the effectiveness of the proposed model. The model achieves high accuracy of 99%.

In this present paper, an experimental study of some plasma characteristics in dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) system using several variables, such as different frequencies and using two different electrodes metals(aluminium (Al) and copper (Cu)), is represented. The discharge plasma was produced by an AC power supply source of 6 and 7 kHz frequencies for the nitrogen gas spectrum and for two different electrodes metals(Al and Cu). Optical emission spectrometer was used to study plasma properties (such as electron temperature ( ), electron number density ( ), Debye length ( ), and plasma frequency ( )). In addition, images were analysed for the plasma emission intensity at atmospheric air pressure.

This study was conducted to use the local Ephedra alata plant as a model for extracting and detecting alkaloids in the stem of plant (alkaloids-rich extract and crude extract). Different extraction procedures were adopted for qualitative as well as the quantitative examination of the alkaloid extracts, as well as plant crude extract, the best methods for the extraction of the plant materials were applied. Simple, fast and accurate methods like TLC (thin layer chromatography) and HPLC (High-performance liquid chromatography), were used for the identification of the alkaloids (ephedrine) in different extracts of stems E. alata stems. Ephedrine alkaloid was detected in each alkaloids-rich and crude extracts of E. alata stems with 8 and 5 ppm concentrations respectively.
The assessment of plant stems extract was carried out as these extracts have effects on human breast cancer cell lines (MDA-MB-231) and normal human lymphocytes (HLs). The study showed that there was no risk in using Ephedra in medicines as it has low cytotoxicity on HLs, while on MDA-MB-231 cell lines the percentage of cell death was 50.11% at a concentration 75mg/ml for crude extract after the 72-hours incubation period and the concentration of 15 mg/ml during the 24-hours incubation period had 50.63% inhibition rate.
The study showed that E. alata, an important medicinal plant, has alkaloids-rich extracts that have low cytotoxic effects on cultured HLs, particularly when used at a concentration of 5 mg/ml considering its use at low concentrations, the local Ephedra alata plant has promising effects on cancerous lines.

The liberalisation of the education industry has exposed the institute of higher learning (IHL) in Malaysia to the financial challenges. Without good financial standing, public institution will rely on the government funding. Ostensibly, this contradicts with the government's aspiration to make universities self-sufficient. With stiff competition from private institutes of higher learning, IHL need to be prepared at the forefront level. The corporate identity itself is the entrance to the world of higher learning and it is in this uniqueness, it will be able to distinguish itself from competitors. This paper examined the perception of the stakeholders at one of the public universities in the east coast region in Malaysia on the perceived reputation and how the university communicate its preparedness for self-sustainability through corporate identity. The findings indicated while the stakeholders embraced the challenges in facing the stiff competition and struggling market conditions, most of them felt the university should put more efforts in mobilising the corporate identity to its constituencies.

The objectives of this study were to (a) determine the number of water buffaloes/buffalypso (WB) in Trinidad, (b) to identify the constraints via an open ended questionnaire, to WB production faced by private farmers and c) to update on the present status of brucellosis in the country. The survey was conducted in 2012 to determine the number of Water Buffalo (WB) at seventeen (17) privately owned farms and three (3) Government farms in Trinidad; and to identify the constraints to WB production on the former. The number of WB recorded from the locations surveyed was 1513, comprising 1039 from government owned farms and 474 from 17 privately owned farms. The 17 privately owned WB farmers were interviewed via a questionnaire and responses tallied to determine the challenges to WB production. Animal numbers of WB ranged from 4-150 on private farms. The purpose for which the animals were reared was for milk production (6%, 1/17), meat production (48%, 8/17), work (29%, 5/17) and pets (19%, 3/17). The major concerns faced by private farmers were a shortage of labour, pasture availability and a lack of extension services. Farmers were interested in expanding their herd size and forming an association to address their concerns. The number of WB in Trinidad appears to have declined in 2012 compared to 2004. The major factor responsible for the decline was a Brucellosis test and cull policy implemented by the Government. New and innovative strategies including reproductive bio techniques are needed to preserve the genetic legacy of the Buffalypso, as the WB can significantly contribute to sustainable food production in Trinidad.