Research proposal pdf

There has been some research on traditional herbs and plants based in the schools; but the three main questions have still to be answered by field research. The subject of whether traditional medical practitioners should be incorporated into the health service was put forward for debate in the Provincial Government in The motion was approved, but not debated.

There is little doubt that more research into traditional medicine would assist any policy decision in the matter. And it is here that the anthropologist has a role. About two-thirds of the world rely on traditional medicine. Only a few countries have taken legislative action to promote traditional medicine. These include India and Sri Lanka. While China has a comprehensive support for the system sic. The colonial legacy left Papua New Guinea close to the French model: Western medicine along, until recently, has had official sanction.

But this is now changing. The National Health Plan has sought the collaboration of the scientific and traditional healing systems. Knowledge concerning the use of traditional plant medicines is being lost Stopp ; Holdsworth ; Wesche It has been professionally ignored so that it remains incomprehensible.

Charles Leslie has observed that the education of Western health professionals makes for an occupational perspective that distorts their comprehension of other systems. This problem can never be underestimated and is applicable to the training of health professionals in PNG as elsewhere.

And Ruta Siniva Sinclair underlines the important changes in perspective which anthropologists have adopted when they have approached the analysis and description of traditional medicine in PNG over the last forty years.

And these traps and pitfalls must be relevant to the study of belief and practice in Milne Bay. Research problems relating to traditional medicine are as thorny as any in anthropological research.

But some of the key questions are, on the surface anyway, quite straight forward. For example, for what illnesses do people always resort to traditional practitioners; and what is the scientific effectiveness of particular traditional herbs? While there is much anecdotal support for the therapeutic success of herbal medicine, there is still little hard evidence of its efficacy Aitken ; Wesche Cecil Hellman provides useful Clinical Questionnaires as a research guideline In brief, along with surveys, questionnaires, and participant observation, I propose to document the lives of traditional medical practitioners.

This will be done by extensive interviews. After initial fieldwork in Sewa Bay, which will last months, I propose to document the knowledge of traditional medical practitioners elsewhere in Milne Bay so that I will be able to make a comparative study. With local research assistants acting as interpreters, I want to work in at least four places with contrasting flora but time will be a determining factor here.

The study of traditional medicine will benefit the people by helping to secure and record the cultural heritage.

I see my research as essentially collaborative. And, I trust my work will add to a small, but significant number of studies of Papua New Guinea traditional medicine e. Lewis, Frankel, Mayer. The Subproblems 1. Why an interest group approach to politics can be applied to the study of socialist and Chinese politics?

How Chine elite interest groups could be identified? What factors gave rise to the formation of Chine elite interest groups and how did they recruit members? What were the respective interests of the identified groups? In terms of power politics, i. How did the interest groups act to defend or advance their interests, that is, what were the modes of interaction between interest groups and decision- makers and with what success?

Hypotheses 1. Although in communist political system, decision-making in its final stage still remains in the hands of a relatively small group of leaders at the highest level of the party hierarchy, there has been participation of political interest groups in the crucial preliminary stages of policy deliberation and in the subsequent phase of implementation.

In other words, communist political system is a kind of imperfect monism in which, of the many elements entailed, the topmost leaders are more powerful than all others but are not omnipotent. Chinese policy-making process may thus be regarded as one in which interaction among participants at different levels of the political structure generates a conflict of dominant tendencies of articulation, through which alternate lines of policy are identified, authoritatively decided, and implemented with regard to specific values.

Fluctuations in value allocations or in the policy line may be seen as shifts in the relative influence of conflicting tendencies in response to changing domestic and external circumstances. Group processes take place in Chinese politics in way of loose and informal coalitions of elites and intermediate actors.

Interest groups in communist systems should not be mistaken for their counterparts in the Western societies. They do not stem from organised interest among the people at large. They are rather subsystems within an almost ubiquitous governmental administration. They can advance the interest of their members only when they act in ways that do not threaten the Communist part hegemony. They do not officially lobby the party on behalf of their special interests and they do not explicitly criticise or assail current policies.

Their effectiveness has rested, to a certain extent, on the support of national top elites. Mobilisation to fulfil the tasks of modernisation in china has necessitate a greater effort to encourage some sort of creative initiative and rational planning rather than merely the enforced compliance and coerced enthusiasm from the intermediate actors. Lack of consensus about the means of modernisation at the leadership level has been another essential pre-condition for the growth of intermediate participation and of interest groups.

Within the limits of an ambivalent party line, articulations by intermediate actors have been permitted or even been sponsored. In communist political systems, government agencies often not merely decide on public policy, but also serve as the main source of inputs for policy, too. Units of government administration are, therefore, included as groups in the analysis. The Delimitations This study will only attempt to study the behaviour of Chinese bureaucratic interest groups. Aside from this, the bureaucratic agencies act as the exclusive interest aggregators in Chinese society.

It is only bureaucratic elites, or cadres, who can mobilise substantial political resources to back demands and convert demands into policy alternatives. Moreover, the positions of bureaucratic elites legitimise the handling of controversial issues and provide them sore sort of protection against the possibility of exclusion from the political process.

Demands espoused by bureaucratic groups are therefore especially powerful in authoritarian societies. Bureaucratic articulation of interests is the primary means for presenting demands to the centre of power.

The study will also be limited to the change in foreign trade policy. Assumption The attitudes of an individual member of a social or occupational groups sic are not always determined by his belonging to that aggregates.

Hence within an occupational group there may be members of different interest groups. Definition of Terms An interest can be defined as a conscious desire to have public policy, or the authoritative allocation of values, move or continue to move in a particular general or special direction. An interest group is any group that, on the basis of the shared attitudes and the behaviourally revealed preference on the matter of concern, makes certain claims on other groups in the society for the establishment, maintenance, or enhancement of forms of behaviour corresponding to the shared attitudes and the preference.

A political interest group is present when the expression of these interests lead to the making of claims on government institutions. A mass of common articulations which persists over time may be regarded as a tendency of articulation.

Interest aggregation consists of the processes that combine demands into policy alternatives and mobilises political resources behind policy alternatives. Demands become major policy alternatives when they are backed by substantial political resources. The concepts of interest articulation and interest aggregation is similar in meaning to the concept of agenda building, which can be defined as the process by which demands of various groups in the population are translated into items vying for the serious attention of ultimate decision makers.

There are two types of agendas: the public agenda consists of all issues which have achieved a high level of public interest and visibility by being printed in publications which have been approved by the censor: the formal agenda in the list of items which decision makers have formally accepted for serious discussion.

Intermediate actors are referred to the party and government officials and professional personnel who receive special training and enjoy a higher social and economic status than the mass of the population. They belong to the elite groups in the regime. Methodology As we regard Chinese interest groups as loose and information coalitions of elite and intermediate actors, we shall not start by identifying social groups and then to determine from their political views and interactions between them whether they constitute a political interest group.

We shall rather carry out the study in four stages. In the first place, it is to determine the presence of uniformities in the interest articulations in a given period or event. Second, it is to seek underlying reasons for the occurrence of the observed converging expectations of policy. The third stage will be concerned with subsystem interaction and its effects on the relative influence of the policy alternatives. Finally, suitable variables, such as the performance of the economic reforms and the preference of decision makers will be cited to explicate the course of conflict.

Content analysis of newspapers and other periodical literature dealing with the issues in which interest groups were directly involved. Informal discussions with informants from the fields of academics, business and journalism in Hong Kong. Basic Reading Presented for conversion to the degree of PhD Ecology of Barnacles in Mangrove Swamps in the Sydney District My research has two aims: firstly to describe the life history of a newly discovered diverse fauna living in mangrove swamps around the Sydney district; and secondly to test ecological theories on settlement and recruitment which have been formulated to explain patterns of distribution and abundance on species living on rocky intertidal shores.

Life History Barnacles in mangrove swamps have been little studies. Recently three species of barnacles were found in N. Previous work has recorded barnacles on particular substrata in the mangrove swamp, for example, Elminius covertus on leaves and trunks of Avicenna marina, Hexaminius popeiana on trunks exclusively and Hexaminius foliorum on leaves and saplings of the grey mangrove, Avicennia marina.

Questions I initially formulated from this information are as follows: 1. What are the distribution and abundance patterns of the three species throughout the year? When does each species reproduce, settle and recruit into the reproductive population? Unlike the two dimensional rock platform, the mangrove tree supplies a tri- dimensionality from roots to leaves , so to answer question 1 it was necessary to divide the mangrove swamp into three spatial components.

To enable a precise calculation of population density a stratified random sampling program was designed and implemented. This means each substratum was sampled separately. The sampling program has been in progress sing August at two locations: Wolooware and Careel Bay. It will be completed in February These samples taken each season and additional samples taken in months when densities were not being sampled , have enabled an accurate estimation of when the population is reproductive.

Consecutive growth studies on plates in the field in progress since February , have also given information on how long it takes a barnacle to recruit into the reproductive population, throughout zones in the mangrove forest. Results of growth studies have highlighted density an important factor in determining growth rate. An experiment to investigate this has been designed and was implemented in January Additionally, the following questions will be important to answer to fully understand the life history of barnacles in mangrove swamps: 1 Are cyprids selecting particular substrata to settle on, or settling at random, and not surviving to adults?

To answer this rearing of cyprids in the laboratory and subsequent settlement and growth will allow identification of newly settled stages. Completed for E. Can cyprids select young versus old leaves to settle on? How long does a leaf containing barnacles last on a tree? These questions are especially relevant when considering the ephemeral nature of leaves.

An experiment was set up in Dec. Ecological Theories Most theories on intertidal ecology have been formulated from species on rocky shores.

When comparing mangrove swamps to rocky shores one interesting question is: Are the same factors that affect patterns of distribution and abundance of species on rocky shores responsible for observed patterns of barnacles in mangrove swamps, which have reduced wave action, diverse substrata, greater turbidity, and much more patchily spaced resources of hard substrata?

Alternative explanations have been suggested. These focus on the importance of pre-settlement i. In the second part of my project I will evaluate the relative importance of larval availability, settlement and post-settlement i. A bi-monthly quantification of recruitment has been in progress since October and will be completed in March The results have been analysed and pose questions concerning settlement. Settlement is defined as the moment a larvae cyprid attaches itself to the substratum.

It has generally been determined by daily counts 24 hours , however, it is known barnacle mortality is greatest immediately following settlement, and it is possible that death has occurred in the intervening hours after settlement, before measurement.

Thus, erroneous conclusions may be made on the relationship between settlement and recruitment. A program designed to quantify settlement every 12 hours after one high tide , has been in progress since July Initial results have been obtained and analysed for E.

My plans are to repeat this for H. Initial results of settlement and plans to investigate these patterns are as follows: 1 Between zones: Settlement is greatest in the seaward zone and significantly less in the landward zone. Plans: To quantify larval availability by taking plankton samples throughout the zones in the mangrove forest, in July and Jan.

Long term: Setting up of experiments in to investigate factors affecting mortality physical and biological. Plans: To investigate what effect arriving early on the full moon cycle may have on mortality of cyprids compared to those cyprids arriving late. Thus on completion of this work, a detailed account of the life history of the mangrove barnacles will be obtained.

Also, the relative importance of larval availability, settlement and post-settlement factors will be determined in forming adult distribution and abundance patterns of each species on each substrata. This information will then provide a comparison to ecological theories about settlement and recruitment mostly formulated on exposed rocky shores on other invertebrates and fish. This research will be completed as outlined in the schedule below. Quantification of mortality after settlement of H.

Setting up of experiments on growth and density of H. Setting up of experiments on leaf twist and leaf age. Rearing of H. Last seasonal sample at Careel Bay. Analysis of data. Writing up of results for thesis By April Completion of writing and production of thesis. Significance: Demand for fish in the Philippines, as elsewhere in Asia at least, as a source of high quality protein, is ever increasing, obviously because of the ever-growing human population.

Thus, the search for fish species to be domesticated is always a major concern. And certainly, any scheme to develop appropriate culture techniques for an aquatic species will depend upon biological data vital to the rearing process.

At most, preliminary studies have been done in India and Australia. The first aspect involves studies of the spatial and temporal distribution, growth, sexual maturity, fecundity and food and feeding habits of this species.

This biological information is an important base to the culture aspect, which generally involves the development of appropriate aquaculture technologies, including the nutritional requirements and artificial propagation of the fish.

Specifically, these will constitute studies in tanks and ponds to evaluate its growth and survival at varying management levels. Water quality and biological variables in these culture systems also need to be regularly monitored. Relevant to these, the proposed work will employ multivariate analytical tools, in contrast to the classical analysis of variance, to make the greatest use of these parameters in predicting yield and yield-related variables.

At present, the marketable P. This system of resource utilisation is definitely not dependably stable and prospects for resource development and management are poor.

The two aspects to be referred to as Study 1 and Study 2 hereafter mentioned are vital in looking into the feasibility of culturing P. The proposed work will utilise the stock of P. Specific Objectives: 1 To determine the relative temporal and spatial distribution of P. Materials and Methods: 1 Determination of spatial and temporal distribution of P. Appropriate statistical survey design will be considered.

Habitat in areas of occurrence will be described. The relationship of specific and relative fecundities with selected morphometric characters will be determined.

Stages of egg development and size of the egg will be obtained from the specimens. The morphology of each sex will also be described. Some morphometric and meristic characters will be obtained and possible relationships among them will be evaluated using regression analysis techniques.

Feeding habits will be assessed from the mouth and alimentary tract structures of the fish. After 10 months culture, the stock will be totally harvested. Growth and growth-related parameters will be obtained from the harvest. Analysis of variance and multivariate analyses will be used as statistical tools. Commercial progress in the area of polyblends during the past two decades has been tremendous and was driven by the realisation that new molecules are not always required to meet needs for new materials and that blending can usually be implemented more rapidly and economically that the development of new chemistry.

Also the tailoring of multicomponent polymer systems is less expensive than producing a novel homopolymer. It is likely that polyblends will continue to proliferate. For several practical applications homopolymers may not satisfy all the end use requirements, while suitable blending of two or more polymers can provide the required balance of properties and such considerations form the basis of the study of polymer blends.

This study will describe the development of polymer blends by the incorporation of nylon 6 to polyethylenterephthalate PET to facilitate the use of P. Such a study is expected to develop new kinds of materials to fit a wide range of engineering applications. The shortcomings of PET which have made its applications restricted include the following: a its low melt viscosity and, hence, low melt strength creating difficulty in its processing b its low impact strength for engineering application c high glass transition temperature t g d slow rate of crystallisation making it highly amorphous in normal moulding processes.

There are many ways to remove the above problems, but my aim in this study is to minimise most of them by choice of nylon 6 which might be blended with PET and considerations of the compatibility characteristics among the components in this polymer blend should be taken into account.

Finding all papers about this study, and all information which is related to this study. Materials such as: polyethylenterephthalate, nylon 6, solvents, etc.

Instruments such as: Extruder, injection moulding, differential scanning calorimetric, input tester, Universal testing machine for evaluations of tensile strength, scanning electron microscope etc. In this study for preparation of blends I will use melt blending process, in which two polymers are mixed in the molten state. In this process there are no impurities and it requires no removal of extraneous solvents and the degree of mixing depends on temperature, shear and time.

These three factors must be controlled, because the will also cause degradation, cross linking and formation of block and graft copolymers, all of which will affect our understanding of the product and its properties.

The samples of blends with various composition in this study will be prepared by extrusion and injection moulding.

Impact strength, flexural properties, etc. Chapter 2: Experimental This chapter includes materials, methods of the preparation of blends, characterisation, testing methods and experimental results.

Chapter 3: Discussion and Conclusions. Timetable: - Literature review - 6 months - Experimental - 24 months - Writing of thesis - 6 months References: 1 Encyclopedia of Polymer Science and Engineering, second edition , vol. A case study carried out by Rentroia-Bonito, M.

The study found that there is a consistent and efficient communication among students. Seven out of ten students successfully completed the assignment on time. The study was conducted by Jennifer, I. Results of their study, they found that, there are few of additional features to improve quality at the university level where academic staffs play a key role.

Johnson, R. It also directly affects user satisfaction. E-Leaning offer distance learning via the Internet, providing opportunities to students through interactive learning experiences and effective. Through e-learning, distance learning partners will be able to learn much knowledge, share information and get as many details about the courses more quickly Guha, A.

In line with the implementation of i-Learn and Blended Learning in UiTM, researchers hope this study will provide benefits and ideas to the decision makers and the national education body. A study done by Arani mentioned that computers have made a dramatic impact to our society, particularly in the field of education. According to Ertmer et al. So, that, computer knowledge and attitudes also play an important role in making educations system more effectively.

Attitudes towards computer technologies are associated with a concept known as computer self-efficacy Delcourt and Kenzie, In furthermore, the concept of self-efficacy was introduced by Bandura at the first time. However, a study done by Wallace found that four factors that influenced the development of computer self-efficacy. These factors were computer anxiety, computer confidence, computer liking and computer knowledge.

He reported that computing students expressed low levels of computer anxiety, and higher levels of computer knowledge, computer liking and computer confidence in comparison with education students. Accessibility 2. Self-efficacy 2.

Motivation Figure 2. In the left side, its shows the independent variables which is factor affecting the usage of i-Learn. There are two categories falled into this variables which is technology characteristics accessibility and reliability and second category is student characteristic self- efficacy and motivation. Their performance will be measured by the quiz conducted via i-Learn system.

This study implemented exploratory research whereby it is conducted to clarify ambiguous problems. Exploratory studies provide information to use in analyzing a situation.

Based on our research, the population is referring to the all students in UiTM Johor because, basically, all students should have their access to i-Learn system. However, as a sample, the researcher took only Diploma Part 1 students. The survey questionnaires divided into 3 parts namely Part A for demographic factors of the student.

Part B for technology which focusing on accessibility and reliability. Part C for student characteristics which focusing on self-awareness and motivation. In this study, we have try to synthesized data from surveys carried out in UiTM Johor. Respondents that involved in this study come from Part 1 Diploma Students. For the first session, the quiz was conducted manually which is lecturer prepared the quiz and give it during lecture session. For the second session, the lecturer prepared the quiz via i-Learn and asked the students to answer all the questions within 5 days.

Therefore, their performance will be referred to the marks obtained by them after taking quizzes. Data taken in two ways, namely primary questionnaire and secondary data journals and articles. Basically, the data obtained through questionnaires and interviews. Feedback from respondents on the items in the two instruments are measured using the Likert scale.

Likert scale used where the subject or respondent is required to mark their answers on the statement based on a scale from one extreme to another extreme. This option is a measurement to indicate the degree of agreement and opinion on the strength of the respondents. This scale helps to make the interpretation of the question presented in order of increasing or decreasing. Mean and percentages used to identify factors affecting the usage of i-Learn in UiTM towards students' performance.

Pearson correlation method used to determine the degree of correlation between the dependent variable that represents technology characteristics and students characteristics. Besides that, the Regression will used to determine the most dominant factor of this study. Its shows that, female respondents are higher than male respondents are and it is tell us male respondents are minimum uses in term of the i-Learn system.

Yet, the researchers want to determine the problems that faced by male students. Table Comparison of Mark Obtained By Students As mentioned earlier, the respondents seated two types of quiz that are manual and using i-Learn system. The comparison of the result shown at Table above. Thus, there are few of them failed in both methods.

Based on the Table , it is shows that respondents Its followed by 35 respondents So, we can say that most of the students do not have any difficulties in accessing the system. According to Table above, its shows that respondents Therefore, of them Table above shows that majority of them which is respondents However, only 25 respondents Therefore, we can say that most of the UiTM students do not have any problems in accessing the system in terms of locations.

They also know what is i-Learn system and know how to access the system. Table above shows that Most of students or Most of them or Basically, It is on Table above. Besides that, The students feel confident that they can access the system anytime Descriptive statistic is used to see the cross tabulation and to measure the demographic information about the respondents.

Pearson correlation used to identify the relationship between independent variable technology characteristics, student characteristics towards dependent variable student performance and regression analyses were carried out to examine the dominant factor influencing transfer of training. Correlation Interpretation 0. Error of R Square the Estimate 1.

B Std. Error Beta 1 Constant 1. This study demonstrated that the self-efficacy, motivation, accessibility and reliability positively related to student performance. Among the four sub-dimensions factors, only student characteristic shows the dominant impact on student performance. Possibly, due to the beliefs of participants used in this study, the student characteristic is the main important point to be considered.

This is mainly because the student self-efficacy and motivation tend to use I-learn and it will influence student performance. Based on the result we highly recommended that the university must make a lot of campaign in order to encourage student to use the system.

For example, they can make a contest like most of student who access into the system will win a prizes or other remuneration. It is because there is much so much information in the system that student can use in their studies. Moreover, UiTM management must also promote the student to use i-learn system form the first time they coming here.

It is because if they have been exposed with the system from first semester, it will be their habit afterwards and they will use the system regularly. Lecturers also must play their roles in order to encourage student to use the system to enhance their performance. When students want to find the information about the subject related, they only got a few and less information in it. Lecturers can continues the lesson in the i-learn.

For example, they can give a quizzes or subject information in it and student can open it anywhere anytime. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Vol: 21 No.