An Existential Anthropological Study of Selfhood, Uncertainty and Resilience Among Youth of Tando Ghulam Ali, Sindh

This study combines three orientations, namely existential thought about the meaning of ‘being’ and ‘existence, ’ phenomenological insights into ‘lived experience, ’ and anthropological endeavor at what it means to be human. It attempts to focus on the human conditions by directly engaging with human beings. Specifically guiding itself with the questions such as how young people engage in the meaning-making of their lived experiences in their life course’s ever-changing process. Taking its theoretical insights and inspiration from existential and phenomenological anthropology, by zooming in on lived experiences, the research was conducted using life story interviews to collect the narratives to gain understandings into the life-worlds as it is lived and made sense of by young people of Tando Ghulam Ali, a rural town of District Badin, Sindh. Based on the ethnographic data and observations, it is argued that the meaning-making of lived experiences was different among research participants with a strong presence of selfhood and self-consciousness temporally and affectively; the difference in orientation towards life is entangled with personal history as well. This research went beyond the horizons of culture and society to put existence, life, and being, which are silhouetted at meta-level, at the heart of anthropological focus. This research is an experimental research project in anthropology, which has attempted to step its foot into the human condition's terra incognita, which calls for anthropologists’ further exploration.

Synthesis and Characterization of Speciality Polyurethane Elastomers

Dyed and un-dyed polyurethane elastomers have been synthesized via the prepolymer method and analyzed by using different analytical techniques such as Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Proton nuclear magnetic resonance ( 1 H-NMR) and Carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance ( 13 C-NMR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), differential scanning colorimetery (DSC) and thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis (TG/DTA), tensile testing, contact angle measurement, water absorption percentage (%), density and hardness. FTIR and NMR techniques were used to confirm the chemical structure of the synthesized PUEs. While XRD was executed to determine the extent of crystallanity as a function of chain extenders, diisocyanates and for the dye (Disperse Red 5/1,4- butanediol) as chain extender. Which also have shown that the dye molecule becomes the part of the polymeric chain of the PUEs. Scanning electron microscopy was employed to analyze the surface morphology of PUEs with variation of chain extenders, diisocyantes and dye content. SEM images of PUEs have shown that hard segments are completely dispersed in the soft segment matrix. Other methods like contact angle measurement and water absorption percentage (%) were also used to determine the surface properties. The results have shown that the samples of PUEs based on HTPB were hydrophobic and this nature was increased as the chain extender length was increased. The same trend was observed in the variation of aromatic to aliphatic diisocyanates as well as the content of DR5 dye was increased. Thermal analysis was performed to analyze the thermal behavior of the PUEs by using TG/DTA and DSC which show that all the PUEs were stable up to 215 o C and all the samples were degraded to constant mass at 470 o C. Mechanical properties of the PUEs were studied by tensile testing, it is revealed that chain extender length and diisocyantes affect the mechanical properties while dyed polyurethane had represented the inverse mechanical behaviour with respect to un- dyed PUEs. The present study gave us reliable results for dyed and un-dyed PUEs and it was found that the dye had been incorporated in the polymeric chains and the effect was significant on surface morphology, thermal and mechanical properties such as tensile strength, modulus and elongation at break.