A Study of Stress Factors and Their Impact on Students’ Academic Performance at University Level

The main emphasis of the study is on the academic performance and the stress management in applied science among the students of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Sindh University Campus Dadu. What is the level of stress on the academic success of the students? How does it affect their lifestyle and health? This is what the research study covers to counteract the general stress among the students. The purpose of the study is to inquire and bring light to measure and check the present stress among students of the university. While doing the research a quantitative method was applied for collecting and analyzing the data. The Questionnaires were distributed among different students for this purpose. Innumerable factors of stress were found in the results and the factors were grouped in four categories which are; -Environmental Factors, Academic Factors, and Personal Factors. In environmental factors, the stress was about the happening the fate in the future. The students were found worried about future that what would happen about their fate? How it will happen? What is about to happen? When they came into contact with the new people it raised their stress. Also the class workload was the main reason for the stress among the students regarding academic factors. When the students were experiencing the workload of the class the group of the students came under stress. The last factor was a personal factor which was mainly due to the financial problem among the students. The stress of all categories can be managed through stress management courses and doing different extracurricular activities which will help to divert the attention of the students on different occasions. This study has drawn significant conclusions and Suggests further measures for practitioners which could help other to manage stress. The limitations are also mentioned so that those who are conducting research for the similar cases can extract better results and ways of curbing stress. A survey questionnaire was designed to collect the response from students, the five-point Likert scale was used from strongly agree to strongly disagree. SPSS-21 version was used to interpret the results through different quantitative techniques like descriptive, regression, and correlation. ____________

Preparation, Analysis and Photocatalytic Applications of Carbon Nanotubes Supported Bimetallic Oxides Nanoparticles

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were treated with HNO3 and H2SO4 to obtain activated/functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (A-MWCNTs). The functionalization increases the stability and dispersive properties of the A-MWCNTs. A-MWCNTs supported and unsupported bimetallic oxides nanoparticles were synthesized from their respective salts through chemical reduction method. Five different supported and unsupported bimetallic oxides nanoparticles (A-MWCNTs/Mn–Zn oxides and Mn-Zn oxides NPs), (A-MWCNTs/Fe-Mn oxides and Fe-Mn oxides NPs), (A-MWCNTs/Cu-Ti oxides and Cu-Ti oxides NPs), (A MWCNTs/Ag-Co oxides and Ag-Co oxides NPs) and (A-MWCNTs/Co-Ti oxides and Co-Ti oxides NPs) were prepared. The supported and unsupported bimetallic nanoparticles were characterized by various instrumental techniques like scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-rays (EDX) and X-rays diffraction (XRD). The SEM images shows that bimetallic oxides nanoparticles are mostly in spherical form. It also shows that the supported bimetallic oxides NPs are mostly in dispersed form on the surface of A-MWCNTs while the unsupported bimetallic oxides NPs are in agglomerated form and hence have low surface area as compared to the supported bimetallic oxides NPs. The EDX spectra show the concerned composition of the prepared supported and unsupported bimetallic oxides NPs. The EDX spectra also revealed that bimetallic NPs are in their oxides form as confirmed from the presence of oxygen. The presence of oxygen also confirms the functionalization of the A-MWCNTs, as carboxyl functional group is introduced during the acid treatment. All the supported and unsupported bimetallic oxides NPs were used as photocatalysts for the degradation of different dyes under UV irradiation in aqueous medium. In the photodegradation study, A-MWCNTs/Mn– Zn oxides and Mn-Zn oxides NPs were used for the photodegradation of malachite green, A MWCNTs/Fe-Mn oxides and Fe-Mn oxides NPs for methylene blue, A-MWCNTs/Cu-Ti oxides and Cu-Ti oxides NPs for alizarin red, A-MWCNTs/Ag-Co oxides and Ag-Co oxides NPs for congo red and A-MWCNTs/Co-Ti oxides and Co-Ti oxides NPs for Rhodamine-B dye photodegradation. The photodegradation of all the dyes shows that the supported bimetallic oxides NPs caused more degradation of the dye compared to the unsupported bimetallic oxides NPs. This is due to the dispersion of the bimetallic NPs on the surface of A-MWCNTs. The effect of various parameters such as the irradiation time, catalyst dosage, dye concentration and pH of the medium on the photodegradation of dyes was studied. The catalytic efficiency of recycled photocatalysts was also evaluated for the same dye under the same experimental conditions, which showed less activity compared to the original photocatalysts.