Impact Analysis of Higher Education Research Trajectory on Governance and Public Policy: A Case Study of Four Federal Universities of Pakistan

The research situates link between the graduate researches in four academic institutes of Islamabad and analyzes its impact on the public policy. The study explores the relevance of graduate research trajectory followed by various academic departments of four major federal universities in Pakistan in formulation and execution of public policy. The author collected last five years graduate level dissertation titles from four federal universities and classified them by using thematic approach. An interview guide/questionnaire is prepared accordingly. Chairpersons, deans, professors, bureaucrats, and parliamentarians were approached for semi-structured, in-depth interviews. This is a qualitative study using thematic and analytical approach. The research finds a lack of cohesion between the graduate research trajectory and policy needs of the public institutions. The absence of a national research vision and collaborative framework, difference in training cultures of bureaucracy and academia, lack of logistic support system, defective learning strategies, and an overall neglect for social sciences are the major reasons for incoherence. The analytical correlation of the recorded opinions reveals opportunities to maximize the relevance of the academic research in public policy domain

Theoretical Investigation of Dynamic Processes in Thermally Insulated Liquid Chromatographic Columns of Cylindrical Geometry

Liquid chromatography is a separation and purification process that has attracted attention due to its wide usage in biological, biochemical, fine chemicals, pharmaceutical and food processing industries. The task of this dissertation is focused on the theoretical study of linear and nonlinear liquid chromatographic processes in thermally insulated cylindrical columns packed with either fully-porous or core-shell particles and operating under either isothermal or non-isothermal conditions. Both non-reactive and reactive chromatographic processes are analyzed. In the latter case, separation and conversion of the reactants into products takes place concurrently. A two-dimensional general rate model (2D-GRM) in cylindrical coordinates is formulated to simulate these processes. For the simulation of linear chromatography, the finite Hankel and the Laplace transformations are applied one after another to obtain analytical solutions of the linear model equations for two different sets of boundary conditions. To further elaborate the process, the analytical temporal moments are obtained from the Hankel-Laplace domain solutions. These moments are very useful for analyzing the retention times, band broadenings and front asymmetries of elution profiles. The derived analytical solutions and moments are very useful for diluted or small volume samples. However, to simulate chromatographic process for concentrated or large volume samples, the numerical approximations of nonlinear model equations are needed. In this thesis project, a high-resolution finite volume scheme (HR-FVS) is extended and applied to solve the resulting 2D-model equations in cylindrical coordinates. Several case studies are conducted for a wide range of thermodynamic, kinetic and reaction coefficients. Furthermore, the coupling between concentration fronts and thermal waves are demonstrated through graphs and essential parameters influencing the column (or reactor) performance are pinpointed. A few consistency tests are also conducted for assessing the process performance. The solutions obtained are useful tools for analyzing, optimizing and upgrading the liquid chromatographic processes.