Archives-October 2014

A simple Okra threshing machine was designed, fabricated and tested to alleviate the problems associated with Okra processing in Nigeria. It is consists mainly of five units namely, the feeding assembly, the threshing unit, separation unit, power transmission unit. The overall mean threshing and cleaning efficiencies obtained were 93.95 and 99.56% respectively. Drum speed 500rpm combine with 55mm concave clearance gave the highest Threshing efficiency of 99.99%. All speeds, concave clearance combinations gave clearing efficiency above 98%. The machine threshing and cleaning efficiencies increased with increase in drum speed and decrease with increase in concave clearance. The machine is simple to operate and maintain without formal training.

The incidence of neurodegenerative diseases are increasing in the present generation. Based on their diversified causes it is targeting almost all the age groups including young (juvenile) and old (senile) population without discrimination. There are some metabolic diseases which are targeting the brain functions in young. The juvenile diabetes is one among them, where the excess of unutilized glucose is following wide range of deranged paths resulting into encephalopathy. The early detection of such diseases needs to be identified and tackled at the earliest. The existing modern treatment is having much limitation; hence it is inviting the contribution from the field of alternate herbal medicine.

Isfahan is one of the oldest cities of Iran with a highly important place in economic transactions of Iran and its foreign and domestic trading. Throughout the history, Bazaar has been as the artery of economic life, the center of formation and association of businesses, occupations and industries. On the other side, the influence of Bazaar in social and political movements in the past centuries has been revealed to everybody. Nonetheless, the structure and content of traditional network of Bazaar changed by nature since the last chapter of Qajar and early of Pahlavi period. Various reasons can be detected; the change in social life in the cities, the entrance of western lifestyle and culture, increase of population, and the need to reform and renovate urban pathways are among the most important reasons of the change. The present study aims to present a comprehensive account of the situation of traditional Bazaar in Isfahan city in the first decades of fourteenth century (Hijri), and investigates the process of its change and its underlying factors. Documents, journals, reports of internal and foreign spectators and economic and social researches constitute the main sources used in this study. The descriptive historical method is used as the method of research.

The present investigation was aimed to asses the amount of leaching plastic material, if any, into tea from disposable plastic cups. Fifty plastic cups were analyzed for the study, and thickness of cups was in the range of 70 – 90 µm (micron meter). The determination of leaching procedure was done through making difference in weight of used and unused cups through electronic weighing balance. First of all, weights of fresh unused cups were measured then measurements of weights of cups were taken after using hot tea. The tea was kept in cups for 10 minutes assuming that any person finishes tea after 10 minutes. The temperature of tea was measured 100°c at the time of serving. The weight of fresh unused cups and the weight of used served with hot tea cups were analyzed. The weight of used cups served with hot tea showed significant (P < 0.05) decreased in the weight as compared to fresh unused cups. The significant decrease in the weight of used cups showed the leaching of plastic material into tea. The results in this study indicated that the leaching of plastic material from cups into hot tea and the amount of plastic material leached was in the range of 1.5 – 2.0 mg per cup from < 1gram of cup.

At the age of thirty, Uzun Hasan took over Amed (Diyarbakir), the capital city of Ak Koynlu state and became the unrivaled ruler. He married his first wife at the age of fifteen; soon after, he married his second and third wives. His first wife was a Turcoman, the second was a Kurd and the third was a Christian. Each of the wives acted in accordance with the personalities, potentials, personal skills and the wills they possessed. The Turcoman queen or Seljuk Shah could not stand to lead a life away from the Ak Koynlu palace; thus she established a broad network of relations with the Ak Koynlu dignitaries and military leaders and also was an influential figure among the Ak Koynlu members. She was so skillful that she could easily gather Ak Koynlu family around herself. After her husband died, her role became even greater. Hasan’s Kurdish wife kept a low profile. Most of her decisions and wills were expressed by her son Ughrlu Mohammed. In factMohammed’s personality overshadowed his mother’s personality since she was not allowed to work within the palace. As for Hasan’s third wife, Dspina, the Christian, it is obvious that she married Hasan to protect Trabzon Empire ruled by her father. Then she started to influence Uzun Hasan to work against the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, she played an active role in building relations between Hasan and the West, particularly the Venetian Republic.

Due to major changes taken place in the banking system of Iran, Bank Mellat has faced new challenges: restructuring state sectors into private ones through privatization, an increase in their rivals, the intense competition to obtain more market share, bringing about more expenses and costs as to four bank deposits, etc., has led the bank to tends to increase the commission (the income from services’ commission). In this paper, the researcher has collected the required information through interviews with experts as well as scientific and library studies.the purpose of this study is Taken defensiv strategy of prioritizing the capacity of banks to earn fee income from providing services using analytic hierarchy process. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is a structured technique for dealing with complex decisions that was developed by Thomas L. Saaty in the 1980 year. It provides a comprehensive and rational framework for structuring a decision problem, for representing and quantifying its elements, for relating those elements to overall goals, and for evaluating alternative solutions. The base of this model is comparing variables by pair wise by Matrix relationship. In this way, pair wise of the effective variables on the prioritizing the capacity of banks were considered and based on relative weights the output was extent. In the present research, combination of Indexing system Method with Analytical Hierarchy Process has been applied to assess the prioritizing the capacity of banks. By this process. The findings of the research show that the issue of fees based on the separation of non-shared with 0/179 point and Trying to customer satisfaction with 0/117 point are located in first and second rank.

The present study is an attempt to explore the effect of concept mapping, as a learning strategy, on the receptive and productive knowledge of lexical collocations of Iranian high school EFL learners. It also explores whether teaching lexical collocations through concept mapping will be effective in terms of retention of lexical collocations or not. Sixty female Iranian third-grade high school students participated in this study. They were randomly divided into two homogeneous groups; control and experimental. In the experimental group, lexical collocations were taught through concept mapping, and in the control one, Persian translations of the same lexical collocations were provided. Both groups received 12 sessions of instruction by the researcher. Data analysis indicated a statistically significant difference between the receptive and productive knowledge of collocation of those learners who are taught lexical collocation through concept mapping and those who were taught traditionally. In other words, in terms of both receptive and productive knowledge, concept mapping strategy outweighed the traditional one in learning English collocations. However, there was no statistically significant difference between retention of receptive and productive collocational knowledge in the experimental group.

Classical reliability based design procedures require tedious calculations and time consuming. The goal of reliability of mechanical component adequately performs its intended function when operating under specified environmental conditions. Mechanical component design by safety factors using nominal values without considering uncertainties may lead to designs that are unsafe, or too conservative and thus not efficient. Design of a hollow shaft is one of complex and time consuming design procedure. This paper presents development of mathematical models to predict the outer diameter of a typical hollow shaft. This paper presents unique method to investigate engineering problem, its analysis, mathematical modeling and optimization with the help of RSM-response surface methodology and design of experiments (DOE). Response surface methodology, which is a statistical approach of design of experiments, is being applied with combined probabilistic design to optimize the design responses in the case of simultaneous variations of its design parameters. The technique is proved to be efficient and general purpose modeling a variety of components.

CSR in India has traditionally been seen as a philanthropic activity because of social life, economic conditions and lack infrastructure. The present study has made an endeavour to comprehend the status and activities made by extensive firms of India in setting to CSR policy framing and implementation. The Government of India has also enhanced its focus on persuading companies to participate in addressing social and developmental issues, not only as a part of their social responsibility but also their business practices. India has entered or taken a transformational change by including into new CSR activities.

The focus of this study is to explore EFL teachers’ evaluations and expectations about English language courses as EFL in Iran. In other words, this article aims at creating a new avenue for effective EFL teaching curriculum and syllabus in the Iranian context. Iranian universities offer basic, general, and specific English courses as a part of their program, which are not being very effective. These courses do not promote the students in dealing with their disciplines or programs oriented courses. Even after completion of these courses in three or more semesters, students fail to grasp comprehensive control over the reading materials of their field. This is a common scenario in almost all the universities in Iran. The authors of this paper ventured to study the predicament of EFL courses in some universities. The data were collected through questionnaires from a total of 40 EFL teachers at 8 universities. The research results revealed that the existing English Course syllabus is not tailored appropriately to the needs of the students. It, therefore, suggests that university English courses should be redesigned in assimilating the learners’ need, and course contents should cover the socio-cultural factors of the learners.