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With the current expansion of the global economy and the fast-changing evolution of technology and innovation, organizations are facing an on-going need for employee training and development. As knowledge increasingly becomes a key factor for productivity, it has also become a currency for competitive success. The resource base approach contends that the organization can develop a sustained competitive advantage only if its activities create value in a unique way, on that competitors cannot easily copy. The human capital cannot be easily copied once they acquire the expertise and the necessary skills and knowledge in their workplace. The study used survey research design because it assessed the nature of prevailing conditions. The research was carried out in Nyamira Sub County. The study target population was 600 respondents. The study sample size will be 362 respondents. Results indicated there was a positive and significant effect between training, job retention and employee performance in Nyamira sub county (b = 0.369, t = 3.62, p<0.05). Results indicate that training contents has a positive and significant (p<0.05) effect on the employee performance in Nyamira sub county (b = 1.18, t-value = 4.93, p-value <0.05). This implies that increase in training contents will increase the level of employees? performance in Nyamira Sub County. From results there was indication that training evaluation and employee performance were positively and significantly associated (b = 0.315, t-value = 4.54, p<0.05). This could be interpreted to mean that evaluation of content of the training and the methods employed, measure performance of knowledge, skills and attitudes against the standard could easily contributed to enhanced employee retention and performance at work.

This study was undertaken to determine the anthelmintic activity of some of the selected plants like Eleusine coracana, Cephalandra indica and Colocasia esculenta commonly consumed by different tribals of Ganjam, Odisha-India for nutritional purposes using in vitro biological models like tapeworms (Raillietina spiralis), roundworms (Ascardia galli) and earthworms (Pheretima posthuma) where Albendazole and Piperazine citrate were used as reference standards. It was revealed that the ethyl acetate extract of Eleusine coracana was most potent which was well comparable with both standard drugs followed by ethyl acetate extract of other two plants, but at little higher doses. Methanolic and petroleum extracts of all these plants were endowed with minute anthelmintic property, which were not up to the standards. The present study enlightens the potential usefulness of those selected plants as good anthelmintic agents.

The study was conducted to assess dairy production and marketing system of Horro district of Horro Guduru Wollega zone. A structured questionnaire was used and the study area was stratified into highland and Mid-highland agro-ecology. The means and standard deviations of livestock holding was found 12.17±8.69, 13.54±13.98, 3.22±5.25, 2.79±2.84 and 0.96±1.34 for cattle, sheep, goats, horse and donkey, respectively. Cattle herd structure is governed by the overall function of the animal in agricultural production system; however, this study revealed that the proportion of male to female cattle was in-balance (49.5:50.5%) in the total herd studied. The overall means and SDs of milking cow holding was 2.14 ± 1.57 where it was higher for the highland than mid-highland smallholders agro-ecology. Cows’ average lactation length was 8.16 months and estimated total lactation milk yield within this lactation period was not more than 360 liters/cow. The major livestock input supply and service delivery expenditure was mainly for veterinary services where animal feed purchase, labour employment and renting grazing land during summer seasons were also another challenges which farmers in the study area were encountering. Udder washing before and after milking was rarely practiced where about 74.23 percent producers do not wash udder before milking and only 25.27 respondents wash udder before milking. However, ‘Lantana trifolia, Sida cuneifolia and Cucumis prophetarum’ were the most commonly used plant/herbs for cleaning and washing milking and milk storing equipments in the study area. The means and SD of shelf life of butter in days was studied and butter can be kept un-perished for up to 159.45(84.915) and 68.44(42.416) at highland and Mid-altitude. The difference in butter shelf life was highly significant at (P>0.001) among the highland and mid-highland. The difference in shelf life of yogurt was also significantly (P>0.001) higher for mid-highland than highland.

This research work aimed at evaluating the degree of metal contamination in the weija lake and the extent to which the quality of the sediment has deteriorated. The dam is a source of drinking water and is also utilized for fishing and irrigation. It however receives agricultural runoff and municipal wastewaters. The concentrations of ten metals (Cu, Co, Cr, Fe, K, Mn, Ni, Pb, V and Zn) in sediments from thirteen sampling points from the Weija dam in Accra, Ghana, were investigated using energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF). Elevated concentrations (in µg/g) of toxic and potentially toxic elements (Cu, 19.80±3.77; Co, <19.80; Cr, 87.62±19.69; Fe, 141245.5±1765.39; K, 25363.08±3740.08; Mn, 433.61±60.71; Ni, 58.65±8.81; Pb, 20.03±1.19; V, 77.35±24.02; and Zn, 19.07±3.41) were recorded in the sediments of the dam. The enrichment factor ( Apart from K with EF=1.20 showing minor enrichment) and geoaccumulation index values calculated indicated that these metals were generally from natural sources with insignificant contribution from anthropogenic sources.  The geology of the dam, been characterized by granite, shale and phyllite might have contributed to the elevated levels through weathering and leaching. Concentrations of Co were however below detection limit in all the samples. The pollution load index values show that the sediment was unpolluted with respect to Cu, Co, Cr, Fe, K, Mn, Ni, Pb, V and Zn.

This paper is aimed at evaluating the activities of cocoa on male rats. Sixty healthy matured rats weighing 130±20g were divided into four experimental groups of 15 rats each. The rats were treated with cocoa seed powder at 0 (control), 100, 200 and 300mg/kg body weight, respectively for 65 days. Blood samples were collected for hormonal, biochemical and haematological indices while semen was obtained for semen analysis. Results showed that cocoa powder elevated prolactin, testosterone and luteinizing hormone (LH) levels; red blood cell, and white blood cell counts significantly reduced follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), estradiol; platelets, packed cell volume and haemoglobin concentration (Hb); alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and albumin. There was also a reducing effect of cocoa powder on total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL- cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol, especially at the dose of 300mg/kg as well as sperm count, sperm viability and sperm motility. However, sperm head abnormality increased in a dose-dependent manner. These results imply implicitly that cocoa powder at higher doses might be detrimental to animal health, its beneficial effects notwithstanding.

The mile stone of the scientific technologies and methodologies, shown its well improved evidence based proof and created a striking landmark at global level. The various sectors, including Government and the private sectors involved in introducing new improved technologies cum methodologies day today in competitive manner. Though many sophisticated rapid technologies such as PCR etc., created a land mark in current scientific world, still if seems, the scientists, researchers, those who involved in the initial step of their research rely on the golden traditional techniques and methodologies even today. Innumerous research publications indicating the interests of the scientists and researchers towards the drug discovery especially from the plant sources. The initial step for the drug discovery involves the primary screening of the plant extracts or any other testing agents for their antimicrobial activities pertain to the antibacterial activities. The disc diffusion and the agar well diffusion methods are the traditional choice to perform the antibacterial activity. In this study we have presented an innovative plate technique and certain innovative methods in the screening of antibacterial and synergistic bioactivities of the mangrove plant extracts and antibiotics which is time and energy saving, economic and easy to perform.

The paper presents a new approach to the classification of rolling element bearing faults by implementing Artificial Neural Network. Diagnostics of rolling element bearing faults actually represents the problem of pattern classification and recognition, where the key step is feature extraction from the vibration signal. Characterization of each recorded vibration signal is performed by a combination of signal's time-varying statistical parameters and characteristic rolling element bearing fault frequency components obtained through the frequency spectrum analysis method. The experimental data is collected for four bearings at three different speeds. The sensor is located at three different positions for each bearing. Both time domain and frequency domain signals were measured. Thus the data was three time spectrums and three frequency spectrums for each speed for a bearing. The entire data set comprised of 72 (6 x 3 x 4) data. The time domain signal was comprised of 8192 samples and extracting these features from a huge data set was difficult. To overcome this difficulty the 8192 samples were split into 32 bins each containing 256 samples. The entire process of splitting and evaluating the seven features was coded in MATLAB. From these seven features the most suitable features for explaining the intensity of the defect is discussed.

Problem faced by today’s communicators is not only security but also the speed of communication and size of content. Security in today’s world is one of the important challenges that people are facing all over the world in every aspect of their lives. In this paper a method is proposed in which the concept of compression and data encryption is used. In this first data is compressed to reduce the size of the data and increase the data transfer rate. Thereafter compress data is encrypted to provide security.

Concentration of Cd, Cu, Pb, Ni and Zn were determined in the surface water of Usuma Dam and in the treated drinking water from the same source using Atomic absorption spectrophotometry. The concentrations of Cd, Cu, Pb, Ni and Zn in the surface raw water were 7.0, 17.0, 24.1, 14.0 and 43 µgl-1 respectively. While their concentration in the treated drinking water were 5.0, 10.0, 18.0, 9.0 and 25.3 µgl-1 respectively. The trend of the concentration is in the order of Zn > Pb> Cu> Ni> Cd in both the water samples. The result shows that the metal concentrations in the treated drinking water are lower than the metal concentration in the raw water. This may be attributed to water treatment processes and distribution.

The involvement of subordinates in decision-making has attracted much attention among academicians as well as practicing managers. In the school scenario, there had been fervent calls to involve teachers in the decision making process ever since the advent of the school based management concept. However many are still debating on how to involve teachers effectively in the decision making process. One of the major concerns is, whether the decisional situation is in the zone of acceptance of the teacher. Even though much has been done in evaluating teachers’ participation in decision making in schools, there is still lack of systematic procedure to develop the right instrument to assess this phenomena. In light of this, the following paper discusses the process of developing and validating an instrument to assess teachers’ participation in decision-making. The instrument was developed via focus group interviews involving teachers and school administrators. The instrument measures teachers’ participation in decision-making from five perspectives: curriculum and instruction, student related issues, staff related issues, financial issues, and general administration. The instrument was administered to 48 school administrators and 216 teachers and based on the results the reliability index was computed. The Crobach Alpha values for the dimensions ranges from 0.79 to 0.94. Apart from that, the instrument was also subjected to various types of validity check such as face and content validity, concurrent validity, and dimensionality to ensure that it has sound psychometric properties.