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We are very happy to announce that from 22nd September 2016, Dr. Clifford Nkemnaso Obi has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. He/She will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Microbiology. Dr. Clifford Nkemnaso Obi working as Lecturer, Department of Microbiology, Michael Okpara University, Agriculture Umudike, P.M.B. 7267, Umuahia, Abia State, Nigeria. The appointment of Dr. Clifford Nkemnaso Obi as member Editorial Advisory Board strengthens the links and will make it easier for prospective authors to establish contact with the journal.

The aim of the present study is to investigate the optimum operating temperature of a compression ignition (CI) engine that will operate with the minimum level of exhaust emissions. The blends of jatropha with diesel in varying proportions (B10, B20 and B40) are prepared and are investigated in CI engine test rig. The result of engine emissions like CO2, CO, HC and NOx of pure diesel and biodiesel and their blends are shown by various graphical representations with respect to the engine coolant temperature at different engine loads. From the present study, it can be inferred that it is preferable to operate the engine at temperature 65?C-80?C.

Management has always been considered as a foundation for success and effectiveness of the organization and human resources management occupies a significant role in this process. The most important themes of today’s management are to induce motivation among the employees so that such motivation would result in increased working efficiency of personnel. Therefore in the present study the status of personnel’s motivation for job achievement in Bank Saderat of Semnan city and effective factors on progression motivation of personnel was identified and prioritized. Also in order to further enhance the research findings, amount of achievement motivation between employees of different age groups, working experience, various academic degrees and genders was compared. The population of study is constituted of Bank Saderat Personnel of Semnan, among whom 73 are compared as statistical sample obtained through categorizing method for data collection. Also research findings were collected through two questionnaires. Results were analyzed by statistical techniques such as t test, independence, Kruskal-Wallis and AHP & TOPSIS methods. The findings indicate that bank personnel have suitable motivation for job achievement. Also affecting personnel progression are promoting participation, job satisfaction, fairness of promotion system and promotion of employees, conformation of job with personal characteristics of employees, job rotation, objectives and prospects of organization. Also the findings indicate that achievement motivation is different between employees with different age groups, working experience and academic degrees.

Pandey (1977) considered the exponential distribution which is generally used in life testing experiment. Epstein & Sobel (1953) and Bhattacharya & Srivastava (1974) considered the censoring procedure in life testing problem. Pandey and Malik (1994) considered the improved estimator for ?2 in exponential distribution. In this paper proposed an estimator for ?2 in case of exponential distribution and studied its properties under Linex loss function.

This study investigated the fatty acid and amino acid compositions of one of the under-exploited tropical African seeds- Artocarpus heterphyllus (Jackfruit) seed. The seed oil was found to be composed of five fatty acids-palmitic (14.66%), palmitoleic (6.60%), stearic (50.59%), oleic (7.68%), linoleic (20.40%). The oil was composed of more of saturated fatty acids with a total value of 65.25%. The seed oil was composed more of short chain fatty acids and less of unsaturated fatty acids and expressed in the saponification number (132.81) and iodine value (42.5).The result showed a reasonable value of linoleic acid (20.40% ) and deficiency in linolenic acid. Seventeen amino acids,excluding tryptophan, were determined in Artocarpus heterophyllus seed protein and with aspartic (7.23 g/100g protein ) and glutamic (8.64g/100g protein) acids as the predominant amino acids and methionine (0.81g/100g protein) as the most deficient amino acid. The total essential amino acid composition of Artocarpus heterophyllus seed (25.64g/100g protein) represents 45.73% of the total amino acid composition of the seed protein. The values of the essential amino acids were found to be lower than their respective FAO/WHO/UNU(1991) reference standard values. However, the total essential amino acid composition of Artocarpus heterophyllus seed, just like other common members of the family, for example Treculia africana, was very low.

With an aim to study the hydrodynamic characteristics of a cocurrent solid-liquid-gas phase fluidized bed, experiments were conducted using 3 different sizes of gypsum particles, water and air as three respective phases. The characteristics studied were pressure drop and solid, liquid, gas holdups, which were observed to be influenced by three factors namely particle size and superficial velocities of gas and liquid. The Response surface Methodology was applied to investigate the individual and combined effect of the three factors on hydrodynamics characteristics. An attempt has been made to develop quadratic models for pressure drop and phase holdups. The predicted values were compared with experimental values which gave a satisfactory fit with R2 values around and above 0.95, indicating that the values predicted by the models were in good agreement with the experimental values.

Working capital can be considered as source of existence for a financial body and management of working capital is regarded as one of the most essential part of business management. This study aims to find out the impact of working capital policies on profitability. Return on assets is used as a measure of profitability. Current assets to total assets ratio is used to compute the investment policy of working capital management and to determine financing policy of working capital management current liabilities to total assets ratio is used. Other variables that are used in this study are quick ratio, debt to equity ratio and size of the firms. Secondary data of 117 textile firms listed on Karachi stock exchange is taken for a period of six years i.e. 2005-2010 to calculate all these variables. Results of the regression analysis show that aggressiveness of working capital management policies is negatively associated with profitability. Moreover liquidity and size of the firm have positive relation profitability whereas debt to equity ratio is negatively correlated with profitability. Textile sector is one of the majors sectors of Pakistan. It needs due consideration regarding the management of assets and liabilities. So, the aim of this study is to provide some useful recommendations for the people responsible for the management of this sector. This study also establishes the basis for future research in this area of business.

Basel II initially published in June 2004, was intended to create an international standard for banking regulators to control how much capital bank need to put aside to guard against the types of financial and operational risks bank faces. Basel II attempted to accomplish this by setting up risk and capital management requirement designed to ensure that a bank has adequate capital for the risk the bank exposes itself to through its lending and investment practices. This paper helps in detailed study about the Basel II and also helps in to find out the relationship between capital adequacy, non performing assets and net profits of some selected private and public sector banks. This paper also explores the effect on Net profit due to change in Capital Adequacy ratio and non Performing Assets.

The Data Encryption Standard (DES), a symmetric-key cryptosystem, developed for United States government was intended for use by the general public. It has been officially accepted as a cryptographic standard in United States and other countries. The DES is also known as the Data Encryption Algorithm (DEA) by ANSI and DEA-1 by the ISO. It has been a worldwide standard for 30 years. Many hardware and software system have been designed with the DES. Although it is showing signs of old age, it has hold up remarkably well against years of cryptanalysis and it is still secure against all but possibly the most powerful adversaries. In this paper we begin by describing DES then describe and analyze attacks against DES.

Table of contents for the month of February 2017