Archives-  

Health risk assessment of three heavy metals (Pb, Cd and Cr) in groundwater resource in warri metropolis was confirmed by this research. Twenty (20) hand dug well water were analyzed using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. Results showed that Lead ranged in concentration from 0-0.04mg/l. Cadmium ranged from 0-0.040 mg/l. Chromium concentrations ranged from 0-0.004mg/l. The combined hazard index (HI) values via ingestion of water were greater than unity and may poses health risk from oral exposure. Use of concrete ring to protect the dug wells are strongly recommended to avoid storm waters and other lecheates from dumpsites and other industrial waste.

The Glass ceiling practices in the corporate sector have been a subject of concern in the industry and in the policy-making quarters of the government. Present government legal framework does not have enough hold to curb on local glass ceiling practices effectively. There is a need to eliminate glass-ceiling practices in the corporate sector in order to keep female employees motivated. It will create congenial working environment and will lead to improvement in female employee’s attitude, commitment and ownership towards their work engagements in the organization. Women employees need to be recognized and given equal participation in each and every level of the organization. The objective of the study is to map environment of glass ceiling practices and to highlight female employees’ harassment, discrimination and carrier deterrence practices. The research work is done through survey using a questionnaire for information and data collection about the glass ceiling practices in the local industry. Information and data was collected using simple random sampling technique. The data was collected from Punjab. Questionnaire is based on 8 Glass Ceiling and Gender Discrimination constructs consisting of total 24 questionnaire statements.

The present investigation was planned to examine the impact of certain sociodemographic factors such as position, age, experience and marital status on job involvement among banking employees of kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The sample consisted of 274 employees working in different banks located in Riyadh, the capital of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia selected randomly from various banks. Job Involvement Scale developed by Lodhal and Kejner (1965) with biographical information blank was distributed to the bank employees to collect the data. The major findings of the present research revealed that: (i) The managers and subordinate staff were not found to differ significantly in terms of job involvement (ii) The younger and older in age group of bank employees differed significantly with job involvement (iii) high and low work experienced groups did not differ significantly in terms of degree of job involvement and (iv) The married and single group of bank employees differed significantly in terms of job involvement. Future directions for required research are suggested to sensitize the banking employees to maximize the level of job involvement.

This study aims at analyzing the social and economic impact the exploitation, use and the commerce of Non-Timber Forest Products in the habitats surrounding Kindu city, Nyoka locality, Bilundu and Muyengo villages in order to call on actors for responsible exploitation of these natural resources for their survival and to identify major constraints on the development of the NTFP sector in these areas. The methodology to collect collection was based on the ethnoecologic approach. We surveyed permanent operators and sellers in Kindu (Kindu city, Katako village, Shenge village, Lwama district), Bilundu village on Kibombo road, Nyoka and Muyengo villages on Kalima road. To get more information about socioeconomic aspects of the exploitation of NTFP of plant origin in the survey zone, we identified transformers and merchants in the four survey sites (at random at least 25% of household producers and sellers) for ten months, (between July 2018 and May 2019). Data collection consisted of interviews. The unit of sampling is operators and sellers’ household. We sampled 697 individuals. The results show that: ? 48.4% forest operators in Kindu city exploit NTFP for home consumption and 28% prefer to sellt. In Nyoka locality, 44.3% commercialize NTFP they exploit and 36.3% exploit them for both home and commerce consumption. In Bilundu village, 63% products are more destined to commerce and 21% exploit them home consumption. Operators in Muyengo sell 52% products, and consume 33% in their homes; ? In Kindu, 44% operators allocate their income to their children’s education, 27% to their families’ healthcare, and 21% to food needs. In Nyoka, 73% operators use their income to meet food needs in their households, 13% for their children’s education and 11% for building. In Bilundu, 67.3% allocate their income to food in their homes, 22.2 % to their children’s education. Likewise, in Muyengo village 77% operators allocate their income to food, and 10% to their children’s education; ? 38% operators interviewed in Nyoka village said scarceness of some species impacts on the reduction of production of NTFP in their area, 31% point at progressive remoteness of the collection zone, 13% raise the issue of age to cover longer distances. In village Muyengo, 35% operators say there is decrease of these resources in the area because of progressive remoteness of collection zones, 33% complain about lack customers and 19% remark rarity of some species. In Bilundu village, progressive remoteness of the collection zones constitutes the first major reason of the decrease of production (54%), followed by rarity of some species (27%) and lack of transportation means towards the centers (12%). In Kindu, remoteness of the collection zones is the major cause of the decrease of production, followed by rarity of some plant species in the biotopes (21%) and lack of transportation means (12%).

Abstract This Molecular docking study aimed to identify the binding site of protonated ligand Tetrakis (4-aminopyridine-kN1) dichloridocopper (II) monohydrate with sphingosine 1-phosphate lyase (S1PL) for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. With the aid of MGL Tools – 1.4.6, the molecular docking analysis shows that the oxygen atom of phenolic O-H group of tyrosine TYR526 interacts with the hydrogen atom of NH group of the ligand. Oxygen atom of water molecule present in the ligand interacts with hydrogen atom of NH group present in glutamine GLN476. In-silico docking study of a protein ligand interaction resulted in -6.11 kcal mol-1 and -6 kcal mol-1 free energy values for the GLN476 - ligand and TYR526 – ligand respectively and the corresponding median Inhibition concentration IC50 value found to be 8µg/ml. This molecular docking study show good inhibitory interaction effect for ligand for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. Keywords S1PL, 4-aminopyridine, copper complexes, protein-ligand interaction, tyrosine, glutamine

The indoor air pollution especially in rural communities of Bundelkhand region in central India is suffered from indoor kitchen air-born diseases due to large scale using principal biomass fuels such as wood (W), crop residues (C.R.), cow dung cakes (D.C.) and also fossil fuels of low grade coal. All these fuels are producing as a smoke emission in various forms with hazardous composition contain harmful pollutants which adversely affect on human health. The indoor particulate and gaseous pollutants in mean level range from TSPM; 383.2-468.5 µg/m3 , SOx, 12.7-25.4 µg/m3 NOx; 34.1-44.5 µg/m3 and other certain toxic elements emission as trace amounts associated with health problems depends upon the magnitude and types of biomass combustion from the open chulas in kitchens with close non ventilated environments. A number of health risk related problems are created such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), silica-born tuberculosis(TB), asthma, pneumoconiosis, pharynx and laryns ( forms of neoplasm), eye-disorders, depress cellular and humorial immunities etc; mainly based on survey ,HVS monitoring with some pathological data from the investigated areas. This paper is emphasized and attempt should be needed to adopt integrated approaches in domestic pollution free energy use involving fuel diversity resulted keeping in views relating to up-grading socio-economic and reduce health risk aspects with new techniques adaptation where feasible and highly effective in below poverty limit (BPL) of the rural communities for the maintaining conceptual sustainable development supporting the solution of the energy problems in Bundelkhand region.

This paper looks at copyright and digitization of print literary materials for academic purposes. It was revealed that despite the exceptions to copyrights law, interpreting fair use for reproduced print materials in digitalised form is very difficult because of the inherent nature of digitalised materials which is self reproducible and distributable with no limitation. The only solution found for academic institutions was digitalising materials already in public domain or grey resources of institutions. It was also the opinion that digitalising government documents would be easier compared to materials whose copyright are privately owned. In conclusion, it was recommended that institutions should digitalise their grey print resources and materials in the public domain, seek permission from government establishment and get licence to digitalise print resources owed by private persons.

This study was designed to investigate interventions that were being introduced by secondary school heads in effective implementation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Mutasa District of Manicaland in Zimbabwe. The study population comprised forty-two secondary schools with a combined enrolment of around ten thousand two hundred students and thirty secondary school heads. Purposive sampling was used to select ten secondary schools and thirty-seven teachers for detailed study. An entirely qualitative research design was used since the researchers were dealing with unstructured and non-numeric data. The researchers used questionnaires, interviews, observation and document analysis to elicit data that wereneeded to provide responses to research questions. The major findings were that although school heads had generally embraced ICT at their schools, they did not have proper ICT qualifications and were not fully equipped to deal with all issues that would lead to meaningful interventions. School heads did not have adequate knowledge on ICT and very little was being done to address the situation through in-service programmes. It was also noted that school heads faced a multiplicity of problems which heavily militated against the smooth introduction of ICT in schools. Most of the problems emanated from the fact that these schools did not have solid revenue bases. It was also observed that the attitude of the head was a pivotal factor that determined the manner and extent of ICT usage at a school. The mind-set of the head was seen as being very instrumental in encouraging teachers to embrace or ignore ICT. This research also revealed that there were other external forces that compelled school heads to introduce ICT at their schools. This study strongly recommends that responsible authorities for schools and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in Zimbabwe should come up with serious measures that assist school heads to procure ICT appliances and learn about them.

This article analyses the influence of the combined effect of the internal (IOE) and external (EOE) operating environments on the accuracy of performance forecasting (APF) in large manufacturing firms (LMFs) in Kenya. The objective of this study was to assess if the combined effect of the operating environments precipitated any change in any of the measures of APF. Against the backdrop of internal management conflicts of interest and exogenous events, poor forecasting in LMFs is commonplace. However, in recent times, LMFs have tended to hire skilled forecasting personnel. This study therefore, assumes that the qualified forecasting staff ensures accuracy in preparing future budgets. Both IOE and EOE are said to influence the performance of manufacturing operations. The study identified IOE and EOE influencers of firm performance and tested these against critical measures of APF. To isolate statistical significance of results, regression analysis was applied using data collected through a structured questionnaire administered among randomly selected LMFs. Results indicated that there was evidence that the combined effect of IOE and EOE had a moderating influence on APF through ROS when objective forecasting was applied, and through EV when combination forecasting was used.

In any democratic society, rule of law is a crucial tool to maintain good governance. Ethiopia is striving to build democracy and rule of law .To that effect; it has promulgated different laws and policies in the past decades. It has enacted its first federal constitution in 1995. The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) constitution in its preamble clearly provides that maintaining rule of law is one of the basic goals that the Ethiopian Nation Nationalities and Peoples strive to pursue. Even if different factors (for example such as culture and level of development) explain democratic and rule of law based society, role of vibrant judiciary (judiciary that actively supervise public authorities) is paramount. Conventionally, judicial organ is one of the three organs of government to which the power of interpreting the law is given. In Ethiopia too, the judiciary is made the ultimate law interpreter thereby maintain rule of law and good governance. So as to perform such an act, the judiciary should exercise its inherent power of judicial review.