Archives-December  

Table of contents for the month of June 2013

Table of contents for the month of November 2011

Polybutylene Terephthalate (PBT) / Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) nanotube composite blend was fabricated using melt blending technique in a twin extruder. The blend composition was optimized at PBT-PET weight ratio of 80-20. The effect of incorporation of MWCNT on the mechanical, electrical, thermal and morphological properties of the nanotube composites blend has been investigated. Mechanical properties show marginal improvement in impact strength, but considerable improvement in tensile strength and flexural strength. Changes in electrical properties observed. Increase in crystallisation temperature noted from DSC thermograms. DMA add the evidence for DSC and mechanical results. PBT - PET blend with CNT exhibited featureless XRD indicative of exfoliated structure. TEM micrographs also confirmed the same that the CNT has exfoliated into individual tubes.

South Africa (SA) has the most developed and largest economy in Africa. Being one of the members of BRICS our country is recognized as a key developing market. The factors that support this are its well-structured legal, financial transport and communication regions. SA is regarded as the best facilitator in trade logistics and has an excellent transport infrastructure. However, there are a few factors that have caused stagnation such as labor policies, unemployment, poverty and inequality. A recent article stipulated that rail was 75% cheaper on average than using road transport (Signs of new era for SA rail, 2015). If SA seeks to keep ahead of its African and Asian rivals and achieve global industrial competitiveness, its transport sector needs to sharpen up its act. The total road network in SA is approximately 747 000 km and is the longest in Africa which caters for approx. 321 056 registered trucks. The building together with maintenance of 16 200km of provincial roads are carried out by South African National Roads Agency (Sanral), with the Department of Transport being overall responsible. Despite the road sector delivering freight playing a major part in our economy due to its flexibility, adaptability and speed as compared to rail, the impact on the roads due to heavy freight moving vehicles has caused the maintenance and upgrades cost to escalate whilst our traffic demands are increasing. The operators in the industry of road freight face many challenges such as increases in tariff, permits and license fees. Further the e-tolls are weakening the profit margins. Labour negotiations and industry strikes have hit the sector hard, causing many businesses to undergo major restructuring and retrenchments. During 2013 the road freight industry shrunk by 4000 vehicles, resulting in the loss of 9315 jobs in the sector (Investment still needed in transport infrastructure, 2014).

We are very happy to announce that from 30th March 2013, Mr.P.M.Balasubramaniam has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. He will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Mr.P.M.Balasubramaniam is currently working as Research Scholar, Anna University of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India. The appointment of Mr.P.M.Balasubramaniam as member Editorial Advisory Board strengthens the links and will make it easier for prospective authors to establish contact with the journal. Please send any expressions of interest to elixirpublishers@gmail.com. Sincerely Editor-in-Chief

In recent years, what matters most is due consideration given to ethics and social obligations on the issues like organization and management. Increasing importance of ethics in the world of organizations denotes crisis in ethics; environmental pollution; betraying propaganda; unfair wages, tax evasion; administrative corruption and crimes committed by the organization are increasingly augmented. This looks as if there might be no end ever envisaged to corruption and bribery in the states, legislatures and judiciary and security forces. Armament and ammunition organizations, wars and military budgets are growing day by day; however, capability of the existing weaponry outpaces the armament required to destroy the globe. Yet, what reasons truly stand behind such illegal and unethical behavior in organizations? What is origin of the problems? How can the organizations prevent from such acts by using the religious teachings? This article has tried to present strategies in response to the above questions through reviewing the current notions and using the religious teachings.

One of the objectives of positive psychology approach is identifying and defining concepts that help to provide individual's health, happiness and a healthy life. One of these concepts is quality of life which is predicted in this study based on three variable including psychological capital, emotional intelligence and participation in decision making. This research is correlational. The population of this study includes staff of National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company who worked in 2013. 440 individuals were selected based on simple random sampling and responded to research questionnaires. Results pointed to a positive and significant relationship between emotional intelligence, participation in decision making and psychological capital with quality of life and these three variables predicted quality of life. Enhancement of emotional intelligence, participation in decision making and psychological capital will lead to increase in employee's quality of life.

The effect of Psidium guajava leaf as corrosion inhibitors in 10 % sulfamic acid solution was conducted using different techniques at temperatures 298 K.The effect of temperature was studied and activation and adsorption thermodynamic parameters were computed and discussed. The surface morphology was analyzed using scanning electron microscope (SEM). Potentiodynamic polarization studies showed that Psidium guajava leaf acts as mixed type inhibitor for corrosion of C-steel in 10% NH2SO3H solution. The addition of Psidium guajava leaf led to increase in the charge transfer resistance (Rct) and decrease in capacitance of the double layer (Cdl). The inhibition mechanism involve physisorption. The adsorption of this extract on C-steel surface obeys isotherm. All studied techniques gave similar results. Surface of C-steel was analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) technique.

Traditionally, classicism and romanticism are conceived as peculiar and mutually exclusive literary movements with distinct literary styles and stylistic characteristics. This paper aims to trace some prominent writing traits of the Romantic era like spontaneity, preoccupation with imagination and subjectivity and focus on highlighting emotions and feelings in poetry as evident in the works of poets writing before the Romantic era. A close examination and in-depth reading of selected works showed that romantic traits are not confined to the Romantic era only but also appear to be recurring in the writings of Chaucer, Spenser and other poets who were writing much before Wordsworth proposed the characteristics of romantic poetry in The Prelude. This study, therefore, traces romantic traits in the works that do not fall into romantic era chronologically.

Place attachment is one consequence of ‘human interacting with place’ that creates a meaningful and acceptable space for the person experiencing it. Living separated from their families and losing parts of social capital causes a sense of loneliness and lack of attachment to the new environment of dormitory among students. In this analytical-descriptive research social factors influential on place attachment have been conducted. The results show that there is a significant relation between social factors and place attachment. Personal territory, facilitated social interactions, private space and security in the stated order are the main social factors impactful on creating place attachment.