Archives-December  

There has been recent upsurge, alleging judicial bias in sentencing process, especially in awarding capital punishment. Even Apex Court has admitted that doctrine of ‘rarest of rare case’ is not working properly. Taking note of that, few scholars blamed the very core of sentencing policy, and demanded ban on capital punishment. Their argument is precisely based on constitutional doctrine of ‘arbitrariness’, ‘equality’, and ‘fairness’. This work examines few of such allegations, and explains that non-implementation of ‘rarest of rare’ formula may be rooted in lacadiascal approach by the trial courts. However, the doctrine is, constitutionally unassailable.

This quantitative descriptive study aimed to identify the influence of coaching relationship on the coaching communication by the perception of polytechnic lecturers. A total of 411 lecturers randomly selected from the five polytechnics which successfully obtained an overall excellent performance including academic standards and quality management through the recognition of the polytechnic ratings. Data for this survey were collected through a questionnaire which was adapted from an instrument used by Heslin, VandeWalle, and Latham (2006), and Gregory and Levy (2010). The results of multiple regression analysis showed that coaching relationship had positive and significant influence on coaching communication. In term of the implications, this study showed the role of the middle manager is extremely important in creating the coaching relationship in order to improve coaching communication performance.

In the present study the test was carried out for the screening of antimicrobial activity of clove oil extracted from clove. Screening was done using agar well diffusion method against Bacteria and Fungi. 4 Bacterial and 10 fungal species were taken. According to the result clove oil was effective against Bacteria as compared to Fungi in particular concentration. We can conclude by our work that clove oil is better for antibacterial. It has also been noticed that by increasing concentration of clove oil the growth of fungi has decreased.

Chronic periodontitis is an inflammatory, infectious disease of tissues that support the teeth and caused by a particular microorganism or group of specific microorganisms. Periodontitis associated with other condition, such as candidiasis caused different and resistant clinical signs. The aims of this study is finding presence or absence of the fungus Candida albicans in patients with periodontal pockets in chronic periodontitis with various grades of slight, moderate and sever before and after periodontal treatment phase I. Patients with chronic periodontitis criteria into three groups of 21 people with slight moderate and sever groups. After sampling the deepest periodontal pockets of patients using paper point No.45.samples of paper points placed in 1 ml sterile saline, centrifuged and then were transferred to medium chrome agar. The green colonies of Candida albicans were found in the culture medium were counted for each patient then patients treated by mechanical periodontal treatment phase I, including health education, scaling and root planning. After 6 weeks, the patients re-sampling of deepest periodontal pockets were planted just like before and Candida albicans were counted again. The colony before treatment (p<0/001) and after treatment (p<0/001) was associated with disease severity; and disease severity in all three groups, the mean of colonies was significantly reduced after treatment (p<0/001), so that the average number of colonies decreased in patients with sever disease and it was significantly higher than the mean and the median was more than slight (p<0/001). It appears that fungus Candida albicans colonies influenced on the severity of the disease and periodontal treatment phase I can be effective in reducing the fungus and decrease was associated with disease severity.

The study assessed the level of gender involvement in household farming decisions and identified constraints to women involvement in household farming decisions in Lafia Local Government Area, North-central Nigeria. Data were collected through structured questionnaire administered on sixty (60) farming households randomly selected for the study. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and factor analysis. The results showed that men dominated (with involvement rate of 79% on grand average) all aspects of household farming decisions (such as selection of farm enterprise, procurement of farm inputs, allocation of farm inputs, selling and storage of excess farm produce) except for household decisions concerning processing and consumption of farm produce dominated (73.5% on grand average) by females members of farm households. Poor personal linkages to socio-economic institutions, land holding constraint, women farming skill, household violence, traditional and cultural belief were constraints to women involvement in household farming decisions. It is recommended that extension activities be expanded to include sensitizing male household heads on need to involve their women in the household farming decisions for greater productivity and to enhance household food security.

This work deals with the vibrational spectroscopy of 4-Fluoro-2-Nitroanisole by means of quantum chemical calculations. The FTIR and FT-Raman spectra were measured in the condensed state. The fundamental vibrational frequencies and intensity of vibrational bands were evaluated using density functional theory (DFT) with the standard B3LYP / 6-311+G** basis set combinations, and was scaled using various scale factors which yields a good agreement between observed and calculated frequencies. The vibrational spectra were interpreted with the aid of normal coordinate analysis based on scaled quantum mechanical force field. The results of the calculations were applied to simulated infrared and Raman spectra of the title compound, which showed excellent agreement with the observed spectra.

This paper describes three phase bi-directional battery charger widely used in Energy storage application. The full bridge scheme is widely used for the high power application. The high-frequency transformer is used for the isolation purpose. This paper describes the design and simulation of a 7.75-kW, full-bridge, bi-directional isolated dc-dc converter with active front-end converter (AFC). The AFC is connected with the 3-phase ac system, which provides 650 to 700 dc voltage to dc-dc converter with lower value of THD (according to IEEE- 915) and improve power factor at input side. The dc-dc converter converts 310V from 650V for charging the battery. Software tool PSIM is used to obtain the simulation result of the converter. The closed loop system is simulated to achieved voltage and current ripple at output side less than 1% rms of rated voltage.

A major gap outspokenly voiced by leading scholars in the context of L2 testing concerns the lack of diagnostic tests that aim at surfacing learners’ underlying abilities (Alderson, 2005; Poehner, 2009). Dynamic assessment (henceforth DA) armed with the interaction tool which is construed as a pivotal mainstay of Vygotsky’s Socio-cultural Theory of Mind has been recently introduced to function as a robust diagnostic procedure to feed back into educational practices (Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994; Poehner, 2005; Ableeva, 2008). However, as for diagnostic assessment of L2 listening in the classroom, no worthwhile attempt has been made thus far (Buck, 2003; Vandergrift, 2006; Ableeva, 2010); hence, the need to undertake the present study. This paper has set out to explore the feasibility of group dynamic assessment (G-DA) in the classroom context as a diagnostic procedure to identify the intermediate L2 learners’ listening difficulties and the effects of G-DA on their listening development. In so doing, a group of intermediate L2 learners were recruited and instructed for a time span of two months. An interactionist, concurrent G-DA methodology guided the research design of this study. The results of qualitative analysis of G-DA protocols revealed that through continent, graduated and dialogic interactions with the learners in their Zone of Proximal Development G-DA can microgenetically uncover the learners’ sources of listening difficulties. The analysis brought to surface phonological, lexical and grammatical as the most rampant sources of difficulties during listening comprehension. The G-DA interactions also revealed how collective scaffolding (Donato, 1994) could help establish a state of intersubjectivity (Platt & Brooks, 1994) within the social space of the class during which secondary interactants benefited from the contributions of primary interactants (Poehner, 2009). Finally, on implication side, this paper recommends the use of G-DA methodology as an efficient and student/mediator-friendly procedure in the social microcosm of the classroom context to truly assess L2 learners’ listening comprehension processes and help promote the abilities which are in the state of maturation.

The investigation focuses on the effectiveness of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) confinement in upgrading ductility and strength of concrete columns under axial compression. An experimental program is carried out to investigate the influence of the radius of the cross sectional corners on the strength of small scale square column specimens confined with FRP composite laminates. This study was achieved by testing 63 specimens depending on the selected corner radius, the section varied from square to circular. The various parameters such as corner radius, wrap thickness and fiber orientation of 0°, 90°, +45°,-45° and combinations of them were investigated. Smoothening of the edges of square cross-section plays a significant role in delaying the failure of FRP composite at these edges and the efficiency of FRP confinement is directly related to the radius of the cross-section edges.

The present study aimed to determine the influence of the compassionate mind based cognitive therapy on negative emotions and ruminations of women with depression who were referred to the treatment centers. Current study is an experimental pre-post test design with control group. The study population included all depressed women in Ardebil during 2011. Subjects consisted 34 depressed women which were selected by convinced method and divided randomly in two experimental and control groups. To collect data,we used Beck depression, self consciousness emotions scale , rumination scale and self compassionate scale. Compassionate mind based cognitive therapy was used as the intervention.The data was analyzed by multiple analyses of variance method (MANOVA). The results of analysis variance showed compassionate mind based cognitive therapy would significantly decreased shame, guilt, mind ruminations and depression signs in depressed women. By paying attention to the result of the present research, the implication of compassionate mind based cognitive therapy is recommended.