Archives-December 

We are very happy to announce that from 11th April 2019, Dr. Muhammad Nasir Khan has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. He/She will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Educational Sciences. The appointment of Dr. Muhammad Nasir Khan 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.

The study finds the relationship between abnormal lower discretionary expenses and future financial performance. Four measures of financial performance measures; Return on Asset (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE) and Earning per Share (EPS) and Price to Earnings ratio (PE) are taken. Manufacturing firms listed on Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) are selected for analysis and data is collected from year 2004 to 2011. Financial data is collected from the annual reports of the firms and data of market value is collected from business recorder site. Panel data analysis technique, Generalised least square methods is used for analysis. It has been revealed that there is negative impact on firm’s subsequent performance which reduced discretionary expenses to report higher earnings but this impact is not significant.

Seaweeds are the potential marine living resources in the world. More than 20,000 seaweeds are distributed throughout the world, of which only 221 (1.1%) are commercially utilized, which includes 145 species for food and 110 species for phycocolloid production (Sahoo, 2000). During September 2011 to March 2013, extensive field surveys were conducted to Kerala coast and a total of 137 species of seaweed were recorded. Based on the review of available literature, totally 42 species were found economically important. Of these, 29 species are edible for humans, 24 species are suitable for industrial sector to extract the phycocolloides (agar-agar, agaroids, algin, carageenans etc.), 14 species used as fodder for domestic animals, 11 species for the production of manures in the form of Seaweeds Liquid Fertilizers (SLF) and 7 species suitable for various medicinal purposes. The red seaweeds are dominant with 19 species, followed by green seaweeds with 14 species and brown seaweeds with 9 species. The rich diversity and luxuriant growth of seaweeds were recorded at Mullur Kadalapuram, Vizhinjam, Kovalam, Varkala, Edava, Thangassery, Thirumullavaram, Baypore, Thikkodi, Mahe, Ezhimala Manjeshwar and Hosabettu coasts. The presence of natural rocks, bedrocks, the artificially made cement boulders and laid stones along the coast support the growth of a large number of seaweeds.

The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of strategic responses on Performance in higher education institutions in Mombasa County. The main objective of the study was to determine the effect of strategic responses on Performance in the higher education institutions in Mombasa County. However, the study specifically sought to; assess the effect of Strategic organizational entrepreneurship, evaluate the effect of strategic alliances, determine the effect of organizational learning and assess the effect of strategic planning on Performance in higher education institutions in Mombasa County. The theories used in the study include the institutional theory, resource dependency theory and the regain fit theory. The research design adopted by this study was quantitative. The target population was the 49 institutions of higher education based in Mombasa County as at 10th May 2017. A multi stage sampling technique was employed whereby stratified random sampling and simple random sampling techniques were be used to select the respondents from the study population of 50 and a sample size of 43 institutions of higher education. 3 respondents were selected from each strata hence the target respondents were 135. The questionnaire was used as the data collection instrument and administered to 3 managers hence 132 questionnaires were administered. Out of the 132 questionnaires, administered 75 questionnaires were completed. Prior to processing the responses, the filled questionnaires were edited and checked for completeness and consistency. A pilot study was used for checking of the reliability and validity of the questionnaires. The questionnaires were coded and entered into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), which was used for the data analysis. Specifically, data analysis and interpretation was done through descriptive statistics, measures of dispersion and inferential statistics. The findings of the study show that Strategic organizational entrepreneurship, strategic alliances, organizational learning and strategic planning have a significant effect on Performance in HEI’s in Mombasa County. Analysis of the relationship between the strategic responses and Performance in the HEI’s was positively correlated and statistically significant. The study concludes that in order to enhance Performance in HEI’s, these strategic responses need to be adapted. The study recommends that HEI’s should consider realigning their structure to accommodate the variables. Additionally, the study recommends planning that in HEI’

Effect of supplementary phytase and mineral chelators were determined in 28-day chicks’ growth assay. Six isonitrogenous, isocaloric diets, equal in minerals, sulphur amino acids and lysine were formulated; a control with no inorganic phosphorus and 5 other diets containing 0.03% phytase, 0.1% EDTA, 1.5% citric acid, 0.03% phytase + 0.1% EDTA and 0.03% phytase + 1.5% citric acid, respectively. Diets were randomly assigned to 36 individually caged chicks. Phytase, EDTA or citrate supplements resulted in increase in feed intake, body weight gain and feed efficiency improvement (P<0.05). Serum alkaline phosphatase and organs relative weights were insignificantly different (P>0.05) but a significant increase in serum phosphorus and bursa of Fabricius were observed when phytase fed combined with EDTA or citrate (P<0.05). Minerals in tibia, P and Mg in toes were increased by citrate or EDTA supplement (P<0.05). Supplementary phytase plus citrate or EDTA generates more phosphorus and enhances nutrients utilisation.

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of assertiveness and anger control training on life satisfaction of high school girl students in Bandar Abbas. The study sample consisted of high school girl students in Bandar Abbas schools in the 89-90 school years. Firstly, 235 students were randomly selected in a school, secondly all the students responded to the life satisfaction test with the validity of 0.87. 45 students whose life satisfaction score was one standard deviation below the average (9 or less than 9) were randomly selected and then randomly assigned to the experimental groups 1 and 2 and the control group. Experimental groups received the assertiveness and anger control training for 10 sessions of 90 minutes during 2.5 months and the control group did not receive any training in this period. After training, all three groups responded to life satisfaction test and the results were analyzed by one-way analysis of covariance using spss software. The results showed that assertiveness skills training were effective on students' life satisfaction. Anger control training was effective on students' life satisfaction. There were not a significant difference between two methods of assertiveness and anger control training in terms of effectiveness on life satisfaction of students.

Single crystals of (2E)-1-(4-bromophenyl)-3-[4-(methylsulfanyl)phenyl]prop-2-en-1-one (4Br4MSP) was grown by slow evaporation solution growth technique at room temperature. The crystal structure of 4Br4MSP was determined using single crystal X-ray diffraction technique and morphology of the crystal was studied. Optical behavior such as UV-vis-NIR absorption spectra and second harmonic generation were investigated to explore the transmission and nonlinear optical (NLO) characteristics of the material. Thermal stability of the sample is confirmed by TGA/DTA analysis. The dielectric and electric properties of the crystal were studied.The laser damage threshold has been measured by using Q-switched Nd:YAG laser and shows good damage threshold value. Crystals were subjected to microhardness study to explore its mechanical characteristic.

Green Cloud refers to the prospective environmental benefits that information technology services are delivered via Internet with reliable and easy-accessible atmosphere. The datacenters can consume enormous amount of energy and also emits huge amount of carbons due to large number of cooling equipments, servers and storage systems infrastructure. The data center efficiency is one of the significant factors to enable cloud computing as green by lower energy usage and carbon emissions from business firm. The power efficiency of datacenters has most important impact on the total energy usage of Cloud computing. To achieve the reduction in energy consumption of a datacenter is to calculate the consumed energy in cooling equipments and other metrics with the help of Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) which can be used to standardized how much energy is beneficially deployed versus how much is spent on other metrics such as power distribution, conditioning equipment, cooling infrastructures, storage and networking subsystems. The PUE of a datacenter is defined as the ratio of the total power consumption of data or switching center to the total power consumption of information technology equipments such as servers, storage and routers. By using the energy efficient technologies such as green broker framework, calculation of cost, energy and carbon emissions, the cloud providers can significantly improve the PUE of their datacenters and hence this approach can preserve the eco-friendly environment.

In corporate governance, the executive compensation appears to be the controversial issue among the stakeholders as well as the shareholders. This study is to find the relationship between executive compensation and the company performance, size and managerial controls in Sarawak. Using all 22 public listed companies in Sarawak, data in annual reports from 2004 to 2006 were gathered. The result showed that there is a weak positive relationship between executive compensation with the company performance (ROS) and size (sales), while no relationship was found between the executive compensation and the managerial control.

A diffusion absorption refrigeration system is a thermal powered refrigeration system. Any low grade heat source can be used to run an absorption refrigeration system. In most of engine and industry large amount of heat is rejected as exhaust gas which is at low temperature. One of the efficient methods to utilize this energy is to convert it into cooling load by means of an absorption system. In this work exhaust gas of IC engine is used to power a commercial absorption system integrated with phase change material (PCM). PCM helps to control the generator temperature and also act as a constant temperature source whenever there is a fluctuation in the temperature. Experiment was conducted on single cylinder four stroke diesel engine exhausts coupled to a commercial 40L absorption system. PCM helps to increase the overall COP of the absorption system