Archives-December 

The purpose of this paper is to share the findings on the typical problems facing the heritage or old buildings in term of the problem of building leakage scenario in Malaysia. From the problem finding, the paper tabulate a list of potential solutions best practiced by the local waterproofing implementer. It is important for the reader to take advantage on the information of the extensive list of the real case studies pertaining to the building leakage syndrome typically happened for heritage structure in this hot and humid tropical climate. The good thing about this paper is that all the case studies are derived from the real selected projects done by the associated building maintenance contractor for the last 20 years. By identifying the possible factors that cause the leakage, one can take early steps to prevent the same defects form repeating thus saves a lot of money. From the finding analysis, this paper also giving the formulation ideas that can be use for creating a framework to prevent or minimize the building leakage syndrome from happening again. As the old buildings or the buildings that old enough to be considered worth to keep are becoming more valuable to either the central Government or the local council; the analysis from this paper may give some meaningful tabulation on how to maintain these heritage buildings from leakage especially from the roof seepage thus make the property much more valuable to the owner and may give profit to the locality as well.

Vetiver grass effectiveness for phytoremediation has received wide publicity. Therefore, a pot experiment was conducted to compare metal tolerance and metal uptake of two vetiver grass varieties; Vetiveria zizanioides (VZ) and Vetiveria nigritana (VN) on soil collected from an abandoned Exide battery site. A pot experiment with treatments of different levels of pollutant; 100% top soil, 100% polluted soil, 75% top soil + 25% polluted soil, 25% topsoil + 75% polluted soil and 50% topsoil + 50% polluted soil.Each treatment consists of a pot filled with 5kg of the dumpsite soil and top soil mixture. These were planted with two vetiver grass varieties and were replicated three times. The vetiver grass was carefully uprooted twelve weeks after planting and was analyzed for lead concentration. Data collected were subjected to analysis of variance using SAS 2.0 and the means were separated using Least Significance Difference. The results showed thatVZ had a better growth performance thanVN. Number of tillers and root length were significantly higherfor VZ (7.9, 36.8 cm) than VN (4.0, 23.3 cm), respectively. However, VN had higher uptake of lead (11017mgkg? ?) than VZ (9405 mgkg-1). In summary, both varieties may be well suited for phytoremediation in tropical lead mine areas, but VN could tolerate higher lead concentration than VZ.

We are very happy to announce that from 1st April 2014, Prof.A.Anbu has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. He will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Production Management, HRM and Marketing Management. Prof.A.Anbu is currently working as Assistant Professor, SRM University, Chennai. The appointment of Prof.A.Anbu 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

This study investigated the relationship of academic stress with depression, self-efficacy and academic performance among high school students. Using random stratified sampling technique 120 students with high scores in academic stress (the scores ranging 15 to 30) selected and responded to depression and self-efficacy questionnaires. The data were collected by a scale for assessing academic stress (Sinha, Sharma, and Mahendra, 2001); children’s depression inventory (Kovacs, 1992) and General self-efficacy scale (Schwarzer and Jerusalem, 1995). The data were analyzed with Pearson’s Moment correlation coefficient and multiple regressions. Results showed a positive correlation between academic stress and depression, a negative correlation of academic stress and depression with self-efficacy and academic performance, a negative relationship between depression and self-efficacy, and a positive relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance. Further, result indicates that there are multiple correlations between the variables and the Beta coefficients showed self-efficacy as a best predictor of academic performance.

This study aimed to identify the role of CAIS’ components in reducing banking services costs in the Iranian financial institutions) the Iranian banks, financial & credit institutions and Islamic non-profit granting funds). The sample consisted of 67 employees including the financial directors and accountants working in the Iranian financial institutions in Khuzestan province. The study adopted the theoretical and field approaches and the descriptive analytical methodology. CAIS’ components consist of human resources, hardware and equipment, software, databases, networks and produces. Findings showed that the components of human resources, hardware and equipment, software, databases, networks and procedures play a significant role in reducing banking services costs. Findings illustrated a positive correlation between each component of CAIS and the reduction of banking services costs. Generally, Findings showed that CAIS relatively has a significant role in reducing banking services costs.

Heavy metals on fly ash surface has tendency to leach and contaminate the ground water, which will affect the human by entering food chain. Present study has been carried out to assess the ground water contamination in the surrounding villages closer to two thermal power plants in Delhi, India. Ground water samples from different location within the 2 Km radius of both thermal power plants were collected and analyzed for heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Ni and Pb). This study indicates that the bore well and pond water within the study area is contaminated with higher concentration level of these heavy metals. The concentrations of these selected heavy metals are crossing the prescribed standard of drinking water quality in India. Supernatant of ash ponds contain heavy metals, needs remediation before discharging into the environment.

There is a depletion of Vitellaria paradoxa populations mainly due to agricultural encroachment, seasonal fires and over exploitation notwithstanding its numerous benefits. This has affected natural regeneration and altered population structure of the species. The objectives of the study were 1) to determine the density of regeneration, saplings and mature V. paradoxa under different land use types 2) to determine stand structure of V. paradoxa under various land use types and 3) to compare the population structure of saplings and mature trees. Fifteen plots each of 20*20m were established using systematic random sampling in different land use types: Cultivated fields, fallow land and virgin land for the measurement of tree heights, diameters and number of individuals. Fallow land recorded higher regeneration and saplings density compared to the other land uses. Mature V. paradoxa was dominant in cultivated land. Fallow land had more stable population with better regeneration compared to cultivated land and virgin land. Height of regeneration in cultivated land was significantly different (p?0.05) compared to the other land use types. There was no significant difference between saplings stand structure. Mature Vitellaria paradoxa stand structure in cultivated fields was significantly different (p?0.05) compared to the other land use types. This study confirms that different land use types influence the population structure of Vitellaria paradoxa and there is anthropic selection.

Clustering is a process that partitions data in such a way that homogeneous data items are grouped into sets which is referred to as clusters. When the content or structure changes over time of the multi-version XML documents then Clustering is done. In real-world applications, the number of changes from one version of an XML document to another version of an XML document cannot be predicted. It is always possible that an initial clustering solution becomes obsolete after the modification take place in document. XML clustering algorithms is use to calculate pair-wise distances between documents. A time-efficient technique determined the pair-wise distances in a timely manner. In this paper we proposed a time-efficient technique to reassess pair- wise distances between clustered multi-version XML documents which change over a time, without performing redundant calculations. While performing redundant calculations we considering the previously known distances and the set of changes which might have affected the documents versions Mining is the process of searching the XML documents from the formed clusters and extracting the particular data from that searched XML document. For mining we have one Metric which has details that in which cluster a particular record should be. So when we want any reports we directly go to metric and see where we will find¬ that records and directly access files inside that cluster.

We are very happy to announce that from 3rd April 2014, Dr. Chavan Balbhim Laxman has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. He will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Environmental Science. Dr. Chavan Balbhim Laxman is currently working as Professor & Head, Department of Environmental Science, School of Earth Sciences Solapur University, Pune –Solapur Highway, Kegaon, Solapur – 413255 (M.S.) India. The appointment of Dr. Chavan Balbhim Laxman 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

We are very happy to announce that from 17th March 2014, Dr. Shahla Simin has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. She will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on English Language and Literature. Dr. Shahla Simin is currently working as English Instructor, Department of English Language & Literature, University of Isfahan, Iran. The appointment of Dr. Shahla Simin 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