Archives-J 

Although Savings and credit cooperative societies (SACCO) are formed to promote thrift among members by affording them an opportunity to accumulate savings and deposits to provide credit at fair and reasonable rate of interest, they operate in an competitive environment characterized by banks, micro finance institutions, insurance companies, capital market and pension fund that offer similar or near equal financial services to the same clientele in Kenya. In today's highly dynamic and competitive business environment, firms are exposed to strict challenges with meeting the ever-increasing market and customer needs and expectations, coping with sophisticated requirements, and facing technological obsolescence. In order to achieve sustainable competitive advantage level that not only matches those of their business rivals? but that exceed the financial industry performance averages, financial institutions have to seek understanding of relative degree on the relationship between competitive strategies and sustainable competitive advantage. Competitive strategies adopted determine the consumer satisfaction that propels the SACCO to attain sustainable competitive advantage. The aim of the study was to establish the effects of competitive strategies on sustainable competitive advantage of SACCOS in Kenya. Specifically, the study was to examine the effect of focus strategy and identify the effect of innovation strategy on sustainable competitive advantage of SACCOs in Kenya with specific interest in Mombasa County. The literature reviewed in the study was the theory of Resource-Based View of the firm (RBV), Market-Based View (MBV) and the Game Theory. A descriptive survey research design was adopted with a survey involving 168 SACCOs according to the Kenya Union of Savings & Credit Co-operatives ltd.

In the present work the effect of heat treatment on wear behavior of AISI310, AISI253ma and AISI410 Silicon steels are investigated. The chosen materials were heat treated at 8500C and kept at this temperature for a soaking period of 60 minutes, cooled by quenching in air until the room temperature is attained. As-cast materials were also taken for tests for comparison. The wear tests were carried out on above three materials with three parameters viz., velocity, load & time by keeping two of the parameters as constant and varying the other one in each test.

The effect of penstock diameter on shaft power was studied as part of an ongoing development of a simplified pico-hydropower system with water recycling. The speeds of the turbine and alternator shafts and volume of water displaced were measured for each penstock diameter and nozzle area ratio. The shaft power, flow rate and efficiency of the turbine were computed. The mean efficiencies were 0.776 and 0.510 for penstocks diameters 0.0762 and 0.0381 m respectively. Hence, larger penstock diameters with small nozzle area ratios favor optimal system operation. The results show that the system can potentially impact Nigeria’s energy mix positively

The effects of substituents and solvents have been studied through the absorption spectra of nearly twelve meta,para and ortho-substituted N-Pheny maaleimide in the range of 200-400 nm. The effects of substituents on the absorption spectra of compounds under investigation are interpreted by correlation of absorption frequencies with simple and extended Hammett equations. With the help of Kamlet equation the effect of solvent polarity and hydrogen bonding on the absorption spectra are interpreted and the results are discussed.

Cola is a tropical tree crop that belongs to the family Sterculiaceae. Phostocin is a preservative chemical used by farmers to store Cola nitida nuts which is considered unsafe to human health when consumed. Fresh C. nitida nuts of different weights (1-10g, 11-20g and above 21g) and colours (pink, red and white) were obtained from Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, Ibadan Oyo State. The Nuts were cured for 12weeks with botanicals. These Nuts were oven dried at 700C for 2 days, ground into powder for phytochemical and enzymatic analysis. Data were subjected to Analysis of variance. The leaf of T. grandis had highest values in alkaloid (4.76 g/100g), flavonoid (0.41 g/100g) and theobromine (0.004g/100g) while M. paradisiaca recorded the lowest values for phytochemical analyzed. Cola nitida nuts recorded the highest values in tannin (3.49g/100g), saponin (3.45g/100g), flavonoid (2.46g/100g), anthraquinone (5.19g/100g), caffeine (4.29g/100g) and polyphenol (1.65g/100g) when preserved with T. grandis and the least was obtained for phostocin in red C. nitida nut above 21g. Also, red C. nitida nut above 21g preserved with T. grandis recorded the highest values in catalase (0.154 mg/NaBO3.4H2O/min/g protein), cellulase (0.125 mg/glucose/min/g protein), total amylase (0.141 mg/glucose/min/g protein) and proteinase (0.121 mg/tyrosine/min/g protein) and lowest values obtained in phostocin. Decreased in enzymes activities and phytochemical content were observed in different colours as the number of weeks increases. In conclusion, the use of botanicals as a preservative material to cure kola nuts is better and safe for consumption than phostocin which the farmers are currently using.

The wide range of transmission medium is covered by the wireless sensor network. Due to its increasing popularity many research are done to increase its energy level for effective transmission. The earliest approach in transferring packets with prior processing is more efficient which used the concept of Ant Colony Optimisation approach to obtain the chain.  This existing Power Energy Gathering with Ant colony approach (PEG-ACO) is efficient in minimising transmission distance but there is no mechanism to find out interrupts in transmission, packet loss due to node failure. This paper proposes routing algorithm artificial bee colony approach which optimises the energy level in nodes. The chain is obtained by clustering the nodes with multiple mobile sinks using Artificial Bee Colony (PEG-ABC) concept in order to avoid node failure and packet lost. The load among the nodes is balanced for effective transmission of packets with less energy consumption.

Piroxicam, an anti-inflammatory drug, exhibits poor water solubility, dissolution and flow properties. Thus, the aim of the present study was to improve the solubility and dissolution rate of Piroxicam by preparing microspheres by spray drying technique. Piroxicam microspheres containing different ratio of F127 were produced by spray drying using dichloromethane as solvent to enhance solubility and dissolution rate. The prepared formulations containing different ratio of drug and polymer were evaluated for in vitro dissolution and solubility. The prepared formulations were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimeter, X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Dissolution profile of the spray dried microspheres was compared with its physical mixture and pure sample. Spray dried microspheres exhibited decreased crystallinity and the solubility and dissolution of the microspheres containing different ratio of drug and pluronic F127 were significant improved compared with its physical mixture and pure sample of piroxicam. Dissolution of microspheres containing 1:3 w/w (SD 3) showed higher % release i.e. 94 % in 60 min compare to other formulation. Consequently, Hence, From the above result it can be conclude that spray dried microspheres of Piroxicam is a useful technique to improve the solubility and dissolution of poorly water soluble drug like Piroxicam.

In this paper analytically investigated the effects of water–Al2O3 nanofluid on the entropy generation through a coiled tube heat exchanger under uniform wall temperature condition in laminar regime. Nanofluid thermo-physical properties are obtained from literature or calculated from suitable correlations. It is found that adding nanoparticles improves the thermal performance of water-Al2O3 flow and with increasing volume constriction of nanoparticle, total entropy generation at fixed Reynolds number, decreases. By increasing , entropy generation decreases, also with increasing , total entropy generation increases.

All living beings so made that we cannot live in isolation of our environment, our body are made up of all elements available in environment. And any disturbance in purity of environmental component can makes the hazard in our lives. It has posed a great problem to the existence of humans, plant, animal and other form of life on the earth although the prime support for the survival of human being is environment. The process of and side effect of environmental degradation may seems very slow which may not give effect in our life time but will make life of our own next generation miserable. Therefore now there is a need to increase awareness and understanding of the environmental along with responsible attitude toward the sustainable management of environment and natural resources of planet earth. The present study has delimited to study the level of environmental awareness regarding environmental components, services, pollution etc. among the rural and urban respondent of one of the district of Tamilnadu, India. Keywords: Environmental awareness, environmental components, services, pollution, rural and urban.

Regular environmental monitoring has being going on ever since the operation of the Ghana Research Reactor-1 (GHARR-1) to ensure both the safety of the workers in that they are not exposed to any harmful radiations and that equipment’s that are used are in good condition. The objective of this work is to know if the right procedures are being followed to ensure that the minimum radiation dose is not being exceeded as well as not exposing the public to any controlled sources. Moreover over the years there have been encroachers on the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) land and this work therefore seek to know the possible effects these radiations have on those people. From the results obtained 2008 had a range of (0.03-3.10)µSv/h, (0.04-2.71)µSv/h for 2009, (0.07-2.81)µSv/h for 2010 and 2011 also had a range of (0.05-5.64)µSv/h. Comparing to the recommend value (For the public the limit is 1 mSv in a year, or in special circumstances up to 5 mSv in a single year provided that the average dose over five consecutive years does not exceed 1 mSv per year), this shows that the radiations recorded are within the recommended value indicating that the right procedures are being followed. Suffice to say this more work has to be done to ensure that there is a sustainability in following procedures and that the encroachers too must be warned off to avoid any consequences in case there is unavoidable accidents in the near future