Archives-J 

We are very happy to announce that from 8th April 2011, Prof.Wael Abd-Allah El-Helece has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. He will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on the Chemistry. Prof.Wael Abd-Allah El-Helece is currently at Department of Chemistry, Jazan University, Jazan, KSA. The appointment of Prof.Wael Abd-Allah El-Helece 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 chiefeditor@elixirjournal.org. Sincerely Editor-in-Chief

The current research is focused on the need to find an economical adsorbent for the removal of heavy metals from industrial wastewater. The research was performed to assess the potential of a biocarbon generated from medicinal plant called Phyllanthus niruri (Phyllanthaceae) as an adsorbent in the removal of heavy metals from solution. Results from batch adsorption studies on the effect of pH, contact time, different concentration of Cu metal ions were used to estimate the optimum adsorption conditions. The obtained results showed that, the adsorption of the metal ions was dependent on adsorbent dosage, contact time and pH. The optimum adsorbent dosage, and pH, was found to be at 2.5 g and pH 4.4 respectively. The effective contact time was 150min at 30 0C. The study also showed that activated carbon produced from Phyllanthus Niruri biomass can be efficiently used as low cost alternative for removal of metal ions.

This study was conducted to determine the existing social service and community requirements in rural area of Uttrakhand Hill. Most of the hill village community in India including Uttrakhand have very poor to poor options of quality school education and health related assets option in their local places. Under this study also assess the community priority for education, health services and child development. The results stated that the Government education and health services are ultimate options for marginal and low economy groups but scarcity of modern educational assets and health services accelerate the high out migration from these villages. Thus to stop the fast out migration of middle and middle upper groups from rural area the planning polices of State and Central Government have need to give promotion to public private partnership in social services as per their priority. This efforts further supplement to minimize the out migration and avail services with local employment generation, deliver as the new catalyst for rural social revitalization.

Ni-substituted MnZn mixed ferrite prepared by conventional sol-gel method. Ni substituted MnZn ferrite of molecular formula Mn0.3Zn0.7NixFe2-xO4 in which five samples of x=0.0, x=0.4, x=0.8, x=1.2 and x=1.6 were prepared. The X-ray intensity of (4 0 0) plane were used to calculate particle size and studied its variation with Nickel concentration. XRD, SEM, FTIR and VSM characteristics were presented. The substitution of Ni by replacing Fe reduces the coercivity of the ferrite due to replacement of Ni2+ by Fe3+ in tetrahedral site. Infrared spectroscopies have been discussed so as to bring out the role of nickel substitution in determining structural properties of Zn–Mn ferrites and the role of nitrates in preparation of these compounds.

The concept of effluent treatment, by means, of a collective effort, has assumed reasonable gravity by being especially purposeful for cluster of small scale industrial unit. Common effluent treatment plant (CETP) not only helps the industries in easier control of pollution, but also act as a step towards cleaner environment and service to society at large. A number of technologies have been developed over the years to remove organic matter (expressed as chemical oxygen, COD) from industrial wastewater. The most important technologies include coagulation/ flocculation process (1), membrane filtration (2), oxidation process (3,4). These methods are generally expensive, complicated, time consuming and requires skilled personal. The high cost of coal- based activated carbons has stimulated the search for cheaper alternatives. Low cost and non-conventional adsorbent include agricultural sector. This study assesses pollutant removal efficiency from distillery- spent wash by three adsorbents (activated charcoal, fly ash and wood ash). Pots were kept in polyhouse at 30o C (humidity 75o C) with 35% reduction in natural sunlight. After 10 days of growth, adsorbent (15g each) were added separately to the pots soil and irrigated with two different concentrations (50% and 100%) of the effluent. One set of the pots was maintained as control. On each irrigation date, effluent was poured in a pot. Subsequent irrigation, with respective concentration of effluent was done at 12 days’ interval. After 6 hr. of irrigation, treatment – wise leachate was collected, brought to the laboratory and all the selected parameters pH, color, COD, Total solids (TS), Total dissolved solids (TDS), total soluble solids (TSS), Ca, Mg, Na, K and heavy metals (Cu, Zn, Fe) were analyzed.

Of the four skills of language, speaking skill in English is the one that gets least attention in the curriculum at Schools and Universities. Teaching and learning a second language is a great challenge to both the facilitator and the learner. This paper investigates the reasons for ineffective oral communication of engineering students. Two tasks (Personal Interview and Group Discussion) are introduced in this experimental study to know their proficiency level in oral communication. And a short description of the objectives of testing speaking skill, author’s responsibility, research design, findings, pedagogical implications and conclusion are discussed. Hoping, it will also help the teachers’ community to incorporate it in teaching and learning process.

Formazan of benzaldehyde (FB) has been prepared as a corrosion inhibitor to control the rate of corrosion. This compound has been investigated as corrosion inhibitor at room temperature for preventing mild steel corrosion in Citric acid mediums by weight loss method and by adsorption isotherm. The result showed that the corrosion inhibition efficiency of these compounds was found to vary with different acid concentration. Also, it was found that the corrosion inhibition behavior of FB is greater in 1M Citric acid and 2M Citric acid. But when it has been compared the results revealed that the inhibitor efficiency is better in 1M Citric acid than 2M Citric acid. So FB can be used has a good inhibitor for preventing mild steel material. The surface analysis study also confirms that the corrosion of the mild steel and its inhibition efficiency by the inhibitor FB.

This paper has two primary purposes; first, we expand confines of Resource Opportunity (hence forth referred to as; RO) by introducing two entrepreneurial concepts: 1) entrepreneurial recognition, which we describe as the recognition of opportunities and opportunity seeking behaviour as a resource and 2) the method of combining and organizing resources as a resource. The second objective is to build theory for the field of entrepreneurship that can potentially cover micro and macro issues by focusing on the resources as the unit of analysis. This attempt is ordered around the four conditions of RO: resource heterogeneity, ex post limits to competition, imperfect factor mobility and ex ante limits to competition. By defining entrepreneurship which we define as the recognition and exploitation of opportunities which result in firm creation that seeks to obtain entrepreneurial rents, through the four conditions of RO we hypothetically inform and expand current research in both entrepreneurship and RO.

The competitive, complex and dynamic environment of the banking industry nowadays can lead to a great transformation in making the business due to an increasingly demanding customer. The traditional product-oriented bank is moving toward customer-oriented which focuses on customer loyalty as its main goal because of stiff competition. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the extent to which demographics correlated with service loyalty focusing on credit card service. A sample of 200 respondents was randomly chosen in this survey which 150 respondents gave the feedback. Correlation Pearson test being used to determine the relationship between demographic factors (age, gender, income level, occupation and lifestyle) and customer loyalty. The result from hypotheses testing has shown that only income level has positive relationship with customer loyalty as compared to other four demographic factors. This finding is also in line with what has been found by East (1995) indicated that shoppers who are more concerned about prices are less loyal, with high income groups being more loyal than low income groups.

This paper aims to examine that transformational leadership and employee empowerment influence on job satisfaction among small medium enterprises employee of Pakistan. This study adopted survey research that is a design of non experimental field study. There were given 250 questionnaires in 25 m firms HR departments (10 questionnaires in each firm). 22 firms respond and 220 questionnaires were usable for our research. There were examined the positive relationship between transformational leadership, employee empowerment and job satisfaction. While there was found the mediating variable ethics and social responsibility that showed the positive relationship. The main objective of this research was to analyze the effects of independent variables (.i.e. transformational leadership and employee empowerment) on job satisfaction. The data was collected by descriptive study and survey conducted on textile sector of SMEs in the city of Multan, Pakistan. The basic signification of this paper is that SMEs, particularly in the developing domestic and collectively owned small firms, in Pakistan, may see positively the benefits of paying greater considerations and social responsibility to transformational leadership and empowerment practices for gaining their future progress promisingly in job satisfaction.