Archives-June... 

Till 1950s the progress in terms of outreach by cooperatives was limited. This led to the Nationalization of Commercial Banks in 1969 and 1980, to step up credit to rural masses and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) in mid-1970s . hence the credit architecture consisted basically of cooperatives, commercial banks and regional rural banks. Further NABARD set up in 1982 , further as a part of Financial Inclusion, other financial concepts such as Self Help Groups, Micro Finance Institutions etc. are now being working at both Urban and Rural levels. Added to this the revival Package of Vidyanathan committee (2006), RBI’s efforts in 2007 for providing IT support to UCBs etc. All these support extended to the rural communities clearly indicates the improving financial conditions of the rural communities. These areas have become potential and opportunities waits for bankers to start their business in these areas. The present conceptual paper is an attempt to discover and analyze the threats and opportunities for banking institutions in the present globalized context and to offer a reinvented model, which makes the bankers viable and profitable to conduct business in these areas.

Physics is commonly related to basis of science and technological development. Kenyan Fundamental Education Curriculum, identifies physics as a mandatory subject at forms one and two in secondary schools. It is also as a vital element for an entry to physics, engineering and technological related programs in the middle colleges and Higher Leaning Institutions. Scientist, technologists, and engineers are considered to be role models in their professions to the subsequent age band of scientists, therefore they are required to exhibit advanced ability in physics. Secondary schools’ graduates with C+ (plus) in physics at Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE), qualifies for university right entry into most science and technology associated programs. Such ceiling qualifications have blocked many of young Kenyans who are interested in such programs. The need for pre-university bridging in physics is high among the KCSE graduates who are willing to join physics related programs. These are openings which Kenyan universities are hunting for. Currently one of the main concerns to Kenyan Commission for University Education (CUE) is commercialization of university education which has been identified to be diluting higher education. Most universities insist in pre-university physics bridging programs for anyone who had attained grades below C+ in physics. Each and every university has its own entry requirement for pre-university physics bridging. Different universities are also at variance in content to be covered and learning durations. The secondary school physics content and that of pre-university bridging are not equivalent quantitatively. This paper describes on intellectual delivery of physics bridging programs in relation to entry prerequisite, content descriptions and period for the program completions among public universities. Eight (8) out of 22 public chattered universities were randomly sampled. Questionnaires, Interviews schedules and document analysis were used to collect data. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were taken on and results analysis done using content and narrative analysis. Results disclosed wide inconsistencies in the organization of university physics bridging programs ranging from entry requirements, program contents and duration.

The objective of this study is two fold. First, the present study seek to examine the relationship between logistics cost and sales. Second, this relationship is achieved economies of scales or not. The study is based on secondary data of top ten food companies during the period of 2008-09. The result reveals that Indus foods products limited has received highest sales growth during this period due to less logistic costs. However, there is some unusual trend has been seen in other firm’s logistic costs and sales perspectives. Thus, the study concluded that logistics cost has a strategic importance in accomplishing companies long tem goals.

The amino acid composition of the muscle and skin of the matured female African giant pouch rat (Cricetomys gambianus) was determined on a dry weight basis. The total essential amino acids ranged from 29.8-41.2 g/100 g crude protein or from 48.6-53.2 % of the total amino acid. The amino acid score showed that lysine ranged from 0.73-1.06 (on whole hen’s egg comparison), 0.82-1.20 (on provisional essential amino acid scoring pattern) and 0.78-1.14 (on suggested requirement of the essential amino acid of a preschool child). The predicted protein efficiency ratio was 1.89-2.41 and the essential amino acid index range was 0.84-1.21. The correlation coefficient (rxy) was positive and significant at r = 0.01 for the total amino acids, isoelectric points and amino acid scores (on whole hen’s egg basis) in the two samples. Comparison of the samples with the muscle and skin amino acid compositions of the Greater Cane Rat showed that positive and significant differences existed at r = 0.01 between their muscles and their skins respectively. Results have good comparison with whole hen’s egg protein.

The removal of hydrocarbons from contaminated soil is an essential practice because of environmental and health concerns, and in order to avoid further contamination of surface and groundwater. A variety of oil-contaminated soil remediation methods, categorized as physiochemical, biological and thermal remediation were compiled and summarized. However, the efficiency of these methods depends on several factors, such as the amount of spilled oil and the penetration depth of the oil into the soil, the type of oil and polluted soil, and the age and degree of contamination. With respect to remediation in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, it has been shown by studies that bioremediation and phytoremediation are the best methods that have been used in the area for the remediation of petroleum in soil due to the fact that it is cheap, easy to manage (even by the community), proved to be effective in enhancing biodegradation and environmentally safe. Finally, as there is no universal method that can be generally applied to completely remove the oil from contaminated sites, thus, the prevention of oil spills or leakages should be the first concern. However, if oil spills or leakages occur, a response should be taken immediately to minimize the potential environmental consequences. Furthermore, constant environmental monitoring, assessment, and evaluation to determine the level of damage that is caused by oil spills on the environment.

Chromium has been widely used in various industries like textile, leather, chemical manufacture, metal finishing, paint industry and many other industries. Since hexavalent chromium is a priority toxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic chemical when present in excess, it is very much required to remove chromium from effluents before allowing it to enter any water system or on to land. In the present study, the removal of hexavalent chromium by adsorption on the Borasus flabellifer coir powder as adsorbent has been investigated in the batch experiments. The agitation time, the adsorbent size, adsorbent dosage, initial chromium concentration, temperature and the effect of solution pH are studied. Adsorption mechanism is found to follow Freundlich. The adsorption behavior is described by a second order kinetics. Percentage removal of chromium (VI) is found to be 97.16% at pH=2, w=0.5g, dp=63µm and temperature=303 K. The results obtained in this study illustrate that Borasus flabellifer coir powder is an effective and economically viable adsorbent for hexavalent chromium removal from industrial waste water.

In recent years, the human body as an important topic in contemporary sociology has been studied. Therefore, the body is very important and has attracted the attention of many researchers. One of the issues raised in this area, is today in body management among youth (boys and girls) are quite common and popular because of body management, through actions and behavior like choosing clothes, coat appearance, body configuration, type hobbies, sports, diet and ... Are expressed. Given the importance of the management body of the youth in the present study sought to examine social factors affecting the management body of the young people were in Yasuj. In our population of young people 15 to 29 years is in Yasuj and a sample of 353 people were selected for the study sample. To examine the relationship between body by the same token, religious, cultural, economic status, and age as independent variables and the dependent variable pay as a management body. The results indicate a significant relationship between the independent and dependent variables in research.

Ad-hoc networks, due to their improvised nature, are frequently established insecure environments, which makes them susceptible to attacks. These attacks are launched by participating malicious nodes against different network services. Routing protocols, which act as the binding force in these networks, are a common target of these nodes. On Demand Route Routing Protocol (ODRRP) is a Broadcast Reply network routing protocol for Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET). Black hole attack is one of the severe security threats in ad-hoc networks which can be easily employed by exploiting vulnerability of on-demand routing protocols such as ODRRP. In this paper we proposed a solution for identifying the malicious node in ODRRP protocol suffering from black hole attack.

The effect of Second Order Autoregressive (AR-2) model and non-normality on the power function of the control chart for known ? is studied. The power function is derived by considering the first four terms of an Edgeworth series for AR-2 model. The values of power function for three situation viz. when the roots are (i) real and distinct (ii) real and equal and (iii) complex conjugate along with case when there is no dependency are presented.

Electricity has played a central role in the economic development of countries since the wake of industrialization of nations and the demand for this strategic commodity and input has undergone a significant growth. This has caused researchers to become more focused on the factors affecting price and production costs and seek solutions to increase the efficiency in power generation. The general objective of this research study was to establish the strategic management factors affecting performance of thermal power generation companies in Kenya. Four key strategic management factors were selected for this study that affects performance of thermal power companies in Kenya which formed the specific objective of the study, they include; cost of fuel, customer relationship management (CRM), quality management and competitive strategy. The finding of this study was to assist shareholders in decision making process in terms of the investment to engaged in, government in reviewing and formulating policies in the energy sector and managers in focusing on their competitive areas while seeking solutions in there weaker areas in terms of performance. Literatures and theories were reviewed to seek various opinions and views from different authors in the area under study. Three theories of resourced based view, Stakeholder and resource dependency theories were considered. The conceptual frame work presents the relationship that exists between dependent and independent variables. The study criticized some of the literatures and presented the research gap where this study seeks to fulfill. The research study applied a descriptive research design. The target population was the 80 employees of Rabai Power Limited comprising of the four departments of operation, maintenance, procurement and administration. The sample size of 67 respondents out of the total population was obtained using the Slovin?s formula for sample determination. This was equivalent to 84% of the target population which was drawn using simple stratified random sampling technique to promote the need for efficiency and representativeness from various departments. Both primary and secondary data technique was used to collect data for the purpose of analyzing these factors that affect performance.