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We are very happy to announce that from 29tht April 2017, Dr. Wassila Issaadi has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. He/She will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Electronics and Communication Engineering. The appointment of Dr. Wassila Issaadi as member Editorial Advisory Board strengthens the links and will make it easier for prospective authors to establish contact with the journal.

This paper develops and tests the relationship between economic diversification and growth in Euro-Mediterranean countries. The analysis covers the period 1975-2013 in a panel data of 35 Euro-Med countries, and introduces a bootstrapped Granger-causality approach in order to analyze the unidirectional causality, and likely the bidirectional causality between economic diversification and growth. Overall, results provide robust empirical evidence of a positive impact of growth on economic diversification in most of developing countries benefiting from diversifying their economies in contrast to developed countries that perform with more economic specialization.

The effect of radiation on efficiency, retention of activities and stability of the activity during different exposure duration of radiation were studied. In the present work the effectiveness of gamma rays on the glucose and cholesterol oxidases are studied. We find that the last three dose (20, 30 and 45) minute of gamma ray have potential to cause global changes in the reducing enzyme activity. While the cholesterol oxidase activity was reduced after exposure to radiation at 10, 20,30 and 45 min. To investigate the stability of Glucose oxidase and cholesterol oxidase to radiation , different exposure time were preform, and the results show the tolerance capability of glucose oxidase was more than cholesterol oxidase when exposure to radiation for 10 min, the results shown that the activity of glucose oxidase was 0.506 U/ml, while the activity of cholesterol oxidase was 0.472 U /ml.

This study investigated the effect of problem solving techniques on secondary school students’ academic achievement in algebra. Two research questions were posed and three null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design, specifically, the pre-test posttest non-randomized control group design. The sample consisted of 80 senior secondary school two (SS 2) mathematics students from two co-educational schools in Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State, Nigeria. Achievement Test in Algebra (ATA), developed by the researchers and validated by experts, was used for data collection. A reliability coefficient of 0.94 was obtained using Kudder-Richardson formula 20. Data were analyzed using mean and ANCOVA. The findings showed that the students taught with problem solving technique achieved higher than those taught with lecture method. Gender was found to have no significant influence on achievement in mathematics though the females performed slightly higher than the males. In addition, no significant interaction effect was observed between gender and treatment. The researchers recommended among others, that problem solving technique should be adopted by mathematics teachers to help students learn mathematics more effectively.

Sesame meal is a byproduct of oil extraction factories. This product is considered as waste and it used to feed livestock and poultry. Hence, we evaluated effect of sesame meal methanol extraction on the physicochemical characteristics of pasteurized butter. In this study, oil extraction was performed by methanol at room temperature for 24 h. The compositions determined by HPLC chromatography, also sample of butter were packed with three concentrations of 50, 100 and 150 ppm. Oxidative tests including acid index, anisidine, peroxide, the induction period, total polyphenol compounds, conjugated diene value in 0 days, 15th, 30th, 45th, 60th and 90th of maintenance level (P< 0/05). The results showed that the butter with a concentration of 150 ppm and storage temperature -18 ° C showed highest resistance to oxidative and organoleptic evaluation, also it had significant differences with T1, T2 and T treatments (P< 0.05). The worst example, to control the temperature of 4 ° C. interaction between concentration × time × temperature factors was significant for all treatments (p>0/01).

In this study, the different film thicknesses of nano silver–clay films were prepared by varying volumes of the composite dispersion for casting. Effect of film thickness on thermal behavior, solid-state crystallinity, water uptake and erosion, and water vapor permeability of the nano composite films were investigated. The film thickness caused a small change in thermal behavior of the films when tested using DSC and TGA. The crystallinity of the thin films increased when compared with the thick films. Water uptake and erosion, water vapor permeation of the thick films were higher than those of the thin films. The results suggest that the evaporation rate of solvent in different volumes of the composite dispersion used in the preparation method could affect crystallinity of the film surface and film bulk of the nano composite films. This led to a change in water vapor permeability of the films.

Using hardwood cuttings is the most common method for propagation of pomegranate. Due to the high demand for raw materials in pomegranate production nurseries, and to reduce raw material consumption, comparison of different cutting methods as single-node, two-nodes and four-nodes with smaller and larger than 8 mm diameters, was investigated in greenhouse condition, and on a mixture of sand and perlite bed in the ratio of 2 to 1. Also effects of two levels of IBA hormone treatment with concentrations of 1500 ppm and 3000 ppm and 2N sulfuric acid on increasing of pomegranate single-node cuttings rooting were tested. Cultivars used in this study were Shirin-e-Saveh and Malas-e-Torsh planted on March 2010 and January 2011, and statistically analyzed as factorial in a completely randomized design. According to the obtained results single-node cuttings with diameters smaller than 8 mm had better rooting. Shirin-e-Saveh cultivar showed better rooting compared to Malas-e-Torsh cultivar and also IBA hormone treatment with concentrations of 1500 ppm and 3000 ppm did not show significant effect on increasing of single-node cuttings rooting. Whereas acid treatment in Shirin-e-Saveh cultivar caused facilitation in rooting,best average for some of roots (11 roots) were found in single-node cuttings of Shirin-e-Saveh cultivar treated with sulfuric acid.

With the public corporations in Kenya embracing strategic management which was heralded to bring the much needed improvement in their performance, the much awaited change has not been as widely seen as was anticipated but is rather slow and at times even retrogressive. There is still concern about poor performance of these public corporations. This can only mean one thing. The strategies are not working or in academic terms, the strategies have not been successfully implemented. Studies have shown the various aspects that contribute to the success of strategy and these have been adopted by the public corporation. This leaves one field not explored- The effect of stakeholder involvement on the successful implementation of strategy. However with public corporations, caution has to be taken on which stakeholder to involve and to what extent. This thus called for the present study to analyze the effect of involving each stakeholder in strategic planning and implementation on successful strategy implementation. Due to the number of public corporations and their homogeneity, a study on one should reflect on what happens in the others. This is the rationale for using KEBS. The study used a desk research design and explored much on the effects of stakeholder involvement on successful strategy implementation in public corporations.

Comparisons of peroxidase isozymes among seeds and seedlings of barley, naturally infected and artificially inoculated to Drechslera gramnea were investigated. Electrophoretic comparisons revealed no significant qualitative differences in peroxidase isoenzymic patterns in seeds of different categories viz. healthy, naturally infected and artificially inoculated. Results of electrophoretic study of peroxidase isozymes on Drechslera graminea infected seedlings indicated difference in banding pattern and band intensity in healthy, naturally infected and artificially inoculated seedlings during examination periods. Band intensity was in increasing order from 10th to 30th day, was highest in samples of 30th day of sowing. peroxidase isozymes analysis gave only a possibility of defence mechanism against Drechslera graminea by introducing new isozymes of peroxidase.

The failures of the bituminous pavements are not only due to increase in traffic but also due to extreme climatic conditions prevailing in the country. The addition of sulphur to the bitumen can improve the quality of bitumen and enhance its properties as far as its use in the road construction is considered. In this paper the effect of addition of sulphur on the physical properties of the bitumen is studied and the optimum dose of sulphur to be added to the bitumen is also determined. The effect of Aging on the physical properties of Sulphur modified bitumen is also discussed in this paper.