Archives-j 

School culture is a pervasive element of schools, yet it is elusive and difficult to define. Understanding school culture is an essential factor in any school initiative. Any type of change introduced to schools is often met with resistance and is doomed to failure as a result of the reform being counter to this nebulous, yet all encompassing facet of school culture. Principals scoring high on this index frequently work with teachers to improve weaknesses and address pedagogical problems, and also to solve problems with teachers when there are challenges to learning in school. Also, they often inform teachers about possibilities to update their curricular knowledge and instructional skills, these principals report being vigilant about disruptive student behaviour in schools. In general, principals performing on this indicator spend significant amounts of their managerial time in attempting to improve school instruction methodology and foster co-curricular activities. School culture is not a static entity; It is constantly being constructed and shaped through interactions with others and through reflections on life and the world in general (Sarason, S.B. 2000). School culture develops as staff members interact with each other, the students and the community. It becomes the guide for behavior that is shared among members of the school community at large. Culture is shaped by the interactions of the personnel and the actions of the personnel become directed by culture. It is self-repeating cycle.

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between school environment factors such as peer influence, class size and media usage in school with English Language subject achievement among Form Five students of a school in PasirGudang, Johor by measuring their English language SPM Trial examination results of 2010. The differences of English Language achievement among the students were analysed based on their demographic factor and the influence of the school environment factors (independent variables) on the SPM Trial English Language achievement (dependent variable). Sampling 180 respondents of Form Five students one of the secondary schools in PasirGudang District was chosen to carry out the research. Three research hypotheses were developed for this study. The data was analyzed using SPSS software. Statistical tool such as Pearson Coefficient Correlations, frequency and Multiple Regressions were used to test these hypotheses. There are two types of variables used in this research which are Dependent Variables (DV) and Independent Variables (IV). Students’ achievement is classified as theDV while the factors of school environment (teachers’ commitment, class size and peer influence) are classified astheIV. A conceptual framework is drawn based on the variables. The results indicated that class size has a weak significant impact towards students’ achievement whereas peer influence and media usagedo not have significant impact towards students’ achievement.

The study investigates the direction of volatility spillover between exchange rate and stock prices in Nigeria using quarterly data for the period of 1990-Q1 to 2009-Q4. Exponential Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic (EGARCH) framework due to Nelson (1991) was employed. Two different stock exchange indicators were used as proxy for stock prices to test the direction of volatility spillover between the variables. Thus we have two EGARCH models. The ADF and PP tests suggest that the series are random walk processes in their level form. The empirical findings suggest evidence of no long run equilibrium relationship between exchange rate and stock prices. It further shows that there is a robust unidirectional volatility spillover running from exchange rate to stock prices irrespective of the stock market indicator used. The result supports the findings of Beer and Hebeins (2008) for industrialized countries. The estimated mean equation showed that there is instantaneous positive response of stock market volatility to exchange rate fluctuation. Evidence from variance equation revealed that volatility persists longer when SMC was used as proxy for stock prices than ASI. The standard deviation statistic showed that stock market indicator is positively related to risk, validating the capital asset market hypothesis.

In order to study the effects of increasing corn plant densities on competitive ability of corn with natural weed populations in Khouzestan climate, a split plot based on randomized Complete Block design with four replications were conducted in 2011 in a field experiment station at Ramin Agricultural and Natural Resources, University of Mollasani, Ahvaz. Treatments included pure stands of corn at three densities (40000, 70000 and 100000 plants ha-1) and weed-interference period to v9 and v13 in any of plant densities (40000, 70000 and 100000 plants ha-1). The following results were observed that there was significantly difference between studied characters, grain yield, biological yield, harvest index, grain number per and row number per ear, grain number per row and 1000-grains weight among treatments. The studied characters were severely reduced by increasing the duration of weed interference after corn emergence. In addition, results showed that with corn plant increasing densities, corn plants tolerated the presence of weeds until v9 stage with approximately 6-15% in yield loss.

This study the impact of company financial leverage and growth opportunities on the investment decisions using information on Iranian companies listed on Tehran Stock Exchange. This paper aims to answer is whether financial leverage influences the investment decisions in Iranian context. By answering this question, the author attempts to add to the existing literature by bringing new evidence on the relationship between leverage and investment decisions of firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange in Iran. For the study purpose, the 92 companies with the desired condition were selected for this purpose and panel data with fixed effects was used to test hypotheses. The results of this research show that companies with higher Financial Leverage adjust their investment decisions. The results of this study can be used by shareholders, managers and finance researchers.

The present study was undertaken to compare the input-output ratio of grapes cultivation among the different sizes of farm holding classes in Theni district of Tamil Nadu and to know their profitability as well as efficiency. A sample size of 273 grape growers were selected under different sizes of farm holding classes namely, marginal, small, medium and large, during the period April 2013. Convenience sampling method was adopted in selecting the respondents. The farmers who cultivate the grape species Sharad is selected for the purpose, which is widely cultivated in the study area. Input-output ratio, benefit–cost ratio among the different sizes of farm holding classes are also compared. The results show that the establishment costs for vineyard per acre is found to be higher for the medium and large farms and the total operating costs are found to be higher for the large farms. Even though the cost share per cent is more for the medium and large farms and gained lesser profit than marginal and small farms due to the gross return the large farms have gained much profit than marginal and small farms. But due to the gross return the large farms have gained much profit than marginal and small farms.

The paper exposes some of the unethical practices that surrounds IMF stabilization polices. It specifically examines the functionality of the financial programming model of the IMF vis-à-vis its adoption and imposition on LDC’s. This is in turn juxtaposed with foundational Islamic norms. The author concludes with some remarks and recommendations.

The trends and effects of gears on catches of tuna landed in Ghana by the artisanal, semi-industrial and industrial sectors were analysed over a ten-year period (2001 to 2010). Greater catches were made by the industrial sectors of about 698,754 metric tons out of 846,223 metric tons and skipjack tuna Katsuwonus pelamis dominated the catches of tuna over the study period. Of all the gears used in exploiting tuna in the Ghanaian coastal waters, the purse seine gear used in the industrial sector made the highest catches of tuna of about 374,218 metric tons over the ten year period. Analysis of variance was used to ascertain whether there was significant difference in the quantity of tuna caught using the different gears; for Thunnus albacares P-value (3.25E-13) < significant level (0.05), for Thunnus obesus P-value (0.001437) < significant level (0.05), for Katsuwonus pelamis P-value (1.04E-15) < significant level (0.05) for Auxis thazard P-value (2.41E-06) < significant level (0.05) and for Euthynnus alleteratus P-value (8.14E-07) < significant level (0.05). It was observed that fishing in the Ghanaian waters is having a large impact on the biomass level; and the current level of exploitation of about 80,000 metric tons of tuna averagely per annum appears not to be sustainable in the long term, unless the high recent reports of recruitment is maintained. The purse seine gear employed in the industrial sector was the only gear that showed relative increase in the percentage growth rate in output of all the tuna species in the ten-year period. These were 18%, 17%, 16%, 11% and 6% for Thunnus obesus, Euthynnus alleteratus, Auxis thazard, and Katsuwonus pelamis respectively. This could be attributed among others to the fact that the purse seiner fish around fish aggregating devices (FADs) and also use relatively more sophisticated equipment. It is recommended that detailed tuna species stock assessment should be undertaken to enable adoption of improved and adaptive management approaches.

This paper is part of an ongoing research on the development of systemic maintenance management model for Malaysian university buildings. In order to achieve this aim, there is a need to develop a performance model against which services are measure. Measuring performance is a significant part of systemic maintenance management service delivery. Maintenance organization needs to know where they are in order to provide user-driven services and to enhance productivity. Through “hypothetico-deductive” theory, this paper developed a 10 points matrix for the university maintenance organizations for measuring and improving their service delivery. The aim of this paper is to present the validated maintenance management model for Malaysian university maintenance organizations. The model is to guide and facilitate value added service delivery through initiating maintenance according to user value system rather than mainly on the condition of the building

Heat and mass transfer effects on the unsteady flow of micropolar fluids embedded in a porous medium are studied by taking into the account of viscous dissipation with a homogeneous chemical reaction of the first order. Using the Galerkin finite element method the expressions for the velocity, microrotation, temperature and concentrations are obtained. The effect of material parameters such as Prandtl number Pr, Grashof number G, Modified Grashof number Gm, Schmidth number Sc, Eckert number Ec, the spin-gradient viscosity ?, the dimensionless viscosity ratio ?, the coefficient of gyro-viscosity or vortex viscosity ?, permeability of the porous medium K, Chemical reaction parameter , and time t. Further the results of Skin friction coefficient, the rate of heat transfer and mass transfer at the wall are presented with various values of fluid properties and flow conditions on the velocities, temperature and concentration are plotted in the graph and discussed. In the present analysis we study the effect of viscous dissipation on unsteady free convection flow of a laminar incompressible micropolar fluid with heat and mass transfer past a vertical porous plate embedded in a porous medium with chemical reaction.