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Entrepreneurship has played an important role in economic growth, innovation, competitiveness and in poverty alleviation. This study investigated the entrepreneurial culture and its influence on performance of enterprises in retail and services enterprises in Eldoret Town –Kenya. Entrepreneurial Culture (EC) on performance of fifteen Micro Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) in manufacturing, transport, pharmaceutical, hotel, communication and education sectors in Eldoret Town, Uasin Gishu County –Kenya were interrogated. The influence of entrepreneurial culture was assessed on performance dimensions such as profits, revenue, and the number of employees, customer growth & opening up of new branches. Interviews were used as the main instrument for data collection. Qualitative and quantitative techniques were applied for data analysis. Findings showed that over 95% of performance of MSMEs in the selected sectors was influenced by entrepreneurial culture. Profitability, sales revenue, employment vacancies, number of new businesses and customer growth were significantly correlated with entrepreneurial culture. Results indicated that there were correlations among independent variable which was entrepreneurial culture and dependent variable - in this case the performance of the enterprises. This study could be useful to among others, entrepreneurs, educationists and policy makers to plan their activities towards entrepreneurship development of MSMEs in the country.

This paper presents an embedded modeling approach for estimating the crack size in a rotating beam by predicting the vibrations of the cracked beam. The model embeds a non-linear switching function into a finite element model of the beam to characterize the effect of crack breathing on the local stiffness of the beam. Solving the model enables the prediction of the vibrations of the cracked beam and the evaluation of the modal frequencies of the vibrating signal using Chirp-z transform. Inputs to the model include the vibrations of the un-cracked beam to calibrate the model at the beginning, i.e., no need for run-to-fail tests. The model is validated and refined utilizing experimental data.

Suitability of alternative mixes for container vegetable production was studied in a Plant and Screen house of Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources Management, Ebonyi state University, Abakaliki. There were 5 growth media mixes and topsoil which included coconut husk mixed with pig dung, sawdust mixed with pig dung, burnt rice husk mixed with pig dung, fresh rice husk mixed with pig dung, burnt rice husk mixed with fresh rice husk mixed with sawdust mixed with coconut husk mixed with pig dung and native topsoil. The design used was a completely randomized design (CRD). The treatments were replicated four times to give a total of twenty-four experimental units. Amaranthus cruntus L. was used as a container vegetable to serve as a test crop. Data from both media mixes, topsoil chemical properties and agronomic yield of Amaranthus cruntus L. were analyzed using analysis of variance. Results showed that organic wastes based media mixes had superior chemical properties for vegetable production compared to native topsoil. Mixing each organic based media with pig dung significantly (P<0.05) improved their percent N,OC and pH contents relative to top soil. Percent N,OC and pH were 46, 46,91 and 15 % for sawdust mixed with pig dung, burnt rice husk mixed with unburnt rice husk mixed with sawdust mixed with coconut mixed with pig dung, coconut husk mixed with pig dung and sawdust mixed with pig dung when compared with control. There was generally significantly (P<0.05) better Amaranthus cruntus L. performance in organic based mixes when compared to topsoil. Coconut husk mixed with pig doing had superior significant (P< 0.05) effect on leaf number, number of branches, plant height, leaf area index and fresh shoot weight of Amaranthus cruntus L. in the study compared to topsoil and other media mixes. Coconut husk mixed with pig dung was higher by 23, 18, 15, 39, 37 and 14% than topsoil for leaf number, number of branches, plant height, leaf area index and fresh shoot weight of Amaranthus cruntus L. respectively. The media mixes and topsoil enhanced chemical properties and agronomic yield in the order of coconut husks mixed with pig dung > fresh rice husk mixed with pig dung > burnt rice husk with fresh rice husk mixed with coconut husk mixed with sawdust mixed with pig dung > burnt rice husk mixed with pig dung > sawdust mixed with pig dung > topsoil. It was concluded that growing Amaranthus cruntus L. in media mixes and particularly coconut husk mixed with pig dung could serve as suitable alternative to soil in container vegetable production in Abakaliki agro ecology.

The nutrient and phytochemical constituents of four eggplant cultivars (Solanum. marcrocarpon (round), Solanum aetheopicum, Solanum Marcrocapon (oval), Solanum gilo) were evaluated by standard procedures. The moisture content in the cultivars was high ranging from 88.31±0.023–91.94±0.11% while the protein, ash, energy and fat content were low. There were significant differences (P<0.05) in the moisture, fiber and ash contents among the cultivars. The K+ content of all the cultivars was higher than other elements analyzed ranging from 821.00±13.10 to 764.00±10.00mg/100g. Na+, Ca2+ and Cu2+ were higher in S. gilo while S. aetheopicum had the lowest concentrations in all the elements analyzed except Na+ and Ca2+. The concentrations of alkaloids, tannins and saponins were very high. S. marcrocarpon (round) cultivar had the least values for both alkaloids and tannins while S. Macrocarpon (oval) and S. gilo had the highest concentrations of both phytochemicals. S. marcrocarpon (round) eggplant had the highest concentration of flavonoid (16.88±0.08mg/100g), S. aetheopicum (12.53±0.03mg/100g), S. gilo 12.87±0.06mg/100g and S. marcrocarpon (oval) (16.22±0.06 mg/100g). The results revealed that eggplants have rich mineral content and various important of phytochemicals which may account for their medicinal properties acclaimed. Thus, they could be valuable raw material for health and pharmaceutical industries.

A cube divisor cordial labeling of a graph G with vertex set V is a bijection f from V to {1,2,...,|v|} such that an edge e=uv is assigned the label 1 if [ f(u) ]^3 |f(v) or [ f(v) ]^3 |f(u) and the label 0 otherwise, then |ef(0)- ef(1)| ?1 . A graph which admits a cube divisor cordial labeling is called a cube divisor cordial graph. In this paper we prove that barycentric subdivision of the star K1,n , switching of a vertex in cycle Cn , degree splitting graphs of Bn,n and Pn, n?5 admit cube divisor cordial labeling.

The purpose of this research is review of rules and application area of predictive data mining in medical sciences and presenting a frame work for creating, evaluation and exploitation of data mining models in this. In this paper a new method is presented for the diagnosis of diabetes. In this article we want to use the combination of artificial intelligent techniques such as genetic algorithm for attribute reduction from 8 to 4, the artificial neural decision tree to select the best possible conditions Neural Network, and education to estimate adaptability learn Machine, in order to identify the diagnosis of uses. The present study compared to older methods and meta-heuristic model involving a combination of genetic algorithms and neural networks and decision trees in the diagnosis of diabetes is based on the laws and properties of the compound.

One of the important tasks of social helpers is empowerment of vulnerable groups. One of these vulnerable groups is female household heads. One of the practices that can help empowering of them is to encourage female household heads to financial independence. Entrepreneurship is something that can lead to financial independence of female household heads. Moreover, entrepreneurship can lead to better mental and social health of this vulnerable group. The first step in empowering female household heads through entrepreneurship is to identify their obstacles and entrepreneurship problems. Because by identification of these barriers it can be done more appropriate measures in order to empower them. So, the aim of the present study is to identify entrepreneurship barriers of female household heads covered by Welfare Organization in Tehran. The method of the current study is survey. The statistical population of this research is all female household heads covered by Welfare Organization in Tehran that 350 of them were selected randomly. In order to collect data in this research, researcher-built questionnaire was used. In this research, the face validity and content aspect of the questionnaire were confirmed and reliability coefficient was obtained 0.81 using Cronbach’s alpha indicating desirable reliability of research questionnaire. The questionnaires were completed through self-creativity and then data were analyzed using SPSS software. Among problems that women encountered with them, the first ten ones are respectively the loss of fund to begin a job, existence of strictly official rules, gender discrimination and ignoring the ability of women by the society and responsible organizations, ignoring women in management affairs, over-concern about paying back the loans, emphasis on having personal fund instead of borrowing it from others, loss of pawn in order to get a loan, lack of proper support by government and governmental organizations, few facilities to begin a job by sponsor organizations, and unsuitable behavior of some organizations due to promotion of male-dominating in the society that statistically meaningful difference in prioritizing of these barriers was seen (p<0.05). Considering the findings of the current research, the programs in order to support female household heads economically and special facilities for them can provide their entrepreneurship basis. Also, gender discriminations against women especially female household heads can be decreased through acculturating using media and national media. The findings of the current research can be useful for social helpers, sponsor organizations and policymakers in direction of empowering the female household heads.

Tropical timber trade has a vital part in the socio-economic improvement of Malaysia. It has been the main exporters of high quality tropical timber products to the world market. International trade in timber products is organized and structured by numerous trade dealings. There is increasing distress around the effect of non-tariff trade dealings on the global timber products sector. The goal of the study is to estimate the impacts of non-tariff trade hurdles to timber trade. The methodology employed in this study includes econometric analysis using spatial equilibrium model. The spatial equilibrium analysis uses a comprehensive econometric model, and the Timber Trade Model (TTM), based on the Price Endogenous Linear Programming System (PELPS) framework. The analysis started by a scenario from the year 2008, and the projections to 2020. The projections show that non-tariff barriers are created to be fewer common than tariffs but have comparable or better combined effects on trade, production, producer revenues, consumer expenditures and value added as tariffs. This study shows the importance of analysing non-tariff barriers to timber trade strategy and the necessity for enduring widespread trade liberalization.

Seeker optimization algorithm (SOA), a novel heuristic population-based search algorithm, is utilized in this paper to solve different economic dispatch (ED) problems of thermal power units. In the SOA, the act of human searching capability and understanding are exploited for the purpose of optimization. In this algorithm, the search direction is based on empirical gradient by evaluating the response to the position changes and the step length is based on uncertainty reasoning by using a simple fuzzy rule. The effectiveness of the algorithm as tested on two large-scale test power systems to solve the ED problems. The results obtained by the SOA are compared to the other different algorithms published in the recent literatures to establish its superiority.

Table of contents for the month of February 2012