Archives-April 2012

The present research conducted to investigate the effect of pictorial context on reading comprehension of EFL readers . To carry out the research 30 students were selected . They were studying at Oxford Representative language center in Iran. And they were assigned to two equal groups : a) the experimental group , and b) the control group . The two groups were assumed to be homogeneous. The experimental group received pictures immediately before they read the passages while the control group did not receive any pictures before reading the texts . Four English passages followed by five multiple-choice questions were administrated to the subjects. A T-test was then used to compare the mean scores of the two groups. Then the result of the T-test indicated that the subjects in the experimental group who had received pictures before reading the passages , scored significantly higher than the subjects in the other group . Therefore , the hypothesis of this study was supported and it was concluded that pictorial context can be a beneficial device to improve reading comprehension of EFL readers . Finally , from the pedagogical point of view , the findings of this study have paved the way for material developers and EFL teachers to improve the reading comprehension of EFL readers.

Education has the key role in human capital formation. It empowers the society by increasing awareness, skills, efficiency and productivity, but does it empowers the people who educate the society? This paper scrutinizes the impact of different education levels on teacher’s earnings of public sector educational institutes in Pakistan. By employing Mincerian Human Capital model. A sample of 150 teachers is used for the analysis. Data is collected through field survey and questioner about educational level and experience from public sector teaching staff of Quetta city and OLS Regression method is used to determine the impact of Education and experience on earning. According to our results, completed years of education and years of experience have positive significant impact on monthly income. But years of experience increases income at a decreasing rate.

This paper presents the economic feasibility study for the implementation of Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) system in Malaysian. BIPV is a relatively new technology which is being introduced by the Malaysian government as a step to encourage the use of renewable energy in reducing the dependence on fossil fuel energy which is becoming scarce from time to time. The objective of this study is to evaluate the possibility of BIPV system to be implemented in Malaysia in terms of financial feasibility. As a result of this study, it is found that BIPV faces a stiff challenge which holds the technology to expand further. The current situations make the BIPV system is not feasible economically to be implemented in Malaysia. However, this does not limit the implementation of this technology in future. This problem can be overcome by the support of government by introducing a better policy which might be able to stimulate and create a conducive environment for BIPV to expand.

This paper explored the hedonic price model to demonstrate the effects of housing attributes on the price structure for duplexes in Lekki Peninsular area of Lagos metropolis. The hypothesis that house prices are influenced by a combination of housing attributes was tested with a standard hedonic model using a sample of 193 duplexes sold between 2008 and 2010. Each of the sixteen explanatory variables involved manifested their a priori signs and statistically significant at the required level of significance except for quality of sanitary wares, availability of shopping centers and availability of swimming pool. The results suggest, among others, that structural attributes, particularly attributes that border on convenience, comfort and display of affluence, constitute the principal predictors of duplexes’ prices in the study area.

Prime Minister Aziz has approved the export of an additional 500,000 tons of wheat this year in the hope of making inroads into the lucrative Indian market. The export will be undertaken by the private sector by sea and by railways. A bumper harvest of 23 million tons is expected this 2006-07 crop year. Last year, the country also had a bumper crop of 21.7 million tons of wheat. The surplus harvest of wheat, however, does not guarantee food security in the country. The traders mafia (that includes ministers, influential parliamentarians and the private traders plus few industrialists) in our country is very strong and the common consumer suffers the net impact of such malpractices. Government takes decisions in the name of consumers but in actual effect, these are the traders who benefit from exports/ imports and not the consumers. The profiteering tendency of the global food producers and distributors even at the cost of people’s survival is bound to create social and political upheavals. This is a harsh reality which the business people and policy makers have chosen to ignore so far. Food insecurity amidst plenty is the name of the game in food politics. Despite the fact that global economy is a food surplus economy, 852 million people (17 % of the world population) go hungry every day in the world because they do not have access to food. The chronic hunger kills more people every day than disasters, disease or war. But, all this is when there is enough food to feed the entire population of the world twice. Women in rural areas go hungry the most despite doing the bulk of the work to grow food and feed their families. Women produce up to 80 per cent of the food in developing countries, but they own only one per cent of the land. The continuation of hunger is directly related to a lack of access or entitlement to food, and to the natural resources essential to the provision of food. Food sovereignty is the right of people to define their own food and agriculture, and to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade.

This work designs the rotor wind turbine, which uses more effectively for the wind energy and depends on the acting area of the vanes. The frame design consists of three movable vanes to reduce the negative torque of the frame that rotates contrary to the wind. The wind tunnel is used to measure the power coefficient, torque coefficient and angular velocity as a function of wind velocity. The power coefficient is measured experimentally to be equals to 18% and 21% for three and four frames, respectively. The rotor wind turbine is applicable internationally due to its high efficiency, simple construction, and simple technology.

In this paper, Smart Card based Online Health Care System with low cost Audio and Video Facilities have been discussed. For providing a good quality of treatment to the patients in the hospital, it is required to automate and integrate the hospitals of country via internet. After registration, patient will get a smart card with 10 digits unique registration number/ PatientID with personal information in the hospital. All the doctor prescriptions, test reports (blood, urine etc), images (MRI, CT-Scan, ECG etc.) will be stored in the databases of the hospital server (local server) as per the PatientID. All the local servers of hospitals are connected with one centralized server and time to time all the patient data from the local hospital server will be transferred to main centralized server. Patient information, doctor information and hospital information etc. can be retrieved from any hospital of any patient as per the PatientID. There may be a situation where patient is present in a rural hospital where sufficient expert doctors are not available. In such situations, doctor present in the remote hospital may need to contact an expert to take his advice for better treatment of the patient. In this work, a Graphical User Interface for low cost Videoconferencing System for Online Health Care System is also discussed, specifically to support consultations among remotely placed Patients, rural health workers and specialists in the urban cities and provide a secure access to remote patient records. A low-cost web-based Videoconferencing System using Open Source Technologies such as Red5 etc. has been developed. We have used live video/audio, text chat and video recording/archiving tools and features for the same. Online Health Care System application has been developed as front end in DOT NET [4] and back end in SQL Server. SQL Server tuning & other features are implemented for fast retrieval of patient data while designing the application of Health Care System.

When I was 16 I read an abstract about Ernest Hemingway’s story life and his dead. It disappointed me because I didn’t know why he should kill himself with a shotgun. I was encouraged by this question to find an answer to this question. Now I am 22 years old and being an English student is my key chance! Yes key chance because I’ve made a golden house and there is a door and you should be able to answer to all questions in English to pass the door and enter to the house .So knowing English proficiently is the key of entering. But when I decided to choose this article that why Ernest Hemingway killed himself as the same way that his father had done before him I thought that nobody can answer to this question and probably no one knew him more than himself and non of his friends are alive so what should I do ? After thinking a lot finally I found that he was a man that tried to have another Ernest in his stories like in the story of “Charles”! So who he was? I selected short stories & or excepts by early 20 century American author, Ernest Hemingway, Found background information on Hemingway, provided access to print and electronic resources to collect data an critical comments on the Hemingway’s short stories, and provide some time for the reading of the short stories. Finally I got that there is a character in his short stories that has lots of similarities with his characteristic and he was Nick Adams and in my opinion he is the second Ernest who is not dead and every day that Ernest’s books are printing he is born and shows that Ernest is alive and it means that my key chance is in its exact position and with a little pressure the door will be opened and now I am trying …But this is 1.4 of my complete issue.

The present study was made an attempt to identify the biochemical constituents such as protein, carbohydrate and amino acids in Fenneropenaeus indicus tissue and hepatopancreas. The growth rate of F. indicus was identified with three types of feed habits via., live feeds Artemia, algae (Chlorella sp.) and artificial feed (pellet) inducing the total growth rate was measured by weight biomass. The level of protein, carbohydrate and amino acids content of tissue and hepatopancreas in F. indicus were found maximum in Artemia feed. The Artemia (live feed) resulted better growth and high content of biochemical constituents of the shrimp F. indicus when compare of the other feed.

The present experimental study explains the effect of method of curing on the compressive strength of Pavement Concrete produced with Blended cement and non-chloride hardening Accelerator. Portland Pozzolana Cement (PPC) was used in the production of concrete mixtures. Concrete mixtures were designed as per the new guidelines of IS 10262: 2009. Accelerator dosage was varied from 2 liters to 5 liters per cubic meter of concrete in seven equal intervals. Compressive strength of standard cube specimens (150 mm) at early age and at full maturity cured with water and alternatively with wax based membrane forming curing compound, was studied. Performance of accelerator at a given age of concrete was assessed based on the maximum percentage increase in the compressive strength, measured with reference to the strength of control mixture (without accelerator) at the corresponding age. Average efficiency of the curing compound at a given age, calculated as the ratio of average compressive strength of concrete cured with it to that cured with water, was also studied. The test results revealed that the type of curing did not affect optimum performance of accelerator. Average efficiency of the curing compound was found to be more at early age than at later age.