Archives-April 2013

The astonishing research on the nature of students’ and teachers’ beliefs about language learning in the 1980s by Horwitz paved the way for a multitude of investigations into this topic. There have been different studies focusing on the beliefs of EFL learners but the focus on students who learn English for their major field of study is lacking. This study aimed to address this gap and examined beliefs about learning a foreign language held by 90 Iranian female university students majoring in Theology and Islamic sciences. The present inquiry addressed beliefs held by the beginners and intermediate learners in order to assess which areas of beliefs were commonly shared by the two groups of learners and which areas contained considerable differences in beliefs hence finding the cause for their weakness in English. This study employed a questionnaire based on Horwitz’s (1988) Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) as a research instrument, with some modifications to be appropriate to Iranian context. Statistical analysis detected three items where opinions of these two groups of students were significantly different and a pattern derived from the beliefs of both groups in Iranian context and in relation to English for Specific Purposes (ESP).

Organizational climate plays a key role in the performance of an organization. In schools it directly affects the academic achievement of the students. Therefore, this study was conducted on organizational climate of high and low adopter secondary schools in Khyber pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. This study was descriptive in nature. Population of this study comprised all the head teachers and teachers of public secondary schools registered with Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan). 120 schools were selected as sample from these 8 boards, 40 schools from each board, out of which 20 high adopter and 20 low adopter schools from each board and from each school 01 head teacher and 04 teachers were selected using equal ratio sampling method. For collection of data simple survey method was applied using a self-developed questionnaire based on five major facets of organizational climate and each facet contained ten statements. To find out and compare the organizational climate of high and low adopter schools Mean, Standard Deviation and t-test were used. It was concluded that the organizational climate of high adopter schools was better than low adopter schools. And there was a close relationship between the organizational climate and students academic achievements. It was hoped that the government of Khyber pakhtunkhwa, policy makers and other authorities will take initiative steps to improve the organizational climate of the schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

In this study, the Azadirachta Indica tree was evaluated as the biomonitors of heavy metals such as Fe, Mn, Zn and Cu contaminated in Madurai City. The soil samples at depth ( 0-20cm) and Azadirachta Indica leaves were taken from different sampling sites namely Kalavasal (S1), Palaganatham (S2), Periyar (S3), Simmakal (S4), Goripalayam (S5) and Mattuthavani (S6). Then, the concentrations of Fe, Mn, Zn and Cu were measured using Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer Perkin Elmer Model 1100. The result of this study showed that the concentration of Fe, Mn, Zn and Cu varied between 11.96µg/m3-21.6 µg/m3, 5.36 µg/m3 - 16.25 µg/m3, 4.38 µg/m3 - 7.22 µg/m3 and 1.58 µg/m3 - 5.03 µg/m3respectively at depth 0-20cm. The concentration of heavy metals such as Fe, Mn, Zn and Cu in Azadirachta Indica ranged between 206.92 µg/m3- 1661.3 µg/m3, 45.0 µg/m3 – 273.75 µg/m3, 112.67 µg/m3 – 345.67 µg/m3 and 15.0 µg/m3 - 23.25 µg/m3 respectively. According to these results the concentration of heavy metal Fe was found to be high in all the sampling sites at depth of soil 0-20cm. The mobility ratio value for heavy metals in Azadirachta Indica was found to be greater than one in all the sampling sites, thus Azadirachta Indica is said to be heavy metal accumulator. The variation in heavy metal concentrations is due to changes in traffic density and anthropogenic activities. It is concluded that Azadirachta Indica can be applied to monitor polluted sites.

The world energy demand is on the increase allowing many countries to find a viable solution to this quandary. Many of such countries are adopting a way to deal with such crisis by considering other conservative means of source of energy. One of such country having difficult to generate enough energy for its economic growth is Ghana. Currently Ghana’s total installed electricity generation capacity stands at 1810MW, with her population estimated to be 24.4 million, based on the 2010 census. Therefore, there is the need for a radical change in energy mix to propel the country’s economic growth. For a brighter future, the country must explore unconditional means to secure cheap and reliable energy resource to satiate the desire of future industrial accomplishments. In this regard, nuclear energy is a descent choice without compromising environmental quality. Given that nuclear power is an important choice in the face of the threat of climate change, the public’s perceptions need to be changed at any cost considering the catastrophic accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011. This paper addresses subjective uncertainty on health effect in hypothetical release using accident analysis code MACCS2 to estimate TEDE (total effective dose equivalent) for postulated accident scenario. The code is for preliminary work on the proposed AP1000 MW(e) NPP at the proposed site, Volta Point Unit 1 in Akosombo, Ghana.

The purpose of this research was to identify about the implementation of Balanced Scorecard in the insurance companies of Pakistan. Additionally, this study was conducted to answer various queries such as relative importance of the four perspectives of the Balanced Scorecard, relationship between experience of the employees and knowledge about the Balanced Scorecard, relationship between the age of the employees and knowledge about the Balanced Scorecard, measures used by the insurance companies for each perspective of the Balanced Scorecard etc. This study was conducted at the managers and non-managers’ level. To achieve these purposes, a sample of 23 out of total 36 insurance companies was taken. Total number of respondents was 120.

This study seeks to explore the factors determining the capital structure of banking sector of Pakistan. A panel data set of 26 banks for the period of 2007 to 2011 was selected to fulfill the objective of this study. The findings of two econometric techniques of panel data i.e. fixed effects and random effects models reveal that size, tangibility, profitability, growth opportunities and liquidity are the significant determinants of capital structure. The size and liquidity of the banks in the sample have direct impact on leverage, whereas, tangibility, profitability and growth opportunities have a negative association with leverage. These outcomes are in line with corporate finance theories such as Trade-Off Theory, Agency Cost Theory and Pecking Order Theory. This study certifies that banking sector has determinants similar to non-financial sector, so, this study will help financial analysts and managers in understanding the dynamics and underlying premises on capital structure of banking sector of Pakistan.

Current study is carried out to look at the deterinmants of profitablity in insurance sector of Pakistan with a panel data set of 31 insurance firms (life insurance sector and no-life insurance) of Pakitan from 2006-2011. To investigete the deterinmants of profitabiltiy two most applicable panel data teachniques (fixed effects and random effects models) are employed and then Hausman’s specification test is applied to select the most effective model. This test proves that fixed effects model is the most appropriated model for this study. The outcomes of fixed effects model propose that leverage, size, earnings voalitiy and age of the firm are signficant determinants of profitablitiy while growth opportunities and liquidty are not significant determinants of peorfitabiltiy. Accordign to best knowledge of authors this is frist study that covers the whole fiancial sector and emoply the appropriate models on the panel data. This study is very handy for the mangement of insurance sector of Pakistan in regarding their profitabilty decsions and stakeholders of insurance sector.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of worker remittance on economic growth of Pakistan by using annual data for the years 1991 to 2010. The multiple regression analysis and different diagnostic tests are applied in order to confirm the assumptions of multicollinearity, heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation in the data. On the basis of multiple regression researcher conclude that worker remittances received from overseas Pakistani has a positive and significant impact on economic growth of Pakistan after control for other important determinants of economic growth like household finical consumption, financial development, saving and current account balance. This study facilitates the policy makers, economists and Government of Pakistan in analysis regarding increasing inflows of emigrant’s workers of Pakistan.

Working capital can be considered as source of existence for a financial body and management of working capital is regarded as one of the most essential part of business management. This study aims to find out the impact of working capital policies on profitability. Return on assets is used as a measure of profitability. Current assets to total assets ratio is used to compute the investment policy of working capital management and to determine financing policy of working capital management current liabilities to total assets ratio is used. Other variables that are used in this study are quick ratio, debt to equity ratio and size of the firms. Secondary data of 117 textile firms listed on Karachi stock exchange is taken for a period of six years i.e. 2005-2010 to calculate all these variables. Results of the regression analysis show that aggressiveness of working capital management policies is negatively associated with profitability. Moreover liquidity and size of the firm have positive relation profitability whereas debt to equity ratio is negatively correlated with profitability. Textile sector is one of the majors sectors of Pakistan. It needs due consideration regarding the management of assets and liabilities. So, the aim of this study is to provide some useful recommendations for the people responsible for the management of this sector. This study also establishes the basis for future research in this area of business.

A field experiment was carried out at the experimental Station of National Research Centre – El-Nubarya district, El-Behera Governorate, Egypt during two seasons of 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 to study the effect of drought stress (2504, 2003 and 1502 m3/fed/Season) (100 % IR, 80 % IR and 60 % IR) and four foliar application levels of ascorbic acid (AA) (0.0, 100, 200 and 300 mg/L) and their interaction on yield, irrigations water use efficiency of wheat, protein content and protein yield under newly reclaimed sandy soil conditions Results indicated that water irrigation requirement varied significantly in all studied characters. The water irrigation requirement of (80 % IR) produced high grain yield per faddan and insignificantly outyielded the water irrigation requirements of (100 % IR). Increasing foliar application levels of ascorbic acid significantly increased grain and straw yields per plant and per faddan as well as protein content, protein yield, plant height, spike length, seed index, number of spikelet’s per spike and water use efficiency. Results indicated that the interaction between water irrigation requirements and foliar application levels of ascorbic acid had significant effect on all studied characters. The interaction between the water irrigation requirements of (80% IR) and (300 mg/L) foliar application level of ascorbic acid gave the highest values of grain, straw and protein yields per faddan, water use efficiency and significantly outyielded the other all interactions. This means that we can save 20 % of irrigation water by using 80 % IR to irrigate the new lands under the conditions of this trail.