Archives-July 2012

This paper reports the study carried out to examine the thermal properties of lightweight foamed concrete (LFC) integrating various additives. Various densities of LFC samples ranging from 600, 1000 and 1400 kg/m3 with constant cement-sand ratio of 1:1.5 and water-cement ratio of 0.45 were produced. Fly ash, lime and polypropylene fiber with different percentages were used as additives. The main purpose of this study is to explore the effect and divergence of reaction on each additive that influences the thermal properties of LFC. Detail experiments were setup to study the behavior and reaction of additives which is expected to give different results on thermal properties of LFC. Each additive has different properties and reaction which will impinge on the thermal properties of LFC. The reaction during the hydration process is significant to be examined seeing that it will create complex particle that results in different microstructure formation. Detail observation by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) will provide better understanding on thermal properties that is influenced by microstructure formation, moisture content and porosity of LFC. Experimental results show that lower density LFC translates to lower thermal conductivity. The density of LFC is controlled by the porosity where lower density LFC indicates greater porosity thus thermal conductivity changes significantly with the porosity of LFC because air is the poorest conductor compared to solid and liquid due to its molecular structure.

This paper reviews, appraises, and critiques theoretical and empirical research on the connections between the operation of the financial system and economic growth. It describes the role of financial system development in economic growth at the macro level, both theoretically and empirically. It also describes briefly the relationship of corporate finance and firm performance. It finally concludes the review and presents some policy implications in view of the reviewed literature. Furthermore, theory and evidence imply that better developed financial systems ease external financing constraints facing firms, which illuminates one mechanism through which financial development influences economic growth. The paper highlights many areas needing additional research.

Spiritual training is one of the fundamental roles in the religions of the world. The concept of spiritual training is in most of the religions. Sufism is a school of thought for spiritual training in Islam and Sufi is the spiritual trainer and has a significant role for the spiritual healing of the people. Mystical Islamic School of Thought has performed a vital role in spiritual training of the people in the Indo-Pak subcontinent. The purpose of the study was to analyze the vision and mechanism of spiritual training in Islamic Sufism. The study was helpful for religious scholars and researchers in order to understand the vision and mechanism of spiritual training in Islamic Sufism. The study was of great importance for curriculum developers. The study was historical and documentary analysis in nature. The relevant material was analyzed to meet the objectives of the study.

Ignoring sustainable basis of Iran's traditional architecture and different factors which affect it caused many parts of the forgotten structures to be destroyed. Although all the phylosephical and religious elements which are water, air, light, and soil have been used in the best way in the traditional architecture of Iran's city, aerodynamics and hydrolics from wind and water were the most employed useful energies, which were very efficiently used in the windmills and watermills, in Iran' traditional architecture. The type of materials, structural techniques, and elements, which were used to keep these structures firm, were of high quality to sustain in the environment and they could adapt the man-made structures to the beautiful environment, in comparison with the existing materials. In addition, they could preserve the environment goodness. Windmills, which were built to benefit from 120-day winds of Sistan Province, are of the best examples of using natural powers. Some of the Iran's windmills are as old as 2800 years. Also, some historians consider the watermills to be around 1700 years old. The watermills can only be found in a limited number of areas, as their rotation require powerful and continuous flow of a river like Dez River. The method of the current research is of descriptive-analytical type. Data gathering was done in libraryand fieldwork methods. Following the study of the history of different windmills and Dezfoul watermills, we investigated the quotations from tourists, the books which have been remained from that time, and the belief of indigenous people to find the place, application, and the architecture of these wind and water mills. At the end, we concluded that the recognition of such examples of architecture can be a guide to build a comfortable environment, which is in harmony with the existing global organization. Thus, the values of traditional architecture and the traditions of environmental values of Iran's architecture have the potentiality to make an efficient use of energy and to reap reward from the ecological powers, specifically sustainable and harmless energy. For this reason, some examples of windmills and watermills were studied and their architectures were invesitigated. To preserve such precious historic remnants can be a center for attracting tourism and can bethe signs of cultural, articstics, and historical progress of a nation, which express its creativity and adaptability to nature in an excellent way.

This paper presents the challenges facing procurement committees in secondary schools in Kisii County in the implementation of the public procurement Act of 2005 in the procurement of goods and services used in secondary schools in Kenya, in response to both domestic and international pressures, the secondary schools committees have recently undertaken important initiatives to make their public procurement systems more efficient and transparent in line with the public procurement and disposal Act of 2005. A cross-sectional survey was used, with the sampling frame comprising members of the secondary Procurement committees in Kisii County. Sets of both pre-tested structured and unstructured questionnaires were used to interview a random sample (82) of the Procurement committee members derived using the formula of Israel (1992) of known target population, N. The data was analyzed with the aid of the SPSS (Version 11.5) computer software and presented in form of descriptive tabular summaries. The study finding indicated that the experience with the reforms has been quite varied. There is an urgent need for strengthening institutions involved in public procurement, as these institutions tend to lack technical capabilities and experience external influences. The paper concludes by emphasizing that there are certain imperatives for the development of an effective procurement system. These are: strengthening the democratic political process, and public accountability; creating real market conditions; and improving work ethics in which public good is valued more than individual.

Iron-clay based composite resistor of varying iron content and aspect ratio have been fabricated using a pressure of about (2.04x108) Nm-2 for all the resistor moulded, expect in the case where the pressure was varied with four different pressures of about 1.28x108Nm-2, 0.66x108Nm-2, 2.04x108 NM-2 and 2.41x108Nm-2 with composition of 70% iron, length of 15mm and particle size of 0-25µm. The effect of clay particle size was also investigated using particle size ranging from 0-250µm, 250-400µm, 400-500µm and 500-850µm. Iron powder was used as the conductive element while the clay powder served as insulating and binding element. The fabricated resistor all have an average diameter of 3mm; for those moulded with particle size of 0-25irm, the length are varied between 5mm and 25mm increasing in 5mm and composition of 95%, 90%, 85%, 80% and 75% iron content. The resistors were investigated for influence of composition, firing time, firing temperature, length particle size and moulding pressure on their electrical properties. The results show that the electrical resistance increases with increasing resistors length and increasing the diameter of the clay particle size. However, the electrical resistance falls rapidly with increasing firing temperature, firing time, moulding pressure and also with increasing functional composition (iron composition). The modeled results also shows that polynomial of the 2nd order best describes the results obtained.

Disorder of urea and electrolytes is a potential health hazard. However, the determination of these parameters in human blood was neglected by laboratories in many hospitals. Here, standard methods and procedures adopted by World Health Organization (WHO) were used to determine percentage disorders from the amount of urea and electrolytes obtained in human blood of patients attending department of chemical pathology, Ahmadu Bello University teaching hospital, Shika, Zaria. Out of one hundred and thirty (130) blood samples, 48(36.92%) were significantly positive. It was found that disorders increased with age, with percentage disorders of 30.76% among those aged 35-54 years. The disorder has no any gender difference but it varies significantly among patients with kidney and heart problems (29.92%). The determination for amount of urea and electrolytes in human blood using the standard methods adopted by WHO is therefore necessary for early diagnosis.

A dynamic graphical display and regression diagnostics is proposed for examining the validating assumption of the error term in a multiple regression modeling. Residual plots were used to detect the regression assumption of homocesdasticity tendency. Independence of the error term was diagnosed through Durbin Watson Test statistic or scatter plots of residuals against time order. Letter value displays were used to detect approximate normality through mid-summaries values. The error term validation were characterized with the residuals following an even distribution of scatter plots along a horizontal line through zero point, high (r2), minimal standard error of estimates for the predictors, the Cp statistic close to P+1 which means a small biased, the P value less than 0.05(level of significant), and lack of bivariate high correlations among the predictors

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the extent to which job satisfaction correlate with organizational commitment focusing on bank employees specifically and private sector generally. The study also tries to identify the strongest variables of job satisfaction that contribute towards organization commitment. A sample of 200 respondents was randomly chosen in this survey which 150 respondents gave the feedback. Correlation and regression analysis are being used to determine the relationship between job satisfaction variables (company policy, salary, working condition, interpersonal relation and advancement) and organizational commitment. The result from hypotheses testing has shown that all independent variables have positive relationship with organizational commitment. Furthermore, the result on regression also shows that advancement has the strongest relationship with organizational commitment compare to other variables. As a conclusion, we do believe that the results could be used by organizations to increase their employees’ commitment and lead to further research in the future.

The benefits of risk management in projects are huge. You can gain a lot of money if you deal with uncertain project events in a proactive manner. The result will be that you minimize the impact of project threats and seize the opportunities that occur. This allows you to deliver your project on time, on budget and with the quality results your project sponsor demands. Also your team members will be much happier if they do not enter a "firefighting" mode needed to repair the failures that could have been prevented. In this paper we identified six common risk factors that could impact a project. Some factors are obvious, but some are not and it is important to identify them all. You are encouraged to review them all when planning for project risks. Also In this paper we describe common schedule risk factors. We give you some tools to identify risk and lower its impact, thereby saving your projects from schedule slips.