Archives-July 2015

This study examines stereotypical representations and roles of women in action movie posters across three eras of Hollywood. Adopting a semiotic approach, the research analyzed 30 movie posters from 1930 to 2012 with the following objectives: i) to examine the visual representation of women in movie posters, ii) to investigate gender bias in titles and taglines of movie posters, and iii) to show the shift in the representations and roles of women in movie posters. Findings showed four major role categories: lover, damsel in distress, sex object, and heroine. Lovers were both centralized and marginalized in posters across three eras. The submissive lovers of the classical period transformed into multifaceted characters in the post-classical posters when they wielded guns or were juxtaposed with outlaws. Damsels in distress were backgrounded through reduced image sizes, gloomy colors, and long shots in the classical and post-classical posters. A shift came about when new Hollywood featured woman and her rescuer in close shots. Women’s nudity was obscured through use of unnatural colors, small sizes, and public shots in the post-classical era. In the new era, heroines were given weapons to indicate their physical prowess. Though female characters were given equal space with male heroes, they were still placed at a subordinate classification level. Movie titles and taglines mainly referred to male heroes’ missions or actions and women’s villainy, besides other themes such as racial conflicts or war.

The extent to which a school principal succeeds in attaining the school academic excellence and fulfilling the principles included in the management philosophy or mission statement of the school depends on how skillfully and suitable management styles developed are used in a specific context. No two principals have exactly the same way of doing things; life would become too predictable and dull if they did. A principal is regarded as successful by those whom he or she is managing as well as by society at large by the academic performance of the students and school mean score. This study, therefore, examined the management styles various principals employ in their school to attain high academic performance. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design of “ex-post facto” type. The research was carried out in all the geo-political zones of Kisii central district. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 16 principals per geo-political zone and provincial schools they belong to. A total of 32 principals from the district schools were randomly selected for the study. A set of questionnaire was utilized to elicit relevant information from school principals. The research questions were answered and hypotheses were tested at the significant level of 0.05. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, ANOVA (analysis of variance) and t-tests. There was a significant negative relationship between management styles and high academic performance (r = -0.485; p < 0.05).

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.

This research examines the effects of personality characteristics of mothers on the level of socialization and desocialization of preschoolers. Survey prepared in accordance with the purpose has been applied to parents and teachers of three different nurseries in Atasehir, Istanbul. The data attained from the surveys have been evaluated with SPSS statistics program in computer environment. In determining the levels of the social adaptation and maladaptation of preschoolers and showing their mothers’ personality characteristics, average and standard deviation statistics were used, to determine the relations between mothers’ personal characteristics and the children’s state of social adaptation and maladaptationthe correlation analysis and in determining the effects of the personal characteristics on children’s state of social adaptation and maladaptation regression analysis were used. As the result of the research, it has been found out that the preschoolers are affected by their mothers’ personal traits of compatibleness and emotional disorder negatively. As the mothers’ level of showing their responsibility and emotional disorder personal traits increases, the children’s social maladaptation level decreases. Other personal characteristics do not affect the social adaptation and the maladaptation level of children.

Total electron content (TEC) is a key ionospheric parameter that describes the major impact of the ionosphere on the propagate on of radio waves which is crucial for terrestrial and space communication. The present investigation is dedicated to study the latitudinal variability of ionosphere. The study is carried out by taking three stations one each in low, mid and high latitude regions namely IISC, Bangalore, India (13.020 N, 77.570E), GUAO, Urumqi, China (43.820N, 87.600E) and NYAL, NY-Alesund, Norway (78.920N, 11.860E) respectively. To study the changes in the ionosphere at three selected station we have considered the GPS observations. The GPS derived TEC values have been collected from the SOPAC (Scripps Orbits and Permanent Array Center) data archive of the IGS (International GPS service). The study is carried out during the high solar activity period of 24th solar cycle i.e. during January 2012 to December 2012. We also studied the behaviour of ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) during the geomagnetic storms. We have selected 5 intense geomagnetic storms (Dst ? -100nT) that were observed during the year 2012. From our analysis we observed that TEC achieves its highest values during the months of October and March at low latitude, during the month of April and May at mid latitude and during the September and March at high latitude while the lowest values of TEC were recorded at all the station in December month. Similarly, the highest values of TEC are recorded during the equinox season while the lowest values are recorded in winter season.

Voltage instability is the major concern of power system stability. It is caused due to the deficit of reactive power in the system. Improving the systems voltage by increasing the reactive power handling capacity of the system by using Static VAR Compensator, during a large disturbance is the area of study. The simulations are carried out for IEEE 14 bus system by using MATLAB/PSAT software. The result shows the effectiveness of SVC to improve the voltages when connected to a system.

In the Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, buffer overflows often occur in the evolved Node B (eNB) when dealing with the traffic bursts from the wired part due to restricted bandwidth or environmental interferences in the wireless part. In this paper, a survey on approaches is proposed to protect the buffer from overflow by appropriately controlling the advertisement window to enhance the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) when the buffer becomes congested. The sender will slow down the data sending rate upon the receipt of reduced advertisement window, and hence the buffer overflow will be alleviated. To evaluate the suggested solution, a LTE network model is implemented and validated through extensive numerical experiments. It is demonstrated that the proposed approach can enhance the end to end system performance in terms of network throughput, average packet delay and jitter, as well as packet loss rate.

The study was designed to evaluate the effects of moist heat on the nutritional, anti-nutritional and phytochemical composition of the nuts of Tetracarpidium conophorum (African walnut). African walnut was subjected to cooking at 100oC. The raw and boiled nuts were chopped and air-dried. The nutritional composition of Tetracarpidium conophorum investigated on shows: protein(%) 26.83, 25.90 and 26.23; crude fibre (%) 1.50, 1.20 and 1.10; fat(%) 16.36, 16.43 and 16.43; carbohydrate (%) 42.33, 43.60 and 44.63; moisture (%) 9.17, 9.33 and 8.92; ash (%) 3.80, 3.53 and 3.33 for all the samples of raw air dried, boiled air dried and boiled oven dried respectively. Evaluation of anti-nutritional factors (mg/100) revealed, phytates 31.67, 16.67 and 13.33; oxalates 12.17, 7.83 and 5.33 for raw air dried, boiled air dried and boiled oven dried respectively. Analysis on the phytochemical composition of the walnut (mg/100) revealed, alkaloid 12.32, 7.33 and 6.67; saponin 21.67, 13.33 and 8.33; flavonoids 2.33, 2.47 and 2.50; terpenoids 7.67, 9.23 and 6.40; steroids 12.30, 12.37 and 12.10; phenolics (GAEG) 35.10, 28.37 and 20.17; ORAC (% inhibition) 46.30, 32.50 and 25.10 respectively on the raw air dried, boiled air dried and boileded oven dried. With respect to the findings, there were significant (p>0.05) decrease in all the samples on the nutritional, anti-nutritional and phytochemical compositions of the samples except the fat and carbohydrates that showed increment on the compositions through raw air dried, boiled air dried and boiled oven dried processing. The moisture content of boiled air dried recorded highest among the samples, while the phytochemical compositions revealed the steroids to be stable in all the samples.

This study focused on the production of fuel briquettes from wheat offal. The variables investigated are particle size and blending ratio. The wheat offal used was sourced from Maiduguri Flour Mill. The material was sieved into fine, medium and coarse particle sizes using 1mm and 2mm wire mesh. Each particle size was thoroughly mixed with gelatinous cassava starch in ratios; 90:10, 85:15, 80:20 and 75:25 by weight. The blended material was then hand-fed into a 3.11cm x 40.50cm cylindrical mould and compressed at a pressure of 10.76kg.cm-2. In order to have enough briquettes for material testing, each production was replicated 10 times. The physical properties; stability of the briquettes was evaluated as a function of compressed and relaxed density, relaxation ratio, moisture content while the combustion properties; %volatile matter, %ash content, %fixed carbon and heat value were evaluated for each production. The result shows that all the physical properties of the briquette were greatly influenced by particle size (p<0.001). In density, there is no significant effect of the binder level on the briquette produced but gives the highest result when medium particles size was used with the valued of 1.06g/cm3 and lowest in coarse particle 0.46g/cm3, binder level had no significant effect on briquette produced (p= 0.281).The EMC was best in medium particle size with the value 131.25% at 25% binder level with the value 135.63%, EMC was significantly affected by binder level. Volatile matter was not influenced by particle size and binder level at (p=0.581) and (p=0.980) respectively but has better performance in medium particle size of 4.30% at 15% with the value of 4.14%. Ash content was not significantly influenced by particle size at (p=0.0069) but significantly influenced by binder level at (p<0.002) and was preferable in medium particles of 2.40% at 10% binder level with the value 2.08%. Fixed carbon was not influenced by particle size at (p=0.150), also better in medium particle of 93.84% at 20% binder level with value 94.01%, while Heat value was influenced by particle size and binder level at( p=0.005)and (p=0.0021) respectively, highest with medium particles of 33.52mj/kg at 20% level of binder with the value 33.59mj/kg. It was observed that better and combustible briquette can be obtained from medium particles of wheat offal at low binder ratio.

MIMO technology plays a vital role in wireless communication which uses multiple antennas at both transmitter and receiver side. As the demand of data rate is increasing day by day, there is a need of high throughput, wide coverage, capacity and improved reliability. Integration of OFDM with MIMO holds the potential to drastically increase the data rate in future wireless communication system without increasing the transmit power and bandwidth. In this paper we mainly focus on the advantage of using MIMO-OFDM system and the drawback of using SISO, SIMO, MISO systems which have been verified using simulation. Performance of the systems is measured with respect to BER, capacity and finally the data rate is determined. The simulation results are obtained using MATLAB/SIMULINK software.