Archives-May 2018

The relationship between the concepts of brand equity and brand evangelism is a less examined concept as claimed in empirical research works. There are studies found examining those concepts in line with different market and consumer perspectives, but still demands further investigations. Brand evangelism is found as one of the concepts related to brand-related behavior. Meanwhile, brand trust is a noted concept revealed in studies as a facet of brand evaluation that influences on brand relationship behaviors as a mediator. Accordingly, this paper attempts to review the concepts of brand equity and brand evangelism to verify how brand equity results brand relationship behavior. Empirical review and theoretical justifications were followed as per deductive approach to build an argument to claim proposed hypotheses. The “Commitment Trust Theory” was reviewed as to bridge the theoretical mechanism for the proposed research directions. Accordingly, we followed empirical articles published in journals, content of book chapters and industry statistics as the research tools. Discussion was established to rationalize the future research directions in line with the main empirical arguments made. Paper concludes the significance of examining the proposed conceptual relationship in the scope of cable market of Sri Lanka.

Intrusion detection system shave been around for quite some time, to protect systems from inside and outside threats. Researchers and scientists are concerned on how to enhance the intrusion detection performance, to be able to deal with real-time attacks and detect them fast from quick response. One way to improve performance is to use minimal number of features to define a model in a way that it can be used to accurately discriminate normal from anomalous behaviour. Many feature selection techniques are out there to reduce feature sets or extract new features out of them. In this paper, we propose an anomaly detectors generation approach using Meta heuristic algorithm in conjunction with several features selection techniques, including principle components analysis, sequential floating, and correlation-based feature selection. Meta heuristic algorithm was applied with deterministic crowding niching technique, to generate a set of detectors from a single run. In this test, based on various algorithms, we conclude that NWINE data is low in accuracy and only in the clustering algorithm, which rises precisely.

This study uncovers the relationship between the impact of determinants such as transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation on employee creativity, where intrinsic motivation is a mediating party between their relationship and with other variables such as employee relational identification playing a moderating role between transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation and employee empowerment playing the moderating role between intrinsic motivation and employee creativity in the organizational culture of Pakistan. The sample data of two hundred respondents was collected from a well know leather exporting company in Pakistan, named Nova Leather Factory which is located in Lahore a city of Pakistan. All the people who are either in a leadership and/or managerial role or are currently working in an organization at various positions were eligible to fill the questionnaire as the instrument developed for the research. This research has validated the argument that transformational leadership is positively related to employee creativity while intrinsic motivation plays a mediating part and other factors such as employee relational identification and employee empowerment play a moderating part through statistical analysis i.e. Variable Measurement, Descriptive Statistics, Reliability Analysis, Correlation Analysis, Regression Analysis, of the data gathered through the means of statistical software i.e. SPSS 16.01. The results showed that transformational leadership can lead towards employee creativity and when these factors have an influence of intrinsic motivation, employee relational identification and employee empowerment these factors still have a positive significant contribution towards employee creativity. This research will help the managers and organizations to focus on aspects holding the most significance for the employee creativity and would became a valuable literature for further research and exploration.

The experiment was conducted to study the effect of varying plant population of two sorghum cultivars on growth and yield at research area Gash Delta Eastern Sudan, during 2014/15 and 2016/17) seasons. The RCBD design used for split-split plot trail. The treatments include two cultivars (Tabat andAklamoi) and three planting densities (spacing within the row of 30, 45 and 60 cm between holes and the number of seeds per hole factor with 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 10 seeds per hole).The obtained results revealed that, the two tested sorghum cultivars particularly in the second seasons showed highly significant differences in stem girth, leave area index, panicle/m2, seeds /panicle, 100-seed weight and grain yield/ha. Aklamoi was better than Tabat in panicle/m2, 100-seed weight while, Tabat exceeded Aklamoi in stem girth, leaf area and grain yield particularly at plant population 208333 plant/ha which was achieved from 30cm inter-row spacing with five plants/hole in the first Season. The obtained grand mean of grain yield of Sorghum and the observations across the two experimental seasons indicate the high adaptability, the highest growth and the highest grain yield of Sorghum under the conditions of the Gash Delta. Early maturity of sorghum cultivars is more important to cultivate under shortage flooding seasons.

Efficacies of the chloroform and aqueous extracts of the leaf, stem and root of three indigenous plants viz. Calotropis procera, Polygonum hydropiper and Thevetia neriifolia against the larval mortality and reproductive potential of two urban mosquitoes Culex quinquefasciatus Say and Aedes aegypti L. are reported here. Results show that the chloroform extracts of C. procera leaf (LC50 = 167.48 ppm), P. hydropiper stem (LC50 = 341.79 ppm) and T. neriifolia leaf (LC50 = 209.45 ppm) had excellent larvicidal effect on Cx. quinquefasciatus. The aqueous extracts of C. procera stem (LC50 = 207.18 ppm), P. hydropiper stem (LC50 = 634.92 ppm) and T. neriifolia leaf (LC50 = 453.34 ppm), however, had relatively milder larvicidal effect on the mosquitoes under study. Both the extracts significantly reduced percentage of egg-hatch and adult emergence per raft, lengthened immature duration and increased immature mortality in all the treatment groups. The chloroform extracts had a significantly negative effect on the number of eggs per raft, but both chloroform and aqueous extracts failed to induce any appreciable effect on the female ratio. Compared to the aqueous extracts, chloroform extracts are much more efficient against Cx. quinquefasciatus productivity. Results on Ae. aegypti indicated that the leaf extracts of C. procera (LC50 =696.14 ppm), the stem extract of P. hydropiper (LC50 =1164.36 ppm), and the leaf extract of T. neriifolia (LC50 =872.91 ppm) had significant larvicidal effects compared to the respective controls. In general, the extracts significantly reduced egg-laying, decreased egg-hatch, lengthened immature duration, and increased immature mortality culminating in reduced adult emergence. A comparison of the larvicidal efficacy of the extracts against the two mosquito species reveals that Cx. quinquefasciatus is more sensitive to the plant extracts than Ae. aegypti. However, further research is solicited to evaluate the impact, persistence and effectiveness of these extracts against the vector mosquitoes under indoor and field conditions.

Ranges of two vital environmental factors like temperature and relative humidity (RH) were utilized to assess their impacts on the life-history parameters such as immature development (hrs), adult emergence (%) and sex-ratio (male: female) in the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori L. under laboratory conditions. Disease-free layings (DFLs) from M2P2 variety of the silkworm were reared in a digitalized environmental growth chamber (EGC) at 25°-38° C and corresponding 60-95% RH to record the incubation, larval and pupal developmental periods (in hrs), and subsequent adult emergence and sex-ratio. Results revealed that the rise in temperature and RH significantly (P<0.001) shortened the immature developmental periods in the experimental insects, but the adult emergence and sex-ratio were not affected (P>0.05), even though the number of males outnumbered the females. Negative coefficient of correlation (r) values existed between the environmental factors and all the life-history parameters of B. mori, suggesting further that elevated temperature and RH had adverse impacts on the reproductive biology of this commercially important species. Relevance of the present findings to the climate change issues on the silkworm productivity has been discussed.

The study investigated the utilization of laboratory facilities and students’ academic performance in chemistry. A total of 230 respondents (30 teachers and 200 SSII students) in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area were drawn through simple random sampling technique from four public secondary schools formed the sampled size for the study out of a target population 3,693 students and 42 chemistry teachers. Three research questions guided the study. Two hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 alpha level using two instruments which were utilization of laboratory facilities questionnaire (ULFQ) and a proforma for collating students’ promotion examination score for chemistry. The data collected were analyzed using mean, standard deviation and Pearson product moment correlation as statistical tools. The results revealed that laboratory facilities are not adequately utilized in secondary schools for teaching chemistry as viewed by teachers and students. Also there was a significant relationship between utilization of laboratory facilities and students’ academic performance in chemistry. Based on the findings, it was recommended that adequate laboratory facilities be provided by relevant authorities. The utilization of laboratory facilities by teachers should be encouraged by the school authorities.

The present work aimed mainly to isolate specific strains of microalgae potentially used in nutrition program in hatcheries. Six indigenous strains of microalgae with high interest were isolated herein using different techniques. Four species of diatoms were gender identified as Navicula sp1, Navicula sp2, Nitzschia sp and Melosira sp, while two species of flagellates were gender identified as Tetraselmis sp and Isochrysis sp. These native species have shown a high growth productivity comparing to other reference species mainly used as feeding source in aquaculture. Given that, hatcheries in Morocco are currently arising, a native algal collection is needed as well.

The research reported in this thesis was on “Effects of job satisfaction on employee’s performance”. The purpose of research was to study the various factors that have been significant in determining employee performance and their importance with respect to the employees of Pakistan. The secondary data was collected by Internet and also from the material printed by different Scholars from all over the world. The primary data was gathered by floating questionnaires in Hassan leather industry Sheikhupura, Pakistan. SPSS was applied to analyze the gathered information through running Correlation tests on the variables in the study. The reliability of the data was measured with the help of the Cronbach’s Alpha value which too was calculated using the SPSS software. The findings provided an insight and estimation towards the impact of financial and Non-Financial reward system on employee’s performance. All the variables have been found to be significant in determining employee’s performance. The paper elaborates the characteristics and implications regarding the variables in detail to give a picture and a base for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the idea of rough fuzzy sets in nearrings. We introduce the notion of rough fuzzy sets with respect to an ideal of a nearring which is an extended notion of an ideal of a ring and we derive some properties of the lower and upper approximations in a nearring.