Archives-November 2015

Abstract After the corporate default of major corporations in the past years such as Enron Lehman Brothers etc the study has been a major area for research the default of US based giants has act as a distress and alarming situation for emerging economies with different areas of research regarding corporate defaults this paper focuses on examining the relationship of ownership structure with the performance of a firm through market performance ratios and firms volume of publically listed companies on Malaysian stock exchanges. Results suggested defaulted firms ownership concentration is unable to show significant relationship with the performance of these firms except for the major shareholder. Keywords: concentration of shares, corporate default, firm performance

A cube divisor cordial labeling of a graph G with vertex set V is a bijection f from V to {1,2,...,|v|} such that an edge e=uv is assigned the label 1 if [ f(u) ]^3 |f(v) or [ f(v) ]^3 |f(u) and the label 0 otherwise, then |ef(0)- ef(1)| ?1 . A graph which admits a cube divisor cordial labeling is called a cube divisor cordial graph. In this paper we prove that barycentric subdivision of the star K1,n , switching of a vertex in cycle Cn , degree splitting graphs of Bn,n and Pn, n?5 admit cube divisor cordial labeling.

This paper focuses on the skills, characteristics and personality traits of owner’s managers. Many countries are working on the realization of a new sort of public management, which is less governmental and more market oriented. As a consequence the role of health-care managers is changing. They are increasingly addressed as (social) entrepreneurs. This article is based on the results of a survey sent to health-care executives in Kerala,India.The aim of the survey was to explore how the new discourse affects the practice of management. The results show that entrepreneurship is a construction and a contested concept. Nevertheless, executives are very sensitive to the concept. It certainly confuses them and can make them feel more vulnerable. However, new expectations can also perform an important function as a catalyst for executives to rethink their role and their position. From that point of view the phase of multiinterpretable expectations and vague discourse can be seen as a necessary phase in realizing health-care reform.

Africa is currently challenged with an eroding ethical leadership base across the continent. The foundation of past ethical thought and exploring authoritative sources has led to a general understanding and consensus of what ethics should subscribe to. Africa, and South Africa in particular, is at a junction where the quest for a renewed spirit and united front for re-establishing an ethical foundation is eminent. Higher education and evolving curriculum in typical leadership programmes is important in sewing a ‘golden thread’ throughout every curriculum thus portraying the critical importance of a renewed thrust in strategic community development globally. To solve the current dilemma that is fragmenting the continent regarding the degeneration of ethical conduct amongst current leadership in Africa, the paper undertakes to concentrate on possible models and the essence thereof for innovative ethical solutions to emerge. Developing higher education global systems and critically evaluating policy, practice and its evolving implementation that incorporates a paradigm of thinking that not only takes into account the past (in-the-box thinking), the current evolving ‘outside-of-the-box’ thinking but explores a shift that encourages teaching, learning and innovation with a renewed higher education basket of tools. The ultimate journey is a new focus on a shift toward ‘without-the-box’ thinking for further development in higher education using a learner-centred approach in a flipped classroom environment thus encouraging a renewed ethos embedded in an innovative future professional that should emerge. The outcome is a renewed approach to revitalise higher education in a fast and vibrant technological global environment, encouraging a new generation of dynamic, strategic African leaders that can address the on-going evolving sustainable development leadership challenges which are currently fragmenting and destabilising the continent.

Mechanical Properties such as tensile strength, yield strength Impact strength etc and microstructure of weldment of various steels are too much affected by the shielding gases. Shielding gases play an important role during the welding process.it cannot be over look. In this review paper an attempt has to be made to explain the effect of shielding gases on the mechanical properties and metallurgical properties of a weldment. The coarse-grained weld microstructure, higher heat-affected zone, and lower penetration together with higher reinforcement reduce the weld service life in continuous mode gas metal arc welding (GMAW). It is observed that weld bead geometry and penetration is too much affected by the use of shielding gas. This brief review illustrates the effect of shielding gases on weld quality

As companies hand over most of their profits in the form of tax payments, there is likely to be little left over for shareholders. This study examines empirically the effect of tax planning strategies on board size of companies in Nigeria. The study adopts a combination of survey and causal – comparative research design. This was augmented with primary data on 15 selected tax mitigation strategies obtained from 140 respondents using researcher – designed questionnaire validated by experts and shown to have reliability co-efficient of .93%. Descriptive and multiple regression analysis were used in analyzing the data with the aid of special package for social sciences (SPSS) version 22.0. With an r .813, r2 of 0.463 and f-ratio of 18.243 significant at 1% level, the investigation reveals a positive and significant influence of tax planning strategies on board size of companies in Nigeria. The study concludes that the tax planning strategies exerts a positive and significant influence on board size of companies in Nigeria. We recommend that corporate executive and tax planner should posses sound knowledge of tax laws and apply tax mitigation strategies endorsed by law to existing alternatives in every business transactions with the view to choosing the options that produce the highest tax savings. Keywords: Tax Planning Strategies, Tax evasion and avoidance, Tax mitigation, Bard size, Nigeria.

This paper is on managing educational facilities for effective learning outcome in secondary schools of Rivers State, Nigeria. Educational facilities are used during teaching and learning process. The paper recognizes that it is the fundamental responsibility of the school administrator to manage the available facilities; this is to ensure the provision and maintenance of the facility. The paper identifies educational facilities as machines, equipment, land, and other infrastructure to be use in the school system, and therefore recommends that principals of secondary schools should be trained on the management of educational facilities. Finally, it advocates government should take the funding of secondary schools very seriously.

This paper examines some issues in the use of the social demand approach (SDA) in educational planning and development with a view of facilitating cost effectiveness in the provision of universal basic education. The paper adopts a descriptive approach that involves the review of statutory documents, research reports and other related literature. These various secondary sources of information show that basic education programme in Nigeria is negatively skewed in terms of addressing issues of unemployment and poverty as well as the resource wastage that results from youth restiveness. The paper concludes that achieving self-sufficiency in the production of middle and high level manpower that is relevant to the economy will be difficult if practical training in relevant vocational skills is not started at the basic school level, from primary one, in the course of developing literacy and numeracy skills. It calls for a de-emphasis of book learning with greater focus on the development of practical skills in the provision of education as a social service directed at addressing the issues of illiteracy, unemployment and poverty as well as youth restiveness. It recommends the use of educational toys, regular field trips and more funds to make the UBE programme more functional in arresting youth unemployment, poverty and restiveness. Key words: cost effectiveness, skill training, and economic relevance.

This study examines staff development as veritable tool for Secondary school effectiveness in Rivers State. The study used a descriptive design. In all, 2 research questions and 2 null hypotheses were posed. The population of the study is 1200 teachers; this consists of 700 teachers drawn from public schools and 500 teachers that were drawn from the private schools. The sample of the study is 480 teachers making 40% of the total population. The collected data were first converted to means and further subjected to Z-test. The means were used to derive answers for the research questions, while the Z-test was used to test the hypotheses of the study at 0.05 level of significance. Findings are that: A significant difference exists between the public and private secondary school teachers of Rivers State in their mean opinion of the type of development programme that are available in Rivers State; there is no significant difference between the opinions of public and private school teachers on the problems of staff development programmes in Rivers State. The recommendations include that government should as a matter of necessity fund development programmes, and teachers should not be reluctant to participate in development programmes.

This work studied the pharmaceutical constituents of seed and seedcoat of Mucuna pruriens. Qualitative and quantitative phytochemical Screening of seed and seedcoat of Mucuna pruriens showed the presence of these phytocompounds: alkaloid = 39.21+ 0.014% tannins = 19.07+ 0.001%, Saponic glycosides = 46.03+ 0.014%, Flavonoid = 17.04+ 0.01%, , Phenolic glycoside = 17.04+ 0.01% , terpenoids =2.43+ 0.00%, antrachionomic glycoside = 4.09+ 0.0141%, cardiac glycoside = 7.70+ 0.014%. The ethanolic , n – hexane and aqueous extracts of the seeds and coat of Mucuna pruriens were found to inhibit two test gram positive bacteria, two test gram negative bacteria and two test fungi. The two gram positive bacteria are; S. aureus and B. subtilis. The two gram negative bacteria are: E. coli and S. pyogene. The two fungi are: C. albican and A. flavus. The minimum inhibitory concentration for the three solvent extracts were found for each bacteria and fungi. Elemental analysis showed that the seeds of Mucuna pruriens contain the following microconstituent elements: Ca, Mg, P, Na, and K. KEY WORDS: Seeds and seedcoat of Mucuna pruriens, crud extracts, phytochemical analysis, elemental analysis, anti-microbial activity and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC).