Archives-October 2012

Cut twigs with fresh leaf of Som plant (PerseabombycinaKost) are used in indoor rearing of Muga Silkworm (Antheraeaassamensis) as food. Through the consumption of leaf the silkworm get required water content and nutrients for their normal metabolic activities for growth and development. A number of chemicals in single and combination were tested as water solutions keeping the twigs lower cut ends dip in solution inside bottles. Sucrose and gibber relic acid solutions are found to keep the leaf fresh for considerable period. Sucrose at a concentration of 40 g per liter of distilled water keep leafs fresh up to 96 hours. This concentration of the solution has a pH value of 3.25. Gibber relic acid solution at the concentration of 0.01 g per liter of distilled water with pH measuring 4.00 keeps leafs fresh for 36 hours. The best concentrations of these two chemicals were also worked out to be 4% for sucrose and 0.015% for gibber relic acid that give a pH value of 4.2 in distilled water. This concentration of gibber relic acid keeps Som plan leafs fresh for 48 hours.

Setting a conventional cement plug is nearly unsuccessful when there is any wellbore flow especially for the zechstein formations. As such, the used of sodium silicate remain the common option. The silicate polymerization and gelation has been used in well formation to plug holes and reduce the catastrophic flow which cause a lot of production looses. This is usually encountered during drilling rocks zone producing large amount of water or brine. This could result in large volume of the drilling fluid lost into the formation and consequently reduce the effectiveness of the drilling operations. A well designed silicate/cement material forms an impermeable plug and reduces the adverse of the flow also the in-situ gelation of the process is better understood when the chemistry of the process and the chemical evolution of the brine formation is given due consideration.

The purpose of this research study is to explore the characteristics of expatriates before they are posted on overseas assignments, and to assess the impacts of characteristics on the performance of expatriates. Multinational organizations need expatriates who can be representatives, ambassadors and have knowledge of coordination, integration of operations, knowledge transfer, and global managerial skills as they are investing in foreign markets to establish some subsidiaries in foreign countries. During this process, many of expatriates are not able to complete their overseas assignments. The rate of failure sometimes can reach to 85 percent. The main reasons of this high rate are culture shock, difficulties in adjustment, and so on. A questionnaire was developed based on the theoretical framework. The samples comprising 100 expatriates were taken from different organizations; education, construction, telecommunication, and press and media were focused in particular. The conclusion of the study has revealed that there are multi-faceted benefits of cross cultural training for expatriates working abroad. Cross cultural training can minimize culture shock, and premature return. Moreover, it can facilitate cultural adjustment, high productivity, and expatriates’ performance. The study has been delimited to the global companies operating in Pakistan. However, the majority of the organizations are established in Islamabad.

New energy technologies are currently investigated in R&D and promoted in the political arena. Before these technologies enter the market, their environmental superiority over competing options must be asserted based on a life cycle approach. However, when applying the prevailing status-quo Life Cycle Assessment approach to future energy systems, some drawbacks arise. This paper investigates the environmental performance of several future energy systems (carbon capture and storage, micro cogeneration and photovoltaic’s) and describes associated methodological issues and instruments for dealing with the future dimension of these technologies.

Space-based solar power (SBSP) is the concept of collecting solar power in space for use on Earth. It has been in research since the early 1970s.This paper projects how SBSP would differ from current solar collection methods in that the means used to collect energy would reside on an orbiting satellite instead of on Earth's surface. Besides the cost of implementing such a system, SBSP also introduces several new hurdles, primarily the problem of transmitting energy from orbit to Earth's surface for use. Since wires extending from Earth's surface to an orbiting satellite are neither practical nor feasible with current technology, SBSP designs generally include the use of some manner of wireless power transmission. The collecting satellite would convert solar energy into electrical energy on-board, powering a microwave transmitter or laser emitter, and focus its beam toward a collector (rectenna) on the Earth's surface. Radiation and micrometeoroid damage could also become concerns for SBSP

Nowadays, education serves to provide guidance to students who lack in their values, courtesy and politeness. However, good values are still unsatisfactory amongst students in the workshop. There are students who do not adhere to the rules resulting in wastage of workshop materials, and thus causing problems in the workshop management. This research is undertaken to survey the extent of the practice of moral values in a workshop at a polytechnic during teaching and learning sessions. The main instruments used to support the research are questionnaires and observations. A total of 365 students were selected as respondents from two polytechnics, namely Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah and Sultan Zainal Abidin. Four aspects of moral values are measured: cooperation, crafts, physical and mental hygiene and respect. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science Version 16.0 (SPSS 16.0) with the appropriate mean, standard deviation and minimum score t-test. The results revealed that the overall practice of values amongst polytechnic students is high and there were no differences in the practices between the two polytechnics. Therefore, researcher proposed several techniques to ensure students apply value as suggestion model.

In the present paper, we introduce two functions namely and in terms of K-function introduced recently by Sharma[9] and show their properties by using fractional integrals and derivatives. Results derived in this paper are the extensions of the results derived earlier by Shukla and Prajapati[2].

The objective of this paper is to propose a framework on the relationship between developmental experiences, empowerment and perception of organizational support. This framework relies on the social exchange theory (SET), which proposed that employees who received developmental experiences and empowered by their organizations will view their organizations favorably. Review of past literatures is provided to establish the foundation for the proposed framework.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the risk management behaviour of selected commercial banks in Malaysia based on their stock performance in term of Average Daily Return (ADR) and Value at Risk (VaR). VaR is measured using Historical Simulation Model. We present results of ADR and VaR at 99% confidence interval, on one-day horizon from year 2003-2010, for the following stock index of eight commercial banks in Malaysia: RHB; Maybank; CIMB; Affin; Alliance; Ambank; Hong Leong and Public Bank. The ADR and VaR of each commercial bank in Malaysia are measured and compared to identify their risk behaviours. The risk management behaviour of commercial banks in Malaysia can be categorised into three categories: conservative; moderate; and aggressive. Our results show that the risk management behaviour of one bank is considered conservative, three banks are considered moderate and four banks are considered aggressive. This may give suggestions to the investors which bank/banks to invest in.