Archives-December 

For over a decade now attention is critically focused on the exploitation of environmentally sustainable and renewable energy sources, particularly due to the depletable, expensive and pollution characteristics of fossil fuels. In this regard, solar energy has strong potentials to play a great future role, especially in the global areas around the equator. Substantial effort has therefore been made to cover numerous issues associated with harnessing solar power. Hargreaves equation and its derivatives as assessment models, wide range of literature studies documented across the globe with emphasis to African countries and the key green areas were substantially covered. Necessary recommendations were also offered in line with international energy demand and strategies.

Alexander is one of the most important and permanent characters in history who has affected the world’s literature including the European, Turkish and Iranian ones. This character has been defined in many Persian poems, verses and different anecdotes. The versified story of Alexander (Eskandarnameh) is one of the works explaining that Eskandarnameh belongs to Nezami, the poet in 1300. Nezami is known as an Iranian famous story writer in Iran who has perfectly developed this literal type. He is one of the prominent poets raised from Azerbaijan school. Nezami is famous for one of his books called Khamseh or Panj Ganj. This book includes Leili and Majnun, Makhzanolasrar, Khosrow and Shirin, Haft Peykar and Eskandarnameh. Eskandarnameh is one his verses describing Alexander and it presents this historical character as a world conqueror and a sage. The secret of making this work into a permanent and eternal one is set at featuring Alexander as an idealistic character. This book introduces Alexander by characteristics like forgiveness, peace seeker, fairness and, etc. This essay scrutinizes Nezami’s concepts towards Alexander and his characteristics.

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.

The main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the corporate governance on firm performance. The variables, employed in this study to measure firm performance, return on assets. And Board Size, Board Composition, CEO/Chairman Duality as indicator of corporate governance. For this purpose sample data collected for listed banks in Pakistan from 2005 to 2010. The empirical results indicate that firm performance have a significant relation to board Size, board composition, On the other hand, firm performance has insignificant impact on CEO/Chairman Duality.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between growth in agricultural sector and poverty in Pakistan. It explores that how much the poor people have gained from growth in agricultural sector of Pakistan by considering growth magnitude and benefits obtained by the poor people resulting from growth for the period of 1985 to 2005 through applying OLS Regression Technique. The results indicate that the variable of growth in agricultural sector is significantly and negatively associated with the variable of poverty, i.e., the growth in agricultural sector of Pakistan will result in reducing the level of poverty in Pakistan.

A protocol was developed for high frequency plantlet regeneration from shoot tip explants of Withania somnifera on MS media supplemented with BAP and Kn at different concentrations. These in vitro developed shoots were separated and rooted on half strength of MS medium supplemented with IBA. Complete plantlets were hardened and acclilimatized in field condition.  The regeneration protocol developed in this study provides a basis for germplasm conservation and for further investigation of bioactive constituents of this medicinal plant.

Indian English has a special Indian tone, sensibility, vocabulary and to some extend syntax. Indian writers are naturally faced with many problems and find difficulty in presenting Indian consciousness, thoughts, scenes, reality, culture and belief system. The use of English by Indian authors has always been to suit their tastes and needs. Indians have been writing in English and have achieved considerable success from the very beginning. Indian English novelists have been experimenting with language. They tried to mould the language to suitably communicate Indian thoughts and experiences. It appears that even the early novelists of English were aware of the problems of using a foreign language for literary work. India developed her own idioms in the same process as the other British colonies had done. At the level of vocabulary, the early novelists had to take recourse to various innovations and experiments by retaining a number of culture words in their works. Indian authors made an attempt to give a local flavor to their works, especially in order to satisfy the demand for exoticism by Western readers. The language of the colonizer and the colonized will be in conflict on various levels, as e.g. those of dominance, control and obedience, or of cultural authority and prestige, and of linguistic and cultural identity. This paper deals with language used by Indian authors to retain Indian tone in their works.

This article proposes a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of academic courses delivered over the Internet or Internet-based Distance Education (IDE). It first examines the standards set for teaching in the traditional face-to-face setting; it then reviews experiments that examined whether those same standards can be applied to IDE. Finally, it offers a series of measures that can be applied to determine the degree of success resulting from IDE. This article draws upon theoretical and empirical work in distance education, learning, instructional design, information technology, and empirical studies. The intended results are to enable a more informed evaluation of IDE and to establish a series of guidelines for effectively utilizing this media to meet or exceed established standards.

The organic nonlinear optical (NLO) crystals of thiourea mono acetate were grown by slow evaporation method. The solubility study was carried out for water solvent from 30 to 50 °C. Powder XRD study reveals the crystalline nature of the grown sample. The mode of vibration of different molecular groups present in TMA was identified by FTIR spectral analysis. The UV-vis-NIR spectrum of TMA shows less optical absorption and good transmittance in the entire visible region. The second harmonic generation (SHG) was confirmed by Kurtz powder method. The frequency dependent dielectric studies were carried out. The dielectric constant and dielectric loss of TMA were measured in the frequency range 100 Hz to 5M Hz at different temperatures. The photo current and dark current with applied field were measured. The grown crystal of TMA exhibit negative photoconductivity and reported for the first time.

Most developing countries embarked on trade liberalisation at the prescription of Bretton Wood institutions. Zambia abandoned planned economy with strong interventionist and developmental objectives in the tourism sector. The country delved deeper into neoclassical, neoliberal economic policies such as Mercantilism, Absolute Advantage, Comparative Advantage, Heckscher-Ohlin Factor Endowment, and Porter’ s Diamond when formulating the Tourism Development Policies. The key beneficiaries of this new public management approach to development, remains multi- national corporations within the hospitality sector in particular and tourism in general at the expense of local lodge owners. The key findings in this paper highlight poor real growth in the sector, inadequate occupancy rate of lodges, reduces break even and expansion of the sector, increase in foreign investors, lack of expansion of locally owned lodges, dwindling market share and fewer and fewer new lodges being established since the liberalisation of the sector. This paper argues that new public management approach to development drawn from neoclassical and neoliberal theories of trade are responsible for poor policy choices.