Archives-August 2015

Jatropha curcas seed meal (JCSM) is known as a good substrate for enzyme production via solid state fermentation. The aim of this research was to study the mycology of spontaneously fermented JCSM. JCSM was spontaneously fermented for six days. Mycelia of fungus were cultured and incubated at 25°C on potato dextrose agar, sabouraud for six days. Microslide culture was carried out to obtain greater detail of the resulting morphological features. Five fungal species (Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus niger, Rhizopus stolonifer, Penicillium chrysogenum and Fusarium species) were isolated. This is the first report of fungal species associated with spontaneous fermentation of defatted Jatropha curcas seed meal.

For thirty years the cultivation of cotton has become very widespread in Benin. This has led to a sprawl of agricultural land and a significant increase in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and by extension, the pollution of the water resource in many parts of the country. In the north, high levels of nitrogen components are measured in the waters of the basin of Sota. Indeed the average value of 181mg / L measured for nitrate levels exceeding that permitted by the standards of quality of drinking water in the Republic of Benin. This study contributes to the knowledge of the impacts of agricultural activities on water resource in the basin of Sota in Benin.

In the present day scenario of manufacturing industry, quality and productivity play a significant role. Surface roughness and material removal rate are indicators of quality and productivity as also interface temperature and flank wear are the indicators of tool life. Hence surface roughness, material removal rate, interface temperature and flank wear are considered as response characteristics. This article focuses on an approach based on Grey relational analysis and Desirability function analysis for optimizing the process parameters during turning of AISI D3 steel with CVD coated tool with multiple performance characteristics. Experimentation were carried out on a Conventional lathe using L9 orthogonal array based on Taguchi design of experiments. The influence of spindle speed, feed and depth of cut were analyzed on the performance of surface roughness, material removal rate, interface temperature and flank wear .The optimal turning parameters are determined by composite desirability index and grey relational grade. Analysis of variance(ANOVA) is used to determine the influence of parameters which significantly affect the responses simultaneously. From the study, it is concluded that machining performance is significantly improved.

The use of environmental models requires a mathematical turn of mind. Amongst the models that have been tested in various ecosystem and cropping system namely: CENTURY 4.0, RothC, CERES, NCSOIL, SUNDAIL and STICS; the CENTURY 4.0 have been extensively modified and configured especially for carbon and nitrogen cycling. This work presents the step by step process especially in amending the FERT.100 file, weather and management information, parametisation and events scheduling and running to equilibrium. It will be relevant to beginners who would like to test the model in their region.

Nowadays Hospital requirements are needed to be automated. During surgery, manual handling of surgical instruments may lead to human error. Here an automated surgical instrument lifting system is proposed and its movement carried over in four directions. System responds to voice and sensor signal from android accelerometer for controlling the motors connected with Microcontroller. Lifting of surgical instrument is done by a movable round table that rotates in a circular motion then a robotic arm lifts the surgical instruments using MATLAB software and Microcontroller hardware. Doctor’s voice command also used for executing the system.

A survey on mobile adhoc network networks have experienced strong growth due to their ability to provide an additional and complementary support for existing infrastructure communication systems. In such a network, routers are supposed to be fixed for short (e.g. public safety deployment) or long (e.g. network operator extension) period. This relative stability of infrastructure makes proactive routing protocols appropriate. One of the well known proactive routing protocols is OLSR (Optimized Link State Routing), which routing decisions are based on exchanges of topology information using all-to-all flooding of local information in order for each router to build a global knowledge of the topology. This study first goal is to improve the performance of topology information flooding in OLSR by introducing network coding techniques, which leads to a decrease of signaling overhead.

Identification approach to provide authentication and confidentiality in a broker-less and confidentiality are the main objective of any distributed system the pub/sub system. Our approach allows subscribers to maintain credentials according to their subscriptions. Private keys assigned to the subscribers are labeled with the credentials. A publisher associates each encrypted event with a set of credentials. We adapted identity-based encryption (IBE) mechanisms 1) to ensure that a particular subscriber can decrypt an event only if there is a match between the credentials associated with the event and the key; and 2) to allow subscribers to verify the authenticity of received events. 1) Extensions of the cryptographic methods to provide efficient routing of encrypted events by using the idea of searchable encryption, 2) “Multicredential routing” a new event dissemination strategy which strengthens the weak subscription confidentiality, and 3) a thorough analysis of different attacks on subscription confidentiality.

Over the recent years, lives and property worth millions of shillings have been destroyed in fire disasters. This study assessed the role of administrators and other stakeholders in fire disaster preparedness in secondary schools in Vihiga County, Kenya. The study assessed the role of administrators and other stakeholders in fire disaster preparedness in secondary schools in the study area. An evaluation research design was used. Stratified simple random sampling was used to select the schools and respondents. Study population was composed of secondary school principals, teachers, laboratory technicians, students and the District Quality Assurance and Standards Officers (DQASOs). Data was collected by use of structured questionnaires, in-depth interviews and an observation checklist. Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 17 was used in the analysis of data with Chi-square being used to test independence and variation of responses. A Spearman’s rank order correlation was run to determine the relationship between teachers’ and students’ responses. The study established that most of the general requirements for fire disaster preparedness were not in place; most of the schools did not have trained personnel in handling fire disasters and limited funds was a strong barrier to fire disaster preparedness in secondary schools. It was concluded that: most of the administrators and even teachers were not trained in fire fighting skills; stakeholders had a role to play in fire disasters preparedness in secondary schools. The findings of the study are to empower schools to reduce their vulnerability to fire disasters.

The topical route of administration is more effective route as compared to the oral route in the treatment of fungal infections of nail. The formulation objective was to provide a sustained release of antifungal drug over extended period of time, so as to reduce frequency of administration, improve clinical efficacy and improve patient compliance. The purpose of the present study was to formulate Ketoconazole nail lacquer containing two different penetration enhancers, for the treatment of onychomycosis and to find out which concentration of penetration enhancers gave better release of the drug. The formulation showed good non-volatile content, gloss, smoothness of flow, drug release, drug content estimation and antifungal activity. The in vitro studies were carried out in Franz diffusion cell using saline phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) as medium. Whereas the permeation studies were carried out using hooves membrane. The percentage cumulative drug released was determined by UV spectrophotometer. The formulation containing ethyl cellulose (10%w/v) and Thioglycolic acid (3%v/v) and Dimethyl sulfoxide (3%v/v) showed highest release of drug. FTIR studies revealed that drug and excipients are compatible. Stability studies was done as per ICH guidelines for 1 month, which revealed no significant change with respect to the evaluations conducted before stability charging. The sensitivity of Fluconazole against Candida albicans was determined by measuring zone of inhibition by comparing with the standard drug for onychomycosis treatment.

The field experiment was conducted during two consecutive kharif seasons of 2012-13 and 2013-14 at the research farm of College of Agriculture, Lembucherra, Tripura to find out the potentiality of pigeonpea intercropping for mid hills of northeastern region. The treatment comprised 9 intercropping systems apart from sole of intercrops. Intercropping system of single row main crop (pigeonpea) with two rows for cowpea, blackgram, greengram and sesame, where 1:1 system have blackgram, greengram, sesame and groundnut at 30cm apart respectively. The investigational results exhibited that pigeonpea + black gram (1:1) intercropping performed better than other combinations followed by pigeonpea + green gram (1:1) with reference to PEY (pigeonpea equivalent yield) and net return. Growing of pigeonpea under intercropping system with blackgram found to be highly remunerative with proper utilization of land under rainfed mid hills of northeastern region.