Archives-July 2014

This study based on physical and microbial analyses of wastewater samples collected from Nullah Lai, Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Total viable count was done on sterilized media by spread plate technique. In physical analyses of wastewater, it was found that pH was neutral while EC and turbidity of the wastewater samples were greater than the WHO standards for the irrigation purpose. The total viable counts for all the wastewater samples exceeded the standard limit of 1.0x 102 cfu/ml. Three bacterial and four fungal species were detected from the wastewater samples. Preliminary information about microbial diversity in wastewater was attained through this work that is useful in future for wastewater treatment in reference to bioremediation.

Isabel Allende is known to be one of the most expressive writers of the Latin American world. All her novels are a reflection of herself. In each novel we find a spirit of innovation and renewal. This research paper is carried out on her first novel The House of Spirits (1982).it focuses on the autobiographical element of the novel. The introduction will introduce the writer and the topic as well. This research will focus on the contextual evidence of her autobiography. The main focus will be her biography. The framework that the researcher has chosen will be Renza’s essay A Veto of Imagination: The Theory of Autobiography(1972). The researcher will look into his 3 modes of autobiography and the correlation of ideology with autobiography. The content analysis will focus on the events and characters of the novel that have been extracted from Allende’s life. The conclusion shows how such expression has helped Allende grow as a writer.

The network intrusion becomes ever growing problem. The complexity present in the collected network data set is absence of clear boundary between anomaly connection and normal connection. However fuzzy logic can well address this problem. In earlier works, combining fuzzy logic and data mining to develop fuzzy rules are explored to address this problem. In this paper, a new fuzzy model is developed to detect anomaly connections. The developed model is tested with NSLKDD data set. The model gives better result.

Efforts to minimize dose delivered to critical organs of cancer patients and also to improve local tumour control have led to the development of High Dose Rate (HDR) brachytherapy procedures. The associated risks in HDR brachytherapy are relatively high, hence strict quality assurance requirements are needed. In this study, mathematical model has been used to compute the dose rate distributions around an Ir-192 HDR brachytherapy source. The calculations were based on separation of dose rates around the sources into transverse axis component and an anisotropy function. The two dimensional coordinate system for anisotropy functions was then transformed into a one dimensional system with radial distances from the centre of the source as constraints. The maximum average fit uncertainty was found to be 0.35% for the anisotropy functions. The maximum uncertainty in the calculated dose rate distribution around the source was 14.31%, which is less than the uncertainty quoted in published reports for other methods. The model is therefore an improvement over existing recommended systems for dose calculations and the results can be used as quality control tool to improve dose delivery to cancer patients undergoing brachytherapy.

Golinga irrigation scheme is one of the few schemes in the Northern Region of Ghana. In this paper, types and levels of Organochlorine pesticide residues in the dam water have been investigated. Water samples were taken at two intervals (before and after crop planting) during the 2012 farming season. Water samples were processed using a liquid-liquid extraction method and gas chromatography equipped with electron capture detector (GC-ECD). Twenty- one (21) different organochlorine residues were identified namely: ?-HCH (0.094 ?g/g), ?-HCH (0.21 ?g/g), ?-HCH (0.109 ?g/g), ?-HCH (0.23 ?g/g), HCB (0.12 ?g/g), Heptachlor (0.27 ?g/g), Aldrin (0.25 ?g/g), Cis-heptachlor epox (0.14 ?g/g), Trans-heptachlor epox (0.080 ?g/g), Trans-chlordane (0.123 ?g/g), Cis-chlordane (0.076 ?g/g), Trans-nonachlor (0.27 ?g/g), Dieldrin (0.17 ?g/g), Endrin (0.083 ?g/g), O’P-DDE (0.15 ?g/g), P’P-DDE (0.18 ?g/g), O’P-DDD (0.36 ?g/g), P’P-DDD (0.061 ?g/g), O’P-DDT (0.126 ?g/g). P’P-DDT recorded highest concentration of 0.52 ?g/g whiles mirex recorded the least of - 0.057 ?g/g. All residues except mirex were above the WHO Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) for drinking water. These compounds in the dam pose serious health hazards to humans, aquatic life and irrigated crops thus usage of chemicals which result in pollution of the dam should be controlled.

An innovative concept of International Mobile Telecommunications – Advanced (IMT-Advanced) which is specified by the International Telecommunications Union – Radio Communication Sector (ITU-R), aims to perform a peak data rate of up to 1 Gbps for low mobility and 100 Mbps for high mobility. A study item on Long Term Evolution (LTE)-Advanced has been commenced to meet the above need by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), that supports the transmission over a much wider bandwidth than the LTE systems. The techniques for efficient resource allocation for LTE-Advanced systems with aggregation of multiple Component Carriers (CC) are deeply analyzed in this paper. Bandwidth based resource allocation using carrier load balancing methods like Round-robin, Mobile Hashing and Walsh code methods, have been used and their performance analysis is done in terms of the throughput and coverage. It proposes a cross component carrier packet scheduling algorithm for an effective resource allocation among the users with aggregation of component carrier in comparison with the independent packet scheduling per CC. To study the multi carrier system, Long Term Evolution (LTE)-Advanced users and LTE Rel’8 users are selected. The various carrier load balancing methods are compared based on independent and cross CC packet scheduling and then coverage performance, cell throughput and user throughput are analyzed with the help of Full buffer and finite buffer transmission system.

In this world of emerging technology ultrasound imaging is widely used in medical field for disease diagnosis and treatment. Ultrasound imaging is a safe medical technique, due to its non-invasive nature, low cost, portable ultrasound system and the capability for forming real-time imaging. However the main problem with the ultrasound imaging is the image quality of ultrasound image which degrades by the presence of noise called as speckle. The speckle noise depends on the structure of tissue and various imaging parameter. This paper proposed the filtering techniques to reduce the speckle noise from ultrasound image and edge detection in ultrasound image. In this paper we describe a hybrid wiener-H filtering technique to remove speckle noise. This gives a better resulting ultrasound image for disease diagnosis and treatment by clinician.

Ready-to-eat breakfast cereal (RBC) containing underutilized legume was made to improve its nutrient and reduce cost. Blends of yellow maize (Zea mays) and African yam bean (AYB) (Sphenostylis stenocarpa) at 100:0, 90:10, 80:20, and 70:30 were used to produce RBC using locally adaptable process. Products were analyzed for proximate, anti-nutritional and mineral contents, as well as sensory test. Highest protein content of 15.98% was obtained in 70:30 AYB supplemented sample. There was no significant (p<0.05) difference in gross energy of the samples which were liked by the panelists. Low technology for producing RBC could improve food security among the poor.

The knowledge of the women farmers on renewability potential of natural resources are critical determinants of the attitude and farmland conservation measures adopted to achieve a sustainable use. This study was carried out in Ekiti state, Nigeria to reveal the socio-economic characteristics of women farmers and their attitude towards sustainable farmland management practices in food crop production. Multistage sampling technique was adopted in selecting a total of 345 women farmers drawn from eight (8) Local Government Area of the state. Data were collected on socio-economic characteristics and attitude towards farm land management practices. The data were t analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results revealed that majority (92.8%) of women farmers fell between the age categories of 31 -55 years and most of the farmers (69.5%) were married. Majority of the farmers inherited their farmland and majorly practiced crop rotation system. The correlation analysis revealed that there was a strong positive correlation (r=0.67, P< 0.05) between the attitude score and farmland management practices adopted by the women farmers, there is neutral attitude towards sustainable farm land management practices among women farmers in the study area. This study therefore recommend increase in awareness campaigns on farmland fertility conservation through appropriate management practices and women farmers should be given opportunity to have access to land resources like male counterpart which could be possible through adequate policy formulation on agriculture.

Domain Moderator (DM13) was developed by Che Ghani Che Kob in year 2013 as a part of his Education Doctorate (EdD) research instrument to evaluate engineering students learning and lecturers teaching domains. Domain Moderator is an education instrument to measure the domains of Engineering Learning & Teaching Domains (ELTD). The ELTD model comes out to enhance the whole process of Education Measurement & Evaluation Methods. The data’s of pilot survey among 26 lecturers by using DM13 shown that among engineering lecturer are (61.5% ) at active domain,(38.5%) at reflective domain, (73.1%) at sensing domain, (26.9%) at intuitive domain, (92.3%) at visual domain, (7.7%) at verbal domain, (61.5%) at sequential, and (38.5%) at global domain. This data’s collection hopes can be use as a moderator among engineering lecturers to success in Outcome Based Education (OBE) at Polytechnics & College Community, KPM, MALAYSIA.