Archives-September 2013

The in vitro antibacterial activity of flavonoid and alkaloid extracts of various plant parts of V. negundo and A. paniculata was investigated using Disc Diffusion Assay against four Gram negative (E. aerogens, R. planticola, A. tumefaciens and K. pneumoniae) and one Gram positive bacteria (B. subtilis). Minimum inhibitory concentration of the extracts was evaluated by micro broth dilution method, while minimum bactericidal concentrations were determined by sub culturing the relevant samples. The extracts exhibited antimicrobial activities with zones of inhibition ranging from 9 to 23.5 mm. A. tumefaciens was found to be most susceptible organism in the investigation against which all the extracts showed positive response. Stem free flavonoid extract of V. negundo and stem bound flavonoid extract of A. paniculata was recorded as most active extract as it showed significant zone of inhibition against all the tested pathogens. The range of MIC and MBC was recorded 1.25-0.039mg/ml. Results of the present study reveal that extracts of both the selected plants are showing great antimicrobial potential against tested pathogen, and may be exploited for future antibacterial drugs.

A vast amount of dye effluent from textile industries cause severe water pollution as it comprises of xenobiotic azo dyes that are recalcitrant to biodegradation. Continual research is going on worldwide to develop effective, economical and environment-friendly treatment processes while biological treatment is considered the most promising in all aspects. This study aims at the evaluation of textile dye decolourizing capability of naturally occurring fungi. After screening, 4 fungal species identified as Aspergillus fumigatus, A. flavipes, A. luchuensis and Penicillium rubrum from dye effluent were found as potential decolourizer, exhibiting strong to mild decolorization of Novacron dyes viz. Blue FNR, Red FNR, Yellow FN2R, Orange W3R and Navy WB at habitat concentration of 0.05% after 3, 5 and 7 days of co-incubation in Czepex-Dox broth medium. Maximum decolourization usually found at 7 days. Notably, A. fumigatus and A. flavipes exhibited 85-99% decolourization of all the dyes. In contrast, A. luchuensis selectively decolourized 76-80% of yellow FN2R and blue FNR. P. rubrum also caused significant decolourization of red FNR, yellow FN2R and orange W3R. This study thus elucidates that indigenous microorganisms of textile effluent cause remarkable degradation of azo dyes and can be used as potent agent in their bioremediation.

Cloud computing is clearly one of today’s most enticing technology areas due, at least in part, to its cost-efficiency and flexibility. However, despite the surge in activity and interest, there are significant, persistent concerns about cloud computing that are impeding momentum and will eventually compromise the vision of cloud computing as a new IT procurement model. In this paper, we characterize the problems and their impact on adoption. In addition, and equally importantly, we describe how the combination of existing research thrusts has the potential to alleviate many of the concerns impeding adoption. In particular, we argue that with continued research advances in trusted computing and computation-supporting encryption, life in the cloud can be advantageous from a business intelligence standpoint over the isolated alternative that is more common today

Cellular Manufacturing System (CMS) is an application of Group Technology (GT) in which functionally dissimilar machines are grouped together to form a family of parts. This work gives an overview of the Back Propagation Network (BPN) based approaches to form the machine cells and component grouping for minimizing the exceptional elements and bottleneck machines. This method is applied to the known benchmark problems found in literature, and it is found to be equal or best when compared to in terms of minimizing number of exceptional elements.

The contributions of different covering materials used on internal building surfaces including walls, ceilings and floors to indoor radon concentration in 36 buildings were measured using an active electronic device, the Safety Siren Pro Series 3 Radon Detector (Model HS71512). The three commonest combinations of covering materials in Ogbomoso are (A): paint, paint, carpet; (B): paint, fibre board, plastic tile; (C): paint, fibre board, ceramic tile. The buildings with combination (C) contributed the highest to the indoor radon concentration in buildings investigated in Ogbomoso while buildings with combination (A) contributed the least. The mean value for combinations (B) and (C) were found to be slightly greater than the world average of 40 Bqm-3 (UNSCEAR, 2000). A person living in building with combination (A) receive an annual dose to the lungs smaller than someone living in a building with combination (B) and (C) by 2.0216 x 10-8 Svy-1

Radon and its progenies are potential health hazards. The levels of radon concentration in homes and workplaces have been found to depend on meteorological and geological conditions, construction materials, and ventilation. The variation of radon concentration with ventilation conditions in ten offices at the campus of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria, has been studied in this work.The measurement of Radon-222 concentrations at each of the locations was done using an active electronic radon gas detector (pro series 3, model HS71512). The statistical variation of the five ventilation conditions with Radon-222 was determined at 0.05 level of significance, using analysis of variance. The Radon-222 concentrations for various ventilation conditions ranged from 20.0 to 51.8Bq m-3. The average concentration of indoor radon in the offices was measured to be 37.0 ± 8.39 Bq m-3. Natural mode of ventilation was discovered to be the most efficient way to lower the radon levels which were observed to depend significantly on the ventilation conditions. Despite the significant effect of ventilation on the indoor radon level, the radon concentration values in all the ventilation conditions investigated however were lower than the recommended intervention level of between 200 – 600 Bq m-3.

This article sets out to address the question of what are problems of freshmen in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia(UTM). The study focuses on an involving all freshmen of education faculty in UTM. To satisfy the purpose of this study, Mooney problem check list (MPCL) was used. The results shows that Home and Family problems had the highest rate among this population. In contrast, Health and Physical Development problems had the lowest rate among them. Other categories of problems among the students have been discussed in the study. A few suggestions also have been highlighted in the studies for the future research.

Achieving marital satisfaction (MS) is becoming difficult for many couples. In fact, MS of the first marriages has declined since the mid-1970s. Approximately, half of the marriages resolve their marital unhappiness through divorce. In order to achieve MS, abundant of research has been carried out to investigate what constitutes a successful marital experience. Recent researchers have attempted to investigate indicators of MS. Interestingly, many prominent marital researchers suggest that there is a relationship between preliminary attachment [early relationship between caregiver and infant] and marital quality. Moreover, scientific studies and contemporary psychologists have started to promote concept of preliminary attachment for better quality of marital life. The review of studies conducted in the west suggests that secure attachment has high predictive validity for concurrent marital relationship while avoidant and anxious attachment invalidate relationships particularly MS. Although studies conducted highlight significant role of attachment styles on MS, but there is a dire need to investigate the varied attachment by Islamic perception. The aim of this preliminary study is to investigate one of the indicators of MS which is attachment and proposing effect of its role in process leading to MS by highlighting Islamic perspective. This study can be useful for psychologists and counselors that educate attachment styles based on Islamic believe to couples, before transition to parenting.

The littoral region is an important interface between land and pelagic zone of water body. Bilavali lake, Indore is a shallow topical lake whose shoreline has dense population of Benthic invertebrate communities. The invertebrates are represented by Oligocheates- Dero dorsalis, Stylaria fossularis, Branchilodrillus semperi, Molluscs- Lymnea acuminata, Bellamya bengalenses, Digoniostoma pulchella, Melanoids tuberculatus, Thira scabra, Gyrallus sp. Pisssidium clakeanum and arthropods – Chironomus sp. Chaoboros sp. Etc. It is suggested that rich diversity of Benthic fauna of this lake is due to availability of food material and favorable environmental conditions and shoreline vegetation. Seasonal fluctuation in animal biomass is related to the physico-chemical factors and organic pollution.

The wide variety of waveforms in EEG signals and the high non-stationary nature of many of them is one of the main difficulties to develop automatic detection systems for them. In sleep stage classification a relevant transient wave is the K-complex. This report comprehends the developing of new Fuzzy_Neural algorithm in order to achieve an automatic K-complex detection from EEG raw data. The Fuzzy c-means algorithm is used for the rough and rapid recognition of K-complex and the Neural Network classifier does the exact evaluation on the detected K-complex. This Pattern recognition technique is a hardware independent solution for the biomedical signal processing field. This represents a significant criterion for the objective assessment of a patient’s sleep quality.