Archives-  

Discovering the methods of constructing the domes, identification of different types of dome, studying the function of the structure, the strategies of drawing them, administrative works, as well as their related issues have been of special interest and concern of Iranian architects. Many valuable books, articles, and reports have been written in this field by Iranian architects. Thus, various types of dome such as rok, nar, and double-shelled have been introduced to the world and their functions have been investigated. In this architecture, ourchin dome, which is of typical characteristics of the tombs in southern part of Iran, has been neglected. Little information about this type of dome is available in the history of Iranian architecture. And this little information is limited to some reports and pictures from foreign tourists and unknown writers, including no more than a few names and dates of constructing of such structures. Therefore, the origin and the reason for the development of such domes as well as their role are still mysterious. The methodology of the current study is descriptive and analytical. In different parts of the present study, comparative, retrospective, and fieldwork studies have been used, whenever needed. In the current research, the root of the word, ourchin dome, and its meaning are pointed out. Also, the origin of Iranian architecture, which dates back to Seljuqid period, is introduced. Then, the geometric relationships of its sides are examined and different varieties of this dome [star and polygonal] are drawn. Studying the typology of the examples of this dome in Iran and Iraq revealed some remarkable points about the geometric, height, and shape of the dome, in addition to the number of its stories. Some factors, like the function of the crown, method of its construction, cover of the dome, and the system of the distribution of the load are clarified. Finally, by investigating the influential cultural and historical factors, we concluded that that the main reason for the development of the general structure of this type of dome was symbolic, not simply religious. This dome by its own or in combination with religious places has played an affective and functional role over time.

Zn-contaminated soils were rated for various levels of available (DTPA extractable) Zn viz. 0.42, 2.8, 4.5, 9.6 and 26.3 ppm and used to grow wheat (Tritium aestivum Linn.) plants. Effect of these soils on growth (length and dry matter production), visible symptoms of toxicity and biochemical constituents (protein, pigments and sugar contents and catalase activity) of wheat were evaluated. Plants grown at high Zn-contaminated soil (26.3 ppm) had visible symptoms of toxicity such as decreased growth, chlorosis and tip burning of young leaves and reduced leaf lamina. Length and dry matter yield of wheat were increased maximum at 4.5 ppm available Zn in soil. Pigment, sugar and protein contents were also stimulated upto 4.5 ppm of available Zn, whereas these values decreased with increase in Zn levels in soil. Antioxidative defense systems with respect to carotenoids and protein contents and catalase activity favoured the dry weight production in wheat which were grown at 4.5 ppm of available Zn in soil. Study revealed the tolerance of wheat found maximum at 4.5 ppm of available Zn in soil, where as tissue concentrations of root and shoot were 30.6 and 35.6 µg Zn g-1 of dry weight, respectively. High Zn concentrations (9.6 and 26.3 ppm) were not stimulatory to the wheat growth reduced biochemical constituents in cells and produced visible symptoms of toxicity in wheat.

The hydrobiology of Andrott Island, Lakshadweep was investigated during November 2011 to May 2012 period. Estimation of salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, nutrients, hardness, primary productivity, phytoplankton and zooplankton communities were carried out. Among the factors mentioned above nutrient levels were significantly less in the Andrott Sea. Altogether nine species of phytoplankton and ten groups of zooplankton were identified during the present study. The filamentous algae Trichodesmium sp., diatoms such as Pleurosigma, Navicula, Skeletonema, Thalassiosira, Coscinodiscus and Nitzschia; dinoflagellates such as Dinophysis and Ceratium contributed to the phytoplankton community. Significant fauna composed of Foraminiferans, Rotifers, Polychaete larvae, Isopods, Ostracods, Crustacean larvae, Copepods, Mysids, Gastropod larvae and fish larvae.

Providing better Internet services to users’ becomes a challenge to researchers’ and Internet Service Provider (ISP). The Quality of Service (QoS) may be improved by using web caching at server level. Web caching catch the frequently requested web objects into the memory of server. The memory is limited in size. Therefore web object replacement policy, which selects the web objects to be replaced from memory play an important role in web caching. In this paper web objects are selected on the basis of client Out-degree, server In-degree and frequency of URLs’ by using directed graph method between clients and servers. An experiment is performed on the real access.log file data of proxy server of central computing facility of the University. The results of experiment are satisfactory, which improve the QoS and best utilize the memory.

A neighborhood set of an M-strong fuzzy graph is said to be independent neighborhood set if S is independent. is said to be perfect neighborhood set if all , the full fuzzy sub graphs and are edge disjoint. Also is said to be connected neighborhood set if full fuzzy sub graph is connected. The minimum scalar cardinality taken over all independent neighborhood set (perfect neighborhood set and connected neighborhood set) is called independent neighborhood number (perfect neighborhood number and connected neighborhood number). In this paper, these numbers are determined for various known fuzzy graphs and its relationship with some other known parameters of G is investigated.

Multi layer Zinc Oxide thin films with different post heating temperatures were prepared by sol-gel spin coating technique. Zinc acetate solution of 0.5M dissolved in isoproponal stabilized by Monoethanolamine was spin coated on glass substrates at 2000 rpm for 30s.After each deposition the films were pre-heated at 200°C for 10 minutes and post heated at 250,350 and 450oC in air atmosphere for 60 minutes. The structural properties were investigated by using X-ray diffraction technique and grain size was calculated. Elemental analysis and surface morphology were studied using EDX spectrum and SEM micrograph. Absorbance spectra were measured by using UV-Vis spectrophotometer and the optical band gap was calculated. The influence of post-heating temperatures on the structural and optical properties of zinc oxide thin films were reported.

The growth of the internet has created numerous opportunities for Kenyans. The last quarter of 2016/2017 financial year, 11.9 million people had access to high-speed internet. Kenya lacks a proper legislative framework to protect the internet consumers from cybercriminals and crypto-anarchists. Kenya is also yet to implement the African Union Convention on Cybercrime and Data protection. The law enforcement agencies in Kenya have struggled to keep up with the policing demands of the digital era. The Kenyan Cybercrime Investigators usually face a steep learning curve because hackers are usually discovering ways to carry out their attacks with little or no detection. The anonymity of the internet spurred by the existence of programs such as the tor browser and tails operating system make it difficult for the law enforcement agencies to enforce the law in Kenya. The lack of a comprehensive legislation on cybercrime creates Nullum crimen disparities that hinder the cross-border investigations of cybercrime. Cybercrime-investigators in Kenya have only been able to successfully prosecute the hybrid cybercrimes that involve traditional offences aided by the use of ICT. Cybercriminals operate with impunity in the Kenyan cyberspace because of the limited expertise and low funding of the Cybercrime Unit in Kenya. The windows OS handicap coupled with jurisdictional barriers, encryption, obfuscation and high evidential threshold in admitting electronic evidence, have led to very low conviction rates of cybercrime offenders in Kenya.

Life Cycle Assessment was successfully carried out on activated carbons produced from milk bush kernel shell (MB), flamboyant pod back (FB) and rice husk (RH) in order to determine their environmental burden and to assess the potential health impacts. The analysis covered the whole processes involved in producing activated carbon from the raw agricultural wastes. In this work the carbonaceous part of the agricultural wastes were carefully obtained, washed, with distilled water, dried in the oven, to remove moisture before being carbonized at 300 - 6000C. The carbonized chars were further activated with H3PO4, dried in the oven, washed with distilled water and NaHCO3 to remove any residual acid and finally dried in the oven. The solid pollutants generated in the production of activated carbon from MB, FB and RH ranged from 40.21 to 41.65%, 36.31 to 36.92%, and 15.34 to 21.55%, respectively, while the air pollutants generated in the production ranged from 11.85 to 12.15%, 11.83 to 11.94%, and 18.39 to 19.12%, respectively. Similarly, the liquid pollutants generated in the production activated carbon from MB, FB and RH ranged from 46.50 to 46.88%, 51.25 to 51.75%, 60.06 to 64.82%, respectively. Generally the order of the waste generated in the process was liquid > solid > air pollutants except for rice husk which produced more air pollutants than solid pollutants. The analysis of the solid pollutants showed that they can be recycled as fuel, thus leaving little quantity of solid wastes after process. Similarly the air and liquid pollutants generated were well contained within the acceptable environmental practice.

Labelling can perform many different functions, like the identification, description or promotion of food products (Teague and Anderson, 1995; Bernues et al., 2003), however based on reasearch the main purpose of food labelling is to inform consumers on the content and the nutrienst of the food. All food labels need to have minimum amount of mandatory or legally set information, but a producer may add any voluntary but correct information should they feel that the information stated would be off an advantage and that would lead a consumer to purchase the product. Food producers also would at times, use terms which would only be understood by experts and non experts would be left gueesing and interpreting the terms themselves. Consumers also consider food labelling to be very important component of their lifestyle and regard nutrition as a positive attribute to the products. With that, this study attempts to see the correlation between Label Messages and Label Effectiveness. These findings will provide a view on what is the relationship between the label messages and its effectiveness. This would also assist manufaturers to identify on what information or messages which would have an impact before consumers makes their buying decisions.

The averages concentrations of 238U, 232Th and 40K measured in the samples collected in this study are 130.6±38.7 BqKg-1, 137.9±39.7 BqKg-1 and 1120.1±245.2 BqKg-1 respectively. The absorbed dose rate in air at a height of 1m above the ground surface was estimated. The calculated radiation absorbed dose ranges from 95.4±3.2 nGyh-1 to 300.4±5.5nGyh-1 with an average of 193.2±44.5 nGyh-1 .The effective dose rates were calculated for human exposure to the gamma radiations and were found to be in the range (0.23±0.01- 0.74±0.02) mSv y-1, which is below the ICRP limit of 1 mSv y-1 for members of the general public.