Archives-December  

This study developed a new framework for evaluating the impact of an article/author/journal. The importance of research evaluation is identified. The inadequacies of the methodologies presently used to evaluate impact of published research are also identified. A normalized impact factor which is a citation based metric tool is developed. The frequencies of citation of a reference within an article were used to determine the imaginary and the real impacts of the cited reference. The development of the normalized impact factor is based on the opinion that not all citations made in an article should count in the computation of the impact of a publication.

Neurological researchers have recently revealed their findings about increasingly common and sophisticated role of Artificial neural networks (ANNs). That applied for systematic realistic modeling of interdisciplinary discipline incorporating neuroscience, education, and cognitive sciences. Accordingly, ANN Models vary in relation to the nature of assigned brain functioning to be modeled. For example, as human learning takes place according to received stimuli that is simulated realistically through self-organization paradigm by artificial neural networks modeling. This piece of research adopts the conceptual approach of (ANN) models inspired by functioning of highly specialized biological neurons in reading brain based on the organization the brain's structures/substructures. Additionally, in accordance with the prevailing concept of individual intrinsic characterized properties of highly specialized neurons, presented models closely correspond to performance of these neurons for developing reading brain in a significant way. More specifically, introduced models concerned with their important role played in carrying out cognitive brain function' outcomes. The cognitive goal for reading brain is to translate that orthographic word-from into a spoken word (phonological word-form). In this context herein, the presented work illustrates via ANN simulation results: How ensembles of highly specialized neurons could be dynamically involved in performing the cognitive function of developing reading brain.

A palynological study of forty ditch-cutting samples from CHEV-2 well drilled offshore in the Niger Delta showed that the sediments were mainly deposited during the Miocene age. Palynological assemblage was dominated by pollen and spores with rare occurrence of dinoflagellate cysts. The stratigraphic ranges of Retitricolporites irregularis, Psilatricolporites crassus, Echitritricolporites spinosus, Zonocostites ramonae, Foveotricolporites crassiexius, Monoporites annulatus, Psilatricolporites operculatus, Multiareolites formosus, Podocarpus milanjianus and some other marker species were used to demarcate five informal palynogical zones in the study area.

We report the case of a 21-year-old patient, who had a stricture of the penile urethra. After failed endoscopic urethrotomy, he had resection of the stricture with end to end anastomotic urethroplasty. We describe this surgical technique and analyze epidemiological, therapeutic and prognostic characteristics of anterior urethral strictures.

Shelley’s lyrics of 1819-1820 have a common feature despite the diversity of the natural phenomena they touch upon. Shelley is seeking in the natural changes of the world analogies by which to reassure his most advocated faith that regeneration follows destruction. In this article I shall attempt to give substance to my claim that in these lyrics there is a pattern of scientific and ontological enquiry into Nature’s apparently chaotic changes, through which Shelley is trying to come to real understanding of the Permanent, amongst the Transitory. I will sometimes invoke the help of other poems such as Mont Blanc or Adonais

In this paper, the author has studied performance of a three unit redundant system with the impact of switch and human failure. A system with three identical unit has been considered for assessment of performance under 2-out –of -3: G; policy. In the system, a switch is used to transfer load from one unit to another unit. All three units of system are connected in parallel configuration and working under 2-out-of-3: G; policy. The system can have two types of failure partial failure and complete failure. Partial failure degrades the efficiency of system but the complete failure breakdown the system and stop functioning of the system. Switch failure and human failure are considered as complete failure. The system has two types of failure and two types of repair. General repair is employed to the partially failed system and Gumbel-Hougaard family copula distribution complete failed system. The system is studied by supplementary variable technique and various measures of reliability, such as availability, reliability, MTTF and profit functions have been discussed. Some particular cases have been discussed by taking different failure rates.

This paper discusses in detail different configurations for comparing the performances of different combinations of commonly used techniques for speech recognition and speaker identification. The Feature extraction techniques considered were MFCC, LPC and Autocorrelation. The feature matching techniques considered were VQ, HMM, DTW and ANN.

In the present study, 26 elderly subjects were recruited and randomly divided into 2 groups, that is, orange (low in antioxidant capacity) and pomegranate (high in antioxidant capacity) groups, and 250 mL of juice was consumed daily for 4 weeks. Changes in plasma antioxidant capacity, activity of antioxidant enzymes, contents of ascorbic acid, vitamin E, reduced glutathione, malondialdehyde, oxidized low-density lipoprotein and carbonyls, and the degree of DNA damage in mononuclear blood cells were measured. Urine samples were collected for determination of 8-hydroxy-2?- deoxyguanosine content. Increased plasma antioxidant capacity and decreased plasma carbonyl content were demonstrated after daily consumption of pomegranate juice. In comparison, orange juice consumption presented a less significant effect on antioxidant function in elderly subjects. It is concluded that daily consumption of pomegranate juices is potentially better than orange juice in improving antioxidant function in the elderly. Because the plasma ascorbic acid, vitamin E, and reduced glutathione contents did not differ significantly between the 2 groups in this study, the phenolics may be the functional components contained in pomegranate juice that accounted for the observations.

Pressure dependent exciton binding energy in a Cd0.8Zn0.2Te/ZnTe strained quantum dot is investigated with the geometrical confinement within the single band effective mass approximation. The interband transition energy as functions of dot radius and the hydrostatic pressure is brought out. Computations are carried out using variational formulism. The pressure induced oscillator strength and the nonlinear optical rectification coefficient of an exciton in a Cd0.8Zn0.2Te/ZnTe quantum dot are studied using matrix method. Our results show that the exciton binding energy, interband emission energy and the nonlinear optical rectification coefficient are strongly dependent on the geometrical confinement and the applied hydrostatic pressure values.

Over the past years, malaria was a major public health problem in Eritrea. But since 1998, it has experienced a dramatic decline in malaria incidence. In 2013, the MoH launched a massive expansion of the malaria prevention and control program. The program was aimed mainly at the reduction of malaria in populations living in all zobas of the country in general and in the malarious areas in particular. Since Endagergis is one of the malarious areas in Eritrea, the Government put much effort to reduce morbidity and mortality rates in this area. However, there is still a need to generate new information on the prevalence of malaria at the villages of Endagergis locality at the moment. A total of 30 blood slides were examined. Out of these 6 (20%) (95% CI; 5% - 34.9%) were found to be infected. The malaria parasite prevalence differed markedly among villages from 0 to 2.2%, with 40% of the five villages having no positive cases. Four (13.3%) of positive slides had P. falciparum and two (6.7%) had P. vivax. Among the total tested, 4 (28.6%) of the males and 2 (12.5%) of the females had malaria infection and infection was occurred in all age groups, with a slightly higher prevalence (66.7%) of the parasite observed in age groups of below 15 years old. This study reports a significant drop in the prevalence of malaria infection in the inhabitants of Endagergis locality, due to an appropriate implementation of many preventive strategies. However, malaria prevalence still exists in some areas of the locality and is strongly associated with presence of mosquito breeding sites. The prevalence varies according to location of villages with Endagergis, AdiGuor and AdiSeyabo showing statistically higher prevalence. Malaria prevalence was higher in August 2012 than in other months of the surveillance periods.