Archives-December 

A study was conducted to identify the major dairy production constraints in Alaba Wereda, the Southern Nations and Nationalities People Region to provide base line information on the major dairy production problems in the area. A total of 60 respondents (10% from total population) were selected from 6 peasant associations and interviewed using structured questionnaire. Focus group discussion was also made with key respondents and the participants described the major dairy problems on their area. Data was analyzed through descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage) using SPSS software. A total of 60 farmers were interviewed. Among them 92 % were male household farmers and the rest 8 % was women household farmers. Maximum farmland size own by the respondents of the study area was 1.5 ha. Moreover, 1.8ha and 0.28ha is the mean farmland and grazing land own by the respondents respectively. Farmers reported that cattle were first (46.6%) rank follow poultry (23.4 %) as importance livestock used. Most respondents (70%) first and foremost keep cattle for draft purpose followed by milk products (65.2%), selling live animals (3.5%) and lastly for manure (5.25%). About 42.9% of respondents keep their Cross breeds animals in the same house where they live (Not separated). Only 57.1% out of the total respondents had separate shelters for their Cross breed’s animals. However, 50% of the interviewer was reported keep for their local breed’s animals on the separate shelters. The principal feed resources available to livestock in the study area include crop-residue (31.9%), natural pasture (22.3%) and concentrates (17%). The most critical periods of feed shortage were summer, autumn and spring (80% 12% and 8%) respectively. Out of the sample size 18.5% of the respondents used Artificial insemination for mating, 77.5% of the respondents were used natural mating bull with cross breed blood and 4% of the respondents also used a combination of AI and cross breed bull. The overall average lactation lengths and milk yields per cow per day of local and crossbred cows were 4 and 7 months, 2.1 and 7liters respectively. Mastitis, anthrax, ticks and black leg are the most prevalent disease that attacks dairy cattle’s. The respondents reported that shortage of feed (50.6%), low pasture land productivity (34.2%), low animal productivity performance (15.8%), and Disease (17.3%) was the major dairy production constraints on the study area.

We are very happy to announce that from 25th June 2013, Mr. Ali I.Al-Mosawi has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. He will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Mechanical Engineering. Mr. Ali I.Al-Mosawi is currently working as Lecturer, Machines Department, Technical Institute-Babylon, Iraq. The appointment of Mr. Ali I.Al-Mosawi as member Editorial Advisory Board strengthens the links and will make it easier for prospective authors to establish contact with the journal. Please send any expressions of interest to elixirpublishers@gmail.com. Sincerely Editor-in-Chief

We are very happy to announce that from 2nd March 2013, Mr. Ebrahim Azarpour has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. He will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Agronomy Science. Mr. Ebrahim Azarpour is currently working as Society of Agronomy, Islamic Azad University of Lahijan, Iran and member of Young Researchers Club, Lahijan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Lahijan, Iran. The appointment of Mr. Ebrahim Azarpour as member Editorial Advisory Board strengthens the links and will make it easier for prospective authors to establish contact with the journal. Please send any expressions of interest to elixirpublishers@gmail.com. Sincerely Editor-in-Chief

We are very happy to announce that from 10th May 2012, Mr. Pudaruth Sameerchand has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. He will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Computer Science and Engineering. Mr. Pudaruth Sameerchand is currently associated with Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Mauritius, Mauritius . The appointment of Mr. Pudaruth Sameerchand as member Editorial Advisory Board strengthens the links and will make it easier for prospective authors to establish contact with the journal. Please send any expressions of interest to chiefeditor@elixirjournal.org. Sincerely Editor-in-Chief

We are very happy to announce that from 17th July 2012, Mrs. Najmeh Samadi has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. She will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Soil Science. Mrs. Najmeh Samadi is currently associated with Soil Surveying and Mapping Laboratory, Faculty of Agriculture, Islamic Azad University, Khorasgan Branch, Isfahan. The appointment of Mrs. Najmeh Samadi as member Editorial Advisory Board strengthens the links and will make it easier for prospective authors to establish contact with the journal. Please send any expressions of interest to chiefeditor@elixirjournal.org. Sincerely Editor-in-Chief

Plant extracts are excessively used as corrosion inhibitors. Plant extracts contain a variety of organic compounds such as alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, cellulose and polycyclic compounds. The compounds with hetero atoms-N, O, S, P coordinate with (corroding) metal atom or ion consequently forming a protective layer on the metal surface, that prevents corrosion. These serve as cheaper, readily available, renewable and environmentally benign alternatives to costly and hazardous corrosion inhibitors .This study reports screening of phytoconstituents and also reports the influence of the addition of Pongamia pinnata (L.) Pierre leaves extract on the corrosion inhibition of mild steel in 2.0 M H2SO4 solution using the Mylius thermometric technique. Results of the study revealed that Pongamia pinnata (L.) Pierre. leaves act as corrosion inhibitor for mild steel in the acidic medium. The addition of 0.1 M potassium chloride, potassium bromide and potassium iodide to the inhibitor enhanced the inhibition efficiency. The order of reactivity of halide ions is of the order KI > KBr > KCl. The inhibition efficiency increased 58 % to 78 % at a concentration of 0.1 M KI and 5.0 % of inhibitor concentration. The values of adsorption of Pongamia pinnata (L.) Pierre leaves extract onto the mild steel surface show that the process is spontaneous.

Set partitioning problems are known to be NP-hard, thus it requires massive amounts of times and efforts to solve them using linear programming and traditional algorithms. This study proposes to use a scatter search algorithm coupled with a tabu search algorithm for such problems. The proposed algorithm is applied to the 3rd level football leagues in Turkey. 54 teams competing in the league are divided into three categories randomly by the Turkish Football Federation. The proposed algorithm in this study aims to set up these categories with the goal of minimizing the total amount of travelling, thus cost and time throughout the league. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm reduces the total travelling by a significant amount of 56%.

We are very happy to announce that from 7th June 2012, Prof. Raka Kamal has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. She will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Botany and Biotechnology. Prof. Raka Kamal is currently associated with Department of Botany, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur-302004, India. The appointment of Prof. Raka Kamal as member Editorial Advisory Board strengthens the links and will make it easier for prospective authors to establish contact with the journal. Please send any expressions of interest to chiefeditor@elixirjournal.org. Sincerely Editor-in-Chief

In this paper, a medical image watermarking algorithm based on contourlet is proposed. Medical image watermarking is a special subcategory of image watermarking in the sense that images have special requirements. Watermarked medical images should not differ perceptually from their original counterparts because clinical reading of images must not be affected. Watermarking techniques based on wavelet transform are reported in many literatures but robustness and security using contourlet are better when compared to wavelet transform. The main challenge in exploring geometry in images comes from the discrete nature of the data. In this paper, original image is decomposed to two level using contourlet and the watermark is embedded in the resultant sub-bands. Sub-band selection is based on the value of Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) that is calculated between watermarked and original image. To extract the watermark, Kernel ICA is used and it has a novel characteristic is that it does not require the transformation process to extract the watermark. Simulation results show that proposed scheme is robust against attacks such as Salt and Pepper noise, Median filtering and rotation. The performance measures like PSNR and Similarity measure are evaluated and compared with Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) to prove the robustness of the scheme. Simulations are carried out using Matlab Software.

Reactive Distillation (RD) is the combination of chemical reaction and distillative product separation in single piece of equipment, offers a number of specific advantages over conventional sequential approach of reaction followed by distillation or other separation techniques. The experimental part includes RD experiments in laboratory scale, carefully evaluated database for describing chemical reaction and phase equilibria. The iso-amyl acetate synthesis is also carried out in a packed bed RD column operated in batch and continuous modes. This paper describes an investigation into experimental and simulation work of the heterogeneous esterification of acetic acid with iso-amyl alcohol, catalyzed by an acidic cation –exchange resin. The effects of the variables such as the reflux ratio, vapour rate and feed flow rate on iso-amyl acetate synthesis are studied experimentally. The simulations are based on the equilibrium-stage model approach. The simulation studies are performed in Aspen Plus and MATLAB. Finally results of sensitivity studies using Aspen plus are presented to show the optimum performance of RD column.