Archives-J  

The Study of heavy metal was carried out at mechanic village along Abeokuta-Ibadan Expressway for the presence of heavy metal and uptake efficiency of plant species as a means of phytoremediation. The concentrations of heavy metals determined from the soil of the mechanic village and compared to a control farmland located as Federal University of Agriculture. The soil sample collected at the base of different species of tree showed that the heavy metals were below permissible levels (FAO/WHO standard) and show no significant difference in the range of mean. Absorption of heavy metals by the bark of the trees in the mechanic village was evident when compared relatively to the presence and uptake of the heavy metals from the soil by tree in the average farmland. The mean concentrations of the heavy metals in the soil of the farmland are in this order of magnitude Cd>Cu>Pb, while the mean concentration of the heavy metals in the soil of the mechanic village are in the order of magnitude Pb>Cu>Cd. Lead has the least concentration in the farmland, while in the mechanic village, it is the predominant heavy metal detected which also shows greater significant different at p<0.05 with a value of 24.34 mg/kg which indicates area of high mechanic activity. While the concentration values of heavy metals in the barks in comparison to the FAO/WHO and EC/CODEX standard for these heavy metals shows that the concentration of the heavy metals in those vicinities is within the normal range for cadmium and copper, but the lead present is above the WHO/FAO standard at 0.299 mg/kg and close to the EC/CODEX standard. It can also be concluded that the uptake efficiency of heavy metal under study of the three species are in the order magnitude Mango>Cashew>Neem. We can also recommend that for better efficient cleanup especially where an area is polluted with copper, mango is best bet for the uptake of such metal while if an equal proportion all many heavy metals are evident then it will be better to use Neem as a phytoremediating plant.

This work aims to evaluate the effects of current density and plating time on the corrosion resistance of ZnNiSiO2 electroplated coating. For the plating time, the results showed that coating thickness increased with increasing the plating time. The average thickness was 6, 15 and 25 µm, when used plating time of 10, 30 and 50 minutes, respectively.Whereas, when the current density values varied from 1 A/dm2 to 5 A/dm2, the coating thickness was in range of 14.7 - 15.3 µm, with the same plating times. After 900 hours of exposure to salt spray, the surface appearance of coatings indicated that the plating time of 30 minutes provided the highest corrosion resistance. These data were coherent with the findings from polarization curve measurement.

The biological effectiveness of jute bags impregnated with Eucalyptus camaldulensis essential oils, Cymbopogon citratus, and vegetable oil of Azadirachta indica was evaluated on the adults of Callosobruchus maculatus of cowpea and the molds of the genus Aspergilus and Penicillium, in post-harvest conservation conditions. The results reveal that the jute bags tested have significant insecticidal and antimicrobial activity on Callosobruchus maculatus adults, when the dose and exposure time increase from 0 to 2% for 26 weeks.

 Harvesting rainwater has been adapted in many countries since early times. Water is a major problem at Arusha Technical College (ATC) during summer, thus proper preservation during rainy season could reduce water shortage. This paper aims at evaluating the possibility of rainwater harvesting using storage tanks systems to reduce problem of water shortage and reducing cost of water. Published literatures and information on water preservation from different households was collected in this research. Findings show that the use of storage tanks system in rainwater harvesting increases the efficiency to reserve water in households and thus resulting into using the water storage for many days compared to dependence on urban water supply. It is proposed that the authority should introduce use of storage tanks systems in harvesting and preserving rainwater for use at ATC. 

The detoxifying effect of Vitamin C in the graded levels of Fumonisin B1 fed to bird was conducted with One hundred and five (105) point-of-lay Isa brown breed at 18 weeks and twenty-one (21) cocks at 25 weeks to access egg qualities and embryonic development of their eggs. The birds (layers) were assigned to Seven (7) dietary treatments of 15 birds each at three (3) birds per replicate. The treatments were classified according to inclusion level of Fumonisin B1 and Vitamin C. Treatment A served as the control, B (10 mg/kg of FB1), C (20 mg/kg of FB1), D (30 mg/kg of FB1), E (10 mg/kg of FB1 + Vitamin C), F (20 mg/kg of FB1 + Vitamin C), and G (30mg/kg of FB1 + Vitamin C). The birds were artificially fertilised with semen collected from intact cocks. All the eggs collected from day three (3) after artificial insemination for seven (7) days were incubated to assess the egg fertility and monitor the development of resulting embryos at 7 and 14 days. A significant difference was observed in shell weight (p?0.05) while other external qualities of eggs examined were not significantly (p?0.05) influenced by the level of fumonisin B1. Yolk height and yolk diameter had significance (p?0.05) while other internal qualities were not significantly (p?0.05) affected. No significant effect of FB1 was observed for the embryonic development just as there was no difference between the selected embryos of the treated group and the control. Meanwhile, the result shows that Vitamin C can effectively ameliorate the toxic effect of the FB1 on the egg qualities (external and internal) and embryonic development of eggs. 

This research discusses the English listening comprehension problems of university international students from China. The research used a qualitative method to collect data from three China’s students taking English Listening Comprehension (ELC) in University Sains Malaysian (USM). This study is a research report related to the problems encounter by China’s students in ELC learning. Interview was conducted to investigate students’ perspective through the main question concerning the problems from the China’s students in their ELC self-learning process in three steps, which is the pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening. Findings from this study indicated that the main problem faced by the China’s students was the lack of prior knowledge in English vocabulary, this inhibit their understanding in the listening process. Moreover, the differences in the ascent of the native speakers prohibit the proper understanding of the listening content, the short span of concentration, and the learning habit of China’s students were discussed as the problems of the ELC learning. This enhances the data availability and the interpretative analysis. In order to validate the data and the analysis, researcher experiences and documents analysis were conducted. This research laid a good foundation for further research; it provided useful information concerning the effective strategies to enhance students’ listening skills and will improve the instruction of English listening class to achieve the win-win situation.

Mobile Ad hoc Wireless Network is a collection of wireless mobile node forming a temporary network without the support of any predefined infrastructure using the unlicensed radio spectrum frequency of Industrial Scientific Medical (ISM) band as per the standard of IEEE.802.11. In Mobile Ad hoc Networks, all devices have equal status and are free to associate with any other Ad hoc Network. Ad hoc mode can be deployed anywhere easily without requiring major infrastructure. It is a decentralized network. Users are mobile in this network and can access data from anywhere. In Ad hoc wireless mode, from source node to destination node requires help of other nodes presents in the vicinity of a node. Nodes behave as a source and destination and as a router or intermediate node which forward data for other nodes . Routing becomes on the most complicated challenges prevailing in Ad hoc Wireless Networks. Routing is based on multi hop and so no default route is available .Traditional classification of Ad hoc network routing is table driven and on-demand driven protocols. Table driven routing protocols try to maintain consistent, up-to-date routing information from each node to every other node. Energy is considered as a vital resource that needs to be preserved in order to extend the life time and stability of the Ad hoc Wireless Networks. In particular, mobility changes network connectivity and it can reduce the stability of the link of nodes and it can reduce the performance of throughput. In order to overcome these issues in Ad hoc Wireless Networks, Optimization techniques are proposed. Routing protocols has two noteworthy arrangements are unipath and multipath. The current work assesses execution of an on-demand multipath routing protocol called Adhoc On-demand Multipath Distance Vector (AOMDV) routing. This paper suggests an energy-aware Genetic Algorithm (GA) based Multipath Routing. GA has been referred as one of the meta-heuristic strategies applied to take care of the optimization issues utilizing the simulation of the conduct of the hereditary operators. Simulation results shown the high accuracy and quality of the suggested technique for the optimization strategies performed by the Genetics Algorithm.

In the present study, a simple and convenient synthesis of CaAl2O4 nanoparticle was reported. The static renewal bioassay was conducted to determine the lethal toxicity of CaAl2O4 nanoparticle and sublethal exposure reveals the effect of nanoparticle on the haematology and biochemical parameters of the test species Cyprinus carpio. The acute toxicity (96hrs LC50) of CaAl2O4 NPs was observed between 25- 225ppm. As a novel attempt, our study showed the impact of CaAl2O4 nanoparticles in acute toxicity and biochemical parameters of freshwater fish Cyprinus carpio.

The aim of this research is to create the portfolio of efficient companies using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique to gain a return beyond the average return of market. For this purpose, input-oriented and output-oriented models were used under constant returns to scale (CCR) and variable returns to scale (BCC). Also, in this research the hypothesis “the portfolio composed of small companies has a better performance than the average of industry” was discussed. The results of the research indicate that in case of using CCR method, it is not possible to gain a return beyond the average return of market; however, it is possible to do so if BCC method is used. The performance of the portfolio created using this method was also appropriate. In the end, the portfolio composed of small companies had the return beyond the average return of market and had an appropriate performance.

A good insight of performance or execution in projects along with needed requirements of project management has the most important effect on customers’ satisfactions in a project-based organization. The performance result of each project in an organization has direct relationship with interaction manner of executive processes with project.In this paper, the combination of Delphi and Analytical Network Process (ANP) and Friedman Test have  been applied to detect and rank the best strategy for improving customer’s satisfaction and determining its most important sub-indexes.Based upon obtained results, cost as the main area of project management has the most important effect on customer’s satisfaction in case of applying Information Technology (IT) in BRP of PBO, and the most important strategy in improving and boosting customers’ satisfaction in PBOs is BRP. Furthermore, IT and software are respectively the most important and considerable sub-indexes of structures and IT in BRP of PBOs.