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The vegetation around Lake Naivasha is under great threat by the horticultural and livestock farming common in the region through irrigation practices and overgrazing. The vegetation is heterogeneous varying from aquatic plants, grassland, shrubland, woodland and a forest. The study was conducted to analyse the effect of soil properties and environmental variable on plant communities. A total of 227 plant species were collected and identified representing 65 families. Plant species were classified into five community types using Hierachical Agglomerative Clustering Technique of the Syntax computer programme. These were: Acacia brevispica - Acacia drepanolobium community, Acacia xanthophloea–Pennisetum clandestinum community, Euphorbia candelabrum-Euphorbia buseii community, Digitaria abyssnica-Eragrostis superba - Sida cuneifolia community, and Tarchonanthus camphoratus- Solanum incanum community. Soil samples collected from each sample plot were analysed for soil pH, electrical conductivity, cation exchange capacity, organic matter, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, nitrogen and soil texture (sand, clay and silt content). Plant species diversity and richness decreased with distance from the lake as the woodlands and shrublands vegetation types near the lake had high plant species diversity than the grasslands. The results support the prediction that species diversity and richness decrease with increase in habitat degradation. Recommedations towards the conservation of plant species diversity around Lake Naivasha area are also put forward.

Nanocrystallites of Cadmium oxide (CdO) thin films with different gelation time were deposited by sol-gel spin coating method on a glass substrate. A comparative analysis of the effect of viscosity of sol-gel on the structural, electrical, and optical properties of as deposited films was made. Films were grown with gelation time of one to four days and optimum gelation time of third day of sol-gel viscosity of 3.28 x 10-3 Nsm-2 was determined. From the X-ray diffraction studies the polycrystalline nature of the grown film with a preferential orientation (1 1 1) was analyzed. The resistivity of the material decreases with the increase of gelation time and then increases after the optimum value of gelation time. The films showed resistivity of 2.16 x 10-4 ? m with an optical transmission of 80 % at the wavelength of 625 nm. The observed band gap of the developed film was found to be 2.25 eV. Also optical studies confirm that the optical transmittance was decreased when the viscosity was increased.

Internet of things is one of the rapidly growing fields for delivering social and economic benefits for emerging and developing economy. The field of IOT is expanding its wings in all the domains like medical, industrial, transportation, education, mining etc. Now-a-days with the advancement in integrated on chip computers like Arduino, Raspberry pi the technology is reaching the ground level with its application in agriculture and aquaculture. Water quality is a critical factor while culturing aquatic organisms. It mainly depends on several parameters like dissolved oxygen, ammonia, pH, temperature, salt, nitrates, carbonates etc. The quality of water is monitored continuously with the help of sensors to ensure growth and survival of aquatic life. The sensed data is transferred to the aqua farmer mobile through cloud. As a result preventive measures can be taken in time to minimize the losses and increase the productivity.

This paper presents the sorption studies of reactive orange -16 by using the nut shell of Arachis hypogaea. Batch experiments were conducted to study the effect of sorbent dosage, solution pH and initial dye concentration. Sorbent, net shell of Arachis hypogaea was characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherm models were used to represent the equilibrium data. The Langmuir isotherm model was found to be fitted well with the experimental data. The results of sorbent dosage showed that the equilibrium uptake capacity was found to be increase from 7.23mg/g to 25.53mg/g with decrease in amount of Sorbent from 0.5g to 0.1g. The equilibrium uptake capacity was increase from10.283mg/g to 26.950mg/g when increasing the initial dye concentration from 50mg/L to 200mg/L. This indicates that the dye removal was influenced by the initial dye solution concentration. The sorption results were analyzed for pseudo first order, pseudo second order kinetic and intra particle diffusion model. The values of dimensionless separation factors (RL) and Freundlich constant (n) showed that net shell of Arachis hypogaea could be used to remove reactive orange -16 from their aqueous solution.

The study was undertaken to find out the influence of different manure treatment methods on carbon sequestration potential of fodder maize. Significantly higher carbon sequestration potential was observed in improved, followed by enriched and vermicompost manure treatments than farmer’s and inorganic fertilizer treatment groups at 60th day. It was concluded that application of improved, enriched and vermicompost manure sequestered higher carbon from the atmosphere than other treatments, implying the benefit for reducing the impact of carbon, a potential green house gas.

Managing the marketing mix makes marketing seem to easy to handle and organize. Marketing is separated from other activities of the firm and delegated to specialists who take care of the analysis, planning and implementation of various marketing tasks, such as market analysis, marketing planning, advertising, sales promotion, sales, pricing, distribution and product packaging. Marketing departments are created to take responsibility for the marketing function of the firm, sometimes together with outside specialists on, for example, market analysis and advertising. Both in the marketing literature and in everyday marketing vocabulary the expression “marketing department”, and organization unit, is used as a synonym for marketing function, which is the process of taking care of the fulfilment of customer needs and desires. However, the organizational approach inherent in the marketing mix management paradigm is not very useful either. The psychological effect on the rest of the organization of a separate marketing department is, in the long run, often devastating to the development of a customer orientation or market orientation in a firm. A marketing orientation with, for example, high-budget advertising campaigns may be developed, but this does not necessarily have much to do with true market orientation and a real appreciation for the needs and desires of the customers. The existence or introduction of such a department may be a trigger that makes everybody else lose whatever little interest in the customers they may have had. The marketing department approach to organizing the marketing function has isolated marketing from design, production, deliveries, technical service, complaints handling, invoicing and other activities of the firm. As a consequence, the rest of the organization has been alienated from marketing. Therefore, it has made it difficult, often even impossible, to turn marketing into the “integrative function” that would provide other departments with the market-related input needed in order to make the organization truly market oriented and reach a stage of “co-ordinated marketing”.

Manufacturing industries aims at the reduction in usage of cutting fluids to combat Environmental and Ecological issues towards which new techniques are being explored. Hard turning with minimum quantity lubrication is one such technique which can abate the pollution problems associated with the cutting fluids. The present paper deals with the experimental investigation in turning of hardened AISI D3 steel with CVD coated indexable inserts under minimum quantity lubrication using vegetable oils as cutting fluids. An orthogonal array, analysis of variance(ANOVA) and Deng’s index are applied to study the performance of input parameters such as insert style, cutting fluid, cutting speed, feed and depth of cut by considering quality characteristics such as surface roughness, material removal rate, interface temperature, specific energy and flank wear. Finally a clear presentation is made for Deng’s method

‘Change’ is the campaign strategy Alhaji Mohammadu Buhari used in emerging the winner in the March, 28, 2015 Presidential election in Nigeria. Recently, Nigerians took to the online media to discuss the nature of the ‘change’ the president promised during his election campaign. This article explored the online discourse on the ‘Change’ agenda based on the context of Public Sphere Theory. The study used survey with a questionnaire as the instrument for data collection to sample 300 academic staff in the South-East geo-political zone in Nigeria to determine if their use of online media induced their participation in the discourse on ‘Change’ agenda and the credibility of the discourse. The study found that exposure to online media discourse is associated with political participation. online media platforms did not only provided avenues for political interaction but also effective in persuading participation in the discussion of matters of public interest like the ‘Change’ Agenda of the government. The study, therefore, recommends that citizens should utilize the opportunity presented by the online media platforms to present public service agenda which can attract attention to the essence of participating in governance and holding people in the position of authority accountable.

CNC Wire Electric Discharge Machining is the process of material removal using electrical discharge erosion action, with a wire electrode travelling longitudinally through the work piece. The work piece and wire electrode both are immersed in a dielectric fluid. The relative moving passage between the wire electrode and work piece is controlled by a CNC system that is pre-programmed. The Wire Electrical Discharge Machining performance mainly depends on various machining parameters like generator parameters, drawing parameters and user parameters. But the most prominent parameters are generator parameters as they are very important for sparking principles. Reference Voltage (V), Pulse on-time (Ton), Pulse off-time (Toff) fluid injection pressure mode (Inj), Wire tension (WB), Wire velocity (WS) are the crucial machining process parameters which has influence on the machining performance characteristics such as Material Removal Rate (MRR), Surface Roughness (Ra), Spark Gap (SG) and Dimensional Deviation (DD) while processing / slicing of ingot. Variation in machining performances causes both functional, profit and loss for any manufacturing organisation. Hence, an attempt has been made to study and optimize these machining parameters for minimizing the variations in multiple machining performances and process model (empirical relationship/regression model) between the process parameters (V, Ton, Toff, Inj, WB, WS) and the performance characteristics (MRR, Ra, SG and DD) has been developed. These process model can predict the level of performance that the machine would render for a given set of process parameters, thereby providing prior knowledge of desired machining performance before actually producing the part. The process model is able to show the dependency of machining performance on process parameters, which will be useful for both machine designers and the machine users.

The kinetics of oxidation of some para-substituted benzyl alcohols by PDC have been studied in DMSO spectrophotometrically acidified with TsOH. From good linear Eyring plots ?H# and ?S# are calculated. The reaction has unit dependence on each [PDC], [H+] and [Alcohol]. Electron-releasing substituent accelerates the reaction, whereas electron-withdrawing groups retard the reaction, and the rate data obey Hammett's relationship. PDC is acting as two-electron transfer oxidant. A mechanism implicating the prior acid-catalyzed formation of dichromate ester followed by cyclic intermediate is proposed.