Archives-February 2015

This present study was aimed determining the potency of methanol extract of leaves of Annona senegalensis. on tumor-bearing Swiss albino mice (20 in number )and to evaluate the safety of the leaves in ethnomedicinal prescription. The animals were divided into 5 groups of 4 animals each. Mean survival time (MST) and percentage increase in life span were highest in group IV with values 3.0 ± 0 .03 and 5±0.05 respectively at 1000 mg / kg body weight (b.w). Packed cell volume (PCV) showed progressive decrease as the dosage increased from 100 mg/kg to 1000 mg/kg in all the groups when compared with doxorubicin control groups with value 34.5. Viable tumor cell counts were 22.2 (group III 100 mg/kg), 20.1 (group IV 1000 mg/kg) and 18.0 group V (doxorubicin 10 mg / kg standard drug) and values are statistically different from the MEAS control (group II ) with value 28.2. Non-viable tumors cell counts were on the increase as the doses increased; 5.10 (group III 100 mg/kg), 6.47(group IV 1000 mg/kg) and 7.24 (group V 0.8 mg/kg doxorubicin standard drug) while the MEAS control (group II) was 5.00 and values were compared. All hematological parameters showed increase at the doses (intraperitoneal) investigated except total WBC white blood cells with slight decrease in values among the groups. Toxicity studies (LD50) showed that the leaf methanol extract was safe even at 5000 mg/kg b.w. The study therefore showed that leaves methanol extract of A. senegalensis Pers. had anti-tumor properties on the experimental animals and can therefore serve as a medication for tumor problems.

The experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect furrow opener (ridge), operation speed and samples depth from furrow on soil physical properties and maize yield during the summer growing season of 2013 in the experimental at fields of Faculty Agricultural University of Baghdad in silt clay soil. The experimental treatments were arranged in Randomize Complete Block Design with three replicates. The main plots were assigned to the machinery unit speeds (3.69, 4.23, 6.27 and11.17 km h-1), whereas sample depth of furrows was assigned to the sub plots included top of furrow (0.00-0.15 m) and bottom of furrow (0.00-0.25 m). Grains of corn (synthetic cv. Maize 5018) were sowing was done on August 18th; harvest was done on December 10th. Irrigation were scheduled when soil water content in the root zone was depleted by the crop to specific fraction of available water (irrigation was imposed at 55% depletion of available water). Soil samples from furrow were taken from each experimental unit of depth 0.0 -0.15 and 0.0 -0.25 m after month of planting, middle season and after harvest to determine soil bulk density and the same samples measured saturated hydraulic conductivity and calculated mean weight diameter (MWD), geo-metric diameter (GMD). At harvest time, two central rows in each plot were harvested to determining grain yield and then; grain yield per hectare was calculated. The results the operating speeds significantly affected the soil bulk density and hydraulic conductivity values. As the operating speed increased, soil bulk density increased and hydraulic conductivity decreased. An increase operating speeds from 3.69 t0 4.23 and 11.17 km.h-1 decreased hydraulic conductivity and increased soil bulk density values for all planting growth stages (after month of planting, middle season and after harvest) except the speed 6.27 km.h-1. Different operating speeds and depth were significantly for mean weight diameter (MWD) and geo metric diameter (GMD) for all planting growth stages.

Statistical Process Control (SPC) is the best choice to monitor software reliability process. It assists the software development team to identify and actions to be taken during software failure process and hence, assures better software reliability. In this paper we propose a control mechanism based on the cumulative observations of Interval domain data using the mean value function of Burr type XII model, which is Non-Homogenous Poisson Process (NHPP) based. The Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) approach is used to estimate the unknown parameters of the model.

Lithostratigraphic, foraminiferal and calcareous nannofossil biostratigraphic studies have been carried out on ditch cutting samples from KR-1 well located in the offshore area of the Niger delta. The Agbada Formation sediments are made up of shales and sandy shales which are grey in colour with intercalations of medium to fine grained sandstone beds. The shales are fissile and slightly calcareous while the sandy shales are light grey, ferruginous and sub-fissile. The sediments yielded rare planktonic but relatively rich benthonic foraminifera and calcareous nannofossils with significant variations in abundance and diversity. The important foraminifera recovered are Globigerina ciporoensis angustiumblicata, Globigerinoides praebulloides, Lenticulina inornata, Epistominella vitrea, Hanzawaia concentrica, Poroeponides lateralis, Quiqueloculina lamarckiana, and Brizalina mandoroveensis while Helicosphaera truempyi, Calcidiscus leptoporus, Cyclicargolithus abisectus, Cyclicargolithus floridanus, Discoaster and Helicosphaera euphrati constitute the principal nannofossils. Early Miocene age was assigned to the section using the top occurrences of some of these taxa while a marginal marine environment of deposition was suggested due to the low diversity of nannofossils and very low planktonic/bentonic ratio.

According to 2006 census the vast majority of household live in the rural area of Nigeria, inhabits indigenous earth dwelling of various typologies. These accounted for thirty five percent of total national housing stock. They are characterized with deterioration and dilapidation. Ensuring an adequate performance level of well built earth dwelling, it requires high level of maintenance. Furthermore, many of these structures are built in ignorance of rules and regulations of good building practice. The focus group of professional especially architect and builder were organized to coordinate the study process, ensuring adequate evaluations of issues that can facilitate improved performances of earth as a building materials. The attitude of lack of maintenance was also considered and observed. Their recommendations are evaluated and classified according to issues and strategies: Seven prevailing factors facilitating fast deterioration of earth dwelling were identified. The study recommended fundamental strategies that could help to: Upgrade traditional building, Improve the performance and durability of earth dwelling, Reduce the amount of maintenance cost required by ensuring adequate building precautions and to create a practical and affordable construction based on local practice.

The main cause of morbidity and mortality in modern society is heart disease. Medical diagnosis is important but complex task that must be carefully and effectively. Although considerable progress has been made in the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease, but research must reach the highest accuracy. Access to a large amount of medical data requires powerful tools for analyzing the resulting data to extract useful knowledge. Data mining is an effective analysis tool for discovering hidden relationships and trends in the data. This paper heart disease through data mining algorithm C & R, the algorithm K nearest neighbor algorithm to move the mass of particles (pso) and improved algorithms, k-nearest neighbor algorithm pso investigated. In this study, we improved the effectiveness of these algorithms see for heart disease. Thus we see that data mining can identify or predict high or low risk of heart disease.

The digital image processing has been proved to be an effective tool for analysis in various fields and applications in engineering. Among the segmentation methods, image thresholding technique is one of the most well known methods due to its simplicity, robustness, and high precision. In this paper an attempt is made for an efficient segmentation of Natural calamity images by Healthy Bacteria Foraging Optimization Algorithm.

In the recent era, the extensive and rapid growth in internet technology is creating a important need to develop several newer techniques to protect authentication, ownership, copyright and content integrity of digital data. A proposed solution to this kind of problem is to digital watermarking. Digital watermarking has viable technique to the need of authentication, ownership, copyright and content integrity of digital data. Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) are two most popular tools used in watermarking algorithm to protect digital image. Aim of this paper is to provide robust technique based on combined DWT and DCT propose a new watermarking algorithm for digital image. Discrete wavelet transform is used to provide robustness and discrete cosine transform has shorter elapsed time, taking advantages of both this technique proposed a new digital image watermarking algorithm. Results show that this algorithm combines the advantages of these two transforms.

Ni-substituted MnZn mixed ferrite prepared by conventional sol-gel method. Ni substituted MnZn ferrite of molecular formula Mn0.3Zn0.7NixFe2-xO4 in which five samples of x=0.0, x=0.4, x=0.8, x=1.2 and x=1.6 were prepared. The X-ray intensity of (4 0 0) plane were used to calculate particle size and studied its variation with Nickel concentration. XRD, SEM, FTIR and VSM characteristics were presented. The substitution of Ni by replacing Fe reduces the coercivity of the ferrite due to replacement of Ni2+ by Fe3+ in tetrahedral site. Infrared spectroscopies have been discussed so as to bring out the role of nickel substitution in determining structural properties of Zn–Mn ferrites and the role of nitrates in preparation of these compounds.

Self-Organizing Map (SOM) can be used to quickly create a qualitative overview of the data. It maps nonlinear statistical relationships among different variables of a high dimensional input data on a low dimensional network, preserving most of the topographic relationships from the input space. Hence, for dealing the complex problem of separation of incipient faults of highly overlapping nature, an epistemological decision making approach using SOM is proposed in this paper.