August 2010

The substitution of the hydroxyl groups with acetyl groups into starch moiety to increase hydrophobicity is geared toward enhancing the functional properties of starch for bioplastics production. The fear for reduced biodegradability of the products however, informed the isolation and identification of starch acetate based-bioplastics degraders in soil as a pointer for acetylation effect on degradation. Native starch and starch acetates from cassava, maize and potato were used for the production of bioplastics according to the composition of 45%, 60%, 75% and 90% respectively. Bioplastics measuring 2.5cm x 1.5cm x 0.5cm from each bioplastics composition was buried. Rate of degradation was estimated at intervals of 1week. Soil from the decomposed bioplastics were placed on nutrient and potato dextrose agars for bacteria and fungi isolation and incubated at 300C for 2hrs. Discrete colonies were transferred to nutrient and potato dextrose agars for 24 and 72hrs to produce pure cultures of bacteria and fungi. Gram staining and biochemical tests were done while fungi mycelia were stained with lactophenol blue for microscopy. Our results revealed that there was significant effect (P < 0.05) of starch acetylation on the degradation of bioplastics. Pseudomonas spp, Bacillus anthrax, Corynebacterium diphtheria, Micrococcus, Klebsiella spp and Clostridium spp were bacteria species isolated while the isolated fungi species were Aspergillus niger, Mucor spp, Alternaria spp, Chanophora cucurbitarum during the preliminary soil analysis. After the burial test, bacteria identified as colonizing the bioplastics were as follows; Pseudomonas spp, Bacillus anthrax, Micrococcus, Klebsiella spp and Clostridium spp while Aspergillus niger, Mucor spp, Alternaria spp, Chanophora cucurbitarum were the identified fungi and implicated for the degradation, which was confirmed through in vitro. The delayed degradation observed in our result may not mean jettisoning the idea of acetylating starch, especially in planta of starch-producing plant for bioplastics production comparing the degradation problems of synthetic plastics, which had led to finding alternatives. Our results explicitly suggest that though using acetylated starch for bioplastics production might have a little degradation problem, the microorganisms isolated had the capacity to degrade them in a very short interval of weeks.

Objectives: To examine the existing pattern of maternal health care and the factors associated with the utilization of such care in Tamil Nadu state, India. Methods: This study uses the data obtained through District Level Household Survey-Reproductive Child Health. Besides, performing chi-square tests to see the association of the relevant individual and household characteristics, logistic regression was also carried out to measure the effect of these characteristics on the use of maternal health care. Results: Maternal health care, measured as mean score is 77.8 for the whole Tamil Nadu. It varies across the districts in this state. Among social variables, religion, caste and education of women and their husband are significantly associated with the utilization of maternal health care. Variables like standard of living, age of women, age at marriage of women, order of pregnancy, and exposure to electronic media are also significantly associated with the maternal health care. However, women with 4 or more gravida, low standard of living, and not exposed to electronic media are less likely to utilize this service. Conclusion: In the state of Tamil Nadu regions make the difference in the observed significant association between the utilization of maternal health care and independent variables at the state level. Though religion and age of women are significantly associated with maternal health care at the state level, it is not so in each region. The status of district in terms of human development index is positively associated with the utilization of maternal health care in Tamil Nadu.

Weed-crop competition is critical in obtaining crop yields because of greater competition ability of weeds than the crops. Weeds deplete large quantities of mineral nutrients and moisture more efficiently than the crop plants and thrive better over the crops in drought conditions. They shade the crop seedlings and occupy space where crop plants should grow their roots. Weeds have higher contents of nutrients than crop plants; they grow faster and absorb nutrients more efficiently and thus limiting the availability of the same to crop plants. Besides, the weeds inflict allelopathic effects on crop plants which are large through their depressive root exudates. The Important Value Index calculated for the individual weed species encountered in the rice crop fields revealed interesting results. The analysis on the frequency classes of weed species encountered in rice crop field revealed interesting results. A total of 65 weed species (29 dicots, 36 monocots) were recorded from 60 quadrates combining three field sites. Out of 65 species: A class is represented by 40 species followed by 20 under B, 2 under C and 3 under D, no single species under E this results showing the heterogeneity of weed vegetation.

Heavy metal pollution is one of the main anthropogenic pollutions causing serious and long lasting damage to all living organisms. The effect of nickel chloride on protein and amino acid contents of liver, kidney and brain of freshwater fish, Labeo rohita have been studied. The fish were exposed to sublethal concentration of nickel chloride 1/5th (high), 1/10th (medium) and 1/15th (low) of the 96 hour LC50 for the period of 10 and 20 days. All the sublethal concentration of nickel chloride exposed fish for the period of 10 and 20 days showed decrease the protein and increase the amino acid content in liver, kidney and brain of Labeo rohita. The significant alterations showed toxic effect of heavy metal nickel chloride at biochemical levels.

In the first stage of analysis, some descriptive measures were used to examine the main properties of the series. Twelve-month centred moving average and differencing of order twelve advocated by Box and Jenkins (1970) were used to reduce the seasonal effect and to make the series stationary respectively. The autocorrelation of the differenced series of the productions were calculated including the partial autocorrelation with their respective correlogram which gives an insight into the probability model that generated the series.The second stage involves fitting of model and diagnostic checking to test for the adequacy of the fitted model. The diagnostic checking revealed that autoregressive model of order two was fitted into the series.

The study was carried out at Lekki Lagoon which is part of the Lagoon system in the Western coast of Nigeria. Samples of Schilbe mystus were obtained from Epe fish depot for six months (January to June). A total of 337 specimens were examined. Identification of this species was done using the technique proffered by Olatunde (1977). Fecundity was estimated by using the gravimetric sub-sampling method (Dry technique). Overall sex ratio of 1.0: 2.5 in favour of the female was obtained. The sex ratio varies monthly. The highest sex ratio in June was associated with breeding activities. Condition factors (K) were found not to vary with stages of gonad maturity in both sexes while Gonadosomatic index (GSI) increased with the stages of maturity. Fecundity ranged from 10,906 to 23,700 eggs. Breeding condition was attained during the rains.