December 2010

A feeding trial was conducted to test the efficacy of fresh green guinea grass (FGGG) as green food supplement on growth response of grower pigs. A total of 45 young pigs between 18 and 19 kg live body weight on the average, were used in a completely randomized design (CRD) experiment. The pigs were obtained from a landrace x large white crosses. There were five treatments of nine animals each replicated three times with three animals per replicate. Pigs in treatment 1 taken as the control consumed only a formulated basal diet while pigs in treatments 2, 3, 4, and 5 received the basal diet in addition to 5, 10, 15 and 20% of their daily ad libitum feed as FGGG respectively. The whole experiment lasted for 60 days. At the end, pigs that fed 5% FGGG had better final body weight, than the control and other pigs that fed FGGG. Inclusion of FGGG above 5% did not better result in body weight than the control.

The proximate composition, market prices and production cost per unit kilogram of four common meat types were investigated in the south-western area of Nigeria. The meat types were beef, broiler, Claria lazera and Tilapia macrocephala and the parameters were crude protein (%),ether extract (%),ash(%),crude fibre (%) and nitrogen-free extract (%) and average market prices of the meat types. One hundred grammes of each of the meat sample were obtained from freshly slaughtered cow, broiler chicken and fishes. Each sample was subdivided into four replicates which were later subjected proximate analyses in a completely randomized design (CRD) while current market prices of each of the meat samples were investigated. Beef had the highest crude protein and fat content, while broiler meat and Clarias lazera had higher mineral content than others. However, none of the samples had crude fibre. Meanwhile, Tilapia macrocephala (N42.00 per 100g fresh weight) was the cheapest while broiler meat was the most expensive (N57.00 per 100g fresh weight). Beef had the highest level of crude protein than other meat types while Tilapia macrocephala was the cheapest meat type in south-western Nigeria as at the time of this study.

Environmental amenities and other site specific characteristics can affect the price and productivity of residential property in a variety of ways. An analysis of the demand for air quality in Cochin industrial agglomeration in India is presented using the survey data from 600 households. Hedonic property value model is used to identify and monetarize the benefits in the value of residential property due to an improvement in air quality. Incorporating a number of structural, neighborhood, environmental and socio economic variables as the determinants of the consumer's willingness to pay for reduced air quality, it is hypothesized that the major environmental variable SO2 was inversely related to the residential property values. Estimated implicit prices for different sites in different locations correspond to the individual willingness to pay (WTP) for a marginal unit of environmental good purchased. Adopting a two-stage estimation procedure to estimate these relationships, it is found that, on an average, an increase in the level of SO2 reduced property prices in the study area by 0.45 percent. Estimates further revealed that the households are willing to pay an additional amount of 1.48 percent for a reduction in SO2.

The recent proliferation and the availability of the complete sequence information of the pathogenic fungi has made it possible to carry out the in silico subtractive genome analysis for identification of novel putative drug targets. In this present study subtractive genomic approach is employed to identify novel targets in Ascomycete (Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus nidulans, Gibberella zeae, Ashbya gossypii) and Basidiomycete species (Cryptococcus neoformans). These fungal species act as plant and animal pathogens. Our study reveals that 52 common core proteins are found in the 5 fungal pathogens of our interest from whole proteome comparisons. Further homolog identification was performed against plants and animals using BLASTp and tBLASTn. 17 out of 52 proteins gave considerable results. Unlike all the proteins, C6 transcription factor (XP_753029.1) was found to have no homolog (hits) in plants and animals. In the later step cellular localization of those 17 proteins was found using CELLO v.2.5. The results show that among those 17 proteins, 3 were nuclear proteins, 7 were cytoplasmic proteins, 5 were mitochondrial proteins & 2 were membrane proteins. Membrane proteins were considered for further analysis as they represent the largest group (70%) of effective drug targets. It was found that C6 transcription factor (XP_753029.1) was identified as a membrane protein. Homolog identification and cellular localization prediction results render C6 transcription factor (XP_753029.1) as promising putative drug target as it was involved in unique biochemical pathways in all the 5 fungal pathogens considered for the study and not present in animal or plant host. Molecular Modeling & further screening of the functional inhibitors against these novel targets may result in discovery of novel broad spectrum anti fungal therapy.

Radon and its radioactive progenies in indoor places are recognized as the main sources of public exposure from the natural radioactive sources. The tap water used for drinking and other household uses can increase the indoor radon level. In the present research data on radon concentrations in the water samples of Mashhad city has provided. Water samples were collected from various places and supplies of public water used in Mashhad. Then radon concentration has been measured by PRASSI system tree times for each sample in this research. Result shows about 75% of water samples have radon concentration gather than 10Bq/L which advised EPA as a normal level. According to measurements data, the mean radon concentration of all samples was 16.238 ± 9.322 Bq/L. The annual mean effective dose in stomach and long are 42.674 ± 24.525 and 45.305 ± 26.037 μSv/y, respectively, per person of Mashhad population which is more then 4 millions people. Results show about 75% of water samples have radon concentration gather than 10Bq/L as advised of EPA normal level. The radon and radium concentrations in drinking water samples actually used by people in Mashhad in some regions are not low enough and below the EPA proposed limits. Since a main section of radon come in body is due to drinking and household water, and for improvement of the social health level, we suggest using the low radon level water source, or public water supplies authority reducing the radon in the drinkable water before using by people.

In this paper, determinant sampling scheme for estimation of a finite population mean is extended for the ratio and regression methods of estimation. The relative performance of determinant sampling along with those of the simple random and systematic sampling are assessed for certain natural populations for estimation of the finite population means through the methods of ratio and regression estimation.

Thanks to advances in wide-area network technologies and the low cost of computing resources, Grid computing came into being and is currently an active research area. One motivation of Grid computing is to aggregate the power of widely distributed resources, and provide non-trivial services to users. To achieve this goal, an efficient Grid scheduling system is an essential part of the Grid. Rather than covering the whole Grid scheduling area, this survey provides a review of the subject mainly from the perspective of scheduling algorithms. In this review, the challenges for Grid scheduling are identified. The various Grid scheduling algorithms such as Static, Dynamic, Ant Colony, Multi objective Evolutionary algorithms, Simulated Annealing, Taboo search and Genetic algorithms are discussed from different points of view. Their merits and demerits are pointed out and some general issues worthy of further exploration are proposed Algorithms, Simulated Annealing, Taboo search and Genetic algorithms are discussed from different points of view.

The main operations in hospitals are trying to maintain their process in the progressive manner that is healthcare sectors are try to streamline their processes. In order to do so, it is essential to have an accurate view of the care flows under consideration. In this paper, we apply process mining techniques to obtain meaningful knowledge about these flows, e.g., to discover typical paths followed by particular groups of symptoms that create a disease of a patient. This is a non-trivial task given the dynamic nature of healthcare processes. The paper demonstrates the applicability of process mining using a real case of a patient affected by a disease in a hospital. Using a variety of process mining techniques, we analyzed the healthcare process using three different algorithms (1) α-algorithm (2) Heuristics Miner algorithm and (3) Damped Working Set (DWS) algorithm. In order to do so we extracted relevant event logs from the hospital information system and analyzed these logs using the ProM framework. This paper only deals about control flow perspective of the healthcare processes. Therefore the results show that process mining can be used to provide new insights that facilitate the improvement of existing treatment system.

The development in economic and social front across the states in India has not been inclusive of all categories of population and that has been highlighted in several earlier studies. The experience of the newly formed state Jharkhand is not different where women is excluded from the access to those required for the human development as well as empowering them. The primary objective of this paper is thus to understand the level of Gender Deprivation in Jharkhand. For understanding it, various socio-economic variables such as health, education etc and the extent of poverty and inequality will be considered. This paper also tries to estimate the level of poverty and inequality in this area and its relationship with an index of non-income women empowerment that may be constructed on the basis of the primary data collected on the level of education, political and social participation and participation in various other socio-economic activities. The thrust would be to see whether the level of education or the incidence of poverty has any connection with the level of women empowerment in rural Jharkhand.

In this work a 3kVA Photovoltaic system capable of sustaining 5 campus offices has been designed, with an array of 14 panels each of 150W rating and a battery bank of 10, 200AH/12V batteries, the design is capable of sustaining power from storage to a maximum of 2 days without sunlight.

A survey was conducted from February – May 2009, to assess the level of loss due to storage rot diseases in mango at the farm and the different stages of marketing via wholesale and retail. The degree of losses due to storage rot diseases varied at the different stages of marketing. The rots were highest at the retail stage (25.9 to 57.8% at Fruit Garden market and 24.5 to 48.5% at Loco market). At the wholesale stage, the severity of the rot disease ranged from 2.0 to 3.9% at Loco market to 3.7 to 8.4% at Fruit Garden market. The rot severity at the farm stage was 1.43%. The fungi species that infected the mangoes were Aspergillus niger, Alternaria sp, Botryodiplodia theobromae and Collectrotrichum gloeosporioides. Fusarium sp, Aspergillus flavus and phoma sp were also isolated but were not associated with the mango rots. Anthrancnose caused by C. gloeosporioides and stem end rot caused by B. theobromae were the most severe at both markets.

In this study, we analyzed the anticancer properties of luteolin in N-nitosodiethylamine induced group of rats. We found that the administration of luteolin (0.2mg) for 16 weeks to N-nitosodiethylamine induced rats provides protection against the oxidative stress caused by the carcinogen and thereby prevents hepatocellular carcinogenesis. On administration of the carcinogen, the level of lipid peroxidation elevated markedly, but it was found to be significantly reduced by luteolin administration. Besides, the antioxidant activities in serum were reduced in carcinogen administered animals, which were enhanced to normal level after luteolin treatment to N-nitrosodiethylamine induced group of rats and also this luteolin prevented the elevation of marker enzymes induced by N-nitrosodiethylamine. The bodyweight of the animals decreased and their relative liver weight increased significantly on N-nitrosodiethylamine administration when compared to control group. However, Treatment with luteolin significantly prevented the decrease of the body weight and increase in relative liver weight caused by DEN. In conclusion, these findings indicate that the compound prevent lipid peroxidation, hepatic cell damage and protect the antioxidant system in N-nitrosodiethylamine-induced hepatocellular carcinogenesis.

A new sensitive analytical approach for determination of erythromycin A in tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) by a fast scanning stripping square wave voltammetry using the dropping mercury electrode (PSA-F) was developed and validated. Optimum parameters for erythromycin A quantification were: Ammonium acetate buffer 0.1 M, pH 8.0 as supporting electrolyte; acetonitrile as the solvents for disolving erythromycin standard; forward scanning; Vstart: -400 mV; Vstop: -1700 mv; Vstep: 6 mV; Vpulse: 40 mV; Tdop: 5000 ms; Velectrolide: -1100 mV; Telectrolide: 5s. Peak of erythromycin A appeared at E1/2 = -1430 mV, separated and distinguished with peaks of other antibiotics. This assay showed high recovery (> 85.07 %), high sensitivity (detection limit 0.52 µg/kg), high precision (RSD, 0.8  2.1 %), high accuracy (relative error - RE, 85.07 88.56 %) as well as excellent linearity (r2adjusted = 1.0). Simpler, reagent-saving and time-saving were other advantages of this assay method. An equivalence of analyzing results between PSA-F and LC-MS/MS could be obviously seen.

The development of in vitro propagation of plants holds tremendous potential for the production of high-quality plant-based medicines. Aristalochia indica is used in traditional remedy. In the present study, attempts have been made to develop a simple, reliable and reproducible protocol for micropropagation from different explants of Aristalochia indica. Shoot tip and nodal segments showed elongation without multiplication when either NAA or KIN was used in MS medium. Shoot multiplication was obtained when cytokinins like BAP was used. BAP alone also induced multiple shoots. The regenerated individual shoots were rooted in MS medium containing 1 mg dm-3 indole-3-butyric acid (IBA). Regenerated plants grew well when transferred to soil.

Vermicompost appears to be generally superior to conventionally produced compost in a number of important ways; (i) Vermicompost is superior to most composts as an inoculant in the production of compost (ii) Worms have a number of other possible uses on farms, includingvalue as a high-quality animal feed (iii) Vermicomposting and vermiculture offer potential to organic farmers as sources of supplemental income. All of the above will be discussed in detail later in this document. At the same time, the reader should take note at the beginning that working with worms is a more complicated process than traditional composting: (i) It can be quicker, but to make it so generally requires more labour (ii) It requires more space because worms are surface feeders and won’t operate in material more than a meter in depth (iii) It is more vulnerable to environmental pressures, such as freezing conditions and drought (iv) Perhaps most importantly, it requires more start-up resources, either in cash (to buy the worms) or in time and labour (to grow them).

Saccharomyces cerevisiae was the cheapest strain available for the conversion of substrate. In the present study, it is used for bioethanol production from cashew apple juice. The influencing parameters that affect the production of bioethanol from cashew apple juice were optimized. Parameter optimization was done such as temperature, pH, inoculums size were studied, it was found to be pH of 4.5 temperature of 32°C and inoculum level 108 respectively. Under this optimum operating condition the maximum of yield 6.5 % bioethanol was achieved.

In the present study, the sub-lethal effects of arsenic on various biochemical parameters of Tilapia mossambica were studied. The fish was exposed to sub- lethal concentration of arsenic for 15 days for chronic toxicity studies. In the present study, total protein, amino acid and acetylcholinesterase, glycogen and lactic acid were observed. The present study showed the protein content was decreased and amino acid content was increased significantly and also Acetylcholinesterase was increased in the liver tissue of arsenic treated fish, Tilapia mossambica. The present study shows the level of glycogen decreased and lactic acid increased in the liver tissue of fish exposed to arsenic. These changes were concentration dependent.