March 2011

The effect of three selected concentrations of the nonionic surfactant, polyoxyethylenated (23) monolaurate (I) and polyoxyethylenated (23) monostearate (II) on an artificial oil spill was studied. Surface tension measurements were used to detect the critical micelle concentration (CMC). The hydrophobic-Lypophilic balance, HLB, was calculated and the wetting Power was determined for the prepared surfactants. Gas Chromatography (GC) was used to detect the most effective surfactant as a dispersing agent; also, the pristine/phytane ratio was determined before and after treatment. The di- and poly-aromatic compounds were detected at 228 nm and 256 nm, respectively using the Ultra Violet technique (UV). The obtained results pointed out that the nonionic surfactant, II, can successfully be used as a dispersing agent especially at and above its critical micelle concentrations (CMC) with efficiency more than surfactant I, which is less effective at these concentrations but it shows a good result at low concentration range (i.e. below the CMC).

The nutritive value of Taro (Colocasia esculenta) as a substitute for maize in weaner pig diets was evaluated using (1) chemical analysis (proximate, gross energy, and anti-nutritional factors). (2) Animal trial (growth performance, carcass characteristics and organ weight expressed as percentage dressed weights and feed cost estimate of the diets). Diet 1 was maize based while diets 2, 3, and 4 had maize being replaced at 13.7% (5%), 27.24% (10%), and 41.13% (15%) by taro respectively. A total of 24 weaner pigs were used and randomly allotted to four dietary treatments having three replicates and two weaner pigs per replicate in a completely randomized design. The experiment lasted for 56 days, feed and water were given ad libitum. The proximate and gross energy showed CP (5.342%), GE (3.851kcal/kg). Phytate (0.29%), Oxalate (0.54%), HCN (4.45%) and Tannin (0.063%). The growth performance favoured diet 4, followed by 3, 2 and 1 with feed conversion ratio of 0.1826, 0.1953, 0.1951 and 0.2057 respectively. The carcass characteristics and organ weight favoured T3. The feed cost estimate of diets also favoured T3 (with cost/kg weight gain of N277.43 as opposed to others in T1 (N290.40), T2 (N292.01) and T4 (N281.99). Judging from the growth performance especially feed conversion ratio (0.1953), carcass characteristics ( % dressed weight, ham %, shoulder % and belly %), comparable organ weight and highest value of economic viability especially for cost/kg weight gain N277.43 as opposed to others, T1 = N290.40, T2 = N292.07 and T4 = N287.99. T3 is therefore recommended.

A study was conducted in Ennore estuary for the assessment of the surface sediments with respect to contamination factor and through geoaccumulation index. The data analysed shows that the cadmium, copper, lead and zinc concentrations were above the low interim sediment quality guidelines of ANZECC and below the high interim sediment quality guidelines of ANZECC during post-monsoon, summer, pre-monsoon and monsoon. The surface sediments of the Ennore estuary was highly contaminated with cadmium, copper, lead and zinc. The geoaccumulation index showed that the surface sediments were moderately to extremely polluted. The concentrations of trace metals were high in station 4 followed by station 3, station 2 and station 1 especially during monsoon. The correlation with the stations was highly significant. Zinc concentrations were high followed by copper, lead and cadmium. The major sources for the contamination of the heavy metals would had controlled by anthropogenic inputs from point and non-point sources.

An investigation was carried out in the Ennore creek for the assessment of heavy metal pollution pertaining to cadmium, copper, lead and zinc during January – December 2008 in all the four stations of post-monsoon, summer, pre-monsoon and monsoon. The data processed revealed that the concentrations of cadmium, copper, lead and zinc were above the permissible limits of coastal standards. The station wise levels of heavy metal concentration were in the order of station 4> station3> station 2> station 1. The seasonal variation of heavy metals observed in the Ennore estuary was maximum during summer and monsoon. Strong correlation (P<0.001, α=0.05) was found among the stations in the Ennore creek during post-monsoon, summer, pre-monsoon and monsoon. Among the stations in the Ennore estuary stations 3 and 4 were highly polluted and stations 1 and 2 was less polluted with cadmium, copper, lead and zinc.

The goddesses of South India were quite often described as bloodthirsty by early missionaries and are still described as wild by many Brahmans. In this paper we study the way of worship to goddess Nithya Kalyani. The virali turmeric is viewed within the purview of Hindu religion among the women. The three sacred items (turmeric, kunkum and flower) are the women’s main adornment and the most cherished possession rather than other ornaments made of metals. The worship, offering and importance of virali turmeric is been seen.

Violent behaviour has become a contemporary issue in the Kenyan educational system. It is manifested in the form of rioting, sexual violence and bullying. This contributes to physical disability and poor academic performance in schools. In Western Province, cases of student violence in secondary schools have been reported in the recent years. For instance, in 2008, eight cases were reported, whereas in 2009 the number rose to over 30 cases. The purpose of the study was to establish the perceived of forms of violent behavior secondary school students in Western Province. The Objective of the study was to establish forms of violence as perceived by teachers and students. The study was based on the Social learning theory by Albert Bandura. A descriptive survey research design was adopted. The study population was composed of 6,354 teachers and 65,969 form two students. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 364 teachers and 1,152 form two students from 213 public secondary schools. Qualitative data from interviews was transcribed and reported according to emerging themes, categories and sub-categories while quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as the frequency counts, means and percentages. The Mann-Whitney U test was also used in data analysis. Findings of the study revealed that forms of violence were; rioting, bullying, sexual violence and fighting. Recommendations of the study were that: laws related to sexual violence be enforced; ban on caning of students should be encouraged; and an anti-bullying policy be established. It is hoped that the findings of this study may assist policy makers in formulating and implementing policies that address violence in the educational institutions.

This study is designed to establish an indicator of English communicative competence for high school students whose L1 is Chinese. Fuzzy Delphi Method is the primary methodology employed by this research. Twenty experts were invited as the participants. Delphi Method has been considered a powerful approach to apprehend experts’ collective opinions on the targeted issues. In this study, the Fuzzy Linguistic Scale replaced the traditional Likert scale for its subjectivity related to human beings’ decision-making. In terms of the instrumentation, indicators were constructed utilizing Bachman’s Model of Communicative Language Ability (CLA). In this study, two rounds of Delphi were administered and experts’ opinions were converged with some questions being deleted from the model. Results of this study indicate that vocabulary is considered as the most important part for EFL learners of Chinese to improve their communicative competence in English followed by the ability to interpret the contents and context of conversation.

This paper presents the chronology of ethnic clashes in Kenya including the 2007 post election violence. The clashes have occurred in this country since 1991 and over time both frequency and damage have escalated. The epitome was the 2007 post election violence that led to destruction of property, displacement of people from various regions as well as death. The paper has also delved into the commonly believed etiological factors, some of which include land ownership, inequalities as well as general elections’ results. The bulk of the paper’s concern was a social psychology explanation of the etiological, precipitating and motivational factors in the post election violence of 2007. The conclusion is that since a purely psychological explanation can be given for the post election violence, it is possible to come up with practical social psychology approaches to dealing with the post election violence in Kenya.

Injuries are a major public health problem in India which also has a definitive causative pattern and mechanism. Every year, injuries contribute to a significant number of deaths, disabilities, amputations, disfigurement, pain, suffering and agony. Identifying issues and problems in the occupational health of women remains a challenge. Any accident/injury to the hand or leg which throws a prospect of decreased efficiency in the present occupation and hinder in other types of work must be considered serious. Injuries due to occupational accidents lead to serious consequences in terms of both clinical courses and economic losses. The causes of injuries can be road traffic injuries, occupational injuries, fire-related injuries, fall, domestic injuries, and violence. The impact of injuries on the general well being is reflected in terms of economic, social, psychological, physiological distresses in the victim .This in turn will reflect as the performance limitation in both the occupational and domestic settings. Absence of emergency and trauma care, inadequate care combined with various dangerous home remedies aggravate injuries and complications, especially in rural areas. Rehabilitation forms an integral part of overall trauma care. Low-cost walking-aid equipment as prosthesis with ergonomic perspective should be readily available for use in community centres. Ergonomic intervention to induce confidence in their life styles should also be attempted. Appropriate use of these techniques along with social support systems for employment, education and home care would be of help to many disabled persons and help to improve their quality of life. This paper presents the findings of a micro level study conducted on a sample of injured women in Coimbatore city.

The reliability of electronic assemblies is highly dependent on the quality of solder joints, and the latter’s response to temperature excursions. Finite element modeling (FEM) has been widely used for the estimation of the lifetime of solder joints subjected to temperature cycling. Thanks to the expertise of decades, a significant number of companies, universities and research institutes were able to have a relatively accurate estimation of life time for SnPb solder. For the lead-free solder materials, first attempts for correlation models show up but there are several problems. First of all, there is a wide range of alloys and alloy compositions, which have a different material behavior (E-modulus, CTE) but also a different resistance to thermal fatigue. Second, it is shown in several papers that lead-free solders have different failure modes compared to SnPb. In particular at low temperatures (-20°C, 50°C), some lead-free materials show brittle behavior and this is not covered by the current simulation models based on creep fatigue at high temperature. Experiments show that the trends in lead-free solder joint reliability are cycling-condition and package dependent. In this paper, the simulation results for commonly used solder alloys are presented and the thermal fatigue reliability of lead-free solder joints has been investigated. An isothermal fatigue test method was used in this study to improve the efficiency of fatigue study, and two different lead-free solder alloys, Sn-Ag-Cu, Sn-Ag were investigated. It was found that the lead-free solder alloy was more reliable compared to the lead alloy and this is package dependent.

Childhood mortality remains one of the main problems in Bangladesh. Although Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in reducing mortality among under-five children over the last few years but it is still remain high. The purpose of this study is to observe the trends, differentials, and also to identify the determinants, of under-five mortality in Bangladesh. Data from Bangladesh Demographic and health Survey (BDHS)-2007 have been used. By using percentage distribution this study ascertained the differentials of under-five mortality. Also, Chi-square test has been used to identify the factors associated with under-five mortality. Cox proportional hazard model has been applied to find out the determinants of under-five mortality. The study results show that the under-five mortality is higher among children born as multiple births; children with first birth order and 7th or 7+th birth order; children with preceding birth interval less than 18 months; mother’s age at birth less than 20 years; mothers and fathers with no education; children from poor household; mother whose age at first marriage was less than 20 years; children from households without access to improved toilet facilities and improved source of drinking water. The findings of this study suggest that female education, mothers’ knowledge and awareness regarding childhood disease, treatment, immunization and access to child healthcare should be enhanced.

The unpredictability of return experienced by any stock market is a pivotal factor to open out the issue which is extremely sensitive on the part of investors, regulators and policy makers in parlance. The effect of different day implies that the return is not independent. Investment opportunities can therefore turn out to be very complicated due to this abnormal behavior. The present study focuses on this type of opportunity, specifically on the analysis of the effect of different day on the return of Indian Stock Market under the influence of futures contract. In order to capture the exclusive effect of futures contracts introduction, the data on daily price of CNX-Nifty Index has been taken from June 1999 to June 2001.The findings indicate that abnormal behavior is present in the returns of the Indian Stock Market. Mean return is found maximum on Wednesday in comparison to other trading days. The difference in mean return within the trading days is statistically significant and the introduction of index futures trading does not influence the behavior of day specific positive return. The finding is fruitful particularly to small investors in relation to their decision regarding the timing of entry and exit from the financial market.

Withania somnifera (L) Dunal popularly known as ‘Aswagandha’ has been an important herb in the Ayruvedic and indigenous medical systems for centuries in India. To validate this use, leaves of the plant was subjected to preliminary phytochemical analysis and in vitro antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus mirabilis and Salmonella paratyphi B. Acetone extract demonstrated highest antibacterial activity followed by ethanol extract. Aqueous extract showed minimal antibacterial activity against most of the test bacterial pathogens. Preliminary phytochemical analysis revealed the presence of carbohydrates, glycosides, alkaloids, phytosterols, fixed oils, phenolic compounds and flavonoids in extracts. Our findings suggest that an appropriate bioactive compound may be developed from leaves of Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal as an alternate to antibiotics.

The present study was made to investigate the effect of chromium on the histopathological study in the gill tissue of fresh water fish, Oreochromis mossambicus. The fish exposed to chromium (2 ppm) for 10 days, 20 days and 40 days. The present study shows the breakage of lamellae and separation of lamellae was noted in the gill tissue for 20 days and 40 days respectively. The present study concludes that the increasing concentration chromium damages the gill tissue of Oreochromis mossambicus.

A breakfast cereal is a food made from more or less processed grains often but not always eaten with the first meal of the day. Cereal flakes are cheapest source of energy and protein in human diet. For the present study the mixture of flakes such as (rice flakes, oats flakes, corn flakes and wheat flakes), groundnut and chocolate chips are selected and used to prepare Ready To Eat (RTE) breakfast bar and analyzed the physiochemical properties and nutritive value of the raw flakes and developed breakfast bar and determining the optimal levels of mixture flakes, groundnuts and chocolate chips using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was applied for optimization, the multiple regression was used to get optimum levels and it was found that desirable values of weight (25.23g), diameter (4.12cm), width (1.15cm), calorie (423.1kcal), protein (8.65g), fat (14.14g), carbohydrate (51.4g) and over all acceptability (8.31) for a 100g was obtained with the corresponding optimum condition of 24g of mixture flakes, 11g of groundnut, 8g of chocolate chips and 48g of the rest of the breakfast bar ingredients. Hence it is concluded that RSM was used successfully to optimize the level of mixture flakes, groundnut and chocolate chips for the development of Ready to Eat (RTE) breakfast bar.

This study aimed to estimate the cations (calcium, potassium & sodium) in the fresh water field crab Paratelphusa hydrodromous. The sodium concentration in hepatopancreas gradually decreased are size of the crab increase and there was an inverse relationship between gonad and hepatopancreas in sodium ion concentration. In muscle and hepatopancreas the calcium ion concentration gradually decreased as size group advanced (increase). However in gonad it varied in different size groups and the variation in the calcium ion concentration is may be correlated with moulting cycle of the crab. The potassium ion concentration of P. hydroromous in selected tissues showed slight variation in different size group. However in gonad, hepatopancreas an inverse relationship was noticed.

The aim of this study was to apply a molecular protocol to detect Leptospiral canicola DNA in environmental water sam-ples. The study was carried out in a pullulated area in nagapattinam town.. A multiplex PCR method employing the primers LipL32 and 16SrRNA was used. Three out of 100 analysed samples were positive in the multiplex PCR, two were considered to have saprophytic leptospires and one had pathogenic leptospires. The results obtained supported the idea that multiplex PCR can be used to detect Leptospira spp in water samples. This method was also able to differentiate between saprophytic and pathogenic leptospires and was able to do so much more easily than conventional methodologies.

A simple computational method (SCM) to analyze a class of (s, S) type inventory problem is developed. Under this (s, S) policy, (i) the number of units demanded where d = 1, 2… a (£ s) at successive demand epochs form a Markov chain (MC) with one step transition probability matrix (TPM) P and (ii) the replenishments are instantaneous. This method gives the algorithm for computation of stationary probabilities of inventory process, joint probability function of number of transitions and quantities of replenishments per cycle, conditional and unconditional average costs. Illustrative example for a few special cases are provided, which strengthen the applicability of the SCM to practical problems.