December 2012

Objective: Marginal gap formation around composite resin restorations is responsible for fluid penetration, marginal discoloration, and eventually clinical failure of the restoration. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a range of contemporary adhesive systems to determine the marginal gap width developed at the resin-tooth interface in Class V cavity margins with a Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope. Materials and Method: Thirty-six caries-free freshly extracted premolar teeth were selected and class V buccal cavities were prepared. The teeth were randomly assigned into three groups of 12 teeth each [Group I–Prime & Bond NT, Group II-AdheSE, Group III-Xenobond], which were further subdivided into 2 subgroups. All teeth belonging to subgroup “A” were restored with Durafil resin composite and subgroup “B” with Solitaire resin composite. The teeth were then sectioned longitudinally and were evaluated under CLSM. Results: Statistical analysis was done using Student independent T-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Comparing among the groups, mean marginal gap width is found to be maximum in Group III followed by Group II and Group I respectively. Conclusion: Least marginal gapwidth formation is seen in single bottle adhesive system, Group IB (Prime & Bond NT).

The use of learning materials is an invaluable approach to effective curriculum delivery. Education practitioners have long recognized that Early Childhood Development and Education (ECDE) and indeed any other level of education cannot be effective without the use of learning materials. Teachers Advisory Centres (TACs) were established with the basic function of organizing in-service training for teachers in order to help them implement the curriculum effectively. However, the TACs have been ineffectual in this mission and have drifted away from this central function. This study therefore surveyed the role played by the TACs in in-servicing teachers in the production and use of learning materials in Wareng District. The sample comprised of ECD teachers, lower primary school teachers, head teachers and TAC tutors. Data was derived from the sample by questionnaires and interview schedules. The study established low levels of intervention by the TACs in the production and use of learning materials in ECDE; it was found that workshops and professional meetings for ECDE teachers were hard to come by due to long distances from the TACs to the schools, financial constraints, the heavy workloads and also because information about the workshops and meetings sometimes didn’t get to the teachers. The study recommended that TACs be well facilitated in order to improve the services that it offered.

The estimation of soil organic carbon stock along altitudinal gradient was carried out in Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary of Garhwal Himalaya in different vegetation types. The moisture content in the soil increased with increasing altitude and the highest moisture was recorded in Betula utilis forest at an elevation of 3550 m amsl followed by Grassland (3050 m), Rhododendron arboreum forest, (2550 m), mixed forest (Quercus and Rhododendron species, 2050 m) and Pinus roxburghii forest (1550 m). The bulk density also followed similar trend as moisture, which increased with increasing altitude. The soil carbon stock also increased with altitude and the highest carbon stock (35.4±1.8 Mg C ha-1) was in Betula utilis forest soils and the lowest (19.2±2.7 Mg C ha-1) in Pinus roxburghii forest soils. Thus moisture showed positive correlation with carbon stocks, higher the moisture, higher was carbon stock. Thus high precipitation and low temperature is associated with increasing altitude which enhances soil carbon stock at higher altitudes.

Flood plain is relatively low lying flat, fertile land adjacent to the river, streams, lakes and estuaries/oceans which is preferable location for human habitation. People try to live in this unique ecosystem in accordance with the ecological principles. The low lying areas are normally filled up by water to form several types of water bodies like pond, lake, bills, marshy lands, ox-bow lakes etc. and provide specific ecological inputs to sustain the ecosystem of floodplain. With the rise of population, more food production requires more lands while the expanding settlement and urban area reduces this resource. These put enormous pressure which leads to destruction of the ecologically sensitive surface water bodies. Remote sensing and GIS has been used to study the land use land cover of the region and specific emphasis was given to identify and map surface water bodies. GIS helps to calculate the water holding capacity of the ponds and revealed that they can support the whole population for domestic and other uses. GIS also used to study the correlation among these features and evaluates the relationship among the geomorphic set up and the human activities. It is seen that some form of destruction has already began and actions must be taken to stop such encroachments of human activities to the environmentally sensitive features for sustainability.

Education is considered an important tool in the relationship between fertility and contraception use. It is believed that with higher education the use of modern contraceptives among women increases, as they are better informed and make responsible choices in fertility. This paper examines the contraceptive use and knowledge in over 6 lakh Indian women, thorough DLHS-3 (2007-08) data. We find that with increasing education, use of contraceptives is positively related. Not only modern, but also traditional methods are practiced more frequently. Her husband’s education also is a strong parameter in contraceptive decision making. This paper also finds that more education provides a women with greater autonomy to make decisions to use and also bring about differences in the facility where women obtain contraception. The decision to not use contraception is also affected by the education level of the spouse’s education, but not in a significant way. In the Regression analysis, we find that socio-economic variable significantly impact the use of contraception is we control for the education level of the woman.

The antimicrobial activity of Alternanthera tenella Colla leaf extracts were tested against human pathogenic bacteria (two Gram-positive and two Gram-negative) and against three pathogenic fungi (Candida sp) by agar well diffusion method. The solvents were used for extraction are chloroform, ethyl acetate and methanol. All the extracts manifested significant bactericidal and fungal activity against all microorganisms tested. The inhibition zone diameters ranged between 6 mm to 24 mm diameter. The maximum antibacterial activity recorded in highest concentration of methanol extract and minimum activity was found in lowest concentration of chloroform extract against Staphylococcus aureus. The maximum antifungal activity recorded in highest concentration of chloroform extract against Candida tropicalis and minimum activity was found in lowest concentration of ethyl acetate extract against Candida parasilosis.

The present study was carried out to investigate the seasonal variations of moisture, ash protein, lipid and fatty acid (per cent) of muscle and liver of adult male and female Labeo rohita. For this purpose seasonally ten live specimen of both sex ranged in total length 34.5 to 42.5 cm. and weight 950gm to 1200gm were considered during study period (2008 to 2010). The amount of protein, lipid and fatty acid level increase during spring whereas moisture content of muscle and hepatic organ increases during summer and rainy season. Seasonal variations of lipid content followed the opposite pattern of the water content. The mean values of these biochemical constituents varied significantly (p<0.05) in different season. There was significant negative correlation between moisture and lipid (r=-.582*), positive correlation between ash and protein(r=.868**), protein and lipid (r=.966**). Reduced biochemical parameters coincide with that of gonad development and breeding period of the species in the rainy season (p<0.01). The female specimen contained more moisture and lipid whereas more protein was found in male. ANOVA was applied to assess the difference among various biochemical parameters. Significant differences were observed in these fish tissues which indicate the quantitative and qualitative nature of fish sample for nutritive purposes.

A set of 6 cultivars of snake gourd (Trichosanthes anguina) collection was subjected to sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and Random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis (RAPD) analysis. By using SDS-PAGE, total soluble leaf protein was fractionated into 11 bands, which showed heterogeneity among different varieties. Thiruvallur cultivar (TVL) exhibited maximum number of bands (11) and Nagapattinum cultivar (NAP) exhibited least number of 6 bands. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with 4 arbitrary decamer oligonucleotide primers, applied to the 6 cultivars, produced a total of 46 different marker bands of which 63.4 per cent were polymorphic. The size range of the amplified DNAs was mostly between 106 bp and 6132 bp. Thus, with the selected primers sufficient polymorphism could be detected to allow identification of individual cultivars. Visual examination of electrophoresis gels and analysis of banding patterns confirmed that many of the snake gourds under cultivation with similar morphological characters are genetically quite different. A dendrogram displaying the relative genetic similarities between the cultivars showed a range of 56 to 89 per cent similarity. RAPD analysis offered a rapid and reliable method for the estimation of variability between different cultivars which could be utilized by the breeders for further improvement of the snake gourd genotypes.

These just gory newspaper headlines we avidly read but quickly gloss over. This explains multidimensional aspect of Suicide, a complex, multidimensional phenomenon that has been studied from socio-demographical perspective. This study examine socio-demographic characteristic of these subjects. The study was conducted in multi specialty hospital during the period of one year after obtaining ethical clearance for the study from the institutional ethical committee, all unit chiefs of clinical side, casualty medical officer and staff nurses in charge of the emergency care department are informed about this study. They were requested to inform investigator whenever a case of suicidal attempt is admitted. Housewives and student formed majority in the study. Poisoning (73%) was the most common method used for suicidal attempt, followed by drug overdose (21%). Benzodiazepine was most commonly used drug for overdose.

This work assess through analysis, the natural radionuclide level and the associated radiological hazards of some selected Portland cement used in Nigeria The natural radionuclide content of Portland Cement widely used in Nigeria were measured using a highly shielded Canberra Na(Tl) detector, a type of gamma-ray spectrometry. A total of 15 samples from 5 batches of the product were analyzed. The mean value of 226Ra, 232Th and 40K concentrations determined were 33.85 ± 9.79 Bqkg-1, 20.05 ± 3.93 Bqkg-1 and 78.01 ± 25.01 Bqkg -1 respectively, being lower than the permissible global values of 52.2 Bqkg -1, 41.0 Bqkg-1 and 230.0 Bqkg-1 respectively by UNSCEAR. On the basis of hazard indices, internal hazard index of 0.2766, external hazard index of 0.1850 were obtained for the product and are fund to be much lower than unity. The absorbed dose rate of 31.0030nGyh-1 and the annual effective dose rate of 0.1521mSvy-1 are much below the recommended standard by UNSCEAR. All the cement sample analyzed met the safety criteria by UNSCEAR and hence do not pose any radiological hazards to human health.

Some new order of stopped sum of independent non-negative fuzzy random variables, when the stopping variable is independent of the summands, is investigated. We show that such fuzzy randomly stopped sums preserve the fuzzy stochastic laplace transform order. For the case of laplace transform orders, there is a suitable converse for each of the order presentation results.

The education sector in Kenya has gone through significant development processes. The foundation that nurtured its growth was laid down by the early Christian Missionaries who combined the introduction of Christianity among the Africans with education. This early Christianity-educational nexus formed the important milestone for further participation of the church in the development of education in Kenya. Since then, it has continued to contribute significantly in this direction. The objective of this paper is to find out the extent of the Church’s contribution in the development of education in Kenya and to assess its impact to the general expansion of education in the country. Using secondary data, the paper examines selected aspects of contributions the church has made in building a solid foundation upon which the education sector in Kenya stands. Furthermore, it assesses the central role the Church plays by linking the development of long term physical infrastructure to the expansion and development of education. It also examines the use of holistic education as a tool for the achievement of integrated development and strengthening of religious education that supports the growth of positive values and faith as sources of spirituality. It finally examines the role of the Church in the implementation of the Education Policy in partnership with the Ministry of Education in accordance with the Education Act of 1968, to provide the necessary supervision and coordination of all education related activities. The study concludes that the Church has significantly contributed to the development of education in Kenya and continues to play an important role in the provision and expansion of education through meaningful participation in partnership with key stakeholders such as the Ministry of education, parents and the school management committees

In a market Where advertising plays a vital role in coordinating consumer purchasing behavior it becomes pertinent for companies to induct all possible measures in the customer through an effective advertising campaign theory and practice proves that the use of superstars in advertising generates lot of publicity and attention the billions of dollars spent per year on celebrity endorsement contracts show that celebrities like Liz Hurley Britney spears and tiger woods’ play an important role for the advertising industry Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky panting for example have signed contracts worth millions with sportswear manufacturer Reebok international Inc. the underlying question in how the lively interest of the public in the rich and the famous’ can be effectively used by companies to promote their brands and consequently increase revenues? As a first step to answer tips question this paper will examine the relationship between celebrity endorsement and brands, by applying a selection of widely accepted principles of how consumers’ brand attitudes and preferences can be positively influenced.

α- amylases are most important industrial enzyme and hold maximum market share of enzyme sales having lots of potential application in food processing industries such as sugar, baking, brewing and many starch based industries. The α- amylases hydrolyse α-1,4-glycosidic linkages in starch and related substrates. The conventional Submerged Fermentation method of α- amylase production is being replaced by Solid State Fermentation during recent years due to manifold advantages over Submerged Fermentation such as use cheap substrate, higher yield, avoids substrate inhibition etc. The commercial source of α- amylases are usually bacteria and filamentous fungi. This study reviews the microbial sources, fermentation characteristics and potentiality of α- amylase production through Solid State Fermentation.

To study the response of grain yield of wheat and seed production of wild mustard and wild oat to application of different nitrogen levels and inter and intraspecific competition a field experiment was conducted at Islamic Azad University of Ahvaz-Iran. The results indicated that increasing nitrogen level increased the competitive ability of wild mustard and wild oat as result of this loss in grain yield of wheat was increased. The results showed that reduction of grain yield in single weed species competition of wild mustard and wild oat was less than mixed weed densities. The seed production of wild mustard and wild oat increased with increasing nitrogen levels and their densities while it decreased due to interspecific competition. The mean value of seed production of wild mustard in the application of 90, 150 and 210 kg N ha-1 was 3460, 3927.1 and 5478.3 seeds m-2 respectively whereas the seed production of wild oat was 1308, 1634 and 1675 seeds m-2 respectively. Seed production of wild mustard was very high as compared wild oat.

Love is not only about joy and happiness but also about pain and disappointments. Love has been compared with disease and considered a pathological addiction, disorder, and obsession. Especially in medicine, researchers have been intrigued by this kind of morbid love. Similarly, psychoanalytical and psychodynamic emotion research has been dominating. However, socio-constructive and psychological behavioral approaches on how people experience love have been minimal. What kinds of difficulties do people associate with love at the level of behavior? The purpose of this article is to dissect Finnish people’s perceptions of morbid love. The data in this research were collected through two methods and phases: 35 students of the University of Lapland were interviewed through an open interview method. Then, the interview data were expanded by essays written by 46 students of educational psychology at the University of Lapland. The research approach was narrative research. As the results, narratives that crystallize the manifestations of bruising love are introduced: the narrative of the fear of intimacy and the vortex of love and the narrative of the fear of abandonment and clinging to the other. The key to stable love seemed to be self-respect and sufficient self-esteem.

The present study was to perform a scientometric analysis of all Alagappa University research publication. A total of 922 publications were published by the Alagappa university faculty in during 1999-2012 which received 17090 citations. The average number of publications per year was 65.85. It states that globally 0.27 percents of articles were from single authors, followed by 99.73% authors by multi authors. 0.0026 percent of collaborative authors’ articles published during the study periods. The highest number of publications 150 was published in 2011..The parameters studied include growth of publications and citations, relative growth rate and doubling time, national and international collaboration, highly productive institutions, highly productive authors, highly preferred journals and highly cited publications.

River floods play an important role in keeping the vitality of the adjacent wetlands. In Lower Ajoy Basin, embankments have been constructed to prevent the flood and thereby to avoid the flood damages. It has put a barrier for water and materials exchanges in between the river and the wetlands as it prevents the frequent river spill on the floodplain. As a result the wetlands are losing their characters and suffering from the scarcity of water. In the present study, emphasis has been given to find out the relationship between embankment and recession of Barul beel (wetland).

Two Ocimum species viz., O. sanctum and O. gratissimum were grown under contract organic farming from last five years in twenty nine villages with thirty four growers. In order to study the herbage yield, a technical survey was conducted by CSIR-CIMAP for productivity evaluation and economics of the leaves of Ocimum spp. under rainfed condition of central India. The survey revealed that majority of farmers are medium size growers (2-4 hectare) occupying 79 percent followed by small (1-2 hectare) and marginal (0-1 hectare.) with 16.4 and 3.28 percent respectively. Out of 29 survey sites, the maximum productivity (7.96 quintal/hectare), production value (43480 Rupees/hectare), net return (30332 Rupeess/hectare.) and cost benefit ratio (1:2.25) were observed in the site Hamirpur Ocimum -10 followed by Hamirpur Ocimum -17 and Hamirpur Ocimum -16 while the maximum cost of production (13786.73 Rs/ha.) was observed in Hamirpur Ocimum -23 and minimum in Hamirpur Ocimum -24.

Image Fusion is a process of combining the relevant information from a set of images into a single image, where the resultant fused image will be more informative and complete than any of the input images. The Proposed image fusion technique includes following steps: first, discrete wavelet transform is applied to obtain the wavelet coefficients of the source images. The coefficients are processed with different fusion rules like maximum pixel, average pixel and region based masking and addition selection rule to get the primary fused image, which is again processed with the region based fusion rules to get the secondary fused image. The primary and secondary images are processed again with most efficient fusion rule Principal Component Analysis to get the final fused image. The performance of the proposed image fusion scheme is evaluated with peak to signal noise ratio (PSNR), Normalized cross correlation (NCC), entropy (EN). The fusion performance of the proposed method compared with some common individual DWT and PCA Method.

A fungus was always found to be associated with the necrotic patches of the corals in the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve. It was nonsporulating under both natural and culture conditions. Hyphae of the fungus were septate, highly melanised and presented cottony appearance in the colony. Lethal potency of the acidified ethanol extract of this fungus was tested by the mouse bioassay method and the LD50 is determined as 75mg per mouse.

A study was designed to investigate the combined effects of neem and pawpaw leaves supplementation on performance and carcass characteristics of broiler chickens from 14–56 days of age. 360 one day-old unsexed Arbor acre broiler chickens were randomly allotted to the following diets T1 (0% leaf meal), T2 (0.5% NLM), T3 (2% PLM), T4 (0.5% NLM+PLM), T5 (1% NLM+PLM) and T6 (2% NLM+PLM). Results obtained from the study indicated that supplementation of NLM and PLM improved the dressing percentages, the highest values of 89.29% and 87.55% were obtained for birds on T5 and T6 respectively which were significantly different (p<0.05) when compared with the value obtained from which was 76.83%. The eviscerated weight differs significantly across the treatments, birds on T5 and T6 had significantly better (p<0.05) results of 76.93% and 75.85% respectively compared to treatments 4 and 5 which had 69.33% and 73.13% respectively. Body weight gain, feed consumed and feed conversion ratio of the broiler chickens improved in the treatments fed diets supplemented with leaf meal although and there were no significant (P>0.05) differences.

It was known that cadmium (Cd) toxicity evoked protective reactions that could induce cell death. But the question arises was the effect of nitrogen regime on Cd plant responses. To got more explications, we examined the effects of Cd in NH4+-fed tomato plants treated continuously or transitory by 25µM of CdSO4. Reduction of glutamine synthetase (GS) activity by Cd disappeared progressively after transfer of Cd-stressed tomato to control medium. It has been shown that Cd enhanced activity and protein accumulation of cytosolic isoenzyme (GS1) and reduced those of chloroplastid isoenzyme (GS2). When Cd-treated tomato plants were transferred on control medium, GS1 protein level diminished. Whereas, GS2 protein level remained unchanged. Our data showed that Cd stimulated the seven isoenzymes activities of glutamate deshydrogenase (NADH-GDH). Cadmium reduced too, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) and isocitrate dehydrogenase (ICDH) activities. Thus, we suggested that CO2 anaplerotic fixation into organic acids was secondary in leaves. Especially as photosynthetic rate (Amax) and photochemical quenching (qp) were stimulated and non-photochemical quenching was reduced (NPQ) by Cd in leaves of NH4+-fed tomato.

Stem cells are unspecialized cells that have the ability to differentiate into other cells and the ability to self-regenerate. Stem cells are of two types: Embryonic stem cells (ESC) and Adult stem cells (ASC). Stem cell research begins early 1900’s when European researchers realized that the various types of blood cells e.g. White blood cells, red blood cells and platelets all came from Stem cells. Till today various developments have been made in field of stem cell research. John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka received The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012 for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent. This achievement has further revolutionized research interest in stem cells. Present review covers historical development and future perspective of stem cells research.

The present study was carried out to determine and compare the pharmacokinetics and tissue distribution of Doxorubicin Hydrochloride (Doxorubicin) delivered as solution or through Chitosan Nanoparticles after intravenous (i.v.) injection. Doxorubicin loaded Chitosan nanoparticles were prepared by ionic gelation method (IGM). Plasma, tissue distribution profiles were quantified in an animal model of cancer and were compared to treatment with IGNP (ionic gelation method nanoparticles) to treatment with drug solution (DS). An isocratic high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was developed to quantify Doxorubicin Hydrochloride in Rats plasma,vital organs. The Nanoparticles prepared by IGM show significantly increased the half life (T 1/2) and mean residence time (MRT) of Doxorubicin in blood. The area under curve (AUC 0-8 and AUC 0-∞) was also higher for Doxorubicin delivered through Nanoparticles prepared by both the methods, while the clearance and elimination half life (K 1/2) significantly lower. The Doxorubicin delivered through Nanoparticles experienced enhance distribution to the organs of reticuloendothelial system it lowered the distribution of Doxorubicin to heart and resulted in significantly lower concentration than Doxorubicin solution at all the time points studied. This signifies the advantage of nanoparticles in increasing the elimination half-life and reduce the Doxorubicin-associated systemic toxicity and Doxorubicin-associated cardiotoxicity.

An investigation was conducted into host-parasite interaction between the trees of Citrus sinensis and their parasitic associate, the African Mistletoe, Tapinanthus bangwensis on how much of the products of metabolic processes and structural components of the host are affected by the relationship. The rate of parasitism was observed to vary with differences in age and location and as well as by the peculiar nature of susceptible hosts. Susceptibility to infestation was aided by open vegetation, senescence and loss of vigour, large bole and fissured bark, including wide canopy base of host trees. Impact of the mistletoe infestation on its Citrus host in this study was negligible but unfettered growth of the parasite if allowed to continue could become a serious threat to the survival of the host trees in no too distant future.

Objective: Standardization of herbal formulations in terms of quality and composition of raw materials are important to ensure quality and optimum levels of active principles. HPTLC has recently emerged as a preferred analytical tool for fingerprints and quantification of marker compounds. An Ayurvedic veterinary formulation used as effective appetite enhancer, in the animals suffering from anorexia, off-feed & ulcers. It contains Zanthoxylum alatum DC, Piper longum Linn, Piper nigrum Linn, Ferula narthex Bioss, Cuminum cyminum Linn, Carum copticum Linn, Zingiber officinale Roscoe. The need of the ours is to evolve a systematic approach and to develop well-designed methodologies for the standardization of herbal raw materials and herbal formulations. Method: The present study was to develop the fingerprinting and quantification methods for the formulation by simple high-performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) determination using piperine and zingiberene as standard, which is an important and major content in formulation. HPTLC quantification methods for determination of piperine and gingiberine from the market formulation and lab formulation had been developed. Result: The concentration of piperine present in raw lab and market formulation was found to be 3.7% w/w and 3.15% w/w respectively and that of for zingiberene was found to be 9.04% and 10.36% respectively. Conclusion: Lab and market both the formulation were up to the standard.

The present study was carried out to get an idea about the bacterial load (density and diversity) and to identify and isolate the bacteria from the soils of Yusmarg forest. A series of dilutions were made from soil samples, from the dilutions, 0.1ml inoculum was poured onto Nutrient agar(NA )and incubated at 28±2oC for 24 hours to study the growth of Bacteria.Comparative analysis of different types of colonies found at the four sites during the study indicates that the bacterial load was dominant in the month of November. The Individual Colony counts of the different types of isolates at the four sites shows that the most dominant isolate type was B8 with a maximum of 73 colonies followed by B25 with 65. The total colony count was maximum at site III (256) followed by site II (198), site I (174) and site IV (144). The total bacterial population was maximum at site III with a cfu/g of 1.8 x 104 and minimum at site I with a cfu/g of 0.7 x 104 in the month of November and in December the maximum bacterial population was found at site 1 with cfu/g of 1.0 x 104 and minimum at site IV with a cfu/g of 0.4 x 104. During the study it was found that isolates B1, B2, B4, B6 and B9 were present only in November while as isolates B15, B21, B25, B27, B28, B29, B30 and B31 were present only in December. However, isolates B7 and B8 were present both in the month of November and December. Among the different isolates obtained from site I B21, B25 and B31 were having maximum cfu/g of 1.5×103 and B4 was having a minimum cfu/g of 0.7×103 and among the different colonies of site II B11 was having maximum cfu/g of 1.6×103 and B26 was having a minimum cfu/g of 0.2×103, similarly among the different colonies of site III B18, B21, B22 and B23 were having a maximum cfu/g of 2×103 and B30 and B33 were having a minimum cfu/g of 0.7×103, while as among the different colonies obtained at site IV B16 and B26 were having a maximum cfu/g of 2×103 and B8, B21 and B31were having a minimum cfu/g of 0.3×103.

Pyrethroids are synthetic forms of pyrethrins and that differ in chemical structure and symptoms of exposure. Some pyrethroids are known to be endocrine destructive, and impair reproductive competence. They are used as pesticides in the cultivation of crops and vegetables. Investigations were carried out to determine the residual levels of pyrethriods and the types used in the cultivation of pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) at the Libga irrigation site in Ghana. Pepper samples were randomly taken from farmers in Libga to determine pyrethroids level using the US-EPA method 3510. Administration of questionnaires to 39 farmers was also carried out to know some spraying practices and types of pesticides used. Results indicated that Allethrin, Bifenthrin, Fenpropathrine, Lambda-cyhalothrin, Permethrin, Cyfluthrin, Cypermethrin, Fenvalerate and Deltamethrin residual levels were 0.0023 ± 0.00109 mg kg-1 0.0081 ± 0.00453 mg kg-1, 0.0203 ± 0.01658 mg kg-1 ,0.0065 ± 0.00354 mg kg-1, 0.0129 ± 0.00613 mg kg-1, 0.0374 ± 0.00927 mg kg-1, 0.0015 ± 0.00359 mg kg-1, 0.02 ± 0.00480 mg kg-1, 0.1428 ± 0.1385 mg kg-1 respectively. Fenvalerate recorded a residual level equal to European Union’s maximum residual levels. However, Allethrin, Bifenthrin, Lambda-cyhalothrin, Permethrin, Cyfluthrin, Cypermethrin, and Deltamethrin had their mean residual levels below European Union’s maximum residual levels. Fenpropathrin recorded a value that was above European Union’s maximum residual levels. The implications of the above observations are that most pyrethroids insecticide used were not persistent in the cultivated pepper at Ligba and most pepper sampled from Ligba have less potential health risk.

Jatropha curcas is a drought resistant multipurpose small shrub/tree with significant economic importance because of its several potential agricultural, industrial and medicinal uses. The study was conducted to provide quantitative data on the physical and chemical properties of seeds and kernels of Jatropha curcas grown locally in four different agro-climatic areas of Ghana (1. Nyankpala, Northern Region, 2. Dambai, Volta Region, 3. WA, Upper West Region, 4. Techiman, Brong Ahafo Region), that differ in agro-climatic conditions. The average seed weight was between 0.65 – 0.73 g and average kernel and shell weights ranged between (0.41- 0.45 g) and (0.24 – 0.28 g) respectively. The kernel forms larger proportion of the seed and the percentage kernel weight of whole seed was highest in seeds obtained from Nyankpala, sample 1 (62.74 %) and lower in seeds from WA, sample 3 (61.19 %). The seeds have dry matter content of (93.13 – 94.18 %), crude protein (18.21 -19.97 %), lipid (36.52-38.64 %), carbohydrate (14.70 – 16.64 %), crude fibre (14.14 – 19.04 %) and total ash (5.03 – 5.71 %). The kernels of Jatropha samples were very rich in lipid (55.51 – 56.83 %) that did not vary significantly (p > 0.05) among the four samples. The kernels also contained high crude protein that varied between (23.08 – 25.88 %). Crude fibre was low in the kernels (3.68 – 5.52 %). The seeds and kernels of Jatropha curcas samples also contained varying amounts of antinutrients such as crude phorbol ester, phytic acid and tannins. Crude phorbol ester concentrations in the seed samples are sample 1(5.35 mg/g), sample 2 (6.20 mg/g), sample 3(5.30 mg/g) and sample 4(6.82 mg/g). However, the concentration of crude phorbol ester in the kernels (1K, 2K, 3K, and 4K) ranged between (5.0 – 6.45 mg/g). The phytic acid content (% dry matter) in seeds and kernels were between the range (8.71 -10.15 %) and (7.88-9.50 %) respectively. Tannins content in the kernel was low (0.05 – 0.09 % tannic acid equivalent). These antinutrients were high in samples collected from Dambai, Volta region (sample 2) and Techiman, Brong Ahafo region (sample 4) than samples obtained from Nyankpala, Northern region (sample 1) and WA, Upper west region (sample 3).

Soy beans are naturally high in a group of compound known as isoflavonic phytoestrogens or isoflavones and thus help protect our body from diseases like diabetes. The objective of supplementing soy protein isolate containing high levels of isoflavones to a group of Type II diabetic subjects is to study the impact of soy isoflavones in the management of diabetes mellitus. A standardised beverage with 25g of isoflavone rich soy protein isolate mixed with water and milk was assessed for its acceptability using a nine point hedonic scale. The drink prepared with hot water without sugar was supplemented to a group of diabetic subjects for a period of six months. Physiological symptoms experienced by the diabetic group disappeared whereas no change was observed in the control group. A gradual reduction was observed in fasting blood sugar, random blood sugar, post prandial blood sugar and glycosylated haemoglobin and is statistically significant. No significant changes was observed in the control group.

The research was conducted to evaluate the nutritional and antinutritional composition of defatted whole seeds and kernels of Jatropha curcas obtained from four different agro-climatic areas of Ghana with the aim of identifying an alternative source of plant protein that can be developed to supplement soyabean meal/fish meal. Jatropha curcas seeds were obtained from four different agro-climatic areas of Ghana: (1. Nyankpala, Northern Region, 2. Dambai, Volta Region, 3. WA, Upper West Region, 4. Techiman, Brong Ahafo Region). The seeds were processed in to seed meals and kernel meals for each Jatropha seed group. Large amount/percentage (77-79 %) of seed cake was produced from the mechanical defatted seeds. The seed meal samples differed in chemical composition. The dry matter content of the seed meal samples (1A, 2A, 3A, 4A) was between (92.27-94.37 %). The crude protein content of seed meals ranged between (27.33 - 29.61 %). The crude fibre was very high in the whole seed meal (21.46 - 24.72 %). Lipid, ash, and carbohydrates contents in seed meals were between (16.52 – 19.56 %), (7.15 – 9.01 %), and (12.16 – 19.35 %) respectively. On the other hand the kernel meals were very rich in crude protein (63.39 – 64.35 %) that did not differ significantly between the kernel meal samples (1B, 2B, 3B, 4B). Crude fibre was low in Jatropha kernel meals (5.55 – 8.25 %) and total ash was between (8.20 – 9.78 %). Jatropha curcas meals contained good amounts of phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. Total nitrogen was also very high in the kernel meals (10.14 -10.30 %). Jatropha seed/kernel meals contained crude phorbol esters (CPE), phytic acid, and tannins. The concentrations of these antinutrients in the seed meals were CPE (4.87-6.07 mg/g), phytic acid (8.11-9.82 % dry matter), and tannins (0.72-0.93 % tannic acid equivalent). The concentration of phorbol esters reduced by 39 -49 % in the kernel meals and ranged between (2.60 – 3.70 %). The phytic acid content in kernel meals was (6.56 – 7.46 %) while negligible amount of tannins were present in the kernel meals in the range of (0.03-0.07 %). The processing method (removal of shells) reduced tannins in kernel meals by 92-94 %). The kernel meals are therefore better source of protein for animals if detoxified completely.

Breast cancer is one of the most important causes of increased women death rate in the world. Mammography is the most efficient approach for the early identification of breast diseases. The major objective of mammography is to identify small, non-palpable cancers during its premature stage. On the other hand, mammograms are extremely complicated to interpret being the fact that the pathological transformations of the breast are slight and their visibility is very poor with low contrast and noise. Mammograms has the valuable information such as microcalcifications and masses, which are extremely complicated to identify because mammograms are of low-contrast. Since the mammogram images are very noisy, low-contrast, blur and fuzzy, it is necessary to enhance the mammogram images for accurate identification and early diagnosis of breast cancer. In this paper, proposed an efficient technique to enhance mammogram image using nonsubsampled contourlet transform. The nonsubsampled contourlet transform is built upon nonsubsampled pyramids and nonsubsampled directional filter banks and provides a shiftinvariant directional multiresolution image representation. Existing methods for image enhancement cannot capture the geometric information of images and tend to amplify noises when they are applied to noisy images since they cannot distinguish noises from weak edges. In contrast, the nonsubsampled contourlet transform extracts the geometric information of images, which can be used to distinguish noises from weak edges. Experimental results show the proposed method achieves better enhancement results than other enhancement method.

The reporting of crime is very important especially for effective policing. Several studies have shown that there are three factors that affect reporting practices of the victims. One’s decision is determine by either individual, incident or environment factors. The present study sought to test influence of these factors in crime reporting using seven types of agricultural crimes. A survey was conducted to a randomly selected 200 farming households in Uasin Gishu District in Kenya. Logistic regression analyses were done to test the influence of all factors. The findings shows that individual and incident types have high impact on victims’ decision to notify police.

English translations of the Qura'an show that translators are blind to the subtle differences that Qura'anic connective particles can make within their respective contexts. A thorough understanding of the functions that such particles trigger is so crucial for rendering, not only the Qur'anic terminology accurately, but also grasping the true message conveyed. Since dealing with all particles lies beyond the scope of the study, this paper will only focus on the challenge that the most frequently encountered connective may cause to translators, namely, the particle waw, often translated into English as and. This paper therefore intends to demonstrate that failing to render the Qur'anic particle waw accurately into English within their respective contexts can certainly distort the true Qur'anic message. This will be followed by a discussion of the possible strategies for a better Qur'anic translation.

Dementia is a syndrome usually occurs Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related due to disease in brain. Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with impairment of thinking, learning, orientation, judgment and memory function. The various Nootropic drugs and herbal ayurvedic plants prescribed to enhance learning and memory function in dementia. The present study is therefore focused on discussing herbal ayurvedic medicinal plants (Bacopa monnieri, Evolvulus alsinoides and Tinospora cordifolia) for enhance learning and memory.

This study examines the causal relationship of selected bank financial ratios on lending to small and medium Enterprise (SMEs) in Nigeria. The data used for this study were gathered from Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) statistical Bulletin for a period of 27 years (1983 – 2010). Granger causality and OLS were applied to a set of differenced bank financial ratios and it was found that a critical gap in bank intermediation still exists in the lending to SME sector in Nigeria. A positive relationship exists between ratio of Rural Loan to Deposit (RRLD) and aggregate liquidity ratio (LR) while the causal relationship flows from cash reserve ratio to liquidity ratio. The result suggests that the excess liquidity in the banking system between 1983 – 2010 did not improve the flow of credit to SMEs in Nigeria. Consequently, the banks have failed in their social role of financing the SMEs by restricting the spread of fiat money contrary to the expectations of the Keynes – Schumpeter model. There is also no evidence to show that the banks are dealing significantly with the problem of information asymmetries through improved relationship lending to the SMEs in Nigeria. Monetary Policy should therefore target critically bank variables (LR, CRR and LDR) while ensuring compliance with prudential standards and balancing aggregate portfolios between large and small businesses. Restoring the mandatory credit allocation regime could also help in improving SMEs lending.

Present study is an attempt to determine the correlation between teachers’ job satisfaction and educational attainment of higher secondary school students in various school organizational climates. By adopting the principle of stratified proportionate random sampling technique, Eight Hundred and Twenty Three higher secondary school teachers and Seven Hundred Fourty higher secondary students were selected from various higher secondary schools of Durg district of Chhattisgarh. Tools used for the study were school organizational climate by Sharma (1978), job satisfaction scale by Mutha and Kumar (1985) and culture fair intelligence test by Cattel (1961). Data was analyzed by computing correlation by Karl Pearson product moment findings indicates significant correlation between job satisfaction of teachers and educational attainment of pupil in various school organization climate. Similar finding was observed when correlation was computed between job satisfaction and educational attainment of students on the basis of gender.

The influence of Ni doping on the structural, optical and morphological properties of ZnO thin films grown by SILAR method are discussed in detail. The diffraction XRD patterns reveal good crystalline quality without any appreciable changes from pure ZnO films and are genuinely polycrystalline with a hexagonal wurtzite structure. The observed ‘d’ spacing values are in good agreement with the standard values of ZnO. X-ray diffraction results provide the evidence that Ni is incorporated into the ZnO lattice at Zn site. Also ZnO films with (002) texturing is a promising candidate for solar cells, photo detectors, light-emitting devices, thin film transistors and surface acoustic wave guide applications. The optical properties revealed a decrease of band gap with Ni doping. The morphological changes evinced are also reported. The studies reveal that microstructure and optical properties may be tailored with a limited extent of Ni doping by SILAR mthod.

The present study reports on the results of salinity stress induced by NaCl, which resulted in the physiological and biochemical changes during seedling development of lentil plants. Plants were subjected to various levels of salt stress of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.5 M, NaCl respectively. Salinity stress markedly affected the physiological and biochemical parameters. The effect of NaCl salinity on germination, seedling growth (root-shoot length) seedling survival, total chlorophyll, and proline content of lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) were investigated. The addition of NaCl resulted in decrease of almost all the parameter taken in this study, but the proline content increased markedly. A slight reduction of germination, seedling growth, seedling survival and total chlorophyll was observed at lowest level of NaCl (01. M) and maximum reduction was observed in 0.5 M NaCl (critical salinity level).

This paper argues that human, financial and social capital impact substantially on the performance of small firms in manufacturing and service type of businesses. The methodology adopted involvedusinga fivelikert scale measure to assign values to the impact of human, financial and social capital variables on a sample of 20 firms (12 manufacturing and 8 servicing), and then applying the Kruskal-Wallis analysis test to determine whether there is significant difference in the level of the impact of the three independent variables on the dependent variable (firm performance). Results indicate that two human capital variables, namely education and work experience, have a higher impact factor on both types of firms relative to the impact of family background, and owners’ direct involvement. Measures of financial capital especially willingness to borrow hasgreater impact on manufacturing firms than on servicing firms. Measures of social capital especially its relational component has impact on both types of firms. The result of the Kruskal-Wallis analysis test suggests that the performance of manufacturing and servicing firmsin Nigeria is essentially driven by all three factors (human, financial and social capital).

The principle of diversification tells us that “spreading an investment across many assets will eliminate some of the risks but not all of the risks. Bank as a body corporate involves in diversification by investing in stocks of various companies across different sectors, industries, nationally, regionally and even internationally in order to reduce exposure to risks. This research is similar to other researches but while the earlier researches avoided inclusion of firms whose primary businesses were financial services, this research is based on firms whose primary businesses are financial services – with particular interest on Nigerian banks. As an analytical research, all manners of tools (mathematical, econometric, statistical etc,) were employed in the appraisal of data with the aim of establishing relationships and drawing conclusions. The study relied on historic accounting data generated from financial (annual) reports and accounts of sampled banks between the period 1998 and 2007 (a ten-year period). We found out that there is a significant difference (in performances) between the values of diversified banks and standalone banks. The diversified banks in Nigeria are more enhanced in value than the standalone banks, and that diversification in Nigerian banks impacts significantly on the market value of the banks. It is therefore recommended that while firms diversify, the focus should be more on firms that have similar services or products, bearing in mind that diversifying into conglomerates makes management more difficult.

Building Universities focusing on discovery and accessing the primary source of Available knowledge has been a demand for human community developments progress. The Universities expansion is not just preparing human sources, but also stabilizing the base to achieve, learn and applying new technology which leads to open new job opportunity for new generation needs. The Most important expectation from university role plays is in the way of expanding the developing of job creating act towards remodeling, advancing, presetting educated job creators men to public, solving community/ government and schooling problems, providing learning discipline through life for educated creative students, training professional man power to teach/search, consulate & expert in creating carriers fields, attracting students to fulfill community needs, producing professionals creative networks. Establishing advanced Technical Corporation and train their required technicians get ready to start their new work and business.

Progress and pollution go together. The economic growth is essential to combat poverty and deprivation but has exerted considerable pressure on the environmental sustainability. With industrialization, energy consumption has increased, prosperity resulted in building more settlement and using more vehicles, all this deteriorated the environmental quality. The crisis before the world and more particularly before developing nation like India is how to achieve target of economic growth without damaging environment. India’s contribution to protection of environments debate is immense.

India is the second largest producer of Fruits after China, with a production of 44.04 million tones. Only minimum percent is processed and remaining goes as waste. Hence the present investigation was undertaken to study the anti nutritional components of fruit wastes and incorporate into recipes and testing their acceptability. Commonly consumed fruits like grapes, mango, pomegranate and watermelon peels and seed were selected and their anti nutritional factors were analysed. Based on anti nutritional factors, grape peel, watermelon peel and seed powders were incorporated into health mixes, commonly consumed recipes like wheat roti, adai, pakkoda and murukku and curry powders like idly powder and paruppu powder at 5, 10 and 15% level to evaluate their acceptability. Health mixes, recipes and curry powders added with 5% level was judged to be highly acceptable and on par with standard having almost same scores.

To combat lifestyle diseases a balanced diet and healthy regime including exercise is the need of the hour. An interview schedule was formulated to elicit information on socio economic status and dietary pattern of the cardio vascular patients. Three different combinations of fibre rich mix were formulated, combination C1 consisting of whole wheat flour, defatted soy flour, green gram dal and lotus stem, combination C2 consisting of wheat flour, defatted soy flour, horse gram, and agathi leaves, combinationC3 consisting of whole wheat flour, defatted soy, black gram and curry leaves. These mixes were incorporated into 10 breakfast recipes at proportions of 20 percent, 25 percent and 30 percent along with other ingredients. The recipes were standardized and the best recipes were chosen for nutrient analysis. The cost effectiveness of the formulated mix was calculated. Nutrition education was imparted to selected 30 cardiovascular patients using a booklet. The findings of the study indicated that majority of cardiovascular patients were male and non vegetarians. In regard to consumption of fibre rich food 64 percent and 57 percent of the subjects consume vegetables and fruits daily. Forty three per cent of them have the habit of skipping meals and 18 of them skip their breakfast weekly twice. It was revealed that idly (97 percent) was the most frequently consumed breakfast food by the selected subjects. Among the 10 recipes and its 90 variations tried out, five recipes which obtained top score were pancake (C1V1), Broken wheat upma (C2V1), kolukattai (C1V1), Dosa (C3V3), Idiyappam (C2V2). And they are rich in fibre and low in fat and calorie. The formulated mix had a shelf life of 90 days and was cost effective at household level. Nutrition education imparted was effective and helped them in continued preparation of the mixes and recipes. A blend of commonly used hypolipedemic foods in different combinations and variations incorporated into breakfast recipes were acceptable.

Aplastic anemia (AA) including Fanconi is a unique disease shows genetic compatibility between gene and environment. The role of MTHFR C677T gene polymorphism and chromosomal break points in aplastic anemia (Fanconi) has not been documented earlier in Indian literature but chromosomal fragility and MTHFR polymorphism modulate folate metabolism leads to increase “risk” of malignancy. Hence, the study of aplastic anemia becomes imperative to with the aim to evaluate the frequency of C/T genotypes and chromosome break points (fragile site).Present study statistically shows significant differences (P <0.001) between homozygous (CC) 24.57% and heterozygous ( CT ) 33.33% condition with increase four time calculated value of odd ratio at 95% confidence interval might have increase “risk factor”. Interestingly, cytogenetic study reveals two spontaneous fragile sites-2q21 (3.1%) and 9p22-23 (2.8%) with high frequency of chromosome “bridge” formation (25.0%), suggest that these break points and genotypic variation of MTHFR together confirms gene – gene interaction in the patients of aplastic anemia. However, present study is reported first time to the best of our knowledge even in non- identical twins has not been reported earlier in Indian population.

Threatening half of the world’s population Malaria still remains a serious public health problem in the developing world. Parasites of the genus Plasmodium cause the disease by degrading human hemoglobin as a source of amino acids for their growth and maturation. Plasmepsin II, an aspartic protease from the human intra erythrocytic parasite Plasmodium falciparum, is involved in degradation of the host cell haemoglobin within the acidic food vacuole of the parasite. Plasmepsin-II has become an attractive target for combating malaria through research regarding its importance in the P. falciparum metabolism and life cycle. In the present study, we have attempted with the help of virtual screening and molecular docking approach using Lamarckian Genetic Algorithm to elucidate the extent of specificity of Plasmepsin II towards different classes of Betulin. The docking result of the study of 534 molecules demonstrated that the binding energies were ranging from -10.06 kcal/mol to -6.00 kcal/mol, with the minimum binding energy of -10.06 kcal/mol. 8 molecules were showing hydrogen bonds with the catalytic amino acid residues of active site: Asp 34 and Asp 214. Further in-vitro and in-vivo study is required on these molecules as the binding mode provided hints for the future design of new derivatives with higher potency and specificity.