Abstract: The two agro-ecological zones became the focus of
the study because of violent nature of the incessant conflict in the
zones. The available register of farmers association was the sampling
frame work where ten percent (61) farmers per state were randomly
sampled. Data were collected and analysed using z-test. The research
findings revealed tree crops and grains production enterprises ranked
higher in Osun (rain fed zones) and Taraba states (savannah zones)
respectively. Osun state entrepreneur felt the effect of the conflict on
their enterprises more than Tarba state. The reasons adduced for
severity of the conflict on enterprises are majority (77.0%) migrated
and (75.5%) of them were not allowed to enter their farms during and
when conflict deescalated unlike situation in Taraba state. The
different in enterprises production level between the two agroecological
zone was statistically significant at p
Abstract: Two group of kids (“Safflower cake" and “Control") were fed ad libitum with pelleted total mixed rations. After a 7-days adaptation period, the diet of the “Safflower cake" group were supplemented with 20% of safflower cake. The kids were slaughtered at 96 days of age. Dietary safflower cake did not affect the growth traits of kids. In addition, kids fed experimental diet showed a lower feed intake and consequently a better feed conversion ratio in comparison to the “Control" group. The use of safflower decreased the level of SFA and increased the level of MUFA in kid meat. The level of PUFA was higher in lipid extracted from animals feeding “Control“ diet even if the UFA level was lower. Furthermore, lipid extracted from animals feeding control diet contained more ω6 fatty acids in comparison to kids feeding experimental diet while the opposite trend was observed for the level of ω3 fatty acids. The ω6 to ω3 ratio was significantly affected by diet and in particular this ratio decreased in meat of kids fed experimental diet. Our results indicate that intramuscular fatty acid composition of kid meat can be improved from a human health perspective by inclusion of safflower cake in the diet.
Abstract: Pleurotus ostreatus is a common edible mushroom with a number of properties that can help to solve the nutritional and economical problems of people in Chiapas, Mexico. The objective of this project was to produce the mushroom under a sustainable management in which only regional products were allowed as a way to promote the cultivation and consumption of Pleurotus ostreatus; 5 different substrates were tested as well as 2 sanitation methods. The obtained results showed that the highest yields were obtained using corn husk and a thermal sanitation method. Pests and diseases were not a problem during the project but they appeared more in the substrates sanitized with calcium hydroxide.
Abstract: Paddy being cultivated since about 10,000 years B.C in Ganga Valley in India, its production reached up to 99 million tons in the year 2012. BGA are of much ecological importance for maintaining the soil fertility and reclaiming the alkalinity. In present investigation attempts were made to identify the local cyanobacterial genera from the paddy fields, BGA application for green farming enabling the paddy to utilize more amount of nitrogen released and to examine its impact along with Urea upon growth and yield responses of the Paddy crop. It was observed that combined treatment of BGA with Urea proved better response in almost all growth parameters and yield attributes except number of tillers/ Plant and grains/ panicle as compared to application of either Urea or BGA alone. The Paddy growers should be encouraged to adopt BGA along with Urea as source of Nitrogen for Paddy cultivation.
Abstract: In a field experiment, growth parameters of soybean
cultivars in different weeding regimes was investigated. The trial was
split plot in a randomized complete block design. The four cultivars
and two lines of soybean (Glycine max L.) including: Sahar, Hill,
Sari, Telar, 032 and 033 in main plot and weeding regime consist of
no weeding (control), one weeding (35 days after planting) and two
weeding (35+20 days after planting) were randomized in sub plot.
The results showed that during the growth season 033 had the highest
dry matter in two weeding. In two weeding regime the dry matter
decreased. ). In all weeding regimes 033 had the highest CGR (Figs.
3a, 3b and 3c), which cleared this cultivar ability compare to the
others. This cultivar by increasing its leaf area could do more
photosynthesis, so, have a higher CGR.
Abstract: Experiments were carried out on the survival and growth of Rasbora daniconius, Puntius ticto and Puntius conchonius. The motivation of the study was to obtain information for growing the fish on a commercial scale for their use as biological control agents against mosquito larvae. The effects of temperature, total hardness, DO, pH and feed on the growth of fish were also investigated. Excessive value of total hardness was found because very rich calcium ion is present in Chitrakoot area. There was significant increases in growth rates of fish as temperature was increased from 280C to 300C. Further increases in temperature up to 320C, did not further affect growth. The positive and highly significant correlations 0.991488, 0.9581 and 0.9935 were found between length and weight of P. ticto, P. conchonius and R. daniconius respectively. The regression was significant at 5% level of probability.
Abstract: Decision support systems are usually based on
multidimensional structures which use the concept of hypercube.
Dimensions are the axes on which facts are analyzed and form a
space where a fact is located by a set of coordinates at the
intersections of members of dimensions. Conventional
multidimensional structures deal with discrete facts linked to discrete
dimensions. However, when dealing with natural continuous
phenomena the discrete representation is not adequate. There is a
need to integrate spatiotemporal continuity within multidimensional
structures to enable analysis and exploration of continuous field data.
Research issues that lead to the integration of spatiotemporal
continuity in multidimensional structures are numerous. In this paper,
we discuss research issues related to the integration of continuity in
multidimensional structures, present briefly a multidimensional
model for continuous field data. We also define new aggregation
operations. The model and the associated operations and measures
are validated by a prototype.
Abstract: This paper applies the homotopy analysis method method to a nonlinear differential-difference equation arising in nanotechnology. Continuum hypothesis on nanoscales is invalid, and a differential-difference model is considered as an alternative approach to describing discontinued problems. Comparison of the approximate solution with the exact one reveals that the method is very effective.
Abstract: This study, focusing on the importance of encouraging
outdoor activities for children, aims to propose and implement a
Web-GIS based outdoor education program for elementary schools,
which will then be evaluated by users. Specifically, for the purpose of
improved outdoor activities in the elementary school education, the
outdoor education program, with chiefly using the Web-GIS that
provides a good information provision and sharing tool, is proposed
and implemented before being evaluated by users. Conclusions of the
study boil down to:
(1) An eight-staged outdoor education program based on the Web-GIS
was proposed for a “second school" of an elementary school that
was then implemented before being evaluated by users (teachers,
instructors, students, and their parents).
(2) The program generally received a good evaluation, while a lot of
students and their parents evaluated negatively for the degree of
discovery and for the degree of interest, respectively, in the
questionnaire survey of students and their parents conducted after
the “second school". The surveys clearly show that an issue to be
solved, from the viewpoint of teachers in particular, is the
establishment of the GIS that will easily represent teaching materials
developed by teachers and of Web-GIS, and improved significance
of the use of GIS and Web-GIS for their widespread.
Abstract: Feature-based registration is an effective technique for clinical use, because it can greatly reduce computational costs. However, this technique, which estimates the transformation by using feature points extracted from two images, may cause misalignments. To handle with this limitation, we propose to extract the salient edges and extracted control points (CP) of medical images by using efficiency of multiresolution representation of data nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) that finds the best feature points. The MR images were first decomposed using the NSCT, and then Edge and CP were extracted from bandpass directional subband of NSCT coefficients and some proposed rules. After edge and CP extraction, mutual information was adopted for the registration of feature points and translation parameters are calculated by using particle swarm optimization (PSO). The experimental results showed that the proposed method produces totally accurate performance for registration medical CT-MR images.
Abstract: Addis Ababa is a seat of African Union (AU), United
Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UN-ECA) and hundreds of
embassies and consular representatives. Addis Ababa is one of the
highest capitals in the world with an average 2400 meters above sea
level. It is dichotomous city with a blend of modern high-rise and
deteriorating slum quarters. Water supply and sanitation, waste
management and housing are continuing to be serious problems.
Forest wood based domestic energy use as well as uncontrolled
emissions from mobile and fixed sources has endangered the state of
the urban environment. Analysis based on satellite imagery has
revealed the deteriorating urban environment within the last three
decades. The recently restructured city administration has brought
improvements in the condition of the urban environment. However,
the overwhelming size of the challenges faced by the city dwarfed
their fairly good results.
Abstract: An experiment was conducted under controlled
conditions to study the effect of water extract of leaves, shoots and
roots of either Sisymbrium irio L. =SISIR and or Descurainia
sophia (L.) Schur =DESSO on the germination and primary growth
of barley. A split-split plot experiment in CRD with three
replications was used. The main plots were the type of weed: i.e.
SISIR and DESSO and the sub-plots were type of organ: i.e. leaf,
stem and root and, the sub-sub plots were concentration of the
water extract of each organ of the weeds: i.e. 0, 2, 4 and 8 % w/v.
The results showed that the SISIR water extracts had a greater
inhibitory effects on the germination and primary growth of barley
than those of DESSO water extracts. The water extracts of the
leaves of both weeds had the greatest inhibitory effects on the
germination and primary growth of barley, compared to those of
stems and roots. Increasing the concentration of water extracts of
leaves, stems and roots of both weeds up to 8 % caused the greatest
inhibitory effects to barley and reduced the germination rate and
primary growth of it linearly.
Abstract: Moral decisions are considered as an intuitive process,
while conscious reasoning is mostly used only to justify those
intuitions. This problem is described in few different dual-process
theories of mind, that are being developed e.g. by Frederick and
Kahneman, Stanovich and Evans. Those theories recently evolved
into tri-process theories with a proposed process that makes ultimate
decision or allows to paraformal processing with focal bias..
Presented experiment compares the decision patterns to the
implications of those models.
In presented study participants (n=179) considered different
aspects of trolley dilemma or its footbridge version and decided after
that.
Results show that in the control group 70% of people decided to
use the lever to change tracks for the running trolley, and 20% chose
to push the fat man down the tracks. In contrast, after experimental
manipulation almost no one decided to act. Also the decision time
difference between dilemmas disappeared after experimental
manipulation.
The result supports the idea of three co-working processes:
intuitive (TASS), paraformal (reflective mind) and algorithmic
process.
Abstract: EEG signal is one of the oldest measures of brain
activity that has been used vastly for clinical diagnoses and
biomedical researches. However, EEG signals are highly
contaminated with various artifacts, both from the subject and from
equipment interferences. Among these various kinds of artifacts,
ocular noise is the most important one. Since many applications such
as BCI require online and real-time processing of EEG signal, it is
ideal if the removal of artifacts is performed in an online fashion.
Recently, some methods for online ocular artifact removing have
been proposed. One of these methods is ARMAX modeling of EEG
signal. This method assumes that the recorded EEG signal is a
combination of EOG artifacts and the background EEG. Then the
background EEG is estimated via estimation of ARMAX parameters.
The other recently proposed method is based on adaptive filtering.
This method uses EOG signal as the reference input and subtracts
EOG artifacts from recorded EEG signals. In this paper we
investigate the efficiency of each method for removing of EOG
artifacts. A comparison is made between these two methods. Our
undertaken conclusion from this comparison is that adaptive filtering
method has better results compared with the results achieved by
ARMAX modeling.
Abstract: Image registration plays an important role in the
diagnosis of dental pathologies such as dental caries, alveolar bone
loss and periapical lesions etc. This paper presents a new wavelet
based algorithm for registering noisy and poor contrast dental x-rays.
Proposed algorithm has two stages. First stage is a preprocessing
stage, removes the noise from the x-ray images. Gaussian filter has
been used. Second stage is a geometric transformation stage.
Proposed work uses two levels of affine transformation. Wavelet
coefficients are correlated instead of gray values. Algorithm has been
applied on number of pre and post RCT (Root canal treatment)
periapical radiographs. Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and
Correlation coefficients (CC) are used for quantitative evaluation.
Proposed technique outperforms conventional Multiresolution
strategy based image registration technique and manual registration
technique.
Abstract: This paper presents a possibilistic (fuzzy) model in optimal siting and sizing of Distributed Generation (DG) for loss reduction and improve voltage profile in power distribution system. Multi-objective problem is developed in two phases. In the first one, the set of non-dominated planning solutions is obtained (with respect to the objective functions of fuzzy economic cost, and exposure) using genetic algorithm. In the second phase, one solution of the set of non-dominated solutions is selected as optimal solution, using a suitable max-min approach. This method can be determined operation-mode (PV or PQ) of DG. Because of considering load uncertainty in this paper, it can be obtained realistic results. The whole process of this method has been implemented in the MATLAB7 environment with technical and economic consideration for loss reduction and voltage profile improvement. Through numerical example the validity of the proposed method is verified.
Abstract: ebXML (Electronic Business using eXtensible
Markup Language) is an e-business standard, sponsored by
UN/CEFACT and OASIS, which enables enterprises to exchange
business messages, conduct trading relationships, communicate
data in common terms and define and register business
processes. While there is tremendous e-business value in the
ebXML, security remains an unsolved problem and one of the
largest barriers to adoption. XML security technologies emerging
recently have extensibility and flexibility suitable for security
implementation such as encryption, digital signature, access
control and authentication.
In this paper, we propose ebXML business transaction models
that allow trading partners to securely exchange XML based
business transactions by employing XML security technologies.
We show how each XML security technology meets the ebXML
standard by constructing the test software and validating messages
between the trading partners.
Abstract: This paper investigates the fractals generated by the dynamical system of intuitionistic fuzzy contractions in the intuitionistic
fuzzy metric spaces by generalizing the Hutchinson-Barnsley theory. We prove some existence and uniqueness theorems of fractals in the
standard intuitionistic fuzzy metric spaces by using the intuitionistic fuzzy Banach contraction theorem. In addition to that, we analyze
some results on intuitionistic fuzzy fractals in the standard intuitionistic fuzzy metric spaces with respect to the Hausdorff intuitionistic
fuzzy metrics.
Abstract: In article the data of acute toxicity for pre-clinical
researches of Ramon preparation is described. Ramon effects to
clinical characteristics of blood, cardio-vascular system, hepatotoxic
and diuretic effects were studied.
Abstract: Taking the provincial capital, labor and energy as
inputs, regional GDP as output from 1995 to 2007, the paper
quantifies the vertical and lateral energy saving potential by
introducing the radial adjustment and slack adjustment of DEA. The
results show that by the vertical, the achievement of energy saving in
2007 is better than their respective historical performances. By
horizontal, in 2007 it can be found that Tianjin, Liaoning, Shanghai
and Yunnan do better in energy saving than other provinces. In
national wide, the higher of energy efficiency, the larger of per capita
GDP and the proportion of the tertiary industry in the national
economy, the more open to the outside, the lower the energy saving
potential demonstrates, while the energy endowment has negative
effect on energy saving potential.