Monitoring of Land Use/Cover Change Using Remote Sensing and GIS techniques: A case study of Loliondo Game Controlled Area, Tanzania

Loliondo Game Controlled Area (LGCA) is unique in East Africa that provides mixed land use activities for the community. The main land uses in LGCA are livestock keeping, wildlife conservation, small scale agriculture, tourism and hunting of wild animals. For decades, Maasai pastoralists coexisted with LGCA but restricted to hunt, set snares and conducting large scale farming. From the year 2000 expansion of agricultural activities have been noted which has escalated the decline of wildlife. I this study the land use/cover change occurred in LGCA for the period of 20 years have been determined and assessed. Supervised classification method was used whereby six classes namely forest, bare land, sand, water, grass land and agriculture were categorized. The results show that from 1996 to 2016 there is a major land cover change on forest, agriculture, bare land, grassland, water bodies and sand by 19.63%, 8.74%, 15.32%, 50.08%, 4.51 %and 1.72%, respectively. Specifically, forest cover is decreasing at 1467.81 ha per year while agriculture is increasing at the rate of 1,467 ha per year. The study concluded that clearing of forest and large scale agriculture has destroyed vegetation cover threatening the existence of wildlife which to a great extent requires immediate measures to counterbalance this effect

Missing Value Estimation in a Nested-Factorial Design with Three Factors

When faced with unbalanced data, it is often necessary to estimate the necessary missingvalues before the application of the analysis of variance technique. Previous studies have shownthat dierent designs require dierent missing value estimators. With the introduction of somerelatively new statistical designs, it has become expedient to derive missing value estimatorsfor such designs. In this study, least squares estimators of missing values in a three-factornested-factorial design are derived. Properties of the estimators are equally determined. Anumerical example is given to show the application of the theoretical results obtained in thispaper. Our empirical results establish the appropriateness of the missing value estimationmethod presented in this study

The Modulatory Activity of Justicia carnea in Plasmodium Infected Mice

The study investigated the antiplasmodial potency of Justicia carnea in plasmodium infected mice. The aqueous leaf extract of Justicia carnea was subjected to phytochemical screening using GC-FID. The suppressive, prophylactic and curative activity of the studied plant was accessed after oral administration of standard drugs (5mgkg-1 choroquine and 4mgkg-1 artesunate) and 400-800mgkg-1 of the extract. The effect of the aqueous leaf extract of the studied plant was also explored in the activities of liver enzymes, oxidative stress markers and hematological indices of plasmodium infected mice using spectrophotomertic methods and a hematology auto analyzer (BC 5300 Mindray England) respectively. The aqueous leaf extract of Justicia carnea showed considerable dose dependent antiplasmodial activity in the suppressive, prophylactic and curative test conducted. The suppressive activity of (92%) of the aqueous leaf extract of the studied plant at 800mgkg-1 was comparable to the standard drugs used while the mean survival time of plasmodium infected mice at 800mgkg-1 was beyond the mean survival time of the infected untreated group. The aqueous leaf extract of the studied plant also exhibited significant improvements in the activities of liver enzymes, oxidative stress markers and some hematological parameters at 800mgkg-1 of the extract when compared with the infected and untreated group. The results of the study exhibited the antiplasmodial activity of the studied plant, nonetheless, the crude extracts of the studied plant can be further purified for synergistic use with other potent antimalarial drugs to combat and achieve total clearance of plasmodium resistant infections

Computational Reaction Mechanism Study of the Elimination of 2-pentanone

Theoretical studies for reaction mechanism of the gas phase elimination of 2-petnanone were carried out at B3LYP/6-31+g(d) level of theory. The mechanism for elemination is Norrish type II. The elimination reaction proceeds via a six-membered cyclic transition state with the formation of ethelene and propen-2-ol (acetone enol), which rearranges to the ketone. The calculated kinetic and thermodynamic parameters are in reasonable agreement with the reported experimental values. Analysis of the progress along the reaction coordinate, in terms of geometrical parameters suggest these reactions are dominated by the abstraction of a hydrogen atom from the ? -carbon by the carbonyl oxygen to give the diradical, and together with an important cleavage of C?-C? bond in the transition state through concerted reaction mechanism

Local and Universal in the Construction Process of Knowledge in the Specialization Course Program in Education from Amazonas Federal University

The study presented here aimed to grasp, interpret and understand the processes of construction of knowledge developed by the Specialization Course in Education Program (PPGE) at UFAM (Universidade Federal do Amazonas – Amazonas Federal University). The dip in their doings, in the society and culture in which it is located, has enabled us to grasp the immense plot and the network of meanings woven by the energy that emerges from the life of Amazonian subjects and their world which transcend, by far, the pure beams of logical relationships where humans are treated as clones, doomed to an eternal repetition. The analysis have articulated the researchers’ perceptions, the theoretical conceptions and the data collected and revealed the richness and fertility of those cultures and the meaning of that Program, which has its support in local knowledge with insertion in the universal context

Effect of Vitreoscilla hemoglobin on production anti-tumor enzyme methionine –?-lyase, by Citrobacter freundii

Methionine, a sulfur amino acid, is the first amino acid that is required for many proteins, during synthesis. Our preliminary studies showed that this compound was produced during the late (post-stationary) secondary phase of growth. Therefore, restriction of methionine may be a useful strategy in limiting cancer growth. The bacterial strain used in this study was Citrobacter freundii (NRRL B-2643) and their vgb+ recombinant strain. A 1/100 inoculum of overnight cultures grown in LB was made in 50 ml LB in 150 ml Erlenmeyer flasks. Inocula in flasks were grown for 24 h at 30 °C in a 200 rpm water-bath. For MGL production, 250 ?L of this O/N culture was then inoculated into 150 mL conical flask containing 50 mL of sterile mineral salts medium supplemented with 1 % or 0.1 % (w/v) glucose, respectively. This was incubated for 96 h at 30 °C, 200 rpm on an orbital shaker. The highest MGL concentration (2,02) was reached by the recombinant strain of Cf[pUC8:15] 72 h after the start of incubation MM+0,1% glucose source. In comparison, the wild type strain produced 3,14 of MGL concentration 72 h was reached MM+0,1% glucose source. The poor media and secondary phase (72 h and up) was used to for MGL production. This is more appropriate. Plasmid is disadvantages in the secondary stage

Bipolaron Mechanism of High-Temperature Superconductivity of Ammonia Systems

In the present paper, we propose an explanation of the ambiguity of the results of experiments on the study of high-temperature superconductivity of ammonia systems. At the heart of the theoretical interpretation of the experiments, we put the bipolaron model. In this study, we have shown mathematically that the barrier of repulsion between polarons can be effectively reduced if the polarons are in the macroscopic dielectric layers, or capillaries. We constructed the theory of polaron states in the macroscopic dielectric layers. We specify the conditions under which the polarons are hold in the layer between dielectrics. It was found that the electrostatic image forces lead to the appearance of additional forces of attraction between polarons. These forces are conditioned by oscillations of polarons around the position of their fixation. Derivations are given of the upper and lower limits on the width of the gap in which the polaron oscillations are not suppressed. In this case take place disappearance Coulomb repulsion of the polarons. A long-range resonant interaction of two oscillators resulting in the appearance of effective attraction between polarons is discussed. This leads to the formation of diamagnetic singlet bipolarons due to quantum exchange interactions and the effects of electronelectron correlations. For glass capillaries (quasi-one-dimensional bipolaron) and for gap between glass plates (quasi-two-dimensional bipolaron) we give quantitative estimates of the gap width and the critical temperature at which there is a barrier-free formation of the bipolaron in ammonia. Numerical estimates are obtained for acase of the bipolaron in ammonia. We got a quantitative evaluation, which indicate that the barrier-free formation of singlet bipolaron in ammonia begins at temperatures below 80K. As the experiment showed the electrical resistance of ammonia systems decreases abruptly by 10-12 orders of magnitude in this temperature range. At the same time, experiments have shown that for the bulk superconductivity superconducting phase is only ~ 0.01%

Measuring Quality: The Impact of Minimally Invasive Surgery and Operative Time on Surgical Site Infections

Objective: To evaluate the relationship between operative approach, operative time, and SSI rate.Methods: Inpatient database review identified patients undergoing 5 common procedures from 1/2010-12/2011. Patients were stratified into laparoscopic or open approaches. The main outcome measure was the relationship between operative time and SSI by approach.Results: 226,006 patients were evaluated- 28.2% open and 71.8% laparoscopic. Mean overall operative time was significantly shorter laparoscopically (p<0.001). Laparoscopy was associated with significantly lower costs and shorter length of stay (LOS) overall and for each procedure(p<0.0001). Multivariate analysis found SSI increased directly with operative time: for every 30-minute increase, SSI risk increased by 12%. Operative approach was an independent risk factor for SSI: open surgery increased SSI risk by 78%. A direct relationship between open procedures, operative time, and SSI risk was found.Conclusions: Laparoscopy has overall shorter operative time and improved outcomes in SSI rate, LOS, and total costs for common surgical procedures. As operative time and approach were independent risk factors for SSI, the use of laparoscopy and operative time are valuable quality measures

Irrigation Water Productivity of Rice under Various Irrigation Schedules and Tillage Practices in Northern Guinea Savanna Region of Nigeria

The effect irrigation method and tillage on yield and irrigation water productivity of rice was conducted in split plot experiment with three replications during the dry seasons 2012 and 2013 in field conditions at the Lake Geriyo Irrigation scheme farms in Yola, Nigeria. 3 irrigation management: 3, 6 and 9 day interval with 3 tillage practices: zero, shallow and deep soil tillage were studied. Results showed that there were significant differences in paddy yield, harvest index and irrigation water productivity. 6 days interval irrigation management was placed to one group with 3 days irrigation interval on paddy yield and harvest index; higher water productivity of 3.58 and 3.51 kg ha-1 mm-1were recorded with 6 days irrigation interval in both seasons respectively. Therefore it can be recommended that 6 day interval irrigation which had better irrigation water productivity and saved up 29% irrigation water be adopted for rice cultivation under clay loam soils of guinea savanna zone of Nigeria

A Review Paper on Comparison of Numerical Techniques for Finding Approximate Solutions to Boundary Value Problems on Post-Buckling in Functionally Graded Materials

The use of finite element models as research tools in biomechanics and orthopedics grew exponentially over the last two decades. However, the attention to mesh quality, model validation and appropriate energy balance methods and the reporting of these metrics has not kept pace with the general use of finite element modeling. Therefore, the purpose of this review was to develop the nonlinear filter and thermal buckling of an FGM panel under the combined effect of elevated temperature conditions and aerodynamic loading is investigated using a finite element model based on the thin plate theory and von Karman strain-displacement relations to account for moderately large deflection. It is found that the temperature increase has an adverse effect on the FGM panel flutter characteristics through decreasing the critical dynamic pressure. Decreasing the volume fraction enhances flutter characteristics, but this is limited by the structural integrity aspect. Structural finite element analysis has been employed to determine the FGM panel's adaptive response while under the influence of a uniaxial compressive load in excess of its critical buckling value. By increasing the applications of using composite materials inside aviation stages, it is visualized that the versatile FGM plate setup will broaden the operational execution over traditional materials and structures, especially when the structure is presented to a raised temperature. The vicinity of air motion facilitating stream brings about delaying the locking temperature and in stifling under loads, while the temperature build gives route for higher thermal-cycle abundance