Effects of plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB) on yield, growth and nutrient contents of organically grown strawberry

The effects of plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB) on the fruit yield, growth and nutrient element content of strawberry cv. Fern were investigated under organic growing conditions between 2006 and 2008. The experimental plot was a completely randomized design with 3 replicates. Three PGPB strains (Pseudomonas BA-8, Bacillus OSU-142 and Bacillus M-3) were used alone or in combination as biofertilizer agent in the experiment. Data through 3 years showed that the use of PGPB significantly increased fruit yield, plant growth and leaf P and Zn contents. Root inoculation of M3 and floral and foliar spraying of OSU-142 and BA-8 bacteria stimulated plant growth resulting in significant yield increases. M3 + BA-8, BA-8 + OSU-142, M3, M3 + OSU-142 and BA-8 applications increased cumulative yield by 33.2%, 18.4%, 18.2%, 15.3% and 10.5%, respectively. Number of fruits per plant significantly increased by the applications of M3 + BA-8 (91.73) and M3 (81.58) compared with the control (68.66). In addition, P and Zn contents of strawberry leaves with bacterial inoculation significantly increased under organic growing conditions. Available P contents in soil were increased from 0.35 kg P2O5/da at the beginning of the study to 2.00, 1.97 and 1.82 kg P2O5/da by M3 + OSU-142, M3 + BA-8 and M3 + BA-8 + OSU-142 applications, respectively. Overall, the results of this study suggest that root inoculation of Bacillus M3 alone or in combination with spraying Bacillus OSU-142 or Pseudomonas BA-8 have the potential to increase the yield, growth and nutrition content of strawberry plant under organic growing conditions

Chest injuries in Tikur Anbessa Hospital, Addis Ababa: A three year experience

A review of 72 patients with chest injuries admitted to Tikur Anbessa Hospital in  Ethiopia between February 1996 and February 1999 was undertaken. All but one  patient were treated with chest drainage. Approximately 85% of the patients were succesfully treated with chest drains leaving no residual defects. This simple, effective and affordable equipment should be made available in all hospitals. Chest drainage is a life-saving procedure for patients with chest injuries which all doctors should be  confident with.Kev words: chest injury, chest drain, associated injuries

Electrical characterization of MIS diode prepared by magnetron sputtering

TiO2 thin film has been prepared on n-type Si wafer to fabricate an Au/TiO2/n-Si (MIS) diode by RF magnetron sputtering technique. The current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements of the diode have been performed over a wide range of temperatures (240-400 K) and frequencies (10 kHz-1 MHz), respectively. From I-V measurements, an abnormal increase in the barrier height (Φb) and a decrease in the ideality factor (n) with increasing temperature have been observed. This temperature dependence has been attributed to the barrier in homogeneities by assuming a Gaussian distribution (GD) of barrier heights at metal/semiconductor (M/S) interface. Both the conventional and modified Richardson plot show linearity. The activation energy (Ea), Richardson constant (A*) and Φb value have been calculated from the slope and intercept of the linear region. The obtained Richardson constant value of 113.82 A. cm-2. K-2 is in close agreement with the known value of 112 A.cm-2. K-2 for n-Si. The interface state density (Nss) and series resistance (Rs) of the diode has been obtained from the I-V measurements. In addition, the Φb value was determined from C-2-V characteristics. The obtained results indicate that the MIS diode with TiO2 interfacial insulator layer can be used in many device applications

Applications of Conformal Methods to Relativistic Trace-free Matter Models

PhDConformal methods have proven to be very useful in the analysis global properties and stability of vacuum spacetimes in general relativity. These methods transform the physical spacetime into a different Lorentzian manifold known as the unphysical spacetime where the ideal points at infinity are located at a finite position. This thesis makes use of conformal methods and applies them to various problems involving trace-free matter models. In particular, it makes progress towards the understanding of the evolution of unphysical spacetimes perturbed by trace-free matter as well as the behaviour of the the matter itself. To this end, evolution equations (wave equations) are derived and analyzed for both the unphysical spacetime and the matter. To investigate the relation between solutions of these wave equations to the Einstein field equations, a suitable system of subsidiary evolution equations is also derived. Furthermore, this thesis looks in detail at the behaviour of an unphysical spacetime coupled to the simplest matter trace free model: the confomally invariant scalar field. Finally, the system of conformal wave equations is used to show that the deSitter spacetime is non-linearly stable under perturbations by trace-free matter

On boundedness and compactness of a generalized Srivastava–Owa fractional derivative operator

AbstractThe purpose of this present effort is to define a new fractional differential operator Tzβ,τ,γ, involving Srivastava–Owa fractional derivative operator. Further, we investigate some geometric properties such as univalency, starlikeness, convexity for their normalization, we also study boundedness and compactness of analytic and univalent functions on weighted μ-Bloch space for this operator. The method in this study is based on the generalized hypergeometric function

Delay Reduction of Detection Algorithms for 5G Massive MIMO System

Multiple antenna technologies like Multiple-InputMultiple-Output (MIMO) and beamforming will thus play animportant role in defining 5G system architectures. In massiveMIMO there is a huge number of antenna elements, so there isa need to estimate large channel matrix which introduces muchlatency. The ultra-high latency and high computation complexityof massive MIMO matrices from 16 to 256 dimensions is thevital bottleneck to realizing latency for channel estimation andMIMO detection. This paper introduces a mechanism to reducethe high computational complexity that causes huge latency. Fouralgorithms are evaluated to measure their performance. Thesealgorithms are Gauss-Jordan Elimination, Gaussian Elimination,RQ Decomposition and LU Decomposition. MATLAB simulationused to analyze the applied mathematical models. After thatmeasured the BER, delay for each algorithm and evaluate thecapacity and throughput, by way, found that the GaussianElimination has better delay about 49 percent when RQ Decomposition higherabout 95 percent while LU Decomposition highest about 98 percent comparedby Gauss-Jordan Elimination. In addition the result show theperformance of capacity and throughput for various modulationand coding rate, while the deliverables average capacity about10 M bit and affected by the situation of the channel, LU hasthe best performance than others

Visceral leishmaniasis patients display altered composition and maturity of neutrophils as well as impaired neutrophil effector functions

Immunologically, active visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is characterised by profound immunosuppression, severe systemic inflammatory responses and an impaired capacity to control parasite replication. Neutrophils are highly versatile cells, which play a crucial role in the induction as well as the resolution of inflammation, the control of pathogen replication and the regulation of immune responses. Neutrophil functions have been investigated in human cutaneous leishmaniasis, however, their role in human visceral leishmaniasis is poorly understood. In the present study we evaluated the activation status and effector functions of neutrophils in patients with active VL and after successful anti-leishmanial treatment. Our results show that neutrophils are highly activated and have degranulated; high levels of arginase, myeloperoxidase and elastase, all contained in neutrophils’ granules, were found in the plasma of VL patients. In addition, we show that a large proportion of these cells are immature. We also analysed effector functions of neutrophils that are essential for pathogen clearance and show that neutrophils have an impaired capacity to release neutrophil extracellular traps, produce reactive oxygen species and phagocytose bacterial particles, but not Leishmania parasites. Our results suggest that impaired effector functions, increased activation and immaturity of neutrophils play a key role in the pathogenesis of VL