GROWTH RESPONSE OF MAIZE (ZEA MAYS L.) TO METAL TOXICITY

This study evaluated the phytotoxic effects of lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) as Pb(NO3)2  and Zn(NO3)2 on maize  (Zea mays L) considering the  plants’ growth indices, biomass as well as soil parameters and soil microorganisms after treatment. The results showed that plant growth significantly reduced with increasing concentrations (100,150 and 200 mgkg-1) of Pb and Zn contamination. The results indicated significant inhibitory effect on the growth parameters (stem height, root length, leaf area, fresh and dry weight) measured, compared to control experiment. This study therefore revealed that the heavy metals have harmful effects on maize’s growth.  Consequently, the consumption of such contaminated cereal by man and animals can lead to their death after the metals have biomagnified in their systems. Lead and Zn application in general, affected the vegetative growth; both fresh and dry weights were reduced with increasing concentrations of the metals. These results show that these metals are toxic to human and animal health. As a result, farmers should be encouraged to use water from good source for irrigation and also cultivate on metal-free soils if possible to save lives.     &nbsp

Electrical Resistivity Imaging of a Coal Deposit at Tai Area of Gombe State, North Eastern Nigeria

A 2-D electrical resistivity imaging of some parts of Tai in Akko Local Government area of Gombe State, northeastern Nigeria was carried out. Tai is located 28 km from Pindiga and lies between latitudes 100 00′00″ and 100 06′00″N and longitudes 100 40′ 00″E and 10045′00″E. This study was prompted by a report that in the course of siting a hand-dug well and hand-pump borehole in Tai, coal seam was intercepted. The aim of this geoelectrical investigation is to image the survey area for possible location and future exploitation of coal seam found in the area. The survey was targeted at determining the lateral extent of the coal seam, resistivity values associated with the coal seam and depth to the coal seam. ABEM Terrameter SAS 1000 was used to acquire the data in this survey. The protocol chosen was the Wenner-Schlumberger array because of its sensitivity to both horizontal and vertical structures. Data processing was done using RES2DINV software. The results show that the resistivity values range from 3Ωm to 2033 Ωm. The top layer has resistivity ranges of about 66 Ωm to 2033 Ωm. Below this, is a layer of low resistivity ranging from 3 Ωm to 57 Ωm probably saturated with water. The layer with resistivity range of about 250 Ωm to 900 Ωm is probably the host of the coal seams. It can be concluded that the occurrence of the coal seam is probably more at the Northwest of the survey area and the coal seam is suspected to have resistivity values ranging from about 250 Ωm to 900 Ωm and depth varying from 3 m to 17.2 m. Keywords: Coal Seam, Lateral Extent, Electrical Resistivity Imagin

COMPARISON OF AGRICULTURE WITH OIL ENHANCEMENT: SURVIVING STRATEGY FOR ECONOMIC MELTDOWN IN NIGERIA

This paper compares the place of Agriculture and Oil in repositioning Nigerian economy towards a path of steady economic growth with a view to establishing which strategy (agriculture or oil enhancement) that  is appropriate to checkmate the associated pains of ongoing global economic, financial and food crisis in the country. The secondary data used in this study are those relating to the contributions of Agriculture and Oil to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Principal variables) while Manufacturing and Service Sectors serve as control variables. These were obtained from Central Bank of Nigeria Annual Reports and Accounts and were analysed using Ordinary Least Square after conducting Augmented Dickey Fuller Unit Roots (ADF), Granger Causality Test as well as Johanson Co-integration Test while Actual Fitted and Residual plot was generated to test the presence of auto or serial correlation in the data. The study reveals that although Oil contributes more to export earnings in Nigeria, it has little contribution to GDP due to its associated vices of communal classes, uneven development, its limited life and crowd out of other sectors of the economy. This is in comparison with Agriculture that has more impact on GDP, generates more employment opportunities, reduces world food crisis and has no identifiable vices. It is recommended that Nigerian economic base should be diversified from oil dependence to agricultural advancement with a view to generating employment opportunities, raising the standard of living and improving economic growth.Â

Adapted Cloudlet for Mobile Distance Learning: Design, Prototype and Evaluation

The Open and Distance Learning (ODL) currently operated by some institutions in Nigeria has problems of accessibility from remote locations due to bandwidth and latency issues. To address accessibility problem caused by network delays, cloudlet computing is introduced. With cloudlet technology, distant mobile learners are able to connect to the nearby cloudlet and access the learning content. Instead of relying on a distant cloud with latency issues during access, a nearby cloudlet with rich resources could go a long way to address the resource poverty of a mobile device. This paper presents an architectural design and a prototype implementation of an adapted cloudlet for mobile distance learning. The paper proposes a feature in which the learning content in the cloud or cloudlet platform is adapted to a nearby mobile learner depending on the availability of platform with minimum delays in terms of bandwidth and latency

Comparative Evaluation of Mobile Forensic Tools

The rapid rise in the technology today has brought to limelight mobile devices which are now being used as a tool to commit crime. Therefore, proper steps need to be ensured for Confidentiality, Integrity, Authenticity and legal acquisition of any form of digital evidence from the mobile devices. This study evaluates some mobile forensic tools that were developed mainly for mobile devices memory and SIM cards. An experiment was designed with five android phones with different Operating System. Four tools were used to find out the capability and efficiency of the tools when used on the sampled phones. This would help the forensic investigator to know the type of tools that will be suitable for each phone to be investigated for acquiring digital evidence. The evaluation result showed that AccessData FTK imager and Paraben device seizure performs better than Encase and Mobiledit. The experimental result shows that, Encase could detect the unallocated space on the mobile deice but could retrieve an deleted data

Screening of Antimicrobial Ethanolic Extract of Peristrophe bicalyculata

The ethanolic extract from Peritrophe bicalyculata leaves was evaluated for the presence of phytochemicals and its antimicrobial activity in vitro against selected bacteria and fungi using the antibiotic gentamycin as control. The extract showed the presence of secondary metabolites such as alkaloid, saponin, tannin and steroid. It also inhibited the growth of the tested microorganisms at different concentrations. However stronger in-vitro activity was recorded against Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella spp, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Aspergillus niger, Asperigillus clavatus and Rhizopus stolonifer. The antimicrobial activity of the plant extract is an evidence of ethnomedicinal potential of the plant

Responses of different poultry manure levels on the growth and yield of cucumber (Cucumis sativus linn.) in Ibadan, Nigeria

The experiment was conducted at the research Farm, Federal College of Forestry Technology, Ibadan, Nigeria, to determine the Effect of Organic Manure (Poultry Manure) levels on the Growth and Yield of Cucumber (Cucumis Sativus Linn.) in Ibadan, Nigeria. Cucumis sativus seed purchased from Institute of Agricultural Research and Training (IAR&T) Ibadan, were planted on 5m by 3m pieces of land comprising of (15) beds which were divided into five columns and three rows consisting of two treatments and five replicates, treatment of 10g and 15g of poultry manure was applied per replicate. The experiment was laid out in a randomized completely block design (RCBD) comprising two treatments (including control) and each replicated five times making a total of fifteen. Both treatments showed significant variations in growth and yield parameters. The results showed that cucumber plant treated with poultry manure at 15g had highest numbers of leaves (62.28), vine length (44.04 cm), vine diameter (4.86 cm), numbers of branches (4.5 cm), which eventually resulted into bountiful fruit production with fruit length (18.1 cm/ha), fruit diameter (4.5 cm/ha), number of fruits (4.8 ), average fruit weight (169.5 g/ha) and yield (31.9 t/ ha) on the average, The increase in vine diameters and leaves production was significant at (p<0.1 and p<0.05) respective. The interactions of all other parameters were found non-significant except on average fruit weight.  The application of poultry manures at 15 t/ha is thereby recommended for commercially production of cucumber plants in lbadan for rapid growth and yield. Keywords: Manure, levels, growth, yield, cucumber

Constructal design of single microchannel heat sink with varying axial length and temperature-dependent fluid properties

The objective of this numerical study is to investigate the best geometric configuration that maximises heat transfer from the heated base by allowing both the length of the solid substrate and the microchannel heat sink freedom to morph. The thermal performance of the microchannel is based on the minimised peak temperature on the heated surface which gives a global minimised thermal resistance. The optimisation of the geometric parameters of the heat sink and solid substrate is carried out using a computational fluid dynamics code with a goal-driven optimisation algorithm. Results of the effect of Bejan number on the minimised peak temperature and minimised thermal resistance for solid substrate with varying axial lengths of 1 to 10 mm but fixed volume of 0.9 mm3 is presented. Results of optimal channel aspect ratio, solid volume fraction and channel hydraulic diameter of the microchannel were also presented.NRF, TESP, University of Stellenbosch/ University of Pretoria, SANERI/SANEDI, CSIR, EEDSM Hub and NAC.http://www.iieta.org/Journals/IJHTam2016Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineerin

Inner retinal preservation in rat models of retinal degeneration implanted with subretinal photovoltaic arrays

Photovoltaic arrays (PVA) implanted into the subretinal space of patients with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) are designed to electrically stimulate the remaining inner retinal circuitry in response to incident light, thereby recreating a visual signal when photoreceptor function declines or is lost. Preservation of inner retinal circuitry is critical to the fidelity of this transmitted signal to ganglion cells and beyond to higher visual targets. Post-implantation loss of retinal interneurons or excessive glial scarring could diminish and/or eliminate PVA-evoked signal transmission. As such, assessing the morphology of the inner retina in RP animal models with subretinal PVAs is an important step in defining biocompatibility and predicting success of signal transmission. In this study, we used immunohistochemical methods to qualitatively and quantitatively compare inner retinal morphology after the implantation of a PVA in two RP models: the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) or transgenic S334ter-line 3 (S334ter-3) rhodopsin mutant rat. Two PVA designs were compared. In the RCS rat, we implanted devices in the subretinal space at 4 weeks of age and histologically examined them at 8 weeks of age and found inner retinal morphology preservation with both PVA devices. In the S334ter-3 rat, we implanted devices at 6-12 weeks of age and again, inner retinal morphology was generally preserved with either PVA design 16-26 weeks post-implantation. Specifically, the length of rod bipolar cells and numbers of cholinergic amacrine cells were maintained along with their characteristic inner plexiform lamination patterns. Throughout the implanted retinas we found nonspecific glial reaction, but none showed additional glial scarring at the implant site. Our results indicate that subretinally implanted PVAs are well-tolerated in rodent RP models and that the inner retinal circuitry is preserved, consistent with our published results showing implant-evoked signal transmission