Assessment of Biofertilizer Quality and Health Implications of Anaerobic Digestion Effluent of Cow Dung and Chicken Droppings

Anaerobic digestate have been identified as a rich source of essential plant nutrients. Nevertheless, its safety measured by the concentration of pathogen present is of great concern to end users. This research explored the efficiency of the mesophilic biodigestion process in the stabilization and sanitization of cow dung and chicken droppings. Six (6) kg each of cow dung and chicken droppings were collected fresh and free from impurities, pre-fermented, mixed with water in the ratio 1:1 w/v to form slurry, fed into the respective reactors and digested for 30 days at an average ambient temperature of 30 � 2 �C. The pH of the medium fluctuated between 6.5 and 8.0. The analysis of the feedstock and effluent of the digesters showed that a total solids reduction of 75.3% and 60.1% were recorded for cow dung and chicken droppings while the reduction in total coliforms was 95% and 70% respectively for the dung and droppings. Microbial analysis of the biofertilizer produced reveals both aerobic and anaerobic organisms which include species of Pseudomonas, Klebsiella, Clostridium, Bacillus, Bacteroides, Salmonella, Penicillum and Aspergillus. Escherichia coli and Shigella spp. were removed while species of Salmonella and Klebsiella were still present in the digestate. Notwithstanding these results, the digestate still requires further treatment for it to be suitable for application on unrestricted crops either as fertilizer; otherwise a health problem would be created as attempt is made to improve soil fertilit

EVALUATION OF BIOGAS POTENTIALS OF Cymbopogon citratus AS ALTERNATIVE ENERGY IN NIGERIA

This research explored the potentials of Cymbopogon citratus (Lemon Grass) for biogas production as a cost effective alternative energy source in Nigeria. The Cymbopogon citratus was crushed to small sizes between 20 to 50mm and pre-fermented for 40 days in a PVC drum. Six (6) kg of the pre-fermented Cymbopogon citratus was mixed with water in ratio 1:1 w/v to form slurry and digested for 30 days. The floating drum gas collection system was used to collect the gas after it was passed through water and lime respectively for scrubbing. A total of 0.125m3 (6.95x10-4 m3/kg/day) and 0.0897m3 (4.98x10-4 m3/kg/day) of biogas was produced from the Cymbopogon citratus before and after scrubbing respectively. The gas produced was used for cooking test. The scrubbed gas had higher cooking rates for both water and rice respectively (0.12L/min and 0.0052L/min) while the cooking rates for unscrubbed gas were 0.079L/min and 0.0036L/min respectively. During this period, daily ambient temperatures of the research environment varied from 310C to 420C while the digester temperature fluctuated between 28oC and 36.70C. The pH of the medium fluctuated optimally between 6.5 and 7.8. The research demonstrated that Biogas could be produced from Cymbopogon citratus in quantity and quality comparative with those in literatures

Safety and efficacy of laropiprant and extended-release niacin combination in the management of mixed dyslipidemias and primary hypercholesterolemia

Statins form the cornerstone of pharmaceutical cardiovascular disease prevention. However, despite very effective statin intervention, the majority of events remain unpreventable. In some cases statin therapy alone is insufficient to achieve adequate lipid levels whereas other patients are unable to tolerate statins. This calls for additional treatment options. Niacin has a long history of success in reducing low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglycerides, and increasing high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. It was the first lipid-lowering drug to demonstrate a reduction in cardiovascular events, and remains the only one that has consistently shown benefits on surrogate outcomes when added to background therapies of other lipid-lowering drugs, including statins. Niacin’s uptake in clinical practice has been less successful due to its side-effect profile, most notable being flushing. The uncovering of the mechanism by which flushing is induced, together with the development of a prostaglandin D2 receptor inhibitor (laropiprant) which reduces this downstream flushing effect of niacin, has sparked new promise in therapeutic lipid management. It provides an additional treatment option into managing lipid abnormalities. The uptake in clinical practice of the niacin–laropiprant combination will depend on the relative improvements experienced by the patient in the side-effect profile compared to other treatment options, as well as on the the keenly-awaited outcome studies currently underway. Until these data become available guidelines and recommendations are unlikely to change and niacin’s position in therapeutic cardiovascular risk prevention will be determined by clinician opinion and experience, and patient preferences

Deep learning with convolutional neural networks for decoding and visualization of EEG pathology

We apply convolutional neural networks (ConvNets) to the task of distinguishing pathological from normal EEG recordings in the Temple University Hospital EEG Abnormal Corpus. We use two basic, shallow and deep ConvNet architectures recently shown to decode task-related information from EEG at least as well as established algorithms designed for this purpose. In decoding EEG pathology, both ConvNets reached substantially better accuracies (about 6% better, ~85% vs. ~79%) than the only published result for this dataset, and were still better when using only 1 minute of each recording for training and only six seconds of each recording for testing. We used automated methods to optimize architectural hyperparameters and found intriguingly different ConvNet architectures, e.g., with max pooling as the only nonlinearity. Visualizations of the ConvNet decoding behavior showed that they used spectral power changes in the delta (0-4 Hz) and theta (4-8 Hz) frequency range, possibly alongside other features, consistent with expectations derived from spectral analysis of the EEG data and from the textual medical reports. Analysis of the textual medical reports also highlighted the potential for accuracy increases by integrating contextual information, such as the age of subjects. In summary, the ConvNets and visualization techniques used in this study constitute a next step towards clinically useful automated EEG diagnosis and establish a new baseline for future work on this topic.Comment: Published at IEEE SPMB 2017 https://www.ieeespmb.org/2017

Modelling Flow over Stepped Spillway with Varying Chute Geometry

This study has modeled some characteristics of the flows over stepped spillway with varying chute geometry through a laboratory investigation. Using six physically built stepped spillway models, with each having six horizontal plain steps at 4cm constant height, 30 cm width and respective chute slope angles at 310, 320, 330, 340, 350 or 360 placed respectively within a tilting flume to obtain some varying flow data in 36 different experiments. These obtained flow data were used as inputs in a simple regression analysis to derive the parameters for each of the three mathematical relationships developed through dimensional analysis to respectively predict the flow rate, the sequent depth ratio and the total energy dissipated in the non-aerated flow region over each of the stepped spillway models. The percentage difference between the values predicted by each of these modeled equations and their respective actual values ranges between 0.10% and 1.28%

Empirical Modeling of Oxygen Uptake of Flow Over Stepped Chutes

The present investigation evaluates the influence of three different step chute geometry when skimming flow was allowed over them with the aim of determining the aerated flow length which is a significant factor when developing empirical equations for estimating aeration efficiency of flow. Overall, forty experiments were conducted in the Hydraulics Laboratory of the Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria-Nigeria to determined the aeration efficiency of flow over the three different chute geometry at the water temperature T and at the standard temperature of 200C. Data of the aeration parameters were analysed using a regression model to develop an empirical equation used for the prediction of aeration efficiency of flow for the three chute geometry under consideration. The results revealed that the aeration efficiency increases with an increased in the length of aeration but decreases with an increased in both the critical depth and roughness Froude number. The results also indicated that percentage of the length of aeration range from 51.6-71.4% over the stepped chute length for the range of unit discharge of 43.4-26.1 L/s.m. The aerated length in all the three chute geometry showed that they could contribute significantly to the overall aeration efficiency, especially the inclined chute type. The inclined chute configuration could be employed, optimally, as a water treatment structure.http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/njt.v34i1.

Identifikasi Sumber Ketahanan Aksesi Plasma Nutfah Kedelai Untuk Ulat Grayak Spodoptera Litura F.

The importantaspect of development of resistant plant to insect pest is sourceof resistance. Study the resistance of 14 advance soybeanbreeding lines to common cutworm Spodoptera litura F. wasconducted at the Laboratory of Crop Protection, IndonesianLegumes and Tuber Crops Research Institute (ILETRI)Malang in February-September, 2006. Leaf damage and larvaldevelopment on resistant genotypes was recorded to measurethe level of resistance. It was found that the susceptibility ofsoybeans to the common cutworm significantly varied amongthe breeding lines. The leaf damage of IAC-100, IAC 80-596-2, and W/80-2-4-20 from larval feeding were 17.67, 18.52, and23.70% respectively lower than Wilis variety with 35.57% ofleaf damage. These breeding lines consistently possess samelevel of resistance to S. litura. In addition, the resistantbreeding lines affect on biological aspects i.e. prolongedduration of larval stage, reduced larval and pupae gain weight,and cause significant larval mortality compared with Wilisvariety. The study suggested that IAC-100, IAC 80-596-2, andW/80-2-4-20 could be used as a source of resistance for S.litura in breeding program

Turbidity removal from surface water using Tamarindus indica crude pulp extract

Plant-based coagulants are potential alternatives to chemical coagulants used in drinking water treatment. This paper examined the turbidity removal efficiency of Tamarindus indica fruit crude pulp extract (CPE) towards evaluating a low-cost option for drinking-water treatment. Laboratory analysis was carried out on high turbidity raw water samples (i.e. 478 NTU) using T. indica CPE of concentrations ranging from 500 to 3000 mg/L as natural coagulant, using jar tests. Results obtained showed turbidity removal efficiency of the coagulant ranging from 64 to 99%. An optimum dose of 3000 mg/L resulted in highest turbidity removal efficiency of 99%. However, the treated water samples were observed to be of high acidity with pH values lower than 3.0, suggesting the need for pH adjustment. Nevertheless, this study demonstrated the potentials of T. indica CPE in coagulating high turbidity surface water.Keywords: Coagulation; crude pulp extract, pH, turbidity removal, T. indic