Humic Substances and Mineral Elements Contents of White Grubs and Waste Deposit

The humic substances and mineral elements content of white grubs (WG) and waste deposit (WD) were analyzed. WG was found to contain higher amount of fulvic acid (16.05 ± 4.28%) and humic acid (9.50 ± 2.06 %) compared to the respective value of 2.75 ± 0.38% and 4.25 ± 1.05 %. It could be inferred that WG accumulate these humic substances (humic and fulvic acids) from the environmental waste and these probably contribute to medicinal properties of the grubs. The mineral elements Fe, Mn, Na, K, Ca, and Co were significantly (p Mg > Na > Ca > Mn > Zn > Fe > Cu. These elements were found in appreciable amount to meet nutritional requirements. WG could, therefore, be nutritionally and medically relevant

Optimum pH and pH Stability of Crude Polyphenol Oxidase (PPO) Extracted from Five Fruit Samples Commonly Consumed in Kano State, Nigeria

The effect of pH on the activity and stability of crude polyphenol oxidase (PPO) extracted from garden egg (Solanum aethiopicum), pawpaw (Carica papaya), pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo), guava (Psidium guajava) and bush mango (Irvingia gabonnensis) fruits were studied. Catechol at concentration of 20 mM was used as a substrate while sodium acetate buffer (0.2 M), pH range between 3.0– 5.5 and sodium phosphate buffer(0.2 M) , pH range between 6.0– 8.5 were used to determine the effect of pH on the PPO activity. Optimum pH values were found to be 6.0,6.5,6.0, 4.5 and 4.0/or 8.0 for the enzyme extracted from Solanum aethiopicum, Carica papaya, Cucurbita pepo, Psidium guajava and Irvingia gabonnensis respectively. The enzyme was found to be stable at the pH range of 5.0-7.5 for the enzyme extracted from garden egg, 6.0-8.0 for that from pawpaw, 4.5-7.0 for that from pumpkin, 4.0-6.5 for that from guava and 3.5-5.5 and 7.0-8.0 for that from bush mango respectively. Increase or decrease of pH from the ranges would cause decrease in the activity of the enzyme, and can be a good way of controlling undesirable changes caused by it in foods. Keywords: Optimum pH, pH stability, Polyphenol oxidase, Common fruits

Inversion of exciton level splitting in quantum dots

The demonstration of degeneracy of exciton spin states is an important step toward the production of entangled photon pairs from the biexciton cascade. We measure the fine structure of exciton and biexciton states for a large number of single InAs quantum dots in a GaAs matrix; the energetic splitting of the horizontally and vertically polarized components of the exciton doublet is shown to decrease as the exciton confinement decreases, crucially passing through zero and changing sign. Thermal annealing is shown to reduce the exciton confinement, thereby increasing the number of dots with splitting close to zero

Monitoring training loads in elite tennis

Training load (TL) is influenced by both training volume and training intensity. A precise understanding of the TLs completed during training is crucial to achieve desirable training outcomes and to avoid overtraining. TL can be monitored in many different ways; however, we recommend the session-rate of perceived exertion (session-RPE) method for quantifying TL because of its low cost and because it is easy to understand and relatively simple to implement. In this report, we provide data regarding TLs collected during the 2008 Roland Garros Tournament. Our experience in tennis suggests the session-RPE method to be a valuable tool that can be used to control training and to avoid excessive TLs. We also believe that accurate monitoring of TL will enable the coach to better understand of the sports training process, ultimately leading to the improvement of performance

Toxicity and histopathological effect of atrazine (Herbicide) on the earthworm Nsukkadrilus mbae under laboratory conditions

The toxicity and histopathological effects of the herbicide Atrazine to the earthworm Nsukkadrilus mbae were studied under laboratory conditions. N. mbae were exposed to different concentrations of Atrazine (0.0, 0.4, 0.8, 3.0 and 9.0 mg/kg soil) for 96 hours and mortality was recorded every 24 hour. In addition, sections of the worm were made after 96 hours for microscopic examination. There was no mortality in the control group but in the experiments groups throughout the study. The mortality in the different treatment groups was significantly different (P > 0.05) and was concentration dependent. The LC50 of Atrazine after 24, 48, 72 and 96 hours were 8.60, 7.05, 7.37 and 7.23 respectively. The histopathological manifestations of exposing N. mbae to the herbicide included damage to the chloragogenous layer, damage of the epithelial tissues; glandular enlargement of the epithelial tissues, prominent vacoulations and pyknotic cells. The result of the study showed that both mortality and histopathology data could be used in environmental risk assessment of Atrazine

Complete resummation of chirally-enhanced loop-effects in the MSSM with non-minimal sources of flavor-violation

In this article we present the complete resummation of the leading chirally-enhanced corrections stemming from gluino-squark, chargino-sfermion and neutralino-sfermion loops in the MSSM with non-minimal sources of flavor-violation. We compute the finite renormalization of fermion masses and the CKM matrix induced by chirality-flipping self-energies. In the decoupling limit Msusy>>v, which is an excellent approximation to the full theory, we give analytic results for the effective gaugino(higgsino)-fermion-sfermion and the Higgs-fermion-fermion vertices. Using these vertices as effective Feynman rules, all leading chirally-enhanced corrections can consistently be included into perturbative calculations of Feynman amplitudes. We also give a generalized parametrization for the bare CKM matrix which extends the classic Wolfenstein parametrization to the case of complex parameters lambda and A.Comment: 31 pages, 3 figures; typos correcte

Developing a Sustainable Concrete using Ceramic Waste Powder

The change from a traditional utilization based society to a sustainable society is urgently needed because of the contamination of the natural environment, the depletion of the natural resources and the reduced capacity of the final waste disposal arrangements. Concrete is regarded as an advanced and major construction material which needs continuous innovation and improvement to reduce environmental impact. In the future, the demand for concrete will be increasing with the increase in population. This article presents an experimental study of using ceramic waste as a limited replacement with cement in structural concrete. Ceramic waste deposit, on one side, poses a number of environmental challenges, ranging from air, water and soil contaminations but on another side, it has cementitious properties. Concrete mixtures with different percentage of ceramic waste powder were produced, tested and compared in terms of compressive strength. As a result, the maximum compressive strength achieved with a 30% ceramic waste. The purpose of this study was to examine the performance of cement concrete with different percentage of ceramic waste powder, it needs to be noted that such performance may be varied when the grade of cement or chemical composition of ceramic waste powder will be changed. The long-run performance (after 28 days) of such concrete and especially when used with reinforcement need to be investigated further

Evaluation of acute toxicity and anti-inflammatory effects of Baccharoides schimperi (DC.) in experimental animals

Background: Steroidal and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are most commonly used to treat inflammation, and shown to have severe side effects. In this study, we aimed at evaluating the anti-inflammatory and acute toxicity effects of Baccharoides schimperi (DC.) in order to get new anti-inflammatory agents of natural origin.Materials and methods: The aerial part of the plant was dried under shade, ground and extracted with 96% alcohol (BSE). It was further fractionated in sequence to n-hexane (BSH), chloroform (BSC) and methanol (BSM) soluble fractions. Acute toxicity was evaluated by oral administration of plant and hind paw induced-edema method in rats was used for the anti-inflammatory evaluation.Results: The BSE was found safe up to the dose level of 3 g/kg b.w. and showed LD50 value 7.250 g/kg body weight (b.w.) in mice. BSE showed significant anti-inflammatory effect (62.91%) at 500 mg/kg b.w. Further the n-hexane, chloroform and methanol fractions of BSE were tested for antiinflammatory activity. The n-hexane fraction (BSH) exhibits significant activity (64.87%) at 400 mg/kg b.w. The methanol fraction (BSM) showed dose dependent activity, highest activity (60.42%) was observed at higher  dose 400 of mg/kg b.w. In chloroform fraction (BSC) no significant activitywas observed.Conclusion: The results of the study revealed that the plant is safe to the experimental model and recommended as a potential source of antiinflammatory agent.Key words: Acute toxicity, anti-inflammatory activity, Baccharoide schimperi (DC.

Characterizing Triviality of the Exponent Lattice of A Polynomial through Galois and Galois-Like Groups

The problem of computing \emph{the exponent lattice} which consists of all the multiplicative relations between the roots of a univariate polynomial has drawn much attention in the field of computer algebra. As is known, almost all irreducible polynomials with integer coefficients have only trivial exponent lattices. However, the algorithms in the literature have difficulty in proving such triviality for a generic polynomial. In this paper, the relations between the Galois group (respectively, \emph{the Galois-like groups}) and the triviality of the exponent lattice of a polynomial are investigated. The \bbbq\emph{-trivial} pairs, which are at the heart of the relations between the Galois group and the triviality of the exponent lattice of a polynomial, are characterized. An effective algorithm is developed to recognize these pairs. Based on this, a new algorithm is designed to prove the triviality of the exponent lattice of a generic irreducible polynomial, which considerably improves a state-of-the-art algorithm of the same type when the polynomial degree becomes larger. In addition, the concept of the Galois-like groups of a polynomial is introduced. Some properties of the Galois-like groups are proved and, more importantly, a sufficient and necessary condition is given for a polynomial (which is not necessarily irreducible) to have trivial exponent lattice.Comment: 19 pages,2 figure