The Socio-Economic Factors Influencing Variations on Household Food Status in Bahi District, Tanzania

This paper is an attempt to examine the socio-economic factors influencing variations on household food status in Ibugule and Kigwe villages, Bahi district, Tanzania. A mixed method approach through cross sectional research design was employed to 130 household heads aged 18 years and above. Interviews, focus group discussion, documentary review and field observation techniques were used in data collection. Descriptive statistics including frequencies and percentages were used to analyze quantitative data while content analysis has been used to analyze qualitative data. The relationship between demographic characteristics and the status of household food security was tested through Pearson Chi-square Tests at 5% significant level. The main socio-economic factors identified as influencing variations on household food status were demographic variables such as sex, age, marital status, household sizes and household heads’ occupations. Other factors include labour variations, variations on the use of agricultural inputs and equipments as well as improper usage of household grains. The correlation results indicate significant influence of sex, marital status, education level, household size and occupation on household food status variations while age had insignificant influence.  It is concluded that, variations on household food status in Bahi district is aggravated by socio-economic characteristics though the amount of grain harvested is mainly controlled by climatic factors.  Therefore, in addition to providing food aid at times of dire food shortages caused by recurring droughts, other measures such as education on post-harvest loses, proper use of the harvested grains, availability of soft loans and provision of agricultural education on good farming techniques ought to be effected in order to improve crop production and supply consequently, reduce transitory households food insecurity. Keywords: Socio-economic factors, household food status, transitory food insecurity, grains, Bahi, Tanzania

Limits on the Electromagnetic and Weak Dipole Moments of the Tau-Lepton in E_6 Superstring Models

We obtain limits on the electromagnetic and weak dipole moments of the tau-lepton in the framework of a Left-Right symmetric model (LRSM) and a class of $E_6$ inspired models with an additional neutral vector boson $Z_\theta$. Using as an input the data obtained by the L3 and OPAL Collaborations for the reaction $e^+e^-\to \tau^+\tau^-\gamma$, we get a stringent limit on the LRSM mixing angle $\phi$, $-1.66\times 10^{-3}< \phi<1.22\times 10^{-3}$, which in turn induces bounds on the tau weak dipole moments which are consistent with the bounds obtained recently by the DELPHI and ALEPH Collaborations from the reaction $e^+e^-\to \tau^+\tau^-$. We also get similar bounds for the weak dipole moments of the tau lepton in the framework of $E_6$ superstring models.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figure

The Free Amino Acid Composition of The Sudanese Fermented Camel's Milk (Garris)

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Many &nbsp;workers&nbsp; &nbsp;have&nbsp; &nbsp;investigated &nbsp;the &nbsp;composition &nbsp;of &nbsp;milk and milk &nbsp;&nbsp;proteins&nbsp; &nbsp;of &nbsp;&nbsp;various&nbsp; &nbsp;species &nbsp;of &nbsp;&nbsp;domestic &nbsp;&nbsp;animals&nbsp; &nbsp;but&nbsp; &nbsp;the information regarding &nbsp;the composition of &nbsp;fermented &nbsp;camel 's&nbsp; &nbsp;milk is &nbsp;still &nbsp;limited. The &nbsp;fresh &nbsp;camel &nbsp;milk &nbsp;contains 3.3-4.7% protein, 2.8 - 3.6% &nbsp;fat, 4.0 - 5.2% &nbsp;lactose, &nbsp;0.7% &nbsp;ash, 9.2 - 15.4% total solids, &nbsp;and &nbsp;to has &nbsp;a &nbsp;pH of &nbsp;6.0-6.5 &nbsp;(Abdel &nbsp;Rahim, 1987). The casein of camel &nbsp;milk &nbsp;is &nbsp;richer &nbsp;in &nbsp;proline &nbsp;and&nbsp; &nbsp;threonine than cow's &nbsp;milk, but poorer in alanine, arginine, glycine and serine (Hoeller and Hassan, 1965)

Synthesis and cytotoxicity evaluation of thiazole derivatives obtained from 2-amino-4,5,6,7-tetrahydrobenzo[b]thiophene-3-carbonitrile

Reactivity of 2-amino-4,5,6,7-tetrahydrobenzo[b]thiophene-3-carbonitrile towards thioglycolic acid resulted in thiazole derivative 1. The latter reacted with different chemical reagents to give thiazole, pyrano[2,3-d]thiazole and thiazolo[4,5-d]thiazole derivatives. Cytotoxicity effects of the newly synthesized products against six cancer cell lines, namely, human gastric cancer (NUGC), human colon cancer (DLD-1), human liver cancer (HA22T and HEPG-2), human breast cancer (MCF) and nasopharyngeal carcinoma (HONE-1) as well as against a normal fibroblast cell (WI-38) were evaluated. The study showed that the 4,5,6,7 tetrahydrobenzo[b]thiophene derivatives 6a, 7, 8a,b, 9b and 10b,c were the most active compounds. Their potencies were attributed to the presence of the electron withdrawing groups

Implications of Data Sampling Resolution on Water Use Simulation, End-Use Disaggregation, And Demand Management

Understanding the tradeoff between the information of high-resolution water use data and the costs of smart meters to collect data with sub-minute resolution is crucial to inform smart meter networks. To explore this tradeoff, we first present STREaM, a STochastic Residential water End-use Model that generates synthetic water end-use time series with 10-s and progressively coarser sampling resolutions. Second, we apply a comparative framework to STREaM output and assess the impact of data sampling resolution on end-use disaggregation, post meter leak detection, peak demand estimation, data storage, and meter availability. Our findings show that increased sampling resolution allows more accurate end-use disaggregation, prompt water leakage detection, and accurate and timely estimates of peak demand. Simultaneously, data storage requirements and limited product availability mean most large-scale, commercial smart metering deployments sense data with hourly, daily, or coarser sampling frequencies. Overall, this work provides insights for further research and commercial deployment of smart water meters

An adaptive stereo basis method for convolutive blind audio source separation

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Neurocomputing. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in PUBLICATION, [71, 10-12, June 2008] DOI:neucom.2007.08.02

PHYTOCHEMICAL STUDY OF BIOACTIVE CONSTITUENTS FROM SATUREJA MONTANA L. GROWING IN EGYPT AND THEIR ANTIMICROBIAL AND ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITIES

 Objective: This work aimed to investigate the lipid constituents and flavonoidal compounds of Satureja montana, in addition to evaluation of different extracts and/or isolated compounds as antimicrobials and antioxidants.Methods: The volatile and lipid constituents were extracted with n-hexane by partition from hydroalcoholic extract of S. montana L. aerial parts, after then were fractionated to unsaponifiable matters and fatty acid methyl esters which were identified by gas–liquid chromatography and/or gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. The phenolic constituents were isolated from the ethyl acetate fraction of the aqueous methanolic extract of the aerial parts of the plant. The antimicrobial activity of different extracts and the isolated compounds was evaluated against Gram-positive, Gram-negative bacteria, yeast, and fungus using a modified Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method.Results: The identified compounds are luteolin-7-rhamnoside-4'-O-β-glucopyranoside (1), quercetin-3-O-α-L-rhamnopyranoside (2), quercetin- 7-O-glucopyranoside (3), luteolin-7-O-glucopyranoside (4), 5-hydroxy-6,7,8,4'-tetramethoxy flavone (5), gallic acid (6), 2,3-hexahydroxydiphenoyl 1-galloyl glucopyranoside (7), and quercetin (8). The structure of all isolated compounds was established using different chromatographic and spectroscopic measurements (PC, thin-layer chromatography, ultraviolet [UV], 1D, 2D-nuclear magnetic resonance, and MS). Compound-2 showed the highest antibacterial activity against all the tested microorganisms. Hydroalcoholic extract exhibited high antioxidant activity (87.7%). On the other hand, hexane fraction showed a low antioxidant activity (46.4%), in addition to the compound-8 showed the highest antioxidant activity (96.27%) in 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl assay.Conclusion: It can be concluded that the hydroalcoholic extract of S. montana showed significant antimicrobial and antioxidant activity

Coyote multi-objective optimization algorithm for optimal location and sizing of renewable distributed generators

Research on the integration of renewable distributed generators (RDGs) in radial distribution systems (RDS) is increased to satisfy the growing load demand, reducing power losses, enhancing voltage profile, and voltage stability index (VSI) of distribution network. This paper presents the application of a new algorithm called ‘coyote optimization algorithm (COA)’ to obtain the optimal location and size of RDGs in RDS at different power factors. The objectives are minimization of power losses, enhancement of voltage stability index, and reduction total operation cost. A detailed performance analysis is implemented on IEEE 33 bus and IEEE 69 bus to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The results are found to be in a very good agreement