Growth and yield performance of Trinidad cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) collections in Karnataka

Please see the pdf file here: http://indsocplantationcrops.in/journal.ph

Prevalence of Entamoeba histolytica among patients with gastroenteritis attending some selected hospitals in Zaria Metropolis, Kaduna State

Background: Amoebiasis is a cosmopolitan infection caused by Entamoeba histolytica and ranks third among parasitic infections that lead to death especially in children. Clinical features of amoebiasis range from asymptomatic colonization of amoebic colitis (dysentery or diarrhoea) and invasive extra intestinal amoebiasis, which is manifested most commonly in the form of liver abscesses. Aim: The prevalence of E. histolytica infection in patients having gastroenteritis attending three selected hospitals in Zaria, Kaduna state was studied using direct wet mount and formol-ether concentration method. The hospitals were Hajiya Gambo Sawaba General Hospital Kofan Gayan (Gambo Sawaba), Major Ibrahim B. Abdullahi Memorial Hospital Sabon Gari, Zaria (Limi hospital) and University Health Services ABU Zaria (Sick Bay). Methods: One hundred and forty stool samples from gastroenteritis patients of all ages attending the selected hospitals were examined for E. histolytica trophozoites/cysts via direct wet mount and formol-ether concentration method. Results: Eight samples were positive giving an overall prevalence of 5.71%. Highest prevalence (10.4%) was obtained from patients attending Gambo Sawaba Hospital. The prevalence of 2.4% and 4.0% were recorded among gastroenteritis patients attending Limi Hospital and University (A.B.U, Zaria) health service respectively. With respect to age, the prevalence (11.4%) was highest in the age group 11-15 (years) followed by 6-10 years with prevalence of 6.38%. However, none of the socio-demographic factors examined showed significant statistical association (P>0.05)

Physicochemical characterization and evaluation of the antioxidant activities of essential oil extracted from Eucalyptus globulus

This work was conducted as part of evaluation of the antioxidant activities of the essential oil extracted from a plant that belongs to the family of Myrtaceae: Eucalyptus globulus. The extraction of the essential oil was carried out by hydrodistillation and followed by extraction yield determination and physicochemical analysis. Then, the evaluation of the antioxidant activity was performed according to the method of DPPH free radical scavenging and the determination of total antioxidant capacity. The extraction of the essential oil gave a content of 0.41 ± 0.01%. The analytical study of the physicochemical properties of the essential oil of E. globulus showed that this plant presented an essential oil of acceptable quality and in conformity with the standard. The results of the evaluation of the antioxidant activity showed that this essential oil has interesting antiradical properties. It was manifested by a low value of IC50 (0.017 mg /ml) compared to the standard antioxidant (ascorbic acid). It was noticed that the essential oil of E. globulus has an antioxidant capacity of the order of 19 ± 0.01 mg AAE/g. This result showed that the essential oil of E. globulus has a powerful antioxidant power by reducing phosphomolybdate. Thus, the essential oil of E. globulus appeared effective in reducing oxidative reactions. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.503354

Conflict-Aware Active Automata Learning

Active automata learning algorithms cannot easily handle conflict in the observation data (different outputs observed for the same inputs). This inherent inability to recover after a conflict impairs their effective applicability in scenarios where noise is present or the system under learning is mutating. We propose the Conflict-Aware Active Automata Learning (C AL) framework to enable handling conflicting information during the learning process. The core idea is to consider the so-called observation tree as a first-class citizen in the learning process. Though this idea is explored in recent work, we take it to its full effect by enabling its use with any existing learner and minimizing the number of tests performed on the system under learning, specially in the face of conflicts. We evaluate C AL in a large set of benchmarks, covering over 30 different realistic targets, and over 18,000 different scenarios. The results of the evaluation show that C AL is a suitable alternative framework for closed-box learning that can better handle noise and mutations

Evaluation in vitro de l’activité antifongique de quatre plantes médicinales marocaines sur cinq champignons phytopathogènes

La multi résistance fongique pose de grands problèmes au niveau de la protection des plantes. En effet, il ne reste que peu de produits antifongiques efficaces contre certains agents multi résistants. Les scientifiques sont donc à la recherche de nouveaux produits d’origine naturelle, présentant moins de danger pour la santé, palliant aux effets secondaires des fongicides tels les métabolites secondaires des plantes médicinales et présentant une activité antimicrobienne. Etant donné que le Maroc figure parmi les principaux pays producteurs de plantes aromatiques et médicinales, notre présente étude s’est proposée de tester l’activité antifongique des extraits de quatre plantes médicinales, Euphorbia sp, Equisetum ramosissimum, Eryngium atlanticum et Daphne gnidium. Les tests ont été effectués sur cinq champignons phytopathogènes, Alternaria alternata (ALT), Botrytis cinerea (BOT), Fusarium oxysporum (FUS), Helminthosporium sativum (HS), et Sclerotinia sclerotiorum ( SS ). Les résultats obtenus montrent que les extraits de décoction d’E. ramosissimum et d’E. atlanticum sont inactifs contre trois champignons de notre étude. Par contre, les extraits de la décoction de Euphorbia sp et de D. gnidium ont présenté une très bonne activité antifongique vis-à-vis des espèces fongiques testées. Toutefois, Euphorbia sp s’est montrée la plus efficace. En effet, sous son action à 4,64mg/ml, l’inhibition est de 100% pour HS, de 80% pour ALT et FUS et de 40% pour SS et BOT

Fungal diversity and mycotoxin contamination of some selected food commodities from Ivory Coast

Abstract: This study surveyed fungi and mycotoxins in important food crops consumed in Ivory Coast. To achieve this, the following local food items (attieke, cassava flakes, chilli, gnangnan, haricot, melon, millet, okra, rice, white maize and yellow maize) were sampled from local markets (Adjame, Cocody and Youpougon) in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. They were screened for fungal contamination based on morphological characters and confirmed by PCR using the internal transcribed spacer 1 and 4 primers (ITS1 and ITS4). A total of 227 isolates were morphologically identified withisolates dominated by species within the genera Aspegillus (54.9 %) followed by Penicillium (23.3 %) and Fusarium (14.3 %). Few isolated species were confirmed in other genera which include Alternaria, Chaetomium, Cladosporium, Epicoccum, Emerica, Rhizopus and Trichoderma spp.The highest mean fungal load of 6.85 x 105 CFU/g was found in white maize while the lowest mean level of 4.39x104CFU/g was recorded in cassava flakes. The subset of isolates were identified using ITS1 and ITS4, as Aspergillus species found to be most frequentin cassava flakes, chilli, gnangnan, haricot, rice and yellow maize. Penicillium species were also found frequent in chilli, haricot and rice, while Fusarium species were frequent in melon and millet...M.A. (Biotechnology

AGRICULTURE AND BIOLOGY JOURNAL OF NORTH AMERICA Variability of production out of fruits of Shea trees

ABSTRACT Vitellaria paradoxa, generally known under the name of shea tree is an endemic fruit tree of sudanese zone of Africa. This tree provides to local populations, tasty fruits, medical products, wood resisting and especially butter, the shea butter, universally known. The activities of research concentrated on the lightening of the constraints of treatment of butter. Thus, in spite of its many uses and its economic importance, the shea tree remains still an entirely wild resource. Its production out of fruits is irregular from one year to another. The irregularity of the production out of fruits makes difficult the industrial exploitation of the plant. The causes of this interannual variability of the production out of fruits were not explained yet. The present study, carried out in the North of Côte d'Ivoire, is an attempt at explanation of the interannual variability of the production out of fruits of the species. It made it possible to highlight, of trees with good regular production beside others with irregular production. The presence of producing good trees in the settlements of shea tree shows that the genetic improvement of the species is possible

BLOW-UP TIME OF SOLUTIONS FOR SOME NONLINEAR PARABOLIC EQUATIONS

Abstract: In this paper, we consider the following initial-boundary value problem ε is a positive parameter, Ω is a bounded domain in R N with smooth boundary ∂Ω, f (s) is positive, nondecreasing, convex function for positive values of s and ∞ ds f (s) < ∞. We show that if ε is small enough, the solution u of the above problem blows up in a finite time and its blow-up time tends to the one of the solution of the following differential equation as ε goes to zero, where M = sup x∈Ω u 0 (x). Finally, we give some numerical results to illustrate our analysis