Preliminary studies on food and feeding habits of Polypterus endlicheri and Polypterus senegalus in Lake Chad

The food and feeding habits of Polyprerus cncllicheri and Polypterus senegalus was carried out in the months of September to October. The food of 33 Polypierus endlicheri as observed include Tilapia species (89.3%), Eutropius niloticus (28.6%), Mayfly nymph (39.3%), Dragon fly larva (56.6%) fish remains (21.4%) and detritus (7.1%). The food of27 Polypterus senegalus as observed include Tilapia sp (88.4%), Eutropius niloticus (27.9%), may fly nymph (23.3%), Dragonfly nymph (34.9%) remains (21.1%) detritus (23.3%). (9 page document) The percentage occurrence of food item found in the stomach of Polypterus endlieheri is 93.3% while that of Polyprerus senegalus is 67.4%. The dominance of Tilapia sp was establish in the study, and there is no significant difference between the feeding habit of Polypterus endlicheri and Polyprerus senegalus

Techno-Economic Feasibility Study of Autonomous Hybrid AC/DC Microgrid System

Distributed generation technology based on diesel generators often has been considered as a viable solution to providing power to remote areas, but the sky‐rocketing of diesel fuel price and the increasing cost of delivery to such remote sites have called for providing a sustainable solution that is environmentally friendly, economical, affordable, and easily accessible. To this end, the use of locally available energy resources is accepted as a sustainable solution in providing electricity for rural and remote settlements. The system cost of wind and solar energy systems is continuously decreasing because of the increase in the acceptance and deployment of the energy systems based on these renewable energy resources. A standalone hybrid AC/DC electric power system is designed, modeled, simulated, and optimized in HOMER Pro. HOMER is a Hybrid Optimization Model of Electric Renewable that enables the comparison of electric and thermal power production technologies across an extensive variety of applications. Both cycle‐charging and load‐following dispatched strategies are investigated. Plausible selected system components ratings are chosen for the simulation to ensure that there is enough search space for HOMER Pro to obtain an optimal system configuration. Net present cost (NPC) is used as an economic metric to assess the optimal configuration that is technically feasible

Development of an Energy Management System Control Algorithm for a Remote Community Microgrid System

Rural communities are often unable to access electrical energy as they are located away from the national grid. Renewable energy sources (RESs) make it possible to provide electrical energy to these isolated areas. Sustainable generation is possible at a local level and is not dependent on connection to a national power grid

Potential Beneficial Effects of Tulbaghia violacea William Henry Harvey (Alliaceae) on Cardiovascular System - A Review

Tulbaghia violacea William Henry Harvey (Harv. Alliaceae) is a small bulbous herb belonging to the family Alliaceae. It is used in South Africa to treat fever, colds, asthma, paralysis, and hypertension. Meanwhile, cardiovascular disease accounts for about 30 % of total global death, with most of these deaths occurring in low and middle-income countries. Furthermore, people in low-income countries are still largely dependent on plants in their surroundings for both prophylaxis and treatment of diseases, partly due to limited access to and cost of pharmaceuticals, and folkloric evidence of the potency of medicinal plants and/or local belief systems. Therefore, the present review aims to proffer possible ways by which T. violacea may improve cardiovascular outcomes. An extensive and systematic review of the literature was carried out, and relevant findings presented in this review. There is evidence that T. violacea may modulate the renin-angiotensin system, the autonomic nervous system, oxidative stress and haemostasis, with resultant protection of the cardiovascular system in both health and disease.Keywords: Tulbaghia violacea, Spontaneously hypertensive rats, Hypertension, Blood pressure, Heart rate, Renin-angiotensin aldosterone syste

Effects of Drying Temperature on The Effective Coefficient of Moisture Diffusivity and Activation Energy in Ibadan-Local Tomato Variety (lycopersicum esculentum)

A study of the mechanism of mass transfer phenomena of Ibadan-local variety was carried out. Ibadan-Local tomato varieties pre-treated in a binary (sugar and salt) osmotic solution of concentration (45/15oBrix), solution temperature (30, 40, 50oC), was studied by developing a mathematical model to describe the Water Loss (WL) and Solid Gains (SG). Drying was monitored at three temperatures (40, 45 and 50oC) until   equilibrium weight was achieved using the oven-dry method. Five thin layer drying models (Exponential, Henderson & Pabis, Page, Modified Page and Logarithmic) were compared and fitted into the experimental values of the non-linear moisture ratio; MR. The diffusion coefficient and activation energy were determined using the Arrhenius equation. Drying occurred in the falling rate phase and different models fit at different temperatures. Calculated values of effective moisture diffusivity varied from 1.17-3.51x10-8 to 1.25-3.13x10-8 and activation energy varied from a maximum of 52.61KJ/mol in treated to 46.81 KJ/mol in untreated tomato. At all temperatures, effective coefficient of moisture diffusivity and activation energy values was higher in osmosized tomato Keywords: Osmotic dehydration, Water loss, Solid gain, Effective moisture diffusivity and Activation energy

Influence of Varietal Difference on Qualities of Osmosized Tomato in the South Western Nigeria

Mechanism of mass transfer phenomena of three major varieties available in the South-western Nigeria market are Roma-VF Koledowo and Ibadan-Local variety. Tomato varieties pre-treated in a binary (sugar and salt) osmotic solution of three solution concentration; three temperature; five osmotic time and fruit to solution ratio 1:10 was studied by developing a conceptual model to describe the Water Loss and Solid Gains. Initial moisture content was determined using the AOAC standards. Statistical analyses of the data within and across varieties were carried out. This study therefore investigated the effect of varietal difference on the qualities of osmosized tomato i.e. the highest water loss and least solid gain. Effect of pretreatment varies with variety with a mean water loss range value of 0.2615-0.3031. Water-loss and Solid gain were significant (p?0.05) for all variables considered. Koledowo with the thickest skin had the least owing to its ability to allow moisture migration Keywords: Water loss, Solid gain, Osmotic time, Varietal difference, Pretreatmen

Comparative Study of Multiple Regression Model with Curvefit Model for The Prediction of Solar Radiation in Mubi Town Adamawa State, Nigeria

The sun emits solar radiation, which is critical for researchers working on renewable energy technology that provides ecologically favorable power systems. This research created a new model to forecast DHSR for the Mubi metropolitan area in Adamawa State, Nigeria. Data for this study were obtained from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) over a 22-year period (2000 – 2021). When DHSR was employed as an output, the requested values were air temperature (Tai) and relative humidity (Rhi). The MATHLAB curve fitting program was used to create the new DHSR mathematical model. The model was validated using five statistical methods in this study: MSE (mean square error); SSE (sum of square errors); RMSE, Chi-square error (X2), and the absolute fraction of variance (R2) are 0.0005, 0.0064, 0.0231, 0.0011kWh/m2/day, and 0.9998, respectively

The potential for using risk models in future lung cancer screening trials

Computed tomography screening for early diagnosis of lung cancer is one of the more potentially useful strategies, aside from smoking cessation programmes, for reducing mortality and improving the current poor survival from this disease. The long-term success of lung cancer screening will be dependent upon identifying populations at sufficient risk in order to maximise the benefit-to-harm ratio of the intervention. Risk prediction models could potentially play a major role in the selection of high-risk individuals who would benefit most from screening intervention programmes for the early detection of lung cancer. Improvements of developed lung cancer risk prediction models (through incorporation of objective clinical factors and genetic and molecular biomarkers for precise and accurate estimation of risks), demonstration of their clinical usefulness in decision making, and their use in future screening programmes are the focus of current research

Study of wear test on hybrid material reinforced Epoxy based Composites

In the present work, the hybrid nanomaterial such as Graphene – Multiwalled carbon nanotube reinforced epoxy composites are fabricated with dif ferent weight fraction of the reinforcement and are subjected to wear test. The mechanical properties of these composites are investigated and found posses decrease in wear rate, as the increased in weight fraction of the reinforcement there is reducing wear rate compared to the based matrix fabricated using the same process