The Effect of the Growth Condition on the Properties of the New Material Sn3Sb2S6 Thin Films

Sulfosalt Sn3Sb2S6 material was synthesised by the horizontal Bridgman method. X-rays diffraction analysis of the powder showed that only homogenous Sn3Sb2S6 phase is present in the ingot. Sn3Sb2S6 thin films were deposited by a single source vacuum thermal evaporation with different thicknesses on glass substrates. The optical and structural properties of the films were studied as a function of thicknesses and temperature substrates. It is interest to note that Sn3Sb2S6 films exhibit polycrystalline structures along (416) preferred plane without heating the substrates. In addition, we note that as the thickness increases from 150 nm to 430 nm the average grain size increases from 190 to 350 °A. The samples have direct bandgap energies of 1.5 - 1.75 eV. Furthermore, we found that the absorption coefficient in all cases reached 104 cm−1. So, Sulfosalt Sn3Sb2S6 thin films could be used as a potential candidate in may technological applications such as photovoltaic solar cell

Participatory Approach to Common Use Grazing Management in Dry Area Developing Countries

Key points 1. Range restoration technology is available but useless when not followed by management. 2. Institutional mechanisms for grazing management are needed for communal range. 3. Community participatory approaches help pastoralists better manage rangeland grazing

Chemical composition, antimicrobial, antioxidant and anticancer activities of essential oil from Ammodaucus leucotrichus Cosson & Durieu (Apiaceae) growing in South Algeria

ABSTRACT. The chemical composition of the essential oil obtained by hydrodistillation from aerial parts of A. leucotrichus Cosson & Durieu (Apiaceae) grown in the south of Algeria (El-Oued) was determined by GC-MS analysis. The oil was found to be rich in perilladehyde 64.66% and D-Limonene 26.99%. The biological activity of A. leucotrichus Cosson & Durieu essential oil has been investigated. The in vitro antimicrobial activity of the essential oil sample was tested on eight strains, one yeast and one fungi. The test showed interesting antimicrobial properties, especially on Salmonella enterica and E. coli, the antioxidant capacity of the oil was measured using the cyclic voltammetry, and the AAT value of A. leucotrichus essential oil was evaluated 47.84 mg α-TE/L. In addition, the antitumor activity showed that the oil of A. leucotrichus was very significant against the HCT116 colon cancer cell line.               KEY WORDS: Ammodaucus leucotrichus, Antioxidant activity, Anticancer activity, Cyclic voltammetry Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2019, 33(3), 541-549. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v33i3.1

Assessment of nutrients status of areas supporting optimum oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq. L) cultivation in Ghana

In Ghana, information on the fertility status to support oil palm growth and productivity and possible fertilizer recommendation is not common. The objective of this study was to assess the nutrition-related limitations to production of oil palm across areas climatically delineated as optimum for sustainable oil palm production. Based on Ghana Interim Soil Classification System, benchmark soils identified in these areas were: Temang (Lixisols), Akroso (Acrisol), Kokofu (Alisols), Basitia (Acrislos), Firam (Acrisols) and Nkwanta (Acrisols). Results indicated generally strongly acidic soil and exchangeable acidity values obtained were high and consistent with very acidic soil conditions. There were generally- high C: N ratios (>20) except some few sites, thus supplementary nitrogen is required to reduce C: N ratio and improve N availability. The Total Exchangeable Bases (TEB), Effective Cation Exchange Capacity (ECEC) and available P values were less than the optimum values for sustainable oil palm production. Both soil and foliar analysis indicated that soils in areas assessed have low soil fertility with relatively good soil physical conditions. It is recommended that instead of superphosphate fertilizer application, rock phosphate should be administered due to high acidity. Raising the low ECEC levels of the soil calls for composted empty fruit bunches incorporation

Multiuser detection in CDMA — A comparison of minimum mean square error and simulating annealing heuristic algorithm

In the conventional single user detector in Direct Sequence-Code Division Multiple Access (DS-CDMA) systems, multiple access interference and near-far effect cause limitation of capacity. On the other hand, the optimal multiuser detector (OMUD) suffers from computational complexity that grows exponentially with the number of active users. During the last two decades, there has been a lot of interest in development of suboptimal multiuser detectors, which are low in complexity but deliver reasonable performance. In this paper, we present a novel multiuser detector based on the heuristic algorithm known as simulating annealing algorithm (SA). We evaluate performances of the proposed algorithm and compare it to the performances of Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) multiuser detectors. We show that the new algorithm outperforms the other one

Insecticide spray regime effect on cowpea yield and financial returns in northern Ghana

United States Agency for International Developmen