Interferometric studies of non-steady absorption with chemical reaction

Imperial Users onl

Shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) Pulp Juice Production and Quality Evaluation via Proximate and Mineral Composition Analyses

Shea trees (Vitellaria paradoxa) are common in African countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Sudan, and others. When fully ripe, the Shea tree's green fruit turns yellow. The tree is well-known and valued for its versatility. Its entire composition is useful in the food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries. Among its applications is the production of butter from the nuts, while the rest of the fruit is left to rot or discarded. This study focuses on using other parts of the fruit to create a new product, reduce waste, and expand the Shea value chain. Three formulations of Shea fruit juice were created. The juice were evaluated for nutritional, physicochemical, and mineral compositions. The nutritional composition revealed a high moisture content that ranged from 84.39 to 93.01%, high carbohydrate and caloric values, ranging from 5.84 to 8.96% and 33.51 to 67.31%, respectively. It also had a high concentration of vitamin C (16.45 - 38.99 percent). The mineral composition was observed to increase as the Shea pulp percentage increased. Magnesium was observed to be higher in sample C (36.71±0.24) while sample A recorded a lower magnesium content (18.04±0.06). Calcium was also found to be present in high concentrations (30.07 - 50.64 %). The juice's potassium content ranged from 58.6 - 50.54% in sample C to 24.6 - 60.16% in sample A. The physicochemical analysis revealed a close range of p H values (5.37 - 6.06 %) between the samples and the control, making the juice less susceptible to spoilage. Overall, the results presented a high-quality juice that could compete favorably in the market with other fruit juices

ECONOMIC-EMISSION DISPATCH WITH SEMIDEFINITE PROGRAMMING AND RATIONAL FUNCTION APPROXIMATIONS

The emission function associated with the economic-emission dispatch problem contains exponential functions that model the emission pollutants. This paper presents a strategy of solving the economic-emission dispatch problem whereby the exponential function is approximated by a rational function that permits reduction to a standard polynomial optimization problem. This is reformulated as a hierarchy of semidefinite relaxation problems using the moment theory and the resulting SDP problem is solved. Different degrees of rational functional approximation were considered. The approach was tested on the IEEE 30-bus test systems to investigate its effectiveness. Solutions obtained were compared with those from some of the well known evolutionary methods. Results showed that SDP has inherently good convergence property and a lower but comparable diversity property

Assessment of Public-Private-Participation of Solid Waste Management: A Case Study Warri, Nigeria

The menace of indiscriminately disposed heaps of refuse in most urban centers in Nigeria is a confirmation of the inability of the government to cope with the ills associated with rapid population growth rate and urbanization. This study assessed the participation of the private sector in the management and recycling of solid wastes as they together with the public sector strive to attain healthy and neat cities. The Actor Network Theory (ANT) was used as a framework to illustrate the interrelationship, interdependence and co-existence of the different participants in the management of solid waste. This co-existence was revealed to generate several challenges especially for the major Actors such as that of the preference of informal private waste collectors to the registered contractors assigned by the government to their residential areas and the hindrances posed by community youth on Private Sector Participant (PSP). However, from the study it was revealed that the introduction of Private Sector Participant was not enough to check the problems associated with solid waste management. Rather, a holistic approach where all actors, whether householders, formal or informal waste collector, scrap collectors, NGOs or CBOs should be considered by the Government in the policy formulation and implementation in sustainable solid waste management practices

A Simulation Study of Functional Electrical Stimulation for An Upper Limb Rehabilitation Robot using Iterative Learning Control (ILC) and Linear models

A proportional iterative learning control (P-ILC) for linear models of an existing hybrid stroke rehabilitation scheme is implemented for elbow extension/flexion during a rehabilitative task. Owing to transient error growth problem of P-ILC, a learning derivative constraint controller was included to ensure that the controlled system does not exceed a predefined velocity limit at every trial. To achieve this, linear transfer function models of the robot end-effector interaction with a stroke subject (plant) and muscle response to stimulation controllers were developed. A straight-line point-point trajectory of 0 - 0.3 m range served as the reference task space trajectory for the plant, feedforward, and feedback stimulation controllers. At each trial, a SAT-based bounded error derivative ILC algorithm served as the learning constraint controller. Three control configurations were developed and simulated. The system performance was evaluated using the root means square error (RMSE) and normalized RMSE. At different ILC gains over 16 iterations, a displacement error of 0.0060 m was obtained when control configurations were combined.Comment: 15 pages, 16 Figure

Factors influencing postgraduate students' university choice in Nigeria.

An understanding of postgraduate students’ choice criteria for universities selection is essential for marketing higher education, securing the long-term success of the universities, as well as its marketing strategy. While previous studies have focused on developed countries and undergraduate students, this chapter explores factors influencing postgraduate students’ decision making. The study recognises that the rapid expansion of the enrolment of undergraduates has also stimulated students’ enthusiasm for postgraduate studies and importantly, postgraduate students have prior experience in a university service environment (compared to undergraduate students). The semi-structured interview was conducted with first-year postgraduate students at a private university in South-West, Nigeria. Some of the participants were new to the university while some did their undergraduate studies there. Findings from the study revealed four key factors which are the desire to study for a postgraduate degree, the facilities of the University, including its geographical location, the courses on offer and influence of other stakeholders like parents, siblings and friends. This influence of stakeholders aligns with the fundamental values in a collectivist culture like Nigeria. This study contributes to literature on higher education marketing, especially in Africa and for postgraduate students. The chapter presents an integral insight into marketing higher education in Nigeria and Africa, as this is an under-researched area

Economic-emission dispatch problem: A semi-definite programming approach

A semi-definite programming (SDP) formulation of the multi-objective economic-emission dispatch problem is presented. The fuel cost and emission functions are represented by high order polynomial functions and this was shown to be a more accurate representation of the economic-emission dispatch (EED) problem. Furthermore, the polynomial functions of both objective functions are aggregated into a single objective function using the weighted sum approach. This thus reduces the problem to a standard polynomial optimization problem which was formulated as a hierarchy of semi-definite relaxation problems. The resulting SDP problem was then solved at different degrees of approximation. The performance of the proposed approach was evaluated by conducting experiments on the standard 6-unit and the 13-unit IEEE test systems. The results obtained were compared with those reported in the literature and indicated that SDP has inherently good convergence property and provides better exploration of the Pareto front

Safety Evaluation on Antinutritional, Bacterial Properties with Sensory Acceptability of Processed Shea (Vitellaria Paradoxa) Pulp Juice

The processing of Shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) pulp juice plays a crucial role in its nutritional and sensory attributes, as well as its bacterial composition. This study aims to investigate the antinutritional factors, sensory properties, and microbial activity in processed Shea pulp juice. The study utilized various analytical methods, including proximate analysis, sensory evaluation, and microbial analysis. The findings provide valuable insights into the nutritional quality, taste profile, and microbial composition of Shea pulp juice after processing. The nutritional analysis revealed a substantial amount of moisture of 84.39 to 93.01%, as well as high carbohydrate and caloric values of 5.84 to 8.96% and 33.51 to 67.31%, respectively. It also had a high vitamin C concentration (16.45 - 38.99%). The anti-nutritional analysis shows the presence of phytate (42.80±1.42mg), and oxalate (0.42±0.22mg), it was also found to be very high in tannin (338.80± 1.36mg). Saponin has a low content of 16.59±0.14mg and Cyanide had the lowest quantity (13.23±0.13). Cyanide, oxalate, and phytate concentrations were found to be lower than the reference toxic standard level. In terms of sensory evaluation, all samples were accepted favorably with Sample A and B most preferable to C. This research contributes to the understanding of Shea pulp juice as a potential food source and highlights the importance of optimizing processing techniques to enhance its beneficial properties

Application of smart technology in monitoring and control of home appliances

The inherent dependency of home appliances on human for monitoring and control has been found to be mainly responsible for power wastage, and increase in the rate of wear and tear, which invariably implies additional spending on the part of owners. The smart technology provides a way out. This paper presents an automated system which is based on arduino and android device for monitoring and controlling appliances to prevent the wastage of power. The system design is based on the Microcontroller MIKRO-C software, active sensors and wireless internet services which is used in different monitoring and control processes of fan, air-conditioner, light and heater. The system when tested performs efficiently in monitoring and controlling through switching the appliances in the room based on human presence and environmental changes due to light intensity and temperature variation