Onion and garlic extracts as potential antidotes for cadmium‐induced biochemical alterations in prostate glands of rats

Cadmium (Cd) has been implicated in increased prostate gland malignancy risk in both wildlife and humans. This study examines the chemoprotective roles of onion and garlic extracts on Cd‐induced biochemical alterations in the prostate glands of rats. Adult male Wistar rats were randomly divided into nine groups: control group received double distilled water; Cd group received Cd alone (1.5 mg/100 g bwt per day); extract‐treated groups were pre‐treated with varied doses of onion and/or garlic extract (0.5 ml and 1.0 ml/100 g bwt per day) for 1 week and then co‐treated with Cd (1.5 mg/100 g bwt per day) for additional 3 weeks. Oxidant/antioxidant status and acid phosphatase (ACPtotaland ACPprostatic) activity were examined in prostate glands. Cd intoxication caused a marked (P < 0.001) increase in lipid peroxidation (LPO) and glutathione S‐transferase (GST) levels, whereas glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase and catalase levels were markedly (P < 0.001) decreased. We also observed significant (P < 0.001) decrease in ACPtotal and ACPprostatic activities in prostate glands and a concomitant significant (P < 0.001) increase in the plasma. However, treatment of Cd‐intoxicated rats with onion and/or garlic extract significantly minimised these alterations. The onion extract offered a dose‐dependent protection. Our findings suggest a chemoprotective capability for onion and garlic extracts against Cd‐induced biochemical alteration in the prostate glands

Slug Tests for Determination of Hydraulic Conductivity of Contaminated Wells

This paper reviews three models for analyzing slug test data to determine hydraulic conductivity of hydrocarbon contaminated wells in the study area. 50 grams/litre potassium permanganate (KMnO4) was used as permeating fluid for the remediation of the site. Data of the slug-in test from five (5) observation wells varying in diameter from 0.82-1.93m in the study area in Baruwa, Lagos Nigeria were analyzed with three models used in the study, namely; Hvorslev, Ferris –Knowles and Earth Manual models. Analysis of the data showed that all three analytical methods produced similar range of magnitude of the order of 10-4cm/sec values of hydraulic conductivity

CASE STUDY OF TEACHER VIOLENCE AGAINST STUDENTS AT GMIT BOKING ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IN CENTRAL TIMOR REGENCY

This study aims to determine the causes of violence perpetrated by teachers against students at GMIT Boking Elementary School in South Central Timor Regency, East Nusa Tenggara Province. Violence by teachers aims to discipline students who violate the rules in force at school. Violence that is often used by teachers is physical and psychological violence. Physical&nbsp; violence is violence that is done directly such as hitting, slapping, pilling, kicking, pinching, throwing objects that lead to the victim`s body and so on. Physical violence can be done both with bare hands and tools. Psychical violence is violence that tends not to be too real. Psychological violence takes the form of pressure that can reduce mental or brain abilities such as insult and ongoing humiliation to minimize the victim`s self-esteem, screams and threats that are given to bring fear and others. Actions of violence committed by teachers inadvertently with the aim of disciplining students in the school environment can have an enormous impact on the development of students for example, a feeling of confidence in answering questions&nbsp; raised by teachers for fear of being&nbsp; enthusiastic about going to school. To prevent acts of violence in schools can be done to improve the relationship between parents, students and teachers. The key to a good relationship to know the attitudes and character of students and the needs of students at school is the establishment of good communication from the school and parent to avoid violence

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE STATUS OF SMALL RICE THRESHERS IN NIGERIA

An assessment of existing rice thresher designs and products available within Nigeria and neighbour-&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; ing countries was carried out. The impetus for the study is the concern that low and poor quality of&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; local rice in Nigeria may be due, in important measure, to lack of appropriate and affordable small&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;threshers. On this basis, a reconnaissance work in Five Local Government Areas in Ogun State, &nbsp; &nbsp;Erin&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&ndash; Ijesha in Osun State, Igbimo in Ekiti State; Abakaliki in Ebonyi State, Makurdi in Benue State as well&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;as &nbsp; Kura &nbsp;- &nbsp;Kano &nbsp; and &nbsp; Tundun &nbsp; Wada &nbsp; areas &nbsp; of &nbsp; Kano &nbsp; State &nbsp; was &nbsp; carried &nbsp; out. &nbsp; Based &nbsp; on &nbsp; the &nbsp; farmers&rsquo;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;evaluation &nbsp; and &nbsp; assessment &nbsp; of &nbsp; existing &nbsp; rice &nbsp; threshers &nbsp; available &nbsp; in &nbsp; Nigeria, &nbsp; the &nbsp; study &nbsp; recommended&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;three prototype small threshers that are pedal and petrol engine driven. The pedal operated thresher&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;was recommended for those with farm hectarage of less than 2. For threshing freshly harvested rice at&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;very &nbsp; high &nbsp; moisture &nbsp; content, &nbsp; the &nbsp;IITA/WARDA &nbsp; small &nbsp; plot &nbsp; spike-tooth &nbsp; thresher &nbsp; which &nbsp; has &nbsp; a &nbsp;threshing&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;capacity of about 100kg/h was found to be appropriate for the small &ndash; scale farmers provided some&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; little modifications in the area of capacity and mobility were carried out while the multi-crop thresher of&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training (IAR&amp;T) Ibadan with a capacity of about 250kg/h&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;was recommended for those with farm hectarage of more than 5ha.&nbsp

Inflation and Some Unpleasant Fiscal – Monetary Issues in Nigeria: A Reassessment of the Role of Government in the Management of an Economy.

Fiscal and monetary issues are linked through money growth in the form of Seigniorage, which provides revenue to the fiscal authority in the management of an inflationary – prone economy. The relationship between these macroeconomic aggregates are well documented in the literature. This study undertakes an empirical assessment of some (un)pleasant fiscal and monetary issues in Nigeria with the main objective of identifying the role of government in the stabilization of an economy. Using data over 1970 – 2013 periods, this study adopts a modeling approach that incorporate both structural and co-integration analysis and found significant relationships between the macroeconomic variables and inflation in Nigeria. It concludes with some far reaching recommendations including minimization of deficit, adoption of robust fiscal adjustment mechanism that could increase revenue and discouraging deficit financing by the Central Bank. Key words:Fiscal deficit, inflation, money supply co-integration

Stable Determination of the Electromagnetic Coefficients by Boundary Measurements

The goal of this paper is to prove a stable determination of the coefficients for the time-harmonic Maxwell equations, in a Lipschitz domain, by boundary measurements

A Variational Approach for Minimizing Lennard-Jones Energies

A variational method for computing conformational properties of molecules with Lennard-Jones potentials for the monomer-monomer interactions is presented. The approach is tailored to deal with angular degrees of freedom, {\it rotors}, and consists in the iterative solution of a set of deterministic equations with annealing in temperature. The singular short-distance behaviour of the Lennard-Jones potential is adiabatically switched on in order to obtain stable convergence. As testbeds for the approach two distinct ensembles of molecules are used, characterized by a roughly dense-packed ore a more elongated ground state. For the latter, problems are generated from natural frequencies of occurrence of amino acids and phenomenologically determined potential parameters; they seem to represent less disorder than was previously assumed in synthetic protein studies. For the dense-packed problems in particular, the variational algorithm clearly outperforms a gradient descent method in terms of minimal energies. Although it cannot compete with a careful simulating annealing algorithm, the variational approach requires only a tiny fraction of the computer time. Issues and results when applying the method to polyelectrolytes at a finite temperature are also briefly discussed.Comment: 14 pages, uuencoded compressed postscript fil

Coherent quantum transport in narrow constrictions in the presence of a finite-range longitudinally polarized time-dependent field

We have studied the quantum transport in a narrow constriction acted upon by a finite-range longitudinally polarized time-dependent electric field. The electric field induces coherent inelastic scatterings which involve both intra-subband and inter-sideband transitions. Subsequently, the dc conductance G is found to exhibit suppressed features. These features are recognized as the quasi-bound-state (QBS) features which are associated with electrons making transitions to the vicinity of a subband bottom, of which the density of states is singular. Having valley-like instead of dip-like structures, these QBS features are different from the G characteristics for constrictions acted upon by a finite-range time-modulated potential. In addition, the subband bottoms in the time-dependent electric field region are shifted upward by an energy proportional to the square of the electric field and inversely proportional to the square of the frequency. This effective potential barrier is originated from the square of the vector potential and it leads to the interesting field-sensitive QBS features. An experimental set-up is proposed for the observation of these features.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure