Evaluation of Yield and Yield Attributes of Five Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batata (L)Lam) Varieties in Owerri - Imo State

Five sweet potato varieties (Ex –igbariam local, TIS 86/0356, TIS 8441, TIS 87/0087, and TIS 2532.OP.1.13) were evaluated for yield and agronomic performance in Imo State University Farm, Owerri. The experiment was laid out in a randomised complete block design with three replications. The planting density was 33,000 plants/ha and NPK (15:15:15) fertilizer was applied blanket at the rate of 100kg/ha. Significant (p= 0.05) differences were obtained in the performance of the varieties in fresh tuber yields, vigor at six weeks after planting, leaf area/plant, fresh biomass, tuber dry matter and biomass dry matter yields. Variety TIS 86/0356 gave significantly (p= 0.05) the highest mean fresh tuber yield of 7.38 t/ha and a significantly (p=0.05) high mean biomass dry weight of 3.08 t/ha, whereas the variety TIS 8441 gave the lowest mean fresh tuber and biomass dry matter yields of 1.28t/ha and 1.29t/ha, respectively. Variety TIS 86/0356 was therefore recommended for sweet potato growers in the region.Key words: Sweet potato, varieties, yield evaluation

Effects of replacing marine fishmeal with graded levels of Tra Catfish by-product protein hydrolysate on the performance and meat quality of pigs

A feeding trial was carried out to evaluate the effects of replacing fish meal (FM) with Tra Catfish (Pangasius hypophthalmus) by-product protein hydrolysate (TPH) on performance and carcass quality in pigs. Forty crossbred castrated (Yorkshire x Landrace) male pigs with an initial average bodyweight of 22.8 ± 1.5 kg were allocated to 40 individual pens in a randomized complete block design with eight replications. The pigs were fed a control diet (TPH0) with FM as sole protein supplement. In the experimental diets, 100% (TPH100), 75% (TPH75), 50% (TPH50) and 25% (TPH25) of the crude protein (CP) from FM was replaced by the CP from TPH. The results showed no significant differences in average daily feed intake (ADFI) in all treatments during the growing and finishing phases. However, daily weight gain (ADG) was higher in TPH75 (655 g/day) and TPH100 (663 g/day) than in TPH0 (639 g/day). Feed conversion ratio (FCR) was improved with higher inclusion of TPH in the diets. Carcass yield and dressing percentage were not affected by treatments, but abdominal fat and backfat thickness were higher and in the loin-eye area lower in TPH100 compared with TPH0. Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), ether extract (EE) contents and meat colour values a* (redness) in the longissimus dorsi muscle increased with TPH replacement level. Feed costs were 10% lower in TPH100 compared with TPH0. In conclusion, replacing FM with TPH improved the performance, but resulted in an increase in backfat thickness and fat content of meat. However, because of reduced feed costs, complete replacement of FM would still be profitable for pig producers in Vietnam.Keywords: Backfat thickness, longissimus dorsi muscle, fatty acid, Pangasius hypophthalmu

Pesticidal Potentials of Seed Extracts Of Black Pepper (Piper Nigrum L) in the Control of Maize Grain Weevil (Sitophilus Zeamais Mots) in Storage

This study was conducted between November 2009 – May 2010 at the Teaching and Research farm of Imo State University, Owerri, Nigeria. Five rates of ethanolic and powder extracts of black pepper, Piper nigrum L were used (0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4) in milliliters and grams as treatments respectively, using Completely Randomized Design (CRD). The parameters determined were mortality rate, grain damage (exit holes), germination percentage, presence of phytochemicals and infrared spectroscopy. Results showed that both ethanolic and powder extracts, killed Sitophilus zeamais but the ethanolic extracts were significant, more effective and quicker in action at P≤ 0.05. However, it was observed that the bio efficacy of the extracts increased with increase in the level of concentration. Ethanolic and powder extracts of P. nigrum L. at 0.4, 0.3 and 0.2mls/g were significantly (P≤ 0.05) more effective in the control of maize grain weevil in storage than 0.1 mls/g within12-48hours and 12-72 intervals respectively. There were no grain damage (exit holes) on treatments with ethanolic extracts but with powder extracts, exit holes were noticed but differed significantly at (P≤ 0.05). On seed germination tested 6 months after treatments, 0.2 and 0.4mls gave the highest number of maize grains with radicule and plumule emergence, 80% each while 0.1 and 0.3mls gave 70% each. None of the treatments was significant at (P< 0.05) except over the control. Phytochemical screening of the plant extract revealed the presence of bio-active compounds comprising alkaloids (50.13 – 8 5.67%), flavonoids (24.56 – 4.02%), Tannins (17.79 – 0.22%), Saponnins (5.51 – 7.52%) and Phenols (2.01 – 0.71) % in decreasing order of percentage. The infrared spectroscopy revealed some functional groups – OH, - COOH radicals and double bond ketones. These compounds have the implication of exerting different toxicities on organisms.Keywords: P. nigrum, S. zeamais, Maize, Phytochemical, Pesticidal Potential

Capabilities, competitive advantages, and performance of apparel import intermediaries in a hyper-dynamic market environment

Structural changes in the global apparel industry have led to a new market environment in which part of the apparel channel members (specifically, apparel import intermediaries or AIIs) have had to assume new market responsibilities and have taken different approaches to their conventional functional activities. The purpose of this study was to investigate the basic nature of these firms' business operations, that is, the relationships among AIIs' capabilities, competitive advantages, and performance in the hyper-dynamic market environment of the apparel industry. In order to do so, this study (a) developed an integrative model of AIIs' capabilities, competitive advantages, and performance; and (b) conducted an empirical assessment of the model, using survey methodology. Drawing from the first phase qualitative interview studies, extant theory, and literature in the strategy, marketing, and organizational management disciplines, the study proposed an integrative model of AIIs' capabilities, competitive advantages, and performance. A survey was developed to test the causal relationships of these three major constructs of interest. Subsequently, 807 firms were randomly drawn from ReferenceUSA, an Internet-based firm database that includes U.S. apparel manufacturers and wholesalers. Out of an adjusted sample of 736 firms, a total of 159 firms returned usable surveys, resulting in a 21.6% response rate. Structural Equation Modeling was employed for data analysis using LISREL 8.72 and tested the causal relationships among AIIs' capabilities, competitive advantages, and performance. Overall, the study's findings supported the predicted positive impact between AIIs' capabilities of market interpretation, sourcing, and service and the competitive advantages of cost, product, and service. The results also supported the predicted positive impact between AIIs' competitive advantages and their relationship performance with domestic clients and foreign suppliers. Consistent with the resource-advantage theory of competition, the study supported the role of competitive advantages as the direct antecedents of AII performance and the role of functional capabilities as the indirect antecedents of performance. This study concluded with research contributions and implications, study limitations, and directions for future researc

Visualizing convolutional neural networks to improve decision support for skin lesion classification

Because of their state-of-the-art performance in computer vision, CNNs are becoming increasingly popular in a variety of fields, including medicine. However, as neural networks are black box function approximators, it is difficult, if not impossible, for a medical expert to reason about their output. This could potentially result in the expert distrusting the network when he or she does not agree with its output. In such a case, explaining why the CNN makes a certain decision becomes valuable information. In this paper, we try to open the black box of the CNN by inspecting and visualizing the learned feature maps, in the field of dermatology. We show that, to some extent, CNNs focus on features similar to those used by dermatologists to make a diagnosis. However, more research is required for fully explaining their output.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, Workshop on Interpretability of Machine Intelligence in Medical Image Computing at MICCAI 201

The mystery of relationship of mechanics and field in the many-body quantum world

We have revealed three fatal errors incurred from a blind transferring of quantum field methods into the quantum mechanics. This had tragic consequences because it produced crippled model Hamiltonians, unfortunately considered sufficient for a description of solids including superconductors. From there, of course, Fr\"ohlich derived wrong effective Hamiltonian, from which incorrect BCS theory arose. 1) Mechanical and field patterns cannot be mixed. Instead of field methods applied to the mechanical Born-Oppenheimer approximation we have entirely to avoid it and construct an independent and standalone field pattern. This leads to a new form of the Bohr's complementarity on the level of composite systems. 2) We have correctly to deal with the center of gravity, which is under the field pattern "materialized" in the form of new quasipartiles - rotons and translons. This leads to a new type of relativity of internal and external degrees of freedom and one-particle way of bypassing degeneracies (gap formation). 3) The possible symmetry cannot be apriori loaded but has to be aposteriori obtained as a solution of field equations, formulated in a general form without translational or any other symmetry. This leads to an utterly revised view of symmetry breaking in non-adiabatic systems, namely Jahn-Teller effect and superconductivity. These two phenomena are synonyms and share a unique symmetry breaking.Comment: 24 pages, 9 sections; remake of abstract, introduction and conclusion; more physics, less philosoph

Naked mole-rats have distinctive cardiometabolic and genetic adaptations to their underground low-oxygen lifestyles.

The naked mole-rat Heterocephalus glaber is a eusocial mammal exhibiting extreme longevity (37-year lifespan), extraordinary resistance to hypoxia and absence of cardiovascular disease. To identify the mechanisms behind these exceptional traits, metabolomics and RNAseq of cardiac tissue from naked mole-rats was compared to other African mole-rat genera (Cape, Cape dune, Common, Natal, Mahali, Highveld and Damaraland mole-rats) and evolutionarily divergent mammals (Hottentot golden mole and C57/BL6 mouse). We identify metabolic and genetic adaptations unique to naked mole-rats including elevated glycogen, thus enabling glycolytic ATP generation during cardiac ischemia. Elevated normoxic expression of HIF-1α is observed while downstream hypoxia responsive-genes are down-regulated, suggesting adaptation to low oxygen environments. Naked mole-rat hearts show reduced succinate levels during ischemia compared to C57/BL6 mouse and negligible tissue damage following ischemia-reperfusion injury. These evolutionary traits reflect adaptation to a unique hypoxic and eusocial lifestyle that collectively may contribute to their longevity and health span

The regional economic impact of more graduates in the labour market: a “micro-to-macro” analysis for Scotland

This paper explores the system-wide impact of graduates on the regional economy. Graduates enjoy a significant wage premium, often interpreted as reflecting their greater productivity relative to non-graduates. If this is so there is a clear and direct supply-side impact of HEI activities on regional economies. We use an HEI-disaggregated computable general equilibrium model of Scotland to estimate the impact of the growing proportion of graduates in the Scottish labour force that is implied by the current participation rate and demographic change, taking the graduate wage premium in Scotland as an indicator of productivity enhancement. While the detailed results vary with alternative assumptions about the extent to which wage premia reflect productivity, they do suggest that the long-term supply-side impacts of HEIs provide a significant boost to regional GDP. Furthermore, the results suggest that the supply-side impacts of HEIs are likely to be more important than the expenditure impacts that are the focus of most HEI impact studies

Centre-of-mass separation in quantum mechanics: Implications for the many-body treatment in quantum chemistry and solid state physics

We address the question to what extent the centre-of-mass (COM) separation can change our view of the many-body problem in quantum chemistry and solid state physics. It was shown that the many-body treatment based on the electron-vibrational Hamiltonian is fundamentally inconsistent with the Born-Handy ansatz so that such a treatment can never respect the COM problem. Born-Oppenheimer (B-O) approximation reveals some secret: it is a limit case where the degrees of freedom can be treated in a classical way. Beyond the B-O approximation they are inseparable in principle. The unique covariant description of all equations with respect to individual degrees of freedom leads to new types of interaction: besides the known vibronic (electron-phonon) one the rotonic (electron-roton) and translonic (electron-translon) interactions arise. We have proved that due to the COM problem only the hypervibrations (hyperphonons, i.e. phonons + rotons + translons) have true physical meaning in molecules and crystals; nevertheless, the use of pure vibrations (phonons) is justified only in the adiabatic systems. This fact calls for the total revision of our contemporary knowledge of all non-adiabatic effects, especially the Jahn-Teller effect and superconductivity. The vibronic coupling is responsible only for removing of electron (quasi)degeneracies but for the explanation of symmetry breaking and forming of structure the rotonic and translonic coupling is necessary.Comment: 39 pages, 11 sections, 3 appendice

Non-Equilibrium Edge Channel Spectroscopy in the Integer Quantum Hall Regime

Heat transport has large potentialities to unveil new physics in mesoscopic systems. A striking illustration is the integer quantum Hall regime, where the robustness of Hall currents limits information accessible from charge transport. Consequently, the gapless edge excitations are incompletely understood. The effective edge states theory describes them as prototypal one-dimensional chiral fermions - a simple picture that explains a large body of observations and calls for quantum information experiments with quantum point contacts in the role of beam splitters. However, it is in ostensible disagreement with the prevailing theoretical framework that predicts, in most situations, additional gapless edge modes. Here, we present a setup which gives access to the energy distribution, and consequently to the energy current, in an edge channel brought out-of-equilibrium. This provides a stringent test of whether the additional states capture part of the injected energy. Our results show it is not the case and thereby demonstrate regarding energy transport, the quantum optics analogy of quantum point contacts and beam splitters. Beyond the quantum Hall regime, this novel spectroscopy technique opens a new window for heat transport and out-of-equilibrium experiments.Comment: 13 pages including supplementary information, Nature Physics in prin