Cloning and sequence analysis of the nucleotide-binding domain of an α-glucan, water dikinase gene from cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz)

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Ethno Botanical Survey of Plants Used For Malaria Treatment in Igboora, Ibarapa Central Local Government of Oyo State, Nigeria

Malaria remains a global scourge particularly in Nigerian rural areas where sanitation is poor and access to health facilities is also poor. An ethnobotanical survey was conducted in Igboora, Ibarapa Central North Local Government Area of Oyo State on latitude 7. 53° and longitude 3.08°. A semi structured questionnaire was administered on thirty three respondents in the study area. Information obtained included the plants used in the treatment of malaria, parts used, time of collection, the availability of the plants, mode of preparation and mode of administration. The respondents were mostly males ranged from 30 to 92 years and were mainly herbalists, farmers and teachers. Twenty eight recipes were obtained from the respondents while thirty three plant species were documented for the management and treatment of malaria in the study area. The plants belong to 25 families. Two plants, Carica papaya and Cymbopogon citratus were particularly very common in the recipes with a percentage occurrence of 70%.The more prominent families in the recipes obtained were the Asteraceae, Meliaceae, Rutaceae, Anarcadiaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Poaceae and Fabaceae. The major mode of preparation is mainly by concoction while infusion or decoction may be used in a few cases. Leaves are the most common plant parts used although the bark or whole plants are used in some cases. The juice from Citrus aurantifolia and water from fermented seeds of Zea mays in most cases constitute the solvent in which other plants are boiled. The lists of plant and recipes obtained are provided. This study highlights potential sources for the development of new antimalaria drugs from indigenous medicinal plants found in Igboora, Nigeria

MORPHOTAXONOMIC RE-CLASSIFICATION OF C. ANNUUM VAR. ACCUMINATUM FINGERH AS C. FRUTESCENS VAR. ACCUMINATUM

The taxonomic identities of some Capsicum varieties are somewhat controversial. This study is aimed at using morphological characters to ascertain the Capsicum species to which variety accuminatum belongs. The study was conducted at the Experimental Plot of the Department of Pure and Applied Botany, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (Latitude: 7.214952; Longitude: 3.437090) using a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) in 10 replicates. Quantitative and qualitative characters were evaluated through measurements and visual observation respectively. Data were analyzed using Statistical Analysis Systems version 9.2 and Duncan's Multiple Range Test was used to separate means at p ˂ 0.05. The reults revealed erect growth habit, lanceolate leaf shape, pendant flower position, white corolla colour, obtuse fruit shape at pedicel, elongated fruit shape, and pointed fruit shape at blossom end on variety accuminatum as characteristic features of C. frutescens. Plant canopy width 103.41±(4.30) cm, number of branches per plant 24.70±(0.15), days to flowering 73±(0.21), fruit length 11.69±(0.07) cm and fruit width 5.78±(0.05) cm in variety accuminatum are closer to mean values in C. frutescens. This study showed that variety accuminatum is morphologically and evolutionary related to C. frutescens. Therefore, re-naming of C. annuum var. accuminatum is hereby suggested and proposed to be C. frutescens var. accuminatum.   &nbsp

Adapting the Study of Chemistry in Senior Secondary Schools in the Gambia to Cost-Reducing Strategies

In an attempt to elaborate the concept of cost reduction, the researchers tried to explain why the judicious application of expendables and the need to miniaturize experimental models should be introduced in schools, embellishing and drawing examples from relevant literature materials. The researchers further explored, through a survey, the perception of Gambian based teachers on the extent to which their experience and qualification had influenced their judicious use of expendables. And, through an experimental study, the researchers compared the learning outcome derived from student learners who were taught chemistry by the conventional macro model on the one hand with their equivalent counterparts taught the same chemistry concepts by the micro model on the other hand. In the survey design; three research questions were answered and three hypotheses tested while in the experimental design two research questions were answered and one hypothesis tested. By means of multi-stage random sampling techniques, samples of 100 chemistry teachers and 200 senior chemistry students were used for the study. A questionnaire validated and reliably determined with a composition of 27 items was administered to the chemistry teachers, while a standardized test of ten items was also administered to two equivalent groups of 100 chemistry students each taught by the macro and micro models, respectively. At the level of 0.05 probability, qualification and experience, acting independent of each other, were significant factors in adjudging the extent to which chemistry teachers had applied expendables judiciously. At the same level of probability, no significant difference existed between the learning outcomes obtained in the use of the two models, even though the chemistry students taught chemistry by the micro model had a slight edge over their macro model counterparts. Finally, relevant recommendations were made

An investigation of the health hazards of some of the chemical content of powdered juice sold in the Gambia

This short piece takes a limited look at the health hazards of the chemical contents of seven fruit juices sold in The Gambia. All of them have very negative effects on health. The following additives were considered: sweeteners, coloring agents, flavoring agents and acidifiers vis-à-vis established studies. [African Journal of Chemical Education—AJCE 5(1), January 2015

Pollen morphological studies of selected flowering plants in Federal University Of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria

The taxonomic classifications of some flowering plants into families have been a subject of review in recent times. This is because many were classified in the early days of taxonomy using plant morphological characters alone. This study assessed pollen characters of ten flowering plants in Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria with a view to identifying valuable taxonomic characters which could be employed for resolving classification controversies associated with the use of morphological characters alone. Pollen study was conducted using acetolysis method. Means, standard deviations and coefficient of variations were calculated while photomicrographs of pollen grains were taken at X400 magnification. The result showed tricolporate, pantoporate, triporate, tricolpate and heterocolpate pollen types while exine patterns were granulate, reticulate, psilate and echinate. Results of pollen shape revealed oblate spheroidal, prolate and subprolate while there were variations in pollen characters among species of the same family in apertural type, sculpture, exine surface pattern, pollen shape and pollen fertility. This suggests that apertural type, sculpture, exine surface pattern, pollen shape and pollen fertility could be useful in resolving taxonomic issues related to classification associated with grouping of some flowering plants into the same family on the basis of morphological traits alone

BIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF FUSARIUM WILT OF CUCUMBER (Cucumis sativus) BY ANTAGONISTIC LACTIC ACID BACTERIA ISOLATED FROM RHIZOSPHERE OF FIVE MEDICINAL PLANTS

Fusarium wilt is one of the important diseases of cucumber and causes economic loss to farmers. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the potential of rhizosphere lactic acid bacteria as biocontrol agents of Fusarium wilt of cucumber. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were isolated and identified from the rhizosphere of five medicinal plants. The in-vitro antagonistic activity of LAB strains on F. oxysporum f.sp. cucumerinum was evaluated by dual culture method. The screen house experiment was then conducted to assess the effect of antagonistic LAB isolates on Fusarium wilt disease incidence in cucumber plants. The antagonistic LAB strains were further characterized using 16S rRNA gene sequencing technique. The total LAB counts of rhizospheric soil samples ranged from 7.0×105 cfu/g to 15.0×105 cfu/g. The LAB isolates were identified as strains of Lactobacillus acidophilus (21.4%), L. plantarum (35.7%), L. fermentum (28.6%), L. alimentarius (7.1%) and L. brevis (7.1%). Treatment of cucumber seeds with antagonistic LAB strains significantly reduced Fusarium wilt of cucumber incidence from 95% to 48%. Lactobacillus fermentum isolated from the rhizosphere of A. indica exhibited strong disease suppression (49.5%). The study therefore revealed that the rhizospheric-LAB could be applied to reduce the manifestation of Fusarium wilt in cucumber.   &nbsp

Detailed Analyses and Efficient Identification of Malware Evidence in CLaMP Dataset based on Machine Learning Approaches

Malware is a malicious software that is used to launch attacks of different types in computer networks and cyber space. Several signature and machine learning-based approaches have been used for the identification of malware types in the past. However,signature-based detection approaches have been reported to have serious limitations which gave room for machine learning-based malware identification techniques to be more popular. Despite the promises of the ML methods in the identification of malware evidence, some of the ML approaches in literature have poor detection rates which can be as a result of the size and nature of the patterns in the datasets used. This study used a dataset named CLaMP for the training and testing of the malware classification models. Firstly, comprehensive exploratory analyses of the dataset were carried out with a view to understanding the data distributions in it better and make informative decisions on how to pre-process and apply it for malware identification. During the experimentations, two scenarios were established before feeding the data into the learning algorithms. Scenario 1 involves building malware identification model without data cleaning and feature selection while scenario 2 involves the cleaning of the data and selection of promising features for building the models.In scenario 2, Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) technique was used for selecting the promising attributes which were used to build the two malware classification models.  Naive Bayes (NB) and Logistic Regression (LR) algorithms were used for building the  models. The hyper parameters of the two selected algorithms were varied and the models tested and validated severally before optimal performances were arrived at. The results of the models were compared based on the selected metrics, namely: accuracy, precision, recall, f1-score and Area Under the Curve (AUC). Experimental results showed that in the scenario 1, where the dataset was not pre-processed and all the attributes were used for the model building, poor results were obtained by both models in all metrics except in recall.  However, NB-based malware identification model slightly performed better than LR in all the metrics.  It was also discovered that both NB and LR-based malware identification models performed well in scenario 2 when the dataset was pre-processed and promising features were selected using RFE. This study concluded that the detailed exploratory analyses, data cleaning and feature subset selection methods helped in achieving promising results from the malware identification models

Assessment of the Level of Mercury Present in Soaps by the Use of Cold Vapour Atomic Fluorescence Spectrometric Analysis – A Gambian Case Study

Sixteen brands of soap were analysed for their total mercury content using cold vapour atomic fluorescence spectrometry. The aim was to find out if the soaps contained mercury and if so, what quantity. In addition, are the quantities acceptable for health purposes. Mercury was found to be present in some soaps which did not indicate it on their labels, as required by law. The amounts of mercury found in the soaps were generally low, and may not lead to any short term mercury-linked health problems. A very low limit of detection was obtained.Keywords: Mercury, The Gambia, Soaps, Indigenous industry, Fluorescenc