PROCESSING OF TRIGLYCERIDES TO DIESEL RANGE HYDROCARBON FUELS: EASILY PRACTICABLE SMALL SCALE APPROACH

Lipid fraction of biomass has been identified as carbon neutral substitution to fuels from fossil sources in the transportation sector. Although, the diesel engine, invented by Rudolph Diesel over a century ago first ran on peanut oil, the current combustion engines are designed to run on hydrocarbon fuels derived from petroleum. Therefore, a substitute for diesel fuel from renewable source will need to have identical or closely similar properties. The most popular of the existing technology for processing vegetable or animal oils is based on the conversion of the triglycerides constituents to fatty acids methyl esters (FAME). FAME technology does not produce diesel fuel with identical properties as petro-diesel. Other alternative processing routes are dilution of the vegetable oils, emulsification, pyrolysis and hydrotreating. These routes are discussed in this paper. Appropriate technologies for small scale production of diesel range hydrocarbon fuel from vegetable oil without the need for co-reactants such methanol or hydrogen as part of the feedstock is emphased. Also alternative catalyst systems in place of the expensive precious metal supported catalysts are suggested

Evaluation of the analgesic and antipyretic properties of African Cleome viscosa

Background: Cleome viscosa Linn a plant from the family Capparaceae has been used in traditional medicine in Asia and Africa for the treatment of various diseases including diarrhea, cardiac stimulant, anthelmintic, carminative, anti-inflammatory and antiseptic. Decoction of the whole plant has been used for the treatment of inflammation and as a stimulant while the leaves have been applied externally on wounds and ulcers. The objective of this study is to investigate and evaluate the antipyretic and analgesic properties, toxicity profile and the phytochemical study of the methanolic leaf extract of African Cleome viscosa.Methods: The antipyretic study was performed by adopting the Baker’s yeast induced pyrexia in rats while the analgesic study was performed adopting the tail immersion or tail flick technique. Data generated was analyzed as appropriate using the analysis of variance (ANOVA).Results: The methanolic extract of the leaves of the African Cleome viscosa had a significant (P<0.05) antipyretic and analgesic effects at different time intervals and varying doses when compared with the negative control groups in the respective studies. The preliminary phytochemical study showed the presence of alkaloids, tannins, steroids, glycosides and flavonoids. The extract also proved to be non-toxic in the acute toxicity study carried out at the highest dose of 5000mg/kg body weight administered to the albino rats.Conclusions: The methanolic leaf extract of the plant showed significant antipyretic and analgesic activity in albino rats thus supporting its use in traditional medicine

PREDICTING STUDENTS«¤?? GRADE SCORES USING TRAINING FUNCTIONS OF ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK

The observed poor quality of graduates of some Nigerian Universities in recent times has been traced to non-availability of adequate mechanism. This mechanism is expected to assist the policy maker project into the future performance of students, in order to discover at the early stage, students who have no tendency of doing well in school. This study focuses on the use of artificial neural network (ANN) model for predicting students«¤?? academic performance in a University System, based on the previous datasets. The domain used in the study consists of sixty (60) students in the Department of Computer and Information Science, Tai Solarin University of Education in Ogun State, who have completed four academic sessions from the university. The codes were written and executed using MATLAB format. The students«¤?? CGPA from first year through their third year were used as the inputs to train the ANN models constructed using nntool and the Final Grades (CGPA) served as a target output. The output predicted by the networks is expressed in-line with the current grading system of the case study. CGPA values simulated by the network are compared with the actual final CGPA to determine the efficacy of each of the three feed-forward neural networks used. Test data evaluations showed that the ANN model is able to predict correctly, the final grade of students with 91.7% accuracy.ª¤

Distribution of 5-HT1F Receptors in Monkey Vestibular and Trigeminal Ganglion Cells

Background: Evidence of serotonergic involvement in vestibular pathway contributions to migraine and balance disorders is compelling. Serotonergic 5-HT1B and 5-HT1D receptors are expressed extensively in inner ear ganglia of monkeys and rats. The serotonergic 5-HT1F receptor is also a target of triptans. This study describes its distribution in vestibular and trigeminal ganglia of monkeys. Methods: Using primary polyclonal antibodies raised against oligopeptides specific for the human 5-HT1F receptor, neuronal somatic area and intensity of immunoreactive vestibular and trigeminal ganglia were quantified. Results and Discussion: Virtually all vestibular and considerable trigeminal ganglia showed positive 5-HT1F receptor immunoreactivity. Inferior and superior vestibular ganglia staining appeared confined to distinct cell regions, varying considerably among cells of different sizes: more intense in small, punctate in some medium and regionally polarized in some large cells. Analyses of average somatic vestibular neuronal immunoreactive intensity identified mainly medium sized cells with high standard deviation of intensity corresponding to punctately-stained cells. Less variability occurred in somatic intensity staining and cellular distribution among 5-HT1F receptor immunopositive trigeminal ganglia. Most exhibited similar punctate staining patterns, higher mean somatic immunoreactive intensity and larger neuronal somatic size proportions per size distribution subpopulation compared to vestibular ganglia size distribution populations. Centrally directed vestibular ganglion neuronal processes, cochlear inner hair cells, vestibular hair cells and blood vessels in vestibular maculae and cristae were immunoreactive. The 5-HT1F receptor expression in vestibular ganglia shows complex variable staining intensity patterns associated with cell size of immunopositive neurons, not seen in immunopositive trigeminal ganglia and not previously evident with 5-HT1B and 5-HT1D receptor subtype immunoreactivity in vestibular ganglia. These data motivate exploration of 5-HT1 receptor oligomerization and ligand functional selectivity in differential serotonergic involvement in co-morbidity of migraine and balance disorders. Similar findings in cochlear inner hair cell afferents are applicable to migraine related tinnitus or hypercusis (phonophobia)

Effects of Advance Organiser and Concept Attainment Models on the Achievement of Pre-Nce Students in Geometry in North – Central Nigeria

The study investigated the effectiveness of two instructional models – the Concept Attainment Model (CAM) and Advance Organiser Model (AOM) on the achievement of Pre-NCE students in geometry. Two research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The design of the study was Pre-test Post-test equivalent control group design or quasi-experimental design. The study was carried out in Kogi and Benue States in the present North Central Nigeria. The population of the study was 1100 pre-NCE students in public colleges of education in the two states. Three out of the four public colleges of Education in the two states were randomly selected for the study. The total number of students in their intact classes who offered Pre-NCE geometry in these colleges was 830. This formed the sample for the study. 402 (48.4%) of the students were male and 428 (51.6%) were female. The instrument used for data collection was Pre-NCE Geometry Achievement Test (PNGAT). PNGAT had two versions – Pre-PNGAT and Post-PNGAT which were the same except for the swapping of some of the items. PNGAT was subjected to both face and content validation and item analysis. Using Kuder-Richardson (K-R) 20 formula, the internal consistency was found to be 0.74. Pre-PNGAT was administered on the groups before treatment started while Post-PNGAT was administered at the end of the 5-week treatment period. Scores from the Pre-PNGAT and Post-PNGAT were analysed using means and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Some of the major findings were (i) AOM and CAM were more effective than the conventional method (ii) CAM was more effective than AOM. Based on the findings, the implications were highlighted and recommendations were made towards better achievement of pre-NCE students in geometry. Keywords: Avance organiser, concept attainment, achievement, Pre-NCE geometr

Ciprofloxacin Susceptibility Pattern in a Secondary Health Care Facility in Kebbi State, Nigeria

Antibiotic resistance is a major challenge in management of infectious diseases globally, and particularly in developing countries. There are few studies that have analysed the impact of such abuse on the development of bacterial resistance in Nigeria and sub Saharan Africa. To this end, we retrospectively analysed ciprofloxacin susceptibility patterns in a secondary healthcare facility in Northwest Nigeria over a four year period. Three hundred and thirty six pathogens isolated from 370 patients were analysed in this study. The common pathogens isolated from wound infections were Staphylococcus aureus (29, 7.84%), Pseudomonas spp (10, 2.7%) and Proteus spp (7, 1.89%). In stool samples, Proteus (11, 2.97%), Escherichia coli (8, 2.2%) and Salmonella (6, 1.62%) were the most commonly isolated organisms respectively. While for urine samples, isolates were S. aureus (105, 28.37%) followed by E. coli from urine samples (62, 16.76%). During the study period, we observed there was a high degree of resistance to ciprofloxacin among Proteus spp (50%), E. coli (41.3%), S. aureus (20.6%), Klebsiella (20%) and Pseudomonas (20%). Government and stakeholders need to urgently develop antimicrobial stewardship programmes that will address the issue of antibiotic resistance in the country

Total Phenolic and Flavonoid Contents, Antioxidant Activity and Phytochemical Screening of Calotropis Procera Stem Bark Extracts

Communication in Physical Sciences 2020, 5(3): 233 Authors: Abdullahi Usman, Ruth O. Onore, Osebuohien A. Oforghor, Jibrin Mohammed, and Nasiru L. Usman Received 19 May 2020/Accepted 29 May 2020 In continuation of the need to search for phytochemicals in parts of some rare and native plants of Nigeria origin. This study was designed to carry out phytochemical screening, antioxidant properties and determination of total phenolics and flavonoid contents in Calotropis procera Stem. The phytochemical screening of stem bark of C. procera using aqueous and methanol extracts revealed the presence of tannins, phenols and flavonoid. The aqueous extract was also found to contain saponins while methanol extract also has steroids. Steroids was the only metabolite present in hexane extract. The anti-oxidant activity, total phenolic and flavonoid contents of aqueous and methanolic extracts of stem bark of C. procera were evaluated by using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay, Folin-Ciocalteau and aluminium chloride colorimetric assays. From the results obtained, the methanolic extract was observed to have demonstrated a significant concentration of phenolic (81.65±0.92 mg GAE/g), and flavonoid (46.08±0.71 mg RE/g) than the aqueous extract (66.07±0.43 mg GAE/g, 31.34±0.39 mg RE/g). The aqueous and methanol extracts showed maximum activities of 28.16±0.64% and 81.65±0.71% at 1 mg/ml respectively. However, the ascorbic acid exhibited 83.12±1.02% in the DPPH assay. The results of the present study, shows that both aqueous and methanolic extracts could serve as a valuable source of natural antioxidants