The incidence of Nypa fruticans (Wurmb) and its impact on fisheries production in the Niger Delta mangrove ecosystem

Nypa fruticans occurs in Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross River State, Nigeria; invading an estimated area of 821 Km super(2) mangrove dominated swamps. Human activities such as tree felling, urbanization, oil and gas exploration and exploitation and other activities led to the interference in the normal mangrove by the Nypa palm. Lack of utilization by the local population of the Nypa palm as in into-pacification has increased the population over the years. The effect includes the reduction in primary and secondary productivity, disruption of food chain and erosion of riverbanks. The eradication of the Nypa palm from the Niger delta mangrove ecosystem and replacement with red and white mangroves will restore the ecosystem health and enhance biological diversit

Investigating the Acid Failure of Aluminium Alloy in 2 M Hydrochloric Acid Using Vernonia amygdalina

The acid failure of aluminium alloy in 2 M hydrochloric acid solution in the presence of Vernonia amygdalina extract was investigated using gasometric technique. Aluminium alloy coupons of dimension 4 cm by 1 cm were immersed in test solutions of free acid and also those containing extract volumes of 2, 3, 4 and 5 cm3 at ambient temperature for 30 minutes. The volumes of hydrogen gas evolved as a result of the rate of reaction were recorded and analyzed. Analysis revealed that maximum inhibitor efficiency which corresponds to the lowest corrosion rate was obtained at optimum inhibitor volumes of 5 cm3, with reduction in the corrosion rate observed to follow in order of increasing extract volumes. Adsorption study revealed that Temkin isotherm best described the metal surface interaction with the extract phytochemicals, with 12 minutes becoming the best exposure time for the phytochemicals to adsorb to the metal surface at all volumes. Statistical modelling of the corrosion rate yielded an important relationship suitable for estimating corrosion rate values once volumes of the extract is known. Microstructural studies, showed an indirect relationship between crack growth rates and extract volumes, while consistency of the irregular intermetallic phases increases with increasing extract volumes

Effect of Expression Conditions on the Yield of Dika Nut (Irvingia Gabonesis) Oil under Uniaxial Compression

Efficient expression of Dika nut oil from the kernel is required for its subsequent use in producing comparatively cheap lubricant. Various factors responsible for proper oil expression include particle size, moisture content, heating temperature, heating time, pressing pressure and pressing time. Sundried Dika kernel ground to two particle sizes (fine: ≤ 1.4 mm and coarse: between 1.4 and 2.8 mm) were conditioned to moisture content of 3, 6 and 9 wt%. Considered in the study, are heating temperature ranging from 50 to 150oC in steps of 25 degrees Celsius and heating time of 5 to 25 minutes in steps of 5 minutes. Pressing pressure of 5 to 25 MPa in steps of 5 MPa and pressing time of 2 minutes interval were also considered. The maximum oil yield was then correlated with the processing conditions. Test results showed that coarse particle gave higher oil yield. Maximum oil yield of 72.2% of the available oil was obtained at 6% moisture content, heating temperature of 100oC and heating time of 10 minutes. Regression analyses of the oil yield with heating temperature, heating time, and pressing gave r2 values of 0.9678, 0.999 and 0.9128. The processing conditions therefore has significantly influence the quantity of oil obtained from Dika kerne

Security oriented e-infrastructures supporting neurological research and clinical trials

The neurological and wider clinical domains stand to gain greatly from the vision of the grid in providing seamless yet secure access to distributed, heterogeneous computational resources and data sets. Whilst a wealth of clinical data exists within local, regional and national healthcare boundaries, access to and usage of these data sets demands that fine grained security is supported and subsequently enforced. This paper explores the security challenges of the e-health domain, focusing in particular on authorization. The context of these explorations is the MRC funded VOTES (Virtual Organisations for Trials and Epidemiological Studies) and the JISC funded GLASS (Glasgow early adoption of Shibboleth project) which are developing Grid infrastructures for clinical trials with case studies in the brain trauma domain

Data ontheno-loadperformanceanalysis of atomatopostharveststoragesystem

In thispresentinvestigation,anoriginalanddetailedempirical data onthetransferofheatinatomatopostharveststoragesystem waspresented.No-loadtestswereperformedforaperiodof96h. The heatdistributionatdifferentlocations,namelythetop,middle and bottomofthesystemwasacquired,atatimeintervalof 30 minforthetestperiod.Thehumidityinsidethesystemwas taken intoconsideration.Thus,No-loadtestswithorwithout introduction ofhumiditywerecarriedoutanddatashowingthe effect ofariseinhumiditylevel,ontemperaturedistributionwere acquired.Thetemperaturesattheexternalmechanicalcooling components wereacquiredandcouldbeusedforshowingthe performance analysisofthestoragesyste

Aniline effect on concrete steel rebar degradation in saline and sulfate media

Electrochemical potential monitoring experiments were performed on mild steel rebars embedded in concrete admixed with aniline inhibitor and fixed amount of sodium chloride salt partially immersed in sulfuric acid and sodium chloride solution. The open circuit potential corrosion monitoring technique was employed and the potential readings were taken in accordance with ASTM C 876. Repressive attribute and consistency of the inhibitor was then estimated by the Weibull probability density distribution as an extreme value statistical modeling approach to study performance effectiveness and to predict the most efficient inhibitor concentration in each media. Aniline effect on the compressive strengths of the reinforced concrete samples was also investigated and reported. Varying concentrations of the inhibitor were used and its performance improved as concentration changed in NaCl medium, while no particular order of performance was noted in sulfuric medium. In the statistically analyzed experimental results for each of the inhibitor concentrations employed, 0.34 and 0.41 M aniline admixed samples were identified as exhibiting the best inhibiting quality in sodium chloride while 0.14 M aniline was predicted as showing the lowest probability of corrosion risk in sulfuric acid medium. The overall effective inhibitive performance in sulfuric acid was less when compared to the sodium chloride medium. Concrete sample admixed with 0.41 M aniline had the highest improvement in compressive strength in both media

Construction and Testing of A Single and Double Ring Infiltrometers in Auchi Polytechnic, Edo State

This paper presents the results of the construction of an improvised double and single ring infiltrometers. The study was carried in Auchi Polytechnic campus, after the construction, the double ring and single ring infiltrometer were used to carryout infiltration tests at four different locations. The t-test was used to test check the performance of the double and single ring infiltrometers. The results of the soil properties showed that the soil texture was predominantly sandy loam and loam respectively. The result presented herein showed a high significant difference between the performance of the single and double ring infiltrometer at Plot A and no significant other plots. The total cumulative infiltration depth of the single-ring infiltrometer for the A, B, and C and D fields were 188.30 cm, 59.70 cm, 77.00 cm and 97.00 cm, respectively.  The total cumulative infiltration depth of the Double-ring infiltrometer for the A, B, and C and D fields were 123.30 cm, 75.60 cm, 70.50 cm and 95.20 cm, respectively. Generally, Philip’s model performed better than Kostiakov’s model Keywords: Single and Double ring infiltrometer, infiltration models DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/12-3-04 Publication date: February 28th 202