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Microbial assessment of the armpits of some selected university students in Lagos, Nigeria
Get PDFA study of the carriage of microorganisms in armpits and prevailing factors was carried out on 80 students of the University of Lagos. The armpits were swabbed and the microbiological analyses were carried out on the swab samples. The organisms isolated include Staphylococcus epidermidis (35%), Staphylococcus aureus (3%), Staphylococcus cohnii (3%), Staphylococus haemolyticus (15%), Staphylococcus hominis (25%)
Biosorption of nickel from aqueous solution by Tithonia diversifolia
Get PDFAbstractThis study investigated the feasibility of Mexican sunflower (Tithonia diversifolia), a common plant
that inhabits the highway of the south western Nigeria, as a novel biosorbent for nickel from solutions. pH profile, time dependency and cation interference studies were conducted using stem biomass of this plant. Nickel uptake exhibited substantial enhancement both in terms of the kinetics of uptake as well as the loading capacity. Results of the investigation showed that the unmodified biomass was able to remove over 70% of the nickel content of a solution, whereas NaOH modification improved the adsorption efficiency to over 77% in the same contact time of 60 min. The optimum pH of adsorption was recorded as 5 for the metal using both types of biomass. However,modification improved the adsorption efficiency to a pH lower than 4. The kinetic study conducted showed that the adsorption process follows Lagergren’s pseudo-second order reaction with R2 values equal to 0.9988 and 0.9989 for both types of biomass. The presence of cations such as calcium and magnesium also interfered negatively with the adsorption process. Between 20–35% reductions in the metal adsorbed were recorded in the presence of a 1 M concentration of Mg, Ca or mixed Mg and Ca ions. Langmuir model of adsorption isotherm gave the best fit for this sorption process with R2 values of 0.994, 0.995 and 0.997 for Mg, Ca and mixed Mg and Ca studies, respectively
Crude Oil Degradation by Microorganisms in Soil Composts.
No full textThe hydrocarbon utilizing capabilities of Micrococcus varians, Bacillus badius, Corynebacterium
ulcerans and Corynebacterium amycolatum isolated from soil composts were analysed. In the
biodegradation experiment, utilization of the substrate by bacterial isolates resulted in increased
population densities with simultaneous increase in emulsification index (EI 24) valued from 30.0 to
48.84 and a decrease in residual crude oil concentration. The growth rate constants (u) and mean
generation (h) times of Micrococcus varians, Bacillus badius, Corynebacterium ulcerans and
Corynebacterium amycolatum were 0.027 and 25.5, 0.025 and 27.5, 0.019 and 36.2, 0.023 and 30.0,
respectively. The gas chromatographic analysis of the residual hydrocarbons in the liquid medium at
the end of 30 days incubation showed that Micrococcus varians had the highest degradation rate of
93.10%, whilst Bacillus badius, Corynebacterium ulcerans and Corynebacterium amycolatum were
0.027 and 25.5, 0.025 and 27.5, 0.019 and 36.2, 0.023 and 30.0, respectively. The gas chromatographic analysis of the residual hydrocarbons in the liquid medium at the end of 30 days incubation showed that Micrococcus varians had the highest degradation rate of 93.10%, whilst Bacillus badius, Corynebacterium ulcerans and Corynebacterium amycolatum had biodegradation rates of 89.22, 88.22 and 90.82%, respectively. The residual hydrocarbon in soil microcosm after 30 days of biodegradation was 73.75, 75.81 and 76.94% for Micrococcus varians, Corynebacterium amycolatum and a consortium of the two isolates, respectively. A substrate specificity test of the isolates on different hydrocarbons showed that the isolates had good growth on anthracene and engine oil but poor growth on pyrene, toluene, naphthalene, dodecane and xylene
Evaluating SMS Parsing Using Automated Testing Software
Get PDFMobile phones are ubiquitous with millions of users acquiring them every day for personal, business and social usage or communication. Its enormous pervasiveness has created a great advantage for its use as a technological tool applicable to overcome the challenges of information dissemination regarding burning issues, advertisement, and health related matters. Short message services (SMS), an integral functional part of cell phones, can be turned into a major tool for accessing databases of information on HIV/AIDS as appreciable
percentage of the youth embrace the technology. The common features by the users of the unique language are the un-grammatical structure, convenience of spelling, homophony of words and alphanumeric mix up of the arrangement of words. This proves it to be difficult to serve as query in the search engine architecture. In this work SMS query was used for information accessing in Frequently Asked Question FAQ system under a specified medical domain. Finally, when the developed system was measured in terms of proximity to the answer retrieved remarkable results were observed
Evaluation of time-domain features for motor imagery movements using FCM and SVM
Get PDFBrain–Machine Interface is a direct communication
pathway between brain and an external electronic device. BMIs
aim to translate brain activities into control commands. To
design a system that translates brain waves and its activities to
desired commands, motor imagery tasks classification is the core
part. Classification accuracy not only depends on how capable
the classifier is but also it is about the input data. Feature
extraction is to highlight the properties of signal that make it
distinct from the signal of the other mental tasks. Performance of
BMIs directly depends on the effectiveness of the feature
extraction and classification algorithms. If a feature provides
large interclass difference for different classes, the applied
classifier exhibits a better performance.
In order to attain less computational complexity, five timedomain procedure, namely: Mean Absolute Value, Maximum
peak value, Simple Square Integral, Willison Amplitude, and
Waveform Length are used for feature extraction of EEG signals.
Two classifiers are applied to assess the performance of each
feature-subject. SVM with polynomial kernel is one of the
applied nonlinear classifier and supervised FCM is the other one.
The performance of each feature for input data are evaluated
with both classifiers and classification accuracy is the considered
common comparison parameter
Academia-industry interactions in Nigeria pharmaceutical innovation system
No full textThis study examined the types, nature and intensity of academia-industry interactions in Nigeria’s pharmaceutical
innovation system. Eight (8) top-ranked universities offering Pharmacy as a course of study, 2 Pharmaceutical
Research Institutes and 25 pharmaceutical firms were sampled for the study. Interactions are predominantly in
the form of knowledge flow and consultancy, staff exchange/fellowship programmes as well as sponsored
workshop participations. Intensity of interactions is limited as only 20% of pharmaceutical researchers from
Universities and 7% from Research Institutes had strong interactions with Pharmaceutical firms, while only 4
firms have strong interactions with the researchers
A Review of Forecasting Techniques
Get PDFThis work examines recent publications in forecasting in various fields, these include: wind power forecasting; electricity load forecasting; crude oil price forecasting; gold price forecasting energy price forecasting etc. In this review, categorization of the processes involve in forecasting are divided into four major steps namely: input features selection; data pre-processing; forecast model development and performance evaluation. The various methods involve are discussed in order to provide the overall view about possible options for development of forecasting system. It is intended that the classification of the steps into small categories with definitions of terms and discussion of evolving techniques will provide guidance for future forecasting sytem designers
Analysis of transient multiexponential signals using exponential compensation deconvolution
Get PDFA three-step procedure for the parameter estimation of transient multiexponential signals is proposed. The first step involves the use of the classical Gardner transform to convert the data signal into a convolution model which is deconvolved using exponential compensation deconvolution technique in the second step. In the third step, eigenvector algorithms are used to process the resulting complex exponentials to obtain better estimates of decay rates and number of components. Simulation and experimental results show that this method outperforms previous approaches if a number of preprocessing parameters are correctly selected
Effect of ethanolic leaf extract of Croton zambesicus (Müll. Arg.) on lipid profile in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats
Get PDFCroton zambesicus (C. zambesicus) leaves have recently been identified as an antidiabetic agent in Africa. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of C. zambesicus leaf extract on lipid profile in experimentally induced diabetic rats. Seventy adult male Wistar rats were divided into seven groups (n=10): group A, control rats; group B, untreated diabetic rats; group C, diabetic rats in which C. zambesicus therapy started 2 weeks prior to induction of diabetes; group D, diabetic rats administered orally with C. zambesicus leaf extract for 2 weeks after the initial four weeks of diabetes induction; group E, diabetic rats administered orally with C. zambesicus leaf extract for 4 weeks after the initial four weeks of diabetes induction; group F, normal rats administered orally with C. zambesicus leaf extract for four weeks; and group G, diabetic rats administered with glimepiride (2 mg/kg/day) for four weeks after the initial four weeks of diabetes induction. At the end of the experimental period, the animals were weighed and sacrificed. Serum was obtained for lipid profile analysis using respective diagnostic kits. The results showed that the blood glucose level and body weights of extract and glimepiride treated groups were restored to the near normal level. The triglyceride, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein and very low density lipoprotein cholesterol levels were increased significantly (P Key words: diabetes, lipid profile, Croton zambesicus, glimepiride, streptozotoci
Evaluation of the antimicrobial and phytochemical properties of oil from castor seeds (Ricinus communis Linn)
Get PDFThe antimicrobial activity of the essential oil of castor (Ricinus communis) seeds extracted using soxhlet extractor in 98% nhexane was assessed using in-vitro assay. Twenty microorganisms made up of fourteen bacteria and six fungi were used in the bioassay. Comparatively, bacteria were found to be more susceptible than fungi. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the extract was found to range between 6.25 mg/ml and 12.50 mg/ml for bacteria while that of fungi ranged from 12.50 mg/ml to 25.00 mg/ml. Comparison of the antimicrobial efficacy of the extract and commercial antibiotics showed that the latter were more potent against the test organisms with the exceptions of erythromycin, ampiclox and rifampin group for Gram positive organisms and, septrin and ceporex group for Gram negative organisms respectively. The quantitative phytochemical screening showed that tannin, phenol, alkaloid, phytate, oxalate, saponin, cyanogenic glycoside and flavonoid were present in a decreasing order. The spectrophotometric data of the extract using ultraviolet radiation, infrared and HNMR as well as carbon 13 NMR showed the presence of various compounds such as cineole, 2-octanol, terpenene-4-ol, limonene, sabinene, pinene, terpinene, and methyl groups in the oil