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Growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa LP5 on 2, 5-dicchlorobenzoate: Detection of aromatic ring hydroxylating dioxygenase (ARHDO) gene
Get PDFPseudomonas aeruginosa LP5 grew on 2, 5-dichlorobenzoate with doubling time (D) 6.64 d and mean growth rate (k) 0.104 d-1. The organism showed a prolonged lag period lasting 9 days followed by a sudden rise within 3 days (D= 1.1 d; k= 0.628 d-1) and death in less than 72 hours on 2, 6-dichlorobenzoate. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of DNA of LP5 showed aromatic dihydroxylating (ARHDO) gene band with molecular weight corresponding to the targeted fragment (0.73 kb). The capability of LP5 on dichlorobenzoates and detection of dioxygenase genes is a validation of its versatility and potential for bioremediation
Engaging ICTs as a “Tool” for eHealth prioritization on human development and poverty reduction in the African region
Get PDFThe association connecting information and communication technologies (ICTs) and well-being
or poverty remains vague and research today has resulted to divergent conclusions. This paper
defines ICTs as “tools” that facilitate communication and the processing and transmission of
information and the sharing of knowledge by electronic means. In the African region context, we
examine ICTs utilization that aims to improve the provision, access and information management
in the health sector. This paper considers access to information as very important benefits that
can be achieved in many areas including economic growth, education and healthcare. In
healthcare, the roles that ICT plays in ensuring that health information is provided to healthcare
providers and consumers to support improving the health of individuals and strengthening health
systems, disease detection and prevention are crucial to development and poverty reduction as
stated in the UN’s MDGs. For example, access to appropriate information can minimise visits to
physicians and periods of hospitalisation for patients suffering from chronic conditions, such as
asthma, diabetes, hypertension and HIV/AIDS. This will in turn reduce the cost of healthcare
provision. ICTs have the potential to impact almost every aspect of health sector. The paper then
proposed how ICTs can be used to reduce poverty and ensure that health information is well
administered and reaches the right people, at the right time and in the right form
STUDIES ON THE LIFE CYCLE AND MORPHOMETRICS OF HONEYBEES, APIS MELLIFERA ADANSONII (HYMENOPTERA:APIIDAE) IN A MANGROVE AREA OF LAGOS NIGERIA.
No full textStaff PublicationThe life cycle of the honeybee, Apis mellifera Adansonii, was studied in mangrove area by monitoring the developmental stages and morphology of the castes. It was observed that the fate of the eggs were predetermined at the onset leading to drones, queens or workers. It was also established that the three different castes (drone, queen and worker) exhibit similar patterns of complete metamorphoses. The mean developmental period of the drone from egg to adult stage was the longest (24.97+1.77 days, n=60) followed by that of worker (20.22+2.20 days, n=60) and the queen (15.5 + 2.08 days, n=60) in that order. The body length and head capsule width varied within the different castes. The general pattern of the studied life cycle of A. mellifera Adansonii in mangrove area of Lagos is similar to A. mellifera scutellata and Africanized A. mellifera studied in other regions. It was concluded that the knowledge of the life cycle of A. mellifera Adansonii by bee farmers in their locality may enhance their apicultural practices for better productivity
Iris recognition system using support vector machines
Get PDFIn the modern world, a reliable personal identification infrastructure is required to control
the access in order to secure areas or materials. Conventional methods of recognizing the
identity of a person by using passwords or cards are not altogether reliable, because they
can be forgotten, stolen, disclosable, or transferable (Zhang, 2000). Biometric technology,
which is based on physical and behavioral features of human body such as face, fingerprint,
hand shapes, iris, palmprint, keystroke, signature and voice, (Lim et al., 2001, Zhang, 2000,
Zhu et al., 1999) has now been considered as an alternative to existing systems in a great
deal of application domains such as bank Automatic Teller Machines (ATM),
telecommunication, internet security and airport security.
Each biometric technology has its own advantages and disadvantages based on their
usability and security. Among the various traits, iris recognition has attracted a lot of
attention. Iris is an internal (yet externally visible) organ of the eye, which is well protected
from the environment and its patterns are apparently stable throughout the life. The iris
consists of variable sized hole called pupil. The average diameter of the iris is 12 mm, and
the pupil size can vary from 10% to 80% of the iris diameter. It has the great mathematical
advantage that its pattern variability amongst people is enormous (Daugman, 2002).
The number of features in human iris is large. Its complex pattern can contain many
distinctive features such as arching, ligaments, furrows, ridges, crypts, rings, corona,
freckles and zigzag collarette (Wildes, 1999, Daugman, 2002) for personal identification. Fig.
1 is an example of human iris. That is because every iris has fine unique texture and does
not change over time. In addition, iris pattern can have up to 249 independent degrees of
freedom. Because of high randomness in the iris pattern, it has made the technique more
robust and it is very difficult to deceive an iris pattern (Daugman, 2003). Unlike other
biometric traits, iris recognition is the most accurate and non–invasive biometric for secure
authentication and positive identification. This proposed system use a publicly availably
library for iris recognition written in MATLAB (Masek, 2003).
Due to the advantages of iris recognition systems which offer reliable and effective security
in the present day, this research proposed the use of iris-based as verification system system
to identify the person’s identity. This research work adopts Support Vector Machines
(SVMs) as pattern classification techniques which are based on iris code model which the
feature vector size is transformed to one-dimension vector which reduces to 1 x 480 by using
averaging techniques (each segment is divided by 20) contains the average value torecognize an authorized user and unauthorized user. The effectiveness of the proposed
system is evaluated based on False Rejection Rate (FRR) and False Acceptance Rate (FAR)
Prostaglandin levels and semen quality in male partners of infertile couples in Ile-Ife, Nigeria
Get PDFThe study revealed a high percentage of men with sub-normal semen .Range of PGF2á in the
subjects was 0.15-11.05µg/ml with a mean of 2.77± 0.23 µg/ml while that of PGE was 21.8- 652.0 µg/ml
with a mean of 248.79± 13.88 µg/ml. Among men with normal semen profile, mean PGF2á and PGE
levels are 2.1± 0.32 µg/ml and 325.1± 28.3 µg/ml respectively while that in semen of men with subnormal semen are 3.0± 0.28 µg/ml and 225.1 ± 15.1µg/ml respectively. Despite the wide range of PG
values in all the groups, significant differences(P<0.05) were found to exist between the PG values of
men in the normal and sub normal semen groups. Significant differences were also found when they
were grouped according to sperm count alone. However, differences observed when in the grouping
according to other individual semen characteristics are not significant.
Conclusion: The wide range of PG values obtained in all the groups make it difficult to make far
reaching conclusions as to the relationship between PG levels and semen quality. Further research is
desirable in establishing the role of PGs in sperm function
A Query-Based SMS Translation in Information Access System
Get PDFMobile technology has contributed to the evolution of several media of communication such as chats, emails and short message service (SMS) text. This has significantly influenced the traditional standard way of expressing views from letter writing to a high-tech form of expression known as texting language. In this paper we investigated building a mobile information access system based on SMS queries. The difficulties with SMS communication were explored in terms of the informal communication passage and the associated difficulty in searching and retrieving results from an SMS-based web search engine under its non-standardization. The query is a pre-defined phrase-based translated English version of the SMS. The SMS machine tool normalization algorithm (SCORE) was invented for the query to interface with the best ranked and highly optimized results in the search engine. Our results, when compared with a number of open sources SMS translators gave a better and robust performance of translation of the normalized SMS
Palmprint recognition using principal lines characterization
Get PDFIn this paper, a novel contactless Palmprint recognition system using palm print principal line-based feature extraction technique has been proposed. The discriminative Palmprint features were extracted from a pre-processed acquired images using easily available and low cost camera. Distances from endpoints to endpoints and point of interception to endpoints were calculated and transformed to frequency domain by the application of Discrete Fourier Transformed (DFT) technique. The extracted K-points DFT coefficients has been used as the discriminating features for recognition and identification purposes using correlation technique, power spectral matching and Euclidean distance measure. The proposed technique has been observed to be rotation, scale and translation invariant and accuracy of 100% was achieved in a 1-to-4 recognition and classification verification
A novel signal diagnosis technique using pseudo complex-valued autoregressive technique
Get PDFIn this paper, a new method of biomedical signal classification using complex- valued pseudo autoregressive (CAR) modeling approach has been proposed. The CAR coefficients were computed from the synaptic weights and coefficients of a split weight and activation function of a feedforward multilayer complex valued neural network. The performance of the proposed technique has been evaluated using PIMA Indian diabetes dataset with different complex-valued data normalization techniques and four different values of learning rate. An accuracy value of 81.28% has been obtained using this proposed technique
Automatic fruits identification system using hybrid technique
Get PDFIn this work, a combination of artificial neural network (ANN), Fourier descriptors (FD) and spatial domain analysis (SDA) has been proposed for the development of an automatic fruits identification and sorting system. Fruits images are captured using digital camera inclined at different angles to the horizontal. Segmentation is used for the classification of the preprocessed images into two non-overlapping clusters from which shape boundary and signatures are estimated using FD and SDA technique. Furthermore, color information obtained from the extracted red-green-blue color components of the fruits images during ANN training process is used in accurately detecting the color of such a fruit. The two independent paths are then combined for fruits sorting and identification purposes. The performance of the developed hybrid system has been evaluated at three different angles of camera inclination from which an accuracy of 99:1% was obtained
Establishment and characterization of atrazine degrading cultures from Nigerian agricultural soil using traditional and Bio-Sep bead enrichment techniques.
No full textTraditional and in situ enrichment using porous Bio-Sep beads fortified with atrazine were used to obtain mixed consortia of atrazine-degrading bacteria. Cultures derived from both enrichment techniques showed rapid degradation of atrazine and the composition of consortia varied depending on enrichment type and atrazine concentration present in both the selective media and in atrazine fortified Bio-Sep beads as determined using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). The DGGE analysis also revealed the presence of many bands corresponding to various bacteria both cultured and uncultured. All enrichment cultures possessed trzND genes. The atzBC genes were detected in all bead enrichments while only atzC was present in one soil enrichment. The atrazine chlorohydrolase gene (atzA) and cyanuric acid amidohydrolase genes (atzD) were not detected in any of the enrichment cultures. In soil samples, trzN and trzD were the only known atrazine catabolic genes detected. Parallel degradation studies with atrazine potential metabolites showed extensive loss of these compounds from the culture media. The results indicate that in situ enrichment with Bio-Sep beads might be a viable method to cultivate atrazine-degrading bacteria not currently represented in existing culture collections. The triazine chlorohydrolase encoded by trzN commonly found in most Gram-positive atrazine-degrading bacteria, was more prevalent than atzA. Thus, the detection of known atrazine-catabolic genes in soil or bacteria from tropical African contaminated systems is an indication of the likely global distribution of these important s-triazine genes