Alteration of lymphocyte subpopulations in mice fed lutein from marigold extract
January 2013
Lutein, a member of the xanthophyll carotenoids, has a wide variety of health benefits. These include prevention of age-related macular degeneration or cataracts and protection of ultraviolet -induced skin damage. Lutein also possesses anti-tumor and immune modulatory activities in BALB/c mice. However, in such animal model, the effects of lutein on lymphocyte subpopulations have not yet been assessed...
Induction of cholangiocarcinoma cells apoptosis by an andrographolide analog
January 2013
Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a malignant tumor derived from bile duct epithelial cells that has high incidence in the Northeastern area of Thailand. It is associated with the infection of liver fluke (Opisthorchis viverrini). Chemotherapeutic treatment of CCA is often ineffective due to its resistance to drugs. Therefore, new effective agents for treatment of CCA are urgently required. RSPP 050 analog is a modified...
Preparation of nanocrystalline strontium titanate (SrTiO3) powder by sol-gel combustion method
January 2013
Nanocrystalline strontium titanate (SrTiO3, ST) powders were prepared by sol-gel combustion method. The influence of fuel content ratio (ratio of citric acid (CA) and total metal nitrate (MN); Ra = CA:MN) and calcination temperature were investigated on the structure, morphology, and crystallite size by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results indicate that the Ra ratio of 3:1 is...
Natural partial order on a semi group of self-E-preserving transformations
January 2013
Let T(X) denote the full transformation semigroup on a set X. For an arbitrary equivalence relation E on X, we consider a sub semi-group of T(X) defined by: TSE(X)={α∈T(X):(x,xα)∈E for each x∈X} which is called the self-E-preserving transformation semi-group on X. In this paper, we discussed a natural partial order on TSE (X) and...
Riboflavin production by Candida tropicalis isolated from seawater
January 2013
Screening of Candida spp. capable of riboflavin production from seawater samples in Chonburi province was conducted. Total of 47 isolates were identified asCandida tropicalis and Candida krusei with similar percentages of distribution. Among those identified isolates, only two of C. tropicalis, MICBUU002 and MICBUU019, were found to be able to produce riboflavin with...
Influence of cross section shape of the coil turns on the induction heating process
January 2013
Different common shapes of the RF-coil turns in induction heating systems were considered and corresponding results of electromagnetic fields, eddy currents and volumetric heat generation have been computed using a 2D finite element method. For calculations, rectangular (symmetric, asymmetric and shielded), circular, D-shape and -shape have been considered for the cross section of the coil turns. The obtained...
Contact-free measurement of cardiopulmonary signatures via a microwave Doppler radar using adaptive filter
January 2013
It has been proven that the respiration and heartbeat signals can be contact-free detected via a microwave Doppler radar. However, the heartbeat signal cannot be identified from the body-movement signal when the human subject breathes freely. To resolve the problem, the adaptive filter is used to simultaneously measure the heartbeat and the respiration signal. Firstly, the respiration and the body-movement signal are...
Photosynthetic pigments, nitrogen status, and flower behavior in eggplant exposed to different sources and levels of potassium
January 2013
The aim of this study was to investigate (i) the influence of different sources and levels of potassium on photosynthetic pigments, (ii) measure nitrogen status in leaf, (iii) evaluate flower behavior in eggplant (Solanum melongena L.), and (iv) to identify a better potassium source to cultivation of this species. The experiment design used was in factorial scheme with randomized blocks, being composed by 2...
Physico-chemical quality of some commonly consumed stimulants and spices in Nigeria
January 2013
Commonly consumed parts of Tetracarpidium conophorium, Garcinia kola, Cola acuminata, Cola nitida and Afromomum melengueta were investigated for their trace metals, pH, conductivity and total dissolved solid values. Trace metal levels ranged between 42.24 ± 6.23 to 541.51 ± 189.37 µg/g Co and 36500.23 ± 367.01 to 115280.25 ± 397.33 µg/g K....
Fuzzy logic based control of mobile robot navigation: A case study on iRobot Roomba Platform
January 2013
This work addresses the issue of mobile robot navigation system. In this study, the proposed navigation system is introduced. It combines a deliberative planning and a reactive/behaviour based control, based upon the motor schema technique into hybrid control architecture. Behaviour based robots have successfully demonstrated their performance in reacting to different working environments. However, it is difficult...
The influence of Didecyldimethylammonium Chloride on the morphology and elemental composition of Staphylococcus aureus as determined by NanoSAM
January 2013
Didecyldimethylammonium chloride (DDAC) is a Quaternary Ammonium Compound (QAC) disinfectant often used in the poultry industry to disinfect hard surfaces. DDAC is a membrane active agent and causes the leakage of important intracellular material. Understanding the mode of action and possible resistance is important; in particular, the pending post antibiotic era that the poultry industry is facing. Staphylococcus...
Edge detection via statistical features and automatic thresholding technique
January 2013
In this paper, the problem of edge detection is addressed using the first order statistics and automatic thresholding technique. The general idea of edge detection using the simple edge detectors such as gradient operators or second derivative operators is extended to the statistic domain. The statistical features are used to describe the relationship between the current pixel and its neighboring, then, the thresholding...
Finite element simulation of non- linear deformation behaviour in large diameter angular contact thrust bearing
January 2013
The objective of the present study is to obtain relevant contact stiffness for a single ball-raceway contact which can be used in load distribution analysis of full bearing. Towards this, an elastic constitutive model is used in the 3D finite element analysis of load deformation characteristic of large diameter bearing ball - raceway contact and the finite element results are validated by conducting experiment on the...
Seepage evaluation of an earth dam using Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH) type neural network: A case study
January 2013
The seepage critical impact and significant destructive nature during and after construction of earth dams have been increasingly important topics during the past decades. In this paper, a new approach is presented for determination of seepage induced flow under and through an earth dam based on Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH) algorithm. After careful (detailed) studying of an earth dam called Fileh Khase dam...
Nanometer complexes from explosives
January 2013
Lithium manganese oxides are of great interest as cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries. We describe here a new combustion method to synthesize lithium manganese oxides directly from lithium nitrate, manganese nitrate, ammonium nitrate and glycol. The resultant LiMn2O4 synthesized under the optimum synthesis conditions shows perfect spinel structure and uniform particle size distribution. The combustion...
Gillnet selectivity, seasonal, tidal and photoperiod variation in catch in the lower Nun River, Niger Delta, Nigeria
January 2013
The fish species of the lower Nun River was sampled to determine gillnet selectivity and the effect of season, tide and photoperiod variation on the catch. A total of 11,156 specimens were caught belonging to 14 families consisting of 25 species. Gillnet selectivity was observed with a declining trend from the largest mesh size net of 15 mm (58%) in number and 59% by weight, 12 mm (33%) in number and 33% by weight with...
Microcirculation of thyroid gland in the Lyle’s flying fox (Pteropus lylei)
January 2013
Lyle’s flying fox (Pteropus lylei), a bat, normally hangs upside down on a tree, and needs high metabolism to change the position abruptly. Thyroid gland involves in body metabolic control with high blood supply. Therefore, the cellular structures and microcirculation of thyroid glands in the male animals were investigated to examine suitable structural adjustments for their behaviors by using light microscopy...
Effects of Bonny light crude oil contamination on the germination, shoot growth and rhizobacterial flora of Vigna unguiculata and Arachis hypogea grown in sandy loam soil
January 2013
This study was carried out to evaluate the effects of different levels of Bonny light crude oil contamination on the germination, shoot growth and rhizobacterial flora ofVigna unguiculata (cowpea) and Arachis hypogea (groundnut) grown in potted sandy loam soil samples in Nsukka, Nigeria. Crude oil at a level of 2.5% increased germination time in cowpea by 24 h but at higher doses (5 to 20%) germination of...
A case study on acoustic performance and construction costs of noise barriers
December 2012
In the study, the barriers used for reducing traffic noise are being examined in means of performance and construction cost. First a noise prediction is made in the sample highway under certain traffic conditions in order to determine the noise barrier requirement and the results are confirmed by measurement. According to the noise prediction equations used in Turkey, Germany and Canada, the effects of heavy vehicle...
Development of world class manufacturing framework by using six-sigma, total productive maintenance and lean
December 2012
The purpose of this study is to develop a new framework to provide guidance and support for those companies who aim to reach world-class standards both in maintenance and manufacturing processes through continual improvement. Based on this study, a strategic framework was developed through conceptual integration of three popular process improvement strategies, which are six-sigma, total productive maintenance and lean....
A prediction model for the level of well water
December 2012
There is a nonlinear relationship between rainfall and well water levels. This is one of the most complicated hydrologic phenomena to understand due to the existence of spatial and temporal incoherent geomorphic and climatic factors. The aim of this study is to predict the well water level by the artificial neural networks. A well is located on the campus area of Izmir Institute of Technology, Izmir, Turkey. While...
Preliminary studies on phytochemicals and larvicidal effects of Acacia nilotica L. extracts against Anopheles arabiensis Patton
December 2012
Acacia nilotica is a natural forest tree with many traditional uses in Sudan. Preliminary laboratory studies were conducted to analyze the phytochemical constituents of three extracts (water, ethanol and petroleum ether) prepared from A. nilotica (leaves and fruits), and to evaluate their larvicidal effects against the malaria vector mosquito,Anopheles arabiensis. The knockdown and residual effects of the...
Measuring risk and designing risk management strategies for dry onion growing farms: A case study for Amasya Province of Turkey
December 2012
The aim of this study was to measure the risks and to design appropriate risk management strategies for dry onion growing farms in Amasya Province of Turkey. The data used in the study belong to the 2007-2008 production period and were obtained through questionnaires from 101 farms, selected by stratified sampling method. Operational and financial risks exposed by farms were measured using probability distribution...
Role of reactive oxygen species in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease
December 2012
Oxidative stress, in recent times, appears to be a major underlying risk factor in the occurrence of major diseases such as cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and inflammatory diseases. During oxidative stress, an overall dysfunction of the balance between the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the antioxidant defence mechanism occurs and a shift is obtained in favour of ROS production. Consequently, this...
Integrated Water Resources Management work in the Euphrates and Tigris River-Basin
December 2012
The water crisis in the Middle East is worsening. The indicators of this crisis include increasing population, scarce and unequally-distributed water resources, competing claims of co-riparian countries, conflicts in utilizing of transboundary waters, and deficiencies in international water law. The pressure that these problems cause in terms of water resources is most evident in transboundary river basins. These...
Variation of clay brick colors and mechanical strength as affected by different firing temperatures
December 2012
This study was conducted to quantitatively determine the effect of firing temperature on color formation and to assess the relationship between mechanical strength and color components of clay bricks. Redness index, chroma, hue and color difference (∆E) of bricks fired at 700 to 1050°C in steps of 25°C under free access of air were measured with a colorimeter. Relations between temperature and each of the...
Cluster-assembled ZnO films prepared by electrochemical deposition on copper substrate
December 2012
Cluster-assembled ZnO films were synthesized by using electrochemical deposition technique with various reaction times. Zinc nitrate dissolved in de-ionized water was used as a precursor of ZnO film. The as-synthesized cluster-assembled ZnO films were performed on a copper plate used as a substrate at room temperature. The stabilized high electric field of 4 kV/m was applied in the process. Field emission scanning...
Innovations in public sector-led agricultural extension
December 2012
This paper briefly analyse the genesis, development and change in public sector-led extension approaches in India showing its temporal pattern, emerging innovations in extension approaches and the way forward. It discusses decentralized, community based, pluralistic extension approaches and their opportunities as well as limitations in changing agricultural and natural resources scenario. The paper gives emphasis on the...
Cat swarm optimization clustering (KSACSOC): A cat swarm optimization clustering algorithm
December 2012
Clustering is an unsupervised process that divides a given set of objects into groups so that objects within a cluster are highly similar with one another and dissimilar with the objects in other clusters. In this article, a new clustering method based on cat swarm optimization was proposed to find the proper clustering of data sets called K-means improvement and Simulated Annealing selection based cat swarm...
Entrainment mass transfer in annular flow regime of two-phase carbon dioxide
December 2012
Having more heat transfer rate and lower pressure drop, along with better environmental treatment, carbon dioxide has drawn the attention of many researchers. Most of the two-phase heat transfer analyses are involved in estimation of dry-out phenomenon in order to avoid heat transfer drops. Entrainment, because of having great influence on dry-out occurrence, is studied in this article. Most of the available models for...
Effects of Er:YAG laser conditioning on the microleakage of class 2 composite restorations
December 2012
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of thermocycling and Er:YAG laser conditioning on the microleakage of silorane, packable and nano-filled composites. 512 Class 2 cavities were prepared on 256 premolars. The teeth were assigned to 8 groups 1= Filtek Silorane, 2= Filtek Silorane with laser conditioning, 3= Aelite LS with acid conditioning, 4= Aelite LS with laser and acid conditioning,...
Effects of occupation and physical features on musculoskeletal pain: Correspondence analysis
December 2012
The objective of this work is to evaluate the effect of occupation and physical features on musculoskeletal pain location. One thousand, nine hundred and eighty seven (1987) voluntary adults participated in the study from 7 regions of Turkey in 2006. Subjects with musculoskeletal pain of at least one month's duration that had been recurrent minimally twice in any regions of the body and who had not taken any...
Directory knowledge, query stream and weighted state space tree based automatic web query classification
December 2012
Optimal automatic classification of web queries aid in improving the performance of search engines. To automatically classify web queries into predefined topical categories, a novel approach which transforms a classification problem to a search problem in the state space tree is proposed. The topical categories are converted to a state space tree. The directory search results and query stream are used in determining the...
High temperature oxidation behaviour of a Ni based superalloy produced by mechanical alloying
December 2012
In this study, Ni based superalloy powders (75% Ni, 20% Cr, 4% Al2O3, 0.6% Ti and 0.4% Y2O3), were mechanically alloyed for up to 8 h and were compacted and sintered at 1200°C. Sintered samples were hot-deformed at 1200°C for various amounts and secondary recrystallisation was applied at 1325°C for 1 h. Isothermal oxidation tests were conducted at 1000°C for up to 100 h in air. Surface...
Performance of Prosopis africana peel powder (PAPP) as a novel sorbent for remediating malachite green contaminated aqua system
December 2012
This study was designed to investigate Prosopis africana peel powder (PAPP) as a potential, local, cost-effective, readily-available coagulant for remediating dye-contaminated water and compare it with activated charcoal (a standard coagulant).PAPP was prepared and characterized using standard procedures. Preliminary characterization of the malachite green (MG) contaminated water was carried out...
Performance analysis of modeling framework for wind speed prediction in wind farms
December 2012
This paper focuses on the analysis of prediction of wind speed in the wind farms. The performance of modeling can be analyzed by using the real time data with different heights of the wind mill. Artificial Neural Network is used here to develop models for predicting wind speed in wind farms. The models are mainly based on back propagation neural network and radial basis function neural network. The wind speed prediction...
Antibacterial activity of the methanol extracts of two endemic Sideritis species of Turkey against plant pathogenic bacteria
December 2012
Sideritis condensata Boiss. & Heldr. (SC) and Sideritis erythrantha var. erythranthaBoiss. & Heldr (SE) are endemic species in Turkey. The extracts of the endemic species were investigated for antibacterial activity against thirteen plant pathogenic bacteria in vitro by using the agar diffusion method. Statistical differences within bacteria were important at p <...
Antibacterial activity of the methanol extracts of two endemic Sideritis species of Turkey against plant pathogenic bacteria
December 2012
Sideritis condensata Boiss. & Heldr. (SC) and Sideritis erythrantha var. erythranthaBoiss. & Heldr (SE) are endemic species in Turkey. The extracts of the endemic species were investigated for antibacterial activity against thirteen plant pathogenic bacteria in vitro by using the agar diffusion method. Statistical differences within bacteria were important at p <...
Detection of crack eggs based on near infrared reflectance spectrum and discriminant analysis
December 2012
This paper analyzes the detection of crack eggs based on near infrared reflectance (NIR) spectrum and discriminant analysis (DA). In order to choose the proper detecting conditions, this paper designs several experiments according to different factors, such as different wave band, all kind of spectrum processing methods and the number of principal components. The experiments results reveal that, when we choose DA method...
Interactive web-based campus information system
December 2012
Data can be stored accurately, up-to-date and in a complete sense while it is possible to correlate to certain data and present them for sharing thanks to the facilities brought in by the technology of geographical/urban information system. Being at a significant position in terms of transitioning into the age of information, universities are among the top institutions where information is utilized most efficiently....
Enhanced efficient group key transfer scheme for wireless sensor networks
December 2012
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have become a motivating technology as it can be constructed without communication infrastructures. WSN operates in harsh environment; therefore information security in infrastructureless WSN is one of the most important challenges. WSN possess different network architectures. Cluster-based WSN architecture is found to be efficient with reduced transmission power and...
Grain combine repair and maintenance costs as affected by machine width
December 2012
Work-job orders for 15 combines with different machine widths were studied in this research paper. Data for 352 work-job orders were recorded as repair or maintenance for nine items. These items included, header unit, threshing unit, separation unit, cleaning shoe unit, engine, pre-harvest jobs, general and fabrication works, electrical and tires. Total annual cost for each item was determined, and the ratio of total...
Microbiota associated with commercially produced traditional banana beer in Rwanda
December 2012
Brewing and consumption of traditional beers have socio-economic importance in most African countries, including Rwanda. In this study, the microbiological quality (of selected microbes) of commercially produced traditional banana beer was investigated, using both traditional culture-dependent and culture-independent methods. Two brands of commercially produced traditional banana beer (brands A and B) were obtained from...
Extraction of coronary artery trees in angiocardiography images
December 2012
Dynamic variations of coronary arterial curvilinearity have been very difficult to study in the current angiograms. However, there is both experimental and clinical evidence showing that vessel extraction is very useful for the purposes of surgery treatment and clinical study. We propose in this paper an automated algorithm to locate the outline of the coronary artery tree blood vessels in angiograms. The proposed...
Ecophysiology of plant growth promoting bacteria
December 2012
Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), are beneficial bacteria that colonize plant roots and enhance plant growth through a variety of mechanisms that include improvement of plant nutrition, production and regulation of phytohormones, and suppression of disease causing organisms. Whereas members of the bacterial genera Azospirillum and Rhizobium are well-studied examples for plant growth...
Analysis of a tandem queue with heterogeneous servers subject to catastrophes
December 2012
This study analyzed a tandem queueing system with blocking and no waiting line. The arrival process is assumed to be Poisson with rate. There are two non-identical servers in the system. The service times are exponentially distributed with parameters and at servers 1 and 2, respectively. Besides, the catastrophes occur in a Poisson manner with rate in the system. When server 1 is busy or...
Evaluation of mechanical and permeability related properties of self compacting concrete containing metakaolin
December 2012
In this paper, mechanical and permeability related properties of Self Compacting Concrete (SCC) containing metakaolin (MK) were evaluated and their interrelationships discussed. For this purpose, different types of mixture were prepared with different amounts of MK and ordinary Portland cement (OPC) was replaced by 5, 10, 15 ... 30% of MK. When increasing the percentage of MK, the mechanical and permeability related...
Emotional and cognitive response to placement method of background music in shopping website
November 2012
Consumer on-line behaviors are more important than ever due to the high growth of on-line shopping. The main purposes of this study is to design placement methods for background music for shopping websites and examine the effects of these methods on on-line shoppers’ emotional and cognitive responses. Two placement methods of background music, that is, placement point and fade-in period for shopping...
Accounts of the effect of electrically charged clouds on the stable nitrogen isotope ratio and the anion concentration in cloud-based aerosols
November 2012
Aerosol field sampling was conducted in the skies offshore from Malibu Beach and Santa Barbara, California, U.S.A. on 16 and 18 July, 2009, using an airplane. The samples were analyzed for nitrate and nitrite ions using ion chromatography (IC) and GC-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The results indicate a higher stable isotopic ratio of delta 15N/14N in the aerosols collected at the cloud top of one cloud than the aerosols...
Testing concrete made with cork powder and steel fibres
November 2012
Nowadays, greater respect for the environment is a widespread social demand. Since the cork industry generates vast amounts of waste of approximately 20 to 30%, the harvested cork ends up as cork dust with no industrial use. It is becoming necessary to find a way to reuse or recycle this kind of residue. This paper evaluates the mechanical behavior of several samples of concrete containing cork powder (8%) and different...
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